say hello to my little friend!

okay i need some help! i started taking BCP for our upcoming cycle, we’re doing a shared cycle so we all go on at the same time so that we’re all ready about the same time. here’s the rub… i haven’t had a cycle in years so i wasn’t sure how this was going to go. i started the pills a few weeks ago and have a week left in my pack before i hit the sugar pills. so today when i found myself weepy and exhausted i figured i was just reacting to the hormones after 2 years without any and well, just plain tired, and then i popped into the loo for a quick pit stop before running some errands and there she was. ye olde friend from my fertile years past. WTF!

so what do i do? does this have any impact on my cycle? i’m trying to tell myself that since i don’t really have a cycle then it shouldn’t be a big deal but i’m starting to freak out. will this impact my cycle in any way??!! HELP!

third time’s a charm?

you’re really not going to believe this. i know i thought it was a joke at first, but sadly it’s the truth.

donor #2 has also gone MIA. not the same cruel MIA of #1, this time due to some medical issue, she has had to pull out of our cycle.

so it was a bizarre week indeed. but i guess it’s getting me to use a skill i am usually quite good at avoiding, patience. so when i got the email from the nurse telling me to start all over again. well. i just laughed. asked for a new password and got back to searching.

we’ve chosen #3 so wish us luck. i really hope this time things progress as planned. who knows maybe we can actually start a cycle this time.

now?… how about now?… ok, how about now?

it’s possible i’m the most impatient person on this here planet. we made our donor pick final last saturday and the match was complete by monday and yet i’ve heard nothing all week from the scheduling nurse and still have no idea when we’ll get this boat a sailin’. we went the shared donor route so there’s a lot more to get on target before we can all begin, but geez, i’m so ready for this first cycle to begin. out damned eggs, out i say!

donor a go-go

so we’re back in the saddle on the donor front. Donor A did indeed vanish into thin air never to return. So after a few uneasy days and armed with a not so lenghthy list of suitors (oh I mean donors) from which to choose we clicked the reserve button this weekend to let the games begin. So now I can migrate ever so sublty from the choose or lose phase onto the cycle-up ladies phase, otherwise known as ready-set-inject! ok, not so fast, still have all the scheduling to attend to.

i don’t really know any other DE IVFer’s personally, never talked to another woman going through or having gone through all this but i wonder if it’s a common experience to suddenly start obsessively believing that your own body will kick in before it’s too late. Starting a cycle with all the hope and excitement it brings, also brings about another familiar friend… loss. i will wake up and feel a twinge of nausea or a wee bit bloated and immediately think… maybe i’m pregnant! i will start to think about why none of the doctors i’ve been to gave me a chance to try to stimulate my own ovaries, i work myself into a frenzy of doubt, maybe they didn’t because they’d rather me spend more money at their clinic for the DE IVF, or maybe they don’t want any bad response to weaken their good percentages… then after the latest hot flash passes i remember, i remember that i have been in menopause for 5 long years now. i remember that my FSH levels are as high as they are because there is no egg popping out of my sad and tiny ovaries. i remember that we did go through all the research and findings for people and my situation and the odds are not on my side. i remember that even if there were even a handful of eggs left for us to experiment with that is only the first step in a long road to them actually being viable. it is then i look back to the donor as the most amazing opportunity for us to become parents. then that i truly appreciate the miracles of science. but it still sits there, the doubt and loss deep in my gut, that not even my husband can fully understand.

i’m excited about our first cycle. i’m also scared and lonely in my head. i want this all to work so much and i know that’s not enough to make it a positive. i worry that i won’t be a good enough mom to this potential donor egg when it finally meets becomes an embryo and lives with me for 9 months. if we are so lucky. i worry that j will have a much closer bond to the child and i will feel left out. and then i take a deep breath and just let go. this process doesn’t get any easier, so i better just take it all one step at a time. or good gravy, i might just self-combust, and well that wouldn’t be good for anyone.

on beginning to begin

i’ve tossed around the idea of starting a blog to document this strange journey we find ourselves on for quite some time, so many pros and cons i guess, but today after some disheartening news i think i just need a little camaraderie from other girls-in-the-know.

so first some history, i was diagnosed in 2003 with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia and had many rounds of chemo and an autogolous bone marrow transplant (meaning i actually transplanted myself due to the wonders of technology) and now close to five years later we’re trying to make a baby with the help of some dear stranger and her magic eggs.

honestly when i was diagnosed with cancer i was more upset about finding out i’d most likely be infertile than i was about being sick. it’s just easier to understand the magnitude of infertility than it is to imagine what cancer will feel like. sure i was scared and worried and ok, seriously flipping out that i had leukemia, but i just couldn’t get past the fertility thing. because my cancer was of the abtly named “acute” variety i had to start chemo just 12 hours after my diagnosis, this obviously left no time for noodling about storing eggs and ovarian tissue, etc. so after my first round of chemo and having two weeks off from treatment we went to a fertility specialist to see what we could do. the answer… sadly, was not much. because of my weakened immune system and my upcoming secondary round of chemo and looming bone-marrow tranplant, the doc said it was simply too dangerous to do anything. i was crushed. i just fell apart. and so i tried my best to push it out of my head. i had to get through all the treatment after all, i had to survive this disease which took the lives of all except a lucky 19% of those in affected. so i moved forward.

and survive i did. and five years later we’ve opened back up this still raw topic. i’m not sure it ever goes away, the pain of loss that comes from infertility, no matter how or why it happens to you. and as we move closer to DE IVF that loss lessens in some ways and grows in others. the reality of having a baby of our own that i am able to carry and birth and nurse warms my heart, i never thought that would be possible, but accepting that there really is no possibility that by some act of random magic that my ovaries will one day kick back into gear and we can get pregnant all by ourselves, well, that’s a harder thing to let go of.

so today, after weeks of wading through pre-screening at our clinic and searching through their donor lists and finding a match who felt so right and good, we found out today that the clinic can’t seem to reach her. she’s gone essentially AWOL. and now, we might have to start all over again.

my friends, who are dear and loving and just not having any idea what this all feels like, say, “well, maybe it’s for the best”, “there’s always a reason when things like this happen”, “if this is how she is you don’t want her eggs anyhow” and though i know they’re just trying to make me feel better, it just makes it all feel worse.

infertility is just so damn lonely.