The latest

Today is Sunday. We've had a houseful of his side of our family over the Thanksgiving holiday and it's been fantastic. Last Tuesday after I peed on the wrong stick-the ovulation test-I reprimanded myself mentally---I need to be patient. I need to do the test when Ajay is home. I need to not do a test at all---my pregnancy test at the Dr.'s is tomorrow. I can wait that long.

Within about 7 minutes of going back and forth, I decided to pee on the right stick. After all, I had a two pack of EPT tests just waiting for me...why should they go to waste? And I'd be going to the doctor on the following day for the real test...this would be only be a slightly less accurate preview of the test to come.

I pee on the stick....the right stick this time.

FYI...the early home pregnancy tests are not extremely accurate if you test too early...They can produce false negatives because hormone levels haven't had time to develop highly enough to register a positive result...therefore a blood test is a much better test in the early stages. However, a positive is a positive is a positive. If it registers the pregnancy hormones, you're prego.

Before my eyes, I see the positive "+" sign developing. Vaguely, but recognizably so. It's positive. But light. I stare at the test. It stares back in all it's positive beauty.

I immediately page Ajay at work. He sounds frazzled. "Guess what?" I say. "What?" He responds. "I took a home pregnancy test and it was positive. Even being so early, it's positive." He responds with "WOW, that's great. That's fantastic." Knowing me and my roller coaster of emotions wanting to protect me from myself, he gently reminds me that "it's early....really early, and while the news is the best we've had in two and a half years, let's try to keep it in perspective." I've already thought the same thoughts and told him that my new mantra is "so far so good".

The day following the home pregnancy test, I'm scheduled to go in for my real pregnancy test at 10 a.m. Being the early bird that I am, I decide to do another home test around 6 a.m....I just can't wait longer than that and my neurosis of getting a darker positive outcome on the little stick has overcome me. I pee on the test. It's positive. A darker positive this time. I feel much more comfortable with these results.

At the doctor's office, I show all the girls in the office my home test and admit to being a big fat cheater. They say I'm not the only one. They draw my blood and send me home to wait for the results of the blood test, as well as the "Now that you're pregnant" sheet of guidelines. Wooopeee! I'm the girl with the "Now that you're pregnant" guidelines in my purse! I'm the one going home knowing the IVF worked. I get to be the one with a baby in there! Think about the whole new shopping arena this opens! Babies babies babies!

STOP!!!! so far so good, so far so good, so far so good. Think it. Say it. Slow down. so far so good. No roller coaster. so far so good.

More waiting

I spent the early morning reading a few other blogs of women going through the same thing as me. They reminded me of my long journey...Wow, a lot of time has gone by trying to have kids.

Two and a half years of trying on our own, trying under Dr.'s care, trying the natural way, not trying the natural way, hoping it will just happen for us magically with that bottle of wine that everyone seemed to think would be the solution...you know, "the relax, don't think about it, have a bottle and have some fun together". We went on vacation together, we just relaxed. We enjoyed our time together. We tried no-tech, low-tech, medium tech, and now we're at the high-tech stage. While I want to be optimistic, I have to reserve my feelings out of self preservation.

While Ajay and I have patiently and not so patiently (okay, and sometimes completely not patiently) waited our turn, babies have sprung up everywhere around me. I am always always always happy for whomever gets the good news, but I'd be lying if I said that the "when will it be my turn" question has never entered my head. I try to keep it all in perspective as much as possible. I try to wait my turn. But the unfairness sometimes stares right back at me. It's the most frustrating thing I think I've ever endured because there is very little of this process that is truly in my control. Sure you can consult the best doctors, and sure you get to choose how aggressive you are willing to be with the treatment, but at the end of the day, it's not like studying for a test and getting the well-deserved "A". It's like studying for the test, preparing yourself in every way possible, and then getting an "F" for no reason. And in my case, I got a few "A's" that were reversed to "F's"; that was the worst!

Along the way I've played head games with myself to keep on going. I just won't think about it at all. Okay. There. Not thinking about it. Okay, doesn't that mean I'm thinking about it if I'm trying not to? Just stay on course. Keep going after the goal. The hardest part for me was coping with the combinations of drugs that drove me to a very potent short-term depression. During that time I questioned a lot of aspects of this process as well as my ability to get through it.

In my most hopeless state, I started questioning hope as a concept. Hope.........what's so good about it. Why does everyone always say don't ever lose your hope. Keep on hoping. Keep positive. At my lowest, I began questioning if never losing hope was equal to never learning to adjust to the new reality that we won't get to have kids. I felt like hope might just be another word for denial. Like the poor girl that doesn't see the reality that is so obvious to everyone else. At the same time, I felt like if I gave up hope, I'd be committing a cardinal sin. Like I would somehow be judged as weak by myself and others. During that time, I honestly felt like no one would really understand not being strong enough to get through this process.

And just like the single girl that hears "be patient, he's out there, you'll find Mr. Right", the advice other people gave me left me feeling blank. When I received the "be patient, it'll happen" I understood that people meant well and frankly didn't know what else to say, but in my head, I felt like, "oh yes? And how do you know this? Because I think it's time for all of us to come to terms with the other potential reality that it might not happen." I know...angry and bitter. Not good.

So here we are waiting again. With HOPE. With PATIENCE. With POSITIVE FEELINGS. Aren't I a good girl? See? I'm doing it right. That must mean it'll happen this month.

Serves me right

I have to pee.

I know, I'll just pee on a pregnancy test stick. Just to get an idea. If it's positive, it's still really really early so I won't get too excited. And if it's negative, well, it's really early and the tests aren't as accurate early on because it takes a bit for your body to ramp up those pregnancy hormones.

No, I'll wait for Ajay. That's the thing to do. When he gets home I'll ask him if I should follow my whim and take a test before the doctor's test. You know, nothing serious...just to see.

But the box that has the pregnancy test is right here....next to the toilet. I could just pee on it right now, see what it says, and then maybe do another one tonight so we can both be "surprised" together. Yeah. Okay. I'll go ahead.

No, that's not fair.

But I want to know.

What the hell. I pee on the stick. Images of the nutty woman dying to get pregnant from Tell Me You Love Me (on HBO) flash before my eyes....she went through about 40 tests because she couldn't believe she wasn't pregnant.

I look down at the little results window. Having used every single home pregnancy test known to man over the past two and a half years, I don't recognize this one. Usually it's a + or a - , a pregnant or not pregnant, one line for not pregnant or two lines for pregnant. But what is this??? I don't understand what it's saying. I pull the directions out of the box, looking to decode what I'm seeing in the results window.

Excellent. I am now 99% sure that I am NOT ovulating. I peed on the wrong test stick. Because why wouldn't I have just peed on an ovulation indicator? That's what I get.

(Note: An ovulation indicator is what you use to determine your most fertile days in the month. It tells you your days with the best odds of conceiving. These have nothing to do with determining pregnancy. So you can see the usefulness of the information I just gathered!)

Neurotic

Today I'm wearing my camouflage pants again. They are the only ones that fit. My belly is distended. Is it a sign? Is my newly pregnant body changing before my eyes? Nature taking on the task of transforming me into a gorgeous round womanly woman of child-bearing readiness? Or is that the nightly injections of progesterone?

I'm wearing a sports bra....again. All my other bras are cutting into my skin beneath my boobs, and my boobs no longer fit into them either. Is it a sign? Is my body making it's transition? Or is it the double dose of estrogen patches I'm wearing on my belly at all times?

I'm feeling a little sluggish and fat. They say that women are really tired from the earliest moments of pregnancy because your body takes on all the work of preparing itself to support another human being. Or is it that I'm taking a pill to slow down my thyroid every morning?

I woke up this morning feeling a little nauseous. Is it a sign? Maybe it's morning sickness. Or maybe I'm just nauseous.

The pregnancy test is around the corner. I could say that the waiting is the hardest part, but really it's not. If you've read my previous blogs, the waiting is actually pretty darn easy. I mean, only one shot a day? Please! I can do that in my sleep!

A New Frontier of Dating OR An Evening of Time Travel into the Future

Ajay asked what I wanted to do for dinner, and before he finished his sentence, I was enthusiastically replying "Let's go out! Let's go out! Let's go out!" Yesterday was the first day I was allowed to leave the house after my embryo transfer.

One would think that leaving the house for the first time in 8 days that we would want to do it right, get dressed, go to a nice place, etc. We discussed going to either Brussels Bistro which would require both of us to shower, and Wahoo's, which would not. Then a commercial for Ruby's came on the TV. Ajay asks, "Have you ever been to Ruby's?" My girlfriends and I frequented Ruby's for breakfast and a beer after a long night of boozing and debauchery about a decade ago. "Yes", I reply. "Is it good?" he asks. "Sure," I said, "I mean, it's burgers and stuff, you know, casual". Ajay says, "let's go there." We can establish commercials work.

I put on some of the ugliest clothes I have ever seen...my camouflage pants, (because they and a pair of huge jeans are the only ones that fit other than sweats, or "yoga pants" as my friend Jen insists on calling them) a bright blue long sleeve t-shirt, and then a black turtle neck sweater over that. With my new bigger distended belly (is it the drugs or babies drugs or babies drugs or babies drugs or babies?) neither shirt is quite long enough. Oh, and don't forget the turquoise Jack Purcell Converse, because my outfit wasn't ugly enough before. I look hideous...HI-DEE-US!!!

We arrive at Ruby's....the parking lot is packed at 6:00 p.m. on a Friday night. We hear a dull roar from the parking lot. As we open the door, we're blinded by fluorescent lights and a frenzied tornado of activity and hundreds, maybe thousands of miniature people. Every table had them! They were loud. They were messy. They were in constant motion. The big people at the table with the little people looked really tired. Not to toot my own horn (toot toot), but I am a knock out in my make up and clean clothes; the other big people have stains and spilled milk all over them. This was no fairytale. This is not the Ruby's full of drunk 20-somethings on Sunday morning...this was not MY Ruby's.

We were seated at a booth carefully constructed in shiny red vinyl. The hostess pointed to plastic covered menus behind the napkin dispenser. Looking at the menu, I slowly realized there was a reason for the throngs of small people...they LOVE hamburgers, fried fish, sliders, and onion rings. And there was even beer for the big people, and interestingly, every single big person had a half full one of those in front of them.

After we ate our sliders and fried fish, we walk happily comatose back to our very grown up sporty coupe with the big boy engine. Ajay is laughing. He says, are you ready for that to be our big night out?

Progesterone shots

Ajay: "It's time---let's get your shot out of the way".

me: "Hey! I have an idea! Let's just not do that tonight! Yeah, let's just "forget"!"

We're running out of places to inject.

Ajay: (coming at me with a syringe held needle side up, tapping out the air bubbles, edging me into the corner) "Cooooome oooon, let's just get it out of the way. "

Ajay's hair is larger than normal and it takes on a mad scientist look as he advances, trapping me in the corner. Defeated, I drop my pants in the kitchen.

me: "Seriously, how is it possible to run out of non-bruised butt-space? Look at the size of that thing!"

The Long Road-Part 3: Beginning and Completing In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)

Note: This is the third entry in a series. Go back to Part 1& 2 before reading this one. Unless you're the type of person that reads the last page of a book first. In that case, do what you want...I can't help you.

So here we are at the door of the King of Fertility treatments. We've taken the slow, patient around-the-mountain-on-a-tiny-path route; winding around the mountain to get to the other side rather than the more efficient and available tunnel. There are reasons why we chose this route, by the way, and it made sense at the time.

My doctor orders all my drugs, and again they show up via FedEx with a bill for $2,000. I don't even know what to say anymore. Did I mention we don't have fertility benefits? Just as we're thinking we're prepared and it's time to begin my first month of IVF, wait! My ultrasound shows that I've developed 3 very large cysts on both ovaries, most likely from the Follistim last month. We can't proceed. Adding drugs to theis scenario will stimulate the cysts to grow larger. We have to wait until the cysts go away. Ironically, the best way to make them go away is the birth control pill. I begin the pill, and go in for regular ultrasounds to monitor the progress. (By now, I can carry on a conversation about what I'm baking at home, where we had dinner last weekend, or just about anything with my knees comfortably falling to the side during the ultrasound probing.) Because we don't want to lose the eggs that are developing, I began shots of Lupron every day which keeps them from maturing too quickly and to keep me from ovulating. The cysts are slow to go away, but about 3 weeks later, we're ready to begin my protocol (yes, that is three weeks of Lupron shots, every day, but they also found the lab was mistaken about my need for the heparin shots, so I don't have to do those anymore).

Finally, on October 24, I was ready to begin my stimulation with both Repronex and Follistem once daily. I continued with the Lupron I had been taking. The Follistim was an easy to use pen and the drugs were pre-mixed, so we just had to dial the dosage and inject. The Repronex had to be mixed with a half cc of saline and then injected. That one burned. They checked my blood roughly every other day to make sure they liked my hormone levels and I had ultrasounds to check the pace the eggs were maturing. They changed the dosages accordingly.

Ajay and I both started a Z-Pack to make sure we didn't pass any bugs back and forth before my egg follicle retrieval. I also began on Dexamethasone every night, in addition to a baby aspirin. Finally, Dr. H decided to tweak my thyroid and slow it down a little, so I took a thyroid pill every morning.

To recap, 3 shots, a steroid and a baby aspirin every night. Thyroid pill in the a.m. And then a z-pack.

And I thought I had taken drugs before!!! Not to discount all I've been through, but let me tell you, it was a tough month. My heart goes out to women who go through this again and again. It's a really tough thing. The steroids at night made me sleepless. Slowing down my thyroid in the a.m. made me feel like I was walking through quicksand. If it were possible to take a bunch of drugs to make you feel more depressed, more lethargic, more sleep deprived, more crazed, and oh yes, makes you gain 15 pounds, I'd like to know about that cocktail just for fun.

After the month of drugs, I was ready for my egg retrival, which is an actual surgery. You get anesthesia and everything. Finally I'm rewarded with good drugs! The retrieval took less than an hour and as promised I produced a lot of eggs, 19 to be exact. They prep the eggs, add them to a fresh deposit of Ajay's man-juice, and voila, embryos!

The Long Road-Part 2: Introduction to Drugs (not the fun kind) and IUI

Dr. H recommended that we start with the basics. She scheduled a hysteroscopy/laparoscopy for the following month, but in the meantime had me start with a month of Chlomid. It's a pill designed to produce more eggs per cycle, meaning a greater chance of Ajay's super-primo sperm having something to fertilize. This is the beginning of my body becoming a revolving door of chemicals, hormones and all sorts of things that make me crazy. Strangely, I felt very happy and optimistic getting the prescription filled. I felt like I'd finally taken control of the past year of sadness and frustration. I was even eager to learn what's so bad about Chlomid---I've heard that it makes you crazy and am curious to join the masses of my crazed sisters of the world on their quest for pregnancy. I didn't care about my sanity. I wanted a baby.

I took the Chlomid. It made me hate myself. I didn't like being crazy like all my sisters on the quest for pregnancy. After many more ultrasounds over the next week, Dr. H told pinpointed the correct timing and told us to have sex in the a.m., and then come into the office for a post-coital.

The post-coital? Something told me this would involve stirrups again. This delightful procedure (skip ahead is you don't want to know) involved swabbing the vaginal canal and collecting a sample. Then they swabbed just inside the cervix and collected another sample. They looked at both under a microscope, and found live sperm in the vaginal canal, and dead sperm inside my cervix. Chlomid is known to cause this in some women. We gather that Chlomid won't work for us the natural way so the following month we began IUI, or Inter Uterine Insemination, aka, artificial insemination. Side note: There is something about this 5 minutes of post-coital misery that feels so absolutely fundamentally violating...I mean, really? You're going to swab the product of sex? You're going to gather a sample from our a.m. delight? Really?

We had time for one cycle of IUI before the surgery. I went in for 4 or 5 ultrasounds throughout the couple of weeks before ovulation to pinpoint how my eggs are maturing. When Dr. H gives us the go ahead, I get a shot of HCG at night that will trigger ovulation to begin. The following two days, I had two sperm transfers.

The morning of the sperm transfers Ajay had to put his genetic contribution in a sterile specimen cup at 5 a.m., and I had to deliver it to the Dr. H's office by 6 a.m. Nothing says sexy like a sterile cup at 5 a.m. Once delivered to the lab, they spin it, wash it, and get it all prepped to be delivered directly into my uterus via a catheter. Many women find this to feel similar to getting a pap smear.

This cycle of IUI didn't work. No wonder. During my surgery later in the month, the doctor found that as she suspected, I had a big polyp filling up my uterus. No room for a baby to grow and possibly the reason for my abdominal pain.Furthermore I had the worst case of endometriosis that she had ever seen...it was everywhere.

The surgery was tougher than I thought it would be...I was laid up for a few days; even though it was laparoscopic, it was a 3 hour surgery which left a lot of repair work for my body to do.

After my major overhaul, we started another round of IUI with Chlomid, this time with renewed optimism. She had surgically fixed what was wrong physically, so this should totally work now! But...it didn't work. The following month, we did another round of Chlomid and IUI. It didn't work. Somewhere in there, the sperm transfers began to hurt, and I began fearing the procedures. They also had to draw blood nearly every time I went to the office, to test one thing or another. One of the labs came back with results that required me to begin injecting Heparin every night to thin my blood. Those mothers hurt!!! And talk about bruising. Somewhere in there I had a chemical pregnancy, meaning we fertilized an egg, but it did't implant and resulted in another miscarriage. After 8 semen transfers, we decided to step it up and begin Follistim injections instead of Chlomid. So to recap, blood draws nearly every day, and Heparin shots every night, and now we're adding a Follistim injection. Fantastic!

Again, I was eager to begin the next cycle and phase. I was eager to try the next drug that produced even more eggs. I was even eager, once again, to join my crazed sisters of the world in yet another drug and another side affect.

I received the Follistim in the mail in Styrofoam cooler. It was $1200. I couldn't believe the price. This shit better work. The good news is I responded like a champ to this drug...I produced so many eggs it felt like I was walking around with two baskets of eggs in my abdomen...that's because I was carrying baskets of eggs! After the insemination I was convinced it would work...but it didn't. And that was our last IUI.

I needed better odds. I was tired of the painful semen transfers. I was tired of being poked. I was tired of feeling lethargic. I was getting worn down. The optimism had faded and depression began to set in. I needed more hope. Next month, IVF.

The Long Road, Part 1: My Introduction to the Infertility Arena

In my entries leading up to this one, I've focused on the present, which is immediately following my first course of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), awaiting my pregnancy test. I think it's worth mention that we didn't just start this process. As my bio states, my husband and I started trying to make babies on our honeymoon, about two and a half years ago.

We got back from our honeymoon on July 31, 2005. On August 4th, (which is a day before my husband and my Dad's birthday), I was at the doctor having a pregnancy test because I was 5 days late. They called late in the afternoon, the test was positive, and we were over the moon. We had a birthday party the following night and let the news slip. The following day I miscarried. Bummer.

My OB/GYN was very optimistic. We had achieved pregnancy the first time we tried. One miscarriage means nothing in the realm of fertility. An early miscarriage means that the baby wasn't right, and it was nature's way of taking care of the problems. Things would be fine.

Six months later, I went back to the OB, not pregnant. She orders a hysterosalpingogram, which is where they shoot dye up through your cervix and map it radiologically to make sure that the fallopian tubes are patent. Mine are. The Radiologist mentions there may be a polyp in my uterus. Because this is visualized radiologically and not directly, we can't be sure without a hysteroscopy, which is a full blown surgery that I would like to avoid if possible. My only gyn problems in the past had been pelvic pain during my periods; I thought you would have abnormal bleeding if you had an inter-uterine polyp, and since I didn't have abnormal bleeding, we decide the surgery can wait. My OB says keep trying. She tests Ajay's sperm, which is very virile and strong and couldn't be better. Another six months go by, and she refers me to a fertility specialist.

It takes four months to get into the fertility specialist. She has a very busy practice and for good reason. In addition to being an excellent surgeon, she has a scientific research background and is also personable and sympathetic---she's gone through In Vitro herself.

She reviews my history, and promptly puts me on the ultrasound table. Having just met her, I feel a little shy putting my feet in the stirrups. I'm told to relax, let my knees fall to the side. But they just won't. I'm new to all this. I need to be courted or something.

I have a vaginal ultrasound (no pain, just awkward) and she deduces that I have beautiful ovaries...those are not the ovaries of the majority of her patients. And fallopian tubes? Just gorgeous. And look at the fantastic lining of my uterus. I don't look like a 34 year old to her. I don't look like an infertility patient to her. My optimism soars. I feel like I'm in good hands, and I feel very relieved that all my equipment is still good and doesn't have cobwebs on it.

Post Embryo Transfer Guidelines

My fertility doctor handed me a piece of paper before my embryo transfer. This is what it says:

You will be at STRICT BEDREST the day of the transfer and for three additional days. You may NOT shower until these four days are complete. The only activity allowed is to go to the bathroom. Once these four days have been completed, you may walk around the house; however, you are not to leave the house until a total of seven days have gone by including the four days of strict bed rest.

No exercise, intercourse, baths, caffeine, alcohol, smoking, sushi, tonic water, travel, flying, coloring hair.

Will someone please tell me...is it normal to crave sushi? on an airplane? While drinking excessive amounts sake, simultaneously smoking with my freshly dyed pink hair? Only to be topped with a nice intercourse dessert? That's normal, right?

A visit with a different reality

After feeling cramping a few days ago, I instantly began bargaining in my mind. I thought, "okay, please don't let this be happening. If this isn't the beginning of a miscarriage, I'll be totally happy if all four embryos took. No complaints. I'll deal with anything. Give me all four. Just please don't make it a miscarriage".

The reason this bargaining is relevant is that while Ajay and I were evaluating how aggressive to be with In Vitro, I asked two of the Moms I know to share some insight with me: Lena, my sister in law, and Tamra, my long time friend. My goal was to determine what would be worse, having triplets or even quads, or having zero kids after this whole process. If we chose one way, there was a better shot of having kids, but also a higher risk of multiples. If we chose the other alternative, there would be a reduced chance of multiples, but also a slightly greater chance of no babies. As a girl with no kids, I needed help understanding what these choices really meant to my life. I asked Lena and Tamra to remember coming home that first day with their brand new first baby, utterly scared and completely inexperienced, and then I asked them to imagine having 3 new babies instead of the one. Then I asked them to describe what they would have felt.

FYI, Lena's daughter (my niece) is a beautiful, wide-eyed, apprehensive little girl. My impression of Haylah is that she is a little girl in every sense of the word. She is the little girl in the pink tutu in ballet class mesmorized with her own reflection. She is the little girl who, when given a toy car, placed her feet up on the wheel wells and looked to you to pull her around.

When approaching stairs, she sits down about 5 feet from the stairs and scoots half way across the room to approach them, and then goes down each step, one at a time, slowly and on her little bottom. These are the things I know about little girls. And I might add that these impressions have been made on me while on holiday with the family, a week or two or three at a time, so I do understand there is more to Haylah than I'm aware.

I haven't spent near the time with Tamra's daughter Morgan, so I've always assumed that she is somewhat like Haylah, because after all, she's a girl, too!

When I asked Lena, mother of Haylah, to imagine the bringing-three-babies-home scenario, she said that all children are a blessing and I would figure out a way no matter how many we had. Tamra, mother of Morgan said, something like, "oh dear God, you've got no idea! I can't imagine!" She said this while smiling wide eyed and shaking her head.

I contemplated both of their perspectives seriously and went back and forth daily. One day, I felt 100% confident that I would choose one route, and the next day I would be equally confident that the other choice was the right one for our lives. In the end, I wanted the best odds to have babies, and went ahead with the option that gave us the best odds for babies, with the higher risk of multiples.

As previously mentioned in former posts, I had four embryos implanted, imagining four little Haylahs attending ballet classes, or maybe three little boy versions of Haylah riding in my newly purchased 1982 Caprice Classic station wagon (with wood paneling...like the one we had growing up)...after all, who can afford a new car with triplets? Nonetheless, I imagined the boys in their car seats sleeping soundly while I'm listening to the John Denver 8-track that came with the car on the daily trip to Trader Joe's. This is where the the gauzy delusion is shattered.

Knowing I'm bordering on cabin fever, my friend Tamra came over yesterday to keep me company, and brought her absolutely gorgeous little girl, Morgan, who is about 18 months old. When they arrive, Morgan is asleep in her car seat. She slowly and pleasantly wakes up. She has a drink. She eats a little string cheese, and then she realizes she's in a different house, and it is by God time to explore.

Morgan is a different type of little girl. Tamra has always told me she is very independant and fearless, but until yesterday, I didn't quite understand what that meant. Reviewing photos I've previously taken of Morgan, I realized what it might mean.


Morgan only knows one speed.....running full speed ahead. She does so with the cutest little backwards glance, just begging to be caught or at least chased. Morgan was told to be careful of my cat (who doesn't particularly love toddlers), and took it as a personal challenge. Morgan openned my eyes to a whole new scenerio. What if I have 3 or 4 of these Little Miss Indepenants? What if I can't catch them all? What if we actually can't afford some sort of help and I literally die trying to keep up with the 3 or 4 little Morgan's? Because, believe me, that could happen.

After a few hours with Tam and Morgan, I totally and completely understand what Tam said before...."oh dear God! I can't imagine!". But then I remind myself of my bargaining.

Who knew cramps aren't a bad thing!

Yesterday morning I told my friend Zinat that I was a little scared, that I was having cramps. She responded with "oh my gosh! That's goooooood! that means there's some action going on down there." My reaction, utterly surprised, was "really?" All that had been going through my mind for the past days was the very distinct cramps I'd had both times I'd miscarried.

Instantly but reservedly uplifted, I hung up with Z and called my doctor again. I still hadn't heard back from the message I had left about these cramps the day before. This time I was able to talk to the Physician's Assistant. She also told me that cramps or mild soreness through the inguinal region wasn't necessarily a bad thing. She said as the ovaries charge up to do their job, and things start happening in the uterus, it puts pressure on the round ligament that holds the uterus in place, causing slight cramping. Having sold products for hernia repair in my past life, I was actually completely surprised that my complete understanding of groin anatomy is actually coming in handy! I was almost giddy when she used the medical terminology...inguinal!!! round ligament!!! I know these words!!! (It's as if some one finally asked me to compute the probability of pulling a yellow ball out of an urn full of 3 red balls, 3 blue balls, 5 purple balls and 2 yellow balls after all those months of suffering through Finite math in college.)

With my new knowledge, I began to analyze. The cramps from my previous miscarriages did feel different than what I'm feeling now. And previously, the cramps began at night, and by morning I had miscarried....none of this prolonged mild cramping that has been going on for days. Oh my gosh...maybe I jumped the gun. Maybe I'm going to be able to keep this pregnancy going! Maybe this IS my month! Maybe we will get to make a nice holiday announcement!

STOP!!!!

Remember yesterday? Remember all the talk about the roller coaster and the peaks and troughs? Remember how it's best to temper the optimism with realism?

Oh, f**k that! We're going to have babies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cramps

Yesterday afternoon I felt a little funny "down there" after my 5 hours at the computer. The funny feeling turned into cramps. Somewhere in the very back of my overly optimistic mind, I felt like I knew what that meant. Then a similar voice in my head immediately squashed that thought with "you don't know anything. stay positive. only positive thoughts are allowed here. it's probably nothing. you probably have to poop or something." Regardless of the in-fighting going on with voices in my head, I decided lying down would be the best thing to do. So I returned to modified bed rest. Modified in that I wasn't quite so strict with myself as before, but didn't get up for just any old thing.

Over the course of the evening, the cramps turned into pain in my ovaries...the kind of pain I felt after the egg follicles were removed last Monday. My ovaries felt pin-pricked and tender all over. I found as soon as I stood up, the pain was back. As soon as I lyed down, it was much less.

Yesterday was the first day I recognized that this might not happen for us this month. I've been so overly optimistic with our 60% chance of babies that I didn't want to hear that it also meant 40% chance of not babies. Ajay had been ever-so-delicately trying to place this thought in my mind so I didn't go screaming to the peak of the roller coaster only to face a huge plunge, which is frankly how I do things. The look in Ajay's eyes when I told him I had been having cramps said it all...it was as if the two of us had gone from fundamentally optimistic because we had no reason to think otherwise, to well, having an reason to think otherwise. At that moment, I felt the roller coaster go over the precipice and take the plunge. Maybe I won't be making a happy announcement over pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. Maybe this isn't our month. Maybe we'll have to go through all this again in a couple of months. Maybe Ajay won't want to go through all this again. It's all my fault...I snuck some of Ajay's Diet Dr. Pepper....I knew I wasn't supposed to have diet soda. Maybe this is it.

Okay, see what I mean? Peak to trough. In an instant. This is what my husband who understands me more than anyone was trying to protect me from. All of his rational and very pragmatic thoughts? Somewhere in my mind, I know he's right. But I'm like a kid at a dessert buffet. It's like I get a glimpse of the dream that has kept me going for the past two and a half years and before I've even looked around to see if there are other scenarios to evaluate, I run like hell towards it. And rather than taking a single cookie or a single piece of cake, or maybe even a small cookie and a small piece of cake, I'm the kid who starts grabbing fistfuls of pudding right out of the monster-sized bowl of buffet pudding, fistfuls of cake, forget the serving fork, fistfuls of whatever the hell that jelly like stuff is, fistfuls of every type of pie, and I don't even like coconut! And in my dessert buffet frenzy I miss that everyone is looking at me shaking their head, feeling sorry for me for getting in too deep, knowing that there is something else to consider. They know something I haven't allowed myself to consider and now I'm standing there, pie-streaked, cake crumbs in my hair, wallowing in my dream that just became very messy. Lost. How do I gracefully pull myself out of this indulgent complete embrace of my dream? It's not like it didn't happen.

God, does anyone else want some cake right now?

Today when I woke up the tenderness in my ovaries is still there. I plan to spend the day further investigating On Demand as a result.

Realization

We've been living in a house under construction since last March. We have changed our back yard from this:


to this:


We've also added on a new room, which is almost done. Throughout this process, I've felt that I am cleaning constantly. Sweeping dust off the concrete floor, wiping dust and sediment off all the countertops, and similar living-in-the-house-during-construction cleaning activities. This, in addition to normal day to day cleaning.

This is where the big realization comes in. I've been in bed for four days. Not leaving bed unless to go to the bathroom. Considering that I haven't been able to tend to the house at all, when I left the bed/prison this morning and came into the house, I expected a disaster. I expected scrubs on the floor, stacks of mail everywhere. I expected it to be bad. What I found was a couple of plates in the sink. Clean dishes needing to be unloaded from the dishwasher. Clothes in the dirty clothes hamper. No mess. Now, granted, my cleaning lady came on Saturday and I did notice that she was here a little longer than usual. But I started to consider......

Maybe I'M the messy one!? The house looked like it did before I moved in. Nothing really out of place,and all the dirty dishes were in the sink waiting for some one to come and take care of them. Ajay had actually reverted back to his bachelor self. When I brought this up to Ajay, he agreed almost too whole-heartedly that he's never here, so he doesn't have time to make a lot of messes.

I ran this whole thing by my sister, who openned my eyes to another possibility. The "if you're going to make a mess, so am I" theory. She says that when she's home alone, she's really tidy, but if she and her husband are both home for a weekend, it's almost a contest to see who is the bigger slob. Hmmmm.

Are all the messes mine? Are the messes the skeletal remains of all my projects both finished and unfinished? Or is it that left on his own again, Ajay didn't have someone following him around with a dust broom and a trash can reinforcing him to leave everything to me. Maybe if I'm not constantly following him around waiting for something to clean up, he won't be inspired to fulfill the role I'm projecting on him of the slobbish, hopeless husband who really needs me to keep the house from becoming a trash pile.

I have pictures!!!!

Strict bed rest is done. I am now allowed up and about my house. I am still on house arrest. This morning I took the best shower in my life, and I've had some pretty good showers. Worthy of mention are any showers after long over night international flights. But that's not what we're talking about today. Today, I am happily sitting at my desk, with my scanner, and my photos of the new little embryos.

Here is the first excellent little embryo...notice the uniform division!


And here is the second excellent little embryo...again a top rating embryo due to the uniform division.


Here is the third excellent little embryo.


And finally, here is the fourth little guy. He (or she) is still an very good little embryo, but not quite as good as the other three at this stage. He is fragmented. This doesn't mean that he won't end up being our child. Sometimes it's embryos like these that ultimately make it.

Sponge Bath

Today is Sunday. I have been reclining in bed since Thursday. I am not allowed to shower. My hair isn't pretty. My legs haven't been this hairy since sometime in 4th grade when my sister miraculously convinced my Mom to let me shave my furry ape-like little legs.

Ajay, the most wonderful husband I've ever had, saw me wallowing in my own funk and perceived that I was nearing my maximum capacity. He suggested a sponge bath. Why I had not thought of doing this before I do not know. We began discussing strategy, what tools and weaponry would be needed to combat my filth. We decided on a big bowl of hot water, two wash cloths (one to lather up, and the other to aid in removing the soap), two big bath towels (one to sit on, one to dry with) and my very favorite Bliss super duper minty shower gel.

I heard my dearest gathering the necessary items. I felt a balloon of glee raising in my stomach. He brought the goods, and as I laid them out and began positioning myself, I noticed that the huge bowl I had requested was filled with about a cup of scalding hot water. I asked if he could add some more, and said, wow, that's really hot water. When he returned, there was 4 cups of scalding hot water----as I examined it, I noticed steam being released. I told Ajay that he was a passive aggressive nurse. Slightly hurt by my new blunt meanness, he said the water would cool down during my bath, and opted to leave the room. I thought, yeah, in like, 2 weeks.

So now that I'm completely sponge bathed, I can face the rest of this day. Tomorrow, I will shower. I will wash my hair again and again. I will break out a new razor and end this disgusting plyopathecus-like hairy covering on my body. Tomorrow, I will be clean.

The Room with a View

My view...of the shades.

Yesterday I was up early....like 5:30. This, perhaps, was not a good strategy. By 11:00, I was ready for lunch, and at that time, began feeling like the character in the movie that had nothing but a window to look out...completely reliant on the outside world. Only in my case, I was reliant on my friend, Zinat. She was planning to have lunch with her friend in Laguna, so afterwards, she was nice enough to drop by and keep me company and most importantly, bring me lunch. I had a basket of snacks within reach of my bed/prison, but when you're ready for lunch, a snack no longer works. When she arrives, I have never been so happy to see a simple chicken salad sandwich. I'm not sure, but it could have been the best chicken salad I've ever had.

Today, I am in a similar situation. It's Saturday, and Ajay is off work. He's gone off to the gym and to run some errands that I wasn't able to get to before the embryo transfer. Now that I've realized it's lunch time, there's really not much else to think about. And considering food is one of the few things to look forward to in these several days of bed rest, the possibilities of what to have are endless. What' sounds good? Mexican? Thai? Vietnamese? When will Ajay be back....a half an hour?

So I decide to engage in something else just to help pass the time....I picked up the November issue of Gourmet Magazine. I begin reading about Cider Glazed Lamb Chops. Then I move on to the editor's page and read about what Ruth Reichl proclaims to be the "hands down, the best pumpkin pie I've tasted in my life". Okay, clearly this isn't helping.

The phone rings. I didn't give Ajay precise enough directions to find the place he needed to go for me, and he's lost. He hasn't finished the errands yet. He's not on his way home. He still has to find the place, look for a couple of exterior lights for our new room addition, and then he'll be able to pick up lunch and come back. It's a frustrating feeling that I can't just do any of this for myself and I feel bad that I can't help with anything.

So this is bed rest. Strict bed rest. It's for a good cause. It's not about me. Deep breath!

Still Lying Here!

Hi again. I thought it was noteworthy to mention that this morning, before going to work, my lovely husband brought me a lovely breakfast of toast with my favorite Trader Joe's pumpkin butter, a piece of Swiss cheese, and fresh strawberries. That was at 6:00 a.m. It's now 8:45. I just ate the rest of the cheese...it was sweaty. I then tried to eat the other piece of toast...it was cold and kind of mooshy. That would stop most people, yes? Not this girl. I just ate mooshy toast. This must be why they say it's necessary for some one to "check in" on you while you're tied to the bed...to keep you from doing disgusting things like eating sweaty cheese and mooshy toast. I looked down and found that I am literally wearing a dirty wife beater...I had whole wheat toast crumbs in between my boobs. I am wearing the same shirt I wore yesterday. Without the option of showering, is there a point to changing? I just thought it was worth mentioning.

I'm in bed

I'm propped up in bed on day 1 of the bed rest portion of my complete house arrest. Some one may ask, what did you do to deserve this sentence? Well, that's a good question....one that I'll have plenty of time to pontificate over the next week. In short, I let my body get too old to make babies the old fashioned way, so we had a team of doctors and scientists create our babies in a dish.

Today is Friday, and the official Day 1 of my strict bed rest. For 3 days I have to stay in bed. Period. Unless to use the bathroom, but no showers or baths. After that I have 4 more days of house arrest. Why? Yesterday I had 4 embryos transferred from their happy little petri dish into my uterus. That sounds questionable, doesn't it? It wasn't so bad, really. It was kind of like a more thorough pap smear. Rather than just a quick swab and you're outta there, my doctor threaded a soft little catheter through my cervix and into the center of my uterus and injected the four embryos directly into my awaiting uterus. She visualized the whole procedure under ultrasound, so we were able to see all the little guys (and/or girls) be injected through the catheter.

I think the next logical question is "how did the embryos get into the dish?" and that, THAT is the noteworthy portion. I've had friends do In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), and I've also heard plenty about IVF randomly. Everything I've heard has been basically that the drugs make you crazy, are incredibly expensive, make you bloated, cause weight gain, and all in all, IVF is a very trying process. That's all true, at least in my experience. So how did the embryos get in the dish? Well, on Monday this week I went in for an Ultrasound Guided Ovarian Cyst Needle Aspiration. That's a fancy way of saying they surgically pulled 19 eggs out of my ovaries. Side note: isn't anesthesia simply delicious? My goodness, what a nice warm fuzzy dopey feeling--- that is, for the 10 seconds you are awake to feel it! It's probably a good thing they keep that stuff under lock and key and only trust upstanding people to handle anesthesia drugs.

So how did 19 egg follicles find their way into ovaries? Drugs. Lots and lots of drugs. Fertility drug cocktails, hormones, steroids, even antibiotics and baby aspirin. I took a lot of drugs to stimulate them to all ripen this month, and then took another drug to keep them from being released too early. Then I took a different drug to cause the release at precisely the time my surgery was scheduled so that my surgeon could grab them all. While I was in surgery, my husband delivered his part of our genetic offering to the lab upstairs from the surgery center. The lab did their thing and worked their magic so that when my eggs made it to the lab from surgery, they could be combined with Ajay's....umm...well.....sperm.

So what happened to our future family members between the retrieval of my eggs and the implantation yesterday? Well, from what I understand, they don't like to look at the little guys too much because they like darkness....the kids don't like to be disturbed. So on Tuesday, they looked at our kids, and found the of the 19 eggs, 14 of them were good! Which is terrific. Fantastic. Now we go back to waiting. No peeking in on them on Wednesday. Thursday morning the doctor called and said that of the 14 embryos, 7 are fantastic, 5 are good, and 2 we wont' be able to work with.

I feel like I'm watching my family diminish before my eyes. Will any of them make it to implant on Saturday? Since the embryos like it best when they're inside a person and not in a dish, I wonder if being in a dish is causing them to not thrive so well. I don't know what to do. If I have them implanted today, Thursday, they'll have to implant more embryos to get one or two surviving babies, but this decision would carry a higher risk of multiples...twins, triplets, quads....am I that person? I can just imagine myself on Oprah a year from now saying what a blessing my four babies are, but we really need some help buying diapers and could use a minivan because the stroller built for 4 just won't fit in the baby food and feces covered car. But then I imagine the other alternative...wait until Saturday for the transfer, in which case IF there are eggs that survive all that time outside of my body, they are very likely to survive inside. The thing is, that leaves me potentially with no eggs to freeze for future attempts, and I really like that safety net. So after weighing the pros and cons with my doctor, I decided to transfer more embryos on Thursday, with hopes that they'll really like their new home.

So that's where I am. In bed.

I have lots of things to keep me busy. My phone, cell phone, the laptop, the TV, complete with TIVO, a DVD player, as well as my entire collection of DVDs. I have magazines, catalogs, snacks, nail polish and remover, moisturizer, tweezers and a mirror (you never know when the urge will strike to spend an hour or 6 redefining yourself with new eyebrows). I have paper, pens, even some Thanksgiving craft ideas. It seems the only thing that I forgot is the one thing I'd really like...my scanner! I wanted to scan in the photos of our kids. I've been lying here trying to justify that walking very smoothly into the living room to grab the scanner would be almost the equivalent of going to the bathroom if it were on the other side of the house. Then I hear my doctor's voice in my head saying "stay in bed unless you need to use the bathroom, and that means ONLY to use the bathroom". I guess the scanner can wait.