The day before beta

Jest passin' the time. Every now and then I pee on a piece of cardboard, squint, and alternately decide

a) it's wayyy darker omg must start googling strollers now! now! how are we going to afford daycare? should I try for a VBAC?
b) it's wayyy lighter and I wonder if I'll get all the way to misoprostol, now my preferred abortifacient, or if it'll poop out on its own.

Neither of these reactions is either warranted or helpful.

I'm just not very good at sitting and waiting.

I'm going to be in a meeting for most of tomorrow. I've asked the nurse to email me the beta results. Probably my favorite thing about this practice is that they don't mind emailing results.  I have some serious PTSD from the hold music at my last REs. I'd be waiting and waiting and listening to the loop and my heart pound and pretty soon my blood pressure started to shoot up as soon as the music started. Plus I'm always afraid I'll hear something wrong or write it down wrong or something. With email there is only the barest pause between seeing that I have the email and seeing the results. 

So. Tomorrow.

Pills and newborns and ramblings

The first step to an IVF cycle is the taking of birth control pills, and believe me, the irony of this is lost on no one.

I hate this bit. They make me depressed, they make me nauseated, and I have the sneaking suspicion that they're not actually necessary. But I'm also apparently not interested in fighting it, so the little yellow pills I do pop.

I just got back from a solo cross-country visit with my best friend and her family, which consists of a husband, two preschoolers, a two month old baby, and an adolescent dog the size of a Shetland pony.

I had a great time. I was a bit nervous that my Crazy would boil over and get all over the newborn's sweet fuzzy head -- this is the baby that BFF was pregnant with while I was (briefly) pregnant with the Sea Monkeys, and I had so fondly imagined us being the mothers of newborns together.

But it was better than fine.  There was a certain leaning-on-the-bruise aspect, but it was far outweighed by the sensory delight of handling a tiny baby again. I got to wear him a good deal, and I love wearing babies. I smelled his head and stroked his wee crumpled hands and gave him bottles and it was not even bittersweet, just sweet with a side of wistful.

The only really painful moment was an unexpected one -- I was wearing him on my back and BFF and I were picking up the two older kids from nursery school. One of the other moms was chatting and airily said to BFF, upon being told that I was visiting "Oh, my best friend doesn't have kids either, it's great because they can help out, huh?"  It was a perfectly innocent thing to say, but I was just overwhelmed with ouch and couldn't say a thing back. I just froze. What felt like a year and was probably a few seconds later, BFF firmly corrected  her and said "no, she has a little boy at home with her partner".  And the world started again and everything was fine.

I mean, it wasn't a crazy assumption. How many mothers can just take off across the country to visit a friend? (Mothers of one who have a tolerant partner, that's who.) And how was she supposed to know, looking at me, that I am a mother? She couldn't see my c-section scar. I wasn't wearing a pin that said I gestated a child, ask me how!

I don't know why that spiked my grief, or why even remembering it now is so painful. Maybe because just for a minute it dangles me over the cliff of how close I came to not being a mother at all. It's becoming clear that my body doesn't love producing babies. Maybe our little guy was a complete fluke, a one-in-a-million. Maybe someone is going to show up and tell me that it was all a mistake and I don't get to keep him after all.  Nope. I don't care. I'm not giving him back.

This morning I was telling my boss about my trip and seeing the new baby. "It didn't give you ideas, did it?" she joked.

"Hahaha!" said I. "Ha! Ha."





It was a lovely trip. We ate stunningly good food, got massaged, got manicured and pedicure'd, and engaged in plenty of the activity I've missed most: chatting aimlessly with my best friend within hugging range. I'm awfully glad I went.

Yesterday and today

Yesterday I felt serenely, even smugly confident that I was pregnant. I could just feel it, you know? I even peed on one of my cheapie internet pregnancy tests. Yes, for anyone keeping score, that was two days past transfer, and no, no excuse about "peeing out" the trigger; on a frozen cycle there is no trigger. That was all crazy me. So was the test I took this morning (all snowy white, of course).

Today I feel very sure that I'm not. My excellent piece of evidence is this: I have a promotional Magic 8 ball that I got as a trade show giveaway. It has been very accurate in the past. It said I'm not pregnant. Q.E.D.

Of my positive pregnancy tests, I got one at 5dp5dt (miscarriage), one at 4dp5dt (Small Boy), one at 8dp5dt (chemical), and one at 4dp5dt  (miscarriage).

This part is... hard.

Day 7: when I'm up, I'm up

Okay, this is one thing that is true about me in general and really, really true of me-on-hormones: my mood is not whatyou'dcall stable. I'm a leaf on the wind. If the news is good, I'm up. If it's not, it's the end of the world. My emotional lability is less than my toddler's, but not a lot less.

But right now, I'm up. Because:

Doctor was downright cheerful about my progress. This morning, at follicle check:

Doc: Why so glum?

Me: I'm not happy about how things are going.

Doc: Why? Things are going well!

Me: My E2's so low.

Doc: It tripled between the first and second check, what more do you want?

Me: ...

Doc: *fishing around with ultrasound wand in my pelvic girdle* Follicles are looking good, very good. All is well.

Me: Patient is high-strung, okay?

He found 12-13 measurable follicles, which is a nice improvement from the last check. Full speed ahead, divert all power to my ovaries¹.

Also, I like my new fertility pharmacy. I'd been using The Apothecary Shoppe, mostly because they had the word Apothecary in their name. One of my ambitions in life is to own an antique oak apothecary chest, so yeah,  The Apothecary Shoppe. Made me think that my Follistim was being hand-crafted by a kindle old herbalist.

But they annoyed me mightily the last two cycles, by

1. Compounding a readily-available ready-made medicine (medrol) simply because they didn't have the ready-made version in stock. This cost me three times what it would have if they'd simply notified me so I could order it from another pharmacy. It was only an extra $26, but damn, it pissed me off. They tried to pull the same thing again next cycle, but I told them in no uncertain terms that no, thanks, I'd fill it locally.
2. Charging me for shipping when my order fell just below the minimum. Come on, boys. I have bought over twenty five thousand dollars' worth of medication from you. Make a goddamned exception.

Anyway, my new pharmacy is Mandell's, and I like them a lot. Everything's arrived perfectly, but mostly I'm charmed that the last two times I've placed orders with them, the person on the other end of the phone has said, warmly and sincerely, "Good luck!" It's almost like they know what kind of medication they're selling, and why, and want it to work. Anyway, it's sweet, and they also included a little bag of Hershey's Kisses in my top-up order of Menopur and Follistim ($7000 sans insurance, dear G-d, yes I'm very very grateful and I'm never quitting my job).

So... Mandell's, yeah. Recommended!

blah blah babble babble when I'm up I'm up when I'm down I'm down when I'm only halfway up I'm going to be either up or down in five minute, anyway

 ¹Two nerd references in one post, go me.