Nothing yet

I'm not bleeding yet and my b00bs still hurt. I've been sleeping 9 hours per night or more lately. This really sucks. I have another blood test on Wednesday. I don't know how long this is going to take. It seems like an eternity.

Last year around this time we went to Mexico with T's office and I had a miscarriage while there. This year the trip is to Las Vegas. We leave on the 12th. I was hoping to be done with this miscarriage by then. I realize it's still a couple weeks away, but I'm starting to worry that I'm going to be bleeding for this trip as well. I really hate these trips now, as every time I've gone on one it's been associated with a miscarriage. At least it's the last year they're doing these trips so we won't be having another miscarriage, I mean trip, at this time next year.

I read or hear that many people are glad that 2007 is over and that a new year is starting and that it will hopefully be better. I wish I could be this optimistic. All I see with the changing of years is the passing of time. More time has passed and it seems like I'm even further from all of my goals than I ever have been. I have no job, I'm not interested in any particular vocation and I'm still not any closer to having a baby.

I started and finished this year with a miscarriage. But the year itself doesn't have much meaning for me. I've always found NYE to be pretty arbitrary and I don't enjoy the countdown or any of that silly stuff. We are going to have dinner with E&R and see baby S. I believe we spend last NYE with them. I'm feeling a little ambivalent about it, but I'm doing it anyway. Mailing off the bunny I crocheted for a cousin's baby shower made me sadder than I feel I will be tonight. But I didn't want to stay home and I want to stay friends with them despite what is happening.

I'm still feeling pretty sad and angry. I'm starting to worry that I have a progesterone deficiency, or perhaps a clotting issue. I have a phone appointment with my RE on the fourteenth. I will ask if I was tested for any of these things. I know this probably just happened and there's probably no real reason for it. With the low number to begin with, it seems likely it wasn't viable to begin with, even with the initial doubling that did happen. Maybe I'm just paranoid.

I just don't know what to do with myself until March. Actually, I'm slightly contemplating another Cl0mid cycle so I only have to wait two months before cycling again. I'm also thinking that it's stupid to do that and I should just wait the extra four damn weeks and do the injectables.

Stop this roller coaster! I want to get off!

Oh yeah. And have a happy new year, for whatever that's worth.

Comfort

A couple of people (IRL) have said that at least this miscarriage isn't due to the BT. Or I haven't been pregnant in a while, so at least I know I can still get pregnant. Or that since the BT factor is gone, I must be getting close soon. I don't want an unhealthy baby. Since this is my first miscarriage with donor sperm, it's kind of like it's my first miscarriage.

The people who have said this to me have had some fertility problems of their own.

T tells me that people want to try to look on the better side of things. That when there is something that is so completely crappy, people try to find something good in it. T says that's what the people who say these things are doing.

But to me, that sounds like a pregnancy is something not to be taken seriously. A pregnancy loss is a step along the way. A pregnancy loss is a good start. I can forget about my other three losses because I know why they occurred, and now that we've changed a variable I am starting fresh.

Don't people have a difficult time with one loss? Aren't people devastated when they have one miscarriage? Don't they feel like they've lost a child? Don't they have trouble moving on? Don't they need safety and support to get through it? Aren't other people sorry for their loss?

Just because I have been through this before doesn't mean I've gotten used to it. Just because I had a reasonable expectation that this would happen doesn't mean I'm not bowled over by it.

I have been pregnant four times in the last two years and I have no children. I have injected myself with hormones and gone through surgery, and not once did it result in a healthy response. My husband and I have let go of a genetic connection between my husband and our child. My husband sits next to me and holds my hand while another man's sperm is injected into my body. We pay hundreds of dollars for this privilege. Each time it doesn't work, it hurts. And when we get a small indication that it may work and it doesn't, it hurts even more. Especially when it involves cramping and bleeding and feeling every moment what we are losing.

I feel each of my losses acutely. I don't want anybody to try to get me to look at the bright side of things. There is no bright side of this. This is hell. This is crap. This is being robbed and cheated of something that most people barely even think about. We've had an incredibly difficult time of it, and it sucks. I just want people to say that. Say that it sucks and that you're sorry.

I know that it sucks for me and that I am sorry.

Update:
I just found out that I have to wait a whole cycle before starting the pill for my injectible cycle. It will be almost 3 months until I can have another IUI.

Miscarriage number four, now with donor sperm

My level today was 122. I will definitely be having my fourth miscarriage.

I don't have anything much else to say except for self pitying things, so I will spare you. Thanks for trying to hope for us.

Xmas

Still no bleeding.

My MIL has kind of stopped cleaning things. We drove her around last night looking at Christmas lights and playing Christmas carols in the car. She seemed to really enjoy that.

My parents and one brother's family are coming over for dinner today. It should be yummy, and I'm looking forward to it. It will be nice to have someone else around aside from just MIL. She is a lovely person and wants the best for T and me, but it's just tough to have her living here. She really drives me a bit nuts. She drives T a little nuts too, but he is much more used to her than I am. She is just opposite how my family is and that makes her a little hard to understand and relate to. I see ways that T is like her, but mostly he seems really different than her. I just don't get it. I feel like I am much more like my parents that T is like his. Having never met his dad (he died before we met) I guess I only know 50%, but still. I think in some ways he strives to be different.

She's obsessed with FlyLady and is constantly telling us how we have a 'hotspot' there and need to do something here to clean up our house. Personally, I've been too emotionally (and physically) exhausted lately to care about cleaning. I've tried to tell her that, but she thinks she's being helpful by giving us 'pointers.' She once told us she and her husband tried for 7 years to have a baby and she had just about given up by the time she got pregnant with T. I don't get any inkling that she remembers the pain of that time. I can't imagine it didn't hurt her to think that she would never have a baby, but she doesn't seem to have any recollection of how it affected her life. Maybe it was too long ago to remember. Or maybe it was different before all of this technology we have know. We know so much more about things these days. Maybe it's because she grew up as a toughened farm girl, and she is just incredibly stoic. I know she's sorry about our troubles, but I wish she could just let some of this stuff go.

Tomorrow is the big blood test. I'm trying hard not to hold out any hope, as I thing there isn't much hope there, but I still can't help hoping a little. My b00bs still hurt and as I said there has still been no bleeding. But I know the chances of this ending well is so, so slim. I have been looking at betabase and there have only been a handful of heartbeats with levels like mine. People's hcg at 16 dpo are generally 100 points higher than mine was at 20.

I just don't understand why this has to be so difficult for us. There are others I see online who have been through so, so much as well and it breaks my heart. But I'm at the point where I'm getting jealous of people whose second or third IVFs seem to work. That just seems like such a cake walk to me at this point, even though I know even getting to that place where you need to do IVF is so difficult. I understand that the pain of infertility is strong and is there for everyone. I am just so angry and bitter that I most likely am having my fourth pregnancy loss, even after doing 3 unsuccessful IVF procedures and deciding to sacrifice my husband's genetic connection to our child. I mean, what the hell? This most recent IUI being a flat out failure would have been so much easier than this.

I guess we'll know more on Wednesday.

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate. And peace to everyone.

As if things weren't bad enough

Today is T's birthday. He's not very happy about it. In fact, he's feeling quite sad. And we woke up this morning to his mother cleaning up our kitchen. She put dishes in the dishwasher and turned it on. While I wish she would just let me take care of things, this is not that bad. She washed my dish drying rack (and ended up breaking it) and then she was cleaning my counters with the poisonous cleaner that the old owners left behind. Then she started scraping an old sponge holder that I've been planning on throwing away with one of my good food knives.

It makes me feel like complete shit when she cleans my kitchen. It makes me feel like she thinks I can't take care of her son. It makes me feel like I am a bad house keeper. Okay, I am kind of a shitty house keeper and I know it, but I don't want her cleaning my house. I can't stand it. I work, I have blood tests, I have been trying to make a baby for 2 years and I am most likely staring my fourth miscarriage in the face. I wish she would just leave my house the fuck alone.

Not looking good

It came in at 168. That's not even doubling in 72 hours. This is not going to end well.

Now we have to go pick up my MIL at the airport tonight as she's staying with us for a week.

I have another blood test on Wednesday. I don't know what I expect for that test, but I do not expect anything with indications of a healthy pregnancy.

Better

Thanks for all of the supportive comments. I'm feeling much better today. I didn't even POAS this morning. I've had slight symptoms all day and I'm feeling strong and confident. I'm feeling like I will get a good number tomorrow.

I am still holding my breath, though. Waiting for that call is going to be excruciating. My confidence is so high right now that I don't know what I'll do if the number is no good.

I may just go POAS now.

Please, please, please let this work out. Please. I am ready.

Paranoia

Fear is an amazing thing. Yesterday I was feeling so great. I got a number that was higher than I had ever expected. I was over the moon. I felt for the first time in a long time that something might go right for us. My b00bs were a little bit sore and I was having a little bit of cramping. It was a sign that something was going on in there.

And then I went to sleep.

When I woke up, my b00bs no longer felt as sore as they had the day before. The cramping had stopped. I suddenly remembered the day during my second pregnancy where I thought to myself my symptoms were clearly not what they had been. Then I dismissed it with delusions of paranoia from losing my first pregnancy. Then an hour later I went to the bathroom and I was bleeding.

The fear of this not working out will not go away. The numbers are comforting, and I still POAS every morning. It still makes a second line and that line seems to be getting a little bit darker every day. Still, if I feel myself up and I'm not sore, I freak out.

I am trying to push this fear out of my mind. Freaking out will neither help nor hurt the situation. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. So far, things seem to be working out in a positive manner. I am trying to breathe and not fret. I am also trying to not feel myself up too much lest I freak out.

I am happy to say, however, that the soreness and some cramping did return by the afternoon, so I am feeling much better than I was this morning.

All I can do is hope for a good number on Friday. I need to take things one day at a time. So far, things seem to be okay. And if they turn out not to be okay, it's nothing that I did. I've done all that I can. Breathe. Breathe.

Beta

Well, it was 88!

I can't believe it! When the nurse told me I started shaking and almost crying, but I couldn't because I was at my temp job where no one knows my story. She told me I should be cautiously optimistic. I go in for another blood test on Friday. On Friday my level needs to be at least 360 for me to not begin to freak out. Actually, I'll probably freak out no matter what.

I'm extraordinarily happy about this. Thrilled, in fact. But the truth in this is that I started with very low numbers, and we just don't know yet. But things are good for now, and I will be cautiously optimistic.

On a completely different note, a placement agency sent me to a company to take a grammar test. They will not interview people who do not pass this test. So, I went and took it, and was told that I failed. We went over the answers, and one of the answers the guy who gave me the test said was wrong was actually correct. The test was wrong. I began to try to explain this to him and I started to get really frustrated. I missed passing the test by one answer, and one answer they marked as wrong was correct. I don't mind legitimately failing, but saying I didn't pass when they are wrong just drove me crazy. Anyway, I went into teacher mode trying to explain how I was right and it was wrong. The guy didn't get it. So, in my frustration I basically said that it didn't matter anyway since I failed, and thank you anyway. I left and called the placement agency telling him the story. While I was on the phone, the guy from the placement agency put me on hold and came back telling me the guy who gave me the test called to apologize and that I passed the test and that he was really sorry.

So it's been quite a day.

Anyway, thank you for all your support. It has meant the world to me these past few days.

(88!)

tested again

I've been using internet cheapies. Today when I came home from work I used a FRED. It was clearly positive right away - I am stunned. I'm not sure if you can see in the picture. I still can't imagine that a beta of 13 will turn into a healthy pregnancy, but it does look like the numbers are going up.

The blood test tomorrow will tell us more, but even if it doubles I don't think I will truly believe.

This is not how I pictured this.

A second line

So, when the beta came back "positive," I figured I'd POAS again to see what's going on. Yesterday there was a darkening where the second line was supposed to be, but the test was definitely negative. T couldn't see it until I pointed it out to him, and he kind of chuckled and said, "Yeah, okay."

Today there were two lines. The second one was very faint, but it was there and it was pink.

What do I make of this?
Should I be worried about an ectopic?

Chemical

My beta was 13.2. Dammit, that's not what I was expecting. I feel like I'd rather have a flat out negative. But oh, well. Now I simply need to be bothered to go in for another damn blood test on Tuesday morning. I also drank 2 margaritas last night and got pretty happy. I'm sure it doesn't matter, but it makes me freak out a little none-the-less.

So, this is something that is a first on our journey. Something new. A chemical pregnancy. I just hope it's below 5 on Tuesday. Maybe that's why they're having me come in on Tuesday, in the hopes that I won't have to come back if on Monday it's still over 5. Sigh. 13.2.

Not to be

Two negative hpts so far. 2007 just wasn't my year. I'll keep testing, though I'm sure it's futile. Beta is on Saturday.

Let the obsessing begin

I've reached the point in the cycle of obsessing. I'm feeling myself up a lot. I'm slightly tender, but nothing to write home about. It is only 8 days post IUI, so it's early yet. Last cycle on this day my b00bs were incredibly sore -- hugely so. But the soreness got less and less after that day, so we'll see if that's what happens this time, too. I'm thinking of doing the POAS thing tomorrow, even though it's really early. I'm also thinking about not doing it tomorrow and waiting until Tuesday. We'll see how much will power I have. Buying internet cheapies really reduces my willpower, though. It's just the prospect of one line holding me back.

I'm really worried that this cycle didn't work and I'm going to have to go on the pill and wait for at least a month before trying again. I know I said we were planning some time off anyway, but I haven't had a cycle off in a really, really long time. I'm just not sure how not cycling is going to sit with me. But I guess, for now, all I can do is just wait and see. T is constantly telling me that I have no control over it and to just let it go. But of course, we all know how impossible that is.

I really have no inkling as to whether or not this cycle worked. I can make myself believe I'm pregnant very easily, but I force myself to stop in order to lessen the disappointment if I'm not. But of course, this is futile too. I will be very upset, if not surprised, if I am not pregnant.

Another person in T's office has delivered a baby -- one that was conceived well after our last pregnancy ended. I'm so tired of this. So tired.

I like my RE

My RE is a good guy. I like him. He acknowledges the crappiness of our situation. He really, truly wants me to be pregnant. He actually said to me, "I can't wait to send you guys off to the OB." He told me not less than four times that he hopes I'm pregnant right now.

We settled on an injectable protocol if I'm not pregnant this cycle. It's a micro-dose Lupr0n flare protocol. That was the cycle that got me 5 eggs on our final IVF. They were mostly all the same size, too, which is the most important. I have a tendency to have one huge lead follicle with a bunch of smaller ones.

The bad news? What would cycling news from me be without some bad news? Come on, you know you were expecting it. Anyway, the bad news is that we can't squeeze it in before our insurance changes. So... we may take that break earlier than we had planned. Though, we will probably find a way to do a cycle by the end of January. With our new insurance it looks like we'll have to pay out of pocket and then get reimbursed. Yes, yes, that's much better than nothing. And we're paying more for the policy that covers 100% (we think). So, we'll be able to get a couple of cycles in while I hunt for a job that provides insurance with IVF coverage.

But of course, I might be pregnant right now!
(hahahahahahahahaha!)

I'm not temping this cycle. I'm trying not to think about it much. I'm trying to be lighthearted. Not sure if it's working. I am feeling myself up already, though. Nothin'.

Anyway, it was a fruitful meeting. I'm planning on POAS on Monday. Oh, and a second line did show up eventually on that test I took after trigger. And my RE convinced me with LH levels and E2 levels that my big follicle didn't ovulate early. He said follicles can grow up to 23 mm (about -- I forget the exact number, but it was big) with Cl0mid before ovulating.

So this is where we are. This month marks 2 years since I was pregnant the first time. I need this to be over.

hopeless already

I'm just already convinced it didn't work. I'm convinced that my large follicle ovulated too early and the smaller ones ovulated with immature eggs.

I peed on an internet cheapie just to be reminded what two lines look like and it came up with one line. Does this mean I didn't even trigger properly?

I cannot have hope that this might work anymore. IVF, maybe, but not this.

And I have to get a job so that I can have the insurance to do IVF. I have two interviews next week, one with a place from a placement agency and one at the place where I'm temping. Just like I can't imagine treatments working, I can't imagine being hired. I have had too many jobs in too short of a time to be desirable. Even though there are reasonably good explanations why I left each job, nobody wants someone who jumps around in the workforce and that's what my resume looks like.

I'm trying to remember that T and I are comfortable and we live good lives, but it's just so difficult to find comfort in this under these circumstances. I just feel constantly desperate. I am desperate. I am desperate for some comfort.

dIUI #5 Complete

We had the IUI this morning. I think my cervix and uterus are getting used to that catheter because the last to IUIs have been pain and cramp free. 25 million sperm with 85% motility for the new donor guy. Smaller count, but much better motility. I'm hoping that's a winner.

We asked about our new insurance, and it looks like once we switch over, we will have to pay out of pocket for the procedure and then get reimbursed. I think the meds will still be covered, though, since we will order through a mail-order pharmacy.

I'm hopeful that we can sneak one more cycle in (yes, yes, only if we need to) before we switch insurance. This will mean doing injections and monitoring while my mother-in-law is staying with us for Christmas and T's birthday. She is arriving on December 21. This will all be discussed at my appointment with the RE on Thursday.

T and I are talking about taking a break from treatments for a month in January. We are both worn out from this. I am not ready to stop for next month since it will be our last cycle with the good insurance, at least for a while, but if I'm not pregnant after that cycle, I think we may take a month off. We are going to Las Vegas in the middle of January, and we just need to not think about all of this stuff a little bit. I mean, we have a routine on our IUI days. A routine. This is how we know we've been doing it too much. I don't want to take a break, but I'm not sure my mind can take this for much longer. Of course, we will go back and do injectable cycles and then on to IVF again. But we are just desperate for a break from all of this, and January just seems like the right time.

Please let this one work so I don't have to think about this anymore.