Happy New Year!

What a long trip! We were stuck in California for 3 extra days thanks to the big snow storm here in NYC. Fortunately, we knew our flight was canceled the day before we were supposed to leave, so we just hung out at J's mom's house for the extra days. It turned out to be a good thing, because she had just thrown me my baby shower the day before we were supposed to leave, and we got so much loot that we needed to pack up and ship home, as well as get packed.

So, we had a very nice trip, despite the travel delays, as well as the fact that it rained for the first 5 days we were there (I thought it never rained in sunny California!). But we had some good time with J's family and lots of good food. We also found several cute baby stores and bought some cute little outfits, to add to all the stuff we got at our shower.

We finally made it back home yesterday with no problems on our flight, but had to stand in the taxi line at JFK for 45 minutes, and then with the traffic into the city, it took us another hour and a half to get home. We were very happy to be back. Tonight we aren't doing anything at all - just ordering Chinese food and watching a movie. We went for a walk today in Central Park, and saw all the melting snowmen that had been built after the storm. It is getting warm now though, so the snow won't last long. It's a little sad that we didn't get to see the beautiful snow when it first came down, but overall we were glad to miss the storm.

So here we are, finally on the brink of 2011. 2010 was a very eventful year, full of ups and downs. In fact, it was pretty much our lowest low and our highest high (so far). I am very happy to say goodbye to 2010, and can't wait to see all that 2011 has in store for us. I wish all of you a very happy New Year, especially those of you who are still fighting to complete your families. I hope this will be the best year for all of us!

Let the holidays begin!

I am finished with my semester and just submitted my grades this morning. Hooray! I can't believe how fast the semester flew by. And I would have been done with my grades even sooner, but had to take two days off to do all my Christmas shopping. I thought it would be a madhouse out and about shopping in Manhattan, but it turns out that mid-week shopping when it is 25 degrees out really isn't all that crowded. So except for the freezing cold, that made my life easier. I did get really tired out yesterday, with the walking and climbing stairs - I'm realizing that I get short of breath really easily.

I've been feeling Mr. Bean a lot! He seems really active and it's so fun to feel him. J still hasn't been able to feel him because I mostly feel him from the inside, plus he doesn't have the patience to leave his hand on my belly for that long. I think he is feeling a little left out and I can't wait for him to be able to feel the movement.

We are leaving for California tomorrow for Christmas. I'm looking forward to some warmer weather - I don't mind not having a chance at a White Christmas. We are staying with J's mom, and she is even having a baby shower for me the day after Christmas. I feel a little weird about having a shower so early, but she is so excited for her first grandbaby, and really wants to do this for me. I hope it won't jinx anything. I have never had a shower for me of any sort (didn't do one for our wedding even), so this should be interesting. J is only going to say hello at the very beginning and then go off to play golf with his step-dad (he is not a golfer at all - has never played before and really doesn't seem like the golfing "type", but he is excited). I did get him an adorable little onsie from Mr. Bean, with a matching t-shirt for him, in a cool design by a local artist that I know he will love. So I'm going to give him that as his shower gift.

So I probably won't check back in until after Christmas. For all of those who celebrate, I wish you a very Merry Christmas!

Drum roll please....

Just got back from the scan. Everything looks great - perfect and in the right spot. And much to our surprise (I'm not sure why), it's a BOY! J. seemed shocked at first - I think he was disappointed for me, because he really thinks that I want a girl, but I'm just as happy as can be. I'm happy to give him a little boy, and I know he will be a sweet, sensitive little boy, just like his dad.

So things are still sinking in, but it is starting to all become more real. I'm feeling very miserable as this cold is progressing, but hopefully it will pass soon.

So, a big sigh of relief that everything looks good!

Getting sick

I'm in the beginning stages of a cold. I can feel it coming on - achy head, sniffly nose, sore throat. I hope it doesn't get too bad. I managed to stay healthy all semester, avoiding all the germs my students pass around. And I had my flu shot, so hopefully that's not what this is. I'm doing some research to see what cold remedies I can safely take, but would welcome any suggestions. This is kind of bad timing, in that we have a houseguest coming tomorrow and will be running around the city all weekend. But also decent timing in that I am off of work today and tomorrow. It is exam period and I don't have to go to campus until next week, and even then only have Monday and Tuesday - it's almost over!

Tomorrow is our 20 week anatomy scan, so I'll try to check back in then!

Nudge, nudge...

Actually it was just one single, tiny, almost imperceptible nudge. I felt it yesterday morning from inside my belly on the left side, while I was standing on the subway platform waiting for a train. No, there were no trains entering the station and rumbling the platform. No, it wasn't gas. No, it wasn't my Thanksgiving dinner working its way through my system. These are all theories that J came up with, since he didn't quite believe it could be anything else. But I am almost entirely convinced that it was Mr. Bean (whom we have now taken to calling "Shim", for "she" or "him"...)saying a little hello. That was the first thing I've felt, but I am at 18 weeks now, which is right about the time they say you can first feel something. I was expecting a flutter, which is how it is most often described, but this was not a flutter. Is it too early for a tiny little nudge?

Feeling thankful

We have certainly come a long way since last Thanksgiving. We were not in the mood to celebrate the holiday, and decided to just make turkey enchiladas for the two of us. The year before, we actually had an IVF transfer on Thanksgiving day, so I relaxed on the couch while J. finished up the preparations of food I had started the day before. It was a very surreal Thanksgiving and we have certainly come a long way since then. I can't believe how long our journey has lasted, nor can I really believe that we have finally come out the other side. I'm not sure I'll believe it for another five months, but in the meantime, I do feel thankful. Thankful to have had the means (thanks to some insurance, some savings, good credit, a wonderful husband who makes good money, and very generous parents) to pay for all our IVF cycles to get us where we are today. Thankful to the wonderful support system I have found here online, both at IVFC and here on my blog. Thankful to my amazing IRL friends who have been there for me over the past few years. Thankful again to my fabulous husband who has been my strength throughout this whole process, and continues to support me and spoil me every day.

I hope that you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, no matter what stage of your journey you find yourselves at. For those who are not feeling so positive, I know how you feel and I send you lots of hope and love. Thank you all for the support and help you have given me - I couldn't have done it without you!

Not sure what to write about...

I've been feeling lame about this blog lately, but also don't really know what to write about. I've been thinking a lot about my friend R over at One Egg Please, who is facing yet another disappointment in a long string of IF let-downs. I so admire her strength to carry on and am excited to see how her next steps of using a GC will go. But as several friends have faced sad news lately, it seems hard to write about my pregnancy. I know that when I was at my lowest points, I just wasn't able to stomach reading about any good pg or baby-related news. However, as I always wrote in my comments to other people, this is my blog, so I guess I should be able to write about whatever I please. I do understand that not everyone will want to read it on any given day.

On to what's going on with me...last week I thought I had a UTI. I was really sure of it, and went into the OB's office on Monday morning to give a urine sample. There was blood and white blood cells in my urine, so she started me on antibiotics. We didn't get the culture results back until Wednesday, and it was actually negative for infection. Weird. She said I could stop the antibiotics, but I took them for one more day. I wasn't going to entirely believe that I didn't have an infection. She said it could have been some sort of non-bacterial cystitis, but that is very rare. Oh well. I do feel much better now, and am still drinking cranberry juice everyday as a preventative measure.

I'm getting impatient about the fact that my belly isn't growing. I'm at 16 weeks now, which seems amazing to me. That is four months! But other than getting kind of thick around my waist, not much is happening. I do feel like my pot belly is getting bigger, so maybe my uterus is starting to push my flab out a little bit.

I starting looking for a maternity coat, because I know I'm going to need something by January. Most of the ones I found online didn't look so great and didn't seem too warm. Plus I wear petites and the pickings were very slim. But I found a really cute coat yesterday at Fil.ene's Base.ment just by chance. It is not maternity, but is a petite coat with an empire waist (sort of, maybe a little lower) and a cute peplum skirt to mid-thigh. It's not too long or overwhelming, and fits me perfectly through the shoulders and arms. The bottom two buttons could be moved over pretty far to fit an expanding belly, and even without doing that there is plenty of room in the skirt area for expansion. It is black and pretty warm, so I'm glad I found it. This way I'll be able to wear it even in the future, and I didn't even have a black wool coat, so this is perfect. It seemed silly to buy a coat that I would only really wear for one winter. So we'll see if this one will last me.

We are still working on getting settled into this apartment, even though we've been here since the end of July. We are starting to clear out the third bedroom, which is currently full of junk that we don't have a place for yet. This of course is going to be the nursery one of these days. I have plans to put up some sort of temporary wall back there, with some built-in closet space for various house-stuff on one side and baby stuff on the other. So we will probably get someone in in January to do that, and then start working on decorating and furnishing (it is a very small room, so furnishing will be minimal). In the meantime, we are just working on finding a place for all the junk.

That's about it. I've got a few busy weeks ahead of me work-wise, as we are drawing to the close of the semester. I can't believe how fast this semester has flown by!

I hope I didn't jinx myself...

...but I actually did some online shopping for maternity clothes, thanks to the link to Lo.ft Maternity at IVFC. I was lured in by the link and then completely won over by the fact that they were having a 30% off sale, with free shipping. I can't resist a bargain. So I bought 3 cute tops and a black ruffle cardigan. I am the queen of cardigans and I see no reason why that shouldn't continue for the next 6 months. So I actually did it. Not that I need them yet, but I know I will at some point. Didn't get any pants because I'm really hard to fit, and generally wear petite sizes, so I'll probably have to go to a real store to try things on. I know Lo.ft doesn't have the maternity clothes in their stores, but there is a giant maternity store here in Manhattan, so I'll hit that eventually.

Not much else going on. We will head out for a nice walk in Central Park soon, to see the leaves and maybe cute kids in Halloween costumes. Last year was a nightmare on Halloween. I had just gotten a BFN from my first frozen transfer at CCRM and was forced to venture out in my kid-filled neighborhood for an errand that had to be done. I remember that I returned home almost in tears. This year feels much better.

Second trimester

Wow, I can't believe how long I've been away - I'm sorry. But I haven't been feeling particularly pregnant, or having anything interesting to report. After our NT scan, we did have another OB visit and everything seems fine. She said my uterus is starting to expand, and I can feel that it has gotten harder and is just barely starting to fill out a bit. But I am still not really showing. The waist on some of my pants is getting a little tighter, but most of the time I think that is just gas or bloating - there has been plenty of that. For the most part I am feeling zip, zero, zilch. So really not that exciting.

But we are officially into the second trimester. Today we are at exactly week 14. I guess it is time to start thinking about telling people, but I don't even know where to begin. I guess I want to tell good friends who are not in the area, so will probably send them emails. No, I will not be broadcasting it on Facebook - I always hated getting blindsided by those announcements. J is suggesting that we wait until after the 20 week anatomy scan on Dec. 10 before we tell, so I might hold out until then, except for some really good friends.

I do need to go get my flu shot today. As I mentioned in a previous post, even though the OB said it was fine to get it in the first trimester, I decided to wait. And I'm going to get the preservative-free one at the pharmacy around the corner. I'll do it on my way out to the chiropractor. I have been going there again, since I do have back problems and really need to go. My doctor wasn't so sure about it, but she also seemed to have little idea about what a chiropractor does, so I did my own research and determined that it is perfectly safe. In fact, it might even help with a number of issues throughout the pregnancy. But if anyone has any advice one way or the other, feel free to let me know.

So that's my update. I guess at this point, uneventful is good.

NT scan

Just a quick update. Today we are at 11 weeks, 5 days, and we had our NT scan this morning. For those not in the know, that is the nuchal translucency scan, done by ultrasound to measure the thickness of the neck. It is a non-invasive screening procedure that can give a good idea about the chance of Down syndrome. It is combined with a blood test, and a follow-up blood test in the second semester, to test for the presence of some chemical I can't remember at the moment, which can also indicate a chance of Down syndrome. So the preliminary results based on the NT scan look good, and we just have to get the blood results as well. We are really not at risk for Down syndrome or other such abnormalities, based on our donor's age of 19, but we wanted to do this test anyway. Now we will not feel the need to do a CVS or amnio, which I am glad about.

This was a big hurdle for us and we were happy to see Mr. Bean squirming around again on the screen. I guess it will be a while again until we see him (or her, if she turns out to be a Ms. Bean...). We have our 20 week scan scheduled for Dec. 10th, but I hope my doctor will let us have a peek in her office before then.

I am going away for this weekend, down to see my parents and my nephews who are visiting while my sister and brother-in-law go to a wedding. I'm excited to see my nephews, since I didn't get to visit them this summer because of all my trips to Denver. My youngest nephew is only 18 months and doesn't really know me since I last saw him when he was a tiny baby. It will be fun to see them both. I'm taking a few days off from teaching to stretch out the weekend. It's nice to be able to do that.

I have been having a lot of funny pains in my belly - not typical cramps, but more like sharp pulling. I don't know if this is round ligament pain, or just expansion. But I am really not showing yet and starting to wonder when the heck that is going to happen. I'm ready to start looking the part, I think. And in just a few more weeks we will think about going public I guess, although I might wait a bit longer until I really start to show. We'll see.

Graduation day

Wow. I just got the call from my nurse, and I am officially cut loose from CCRM. It feels totally weird. For almost a year and a half now, I've been having regular contact with them in some capacity or another. And now I'm on my own. Of course I have my OB, but I don't feel quite the same level of expertise from her. Not that I don't trust her, it just feels different.

So, today my E2 is 514 and my P4 is 13.38. So my progesterone is going up a little bit, but I still can't help being a little nervous about. If there weren't something for me to be nervous about, what else would I do?

In other news, I have a nasty cold, but don't want to take anything for it, of course. So I'm soldiering through. My wonderful husband has been taking great care of me though.

And I'm debating about getting a flu shot yet. My work has them for free this Thursday, so I asked my OB office this morning - they said it was fine to get the shot now, and it doesn't have to be preservative-free. (They don't have preservative-free at work.) But I have read all kinds of conflicting info online, so I'm thinking I might just wait until the end of this month, which is also the end of the trimester, and get the preservative-free shot at my nearby pharmacy. I called them and they don't seem to think they will run out by then, so I hope that is true. Once again, something else to worry about...

First OB appointment!

Had our first OB appointment yesterday and it went great. She is really nice - very calm and confident, reassuring. Not too young, not too old. All the other doctors in the practice are also women, which I like. She did do another ultrasound, though the machine isn't all that great. But we could see Mr. Bean squirming around and saying hello to us again, so that was fun. And she gave us a picture print-out - our first one! We hadn't been taking any pictures of the screen because we didn't want to jinx anything, but now we are happy to have it. I looked at it several times last night.

So even though we had lots of testing results from CCRM, she still had a bunch of things she wanted to run on me, and they took 8 frikkin' tubes of blood from me!!! EIGHT! I don't think I've ever had that much taken before. What on earth could they need that much blood for? I managed to hang in there, though at the end it was slowing down and I had to keep pumping my fist to get it come out. Those of you who remember my old days of local monitoring know that I used to pass out at the drop of a hat, so this was pretty impressive.

We both felt very good about the doctor but of course we forgot to ask her several things. Oh well - I'll keep a list and call her next week. And we are going to go for an NT scan in about 10 days, or 2 weeks, depending on when I can get an appointment. I know our risk of abnormalities is very low with our egg donor being only 19, but I still want to do the screening at least, and then see if we need to do any more invasive testing.

And she wasn't concerned about my P4 level of 11, so I'm going to assume that it is ok. I go again for (possibly) the last monitoring for weaning on Monday. I'm not on any more meds now and am producing it all on my own, but I would like to see that the P4 has gone up by Monday.

To answer someone's question from my last post, no, Mr. Bean is not going to any concerts this weekend. We are going to see Wa.ll St.reet 2, after re-watching the original last night. But next weekend will be very exciting with Gor.illa.z at Mad.ison Sq.are Gar.den. Concert number 3 for Mr. Bean!

Hormone levels

Just got the call from the nurse with my results from bloodwork on Wednesday. (Had to go to the bad place, where they refuse to run the blood stat and usually take one day to get results back - this time it actually took two. Ugh.) Anyway, as a reminder I had stopped all progesterone supplementation and was on just one Vivelle patch. So my estradiol was 584 on Wednesday and my progesterone was 11. The nurse said that was great, but that progesterone level seems too close to the low end to me. She said it just needs to be over 6, and that is what my body is doing all on its own, so it's great. It just makes me nervous. So today I stop the Vivelle altogether and get checked one last time (probably) on Monday. What do you guys think about those levels, especially the progesterone? Am I silly to worry? I know I have to trust the nurse, but it is so scary.
If everything is fine on Monday, that will be the end of CCRM - I will be set free. I can't believe it!

Dancing bean

We had the ultrasound this morning and were very happy to see the little bean dancing around, moving its arms and legs - very active! So J. in particular is feeling more relaxed (because he was super-stressed). I'm happy too of course, but I wasn't feeling as nervous as he was beforehand. So the baby is measuring exactly on track at 10 weeks (which we'll be on Friday). And we did see the small empty sac from Baby B, but it is shrinking.

So the next step is the first ob appointment on Friday - I'm excited about that.

It seems all the concerts we've been going to have had an effect, and we are growing a dancing machine (or possibly a drummer...)

Weaning off the meds

I have been slowly cutting down on my estrogen (Vivelle patches and Estrace) and progesterone (Endometrin) supplementation. On Saturday I cut down to just one Vivelle patch every other day, and had been doing one Endometrin at night, as well as one Estrace. Today my estradiol is 583 and my progesterone is 24.06. The nurse said I could stop the Endometrin and Estrace tonight, just doing one Vivelle patch every other day. I'm nervous about stopping the progesterone altogether, but I guess I have to trust her. It's just scary! I will get checked again on Wednesday, though I have to go to the slow lab again and won't get the results until Thursday. That is because the slow lab is in the same building as the ultrasound place and we go for another one of those on Wednesday as well. We are both really nervous. J is particularly stressed out. I think we are going to have to get one of those home doppler machines so he can hear the heartbeat whenever he is freaking out. I wish he didn't feel such anxiety and I hope he will be able to relax more as time goes by. But neither of us can still really believe this is happening to us.

I've been super busy at work and really should be grading bad freshman papers as well as preparing a lecture for tomorrow...so here I go...I guess. I'll report back on Wednesday after the ultrasound. I'm curious as to what we will see of Baby B. It makes me a little sad to think about it.

All shook up

It is concert season in NYC, and last night J and I took the little bean to its first musical event. We saw Vampire Weekend at Radio City Musical Hall, with Beach House opening up for them. It was a great show, but really loud and also incredibly "vibrating". First of all, I was happy to go see a show in a place with nice comfy velvet seats, where we sat comfortably throughout the opening act. But of course as soon as Vampire Weekend came on stage, everyone jumped to their feet and stayed that way for the duration. I can't say I'm surprised. But I was a little tired half way through and ended up sitting down a bit, so I could just hear everything but see absolutely nothing. Whether sitting or standing, the vibration of the bass and drums was pulsing through my whole body and I couldn't help wondering if it was bothersome to Mr. Bean (as we started calling him or her). I hope we didn't do any damage. Next weekend it is Pavement in Central Park and then Gorillaz at Madison Square Garden, followed by Nick Lowe and finally Antony and the Johnsons rounding out the month of October...whew! We're going to grow a little rock star in there.

A womb of one's own

Ok, not to be crass or anything, but I thought that title was just too clever to pass up. (Although there's probably a blog out there with that name...)
Anyway, that is what Baby A is going to have. Baby B has not grown much at all since last week, and its heartbeat is almost non-existent. That was sad for us to see, but also somewhat bittersweet. I think this will be the best thing for all of us, Baby A included, in the long run. I was starting to freak out thinking about how hard it would be to take care of two babies. And even more so, I was worried about the complications and possibly losing both babies.
I hope no one thinks I'm callous, but I do think this was for the best Although I will always remember the little flicker that was Baby B's heartbeat. It was with us for 7 weeks and now is selflessly making room for Baby A to flourish.

Some symptoms

So I think I'm starting to get some nausea, though it feels almost more like indigestion. But in addition to just having a generally upset tummy, I've been getting little waves of nausea. Nothing major, but I'm preparing myself.

Another symptom I've noticed in the last day is a heightened sense of smell, which is not really a good thing when walking around New York City. Nothing like a nice urine-soaked sidewalk baking in the sun. And those roasting bags of garbage. But right now one of my cats is sitting next to me on the couch cleaning herself, and I'm particularly aware that her breath really doesn't smell very good.

It makes sense that these two symptoms would surface around the same time. I'm curious to see how they develop.

Follow up on ultrasound

I spoke with my new nurse today (love her already - so nice and funny!) about my blood work and ultrasound yesterday. (There seems to be a bit of a lag getting the information from here to there.) Anyway, she said everything looks good and doesn't seem too worried about Baby B being a little smaller. She did say I should go for another ultrasound next week to monitor the growth though.

And the heartbeat info was good news. Baby A was at 127 and Baby B at 110. They want to see over 100, so both are good. But again, Baby B was a little lower, which I guess makes sense if it is a little behind. We won't hold it against him/her.

So now we have to wait until next week for more news - at least it won't be the two weeks I was initially expecting.

Things are starting to sink in a bit and I'm really trying not to freak out about the twin thing. I've handled a lot of stress in the past 3 years, I guess I can handle the more happy kind of stress of two babies, right?

Oh, and the funny thing that my nurse said that totally made me laugh...I said that the two sacs were right next to each other down near the bottom, and that I wasn't sure if that was good or not because I didn't really know where they were supposed to be. She quickly responded in a very matter-of-fact way, "The uterus. As long as they are in the uterus you are doing great. Anywhere else, and we've got a problem." That totally cracked me up, to the point of tears in my eyes. So I guess she's right - we are doing great.

Ultrasound update

Well, I couldn't keep myself from logging on at work to update. We saw two sacs, two fetal poles and TWO heartbeats. Holy cow! I can't believe this might have actually worked. It feels so surreal, and I'm definitely more emotional than I was after the betas. Today is 6w5d and Baby A is measuring at 6w2d, which seems good to me. Baby B seems a little behind, at 5w6d...I don't know how big of a deal that is. And I don't know what the heart rate was for either, so hopefully will find out later. After the tech left the room, J and I just hugged each other and got really teary. Then we walked to the subway together, got on the same train downtown until he had to get off and leave me to ride the rest of the way. This is going to be a very strange day. Things are finally beginning to sink in a little, but I'm still so very scared.

Feeling nervous

J and I are off for our first ultrasound in just a bit. I have to get blood drawn first, so will be sitting around a while waiting for that. I have never been more nervous, not even for our beta because I already had an idea that things would go well based on the home tests. Today we have no clue what we are going to see. It is six weeks, five days gestational age today, so we should definitely see a sac, a fetal pole (or two of each????) and hopefully will see a heartbeat as well. I'm freaking out and I think J is freaking out even more than I am. Probably won't be able to update until this evening.

Belly armed

Sorry I've dropped off the face of the earth. I've had a busy week with orientation for new students, my trip out of town, and the first few days of school. It has been great to keep my mind off of other things. I'm pretty much in a holding pattern, just waiting for the ultrasound a week from today.

But I did get my Bell.y Arm.our blanket today. I can't remember if I mentioned ordering it here or not, but I just had to get one. I'm really not sure if the radiation or wireless signal going to my laptop is detrimental to whatever may be growing inside me, but I certainly wasn't going to risk it. As you know, I'm pretty much a computer junkie, and that takes the form of my laptop sitting right in my, well, lap. I figured better safe than sorry.

In other news, it is hot here. Really, really hot. That last wave of summer heat that I just can't wait to end. It is September and I'm ready for some fall weather! My commute is long enough without also having to endure this hot, sticky stuff. Tomorrow should be a little better, but not much. Then we are going to get hit with some rain to cool things down. I'm looking forward to a nice cooler weekend, to relax and get back to unpacking some more boxes, as well as getting more settled in here in the new apartment.

So, as you can see, things are relatively uneventful here. I'll update when I have more to report.

Busy, busy, busy

Thank goodness that's what I'll be for a while. I am back to school on Monday and the next few days are full of prep, so I probably won't be posting much. And I'm going out of town this weekend for my grandmother's memorial service. So if you don't hear from me until next week, I'm just getting my life back! (And trying not to think about anything else...)

Some weird things

J and I are generally not all that superstitious or anything, but of course with all this IF stuff we will do whatever it takes. We have wished on many eye lashes (does anyone else do that?) and if I have seen any pennies (heads up of course), I picked them up.

So I know I told you all how I got the call about my grandmother dying while I was sitting at CCRM on retrieval day. So that means that she died the same day as our embryos were fertilized (aka: conception). Right after that, we got in the car and went to do a few errands. We went to Bar.nes and No.ble to get me some books for bed rest. As we were walking into the store, we found a penny. It was totally battered and beat up - the shabbiest penny I have ever seen. Even slightly smushed. I gave it to J and he hung onto it. I had kind of forgotten about it and then last Friday, after we got the beta call, J called out to me from his office/man cave. "Did you touch the penny I had in my dish in here?" No, I promise I didn't touch it. I hadn't even seen it. It was totally gone. So his theory is that the penny has done its job and disappeared into the ether, becoming our good news.

Another weird thing. On Friday morning (beta day) I was making myself scrambled eggs. This is kind of gross, but bear with me. As I cracked my eggs, I noticed that one of them was fertilized and had a little something in it. I didn't want to look at it too closely, so I picked it out. But I have to admit that I ate that egg. Weird, right?

Ok, so here's the last one. This evening right after I got my second beta call, I was checking out my friends' blogs. I went to comment on R's blog and had to fill in the auto-captcha. I know there are some sites that have auto-captchas that vaguely resemble words, but the ones on blogger are always complete gibberish. So guess what I got tonight? "Mamma". That really freaked me out. I'm starting to think that the stars are aligning for us. Please let this last.

And the magic number is...

One-thousand, eight-hundred and thirty-four. Oh. My. God. That is a big ass number. Of course, we did the second beta three days after the first, but according to the HCG calculator on the new IV.FC, that is a doubling time of just over 24 hours. Is that good? What does that mean?

Ok, so just to rant a little more about my nurse. I was going crazy over here waiting for this news. Way worse than Friday because at least I had POASed that morning and knew I had a nice strong line. So then about 30 minutes ago I get an email from her saying "here's your pregnancy info", with all the orders for my ultrasound and hormone testing. I'm like, um, does this mean you have good news for me? Because I'm sitting here going crazy waiting for the phone to ring. Ten minutes later she finally calls me and gives me the good news. I wonder how long those results had been sitting there? Doesn't she know I'm dying here???

So I haven't even gotten a chance to breathe a sigh of relief and now I'm already worrying about the next step...the ultrasound. It will be sometime between the 7th and the 10th, depending on where I decide to do it. Could this really be happening?

Even more waiting

I am waiting again. Waiting for the phone call for our second beta. How much time have I spent waiting in the past 3 years? The various two-week waits, the waiting for a cyst to go away, waiting for a cycle to start, waiting to trigger, waiting for testing results, waiting to be cleared for a donor, waiting for the donor to trigger, waiting in my bed for two days, and waiting to finally get those first beta results. And now waiting again. Even after this, if all goes well, there will be more waiting - for ultrasound after ultrasound, and other types of testing to make sure everything is ok. It's just one long waiting game. I am not very good at waiting, especially because it seems I can't do the things I should be doing with my life while I am waiting. I am going to be so far behind before this school year even starts because I can't use my waiting time wisely. I just wait.

The progression

I just thought I would post this photo I took the other day of all three of my HPTs, including the one on beta day.

The last line corresponds to my beta of 288 on nine days past Day 5 transfer. I spent a lot of time looking for images of HPT progressions over several days and found them so hopeful when I found some good ones. It was also helpful to see when people would post their beta values that corresponded to the images. Although I know there is so much variation in tests that it is impossible to tell.

So anyway, we are just waiting in disbelief right now. Our second beta is tomorrow (it technically should have been today but the lab is not open and I don't want to go hunting for some remote lab or use a hospital lab, so the nurse said tomorrow is fine) and they should see the beta has more than doubled, I guess. That will be another hurdle to get over, in a long line of hurdles. Neither J nor I have uttered the P word yet.

Beta results are in

288. Whoa, that's a nice strong beta. I'm still trying to process it all. I think my hands are shaking a little bit. J got teary, but is still playing it cool, as am I. We have never made it this far before, but know that we still have a long way to go. Baby steps...

Taking a day off...

...from testing that is. J and I both slept better last night without worrying about the testing. I asked him what had kept him up so much the night before, and he said he was just worried knowing that I would be getting up early to test and anxious to know the results. He said he almost woke me up at 4:30 just to get me to go pee and get it over with. He is so cute. But now that I know that there really won't be much of a darker line from one day to the next, I am fine not testing today. I will probably do it tomorrow before the beta.

I found a lab to do my beta - it is just straight across Central Park from where I am, so I will have a nice little walk tomorrow. I actually walked in the park today - around the reservoir. I was going very slow though, because I'm not supposed to really exercise. I was just strolling and listening to my iPod and letting all the runners and speed-walkers pass me. On my way home I came down the street one north of ours and spied something interesting in the bulk trash pick-up. I'm quite the trash-to-treasure person, and I can't help looking when there is a bunch of stuff on the street. What I saw was a lovely wooden glider, albeit very dirty and covered in cobwebs. It wasn't grimy though - mostly just dusty and in very good shape. It had snaps on it, so I assume there was a cushion at some point. It was totally cute and not really big (we don't have too much room here). Of course I totally wanted to drag it home, but I quickly talked myself out of it. That would not have been good (one block and a flight of stairs....). But I did write J to tell him about it. He hasn't answered yet, but if I can convince him to go check it out on his way home, that would be cool. Of course, I hope that is not jinxing us...

Another day, another line

To answer Mr. InBetween's question, I did test again this morning - just the once. I was actually a little stressed out because it didn't really look much darker than yesterday's, and I was under the impression that I should see more of an increase. But after hearing from my super-support team over on IVFC, and doing a Go.ogle image search of positive HPT progressions, I feel much better. And I have to say, my line looks pretty darn good compared to many other lines out there. So I'm trying to relax. I will probably test again tomorrow morning, though may hold off until Friday, which is beta day.

I actually stressed J out with the testing I guess. He was really being cool as a cucumber yesterday, so I didn't think he was too stressed. But he knew I was going to test again this morning and I made the mistake of telling him (mistakenly, I now know) that the test had to be darker today. Apparently he lost a lot of sleep over this and was really stressed about it this morning. I got out of bed this morning to go test, and snuck (sneaked?) back into bed so as not to wake him, but when he got out of bed he went straight to check out the stick. He was more impressed with how much darker it was than I was. But he asked me to wait tomorrow morning until he has left the house, because it was stressing him out too much. He can't stand to have his dreams crushed once again he says. And he also says that just doesn't have any more in him and wouldn't be able to take the disappointment after this. I just hope that he won't have to be disappointed. We are really ready for some good news.

The obligatory photo

I always wondered why people have such a hard time getting a clear, up-close picture of their HPTs, but it is hard! I swear this line looks darker in real life that it does in the picture, but anyway, you get the idea.

This is so surreal. We started TTC in the spring of 2007. A year later started treatments - 2 IUIs, 3 IVFs locally. Then a year at CCRM - 3 more cycles. Still nothing. I have never seen this sight in all that time. I can't believe it.

Ok, I know that it is too early to get excited. I know all sorts of things could go wrong - believe me, I know. But I can't help getting a little optimistic now.

A line

A beautiful, definitely-there, baby-pink second line. A sight I've never, ever seen before. A line.

I am going to POAS...

...tomorrow morning. That will be 6dp5dt. I know it is still early, but by no means impossible. Some of you will advise me against it, and I appreciate that, but I'm sorry. I have no self control. I bought the tests on the way home today and at first told myself I would wait until Wednesday, but who am I kidding?

Just thought I'd warn you.

The wait

It is really killing me. This has got to be the worst "two week wait" ever. I almost feel like I'm having an anxiety attack. I have been feeling some strange aches and pains for the past two days, as well as cramps, but I really refuse to believe they are anything other than side effects from the progesterone. I have been fooled before.

I still haven't purchased any HPTs and will be busy tomorrow so that is good. I'm sure I won't be able to hold out past Wednesday to test, and may even cave by Tuesday, which would be 6dp5t. Ugh.

Home, sweet home

It felt weird to come home to this apartment where I had only been living for one week before leaving for Denver. But J and the kitties were here waiting for me, so this must be the place. My trip home was uneventful and quick - spent the whole flight listening to iPod and reading.

I was very happy to get good news about the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. InBetween's twins - a boy and a girl - just perfect! I'm so happy that they have finally reached their happy ending, after much turmoil.

I was awake early this morning with cramps. I really don't want to read anything into it. I know that cramps are a good sign at this point, but I've had them after other transfers and definitely was not pregnant. But I am starting to obsess about when to POAS. Definitely not before 5dp5dt (for the laymen out there, that's five days post Day 5 transfer). So that would be Monday. But I know that a safer bet would be to wait for Wednesday. Like I said, I have a lot of work to do to prep for school, and I really didn't get anything done in Denver. So if I were smart, I'd try to get some of that work done before testing, so if I am devastated by a BFN, I will have at least gotten something done before drowning myself in tears.

And so the waiting continues...

Happy tears

I just read the update from Mr. InBetween ("Oh Shit, He's Back") that today is the big day for him and the Mrs. I'm so excited and happy for them that tears are streaming down my face. I know them both IRL ever since I first met BigDog on IVFC, and we discovered that we both lived in Hoboken. So I've seen their struggles and know how much they've been through. I just spoke to Mrs. InBetween yesterday - she gave me a call to help me pass the time on bed rest. Help ME pass the time? I was getting antsy after 24 hours and she had been on bed rest for 10 WEEKS! That is so crazy. But she did a fantastic job of keeping those babies nice and snuggled in for the duration - all the way to 36 weeks, which is amazing. I can't wait to hear all about it, and hopefully to see those babies soon.

I am still in bed this morning, milking my bed rest as long as I can, although I am ready to get up. Just a little longer and then I'll head down for breakfast, pack up and head out to the airport. I'm really looking forward to getting home; to the new apartment, to the kitties, to my J. And to some day having our own happy tears.

A little disappointed

Just got the call from the lab about our frozen blasts. We have three. I was hoping for more. I don't mean to be greedy, but with all those Day 3s, I'm just surprised. Yesterday at transfer she told me there were still 13 others, and it just seems so weird that more didn't make it to blast. She said that a number of them made it to the early blast stage, but then just stopped. So we have a Day 5 4BB, a Day 6 4BB and a Day 6 4BA. Hmmmmm. It makes me start suspecting J's sperm again, but they did ICSI and IMSI, plus his sperm fragmentation test was ok. Oh well. I'm glad we got some good quality ones in me yesterday and we'll just take it from there.

Transfer Day

The deed is done. Not the typical baby-making deed of course, but you know what I mean. The transfer went very smoothly, with Dr. School.cra.ft at the helm. It was super quick. But before hand, I asked the nurse to take a picture of the embryos on the screen, so I could send it to J at work in NY. I was so glad I did that, because I was able to send it to him right after everyone left, so he felt a part of the process. I know he felt badly that he couldn't be with me, and I did feel a bit lonely without him. But the acupuncture was great, and super relaxing, as was the Val.ium.

So we transferred one 4aa and one 4ab. There is one more blast today, but the others are still at the morula stage, or maybe a little further behind, and they expect them to make blast by tomorrow for freezing. I was a little disappointed to hear there weren't more blasts today, but I guess that is normal.

Now I am resting in my room, flat on back with my little make-shift lap tray. Thank goodness for my computer, although I have to admit I'm a little too addicted to it. Oh well. You guys have been such a great source of support for me and I don't know what I would do without you.

Pre-transfer shopping

It's a must, right? I really don't have any business spending money right now, with the amount we just dropped on this cycle, but I couldn't resist a little back-to-school shopping. First of all, the shuttle here took me down for my chiropractic appointment, on his way to drop another lovely woman off at CCRM for her appointment, so I made a friend in the van. The driver was able to swing back by and pick me up, and drop me off at the mall. I was going to walk to the mall, but after my long walk yesterday, it was nice to get a ride. I did plenty of walking in the mall and then walked back.

So, what did I buy? I always have the dilemma of trying to break out of my comfort zone and get things that are a little more interesting. I was looking for gray pants for work, and actually ended up getting a really cute pair of gray corduroy jeans instead. They are really comfy. I also got a sparkly cardigan (I am the queen of cardigans - I must have at least 20) and an amazingly adorable silky dress that was a complete surprise. It is really brightly colored in a funky pattern that looks like Pucci but is much more affordable. It is a v-neck and a bit of an empire waist, but then nice and full below to cover up my cycling weight - I feel great in it. I'm not really sure where I'll wear it - it's not for work. But it will be great for a date night in Manhattan - you always have to have a great little dress available for a spontaneous night in the city.

But the one purchase that I am now a little doubtful about is a messenger bag I got for work. I was actually just looking for a laptop bag to take home with me now, as I want to make sure everything will fit in my suitcase (as was going to put the laptop in my suitcase and carry it on...) They had an adorable laptop bag in the same design, but I talked myself into the bigger messenger bag because it will be good for commuting by public transportation once I start teaching again and have to lug things to and fro. I really love the pattern on it, but now that I have brought it back (and cut the tags off - I lugged all my loot back in it), I am worried that it looks more like a diaper bag than a messenger bag. It is definitely not a diaper bag, but the pattern sort of makes it look like one. (Yes, I guess I could use it in my ideal future as a diaper bag, but right now I don't want to look like I thought a diaper bag was a messenger bag.) So, here is what it looks like (it's by Fossil, and the photo is from their site - that's not me!) - what do you think? And do you think it can be used in winter too? Now that I'm looking at the colors, it seems a little summery...



I'm not sure why I'm second-guessing myself so much, and there isn't anything I can do about it now...it will at least help me make the trip home. (Although, it will be awfully busy-looking with my new striped suitcase! The colors are somewhat compatible though...)

So now I am relaxing in my room after my shopping adventure. I am going to meet my new CCRM friend for dinner and I'll find out if she is online. I don't recognize her as any of my current online friends. It is so strange how infertility brings us together from all over the place, with the common goal that we share. It's like we are part of a special club. Unfortunately, not an exclusive club, or an enviable one, but a club nonetheless.

Renovations

I really should be in bed, because I've been up way too late out here. It is going to be brutal to get back on east coast time. But instead I'm messing around and renovating the blog decor. Perhaps to make up for the fact that I'm away from my new apartment and can't work on the decorating there. Anyway, what do you think? I don't want it to be too busy - I don't like a really big distracting background, but I think this one is small enough. I thought my original design was pretty plain and have been meaning to change it for a while now. Let me know your thoughts.

I went for a nice long walk today after I got our Day 3 report. It was a bit longer than I intended. I actually walked the whole loop out here in front of the Homewood - all the way around Inverness Drive East and West. It took me an hour. There were hills and it was pretty warm. But I felt good after doing it. And then I just sat around the hotel the rest of the day. Tomorrow I'll take the shuttle to my acupuncture appointment and then plan to walk to the mall for some shopping and lunch.

Wednesday I have to be at CCRM at 11:30 for a 1:15 transfer. (I'm doing the pre- and post-acupuncture session, just to make sure I'm covering all my bases.) So that's when you can send all those good sticky vibes.

This is a really boring post - I'm obviously too tired. I still owe you that more profound "how I'm feeling about all this stuff" post. Maybe tomorrow. Good night!

Sweet Sixteen

Just got the Day 3 report and am a bit overwhelmed. I can't believe that we are actually getting some good news for once. We still have 16 embryos, although it sounds like one is pretty far off track (not sure in which direction). Anyway, we have 15 that are in the 6 to 10 cell range, which is very good. And 12 of those are right at 8 cells, which is ideal. According to the embryologist, "the vast majority" are Grade 4, which is the highest they give them at this point. I teared up a bit when she said that everything looked really wonderful. I wasn't thinking straight enough to ask for any more details, but I think this will have to suffice for now. We will definitely be doing a Day 5 transfer and I'm just hoping we will still have plenty of blasts to choose from. Our initial hope was that we would have 6 blasts - 2 to transfer and 4 to save for later - so anything beyond that would just be amazing.

In other news, my massage for today was also canceled - seems the massage therapist is still sick. So I have no plans for the day and need to find something to do to amuse myself. I do have a lot of work to do to get ready for school, but it is so hard to concentrate on anything else.

They will give me a call later to give me the time to be at CCRM on Wednesday. I can't believe this is really happening...

Fertilization report

Here it is, short and sweet: 20 eggs retrieved, 18 were mature, 16 fertilized. Woo hoo! Now we wait until the Day 3 report on Monday, and hopefully can hold out for a Day 5 transfer on Wednesday.

That's it for now - we are moving to our next hotel today and I have to get packed.

Freaky Friday

Well, it was retrieval day today. But before heading out to the clinic, I was awakened at 8 am by my cell phone ringing. The caller id said CCRM, so I was nervous right away. I answered and the woman said she was calling from CCRM and that there was "a bit of an unfortunate situation...". I started to freak out. I was imagining all sorts of things that could have possibly gone wrong with our donor. I couldn't even think of what it might have been, but I figured that if something could go wrong, it would go wrong with us. But then she continued and said "...and the massage therapist will not be able to make it in today for your appointment." Phew. Before I could respond to that fact, I had to point out to her that she scared me because our donor was supposed to have retrieval this morning and I figured something had gone wrong. She apologized and I hope she'll think more carefully about the words she uses in the future. Not being able to get a massage is not an unfortunate situation (although, admittedly, there may have been some unfortunate situation that prevented the massage therapist from coming in - but it wasn't unfortunate for me). Slightly inconvenient maybe, but not unfortunate.

So we went in at 11 for my blood work and J's sperm prep. We brought the gift and letter that we had prepared for the donor. I sat around nervously waiting as J went upstairs. And I got a call on my cell from my mom, which I silenced. But I knew what it was, so I listened to the message. My grandmother died this morning. I wasn't surprised at all - she had been fading for a long, long time and in fact her death was long overdue. It was a great relief to everyone. But the timing was somewhat weird. A sort of circle of life type thing I guess. So that had me a little emotional. J came back downstairs and I waited to tell him when we were in the parking lot. I didn't want to cry in the waiting room. But really, it's not too sad because we had all said goodbye to her a long time ago - she didn't know who anyone was anymore.

Then I went to the chiropractor. I found one nearby yesterday and went for an adjustment because my back has been in bad shape again lately, especially after the move. This guy is great and I'm feeling a lot better already. Since my massage appointment was unfortunately canceled for today, I also got a massage from the therapist at the chiropractor's office. She was awesome -seriously hardcore deep pressure, which I really needed in numerous places. And when I told her why I was in Denver she was amazed because I was her third CCRM patient this week, and before that she didn't even realize that there was a world-class fertility clinic in her backyard. I was wondering how many people in this area realize what a mecca this is for us infertiles.

I am still going to keep the massage appointment that they made for me on Monday, and will go for one more adjustment on Tuesday. Hopefully that will hold my back in place for a while, especially because bed rest is going to be about the worst possible thing for it.

So it has been a weird day. I also just got an email from my back-up nurse telling me that they had activated the OHSS package for our donor, meaning that our credit card will be charged the extra $500 to treat her for ovarian hyperstimulation. Nice. I hope she doesn't have it too bad and isn't in terrible discomfort. And I wonder how that will affect her egg quality. No word on how many eggs they retrieved, but I would assume a good number. We should find out tomorrow morning with the fertilization report.

Tomorrow we move to the Homewood Suites, and go grocery shopping to get me all set up for my remaining stay without the car and on bedrest. J will leave me on Sunday morning and I will make the rest of this strange journey on my own, at least for now.

I was feeling really weird to be just sitting in the waiting room at CCRM, while my donor was presumably being prepped for retrieval and J was giving his "donation". I just sat there feeling very useless and a bit sad. But my turn will come in a few days, and then hopefully I won't feel useless for the next 9 months.

Last trip to Denver?

Well, here we are again, in Denver. I have to say that the novelty has certainly worn off, and arriving here once again was more of a drag than it has been in the past. We don't feel much like doing any particularly "Denver-like" activities but rather are just relaxing and going to the movies and bowling and going to the outlet mall. Not so exciting.

We got here on Monday and had all our initial appointments on Tuesday (ultrasound for lining check, consult with doctor, follow-up psych consult, consent forms signings and bloodwork for communicables). So that is all out of the way. My lining looks really good, at 8.3 with a triple stripe. They told me yesterday that it was likely our donor would trigger last night, but she did not. When I spoke with my nurse today, she didn't have the details as to why not (it certainly seemed that the follicles were the right size yesterday) but most likely it is that her E2 was high and they want to coast her for a day to avoid hyperstimulation. I hope this doesn't mean we are in danger of getting over-cooked eggs. Always something to worry about. I'll try to get more details out of her when she calls me back later. She should be calling later to confirm that the donor will trigger tonight and to give me instructions for my meds...

So this means that retrieval will probably be on Friday. Then, we will hopefully do a Day 5 transfer, so I'm stuck out here for quite a while. Day 5 would be on Wednesday, and then the 2 days of bedrest has me flying home on....Friday the 13th. Fun. J will be going home on Sunday, as I think I mentioned before, so I'll be on my own next week. We will go to the grocery store and get me all stocked up with stuff I need, so I will be all set for bedrest. But I will be staying at the Homewood Suites, which has dinner available on Monday through Thursday, so I can even have them bring me food to my room. And I won't have a car, even for the early part of the week before transfer, since J will be returning it when he leaves. But I shouldn't really need it. I have a lot of work that I need to do to prepare for the new semester. I haven't been doing anything to prepare for the fall all summer since we have been so busy with getting ready for this cycle and also moving. So being here with nothing else to do will be good for getting some work done.

I want to post more about how we are feeling about all of this, but don't really feel like it right now. We are working on the letter to give to our donor, so I'm going to help J with that now. I will try to post more soon, and I'm sure I'll have plenty of time for posting next week as well, after he has gone.

Oh, we went to see Inception again today. Still amazing the second time.

And I'm looking forward to meeting up with R from OneEggPlease next week - that will be fun!

Moved in...

...but far from unpacked. The move went pretty well though. I am so impressed with our movers, who have a special set of challenges moving in the city where parking is not guaranteed. We were able to buy "no parking" signs for underneath our building for the move out, but it was a free-for-all at the new place in the city. In a duo of parking miracles, J and I arrived in our car about 15 minutes ahead of the movers and found a parking space just one door down from our new place. Thanks to my expert parallel parking skills, I was able to squeeze into the tight spot and we could start unloading the kitties and other precious cargo. (The cats were put into the bathroom, where they nervously hung out in the bathtub while all the unloading ensued...) So a few minutes later I look out the front window to see that the moving truck has arrived. Fortunately, there is a fire hydrant just in front of our building, which is about the length of 2 cars (or a fire truck, I guess). I could not believe my eyes - they were squeezing the truck into this tight spot and as I looked down, the movers were out on the street guiding the driver, to keep him from hitting the cars in front and behind. And guess what kind of car was parked right behind the truck? A Porsche. They were backing this huge truck up to literally 2 inches from the hood of this Porsche. I leaned out the window and shouted "Please don't hit the Porsche!". One of the movers looks up at me and asks, "Is that your car?" "I wish!", I said. In fact, I think I would have been less concerned about them hitting it if it had been my car. But now that I think about it, I'm sure they have insurance for that sort of thing. Anyway, the spot was just a little too tight for them to get in, so what do they do? They shove the Honda parked in front of the truck out of the way. It was not so easy to move - three guys gave it a few good shoves and they were able to move it forward the extra six inches they needed to squeeze the truck in. It was seriously impressive! That was pretty much the highlight of the move for me.

Other than that, things went smoothly. We have been unpacking since Saturday and still have tons of boxes to deal with. My biggest challenge is the kitchen, which is about 1/3 the size of our old place and has no pantry and very little cabinet space. We need to go to Ikea to get some storage to mount on the walls, so I'll have a place to put everything. We'll do that this Friday. Today I just need to tackle more boxes...

In other news, I wrote my nurses today to ask for a progress report on our donor. She started stims on Sunday and had her first ultrasound yesterday. She had 14 follicles yesterday. I thought that seemed a little low, considering I usually have around 12 myself. But the nurse said it was still early and she could have more than that. She has another ultrasound tomorrow, so we'll see. What do you guys think? (Honestly...) So now I have something to obsess about!

Disconnecting

We are in full-on countdown to move time. The movers are coming tomorrow morning at 7 am. Of course, it's supposed to be record heat tomorrow, so that will be fun. Anyway, we are getting ready to disconnect the modem and get all that stuff packed up, so I won't be back online until Tuesday when the cable gets hooked up at the new place.

Just one thing I have to say about the timing of this move. At first I thought it was a little crazy to be doing this while also prepping for a donor egg cycle, but I have to say that it has me so focused on the move that I haven't had time to sit around and obsess about the cycle, so that is definitely a good thing.

Ok, here we go. Next post I'll be writing from Manhattan. Have a great weekend everyone. I know it will be more restful than mine!

Of packing and patches...

Pack, pack, packing. That's mostly what's going on around here. And taking care of odds and ends, like getting the utilities switched over to us, making appointments with the cable guy and new cat sitter, etc. I'm finally rid of my Lupron headache, as I started my patches yesterday and cut the dosage of Lupron in half. (I obviously got AF, on Sunday, so am now officially in the prepping for ET phase of things...)

As for travel plans, we have booked our car for just the portion that J will be in Denver. It is so expensive right now (when we went out there in June, I was able to get a car for $11 a day, but now it's high season and it's more like $50 a day, plus tax!), that when he leaves on the 8th, he'll return the car and leave me carless. That's not a problem - we'll have me stocked up on the food and supplies I need, and I won't be really going anywhere anyway. I'll take the hotel shuttle to the clinic and Super Shuttle to the airport. But we haven't booked our hotel yet. I want to wait and bid on Priceline, again just for the portion that J will be there. Then we will book the rest of the stay for me at the Homewood Suites, where I know I will be comfortable, have dinner available during the week, and have a nice kitchen as well.

That's about it for now. I probably won't have much to report until after we get settled in. And I will be without internet for a few days between the move until we get our cable set up - how will I manage?!?

Some travel dates

So, we are both going to Denver on August 2. I found out that my local clinic will not draw my blood for me, even though they did it last year. The new nurse in charge of the satellite office where I go is a real hard-a$$ and will not let me do it. So rather than waste time and energy trying to find a place to have it drawn, and waste the money on the shipping kit, I am just going to fly out with J. He had already booked a round-trip ticket, with the return on the 8th, but I just bought a one-way so I can book my return when we have a better idea of when retrieval will be. I'm glad we got that settled.

My appointments got set up today, for the afternoon of the 2nd and the morning of the 3rd. Since they had originally asked us to fly out on the 1st and have all the appointments on the 2nd, things are a little tight on the afternoon of the 2nd. We get in just before 1 and have to be at CCRM by 2:15 for my lining check and then re-group with Dr. Sch at 2:30. That is going to be stressful - I don't know if we'll make it in time. But that was the only slot he had all day.

So I'm glad to have that all taken care of. Meanwhile I still haven't gotten AF, but the nurse assured me that was ok. She had it on my calendar for yesterday, and to start patches today, but I'm still waiting. She said it was no problem if I don't get it until Sunday. After that, I'm not sure. But I have never had a problem building a lining before, so fingers crossed.

Today I took a day off from packing and went into the city to pick up the keys to our new place. I met J there and we took some measurements and looked around a bit more to see where we would fit all our stuff. Our lease doesn't start until Tuesday, but they didn't have a problem with getting in early to do that. We didn't stay long because we were going to see Inception in IMAX - it was absolutely AMAZING! I highly recommend it. I was on the edge of my seat, and in tears by the end.

Now we are home and J is doing some packing. He is packing his CDs right now. By his calculation he has more than 1,400. That's a lot of CDs.... I have a feeling we are going to have to weed out a lot more stuff before we move. I've actually been enjoying the organizing and purging. Yesterday I was shredding all kinds of papers that had been piling up, including paperwork from all our failed IVF cycles. I even shredded photos of transferred embryos that didn't stick. It feels good to put the past behind me and focus on moving forward. And so I'm off to help with the packing!

Crisis averted

Thank you all so much for the helpful suggestions about the nurse, but I think things will work out ok. I agree with what someone said about it being a small department, so even if I switch, it would be hard to avoid her. And we did talk yesterday and had a very nice conversation. She was really helpful in giving me potential dates for the retrieval, and also said she would see what could be done about the communicables testing. We talked about our potential travel dates and it looks like my husband will go out there on the 2nd of August. I will probably not go out until the 5th. We want to save some money on cat sitting, which is expensive since someone has to come in twice a day to give my oldest cat his insulin injections and thyroid pills. Plus I want to stick around a little longer with the cats since we will have just moved in a week before and I don't want to stress them out too much.

Also, J. is planning to come home on the 8th, which will most likely be before the transfer. He's got a pretty big thing going on at work that week that could be important for his future at the company, so we both agree that it is good for him to be there. (Our new apartment is a lot more expensive than where we are now, so if this is something that could lead to a promotion and a raise, it would be foolish to miss out on that opportunity.) I am not entirely thrilled with the prospect of going through the transfer alone, though I don't mind doing bedrest alone. Maybe he'll be able to stay a little longer, but I doubt it. For now he has booked his ticket, but could change it if necessary.

I have not booked my ticket yet. I'm waiting to get the final word from the nurse about the communicables and also the other appointments we are supposed to have (signing consents, re-group with doctor, etc), to make sure I can fit them in. And then we have to decide about the hotel. Although we really love the Homewood, and it would be more convenient to make regular reservations so we can alter them as necessary, we might bid on Priceline to save money. Or maybe Hotwire. I'm torn, because I'd also like to know that we are getting a suite with a kitchen and you can't always know that on either of those sites. But between the 2 of us we are going to be there for more than a week, and that could really add up. Any suggestions?

By the way, our donor is starting Lupron on the 21st and her stims on the 25th. Because of this, the nurse said the earliest possible date for retrieval would be the 3rd, but it could be as late as the 6th or 7th...

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In other news, I parked in the "Expectant Mothers" parking at the grocery store yesterday. It was pouring down rain, so I didn't really notice the sign until I'd pulled in. For about a half a second I thought about pulling out and finding another spot, and then I said, WTF, I have a right to park here. I know other people have written about this on their blogs, but it is true that I AM an expectant mother. And I don't think anyone would have really questioned me, as I'm a little puffy in the belly area right now and was wearing a pretty flowy top that could be seen as covering a pregnant belly. I also needed to buy some more pre-natal vitamins, so I had those in my cart to wave at anyone who looked at me funny.

*********

Finally, we got the results from the rocket ship test. (Aka: sperm fragmentation) The nurse said they were "fair to good", so the doctor might want to do IMSI to make sure we get the best sperm. I wonder if that would have made any difference if we had done it in past cycles. But anyway, I'm glad there isn't anything majorly wrong on that side of things and I feel even better about moving forward with DE.

Power struggle

That's what I'm having with my nurse, I think. I think she thinks I'm a difficult patient. I have had wonderful relationships with my past nurses, but this one is rubbing me the wrong way. She is vague in her emails and only gives a minimum of information. I know that she can't tell me when retrieval will be - I understand this. I have had 6 retrievals. I know that you cannot predict when the trigger will be. But I have a bunch of questions for her about the process and the timing (not the specific dates mind you, just the way the timing will work) and she seems to want to only deal with me by email. That's fine I guess, but it would be a lot more efficient if we could just have one 10 minute conversation. The only time I've ever spoken to her on the phone was last week when she called with my P4 levels and said that she wanted me to start Lupron that night. I knew that my P4 check would give an idea about starting Lupron, but didn't realize it would mean starting the Lupron that night. She didn't give me a heads up before, so that meant that I had no Lupron. Why didn't she tell me to get the Lupron ahead of time, so I would have it in case I needed to start it on that day? Instead she had to call in the prescription to a pharmacy in Manhattan near where I happened to be shopping at the time. So the only conversation we've had was with me standing on the corner of 73rd and Broadway saying, "I think there's a pharmacy near here that sells fertility meds - you could try calling them...." And she neglected to tell me on that day that J and I both had to start our antibiotics that night as well. I didn't find out about that until today when I got my calendar.

Yes, I got a calendar today. I guess I should have mentioned that. It has us flying out to Denver on August 1 and me having a lining check the next day. Also the next day J is supposed to give his back-up sample. Except that we already have one frozen out there, which I'd mentioned to the nurse before. And I know that I could have my lining check done locally - I've always done that in the past before my transfers. I would like to minimize the amount of time that we both have to be out there, so we don't have to pay too much for hotel and also for cat sitting, which will be an arm and a leg in Manhattan. So I wanted to talk to the nurse about the calendar. I asked her to please call me tonight so we could discuss some possibilities. She blew me off. She sent me an email asking me to review my calendar and that she would call me tomorrow. That really rubbed me the wrong way. I have been with this nurse for a month and have spoken to her once for less than 5 minutes. I am not a bitchy, needy patient, but I would like to have the opportunity to speak with my nurse about this cycle so I know what is going on. Is that too much to ask? Is this just the Loopyron talking?

I realize that I have not been entirely coherent, nor have I fully explained all my frustrations, but I just wish it weren't so frustrating and hard to get some information. Maybe I have been spoiled by my previous nurses who would call me and patiently answer all my questions. But this one seems overworked and unable to deal with me. Ugh. Ok, rant over. I'm going to see if I can talk my sweet husband into going out for some ice cream. Let's see how this goes over...

Packing with a Lupron headache...

...need I say more?
Oh, and to make my headache worse, I had just gotten off the phone with the financial office at CCRM to pay for the donor egg cycle when the pharmacy called to get payment from me for the donor meds. Ouch. I guess I've been really lucky to have all my meds covered by insurance for all my own cycles. The bill today for her meds was just over $3,000.

That's it for today - back to the packing!

Phew!

Well, that didn't take as long as I thought it would. We found an apartment. A really amazing one. I had spent about 3 days this week looking at various places and being frustrated that nothing was remotely acceptable for the amount of money we wanted to spend. Then I saw one that seemed pretty darn good. I put a hold on it ($300 cash down and completed application) and made an appointment to come back the next day with J. But then I was looking at other listings and made a call about one of them. It turned out to be one I had already seen, but the broker asked me my budget and said that he had an amazing 3 bedroom pretty high up on the Upper West Side (a little higher than the cutoff of 88th street that we initially didn't want to be above), less than one block from Central Park. Three bedrooms? We weren't looking for those at all because they weren't remotely in our budget. It sounded too good to be true, but his description sounded earnest and so we went to check it out. We saw it yesterday morning at 11:00. By 11:30 we were in a cab rushing downtown to get our application in. By 1:45 he had texted me, saying our application had been approved (thanks to our excellent credit, but also to having accumulated in a nice little folder all those documents I listed in a previous post...we were ready to go!). Yesterday afternoon we went to the bank to get bank checks for an exorbitant amount of money (first and last month's rent, plus another month's rent for the broker fee, for this guy who spent less than one hour with us...) and this morning at 11:00, we signed the lease. I can't believe it.

This place is the entire second floor of a traditional New York townhouse. We have original parquet floors and fireplaces in the living room and master bedroom (not working though...). The master bedroom is nice and big, though the two other rooms are pretty tiny. But we are thrilled to have a room for J. to have as his man-cave (which we were going to have no matter what...) and also have a room that could maybe, possibly, some day be a room for a baby. That means we could actually stay in this place for a while. Which is good, because I hate moving.

So on the down side, it is a one flight walk-up. I don't mind that now, but it could be a drag if I make it to 8 months pregnant. Or with a stroller. But thousands of New Yorkers do it all the time (to even higher floors), so I'm sure I can handle it. Also, the kitchen is pretty darn small. It is not the smallest New York kitchen by any stretch, and it is at least separate from the living room, with a little pass-through. It has a full size stove (many NY kitchens don't!), though the fridge is 3/4 size. Not a big deal. And it has a dishwasher, which is also a big plus in a NY kitchen. Everything in the kitchen is brand new (cabinets and appliances), though pretty much the cheapest ones you can buy. I'm not complaining though - these are the things that put this amazing apartment into our budget (just barely! I actually had to negotiate it down to be at the top of our budget).

So, we are going to get packing and will actually move 2 weeks from today! I can't believe it. But that means that we will be moved in before we go out to Denver. I hope I don't get too stressed out. Moving stresses me out and I hate packing. But I'm excited about this move, so hopefully I'll be more motivated to get packing. I'm taking today off though - I am so exhausted from going in and out of the city everyday in the heat for the past 4 days. Not to mention that house hunting is just emotionally draining. I was about to hyperventilate in the cab yesterday, as we were going to submit our application. Our broker was not the only one showing that apartment, so I had no way of knowing that there wasn't someone else headed to their broker's office to submit an application on it as well. It was a tense couple of hours waiting for approval. Like I said before, finding an apartment in NYC is a very competitive business. I feel like we went in fighting and came out winners!

Heat wave!

What a day I've had! We are having a lovely heat wave up here in the northeast - it seems to have followed us down from Boston, where we were over the holiday weekend. Yesterday, after a 4 1/2 hour train ride back down to NJ, we got home to discover the power was partially out in our building, which meant the elevator wasn't working and there was no AC in our unit. So we lugged our suitcases up four flights and tried to figure out what the problem was. Seems that transformers all over our area were blowing out, but after an hour we had power again.

So today I got up early to get my blood drawn, to have my progesterone level checked. Who should I see at the doctor's office but Mr. and Mrs. InBetween! What a lovely surprise! This doctor's office is a shared space between the local RE clinic that both Mrs. InBetween and I used before moving to CCRM, and the best ob/gyn in town (as Mr. InBetween calls him, Dr. Rockstar). So although I usually don't like to share the waiting room with the pregnant ladies (even though there is a divider...), I was happy to make an exception to chat with my fellow CCRM-er. She is looking lovely and hanging on to those two little ones, who have now made it past 30 weeks.

After the blood draw, I headed home to wait to hear from a somewhat flaky rental broker we have fallen in with. She met us last Thursday to show us some apartments, only to inform us that the ones we would be most interested in had already rented. Today I was supposed to see some new listings, and just had to wait for her call to know what time to meet her on the Upper West Side. Finally headed in to meet her at 3:00. And wouldn't you know it, on the hottest day of the year so far (it topped out at over 100 today), we ended up not being able to see the units that were most interesting to us. It wasn't her fault - the management had told her that we could see all the available units in the building, only to show up and find out from the super that the two-bedroom units still had tenants in them and couldn't be shown. So we just looked at the one-bedroom units, to get an idea of what the building is like. I was somewhat frustrated.

So after that, I headed out to do a little shopping to console myself (and cool down in the air conditioning), when my nurse called. My progesterone was at a good level (still don't know what it was) and she wants me to start Lupron tonight. The only problem was that I didn't have any Lupron. But it turned out to be a good thing that I was wandering around on the Upper West Side, because the nurse was able to call in my Rx to a fancy pharmacy there that carries fertility drugs, and I came home with my Lupron in hand. Phew!

And I'll repeat the whole process tomorrow as I'm heading back into the city to hopefully see some more appropriate apartments.

As far as the calendar goes, we don't have specific dates but it's looking like retrieval will be the first week of August, and transfer the second week. So at least now we know and can adjust our moving dates accordingly. We'll see what the apartment hunt brings...

Keeping busy

Well, I finally did get some vague news from my nurse, which I am glad about even though as I suspected it does look like our retrieval and transfer will be earlier than I had hoped. I am not going to freak out about it though. She said that if my progesterone looks good next week (I'm not sure what "good" means in this case...), our donor would be starting stims the last week of July and that we would be needed out there for retrieval and transfer during the 1st two weeks of August. Ugh. I definitely know that beggars can't be choosers, and it is more important to me to be done with the transfer before the semester starts, so we will figure it out. We are kicking up our house-hunting, and might even be able to find something available July 15th, and move in the end of July. Talk about timing! The nurse said that we would know more next week when they see my progesterone levels, so I'll try to relax until then. And then maybe I'll ask her if there is any way to push it a little later. We'll see.

As far as the house-hunting goes, we have almost finished compiling our dossier. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, renting an apartment in NYC is a major ordeal. We were trying to avoid going with a broker, but all the ads you find listed under "by owner" or "no fee" end up being with a broker anyway, so it's kind of inevitable. And they can be helpful. But if you go through any broker, or even for most management companies, you have to provide a huge pile of personal and financial information to be approved before even being shown any apartments. Here's the list of stuff we need to have together from the website of one of the major realtors in NYC:

1. Letter from employer stating position, salary and length of employment (or start date if you have not yet started), and any information regarding bonus, guaranteed or otherwise.
2. Last two pay stubs
3. Last two years’ tax returns
4. Last two months’ bank statements
5. Name, addresses, and phone numbers of previous landlords
6. Two personal reference letters
7. Two business reference letters
8. Verification of other assets such as real estate, securities, etc.
9. Photo identification (driver’s license, passport, etc.)

We have all of this stuff together and have also written up a nice little document, sort of a hybrid between a resume and a cover letter, introducing ourselves. We just need to make copies and put them in the nice little pocket folders I got at Staples yesterday. Seriously, this is like a popularity contest, and it's very competitive!

Furthermore, to qualify for most apartments without a guarantor, your annual salary has to be between 40 and 50 times the monthly rent. Luckily, that works for us so far, because we have a pretty strict budget. But I wonder how long it will be before we start getting upsold, or even want to look at pricier things ourselves since the ones in our budget so far have been scary. Tomorrow we have an appointment to see a few things, so we'll see how it goes. We are going to be out of town for the holiday weekend, so will hopefully be able to finalize something by the end of next week. Things move fast in this town!

In other news, the robot rocket has blasted off! The FedEx guy came to pick it up an hour ago and it is on its way back to South Dakota. We should get the results pretty quickly and hopefully everything will prove to be ok with J.'s sperm. I was interested to see that it was part of the ODWU for LisainSK, because it wasn't for us. If there turns out to be a problem with it, I will be seriously ticked off, since we did 3 cycles with CCRM and nobody said boo about it to us!

Small update

So my nurse is avoiding my direct questions about when we might cycle. Today she wrote me back and didn't address my question at all, but suggested that we might check my P4 next week and then start me on Lupron instead of the BCPs. This way, she said, we could definitely get the cycle in before the end of August. I assume she means that I would start the Lupron after I get AF, but maybe I'm wrong?

When I've done my own FETs, it was exactly one month from starting Lupron to transfer. I am expecting AF in mid-July. My donor got her AF last week, and in my past retrievals it was 5 weeks from AF to retrieval. So how do we get to the middle-ground and end up at that same stage?

Any thoughts?

I wrote the nurse back and said I totally understand that she can't give me a calendar, but that we are thinking of moving at the very beginning of August, and did she see any reason why that wouldn't be a good idea? She is still mum...

And one more update - we have the "rocket" packed up and ready for pick up. J. came home from work today and diligently did his part, then we had fun getting the sample prepared and all packed up and deposited the little tubes into the inner core of the cooler. It was all steamy in there...very cool! FedEx will be here to pick it up tomorrow afternoon for blast off!

Still waiting and more worries...

Well, I'm a little frustrated because my nurse didn't write me back until yesterday, and then only to say that she can't give me a calendar until I also get AF, which won't be for a little more than 2 weeks. I am pretty predictable about when it will come, and wrote her back to ask if I could at least get a general time frame for retrieval, which of course I would not hold her to. I just need to have an idea because we have no idea about when we should be planning our move. We just started looking for apartments yesterday (very depressing and scary!) and there are plenty of places that are available immediately or some time in July, so we are starting to wonder whether we should try to move earlier than August 1, if possible. Of course that would mean paying double rent for a while, which is not ideal, but we would prefer that to missing our donor cycle (which we will NOT do). And I guess we could delay our move into September, but that is very inconvenient for me with the beginning of the new school year. I have a group of first year students I mentor and advise, so they are very demanding during that time of year.

So anyway, she did not write back yesterday and I really hope to hear from someone today. I don't want to be perceived as a nag, but wonder if I am being unreasonable to just get a general idea of when the cycle would be. Like I said before, for my own cycles it was about 4.5 to 5 weeks from me getting AF to my retrieval. I am assuming that it would be about the same time for my donor, but I don't know where I fit in to the picture. I'll be getting my AF about 3 weeks after her, and have to prep for the transfer. Any thoughts? I know that for myself, they wouldn't let me be on BCPs too long before a cycle because they didn't want me over suppressed. Does anyone know how long they will let a donor be on BCPs to time a cycle? Ugh! This is really stressing me out. It is stressful enough to cycle, and to move, but to put both together is a little crazy. We have started to discuss the option of not moving, which was seeming quite possible as the owners haven't had any luck selling this place since putting it on the market in May. But there has been more interest lately since they dropped the price, so it is likely that they will sell it after all. However, as the realtor pointed out to me the other day, even if they get an offer this week, it will take at least two months before they get co-op approval and close, so we wouldn't have to move for at least that long. I wonder if we should wait. I guess it just depends on whether we find just the right place when we really start looking next week.

This post has been quite boring - I apologize. In more interesting news, we received a giant tank by FedEx from SCSA Diagnostics, so we can send in J's sperm sample for the . I cannot believe how huge this thing is. Actually, I'm going to take a picture now to show you... hold on.

Ok, here's the monster. When J. saw it, he said "There's no way I'm going to be able to fill that!" (I put his bass guitar in the picture for size reference...)



And when you open it, here's the pre-cooled dry shipper that's inside. I haven't opened it yet because I'm paranoid about letting it get too warm.


I'm a little confused about the instructions, because I got the impression online that we should freeze the sample before shipping it, but the sheet that came with this just says to put the sample in the shipper. So I'm going to call but am waiting for business hours in South Dakota (I don't even know what time zone they are in!). I'm also worried because this thing is supposed to last for 7 days, but I've gotten conflicting information as to that is from when it was shipped, or when I received it. They sent it out last Thursday, but I saw on the tracking info that it hung out in Newark all weekend, before being delivered to me yesterday. And of course it was out in the truck yesterday for half the day on the hottest day of the year so far. So I'm wondering if I can put some cold packs in there too. We'll see. That's my excitement for today. I want to send this off tomorrow, so I guess I should call FedEx now to arrange for pick up. There is no way in hell I'm lugging that down to the FedEx store!

Waiting...again.

I'm freaking out a little. I don't really know why, but am just feeling overwhelmed, like everything is moving so fast. That is what I wanted, but still, it's freaky. Yesterday I got an email from my nurse that my donor was set to get her period "any minute", and that I should pay Freedom for her birth control pills as soon as they called me. They did call, and had spoken to the donor and knew that she had indeed gotten her period and therefore needed the pills by the weekend. How weird is that, that the pharmacist at Freedom Fertility knows who my donor is and spoke to her right before speaking to me. Anyway, this is moving fast. I never imagined that she would get her period so soon. In fact, it's almost a little too soon. I don't know if we'll be able to stretch things out long enough to get to mid-August, which is what I prefer. I know I can't be that picky, but we are supposed to be moving during the first week of August. Not that we have found a place to live. Not that we have even started looking. I'm feeling overwhelmed about the apartment search and we may just end up going with a broker, even though that will cost us several thousands of dollars more. Money we don't even really have.

So today I have a nervous tummy and have not been feeling so good. I don't know why I'm so freaked out. Also, I ordered the shipping kit to do the SCSA testing for sperm fragmentation through their lab in South Dakota. It's pretty cool because you can gather the sample at home and freeze it yourself and then ship it. No need to go to a local lab. We decided to go this route, even though we have a frozen sample out at CCRM and they could test it there, because we want to keep that as our back-up sample for the coming cycle. I'm freaking out about the sperm fragmentation test too, because what if we find out that there is a problem with J's sperm and maybe we don't need a donor after all?

So now I'm just waiting for my nurse to email me a tentative calendar. She knows the donor's Day 1, and my estimated next period arrival, so she should be able to make up a calendar by now, to at least give us a general idea.

So those are my worries for today! I should be going to yoga in just a bit, but my tummy doesn't feel up to it. But I am going to go into the city this afternoon to meet a friend in the park and catch up. It will be good to get out of the house and out of my head for a while!

We did!

We got her. We found our parking space. I just hope it is long-term parking and not 30-minute only or no standing. I'm starting to worry already because my life is just not complete if I don't have something to worry about. I'm worried that she is too young and will realize she can't handle it and will back out. I'm worried that she isn't a proven donor. I know so many people say to go with a proven donor, but I was too freaked out about my own old eggs to go with anyone over 30. And the doctor himself said yesterday that there was no need to test the donor embryos, as long as they were under 30. So I figured the younger, the better. (Our donor is not quite 20...) And now of course I'm worrying. I'm wondering if I could have gotten a better parking space. Why do I always do that???

Um...did we or didn't we?

Get the donor we just picked, that is. I had it narrowed down to three, and my nurse agreed that they were the three closest matches. We had the same first choice and J. also agreed. But we felt it was too fast - I mean, we just started looking today. But the nurse had told me there was someone else looking at our first choice, and they were serious. So I called my dad to ask him some medical questions about one of our choices (not the top pick) and he really helped me go ahead and go for it. He said that if we had already made the decision to go with donor egg, what else were we waiting for? Was there anything wrong with the donor we liked? No. What did we think we would find that was better by waiting? Nothing. So why not go for it? As he said, you always think you are going to find a closer parking space, but you really should just go ahead and park. So we went for it. We clicked on it together on my computer. I refreshed the page beforehand to make sure she was still available, and then we clicked, agreed to the terms of service, or whatever, and clicked "submit". Got an error message. Went back to the donor page and it now said that she was not available. So did we get her? Or did someone beat me to her by a matter of 10 seconds? I had to put in my email info, so I thought maybe I'd get a confirmation, like you do at Amazon when you buy a book. But nothing. I wrote to my nurse to find out, but I have a feeling they are gone for the day. So I will have to wait to find out for sure.

I can't believe that this morning we didn't even have access to the site yet and tonight we already chose someone. Are we being too rash, or is my dad right? And did we really get our parking space?