4 days past ER: mostly sunny with a few clouds

Mostly sunny:
As of yesterday, the embryos were doing great -- 16 of the 19 were "doing well"; 8 of those were 8 cells grade 1. We're set for a transfer tomorrow. This is really really great.

Wednesday was my birthday, and it was nice.

A few clouds:
I've had slight cramping and spotting. I thought to myself "hey, nothing to worry about, it's so slight" but called the RE just to be safe. Apparently telling your RE that you're spotting the day before transfer wins: stat bloodwork, a pelvic exam, an ultrasound, an Estrace prescription at the ready, and the note that if you start bleeding harder to call right away and we'll cancel the transfer.

Erp.

I'm trying to stay cool. It could all be just fine.

Other slight clouds: the ultrasound showed some fluid sloshing around my abdominal cavity; although I feel okay, I haven't dodged the OHSS thing entirely. I'm to chug electrolyte drinks. Also, my good right arm vein is mostly used up -- guess it gets scarred after a while. The vein I have on my left arm is not very accessible, so if my right arm poops out they will have to start on my hands, which sounds unsightly and unpleasant.

And that's the news.

1 day past ER: all good news!

Okay, this is just crazy.

It's Tuesday. As of last Friday I had five mature-looking follicles and we were still consdering cancelling the cycle and doing an IUI. As of Saturday, when I triggered, that number had doubled.

And as of Mondays' retrieval...

23 eggs. 21 mature. 19 fertilized.

19. 19. Where the hell did those come from? No one saw that coming. My doctor sure didn't, having carefully prepared me -- he was estimating 8-10, then revised his numbers upward to 10-15. I said I'd be ecstatic with 15 and happy with 10.

Of course there's no guarantee of anything, but the bigger the starting number the higher the chance of having multiple strong, healthy embryos.

The witches' brew of metformin - high stims - even higher stims - no metformin seems to have produced a bumper crop without making me sick as a dog in the process. As of today I'm sore and moving slowly, but I'm nowhere near the hit-by-a-truck shape I was in first cycle. I am lumbering to the bathroom all on my own, and it doesn't hurt to cough or, you know, breathe. I took three days off from work (vacation days, so I wouldn't have to have The Conversation) and I think that by Thursday I'll be in fightin' form.

Worrying will recommence tomorrow. Today I am just delighted.

Day 11: Trigger Day

Almost all good news today! My ovaries are humming. A solid handful of follicles popped up overnight. We're now hoping for 10-12 total, much better than I'd feared.

Other good things: my birthday is on Wednesday, and today I went on a shopping spree and snagged the Wii Fit I'd been wanting, as well as a pile of Nintendo DS games. These should keep me out of trouble during any OHSS-related confinement. Which brings me to the only not-perfect thing, which is that my doctor wrote Get your electrolyte and protein drinks ready! on the bottom of my instruction sheet. Underlined. I take it to mean that he expects me to get OHSS again.

Well, we're reasonably prepared, and even if I do get it I expect the whole thing will be less traumatic second time around -- I'll be uncomfortable, but at least I won't be scared.


Oh! And when we were wandering around the mall, I saw this sculpture in the Pottery Barn window and was immediately drawn to it. I wasn't sure why -- according to the label it's a reindeer, and I don't celebrate Christmas and in fact have a slight Jewish-girl jealousy/aversion to Christmasphenalia. And the percentage of times when I walk by a store window, see something, and then go in and buy the thing in the window at full retail approaches zero.

But, as I was looking through the window, my darling reasonably suggested that this sculpture is in fact quite evocative of the Celtic stag-god Herne/Cernunnos. He's a powerful male fertility aspect. I bought the large one, with the leaves blooming from his antlers, and he's making me very happy. My eyes like looking at him, even though he's taking up half of the bedroom vanity.

I intend to hang necklaces on him eventually, but have been warned not to do so until I'm already pregnant, so as not to feminize the powerful male fertility aspect by making him look like a pretty pretty princess.


Update: I have triggered! I am now a ticking time bomb of superovulation! Whee!

Day 10: the good and the bad

The bad:
At this point in the last cycle, I had 6 correctly-sized follicles. This cycle, even with more medication, I have 5. There is no way to know why my ovaries are so sluggish this cycle. For heaven's sake, on a lower dosage I got 21 mature eggs my first cycle. It could be the metformin, but I've never heard anyone else say that metformin ruined their response.

The good:
My estrogen is much, much higher than it was last cycle. This bespeaks of the possibility of lurking eggs. A couple more may well fatten up and surprise us. We're giving my ovaries another day to cook and cutting down the dosage.

Herein I enclose a table for my own record-keeping, enjoyment & convenience, because I find hand-coding HTML tables strangely soothing:

	E2
	Cycle 2	Cycle 3
Day 4	134	154
Day 6	445	491
Day 8	910	1401
Day 10	1938 (trigger)	3226
Day 11 (trigger)		4065 (trigger)

Of course, this also means that the risk for OHSS is going back up, but

1. It's less likely with so many fewer follicles, regardless of the E2;
2. I do not care.

Another scan tomorrow, likely trigger tomorrow night, for a Monday retrieval.

So that's the news. On the whole I'm feeling much much happier than I was a few days ago, when it seemed that even pumping up the dose wasn't doing anything to make this cycle different from last. At least things are moving. Or at least I'm high on estrogen.

Day 5 of Stims: not so good

My E2 was pretty low on Saturday, as low as it was last time with my "poor response" cycle, despite the higher dose of stims. It must be the metformin.

We raised the dose and I quit taking the metformin. If I have <10 follicles on tomorrow's scan we'll cancel this cycle and consider converting to an IUI. If you know anything about the issues here, you know that this would be a hideously hilarious choice for me.

Most people would only cancel a cycle with <5 follicles, but this is my last chance, my last insurance-covered cycle. I want it to be everything it can be. I don't even care about OHSS any more. I just want a big old crop of eggs.

I will admit that my first thought about canceling the cycle and trying again was oh crap, not more birth control pills.

IVF #3: Day 3 of Stims

Hey, I'm back!

Not a lot of excitement, other than the fact that the birth control pills made me vomit this time around. Yecchh. Sympathy to my heterosexual sistren.

They also, like last time, made me really, really depressed. I've been off of them for a week now and the miasma is finally starting to clear.

Anyway. Third day of stims, yeah. Having one underreponse and one overresponse under my belt, of course I'm eager to see where this one will land. We're using an "overreponse" amount of stims, but I'm on metformin, which will hopefully modulate my response enough to keep me away from OHSS.

I am also considering transferring two embryos. Maybe if I sacrifice my principles, the sacrifice will be deemed handsome enough, and I'll finally get to have a freaking baby. Don't you have to let go, open your hand, give up, just relax before you can get pregnant?

I don't believe any of that, of course. Of course.

A while ago, when I was trawling the internet for depressing videos, I found one called "The Slow Path to Motherhood". I can't say the video spoke to me, but the title has stuck in my mind. The slow path to motherhood. This is the path I'm on, and the implications of that tumble around in my head.

Is there some way spin it positively, to find meaning in the fact that I'm on this path? I've toyed with the idea that maybe I'll appreciate motherhood more, having arrived this way. But you know, I think most parents love their children pretty much to the max, regardless of whether it was easy or hard to get 'em.

I don't think it's made me a better person. I think it's made me a worse person. I liked myself a lot better two years ago.

In conclusion: the only lesson I think I have learned from this path is that this is the path I'm on. Gracefully or gracelessly, this is the path I have to stumble down, and hope that what's at the end is what I want it to be (hint: live squalling infant, stinky diapers, hysterical toddler, condescending teenager).

And if there isn't? That will be the path I'm on then. And I guess I will find some way to walk it.

CD8: No go

Haven't much had the heart to blog -- last cycle negative, of course. I've started the birth control pills for my last fresh cycle.

Big love to all the kind and wise people who told me to step away from the Google. Now it seems a bit foolish to worry about multiple pregnancies, given that right this second being pregnant at all seems fantastical.

I've unsubscribed from several high-profile infertility bloggers, all of whom are now pregnant (nobody whose journal I've ever commented on, or who has ever commented here). It's just too much. Too much. I was at a conference this week, in a discipline that's heavily female and, apparently, fecund. I overcompensated mightily, as always. If I'm ever pregnant, I wonder will I notice when a woman is smiling at me too warmly? I know I'll never be a belly-rubber, but I wonder if I'll see. Probably not. I can't see it on anyone else's face even now. I always feel like the only person whose eyes slide away.