Monday, March 31, 2008

I am Hopeful. There, I said it.

I can't believe I'm actually saying, but I honestly have hope again.

My RE called a little while ago to discuss my next step. We have 3 totsicles left and we'll do an FET cycle as soon as AF arrives. I think I O'd this weekend, so I hope to see that lovley lady (that I normally curse!) in about 10-12 days. We're doing a natural/unmedicated cycle which is much easier on my mind and body. We will track my b/w and u/s to see when I O and then three days later we'll transfer all (praying all 3) surviving thawed embryos.

And if my body goes along with that plan, the transfer may be around the end of April, and my 30th birthday on April 27th. I know what I'll be wishing for when I blow out those birthday candles. Even though this is my third birthday in a row I will make that same wish, I know this is the closest we'll be able to come to getting it right. I've been tested for everything at this point so it's all up to the snowbabies now. They have to make it to transfer and then hang on tight once back inside me.

It's also our last chance with treatments, so I am going to hope and pray like I've never hoped and prayed before.

For Good (Reprise)

So I posted back in January after loss #3 about a song I heard on my way home from my RE's office when I found out about my blighted ovum. It was a song called "For Good" from the Wicked soundtrack. I'm sure some of you can relate to the song in the same way. I started BAWLING when I heard it on the radio and I hear it replay in my mind all of the time. And I have it on repeat as I'm typing this. It makes me think that I have forever been changed by "knowing" my four embabies (I've had three losses, with the last one being twins). Only now I'm not crying. I'm hopeful once again (my next post will talk about my new-found hope).

The words "Who can say if I've been changed for the better because I knew you? But I have been changed for good"are so true. I may never know the reason why I've experienced all of this pain, but it has changed the person that I am. I have never been a "mean girl" but this has all made me that much more compassionate. I appreciate things so much more. Things that make me happy, make me that much happier. I don't trivialize anything. I don't take anything for granted. I make sure I give Ed a kiss every chance I get, and tell him I love him whenever I can. I know I am truly lucky to have such a wonderful husband by my side after the past two years. I go that extra-mile to make my family happy or do things for them, especially those that came to my side when I needed them the most. I give Jimmy as many belly rubs as he can stand. He always came running to me when I started to cry and his cute face always made me smile.

I'm very grateful for the little bugger. He's my "furbaby" and he makes me as happy as any other family member can. He was there on the couch with me for a month when everyone else went back to work and back to their own lives. He was my daily reminder that I had to get up every day and go on with my life. I was forced to get up to walk him or else I'd have stayed in bed for hours on end. He was a huge part of my healing process. Where would I be without him? Probably still a crumbled mess in the same stinky PJ's from January. LOL.

Sunday, March 30, 2008

We're ready.

We're ready to start with our next FET.

Ed and I had a few heart-felt discussions this weekend on when we think we'd like to do our next (and probably last) FET. We talked about waiting a few cycles; but with me looking for a new job then we might not have insurance coverage for the RE's office visits, b/w and u/s. We talked about doing now; but are we emotionally ready to deal with it if it doesn't work? I said I don't think waiting would allow me to deal with it not working any better than if we do it now.

So we're doing it now. I think I have two more weeks of this cycle so we still have that time to adjust to the idea of what's coming. And I don't know if my FET cycle will start then or if I'll be on BCP for three weeks, followed by Lupron, etc. so we may even have more time to prepare ourselves.

We also decided to use the money we're getting from the gov't to put towards this cycle so the financial burden is gone and we're very thankful for that. Way to go President Bush...the best thing you've done for us while in office. LOL.

So please continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers to give me the strength to gear myself up for this -- again. I'm not even thinking about results yet. I just need to concentrate on praying that my snowbabies survive the defrosting and are healthy enough to transfer to me, whenever that happens to be.

Friday, March 28, 2008

I called.

I thought about it before lunch, and grabbed the phone before I could decide against it. And I’m glad I called. I feel better knowing exactly how much it will cost.

After 2 fresh and one frozen IVF cycles, we reached our maximum limit with insurance of $10K so the rest is on us. My RE is only going to charge me what my insurance would have paid for the transfer (after deducting his donated fees). It will be $1800. That is a lot considering we still owe them some money b/c our insurance didn’t cover the Big Freeze and storage of my totsicles. But in the grand scheme of IF treatments, I know it’s not much at all. My dog walking business is doing well so we should be able to pay for more than half of my FET with that money, and more if business picks up. And the rest we’ll just have to pay off a bit every month until it’s all paid off.

I’m starting to get excited to try again. It’s taken me almost three months to get to this point, but I’m finally here. And I’m glad to be here. I feel better, lighter. I’m sure some of you know what I mean. I also have a call into my RE to find out what our next step will be when we’re ready to start my FET cycle. Will it be natural, medicated, will I be on BCP for a month before, etc. He’s off this afternoon so I’ll have to wait until next week to hear from him, and that’s ok with me. I’m mid-cycle right now so I still have two weeks to decide if we want to move ahead when AF comes or not.

The only thing is that I’m turning 30 on April 27th and my second EDD was May 1st. So in all honesty I would really like to be in the midst of a treatment cycle during those days. If I can’t actually be PG well then I’d like to be in the middle of trying to get there. That may be silly but it makes perfect sense in my head. LOL.

So in the end this was a very good day. I feel very positive and hopeful.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

What's wrong with me?

I can't bring myself to call my RE. I have to call to find out how much our next FET will cost. My RE said he will donate all of his services, but I will probably still have to pay the lab and assisted hatching fees. I'm thinking about it constantly but I always think, "I'll call in a bit". It used to be that I would be on the phone with them as soon as their office opened and now I'm just pushing it off. Why is that? Am I just not ready? I know I'm terrified to be PG again but I want it so desperately. How can I just skip over from getting a BFP to popping the little one out? I am sure I'm not alone in feeling that way, so how do you ladies deal with it?

And I know a lot of you ladies think/pray for me, but I would like to loan out my prayers for a bit. Someone needs them more than I do...Busted.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor-1

That’s what is wrong with me.

My RE called me at 9 pm last night with my RPL blood panel results. He went down the list of all the tests they did (all 17 of them) and he kept saying Test A – negative, Test B – negative, Test C – negative, etc. Until he got to the last one…Text PAI-1, positive. Only positive is a bad thing. BUT it’s a good thing because we now have something to try to fix! (Did you follow all of that? LOL). It’s a blood clotting disorder and there is something like I should have 4G-5G, but my gene repeats as 4G-4G (or whatever he said). I was trying so hard to follow him but my mind just kept going “YEAH!! THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WE CAN FIX!!!”

I felt a huge wave of warm relief flow over my body. Should I be lucky to have another BFP, we will start immediately with Lovenox injections…piece o’cake!!

And then it sets in…dear lord I have to go through this again. I’m praying that all three of our totsicles thaw and we have a successful FET, but what if they don’t? What if I have to do another fresh IVF cycle? That will take some time to prepare mentally and physically for yet another assault on my body. I have rather enjoyed the past two months were we didn’t have to make the trek to the RE’s office a few times a week and I didn’t have to keep a schedule of my injections/medications. It’s been somewhat peaceful. I’ve been sleeping better and feeling happy (for the most part). Ed was kind of upset to find out the waiting is over and we have to make a decision on whether or not to move forward, and if we do, when? Should we take more time off? Should we jump right back on the horse?

I started out wanting a 2006 baby and now we’re on to wishing for a 2009 blessing. The time has flown so what’s another few months to make this decision? But I don’t know how I will handle seeing AF the next few months. I know I say it all the time but IF has made me totally bipolar! One second I feel one thing, but them I like heck no, and decide something else. LOL.

The bottom line is that we now have an answer to what has caused my three miscarriages and I couldn’t be happier that it appears to be an easy fix. But the prayers continue.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Out of the blue.

My SIL offered to be a surrogate.

I don’t know how I feel about that so this post is going to sound like I’m nuts. LOL. Ed’s first reaction to his sister was to get angry. Mine was to cry. We haven’t gotten along with her in our entire 4.5 years of being married and yet she’s the only one to offer this to us. Part of me feels that I will resent her forever if she carries my baby. She’s always been very smug with us and this would be one HUGE issue where she could say “I could do something you couldn’t do”. Petty, I know. But still. Part of me isn’t ready to give up on my own body yet. I (still!) haven’t received my RPL results and I’m sure that would influence my decision. If my RE says there is nothing wrong with me, so no medical reason that would have caused my 3 losses, well I will be devastated that there is nothing to “fix” and maybe I’ll be ok with the surrogate thing then. But if there is something wrong that we can fix, then I’m almost positive that I’d want to give my body another shot at it with some additional assistance from my RE.

I know this isn’t a decision we need to make right away but it’s still all I can think about. I never had this enter my mind so I didn’t even have an answer or reaction prepared. I think that is what got Ed so angry. Nobody asked her for that. We never even said that was an option for us to pursue. We said that I’m still waiting for results and she just offered it up. Ed thinks she was out of line. Granted it was a very nice gesture but we all know how well-meaning people can come off totally insensitive when they say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Does that even make sense?? It caught me totally off guard.

I don’t know if I could let someone carry my child. Plus, she is of AMA and overweight so it’s not even an ideal situation. Would I hold her responsible if she had a miscarriage of MY babies? I know I blame myself for my 3 losses so there is nothing stopping me from blaming someone else. Just thinking about it makes my stomach turn so obviously I’m in no position to think about it with an open mind and clear head. Maybe I should just shelf the idea at least until I get my RPL results back. SIL did say that she’s only offering that once and she’ll never bring it up again. Which is good that she won’t hound us asking if we made our decision about it. Maybe Ed will change his mind once we get our results and he’s not so angry as his sister. Maybe I’ll change my mind. But maybe we won’t. I think it would be easier if it was my family member or even if it was a stranger.

I know I'm just rambling but I had to get those thoughts out of my head.

How did I get here?

Sunday, March 23, 2008

It's Hell in the Hallway

My dear blog-friend Katie has a great post from the other day. It's something I feel so intensely and yet she put it into words better than I could. Please read her post if you have time and then come back here and read on with this post...


Did you read it?

Good.


I hate this hallway. It's cold and dark and it feels like the walls are closing in. I feel that all of the doors are behind me and I can't turn back. All of those doors have been slammed in my face, or slammed on my foot and it still hurts. I saw inside three of those doors and they were the most magical worlds inside. Something so beautiful that after you see it, you yern for it. You can't imagine never seeing a world like that again. And if you don't, how can you be happy with the world that you eventually find? All I can think about it what I've seen and nothing else will be good enough.


I want to see this door someday...

Thursday, March 20, 2008

To all of you ladies with Word Verification

I HATE it. Please please please take it off! I think you’re doing it just to annoy me. LOL.

The words are always so curvy with a funky font and I inevitably end up typing the wrong letters. And then I have to do it all over again. And god forbid I have caps lock on so I think I’m typing the right letters (over and over ) but I keep getting an error like three times until I finalize realize about the dumb caps lock.

Stupid Word Verification.

Rant over.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Emotional evening

It always seems that no matter what the topic of conversation is in our house, we always go back to IF/RPL. Ed and I were having a perfectly fine dinner tonight. We were talking about my dog walking business, his new job that he loves, some improvements we'd like to make on our house, etc. It was all very positive, happy stuff. And then we hit a sharp curve in the road and all of a sudden we were both in tears taking about baby stuff.

Each of us mentioned how we're starting to face reality in the fact that we may not have children, and how we're dealing with it emotionally. It's very hard for both of us and we each said that we're scared of being 80 years old and alone in a nursing home, with no children or grandchildren to visit us. It's a very real and scary fear, but I never thought he had that feeling. Something is so comforting when you know you're not alone. We then talked about how we cope with these fears and kind of talk ourselves through the bad times. He said that when he decided to ask me to marry him, that was all that mattered in life to him. Of course we both wanted a few children, but he knew then that if he had me forever, he'd be happy forever. Children would just be an "extra blessing". But they weren't neccesary for his happiness. I found myself thinking that I couldn't argue with that. In fact, I agree with it. As long as he's my husband (forever, I hope) then I'll be happy. We have a great marriage and a wonderful friendship. We respect & adore each other and have a lot of fun together.

In all honesty, if it was just the two of us (and our dog of course :D) from now on, well, I'd have to be pretty hard-pressed to not be happy with that. Granted I would be THRILLED beyond words to have children, but I'm very thankful for my life with Ed and we are very lucky and blessed with our home and lifestyle. How could I want more out of life?

But I do. And how do I say to him that I want more? Does that make me a terrible wife? I want a family. And that while he is good enough to make me happy, happier than I ever imagined, that I still want to have a family in order to feel complete? Does that mean my marriage isn't fulfilling? No. Not at all. It just means that I've wanted to be a Mommy as long as I've wanted to be married (my whole life) and I'm not yet ready to give up on that dream.

But I know that if children aren't part of my future, I will be ok. I will be better than ok. I'll be married to a man who thinks the world of me and wants nothing more. I will want for nothing and have enough love to keep me warm at night and to keep my heart happy.

I just feel my heart being tugged in two directions and I don't know which way to run towards. (Geesh, this sounds a lot like my bi-polar post yesterday, LOL.) If I could see into the future and know what would happen I could gear my life in that direction. But I don't know what will happen so I have to continue a little while longer on this uncerain path. I have to live my life day to day and do what will make me happy right now. In this moment. With no amount of planning can I will something to happen. So I will be thankful for I have in my life right now and be especially thankful I have a wonderful and handsome husband who wants to grow old with me.

And I should be getting my RPL test results back sometime this week so I'm sure I will need extra strength to handle the results. Please send some good "strength" vibes my way if you can spare some.

Friday, March 14, 2008

I couldn't hold back the tears.

My fortune cookie:

Your heart's dearest wish will come true.

Y

So of course I laminated it with scotch tape and put it in my wallet to hold on to.

Getting to know you ladies...

What is the title of your blog (if you have one) and what does it mean?

For me, "Will They Have His Eyes?" is about wondering what my children will be like. Will they have crazy curly hair like me? Will they be tall like Ed? Will they have a generosity like my Mom's? Will they have Ed's eyes? I just love Ed's eyes. They are full of expression and I love their shape and color. They're a gorgeous blue, but more than that they shine when they look at me. The biggest wish of my heart is that I will one day have children that will look at me with eyes much like my husband's and I will be able to read their heart, what they're thinking, and feel how much they love me.
I am borrowing this from Katie...

Below is a wonderful poem Audrey Hepburn wrote when asked to share her "beauty tips." It was read at her funeral years later.

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness...
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people...
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry...
For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day...
For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone...

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands ; one for helping yourself and the other for helping others.

This is for Katie...



Yes, it made me smile!

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Some thing are just never easy.

Getting AF is one of those things.

In my head I know it's totally absurd to think we could conceive on our own. And yet I held out hope. This was my first cycle after my most recent miscarriage and I know we timed things perfectly. I prayed it would work and that we'd be one of those lucky couples who conceived while "on a break". No such luck. AF showed today. And even though the logical side of me knew there wasn't a change in hell it would work, I was still devastated to see that all-two-familiar pink streak on my toilet paper this morning. My eyes filled with tears and all I could do was sigh and stare at the TP.

I'm having a hard time keeping hope alive. I'm letting myself think that we may be faced with a childless future. I always held out hope but it's fading. We have reached our maximum for IVF coverage so anything more we do will be paid out of pocket. We still have 3 totcicles so we aren't (yet) faced with paying for a full fresh IVF cycle, but an FET is still a few thousand dollars (after the thousands we have already paid in co-pays and stuff). I have taken SO much time off from work that I can't imagine my boss allowing much more. The stress is getting to me. I crumble at the drop of a hat. I cry at everything. And the really sad stuff...well I just turn into a puddle of goo and gasp helplessly while crying the ugly cry (or something similar as Oprah calls it). I can't make decisions any more. I'm doing something I never did...I'm second guessing myself. I change my mind a million times and just don't feel confident. But then, like a light switch, I'm my old self. I think I'm turning bi-polar or something. I'm sure all of my emotions are totally normal for my situation, but I feel like an alien with no home.

EVERYTHING reminds me of babies. Old people remind me that I may be alone when I'm their age without anyone to visit me in the home.

Why do I think/say such depressing things?? I was always the optimist. 26 months ago I would have said that if I couldn't have kids well then that would mean I'd have more time/money to travel, buy the convertible I want, never have to watch Barney, etc etc etc. Now all I think about is that I WANT TO WATCH BARNEY. And then I want to kick myself for wanting to watch Barney...and there in lies my bi-polar disorder. LOL.

And I'm still losing my mind waiting for my RPL blood panel results. I have a week or so to go for mine and 2-3 weeks for Ed's.

You know that song at the beginning of "My Best Friend's Wedding"...here are my words...

Sitting and waiting and hoping and praying
Planning and dreaming that we will conceive...

Ok, that's all I have so far. I'm too busy being grumpy that AF is here to really be clever enough to write song lyrics :D

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

I'm one of "those" girls.

I don't want to GO to the dance, but I want to be INVITED.
Know what I mean? Well, I'll explain...

A VERY good friend of mine at work has a daughter who is due next month (two weeks before my 2nd EDD). She is like a "mom" to me and we know everything about each other's lives. We had gone through the first 9 weeks of my pregnancy comparing notes between myself and her daughter. Then disaster struck and I was no longer PG. But I stil asked for updates and tried as best I could to be supportive of my friend, the grandmother-to-be.

I just found out that she's having the baby shower this weekend. And I wasn't invited. Which I could normally understand since I'm a 'work friend', but the other ladies I work with are invited. And my feelings are hurt. Now I can only assume that it's becuase of the losses I had this year and my friend doesn't want to upset me by inviting me. But shouldn't that be my decision on whether or not I can handle going to a baby shower? And like I said, I don't actually want to go (I'd be so upset) but I want to be invited.

Am I totally nuts for thinking this way? I kind of don't think so. She is close enough a friend that she could have talked to me about it and asked how comfortable I would be going. Then I could be totally honest with her and decline, but still send a gift for her daughter. I'm just sad. And I know the other women who are going are all talking about how exciting it will be (their whispers are pretty loud) and then get quiet when I walk over, leading to everyone's discomfort.

I just hate this stuff.

I hate how IF and RPL has affected my life to the point where I can't go about the normal exciting things in my family/friends' lives.