things I did differently this cycle.

Today's FRER line is nice and dark, and I finally had the guts to take my Clearblue Digital. Even my Wondfo is clearly positive today, though still not nearly as dark as I feel it should be. Regardless, I'm guessing this is the last one of these I'll need to post unless things start getting crazy light.

You can see a weird break in the dye run on the 9DP5DT test, toward the bottom. But look how dark the top of the line is! P.S. It might be time to start tossing some of these, huh?

Yesterday, I found this chart, which gives an estimation on the likelihood of miscarrying based on the number of days pregnant you are. I printed it out and hung it on our fridge, and now Mr. Hope and I are crossing off days together. Since yesterday, our odds of miscarrying went down from 29.2% to 28%. Or, as I like to think of it, our odds of carrying this pregnancy to term increased from 70.8% to 72%.

I've been thinking a lot about what I did differently this time around. You know, besides the obvious "adding a donor blast from a 30-year-old mother into the mix" thing.

I didn't take DHEA. When I started seeing Dr. Smiles in October 2013, he had me start taking DHEA. I'd been on it almost four months for IVF #1. I discontinued it after IVF #2 and never went back on it.

I reduced my number of supplements. For IVFs #1 & #2, I'd been taking L-Arginine, alpha lipoic acid, and selenium in addition to the stuff I'm still taking now (most notably Ubiquinol and forms of B vitamins that work well with my MTHFR mutation).

I changed my diet. I'm now a BIG fan of the EZ Diet. And honestly, it wasn't THAT hard to give up flour, baked goods, sugar, potatoes, bananas, and yogurt. (I say that now, of course, before Christmas kicks into high gear.) I can't say for certain how much this changed things, but eating this way certainly feels healthier.

I ate a LOT of avocados. I'd read about a study funded by the NIH that showed that a diet high in monounsaturated fats and lower in saturated/trans fats was 3.4 times more likely to result in a child from IVF. I love me some avocados (before the EZ Diet, Mr. Hope and I used to have avocado toast for breakfast quite frequently), so I figured it wouldn't hurt to ramp up my consumption. Nearly every day of this entire cycle, I'd eat half an avocado with breakfast. The day of transfer, I ate half of an avocado before and another half after. Again, don't know how much this helped things, but it certainly wasn't a burden to eat yummy avocados daily.

I was on a (somewhat) different protocol. This was the first cycle that I primed with estrogen (I took it for 8 days prior to starting stims). I stimmed with four vials of Menopur in the morning and four at night, same as IVF #2. But Dr. Smiles changed up my progesterone; this time I do a PIO shot every other day and a pessary every night. I think I respond better to the pessaries, which I used during my three IUIs and some natural cycles as well. I also take estradiol twice a day; I may have only taken it once a day on previous cycles but can't remember.

I skipped the acupuncture. My previous two IVFs, and for a couple of IUIs, I tried acupuncture. I didn't find it all that relaxing and it never seemed to do anything to help my lady business. I have heard of other women who did it and weren't successful, then did a cycle without and were.

I asked to trigger with Ovidrel. I've always used generic hCG for a trigger, but I am really bad about sucking all of the meds up with the long needle. So, this time I asked to switch to Ovidrel. It's a preloaded syringe and a subcutaneous injection instead of a muscular one.

I insisted on transferring blasts. My previous two IVFs were with Day 2 transfers. In hindsight, I could see that my first embryo was kind of uggo (cells weren't exactly even, and there was already fragmentation on Day 2). My second embryo was better, but still so young. I really rolled the dice on this one by insisting on growing everything out to blast. And I did so fully expecting to have nothing of ours to transfer. The gamble paid off, big-time. I mean, our one little embryo made it to blast! Even if it didn't end up implanting, you can't ask for a better chance than that.

I didn't do bed rest. This is a big one. My clinic recommends 24 hours of bed rest after transfer. I did mostly bed rest after IVF #1 (we had tickets to a show that night, ones I'd purchased seven months prior, so I did a little bit of walking in the theater) and serious bed rest for IVF #2. I never felt like bed rest was the right thing to do but Mr. Hope insisted. This time, I told him, I wasn't doing bed rest. I'd take it easy, I said, but I needed to move around to make sure the blood was getting to my uterus. He reluctantly agreed. And I did take it easy, for the most part. There were a few rounds of Celebrity where I was doing charades that got me a little schvitzy, but hey - guess getting my heart rate up a little was ultimately a good thing.

Here are some of the other things that I didn't do that I had on previous cycles:

• Eat pineapple core
• Avoid raw foods (I've been chowing down on salads like a boss)
• Avoid cold beverages
• Yoga
• Mediation
• Fertility massage

I will probably never know what did or didn't make a difference, but I wanted to document these things here because it's the kind of stuff I loved reading on other people's blogs.

Anyway, there you have it. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm actually feeling tired enough to fall back asleep!

things I did to try to get pregnant, part 2.

Changed my diet. Yesterday, in part 1 of this series of posts, I said that supplements were my first line of defense against infertility. That's not entirely true. I changed my diet even before I technically knew I was infertile. Dr. God Complex was a proponent of a protein-heavy diet. So months before we discovered the dermoid cyst, I was cutting down on or eliminating sugar, simple carbs, and high-glycemic foods. I measured everything and counted calories to make sure that 25 percent or more of my daily calories came from protein, and less than 40 percent of my daily calories came from complex carbs. It was really effective for weight loss; I dropped 30 lbs. in a short amount of time just by following this plan.

There were long stretches of time where I'd be really strict about these things. And then there'd be stretches where I'd fall clean off the wagon. Like when I lost my left ovary. After the surgery my hormones went completely cray cray and I was nauseated nonstop. For about two weeks, the only things I could eat without feeling sick were saltines, graham crackers, and grilled cheese sandwiches. Oh, and some soup. But really, that was about it.

I'm also an emotional eater. Right before we discovered the dermoid, a good friend of mine died unexpectedly. I actually had a painful dermoid attack the day of her funeral that I managed to get under control long enough to attend. Then, the attack returned toward the end and I had to go straight home, where I sweated, puked, and writhed in pain for hours. Point being: during this time, I put back on some of the weight I'd taken off.

After my infertility diagnosis, I got super-strict about everything. I switched to decaf, stayed away from all alcohol (I even stopped cooking with it!), traded Splenda for 100% pure stevia, and avoided most soy (I still used soy sauce on occasion). More weight came off. Not all of it, but enough that I needed to go down a couple of sizes in my bras and pants.

I went on and off this eating plan for the better part of two years. But I haven't actually tracked calories since last fall. A little over a year ago, I let myself indulge in alcohol on occasion. And I also started drinking regular coffee again this past spring, when I was off my antidepressants and exhausted all of the time.

Changed my decaf. I'd been drinking decaf for a long time when I discovered that most decaf becomes that way by using the same chemicals used in paint thinner. Coffee that is decaffeinated through the Swiss Water Method is the safest, as it is chemical-free. So I switched to Tim Horton's decaf K-cups, which are really, really tasty.

Here's a funny side note: I started using K-cups last December, when I got Mr. Hope a Keurig. But it wasn't until two months ago that I realized K-cups are in plastic, and that boiling water washes over them, releasing all kinds of fun plastic-y chemicals into my coffee. This literally years after I switched almost all of our food storage containers over to glass, and not letting Mr. Hope put anything plastic in the dishwasher.

Yeah, I can be dense sometimes.

Detoxed my body seven ways from Sunday. At some point in this process, I became convinced that the overall rise in infertility was due to poisonous environmental factors (including those pesky plastic chemicals). So I went on this detox kick: I drank hot lemon water every morning (still do, actually - it helps with bloat), brewed detox tea, ate detoxifying foods (this Lemony Toasted Quinoa and Cabbage Salad is still a fave), and took detox baths. None of it was noxious, but I also didn't see any evidence that it aided in my fertility, either.

Meditated. I'll confess: I never bought the full Circle + Bloom set. But I did try listening to the freebie track while taking my detox baths. Me + dulcet tones + visualization = sleep, not fertility.

Let a nerdy white guy stick needles in me. Many IVF clinics work with acupuncturists, as it has been shown to aid in conception, especially when paired with assisted reproductive technologies. Research touts acupuncture's stress-relieving properties, as well as its ability to increase blood flow to reproductive organs. I can't speak to the latter, but when it comes to the former, I have to say: I never felt all that relaxed.

My first session came free as part of the program fee I paid to Dr. God Complex's clinic. Then I purchased Groupons to get additional sessions with the same guy, only at his normal place of business. He was like a martial arts cowboy and I really liked him. I tried doing acupuncture at the start of cycles, around the time of the trigger shot (when I did IUIs), before and after transfer (with the IVF). Nada.

Think I'm done? Nope. More craziness to come in Part 3.

Read Part 1 of this series here.