Kidney Update

So I dragged my weary (not to mention bruised and sore) butt to get my renal ultrasound this morning after I got off from work. The ultrasound tech told me that she didn't see any stones (I didn't expect her to since they've never seen them on ultrasound, only on CT scan). I went up, checked in, and sat in the doctor's office looking through car and golf magazines with Jack while I waited another hour for my doc to arrive and start his day.

He looked at the ultrasound and spoke with the radiologist, and he told me that it could have been a smaller stone that I was able to pass already, or it's moved down further to where they can't see on ultrasound. He said that my kidney looked slightly dilated and that I had the mildest hydronephrosis (he said it's nothing compared to what I had when I had the 2 large stones blocking my ureters). He said that pregnancy can cause hydronephrosis by the uterus getting bigger and naturally causing some obstruction to the ureters, but I told him that the gestational sac was only 1cm on ultrasound, and he said that the uterus is already growing even if the sac isn't that large yet. He told me that I'd have to talk to my OB or RE about what I can take for pain (I am sure it's only tylenol allowed at this point), and that I would kind of have to deal with it at this point. He said the only other option is to put a stent in, and he would have to do it rather blindly since he can only visualize so far with the scope, and it would be a really uncomfortable procedure for me. The stent was difficult to keep in after my surgery 3 years ago and that was only for almost a week (I had to have him remove it because I couldn't stand running to the bathroom every 5 minutes to pee an ounce at a time!). I'll skip that thank you very much!

So, my current plan is to drink as much as I can, as often as I can until I either deliver or get sick (in which case we'll go back to our plan of a long term IV to keep me well hydrated). The doc is supposed to call back in my prescription for my urocit-K which is basically a bunch of lemons packed into some horse pills to keep my pH of my urine alkalinized which makes it harder for me to form stones. I also have to be really careful with my sodium intake as higher sodium is associated with increased stone formation in cystinuria. Yay for me, LOL.

I want to ask my nurse at what point I can use a heat pack on that left part of my back. I've avoided using my heating pad at all because I wasn't sure if that (or my fever, or the two glasses of iced tea I had at dinner one night) had anything to do with why we didn't get pregnant for our fresh cycle, and I'm truly afraid to use it. I really haven't had much back pain until these last few days, so I was doing fine without it, but I'm wondering if I could take a smaller microwaveable heat pack and use that intermittently for this back pain. I'll call her next week and ask.

Thank you for the prayers that everything would be ok. I just continue to pray that this pregnancy will progress normally, and the baby will be healthy. Our next ultrasound is June 6th and Jack will be in school which is fine. I wanted to tell him then, but the office we're going to for the ultrasound is really funny about bringing kids with you (sensitivity to the other IFer's which I totally get). I figure if we see a heartbeat, we can tell him that night, and then our first trimester ultrasound to look at the nuchal translucency (which if I remember right is like 10-12 weeks-ish) we will definitely take him to. The baby will resemble more of a baby/alien then anyway, so it will be more believable to Jack then looking at what resembles a grain of rice on the 6th.

The Last 2 Days

I got quite a scare last night. After going to the bathroom I had really bad (doubled over) pain in my left lower part of my abdomen that radiated to my lower right abdomen and up the left side of my back. It lasted about 20 minutes, and if it hadn't stopped, I would have been convinced that I had an ectopic. After that, I was extremely nauseated and just wanted to throw up (I didn't!). I felt miserable. I finally was able to fall asleep, and that was surprising given the fact that I had our first ultrasound coming up today, but I'd cleaned most of my house yesterday and hadn't had a nap, so I was exhausted.

I woke up this morning and felt better until I got out of bed. Despite munching on some crackers (I was hungry and borderline nauseated), I just felt like yucky. I got up and started to put away laundry and every time I took a deep breathe or bent over, I noticed I was having a dull pain in my left back again. And I was getting more nauseated by the minute. I got to thinking this is probably my stupid cystinuria acting up again, and I probably have another kidney stone. Well, that set me into tears because kidney stones can cause preterm labor and while that's not what I'd really have at this point, it could cause me to miscarry. So I was a bit of a mess this morning to say the least.

I called my urologist, and I am to go in tomorrow morning when I get off of work for a renal ultrasound. The problem with this is that often the ultrasounds won't pick up stones if they are smaller, the CT scans are better for that, but now that I'm pregnant, that isn't an option. Ugh. My doc ordered the ultrasound for stat results back to him which is good because I should have the ultrasound done around 7:30am, and then I'm supposed to go to his office to wait for him. He doesn't usually come in until about 9am (and that is on the rare occassion that he's on time). My only issue with this is that I'm exhausted, I'll have Jack with me (who is supposed to be at school by 8:30am), and all I will be thinking about is my bed, and how I have to get enough sleep to come back into work again at 7pm. Such is life right?!?!

Please pray that if this is a stone, it's passable. I don't want a miscarriage and I don't want a nephrostomy tube (which basically diverts the urine from your kidney to a bag on the outside of your body until the stone is removed). Please pray for this baby to hang in there and grow nice and steady so we can hopefully see it's little heartbeat fluttering away on June 6th.

Update and Whine with my Cheese :)

I had my appointment today for an ultrasound to check out my lining, and to have blood drawn. My doc said my endometrium looked great, but I needed to clarify for myself (I'm really not dense, but it was one of those mornings since I had been up again half the night worrying as usual) and asked Dr. M if that meant my lining was thick and where it needed to be for transfer and he said it was.

Next I went to sign consents with my nurse. As long as my blood work looked ok, I'd be starting progesterone shots IM daily this coming Sunday night and transfer would be next Friday (May 6th), but I wouldn't know a time until next Thursday when she calls me. I had to ask if I ovulated if my cycle would get cancelled. She said that that would cause us to cancel the cycle and start over, but that my ovaries looked fine and everything looked quiet on my ultrasound. I asked if that meant that I didn't ovulate for sure, and she said that it didn't necessarily mean that, but it was reassuring, that we would know more when my results came back in 4 hours. I know, I was a little over the top this morning, but I was having cramping the other night, and while she said I shouldn't ovulate on the estrogen shots as they would be suppressing me, I ovulated on BCP's AND LUPRON for my fresh cycle, so I was not really trusting my body to do what it's supposed to do.

Another nurse called with my lab results this afternoon and I did not ovulate (round of applause for my body redeeming itself please).

All in all, this was a great day. I heard what I wanted to hear except for when I asked my nurse when I should expect my beta pregnancy test to be. See, I figured if I start progesterone on Sunday to match up with my day 6 transfer being Friday, I figured I could count Sunday as basically my retrieval. With my fresh cycle, my beta was to be 15 days post retrieval. This would mean my beta would be on the 16th. I was cool with this. However, when I asked my nurse today, she said (thinking out loud), "Well, it probably wouldn't be the full two weeks, probably around 12 days, so not the week after your transfer, but like the middle of that week following." If normally it's 15 days after retreival (so in my case like 9 days post transfer), why would it be 12 days after transfer????? One of my bloggy friends just had her transfer, and her beta is 10 days post transfer!

This is my whine with my cheese so to speak. I want what I want when I want it. This is the first time I can honestly say that this die-hard non-POASer may actually bite the bullet and pee on a stick. I just don't know that I'll be able to keep myself from doing it, especially after seeing how much my self control waned this last time. I came darn close to POAS the morning of my beta at my girlfriend's house and the only reason I didn't is because I didn't think I could look at the test myself and call Archie and my mom. I would have needed my friend to look at it for me, and I promised my mom she would be the second to know after Archie. My urologist made me promise he'd be like the third (in all likelihood he'll probably be 40th) so I could have a kidney ultrasound to make sure I don't start the pregnancy off with a stone that will just get worse and possibly cause complications. I figure it will only take me about 10 minutes to text, make calls, post on blogger, and then call him. :-)

Anyway, a great day in general, and I'm just hoping my nurse wasn't thinking straight when she told me she thinks beta would be like 12 days post transfer.

Scared

I think this is what I am feeling most these days. We have about two weeks before my next period is due, at which time I will start on birth control pills. About 3 weeks into that, I will start on lupron. I figure I should be on the stim drugs by sometime the second week in February, and be having my retrieval and transfer mid Feburary. If timing goes as it did with our first cycle (and we have some normal embryos to put back), my first beta would be about the time of our anniversary. This bothers me simply because our last cycle, we started a couple of weeks later in the year-our transfer was supposed to be on March 6th, but we were called on our anniversary (March 5th) and told that all of our embryos were abnormal. It ruined our anniversary and quite frankly, ruined a few months for us. I don't want to delay my beta, or get it too early, so I guess we'll just have to deal, and to be honest, I hope that it's going to end up being after our anniversary.

I don't know if I don't feel as hopeful this time because I found out about the hydrosalpinx, which, if I had left it could have decreased our chances at pregnancy, and increased our risk of miscarriage, but we had it removed so we could have the best shot. By having it removed, we risked my ovary and we cannot be sure how it will respond during the next cycle to the stim drugs. I just continue to pray that when it comes time for all of this, that my right ovary pulls it's weight and makes at least as many or close to as many follicles as our left does.

Finally, I haven't met with my surgeon for my final post-op appointment and I guess I get nervous that "something" will come up and delay us further. One of my friends said all I can do is pray about it and take things as they come, and she's right. But I'm a planner, and my plans at least where this is concerned always seem to get mucked up. Perhaps that's because I'm planning things as I want them to be, and not as they are MEANT TO BE. I realize this is something I struggle with-giving up that control and leaving it in God's hands. I am trying and I continue to pray for his help with this. Another friend reminded me today when she was over visiting that we can always adopt if it doesn't work, and while that is in the back of my mind, it's a huge undertaking, an enormous financial risk, and just really hard to plan. To be honest, I can't even think that far to adoption at this point, I'm so stressed out that I can only think as far as a beta. I've just made things harder on myself trying to think about when we would go to Disney, whether my OB would be ok with scheduling a c-section and doing my hysterectomy at the same time, etc. I have to just let it go, and focus on what is in front of me which is my final post-op appointment next Monday, my kidney ultrasound (I get these occassionally to monitor my kidney stone issues) this Wednesday, and my appointment to follow up on the ultrasound with my urologist next week. Then once I've gotten through all of that, it will be go time. My visiting friend asked today if we're doing the IVF/ICSI cycle for sure, and yes we are, I didn't go through surgery for no reason! It is a definite, hopefully for January start. My emotions (and sanity) are on the line and I don't even have the extreme hormones rushing through my body yet!

Please pray for everything to go well with my upcoming ultrasound (I don't want stones before I get pregnant or while I am pregnant, this is so important) this week, my last appointment with my surgeon next week, and for everything to be a "go" with this upcoming cycle in two weeks! Thanks for your support!