FET 4dpt

I have nothing to report. NOTHING. Saturday at Jack's soccer game I moved too fast a couple of times and had what felt like pulling a muscle type pains in my lower right abdomen, but I was moving/twisting. Other than that, I had extremely mild, barely noticeable cramping yesterday for about 30 seconds at a time, maybe 4 times. So really, NOTHING. I don't know if this is good or bad. I'm choosing good and here's why:

-With our only successful cycle, I had ONE sharp cramp 6dp3dt (so 9 days after retrieval-it was 6 days post 3 day transfer), and spotting from 7dp3dt to 10dp3dt. My beta was 12dp3dt.

-With our last cycle which is our only other one we ever had a transfer on (our second cycle never had a transfer), I was crampy from the night of transfer off and on until my negative beta.

So, I'm thinking maybe NOTHING is a good sign. I may be completely wrong and get a negative beta next week which is fine and to be honest, it's what I'm expecting, but I'm thinking maybe no cramps means my uterus isn't actively trying to get rid of the little embryos. And that is enough to make me happy today, LOL.

PUPO...Again!

Ok, let's try this PUPO thing again, shall we?

My transfer yesterday went fabulously. We got there yesterday morning, I had finished drinking my 34 ounces of water in preparation. Dr. K came and told us that they had thawed 2 embryos, and both survived. This is what my major concern had been for yesterday since I was hoping to still have 2 embryos left in case we needed another shot at this. Nothing else really concerned me about the transfer, it's a pretty benign procedure, just uncomfortable to have to have such a full bladder and have to wait after the transfer to relieve yourself. The two embryos were expanded (they contract when frozen, so they like to see them blow back up before transfer), and were looking good. I asked Dr. K about the pregnancy test date since my nurse told me it would be on 5/19/11, and I just could not understand why my test date for a fresh cycle was 15 days post retrieval, but for a fresh cycle it needed to be essentially 19 days post progesterone start (which is essentially the same as retrieval date). He said I could test as early 10 days from the transfer, so I will leave my nurse a message for Monday, and if she sticks with the 19th, I will do a home pregnancy test on the 16th, hey, I figure I haven't done one in, oh...about 5 and a half years.

On other news, my friend started to miscarry yesterday for the second time in about 3 months. I feel so bad for her. She texted me as I was on my way for my transfer, and I couldn't help but feel a little guilty. I know I wasn't doing anything wrong, but when someone close is losing a baby and you're on your way to hopefully get pregnant with one...well, it's just how I felt in that moment.

Archie looked at me like I had two heads yesterday when I asked him to go divide my pineapple core into 5 equal sections and then make me a smoothie with one of those sections. He thinks it's an old wives tale and it probably is, but it can't hurt so I'm going to try it.

Ok, time to hop in the shower and get to Jack's soccer game. Hopefully they'll decide to do 5v5 today instead of 10 on 10 which is a cluster if you've ever watched 20 kids ages 3-4 all trying to get a turn to kick a ball... :-)

Hope

It's funny, on my way into work tonight, I felt hopeful. I actually felt like this cycle would work and I would get pregnant. Friday doesn't worry me, I'm sure the transfer will go fine, and I'm sure that my embryos will survive the thaw and be ready to go back "home". What makes me nervous is the two weeks following it.

My plan is to go grocery shopping on Thursday and stock up on lots of salad, tuna (to go with my salad because I normally like my salads without meat, but I'm sure if I'm trying to do them twice a day for most days during my tww, that I'll be bored with plain veggie salads quickly), pineapple already sliced and cored (so I can cut the core up and eat it for the first 5 days post transfer), and lots of fruits.

Some of you may be thinking, "What's up with the pineapple core???" Well, it may be an old wive's tale but there are people who swear by it and I figure it won't hurt anything. Evidently pineapple in general contains an enzyme called bromelain which breaks down protein, but the core contains the most concentrated amounts of it. It isn't all absorbed or broken down during digestion and some is believed to be transported to the uterus and able to aid with digesting some of the proteins that need to break down for implantation of an embryo to take place. Pineapple meat and the juice itself is cautioned in pregnancy as it can cause uterine contractions and thus miscarriage, so I will only eat it for 5 days, and I will try to eat as little of the meat as possible.

Friday my plan is to take the monkey to school, go for my transfer when it's time, and come home and not move except to go to the bathroom and up to bed when it's time. Saturday morning I'm going to go with my mom and Archie for Jack's soccer game. I'll basically be holding our waters and sitting my rear in a camping chair to watch the game. I feel comfortable with this since with our first cycle (the only successful one), I had a flea market with my mom and Archie the day after our transfer and was up and about and it still worked. That's about the extent of my galavanting around for Saturday. Jack has a birthday party to go to in the afternoon, and while I'd really like to go, I need to just take it easy to feel like I did EVERYTHING. The rest of the day I plan to lay on the couch/bed and hopefully get some extra snuggling in with my boy. Sunday I'm still debating about going to church since I already have an activity planned for the day-going out to lunch/dinner with my mom, hubby and Jack. Then, as the rest of the days, I will be riding the couch. Monday I will take Jack to school and probably just relax as well. I am signed up for OT, but I'm kind of hoping not to get it. I know, I sound lazy, but they say 48-96 hours post transfer for implantation, so I'm trying to maximize my lounging time. And let's be honest, who doesn't like to just chill?

Tuesday night I'm back to work and that will be good because by then I should be going stir crazy and anything that was going to happen as far as implantation is concerned, should have already taken place. It will either be, or it won't. And then I'm off again until Friday. This is the time period (Wed-Fri) where I may start to get a little, um, off. This is about the point where my brain starts to play games with me. I need to find an outlet to keep me nice and mostly distracted.

I think IF I do decide to test early, it will be Sunday the 22nd, simply because I work that Wed/Thurs before (so not real first morning urine), that Friday I'm off, but I have to drive up to CT to see my grandmom that Saturday with my dad and I need to be in a good mentality for that trip, and then I'm back to work Monday night. We'll see what happens. I'm not sure I'll test, although no doubt I'll be incredibly tempted. I've never tested before, and if I have the willpower, I won't be testing until the beta. If my beta is good, I may test just for giggles since I've never seen a pink line for myself (didn't even do it after we found out we were pregnant with Jack).

On more depressing news, Angie from Random Thoughts from Angie is going to be having her d&c the same afternoon as my transfer where I'm hoping to sustain new life. It seems so messed up to have such an incongruence on the same day, but I guess it can't all be rainbows and butterflies all of the time (I'd much prefer if it was!). I'm praying for her as that day approaches. I've been praying since I got to work tonight for a coworker whose little girl passed away this morning. Her mom had IF as well, and had her little girl in our unit at 27 weeks gestation, 6 years ago. She had been fighting for her life for the last 10 weeks, and her body gave out this morning. She was her mother's only child. With Mother's Day coming up, I know it is going to be so extremely hard for her. I feel bad because even though this coworker lives right down the road from me, I likely won't attend her daughter's funeral because it will probably be right after my transfer (and even worse, Mother's Day weekend), and I feel like I need to keep my stress levels as low as possible, but I will pray my heart out for their family. They could use alot of prayers, so if you pray, please include them. I'll also be praying for my bloggy and forum friends who have lost a child or have empty arms and are facing this tough day coming up (not that most days aren't tough, but Sunday will be tougher than most). If you and I correspond and you fall into this category, you can know that you're getting extra prayers sent your way.

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.

Day 2 FET #1

Everything looked good on ultrasound and with my bloodwork today. I will start my del estrogen shots tonight-4mg every 3rd night for 5 doses. Next appt is April 28th and if my lining looks good then I will start my progesterone on May 1st and continue the estrogen every 3 days until my beta at least (if I am pregnant then the shots will continue until about 12 weeks). If my lining is not ready then I will continue the estrogen every 3 days until it is ready and start the progesterone 6 days prior to transfer.

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Paranoid and d2p6dt

I realize I tend to be a bit paranoid about this blog especially given that fact that so many people at work had issues with it before, and so I am just trying to keep it more private. I think my cousin's comment on my last post is right. My traffic feed is just making me more paranoid. Although it may be for good reason since my girlfriend said she just checked in and shows up as one area, and that area had checked in 6 hours before her and it wasn't her, maybe it's a coincidence and someone I don't even know who checked in. I'm taking my traffic feed off for my own sanity, stress levels, etc so that hopefully I can get through this already stressful time successfully.

That said, if you are a coworker and you are checking out my blog and I did NOT give it to you personally, please keep it to YOURSELF and resist the urge to gossip about it, me, or this journey of mine with other coworkers. Don't just lurk! Comment and let me know who you are so I have a clue who knows about this! Thanks :)

I've been asked how I'm feeling. Really no different than usual to be honest. I had some sharp cramping the night of the transfer and since then mild cramping off and on. Day 9 of IVF#1 was when I started having sharp cramps and then started spotting until day 13, our beta was on day 15. That was with a day 3 transfer, and embryos that weren't nearly as far along as these two that we put back this time. I am now d2p6dt (or day 2 post 6 day transfer; or 2 days after a day 6 transfer) and so if this cycle mimicks our first, tomorrow would be the same time I started spotting. I've been a bit paranoid because the cramping was earlier this time and frequent trips to the bathroom to check toilet paper haven't revealed any spotting...yet. I'm not sure what that means for this cycle, but I can't obsess over it either. What will be will be. We can only hope and pray that God blesses us with another child (or two!). It's still early, my beta isn't until late next week, and alot can happen between now and then (although any implanting should take place by Sunday). I can't really say I have any symptoms that can't be attributed to having a cold or being on estrace and progesterone.