I'm off... no more thinking about IF and treatment for 5 days!

Day 5 IVF Prep

Today is my only day to be at work this week! Yesterday was a holiday, and tomorrow through Friday I will be on vacation. Yippee!

My prescription order is okay. It was faxed on Friday after all, and the pharmacy will send it (and charge my credit card) about 4 days before I need it. That's one less thing to worry about.

Day 4 of IVF Prep

In a note to another email list, I wrote:
The reason I'm taking bcp now is to regulate my cycle so that my own hormones don't get in the way of the hormones I'll be taking by injection to make lots of follicles. There is a "down regulation" phase, where I will take drugs to stop my hormones, then there is a "stimulation" phase where I will take drugs to make lots of follicles mature (instead of the normal 1 or 2 per cycle), then there is the retrieval where my follicles (which hold the eggs) will be removed and fertilized (in vitro = in a lab) with my husbands sperm, then there is the transfer, when (most likely) 3 fertilized eggs will be transferred into my uterus.

IVF Timetable and Embryo Grading

The stick for blood went easy on the first try for a change! I was in and out of there in less than 10 minutes, and I was even almost on time for Sunday School. (I would have been if I hadn't stopped at McDonald's drive-thru for breakfast.)

Last night DH and I discussed what he should say to people if anyone asked where I was. We both attend extremely regularly, "religiously" you could say. (Ha ha!) It's a small church, so people notice if we are gone unexpectedly, particularly if only one of us is gone. We had decided on a truthful, yet vague, "She had something personal come up." I don't even know if anyone asked him... no one said anything to me. I'm relieved.

My next thing to worry about is the side effects of the BCPs. The literature warns of nausea, and my sister and my email list mentioned that also. I start taking them while on vacation, so that could really mess up my plans. :-(

Day 3 of IVF Preparation

I'm off to get my blood drawn again. I hope they are more proficient at finding a vein than the last 2 times when they ended up having to stick me in both arms.

Mood: pretty good -- slept late today and had a nice afternoon shopping with my sister and 7 month old niece, then dinner with them and DH
Physical symptons: none

Day 2 of IVF Preparation -- Yeah, I'm up late, it's still "Friday night" in my head, though.

I got my prescription of birth control pills filled this evening. That was weird; I've never used them before, and now that I am trying to have a baby I have to buy birth control pills. Ain't it ironic! My cost was 25% of what I was quoted over the phone, so my insurance company must treat them like most other pills. I was expecting to pay 50% of the quoted price, so that was a nice surprise.

I also don't start taking them until Day 7, so I'm confident that I will need only 2 packs, instead of possibly needing to buy a third pack for just a few pills.

Here we go! Day 1 of IVF Preparation

After 2 days of thinking it would be the day my cycle started, it finally has started, right on time. I'm having my Day 3 fsh and e2 labs done on Sunday morning, and I'm not happy about the time of day, but that's the way things will go now -- IF treatment has first priority on my time, unfortunately. The nurse was going to fax my boatload of Rx's to the pharmacy today, but we had a mix-up and it probably won't get done until Tuesday. Actually she forgot to write down the name of my pharmacy, then when she called me back to ask, I was on the phone (with the pharmacy) so she left a number for me to call, but when I called, a modem answered. I tried faxing a note to the number, but the fax wouldn't go through. Since they close at noon on Fridays I called the "emergency" number to have her paged and got a different nurse. So I called the pager service back to have the other pager called, but that lady said the other pager was turned off. I'm annoyed at the nurse, but it's actually okay, because I won't be needing any of those drugs for a couple of weeks yet.

Mood: crabby, and I'm not even on any drugs yet!
Physical symptons: normal minor period bloated and crampy feelings

Still waiting...

INCIID HOME PAGE 2001

Well, I was wrong. Yesterday wasn't Day 1. Maybe today. :-(

It feels like today is going to be my next Day 1. It's a couple of days before I expected it, but that's okay with me! This way I will get to do my Day 3 lab work with my PCP and have my insurance pay for it. If I start tomorrow through Saturday, then I can get the blood work done at my RE's and probably get insurance to pay. If I start Sunday, that's okay for having the blood work done at my PCP, but if I don't start until Monday I will have to have the blood work done while on vacation out of state at my own expense.

I hope I can say "for sure" that today is the day by 4:30 when my RE's office closes.

Things are pretty much in a holding pattern right now. I'm still waiting for my period to start so I can start the IVF prep, but it's not due for several days yet, so I'm just waiting. I need to get my birth control prescription filled soon, so I'll have it when the time comes.

We're also trying to make sense of our year-to-date medical charges and payments (both ours and from insurance) so we can file with our medical savings account and get some of the money "back". It's not really getting money back, but just making it come out of pre-tax income instead of regular taxed income. I'm going to have to ask for a detail of all charges back to when I started going to the specialist so make sense of it all.

RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association

A friend on a email list asked us all if she was being selfish... "When do you think it is time to 'give up' that maybe all of this is happening because that's what God has in store for me. Do you think I'm just being selfish? Maybe I need to be blessed with what I have."

Those are questions that I have struggled with, too. And I don't have have any kids yet. Even though we haven't been doing IF treatment very long compared to some ladies on the email list, my DH and I have wondered the same thing... should we accept life without children as the direction God has for us? We know we can influence many children in positive ways both in our family (6 nieces/nephews close by) and at church, and even in our neighborhood. And except for wanting children, we are very happy with our lives, we have good jobs, hobbies we like, we serve our church (singing & committees), we get to travel a lot, have a good retirement nest egg (already, in our 30s), no debt except for the house, and a decent savings account. Where is God leading us? I don't know. Last year at a communion service, I prayed for God to take away my desire for a child if I wasn't supposed to have kids. Interestingly, I think the desire is less, but it is certainly not gone.

We are trying to find out where the line is... when "enough is enough". And that is hard to know.

I'm starting to really get into the planning for my IVF cycle. I did a lot of searching on the web yesterday for drug prices. If I need the estimated amounts in the IVF handbook from my RE's office, then it will cost about $2500. Of course, if I am on any of them longer, then it will be more. Almost all of it is not covered by my insurance.

I'm really ready to get started with this.

Someone on my AdvancedHope email list posted this link: Infertility: Good Eggs, FSH levels and Ovarian Reserve: The Egg Factor and I really learned a lot. Now I know why I need that Day-3 lab work done even while I am on vacation.

I rented a movie last weekend called "Inconceivable" that I want to recommend. It is made by an independent film maker, so it might be hard to find, but it is well worth the extra effort looking.

The director and his wife (the writer) went through infertility and in the director's clip he says that this for people trying to get pregant and anyone who helps people try to get pregnant. It was light hearted in the approach, really funny in places, too true in places, and overall very entertaining. I think it was probably PG or PG13 because there was only one naked butt, and no frontal nudity. No graphic violence, and since I don't remember foul lanugage, that was probably pretty mild, too.

Mother's Day is only 2 days away. I hope that this year won't be as hard as last year.

Here is a web site that has tips for getting through "Parent's Days" Hannah's Prayer Holiday Helps.

Their 7 tips for Surviving "Parent's Days" are:

1. Focus on your parents


2. Be honest with yourself


3. Plan ahead


4. Treat yourself


5. Don't let other ruin your day


6. Let yourself grieve

and

7. Give it to God (again)

With this coming Sunday being Mother's Day, one of my email lists received this post from me:

Last year Mother's Day was SO HARD for me! My mom died almost 3 years ago. The first Mother's Day without her I spent with my Dad I think and also went out to the cemetery; I don't remember it being too tough; I guess I was still in shock mode a bit since it was the first one without her.

Last year, I was just starting IF treatment, and my (younger) sister was about 4 months PG (after a MC). I had the overwhelming feeling of loss, both of my mom and of not becoming a mother. I quietly bawled my eyes out right in church. Fortunately people thought I was crying over Mom (which I was), so they didn't ask questions that I didn't want to answer.

This year I don't know what will happen, but I plan to be with my Dad for a short time that day after church, but mostly alone with DH. I have a darling niece, whom I got to see being born, and I love her and my sis and BIL dearly. I started to write up her birthstory for my sister right after her birth, but never finished it. I want to give it to her Sunday, but I don't think I will get it done -- unless I work on it a lot on Saturday.

Doing that will either help me cope or will be very hard to do.

Yesterday was a crazy day! It was very emotionally draining. I'm still recovering.

Tuesday night my husband and I practiced giving shots to an orange. That was very stressful for him, and therefore somewhat stressful for me. He had an interview scheduled for Wednesday morning, and neither of us slept well. Wednesday morning, I had a crazy day at work. A 2 hour meeting was scheduled from 9-11 to plan for a new computer we're getting, the vendors were here 30 minutes early, my co-worker was not in yet, and we had system trouble. The director wanted to do the switch on Sunday morning, Mother's Day, but I talked him out of that. One piece of software that is crucial has to be upgraded, but I thought the vendor was providing that -- I have to do it. Normally we freeze software changes for 2-4 weeks before this big of a change, but I have 7 "working days" and the tape with the software upgrade isn't here yet.

The meeting went long, I had to have a separate extra discussion with the vendor about the software, then rush off to grab lunch on the way to my RE's office for the IVF class. I know people are nervous about it so they ask a lot of questions, but they guy sitting next to me had not read the handbook or watched the video, and one gal on the other side of the room asked the same question several times after it had been answered quite clearly from my perspective.

My patience is short and I'm physically and emotionally drained.

Oh, and we got our estimated cost: $7000, not counting meds, which are expected to be $2500-3000 since I will be on the "long protocol" (whatever that means). And our insurance doesn't cover any of this (except the Hepatitus and HIV tests, and probably the antibiotics and maybe the birth control pills).

We question whether trying to have a baby is worth all of the emotional, mental, spiritual, physical, and financial strain. We have a hard time reconciling trusting God to give us children if it is what God wants, and doing all that we can to help ourselves with the medical information and technology that humans understand.

Tomorrow's our IVF class. It's going to seem so much more real then. Even with all of the things that we have tried so far, IVF seems like such a huge jump.

My husband and I have both read the 60+ page handbook, and I've watched the video. He still needs to watch it tonight, but since we had to watch one before I started the injectables before, it shouldn't be too overwhelming. The biggest hurdle will be convincing him that he can give me the IM shots.