9dp3dt (aka beta eve)

Here I sit pondering the events of today thinking it would just drag on. Thankfully it didn't and I got through without freaking out. Mr. Bags has been cheerful and upbeat all day and probably also thankful I remained even keeled today. :)

I spent most of the day running house errands and reflecting on remembering 9/11. We don't have cable so I relied on the radio and Internet to reflect. NPR occupied the airspace with tributes, stories and accounts of people who had lived through the Pentagon attacks. Although having to relive the events of that awful day was sad and mournful, it proved to be quite distracting from beta thoughts. I hope that doesn't sound wrong.

I am mostly mournful for all of those innocent lives lost in those senseless acts.  It made me feel very grateful for the lives Mr. Bags and I have along with friends and family that we hold dear. Whatever the outcome tomorrow and the days to come on our journey we WILL survive and will draw strength from each other.

Catch you on the flip side of beta day! Eeeeek!

Next hoop cleared

Well we cleared the next hurdle and are ready for what is to come. The lining looked great on Friday and we are ready to move forward to thawing some embabies!!

We are going to start with 5 and see how they do. Depending on how they thaw and grow we will decide how many to put back the morning of the transfer. I will call that morning to see how things are looking and we'll go from there. If all looks good we'll make the trek and put back 1 or 2 if they are good quality. If they aren't looking all that great they'll keep growing them to see who makes it to blast and then transfer back 1 or 2 on day 5.

I start progesterone supps tonight along with the estrogen I'm already taking.

With all we've had going on my mind hasn't really been focusing on this cycle which can be a good thing. But I have definitely been emotionally scattered. Losing a parent is such a surreal and transforming thing. I never thought I'd be having to deal with this kind of thing until I was much older and they had chances to be grandparents.

But I can truly say I'm getting excited now that I can really see the possibility of giving my mom her first grandchild. The joy that it will bring to her life is something I can not wait to see!

The Circle of Life

Sorry I haven't updated. Reason being the day after retrieval my dad lost his battle with Alzheimer's Disease. This has been a whirlwind journey through IF in general for sure and to add that on top of it just leaves us speechless.

The good news is the retrieval went really well! We ended up getting 14 eggs!!!! This totally took us by surprise as we were thinking the most we would get would be 10 or 12. The polyp was also removed and all is well so far with that.

Here comes the "circle of life" part. Literally 35 minutes after my dad passed the clinic called to say that 10 eggs had fertilized and we have 10 frozen embryos!!! I was very moved by that news never mind my already emotional state. One life comes to a close and potentially one or two more begin. Amazing how life works isn't it?

I've since then gone for my baseline for the FET and began taking estrogen last Friday. I go in for a lining check on the 26th. If all looks good I'll start the progesterone and we'll do the transfer on 9/2. I asked the RE about how many we're going to defrost and he wanted to wait to discuss that at my next appt. I'm thinking let's start with 5 and see how it goes. Any thoughts?

A mind of its own

We went down to have our first u/s and things were looking really good. I've got 10 follies growing and all at good sizes between 10-12mm. Then the RE took a look at my lining. As soon as he began scanning I new something wasn't right. I've seen enough of the inside of my uterus to know what it should look like at this stage. Instead of a lovely straight line there was a circular form in the middle. I also knew something wasn't right when the RE made a short "hm" sound as he continued to examine the blob. He told me what he thought it was and did a sonohysterogram right there to confirm his suspicions.

So I've decided my uterus has a mind of its own and likes to F*** things up just for the fun of it. First a septum, then a phantom pregnancy and now....wait for it.....a 2cm polyp. That's right, my independent uterus has decided to grow a polyp and delay this cycle. Mr. Bags has decided to name it John Goodman. Why do you ask? It just came to him..."IVF: The musical...staring John Goodman as the polyp" winner of 47 Tony's (one for each month we've been trying)...all we can do it try to laugh at this point right? Ha!

Now for the rest of the story....so I'm continuing to stim until today and will go back down for another u/s tomorrow. At that point the RE will determine if I need to stim one more day and then when to trigger. We'll have the ER either on Wed. or Thur.. During the ER he will remove the polyp. All the eggs retrieved will be fertilized and they will do a "freeze all". After that I'll have to wait a month to heal and get my period. Then we will do an FET hopefully at the end of Aug. or early Sept.

Needless to say we were both really disappointed and thoroughly pissed at my uterus, but it was just a reminder that as much as we are trying to control this process we are NOT in control and there is a reason for this happening. There have been a couple small silver linings that have come out of this so far. One good and one not so good.

I believe I mentioned before that my father has Alzheimer's. We placed him in a facility about a month ago and he has since experienced a rapid decline. In fact I have a feeling he'll probably be leaving us within the next few weeks. So in light of the inevitable stress that is going to cause, it's prob good that I won't be in a 2ww when/if that happens.

Life forages on...as we are trying to create one...one will be ending. Ironic isn't it?