FET for me!

This is my first ever FET cycle. I am so excited! It's simply amazing how much easier this is than fresh. I am on CD 9 and I've been on my 3 times a day Estrace pills. I had an infusion yesterday in Nashville and everything went great. I've been on Lovenox and Prednisone for 4 days and that's it so far!

My blood work is scheduled for June 4 to check my estrogen and progesterone levels. I'll start on my progesterone supplement June 5 and the scan is scheduled for June 9. As long as my lining looks good at the ultrasound, the transfer will be June 10. This is so fast and I'm so glad. That way if it doesn't work (which we all know is a very likely possibility with me!) then I would still have time to try again before school starts back up in August.

Our plan is to transfer our ONE lonely genetic embryo. If he/she doesn't survive the thaw, we will transfer two of the donor embryos. I don't really know how to feel. Is it wrong to want to transfer the adopted ones because I feel like they have a better chance of making it or am I just used to believing our own embryos are crappy? I guess whatever happens is what is supposed to happen. It's hard to think you are making the wrong decision but like I said we can try again if it doesn't work. It's just a lot of money down the drain because one infusion costs over $2,000. Ugh. The price we pay for just a small chance of maybe getting pregnant. But our little lone embryo has been waiting to become thawed and transferred since 2011. My mom always said he was a fighter. We have to give him a chance at life, even if it is in my destructive uterus. Please IVIg fix my killer lady parts! :)

No infusion needed!

I have been stressing out about not receiving my immune numbers yet but the AEB Center called me back this morning and told me that my numbers looked excellent! She didn't say what they were and said the doctor hadn't actually reviewed them yet but told me I definitely won't need a pre-conception infusion this time. And it's a good thing I don't need one because I am almost ready to trigger (possibly tonight) and I couldn't get an appointment at Coram for the infusion until Tuesday. God is so good! I have just been thanking Him and praising Him all day for saving us lots of money and possibly from another miscarriage should I get pregnant. Now I am asking Him to please let this be our cycle for our take-home baby(ies). Our follicles look good (possibly 4 mature in all), my NK cells and cytokines are low, I'm on Lovenox for my clotting disorders and APAs so it just has to work, right? I am asking you to pray this same prayer with me. Thanks girls!!!You all are always in my prayers as well.

IVIG and follicle tracking

It has been a busy week both in the infertility world and teaching world! On Wednesday I went for my first IVIG infusion in Nashville. I still haven't heard if I will get any insurance coverage or not so it was cheaper to go to the facility instead of having a home health care nurse come to me to administer it. My mom went with me since Brad was out of town. Everything went great! The people at Coram are awesome and I couldn't have asked for a better nurse.

My appointment was at 10:00 in Nashville. We only got lost a little! It's not that it was hard to find, it's that my mom and I have no sense of direction whatsoever. 

It's time! I was getting nervous that it was going to start to make me sick soon but it never did. So blessed!

All done with the IVIG. Now for the water solution. 

My nurse, Mary. She was so awesome and made this experience a pleasant one.

So the infusion was on Wednesday, October 30. Halloween was the next day and since I'm a teacher taking the following day off isn't an option. Luckily I never did feel bad from the infusion. I felt a little sick at lunch on Thursday but I think it's because I didn't hydrate or eat enough the day after. Just so you can see why I needed to go to school, here's a pic!

My assistant and me, the chicken and the egg! Notice how I even incorporate eggs in my costumes!

I went to my RE on Friday afternoon for a follicle tracking ultrasound. I was a little disappointed when I only had 2 on the right and several on the left that were too small to even measure. I usually do much better on Clomid than that but it is what it is. They told me to take OPKs this weekend to make sure we didn't miss ovulation. Luckily they were negative so we are going back for another scan tomorrow. Hopefully the two on the right will be ready soon and I can trigger. I will keep you updated!

My stupid left side is always a slacker. 

It's go time!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while about what's going on. Planning to teach common core to a bunch of four-year-olds is taking up a lot of my time (which by the way is crazy!!!!!). I'm on CD 6 so I've got one more day of Clomid tomorrow and I start my Lovenox injections today! I go on Wednesday for my fist IVIG injection in Nashville. They will hook me up to an IV and infuse 1,000 different donors of plasma into me for 3 hours. It really dehydrates you so you have to make sure you are eating and drinking water. They keep you for an extra hour afterward to make sure you don't have any kind of reaction to the plasma. I'm a little nervous so keep me in your prayers about this. I also haven't heard if my insurance will cover any of it or not. It's very expensive so we are hoping since they are coding it immune system disease verses infertility that we will at least get some of it paid for but we aren't really expecting it. My first follicle ultrasound is next Friday too. Things are really moving along and I'm getting excited and nervous all at once. I'll try to update when I get a moment's peace from school! :)

Back on the positive side

Infertility is a strange beast. One minute you feel like giving up, the next minute you are sure it's going to work this time. The truth probably lies somewhere in between but today I am choosing to be positive. I have some of you to thank for that.

Everything is going well. I'm now on Prednisone and waiting to see if we get any coverage for our IVIG infusions. I am penciled in for my first infusion appointment and I found a doctor who was willing to write the home health care nurse order. Only a week or so left until we are on our way to baby (hopefully!) I went from scared to excited again. Thank you for all your words of encouragement. It really helped! Thank You Jesus for allowing things to fall into place perfectly.

Baby steps

Little by little, this baby making process is moving along....

We apparently misunderstood the treatment plan we were given by the RI. It wasn't IVIG or Humira. What they meant was use Humira for a month, test to see how it's working and if it is, then do one IVIG. The other option they gave us was to do one IVIG then a week or two later, do another IVIG. We had another consulting phone call via facetime with Karen Pace and she explained everything. After speaking with her for about an hour, we decided on a compromise of Prednisone and one IVIG. I contacted the AEB Center and they agreed that it was ok to do that! Yay!

So the next step is to contact companies who administer IVIG through a home health care nurse. Because I am a teacher and cannot spend my entire day on my cell phone, my DH called them for me.  (I just love him!) So he found a place in Knoxville that is contracted with my insurance. I left a message this afternoon with the AEB Center to let them know which one we are going to try to use. Hopefully I will hear from them tomorrow and they will send my orders so we can figure out how much this is going to cost us. Ugh. If insurance covers any of this I would be shocked. But after all we have spent this far it almost seemed crazy to go small at this point.

I did start on my 10mg of Prednisone tonight, they called in my Lovenox which I will begin on CD6 of my next cycle. I'm on CD 16 of my current cycle so I've still got a little time to get this all figured out. This is one time I'm thankful for long cycles.  If we can get these crazy infusions set up we will be good to go! It's starting to get a little exciting!!!!!:)

It's the little things that hurt the most

Grief is strange. One minute you're mad, the next minute you're sad and then you might even think something's funny and laugh. But then when you laugh you feel guilty. How could someone who just miscarried a child into a toilet and flushed him/her down the toilet laugh about anything? So then you cry again.

Then there's your refrigerator. The place that contains all of the healthy foods you bought to help nourish your little one. I am not a healthy eater really but when I get pregnant, I do my best to eat as many fruits and vegetables as I can. I even bought Carnation Instant Breakfast shakes to make sure I was getting everything my baby needed. Now all I want to do is eat a bunch of crap. Well if I'm being honest I really don't feel like eating at all. Why should I when there's nothing inside me worth eating for? Luckily I have the BEST husband anyone could ask for. Without me even mentioning this, he threw out the rest of the cantaloupe I had cut up and threw away that Instant Breakfast stuff. As hard as all of this is, I am so lucky. I know he is hurting just like me but he always seems to take care of me. I wouldn't trade him for any baby and if it means I never become a mother, I will still always have Brad and that makes me smile on this depressed day.

Next is the laundry. Laundry seems simple enough to do now that I'm not in pain anymore (physical anyway). The first problem with doing the laundry is where we sort the clothes. I'm sure like many of you, we have an empty bedroom that's waiting to become someone's room. In the closet of this room are all of the things I've kept from all of my miscarriages so that I will never forget those babies. Needless to say, this room is not the best place for me to go into right now but I did. I start sorting my clothes into the floor and there's the dress that I wore to Nashville when I felt so sick and couldn't finish my meal. There's the dress that I wore when I went I received my positive beta.(I have to wear dresses everyday because I still can't fit into any of my pants.) There's the sports bra I had to wear every night because my boobs were so sore. And there's the tankini bathing suit (I normally wear bikinis but I had so many bruises due to my Lovenox shots and of course I'm still bloated from the IVF) I wore on the day I starting loosing my baby. I can't do the laundry.

I will get through this. I have before. But what's different about this time is it was a pregnancy from IVF so they could look at my embryos and choose the best 3 and I took the shots that were supposed to prevent another loss. What else can be done? We have been reading about autoimmune issues being the cause for recurrent pregnancy loss. I know several of you have taken Prednisone and done the IVIG infusions for these issues so I would love to know more about it. The only thing that is keeping me going right now is the fact that I did get pregnant again. It had been 4 years since my last positive test so to even get pregnant is progress for us. I'm not ready to give up yet. It still may never be possible for me to carry a baby full term but I can't quit until I'm sure and we're not there yet.