Don't Count Your Eggs

Not only does this suck but I have to pay for it too?!

I was feeling really fine. The meds aren't too bad and I appreciate that I'm not bookended by shots. WE just have one in the morning and that it! After being on so many different meds during our last cycles, that is something I can appreciate. With my sis on board we are kind of splitting the load. I hope she doesn't want to kill me by the end of this. 

So as I was saying, I was feeling fine, and then the pharmacy called. I had been avoiding them, even though I know that's crazy. I just hate the pharmacists voice. It's so nasal and cold. No sense of humor, no empathy. I get it, she doesn't give a crap about me and my medication bill, but at least be friendly! Anyway, today I answered because I knew it was time to bite the bullet.

$2008.86 later I am picking shrapnel out of my mouth.

But my girlfriend Liz just texted me that, "It's only money," and that will be my mantra for the rest of the day.

Gulp.

Persistent Cyst

It's rare that I leave the doctor's office with solid good news. There always seems to be this potential for disaster looming in the background. But now that I'm REALLY trying to focus on the positive, I will start there.

I'm not going to have an aspiration tomorrow morning. No procedure is good news. While the cyst is still there, it is smaller and a weird shape, which hopefully means it is disintegrating. It's so weird that here I am having a piece of toast while all this weirdness is happening inside of me. Anyway. So the cyst is smaller. Perhaps the nasty tea I'm drinking from my amazing acupuncturist Gilli is working. Maybe it's the Lurpon, or the massive amounts of seaweed I've been ingesting because I heard that helps decrease cysts. Whatever it is is working, just a little slowly.

So we will continue the course with the understanding that there is a risk. If the cyst bursts or gets funky and I start bleeding around when my sister begins stimulation medication, we can't do the transfer. We will go through with the donor process because my sister is on a tight schedule, and then freeze the embryos for when my body is cooperating. That's the worst case scenario, a frozen embryo transfer. That sounded ok to us, so that's what we will do. 

Stay the course. That's all we can do. One foot in front of the other. Crossing bridges and oceans and volcanoes as we come to the. Can a person cross a volcano?

I will Wait. Drink Gilli tea. Wait. Pray. Hope. Rub crystals on my belly. Do chi gong exercises that my mom has devised to visualize the cyst getting tossed out of my body. Wait. Stay away from sugar and dairy and anything delicious. Wait. And come this time next week we will be in it to win it! 

The New L Word: Love

The other day I went to see a woman who does reiki. What would I call her, a reiki-ist? An energy healer? Not sure. I wasn't even sure what reiki was when I walked into Karen's space in the back of a hair salon in Los Felize http://www.reconnect2wellness.net/ but what I do know is that I walked in frazzled and angry that I'd just waited an hour to try to get blood tests done at Kaiser without success, and that I walked out of there feeling calm and grounded. 

Karen works with a person's energy and uses crystals and oils to help bring balance to the whole being. It sounds like some crazy hippie stuff but it was actually a really nice experience, and she was a very sane and caring person. She started by telling me my energy seemed almost off my body, like floating above my body, which perhaps makes sense right now. My relationship with my body has been strained lately and perhaps I'm trying to energetically escape all that's being done to my body. As she placed crystals on my belly and used her breath and hands to move my energy around, she talked about being kinder to myself. She talked about the importance of letting go of the feeling that I've disappointed people, specifically men, in my life. She talked about reminding myself daily that I am loved and supported and safe.

I think I've done a good job of rationalizing and coming to terms with what we've had to endure so far and the sacrifices we will have to make in order to create our family. But I also feel like there is guilt and sadness and fear and frustration that still lingers in my heart and my body. Karen stressed that the messages I tell myself are important to pay attention to. She talked about the need for affirmations and being truly loving and accepting to myself and about finding ways to redefine our current experience and my definition of motherhood. 

I'm not broken. I didn't drag my poor husband into this awful situation. I'm not disappointing my parents by not giving them grandchildren. I'm just dealing with the challenges of my life the best I can. I'm grateful for all my friends and family who have been able to support and love me through all this. I'm going to try and reframe my negative thoughts so that when I'm all worked up and in a Lupron induced rage, I will remind myself that I am loved and that I have a lot of love to give. 

Love Letters from Lupron

So minutes after I put up yesterday's post about how uneventful and fine I felt after five days on Lupron, my headache worsened and my tolerance for anything that wasn't my pillow or the sound of the wind gently rustling the bamboo outside plummeted. It started with the obnoxious kid who lives upstairs. Lupron wrote him a love letter:

Dear Obnoxious Kid Who Lives Upstairs,

I'm not sure if you know this, but you are not as cute as your parents tell you you are. Though they both smile and look on as you ride your bike in circles around the courtyard screaming and ringing your bell, the rest of your neighbors are probably not smiling. You do this often, it's kind of your "thing" and while I'm not sure why your parents encourage this kind of rude behavior I'd like to say, "STOP IT!" No one wants to hear you screaming in circles for HOURS! Just stop it! I want my own child very badly, but I promise my kid will be NOTHING LIKE YOU! If you come near my door again, I may open it and...I'll stop there.

All the best. Your friend,

Lupron

Dear Other Neighbors With the Nasty Little Dogs That Yap ALL DAY LONG,

I'm not sure if you are aware (you're probably not because you're out all day long) but your dogs bark CONSTANTLY during the day. I don't know how sound continues to come out of their little heads by 6pm, but it does. I'm wondering if you could strangle both of...I mean, I wonder if you would mind closing your windows so that the sound doesn't blast out of your place and directly into mine.

Thanks so much for being so considerate! Your neighbor,

Lupron

Dear Corn That I Bought at the Farmers Market Last Week,

Why did I buy you? I hate husking you as those little stringy bits get everywhere. I don't even know what I'm going to make with you tonight for dinner, and I'm noticing you're already a little dry and shrively. I feel like eating a juicy burger. NOT YOU!

Ugh.

Lupron

This went on for hours as the things that annoyed me increased exponentially with my headache...Oh no, it's 8:30am in Los Angeles, that means Noah has just come up the stairs holding a shot of my best friend, LUPRON... please hold for injection...that was fun. Let's see how today goes. I have to go get blood tests because mine have "expired" since we've been in the IVF process for so long, and then I have to drive five freeways to get across town for another appointment. Wishing everyone within a ten foot radius of me the best of luck!

The L Word: Five Days In

So I've been on Lupron for five days and I must say it's been pretty uneventful. I don't know what I was expecting. To grow chest hair and turn into The Incredible Hulk? To turn 55 and wake up to a head of gray hair and hot flashes? Kinda. Luckily I had two super rage filled cranky days and now I feel ok (aside from a splitting headache).

It's hard to know what is hormonal and what are my legitimate feelings. Well, they're all legitimate feelings, I think I mean it's hard to know what is me and what are the meds. I think I've earned the right to blame every emotional outburst I have on medication or hormones until 2015. 

The hard thing about trying to figure out what is "really me," is that I almost don't remember what I was like before infertility hijacked my life. How did I occupy my time before managing my baby making process became a full time job? What was my emotional baseline before I was repeatedly cycling through the stages of grief?

OK. Full disclosure, I've always been super emotional, so infertility has just exacerbated an already intense situation. But this cycling the stages of grief thing is something I definitely didn't have to deal with before.

The classic stages of grief are: Denial (Who me? Infertility? Yeah right, that's crazy!), Anger (I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING!!), Bargaining (OK. If I am good to other people, if I volunteer or donate to charity, then will someone please just let something work!?), Depression (Nothing is working. Nothing is ever going to work. I'm going to die a barren old maid), and finally Acceptance (The baby that is meant to be mine will be. There are other ways to build a family). 

I feel like I cycle through or leap frog from one stage to the next on a weekly, sometimes daily basis. It's exhausting. Last week at the doctor's, just when I felt I had accepted our path and our plan, I suddenly stepped back into the Anger square. Now is it hormones or just my continued journey of processing my feelings?

At the end of the day, I don't know.  All I can do is be grateful when I'm in a better place, and kind to myself when I'm not. And eventually something will be different. Nothing stays the same forever. Sometimes it just feels like it.

How I Knew When to Move on to Donor Eggs

The other day someone asked me how I knew when to move on to donor eggs. I'm 33 and we have only done one IVF and two IUI's (only, ha!), and we know many people who do five, ten round of this. Often something works, some times nothing works. The decision to move on to something else is a very difficult and very personal one. There are no right answers, but for us there were three important factors that moved us to donor eggs rather quickly:

1) The cost

2) Our quality of life

3) The most important deciding factor, my sister

In terms of the cost, plain and simple we couldn't afford to do five to ten rounds. It's hard to survive in IVF World with limited resources, but that's a reality for many people. So we had to look at what we could do. We knew if we did IVF with my limited egg count we would have a very low percentage chance with each try. And we knew that after three or four failed rounds with my eggs we wouldn't have the money to try anything else.

In terms of quality of life, I can just say it sucks. We both got into such a funk because living in IVF World is all consuming. Every thought, conversation, outing--every decision gets filtered through an IVF lens and it's flat out depressing. After being in this for three years we both felt enough was enough and we wanted the fastest way out with the least amount of compromise. 

The last thing we got was an incredible gift from my younger sister. When she offered to donate her eggs the answer to what to do next became really clear. I don't know if I would have moved to an anonymous donor as quickly, but my sister is incredible and smart and mentally stable and we share much of our DNA. It became the clear choice. Though there was much struggle and processing that had to happen for me to really feel ok about giving up my biology, there is no question in my mind we are doing the right thing.

But making a decision is not easy, because you're making the best worst choice, meaning everything is going to be a compromise. But you have to chose something in order to move forward. I got lucky that I have a sister, and one that is sane and attractive and bright. I keep telling myself that whatever baby we have and however it comes to us it will be ours and it will be loved. The loss of my biology won't matter. But each step along the way requires honoring your gut feelings and letting go of any ideals. Ideally, we wouldn't be in this situation and our baby would be celebrating his 3rd birthday this month. Thing don't always go as planned.

So with acceptance and gratitude we move forward with out best choice. Wishing everyone strength in their decision making process and sending a reminder that the baby that is meant to be will be. 

My IVF Tantrum

So my sister and I had our appointment with the Doc this morning and once again we had good news and bad news. The good news is that my sister is awesome. As a human being. As a doctor. As a donor. 22 follicles and a good attitude. I can't ask for anything more! Then there is me.  The bad news with the bad attitude. I still have one cyst on my ovary and it can't be there. But it is. So what does this mean?

We still move forward. I started Lupron and was actually really relieved that the shot was a tiny thing (though I know it packs a big punch as it will be putting me into menopause in a two week time period). We wait until next Friday to see if the dumb cyst disappears on its own. If it does, great. If it doesn't, the doctor gave me a handful of shitty options, the best one being aspirate it for several thousand dollars and keep moving forward.

I had this moment in his office where I just felt rage flush over my face. I was upset that the cyst was still there and my body was not cooperating. I felt guilty dragging my sweet sister into all this. I was overwhelmed by the appointment and medication schedule. And then the Doc was telling me not to be anxious or negative and I suddenly felt the urge to punch him in the face! I know he's just doing his job and it's not about him but sometimes it's all too much! 

Noah keeps telling me to channel my yogi mind. I've been very accepting and present focused and optimistic since starting my yoga teacher training program. But sometimes I have to just be upset and let it out and THAT'S OKAY! I hate that we have to do this! I hate that four of my friends are going to give birth in the three weeks we are going through all this crap! I hate that we are at the doctor every other day for the next few weeks! I hate when the doctor tells me I have to go with the flow! I hate my cyst! I'm going to call him Eloise. Hopefully that will give him an identity crisis and he will skip town. 

Ok. I've had my tantrum.  I feel better. I will accept and be hopeful and positive tomorrow. Tonight I'm going to eat honey nut cheerios in bed and read a trashy magazine. 

Music to My Embryo's...ears?

This morning I read an article (that I found through twitter, so I have no idea about the legitimacy) about a study that claims playing music to embryos in the dish can increase fertilization rates by 5 %.  The study was on 1000 embryos, 1/2 of which got music piped into their incubators (mainly heavy metal, rock and some classical) and the result was that the eggs that were rocking out were found to have a 5 % higher rate of fertilization, "possibly due to the vibrations created by the music." 

This sounds kind of ridiculous but also reminds me that all this science is so new and constantly changing. I know my doc doesn't like to open the incubator more than once a day so I pretty much know what his thoughts about streaming Pearl Jam into the incubator would be. I guess the idea is when an embryo is naturally forming it moves down the fallopian tubes and is subjected to the rhythms of the human body. Kind of makes sense that vibrations of music may be more like the natural environment, but who knows. 

I'm going to try and convince Noah to make an embryo playlist, though I'm not sure how into it he'll be. He already thinks I'm completely nuts so maybe he'll just comply, no questions asked. But I'll play it once the embryos are in my belly, maybe it will help them grow knowing there's a party going on out in the world!

What would be on your embryo playlist?

Hubs Guest Post: Trying to Find Our No Hitter

I’ve been asked to contribute another guest blog for the last couple weeks and, well, I haven’t had a whole lot to write about. Things have been relatively quiet here and I have been doing my best to enjoy the sunshine of life before the storm of our impending science experiment rolls in. We begin medication this week and we will revert back into crisis mode: timed injections, ultrasounds, and the daily rhetorical question of, “do you think it will work?”

From what my wife’s told you about me, I’m sure you may know that I’m an avid baseball fan. I live and die by the actions of the San Francisco Giants. A season of baseball is long and, if your favorite team is losing like mine is, it feels even longer. You go from wanting to root and yell and win, to just wanting the whole damn thing to be over with so you can try to reclaim your life until next season. Sound familiar?

Tim Lincecum is one of my favorite players on the Giants and I’ve been following his career since he was drafted. Over the last two seasons, he’s also statistically been the worst pitcher in baseball. My favorite team, also happens to currently be one of the worst in baseball. On Saturday night, Tim Lincecum threw a no-hitter. No-hitters are very rare, just a couple a year at most. But it happened. It shouldn’t have. But it did. And it gave me hope. Our process of trying to make a baby, start a family, and begin the next chapter in our lives, has often felt like a losing season. No matter how much we’ve practiced, how hard we’ve fought, we’ve come up short in our quest for a baby. Personally, I try not to dwell on our misses and focus on winning the next game. I try to stay positive. I know it’s out there. I know it’s possible. I keep believing. And that’s what’s getting you through all of this too, isn’t it? Whether it’s your family or God or baseball (unless it’s the LA Dodgers), you’re believing in something. It may be elusive, but that’s the amazing thing about life. As in baseball, there’s always a chance. I don’t care how many times we lose, one of these days our luck will change. We will win. We will start our family. We will pitch our no-hitter. After all, stranger things have happened. Just ask Tim Lincecum.

Counting down to IVF round 2

Ok. I know I said I was going to live my life fully and not count the days until we start IVF again, but HOW CAN I NOT COUNT THE DAYS UNTIL WE START IVF AGAIN? When you're in this world, everything revolves around your shot schedule and your mood, and between those two things much of the day is taken up. 

So I haven't posted video in a while. That's my bad, but it is because I've been busy living my life. And that is my good. And because I've been busy in my waking hours, I've noticed my anxieties about round 2 have been haunting me in my sleep in the form of insane nightmares. The majority of them are about having to fight bad guys with a celebrity partner in crime, which doesn't sound scary but two nights ago I woke up sweating and wondering if Jennifer Aniston and I really just had to fend off attackers on a cruise ship. Then night before that I was on a date with Jay Z (yeah, that's not the nightmare part) and when he was dropping me off at home we noticed there were bad guys about to kill my parents. Obviously Jay Z saved us all, but I woke up, again, drenched and panicked.

Last night I dreamt that my sister had changed her mind about donating her eggs. It was so real and I was crying and screaming and she was really indifferent and it was awful, and when I woke up at 5:41am I knew what all my fear dreams were really about. It's crazy what the subconsious can cook up.

So now that we are 5 days away from starting, I'm hoping I can process my fears best I canin the day so I can get a good nights sleep one of these nights! I guess it's all normal. I just wish I could dream about winning a trip to Hawaii (with Jay Z or not) or something like that. 

Monday Monday, My second chakra still thinks it's Sunday

Some days we just feel like this. More specifically, like Brown Dog. I don't have much to write about because we are in that anticipatory hold until we start shots July 18th. I've been keeping myself very busy with the yoga teacher training I'm doing, which is good. Otherwise I really would be Brown Dog.

As part of the training we've been learning about chakras and energy, the "subtle body" as it's called. Now, I am as cynical as they get about these kinds of things and am not at all interested in crystals or healing bowls (unless there is a pile of ice cream in it), but learning about energy in the body and where it can be blocked made sense to me. I'm no chakra expert, but after learning about the seven chakra system and what ailments or tendencies are associated with an imbalance in each chakra, I've diagnosed myself with a second chakra issue.

In a nutshell, the second chakra aka the sacral chakra, located in the lower belly/pelvic bowl area, is all about creativity, feminine energy (the womb), self-acceptance and fertility. When it's out of whack, so are the things associated with this area. This is supposedly where guilt about money and sex and feelings of jealousy may be stored. Ummmm.... yeah.

For anyone going through infertility issues, these kinds of feelings may arise. Jealousy that it is so easy for so many other people to make a baby. Guilt about how much money the process costs. Frustration about how clinical and technical the baby making process has become. Add onto that how invasive all the procedures are. How vulnerable and desperate and afraid a person can feel day after day at the doctors office. It makes sense that my second chakra has checked out! But I need it back and I need it balanced. So I'm going to have to send love and healing and letting go to that area of my body so that this time next month I'll be good to go for my transfer day.

Fertility Freedom!

For the last three years I've been handcuffed to my ovaries. What I eat, what I do, where I go, who I talk to all has to be approved by my ovaries. How imprisoning. But today, I designate a day of freedom from all things fertility related. In honor of the 4th I will eat and do whatever I want! Sushi, caffeine, nitrates in a hot dog? Bring it. 

Struggling with infertility is a daily battle. Every decision from what morning beverage to have to where and when I may be able to travel depends on where we are at in the process of treatments. It can be suffocating. So for one day I'm not going to think about any of it. I'm not even going to take my prenatal vitamins! I know. Rebellious.

So I hope all you lovely ladies dealing with this give yourself a day of liberation from the chains of infertility. Have fun, have beer, have sex because you want to, not because the doctor has ordered it!

Happy 4th! Happy freedom!

Waiting for Lupron

So a box of Lupron is supposed to arrive today. It's the only med I haven't yet been on, and it kind of terrifies me. I believe its main purpose is to shut down my reproductive system and essentially put me into menopause. I never thought at 33 I'd be electively going into a simulated menopause. 

I keep thinking, "This can't be good." And it can't. But I can't think about it. If I think about any of this too much it all starts to sound insane. I'm tricking my body into menopause, then telling it it has to get ready to be pregnant, then praying an embryo made from my sister and my husband can grow in it.  I feel like I'm going to wake up one morning and my body is going to go, "Hold up! Seems like some things are out of order here, girl!" 

Because I've made this decision to go forward, it's best not to think. Not to think. Not to Google. Not to wonder. It's unlike me to behave this way. I like being informed and asking questions. But I think this time I just don't want to know the answers. Is that terribly ignorant of me?

Finding My Mantra

This past weekend, my yoga teacher training focused on prenatal yoga. I knew I'd have some feelings as I did modified sun salutations to accommodate my imagined pregnant belly.  The teacher kept saying, "Inhale arms up, exhale hands to baby," and all of us in the class would close our eyes and place our hands on our stomachs.  My saving grace was glancing over at the one guy in the training who was very comfortably and attentively bringing his hands to his "baby."

Three months ago this would have wrecked me. There is so much in the world that triggers an infertile woman, it's hard to simply leave the house sometimes without some reminder, something upsetting, some lame comment from a person who just doesn't get what we're going through. The thought of spending an entire day in a prenatal yoga training pretending to be pregnant would have been something I would have called in sick for. There were times I needed to protect myself and my feelings more, and that's ok. But this weekend, my eyes teared up a bit at moments, and I moved through it, reminding myself that I'm ok.

"I'm ok. I'm ok." That was my mantra. Not trying to convince myself of something that wasn't true, but something to remind myself and soothe my mind from allowing the phrase "hands to baby" spin me out into some crazy place of fear and panic and pity. "I'm ok." The feelings came up but I didn't try and define them, they were tears. They were sad. They were a little hopeful maybe. I don't know. "I'm ok."

My mantra has changed many times over the course of this process. Sometimes  feel like I have retired a specific mantra, like "I hate pregnant people," and sometimes I shelf it and come back to it, like "the baby that's meant to be my baby will be."

Finding a catch phrase as a reminder to breath and focus on what's in front of you can be really helpful and self-supportive. I'm ok. It's going to be ok.