Hopeful once again!

Yesterday was my post op appointment…
I was not anxious, I was not excited, I was just calm and ready to get whatever news she had for us. When we got there she did an exam and looked at my incision spots and everything looked great, except when I was bathing last night I noticed I have a stitch that hasn’t dissolved. I tugged on it a little but the knot is under my skin so I have to go in next Wednesday to get it cut out. Then we went over my surgery results. She did not have the pathology results, so I was a little upset about that but we will get those results next week sometime…hopefully! She said my uterus had a bunch of junk in it (lots of polyps)….the picture looked nasty of my uterus. She was able to clean all that up. She also removed endo scarring from both of my ovaries and also on the wall behind one of my ovaries. She said it was bad enough to remove and it will make me feel better now that it is out and cleaned up.

Then on to the plans…
She first asked us and made us decide how many we wanted to transfer when the time comes, 2 or 4?????? We both probably looked like a deer in the headlights because we had not really discussed this topic and really wanted her to tell us what she recommended. So 2 or 4???? To be honest 4 freaks me out, so I softly said…….ummm 2. Then off she went getting consents signed before we could really marinate on the whole thing. Before signing the consents I told them I really wanted to talk this over some more and make sure we are making the right decision. So in came the doctor again and she talked it through with us some more. 4 also freaks her out and she really didn’t want me to get pregnant with triplets (and lately she has had more triplet pregnancies than she likes). Okay I am comfortable with 2 and I might add they are the perfect little 2!!! They are 5AA, below is an explanation of what 5AA actually means.

Blastocyst development and stage status
1 Blastocoel cavity less than half the volume of the embryo
2 Blastocoel cavity more than half the volume of the embryo
3 Full blastocyst, cavity completely filling the embryo
4 Expanded blastocyst, cavity larger than the embryo, with thinning of the shell
5 Hatching out of the shell
6 Hatched out of the shell

ICM grade Inner cell mass quality
A Many cells, tightly packed
B Several cells, loosely grouped
C Very few cells

TE grade Trophectoderm quality
A Many cells, forming a cohesive layer
B Few cells, forming a loose epithelium
C Very few large cells

So the next plan of action…
We got great news that she lowered the cost of the FET to half of the cost!!!! Great news for us, this made it so much easier cost wise for us. But the bad news is my meds are going to cost us a lot more, because of several reasons! She is adding a new drug to the regimen that is very expensive and we no longer will be able to purchase my meds from the same place as before. I am praying that this will all work out and we will some how be able to lower this cost somehow. The new drug is Lovenox and it is going to be very expensive for us (my insurance will not cover anything). Also I need some advice on giving these evil shots!!! Everything that I have read about these say they are horrible shots but I will endure, but will gladly take some advice!!!

Calendar…
I am going to try and start Acupuncture the end of this month and stay on my strict Fertility Diet. This is going to be a huge test with the Holidays coming up!!! Then at the first of the year everything will start!!! So this year I get to go through the holidays without bed rest and enjoy a relaxing holiday season!!!

***Anyone need a Gonal-F pen!!! I have one in my fridge that I will happily give to someone if they just pay the shipping!!!! (It expires 02/2010)***

Today

Today I await the news from my surgery

Today I will get a plan

Today is the beginning of a new plan

Today I will get some answers

Today I am at peace

Today I am not nervous

Today I am not anxious

Today lots of people are praying for us

Today I feel those prayers and am ready for whatever we hear

Today I am ready!!!

Finished Product

I came across this story on one of the IF connection board, and love it! Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There was a couple who took a trip to England to shop in a beautiful antique store to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. They both liked antiques and pottery, and especially teacups. Spotting an exceptional cup, they asked “May we see that? We’ve never seen a cup quite so beautiful.”

As the lady handed it to them, suddenly the teacup spoke, “You don’t understand. I have not always been a teacup. There was a time when I was just a lump of red clay. My master took me and rolled me pounded and patted me over and over and I yelled out, “Don’t do that.” “I don’t like it!” “Let me alone,” but he only smiled, and gently said; “Not yet!”

Then. WHAM! I was placed on a spinning wheel and suddenly I was spun around and around and around. Stop it! I’m getting so dizzy!

“I’m going to be sick” I screamed. But the master only nodded and said, quietly; ‘Not yet.’

He spun me and poked and prodded and bent me out of shape to suit himself and then ….. then he put me in the oven. I never felt such heat. I yelled and knocked and pounded at the door. “Help! Get me out of here!”

I could see him through the opening and I could read his lips as he shook his head from side to side, ‘Not yet’.

When I thought I couldn’t bear it another minute, the door opened. He carefully took me out and put me on the shelf, and I began to cool. Oh, that felt so good! “Ah, this is much better,” I thought. But, after I cooled he picked me up and he brushed and painted me all over. The fumes were horrible. I thought I would gag. ‘Oh, please,Stop it, Stop, I cried.

He only shook his head and said. ‘Not yet!’.

Then suddenly he put me back in to the oven. Only it was not like the first one. This was twice as hot and I just knew I would suffocate. I begged. I pleaded. I screamed. I cried. I was convinced I would never make it. I was ready to give up. Just then the door opened and he took me out and again placed me on the shelf, where I cooled and waited and waited, wondering “What’s he going to do to me next?”

An hour later he handed me a mirror and said ‘Look at yourself.’ And I did. I said, “That’s not me; that couldn’t be me. It’s beautiful. I’m beautiful!”

Quietly he spoke: “I want you to remember, then,’ he said, ‘I know it hurt to be rolled and pounded and patted, but had I just left you alone, you’d have dried up. I know it made you dizzy to spin around on the wheel, but if I had stopped, you would have crumbled. I know it hurt and it was hot and disagreeable in the oven, but if I hadn’t put you there, you would have cracked. I know the fumes were bad when I brushed and painted you all over, but if I hadn’t done that, you never would have hardened. You would not have had any color in your life. If I hadn’t put you back in that second oven, you wouldn’t have survived for long because the hardness would not have held. Now you are a finished product. Now you are what I had in mind when I first began with you.”

The moral of this story is this: God knows what He’s doing for each of us. He is the potter, and we are His clay He will mold us and make us, and expose us to just enough pressures of just the right kinds that we may be made into a flawless piece of work to fulfill His good, pleasing and perfect will.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am still being pounded, spun around and put through the heat. I am not a finished product yet, but that is what I am striving for. I hope that throughout my life, into old age I will continue to grow and be painted into that finished product.

Healing

Friday was a very long day for me and also the people that were with me. We got to the hospital at 11:00 registered/checked in. They called me back to get some blood work, which I was hoping an IV would get started at this time since I have blood sugar issues and it was now after lunch with no food, but no IV. More waiting and they finally called me back to get my IV started and more waiting. I believe this was at about 1:00 and my surgery wasn't supposed to be until 3:00 (which it was actually at 4:00), so I got to lie in the corner of Pre-op for 3 hours with nothing to do. Luckily our computers worked back there so my husband pulled up some TV shows and we watched that for a little while to pass the time, I did a Sudoku, talked with nurses and anesthesiologist, then my doctor showed up!!!! From this point everything went by very fast for me! My surgery took about 2 hours, which was a lot longer than everyone expected even my doctor. She removed a small amount of endo scarring from both of my ovaries, which she said was not that bad. She also removed some polyps in my uterus and she thinks this has been our problem with the embryos not implanting. GREAT NEWS to me!!! I prayed for some answers and I believe we got some. I go for my post-op appointment with my doctor next week and hopefully we will have an even more answers when we talk with her.

My recovery after the surgery has been a lot worse than I expected! When they were waking me up all I remember is shaking real bad and being very nauseous. I have never had any reaction to anesthesia like this except with my egg retrieval I remember I had the shaking. My mom told them to prick my finger to check my blood sugar to see if this is the cause of the nausea.

Funny Side Note Story: When I was younger and I would pitch a fit my mom would always prick my finger to check my blood sugar to see if my blood sugar was low or I was just pitching a fit. If I was just pitching a fit getting a needle stabbed in your finger was enough punishment!

So here I am in pain, shaking, and nauseous and they prick my finger and my blood sugar is fine! It is now around 8:00 I think, I really don't know what time it is because I am out of it, and we head home. Luckily I slept the whole way and the trip home was not too bad. The next day I am in pain, a lot more pain than I expected! My entire torso hurts, my insides hurt, and my incision spots hurt. But each day that went by I could tell a major change in the way I felt, thanks for all the prayers! I am now waiting in the moment for next Wednesday to come to get a little more information. I had a bad dream last night that my biopsy results came back bad and she would not do any more treatment on me. I am trying to let these thoughts go and know that whatever the results are, God will have me in his hands and bring me through whatever comes of this. I am just trying to wait with peace and live in the moment! It seems like no matter where you are in IF you are always going through a 2WW (2 week wait)!

Long awaited surgery!

It is now time for the long awaited surgery! Back in July I scheduled this surgery and just 3 days before the surgery my insurance decided to decline approval. So we waited for the appeal process to go through which we were told it could take up to 60 days, but it never takes that long (is what I was told). Well, it took 60+ days and I finally found out that they decided to approve the surgery and pay for 75%. So I scheduled the surgery again and 3 months and 2 weeks later I can now say that I will be going into surgery tomorrow around 3:00 (or whatever time my doctor shows up). I will be having laparoscopy and hysteroscopy to check everything out and look for endo and scarring. I am still at peace with this surgery and ready for some answers as to why we are still where we are. I so badly want to carry a baby and feel the miracle of life growing inside of me! We are hoping we will get some kind of answers through this surgery.

During this waiting time Marcus and I have been able to take a few trips and enjoy each other. We recently just got back from South Carolina. We had a very relaxing 8 day vacation in Myrtle Beach and Charleston. We slept late, did whatever we wanted when we woke up, and pretty much decided on a moments notice what to do for the day. There were no adventurous or high impact activities planned for this vacation, which we were perfectly fine with taking each day as it came. The thought kept crossing my mind that when we have kids we will most likely never have this kind of vacation again. So I loved the one on one time I had with my husband and just having a very relaxing week with great conversation and leisure drives and of course great food!

When I get the time I will post some pictures from this recent trip along with some from our other trips that we have gone on. For time being this infertility blog has turned into a vacation blog but I know shortly it will soon turn back to infertility, since we don't have any more trips in the near future and also the long awaited surgery is here.