Decisions, Decisions...

It has been an interesting week, to say the least.  First off I've been in a dark place emotionally.  Not really low or sad, just a dark mood.  One of those moods where you very likely will bite some one's head off for looking at you the wrong way...  I have not been fun to live with.  What is really different is that JD has also been in this type of mood.  So the two of us were continually bickering.  We are both under an immense amount of pressure with our business', and well you know the regular IF stresses.  At one point it all comes to head together.  Things with business are not going to get any less stressful for a little while, but we are used to this, and we are pretty good at managing to keep that stress at the office where it belongs!

We had a big decision to make over the weekend regarding our IF battle. 

We received an e-mail last week from our original agency that handled our nightmare DE Cycle #1.  It was a very nice e-mail about how they had been reviewing their year, and our case kept sticking with them.  We were the failure that was supposed to have succeeded.  Beautiful embryos, great lining, young uterus (yeah right!), all the stars were aligned, we just fell into the unlucky stats.  They are offering us an all inclusive cycle for a discounted price of $8,500 (US).  They apparently just don't feel right about leaving us behind.

Now keep in mind our cycle including the FET cost us $36,000.  So this really is a serious discount.  What I liked about this e-mail was their ability to share the fault of our lack of success without actually saying we fucked up!  Which they did... 

Now obviously this should be a no brainer...  No Thank You!  We've moved on...  But...For some reason this gave JD and I a moment's pause.  We have talked about going with them again as recently as June.  We really did like our Dr, our donor, and everyone affiliated with the agency.  And I can't blame them for our failures, I mean c'mon since then we've removed my tubes and found them to be toxic. 

Bottom line is this though.  We have so far to date proven to be a tough case.  Regardless of our age (not such a young pup anymore!) we very likely may need more than 1 transfer to be successful.  If we did the discounted cycle, there is no guarantee that we will have frosties.  And there really isn't enough $ left over to do another full fresh cycle with anyone else.  No we are going to stay at Shady45.  We are going to roll the dice.  We are going to pray that if we are successful on our first transfer that there might (God help me here) be frosties left over for siblings. 

I will send an e-mail to the original agency today.  I will recommend that they change their protocol to include a mock for every patient, so no one has to go through what we did.  I will cheekily tell them I am now with another clinic, but if they would like to refund the money for the vitrification I would find that  a satisfactory apology for their part to play in our failure...  :) 

Who's Afraid of an Ultrasound?

That would be me! I have not had 1 good ultrasound yet... Oh sorry I may have had one good one when I was like 16!!! But not while we've been trying to have a baby. There's always, always been multiple cysts, tubes blocked, no follicles, or my lining is too thin when it should be nice, plump, and ready to rock!

In case you didn't pick up on it...my u/s is tomorrow morning. I am terrified that I will be benched yet again. I don't feel like the medication is doing anything. No CM, no hot flashes, a little bit of headache, but I think that's stress more than anything. So unfortunately at this point I am going tomorrow with a negative feeling, which doesn't ever help anything.

I guess it wouldn't be horrible to be benched again... I'm still training an employee to cover Mr. M's old job and I lose another member of my staff at the end of the month because they are going back to University. So maybe I'm looking at this wrong. Maybe being benched for one more month is a blessing. Maybe in the grand scheme of things, the universe is waiting until I am less stressed to allow me a good shot. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what tomorrow brings.

Baker's Dozen...

Retrieval went well yesterday. They retrieved 16, but 3 were immature, so we have 13 on ice waiting for us. Yahh! I'm up to 8 mg of Estrace a day, and I go for a lining check on Friday. Fingers crossed we actually get to a transfer this month!

Today is the Day!!!

Today is our (angel) donor's retrieval. I'm so nervous! I really hope and pray that everything goes well, and that we have a few to play with! If God only chooses these next 3 weeks to listen and help...well it would make everything worth while. It would mean we haven't battled through the worst couple of years for nothing. I'll post an update when I get it!

Fingers crossed!

Where to begin...?

Well since my last post JD and I had to make some very tough decisions. One about our cycle and one about our business. I'll start with our cycle...

Our donor is on a runaway train, so we had to make the decision to either 1. Egg Vitrification or 2. Fly JD down fertilize the eggs, grow to day 3 and freeze. After hours of crying, talking and research we have decided to freeze the eggs. No one here in Canada and very few in the States have mastered the Vitrification process, but we feel comfortable with the clinic we are travelling to, and they have guaranteed us only a 3% loss.

I am now back on Estrace (tablets - oral) rather than the patches that I had a bad reaction to. I go for my first ultra sound in 9 days. So we'll see if I'm still an August Angel!

Now onto business...

I came back to work yesterday to discover my Assistant Manager stealing from us. He has worked with me for 3 years. I have a small office of 3 other employees, so it's near impossible not to become friends when you work together for so long. The more I dug yesterday the more I found. I kept trying to tell myself there has to be an explanation... There isn't one! So today JD, his Dad, and I walked into the office at open, and took said employee into the back office, confronted him with what we found. The discussion took 2 hours, but in the end we had to fire him. I'm sick to my stomach that this has happened. He is a wonderful person who made a very bad mistake and breached our trust. There is just no way that we can keep him, but I do wish we could. Today is a very sad day for me. I've just lost my good friend, and an asset to my office. But JD and I are liable for our 2 business' and we are not willing to risk our future for this...

I'm OUT

I had a full period start last night. My donor is still stimming, but we will now have to make a decision to either freeze the eggs, or JD flies down, done his thing, grow embies to day 3 and freeze, for future FET. I don't know what we are doing yet. I'm still having a hard time with the fact that my body has failed me yet again. SUCKS!

My Body SUCKS!!!

Today was my lining check. That sucked! My lining hasn't really moved. I was 3.5 on Day 2 now Day 10 I'm 4.5... Dosage has been upped to include Estrace (orally) 4 mg 2x daily. Not bad until...tonight... Now I am having a full AF! WTF! What does this do to the cycle? 2 periods in 10 days! Only me! I can't even thicken up properly for a cycle. For crying out loud!!!

I'm just going to have to wait to see what the Re's have to say tomorrow when they find out. There's nothing I can do (obviously)! No amount of tears is going to make it stop or convince my body to co-operate. What confuses me is that my blood work was good today, it showed I was suppressed, so then why an AF now??? I don't get it!

Hopefully tomorrow my cycle will still be on. Hopefully tomorrow we'll have some answers!

Vacation has Started!

Today was my last day at the office for 3 yes 3 weeks! Woot! Woot! JD and I had discussed me taking a week off before and after our Donor cycle. And now it is all actually happening! The count down is on! I go for my follow up u/s on Wednesday, and I believe my donor does as well. So I should have our itinerary and our travel arrangements by Thursday this week! Very exciting stuff!

JD had a biopsy last week on his tongue, he had white spots on the sides that we (the dentist and us) had tried to take care of for the last 2 months, but they weren't going away. So off to an ortho surgeon we went. Unfortunately JD isn't recovering as quick as we would like from the biopsy on his tongue. He called the clinic today and the Dr. confirmed it was a large piece he took out so he's not really surprised it's still bugging him 4 days after! Neither the dentist or the ortho surgeon believe it is anything to worry about as it doesn't have the cancer characteristics, but it still makes us nervous. JD tried to get out of the biopsy because the results from it will be coming in the same time as the results from our cycle. But that's how life works doesn't it! Everything happens at once, good or bad!

Next update - Wednesday ultrasound and blood work!!!

*PS*
Thanks for your comments they did help bring my spirits up. And I really am trying to be optimistic and keep the negative thoughts our of my head! Thanks again it means a lot to me!

Here we go...

So I had my Lupron shot last Thursday. I had my u/s on Tuesday this week and I started my estrogen patches on Wednesday! Woot! Woot! I have another u/s and b/w next Wednesday and so does my donor. Then we nail down our travel arrangements. Currently we are looking at travelling on Aug 4 with and ER on Aug 5 and a transfer of Aug 10. I think Aug is a great month to get pregnant. There's my little bit of optimism coming through!!! Woot! Woot!

I said to JD today if it doesn't work at least I get to be pregnant for a week! Here's hoping though that it is for 9 months!!! All we can do is pray!

Day 1!

Apparently all I need is 1 night of Provera! LOL! I guess AF was hanging just around the corner. Kind of funny though, I'm actually happy about it. It means I'm not fully into menopause yet! Woot! Woot! Doesn't mean I'm going to try with my own eggs, but I feel a little less broken today! Now I have to contact the Donor Coordinator and let them know, and my clinic so they can call in my prescription for b/c... And so it begins...

Tonight though I'm am going out with a longtime friend, who I haven't seen in 4 years! He moved to Calgary 4 years ago. But he's back in town for the night so we are going to take him out to The K.eg for dinner, and catch up. We will not be telling him what we are preparing to do, at least I don't think we will. I'll leave that up to JD. Our friend is very, very religious, and I don't think his religion is very accepting of ART technologies. So I'd rather not share and make it uncomfortable. Saying that though my employee is Muslim and he's rather excited at what we are doing. He's told me in his culture this would not be accepted, but that doesn't mean he can't support us in our goal. I love Laser!!! He's just a wonderful man, father, friend and employee. We really are pretty fortunate with the people we've chosen to surround ourselves with. They are a breath of fresh air at times!