the weight of pregnancy.

Before I got pregnant, none of my doctors seemed concerned about my weight. I was the one freaking out. But they kept telling me, "Look, you can stand to lose some poundage, but your BP is good, your blood sugar is perfect, you don't have sleep apnea or anything like that. You're going to be fine."

So at some point in the TTC process, I stopped freaking out. I mean, yes, I was concerned about inflammation, so I ate a lot of avocados. And there was the three- to four-month period where I ate the EZ Diet and lost 20 lbs. and was all YAY, I AM LOSING AGAIN! But then our first pregnancy started to go south and the depression eating began. If the doctors told me nothing I ate was going to make a difference, why wouldn't I get a creamy pasta dish at the Italian restaurant? Why would I deny myself baked goods at Christmas?

When we miscarried (for those just tuning in, this was not due to anything I did or didn't eat, but chromosomal abnormalities), both Mr. Hope and I turned up the depression eating. I'm not going to lie; it was bad. Real bad. We basically ate whatever we wanted for a one-month period. And then, when we knew the next transfer was imminent, we started cleaning things up. But not nearly as hardcore as we did the first time around.

I was 45 lbs. up from my lowest weight when I got pregnant this time around. About 25 lbs. up from where I was the first time I got pregnant. And, as those of you who read this blog regularly know, it was my intention to not gain a single pound during the first trimester.

My body had other plans.

I bounced around in the same 4- to 5-pound range the first 8 weeks. Down, up, down, up. Nothing major. And then, in week 8, I started to put on weight. A lb. here, a lb. there. When I saw the OB for the first time, at almost 12 weeks, I was up 9 full pounds.

Ouch.

And then she took me off the HCTZ, which I knew would cause more gain. How much? Here, take a look:

Day 0 (first day I discontinued): 0 lbs.
Day 1: + 2 lbs.
Day 2: + 2 lbs.
Day 3: + 1.2 lbs.
Day 4: + 1 lb.
Day 5: + .6 lb.
Day 6: + .4 lb.
Day 7:  - 1.6 lbs.

You see that last entry? That -1.6 lbs.? That's not a typo. I really did drop 1.6 lbs. between yesterday and today. Not eating anything radically different. Not adding any more exercise. Just poof! Extra water bloat starting to fall off.

There is hope for me yet.

I went back for my BP check yesterday. Quick recap: it was a little high at the first OB appt., 144/88. Pre-pregnancy, my BP was always in the 120/70 range. So when Dr. Direct wanted to put me on BP meds, I asked her if we could wait a week to see what my body did off the estrogen.

It paid off. My BP yesterday was 136/84. High end of normal. Something we need to keep an eye on, but not something requiring medication at this time. (Virtual high five, y'all!)

Dr. Direct is not a fan of me weighing myself every day. I brought in an index card with the same recorded weights I typed above. She said, "What's this?" I explained it to her, and how I weigh myself the same time every morning, naked, after I've gone to the bathroom but before I've had anything to eat or drink. She just kind of looked at me.

Later in the appointment, she ripped the card in half in front of me. She said, "I need you to stop obsessing over your weight. You're pregnant. You're going to gain weight."

I tried to explain how I didn't want to gain anything in the first trimester, and yet here I was, 17 lbs. up (as of yesterday).

Dr. Direct said, "Look, you need to lose weight. So do I know. We know this. But you can't do anything about it while you're pregnant. You can't reduce. You can eat healthfully. You can move around. But that's it. You can't deal with your weight until that baby is no longer inside of you."

She told me to stop weighing myself every day. Obviously, I did not heed this advice. I've weighed myself nearly every day for the past six years. This is how I keep an eye on the bottom line. Make sure I'm not putting on too much weight. If I am up 6 lbs., I course-correct and eat super-clean until I take it back off. When I'm in weight-loss mode, watching the scale daily helps keep me motivated. It tells me that what I'm doing is working. (The only exception being when I'm weight-training; the first month of new muscle results in very few lbs. lost but clothes fitting more loosely, so I'm okay in the long run.)

I'm sure you're wondering, "If you're so obsessed with your weight, why didn't you lose it all before you got pregnant?"

It's not like I didn't try. I did. I've been losing significant weight for the past 6 years (hence the scale-watching). Sometimes I'm better at it than others. Depression plays a huge factor; when I'm in the hole, I have a really hard time caring about what I put into my body. And also: I'm a fat girl who unabashedly likes food. I like to cook it, I like to eat it. Because of this, I will never be thin. I'm okay with that. But I would like to get down to a 14/16 at some time in my life. That would make me really, really  happy.

Anyway.

Yesterday I ate 90% good and 10% not so good. Dessert was about 1/3 of a cup of chocolate pudding, some whipped cream on top, and a handful of animal crackers. Other than that, I ate a ton of protein, fiber, good fats, fruits, and vegetables. I drank water, herbal tea, decaf coffee, milk. This is my typical daily diet - mostly clean with a sweet thing or salty snack thrown in at night, depending on what I'm craving.

I'm not sure if the weight loss has anything to do with what I'm eating and/or how much OR if it's just because the retention from stopping the HCTZ is easing up and/or weening from the prednisone is helping. I might never know.

But I will say that today, I feel lighter. Not just because I literally am, but because pretty soon, my body will be close to its natural state. I'm on half doses of prednisone that are about to go down to quarter doses. I have one shot of PIO left and two nights of progesterone capsules. Then, no more artificial hormones. And within another week, no more steroids.

Let's see what this body does when left to its own devices.

and the first beta is...

...35.

The NP (not Fave NP, but this young little blonde who always makes me feel dumb) said that this was "appropriate" for where I am. I checked out some online charts (because that's what Agonies do, yo) and it seems just under the  median for Beta Base (47). I'm trying not to stress too much, because last time I had a great first beta (in the 500s!) and we all know how that turned out. This time, I'm more concerned with appropriate doubling times.

Getting the beta drawn wasn't easy. When I asked Blondie to run it, she said, "Do we usually run the hCG this early?"

I said, "No, but I've been getting positive pregnancy tests and if you don't run it I'm going to make myself crazy staring at lines."

"There's a reason we don't run them this early," she said. "Because it's too early to really tell anything."

I told her I wanted to run it again on Friday and that I'd still come in for my OTD on Monday. "I just need to know," I said. "I need data. I was in beta hell for weeks last time."

She grudgingly agreed, but wouldn't let me schedule the Friday appointment. "Let's see what the physician advises."

I kind of wanted to flip her the bird.

When she called with the results, it was in a voice dripping with condescension. Keep in mind that this girl has be at least a decade younger than me and probably has the eggs of a teenager. She's young and fit and pretty enough to be a catalog model.

"We're not going to bring you back until Monday," she informs me.

"I'd really like to run it again on Friday," I said, "to see if it's doubling appropriately. I can get it drawn at a local lab if you like."

"Hold on."

When she gets back on the line, she says, "We can bring you in, but I want you to understand that if it's not going well, there's nothing we can do. There's no medicine we can give you to fix it."

"I know that," I said, in a semi-snappy voice. "If it's bad news, then I can prepare. I just want to know."

"Fine."

She booked me for Friday at 9:45 a.m.

I'm proud of myself for insisting on the second beta. I wish I'd stood up for myself more the previous pregnancy.

I am a little worried about my hormone levels. My estradiol was 117 (I think) and my progesterone was 11.5. Both seemed low to me but Blondie wasn't concerned. Even so, I'm upping my progesterone tonight to 1.5 cc. That's what the prescription was written for, but the clinic told me to do 1 cc and I'd already self-upped to 1.25.

I'm also on the suppositories, so that might be why they're not concerned - those supposedly don't show up in the blood work.

It would be fantastic if I could relax just a little, and enjoy these early days of pregnancy. I doubt that's happening, but you know - it's nice to dream.

mistakes, I've made a few...

Something you should know about me: I am med compliant. I always have been. If a doctor tells me I need to be on something, I take it. The only exception to this is if the doctor tells me to take something and it doesn't do good things to me, like a blood pressure medicine I got put on more than a decade ago that left me with a constant tickle in my throat, as if I'd always just swallowed a hair.

But my point is, I take my  meds and I take my vitamins like the good girl that I am. I even have a really elaborate old-lady pill calls that I dutifully fill with said meds and vitamins each Sunday afternoon, so I can keep track of what I'm taking and when.

So it doesn't make sense to me that I have so many issues with the fertility meds. When it comes to them, I screw up a lot. It's not because I don't want to be taking them, or because I disagree with what I'm being given - though I did get really pissed at a nurse on the phone yesterday, who insists my treatment plan calls for 1 cc of PIO every other day and not every day. It's honestly fueled by sheer forgetfulness. 

See, the meds I mess up the most are the ones I'm supposed to take right before bed. I don't go to bed at the exact same time every night. If i'm really exhausted, I'll turn in by 10 or 10:30. If I'm not, I'll push it another 30 to 60 minutes. How careful I am about my pre-bedtime routine often depends on how loud and insistent my inner monologue is. It wasn't so many years ago I required an anti-anxiety medication to be able to shut that inner monologue down. Now I can mostly manage on my own, though I did spend a few weeks post-miscarriage on the ol' Klonopin, trying to get some quality sleep.

Anyway.

Last cycle I missed a few doses of the progesterone suppository. Usually, when this would happen, I'd bolt out of bed with a gasp, either in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning, and shove that puppy up inside me as quick as can be. I'd get so angry with myself. YOU HAVE ONE JOB RIGHT NOW, AGONY: KEEPING THAT BABY ALIVE AND HEALTHY.

This cycle, I've fucked up so many things I'm almost ashamed to admit them here. There was the day I had an appointment at Posh Clinic and completely forgot to take my Lupron in the AM. I didn't end up shooting up that day until almost noon, four hours late. I spent a week thinking I'd ovulate through the drug.

There was the day I discovered an Estrace tablet on my kitchen table and didn't even know which dose I'd missed. When they had me start shoving the Estrace up my lady businees, I forgot exactly twice and was convinced I was going to lose my lining.

I didn't start my doxycycline the right day because I didn't realize until the evening of the day I was supposed to start that the nurses had forgotten to order it for me. I had to page Dr. Eyeore on a Sunday and have him call it into the pharmacy. This turned out to be not catastrophic, since I ended up pushing my transfer back a day, but still. 

The day I was supposed to start my Medrol dose pack, I forgot until dinnertime. So I was already four pills behind. I ended up slamming them two at a time in about a six-hour period. 

Quirky would say that this is understandable. That I am under an enormous amount of pressure with my job, with the freelance project deadline, etc. and that it's only natural that I would make some mistakes. Some being the operative word. I've made more than "some." I've made a ton.

Which brings us to this morning, when the alarm went off and I woke up with a weird pounding in my head. I think to myself, "This reminds me of the headaches I got when I stopped the prednisone."

Cut to me bolting upright with an "oh, fuck!" 

Yep. Forgot my bedtime does of Medrol. Which means I also forgot my bedtime does of Estrace. The nurse told me not to take any Estrace before my transfer, only after, so by the time I'm allowed to take it, I will have gone almost 15 hours between doses. 

I took one Medrol first thing and will likely take another before transfer, even though I'm really only supposed to take one this AM and will be allowed to take a 20 MG tablet of prednisone afterward. I already packed the Estrace and prednisone in my purse and will take that as soon as I'm able. I also packed my Lovenox and an alcohol wipe because typically I do that shot in the AM, too.

I'm trying not to panic. My lining was "gorgeous." My hormone levels were perfect as of last week. I have one Grade A embryo and one Grade B embryo ready to transfer. At least, that's what they were graded at the time of freezing. I won't know what they are now until the embryologist shows us the little picture just before transfer.

This transfer - I need it to work. I mean, I know we all need every ART procedure to work. But as I said to Mr. Hope the other night, "I've never failed at something for four straight years and kept going." I want a baby so badly - to add a tiny human to our family full of love - and at the same time, I don't know how many more cycles I have left in me. I've had three failed IUIs. Two failed IVFs. One miscarriage.

I know women who've lost so much more. Who've been through so much more. I don't know how they do it. 

People often tell me that I am stronger than I think. I kind of want to cry bullshit. I'm pretty sure I know exactly how strong I am. Which is to say: strong, but not unbreakable. 

Today, after transfer, we'll either head straight home or stop for a protein-rich restaurant meal, depending on how hungry we are. Then we'll come home and watch some comedies. At some point, I'll make the lentil soup I ate a bunch of times last transfer, when I was sick. It has coconut milk and turmeric in it and I jokingly referred to it as "implantation soup," because it was warm and comforting and full of anti-inflammatory ingredients. I won't do any day job work, but I will have to put in a little time on the freelance project (nothing stressful). And Mr. Hope and I may take the dog for a short walk, because I no longer heed the doctor's advice about 24 hours of bed rest (it just doesn't make sense to me).

Tomorrow I'm back to work, and the day after that I leave for my work trip. It's a lot. I'm not going to lie. I thought about packing for said trip last night, because packing tends to stress me out, but ran out of time. Also I still have yet to prep the decks for my three presentations, though I'm going to be recycling parts from previous presos so it hopefully it won't be as heinous as I fear.

Maybe this will all be a good lesson in learning how to manage my stress. A girl can hope.

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!

transfer day.

Heading to Posh Clinic this morning, Mr. Hope and I didn't know what to expect. There'd been no Day 4 update, remember? We tried to be positive on the drive but both of us were nervous. I kept saying things like, "Well, they didn't call us first thing this morning, so that must mean we have SOMETHING to transfer."

We ended up getting to the clinic early. I like to park on the street (it's free) and then take the 2-minute walk to the building. Mr. Hope does not. I tried to convince him that a brisk morning walk would send blood supply to my uterus. I won.

When the nurse called us back to go over my post-transfer instructions, she was all smiles. She ran down a list of items, including when I'd start my estrace, Lovenox, and prednisone (tomorrow, today, and today). Then she left to get the embryology tech.

I turned to Mr. Hope and said, "She was really chipper. This has to be good, right?"

The tech that came in was the same one who called me on Wednesday. She's got one facial expression: flat. I don't mean this in the bad way - I just mean she wasn't as smiley and friendly as everyone else we typically deal with. 

She gave us a picture that had individual shots of our five embryos. The ones that had been As on Day 3 (ours and one of the donors') were now Grade B blastocysts. "I'll take it," I told her. Because HOLY SHIT, we were transferring a blastocyst of our own making! Of the three remaining embryos, one arrested at five cells, one was lagging behind as a morula, and one was an early blast. They were pretty sure they could refreeze the early blast but weren't sure what the morula would do. My guess is it's out, too.

So let me recap for you: My "rotten" egg managed to make an embryo that not only made it to blastocyst, it also outperformed three of the embryos created with a 30-year-old's eggs. 

On the ride up, Mr. Hope and I were still talking about whether or not we wanted to transfer one or two. I'm a little nervous about twins, in part because of my weight but also because hi, twins cost a fortune. And there's no way one of us can be a stay-at-home parent, so in addition to double the cost of everything else we'd have to contend with double day care. Mr. Hope, on the other hand, was all, "Twins are great! Twins are an instant family!"

If our embryo had been a Grade A, I may have pushed harder for eSBT (elective single blastocyst transfer). But the fact that both of the front-runners were Grade B made me think I shouldn't chance it. So we stuck with our original plan to transfer both.

At my clinic, here's how this works:

They take you back to a room with lockers. You change into a gown, hair net, and slipper socks, then drape a thin blanket around your shoulders like a cape to cover your otherwise-exposed bottom. You lock your stuff up and take the key with you. Then they take you back to the transfer room, where you wait until they're ready to load your legs into the leg holder things.

I sat there, alone in the quiet room, and started to cry. Not because I was sad or upset, but because I never thought we'd get to that moment. I never thought we'd have a viable chance at making a baby from my egg and Mr. Hope's sperm. My first RE, Dr. God Complex, wouldn't even consider going to transfer with one follicle. He actually scared me into thinking I was putting myself at risk by doing that because it was such an "invasive" procedure. 

But here we are, retrieving a solitary egg for the third time, and the damned thing turned into a blast. 

I told Mr. Hope, "I can't even...I don't even have the words."

He joked, "They should've sent a poet."

We laughed.

So I cried a little, and then the nurse who assisted on my second IVF came in and said, "Aww, why are you crying?" I told her they were happy tears and filled her in on everything. She said, "It only takes one, right?"

I'd already had about 35 ounces of water before I came to the clinic, but the nurse who went over my post-transfer instructions seemed concerned that I hadn't had more. So I chugged another 16 ounces. I was fine until the transfer nurse told me to put my legs into the holder things. As soon as I swung a leg over I felt the pain in my bladder. She said, "Do you need to release a little?" I said, "No, that would make it worse." And then powered through.

Dr. Smiles came in a few minutes later. He said, "So, we have two good blastocysts today," and I said yes and then he said, "Let's get you pregnant," which is what he says every time.

I barely felt the speculum go in and I didn't feel the catheter at all. In fact, I didn't know it was over until he started to pull the speculum out. I said, "That's it? I didn't feel a thing." Dr. Smiles quipped, "That's what I've been hearing from ladies since I was 16 years old."

I told him I owed him a hell of a Hanukkah present and he said, "Just get pregnant. That's present enough." And then he left and Jen said, "He's right, you know. You getting pregnant is the best present ever." I said, "I'll do what I can. You know, it's not like I've been trying to thwart the process along the way!"

I stayed on the table for another 10 minutes. Around minute seven, my bladder started to hurt. I called out the nurse's name softly. The next minute, I called it out a little louder. A minute after that, I really raised my voice.

No nurse.

More minutes ticked by. As the clock approached 9 a.m. I thought to myself, if she hasn't come back by then I'm getting off the table and going to the bathroom. She didn't come. I was debating how bad it would be if I got up when finally - FINALLY - she walked in. 

As soon as I tried to sit up, I thought I'd pee myself. I told the nurse, "I don't think I can do this." She said, "Want me to get a bedpan?" I said, "You might have to." Then I decided I'd try to power through anyway. 

Holding onto the nurse, I swung one leg over and did this weird tuck and roll off the bed. Then scurried to the bathroom where I peed for so long I felt like Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own. Seriously, it was the neverending pee.

And then I got dressed, and Mr. Hope and I went out to breakfast. We came home and I took the prednisone and my first Lovenox shot. We tried to watch a movie but I started passing out almost immediately, so we stopped it and went to bed for a long (like two-hour-long) nap.

I'll be honest: I don't know how this cycle will turn out. I'm nervous about the B grade on the blastocysts. And even though we used an anonymous donor through the clinic, I'm a little bummed that we only ended up with one good quality blast and one decent one. You'd assume that using young donors would give you at least ONE Grade A blast, right? If not more? The fact that we only have one decent one to maybe freeze means that if the donor embryo is the one that sticks, there's not a great chance of a genetic sibling.

Of course, there's still one scenario in which both embies stick and we end up with super-fraternal twins.

I'm not someone who's big on prayer, but I have been sending positive messages out in the universe. And I have a lot of people praying on my behalf. So maybe - MAYBE - that will help?

I want this to be our time so badly...I really, truly hope it is.

rolling into retrieval.

Had my last follie check today with Fave NP. The 17 grew to a 19 overnight and kicked the rest of the follies to the curb. Yesterday's 12? Shrunk to an 8.

So I'm going to retrieval on Sunday with my one egg ("Maybe it's an uber egg," Mr. Hope said). Still feeling okay about that. The plan is to thaw the four donor embryos out on Monday, grow them to blast, and then do the transfer on Friday. The timing of this couldn't be better; we don't have to miss any work since my office is closed on Friday and Mr. Hope had already taken that day off. Black Friday embies for the win!

The only thing I do not feel super hot about is the fact that Dr. Smiles isn't working this weekend, so my retrieval will be done by Dr. Colleague whom I have never even met. The nurse who called to go over my retrieval instructions was like, "Oh, don't worry, she's nice."

Nice? I don't care if she's a raging bitch - I just want to make sure she's able to retrieve the Lone Egg. This is very important to me, even though I'm fairly certain that she won't make it to blast.

Yes, our plan is still to try to grow everything out to blast, ours and the donor embryos. I am feeling like this is still the right decision for us. Thankfully, Mr. Hope agrees.

Tonight, at exactly 10:45 p.m., I will take my Ovidrel trigger shot. Then, 36 hours later, Dr. Colleague will go up in my lady business to retrieve the Lone Egg. They'll perform ICSI, and, if everything works out, our fertilized embie will start to grow, grow, grow.

Saying goodbye to Fave NP today was bittersweet. We've grown quite close, this cycle in particular. She hugged me at the end and wished me luck. I felt a little teary-eyed. Sure, it could've been the hormones. But it was more likely the fact that I genuinely like this woman, and feel grateful for the level of care and compassion she's shown me the past several weeks.

On my way out, I got hit with the $2600 bill for the donor services. I was expecting it, so the number itself wasn't a shock. But no one had warned me that the $2600 would be do that day. I had to move the money from savings into checking and then call the bank to get them to up my daily spending limit to accommodate the charge.

As I was working all of this out, I overheard a frantic woman talking with a nurse about being out of her medication. She was asking if Posh Clinic stocked any that she could buy. The nurse asked her what she took and she said Gonal F and Menopur. The Menopur alone was $67 for a single vial; each box holds five vials.

I interrupted them, apologized for eavesdropping, and let the frantic woman know that I had 10 full boxes of Menopur that I was going to donate to Posh Clinic. That's 50 vials of medication - way more than she needed this cycle, but enough for a subsequent cycle. She asked me how much I wanted for them. "Nothing," I said. "I've never had to pay more than $90 for my meds."

She laughed bitterly. "I've already spent four grand."

I knew I wasn't coming back to Posh Clinic until Sunday, possibly Monday, and J lived an hour in the opposite direction from me, so she still needed to buy a couple of vials of Gonal F and one of Menopur. While I was still on hold for the bank, she called the pharmacy to get some stop-gap medication, thinking it would cost less than the clinic. It didn't; they wanted another $3000.

She hung up the phone.

I felt even better about giving J the Menopur. We chatted and it turns out she was a fellow DOR gal, though not as severe as I am. She was also plus-sized (like me), pushing 40 (a little older than me), and had experienced several delays in her cycles - including needing to resolve her Type 2 diabetes (one thing I thankfully didn't have to contend with).

She got teary as we said goodbye and gave me a big hug. It was nice. She said she didn't have a lot of people she could talk about her infertility with. I told her to seek out some super secret Facebook groups of her own, as the one I belong to has literally changed my life.

I know I'll have to start my progesterone in oil (PIO) injections soon enough, but I am so looking forward to a couple of days free from injectibles. My poor stomach has gotten several bruises this cycle. Plus, mixing four vials of Menopur twice a day is kind of a time suck, and I'm always worried I'm not capturing enough of the meds.

Oh, and one other upside to all of this? I won't have anything inside of me on Thanksgiving. Which means I might allow myself a small sliver of pie. Woo hoo!

the one thing he has to do...

Twice a day, every day, I have to prepare four vials of Menopur and inject them into my stomach, along with 20 IUs of microdose Lupron. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes I bleed. Sometimes the needles leave nasty purple bruises that haven't even begun to fade.

Twice a day I do this. Every day for 10 days (so far).

And what does Mr. Hope have to do?

Per Posh Clinic's orders, he has to ejaculate every other day. 

That's it.

I'm shooting up all kinds of crazy hormones, avoiding sugar and flour and other insulin-spiking foods and beverages, driving an hour up to Posh Clinic and back for monitoring and blood work, finding new and creative ways to explain my repeated absences from work -

Meanwhile, my husband's current role in all of this is to make himself come on a semi-regular basis. And he almost always forgets to do it.

That's right. One job. ONE. It's not even an unpleasant one. Yet, every other day, I find myself asking, "Did you jerk it yet?" And every other day, like clockwork, he says, "Didn't I just do that yesterday?"

Oh, Mr. Hope. Dear, sweet, Mr. Hope.

Couldn't you, like, create an Outlook reminder or something? Because, honey, every time I have to remind you to pleasure yourself - literally minutes before I need to stick needles in me - 

Let's just say I silently weep for the injustice of it all.

med o'clock (and other fun times).

Yesterday, when it was time to do my first round of stim injections, I had a moment of complete and utter panic.

First of all, I was a little disorganized. The gimongous carton of fertility meds arrived on Saturday, when Mini-Hope, Mr. Hope's daughter from a previous relationship, was visiting for the weekend. We shoved the box into the bonus room, pausing only to remove the items that needed to be refrigerated.

Before I went in for my baseline appointment, I quickly combed through the contents of the carton, to make sure I had all of the meds I'd need. I realized I was short a vial of progesterone in oil (PIO), but otherwise, everything was there. Then I pawed through a plastic bin of leftover meds and various other supplies from our last IVF attempt in March, to see what was still usable. The only thing that had expired was a box of Crinone, which I'd purchased thrice over and used exactly zero times.

When I got the go-ahead to shoot up, I went into the bonus room to pull together what I needed for the "active" bin. I find the gimongous carton a little overwhelming, so what I do is put a manageable amount of the things I needed in a small bin that resides on my dining room table (can you tell we don't get a lot of company?). Suddenly, my mind went blank. Which needle was I supposed to use for the Menopur? Which one was for the Microdose Lupron? WHY COULDN'T I REMEMBER ANY OF THIS SHIT?

I tried to read the Menopur package insert but I was shaking a little and the tiny printed words weren't making any sense. So I Googled it, found the correct needle size, and grabbed a bag of them for the active bin. At some point, I remembered that the MDL used an insulin needle. I grabbed a couple of cartons of Menopur, some alcohol wipes, a box of Band Aids, and a Sharps container and headed back to the dining room.

My hands shook the entire time I prepared the Menopur. I'm on four vials in the AM and four in the PM. Here's a little background for those of you who've never prepped Menopur: You start by drawing up 1 cc of sterile water, then inject it into a vial of dry powder. You gently swirl until the powder's been dissolved. Then you suck up all of the serum and inject it into the next vial of dry powder. This is where those Q-Caps come in handy. I'm a disaster when it comes to sucking up meds with a super-long needle; the Q-Caps save my ass every single time.

Except, for about three minutes yesterday, I forgot how to use the fucking Q-Cap. And ended up having to read the tiny-print package insert anyway.

But before you can even begin to mix the Menopur, you have to run an alcohol wipe over the tops of all of the vials. And you should really take the MDL out of the fridge about 10-15 minutes before you inject it, because when it's too cold it burns and leaves small, pea-sized bruises on your stomach.

I almost forgot that part.

It took me nearly 25 minutes to remember what I was supposed to do and how I was supposed to do it. But I got there. Eventually.

The whole process moved much more quickly for the PM dosing. And even more quickly this morning. By tonight - Dose #4 - I was back to being an old pro. I got all of it done, top to bottom, in about 14 minutes flat.

Not bad, Agony. Not bad at all.

In other news:

As of this morning, I'm down 10.2 lbs. and can do 40 modified push-ups. And today, I left my lunch bag of snacks at the office when I headed to a half-day offsite meeting. The snacks provided at the conference center included fancy cupcakes, granola bars, and bags of Cheese-Its. I didn't eat a single one of anything, despite the fact that about four hours after I'd eaten my lunch, my stomach started rumbling audibly. I gulped water and pretended like I wasn't ready to gnaw on my own hand.

All in all, I'm pretty proud of myself these days.

Tomorrow, it's back to the offsite location for a full-day meeting. One that starts at 8:15 a.m., which is about 45 minutes before I usually report to work.

Did I mention it's going to be a long week?

baseline (I think).

Drove up to Posh Clinic today for baseline labs and scan. I got the nurse who despises the Menopur Q-Caps today. She couldn't find my uterus for the longest time. I don't exactly understand why or how that works, but I'd reminded her that I only had a right ovary, and after a while she said (without a hint of humor in her voice), "You still have your uterus, though, right?"

These are not things that instill confidence in a woman, I tell you what.

Eventually she located it. But this isn't the interesting part.

The interesting part is that I had an AFC of 8. It doesn't sound like a lot, but my last attempt at IVF, I only had an AFC of 6. An AFC of 8 isn't so bad for a single ovary, especially when you're a woman of a certain age.

This would've been good news except for the fact that I have two other follies, a 13 and a 10. They may be left over from the last cycle, or they may be early growers. If they ARE leftovers, and they resolves themselves or don't grow anymore and some of the 8 babies DO grow, I should be fine. Or, even if they do grow but the 8 babies also grow, I should be fine. 

But if the two big guys grow and none of the little guys grow, I'm looking at being canceled.

Anti Q-Caps asks me, "If your retrieval is canceled, do you still want to do the FET with the donor embryos?"

Well, shit.

I don't know. I don't want to wait any more. I am ready to be a mother. Like, now.

But, um, that AFC of 8? That's a good thing, right? That's...potential.

WHAT THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?

Anti Q-Caps was asking a lot of questions I wasn't sure how to answer. Like, how many of the donor embies do I want to thaw? How many do I want to transfer? I kept saying, "I don't know, it depends on what happens with my cycle."

They're bringing me back in on Friday for more blood work and another scan. Until then, I'm to take my meds as prescribed by Dr. Smiles.

Here's the protocol for this cycle so far. I'm including it because whenever I read infertility blogs I always want to know what drugs people are doing and why.

• Doxycycline, 100 MG twice daily for 10 days
• Microdose Lupron, 20 IUs twice daily until told to stop
• Menopur, 4 vials twice daily until told to stop

That's it (for now). I'll keep updating meds as this cycle progresses. 

And I hope it keeps progressing. Because if we have to make that call - whether or not to go ahead with the FET if our retrieval gets nixed - 

That's a really hard decision to make, is all I'm saying.