Stuff...and a New Cycle

I've started several posts in my head during the past couple of weeks but haven't gotten one into the computer until now.

Going through the services for my dad was tough, of course, but there was good in that week at the same time. R and I got to spend some time with my oldest sister and her family (including my niece, who volunteered last summer to be a gestational surrogate for us). Although I'd only met my nephews once before, all of her family was very welcoming to us.

It was really unexpected to me, but in a good way, how much we just felt like family. It was just natural, just there. I don't know how to explain it very well. I generally think of my parents as being my only blood family, and I had no idea how much I had been missing that connection in my life until after the reception following my dad's services, when we were in the car and R told me that I should organize a family reunion. I said, "Seriously? With everything else going on in our world, you think I need to take on organizing a family reunion?" And he said, "Yeah, I know, but you're happy when you're with them." "Happy" isn't the word you expect someone to use to describe you literally a couple hours after you've buried a parent - and honestly, it's probably not a word he has used to describe me in a very long time - but I realized that he was right. So I'm grateful for that connection.

I haven't really started to deal with my dad's death yet. Certainly I shed some tears in the moments after he passed and during the services, but mostly I just force them back and haven't let myself have a good cry yet. I saw my therapist a couple days after we got back home. She said I was reciting the events as if I was describing a movie that I was watching. She pushed and probed a little and ultimately decided to let me live in my little world of denial for the moment, but I don't think she'll let me get away with that during my next appointment in a couple weeks. :-)

We got some surprising news the week after my dad's services - it looks like one of my health insurances (I'm on both my employer's insurance and R's insurance policy through his employer) will cover IVIg! The home health company that will do the infusion let me know, but I wanted to hear it for myself so I called the insurance company to verify it. They confirmed it as well, although I have to say I still don't believe it 100%.

The cost of IVIg had apparently been weighing on me more than I realized, because as soon as we found that out, I was like "Ok, let's get this show on the road!" And, as R and I so often do, he ying'd when I yang'd. He's been so supportive and strong in all of this, but as soon as I was ready to move forward, suddenly he was feeling "Whoa!" and not quite wanting to face the prospect of our last attempt (with my uterus). But now he's on board.

We still don't have quite all of the pieces together, so the transfer could get derailed, but as of right now it's planned for two days after my birthday in July. The reproductive immunologist can order the IVIg itself, but since I don't live in the state where he practices, I have to find a local doctor who is willing to order the actual infusion of the IVIg, or else I need to find another home health company within my insurance's network in his state to do the infusion, and travel there to have it done. I have an appointment on Friday to ask my PCP if she'll order it - fingers crossed.

Also, my TSH level is better but still not where it needs to be. It was 7+ a couple weeks ago, so that's about half of the 15+ it had been, but it still needs to get down into the normal range before transfer. My PCP increased my Syn.throi.d dosage again from 100 mcg to 125 (I was on 75 when I got the 15+ result), so I'll re-test again in the end of June.

Thankfully, though, it does seem that the improved TSH has reversed my kidney issues. My eGFR is now back in the normal range instead of Stage 3 kidney failure, and my creatinine is much improved (still not quite back to normal yet). Granted, the eGFR technically still at the low end of the normal range, but I'm hoping if the TSH gets back to the normal range that the eGFR will move toward the upper end of normal. It still amazes me how all of our body's systems are so interconnected.

And now, after all that good news, here's how I came off the holiday weekend and launched into the cycle (bcp's start tonight): The co-worker who I began carpooling with a couple months ago, who I clicked with right away and was so happy to find someone else my age who doesn't have kids, who I have made it a point to not discuss the kid issue with at all because I just didn't want to go there, asked me point blank on the way home tonight whether R and I have thought about having kids. I tried to just laugh it off with a "Yeah, maybe someday" kind of response.

It turns out she's 14 weeks pregnant. From her first IVF cycle. I am trying hard not to feel sorry for myself, but I'm not sure I'm succeeding.

Dad Passed On

I was not looking forward to last week, but it turned out to be a much more painful week than even expected.

Wednesday was the 5th anniversary of miscarriage #2. Thursday was the 7th anniversary of miscarriage #1.

And then, on Friday morning, dad passed away with his wife and me by his side.

It was somewhat expected, although I don't think anyone - including the oncologist - thought it would be quite that soon.

Dad had seemed to be doing well (relatively speaking) when I spoke with him several times in April, but then test results the weekend after Easter showed that despite the transplant, leukemia cells had returned. So R and I drove out to be with him two days later, and then four days after that he was gone.

I'm thankful he's not suffering any more, and I'm glad his wife, who has literally been by his side pretty much every single moment of every single day since he was diagnosed two years ago this month, no longer has to be a full-time caregiver.

I don't know if it's relief that his ordeal is over or that I've dealt with so much loss that I'm an expert at coping or if I'm just flat-out avoiding dealing with it at all (ding ding ding, I think we have a winner, folks), but so far I haven't really cried. R keeps looking at me sideways, like he's trying to spot the warning signs of the big implosion he's anticipating.

I haven't been in the mood to talk much lately (obviously, since I haven't been posting or commenting). I think between all the infertility stuff and my dad's battle, I'm just tired of medical stuff in general.

We don't know yet when we're going to do our next transfer. A couple months back, tests showed my thyroid meds dosage was way too low (TSH was 15+) and that my kidneys were in stage 3 (the middle of 5 stages) of kidney failure.

My doctor increased my thyroid meds, and I think that has also improved my kidneys, but I need to get bloodwork done to confirm that before we can move forward with a cycle. I was going to get that drawn last week, but with everything going on, we won't be home until next week, so it will have to wait until then.

Fingers crossed that I manage to keep myself together through this week - services are at the end of the week.

Doggie Pictures

To everyone who commented on my last post, thank you for your words of kindness and comfort. I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since we lost him.

There's a major deadline coming up at work next week that involves an out-of-state trip, so I haven't really allowed myself to think about it, much less grieve yet - I've just been stuffing it in. (Not a good idea, I know! It comes out eventually, and the longer it's in there, the less pretty it is when it finally does happen...)

Anyway, I think I mentioned last fall that we had some professional photos taken after Indy was diagnosed, so I thought I'd share a few of those. However, this blog is anonymous, and while the chances of someone I know happening across it and recognizing the photos is small, it's still not a risk I'm willing to take. Since Blogger does not allow individual posts to be made private, I created another blog and posted them there. If you want to see them, send me an e-mail at momto 3dogs@ yahoo (dott) com, minus all of the spaces, and I'll give you access to it.

Horrendous guilt

Coming out of my cave to share some horrible news.

We had to say goodbye to our "baby boy" at 3:30 this morning. We were expecting that we would lose him to the rare nerve sheath tumor he was diagnosed with in the fall. Instead, we lost him to an intestinal obstruction.

I don't know what happened. I don't know what it was, what he possibly could have gotten in to. There aren't children's toys to get into around here (obviously), we don't leave clothes or other stuff on the floor, he wasn't a chewer or the type to get into things. All of his toys are present and accounted for.

I keep racking my brain trying to figure it out.

It's quite possible that it was something he got into while I was at work, when there's nothing I could have done to prevent it. It's even possible that it was another tumor that was compressing his intestines; the vet offered up that possibility, although it sounded like she thought it was less likely to be that and more likely to be a foreign object. Apparently right before we got there, she had just finished pulling a fully intact pair of boxer shorts out of another dog's intestines. She also mentioned something about having pulled batteries, magnets, bikini underwear and even a tampon out of other dogs.

We could have done surgery. And though it would have been $4,000-$8,000 and required a 3-5 day hospital stay, and though we knew we only had weeks to a few months left with him, I was tempted. I didn't want to let him go like that, for that reason. But then R pointed out that his legs would have been even weaker after all the time he would have to spend laying down during recovery, and I knew I'd only be doing the surgery for me, not for him.

The vet said it wasn't our fault, that dogs will be dogs. That her own dogs have gotten into things they shouldn't, and that I shouldn't blame myself. But I do. How could I not?

I was supposed to take care of him, not let him eat something that would kill him. Maybe this is why we don't have kids. If I can't even keep a dog alive, why on earth would God trust me with a kid?

I know that's extreme. And self-pitying. And on some level, ridiculous. But still, there it is. The thought that keeps playing again and again in my head.

<insert primal scream here>

This was going to be an angry, shrieking, lots of words in capitals and inappropriate language kind of post. But then I ran/walked 2.5 miles, which made me tired, so you are getting the still not happy but much more calm version of me.

R was not so lucky. But more on that in a minute.

Everything is fine, and yet it's not.

My dad is doing pretty well. The transplant went well, and he was released from the hospital earlier than expected. He's still living near the hospital (1.5 hours from home) because he has daily doctor's appointments. He had a bone marrow biopsy this week, so we're waiting to hear the results of that. Hopefully it will show no abnormal leukemia cells.

The dog is also doing well, relatively speaking. Considering the vet gave him 2-3 months and it's now 3 months and he's still his normal, happy self (albiet playing a little less), I'm very grateful. His left hind leg seems to be getting a little weaker, and now his left front paw turns under sometimes, but he catches that before he puts any weight on it. We're just continuing to keep a close eye on him and keep him as comfortable as we can for as long as we can.

I've been lurking around the blogosphere for the past month, reading but rarely commenting, and obviously not posting.

There are so many things in my world to be grateful for - and truly, I am - but at the same time, I've been fighting not to slip down into a well of self-pity. There has been a major burst of baby announcements around me at the end of last year/beginning of this year, particularly IRL, and as much as I'm happy for others, I've been battling the "why not us?" blues.

This afternoon pushed me over the edge. I left work early, swung through a drive through to order a large chocolate shake (it turns out, chocolate does not fix everything), and slid down to the bottom of the pit.

It echoes down here, as I found out after losing that last thread of self-control I was so desperately clinging to and giving into the urge to let out 8 years of anger, frustration, disappointment, and loss in a series of primal screams.

The dogs fled, R froze, and my mother - for once! - decided it was best to give me space and stayed far, far, far away.

If there are any guys reading this, please know that when it's obvious your wife's hold on that tattered thread is very tenuous at best, "it's going to be okay" are not necessarily the wisest words to utter. R can attest to that.

So, what snapped the thread?

The adoption social worker called this afternoon. I rarely step out of a work meeting to take a personal call, but since I wasn't expecting her to call, I did.

I thought she was going to tell me "Surprise! Your home study certification has been granted already."

Ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. How far the hell up my ass did my head have to be for me to ever, EVER think that returning to the adoption process would be a good idea? (Okay, so apparently there is still a little bit of the foul-language, words-in-caps frustration down here with me...)

The court commissioner who used to handle adoption home study certifications apparently left the job recently. Then another commissioner was hired. Apparently she lasted only a couple of weeks, and during that time, she did not get around to the home studies that are waiting for approval.

Now she is gone, there is no new commissioner, there is no clear sense of when there will be a new commissioner, and so our home studies are sitting in the "in" box on a desk that currently belongs to no one.

In other words, we are out there in no man's land, with absolutely no idea of when our home study might be certified. Could be weeks, could be months.

I realize you are probably thinking "But weren't you doing LIT? Aren't you going to be doing an FET? Isn't the home study just a head start in case you wind up going down that path?"

Yes, yes, and yes.

But that's not the point, as I told (well, actually, screamed) at R when he told me "it'll be okay".

It's NOT OKAY. It will never be "OKAY". We could get another phone call tomorrow telling us that the court temporarily certified someone as a commissioner in order to get the home studies approved (we're not the only one - there are a few families affected), and it still will NOT. BE. OKAY.

Because it's not right that OUR "ability" to create OUR family hinges not just on SOMEONE ELSE who couldn't give a damn about whether or not we ever do go on to adopt (although that in itself isn't right), but right now it hinges on SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T EVEN EXIST. That is not "okay". There is no way to make that "okay", not even after the fact.

Am I over-reacting? Yes, I am. I know that I am. And I don't care.

After 8 years of hell, I get to over-react. I may not get a baby, I may not get all those happy moments that parents get to experience, but I damn well get to over-react about the fact that our ability to move forward in this process revolves around a freakin' empty chair. And that there could be many, many other empty-chair situations or other complications along the way.

It's not that I think our home study will be held up in court for the next decade. (Although I do think it's quite possible that it could be held up for months.) It's that the feeling of complete, utter powerlessness that I felt five years ago when we lived through Failed Adoption Hell came flooding back in, as if all of that just happened yesterday.

And I hate it.

It is not okay.

You Know You're an Infertility Patient When... (#4)

...you take an HPT not because you expect it to show two lines (ha! ha ha ha!), but because you know that taking it is pretty much a surefire way to bring on CD1 within a matter of hours.

Except, unfortunately, in this case.

Took the stupid thing two days ago (yes, it was negative) because I'm on something like CD45. Our anniversary is at the end of next week, we have a romantic trip planned, and I don't want to be dealing with my cycle then.

But so far, all I've seen is a little bit of spotting. Grrr. If the test can't show two lines, can't it at least just do the other thing it's supposed to do and bring on CD1? Grrrr (again).

We're heading out to see my dad in a few hours. Please keep him in your prayers - the transplant should start in about 24 hours.

Also, please stop by and visit Gypsy and The Tramp to offer some friendly, comforting words and birthday wishes. This time of year is tough in general for us IFers, and she's dealing with a loss and some other challenges right now on top of everything else.

LIT, Round 1 is Complete

And obviously, I lived to tell about it.

I was really stressed about crossing the border - I didn't sleep at all the night before. But it turned out that the whole thing was really no big deal.

The most annoying part was being badgered by a very persistent shop owner who wanted us to buy medicines from a pharmacy or get our pictures taken with a donkey while we were standing at a corner (with the clinic's receptionist) waiting for another clinic employee to pick us up and drive us to a restaurant for lunch.

The guy doing the badgering asked if we were there to see a dentist. I smiled and shook my head no. Then he asked "Why are you here?" I just shook my head no again, and he insisted rather rudely "Tell me why you're here!", then accused us of being terrorists when I wouldn't respond.

I wasn't in the mood to talk about it, but perhaps I should have gone into every personal detail - that would have made him think twice about asking the same questions of the next couple he sees waiting on that street corner! Now that I'm prepared to expect that, maybe I'll take that approach if we see him on our next trip.

After the injections, I was kind of bummed because I didn't feel or see much of a reaction. However, 48 hours in, I have red welts the size of a quarter at each injection site. (There are 8 - 4 on each arm.) The itchiness I've heard about has also developed, and I'm not allowed to scratch or take antihistamines. Thankfully the itching isn't so bad that I'm going crazy - if I'm focused on work or some other activity (Christmas baking) or sleeping, I'm usually distracted enough to not notice it too much. But still, I'll be glad when the itching goes away.

We plan to go back for round 2 in January, but that will depend in part on what's going on with my dad. He's been stable in remission for the past month, so he's supposed to go back into the hospital on Thursday, and his bone marrow transplant is scheduled for Dec. 23. Prayers are welcome.

Also...thanks to all of you who offered anniversary gift suggestions!

A Favor to Ask (I'm Desperate Here, Folks)

I need help. In more ways than one, I suppose, but for the moment I'm fixated on one particular problem...

R and my 15th wedding anniversary is coming up in 3 weeks, and I have absolutely no idea what to get him. He bought me something, which we normally don't do for our anniversaries. He's actually become quite "the perfect gift" giver over the years (after I cured him of giving me things like ice scrapers, cookbooks and cooking utinsels during our first couple years of dating) so I'm sure he managed to find something that is meaningful and, well, perfect.

I, on the other hand, have never been one of those people who manages to find "the perfect gift" when gift-giving occasions arrive. My saving grace is that R's family are big believers in maintaining wish lists, so I work from those for birthdays and Christmas.

This fall, I've been even more sucky at it than usual. I managed to get R a card for his birthday and decided what to buy him (luggage, because his carry-on suitcase was falling apart) but didn't actually get around to making the purchase. Then a couple weeks after that, I realized I totally forgot my 16-year-old niece's birthday! And it's the same day as my dad's birthday, so how the heck did I manage that? Technically she's not a blood relative (her mom's one of my BFFs and is very laid back about those kinds of things), but still...Then R eventually wound up researching and buying his own birthday present because I still hadn't gotten to it - how lame is that?! It just arrived last week. (His birthday is in October.)

So I am in serious, desperate need of help. Ideas, in particular.

We always spend the day together (take the day off work if it's a weekday), but we don't usually buy gifts for each other. The last time we did was our 10th wedding anniversary. I got him an engraved frame and a photo album with a sterling silver cover that also had an engraved plaque on it. I didn't get around to actually putting pictures in them (mostly because I hate pretty much every picture taken of me during the past 10 years), so I took them back after I gave them to him with a promise to do that. Guess what I found a few weeks ago when I was cleaning up our office?

Finally getting pictures into the 10th anniversary photo frame/album might be a great 15th anniversary gift, but realistically it's not going to happen. So, I need ideas. Something other than conjuring up a baby out of thin air, since I haven't had any success in making that happen yet. And we're going on a short getaway for our anniversary, so travel probably won't count.

Ideas?? Thoughts? Suggestions?? Help!

Um, About What I Said...

I know I've been whining lately about being tired of infertility treatments, of the tests, the shots, the disappointments. That I don't have much left in me and just want to be at the treatment finish line, one way or another.

Yet somehow, here I sit, filling out the 934th half-inch-thick patient information form I've been asked to complete in the last 8 years. For yet another doctor. About yet another treatment.

Clearly I've lost the last shred of sanity I was precariously clinging to.

I belong to a Y.ah.oo group for infertility immunology issues. I've been seeing something lately about a very new treatment called c-g.s.f. (Google it minus the periods if you're curious.) So I decided what the heck, I'll look into it.

Which is how I wound up with an 11-page form to fill out. Half way in, after asking extensive questions about pregnancy history, testing of any losses, gyn history, etc., there's a section that says "Please describe the nature of your problem."

Well, let's see. Where to begin? I have to pick just one? Off the top of my head (no pun intended)...my hair is thinning, neither my eyesight nor my memory is what it used to be, I have entirely too many things to do and not enough time in which to do them, my dad is sick, my dog is sick, I work entirely too many hours because I don't want to be the next one to be laid off, when I cook I only have about a 50/50 chance of the recipe coming out right...

Oh wait, that's right, you're a fertility doctor. Probably not the kind of problems you're referring to. Let me try that again.

I DON'T HAVE A KID. And I miscarry. A. LOT.

What do your other patients normally come to you for?? Were the first four pages not a clue? Particularly page 1, which required me to explain each pregnancy and its outcome in great detail??

But I contained the snarkiness. Probably best not to tick off the doctor before even speaking with him. Now I have to dig out the records of our last retrieval and all of our immune testing so that I can write down exactly how many vials of Gan.are.lix I shot myself up with two years ago and what my latest FSH was. (4.something, for all the good it does me...)

In other news...

This doesn't mean we've put a halt to the home study. Pool fence and home study visit are still scheduled for next week. (Hopefully the former before the latter, or else the latter will have to be rescheduled.)

We survived Thanksgiving with relatively little drama, all things considered. BIL, who was making the turkey this year, announced the day before that he wanted to eat much later than we normally do - about 6 p.m. instead of 1 or 2 p.m. - because eating earlier would have required him to get up before 1 p.m. (And no, he doesn't work the night shift - he doesn't have a job at all.) For my mom, eating at 2 p.m. is late, so I knew she wasn't going to like this.

Surprisingly, she seemed pretty gracious about it when we told her. That should have been a clue to me, but I was just so relieved she didn't throw a fit right there on the spot that I didn't get suspicious.

Then on Thanksgiving morning, when R and I came downstairs and started getting things ready in the kitchen, she came in and announced that she had called the neighbors to wish them Happy Thanksgiving and that they invited her to eat with them at 2 p.m., so she was going over there instead of having Thanksgiving at our house, where she lives.

I knew that if the neighbor had extended an invitation, it was only after a lot of obvious hinting and wrangling on my mom's part. The neighbor is lovely and sweet, but she was hosting Thanksgiving for 16 people, including her in-laws and a vegan, who she was fretting about what to serve. She was completely stressed out about it, so I knew she wouldn't have just jumped at the chance to add one more person to the chaos.

Still, I just smiled sweetly and told my mom to have a good time and tell the neighbors we said Happy Thanksgiving, and turned back to what I was doing. R's eyes had kind of bugged out at the announcement, but he didn't say a word.

At 1:30 p.m., she changed her clothes. At 2 p.m., she was still sitting in her chair in her living room. At 2:30 I offered her a drink I was making, and surprise, surprise, when we ate, guess who was sitting at the table with us??

Score one for refusing to let her get under my skin. I don't play head games. Maybe at some point she'll learn to accept that.

A Brutal Day

This was the second day of layoff notifications. It hit closer to home and was even more brutal than yesterday.

The person in the cube adjacent to mine was let go. They're experiencing some personal challenges at the moment, so I feel for them even more than most. Two others I didn't work with as closely were also let go.

And, not only was my closest co-worker, who I work with on literally a daily basis and am also personal friends with, let go, but in her case, her last day is tomorrow. I understand why they did that, but it wasn't really necessary. It also means we have 8 hours to figure out all the stuff I might possibly need from her, and as of Monday, my workload doubles. I've been working 14-16 hour days and working on weekends for the last couple of months, so I'm honestly not quite sure how I'm going to fit more in.

I'm being told we're expected to "work harder".

I told R that we're going to spend time this weekend taking a very close look at our budget and "work harder" making cuts so we can boost our savings.

We have a decent savings account, and at the moment I don't plan to look elsewhere. My work is in an emerging niche, and I think there are still a lot of things I can learn in my job. With a few more years of experience, more opportunities may be open to me, and those opportunities may come with a nice salary boost.

So for now, I'm willing to stick it out. But R and I both have corporate jobs, and I don't want to be beholden to corporate America.

I want the option of being able to tell them where to shove it if they expect me to continue working ridiculous numbers of hours with no end in sight, then turn around, walk out the door, and not have to have a second's worth of stress about how we would survive indefinitely if need be.

On completely unrelated notes...

We ordered the pool fence yesterday. Assuming they're able to install it in the timeframe they say they are, our home study visit will be in 2.5 weeks.

I've scheduled our first LIT treatment for Dec. 11, but I'm still playing "should we, should we not?" with the idea of crossing the border.

I've been comfort eating for the past two days. Yesterday's dinner consisted of butter pecan ice cream with chocolate sauce. Today's dinner was garlic parmesan fries with a kicky paprika aioli, pepperoni pizza, and meatball pizza, topped off with more butter pecan ice cream, with an even more generous squeeze of the chocolate sauce bottle. Oh, and did I mention the bag of peanut M&M's I had while still at work?

Meanwhile, I've earned exactly $0 running dollars toward a massage so far.

Dodged a Bullet

The department I work in is having layoffs today and tomorrow. Thankfully I found out that I survived, but not everyone was so fortunate, and there is still more news to come about others' positions tomorrow.

R has been through layoffs 8 or 9 times in his career (and thankfully survived all but the one in which the company closed its local offices and we declined to move to Brazil), so I thought I was prepared to deal with the stress. And I was, to a large degree, but your spouse going through it still isn't the same as walking into the room to hear your own fate.

We were a lean department as it was, so some people who are very great to work with were let go, and others were demoted to non-management positions. Several of my co-workers, including the one with whom I work the closest and have formed a friendship with in addition to a colleague relationship, don't find out their fates until tomorrow.

I have to say that I've been incredibly fortunate - our department is very professional and pleasant to work in, and there isn't anyone in the group who I wouldn't want to work with.

I really feel for those who are affected. There's never any good time to do this, but of course right now is an especially tough time. And it feels particularly unfair, because there are 5 layers of management above them that remained virtually untouched through this process.

I'm thankful to have survived, but at the moment I'm mostly just sad for my co-workers. And anyone else who has had to endure a similar situation, especially in this economy.

Testing, Round 2

I scored a deal a couple nights ago on a box of 3 FREDs, on sale for $15. When I got up this morning, the boobs were still sore, so I figured what's another $5 test at this point? I opened a test, I peed, I wiped.

And I didn't even need to look at the test to know the result.

CD1 will be showing up tomorrow. Nothing like a couple of HPTs to bring her on.

On the bright side, dad is still doing well and still has his hair (one of his biggest concerns). He finds out tomorrow if a bone marrow biopsy he did yesterday shows that he's in remission again. The dog is still his limping but happy self.

And, we got the adoption home study agency's finger printing done today.

I was hoping to be able to say that the paper work is all done too. For some reason, though, the agency director only sent us half of it to do in advance. So when we got there today, he handed us a bunch more. I filled it out tonight - we'll either take it down there tomorrow or get it in the mail.

The carpet cleaner is coming Saturday morning, so the only big thing left on that front before the home study visit is getting the pool fence scheduled for installation.

We are planning to do the first round of LIT in December and the second round in January, but oddly enough R's Hep A total test came back positive. (The Hep A IgM was negative.) So we have to figure out what that means in the context of all of this.

I looked it up to get a better understanding of it before mentioning it to him. It's common, infection often comes from eating fruits, vegetables, shellfish or not washing your hands well enough, etc., it very rarely becomes chronic, even more rarely becomes fatal, and pretty much goes away on its own eventually - there's not really a treatment for it.

I tried to approach it very calmly, saying "One thing I need to mention...it's no big deal, millions of people get it, it goes away on its own without treatment, but you seem to have the very common mild form of hepatitis."

Still, understandably, his eyes got very wide and he said "what do you mean no big deal?? Hepatitis??!?"

Sigh...our world involves far too many strange, unexpected medical conversations...

I Tested

And any sane, normal, rational person (i.e. R) will tell you that it is one very single, lonely line on a very solidly stark white background.

I, on the other hand, still ridiculously continue to cling to hope.

Because I swear there just may be something there. If there is, it's the faintest line in the history of faint HPT lines, even fainter than the time we were scratching our heads trying to determine if it was a line for pg #2, and the beta that morning turned out to be a 5. (I used a FRED then, and it was a FRED again this morning.)

But I swear I can see something if I turn it at just the right angle. I know a stark white background when I see one, the kind where you can't even tell where the line is supposed to be. And this time, I think I can see where the line is supposed to be.

But mostly I just smell pee. And clearly I'm not confident enough that I'm really seeing something to call RE's office and ask for a blood test to be ordered.

So instead, I'm rationalizing that if I ovulated late - which is entirely possible for me - maybe ovulation didn't occur until Halloween weekend, in which case I'm only 8 or 9 dpo. So maybe I just tested too early.

In other words, we're in for another round of this in a few days, unless CD1 shows up before then.

Meanwhile, the hourly boob checks (they're still sore - yea!) will have to be temporarily suspended when I go in to work this morning. There's a security camera right above my cube, and "Woman feels herself up at work while she thinks no one is watching" is not a video I want showing up someday on America's Funniest Home Videos...

I Chickened Out

Got up this morning at 6 a.m. to take the dog out, boobs were still sore but decided I'd rather crawl back in bed than stay up for a few minutes to pee on a stick. (Last week, I asked to take today off - I needed a mental health day.)

So I crawled back into bed, and when I got up two hours later, boobs were noticably less sore.

I figured it was over, decided what was the point in wasting a $10 test and starting my day off on a negative note (way to think positive, I know), so I decided not to HPT.

Then, of course, the soreness returned and I spent the day feeling very aware of them every time I ran up and down the stairs. (R and I were working on cleaning up/better organizing/rearranging the upstairs.)

The cramping returned this afternoon and evening. It's not my normal PMS cramping, but then again, it wasn't my normal PMS cramping back in August, either, and I'm not sporting a bump. So who knows what's going on inside my body? Clearly not me.

I'm just going to bite the bullet and take the stupid test tomorrow morning.

I think.

Maybe.

A New Idea for Motivation to Exercise

Today, I came up with a brilliant new motivation to get my lazy bottom up off the couch and exercise.

Well, at least, it seemed like a brilliant idea when it popped to mind, although given that said lazy bottom is currently camped on the couch, maybe it's not going to be as effective as I hope it will.

Anyway, here's the idea...for every mile that I run (without stopping, without any walking), I will credit myself $1 toward a massage.

I love to get massages, particularly from one specific massage therapist at a nearby day spa. But it's on the expensive side - $75-$80 not including tip - so I don't do it very often and feel a wee bit guilty whenever I do.

I'm hoping this will be a more effective approach than "if I lose 10 pounds, I'll schedule a massage" (or buy a fabulous new dress or make reservations at that new restaurant I want to try), because that approach hasn't brought much success in the past.

So I'm thinking $80 massage = 80 miles = I'd have to lose at least some weight after running 80 miles, wouldn't I?

Since I'm out of shape, I may start by 1 mile = $2 in order to get myself started, and then switch to 1 mile = $1 after I get a little more up to speed (pun intended).

On another note...guess who has mild cramping and unusually sore boobs, is on CD33, and has 3 HPTs in the bathroom cabinet taunting her?

Yep, you guessed it.

I keep vascillating between thinking I might as well wait another week because chances are it's just CD1 getting ready to make an appearance and thinking I'd better test now, because if it's positive, I'd need to start up the Lovenox, prenatals, folgard, etc., ASAP.

I'll probably test in the next couple of days. Apparently there's at least a tiny part of me that's still an eternal optimist.

Either that, or I just love to torture myself with false hope.

A Much-Needed Reminder

On my way home from a vet appointment with our cancer-stricken dog late this afternoon, I called my dad to check in on him. He went into the hospital on Friday for a more hard core kind of chemo than he's received in the past, and today's his third day of it. I asked him how he's doing, and his response made me laugh out loud:

"I'm feeling great, baby! Plus, this new chemo makes me glow in the dark, so it's easier for wifey to find me at night when the lights are off..."

It was a definite reality check. There are certainly things in our world right now that are painful and not how we'd hoped they would be, but my dad's attitude serves as a reminder that no matter what the circumstances, a sense of humor and positive attitude are still possible. If we choose them. So I'm trying hard to choose them.

On that note, updates about the three D's that are dominating our world right now...

The Dad - As I mentioned, the hard core chemo is underway. He has four more days of it. The oncologist decided to take this approach because the other chemo he had been on was only helping for a week or so; it wasn't keeping him in remission long enough to get the transplant under way. It sounds like he'll be in the hospital at least 30 days, and possibly longer if the transplant happens. He'll be keeping the nurses on their toes with his sense of humor, that's for sure.

The Dog - We got a follow-up report from the radiologist late Friday afternoon, and I met with our regular vet today to talk about all of this. It was a sad appointment, but a decision has been made. As painful as it is, I'm also at peace with it because it's the right decision for our "baby boy". The only criteria we used is what we think is best for him. And unfortunately, we decided that is palliative care rather than surgery.

R, my mom, and I had talked about it over the weekend and decided that if surgery seemed like a viable option, we would do it.

However, I noticed during the past couple of days that the dog's hind left leg (it's his front left one that is affected by the cancer) is starting to show signs of weakness. It's shaking a little bit sometimes, and he's sometimes starting to lean his right hip against things - walls, the kitchen island - to gain additional support, which he hadn't been doing before. So I think the cancer has probably spread a bit further than the MRI images can detect at this point.

Our regular vet did an additional exam of him today and is concerned about the same thing. Also, he explained some things I didn't fully understand last week. Because the first sign of trouble was that the dog was holding his left foot off the ground, I assumed it had started in his foot. I thought that if we had just caught this a few months ago, they would have been able to just remove his leg and we would have had a chance for a much better outcome.

But the vet explained today that the tumor started deep in his armpit area, between two major muscles. He said that's pretty much the worst possible place it could start. So even if we had caught it earlier, it still would have been difficult to remove; even then, it wouldn't have been a simple leg amputation - they still would have had to go in and take out a significant amount of under-arm tissue to get to it.

The other thing he explained - and maybe the vet last week also explained it and I just wasn't hearing her since I was in shock - is that this particular kind of cancer isn't encapsulated. Instead, it's as if it's growing along tree branches, branching out into increasingly thinner branches along the nervous system. So not only does the main mass have to be removed, but all of those additional strands of the cancer that follow those branches would also have to be removed. And removing all of the cancer cells with clean margins without damaging the nerves in the process is a very challenging thing to do.

As if all of that wasn't enough, the radiologist's final report indicated that we would have to remove not only the leg and a signficant amount of muscle tissue, but also at least one rib and possibly additional ones.

And odds are that in all of that, somewhere, some place, at least a couple cancer cells would be left behind. Which means that it would grow back, the dog would have a missing front leg, at least one missing rib, and would still lose the use of his hind leg on that same side. Given what we've seen with his hind leg in the last few days, it's possible that he could lose the use of it before he's even finished recovering from the surgery.

So instead, we're going to keep him as comfortable as possible until he's no longer himself, and then we'll make the tough call. In the meantime, we're having a pet photographer come over tomorrow to take pictures of the entire zoo, while he's still feeling well enough that we can get images of him as his usual self.

In the meantime, we continue to welcome all prayers and kind thoughts that you care to offer up, because sometimes sanity can be a very tenuous thing. :-)

The Doctor - Somehow, I managed to hold myself together very, very well during my annual physical over the weekend, which included filling out the medical report for the adoption recertification.

I decided to take the approach of being honest without oversharing.

The nurse reviewed my meds. They know I've been on anti-depressants, it's in my chart, but somehow this time when she ran down the list to ask me if I was still taking each of them, she didn't mention that one. Nor did the form ask specifically if I've taken them. And when the doctor listed my meds on the form, she didn't mention the metformin or low-dose aspirin, only the thyroid meds.

The form did specifically ask about diagnosis of mental illness (no), anxiety (yes), depression (yes), and a couple other things I don't remember. I pointed out to her that my previous doctor had diagnosed (and prescribed medications for) anxiety, but none of the meds worked and the "anxiety" went away when my thyroid problem was addressed. So she noted very clearly in two places that the anxiety diagnosis was actually a misdiagnosis and that the issue was actually my thyroid.

The depression isn't a misdiagnosis, but she also put down that it was situational and caused by multiple miscarriages and by all of the hormones I've taken, which is entirely true. Before we started ttc, birth control pills caused the first round of depression I ever had, and when I stopped taking those so we could start ttc, it went away. (Well, briefly, until we started getting all of the IF diagnoses...) And Clomid and progesterone also trigger it.

On the form we have to fill out, it also asks about professional counseling, so I wrote that we've participated in "grief counseling" after our 4th miscarriage, which was of a baby with a heartbeat that died, and that we've continued to participate "as needed" while we've gone through additional treatments and miscarriages.

My hope is that "grief counseling" (which is a very accurate description) sounds better than "treatment for ongoing depression because my body can't seem to hold onto a kid", and that the social worker won't feel compelled to make a big deal about that in the home study. If she doesn't, international adoption might still be an option for us. Time will tell.

It's Doggie Cancer, and It's Bad

I hate when medical people lead you off with what sounds like good news, and then lower the boom.

When I was a freshman in high school, an aunt of mine wound up in the hospital due to an accident, and while she was recovering we got a call asking us to get to the hospital ASAP. I remember standing in a stairwell of the hospital with my mother (apparently all the consult or "family" rooms were occupied) while a doctor rambled on and on and. on. about her various health problems.

It sounded bad, but like there was still hope. Finally, I couldn't stand the sound of his voice anymore, and I just cut in and said "So you mean she's still alive, right?" And then he said, "No, she's gone. She died about an hour ago."

Everything went black, and he reached out to catch me as I collapsed. To this day, I still don't understand why he kept rambling incessantly when she was already gone.

This afternoon was a little like that.

We got to the vet's office, and the front desk told us the doctor was preparing the instructions. One of the vet techs handed us a couple of bottles of pills. She sounded so perky and happy, not like she was telling someone horrible news.

One of the bottles was a steroid. The vet had said if it was the best case scenario, steroids would be what the dog needs.

There were instructions to give him the pills for 8 days and then call to let them know how he's doing. "If it was cancer, they wouldn't want a report on whether he's improving," I thought.

Hope crept in.

"For once, we're not landing on the rare side of the odds," I thought. "Thank God."

Ha. When the vet finally came into the room, she seemed perky for a few moments, too. Then she told us it's bad. Very bad.

He has a rare nerve sheath cancer. It's big, and it's spreading.

If it was just in his leg, she would recommend "taking off" (they use that term, as if it's just a piece of clothing) his leg without a doubt. She says it isn't the kind of cancer that recurs in multiple places, so that usually cures it. And he's a strong, mentally tough but very happy-go-lucky dog, so she thinks he wouldn't be fazed much by losing the leg. I agree with that assessment of him.

But. But.

The tumor has spread, and it's now involving a couple of roots along the spinal cord and it's touching the spinal cord (I think at the beginning of the cord).

If it was in the cord, they would recommend palliative care until progression to the point that it was time to say goodbye.

However, from what they can tell, it's touching the cord but not within it yet.

So there is another option, which is take off the leg and remove as much of the tumor as possible. But they're not sure they can get all of the tumor cells where it's touching the cord, and if they don't, it will grow back. In that case, it likely will continue to grow down the cord, and then he will start to lose function of his hind left leg. (It's the front left one they would need to amputate.)

Chemo doesn't address this kind of cancer, and she said that the amount of radiation that would be needed to kill all the remaining cancer cells after surgery would damage the spinal cord.

The vet thinks he has 2-3 months without surgery, and maybe 6 months with surgery if they don't get all of it. If they do get all of it, he could have a normal lifespan (he's a cattle dog, they often live to 12-13 or longer).

The surgery would probably be at least $5,000. Maybe 6 months. But how do you put a price on time with a being you love, even if it's an animal? He has such personality. He's such a sweet, loving, happy dog. He just wants to play all the time - you'd never think he was 8 years old. We have 4 dogs, and he doesn't care what place he's in in the pack. Even with the limp and the pain he's been enduring, there have only been a couple of days when he hasn't been his normal, happy self.

If we don't do the surgery, our choices are put him down now or wait until he progresses further. I wouldn't want to keep him alive just for us if he isn't having a good quality of life.

On the other hand, how do you put down a dog who, when he is just sitting there looking up at you, you would think is 100% healthy?

We've had to make the tough call before, and we knew when it was time. But in that case, the dog went from being fine and us not knowing anything was wrong to suddenly being very not fine. Watching a dog progress slowly into "not fine" is a whole other thing.

I don't know what to do.

$5,000 is a lot of money. We're going to have big bills coming up for our next transfer. But on the other hand (and I realize this is my 4th or 5th hand at this point), would I be able to live with myself if we didn't try? It would feel like we were saying he isn't worth it.

Is it fair to do that to the dog? Is he better off if we just do palliative care until the time becomes obvious? Or is it better if we say goodbye now?

In some respects, it would have been easier if it had been the very worst case scenario, where the tumor was already growing down the spine and surgery wasn't an option.

This is a special kind of hell. I am so devastatingly sad.

Not to whine and fall into a pity party, but just how much more do we have to endure?

I understand that dogs die. They don't live as long as we do. I get that, I really do. But with the exception of one, it seems that ours don't even seem to have normal lifespans.

Need Doggie Prayers

I think I've mentioned that one of our dogs has been limping. Mom and I took him to a veterinary neurologist this morning. He's undergoing an MRI.

He may have a very rare nerve sheath cancer.

It may be in his spine.

They may not be able to do anything about it.

We will find out in about 3 hours. He's the youngest of all of our dogs - he's 8. He's the only male pet I've ever had. I refer to him as our "baby boy". Out of the 3 dogs R and I have had together, one other one is still with us and the third one died several years ago of congestive heart failure when she was only 6.5 years old.

All I can keep thinking is "Are we destined to lose every creature we love like a child at an early stage? Does God really hate us that much?" 7 dead babies, 1 dead dog, possibly another.

I'm not coping well. And somehow, I have to pull myself together enough to attend a work meeting (thankfully over the phone rather than in person) in two minutes.

Gold Star Uterus

Beta 3 integrin results are in: I tested positive, which is good. So between that and the other endometrial biopsy testing that also produced good results, I guess this means that my uterus isn't the issue.

Mo and Libby, in answer to your question about what the other biopsy testing was - they were checking for CD57+ cells, which they don't want to see, and FoxP3+ cells, which they do want to see.

I had none of the CD57+ and FoxP3+ cells that were "adequate in number, suggesting adequate stromal regulatory activity" according to the report.

So I guess it's looking like my immune system in general is the culprit.

We also got the results of the repeat bloodwork. While the NK cell levels in my uterus were good, they were still slightly off in my bloodstream. Not a surprise, as that was also the case during the transfers we did for IVF retrieval #1 a few years back. IVIg is still recommended, no surprise there.

My Leukocyte Antibody Detection levels (T cells and B cells) were also low, so LIT is recommended. And one of my Cytokine ratios was high, so Humira was recommended.

So, what's the plan?

I'm not doing the Humira. It has an increased risk of cancer, usually lymphoma, which is in the same family of cancer that my dad has (leukemia) and that his dad had (multiple myeloma). R and I decided pretty quickly that it's not worth the risk, and that view hasn't changed. If Humira is what's standing between me and a biological child, so be it.

I think we're going to do LIT. I'm still afraid of crossing the border, but we did go and get our passports yesterday and requested expedited processing. Two rounds are being recommended (3 weeks apart), so hopefully we can do the first trip in November and second trip in December.

We also plan to do the IVIg. And hopefully transfer in January.

At the same time, I'm ready to be done with this and move on to the next step. (Or so I say now - I realize I may sing a different tune if we wind up with one single line in January/February.)

To that end, I've contacted a local adoption agency to request a recertification application, and I've scheduled carpet cleaners to come out in mid-November. I'm not going to obsessively clean, but we have 4 dogs and 2 (indoor only) cats, and our carpet is just embarrassing.

I also need to work on getting a pool fence installed, and once we get the application completed and fence installation scheduled, I'll contact the social worker to do the home visit. If we can get that done by the end of November, we should have our certification around the time we get transfer results.

We haven't totally decided which way we would go on the adoption front. I'm still hesitant to do international for fear of being rejected. What I've decided to do with the home study is give the health forms to our family doc and mention that certain things would possibly disqualify us, but leave it up to her whether she thinks they are a possible impairment to our ability to parent and puts it on the form or not. (I haven't seen the form yet, so I don't know if it's a very specific questionnaire or if it just asks for a general statement.)

Then during the home study visit, if questions come up we'll answer them honestly, but we won't go out of our way to point out things that the social worker doesn't ask about. Once the certification is done, we'll request a copy of the home study and review what the report says and decide whether we think it would knock us out of the running internationally.

We'll see what happens.

Good News - Not Sure What To Do With This

The results of the NK tests that were done on the biopsied tissue came in today. Apparently there are two types of cells they look for - one type is bad, so they don't want to see that in the endometrial lining, and the other is good, so they want to see lots of those.

It turns out I have none of the bad cells and lots of the good cells.

In other words, good news on one small front in the infertility fight.

It's been so long since we've gotten good news relating to infertility that I just sat there stupified for a minute. I don't think I trusted my brain to interpret what I was hearing, because I had to ask "You mean, my test results are good? Really??"

I'd like to think that this means my uterus isn't killing off the embryos, but I haven't heard the results of the other endometrial biopsy test (for the beta-3 integrin) yet, so I guess that thinking is still a bit premature at this point.

I sent an e-mail to ask the clinic when they think those test results might come in, so hopefully we'll also have that answer soon.