Black Magic Ultrasounds

Lucky for our friendly fertility doctor, we failed at getting pregnant last cycle despite taking Clomid and timing things just right. The doc made it very clear that he thought we should be abstaining until we get our test results back, and to drive his point home I secretly think he put a voodoo spell on me! This is because my day 21 progesterone level came back super high (22.9, indicating a very strong ovulation) and also because I sense that he has an evil residing in his heart that is usually associated with black magic!  Dark arts aside and truth be told, I knew immediately that I wasn't pregnant. Things didn't feel the same way that they did back in August the cycle we conceived.

My mother used to tell me "I knew the minute I was pregnant with each one of you girls".  I assumed that she knew this because she and my father only had sex 3 times EVER.  The first time created me and the other two, my sisters. Also, for the record, they had sex in total darkness and there was a very thick sheet between them.  I hate to admit this [cringe] but I guess if I am being realistic, they probably had sex 4 times. I'm guessing the initial encounter occurred on their wedding night...you know, to make things official. According to all the books out there, feeling pregnant before week 6 when the nausea takes over your life and you fall into a sleep-coma every day at 2pm is impossible, because your hormones have not built up enough to take effect.  Those stupid books lie, because just like my mom knew immediately that she was knocked up, I knew that I wasn't.

Two weeks have passed since then, and I have gone in for a billion blood tests and some pretty fantastical procedures to get me ready for possible IVF PGD.  Just around a year ago, the first time I ever had an internal ultrasound done, I felt super violated and creeped out. When I booked the appointment nobody ever
had the decency to tell me that the ultrasound tech basically invades your lady-parts with a camera dildo (not the fun kind) and jabs it around while you lie there and stare at the ceiling. Anyone else having a flashback to losing their virginity? Well it turns out that those ultrasounds are actually a lovely walk in the proverbial park compared to the IVF prerequisite testing.

Hey ladies, you know what is super fun? Getting saline and dye injected through a catheter up your cervix, into your uterus, and through your fallopian tubes! Don't believe me? Try it! It's the perfect combination of comfort, relaxation, and intimacy with your physician and his trusty nurse practitioner! Thankfully for me, I was two Vicodin deep and, like the mature and professional woman I am, giggled through most it while making tasteful jokes about vaginal infiltration.

I did find out that (at least for now) my ovarian cysts are in hibernation and are nowhere to be seen. I am also happy to report that I am totally and completely done with the pre-IVF checklist.  The only thing I am waiting on, is to hear back from the genetics laboratory about whether or not they were able to locate our mutation.  If not, it seems I went through all these tests for the pure pleasure of the camera dildo.

Almost Famous?

When I was in middle school, I used to want to be a famous actress. My best friend and I dreamed about going to UCLA together where we would both major in theater, have amazingly handsome boyfriends, be co-presidents of our sorority, and have the perfect year-round tans.  After graduation, my friend was planning on moving to New York City, where she would promptly land a lead role on Broadway and pick up a couple of Tony Awards before she hit 30. I knew that I was a great actress, but due to my grating singing voice and the complete inability to master complex dance choreography, I figured that I would just stick around Los Angeles and audition for CW dramas until I landed on the next "Dawson's Creek."  The prospect of making out with Joshua Jackson fueled me alongside my desire for fame.

Fast forward 15 years, and I still have not appeared on any CW shows, not even as an extra (though I do watch many of them regularly despite my advanced age.)  I was active in theater throughout high-school and college, but quickly realized that I would never be a famous actress. To be fair, the odds were never in my favor; my parents are not Hollywood royalty, I have super small boobs and an ample bottom, and despite what my first semester of college suggests, I will not sleep with strangers to get ahead in life.  Although things turned out a little bit different than what the middle-school version of me had imagined (I live in Connecticut for god's sake) I sometimes do feel like I am a professional actress, especially lately.

Over the past couple of months, I have had countless people tell me how brave I am.  They say things to me like "I just cannot believe you well you are doing!" and "You handle this with such grace."  When I take a step back and look at my life, I have to admit that it looks pretty damn good.  I've gotten a great promotion at work, I'm going back to the gym again (okay, I've been twice, but it still counts!), I go out with friends and drink beers and smile and laugh,  I have Sunday dinners with my family.  My life seems totally normal because I act like it is.  Most days, I am totally faking it...so I guess I might just be a professional actress after all.

I am supposed to be 32 weeks pregnant and complaining about how often I have to pee, and how nothing fits me anymore.  I am supposed to be having my baby shower this month and opening adorable onesies and diaper genies and stuffed animals to decorate the farm-animal themed nursery.  I am supposed to be excited for one of my friends who is very newly pregnant after struggling to conceive for a long time.  I am supposed to someone completely different; I am supposed to be happy, but I'm not.

Honestly, I feel like a zombie at work and have to close my door for 20 minutes every afternoon so that I can cry.  I make thousands of to-do lists because my mind is too fuzzy to remember everything that I am supposed to get done, even when the only thing I've assigned myself is "send back the Netflix".  I only want to eat pizza.  I can't sleep because I have dreams about holding a baby that doesn't exist anymore.  When I find out that my friends are pregnant, I am filled with anger and jealousy and it makes me feel sick.  I am starting to worry that if I tell people how I really feel they are not going to want to hang out with me anymore because they have to handle me with "kid gloves" (unfortunate term!) Even I am sick and tired of hearing about how miserable I am.

On top of it all, my husband and I have been told that we need to take a break trying to conceive until our test results come back.  We still have weeks to go, and every day that we have to wait makes me feel worse. I hate just sitting around, not doing anything to get back what we lost. Lucky for me, I am super great at acting like everything is okay.                        

I Shaved My Legs for This?

Today my husband and I met with the fancy infertility doctor who specializes in IVF with PGD.  Since we are still waiting on our test results for the EVC mutation, I was afraid that the appointment would be pointless...but it is so hard to get in to see this guy that we figured we would just go.  I went above and beyond this morning by shaving my legs for the first time since 2011 since I figured I would be revisiting the silver stirrups for an examination.  Turns out that I have been poked and prodded and tested enough recently, so we just skipped ahead to the awkward part where we get to talk with the 20 year old medical student about all the shit that is wrong with me.

My husband and I sat down in the exam room and the medical student took my lengthy history.  Hubby sat there silently, probably wondering why nobody cared about his fascinating background (like that time sophomore year in college when he broke his arm playing flag football. Yup, a non-contact sport...)  Prior to the appointment, I had filled out 20+ pages of forms detailing everything from "do you have any allergies to medications?" to "what is your favorite color of Starburst, and why?"  I completely understand that medical students can only learn by seeing patients and practicing their skills, but watching her get all flustered as she flipped back and forth through my ginormous chart was a little bit painful.  How was it possible that my chart had already grown to such a preposterous size?  I'd only been in the office for 8 minutes! What was in there? 

The first question that she asked me, was "so tell me about your baby."  I paused, took a deep breath, and told myself that the answer she was looking for was not "well, he's dead."  I know that is terribly morbid, but the truth is that I didn't know him at all.  I never had the chance to.  I wish I could have told her "well, he is wonderful and healthy and has brown hair and big brown eyes.  He loves the color green and plays with trucks and is afraid of the dark so he sleeps with a nightlight."  Instead, I started listing off all of the abnormalities that were seen on the ultrasound.  This laundry list of fatal flaws is all I know about my baby.  Can we move on to the next question, please?  By the way, I enjoy the pink Starbursts most of all because they are super refreshing and delicious, and make me feel fancy.

Meeting with the doctor was fine, I guess.  We had been warned that he was all business, and not the warm, fuzzy type.  I can deal with serious...all I cared about was whether or not he would laugh at my hilarious jokes!  He showed us some generic diagrams of an embryo dividing and we pretended to be fascinated, even though we had seen it before.  Then he told us that we can get through all of the pre-IVF tests (bloods, semen analysis, saline ultrasound and trial transfer) as soon as I start my next cycle.  That way, we'll have all the ducks in a row the moment that our genetic results come in.  If the gene mutation cannot be identified, we will resume the Clomid and IUI protocol.  He recommends that we do a total of 3 IUIs and then move on to IVF if none of them result in a pregnancy.

When I mentioned that I took Clomid this cycle and am now 4 days post-ovulation, he was NOT pleased. I finally saw that "prickly bedside manner" I had heard so much about.  "Well most couples in your situation are using birth control, not trying to actively conceive a child" he said brusquely.  "You realize that you have 1 in 4 odds, and had you just waited a month or two, you could very well avoid another terrible outcome."  Awkward silence ensued.  The poor medical student (she was sitting in the room during the consult) looked at me with sad, pained eyes, and I made a smooshed up face and tried to think of something mature to say, but then just focused on not crying.

Thanks for the newsflash, Dr. McDouche--I came here so that you can get me preggo, not scold me over a decision that my husband and I agonized over.  For the love of god, I put a thermometer up my hoo-ha every single morning at precisely 7:30am to check my basal body temperature. I pee on tiny sticks 15 days every month and cry when they are negative. I wanted to scream out "HAVEN'T YOU READ MY BLOG!? My mom reads it all the time and she says it's well written and very good! Highly informative with a bit of whimsical humor!"  Of course I realize what my odds are.  They are 3/4 that I will have a healthy baby and 1/4 that I will not.  Now give me my drugs, schedule my blood draws, and help me make a baby.

Future Olympic Curling Champion

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!  This morning has been extra sweet because my school had a delayed opening due to the terrible snow storm yesterday, so I got to sleep in a bit.  The extra rest was much needed considering my hubby and I stayed up super late watching the Olympics together.  One of my favorite parts has always been the human interest stories that NBC peppers in throughout the sporting events.  I will watch every single one of them while choking back tears, even the ones about men's curling, which I am convinced is actually just average dudes in parkas sweeping little brooms super fast (which I guess is kind of spectacular considering my husband has never picked up a broom in his life.)  When I have a son or daughter one day, I am totally going to convince them to devote all of their time to curling.  I figure any child that has half of my genes will have absolutely no athletic prowess to speak of, so sweeping is probably the place to focus.  [Side note: if anyone who reads this blog--though I am pretty sure it's just my mom--is actually super into curling, I am sorry. Way to go! Curling is so hip!]

Last night, there was a feature about Noelle Pikus-Pace, an American skeleton racer who is competing in her third Olympic games.  Noelle retired the day after the 2010 Olympics so that she could spend more time with her husband and daughter (she now has a son, too) and continue to build a family.  In 2012 she found out she was pregnant again with a little girl, but she lost her at 18 weeks; the doctors could not find any medical reason for her loss.  As a way to heal, Noelle's husband encouraged her to get back into skeleton racing...and she now finds herself in Sochi going for Olympic gold.  Here is a link to an article that speaks more about her loss and journey.

Obviously I connected with Noelle's story in a way that is far deeper than your average television viewer, but I cannot stress enough how refreshing it felt to hear from a brave woman who has gone through something devastating, and managed to come out stronger on the other side.  Every time I check out a celebrity gossip website it seems like another young celebutante with a cocaine addiction and a string of failed marriages is announcing her pregnancy.  The girls from Teen Mom have gaggles of tiny babies following them around, and half the time they don't even know how they got pregnant in the first place (hint: it's because you had unprotected sex in the back of a Chevy truck after your seventh glass of pink Franzia.)  As I struggle with infertility and loss and trying to conceive a healthy baby, stories like Noelle's make me realize that I am not alone.  I am not about the pick up skeleton racing--curling is much more my speed--but I know that ultimately I will come out stronger on the other side just like Noelle.

The "New Normal"

Close to 95% of the time, I feel "normal" now.  I still have moments where I see a chubby little infant swaddled in his mother's arms in line at Chipotle and find my eyes filling with tears, or nights when I wake up and instinctively put my hand over my stomach to feel my baby, but most days pass exactly like they did before I ever got pregnant.  I drink too much wine on Tuesdays (I use the term "Tuesday" loosely.  I originally wrote "weekday", but it made me sound like a lush), I try and convince my husband that eating 32 pieces of sushi in one sitting is standard, if not below average, and I put on my eyeliner every single day to prove that I am not depressed. I'd say that the hardest part of returning to my old routine, is how much of my time revolves around trying to conceive.

Recently, my fertility doctor advised me to wait two full cycles after our loss before we took "extra measures" (IUI/Clomid to induce ovulation) because even though my body healed quickly, he wanted to make sure that I was in [insert long pause to convey sensitivity and thoughtfulness] the right place emotionally.  Little does that poor doctor know, I have never been able to settle comfortably in the "right place" emotionally--I prefer to teeter between "inappropriately compassion-less joke machine" and "I'm sobbing uncontrollably because I just paper-cut my finger on tinfoil and it hurts way more than I thought possible."  I agreed to forego any procedures this month, but insisted on taking the Clomid, because I like how it gives me uncontrollable anger and makes my ovaries feel like golf balls.

Ovulation is now just around the corner, and once again I've found myself jolting out of bed in the morning the moment my alarm goes off so that I can take my temperature and pee on 3 different brands of OPKs (ovulation predictor kits.)  Yes, I fully comprehend how insane it is that I use three different brands--but what if one of them malfunctions?  Or the line is too hard to read?  Or I drop it in the toilet?  You have to prepare for these things!  I line them all up on my windowsill and study them intently at least three times a day, looking for marginal color-shifts to indicate hormonal changes or a tiny invisible neon sign that blinks "WARNING: EGG IS RELEASING. SUPER FERTILE".  As you can likely imagine, this is exhausting, and only one step in the monthly whirlwind of trying to conceive.

I suppose that one of the ways that I know I am approaching "normal" again is that I can allow myself to be this crazy. The rituals and insanity bring me an odd sense of comfort and something to focus on.  Speaking of something to focus on, I should probably go; it's been four hours since I last studied my OPKs.

Poverty or Hammock Sex?

So I finally got the news I'd been waiting for from the genetic counselor, and it was totally lame and unsatisfying.  The micro-array sequencing came back "normal" and no mutation(s) were found on the EVC genes.  Hearing "normal" almost made me laugh since absolutely nothing about our baby or this experience falls into the normal category.  In a pathetic attempt to make me feel less discouraged, the counselor told me that only around 10% of EVC cases are spotted through this micro-array, and that we would have a much better shot if we sent the cell cultures to a different lab for a more specialized test.  This new test will take 40-60 days and 60% of cases can be confirmed with it.

Let me get this straight... I had been waiting on pins and needles for a craptastic 10% shot? Why wasn't this made clear to me?  It took every ounce of patience I had to wait out those 8-10 business days, during which I tore through 22 episodes of The Vampire Diaries to distract myself.  I am 29 years old, there is NO WAY I should be watching that show.  Now I am supposed to wait 60 days!?  There is not a show on television that is trashy enough to sustain me for that long!  I begged the genetics counselor to find out about expediting the new test assuming that we would just pay out of pocket for the extra cost, but then I found out that the test needs to be run three times.  One for me, one for my husband, and one on the little dude.  Expediting the tests would run about $2,400 and at the end of it we still might not have any answers.  $2,400?! I would rather take an all-inclusive tropical vacation where I can drink myself into a stupor and have hammock sex with my husband, thankyouverymuch.

Speaking of that handsome dude, last night my husband and I sat through a 3-hour informational session on IVF.  The fertility center that we have been considering using moving forward requires attendance at one of these sessions before you can meet with one of their specialists.  They made us sign in at the beginning and then sign out at the end, so they knew we were there for the entire thing.  I would make a sick joke about how it was so intense that we had to promise them our first born child, but that just doesn't seem right.

Why did we go to this? It was not for the snacks, which were sub-par.  It's because if we want to use PGD as an option (which seems like a more distant possibility with every passing day, as locating the EVC mutation is IMPOSSIBLE!) we need to be cleared for IVF.  We cannot do one without the other.  So now, I know everything about subcutaneous injections, blastocysts, and Ovarian Hyper-Stimulation Syndrome. However, I still don't know anything about how I am supposed to have a healthy baby.

This morning I got a "high" reading on my ClearBlue Fertility monitor.  Welcome to fertile territory?  I should ovulate in 4-7 days, which means that if my hubby's sperm show up to do their job (they only work part time) I could get knocked up very soon.  Those 1 in 4 odds are staring me in the face right now, but I want to see those 2 pink lines SO badly that I think I might take them.

7-10 Business Days

It has now been 8 business days since the laboratory in Palo Alto received the DNA samples from our little guy. We were told that the micro-array/EVC panel would take 7-10 business days, which means that at any moment, my phone could ring with the results.  It's too bad that staring creepily at my phone doesn't make it ring.  I can't decide if I am feeling anticipation or dread, or a strange combination of both. Dreadipation? Anticidread? Whatever it is, no amount of red wine or US Weekly magazine can get rid of it.  I bring my phone into the bathroom at work just in case they call me while I am peeing, and I call the lab every single day at 4:55pm just to "check in".  I am waiting for them to block my # or file a restraining order.

I have played out the two different scenarios in my head over and over again, usually at night when I am trying to fall asleep but my mind won't quiet down.  In the first, the lab tells me that there is a definitive diagnosis.  All of the ultrasound findings were correct, and our little guy had Ellis Van Creveld.  It's a diagnosis that is almost always fatal, and is not something that I would have ever thought I wanted to hear...but it's clear and comprehensive and I can look it up on WebMD.  I can tell people "we are carriers for this syndrome, and here is a print-out which explains the details!" Knowing exactly what we are dealing with also opens up new options in terms of trying to conceive.  IVF with PGD (preimpantation genetic diagnosis) is the first thing on my mind, as long as I don't think too hard about all of the injections and hormones and giant needles.  I already have a meeting scheduled in 2 weeks with an amazing doctor who specializes in the procedure, and hope I don't have to cancel it.

The second scenario is the one I am more scared of.  The one that I hold my breath for because it makes me  feel dizzy and off-balance.  "The results were inconclusive".  "Unfortunately we weren't able to pinpoint the mutation".  "The sample was compromised because the lab tech accidentally urinated into it". "Your luck is shitty and so are these results!" Not knowing is terrifying, because it makes me feel even more out of control. Accepting that I will likely have to end another pregnancy sometime in our journey makes me feel sick and incredibly angry.  All I want is to have a healthy baby, and I may have to lose a piece of my heart every single time I try.  How many times can I do that?  Sometimes I can't even believe I already managed to do it once without permanently falling apart.

Whichever scenario we are faced with, it's the one we have to live in. Knowing or not knowing. IVF PGD or 1 in 4.  Heartache in the best way, or heartbreak in the worst.  If only that damn phone would ring so I could stop feeling so stuck.