The Waiting Game

That was crazy cool!!!

We headed out to Vancouver, but made a pitstop at the Denny's across the street for some breakfast before our appointment.   Their skillet breakfasts are pretty amazing!!!  After breakfast, we checked in at Genesis and after a few minutes the nurse came and got us from the waiting room and took us to the cubicle where I could change in to a gown and they'd go over some of the information.  We were told that they were transferring a "day five embryo, grade 4AA" and that two had already been frozen and there were nine more remaining in culture to see how they grow.  We should hopefully get a call tomorrow that there are more embryos good enough to freeze, but it's relieving knowing that we do have at least a couple as a back-up (although I just really hope that this cycle works for us!).  

After a few minutes of waiting and listening to the excited chatter coming from a few of the other cubicles, another nurse came to bring us to the procedure meditation room.  I didn't feel quite so stressed out this time, but I was still nervous.  It was such a strange feeling to know that within the next few minutes someone was going to put an embryo into my uterus!  

Dr. Kashyap came in, wearing her pretty pink scrubs as usual.  Pink really is her color!  She handed us a picture of the embryo that they were going to transfer, and that was awesome.  I think that's the moment that Lance got a little choked up.  I tossed my legs up in them stirrups and eagerly waited for it all to happen.  

The embryologist came in and verified my name and date of birth, etc, then explained a little about his role, then he ran back off to the room behind us.  We could see what he was doing on the big screen, and I'm not gonna lie... It was one of those "hold my breath moments".  You could see him sucking the embryo up into the catheter, then he came back in the room and handed it to the Dr.  

I made everyone in the room jump when she put the ultrasound probe in... Her actions were just a little faster than her words and she hadn't quite got out the "you'll feel something cold" when I got prodded in the girl-bits.  I jumped a mile high as I just really wasn't expecting it, then we all had a good laugh and got down to business.  

We watched on the ultrasound monitor with excitement as Dr. Kashyap explained what she was seeing and told us to watch for the shooting star.  Moments later she released the embryo and you actually saw a little ball of light leave the tip of the catheter and float around for a few seconds before disappearing.  It's such a weird thing to see, and really makes you feel very honored to see the first few seconds of what will so hopefully become a new life.  It really did glow!  

I waited around for a few minutes with my legs up in the air and the Dr with the probe in my uterus, while the embryologist carefully checked the catheter under the microscope to make sure that the transfer did happen, even though everyone was quite confident that it had happened.  

So now we have our very first picture of what we hope will become our baby.  In one word... Amazing!  

I got dressed and Lance and I left, feeling a little giggly and excited about the next leg of our journey, while noting that the unfortunate could still happen.  We just have to stay positive.  March 11th will be the first beta-HCG pregnancy test... That's gonna feel like forever away, but I'm taking it easy and trying to eat healthier.  

It's just weird to think of all the crazy stuff that is going on inside that old uterus of mine.  I read way too much information on the process of fertilization and implantation, and am totally on information overload!  Love it!!!  

Transfer Day Is Finally Here!

We're just in the midst of getting ready to head out to Vancouver to have the transfer done.  Lance is just taking an extraordinarily long time in the bathroom and I'm assuming he's got his iPad in there playing Clash Of Clans, so I took the opportunity to quickly update my blog.  ;)

I barely slept last night, and both Lance and I had nightmares about absolutely ridiculous things.   I felt crampy and nauseated.  My brain would not shut off for the life of me.  What would we do if we had twins?  What would we do if I miscarry?  What if it's a boy?  What if it's a girl?  So many questions!!!

Of all the nights to forget to turn off my ringer too, my Mum texted me at 0630am to wish us good luck and that woke me up... I never did get back to sleep after that, but I think a lot of it is just from excitement about hopefully moving on to the pregnancy part of IVF.  At least the nausea will be welcomed then!

Off to Vancouver we go.  Updates to come later!!!

Lance always tells me to just "go to sleep".  It drives me insane.

Especially because he's snoring within 30 seconds of saying that to me.  Argh!

Tomorrow Is Transfer Day!

This has been the fastest and slowest month of my entire life! I got a call from Genesis on Tuesday that our little embryos had done well and that they would be pushing me to day five.

Reality is hitting us both that we could be expecting really frigging soon, and I'm sure this two week waiting period will fly by so quickly...  Not!

This is gonna be a long stretch of waiting. I have to try not to go and buy a million pregnancy tests. Sigh!

Tomorrow we head to Vancouver to get a glimpse of our embryos and ultimately have one of them transferred to its new home for the next nine months. Eep!

How am I ever going to sleep tonight???

Egg Retrieval Complete!

Yesterday, Lance and I headed out to Vancouver for the egg retrieval.  To say that I was a bit nervous would be a serious understatement.  I could have avoided this by not reading all those damn forums, but it's just so hard to avoid them!

We left at 6am, and wouldn't you know it... It was snowing.  It's a good thing we took the snow tires off yesterday.  *sigh*

I nervously waited for the nurse to come and get us, which took FOREVER!  Talk about building suspense!  Finally, we were brought in to the procedure area where a nurse went over what was going to happen, and answered any questions that we had.  She gave me a couple of Tylenol, 1mg Ativan and started an IV, then hung 1g Ancef (an antibiotic).

Looking a bit pale.  Soooooo nervous!  

Lance, playing around with his surgical cap!
He doesn't like to smile for the camera.

When they finally had the procedure room ready, we went in.  Lance got to sit on the chair beside me whilst I hoisted my bare legs into the stirrups.  Dr. Kashyap came in and told me to try and relax and that this wasn't a procedure room, it was a meditation room.  She did a fantastic job of helping me calm down... That and the Fentanyl they were giving me through the IV.

I'd love to say that it was a painless experience, but it definitely wasn't as painful as I'd built myself up to imagine.  It was crampy and pinchy.  The thought of them poking a needle through my vagina into my ovaries made it all worse.

The whole thing probably lasted 20 minutes.  They said that they were able to retrieve 16 eggs (which is great), then helped me into a wheelchair and back to the recovery area.  The nurse came and checked my vitals every 15 minutes and brought me juice and cookies.  I slept on and off, feeling nauseated when I tried to move.  After an hour, I was good to go, other than the cramping pain, but that is to be expected for the next couple of days because my ovaries are the size of football fields.  I slept the entire way home, then I slept on and off for the rest of the day.  I finally crawled into bed around 9pm, and slept solid until 5:30am (Which is when we got up to watch the Canadian Men's Team win the final gold medal in the Sochi 2014 Olympics!  Go Canada, Go!!!

I felt a little uneasy this morning as I knew we would be getting a call from Genesis this afternoon to let us know how the fertilization process was going.  They called at 9am.

You cannot even imagine how many things went through my head when I heard the phone ring and waddled over to the coffee table to answer it...

"Why are they calling so early?  This can't be good!"
"Are they going to tell me that they mixed up the specimens?"
"Did they have a huge power-outage because of the snow storm and the embryos are ruined?"

One of the lab techs (after confirming that he was talking to me) said "Good news!"  I breathed!  Apparently they were able to collect an amazing 20 eggs from me yesterday.  19 were injected and 12 have made it to fertilization day one!!!  This means that we have 12 chances to make a baby happen!  Apparently they will only transfer one embryo, so it doesn't look like we'll have the chance at multiple births, but whatever!  I just want a healthy developed baby, and if that means only one... Then that's good enough for us!

We won't hear anything from Genesis tomorrow as they are just going to let the embryos do their thing until Tuesday morning, then we get another update and they should set the date for our embryo transfer.

All in all, I'm feeling pretty confident right now.  Let's just hope that my uterus is on the same team!

I got triggered!

I had to be in Vancouver again yesterday morning (my birthday!) at 7:30am for more labs and another ultrasound. Dr Kashyap said that everything was looking good and from what I gathered my follicles are growing adequately and she asked to see me again the next day. As I was driving home from a busy day of birthday shopping, Genesis called and said that my lab results were in and they were decreasing my dose of Gonal F and Menopur. Yay! This was good news because it means that my body is still responding well to the hormones!

I went back again this morning and they brought me right in for the ultrasound... My follicles are still growing and my uterus looks great! Dr Kashyap asked if I could hang around Vancouver until the afternoon because they wanted to see if I could be triggered, but needed the lab results first.

This is all a new language to me. What the heck does "triggered" mean?

I went for a solo breakfast at Denny's and contemplated googling "IVF trigger" but decided against it, just in case it was something painful or scary. I'm such a wuss!

I spent the next four hours walking aimlessly up and down Broadway, checking out the occasional interesting store. Pottery Barn had tonnes of neat ideas that I'd like to recreate myself for 1/10th the cost, and I saw the neatest baby swing in an overpriced baby store. Finally I found a Michaels Craft Store, and not 10 minutes later I get the call from Genesis that my labs are in and they want to trigger me tonight. I head back to Genesis to pick up the next step of instructions and another prescription and finally get to head home!!! What an exhausting day!

When I got home I googled a bit about this trigger. Basically I have to inject myself with the HCG hormone at 10pm today and stop taking any other shots. Oh happy days! The HCG will help mature a follicle and start ovulation in about 36 hours. My egg retrieval is scheduled in 34 hours.

S*** just got real again!

The reality of it all hit me on the way home. I'm so excited, but suddenly so scared! I know I can do this... Hell, I got through the hormone injections without killing or maiming anyone... I can handle pregnancy! I just really, really, really hope that everything works out and we don't have something horrible happen now that we're this close.

My fingers and toes are sooooooooo crossed!

Ugh!

It's 4.10am on my 37th Birthday, my boobs hurt and I'm pretty sure that I can feel hornets buzzing around in my ovaries. 

Kill me now... 

I'll be heading out to Vancouver in just over an hour for more lab work and another ultrasound. My fingers are so so 

so crossed. Just a few more days! 

I made a meme yesterday.  I think it sums my IVF cycle up nicely.

In The Thick Of It All

Wow, what a crazy week.  I had my first appointment at the clinic since I started taking the hormone injections.  They wanted to do some lab work and another ultrasound.  She said that everything looks good so far in the ultrasound, which was awesome to hear!!!  They are going to update me with the labwork this afternoon.  I go back for more labs and another ultrasound on Wednesday, which happens to be my 37th Birthday.  Yikes!

My sleep seems a little messed up still, I lay awake at night hoping that everything will work out and worrying that something will go wrong.  I also think of weird stuff, like what if Adam or Eve were infertile... What would have happened to the world?  Lance looks at me like I'm crazy when I try and explain what I'm thinking about.

I'm still not finding myself being as nuts as I thought I might be with the medication.  Jenna (A friend from work) told me that when her friend went through IVF she became so insane that they had to take a break from friendship until her hormones calmed down.  Lol!  This is what I based my own expectations on, and luckily, I'm having a much more positive experience and the few people that do know what's going on are being very supportive which helps so much.

It still seems so surreal to me though.

I used to feel very sad for people that were infertile and had to go through a clinic to get pregnant, and while I wish that no one had to pay thousands of dollars and ride this emotional rollercoaster, I can't help but think that we are also getting to experience something that a lot of people don't ever have to, or get to experience, and that's awesome!  If everything works out for us, this won't be a surprise pregnancy, and although I will miss being able to surprise Lance with a little "+" on a pregnancy test, we will appreciate it all the same, if not more!  We will also have that exciting thought running through our minds constantly that there could be more than just one little baby on the horizon, and that too would be extremely awesome and exciting.

Lance + Marie = Team Awesome!

I couldn't help posting this picture. 

 Lance keeps bringing his part in the whole process up when I complain about all the needles. 

 His part sounds like a lot more fun than my part!  

Oh, The Wonderful Side Effects

We paid the cycle fee yesterday.  Goodbye $7700.00... It was nice knowing you!  That's a lot of money to spend on a gamble!  Please, please, please be worth it!!!

So, side effects.  I know that every drug has its side effects, and that the drug manufacturers have to list them all, which is why I intentionally don't read the side effects of medications that I have to take.  Mostly due to the reason that if I read it, it will happen.  I have quite a suggestive personality.  

The hormone injections aren't all that bad other than making my ovaries hurt occasionally, and my stomach is itchy from all the needle pokes.  The side effects that are really bugging me are from the 3,432,456,543 pills that I am taking every day.  

1 Feramax Supplement (for my anemia)

1 Wonderfully constipating Ferrous Fumarate (Also for anemia)

1 Prenatal Vitamin (Also contains iron.  Blech!)

1 Docusate (to counteract all the pills I'm taking for anemia)

4 extra Folic Acid pills (because nobody likes birth defects!)
I'm considering adding some Vitamin D as a new study has suggested that Canadians have a lower level of Vit D due to our crummy weather, and IVF has a lower success rate with patients who have a lower level of good old Vitamin Sunshine.  

On a good day, I'm not excellent at taking pills.  I frequently gag during the process and have to try multiple times to swallow each pill. Last night, I had just finished my Gonal F injection, and moved on to the pills... I took my time, taking breaks inbetween each one.  I got to the last folic acid and felt that feeling deep at the back of my throat.  I started gagging.  

Lance has become immune to this happening, especially lately, so he didn't flinch... Until I gagged for the 3rd time, then threw up all over the floor!  He jumped up so quickly, looked at me and said "Why didn't you put your hands in front of you???"  Um, because it's puke... And I didn't have a lot of reaction time!  Also, I don't like to catch vomit...I am a nurse... We do anything possible to dodge puke!  

Luckily the dog wasn't around because he loves nothing more than a fresh pile of puke, and that would have probably made me puke again.  

Today I think I'll crush my pills up in some yogurt, also, I need to learn to chew up my dinner a bit better.  :(

A Pick-Me-Up

I had my first set of labs this morning and had been patiently freaking out, waiting for a call from the lab to tell me the results.  I was so nervous because of all the sad stories that I'd read on www.ivf.ca and was certain that they'd call and tell me that they were going to cancel everything, but...

Good news!!!

My body has responded really well to the Menopur and Gonal F, so now I have to decrease the Gonal F and start taking the Orgalutran to make sure my body doesn't start ovulating too early.

Hooray!  I can breathe again, right after I poke myself.

Three needles a day now, not to mention the bucket-full of vitamins and supplements I'm on.  Eep!!!

Now to wait until Monday morning when I go for more lab work and another pelvic ultrasound.  This is more time consuming than having a full-time job!

Feeling Blah!

I could use a beer.
Or a bottle of wine.

The last couple of days have been pretty emotional for me.  Yesterday, we went to the bank to finalize all of the loan stuff and got stuck behind a huge 8 vehicle accident on the way home.  What a nice way to spend Valentines Day, so in lieu of a nice romantic Valentines dinner, we grabbed McDs and watched a movie at home (I fell asleep at about 8:30 on the couch with my head on Lance's lap... How's that for romantic).

I am still kicking myself for reading forum posts on www.ivf.ca yesterday as it seemed to really make me doubt that this whole process will work and that things seem just too rushed.  I ended up calling the Genesis Nurses Line this morning to make sure that everything was ok, and she seemed to see no problems with the process, so I guess that's positive.

Lance and Bailey have been super supportive throughout this week and have hugged me when I've needed it, which has definitely helped keep my inner Satan at bay.  If the worst thing I have to deal with is plenty of tears, I suppose that's a heck of a lot better than having manic screamfests for irrational reasons (which was kind of what I was assuming may happen).

Anyway, I'm waiting for a call from the Fertility Clinic with the results of my lab work this morning.  Hopefully they have good news for me and we can move on to the 2nd week of ridiculously expensive medication and over-the-top emotions.

My fingers are crossed.

Here's the accident that we got stuck behind for about an hour and a half.  Nothing was moving except emergency vehicles.  Although it sucked, at least Lance was there with me (that's his work van right in front of me).  We didn't start moving until after it was dark, and really cold!  

Google Is Not A Good Substitute For A Dr.

I don't know why I did it to myself, but I've had so many questions lately that I decided to spend my morning looking online for answers.  

It's Valentines Day and Lance and I were thinking about going out for dinner, but I worried about having a glass of wine with dinner.  I'm not pregnant yet, but could a glass of wine have an effect on the IVF?  When you're spending as much as we are on trying to have a baby, you don't want to mess things up with something as stupid as a glass of wine.  I've already told Lance that he's not allowed to drink beer for at least a week before the egg retrieval, and he has begrudgingly agreed.

Gillian and I looked it up yesterday, and I guess it's safe to say that neither one of us will be enjoying a glass of wine tonight, even though there's no conclusive evidence that it will or will not affect anything.  But that all got me thinking about other stuff.

I'm ashamed to admit that I had forgotten this, but I was born with all of my eggs.  I'm not sure where I went wrong, but recently I've been thinking that I grow eggs each month.  Sometimes I think that they teach you all this reproductive stuff too early, or perhaps I just didn't pay enough attention in class.  Anyway... I started researching the female cycle this morning and ended up at an IVF forum (www.ivf.ca).

I started reading posts.

I should never have done that.

There were so many stories of canceled and failed cycles that it's hard not to get scared thinking that this could happen to us.  I know that every single persons journey to the IVF clinic is unique and that I should always be hopeful, but wow,  Some of those stories were so disheartening.

So on I go, and in the wise old words of one Homer J. Simpson...

My Family And Friends Are Sadistic!

The human race is a curious one.  Whenever I pull out my little "injection kit", I round up a bit of an audience.  Everyone wants to take a turn stabbing at me.  I'm not really sure how I should take that.

Are they genuinely wanting to help me with my injections as it is a bit nerve wracking the first few times you have to do it, or do they actually want to cause me pain for all the times I've pissed them off?

The first injection I had to do was around my rather curious 14 year old.  She is not afraid of needles.  When she was 12 years old I came home to her having three new ear piercings that she did herself. (Weirdo).  She wanted to watch, which was fine.  What wasn't fine was the sadistic grin she had on her face at the expense of my nerves!  She offered to do the shot for me and when I said no, she laughed, maniacally!

That evening I had to do the Gonal F pen.  I've never used a pen-style syringe before so I carefully read the instructions, unaware that Lance and Bailey were enjoying every moment of my pain!  Lance had even secretly recorded a video of me trying to prepare myself.  I suggested that I go remove myself to another room where I could have a little privacy, but they wanted to watch.  Lance offered to give me the injection.  I declined.  

What is with people wanting to stab me???

The next morning I have to go to work.  I have to be there for 7am, and my shot is due at 8am.  My Team Leader is quite interested in watching me reconstitute the vials of Menopur and offers to do the shot for me.  I ran off to the bathroom and locked myself in there to do it myself.  It's really hard to give yourself an injection in the belly when you're standing!  

That evening I have to do the pen-style injection again and I had stayed at my parents (which I normally do inbetween shifts), and my Mum... Same thing "Oh, I'll do that injection for you" and then she followed me around the house calling me a pansy until I finally drove that needle into my gut!  

The next day, Gillian (one of my favorite RNs to work with, and one that I have actually let stab me with a needle before ... In the ear of all places!  Haha) offered about a dozen times to poke me, but again... I kind of have to do it myself.  I think it's a control thing.  Also, I'm a little scared and overwhelmed at the amount of people that want to hurt me!  

I'm now on day 4 of the injections and while I don't think I'll ever like needles, I'm getting better at giving them to myself.  It is a bit of an eye-opener for me to eat and drink a bit healthier though.  I'd make a horrible diabetic!!!

Bring On The Psycho!

Ok, so I'm not really sure if this is a sign of things to come, or if it's purely circumstantial, but I've heard from numerous people that they know someone who has gone through IVF and the hormone injections made them irrational, insane, unbalanced and just plain crazy.
I felt pretty good yesterday. I'm on 150iu Menopur in the morning and 300iu Gonal F in the evening, and yesterday I remembered thinking that I should be able to coast through this whole hormone injection process without showing my crazy side.

Well, that was yesterday.

I was driving to work on this rainy morning, singing along to Katy Perry's "Roar" when suddenly, my passenger side windshield wiper flew off.  I pulled over and tried to reattach it, but the clip was missing.  I jammed it on the wiper-arm as best as I could, gave it a test swipe then went on my merry way.  Not!  As soon as I picked up speed the rain hit the windshield harder and when I turned the wiper back on again, it flew off again.  I screamed a profanity.  "F***", except it lasted for at least 30 seconds, was really high pitched and went more like this "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu**!!!" 

I was terrified.  It was dark, and now the rain had picked up to a torrential downpour.  I only had one headlight, and now one wiper.  Every time I tried to wipe the other blade, the metal-on-glass sound from the passenger side wiper arm would deafen me, but I had no choice.  I pulled over four times during the 30 minute drive to work, shaking, scared and wet.   

If this had happened in the city, I may have survived the drive with my emotions intact, but it didn't.  I was on a "curly" stretch of highway that goes through the mountains.  The only light is the moon, which of course was nowhere to be seen this morning, due to the foreboding storm clouds above.  I white knuckled it the rest of the way to Hope, pulled off at the first exit in hopes that the Husky Gas Station had wipers.  

What I didn't expect to happen was that the last nerve that I had left would suddenly snap the minute I walked through that door and the wet, mascara covered mess that I was would burst into tears and sobs while I failed to make any form of sense.  Now, I don't like to make light of serious issues, but if you can imagine... It's 6:30am, it's dark and wet, I'm looking more than a little disheveled, bawling my eyes out uncontrollably, and I'm in a sketchy part of town.  I can only imagine what the store clerk and the old trucker guy, standing at the counter sipping on a gas station coffee thought... Obviously I had been attacked.  They both ran over to help me and I could see the relief in their faces when they finally realized that I just wanted a wiper.  I felt pretty silly.  

The trucker guy spent the next 20 minutes standing with me trying to install the new wiper blade in the middle of a hurricane (maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but it felt like it at the time).  Finally, the stupid thing was on and I had managed to pull myself together enough to get to work only 2 minutes late!  I remember looking in the rear-view mirror as I pulled into the parking lot and saying to myself "You're frigging insane!"  

Thank you, Mr. Trucker Guy for helping me, and sorry that you thought that I'd been attacked!  

At least the rest of the day can't get any worse, can it?  

The Beginning!!!

I'm nervous and excited, all at once.  Why?  Because this morning was the 1st day of my cycle.

Let me explain a little bit of the history here... My Name is Marie.  I'm 36 (for at least another week), and my wonderful Fiance is 29 (yeah,I know.  Roar!)  I have two fantastic children from a previous relationship.  Aidan is 16 and Bailey is 14.  Lance has never had children. Lance wants children of his own, even though he has fully accepted my children as his own into his life.  I had my tubes tied in 2000/2001 due to medical complications after birth.

So there you have it.  Mostly.

We looked into having my tubal ligation reversed in 2009/2010, but didn't receive the greatest of news.  My insides are junk, that sums it up nicely.  We were referred to a fertility clinic in Vancouver called Genesis.  I kicked my heels a bit on getting us an appointment.  It's a bit of a scary process, and we were in the process of buying a house, so funds were a little tight.  Lance proposed to me on Christmas Eve of 2013 and we decided that maybe this baby thing should happen sooner rather than later, especially seeing that he was going to be stuck with me and my crappy insides for the rest of his life.  I made the appointment.

After a disappointing and discouraging start (The fertility Dr found a large prolapsed fibroid in my already crap uterus), I had surgery and we got back on track.  We told the Dr in our orientation that we would like to try to have a baby soon... And they didn't mess around.  The orientation was on January 31st, 2014, and they got me on the medications that freaking day.

So now we're up to date!

Today is the 1st day of my cycle.  I had to give myself an injection of Menopur.  In my normal every day life, I give injections all the time.  I'm an ER nurse.  I am terrified of needles.  Thus posed a problem.  How the flipping hell am I supposed to stab myself in the gut with a needle when I  can't even check my own blood sugars without fainting???  Well... I guess if you really want something badly, then you figure it out.  I have a teeny tiny pokehole in my belly... With many more to come.

So stay tuned, and I will update this frequently with our hopeful, yet scary journey into pregnancy.

Oh, and I almost forgot... Here's our first big expense.  *drum roll*

That is one weeks worth of meds.  Total cost... $3356.00  Yikes, hey?  

And I thought having a baby the normal way was expensive enough.