Four Weeks Down!

Today is 4w1d and I'm doing surprisingly well, still sane. I'm well prepared for my call. Well, prepared to actually pick up the phone and say hello, not for what they might say. The cell phone is fully charged and always within ear shot, I practice remaining calm every time it rings and I have my list of questions ready for when I go blank.

I talked to my nurse as I requested to get started on the FET since it's a 6 week process. The prep starts with BCPs on cd3 and I'm about 9 days away from that. At first she wasn't going to let me start before my results are in, I was not too happy about that. My cycles are pretty long after 4 IVFs and to wait for another cycle would put me doing the transfer end of Sept. Guess what that means? My one-day workup would be expiring and we would have to pay another $3500 to repeat that. No thank you!

Her reasons were that my results could take up to 8 wks and it wouldn't be good to have to keep me on Estrogen longer than required. Well I nixed that, I'll be at the 8 wk mark before I would start Estrogen. The other reason was what if I don't get any normals back, I would have nothing to transfer and I would have done the prep for nothing. I told her I'd take that risk.

She finally agreed and sent me my tentative FET calendar. Good gravy there's a lot of drugs for a FET! Looks like my tentative transfer date would be Aug 11. I'll post my calendar when time comes.

In other news:

Happy Birthday Mom!!! Love you as big as the sky and have really been enjoying our weekly mother-daughter time! Next year I'll make you a grandma, I promise! Hmmm, how many years have I said that? ;-)


Some of you may remember me mentioning my 93 yr old grandmother, the funny one... well it's been a rough week for her. To make a long story short, here's the short run-on sentence version. She went to the hospital for bad stomach pains, they thought it was appendicitis, they did laparoscopy, found her appendix to be fine, removed it just in case, cut into her to do some exploratory, couldn't find anything other than a little scar tissue. The surgery caused her a ton of pain, she was extremely bloated, couldn't eat/drink. A few days after surgery she was helped to the bathroom, felt like she was going to faint and did. Her heart stopped. They performed CPR on the bathroom floor, got her heart going, put her in ICU on a ventilator and sedated her.

It scared the living day lights out of all of us. They couldn't really find any reason for this, her heart looked really good.

Yesterday they took her off the ventilator and have drained several liters of fluid out of her stomach. She still has a tube in through her nose and into her stomach, but she's awake and doing good. She's already cracking jokes. Here's a few of her one liners:

* Austin peeked under her covers to see how full her urine bag was and she says; You're a boy, you're not supposed to look up my skirt!

* We showed her the tube that's draining fluid out of her stomach, the fluid was green. She says; Oh goodness, I'm molding.

* Out of the blue she starts belly laughing hysterically, the entire hospital bed was shaking. We asked her to let us in on the joke and she says; I'm making bubbles, you might smell something.

Today she was able to walk around for a little bit and we are so blessed that we are getting more time with her.

To my dear sweet funny Betty Boop. I love you so much and so relieved that you're still here with us. You always tell me that I'm beautiful and that you love me to pieces. The first thing you said to me at the hospital through all your pain was; you're so pretty. My Betty, it's YOU that's the beautiful one!

Betty Boop and I:


Can you believe she bowls?!?!



I want to be just like her when I grow up!

Happy Father's Day!

Sending out a Happy Father's Day to all the fathers in my life.

To my Dad: Though the miles separate us, you're never far from my heart. It's been 1yr 5mo since I've seen you and I miss you soooo much! You have always been there for me and made sure I was happy and provided for. I have so much of you in me it's crazy. I'm sad that you've stopped reading my blog because you will most likely never see this message, but in case you do, I'm shouting out to the entire www, I love you dad!


To my Step-Dad: You've been in my life since I was 4. I'm proud of who you've become. You never fail to smile when I walk through the door. You give me a big bear hug and a kiss on the forehead every time I arrive and depart. The years have done you well, from a mean old fart to a kind old heart. Love you!


To my Father-in-Law: You have such a sweet spirit. You never fail to show your love. You always work your way through a crowd to make sure I get a big hug squeeze and tell me how proud you are of me. I'm proud of you too! Thanks for producing such a great son!


To the Father of my Step-Son: The way you love your son completely, unconditionally, through all the good and bad, is nothing short of amazing. You raised a son that loves people, serves people and has an incredible kind heart, just like you. Well done!

Also to the future Father of my child: We have been through the wringer trying to bring this child into reality, no doubt about that. This trial has only made us stronger and our love deeper. I love how much you want to have a child with me. You tell me you can't wait to see our child in my arms. I too can't wait. There's no doubt in my mind that you will once again be an amazing father. (Lord, please give this man a baby soon, his teenager is getting too big to cradle!)


I am so blessed to have 3 amazing dads here on earth and an amazing father in heaven! Love to all of you... Happy Father's Day!

Three Weeks Down!

Not much to report as I'm just stuck in a holding pattern. I could receive my CGH results in as early as 1 week or as long as 5 weeks. This is my last week before my cell phone and I become one, so I will thoroughly enjoy this week.

In other random news....

I received my grades for my last class:

Assignment 1: 91%
Assignment 2: 97%
Assignment 3: 92%
Programming Assignment: 100%
Final Exam: 95%!!!!!! (Ha! I was worried I failed!)
Final Grade: A

I requested my transcript to see where I'm at on my GPA as I've been taking classes here and there for the last 10 years. HO-LEE-COW, I have a 4.0!!!! Wow, I feel so smart! Well, more like I'm just a really hard worker who puts everything I got into whatever I'm going after. It was not easy by any means. Next class is Theory of Computation, ughhhhh, vomit! I think I'll be taking another long break.

I'm very happy to report that I'm past my Chef Boyardee phase. Thanks for all the disgustment, it brought a much needed reality check of how bad that stuff is! I haven't given up the Ben & Jerry's, but I've dumped all other junk. Now I need to get into an exercise program to lose all this comfort food weight. I tell Kerry I'm just gently stretching my belly preparing for baby, it helps reduce stretch marks ya know! ;-) I don't know what Kerry's excuse is for his growing belly! His 93 yr old grandmother pointed at his roll and said "now you're too young to be building a shed over your tool". She is hilarious!

Back in January, I put $4000 in a FSA (flexible spending account) that allows me to use tax free money to pay for medical expenses. I filled out a claim form and was going to submit my latest IVF cycle for reimbursement, well at least a fraction of it. I realized I only had a plain receipt from CCRM that doesn't state what it's for nor has my name on it. So I contacted the business office and requested an invoice for my last cycle. She instead sent me a 4 page receipt of every item I have ever paid CCRM/FLC. The grand total was $37,975. This includes the one-day workup and 2 IVF cycles. It does not include travel or meds. Can I get another HO-LEE-COW??? I just bought Schoolie a very nice car. Our grand total out of pocket is $89,409. OMG, I will just die if this doesn't result in a baby!

Two Weeks Down!

I've been noticing that others ahead of me (waiting on their CGH results) have been getting their results at just under 5 wks. So wow, maybe I won't have to wait a full 6-8 wks afterall! But that still means another miserable 3 wks to go. Ahhh!

This last week was brutal and I am beyond relieved it's over with. On top of my full time job, I put in 67 hours to finish my college course. My final exam, which covered 14 chapters, was Monday. It was proctored and timed. I go to the library for my finals and normally they give you a private room, but since they are under construction and all of the library tables were full, they stuck me in the periodical room where you can hear a pin drop. My frantic flipping through pages was about the volume of a jack-hammer in that room.

I was given 3 hrs. All answers were essay type. I wrote as fast as I could and at some point, my hand literally would not function because it was cramping up so bad. I can type crazy fast, but completing this with old technology (pen & paper) slowed me way down. It looks like I started the paper and the kindergartner at the next table finished it. Within an hour I had to tinkle so bad but was unwilling to give up 3 mins of exam time as I needed every spare minute. Then this elderly gentleman sat right beside me at my table and smacked his gums every few seconds. For anyone that knows me, smacking noises will drive me to the brink of insanity. We don't eat together at my house unless there is a tv or radio on providing background noise. Why me, why out of all tables did he have to sit next to the crazy girl frantically taking a timed exam who comes unglued with mouth noises? =)

The librarian graciously gave me an extra 20 mins to finish, so after 3hrs 20mins, I was put out of my misery. I ran straight to the tinkle room where my poor cramped up hand could barely unroll the toilet paper. Thank God, I am DONE!!!!! For now...

I have 4 more classes to go to finish my Bachelor's degree and after what I just went through, I don't know when I'll have it in me to take another class. Oh why didn't I finish this crap when I was younger? These are online classes; no class room time, no lectures/videos, no interaction, basically no teacher, no accountability. But they do make sure you learn the material thoroughly via assignments and exams. I've found that teaching myself the concepts by book with one deadline (the end of the course) just isn't my learning style. At this rate, hopefully I'll graduate by time I'm 80. Maybe I'll be the one smacking my gums at the last exam. I just need to press through. I can do it! Now I wait for my grade, more waiting.

So after a stressful IVF cycle, hormone crash, college and waiting for results of my 4 embabies, I've found myself living on comfort food. I'm telling you, I've eaten nothing but junk, junk and more junk!


Pizza, chips, candy, cookies and lots of yummy MSG. But at the top of my list, the following 2 have been a staple, a neccessity.


Yep, good ol' Chef Boyardee! Canned, processed, MSG, microwaved food!


Oh yeah baby, Ben and Jerry's! Not just for dessert, no mam, I'm talking breakfast, lunch and dinner!

Thanks to my friend in AZ who turned me onto Ben and Jerry's! Yeah, you know who you are! Now I'm going to be as big as you before I even get pg! (She's pg with twins, so it's ok to say that)

I have consumed all these flavors in 2 weeks: Triple Caramel Chunk, Americone Dream, Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road, Cherry Garcia and Pfish Food. I've already got Kerry trained to surprise me with a new flavor everytime he comes home from the store.

What is wrong with me??? I'm totally anti-junk food, anti-MSG and even anti-microwave! I have got to get a grip! Someone please talk some sense into me, I need to be preparing my body for an embryo, not for The Biggest Loser.

One Week Down!

This waiting on CGH results has not been fun! I've managed to stay so busy that I'm overwhelmed and yet that still has not made this wait any faster. The days are dragging by.

Kerry and I are very thankful that a week has gone by, and not because of the CGH wait. Basically I went from super high doses of hormones to none overnight because there would be no transfer. My hormones took a nose dive and crashed, then aliens came down and replaced me with an evil decoy. It's been May Day, May Day here. Well, I'm finally back and starting to feel normal again, but man was I a mess! Let me just state the truth, I was mean mean mean! Fortunately I have a wonderful dh that is very understanding and gave me oodles of grace.

On an interesting note, at least for us IVFers, I did find during this cycle that the body definitely requires progesterone support after egg retrieval. AF came about a week early and gave me the shortest cycle I have ever had at 24 days. So this tells me that they definitely impact the corpus luteum's ability to produce progesterone during the egg retrieval process.

So what have I been so busy with? This dreaded college course. I didn't get much done while in Denver because my mind was way too preoccupied with IVF and now I'm having to scramble to catch up. On top of a full time job, I've been spending 6 hrs a night and endless hours on the weekend reading and completing assignments. I have one chapter, one assignment and one programming problem left before I can study for the final which is on Monday. I can't wait to be done with this class so I can have a life again.

On a completely different note, I've been having some strange dreams about my REs.

The first one, I was in Denver for my FET. They gave me a valium and I fell sound asleep. When I awoke, the transfer was done. Because I was asleep when Schoolie came in to ask how many I wanted to transfer, he decided to transfer what he thought was best and went with 2. When I found out, I totally panicked because I had made the difficult decision to only transfer 1.

My interpretation; it must be really weighing on me how many to transfer.

The second one, I was at my old RE's office. I went to get out of the bed and there was a pile of turds at the end of the bed from the previous patient and my foot was covered in it. I held my foot up to the RE's face and demanded that he clean my foot. He refused, so I got up and started walking all over his clinic, smearing poop everywhere I stepped.

My interpretation; I must be tired of this crap...