16dpo beta

98. Not a complete disaster, but not great. Average is about 200 at this point. Assuming perfect doubling (ha! ha!) best-case scenario is a 15dpo of 75ish, which translates into about a 60% chance of live birth, 40% miscarriage/chemical according to my favorite oracle. It's not chasing unicorns, but it's certainly chasing... something that runs away, but is sometimes a catchable. A chicken? Fine, a chicken. Chasing chickens does have a certain "going in circles over the same ground" quality that seems appropriate.

I am so sick of this bullshit, I can't even tell you.

So now I'm passing the time until Monday. I was really hoping not to use the tag "beta hell" for this cycle.

Just waiting, now.

Thank you, everyone, for your kind commiserations. It really does help.

I'm pretty okay. I talked with my RE last night, and he agreed that there was no real reason to keep taking the PIO. We'll be checking my hcg again on Friday; hopefully it will be going down on its own in a peaceable, orderly fashion. Hopefully then my progesterone will also fall; even though I'm no longer supplementing it, since I did ovulate my body is likely producing some on its own and I won't bleed until it shuts down production.

Last night, I:

1. Had a glass of wine;
2. Let myself use my laptop in my favorite position, with it balanced on my stomach otter-fashion;
3. Did not have a 1.5" needle jammed into my ass.

So the evening was not without its redeeming features. This morning, I had real coffee, with real caffeine.

I don't know. Three chemical pregnancies, one with a barely-there beta, two with decent enough but non-doubling betas. Once might be misfortune, but twice starts to look like carelessness. Chromosomal issues? Immune issues? Does it matter? Should I just keep slinging embryos in there and wait for one to stick? Obviously one did stick, three years ago.

I'm tired. I'm sad. I'm displeased that I have such a strong feeling of anger towards myself for being optimistic, for believing that dark line 4dp5dt, for typing information into a due-date calculator. Part of me says "Oh, really, you knew better than that. An old campaigner like you should know by now that two lines on a pee-stick do not necessarily equal a gurgling infant nine months later."

But... I don't want to be that person. I don't think there's anything particularly evolved about being cynical and pessimistic. Optimism is the more difficult path, and the better one. I should be proud that I managed to be so excited and happy. But I can't help looking back and wincing at myself, shouting back into time shut up shut up shut up close that browser window, girl, you're not going to need that mei tai.

Maybe it's my Jewish cultural conditioning, the idea that rejoicing about anything is like waving a red flag at the evil spirits and saying "come get me". Maybe it's an ugly streak of my psyche that snottily finds anything preferable to being a fool.

5dp5dt:: BFN

Sparkling white, glittering white, white like an Alpine peak, white like a Tea Party rally.

Some might say that it's early to feel pessimistic about this cycle, but I don't like to leave things till the last minute¹. I don't know. I've felt sort of off, grungy, a bit wrong -- I thought maybe it Meant Something -- but right this second I think maybe it means that I'm taking large amounts of exogenous hormones.

So I'm looking forward a bit. I can do probably one more FET. Just one? you might ask. But I thought you had a cool dozen-plus-two embryos on ice!

On transfer day, we had the unpleasant surprise of learning that seven embryos had to be defrosted in order for us to get two to transfer. This is an abysmal thaw rate; thaw rates (for vitrified embryos) are usually between 50-90%. I don't know whether there's something about my embryos that makes them freeze/thaw badly, whether the lab didn't do a good job freezing them, or whether the lab didn't do a good job thawing them. Regardless, I now have 7 embryos left, two frozen using the rapid-vitrification and five slow-frozen. Slow-frozen embryos usually have much worse thaw rates than vitrified, although much worse than 2/7 is *scribbles on piece of paper* approximately crap%. So... I don't have quite the bounty that I thought I had. I can probably get one more FET out of it, though. And after that, it's back into the fray.

¹This is a lie.

Schrödinger's Fetus

My uterus
contains two embryos. Quantum theory says, I guess, that they are neither alive nor dead. In general, this explains why quantum theory is something that I never intend to trouble my pretty little mind with in any sort of systematic way.

But right now, specifically, at this moment, I am a fan of quantum theory. I much prefer to spend the next few days thinking of the embryos as neither alive nor dead. It's painful to think that it could be all over already, and I just don't know it yet. Better to think that they are neither until the instant that first drop of pee hits the peestick.

Where we are
1 day past 5 day transfer of 2 embryos (both 3BB).

How we got here
For a while I'd been making noises about trying for another "starting around Small Boy's second birthday." He turned two on Tuesday. Wednesday we transferred two defrosted embryos.

Things that are true #1: this is nothing, nothing, nothing like the past three attempts.
I am in no way discounting the acute pain that secondary infertility causes some people when I say oh my fucking god so much better. Last time, failure was "dangling over the abyss." This time, failure is "not getting what I want". I mean, I know I would have survived, I would have had to, people do. But every time I thought of it, my brain just blurred into pain. Now? I'm not as flippant as I hoped I might be; I care. I care a lot. But... my worst-case scenario is not the abyss. It is (kinnehorah-inshallah-god willin-and-the-creek-don't-rise) only raising my funny, fascinating son.

I can never feel hard-done-by. I have him, and while I may not be grateful every day, I am at least grateful every second or third day.

Things that are true #2: this is nothing compared to the physical devastation of my fresh cycles.
Frozen embryo transfers are so low-key that they barely register. It don't mean a thing if it don't involve a sharps container, you know? Take some pills. Stuff some gel up your vagina. After a couple of weeks, stick a couple of embryos in there and see what happens.

C'mon. At no time during this cycle have I been able to say "breathing hurts". Calling that a win.

Things that are true #3: this is still amazingly nerve-wracking. Maybe it's the hormones; although there are no injections (my protocol was strictly Estrace - Crinone) there are still tons of hormones floating around my brain. Or maybe it's that it's impossible to ignore the magnitude of what we're trying to do and the difference it could make in all of our lives.

So the request I am making to the universe: please. I am so grateful for what I have. Can I have some more?



Procedural notes for record-keeping:
D3 E2 = 52 FSH = 7.9

7dp3dt: nope

I was nervous and sickish all day, because the last time I got a positive on the evening of 5dp5dt, which equates to 7dp3dt.

Not this time. Stolidly negative.

I can't decide whether I should be holding on to hope or preparing myself for failure. I believe that attitude counts for bupkiss, so it's strictly a question of what will serve me better. Probably that means I should be steeling myself for the negative. After all, no one needs preparation to be happy.

Right now, in my progesterone funk, all I can think is I can't do this. But of course I can, and I will. I'm not close to quitting, and the alternative to quitting is marching on. My insurance allows three IVF attempts, but unlimited IUIs. I could keep going for a long time. I don't know what else to do.

Let's think about this logically

Things that probably caused this pregnancy loss:

1. My finding out the due date
2. My googling strollers
3. My googling area daycares
4. My calculating my sick and vacation days for FMLA
5. My researching area hospitals
6. My mentally practicing telling my parents and 91-year old grandmother
7. My googling "babylegs"
8. My joining one of those due-date threads on an IVF discussion board
9. My looking at all the Burt's Bees "Mama Bee" products on drugstore.com
10. The many hours I spent each day with my laptop wedged on my abdomen, pumping EMFs into Baby
11. The huge amount of soy protein I ate while sick with OHSS
12. OHSS
13. My vaguely maybe-diagnosed PCOS
14. Bisphenol-A
15. Bears
16. Chromosomal abnormalities incompatible with fetal development.

All my the symptoms are now really really annoying. My hip is messed up and painful from having spent a week and a half sleeping sitting up in an armchair. I'm still massively bloated. Burping, fatigue, frequent peeing and aching breasts? Suddenly not quite such a rollicking adventure.

I keep eagerly rushing to the bathroom to see if I've started bleeding. Not even spotting yet. I just want this to be over.

Also, thank you so much for the kind comments. I keep refreshing the page and re-reading them. They really mean a lot to me.

I knew this was a solid chance, especially given the beta drama. But for all my defensive pessimism, the truth is that I was convinced that it would all be Just Fine, that the worrying was a obeisence to the gods in order to make everything work out well. Because, you see, my name is in the opening credits. My narcissism on some level believed that the writers would opt for the happy ending. Doesn't everyone love a happy ending?

1dp5dt

Stuff that's going on:

• Cramps. I'm torn between thinking whoopee, that's implantation right there! and thinking man, I am going to start menstruating the second my progesterone goes down low enough, because my body is dying to expel some lining right now.
• None of yesterday's excess batch made it to freeze. 5 frozen is just fine, a very good outcome, but I'm just amazed at how the numbers winnow at every point in this process. 25 eggs > 21 mature eggs > 16 fertilized > 15 embryos > 6 blastocysts.
• I have officially "peed out" the trigger shot, which is to say that I am no longer getting positive tests on my pee sticks. We will now enter a brief, brief time period of no-stick-peeing before I start peeing in earnest.
• I already have plans for the next cycle if this doesn't work. I don't do positive thinking. I'm all about the defensive pessimism.