Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise!!

We spent the morning staring at my cell phone waiting for the call that we were being pushed back to monday. We hit the road and still kept staring at my phone. Even when I was drinking my pomegranate spritzer to fill my bladder, I was still waiting. 

Well - we didn't get pushed to a 5dt. 

I had a few moments of worry. What if we only had 1 or 2 left? What if we lost so many?

I didn't really have very long to worry about it, because before long, Jennifer was calling me in to go back. Penguin socks on, bare butt flapping in the breeze - hospital gowns are such joy. I can say one thing about ultrasound guided transfers... they SUCK. I miss my carefree non-u/s guided transfers where I didn't have to worry about peeing on the doctor  and the speculum putting too much pressure in places. 

But a few minutes later, I was seeing my embryos in a petri dish on the monitor getting sucked into the catheter that would deliver them to my uterus and a few minutes after that I saw them delivered 1 1/2 centimeters below the uterine fundus where hopefully they will eventually find a good spot and snuggle in. 

Folks, I'm PUPO!

And now, the nitty gritty! We had 10 eggs retrieved. 8 of them were mature and subjected to ICSI. Of those 8, 7 fertilized. Guess what? WE STILL HAVE SEVEN EMBRYOS!!!

We transferred three 8-cell embryos, 2 grade 2 and 1 grade 3. By comparison, during my Smudge cycle, we transferred 2 grade 2 and 1 grade 4. Dr. Z was sure to remind us that he never grades anything a 1. And seriously, one of the grade 2's looks pretty darned perfect. 

And the other 4? Well apparently, they're still thriving and we'll know monday if we are able to freeze any of them.

Please keep everything crossed for us. Say a prayer, throw some salt, light a candle, or whatever it is you do. Progesterone check on wednesday, Beta next wednesday (6/27).

I'm Nervous

Maybe it's the fear of the unknown. Maybe it's the fear of the known. Maybe it's just knowing i'm not going to be able to pee for over an hour. Whatever the reason is, I'm nervous about tomorrow.

My embryo transfer is scheduled for 8:45am tomorrow. Scott the embryologist lets them do their thing as much as possible, so he doesn't check the embryos today. But he will first thing in the morning. If there are any distinct front runners, the transfer will continue as planned. If not, we'll be pushed to a 5 day transfer on Monday morning.

I'm trying to prepare myself to NOT have seven embryos tomorrow. There's every likelihood that some will have stopped progressing and have died before I get there. Right now, I'm off of the high I was riding yesterday when I first got the call. 

Now I'm just hoping I have any embryos when Scott checks them tomorrow. 

Quick - I need a fix for broken mirrors, spilled salt and walking under a ladder...

Seriously. All I wanted was for everything to go the same as it did in our last cycle. The last cycle worked. So let's repeat it. Step by step, med by med, socks by socks (what, you don't have lucky socks?). 

I should have known... it just will never be that easy. 

First I found out that my acupuncturist is no longer working with Dr Z AND she moved her office AND she can't give me a deal on her pricing anymore. So, now I'm driving further and spending more money (the Amex is getting a workout right now)... but she can't come treat me for retrieval and transfer. I can't drive to her office after because I did that during the first cycle - and that one didn't work. So, can't do that. There is someone new working with Dr Z now, and my acu doesn't want him treating me because she says no one in the acu-fertility world knows him and she thinks he's lying about his experience with infertility. 

acupuncture works

Fortunately, it turns out Dr Z has a new nurse named Rachel and she is a tried and true infertility Acupuncturist and she will treat me for retrieval and transfer. Thank goodness. Acu-crisis averted. 

Then the pharmacy drama started. 

It took three days for the pharmacy that Dr Z always uses to realize that they couldn't fill the prescription because our benefits changed and it doesn't go through our pharmacy benefits anymore. So, she said she was going to fax the prescription to Freedom pharmacy, who can put it through medical.

Then Freedom lost the script. 

Then they couldn't find our benefits. 

And that was last week. I've been so stressed about this. I've been fortunate that some of the more expensive meds were given to me by friends, but I didn't want to have to use them. I was hoping to use my benefits and pay it forward with the meds to some IF friends who are completely out of pocket, as long as our meds were affordable. But now they couldn't even find the benefits. Everyone was denying the claim. It's been a huge headache. 

Then today, Freedom realized that they can't even fill it. They have to send it to Caremark. 

And that scares the crap out of me... because I think CVS is incompetent and now I'm worried i may not even get my meds at all in time to start my cycle. I talked to Dr Z about that today. 

Which brings me to my real panic attack for the week. 

When I got my calendar, it mentioned coming to transfer with a full bladder. Cue freak out. That means he's doing ultrasound guided transfers now. 3 years ago, I asked him why he WASN'T doing u/s guided transfers and his response was straightforward and point blank, "I noticed my success rate was going down once I started doing them, so I went back to the way I was trained, and the numbers went back up". AKA "I wasn't good at them, so i don't do them". I respected the honesty and was grateful for it. 

Image of an Ultrasound Guided Embryo transfer

So, today I mentioned that I noticed the "full bladder" thing on the calendar and asked about what he had said previously. I was really happy with his answer. He said that the technology has changed and you can now SEE the catheters on ultrasound, whereas before you couldn't. So now you can see exactly where the embryos are being deposited. Before, you had to go by feel while looking at the monitor and there were too many opportunities to miss something. 

I also talked to him about my pharmacy situation. He said, worst case scenario, he can get me emergency meds and we can just "replenish" the supply when my order comes in. So, no worries there either. 

The only thing I'm still up in the air about today is whether or not to take baby aspirin. Fran (my nurse) says I don't have to... but I did last time, so I really think i need to again. And Fran, knowing me, laughed when she told me I didn't have to, because she knew what I would say. However, I can't find ONE that doesn't have either food coloring or lactose. Ugh. Back to the drawing board. I wonder if I can get it compounded. 

And now for the interesting information:

My lining is typical. 9mm and homogeneous, meaning it is one layer. Closer to retrieval it will be a triple stripe which is optimal for implantation (i've already started my pomegranate juice spritzers in preparation for that). I have 11 antral follicles (6 on the left and 5 on the right).  And we're trucking along... 3 days ago, I didn't even feel like this was real... and now I'm right back in the zone. Feeling a little fluttery and nervous again.  Last BCP will be May 28th. First monitoring appointment will be May 31st and first stims are June 1st. 

Wishing.... hoping...

Cross everything for us.