Srsly?

833.

Eight hundred and thirty freakin three.

That's all my body could pump out today. I want to cry.

Trying to stay positive. Trying. It's very hard.

Same dosage of Gonal F tonight, then when I'm in for monitoring tomorrow they want to add 150IU of Bravelle to see if that will help. Awesome. More money. Love it. Can't wait.

I'm desperately trying to look on the bright side. I haven't stalled, and the number hasn't gone down. But surely the universe could do a bit better than this?

And to top it all off it looks like my right ovary is out of commission. I have a 1.5 cyst there and only one other follicle measuring 1.0 - which is what it's been for a few days. So I'm pretty much relying on my super high up left ovary - the one that hurts like a mofo during u/s when it starts to get full. I just keep trying to tell myself that I should be grateful this is not an IVF cycle, since my left ovary is notoriously hard to get to given its location. And yet still it's got seven follicles on the go, which can't be all bad.

How insane...my follicles are growing exactly the way they're supposed to but there's just no estrogen support. I just don't get it!

I guess we'll likely be stimming a bit longer and with more drugs. So Kate, if you're reading this I would like to take you up on your very generous offer - can you email me at jshtoronto@yahoo. ca so we can talk? Thanks so much.

Hopefully it will all turn out okay in the end, but getting there is certainly not the fun part of this journey.

Limbo is my middle name

Seriously, I'm headed down to formally change my name. I spend enough time in limbo, I might as well own it. Make it a formal part of me. Claim it. Run with it.

So yes, you guessed it...in limbo once more.

E2 today was 673.

Fuck.

Not low enough to cancel according to Dr. H. who called me himself. Ya know, it's never a good thing when he calls you personally; it just seems ominous. But I suppose it has to do with the fact that he and I had a little hallway chat as I was leaving this morning. The topic? Of course...my lagging estrogen.

He is once again stumped by my body. Says that this lack of response makes little sense. I've had no suppression whatsoever (we started on a random day when my levels were at day 3) and I haven't taken anything fertility related in almost a year. He just doesn't get it.

Well sir, that makes two of us.

We talked briefly about cancellation - the pros and cons. He knows that we don't have roll-around-on-the-bed piles of money to work with, so he's wonderfully cognizant of that as we discuss going forward.

But with this jump, he now wants to take things day by day. Which again, sounds so familiar - 'cause it's exactly what happened last time.

Last cycle on day 4 my E2 was 550. So higher than the 350 I had this cycle on day 4. But my day 6 last cycle was a mere 737, which is much closer to the 673 I got today, and we still ended up with seven mature eggs from that cycle.

Now I'm going to close my eyes and hope beyond hope that tomorrow's numbers jump that bit more - and maybe, just maybe, actually go a little higher than last cycle's day 7, which was 1063.

So if you're reading this, might you do me a wee favour? Can you visualize a number higher than that for me for tomorrow? I figure the more brains we get on this, the greater the chances of success. Kinda like all that The Secret mumbo jumbo; the power of positive thinking; if you think it, it will rise. You know. That stuff.

Please, please, please, universe. Be nice to me. It would be a welcome change.

I wonder if straightjackets come in pink?

Day 5. Another day where nothing happens. Just waiting. And more drug taking. And hoping that there will be a nice spike in my E2 tomorrow.

I'm starting to get a really bad - and sadly, really familiar - feeling about all this.

I barely know why I hope for the best anymore. My motto in everything has always been 'hope for the best and prepare for the worst', which is insanely appropriate in infertility land. I'm very, very good at preparing for the worst because let's face it - it's what I've lived. Over and over again. And yet somehow I still cling to the faintest of hope and more often than not I'm just left disappointed and asking myself why did I even bother to hope? Again?

Man, would I love nothing more than to be wrong. To have egg on my face and come back tomorrow and post, 'sorry guys. False alarm. All is well, number jumped nicely today after all,' when I just can't see it happening. Because truly, it just doesn't happen for me. Like, ever. So why should this time be any different?

Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result? Shouldn't I be bound up in a straightjacket, rocking back and forth in the corner of my very own padded room by now!?

Sorry - just feeling a little woe is me, that's all. I feel like we've just been at this enough, it's time to get fucking pregnant and be done with it. It's my turn, dammit. And I'm sick of waiting for it.

Even the nurse in the fertility clinic commented on it the other day whilst I snapped a picture of the funky new coat rack that I'd been advocating for for years. I told her I knew it was kinda offbeat to be snapping pictures of a coat rack, and she said, 'you're turning weird. We need to get you pregnant and out of here already!'

So true. So freakin true. Now if only she could make it happen.

So here's hoping my levels increase tomorrow, and if they don't, that Dr. H. agrees to up my dosage and give that a try. I just don't know how I would take getting cancelled - and trying to find an additional $2000 to re-buy the Gonal F we were generously given to start yet another cycle if this one goes tits up.

I hate being nervous about all this. Hate having my hopes dashed against the rocks of reality over and over again. I just feel like we deserve a break, finally, ya know?

Sigh.

Off to do my shot.

Lazy, hazy days of summer

Sweet Jeebus it's hot.

And hazy.

It's the kind of day where you walk outside and instantly slllooooooow down. The humidity pulls the very fluid out of your lungs and deposits it all over your body as sweat. You feel your brain slowing down too, and instantly turn stoopid.

And sadly, I think the heat is getting to my ovaries too, 'cause they seem to be responding like the rest of my body on this hot, hazy day. Just too danged slow.

Today is day four of stims, so I was up early this morning (5:45am) to head into the city for the day four check. I'm still on vacation today and tomorrow, so I wanted to beat the rush hour traffic. Hopped in the car and it wasn't too bad, but man, I know why I could never do that every day. Yeesh!

Anyway, got to the clinic in decent time, found street parking, and waited my turn.

Ultrasound is kinda wonky, but it's still early so I'm not too worried, in the grand scheme of things. Looks like they're still not sure if the 1.5 on the right is a cyst or a follicle but it hasn't grown at all in a few weeks so we're still thinking cyst. No other follies showing up at the minimum .9 stage. On the left, 1.3, 1.1, 0.9. I had a 1.4 cyst before but either it's gone now or has shrunken - but they don't question whether the 1.3 is cyst or follicle, so who knows.

So then it was the wait for blood work. Drove home, gassed up the car, got my new GO train pass, picked up some breakfast for Hubs (who's also off today and tomorrow). We did a bit of cleaning, then decided to get out and do something. We'd originally planned to go to a provincial park for the day to swim and have a picnic, but not in 44 degree heat. Just not going to happen!

Instead we headed over to the Ajax casino. We'd never been and I just kinda felt like it. I love me some slots.

I was down a bit early on, then found a machine I loved. And when I'd won $66.50 on one pull, I decided it was time to cash out, up $40 from what we'd had walking in. Woot!

As we were leaving I looked over at Hubs and said, 'hope we didn't use up all our luck here today - we still need it!', and we both just smiled.

After hitting up Los Cabos for lunch, I got my phone call and realized how sadly prophetic that statement would be.

My estrogen is only 356. It should be higher - much higher. In fact, this is the lowest estrogen level I've had on day four in all four cycles that I've been keeping track. Lower, sadly, than it was on the cycle we were cancelled. So I'm feeling very stressed out about how things are going to proceed from here - indeed IF they will continue to proceed at all from here.

Bah.

Ever been tempted to just up your dosage on your own? Yeah? I have, every single cycle. I've never done it, but man oh man, it will take everything in my being to only dial up 300IU tonight.

Here's hoping that things improve with Wednesday's next check in. Keep your fingers crossed for me, will ya?

Back on the highway tomorrow

So yeah, day three. As I mentioned before, nothing much exciting happens on day three.

Whoop.

Hubs was working today so I had lunch with my dad, then did some reading.

Wild.

Told ya.

Headache seems to have gone now, thankfully. That Advil did the trick.

Only really semi interesting thing to report is that I had some mega painful stabby pains in what I'm assuming is my right ovary last night while lying in bed. I figure it might have been the cyst acting up (I have one on each ovary) but guess we'll figure that out tomorrow!

Must run now. Time to go to be since I have to be up around 5:30 to get to the clinic on time. Stoopid rush hour traffic.

Should have something approaching interesting tomorrow. Then again it's still so early who really knows?

Glass half full

So here we are, day two.

Whoopie.

Nothing of substance happens on day two. You take your shot, and move on to day three.

Or, you remind yourself of all the things you should (or shouldn't) be doing when stimming, and mentally play games with yourself to see which rules to play by, which to bend, and which to out and out break.

Take caffeine, for example.

I'm not a huge caffeine freak, but I am very seriously impacted by it. Like, can't have caffeine after 4pm if I want to be asleep before 11pm. Like, must have first cup of coffee in the morning in order to function like something approaching a human being. Even though I generally drink one cup a day, it's an extra large, and it's entirely personality transforming.

Started stims last night, so had to make a caffeine decision this morning. Came downstairs after waking up at 10am (was up early the day before to get to the clinic so sleeping in was bliss), looked at the then-empty coffee pot, and drew my line in the sand.

I chose the uber wishy washy way out. Half of the coffee that went in the filter was leaded, the other half decaf. I sat on the fence and made a pot of half-caf coffee.

I figure at this point, why the hell not? It's not like a cup of coffee is going to prevent my ovaries from making good use of the magic drugs. So I'm saying a very meek and mild 'to hell with it!' and continuing to keep caffeine, albeit less, in my daily routine.

What I forgot all about, however, were the headaches. Not sure if it's from less caffeine or from the Gonal F, but I have a doozy that's now well over nine hours long. Which brings up debate number two - Advil or no Advil?

You don't take Advil when pregnant, this I know. Understand. Great. Now generally while cycling, many of us superstitious, extra cautious folk follow the pregnancy rules to be safe. So I figured that since I'd already pushed the proverbial envelope by half caf-ing my coffee, I'd better slow down the crazy train before bad things happened. So I took Tylenol instead.

And it did nothing.

Booooo me.

So now I sit here, head pounding. Waiting for hubs to come home from work (one more hour now) and for the dudes working on finally putting our patio into the backyard to finish up for the day (about ten minutes from now). I have pretty nails since I managed to squeak in a mani/pedi, and I'm cruising all my fave websites, trying to determine if now is a good time to list more of my wares on my Etsy site.

These are the days of our lives.

Yes my friends, this is just how boring a day two can really be.

Day three's not much more exciting, so if you're hoping for an amping up in the excitement level for tomorrow's entry I'll just burst your bubble right now. It's really better this way.

And now I'm going to do something really bad ass.

I'm going to go take an Advil.

Look at me, I'm on a horse.

Look at me. Now look at my husband. My poor husband.

I'm about to start stims again.

I'm getting back on that horse.

It's scary as hell.

We haven't done a single thing fertility wise since our epic fail IVF cycle last August/September. Nothing. Nada. Sure, I've been taking CoQ10 in insanely high dosages since our review appointment last October in an effort to improve my apparently crap egg quality. That needed at least three months to (hopefully) have some kind of impact. Why go with three months when you can try nine? Surely that has to be three times as effective, no?

Yeah, I don't believe it either. But it's fun to say.

So, catching up.

We had said review appointment October 10, 2009. I was pretty much sure that it was the end of the road for us - that IVF was our only option, and with everything else going on, we just couldn't continue to pay for everything involved. And that's when Dr. H told us he had an idea.

It's a pretty crazy idea, but sometimes certain ideas are just crazy enough to work.

As you may know, I have PCOS. So I make lots of eggs, but they suck. Apparently I'm all about quantity over quality. And where that may be beneficial in particular circumstances, getting pregnant is not one of them. You need at least one good egg to get this party started, and, well, my eggs just aren't party caliber.

So he suggested that we use my ability to crank out lots of eggs to our advantage, believing that sooner or later, one of them has to be good. And, hopefully, good enough to actually be fertilized, become an embryo, and stick where it's supposed to.

Therefore instead of IVF which is expensive and doesn't really seem to be working well anyway, he suggested what he calls a high stim IUI. Basically I take all the drugs as if I was doing IVF, but when the time comes I'll trigger, ovulate all the eggs I produce on my own (gulp!) and do two back to back IUI's. And cross our fingers that out of the 4-12 eggs he's hoping to recruit, one of them (and just one, lest hubby pitch himself out the window) will make it to the head of the class and do the rumba with hubby's swimmers. And then stick. For good.

Finally.

So yay! This sounds like a good option! Way less expensive - $600 for an IUI versus $11,000 for IVF? Where do I sign? Sure, we have to buy all the IVF drugs which, for me, amount to around $4,000. A bit of a ding, but again - we're saving $11,000. Okay.

Then we figure out timing. Need a minimum of three months to let the CoQ10 do it's magic. Earliest is therefore early January. Didn't want to cycle in the winter and needed hubby to finish school and get a job so we were more financially sound, so that brought us to the spring. But we weren't ready.

Then we thought we'd be able to start May-ish, but I had a conference in Edmonton to travel to and didn't want to be stressing over timing so nope! Wait 'til I'm home from that.

Then...well, we might as well just wait until I get my bonus to pay for everything so we're not abjectly poor while trying to live the rest of our daily lives. Yeah, that sounds good.

Sooooo, I plan it out. Call the clinic, tell them I want to come for a random day three mid June. That way I can take provera, bring on a fresh cycle, then we can get started right as we get close to my bonus payout.

In I go, full bladder at the ready, marvelling at all the new staff faces at the fertility clinic. How the hell long have I been gone!?

And of course, my body has other plans. Despite the fact that I'm already at cycle day 70-something, my body is apparently stuck at day 3 levels. Estrogen is good, lining is light, no need to bring on a new cycle, I'm ready to go.

BUT WAIT!

I'm not actually ready to go! This puts a mega wrinkle in my plan! We won't have the money in time! I don't want to have to go downtown for monitoring or the IUI during the flipping G20!

Thankfully they understood and allowed me to pick my go forward date.

Which is today.

Not to be daunted by a wrinkle in my plans, I did some clever recalculations and decided that this made the most sense. If everything was set, I would start stims today and the IUI would be on a Monday/Tuesday so we could have an ultrasound guided IUI (they don't do those on weekends).

All I needed was my body to cooperate. And for a change, it apparently has.

Estrogen 202. FSH 4.8. Lining .56. And I'm back on that horse.

I take my first shot tonight - 300 IU of Gonal F. The equivalent of what would be well over $300 if it wasn't for the most wonderful, amazing generosity of a stranger (now friend) in internetland who knew we were cycling again. She had meds left over that were going to expire before she could get back on this horse. So when she heard I was going to be cycling again she contacted me and offered me what she had.

And what she had was over $3,000 worth of the good stuff that I needed.

Yeah. Isn't that amazing? She gave it to me. Out of the goodness of her (and her lovely hubby - don't want to leave him out!) heart. I was touched, humbled, and so overwhelmingly grateful.

Needless to say they got a nice, big bouquet of flowers from me when I stopped by their house to pick it all up! T and F, if you're reading this, I can't ever thank you both enough and I wish you nothing but joy and success on this road we're both forced to walk. Let's get together again soon.

So that's the update! Stims start tonight, likely around 10:00pm. It's going to be the weirdest thing, really. I'm not nervous, generally, because I pretty much know what to expect from these drugs. This is round number five of injectibles so yeah, I'm a veteran.

I'm going to be using this blog as a way to update those of you that are interested in how we're doing because I'll be staying rather mute on WB and Facebook. Not that I don't want people to know, but because that many people knowing, even if they're rooting and hoping and praying for you, is pressure, man! So much pressure. And I hate feeling like I'm letting everyone down when things don't work. So this time I'm going to hold my cards a bit closer to my vest this time and see how that goes.

Therefore, I ask that if you're reading this you PLEASE refrain from making any cycle related comments on WB or FB. Thanks muchly. Tis appreciated.

Here we go again!!!!!!!!! I've got my drugs and my talisman (she's pink!) so let's rock this thing.