Back to work and other miscellaneous thoughts

Well, here I am smack-dab in the middle of the dreaded two-week-wait. This is that "nth" day of 100 degree temperatures in the summertime, when you are just looking for some relief from the heat. This is the phone that isn't ringing when you desperately need to talk to someone. The dolldrums - when there is no wind when you just want to steer your sailboat. All one can do is rock on the waters, and drift aimlessly - the currents of life take me where they will.

So, I've thrown myself back into my work. Or rather, I'm trying. Although they've bumped me up to a priorty status (I've increased my hours), they are still struggling to bring in the OT referrals. I didn't get to see any patients yesterday, but Tuesday was busy, and that was a great relief from the drifting. The drifting is awful.

My son is my greatest blessing, always, but particularly in these nether-world days when the promise of a baby is still close - but just out of reach. So we do fun things together. Go to the park, visit flower gardens, take hikes, visit with friends, go get ice cream or have a special dinner out.

He deserves this time - all the weeks of preperation for the IVF: the shots on schedule, the ultrasound and bloodwork appointments, the surgery to remove eggs, the procedure to replace one much-loved embryo - every one of those things means time taken away from him. Yes, for the greater goal of providing him with his longed-for sibling, but I see that it takes it's toll on him.

So my days from here on out are dedicated to him. And when he's in school, to my work. So far, it has kept me focused during this drifting, dreaming time - when the longed-for baby is still a possibility.

For over two years, I have entered into the two-week-wait feeling determinedly hopeful. There was a time when I felt I knew my body and it's signs and would attend to them with an air of expectation. After literally being through this dozens of times, and subjecting my body to various procedures and many medications, I have now had to surrender any sort of ability to forsee the outcome. The medications fool my body into thinking it's pregnant, so it behaves that way. Healing from the surgery produces symptoms that make one feel bloated and heavy. The mind manages to play tricks with the rest, and one can begin to convince herself of anything. The truth is, I have no idea is this worked.

To all those who wait and wonder with me, I feel I owe some words of caution. As a veteran of the cycle of hope and despair, try not to become too invested in the outcome. I know many, many deserving women, women who would make the best mothers, and still have not gotten their miracle. The unfairness, injustice of it happens everyday, and I don't know why.

I just don't know what will happen. I feel responsible for those I've invited on this journey - I know how a heart can break for someone else when they don't get that miracle - I spend more and more time consoling those who don't. But I also know the joy when someone finally catches a break, and it is just so sweet.

So I hope you all can stick with me, regardless of the outcome. I realize it is difficult. I hope that we, me and this (hopefully) exponentially growing blastocyst (or should I visualize it as a rapidly differentiating fetus by now? I'll have to check my old college textbooks . . .), do not fail to disappoint.

I may post a couple of times over the next week or so, but I will be trying to shift my focus to things of this world for the time being - to what is. Sometimes my greatest consolation is to simply live life in the present and accept the fact that the tides have control - they will take me where they may.

As always, thanks for reading.

-kelly

Doing OK!

Lots of calls today from people checking in - just wanted everyone to know all is well. I am resting - my dearest husband grounded me past my mandatory 24 hour bedrest to extend through the remainder of the day. We figure - give that little embie an extra chance to snuggle up!

Nothing new to say, really. I've got 2 weeks of waiting to hear anything about whether this works or not. There's no point in trying to figure it out beforehand - believe me, I've done that. After today, I will try to put it out of my mind and focus on other things.

I'll start back to work next week - which will be a much-needed diversion. Believe me, I have my misgivings over it. I worry that it will jeopardize my chances of making this a success, but that is a silly worry, really. Best to just get back into it. Otherwise, I will make myself a complete mental case.

Well, I may do that anyway, but at least I will be getting paid!

As always, thanks for checking in and for all your good wishes.

A special shout out to Monica - thank you for your email today. I especially feel your positive vibes right now. I won't out you and post your email, but know that I hear you getting all of this!

-kelly

Back from embryo transfer

I now have a 6-cell, grade 2 embryo snuggling up inside my uterus! It doubled in size over night, and showed a little fragmentation and some uneven cell size this morning, but not a bad little embie, all the same. It's growing - it's a fighter!

They did the assisted hatching to make it easier for the embryo to come out of the shell and burrow in. I know this isn't the most perfect scenario - but in life, sometimes the best things don't start out as perfect. I acknowledge the realities, but also realize there is a chance - perhaps the first real chance for us in years - to have a baby. This could be our month.

Thank you for all the positive energy from the board members. I go now to lay in bed and focus my attention on my little embie, and encourage it to grow - cheer it on! The RE told me it takes about another 48 hours or so before implantation occurs. I will try to focus my energies to encourage it over each hurdle this little one must jump.

I think I'll also watch a Harry Potter movie today. I just finished reading the last book - and it was so good! Better than I ever imagined. Now I'm ready to re-watch the old movies. Maybe play guitar and sing to the little one for awhile, and take a nap.

-kelly

One more thing - an open letter to my embie, on the night before our transfer

Preface: Apologies if this is too much/too sappy. I needed a catharsis tonight - to put these thoughts/this energy out into the universe, and this is the best way I could think to do it, on this night before my ET. I hope none of you mind the imposition.

Someone earlier this week on the Resolve board wrote a letter to their ovaries. I thought, then why not write one to my one remaining embryo?


Hello little one,

Tomorrow I will be coming to claim you. For the last 3 days, I've slept and ate little, for thinking of you and willing you to grow and thrive in a lab a few miles from our home.

I have gone to yoga, eaten organic, forsaken coffee, alcohol and (just about) anything fried. I have had ice cream a few times - I hope you don't mind. I have gone to a massage therapist for lymphatic massage to purge my body of impurities and to my psychotherpist to clear my mind of clutter and negativity. I have gone religiously to acupuncture, taken herbs, then not taken them as directed by my doctor. I have been given many shots, some I even gave to myself (although I did cry a little both times I had to do it), and have had countless blood draws and ultrasounds. I have purchased - and listened to - recorded meditations to calm myself, and practiced positive affirmations and guided imagery.

I have researched, obsessively, the ways in which I can make my body a home for you for the next 40 weeks, and I will continue to do everything I can to make it possible for you to survive. I am ready to fly to Chicago in two weeks to enlist the help of a special doctor who will make sure my body does not misbehave should you choose to stay awhile.

I have been learning to play the guitar, and taken up my long neglected piano playing to create more balance in my life, and to give the gift of music to you - one of the most precious gifts my mother gave to me as I was growing up.

Of all the possible combinations of eggs and sperm, you were the only one that made it from this cycle. I know you are strong and healthy and you can latch onto me and grow, grow, grow.

I can't promise that life will be easy for you, should you choose to stay. But here's what I do know: you have a family waiting for you. I don't know that a child was prayed for or longed for more than we all have longed for you. Not only is there a mother and a father who are waiting for you with open arms, but you have a big brother who constantly asks when will he get to meet you? He is so good, loving and kind - he will want to make you laugh and always try to keep you safe, just like your mom and dad.

There are aunts and uncles, and cousins and grandparents (2 sets) - none of whom are perfect, but I've seen how they are with your big brother. They will love you and love you and love you - and most likely spoil you rotten, but I think I can live with that.

We have dozens of friends here with children for you to play with. And sweet teenaged babysitters who live across the street just waiting to hold a baby, should mommy need a break. They are all good people who are calling you to this world, too.

I've never felt the power of prayer and positive energy so keenly than since I started this process and shared my journey to you with these good people in my life. All this goodwill and love - for you.

Now, if it comes to pass that you are unable to stay, know this, regardless of the outcome, before you ever even had a heartbeat, know that you were loved.

My heart, my mind, and my body is open to receive you tomorrow. I pray that you choose this life, this time, this family.

I am calling you, my child, to me. Come home.

love,
mommy

And still there is one.

Let's keep it in perspective. Sure, upon re-insemination, my other eggies did not fertilize. That is incredibly disappointing. But I'll share some facts that I now know to be true:

-IVF is a godsend - not the menace I'd originally feared. Although we have many questions about why things are happening this way, it another huge step for finally finding some answers to our struggle with conceiving.

-I am incredibly blessed to have this one embryo, even if it is only just one. I just found out from a friend who is currently on an IVF cycle in sync with mine that of all six of her eggies, none fertilized, and she has no embryos to transfer - absolutely devastating. I, at least, have this one, very tiny, 3-celled hope that is continuing to grow in the lab just a few minutes from my house.

-After today, I believe - no, I am SURE - that I have, hands down, the best Reproductive Endocrinologist in the world. Today she listened to my concerns and fears and is considering altering my tx protocol with additional meds to address my concerns about auto-immune problems, thus helping increase our odds of success for this one tiny embie to make it. I am fairly confident that none of the other REs I have seen would have even listened to my concerns, much less alter a tx protocol for them.

- I know that if this doesn't work this time, that I have the strength to try again.

- The next effort WILL be better, if there is a next effort, because now we know so much more.

- If anyone has a chance to beat the odds and have a success, it is us. There are so many sending blessings, hope and prayers our way.

So my embryo transfer is tomorrow at 11:45 am. My RE will do an acupuncture treatment afterwards, then I go home for bedrest. I have one friend picking up my son and taking care of him, and another bringing over dinner.

After tomorrow, I can return to life and spend some serious family time with my husband and son, who have been so wonderful during this process. It will be time to change my focus and go into get back into life and find lots of things to distract me until my pregnancy test 2 weeks from tomorrow.

Thanks all, for your extra prayers, good wishes, and positive vibes.

And, as always, thanks for reading.

-kelly

We have an embie!!!!!

Well, my hopes had been higher, but right now, I still feel optimisitic, if cautiously.

I talked to the embryologist today, and she clarified a few things. They were actually able to retrieve 6 eggs. One was immediately discarded due to a fragmented outer shell. The rest of the 5 were "cleaned up" and another was discovered to be slightly cracked. So, of the 6 original, 4 were able to be inseminated. Of those, 1 had already fertilized and started dividing as of this morning at 7 am. This is good news. Often, the embies don't start dividing for a full 24 hours. Since the others had not yet begun to divide, the embryologist decided to re-inseminate and wait to see if they needed more swimmers!

Of the remaining 4, she explained they looked like good, healthy eggs. There was no darkening or discoloration and no internal fragmentation - nice and clear they way they want them to look! The outer shell (the Zona Pallucida) looked a little thickened, which makes it harder for the sperm to fertilize the eggs. Sooo - it could be the others have already fertilized, but just took a little longer and have yet to start dividing. But the reinforcements are there, just in case!

I get more information tomorrow when they do another check in. Right now, I keep trying to console myself . . . we have one . . . we have one. My darkest fear creeping in on me was that none would make it. So it would be nice if we got another, but for now, we have one.

I slept for about 4 hours last night. I'm guess it will be much the same tonight until I hear the next report. This waiting is so excruciating.

Thanks for checking in.

-kelly

Back from egg retreival

So, I'm back. I've gotten lots of messages and such from people checking in, etc. Thanks so much to those who have taken the time to call - it means a lot, even if I can't really talk right now.

Physically, I feel fine. The retrieval was really no big deal. The waiting in the morning, until I got the IV, with no food/water was the worst part. I took a percocet on the way home, and everything is nice and chilled out . . .

I'm struggling to stay positive about the count. They were able to retrieve 5 eggs. I feel incredibly disappointed about that. I know it sounds like a good number, but the attrition rate in the lab is high, and right now, we'll be lucky to have a couple to make it to a day 3 transfer. My hopes of making it to a day 5 blastocyst transfer are more or less squashed. So, I guess you could say I'm pretty crushed about that.

I don't think I'd be so devastated if I knew that our insurance is now officially maxed with this one IVF attempt. I don't know how we will move forward if this is unsuccessful, but I can't really let myself think about that right now.

Tomorrow I'll get the fertility report, which means we'll learn how many fertilized and how well they are dividing, etc. So I guess I'll post then.

Thanks for checking in,

-kelly