Moving to IVF.

IUI #2 was officially a BFN yesterday, but the nurse mentioned an opportunity for us to do an IVF cycle at a reduced rate. Our RE's practice is starting to offer a new service involving egg freezing. From what I understand at this point, they are doing multiple trial runs with IVFers so the staff can get really comfortable with the process before offering it to everyone. I would have a normal IVF cycle, but they would freeze my eggs for a short time after retrieval, then thaw them and continue as normal with fertilization and transfer. We'd be getting IVF for half the normal cost and the nurse said they've already had a few successes. If it, or any resulting FETs (frozen embryo transfer) didn't result in a BFP, we'd get another IVF cycle at no cost. This is a wonderful chance for us because we will be totally OOP for IVF and R wasn't ready to spend that much money for a few more years. I have an appt. with my RE next Thursday and I'll find out more then.

14dpiui and a BFN

I discovered the cheapie HPTs I bought on ebay were total crap when I got a nice evap line on cd5, but since I had them I figured I'd just look for a definite positive so I've been POAS since...um....Tuesday? I've gotten some blanks, a few odd smudges, and an evap line or two, but nothing that would prompt me to haul out the big guns and use a FRER. My beta is tomorrow and I'm sure I'll be a mess when that phone call comes in, but right now it just is what it is. The hardest part was convincing myself to really let go this past week and commit to taking a break(natural) cycle for march. I really need to lose some weight and I'll never get there unless I can jumpstart it with a fairly intense workout without the fear of losing an ovary. We will try one or two more IUIs this spring and then I think we are on a long break for the summer. I've heard you shouldn't put your life on hold for TTC and I'm beginning to feel that we are. I may change my mind, but right now the thought of a bathing suit and endometrin doesn't sound so fun. R said the other day that he doesn't think we are ready for IVF for a few more years....I was thinking next fall. So I think that taking the summer off, without the meds and the monitoring will help me get back to really being me. And on that note, I think many of next month's posts will be about our new house and our journey toward organization after moving. A break is a break, right?

Dreams, snow, and a new house.

Please excuse this jumble of an entry, but we closed on our new house Friday and we've been working non-stop since then removing wallpaper and carpets, cleaning and priming, painting, etc. So far the new carpets are wonderful and the first coat of paint in the kitchen looks exactly as I imagined.

One saving grace, yet also a curse in our moving madness has been this record breaking snowfall. The last day I went in to the office was Tuesday. We had about 3.5 feet on the ground by Thursday and it hasn't improved a whole lot since then. Thankfully R had a friend with a plow to help clear out the driveway for the new house because it was beyond what my parent's snow blower could handle. The good part is I've had plenty of time to get some extra packing and organizing in.

The other gift Wednesday brought was a horrid cold. I have been sneezing and blowing my nose non-stop. Last night I barely slept because I couldn't breath through my nose and my throat was painfully dry. I drank 3 glasses of water during the night. Also, while I've been working on the house I have to make sure I take bathroom breaks as soon as I might need one, because a couple of times I've sneezed so hard I peed a little. That isn't supposed to happen when you aren't well into a pregnancy.

So onto my dreams. Two nights ago I had a dream in which I had a bad throbbing pain in my uterus. I can't remember what the dream was about, but I woke up just remembering the pain/cramps. So I got up and got ready to head over to the new house and I had the same pain. The closest thing I can compare it to is a cross between that dull ache of a UTI and ovulation pain, but dead center in my lower abs. This happened several times throughout the day, so I know that my "dream" pain was most likely my mind's compensation for the rest of my body being too exhausted to wake up. Last night I dreamt I was pregnant to the point that I could feel and see the baby move. I was at a hospital or dr. office and was told I was still too early to be ready for delivery but the baby was starting to move into position. It felt so real. It is amazing what the subconscious can create without any firsthand experience.

Triggering tomorrow

This morning was my 5th day in a row of monitoring. My right follie grew a little and is now 14mm and my left ovary has two follies, the dominant one at 15x18mm and a smaller one at 11mm. The nurse called and said my LH levels have started to rise though, so they can't wait any longer. Also, since there is a huge snowstorm headed our way, they won't be doing IUIs tomorrow so I will now being doing a single IUI on Sunday and TI tomorrow. I am not super happy with this but I don't want to cancel it altogether.

I jinxed myself.

I knew as soon as I put IUI in my TTC timeline for this cycle something would go wrong. Not only did my follies not grow since yesterday, the right one SHRUNK. How the fuck does that happen?? Yesterday the right was about 15mm, today it is 13x13mm. The tech said that sometimes happens if the other follies takes over, but left is only 13x18mm, so 15mm average!!
So if my LH is already starting to peak, we will just do TI, which really sucks because I have no EWCM at all. If it isn't, they will bring me back in for my 5th day in a row of monitoring.
Oh and my lining is only 6.3, so I'm beginning to think that will always suck no matter what I do.

2 dominant follies = IUI cycle #2!

I was thrilled to see two follies during my monitoring this morning. I have about a 15mm on the right and a 13x17mm on the left. R and I had decided if we got two good follies we would go ahead with IUI. My lining was measured at 6.12, but I think the tech just measured it wrong. This was my 3rd monitoring appt. in a row, so hopefully they will just let me trigger without going back in again, but we'll see.

Injection site speculation...

So I mentioned before that I wondering if the site of the injection made a difference in which ovary responded more. I asked this question on the Infertility board on the bump.com and the general consensus was no, but today's monitoring had left me wondering again. By cd6 I'd done two shots on my right side, which had a 9mm follie, and one shot on my left, which only had a 7mm. So I switched up my pattern a bit and gave myself shots on the left 2 days in a row and only one on the right. On cd9, I now have a 10mm follie on the left and a 10x11mm follie on the right...so even # of injections = even size of dominant follies?

Anyway...my lining is doing well without the aid of the pom juice. I am taking baby aspirin at the recommendation of my RE so maybe that helped. It is around 6.5. I am hoping I can take tomorrow off because they had to stick both my arms this morning to find a vein and they hurt. :(