Long Time No See

Yes, it's been a long time and I've been neglectful. My humblest apologies, but you see, there hasn't been much to write about. Since Doc and I are on a break and not doing any type of ART until probably the beginning of 2011, we've been on a slow boat to nowhere.

Unfortunately, this doesn't mean I haven't had any doctors appointments. On the contrary, I've actually been inundated with therapy appointments, acupuncture appointments, and blood tests. And IF has still been weighing heavily on our minds.

We have our 1-day workup with CCRM on Tuesday, Sept 7th, so we'll be flying out to Denver over the Labor Day weekend and checking out the town. At that time, I'll meet with Dr. S, do my bloodwork and get a hysteroscopy. Wow! Come to think of it, that's less than 2 weeks away! Where does the time go.

So, that's the latest...not much to see and not much to write about. I'll keep y'all posted on what comes out to the one-day!

Fear

Do you ever get that feeling where you're so scared that you don't even want to take the next step? You'd rather just stay in your current state of "unknown" than move on to what may be success, but also may be failure. That's about where I am right now.

This IF sh** has got me in such a state of anxiety that I'm not even sure if I want to move on to CCRM and IVF #3. I know we will end up doing the IVF #3, but a small part of me doesn't want to. That small part wants to live in a state of ignorant bliss.

Crazy talk, right? Just about as crazy as paying some random man $15K to snatch my eggs, sperminate them, and then shove them right back in, while I pray to every god from Jehovah to Vishnu that I'm knocked up. Sucks.

CCRM

We talked to the big guns yesterday and had our first consultation with CCRM. Dr. Surrey was great! He was the first doctor that we've talked to that actually offered some concrete recommendations to our last two protocols. All the rest of the docs have had some "wishy-washy" recs that they said were worth a try, but really weren't anything different from what we had done during our last two IVF cycles. Dr. S had a sense of humor and was very friendly. He was upfront and honest with us, but at the same time provided a glimmer of hope.

So, to get down to the nitty-gritty of what he recommended:

- Antagonist cycle with estrogen priming
- Longer stim, an additional day or two past the typical 18mm lead follicle
- HCG trigger + lupron (so I guess some women do not respond well to HCG as a means of maturing the egg. Dr. S. has had some success in these situations by giving a dose of lupron in addition to the HCG)
- Possible addition of human growth hormone (I'm thinking this is saizen)

I'll be flying out to Colorado in the next month or two to do a one-day work up and also meet with Dr. Surrey. After that, we'll probably schedule IVF #3 for sometime in the beginning of 2011.

And more good news! I did another round of bloodwork this cycle and just got my results back...My FSH is 7.9, down from 23 last month and my estradiol is at 34. I really think that last month was a random fluke and/or a bad test or maybe my FSH was still high from the IVF meds. Whatever it was, I now know to wait one month after an IVF to test my hormone levels.

Another Milestone

Man! Has it really been over a week since I last posted? My humblest apologies for being so delinqent. You see, there really hasn't been much to write about. Since we're going au naturale this time around I haven't had any doctor drama or office visits to complain about. My biggest challenge has been to increase my caloric intake and not offset that by (literally) exercising my ass off.

Although I've been steadily increasing my food, I still am not consuming the 2000+ calories that the nutritioninst is recommending. Yes, you read that correctly...2000+. How the hell am I supposed to consume that much?! I really don't know. I've already gained 5 lbs since we started doing IVF and am now up to 130lbs at 5'6" and have stayed pretty much the same for the past few weeks. I'm scared to death of what may happen if I increase my calorie consumption to 2000. I will say I do love one side effect of gaining weight -- I'm not cold!! I don't have to wear sweaters in the middle of summer. Hallelujah!

I guess I could count the birthday cake that I'll be having tomorrow to my 2000 calories. Yep, I'm turning the big 3-5. I sincerely thought I'd be a mother by now. I even had the gall to think that we might be trying for number 2 around this time. Everytime I think of that, I think of this quote by Woody Allen: "If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans." Well, I've learned my lesson and I'm not planning for anything, but I am hoping that this year will be better than last.

And Life Goes On

Wow! Has it really been almost a week since I last posted? Sorry about the delay, but there really hasn't been that much going on in my life. I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

I am excited to report, though, that I had my first meeting with the eating disorder therapist and things went well. I think the most enlightening thing she told me was that 85% of anorexics don't meet the weight criteria of the current anorexia diagnosis. That is, 85% are in the "normal" BMI range, but have all of the other symptoms (psychological and physiologcial) that are associated with anorexia. I guess based on what doctors know now, they are planning on changing the criteria for anorexia and removing the weight criteria.

And for the first time since I've gone off of BCPs, my little ovulation monitor shows that I am ovulating on CD 15!! I've always been a late ovulator, typically on CD18 or later. I'm not sure if it's a fluke or the herbs I've been taking or the fact that I'm eating more, but I have to think that it's a good thing.

So, where do I go from here? Well, I'm meeting with a nutritionist and then with the therapist again. I'm slowly, but surely making progress and I'm hoping that this will help in some way with my IF. I'm not going to hold my breath and assume that this is going to cure everything, but I know it can't hurt.

Back To Square One

I've come full circle and I'm back where I was almost one year ago. Back at my original RE who did my IUIs and my HSG and the one who told me that Doc and I had a 99% chance of getting pregnant through IVF. HA! Yeah right!

I have this love/hate relationship with this doctor (I'll call her Dr. Curt). Love because I think she's very smart and knows her stuff. Hate because she's always in a rush and this makes her curt (hence her name) and I think her nurses/staff are a bunch of dimwits. She works at the same HMO as Doc and I sort of understand her predicament. She's the only RE on staff and so she does everything for everyone who has an infertility issue.

Let me give you some perspective on how overworked these doctors are. Currently, Doc sees 13 patients in the morning and then 13 patients in the afternoon. That's 26 patients in a day -- 20 minutes per patient. That doesn't include having to do all the paperwork, telephone calls and emails. And God forbid if there's a late patient or someone who may require more than 20 minutes. So, I try to give Dr. Curt a break.

Anyway, I met up with Dr. Curt yesterday and she asked me how things were going and I told her I've done 2 IVFs and no pregnancies. Not even a chemical. Her reaction: complete and utter surprise. She insisted that we should have gotten pregnant by now, particularly with the success rates of the 1st IVF center we went to (their success rates are above 50%), and with the fact that I had decent embryos transferred back.

Her thought is that there's something going on with implantation. Maybe my uterus or lining? So, she's scheduled me for a hysteroscopy for next cycle. At that time, I'm also doing a freakin' slew of blood tests...again. She's determined to get me pregnant. Has anyone ever had a hysteroscopy? From what I've read, it sounds very unpleasant to put it mildly.

As for other things going on in my life, I've changed acupuncturists. I'm now going to a Chinese woman who seems very nice and has a wall full of baby pictures and thank yous. She's given me some herbal pills which I googled and seem to be consistent with what's ailing me. I'm also taking the metformin which initially did a number on my stomach, but now seems to be ok.

And, finally, next week is my first appointment with the eating therapist. I'm actually dreading this. I've had therapist appointments in the past and they didn't go so well because I'm absolutely terrible at talking about feelings and emotions. This has sometimes been an issue of contention between Doc and I because when I get upset, he wants to talk about it immediately and address the issue. I just want to get control of my emotions, mull over them, and then once I feel like I can handle a discussion, then I'll discuss. I just hate being emotionally poked and prodded. Ugh...

Trials and Tribulations

I'm not sure if this is national news or if it's just been a local preoccupation, but in the Bay Area we're on high alert because of the Johannes Mehserle trial.

Doc was on-call until 11pm last night at the ER and he'll be on-call for most of the weekend. Our office sent out an email yesterday telling everyone to go home early and avoid Oakland. Everyone has been avoiding downtown Oakland and a lot of people who usually take BART (which is the "subway" system for the Bay Area) have opted to either not go to work or to take an alternative mode of transport.

It'll be a tense weekend and I'll probably skip my usual jaunt down to the Oakland Farmer's Market. I feel bad for the store owners and other businesses that will suffer due to the unnecessary violence.

On another note, I met with SI.RM yesterday and had a long discussion with Dr. G. He had a different perspective on my situation. He's of the opinion that my issue is a hormonal problem and not necessarily a protocol problem and that I need to address/treat the underlying hormonal problem. He basically said that with a good lab and maybe some changes in protocol, I could possibly get a few more mature eggs, however it wouldn't address the uterine issue (i.e., thin lining) which is also probably related to the underlying hormonal issue and probably causing implantation problems.

When I asked about donor eggs, his opinion was that it was far too soon to do donor eggs and even if I did do donor eggs, seeing as I may have a uterine problem, there's no guarantee that they would implant. He really thinks I should take some time to do additionally testing and find out if/what my underlying hormonal issues are.

So, that being said, I did a bit more research and it appears that a lot of my symptoms are related to eating disorders and nutrition. Adding to that list, I'm now including low DHEA. I just got my tests back and I'm on the borderline/low end of normal. Low DHEA, low estrogen, low libido, fatigue, insulin resistance, bloating, constipation, light/no periods, low heart rate (my resting heart rate is below 50), very low blood pressure, always cold...It's all there.

Amazingly and strangely enough, I've actually LOST weight since I've stopped exercising and eating more. It's seems so counterintuitive, but the scale shows a loss of 4 lbs! It's really hard to believe. I've been making a conscious effort to eat when my body says it's hungry and not ignore the hunger pains. Prior to this, I would just drink a ton of water or go exercise and typically that would suppress the hunger.

Unfortunately, I think there's still a lot of work to be done because I still have this mindset of what/how much I can eat. It's just so hard to overcome and even though I've increased my food intake, I'm still not sure if it is enough. Am I full or am I just "mentally" full? I know that may sound strange, but I'm really having difficulties with it. I've led a certain lifestyle for so long, I think it's going to take a long time to undo the damage.