Tilting at Windmills?

I'm beginning to wonder if I've become pathetic.

Are people looking at me and thinking, "Doesn't she get it? Can't she see that it's never gonna happen, she's never gonna have a kid? Why doesn't she just give up?"

I mean, really. I've taken literally thousands of pills, stuck myself with upwards of 500 needles, done a couple dozen cycles between all the Clomid, Clomid/injectibles IUI, IVF and FETs, had five BFPs and lost 6 babies. And then there are the three failed adoptions.

Today is the fourth anniversary of our first miscarriage. We should have a kid who is almost 3 1/2 at this point. Thursday is the second anniversary of our second miscarriage. We should have a 16-month-old at this point.

And yet, despite it all, I have appointments set up with two REs in the next two weeks.

One is local. Although I'm not sure that anyone in our area has extensive experience dealing with cases as complicated as ours, it would be nice to go to an RE that is five miles away rather than 350. So I'm toying with the idea; we'll see how I feel after the consultation.

The other RE is at another out-of-state clinic that ranks as one of the top clinics in the country by CDC standards. I've consulted with him before and wasn't terribly impressed by his bedside manner. But as one of my IRL IF friends who cycled with him successfully twice put it, "Who the hell cares if he has the personality of a doorknob, if he can get the job done?!"

I've always been tenacious and not one to easily give up. But when, exactly, does tenacious cross the line into pathetic?

Deja Vu and a New Wrinkle

Aside from many fewer tears, "deja vu" is the best way to describe yesterday's D&C.

It was on a Friday, scheduled for 10:30 a.m. The first one was also on a Friday, either at 10 or 10:30 a.m.

I wound up with the same pre-op intake nurse, although this time I was much more prepared for her. She remembered me, too. But every time she tried to get chatty, I cut her off and attempted to distract her.

Her: "So how many babies have you lost?" Me: "Six. What did my blood pressure read at?"

Her: "Have the doctors come up with any reason this keeps happening?" Me: "Well, clearly none that has solved the problem. You know, I've never had someone take my temperature before by running a device across my forehead. Is that new?"

Her: "Have you thought of adoption?" (as she's walking me to the changing room). Me: "Can my husband come back to the waiting area with me?" (Even though I already knew perfectly well that the answer was yes.)

At least it was better than sobbing through the whole interview, like I did last time.

We were taken to the exact same pre-op area, and then I was put in the exact same post-op recovery stall. And it's not like this is a small place - there must have been at least 20 post-op stalls. The only thing that was slightly different was that I think I was in the operating room adjacent to the one I was in last time. The walk didn't seem quite so far this time.

And also like last time, as soon as I set foot into the operating room, I lost it and started crying. But at least this time I didn't wake up into heaving, hysterical sobs like last time.

The wrinkle in all of this came while we were waiting in the pre-op area.

While I am usually pretty fond of Ob, I am extremely annoyed with both him and the ob rad right now. Ob stepped into our waiting area with one hand holding his cell phone to an ear and the other flipping through my chart. He said hello and then proceeded to read a couple of sentences to us from the ob rad's report that basically says I have a misshapen uterus.

I'm not clear on whether ob rad thinks the top of my uterus is just slightly sagging or if he thinks it's fully bicornate. All I know is that Ob looked very grave and said, "That definitely causes miscarriages." When I mentioned that I had an HSG in February that looked fine, he looked very surprised, said "This February?" and then when I nodded, followed up with, "Well, get the films, send them to the ob rad and follow up with him." And with the cell phone still stuck to his ear, proceeded to turn around and leave!

The next time we were in the same room together, I was unconscious. In post-op, I told the nurse I wanted to talk to Ob because I had some questions. But he had back-to-back procedures and was running almost an hour late to begin with, so we didn't see him again.

The HSG in February was my second one. My first one was 2 1/2 years ago, and that RE also said my uterus looked fine. So my guess is that it probably is fine, but I will get all the films and consult with ob rad to make sure.

What is really irritating me about ob rad at this point is that we saw him three times in a row for all of our ultrasounds during this pregnancy, and not once did he mention this! Yes, he said during the first one that he thought it looked like the baby might be in the corner of my uterus, but he didn't say, "And by the way, your uterus isn't supposed to be shaped like this..."

And then Ob just goes and dumps that on us right before I have to walk into an operating room to have him suction our 6th baby out of me. I realize what he actually said was along the lines of, "You *might* have a uterus structure problem." But translated through the filter of what we've experienced, what I heard was "You've gone through five years of hell and lost six babies, and a problem that should have been FULLY DISCOVERED before you even began any sort of treatment at all may be partially or completely to blame for all of that. And you may never be able carry a child to the point of survival. Gotta go now."

Ggrrrr. Doctors really irritate me sometimes. I'm annoyed enough about this that if I wind up talking with Ob himself about the tissue testing results, I will speak up and say something. Assuming that he even got tissue to test - since he never went out to the waiting room to let R know how it went, we don't even know that for sure.

Pregnancy #5, Baby #6, D&C #2

It was clear early on that there wasn't going to be good news from this ultrasound. We saw the gestational sac very clearly, but unfortunately there were also two bubbles in the sac that weren't there last week.

For one brief moment, I thought maybe a twin had suddenly appeared. But then I realized that we couldn't see a clear fetal pole, much less a heartbeat.

Thankfully, today's ultrasound tech didn't take quite as long. The doctor came in relatively quickly, spent about a minute flipping through the various images and then turned to us.

He knew that we already knew the outcome, so he didn't say much. For once, I didn't ask much either, so I have no idea what most things were measuring. All I know is that he was able to see the fetal pole, but it was only measuring 2mm, which is smaller than last week.

I asked him if he thought there would be any benefit to doing a D&C, if he thought there would be any chance of being able to recover tissue that could be tested. He said, "Yes, absolutely."

The D&C is scheduled for Friday morning, at the same place as the last one. I think it's at the same time, too. I'm just hoping it's not the same nurse - I have no desire to repeat last time's pre-procedure interview from hell.

Nervous About Today's Scan

Our next ultrasound is about 14.5 hours away, and I'm nervous. Even though at this point we are totally detatched from the idea of bringing a live baby home from the hospital, I still really want this to work.

The fatigue kicked up a notch this weekend. I went to sleep Friday night, got up around 9:30 on Saturday morning and then had to go back to bed by 6 p.m. because I was just too exhausted to stay up any longer. I got up for about an hour around 10 p.m., and then went back to bed until 8:30 the next morning. So I'm taking that as a good sign.

And since Thursday or Friday night, I've been having to get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom - another good sign. Tonight, I could definitely tell that my uterus has grown when I was looking in the mirror - I'm sticking out further than ever before.

I think all of those things are good signs, but I'm still nervous about tomorrow. God, I hope there is a heartbeat. And an appropriately growing baby. One that sticks around for another 7 months this time.

Here's hoping that for once, we fall on the good side of the 0.1% odds.

Still Not Good, Still Not Definitive

And yet, I still seem to have hope.

There was one bit of good news that was not accompanied by not-so-good news: The baby is definitely not in my tube, and it's not even as far up in the corner of my uterus as it seemed to be last week. It's still not totally front and center either, but the ob rad seemed totally relieved about the location, and it sounds like that wouldn't be much of an issue.

If the baby continues to develop normally. And that's a big if.

The gestational sac had grown 5mm in the past 7 days, which was good. There was no clear yolk sac last week; this week, there was. There was no visible fetal pole last week; this week, the fetal pole measured 5mm. The two small sacs near the baby that looked like they were hemorrhaging have disappeared. They probably reabsorbed, which makes sense, since I haven't spotted in the past three days.

There was still no heartbeat, but the ob rad said at 5mm it's a tossup whether it's visible or not, so he wasn't surprised that we couldn't see it. The tech did most of the ultrasound, and she and I both thought we saw a tiny little flicker at one point, but she couldn't pick up the sound. And ob rad didn't go back and look for it when he came into the room, he just took a couple of uterine volume measurements that she didn't take.

So most of that sounds really good, right? Here's the bad part: I'm measuring more than 1 week behind. Ob rad says if things are measuring 4 days behind, there's still a decent chance, but that's pushing the outer limit. I'm at least double that.

He said if I wasn't so sure of my dates, he would think everything was fine and progressing normally and that I was just further behind than I thought. But with the Clomid, follicle scan and trigger shot, I think the dates are pretty solid.

In that case, he gives it a 99.9% chance of not being viable. But because of the growth we saw, he's not willing to recommend a D&C yet. So we go back on Wednesday for another scan. He said we should definitely see a heartbeat by then, and if we don't, he'll call it over.

Somehow, through all of this, I continue to have hope. Like I said in my last post, hope is a stubborn, stubborn thing.

Emergency Surgery (But Not For Me)

This is turning out to be a really tough week for R.

The first round of the layoffs that his company announced in January took effect on Monday, which meant he had to say goodbye to one co-worker and console the very sad, stressed and overwhelmed co-worker who is still there (until her layoff takes effect in December.) Nothing like a very shy, quiet guy having to be the team leader of all these very expressive, emotional women!

He's also been stressted about me all week, hoping I don't suddenly have a tube rupture. And then, to cap it all off, his dad wound up going into the hospital last night for an irregular heartbeat, and he had an emergency procedure done today to put in a pacemaker.

Thankfully, while it's still a big deal, having a pacemaker put in isn't the ordeal that it used to be 20 years ago. Back then, when my grandfather had one put in, it was major surgery and you were in the hospital for two weeks. R's dad had the procedure at 5 p.m. today, and assuming he doesn't have any complications overnight, he'll be discharged tomorrow and can go back to work on Monday. Thank God for technology advances in medicine.

There's still not much of an update on me, but we'll know more tomorrow. I went in this afternoon to have my blood drawn, and I have a repeat ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow afternoon.

I started having some pains on my right side around midday that made me wonder if the kiddo is in a tube, but they weren't too intense, and they stopped. From everything I've read online, if you're experiencing major ectopic pain, you'll know it. And I'm still having the ligament stretching twinges and pain, which I think is a good sign. I also haven't had any spotting since Monday. So part of me is hopeful, but the protective side of my mind is trying to beat back the hope.

If it wasn't for Ob insisting that we do a scan this week, I think I would have tried to push it back another week. I think even if we don't see good news tomorrow, unless they can prove to me with 100% certainty that something needs to be done immediately, I will probably insist on at least one more scan a week to 10 days later, just to make sure.

Hope can be a very stubborn thing.

Still No Major News

I managed to make it through my first two days of work without a ruptured tube - yea! Although I am feeling some pains on that side that make me wonder a little bit.

I finally got last Thursday's beta results - 6,811 for 6w4d or 6w2d, depending on how you want to look at it. It's kind of on the lower end of the normal range from what I could find online, but still well within the normal range.

When Ob's nurse called to leave that number, she also left urgent instructions for me to get a repeat test and a repeat ultrasound this afternoon or tomorrow morning. She said it three times in a row, like it was a matter of life or death. I was in a meeting for the afternoon and couldn't call her back, so I asked R to give her a call and figure out why this suddenly became urgent after they've spent the last five days ignoring me.

R would up speaking with Ob directly. Of course, communication among guys tends to be limited to not much more than grunts or groans, so I didn't get a lot of detail. The gist of it seemed to be that while the radiologist who did last week's high-level ultrasound was more concerned about the baby's location, Ob is more concerned that they didn't see everything they wanted to see (i.e. a heartbeat). It sounded like Ob was surprised the beta number came back as normal as it did. So apparently he still thinks this has a shot of working out, although how much of a shot I don't know, because R didn't ask. And it's all irrelevant, anyway - he can think we have a great chance, like he did last time after seeing a heartbeat for three weeks in a row - and it still doesn't mean a damn thing in the end.

Work is going well so far. I think it will be a good team to be on. But there's been a lot of baby talk, so it's been a bit tough. My boss' wife is expecting their first soon, and another co-worker announced today that his wife is also expecting. They've already completely redone the room that is going to be the baby's nursery with a new ceiling, new floors, etc. - basically, everything they can do except the gender-related stuff, because they don't know that yet. It sounds like they did all of this a few weeks ago.

Guess how far along she is? About three weeks more than me. 10 freakin' weeks! Can you believe that?? I can't even IMAGINE decorating a nursery at this point in the process. They are living in that blissfully ignorant (part of my mind is screaming "stupid" instead of "ignorant," but I know that's just the jealousy speaking) world that passed us by soooo long ago that the idea of doing such a thing is just laughable at this point. I hate that. And damn - just when I thought I was starting to become so Zen about all of this.

An Uneventful Weekend

It's been a relatively average weekend on the Kiddo front. I had some aching and cramping on Saturday morning that I thought marked the beginning of the end, but it went away by late morning. I had some very light (brown) spotting again this morning, but it tapered out by mid-afternoon, and there was no cramping or aching to accompany it.

I've been oddly calm through all of this. I even went shopping for some new clothes for work on Saturday. Since I can't change what I weigh overnight, and since I can't even diet right now, I decided to suck up the fact that I am double the dress size I want to be and just enjoyed the shopping experience overall.

Except that I've run into one small (but visible) problem. This is my fifth pregnancy, and every time my belly pops out earlier than the time before. (My belly already extends farther than my boobs.) I'm exactly 7w0d today if you count by my last CD1, and if I wear my favorite new outfit, it's really obvious that I'm pregnant. So I'm going to have to hold off on wearing that until I'm in my second trimester and more willing to let my stomach speak for itself or until this pg ends and my stomach shrinks back a couple of inches.

Oh, one other thing. I did some research on Friday about trigger shots. I had forgotten that if you take a trigger shot, ovulation is 2 days later. So I ovulated on CD16 of this cycle, not CD14. So if you calculate based on ovulation date, I'm really only 6w5d today, and I was only 6w2d on Thursday when the ultrasounds were done. Ob's office measured the gestational sac at 6w0d, which isn't that far off at all given how early it is. Of course, I don't know how accurate that measurement is since the nurse practitioner doesn't usually do ultrasounds. And I also don't know what the level 2 ultrasound measured the sac at.

I've also come across several places online where women have seen only a gestational sac at 6.5 weeks (and sometimes even at 7.5 weeks) and then went on to see a fetal pole and heartbeat (in one case, not until 9+ weeks) and then had the baby, so I've decided that I'm going to ask for at least 2 more scans before deciding to do anything, unless it becomes obvious that I have a ruptured tube.

Work begins in 9.5 hours. Wish me luck on my new job. And pray that the first impression I make at this company doesn't involve a trip to the emergency room...

'Suspicious but not Definitive'

Those are never good words when it comes to a pregnancy.

Ob's office wound up calling back this morning to tell us that Ob's meeting had been canceled and we were back on for our appointment today. We rushed down there, only to discover that Ob and the other ob in the practice wound up having to leave in the meantime for deliveries.

The receptionist started to tell me they would need to reschedule, but I interrupted her to mention that I was bleeding. (Although honestly, most of it had stopped by then and it has since completely stopped.) She pointed to a chair and said "Go sit." So we did. And sat, and sat. Finally after about an hour, I was able to see the nurse practitioner.

She said there's a small polyp that is of no concern on my cervix that is probably what caused the bleeding. She warned us that she doesn't usually do ultrasounds, but she would attempt one on me to see if she could tell us anything definitive. She saw a gestational sac and what she thought were a yolk sac, fetal pole and a tiny flickering heartbeat. She wasn't able to hear the heartbeat, but she said trying to do that at this stage (6w4d) is like "trying to take the pulse of an ant."

Since she wasn't 100 percent confident in what she saw, she sent me for a level 2 ultrasound with an obstetric radiologist. He of the "suspicious but not definitive" proclamation wasn't nearly so cheery.

He had multiple concerns, including:

• The gestational sac is "slightly abnormally shaped" - not quite as round and oval as he would like it to be.


• The sac is measuring small and behind. I didn't even bother to ask how far behind.


• What looked like two small hemmorages near the baby, which he thought was likely the cause of the spotting. Although he wasn't as concerned about that as I thought he would have been.


• And now, for the kicker - he can't tell at this point whether the baby is in my uterus or in a Fallopian tube. If it's in the tube, it's in the portion of the tube that is within the uterus. If it's in the uterus, it's up in the corner, which still doesn't sound like a good place to be. But when I asked about what that would mean if it truly is in the corner of the uterus, he would only say, "Let's not worry ourselves with that at this point."

He ordered another HCg, although given that the last one was 17 days ago, I don't think it will really tell us much unless the level is very low. And since I'm still feeling fatigued, sore breasts, etc., I don't think it's that low. But who knows, I could be wrong.

Other than that, he said basically all we can do is wait and scan again in a week, assuming I don't have major pain that would indicate a possibly ruptured tube in the meantime.

Oh, and get this. I start my new job on Monday. I got an e-mail from my new boss today. Several members of our group who work in different sites around the country are going to be in town next week for an all-hands meeting. So on Monday, after my first day, we're all going out to dinner. And then on Tuesday, we're in a meeting all day. Let's hope I don't have to excuse myself in the middle of dinner or the meeting by saying, "Pardon me, I think I've just ruptured a tube..."

On the bright side, my new job is literally just across the street from one of the hospitals where Ob is on staff, so at least I don't have far to go.

Seeing Pink

And not in a good way.

This morning, Ob's office called to push back tomorrow's ultrasound to Friday.

This afternoon, my mother (who lives with us) and I got into a big fight. Apparently I am a controlling, bossy *itch who's main goal in life is to scheme up ways to make her think she has Alzheimer's. (What I gain by doing so was never made clear - apparently that's beside the point.) I tried to stay calm throughout it all. (She doesn't know I'm pg.)

This evening, there was pink on the toilet paper. Not a lot, but enough. And it was there multiple times.

Right now, it doesn't seem to be enough to warrant going to the emergency room. Still no cramping, but I'm sufficiently freaked anyway. I'm calling Ob's office in the morning to see if they can get me in with another doc.

6w2d

I'm not sure that I'm truly over the 6w1d hurdle yet, but so far there have been no more signs of spotting.

I realized a couple of things while R and I were wandering around Target last night buying some organizing supplies:

1) Technically, I'm not sure if yesterday was 6w1d or 5w6d. If I base it on when CD1 was, then yesterday was 6w1d. But I had two possible ovulation dates: CD 14 and CD 16, because I had one follicle that measured two days behind the other two. So if I'm pg with the one that ovulated on CD 16, then really tomorrow will be what I think of as 6w1d. So I'm not feeling like I'm totally over the 6w1d hump yet.

2) I was stupidly tempting fate. The Target we were wandering around was the same one I was in when I discovered I had started to bleed out the twin pregnancy about 14 months ago. I'm not an overly superstitious person, but still - there are just some things that don't need to be tempted.

The first ultrasound is scheduled for 49.5 hours from now, assuming I make it that far. But I seem to be getting even more fatigued, and I'm starting to notice a pattern of morning nausea now, so hopefully those are both good signs. Here's hoping I make it to Thursday...

And Then There Was Spotting

Today is 5w6d. Historically, except for the last pregnancy, all have gone wrong by 6w1d.

This afternoon when I went to the bathroom, there was some slight spotting. It was very light, and it was brown, and it was not there the next time I went to the bathroom.

I haven't had any menstrual type cramps. I laid down and took a nap for a couple of hours. My boobs still hurt, I still seem to be having the "good" kind of cramping pain that I'm guessing are ligaments stretching.

But still, there was spotting. I know spotting is not always a bad thing. I know lots of women have spotting and go on to have normal, healthy, totally fine pregnancies. But I also know one other thing.

Spotting is never a good thing. At best, it's neutral. At worst, well, let's see. I've had lots of experience with that. Five times, as a matter of fact.

I've spent two of the past four Mother's Days miscarrying. Let's hope I don't start to make it a holiday trend.

Totally OT - Pet Safety Question

Okay, this is totally not related to infertility, but I'm hoping someone out there has an answer to this question.

We have lived in a two-story house for about 18 months, and I'm just now getting around to ordering an escape ladder to keep upstairs in our bedroom. Hopefully we will never need it, but if we ever do, we have quite the zoo to evacuate from our house.

I've found a ladder that I'm going to buy, but I can't find anything that we could use to help get our two dogs out the window and down the ladder. They both weigh about 40 pounds, so those cute little carriers that work for dogs like Yorkies and pom poms wouldn't work, because all of those seem to have a limit of 20 to 22 pounds.

One of our dogs is accustomed to being carried around (albiet, something we did more frequently when she was still at her 25-30 pound stage). However, going out a window with a fire happening is something that I imagine might make even her a bit squirmy. Our little guy is not used to being carried, so he'd squirm from the start.

They do both have harnesses (made out of the same material as their leashes), but I don't know that those would be strong enough to hold them if we tried to lower them with that.

For the cats, I figure we could just stick them both in a small duffel bag and sling it over our shoulder. (Much easier to carry in a situation like that than their pet carriers.) The snitty one would probably try to fight the nice one, but then again, given the circumstances under which sticking them in there would happen, she might be too shocked to start anything.

At any rate, we still need a solution for the dogs. So if anyone has one, please speak up. I can't believe this has not been addressed in the retail market, but this is the first time I've ever lived in a two-story house, so I've never had to look for something like this. Thanks.

Jaded

Thanks to all of you for the kind wishes. So far, so good, but we're taking it day by day.

This afternoon I was reminded of just how jaded these past five years have made me.

I was at lunch with a friend, and he was telling me about a job he applied for that he is hoping comes through. The waiter interrupted us to ask if we wanted dessert. We declined, and then after the waiter left, my friend said something to the effect of, "Well, if things end badly, maybe we'll have to come back and slough it off with some peach cobbler."

I nodded and murmured some sound of agreement, thinking about the possibility of losing a 6th baby. About 30 seconds passed before I realized he wasn't talking about my pregnancy - he was talking about if he didn't get the job.

Honestly, I'm not normally that self-absorbed. But it's just that when someone talks about something going badly, apparently it's become an automatic reflex to think of that in terms of pregnancy and miscarriage.

You've Gotta Love the Irony

I was supposed to have a child today.

March 9 was the due date of our fourth pregnancy/fifth baby.

I HPT'd again this afternoon. The ones I did on Monday and Tuesday came out negative.

Today, there were two lines. I'm pregnant again.

Let's hope the 5th time is the charm.

O' Happy Day

I know, I know - I'm three months behind in blooging. There's lots of catching up to do, but for now let me just say this:

The heavens have opened up, the angels are singing and God is smiling down on us: I have just accepted a kick-butt job offer that also has IF coverage, INCLUDING IVF!!!

Oh, and one more thing: I might be pregnant. I'm not feeling terribly hopeful, but at this moment it is theoretically a possibility.

Wouldn't it be just my luck that I would get a job with IF coverage and then not need it? But hey, if that's what it takes to get a kiddo to stick for the long haul, fine by me!

Stay tuned for more...Coming up soon: a hard and fast downward spiral, layoffs at R's company and going back to the very basics of infertility treatment. (Here's a hint - Clomid, anyone?)

A (Small) Goal Accomplished

I mentioned in a post a couple months back that I decided to run in a 5K race on New Year's Day. That plan is still on track, and to prepare for the experience of participating in an organized run, I signed up for a 1 mile fun run that took place on Thanksgiving Day.

I was a bit nervous and kept looking at R and asking, "What on Earth was I thinking when I signed up for this??" But I accomplished my two goals for the day: 1) I ran the whole thing, and 2) I didn't finish last.

In fact, I finished in the top half overall for the 1 mile race. Not that that is truly impressive, mind you, when you consider that 1) the first 10 or 12 finishers were children and 2) my time was upwards of 12 and a half minutes. But still, it gives me motivation. And I finished just below the top 1/3 among all the women who did the 1 mile. Again, I'm sure many of them were walking it just for fun and not for a time, so it doesn't really count. But it gives me a benchmark to start.

My goal for the 5K remains the same - to finish, and hopefully not finish last. But I expect to be very close to last, because the Thanksgiving Day race also included a 10-mile run and a 5K. And for that 5K, most of the participants averaged a 10-minute mile or less. I didn't even come close to a 10-minute mile when I was only doing 1 mile, so I know I certainly won't be close to that this time around when I'm doing 3.1 miles. But that's okay. At least I'm in the race at all.

And I have to say, it feels really good to be accomplishing a goal, even if it's a small one.

The Numbers, Good and Bad

I've gone in for blood draws a couple of times this past week. The news has been a mixed bag, although I do think the good outweighs the bad.

First, the bad: I had a CD 21 progesterone test, and my progesterone level was only 0.5. I was pretty sure even before the test that I hadn't ovulated, but then as soon as I got home, it became clear that CD 1 was on its way. The test result only confirmed all of that.

If I continue to not ovulate, that clearly puts a crimp in our plans to try naturally.

However, the good news: Since it's been 2 1/2 years since my last FSH test and CD 1 showed up, I decided to get a CD 3 LH/FSH test done. FSH was 4.1, LH was 10.3. That's a pretty typical PCOS ratio, which isn't great, but I'm too thrilled by the FSH level to be very bummed about the PCOS right now. (Apparently, somewhere in the back of my mind I keep hoping that maybe the PCOS will go away...)

At least that FSH lets me feel like I have a little bit of breathing room in terms of time. If I do start to ovulate, we will try naturally. However, I don't think we'll spend a lot of time on that approach if my eggs don't seem to be making regularly scheduled appearances.

I've been thinking some more about my consultation with 2nd Opinion RE. As much as some of his comments were totally thoughtless, I do think his overall approach to our case has significant merit.

Every time I've pressed Doc, he refuses to acknowledge (to me, at least) that perhaps 32 eggs were a few too many. He is also adamant that we should go with the same stim protocol as last time. I, however, do not see the merit in continuing to bang my head against the wall with the same approach while hoping for a different result.

2nd Opinion thinks that 32 eggs were too many and probably compromised egg quality, therefore leading to embryos that might have looked good but were likely chromosomally abnormal. He thinks Doc used a valid protocol (4 vials for the first 2 days, then 3 vials per day after that) given the information he had to work with and the fact that it was my first IVF, but at this point he would recommend an even slightly lower dose of stims and would aim for significantly fewer eggs. I feel much better about that approach, because everything I've found in my research says 32 eggs are too many.

So now hope is sneaking its way back in, and we may be doing another IVF sooner than we planned, though it will still likely be late spring at the earliest.

Random Thoughts...

There seems to be a constant mish mash of thoughts running through my brain lately, and every once in a while one of them makes me think "I should blog about that." So here they are, in no particular order.

...on Stupid Things REs Say

I'm still processing last week's consult with 2nd Opinion RE. A couple of things I didn't mention in my last post:

At one point, he said, "As long as you're having miscarriages, I'm happy." I mean it - he actually uttered those exact words. "I'm happy." Are you nuts, too?? I wanted to ask. He must be, because a sane person can't possibly think that's a smart thing to say to a cynical, bitter RPLer. But then again, maybe he figured it was safe since he's 300 miles away and I couldn't exactly smack him through the phone's airwaves. I know what he was trying to say, but there's a better way to word it.

At another point in the conversation, he also compared my five miscarriages to foul balls. Technically, yes, they are strikes, he says. But even if you have 10 miscarriages strikes, you're still up to bat and you should keep trying. Yes, that was meant to be encouraging. Really.

...on Clothes Shopping with 50 Extra Pounds of Infertility Flab

For a very brief time in my life, when I was starving myself and consequently a lovely size 6, shopping was fun.

I ventured out today to try to find clothes for a couple of upcoming occasions. All I can say is What the heck are fashion designers thinking these days??

The item I have the most difficulty buying are pants. Now, please understand that I'm realistic about my size. I'd be lucky if that slinky little size 6 red dress that I had 10 years ago would fit around one of my legs with much room to spare at this point. So I don't go trying on size 10 pants when I'm, well, not a size 10.

I ventured into the dressing room with about 5 pairs of pants, and came up with the same results on all of them: Pant legs with enough extra yards of material at the bottom that a search party sent to find my feet would still be looking for them two days later, while around my waist, stomach and hips I look like a stuffed sausage about ready to explode from its casing.

My ankles don't need that much material - they aren't THAT big. So, fashion designers, please take note: Shear off some of those extra yards of fabric around my feet and move them about three feet north, where I could really use the coverage. And while you're redesigning them, could you also please figure out a style that makes me look about 30 pounds thinner? Thanks.

...on The 'Let's Try Naturally' Approach

Yes, well, about that. In order to try naturally, you need an egg. And an egg is something that my body does not seem to be in the mood to make these days.

I had an 18 day cycle last month. This month, I decided to do a CD21 progesterone blood draw to get a sense of what's going on, because I didn't see strong signs of ovulation. I got poked yesterday morning, then came home, went to the bathroom and saw blood when I wiped. It hasn't been enough to call it CD1, but still, this does not bode well.

Maybe it's just taking my ovaries a while to adjust to an infection-free environment after all the antibiotic treatment. Let's hope, anyway.

There's more, and I know you're all waiting with baited breath, but I'm going to try to get to sleep at a decent hour for once, so that's all for now...

Hope Hurts

Hope shouldn't hurt, but somehow it does.

Even though we're not planning to start trying again for a couple of months, and we plan to try naturally at that point, I went ahead and had a phone consult with another RE this week. I wanted to get a second opinion, and I figure it's best to be prepared in case I don't seem to be ovulating regularly or R's numbers come back low when he retests at the beginning of the year.

2nd Opinion RE said all the right things - he doesn't think my age (33) is a concern, he thinks I'll respond well (based on 32 eggs retrieved in July 2006), he thinks our issues have been chromosomal due to too many eggs being retrieved and that that's easily corrected with a slightly lower stim protocol, he thinks it's a good sign that I've been able to get pregnant so many times, he thinks I'll be able to carry to term with a healthy embryo, he thinks it will happen for us.

All of those are very encouraging things, and I'm grateful for them. But (and isn't there always a "but" with me?) as odd as it sounds, part of me was also sad after speaking with him.

To be totally honest, in some ways it would have been easier if he (and Doc, and Antibiotic Doc, and Ob/Gyn) had said "I'm sorry, but you're not creating good embryos, your chances of creating good embryos are nil, and you should just give up because this isn't ever gonna happen for you." At least then I could begin to accept that and move on. It's been 5 long, painful years. At this point, if he (and the rest of the bunch) had a general consensus of something like that, I think I could be ready to hear it.

But they don't. Instead, they're all sunny, optimistic cheerleaders about our case. They all say that we're so close, that we're way too close to give up, that we should definitely keep going.

When you've been doing this for a year, that's good news to hear. That's motivating and encouraging. When you've been doing this for half a decade, as strange as this may sound, it's painful and even a little bit scary to hear.

Because instead of the ignorant optimisim of a newbie who thinks "They say our chances are good, they say this is going to work, soon we'll be holding a baby - yea!", a beaten down, loss-ridden vet thinks "They said that FIVE. YEARS. AGO. Clearly they don't know what they're talking about. Do we have 5 MORE years of losses and heartbreak in front of us before this purgatory ends?"

And sadly, the only way to find out is to keep going.

I know I could opt to throw in the towel now, that no one is physically making me continue. But there is a part of me that still has hope. Granted, sometimes it feels like such a tiny part of me, so small that if hope was a visible thing it would require a high-powered microscope to see at this point. But still, it's there. And even if it wasn't, I still want this for R, so I would keep going for that reason alone.

I just never knew that hope could be so painful.