100 Miles Away...But There In Spirit

This morning, an amazing woman we’ve never met will go to the fertility center, sport the awesome “cap, gown and booties ensemble” that I know so well, and will have her eggs removed…eggs she is giving to us (and another couple).  It is strange to know that this is happening…this monumental step in what could be the beginning of my happily ever after…but I’m not going to be there.  I should be so grateful that the hard part is being done for me but, instead, I’m feeling really sad that it’s not me in that room today.  I want my legs up in the stirrups (never thought I would hear myself say that).  I want to be surrounded by beeping machines and a flurry of release waivers.  I want to feel the lovely “sleep” wash over me as the anesthesiologist pushes the magic plunger.  I want to be physically close to those eggs, sending them love and willing them to find a nice sperm, settle down and get married (or at least fertilized) right away.  I want to tell the immature eggs to grow up and act their age like their brothers and sisters…immediately!  I guess I just want to be important right now…and I feel like I’m not.  I’m removed from this situation, and that makes me sad.

With that said, I am also filled with a million (okay maybe not a million…but many) happy emotions, as well.  I feel pride that The Prince has made the trip on his own this morning and is determined to show me that he can handle the tasks at hand (there we go again with the mastrubation puns)…I just need to give him more credit and have a little faith in him.  I feel gratitude, more than ever, for everything our egg donor has endured over the last month and a half.  I am humbled by her beautiful, kind and generous spirit.  And I feel joy that this leg of the journey is almost over.

I get sick on roller coasters (great transition, right?  Very smooth. Stick with me, it's worth it).  In fact, I have always gotten sick on roller coasters, ferris wheels, carousels, and just about any other moving ride (including swings).  Despite this fact, I have continuously tried…and tried…and tried to ride these things, believing that I would have “outgrown” my stomach’s violent response to spinning motions.  I am always…always…always wrong, and there are many unhappy people who have been on these rides with me in the past that will tell you just how wrong I am.  I tell you this because there is a point during these rides when I am trying so hard not to embarrass myself by tossing my cookies that my mind becomes incredibly focused…and I "will" the conductor with all my heart to please stop the ride.  For a long time, it seems as though my telepathic pleas fall on deaf ears and then…the magical moment occurs and I realize that he is slowing the ride to a stop...that I only need to hold on for a little longer and I can get my feet back on the ground and try to feel like myself again.  That is the exact feeling I have right now – after what seems like an eternity of intense focus on a singular plea that no one was answering, relief that the ride is coming to a halt and I am going to be on solid ground very soon.

You know what I don’t feel this morning?  Worried.  Maybe I’m too emotionally exhausted, or maybe there is no room for another emotion in my heart right now.  For whatever reason, even though I know that there are a lot of things I have no control over which could still derail this whole cycle, I am not worried or anxious.  It’s out of my hands right now.  I’m just going to jump right past thinking about how many eggs are going to be retrieved and instead focus my hope on this morning’s “The Dating Game – Embryologist Style.”  As many of you ladies have said to me in the past…it only takes one good embryo to make a baby.  So eye on the prize. 

And, litle eggs, if you can hear me from over one hundred miles away, please heed my earlier advice and know that the prize for getting this one right is a nine month stay in a luxurious uterus (recently redecorated in a fluffy pink lining which won the prestigious “triple stripe award”), with meals of your choosing, spa treatments, live entertainment (there's a prince who's a real comedian...even when he's not trying to be one) and all the love you can handle included for free.  So try little ones…please try!  I may not be there with you this morning, but I love you already.  Please try.



Time For The Prince's Quest...

WARNING:  THIS PARTICULAR POST HAS LOTS OF DISCUSSION REGARDING THE MALE PORTION OF THE FERTILITY EQUATION, SO IF YOU ARE SPERMAPHOBIC, I WON’T BE OFFENDED IF YOU SKIP THIS ONE.

We FINALLY have our retrieval day scheduled!  The donor has 15-18 follicles that will be ready for retrieval tomorrow (Thursday).  I’ve developed a peace with the fact that the follicle numbers aren’t what I had hoped for…and I’ve immediately replaced my new-found peace with a new-found worry - can The Prince complete tomorrow's quest on his own?

The Prince’s “contribution” needs to be at the fertility clinic at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow.  Only, The Prince has to bring his sample in, as he can’t collect at the fertility center.  I’m sympathetic.  He has “performance anxiety” around me when under pressure, so I can see how being in a strange room, in a fertility center, knowing that hundreds of men use that room for only one purpose, could ruin the mood. 

The Prince and I (and our fertility team here at home) are used to our “home collection system.”  He makes love to a clean catch cup, and then I keep it warm from the time of collection to the time it gets to the clinic.  It can’t be jostled, and (most importantly) you have 15 minutes from collection to when it needs to be at the center.  The Prince will never take it to the center himself, as he gets embarrassed (which he promises won't be an issue tomorrow).  So, I end up taking it in for him (handing over a little cup of sperm is about the least embarrassing thing I go through each cycle).  I can’t tell you how many trips I’ve made to our fertility clinic (which is a little over 15 minutes away if driving at the speed limit), with a cup of swimmers tucked in my cleavage (the ultimate incubator), thinking about how I would explain the situation to a police officer if I were pulled over for speeding.

The plan was originally for The Prince and me to leave at 9:00 p.m. tonight, after he returned from teaching his night lecture, to embark on the two and a half hour drive to the hotel near the fertility center.  I was really hurt when he suggested that I sit out this trip and that he just go alone.  I already feel so removed from this situation.  I need to feel like I’m a part of the conception process to the extent possible.  But it has occurred to me that: (A) it makes no sense for me to spend 5 of 11 hours in a car, getting only a little sleep and missing a half day of work….which is what will happen if I go, and (B) my presence in the hotel room will likely have the same effect on The Prince as using the room at the fertility clinic.  The truth is, fertility treatments have taken a toll on our sex life that I just couldn’t have seen coming (bad choice of words, I know).  Even with the help of Viagara, The Prince equates sex with our unsuccessful baby-making efforts and the pressure is too much for him, so he doesn’t even want to try.  

I’m sad that The Prince will be taking on tomorrow's quest on his own, but I'm also nervous.  As I’m sure we’ve all been told the ideal is that our partners will have “exercised the demons” no more than 7 days before retrieval and no less than 4 days before retrieval.  I know that I haven’t been performing any exorcisms with The Prince during this time, so I have to hope that he’s been doing a solo act.  Only…I can’t ask because he specifically asked me not to.  Apparently, I make things much worse on him by micromanaging his physical end of things (who, me?).  I get it…I just also know that if I asked him today what the proper window was, he would have no clue.  He can’t be trusted to get this stuff right, as awful as that is to say.  It’s not his fault…it’s just who he is…details are my things not his.  But combine the need to be detail-oriented to the concept of masturbation, and you are asking for disaster.  So…The Prince's mastrubation timeframe is yet another thing I am just going to have to accept as being out of my hands (Dear God, will the awful puns never end?).

The Prince has another task tomorrow, too… a gesture that is SO important to me.  He needs to bring the donor’s gift, card and letter with him to the clinic.  I am terrified that The Prince is going to come back with that stuff sitting in his car, right where I will have packed it for him (so he doesn’t smoosh it into his suitcase).  My plan is to call him at 7:35, when “his deed” should be done (God forbid that I interrupt that…seriously) but he won’t be far away from the clinic, so he can turn around the car and bring the gift back to the clinic if necessary.  When I explained his task to him he said “What?  Do you think I’m incompetent?”  I said that I did not “but…” and then I listed off about six situations in the last month where he has forgotten to do something important and I had to call, or make an extra trip somewhere, to fix his oversight.  I hate to be a mother hen, and I try to pick my battles, but the truth is, I feel like pinching his cheeks and saying “My little man is headed into battle…good for you…,” as I pin a reminder note on his shirt.

I am just going to visualize all of this going smoothly…or me writing an update to you tomorrow about how amazing The Prince did and how my fears were baseless.  I am trying to have faith that when he really needs to, my prince can rise to the occasion (UGH!  It happened again…I'm stopping this post before it gets any worse).



Slow and Steady Wins the Race...

Initially, I want to say hello to everyone who may be visiting from RESOLVE.  It is great to have you checking out my site.  Please feel free to check out past posts to get a feel for where my journey is at…and thanks for being involved in National Infertility Awareness Week. 

Next, I want to thank everyone who nominated me for awards over the last week.  I am so grateful and promise to address them in a post in the very near future.  However, knowing how amazing you all are, I also know that you will forgive me for putting my “venting” ahead of the awards just for right now, while I am in the thick of my donor egg cycle.  As an added bonus of procrastinating, I am finding a ton of new amazing blogs through the RESOLVE myth busting challenge, so I will have lots of recommendations for blogs to check out once there is a lull in my cycle madness.

And, as a final side note, I just wanted to give a heads-up to those of you undergoing intralipids.  I did NOT pee opaque white for a day or so, as the nurse predicted.  Without being graphic, things were different than normal, but nothing that would have sent me running to the doctor in a panic.  I would hate for any of you to call the doctor in a panic because your pee did not look like milk, as your doctor might think you are crazy.  As for the infusion rate, my IV drip lasted two hours, although the last 15 minutes or so was just the saline.  I felt none of the fatigue or flu like symptoms that my friends had complained of.  I hope that answers the basic questions that were posed. 

Now…back to it…****************************************************

Once upon a time, very early in my fertility journey, when I still believed that there was a chance that I could get pregnant naturally, timing was everything.  I spent huge chunks of time each month charting, peeing on OPK sticks, and trying to look pretty on certain days of the month to help things along from The Prince’s perspective.  Although my body danced to the beat of its own drum, I felt in control of the cycle’s timing because I was right on top of it, day in and day out.  And I mentally tried to push my cycles along, as if in a race...and as if I were capable of some Jedi mind trick on my own body.  Slowly, our RE took over the timing of my cycles…and I grew more and more impatient and worried.  With each injection, and ultrasound, and schedule change, I felt more disconnected from my body’s timing.  Now I’m in the midst of my donor egg cycle and I have no illusions that I control anything.  I am at the mercy of my donor’s body’s timing.  I don’t even know her medication protocol or what happens at her monitoring, so there is no relief offered for my poor Type A nerves.

For a long time, I was told that my egg retrieval would likely be Monday (yesterday), and that things looked great.   Then, the retrieval was bumped to “almost certainly Wednesday” (which would have been tomorrow).  Then, yesterday when I called to get the final okay on making hotel reservations for a Wednesday retrieval, I was told that the donor is still moving rather slowly and will not be ready for retrieval any time before Thursday.  She is going to come back today for another ultrasound and I will know this afternoon whether we are moving forward, or whether I am extending my wait even longer.  I was quiet on the phone with the donor coordinator (a first), and she (in her infinite compassion) said “There’s nothing to worry about.  I can tell you are worrying, but don’t!  She has 15 to 18 follicles developing and things look good…just slow.”  In reality, I was quiet because I was disappointed that we are back to that "15 follicle" range, when last Friday it had been "lots more than 15," and I was also stunned that I would have to wait even longer for the information I am so desperately seeking - How many eggs we will have to work with, How many will be mature, How many will fertilize and, in the end, How many beautiful little embies will be smiling (theoretically smiling) up at me (from their little petri dishes) telling me “We were so worth the wait, Mom.”

I am trying to be flexible.  I am trying to remember one of my favorite lines from my childhood books – “Slow and steady wins the race.”  (Perhaps this is the real reason that the turtle is a sign of fertility…not the hundreds of eggs it produces…but because it is frustratingly slow).   I’m also hanging my hat on every cliché and over-used expression I can think of – “Good things come to those who wait,” “A watched pot never boils,” and “If you build it, they will come.”  Oops!  Not that last one.  That last one is just a really awful uterine lining joke that I thought up and now can’t get it out of me head.  That’s right…I said it…my mind is so gone I am now writing “uterine lining jokes.”  Anyways, in the end, I am still waiting (albeit impatiently)…waiting for my miracle to arrive, in its own time. 



And They're Off...

The long awaited event has finally arrived.  My donor started her period yesterday, so we’re off to the races.  The donor coordinator didn’t call to let me know (big surprise), but there is an online “patient portal” where you can view your lab work, u/s results, instructions, consent forms and flow sheets for each cycle.  The flow sheet for my donor cycle had been updated with anticipated dates for the beginning of the cycle and apparently the consent forms, and the bill, are in the mail with my instructions. 

The patient portal says I will have my baseline ultrasound on April 1^st, to check that I am not pregnant, etc.  Then, if I am still suppressed (which I appear to be, as my period “scare” last Friday was a fluke that only lasted a few hours), we all move forward with medications (Lupron all around…assuming I need it) starting on April 3^rd.  The donor should get her period by the 8^th or 9^th, and she will have her baseline ultrasound on the 9^th.  Then, presuming all is well (pleeeeeeeze let it all be well), she will start her stimulation medications and the other recipient and I will start estrogen.  If the donor has an average stimulation cycle (8-12 days), egg retrieval will be around the 21^st.  Making my beta test right before Mother’s Day.  I guess better to know than not to know, right?

I had anticipated this schedule, and had told the Prince to hold open all of late April.  So, what does he do?  He schedules a surgery for himself for April 21^st!  He scheduled it last week.  I asked him to change it.  He refused.  And here we are…right where I expected us to be.  Realistically, we can get from the city where he has to drop off his "contribution" on egg retrieval day to our city within a couple of hours.  So…getting back by the time of his afternoon surgery won’t be a problem.  But really?!?  We need more stress right then?!?  Plus, he is having cartilage removed from behind his ear (a revision surgery of his prior “ear-pinning-back surgery” in July).  So he has to wear a bandage wrapped around his head and he will be on pain meds for a week after the surgery.  That means, come embryo transfer day, I will be driving to the other city (and back) and he will be attending what could be one of the most important events in our lives high on oxycodone…or worse…grumpy from pain.  He is adamant that he won’t reschedule and I am trying not to be angry with him, but it’s tough…with all of the sacrifices I am making…I just feel like he should be able to make this one sacrifice.  he would have to wait until July if he doesn't do the surgery now...but I feel like...it's cosmetic surgery...who cares?

So, bottom line, I am really excited that things are finally moving.  And I finally have a plan (phew!).  But, at the same time, I am frustrated with my husband.  I am scared about whether this is going to work.  I am concerned that things are starting without me being in a mentally positive place…something that has never happened before.  My track record shows that the power of positive thinking is crap…but what if it isn’t?  I feel like I need to believe this is going to work…and I’m not there.  I am also a little emotional about using a donor.  I know that the time has passed for me to be wavering on whether I am okay giving up on having a child that is genetically mine…and I know that if I get pregnant it won’t matter whose DNA is coursing through the baby’s veins.  But I still feel conflicted about giving up on that child I had dreamed of…the one with my eyes and my hair and my crooked smile.  My ultimate dream, right now, is being able to enjoy this cycle.  I want to not stress out about every little thing (including my husband’s toddler ways) and just be happy that I have an opportunity that so many women never have.  I want to be thrilled that my chances of getting pregnant are insanely higher than they’ve ever been.  I want to be grateful for the gift the donor is giving me.  I just wish wanting to change how I feel was enough to cause the change to occur.  For now, I will have to settle for going to yoga and acupuncture tonight, and praying for a breakthrough.

P.S.  Thank you so much, ladies, for following this blog and posting your thoughtful and kind comments.  I don’t get to go back and comment on your comments very often, but I want you to know that they make all the difference in the world to me and I can’t imagine doing this without you…whoever you are.  J