Why? (Updated)

That's the biggest question floating around in my mind. The blood draw today will be just a formality. My period started up last night and is in full, painful force. I am not heartbroken and I don't need sympathy. Strangely, I felt extremely detached from this whole "pregnancy." I was afraid that this couldn't possibly turn out to be a chromosomally normal being, and I was obviously right. I have this vision of our frozen embryos all being little, perfect Noahs. Any other baby couldn't possibly be as perfect. It's a weird feeling, and I'm sure that's probably a hard one to identify with. I'm sorry if it offends anyone.


The only thing I'm upset about is the possibility of this delaying our FET. I called the IVF nurse this morning and she said she will need to consult our doctor before giving me an answer. They also need to get the results of my blood draws to confirm that my HCG is dropping before they will let me start BCP. My doctor is in surgery so he won't get back to me until this afternoon. I am going to get my blood drawn around noon (I'm supposed to wait until 2:00 so that it's 48 hours after the first, but what's the point now, right?) and beg for them to rush the results. Seriously, why did this happen? After 4 years of ttc, the universe thought NOW was a good time to play this trick on me? The only silver lining I see is that now we know that Brian will be getting a vasectomy in the future. And I'm not sure that's all that silver of a lining for him. :)


Onward.


Update:
I had the second draw, then called to see if they could rush it at the lab tech's suggestion. The nurse gave me some big, long spiel about all the possibilities of what is going on and that I'll probably need to see a doctor because I'm 5 weeks pregnant as of today. Um, no I am not. I am not pregnant at all. I am not hemorrhaging, I am not ectopic with a ruptured fallopian tube. I am losing a chemical pregnancy. She told me my first beta was 8. Come on lady, who are we fooling?! Her reply, "Well, this could just be a very early pregnancy. It's hard to say it's chemical until we see the next result." I'm sorry, did I miss something during this conversation? I did tell you how much I'm bleeding, right? And you just said I'm 5 weeks along. Obviously something DOES NOT COMPUTE!!! Stupid. And she doubts they can rush the order because it was ordered routine. Argh. I'm feeling less and less confident that we'll get to move on as planned.


In other news, wow FRER is sensitive! If my beta was 8 on Tuesday, it's amazing that any line whatsoever showed up yesterday, let alone Tuesday! Crazy.

Summer!

It's my first full day of summer vacation! Eleven and a half weeks (82 days) of nothing but living the life of a stay-at-home mommy. I am so excited! 

The first seconds of summer vacation captured yesterday afternoon!

As you can see, Noah is becoming a big boy! He can drink out of a big boy cup without much spilling. He talks constantly, in full sentences. He has crazy, hyperactive, rambunctious spurts of energy which often involve using either Brian or myself as a human trampoline. He pretends to be a T-Rex, which involves squatted stomp-walking punctuated by frightening roars. He has growly tantrums over the smallest things. This morning it was because Mommy wouldn't give him any damn apples! Well sorry Noah, we don't have apples. Oh yes, he is definitely a two year old, through and through. And you know what? Despite the meltdowns, this has to be the most fun age yet! No matter how it happens, this kid is going to make an awesome big brother*.  

(*Sorry, no, not going there. The second blood draw is tomorrow, and they said I should hear something on Friday. Until then, I'm not going to make you all overanalyze pee-sticks with me and try to say the right thing when you can't even figure out how I'm actually feeling about any of it.)

Big Fat Question Mark

I was waiting patiently for CD1 to arrive so we can get this FET show on the road. After 4 days of waiting, I was getting impatient. But let's back up a little first. A couple of months ago I had a one-week-late period. I thought nothing of it. I was stressed out at work and fairly confident that I ovulated a full week late. And I was right, it was nothing. But this time was different. I was fairly confident that I ovulated right on time. All of my usual premenstrual symptoms showed up right on track. But then they disappeared on Sunday. Yesterday we had a barbeque planned with friends and I was excited to drink some yummy drinks. But I was growing concerned. 5 days late is pretty unusual. So I took a test. Can you f'ing believe this?

Well, I still can't. As you can see, the stick at the bottom is much lighter. That is from today. I feel highly skeptical about all of this. I never really got into the details of our infertility, but it's pretty dismal. My husband has a very low count, around 2 million. The morphology rate 3 years ago was 7%. Those are not good numbers. Our RE told us we had a one in a million kind of chance and told us not to even bother with IUI. We knew he was being honest, because his clinic didn't do IVF. If he didn't want us to waste money on him first, it had to be bad, right?

I can't even begin to explain the mixed feelings I have. First, there is nothing I ever wanted more than to have a BFP surprise out of nowhere. I am so grateful for that! It really is amazing! If all goes well, I would be due like 2 weeks after my best friend who finally just got pregnant from IUI after 3.5 years of TTC. That's awesome! But, (and please don't hate me for feeling this way dear IF friends) I have 10 perfect blastocysts that I have become emotionally invested in. It was supposed to be one of them. I had plans, and things are not going according to plan.

I called my regular old doctor's office this morning. I asked for a blood test. I'm waiting to hear back from the nurse to see when I can go. 

This can't be real. We are not that couple.

Picture Perfect

That was how the doctor described my uterus today... "picture perfect." I find you get a lot of weird compliments when going through fertility procedures. Everything today went as smooth as I could hope for. I have to say, watching a camera enter into your uterus is a weird thing, and it looks so much cleaner and pinker than I ever would have guessed. The doctor I saw today was not my doctor, but I wish he was. He seemed far more personable, and it turns out he grew up in the neighborhood I work in, so he was excited to hear about what's new with all the schools he attended as a kid. I'm glad he got to handle all of my procedures today and wish I could have him for the real transfer. Oh well, whatever.

I remembered to ask about success rates for FET versus a fresh cycle. He said that yes, the success rate tends to be lower with an FET, but he felt really optimistic based on the quality of our frozen blasts and with how successful our previous single embryo transfer worked out. He also recommended just a single embryo transfer this time around, and that makes me happy. I like hearing the same advice from different docs. And if it doesn't take the first time, I feel like I'll be ok with that (well, more ok than I would have been last time around). I would love to have another spring baby so I can take advantage of a longer maternity leave, but I don't feel quite so desperate. I already hit the baby jackpot with Noah, so I feel like it's not a question of "if" anymore, but a question of "when." And that's so much easier to swallow.

I should also mention, I nearly passed out after the hysteroscopy. I kind of suck with medical procedures, and the littlest thing can cause me to feel faint. It all started in 5th grade science class when we pricked our fingers to find out what type of blood we have. I got all woozy and had to lie down in the nurse's office. It was weird because I wasn't freaked out or anything. I was happily looking at my blood on the slide and then my body just reacted. Ever since, I've had a hard time with needles. I think it's more psychosomatic than anything so when I hear that I'll be getting poked, I already start to worry that I'll end up feeling faint. As the medical assistant talked me through the whole procedure today, I figured I'd be in trouble. Sure enough, as I was paying the bill the whole world started fading out. I sat down and a nurse brought me a CapriSun to boost my bloodsugar. (It probably didn't help that I hadn't had lunch yet.) I was fine after a couple of minutes, and very thankful that the waiting room cleared out just before it happened. I hate being such a wimp and the fewer witnesses, the better!