Define "Complicated"

It’s been a while. I know. Honestly, nothing exciting has been happening in my life since our final lining check. Started Progesterone, check! That wasn’t so bad. The bruising is minimal and it only stings a little when the hubby gets relatively near a prior injection hole. 

TOMORROW is the day! Tomorrow we get implanted with our 1st embaby. It’s surreal knowing that tomorrow may very well be the day we get and stay pregnant! It’s also terrifying to know that tomorrow we get implanted, but the embaby may not stick and we won’t find that out til October 3rd (unless i test early, which lets be honesty... i probably will). 

We meet again.

So IVF/FET prep is the least sexy way to concieve a child. 

Not only am I bloating so much I already look pregnant, I have bright blue (smurf like) discharge thanks to the estrogen pills i have to shove up my hoo-ha twice a day. I have to fart all the time, probably due to the bloating. I have succumbed to wearing granny panties because the blue discharge ruins all my nice underwear and my boobs hurt so much that I bought those “Mom-like” pull over bras that Hanes sell that have no underwire. Oh and Sex is a no go becuase 1) blue discharge is not a sexy thing to see and i’m sure my husband does not want any estrogen absorbed through his dick -- also my sex drive is completely gone. 

SO last Thursday I went to the doctor for what I thought was my final lining check. I expected everything to go perfect and to start my PIO shots for the FET the following Wednesday. Well from my previous post you know that it didn’t go as planned. My lining decreased down to 5.4 and the doctor wanted to scrap this cycle. My doctor decided to up my estrogen intake and had me add 1 pill vaginally in the morning and evening for 4 days. 

Well, yesterday I went in to the doctor for a follow up to see if the estrogen intake helped and guess what..... it did! My lining grew to 8.7! It was a total surprise for both myself and the doctor! I was so excited that the Dr printed out pictures of the ultrasound to put in my IVF scrapbook haha. 

Last night I had the weirdest dream. Well it wasn’t weird as much as it was SO realistic. It’s 4pm my time, so i’ll do my best to recap it - I should have written this as soon as I remembered, but I had work and didn’t want to type this out on my phone -- a computer is so much easier. 

The main gist of this dream had to do with my friend Brandon. The one who committed suicide last summer. I dreamt that he faked his suicide. I don’t remember where I was, but I saw him from far away. I second guessed myself and told myself it couldn’t be him. Then I saw him again. I remember following him to try and get ahold of him, but he just kept walking ahead trying to get away. Finally we were in this suburb area. My friend Melissa lived in this house on the corner, and for some reason Brandon had himself holed up in this house with a bunch of random guys. He had been living there for a year with his new identity, but rarely left the house. There was no explanation as to why he faked his death, only that he did - it almost seemed like he did it because he was bored. Once I finally got to talk to Brandon, he showed me all the ways he was still present in my life with his hidden identity. Commenting on photos, reddit etc. It was like he was watching over me, even when everyone thought he was dead. 

Then he took off with a bunch of army people got in a bus and took off before I could say goodbye. So once again, even in my dream, he left before i could say goodbye. 

I’d like to think that this is the overwhelming theme of BPT and myself. I was unable to say goodbye, and that forever will be engraved in my head and I will always be reminded of that. He was someone I counted on to give me honest opinions, and would always check in with me if something was wrong or didn’t feel right. 

This morning was rough. Today was supposed to be my final lining check before our FET next Wednesday. I was supposed to go in, see my thick lining, and get instructions for starting progesterone shots tonight. Well if there’s one thing infertility has taught me, it’s that nothing goes as planned. 

Turns out my lining actually decreased in thickness since Monday. Even though they doubled my estrogen, my lining went from a 6 to a 5.4. The doctor talked to me after and said that while they can increase the estrogen for the next three days (which they’ll probably have me do) - it might be beneficial to induce a period and start our cycle over with a heavier focus on more estrogen at the beginning of the cycle. I couldn’t help it. Here i was alone in the room with the doctor, my husband sleeping soundly at home, and i’m finding out that our transfer is not happening next Wednesday as scheduled. I started crying. Everything I've been looking forward too seemed to disappear right before my eyes. Three days off next week, pregnant until proven otherwise... all of that gone. 

I immediately drove home, called my boss and told her i’d be late to work today. I curled up in my husbands arms and just cried and cried and cried. The hubs convinced me to take a sick day today, to relax and let it all out. He ended up staying home as well. 

Ok, so come January the hubby and I will be moving into my parent’s house. My parents have been AMAZING throughout this whole IVF process. Without question, they’ve offered us financial help in order to achieve our dream of having a child. With their help we’ve been able to pay our normal rent and bills - BUT to pay them back, it’d take 7-8 years (at a minimum) to pay them back. We are currently paying 20k a year in rent in Orange County and once we add baby items (hopefully) and start paying my parents back it’ll just be unmanageable. So, we decided to move in with my parents (who have tons of space) in order to pay down our debt in 2 years instead. 

Now we have 2 options for bedrooms to choose from. 

  Option A: 

·         Pros: Bigger of the two bedrooms (should fit king bed no problem), has walk in closet

·         Cons: in between my mom’s bedrooms, above the living room, faces the backyard

  Option B:

·         Pros: Above the kitchen/garage, in between the bonus room (which will be ours to use) and the shared bathroom, faces the side yard

·         Cons: smaller of the two (might not be able to fit the whole bed frame), one sliding closet

  There’s not many pros or cons to my list I know, mostly because the other stuff doesn’t matter.

This morning, at a very dark and early 6am, I had my first lining check appointment for my upcoming frozen embryo transfer. I’ve been terrified of this appointment... worried that all this excess estrogen will cause cysts that will postpone our transfer. BUT it looks like everything’s okay! No cysts and my lining is at 6 (whatever that means). Dr said that today they’ll be increasing my estrogen even more and then I’ll start progesterone on Thursday. I can’t believe in a little over a week I’ll be pregnant until proven otherwise!

Well I can’t already tell today is going to be just *wonderful.* I woke up this morning at 3:33am with a debilitating headache. I’ve always referred to this headache as a migraine but since I couldn’t go back to sleep I’ve taken time to look it up. Looks like tension headache is the winner here, either caused by my neck being in a fucked up position from sleep or my TMJ. I woke up, took some excedrin and after researching grabbed a heating pad and placed it over my face and behind my neck. By about 4am the pain was gone and yet here I am at 4:28am writing this blog post (on my phone so please ignore any awkward typos or grammatical issues)

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s that you don’t keep sitting in bed staring at the ceiling once you’ve woken up in the middle of the night. I used to force myself back to sleep and never quite felt the same the rest of the day. Now I give myself an hour. If i’m still awake after an hour of waking up then I get my ass up, move to the couch, throw on some Netflix and hope that I eventually just fall asleep naturally or stay awake the rest of the day.

So here I am, sitting on my couch, attempting to pick something on Netflix while my husband is sleeping soundly in the other room.

Believe me when I tell you – you do not want to take estrogen in any sort of form. We started our FET Prep protocol on Monday and man oh man estrogen is not fun. I take an estrogen pill in the morning, in the evening, and I wear a patch 24 hours a day that is changed every 4 days. This patch is the worst! The skin under the patch is so itchy, it’s getting no air for 4 days at a time. Estrogen in itself sucks. Headaches, mood changes, tiredness, and food cravings it’s just no fun!

I’m also on prednisone which shuts down my immune system. I’m worried that I’ll get ringworm again or the flu or something and it’s going to prolong our FET. :/ Thank goodness for my wonderful husband. He has put up with basically no sex the past week or so, has gone with me to get Starbucks or ice cream when I need something more satisfying for my cravings, and has dealt with me being in a cranky mood after work for no apparent reason.

I’m sitting here on my couch wine drunk (please ignore any misspellings or awkward sentences). I had my FET baseline appointment this morning (my second one this week). My doctor wanted me to come back today to check my lining because as of Friday I had not yet gotten full flow period. Well this morning looks like everything was A-OK. I dragged the husband with me today because he hasn’t been with me to any other appointments. I swear, the nurses probably thought I was doing this all alone by this point. Well we had a 9:15 appointment but didn’t get out of there until 11am! It was a long morning of waiting and people watching.

There was one couple who was there with their one-year old child. *Warning: Rant Coming* Who in their right mind thinks “let me bring my child to the IVF clinic.” This is literally a place where infertility rages, where people are doing everything they can to have a child. Having a child in the waiting room for an hour and a half is not a pleasant way to spend the morning, being reminded that you have a child while I’ve been paying thousands of dollars and waiting years for one of my own.

There was also this random group of people there. 3 or 4 women and 2 men, all together. My husband and I kept trying to guess what the situation was (surrogate, parents of the ones undergoing IVF) who knows. But they were loud and obnoxious and taking up half of the waiting room. Like, there should be no reason to bring THAT many people to your blood test and ultrasound appointment.

Anyhoo my results came back good and we are ready to start our FET protocol. Tonight, I take my first estrogen pill. I’m supposed to take my first prednisone as well, but I think I’m going to hold off until tomorrow morning (don’t tell my IVF doc!). Personally, I just don’t think it’s a good idea to take prednisone with dinner and then again with breakfast, especially when it’s supposed to be a once every 24 hours pill. So, tomorrow is the real first day of medication. Estrogen pills, estrogen patch, and prednisone. Woot. I’ve already warned the hubs of future emotional outbursts and estrogen rages :-p

It’s been a week since I last wrote on this blog. I intend to keep up with it more frequently but this week has been insane.

Let’s start with the birthday recap. Last Friday night the hubs and I went to a baseball game to get a giveaway jersey. The game was alright, but our team is losing big time lately so it didn’t end exciting. Saturday morning came around and it was time for my surprise! Hubs planned the whole day out and turns out he booked my first ever trip to Catalina Island. We started our morning with bottomless mimosas and breakfast, and got way too tipsy. After brunch we went over to the mini golf on the island where the hubs proceeded to kick my ass. Then it was time for my final surprise of the day. The hubs booked my very first professional massage!! It was just what I needed, a nice relaxing afternoon, not worrying about anything.

Now on to the IVF updates. Today I went in for my baseline blood test and ultrasound to get confirmation that I could start medication for our transfer this month. Turns out my period hasn’t started yet and this means that our start date might get pushed back. Hearing that this morning made me so emotional. I know that it’s only a couple of days, but I swear every little piece of bad news just hits me so hard. Now I’m currently sitting at home awaiting the phone call that tells me if I start medication today, or if I have to go in Monday for another ultrasound and blood test. *God, I hope today is the day to start! *

Also, we found out the sex of our embryos and it turns out that my mother in law was right! All three embryos are boys. On one hand, yes, I’m disappointed I’ll never have a little girl, never have a mini me. I think of the things I’ll miss like dance classes, gymnastics, barbies, dress up and tea parties. I think of the relationship between myself and my mom and think “man I won’t have that.” BUT on the other hand, I’m excited for a little boy (maybe even boys!) Baseball, sports, lots of energy, and Star Wars are in my future. I need help figuring out a name for our little one though. Right now, we’re thinking Cole, Colton, Chase, Tyson, Carson, and Jackson. We’re using an app like tinder for baby names, when the hubs and I match on something it lets us know!