Category: all the feelings

Week 36: False alarms, part 1

3 Comments

First, my sincere apologies for the long-delayed update. I can chalk it up to, primarily, two things — 1. Life has gotten a bit hectic and 2. While there have been things I may have wanted to share in the last few months, I think I’ve experienced a bit of the survivors guilt phenomenon. Coming from such a tumultuous place of infertility and failure, a part of me had/has a hard time accepting success and that I’ve had a rather uneventful pregnancy. It can all feel very complicated. Have you been in my shoes and experienced this, too?

I’m now 37 weeks in and officially full-term. I doubt I will ever completely wrap my head around that, given how I got here. But last week was especially crazy in both a hectic and mindf*ck sort of way.

Monday was the first false alarm. It’s first worth noting that I have an anterior placenta, and given that placement, I felt Little Wookiee move much later than expected (as in true movements, not just the “that could be something but…”). I was far into my second trimester before movement became regular and noticeable to me. In the last month or so, though, LW has been particularly active at night, usually around 8pm. At my last OB appointment we’d talked about kick counts and how I didn’t do them, really, because given the placenta placement there were only a handful of times per day that I could feel LW and I didn’t want to freak myself out. Well. Famous last words.

Monday night I settled into bed to read or watch TV for a bit before going to sleep, about 8:15, as is our usual. No doubt that might seem crazy early to most people but I rely on as much routine at home as possible, particularly since third trimester sleep has been spotty at best. Anyway, I expected to be feeling LW punch my bladder within a few minutes. Nope.

By 9:00 or so I’m poking around my belly trying to get a reaction. Nothing. I grab a lollipop. Sugar usually does it. Not this time. Around 10 my husband says, “stay calm, she’s just sleeping. You should try it, too.” Not interested. But he was, so I said sure, you go ahead, and I’ll try. By 10:45 or so I had sort of fallen asleep.

12:30am: My dog wakes me up to take him out. As I’m walking down and then back up our three flights of stairs I’m simultaneously willing LW to wake up and reassuring myself that everything is totally fine and I should just go back to sleep as quickly as possible.

3:00am: I’m wide awake and trying to determine the last time I felt movement. Was it just after dinner? No, that can’t be right… that’s like eight hours? I poke some more. I wait. And wait. I Google, but very carefully. Because there are really terrifying things on the internet at 3am when looking for solutions for “decreased fetal movement 36 weeks.” Bad. Things.

4:00am: The dark thoughts roll in. Dark. All logic is out the window. I want to call the doctor but the idea of confirming the dark thoughts is not something I’m able to fully grasp. I keep poking and waiting and worrying that my healthy Little Wookiee isn’t so anymore.

4:30am: I walk into the nursery, with a death grip on my phone, and make the call to the doctor’s answering service. I explain. I’m told I’ll receive a call back within 30 minutes. I hang up and pace.

4:35am: The on-call midwife calls. I explain. She tells me I did the right thing by calling. Suggests I drink a very large glass of ice water and wait a few minutes. If I still don’t feel 10 kicks in the next 30 minutes it’s time to go into the OBED for a non-stress test. I drink so much water. I wait.

4:45am: I got back upstairs, wake my husband and tell him we need to go to the hospital because I did all the things and nothing. I go back downstairs for more water. Drink. Back upstairs to get dressed.

4:50am: I feel something. And then another something. I tell my husband LW is on the move. There are tears behind my eyes but I can’t cry. Within another few minutes LW gets sassy and gives two very powerful kicks. I count 25 kicks in that 30 minutes since I spoke to the midwife. I’m breathing normally again.

5:00am: I call the midwife again to confirm I don’t need to go into the OBED. Thank her profusely for her patience.

Ice water is my best friend.

Week 19: This is us

Leave a comment

19wks

Yesterday I finally started to feel like this family of three thing could actually stick.

We had our mid-pregnancy ultrasound / anatomy scan and got to see the Little Wookiee in all the glory. A few pregnant or new mom friends had told me about how incredible this ultrasound would be, and I wasn’t disappointed. I didn’t know most of what I was looking at, but seeing sections of LW’s brain, blood flow into the umbilical cord… it is remarkable the detail made possible by technology.

Watching LW flip around, albeit being pretty uncooperative to the tech, I was smitten. Grown from the 5BB embaby into this real thing. Squirming around at pressure of the ultrasound wand.

It was a little mind-blowing, though, to watch the flipping on the screen — and know that movement in happening inside of me — and not be able to feel it yet. I think I’ve felt LW once or twice to date — just a brief twinge like some of the books describe — but nothing more definitive yet. Seeing it happen was pretty crazy.

We got a great report on LW’s growth, thankfully. I’d started to get a little more comfortable, and a little less anxious, when my belly started to pop about a week and a half ago. I was ready to pick out the nursery paint. I was spending more than half my time in maternity clothes. But not knowing what was really happening in there was still intimidating. I felt like I was standing on the line of a safe zone to just peer over it, but I wouldn’t step. It was unknown territory.

My husband and I had a conversation just this past weekend about expanding the bubble of people who know we’re expecting. We haven’t been keeping it quiet necessarily, but we weren’t eagerly awaiting a magic date to post it to Facebook either (I kind of have my own internal issues about why and how people share things on Facebook anyway, not to take away from anyone who does choose to make that sort of announcement. I’m just on the fence about it). When pressed by family about such an announcement I’d said, “just let us get through the anatomy scan first.” To me, it felt like a necessary step. Another box to check. A little bit closer to viability. To becoming a family of three.

My husband saw the scan as a formality. Another box, sure, but another chance to see LW. Because things are okay. Everything is okay now, he’d say.

I didn’t disagree, really. In my gut, anyway. But I needed the reassurance of a doctor saying, “it’s all good.” When I heard that, I mentally checked the box and felt better.

(It’s worth noting here that when the doctor came into the room, he didn’t immediately put me at ease. He opened with “As you know, PGS testing isn’t foolproof…” My eyes widened and panic rose. He’d said several more sentences before he registered my reaction and knew to say, “I really should have led with everything looks great…” Sweet jesus. He was a lovely doctor, though.)

Last night, following the ultrasound, my husband checked with me before expanding the bubble. I said okay. It felt like a big deal for me. I’m getting there. To a see a family of three. Us.

Graduation Day 👩‍🎓

2 Comments

I graduated from my fertility clinic on July 4. Independence Day. Fitting, right? The greatest nurse on the planet came in on her day off to share the last appointment with us. Although I felt guilty that she took time out of her far-too-few-days-off, I knew that she would, and I was so grateful to be able to look into her eyes as I said my final thank you. (Although it’s hardly a final thank you since I’ve invited her to be in the delivery room with us.)

After what we’ve been through, I don’t think I’ll ever walk into an ultrasound not feeling at least a little nervous. By then we’d already seen and heard Little Wookiee twice, and my nausea, fatigue and sore boobs told me that things were still moving along in there. But I never feel 100% certain. Although they’ve been stitched up and will some day heal enough to scar, the wounds of infertility are still ever-present.

Following the ultrasound, when the wand was put away, my doctor took my hands in his and told us how excited he was for us. He said that while he was writing an email to my OB giving him my background, it stung at how much disappointment we’d seen when boiled down to a few paragraphs.

“You never gave up.”

He was right; I didn’t. I was very close many, many times. But I kept pumping my body full of hormones and wiping away the tears.

But I don’t see this pregnancy, or Little Wookiee, as a reward for not giving up. This isn’t a lesson about going through really hard shit to get what you want. For me — for us — it’s just not that simple. I’m incredibly happy to be pregnant, of course, but it doesn’t negate what’s happened to bring us here.

We’ve graduated but have a long way to go.

Heartbeat

16 Comments

On Friday, for the first time in the last five and a half harrowing years of infertility, I saw and heard the beating heart of my growing child. No matter the outcome of the next 33 weeks, that swish and flicker is cemented on my own heart.

The whole of last week my brain felt like it was on fire. As much as I was genuinely trying to visualize the outcome I want to see, I couldn’t push away the intense anxiety leading up to the first ultrasound. I’m not being dramatic in saying that it was one of the worst weeks of my life. Every tiny pinch or twinge or pseudo-pain my brain told me, this is it, you’re miscarrying. This is happening again. There’s, unfortunately, nowhere to hide from the negative thoughts in your own brain.

I don’t want this post to be overrun with my anxiety, but I write this to say to anyone else out there in a similar position: I hear you. It is so terrifying to wait while you feel like your mind in running full speed toward a cliff.

On the drive to the clinic, I was, as always, looking for signs, wearing my magic bracelet. Anything to help prepare me for what was to come. The previous night I’d had only bad dreams. I’d texted my best friend that I was sure it was my subconscious telling me it wasn’t going to be okay. She replied, “NOT THIS TIME.” I wanted to believe her. Then, on the radio in the car played the song that I walked down the aisle to at my wedding. It was the first time in at least a week I felt like there wasn’t a boulder resting on my chest.

Fast forward to the exam room. My husband and I didn’t really look at each other while we waited. I don’t think we could. I closed my eyes and silently asked all of the people in my life that I’ve loved who are now gone for this to be okay. Please, let this be okay.

When my doctor and the greatest nurse on the planet entered, the tension was palpable. My doctor asked how I was feeling and I eeked out something to the effect of, “I’m really scared.” He nodded, in his warm way, and said, “I’m terrified.” That actually gave me a lot of comfort. He’s so invested in our outcome.

It didn’t take very long after he’d started the ultrasound for me to see the flicker. I said, quietly, “… is that…?” And he nodded with a huge smile. Then all the tears. I reached for my husband’s hand. I looked at him, and he started to cry, too.

Again, I’ll pause my touching story (ahem) to say here that infertility is incredibly hard on relationships. All relationships, but particularly marriages (or partnerships). Sometimes you feel miles apart in the same room. This moment, watching my Alpha Male ex-cop shows no emotion husband cry at the sight of the ultrasound screen allowed me to reconnect with him, and our passion to have a child. I’m so grateful we could share this.

By this time the greatest nurse on the planet was also openly crying. My doc definitely had tears in his eyes, too. Then he turned on the sound and the swishing of the heartbeat brought on another wave of tears.

giphy

5BB is doing great right now. Heartbeat very strong at 123bpm. Measuring (then) at 6 weeks, 4 days, just one day behind my transfer timeline. All signs are positive. My husband has nicknamed the embaby Little Wookiee.

The adventures of 5BB and the magic bracelet

8 Comments

On the morning of my embryo transfer with 5BB, I was anxious. We’d done this very quiet drive to the clinic three times before, each with a disappointing outcome.

I was looking for meaning in everything that day. Signs. As I do. Shortly after my husband turned on the radio in the car, a cherished song from my young adulthood came on. This song, “Call Me Al,” by Paul Simon, played before every performance I did with my musical theater group in high school. It was our hype song. Good start, universe.

During the transfer, I wore the magic bracelet. My high school best friend sent it to me earlier this year when she heard about my IVF experiences. It’s my favorite color, and reads “Warrior.” Attached to that bracelet is a Greek lucky eye that another friend gave me. I’ve worn that bracelet starting with this second egg retrieval and every important appointment since. A close friend of mine who is also going through IVF has borrowed it for each of her appointments, too. We’ve both had positive outcomes so far, thus dubbing it the magic bracelet.

On the ride home, with 5BB in place, the radio played “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” by Guns n’ Roses. I just stared at my husband like, are you hearing this right now?! The sign wasn’t even lost on him (and he often thinks my “signs” are signs of insanity). Thanks for the encouragement, universe. I needed it.

I spent the rest of the day trying to stay relaxed. I snuggled with our dog. I probably binge-watched something on Netflix, as I’m also known to do.

That evening, we ordered pizza for dinner. Comfort food is the best, isn’t it? When I answered the door for the pizza, the delivery person was very visibly pregnant. Because of course she was.

All of this leads me to later this week when we find out if little 5BB will surpass my previous embabies with a detectable heartbeat.

I’ve had moments in the last two or so weeks since the positive pregnancy test (beta) when I’ve felt excited. And nauseous. And tired. And a lot of the time when, in my gut, this time feels different.

Plenty of other times, of course, I just expect bad news.

I wish I knew what I’d see on the ultrasound later this week. I wish I could prepare for it. The idea that I can reach the six-week (and change) ultrasound and not have my hopes devastated is so foreign to me. But this time could be different. 

Ninth (long sigh) time’s a charm? Another TWW

6 Comments

Embryo 5BB is in and we’re in the dreaded two week wait. When I realized this was our ninth medically-assisted attempt to get pregnant I felt pretty deflated. We’re so far down this road.

Then I started to feel the twinges. Of implantation? Could be! My boobs are sore. Because 5BB is settling in? Perhaps! My lunch is feeling far from appetizing? Maybe yay!

I’m cautiously optimistic. 

I’ve said that before.

Infertility is such a mindfuck.

When your anxiety is as high as your estrogen

9 Comments

My husband called it “estroxiety.”

It is transfer week, which means it is crawllllling by at a snail’s pace. Aside from the side effects of my BFF Estrace — of which I have many — my mental health feels a bit like a teeter-totter. One moment: OMG I AM SO EXCITED THIS IS GOING TO FINALLY WORK ALL CAPS EVERYWHERE! The next:

giphy1

Actual footage of me?

Don’t get me wrong, not going into an embryo transfer blindly for once is a welcome change. I know my doctor (well, actually, not my Peyton Manning doctor because he will be on vacation) will place little PGS-normal 5BB in my now-optimized for receptivity uterus. Because my ERA test revealed that my lining is 12-hours pre-receptive, we’ve moved my PIO shots to the mornings, giving me an extra dose before the actual transfer. The same biopsy revealed no recurrence of endometritis either. So, basically, my uterus is as ready to grow a baby as it probably ever has been. I’m set up for success. Even my clinic’s internal stats on a a PGS-normal resulting in pregnancy and a live birth are killer.

And yet, the pressure is getting to me. My stomach is doing flip-flops. I’m not falling asleep easily and sleeping fitfully. My brain keeps telling me that normal embryos fail all the time. I’ve had anxiety before transfers in the past, but this is so heightened. I’m so hyper-aware that it could be successful and that’s just not my normal. I’ve had nothing but failure to point to; I’ve settled in and stayed awhile. As miserable as infertility makes me, it is my normal. I’m not resigned to it, but it is always there. It’s been the focus of my life for more than five years and it has become my every day. Popping Estrace pills morning, noon and night; the sore injection sites from the PIO; lying back and putting my feet in the stirrups for internal ultrasounds every few days. This is my life. It sucks so much, but there’s something that has become so comfortable, too.

Like many Type-A people, if I’m not good at something almost immediately I tend not to like it very much. I despise mediocrity in myself. When I was eight years old I played the saxophone for a little under a year. I was pretty terrible, and I quit because I knew I wouldn’t ever be first (or even second) chair in the elementary school band. Instead I did something I was much better at (cheerleading [current me still doesn’t fully comprehend how I was a cheerleader my entire childhood]), and spent the next 10 years engrossed in that. Captaining teams, winning an award or two and being pretty good at something like the Type-A in me wanted.

Somehow, I’ve never quit this. I’ve pushed through even though I am clearly terrible at creating babies. Infertility has taught me an awful lot about failure. And, in turn, resilience. It has absolutely shaped who I am as a 36-year-old woman.

With success as close as it has probably ever been, it is out of my hands now (and soon to be in my uterus). I have, officially, all the feels.

Also, f#*k you, Estrace.

Infertility grief

And then there were two: PGS results

5 Comments

After the cliffhanger of my last post, I’ll go ahead and immediately spoil the ending of this one with the title. We have two PGS-normal embryos.

TWO. NORMAL. EMBRYOS.

I felt a little like this:

giphy

Okay, rewind… As of day 3, I had 14. I knew well enough to know that over the next two and three days, the lab would see a drop-off of at least half, and I was fine with that. The entire goal of Stim Part Deux: Electric Boogaloo was quality over quantity. Quantity, in my previous experience, hasn’t made a damn bit of difference for me. Five of my six embryos from my first stim cycle didn’t stick, and Kristoff, the lone embryo still frozen, had the lowest grading of that pack. The odds weren’t in his favor.

Quality, of course, is much harder to measure. I’d done the work I could do to potentially improve the quality of my much-older-than-my-age-and-AMH eggs by losing 35 pounds. But, other than feeling better than I had in a long time, I didn’t know if that would prove fruitful fertility-wise.

When day 5 arrived I think I stared at my phone all day. For previous updates the lab had emailed me in the morning, so by lunchtime I was a ball of anxiety. Did this mean none had progressed? Was the news so bad that the lab would have my doctor break it to me? What day is it? Do I still remember how to count to five? By 3:00, I simply couldn’t stand it anymore and emailed the greatest nurse on the planet. Hey if you could just do me a solid and walk down the hall to the lab… She was like calm down, crazy, since you’re doing PGS the lab will wait until tomorrow to give you the final results of how many made it to blastocyst to be biopsied.

“However, you have 2 for biopsy today 🙂 And likely many more for tomorrow. Yay!!!!”

There was crying.

Day 6 went by so damn slowly. But then the email came…

Five.

Plus, Kristoff had survived the thaw for biopsy and continued to develop.

Even more crying. So much crying that my husband only understood every seven words that I said on the phone when I called with the news.

Six embryos held all of my hopes and dreams: 5BB, 5BB, 6AA, 5AA, 5CB and 5BC. No pressure, kids, but my entire future is riding on you…

The nine days between hearing that number from the lab and getting the call from the greatest nurse on the planet with our PGS results were absolutely on-par with the two-week wait. I did my best to stay busy and keep my mind occupied, but if I’m being real those results were the only thing of substance I could think about.

On the afternoon when my nurse called, she admitted she was very scared to tell me there were two normal embryos. Two of six is a poor ratio, all things considered. But as soon as she said two, everything else fell away. I’d save the questions about the others for another day. When you’re terrified that you’re going to hear zero, two sounds like a million. I was so unbelievably grateful for two.

Lots more crying. All the crying.

So here we are… Two. It’s my new favorite number.

–

Ps… Kristoff wasn’t one of the normals. And she’s actually a Kristoffina.

Infertility is really just a crap-ton of waiting

8 Comments

I’m a few days from starting my period. While nothing tops the two-week wait (TWW) on the anxiety scale, the time waiting to start your next IVF cycle is also stressful. In early January my husband and I repeated our lab work, and I had my 8,000th mock transfer and saline ultrasound to ensure all systems were go to start my last stim cycle. Other than a high TSH (thyroid) level, I’m all set. I wasn’t that surprised that my thyroid check was elevated since I’d been off my hypothyroidism meds for about 10 weeks because it conflicted with the prescribed appetite suppressant I was on for weight loss.

[Quick update on the weight loss: Somehow I’ve managed to quell my emotional eating inner demons, and am down 29.5 pounds! I picked up good habits and flipped that elusive switch that allowed me to rethink how I approach food. Particularly sugar. Perhaps the only person more surprised with my progress than me is my husband who knew all too well how unlikely I was to follow-through with this. It certainly has been challenging, but it’s pretty nice to feel like I am crushing. it. in just this one aspect of my life. Having said that, I’m about to stim again with hormones aplenty, so we’ll see what I’m made of over the next few weeks.]

It feels like there’s nothing but waiting. It’s often infuriating. Particularly in those rare time frames when I actually feel physically and emotionally ready to go down the IVF rabbit hole again. Like, ya know, now.

The downtime between completing one cycle and starting another always varies wildly. In my case, it’s almost always been months when it comes to IVF. I did my first stim (and fresh transfer) in June 2016. In fertility terms, that’s probably 25 potentially good eggs ago. Who knows if it was one of those “wasted” eggs that was the golden one?

Then we did our first FET in November 2016. Bust. The second FET didn’t happen for another ten months. Then I got a little bit pregnant. While money was probably the most significant factor in that span of time, getting answers to why three perfectly normal-looking embryos in an otherwise healthy woman simply didn’t stick (spoiler alert: it was endometritis) was also on the list. Not to mention my emotional health.

Moving into this last cycle, we’re already several months removed from the chemical pregnancy, and we’ve decided to leave our last frozen embryo from our OG stim cycle in the freezer (we’ll test Kristoff with his future embryo sibs). Which, another aside: If Kristoff is the ONE embryo that turns out to be genetically normal after PGS I think my brain may actually explode.

While the Clomid made me insane and pack on the pounds, at least IUIs keep the pace moving. I knocked a bunch of those out in a couple of months.

So we’re into another year of this waiting. Year five. We’ve reached the five-year milestone in infertility even before we did in our marriage. How’s that irony. Just delightful.

giphy