Annoyed

Yesterday the new needles arrived. This morning Brian opened up the box, and guess what? They are the exact same stupid needles! I called both the specialty pharmacy who shipped them and my clinic. The pharmacy told me they could not find an order for a shorter needle and told me to contact my clinic. My clinic didn't fucking call me back. So tomorrow I will be forced to use the 1.5" again. I guess I'll just show up tomorrow morning and demand someone fix this. Maybe I'm only saying this because I have had a headache for the last several days and my backside is killing me, but if this cycle doesn't work out, I am dropping my clinic like a bad habit. The doctor who gave us Noah opened his own clinic a little further away from us, and I am ready to switch. I feel like he would listen to me a little more. And so far our success rate with him has been 100%. No brainer.

Symptom watch at 4dp5dt: headache behind my left eye radiating towards my left temple (it's been a real treat!), on/off burning menstrual like cramps which seem to come from my ovaries, general yucky feeling yesterday which has completely subsided, fatigue, one awful hot flash/anxiety attack Thursday night which kept me up for about 2 hours (that was also fun!), zero pain or swelling in the chest, a little more emotional than normal but I'm chalking it up to my physical misery and irritation I feel towards my doctor

My best guess is that I will see a BFN on Thursday. I did have a dream that I had a baby boy and it occurred to me, "Hey, it must have worked." But no, I don't think it did.

Begging for Mercy (2dp5dt)

I can't take it anymore. PIO is not for me. I have massaged and heated the bejeezus out of my butt, and at this point I can barely walk. Trying to stand up, roll over, or climb stairs is brutal. Even just sitting/lying on the couch is ridiculously painful. I just left a message with the nurse line and told them that there are many things I will do to have a baby, but this is not one of them. Cross your fingers that they will let me do the suppositories. When they gave me my bloodwork results on Tuesday they said they want my progesterone level above 20, and it was 86. I think we're okay here people. 

Symptom watch: there are none. Some cramps here and there, but I was having them before the transfer too. Last time I know my chest was swollen and sore pretty early, but right now the girls feel fine. I know FET and IVF are very different processes so I'll try not to read into anything. I am also enjoying constipation thanks to the progesterone I'm sure. Ahh, the two week wait is so glorious!

*UPDATE*

I spoke to one of my nurses. She told me they won't let me switch until we see a heartbeat. Brian and I did go in to meet with her though, because she was questioning our aim. In her opinion, we've been aiming a little low. She is also ordering me smaller needles. Right now I have 1.5" and she thinks we'll be okay at 1". I really hope these adjustments do the trick. I'm not just being a whiny baby. I literally cannot walk without looking either 42 weeks pregnant or 100 years old with a bad hip. Every time I have to climb stairs I mumble expletives under my breath. This is so miserable!

FET Details

We had a textbook transfer today. I had my bloodwork done and then the embryologist called us back and showed us the picture of our blast. The first one they thawed looked great. In the picture he wasn't fully expanded yet, but by transfer he was looking more rounded out. 

We then changed into our transfer gear and headed into the room. My favorite sonographer checked my bladder, which after 32oz of water still wasn't full. She gave me two water bottles and asked me to chug one and sip on the other. She came back twice to check on me, and after about 20 minutes my bladder was deemed full enough. 

While we were waiting the embryologist came back in to explain that we would be able to watch him load the blast into the catheter on a television screen in front of us. I asked him how he thought our little guy looked and what the grade was. He told us that all of our frozen embryos were graded AA, and they don't usually change after thawing. We learned that six of our embryos were frozen singly, while two straws hold two embryos each. He also marveled at the sheer number of embryos we have left. His exact words were something like, "You've got a football team left in the freezer, so I think you're going to do okay."

Once my bladder was confirmed adequately full, the doctor came in, we watched the blast get sucked into the catheter, and then watched on the ultrasound as the blast was guided into my uterus. The doctor was very happy with the placement and wished us luck. My first beta is Thursday, October 4th. My plan for now is to avoid the POAS crazy train and enjoy believing that this worked until someone tells me otherwise. We'll see how I do!

I've been catching up on a lot of television today and eating pineapple that my MIL cut up for me. Like I said, my in-laws rock. I plan to take full advantage of my three days of bedrest to give this little guy the best possible chance of snuggling in. My rump hurts like hell from the PIO, and I think sitting around all day doesn't help it to feel better, but it's worth it if this works!

Thank you for all the well wishes! There are a few of us with transfers this week, and I'm thinking of all of you, too! C'mon BFPs!

Let's Go!

Tomorrow is the big day. I’m feeling equal parts excited and nervous, which I think is pretty appropriate. I have been mentally ready for this for about the last 12 months, so it’s incredibly thrilling that we’re finally here. However, we all know there are no guarantees in this process so I’m still trying to keep an air of cautious optimism.

No matter how things turn out this cycle, I think it’s important for me to remind myself how blessed I already am. Noah is an amazing daily reminder that miracles happen, and good things come to those who wait. At the end of the day, I have a son and all of the memories we’ve made so far, and those things are mine forever. I already have the family I wanted for so long. I also have the most amazing and supportive friends and family who have been there for us both emotionally and financially through this whole process. Without them, we may not be where we are today. Speaking of my amazing family, today my mother-in-law flew to Denver to help out for the week. We really had to pull her teeth. (Ha!) Three days of bed rest wouldn’t be easy even with Brian staying home as well. Noah is quite attached to me these days, so I know it will be really fun for him to be distracted by his doting grandmother, and much easier on both me and Brian. And how lucky am I that I can honestly say that I’m really looking forward to her visit? I couldn’t have asked for better in-laws!

So if you feel like it, please say a little prayer or send some positive energy our way. Bring on the two week wait!

I Hate PIO

Oh my aching butt. Seriously, if they expect me to stay on this garbage until at least 7 weeks, they are insane. I am going to demand the suppositories. I have never been the best with shots. Lupron I can handle. It's a tiny SQ needle. This IM bull needs to stop. I am so damn sore. I can barely sit or climb stairs without wincing. I will take goopy shit leaking out of me 24/7 over this nonsense any day!

Yesterday I learned that I need to start paying more attention to my med protocol. Up until this week it was just patches every other day, an estrace and baby aspirin pill each night, and a shot of Lupron. Last night I checked to see when I needed to do my first HCG booster and noticed that I was supposed to take 4 Medrol pills with my lunch. Hopefully 9:20pm is just as good. Oops!

Three days til transfer! Yaaay!

Good News!

I'm actually having a transfer!!! My lining was 11.48mm this morning, and my favorite sonographer described it as "beautiful." I am sooo relieved. I actually cried. (Let's blame that one on the hormones.) The nurse was totally sweet though and gave me a big hug and assured me I wasn't her first crier. I've just been so worried about this cycle, but I didn't want to bring it up here. "Woe is me" gets old, right? But I have been having so many cramps and general discomfort that it just seemed like something must be amiss again. I've described the feeling as what it would feel like if your uterus could be constipated. Glad that my worry has been all in vain. I was triggered in the office, and now it's just a 6 day wait until transfer. Tomorrow I also start the PIO, so any and all advice on that is more than welcome! Have I mentioned how excited I am to wake up to that every morning? Except I am excited. This is really happening!

P.S. For my own record keeping, I want to mention that Noah's first two-year molar has popped through. He seems to be handling it in typical Noah fashion. No big deal. He's such an easy kid. I'm so lucky! 

The Not-So-Terrible Twos

I don't know who coined the phrase "terrible twos," but they must not have enjoyed little kids. This is truly such a fun age! Noah constantly does things that crack me up and make me smile. I could be having the worst day ever, and he can find a way to make me forget all about it (at least in the moment). He will be 2 years, 5 months next week. How is that possible?

Maybe we're just lucky. Noah has always been an easy kid. His temperament is pretty serious, happy, and very go-with-the-flow. For instance, despite being extremely dependent on his swaddles, at five months we were able to wean him off within a day or two. Most recently, I was really worried about breaking the paci addiction. Noah pretty much lived with his paci in his mouth from 18-27 months of age. This summer I realized that I didn't like how addicted he was. I decided that the best method for us was to allow him to have his paci only during naps and bedtime. The first day or two he begged for it here and there throughout the day, but pretty much ever since he easily complies with spitting it out onto his mattress and doesn't ask for it until bedtime. I'm happy to be done with that! However, there is a funny story to go with this. In the first days of paci being taken away, Noah really did ask for it. One morning I was sitting on the couch. Noah crawled up into my lap, grabbed my cheeks in his hands, and turned my face into his. Then he said, "Look at me. Paci!" The way he said it was so authoritative and stern, it was so darn funny! And no, I didn't cave.

Here are some other funny things he's said and done lately.

• Well, I don't know that this is all that funny, but there are a lot of times that Noah asks for things he can't have. I try to reason with him and explain why he can't have whatever it is. He looks back at me says, "I just want it" or "I just need it!" Life is hard.
• Noah has gotten very good at fake sneezing. Every once in a while when he's looking for attention, we'll hear a big, "Ahh-choo! Excuse me!" Now he's starting to experiment with big, loud, hacking coughs. This started after he was sick and got lots of sympathetic mommy attention.
• He is using more and more pronouns. For now, everyone and everything is a "she." I wish he could get a hang of using "who." If he doesn't know who someone is, he asks, "What's that?" It always sounds so impolite, but kinda funny.
• Noah does a lot of pretend play these days. He loves pretending to be different animals including T-rex, dragons, pigs, horsies, dogs, cats, bunnies, and sometimes frogs. Other times he likes to pretend that some sort of creature, often a monster or T-rex, is out to get us. We play a game where we have to hide behind the couch so the monster won't find us. The other day, I asked if we should hide behind the table. He replied, "Don't hide on the table. It's not safe on the table." Good call kid!



After watching the movie "Ice Age" he pretended to be a squirrel. The pillow is his "acorn." Sometimes he pretends he can't reach it, and he holds his arms out and grunts.

• For my birthday Brian bought me a Nook e-reader. Noah asked me what it was, so I told him you read books on it. You could see the wheels turning in his head as he walked out of the room. Moments later he walked back to me holding a book. He sat it on top of the Nook and told me to read it. So literal! I died.
• After we get home from daycare each evening, I get to work in the kitchen. Noah often asks me for crackers while I'm cooking. The other day he'd had more than enough, so I told him he was done. When I turned my back, he grabbed the whole box off the counter and walked out of the kitchen announcing, "I be Swiper. I swipin'!" (If you don't watch Dora, then you will have no clue what this is. Sorry.) The pissed off look on his face made this even funnier.
• Last weekend at breakfast we got into a conversation about friends. I asked Noah who his friends were. I fully expected him to say the name of his daycare buddy, but instead he looked at me with a big smile and said, "Mommy!" If he had asked me for a pony in that moment, I would have bought him one. What a way to melt my heart!
• Over the summer he had his first rootbeer float with his uncle Brady. Apparently he drank it way too fast and it made his tummy hurt. Eventually he let out a huge burp and told Brady he felt better. Now every once in a while he asks for rootbeer. However, he pronounces it, "root be deer." I love the way toddlers talk. So dang cute!

All of these little stories illustrate why I thoroughly love this age, and this is just scratching the surface. Of course it has its moments, but I would say every age has had them. And frankly, I find little tantrums easier to deal with than crying spells that lasted nearly an hour. At least now I can usually figure out what's wrong, or Noah can just tell me. To me, that's far less frustrating and exhausting. The only difficult thing right now is that I have to do everything for the little man. Brian is not allowed to do anything without hearing a fussy little, "Mommy do it!" in reply. Noah can really throw himself into a fit over tiny little things like Daddy offering to squish his food pouch instead of Mommy. Hopefully he'll get over this phase soon! To be fair, there are some things that only Daddy can do. Like singing a specific lullaby at bedtime. Which is so adorable.

Seriously, I love this kid!

Hormones Suck

My summer FET attempt was so smooth (except for the part where it got canceled...). I felt great. Zero med side effects, aside from a dull Lupron headache. I was feeling like this go round was equally easy. Then today happened. It wasn't even anything big. Just a couple of emails at work that stressed me out a little, and WHAM! Driving home I got all teary. I've never done an IVF/FET cycle during the school year before. This is going to be interesting.

Speaking of, I've had to alert the school secretaries and principals in each of my buildings, as well as the secretary of my department, to all of my medical appointments and 3-day medical leave. I have always been pretty open about how Noah came to be, so I think a lot of people are pretty darn suspicious. Those that I am closest to, including my special education teammates in each building, know exactly what's going on. But others are starting to guess. I'm not sure how I feel about so many people knowing. I just don't want to deal with questions if it doesn't work out this time around. 

Baseline

One hurdle down, one more to go. Everything looked good today, so now it's on to the patches and pills. Hopefully next week's ultrasound and bloodwork is equally fabulous. Fingers crossed.

What's Been Going On

It's been a while. It never fails that back to school equals a blogging break. So what's new? Let's see. I never got around to my final installment of Summer Vacation, Part 5. Although nothing about August was all that exciting. Here are some highlights.

On my birthday we drove to Golden, a cute little town west of Denver. It was the original capitol of Colorado. Clear Creek runs through the city (which is where Coors is), and there is a nice trail that weaves along its banks. Noah enjoyed going on the slide from the sidewalk down to the creek bank, playing with the fish statues, and splashing in the creek.

Noah finally got a haircut at the beginning of August. At the age of 27 months, he still didn't have much hair, but what he did have was getting ridiculously long and mullet-like. As usual, he was the most calm, easy-going toddler ever to have a first hair cut. He just watched the stylist in the mirror and sat perfectly still. Both the guy at the front desk and the stylist both marveled at how incredibly well he was behaving for a first haircut. In the end, he got a shark tattoo, sucker, and balloon. We'll go back again, in about a year. You know, when his hair has grown enough to warrant it.



The finished product!

I also went to Estes Park with my brother one Sunday for a free photo lesson through Canon's Photography in the Parks series. In this picture, I was learning about aperture, or something. I don't remember. But now I feel inspired to learn more about my camera.

I also bought Noah some watercolor paints to let his inner arteest shine through. He was excited two days in a row, and ever since he's all "whatever Mom" about it. Everything he painted he called a dragon. He is obsessed.

On our last night of summer vacation we made a campfire in our backyard and put up our tent. (You know, the one we registered for back in 2004 for our wedding, but have never taken out of the box before.) Noah made s'mores for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed playing in the tent. It was especially fun to shine the flashlight at T-Rex (aka Daddy) as he stomped around and shook the tent. Scary!

So then it was time to go back to work. Oh man, it was not a good first day back, let me tell you. I was still crazy anxious at the time, with a million skipped beats going on. I pulled up my caseload for the year and it was even higher than last year. I also have a new school which I was really nervous about. I went home that night feeling totally overwhelmed and cried my eyes out at dinner. Noah was not sure what to think, and kept asking "Mommy, what's doing?" and "Mommy, you have owwie?" When I finally pulled myself together he sweetly asked, "Mommy, all better?" So the next day I put in a request to reduce to a .8, meaning four days a week. I was told it could take several months to make that happen due to staffing shortages, but in the meantime I might change my mind. The more money we can save this year, the better. Anyway, now I'm back into a routine and I'm feeling much less overwhelmed. The anxiety I was plagued with throughout August finally subsided. Thank goodness, because I was really starting to lose it. There were even days where I thought I just couldn't go through with another FET EVER because I was too much of a basketcase and how could I possibly be a good parent to not only one but two children. Luckily, those feelings have passed.

The nice thing about the start of school is that it's always quickly followed by a three day weekend. My dad came through town and we enjoyed some time with him. On Saturday we went to a place called Tiny Town which is in the foothills. They have a small steam engine train that winds around a small village of houses and buildings. Noah was pretty amped to ride the train (though in pictures he never looks excited about anything, he's a serious little boy, just like his daddy!) and he really enjoyed walking inside the houses he was allowed to.

On the train, oh boy!

Watching for the train with Grandpa Lee

Here it comes!

Playing in the tiny jail. This was his favorite building. Should I be concerned??

Daddy bought him a train whistle

As far as the FET goes, we're two days away from the first official day of this cycle. I started Lupron about two weeks ago and stopped the pill last weekend. I'm going in for the baseline ultrasound and bloodwork Monday morning. I can't help but feel nervous. I really don't want to get canceled again. With so many pregnant friends currently, I really need some good news on my own reproductive abilities!

Other than all that, things have been pretty boring around here. Noah got really sick this week, and it unfortunately coincided with my daycare provider's move. A friend of mine had graciously volunteered to watch Noah Thursday and Friday since he couldn't go to daycare, but once he got sick we decided it was best to keep him home away from her two little ones. He had croup, which can I just say is seriously scary! The first night he woke up gasping for air and didn't seem to be able to breathe. We started heading for the ER, but when he settled down on the way there I decided to phone the after-hours nurse advice line instead. One cough later and she told us it was just croup and to humidfy the bejeezus out of his bedroom. The poor guy had a fever all week though, and his cough isn't going anywhere soon. Inevitably I am now getting sick. You know you're screwed when you accidentally turn your open mouth into your child's face as he sneezes. Yuck. Hopefully we'll all be better soon!