It's the end of the world as we know it

and I feel fine. No, actually I don't feel fine. I am not even close to feeling fine. I never thought this IVF was going to fail. I don't just mean fail but really tanked. It wasn't supposed to happen like that...this cycle was supposed to work damn it! Now what?!

I have to admit that I am putting on quite the show. I don't think that even once any outsider has noticed that I am truly dying inside. The tears have stopped falling...at least in front of people. I appears to be "over it" and "ready to move on." But inside, right under the surface I feel like I am stuck in a dark place, waiting for the earth to open up and swallow me whole.

I am trying to figure out the answer to "what's next?" I know I want a career change in a big way. I know that I will never worry about birth control or having sex at the right time. I am even wondering if I am going to keep track of my period these days. I never kept track before...my body always gave me enough warning. So....what's next?

Over the Top

Sherry nominated me for this and I can't wait to fill it out!

1. You can only use one word!
2. Pass this along to 6 of your favorite bloggers!
3. Alert them that you have given them this award!
4. Have fun!

Now onto the fun stuff:

1. Where is your cell phone? pocket
2. Your hair? ponytail
3. Your mother? home
4. Your father? cars
5. Your favorite food? mexican
6. Your dream last night? angry
7. Your favorite drink? beer
8. Your dream/goal? baby
9. What room are you in? living
10. Your hobby? exercise
11. Your fear? electrocution
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? parents
13. Where were you last night? home
14. Something that you aren’t? fertile
15. Muffins? top
16. Wish list item? fertility
17. Where did you grow up? California
18. Last thing you did? read
19. What are you wearing? sweats
20. Your TV? big
21. Your pets? RIP
22. Friends? loyal
23. Your life? vida
24. Your mood? irritated
25. Missing someone? no
26. Vehicle? honda
27. Something you’re not wearing? watch
28. Your favorite store? Express
29. Your favorite color? black
30. When was the last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? last night
32. Your best friend? rocks
33. One place that I go to over and over? store
34. One person who emails me regularly? family
35. Favorite place to eat? home

I will come back later to nominate some blogger for this fun award.

The call that never came

Right after ER, we were told by my RE that my right ovary had no eggs in any of the nine follies. To say I was devastated would be an understatement at best. I went home and told myself that maybe they were wrong. I waited and waited for a call from my clinic; a call saying guess what? We were wrong and we really did get some eggs from your right ovary. Sadly, that call never came.

Say what?

What?!?!

I had someone recently ask me, "why did you choose to have your embryos transferred instead of implanted?" My response, "I like a good challenge and figured I would do it the hard way." Insert loud sigh and eye roll here please.

For the love of Pete Sakes* people, no man or woman can "implant" an embryo. If that were the case, IVF would have a much higher success rate and no infertile women would try other methods of conceiving a child. You can however have embryos transferred into your uterus and from there God, mother nature or whomever/whatever you believe in will choose. Implant or don't implant.

I wish the media would get their terminology correct. It is stories like the Octo-Mom or the Mom with the wrong embie that make fertility treatments seem like a joke. Ok, maybe not a joke but it is a blow to those of us trying to have a baby by using IVF. I think by sensationalizing how these women were "implanted" with embryos, those us doing IVF are treated like we did something wrong. We did not have our embies implanted, therefore we don't want it as bad as the Octo-mom. And if you have some "educated" (read: know it all) talking to you about your IVF, they don't want to be informed that they have it all wrong. You can't choose the best eggs only, you can't add more drugs after your ER reveals one ovary did not give you any eggs and you don't get the option to do anything special to make sure every embie you do get is perfect. Finally, by questioning if I (or other women doing IVF) have looked into all the options and know "for sure" that I am doing the best that I can do isn't going to change the outcome. You don't walk into IVF blind and no, the Octo-moms doctor is not the right doctor for me. She got lucky, the doctor did not do anything other then over transferring embies into her, to improve her chances for success. And, yes, I am sure that I got my embies and yes, I am sure my eggs were fertilized with Scott's sperm.

I don't believe for one minute that a women chooses IVF over sex for conception intentionally. I will skip the whole "but I want to be a single mom" people here since clearly that is different bird of another feather. Seriously, I don't ever recall waking up one morning and thinking to myself "damn, IVF sounds fun. I will save up my pretty pennies and then fork over $15K for a procedure that has a 35% chance of working for me, because I think IVF is groovy and I want to be part of the cool club." Instead, I hoped and prayed that I too can get pregnant from sex, just like they said happens in high school, and can fore go the painfully expensive, emotional and physically stressful and sometimes painful procedure called IVF. But nooooo, damn my infertile body for refusing to cooperate.

*Yes, I know...I got that saying all wrong. Before you lecture me on my terminology being wrong, let me say I just admitted to having the saying wrong. But, I have been saying it that way for so long now that I am not sure I will ever say it the right way. Besides, "for the love of Pete Sakes" versus "confusion between transferred/ implanted" is not the same.

2 Day Transfer

Transferred in 4 zygotes. I had a 2 celled with 2% fragmention, grade Z3. I have a 3 celled with 5% frag., graded Z2 (doc thinks this is the best). I had 2 four celled both with less then 5% frag. Only one was graded at a Z3. The Z is the grading stands for zygote and all 2 days are graded by my clinic this way. Z1 is the best and he said they see those less then once per month. Most pregnancies for my clinic occur with Z2 and Z3. The ungraded 4 cell I had the egg was slightly misshapen but can still lead to a normal pregnancy and healthy baby. I have about 7% chance of triplets or higher. They did assisted hatching on 2 of the 4 embies.

Boy, that's cut and dry. But that's how I feel right now. My heart just hurts that this is my last chance, my hail Mary if you will.

What I am about to write next is something that I can't even bring myself to say out loud. This may offend some people and for that I am sorry.

This cycle has me completely questioning my faith in God. My God. I am not religious per say but I do believe in God. I do believe that I need to have faith in God. As with every cycle, I prayed. Please God, let this cycle be easy, let me get enough eggs and find that perfect egg that will be my baby. Please God, I am not being greedy and asking for more then one baby. With that said, this cycle started off great. I had (for me) a record high antral follicle count. I stimmed perfectly and my E2 rose as it should. My lining was nice and thick, "triple lining." My follies grew evenly and everything appeared to be in order. Even my RE was expecting at least 10 to 12 eggs from me. Again, a record. I thought my prayers had been answered. Imagine our surprise when he (the RE) comes back into the room post ER and tells me there was not a single egg from my right ovary. This is usually my lazy ovary and surprised us by having 9 follicles. Not one egg came from those 9 follicles. WTF?! My left ovary had 6 follies, which for me is average and produced 6 eggs. I needed those 6 eggs to be perfect. After bursting into tears, I said a small mental prayer (not the first for this cycle). Please God, I prayed, let those 6 eggs be good ones. Let them all fertilize. So, when my RE called me one day post ER, I knew it was bad news. Sure enough, the eggs weren't great. One was totally abnormal. One was misshapen. One was immature and allowed two sperm to fertilize it. More WTF?!?! I was saddened beyond words to hear that I was now scheduled for a 2 day transfer.

Once again, I prayed. Please God, by day 2 let the embies be perfect. I promise to put them all back in me and take my chances if you let them all be perfect. I guess, I should hope that the embies I put back into me are perfect. I don't know. All I know is that my faith is shaken and that scares me more then I can put into words.

Once more, I pray, Please God, let this cycle work. Give me my turn. I just want one healthy baby to raise and love. I don't care if I have a boy or a girl. Please don't shake my faith more then it already is shaken. I just don't know if I can handle that. I just don't know if I can handle another failure. I just don't know that I am willing to make another sacrifice and live child free. I am afraid of who or what I will turn into if this cycle fails. Please God, let me have my chance to be a mommy.

No time for catchy tittles...

"Sometimes people just have to make decisions to distance them from the things that make them hurt so much. I think at least for my sanity, I need to start focusing on something besides ttc/kids or I'll end up in an institution or lose the love of my life, so this is one way that will help me. I need to focus on all the blessings in my life and not the one thing that tortures me so much these days. We all know how hard it is (no matter what we say) to be happy for everyone else having babies when we don't have one ourselves. It really, really, really hurts to no end. I sometimes cry for hours on end and my heart literally hurts."

Not my words but sums up my weekend, my life so perfectly. Now about those blessings...

The Pre-ER fears

As I sit here and type this, I am afraid. I know this is normal and I recall this fear last cycle. I am afraid that I will ovulate before ER. I am afraid that I will go to my appointment tomorrow and I will get bad news. I am afraid of finding out there is a lead follie and the rest stopped growing. I am afraid I won't make it to ER. Of course, once ER is done, I am afraid that my eggs won't fertilize or that we will need ICSI. I am afraid that even the ones that do fertilize won't grow. Most importantly, I am afraid that my IVF won't work. I know that every women undergoing IVF feel this way. I know this is a common fear. I know that I am not alone but I sure do feel that way.

Not I just have to wait and see what tomorrow brings.