My Neck, My Back

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I mentioned last week that I got an MRI. I threw out my back right before Thanksgiving and it hasn’t been right since then. What was I doing when I threw it out, you ask? Putting clothes in the washing machine. Isn’t getting older grand?

I’ve had back pain before, but nothing like this. I was in tears and couldn’t move. Going to the bathroom was a feat and I was trying not to eat or drink so I could limit the amount of time I had to spend squatting down to the toilet. I thought for sure I was going to rip the doorknob out of the door since that was the thing I used as leverage to get up and down. God, I never want to have to go through that again.

I’m so thankful that we have telehealth as part of my insurance because I was able to talk to a doctor and get a prescription for a steroid to help the next morning. And I was even more thankful for the car that I now had because I didn’t have to figure out how to get to the pharmacy to pick up the prescription.

Funny side story related to this: two days after I threw my back out, as I was hopped up on Norco and all of the pain meds, I was awoken by someone knocking on my front door. It was about 10 AM on Sunday morning (I threw my back out Friday late afternoon). My first thought in my drugged haze was “who the fuck is knocking on my door in a pandemic?” So I ignored it. But then I heard voices and what sounded like a walkie talkie/radio. So I was like “maybe I should see what’s going on”.

So in my PJs, with extreme bed head, having just taken some Norco an hour prior and feeling the effects, I whipped open my front door to……a bunch of firemen and my neighbors. Apparently someone smelled gas on our floor and they were wanting to see if it was coming from my unit. (It wasn’t.)

But thankfully I did open it because they ended up busting down the doors of two of my neighbors with AN AXE because they weren’t home (and they also weren’t the source of the leak, how shitty is that?). I’m VERY thankful I didn’t end up waking up to THAT.

Anyway, the steroids helped, but my back wasn’t completely healed. I was able to move around, which was GREAT, but my back was still pretty sore. And on top of the back pain, I was getting shooting pain down my leg, which is as awful as it sounds. I went to the doctor and she suggested physical therapy, to see if it would help.

I did 6 weeks of physical therapy and still do the stretches/exercises at home, but I’m still having super sharp pain in my back that shoots down my leg whenever I stand or walk. My doctor wanted to get an MRI to see what is going on exactly, and where, and to discuss next steps. The X-Ray showed a herniated disc, which makes sense, and it’s pushing on a nerve, so we will see what happens. In the meantime, I’m getting abs of steel from all the abs exercises I’m doing to help.

Have you ever had an MRI? It is NOT a pleasant experience. All my knowledge of them came from watching Grey’s Anatomy. So I knew it was a narrow tube and you had to stay still. That was all I wanted to know. I didn’t want to freak myself out at all. And I’m glad I didn’t, because I probably wouldn’t have been able to do it.

Now let me preface this by the fact that I am not claustrophobic at all. Or at least I wouldn’t consider myself claustrophobic. But I feel like instead of asking you beforehand if you’re claustrophobic, they should be like “imagine you’re trapped in a coffin, would that give you anxiety?” Because THAT is what an MRI is like. 

I was most worried about staying still. Because lying flat on my back is super painful and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to do that without moving. And I was right to worry because it was painful. They gave me a wedge to put under my legs, which helped for like 10 minutes, so the last 20 minutes was almost unbearable. But I didn’t move.

But then as they slid the table into that tube, and the wall of the tube was like right in front of my nose, I had to close my eyes. I had to forget the fact that there was no room for me in there, so I kept my eyes closed the whole time. I was afraid if I opened them, I’d hyperventilate and lose my shit.

They asked me before if I wanted to take off my mask. I said no. Not thinking that I would be trapped in a coffin for 30 minutes and want to be able to breathe freely. Note to self, take the mask off next time!

Hopefully this will be the only one I ever have. I’m still waiting to hear back from my doctor about the results (which reminds me it’s been a week so I should reach out to her and see what the deal is), but hopefully it isn’t anything too bad. My sister has horrible back problems and has had several surgeries, so I know how awful back problems can be.

This will teach me to do anything besides sitting on my ass. Damn you chores!

All Eggs In One Basket

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Welcome back, friends! I wanted to give a little update with what is going on with me fertility-wise, since like that’s the whole point of this blog, right? (Although, I had my first-ever MRI this week and I will be back to regale you with my tales from that because I’m not claustrophobic by any means, but have you ever been in one of those tubes? And that story has NOTHING to do with IVF.)

So yeah, not much has been going on with my fertility journey since last summer when I got the call with the negative pregnancy test. I actually took a break for a whole plethora of reasons. One, Covid. I mean it felt like maybe it was a blessing that I didn’t get pregnant then to avoid having to possibly get Covid when I was pregnant. Second, and the biggest, was money. Because once transferring my own embryo didn’t work, I knew that my next move was going to be moving on to donor eggs, instead of my own, and that’s expensive as hell and not covered by insurance.

So that’s where I am. I’m not sure I ever talked about this before. But after I got the results back of my embryo and that it was mosaic, and deciding whether or not to do another egg retrieval with my own eggs, I had a great conversation with my acupuncturist. This was back in April LAST YEAR, in the height of the pandemic. I had found out that I didn’t really have IVF insurance coverage for another egg retrieval, so the choice was to wait, which wasn’t really an option at my advanced age, or to spend $20,000 to try again with my own eggs. And let’s be honest, after trying everything I could to increase my egg quality (supplements, acupuncture, diet change, reducing toxins, etc.), I still only got three eggs retrieved and only one made it to blastocyst. And while there is a possibility that a different medication protocol could have produced more eggs, who knows if the results would have been any better? And was that uncertainty worth another $20k loan for a slim chance of it working? I wasn’t so sure.

My acupuncturist mentioned donor eggs. Because while nothing is guaranteed, at least using eggs far younger than my own, the odds of it resulting in a live birth are much, much higher. But it was something I never thought of. I always assumed it would work with my own eggs. So it never crossed my mind. And when she asked me about it, my initial reaction was NOPE, NOPE, and a lot more NOPE. But she pressed me a bit (she’s like a second therapist, I love her so!) and I was like “but then the baby won’t look like me!” And she essentially gave me a socially distant head slap and said “so you pick a donor that looks like you! Duh!” 

And then it clicked! Apparently the hang up in my brain was worrying about the baby looking like me. I don’t know why. There is a strong chance that even with a sperm donor and my eggs, the baby wouldn’t look like me at all. Genetics are weird, yo. I look nothing like my siblings, so it’s all a crapshoot, no matter whose genetic material you use.

But I think it was because I was so worried about this future child so much already, for growing up with a single mom and not knowing their dad and getting teased on the playground and not having someone to go to the Father/Daughter Dance with her, that adding in looking nothing like me would just be one too many hurdles. 

(Oh yes, friends, I do already worry about those things for my future child. Even though we didn’t even HAVE Daddy/Daughter dances when I grew up and I turned out just fine! I mean, old, crappy eggs notwithstanding.)

So then I decided to look around online at egg donors. I decided that I would do frozen eggs. It’s a bit cheaper than finding a person and paying that person to do their own cycle. It takes a little bit of the uncertainty out of it, in that they have already cycled and got eggs. And it was very eye-opening and so helpful. There are so many women out there who donated their eggs that you can find almost anyone that fits your needs. And once it got down to it, my requirements were that basically the woman was pale and had a round face. I was hoping for someone taller, since I’m 5-11, but turns out there aren’t a lot of tall egg donors out there. And if they are, they usually charge more, which I can’t really blame them.

In the meantime, I talked to my doctor about moving to donor eggs and they were like “hey! We have an in-house agency that does egg donors and they work right with our clinic!” and I was elated! After my first call with them, I felt very at ease. They were just starting a frozen egg bank, which meant that I could take advantage of a lower price and they could do all the searching for a donor FOR me. All I needed to give them was my requirements (see above: pale and round face, and preferably tall). I found a donor I liked, and she was due to cycle in the coming months, which was perfect for me because I needed some time to save up the money.

That was all in the fall last year and I had told them I wasn’t planning anything until probably March of 2021. I wanted several months to save some money, get my credit score up a bit and hopefully be vaccinated for Covid before trying.

They reached out again in January and we were going to move forward. But the last call I had with them left me in tears and throwing out cuss words every other word in our Zoom call. Turns out while they were willing to work with me on the price of the donor lot of eggs (yay! Price matching for egg donors, who knew?!), there was then all these added fees and talk of hiring a lawyer, all things previously not mentioned and also fees that were all included if I went with a donor egg bank.

When it came down to it, while I understood the additional costs and hiring a lawyer, it also just didn’t sit well with me that they were like “what’s another one to three thousand dollars?” I’m sure that’s not how they meant it, but that was 100% how it came across and it left a pit in my stomach and the one thing I have learned through all this is to trust my gut. I’m spending TENS of thousands of dollars already. Also even $1,000 is A LOT of money. Even if everything else was free.

So I’m back with the original frozen egg bank that I first reached out to last April. I spent a weekend searching for donors and picked my top 5. It turns out that I do have another requirement besides pale with a round face, I need proof the eggs work, so I limited myself to people who have either had kids of their own or their donated eggs produced children.

My top pick was 5′-7″, which is kind of tall, so I was really excited about her. One of the requirements of my clinic is to meet with a genetic counselor to make sure that the donor sperm guy and the donor egg woman aren’t carriers for the same diseases, which can increase the chances of the future baby having the disease. My sperm donor (the same one I used for my egg retrieval) is a carrier for one rare disease. My top egg donor choice wasn’t screened for that disease and so I was like “how bad could it be?” And the genetic counselor was like “well, actually….” which is never good. Turns out this disease leads to a shortened lifespan of about 38 years and a very decreased quality of life. So even though the odds were super low that the egg donor was a carrier for this, it wasn’t worth the risk. So it was on to donor egg choice number two.

Choice one and choice two look like they could be related. So I was fine with either one. And when I went back to look at Choice 2 again, I actually liked her a lot more. 

So now it’s just a matter of my doctor giving the go-ahead to purchase these (I have an appointment on Tuesday), and then pulling the trigger on the egg lot! Right now I’m aiming for a embryo transfer at the end of May!

Stay tuned!

Oh, Hello There

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Well that was an unexpected break, huh?

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Obviously I never posted here after I found out I wasn’t pregnant. Don’t worry, I’m not secretly 7 months pregnant and didn’t tell you. As I told a few friends the other day, when I get pregnant, I’m going to be that obnoxious pregnant person spamming you with so! many! photos!

Can you believe it’s almost been a year for this whole pandemic and stay at home bullshit? My last day in the office was March 13, so this week is almost a year to the day that I’ve been working from home. 

In that time, I’ve worn real pants probably 10 times, I’ve put makeup on only three times, and I’ve gotten really good at being by myself.

Although, let’s be honest, I’ve always been a homebody. This whole forcing me to hang out by myself in my pajamas at home for weeks and months on end hasn’t been that difficult for me. I do miss people, though. And I’ve expanded my bubble so I do get to see two people every now and then. 

I also bought a car in August. It’s a used car, but new to me. I’m pretty sure THAT has been my saving grace as to why I’ve been able to manage. The stress and anxiety I had of taking ubers when I had doctor’s appointments, etc. (plus the cost!) was a lot. And the fact that when I’m tired of being cooped up inside I can just go for a drive is very good for my mental health.

I haven’t had a car since 2017. I sold my almost-20 year old Sentra for like $160. It was falling apart and the work it needed was going to be more than the car was worth, so I sold it. I figured I could manage for a few years with just public transit and ride sharing. And when needed, I could rent a car.

The Lying Liar™ actually got a car from his dad at one point in our relationship, and that was super helpful. Although he was such a control freak, he never really let me drive it. So it was like not having a car at all. And let me tell you, having my own car that I can use any time I want, and go whatever speed I want, and listen to whatever music I want is REALLY freeing! 

via GIPHY

(I’m thankful every single day that I was not still with the Lying Liar™ once the pandemic started. I don’t know how I would have managed with him, stuck at home.)

Anyway, with a new (to me) car I now have a car payment, which I haven’t had since 2004. Plus all the debt from being with the Lying Liar™. So part of the reason I bought a car was to be able to use it to make some extra income. I was going to be an Uber driver, but I’m not really comfortable with people in my car. Also I watch too much true crime and I’m not convinced I wouldn’t get murdered by a passenger, so that’s off the table.

So instead I signed up to be a food delivery driver with Door Dash and GrubHub. I’ve been doing it since just about the time I got the car last summer and it is helping. I’m starting to make a dent in my debt, I’m able to save more money for future fertility treatments and I make way more money in just a few hours of work than I ever did as an Instacart shopper

So that’s what I’ve been doing with my time. I’m literally working 7 days a week and am always tired and wanting a nap. I usually only do delivery Thursdays through Sundays, and this winter was a little touch and go when we got A LOT of snow in the matter of like 10 days, which made delivering (for me) impossible. (My car is another Sentra and I don’t feel comfortable driving in bad weather, plus trying to find parking for a Sentra when there is 2 feet of snow piled up on narrow side streets is not fun.) But I’ve made decent money and I am hoping that people still want to get takeout even as things start to open up.

I’m still on my fertility journey and planning on getting pregnant, which I’ll update in the next post. And I needed to take these steps and this time to get myself in a better financial position to be able to move forward. 

So what’s new with you? 

Transfer Day

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It’s been one week (since you looked at me*) since my frozen embryo transfer. I have been meaning to write a post to memorialize the day and to let you all know how it went down, but I’ve also been really fucking tired lately. It’s from all the progesterone I’m on to keep my little Sparky nice and cozy inside my uterus, but it not conducive to being productive at all. I took a four hour nap on Saturday. Unapologetically.

Now I’ve always been a good napper. Probably since I was a baby. I love a good nap more than anything. And I’m not talking couch naps, or recliner naps. No, naps should be taken in bed with the blinds closed and it dark and cool. I don’t take 30 minute naps. Mine have got to be an hour or more in length. It makes me so happy.

But a four-hour nap is pretty unusual. Usually I can force myself to three. But lately I’ve been taking 3 to 4-hour naps and waking up like I could go to sleep for the night. And of course I don’t and then stay up until midnight every night.

Maybe I should stop napping.

And I know what you’re all thinking “OMG, that’s a sign she’s pregnant!” And I do wish it to be true, but it is also 100% too soon for any symptoms. Trust me. Up until this weekend, the embryo hadn’t even fully implanted yet. And unfortunately, the progesterone side effects? Exact same as early pregnancy symptoms AND ALSO period symptoms. So I’m not even paying attention and trying to symptom spot. I’m just taking naps, OK? Ha!

Anyway, back to the transfer. I found out on the Saturday before the transfer day that I needed to be there at 1 PM and that I needed to come with a full bladder, a mask, warm socks and a hat.

A HAT?

OK, I knew the full bladder. It’s the same for IUIs. It’s better to see the uterus on the ultrasound and to guide in the catheter. The mask was a given, since it’s required here. The warm socks I also knew, because it is a big thing in Eastern medicine that you need to keep your feet warm to keep your uterus warm. Basically any cold appendages take the blood flow away from the uterus and send it to the cold parts to warm them up. It’s why I’ve been wearing socks all day, and night, for the last several months.

But the hat? What kind of hat? A baseball hat? A winter hat to keep my head warm? Every person I talked to had no idea what it meant. I asked a person who already had an embryo transfer, I asked my mom, I asked my acupuncturist – no one knew.

So I went to one of my FB groups. The one woman said it was to save on PPE, so they didn’t give you one of those surgical head coverings. She said she tied a scarf around her head.

I then got mad and cried (hormones are fun!) because what they fuck was I supposed to do on short notice? It isn’t like you can find the surgical caps anywhere. I wasn’t going to add stress by trying to tie a scarf around my head. For what I was paying for this procedure, they couldn’t spare one hat?

I came to my senses the next morning and figured that I had an old shower cap I could use. It wouldn’t be sanitary or anything (which was my whole point in this, that it defeats the purpose), but if I needed to bring a hat, I’d bring one.

I took Monday off, even though the procedure wasn’t until 1, because I didn’t want to stress or think about anything but the transfer. And after the transfer, I just wanted to rest like I was instructed.

My good friend Marisue picked me up and drove me down to the clinic. She was amazing and sanitized her car and had me sit in the back, both of us in masks, just to be safe. It was so much better than an Uber. And it is always so good to see friends these days and talk face to face, even with masks!

We got there early, so we just sat outside in the car and caught up. I was told to start drinking on the ride down to the clinic, so I did. I was starting to get full and it wasn’t even 1 yet, so I stopped drinking. I knew from experience that you didn’t go right back the procedure room once you got there, so I didn’t want to have an uncomfortably full bladder when I got in.

Once it was 1 PM, I went up and they took my temperature and pulse ox level. (They do this at every appointment). I then had to fill out some paperwork and then they called me back to a room with a couch.

I sat in there for a bit and the embryologist came in to talk to me about my embryo. I had a huge fear going into all this that the embryo wouldn’t survive the thaw and this would have all been for nothing.

But that didn’t happen! My little guy came out of the thaw nice and healthy and the embryologist said he looked really healthy and the cells were nice and plump. He showed me this photo and I may have teared up a little.

The embryo itself is about the size of a grain of salt. But he looked good and was expanding and I was really happy and so relieved.

After that, the nurse came in to go over everything and my discharge instructions. Then it was off to the room to change into a gown, booties over my warm socks, and my hat. They gave me a hat, so I didn’t have to wear the shower cap. (They didn’t even ask if I had a hat! After all that!)

They give you a Valium before to reduce the stress and to calm you down so you don’t tense up when they are in there with the catheter. I also read it helps relax the muscles of the bladder so it isn’t as uncomfortable when full.

They do the transfer in the same room they do the egg retrievals in. You confirm with the lab who you are and they put you in the stirrups. Once I was settled, they checked my uterus with the ultrasound and asked how full I was. I said it wasn’t too bad, and the tech and the doctor were really happy because they had a really good view.

Check out that triple layer appearance!

The ultrasound tech said my lining looked really good. She was a really nice woman and explained everything that was happening.

The doctor then inserts a catheter into my uterus through the cervix and gets it all set up to show you where they are going to place the embryo. They then have a camera in the lab of them putting the teeny, tiny embryo into the tube that they will then insert into the uterus. It’s all so small, so you can’t really see much.

But the doctor said she got it placed right where she wanted, and she was really pleased. They then double check the tube to make sure the embryo was indeed implanted and not stuck in the tube (this is a thing that happens, apparently).

Everything I heard was that you then were to rest on the table or in a room, for 20-30 minutes. But I don’t know if that isn’t the case at my clinic or it was just COVID related, but they let me pee, get dressed and then sent me on my way.

I was fine with that because there isn’t much science that supports that sitting with your legs up, or lying down post-transfer helps. Plus with the Valium I was feeling goooooooood and I was looking forward to getting home and napping!

Once I got home, I relaxed and took a nap. I had an acupuncture appointment at 5 and went there to have her do her magic and help him stick!

Since then I’ve been trying to relax and not do too much. The biggest thing is not to overheat and raise your body temperature, which is hard to do when it’s a bazillion degrees outside. So I’ve just been staying inside as much as possible. It helps me keep my anxiety levels down from all the assholes not wearing masks, and keeping myself a normal temperature so I don’t cook the embryo!

So now I’m officially Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise (PUPO) and in the dreaded Two Week Wait. Thankfully because the embryo they put in was already 5 days old, the 2WW is only the 10-day wait. But it’s still feels like an eternity.

I go in Thursday for blood work to see what my HCG levels are. That will tell us if I’m pregnant. I’m not planning to take a home pregnancy test before then because I’ve dealt with that disappointment before and they aren’t 100% accurate. So I will wait to see what the blood work says, since that is the most accurate way to test this early on.

Oddly enough, Thursday is a year to the date of my first IUI. Some people may think that is a bad sign, remembering things with the Lying Liar (and that first IUI was a nightmare and one of the worst days ever).

But I choose to think this is a really positive thing. To see how far I’ve come in that year and to appreciate where I am and that I’m doing this alone and NOT with him.

And more proof that this is how it was always meant to be.

*Sorry for the earworm

Four Days To Go

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I feel like I need to update more often, but last week was a really rough week. I felt like crap the whole week.

I mentioned in the last post that one of the medicines I was on, Lupron, which suppresses the ovaries from ovulating, gave me horrible headaches. Basically it was probably from being so smug about it giving me NO side effects except some mild hot flashes. Because when those headaches came on, it was like a ton of bricks.

On top of that, I also started a medicine called Metformin, because my A1C is a little high and my doctor wants to limit gestational diabetes as much as possible. This medicine is the actual worst. The first week I was only taking it once a day and it was fine. I took it after lunch and I had no side effects. But after a week on the medicine, I was supposed to increase it to twice a day. So I started taking it after lunch and after dinner. And this was apparently too much because the nausea was out of control. I had no appetite, but needed to take this medicine with food to limit the symptoms. So on top of horrible headaches, I had nausea and was just generally feeling really gross all week.

I finally figured out that eating small meals or snacks seemed to help the nausea a bit. But I’ve been doing intermittent fasting for like 8 months, so eating in the morning is a completely foreign concept to me. It is so ingrained in my brain to not eat at all until 1 PM. On top of that, I don’t really have much in the house for breakfast besides eggs, and eggs were the least appetizing to me when I was nauseous with a migraine. I bought some saltines and I ate a lot of saltines and bananas last week.

Thankfully by last weekend,  I was feeling so much better and my body was used to the medicine. And this week is even better and I’m back to being able to do intermittent fasting in the morning. But I’m also being way better about listening to my body and if I’m hungry in the morning, I eat something. Because it helps stave off the nausea.

I told myself this is all just preparing me for pregnancy and morning sickness.

Also since my last post, I’ve had a few more ultrasounds. I went back last Friday to see how the estrogen was doing and to see how my lining was growing. Last Friday it was measuring about 9.3 mm which is AMAZING. They want it to be over 8 mm. So I was responding really well to the estrogen.

The other key thing for the lining is it to be trilaminar, which means it is triple-layered in appearance. Like a cake. Mmmmm, cake.

As of last Friday, it wasn’t looking layered at all, so the doctor decided to increase my estrogen to three pills a day. Of course it was the vaginal suppositories that I had to increase. It couldn’t have been the easy-to-apply, mess-free patches.

So I did that and went back to the doctor for another ultrasound on Monday morning. I have thankfully not had the awful ultrasound technician again. I hope she was reprimanded for what she did to me. I had a very nice woman who let me know that my lining was up to 10.9 mm and was looking really good and layered. I have learned to not really pay attention to the techs, but I felt hopeful. The doctor confirmed it was measuring great and nice and layered so we were all set for the transfer next Monday!

In the meantime,  I was able to stop the Lupron. My last shot was Tuesday night and I couldn’t have been happier.

Now that the Lupron is done, I have to start taking progesterone. This is to simulate post-ovulation in my body. This is the medication I was least looking forward to in all this. The progesterone is an intramuscular shot in the butt. The needle is intense and I’ve heard horror stories in all my fertility groups about this. Because the shot is mixed with oil, you have to really massage it so you don’t get knots. Because this medication continues even after you get pregnant, that’s a lot of injections on pretty small real estate on your backside. (It’s not really your butt. If it was, I’d be fine because I have A LOT of real estate there. It’s like your upper butt/hip. Like above the pockets on your jeans. Not as big of an area.) On top of that, I have to give it to myself which is a tad bit awkward.

I had my first progesterone in oil (PIO) shot on Wednesday morning. I looked up all the tips I could: warm the oil before injecting, ice the injection site before, use a heating pad after to disperse the oil, massage, massage, massage. I had so much anxiety about this shot that I was convinced I wasn’t going to be able to do it.

Spoiler alert, it was fine. And painless. Icing the area, you can’t even feel the needle go in. It’s still a bit awkward to inject yourself in any area on your backside, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. I did my second one this morning and it went fine. I need to get out my foam roller, though, because yesterday’s spot is sore and since I have to use that side again tomorrow, I want to make sure I’m not injecting in a knot.

I keep on this, and the estrogen, until after the embryo transfer. And after the embryo transfer, I’ll add in even more progesterone, to keep that lining nice and cushy for the embryo. Of course that’s more suppositories, but hey! That’s old hat by now.

But we’re all set and I’ll be transferring my little embryo that could on Monday. I don’t have a time yet, but I’ll keep you posted. I’m not nervous about the procedure. It’s similar to the IUIs I’ve had so I know kind of what to expect. And it’s just putting the embryo in a catheter and placing it into my uterus. There is no surgery or anesthesia or anything. This is the easier part.

But I will be nervous after, praying for the little guy to stick. And hoping for a healthy pregnancy. I’m really excited about that!

And We’re Off

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I had another ultrasound Monday and the technician was WAY better than the last one.

The news was good! My lining has thinned out and we were good to keep going and move to the next phase of this process. And the technician did tell me that, but that was all she told me. She was very nice and not diagnosing me with ANYTHING.

This next phase now involves me putting things up my vagina, so that’s a fun, new turn of events.

I started on a medicine called Lupron back on the 26th of May. That medicine is to basically trick my body into simulating menopause and stopping it from ovulating. Because this a frozen embryo transfer (FET), you have to trick your body. Because I’ve already ovulated and they collected that egg, and fertilized that egg, and we are going to put that back in my body after a time when I would have already ovulated and had that egg fertilized IN MY BODY. So since it isn’t happening in my body and all that happened in a petri dish, we’ve got to make my body THINK it is all happening naturally. (Science is crazy, right?)

So I’ve injected that into my stomach every day since then. The side effects from this medicine are generally headaches, foggy brain and hot flashes. I only really had the hot flashes. That was until this past weekend. This past weekend the headaches hit my like a ton of bricks. They were so bad Monday and Tuesday that I felt like I was going to puke all day. Thankfully today seems a bit better, and I’m trying to drink all the water to help.

Now that my lining has thinned out, I’m still injecting that Lupron every night. The dosage has decreased, but I’ve also added in estrogen. That’s meant to help plump up the lining. We want it nice and thick, and cushy, like your bed on a winter morning, when you’re all warm and comfy and don’t want to get up.

Now we are adding in estrogen in patch and pill form. The pill isn’t swallowed, though. No. Of course not. I have to instead insert it vaginally. And the pill is teal colored, so every now and then when you wipe, it’s like a blue surprise on the toilet paper until you remember that you stuck the blue pill up your who-hah. Thankfully my doctor told me this, otherwise I may have freaked out a bit.

I got back for an ultrasound on Friday morning to see how the lining is growing. I’m hoping that since it was already pretty thick while I was shedding my lining on my period, that I won’t have any problem plumping it up. But we will see how things are on Friday.

But the doctor is still aiming for a transfer on June 22, which is right around the corner. SQUEEEEE!!

Thin It Out

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I feel weird posting here without acknowledging all that is going on with the world. And posting here about this small thing compared to the racial injustice going on, and that has been going on for centuries, seems counterproductive, so I’m going to use this space to at least help and give you all some links to check out for people to follow and ways to help as we all learn to be more vocal anti-racists and continue to fight for all people of color.

Nicole Cardoza has a great information and she is offering her information free, daily, in an anti-racism daily email. Sign up here. I’ve just started and already two days in, the information is amazing. You can also find links to donate to her to help support her sharing her amazing knowledge. That she is doing FOR FREE.

If you are able, donate to a charity that is working to fight for racial justice. I donated to Know Your Rights Camp, which is the camp Colin Kaepernick started.

Download the Official Black Wall Street app and buy from black-owned businesses. Find more info here.

It’s not enough for us to share photos and videos on social media and then call it a day. We all have work to do, me included. And don’t be afraid to post or say the wrong things. This is a learning process for all of us. Listen, learn, digest, educate. BLACK LIVES MATTER.

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When we last left off, I was waiting for my Aunt Flo to come visit, and even though there is a global pandemic, I’m allowing her to come visit, even though she’s not the best house guest there is (she is a LITERAL PAIN), because I need her here to get things started. And I’m hoping this will be her last visit for at least 9 months.

She came on Wednesday. With as much fanfare as normal. Although, she was 2 days late. She usually is very regular with her monthly visits. (Also, she needs to get a new place to visit. I’ve had it up to HERE with her and her visits. Stop couch-surfing and find your own place, AUNTIE.) I wasn’t too worried about her lateness. It wasn’t like I was actually pregnant. Sadly.

Once she finally arrived, with her suitcases full of blood and clots, I called the doctor to let her know. They told me to come in on Friday to have my baseline ultrasound and blood work to make sure we could move to the next steps.

I’m not sure I’ve mentioned it here before, but I’m sure I have, vaginal ultrasounds when you’re on your period are no bueno. I’m pretty sure I left blood stains on the floors of my last clinic.

So I went into for my ultrasound and I was interested to see how it was different. I mean, I had only had a wand up my who hah at one office, so maybe other clinics did something fun and special? Spoiler alert: they are all the same.

Although this new office, they don’t have TVs for me to see the ultrasound screen. I didn’t realize that was a luxury and I really missed it as she was rooting around in there because I wanted to see what she was measuring.

At my old clinic, the ultrasound techs don’t say shit. They will exchange pleasantries and talk about certain things, but when it comes to what they are doing and taking measurements of and pictures of, mum is the word. This used to drive me CRAZY. Like you didn’t know good or bad. Like no numbers of follicles or measurements of how they were growing. NOTHING.

And now I have learned WHY they don’t say anything. Because they aren’t doctors. And they don’t always know WHAT they are seeing and to say anything would possibly freak a person out.

Say like the lady that did my ultrasound Friday. I casually mentioned to her that my old clinic had TVs and that it was nice to see what they were seeing. She then took this upon her to tell me that it looked like I had adenomyosis. Which is basically like a hyped up endometriosis and NOT good when it comes to trying to put an embryo in your uterus. It’s basically like NEXT STOP, HYSTERECTOMY!

Of course she dropped this, told me my uterine lining “was not smooth”, asked if I had heavy periods, and then said we were all done and that the doctor would call me after reviewing it.

Which meant I had the whole Uber ride home to GOOGLE this condition and the VERY NOT GOOD PROGNOSIS and then hours to wait until I heard from the doctor. Thankfully I have good friends that talked me down and made me realize that not a single doctor or ultrasound tech in the last year has told me ANY of this. And I’ve had upwards of 20 ultrasounds to go and look at what is going on in there. And this isn’t something that happens overnight. So thankfully I calmed myself and just told myself to wait until the nurse called to discuss it. And ate two chocolate muffins while waiting.

She finally called around 3 PM and told me that my blood work was good, all the things they were measuring were at the levels we needed. But she told me that my uterine lining was still a bit too think, thicker than the doctor would like to move on to the next medication, so I would need to come in Monday for another ultrasound to see the status.

I asked her “so do I have adenomyosis?” And she was like “what? No. The doctor didn’t say anything about that.” She went on to say that it’s possible, since my lining was still kind of thick, but that we would do another ultrasound on Monday and see where it stood. And if that was the case, we’d discuss next steps. But she did not make it seem like was an issue at all. So WHEW.

She asked if I was still bleeding. And I’m like “uh, yeah”. Are there people out there who are done with their period on Day 3? I would like to be those people. Because I’m still bleeding pretty heavily on Day 3 and passing clots. So basically, I think I’ll be OK. (Hell I think I just left a millimeter of lining on the last tampon I took out!) I know I still have bleeding left, so more uterine lining to shed (I usually bleed for 5-6 days). Monday will be Day 6 of my cycle and I think then it will be all thinned out and we’ll move on to the next step.

If that is the case, which I’m staying positive it will be, then we are tentatively scheduled to transfer the embryo on June 22.

I’ll keep you posted on Monday after my next ultrasound. And I’m going to tell them to TELL ME NOTHING AND KEEP YOUR TRAP SHUT!

What’s Next?

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Thank you all for the love on my last post! I didn’t realize you were all waiting to hear what was going on with me. I tried writing that post so many times, but I just wasn’t ready mentally. But I’m so glad I finally did because you make a girl feel so loved!

So once I made the decision that I wanted to give it a go with my mosaic embryo, I had to go about the business of actually moving the frozen embryo from my one clinic to the new clinic.

I was very thankful for my old doctor, who when she told me it was it mosaic and they wouldn’t transfer it, that I needed to call the lab ASAP to make sure they didn’t destroy the embryo. I did that the SAME day, and thankfully the lab didn’t do anything with it until I gave them further instructions.

The process of moving a microscopic thing is not a simple thing. There are a lot of forms to fill out and authorizations and doing this all during a global pandemic doesn’t make it any easier.

My old clinic is connected to a hospital, so it shut everything done, fertility treatment-wise, once the shutdown started. I think some people who were in the middle of doing the stimming meds were allowed to do their retrieval, but no new ones and everything was put on hold. So they weren’t even really open.

It was a lot of back and forth between the lab lady at the old clinic and the lab guy at the new clinic. It was like playing a game of telephone. But finally at the beginning of May, I was able to move the embryo.

There were some other ridiculous costs associated with this. Namely, renting the tank to transport it. I could have had a company do it, but it would have been close to $1,000. Or I could do it myself for $100.

Clearly I decided to do it myself.

I rented a car because I wasn’t about to transport this giant tank across the city via Uber or public transit.

(I was very thankful for this small, not insanely heavy tank, because in my head, it was 10 times the size of this and I was going to need a dolly to move it myself.)

Because my old clinic wasn’t really up and running, I had to pick up the tank at 8 and return it by 10. So I was there as soon as possible to pick it up. There were more forms, and verifying my identity, and then I was off. I strapped the tank in and we were ready to drive across the City.

We got to the clinic and I felt like I was on a game show as I was waiting for them to process everything and worrying about getting back by 10 AM. But I didn’t have to worry. Everything was done quickly and I got the tank back and got my $500 deposit back.

Once they had the embryo, I reached out to the doctor about getting ready to transfer the embryo now into my uterus. There were a lot more hoops to jump through. I had to sign a lot of paperwork acknowledging I was transferring this mosaic embryo at my own risk. I had to have a call with a genetic counselor to discuss my embryo.

(Just a side note on all this: I have done A LOT of research on mosaic embryos. I’m in several FB groups, I’ve spent months Googling chromosomes and issues and all of this. I know there is a low chance of this embryo actually resulting in a live birth. But the odds are not ZERO, so there is a chance. And there is a lot of recent studies, and plenty of women in these FB groups, who have had a live birth with a perfectly healthy baby. So while I understand why they want me to do all this counseling, I also didn’t make this decision lightly.)

So that’s where we are at this moment. I went in on Tuesday for blood work to get some updated labs done (I had done a lot of them over a year ago and they needed to be current), and it was also to test my progesterone to make sure I had ovulated and was ready to start. I had, so we’re on our way!

Next steps are to wait for my period. Then I’ll go in for a baseline ultrasound. Then once my period is over, we’ll go about building up my uterine lining, with lots of estrogen. Once it gets to optimal thickness, we’ll mimic ovulation and then drop that embryo in my cushy uterus.

And I can’t wait to show him our first photo together.

April Fools

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I realize that it’s literally almost the last day of May, but what is time anymore?

How is everyone doing these days? Hanging in there?

I’m doing OK. I have good days and bad days, mostly good days. At least when I have my sad days, I know it is temporary and I just lean into it and know it will pass. I’m still doing therapy with my therapist via Zoom, so that has really helped. Even though I don’t have much to discuss, it at least gives me some sense of normalcy. But let me say, seeing yourself cry on a Zoom video call is not an attractive thing.

Now on to the subject of this post. When we last left off, I had some insurance snafus and was moving to a new fertility clinic. One, because they took my insurance, and two, because they would transfer my mosaic embryo, if I wanted to do so.

It was about a day or two later after that last post that the new clinic called and said that they contacted the new insurance provider and the new provider was saying that I didn’t have coverage for fertility treatments.

This led to many, many phone calls with Cigna. Every single person I talked to said the system said I had coverage, they didn’t know why all the claims I had for the egg retrieval already were being denied and they would get back to me. The very nice woman I talked to was like “this is so weird. I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”

Fast forward to April 1, and I finally heard back from the nice lady. And it wasn’t good news. She was so, so, so sorry, but it turns out there was an issue on their end and their system was incorrectly stating that I had coverage for fertility treatments. It’s why several people told me the same thing. But something in their system was incorrectly giving out that information. And they were very sorry to give me this news.

This was obviously REALLY bad news. I was literally already starting some priming meds to start my next egg retrieval. I had ordered a several hundred dollars worth vial of a new medication we were going to try with this retrieval to hope for more eggs. (It’s still sitting in my fridge.)

My next step was to figure out how much it would cost out of pocket to do the retrieval with the new clinic. This was also bad news. It would be WAY more than what it would have been at my old clinic. Plus with the current state of the country and economy, it did not seem to be the best idea to take out a very large loan to pay for it, especially knowing the results may not be any better than the last time.

It was hard to come to terms with this, knowing that I did do all the things to help my egg quality and it didn’t really didn’t do much. Yes I got one embryo to make it to Day 5, but it also wasn’t a 100% normal celled embryo. And risking upwards of $20,000 to maybe get another embryo to try wasn’t sounding like the smartest thing financially.

I sat on all this for a few weeks (hence why I’m writing this post on May 27). I had enough anxiety and stress with all the pandemic bullshit, I didn’t have the bandwidth to mentally think about this. But once quarantine became the new normal, I had more energy to think about this and how to move forward.

The good news was that after that few weeks, I heard again from Cigna and they would be paying for all the ultrasounds and blood work and surgery from my egg retrieval, so I wouldn’t have to pay for that. It was their mistake, they said I had coverage, so they would pay all my claims.

So that was a HUGE relief knowing I wasn’t going to have another $10k bill to cover.

That got me thinking about my next steps. And what I decided was that I would transfer my mosaic embryo. That somehow I bucked the system and basically got a free egg retrieval and that my one embryo was a lucky one. So maybe, just maybe, this little boy was meant to be my son all along.

I know that nothing is guaranteed. And I know that because there were abnormal cells, this could all lead to a miscarriage anyway. But I have to try. I owe it to myself, and my little frozen embryo.

Because WHY NOT?

Mosaic

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I didn’t expect to take this long of a break from writing here, but then :flails hands: all of this happened and well holy shit. What a world, right?

I’m safely working for home for my second week. I put my foot down and stayed home starting the 16th. We weren’t allowed to work from home at that point, and I’m very thankful things have changed. It was touch and go there for a few days and quite a few tears were shed. But I’m safe at home. In comfy pants and watching TV, working on my laptop from the couch.

I realize I am very lucky in that I have a job and I can work from home. I’m also very lucky in that I’m only having to take care of myself and my two cats. I’m also very lucky that I have literally been preparing for this kind of thing my whole life. I am fantastically good at sheltering in place. I don’t need to leave the house. Seriously. I don’t even really need fresh air or to talk to people. I am really, really good at being a hermit.

I have started to have conversations with my cats. One day last week, I had a long conversation with my kitten about thumbs and how she doesn’t have them. And that because she didn’t have them, she couldn’t use toilet paper and had to instead lick her butthole. And that it was good because toilet paper was scare right now and I wasn’t going to share with her.

So things are fine here. I’m becoming more of a phone person, only because sometimes it is nice to not talk to the cats or myself. And when my boss calls me to check in on me, I don’t think she wants to be on the phone with me for 20 minutes, so I need to talk to other people.

Last Wednesday, though, I got a call from my doctor about my one embryo. I wasn’t emotionally prepared to handle THAT news on top of all this. I especially wasn’t ready to hear that my my ONE-derful embryo wasn’t normal. It was mosaic.

What does that mean, you ask? Well it means that some of the cells are normal and some are kind of not. They are literally testing like 5 cells of a tiny little blob in a petri dish, so it’s not always 100% conclusive. Sometimes these mosaic embryos can self-correct in the womb. Basically it’s that the normal cells fix the abnormal ones and then it’s a healthy baby.

It actually happens quite often. Because they aren’t 100% abnormal, it’s all kind a crapshoot. Kind of like pregnancy and this whole fertility journey.

They have levels of mosaic. Low level mosaics are any with 40% or less abnormal cells. And then high level mosaics is anything with 50% or more abnormal cells.

My little guy was 50% mosaic. He was missing 17 and 19 chromosomes. And yes, it is a little boy embryo. They can tell that too. And when it comes to chromosomes to have missing, 17 and 19 are some of the better ones to not have. And again, they are only testing a few cells of a sample of an embryo.

The lab said they would not recommend this little guy for transfer. And my clinic does not transfer mosaic embryos. So I had to decide what my next steps would be.

In the midst of :flails arms wildly: ALL THIS, I also got a bill for my egg retrieval and insurance DID NOT cover it. This sent me on a rampage with my insurance company because I had it IN WRITING from two different people at my insurance company that I did indeed have coverage. I told them I’m not paying for this and they are “reviewing it” and will let me know in 30-45 days. I have a good feeling they will end up paying for it. Because they really fucked up. And if not, I’ll be contacting a lawyer or whatever because I’m not paying for this.

BUT! I do still have coverage for IVF! It’s through a separate provider and you can only use certain clinics. Which, fine with me! I wasn’t sold on my doctor or clinic, I’m happy to switch if it means I’m not paying out of pocket!

Back before I found out about my coverage, my lovely acupuncturist had mentioned a doctor at a clinic that was not my clinic. She told me this doctor was really good with women over 40 and my acupuncturist had clients who were over 40 and who had seen this doctor and had good results. I looked into switching to this doctor when I was still assuming I was self-paying, and they were way more, so I didn’t go any further with switching.

Fast forward to now, and this doctor is with one of the clinics that I can use with my fertility insurance. So I called and made an appointment, knowing it would probably be forever until I got in to see her, with all the Coronavirus stuff. But it turns out they were doing phone and video conference call consults.

I had my consult with her today. And she’s just great. And so was her nurse. Since I’ve had all the testing and blood work, etc. done already, I can easily start right up with another retrieval with her, without losing a lot of time.

Unfortunately, with :sweeps hands: ALL THIS going on, fertility clinics have shut down to new procedures. Which is 100% the right thing to do. It totally sucks, but it is the right thing.

But my new doctor hopes that we should be good to go in April. Which would be perfect timing for my April cycle. So as of right now, that’s what the plan is.

I’m feeling very hopeful. I feel like I was MEANT to end up with this doctor. She has a PLAN for this. I feel like my other doctor, just kind of did what she does for every other patient, and just gave me a higher dosage of the medicine. And I don’t think that worked for me. I think I went out too quickly and that led to less eggs.

My new doctor, she addressed my concerns with that. She said that is typical for women over 40 and that she has a plan to help with that. And that we will monitor how I’m responding and will adjust the meds accordingly. I don’t feel like that was an option with my other doctor.

So that’s where we are. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I will be able to have my retrieval in April, and if not then, May. That way I’m not losing months and months, when I’m at the point of not having many months to spare.

So stay tuned as we get started on Round Two!