Just an update

So I'm just sitting around waiting to hear from my doctor about these endometrial biopsies. I had CD 1 last Thursday, and I know the biopsies are done during the luteal phase...but you know me: I NEED A PLAN. I need to call my gyn who is going to do the biopsies and get things roughly scheduled. And then I need to know the rough schedule for the FET. Dr. M keeps saying how I won't be the typical FET patient--I will need very low dose estrogen supplementation and no lupron, etc. etc. I want it in writing...and I want it YESTERDAY.

My fresh cycle nurse is out on maternity leave (gag) and so I'm dealing with a new nurse. Here is a perfect example of why this is annoying: I emailed Dr. M to ask about the biopsies and update her with my CD1. I got an email back from this other nurse offering to send me a biopsy kit. See? Those kits are for the beta integrin biopsy. NOT WHAT I AM DOING.

This annoys me on multiple points: 1) Why is she responding to my email that went to Dr. M? If Dr. M forwarded it to her that makes me angry. 2) She just assumed it was a beta integrin biopsy I'd be getting. Doesn't anyone read charts anymore? If I get ANY correspondence from a patient the first thing I do is open their chart and--oh yeah!--READ IT before I start making any assumptions.

Grrrr.

I re-emailed and was a little curt and asked if I needed to schedule a phone regroup (what's another 85 bucks in the grand scheme of things) to speak with Dr. M directly to get my questions answered. She wrote back that they're working on my schedule. If it mentions Lupron or massive doses of Vivelle patches--mark my words--I will lose it.

But here's the other thing: I am so weirdly detatched again. Intellectually, I know that if I get the biopsies and my lining grows I could be out there in early November.

Like, in five weeks.

My practice administrator has been asking if I know the days off I will need and keeps saying "just let me know!" which is really great but I think I kind of go 'la la la la la' when she asks because asking for time off is a big step. You know, it means we'd actually be going back to Colorado.

But I have all these irrational fears. Like--if I actually do succeed, how will I continue to help take care of my Dad so much? I wouldn't be able to lift him or help transfer him, and if I was gawd-awful sick like my sister was I doubt I could handle a lot of what comes with a nursing home.

Then I take a step back and remember who we're talking about here. Mr. LastChance and I. Mr. and Mrs. Freakishly LOWChance is more like it. So why am I already worrying about a pregnancy?

Then I freak out and wonder why the heck I'm pursuing this if our chances are low.

Then I do the whole 'push to blast freakout dance' that I seem to do at least weekly. Of note: it's not a pretty dance.

We have this whole 'other plan' going too. I'm sure that has something to do with all of these crazy emotions and feelings. I haven't been talking about it...yet. But you know I will.

Will someone wake me up when the transfer is done, when the 2WW is over, when I know the results?

I am going to need a megadose of Valium.

PS On my 'other place' I mentioned the big upcoming weekend. Geez someone is going to figure me out but oh well. I am really excited about that and it is a good distraction from this.

PPS Have I mentioned how silly it feels to be updating two places? But yet, I still feel the need to keep my worlds from colliding.

Pushed back.

First of all, thanks for listening/commenting/supporting with my last entry. The love I feel here is real, as real as anything you can feel in real life as strange as that sounds. So thank you.

Since I ovulated kind of late in the cycle we pushed back a month. As in, I'm not getting any lovely endometrial biopsies this cycle, but will do it NEXT month. And then that means it will be the next month that we go for transfer.

That will put us out there in November.

Yeah.

Exactly one year from our spectacular crash and burn at CCR.M. the last time.

That fateful day I sobbed through my transfer and missed all the celebration with Obama's victory because I was sleeping off Valium and trying to sleep away my misery. I remember waking up a few times during that day to see Mr. LastChance watching the TV intently, and of course he shared the news with me, but I just rolled over and went back to sleep, eyes puffy and hurting from the crying.

I am so sad...so sad that I missed that incredible moment when it felt like the world was changing for the better, when we felt poised on the edge of something big....when we had hope.

Exactly the feelings one should have after a transfer. I could feel it for my country, but I couldn't feel it for myself.

So this coming November--assuming everything goes smoothly and we make it out then--I will reclaim those feelings. We will tranfser four decent embryos, the best chance we've ever had. My uterus will have been primed and prepped with biopsies and hopefully not 'fluffed' to the point of hyperplasia with soaring estrogen, but just perfectly ripe for an embryo to nestle in and call us Mom and Dad for the long haul.

We're ready.

I just have to get it out.

I surged. Blah blah blah. Still waiting on an email from Dr. M to figure out the next steps, but I am thinking we're pushing to November at this point. I'm strangely 'whatever' about this. I don't feel like rushing in many ways, but in many other ways I'm ready for this to end.

I tried to keep this blog without any details of my personal life other than the most personal of things, you know, like dildo-cams and estrogen levels and oh yeah--hopes and dreams and fears of the deepest kind. But you know what I mean--I don't use real names, I don't talk about other details of our lives because I was so afraid of someone stumbling on this and connecting the dots...but I'm sort of over that too. The real person I aimed to protect was myself (from questions asked in real life about how in the hell we could do a fifth IVF) and also my mother. I seriously doubt my mother will find this and I hope if anyone who knows her did figure it out they'd honor my wishes and keep things quiet. So I'm just going to talk because I need to talk.

My Dad.

Oh my God my Dad.

I just returned from a visit. You all who have known me for a while know he had a massive stroke in June.

And while he's doing better than anyone expected and I am thrilled that he survived at all, I am just so pissed right now. I am so sad for him and the quality of life he has been handed. What a shaft. Someone who adored being outdoors, riding his tractor, riding his bike, working his land...now lays in a bed or sits in a wheelchair in a freakin' nursing home, biding his time between rehab sessions where he is making some, but not a lot, of progress. I do not think he will walk again. I think the most we can hope for is that he can help transfer himself from the bed to the wheelchair and back again. He has to wear adult diapers. He is humiliated.

How did this happen? This is the question he asked me this weekend. You do not know pain until your father's deep black eyes have stared into yours and asked "How did I wind up here?"

Of course I had no answer. Why does anything like this happen?

I am feeling angry. Angry and robbed. My children (if I ever get there) will never be driven around on Pumpaw's tractor like his other grandkids. They'll probably only know him as an old man in a wheelchair who is sort of scary and sometimes drools and is messy when he feeds himself. He'll never push them in the tire swing he built for them. He'll never reach down and scoop them up in both of his arms because his left arm is his "stupid dead arm" as he says.

I love him so much it hurts. And that is why it hurts to see him like this.

I have been so PollyAnna through this whole process, trying to be strong for my Mom, hearing only the positive, choosing only to believe that he could recover, reading story after story about recovery.

Kind of like I have done with infertility on so many levels.

Because I have to have hope. I'm addicted to hope.

And while my Dad is doing better, my heart is breaking for all that should have been, all that could have been, all that will never be.

PS I am going to put up a pic at my old place, and post there, where I will tell an equally true but much more positive tale, if you're so inclined...

New plans!

Ok so Mr. LastChance and I have some new ideas, some new plans.

Let's just leave the embryos frozen.

After all, frozen embryos make the perfect children.

They're good quality kiddos, with a decent grade. Their cells are even and some might call them beautiful. We can brag about them. They won't cost us much, just some annual storage fees. They'll never nag us, or whine, or cry, and we can continue to get a good nights' sleep and also take naps. Frozen embryos don't eat much either.

Seriously.

These are the things we toss around. Since we've never had very many decent looking embryos, to have six good quality ones feels like we've won the kiddo lottery, and yet they're all just 6-8 cells. Microscopic. Only kid-potential.

But they're ours. They're our kids.

And we're already proud.

So keeping them frozen forever would just let us ride out this feeling forever.

All kidding aside, I'm just waiting for a stinkin' positive on an OPK so I can email Dr. M with my ovulation so she can start working on a calendar. But naturally I'm late. Today's cycle day 15 with no surge in sight. Weirdness all around. But what can you do?

As always, don't forget about my other place I like to ramble....