IF's Common Thread

IF's Common Thread

Some really great ladies in the online IF community started wearing a bracelet made of a specific kind and color embroidery thread to signify that they are a part of the IF community.  It serves many purposes, but one of the goals is to educate the world about infertility.  If you wear the pomegranate bracelet and someone asks you about it, you're supposed to share your story and hopefully do your part to end the shame and embarrassment that too often accompany infertility by being open and honest with people you might not ordinarily open up to.  The bracelet is also a way for a PAIF (pregnant after infertility) woman to reach out to those of us who are still trying to get pregnant.  It says, "I know what you're going through.  I've been there and I know how lucky I am."  What a great message, something one of the original ladies likened to a secret handshake. 

The ladies on thebump are putting together a Common Thread event and soon I'll be sporting a bracelet the color of pomegranates (which are said to increase fertility).  Ask me about it if you see me!

Is it 2012 Already?

January, 2012 has been rolling around in my head since we found out we were not getting a take-home baby out of our IVF cycle.  From that time, we automatically agreed (with zero discussing) that we would wait until "after the first of the year" to try a FET.  At the time, it sounded like far enough in the future to not worry about.  As in, "we have to wait foreverrrr to try again so I might as well not even think about getting mentally prepared for it." 

::fastforward through a busy semester::

Now it's January, 2012 and it's time to get back on the crazy train.  Only I'm scared.  The reason they tell you to get back on the horse that's thrown you is because if you wait, you'll lose your nerve.  I've waited and now I've lost my nerve.  From January until September last year I was rolling from one cycle into another and never had time to second guess my decisions.  Now I'm haunted by the question, "At what point do we cut our losses and say we won't spend any more?"

I've sent the email to my clinic's financial director asking for the itemized list of my clinic expenses last year.  I even opened a new email to send to my IVF nurse, sweet Rebecca, to tell her we will (hopefully) be ready to roll as soon as we get our taxes done.  Then I closed it and had a good little cry.  I am totally not mentally prepared for another failed cycle.  One almost did me in.  Two is unfathomable. 

I read a bump signature today of a woman who got pregnant for the first time after four fresh cycles and a frozen cycle.  I am in awe of the strength it must have taken to keep going time after time.  Even without taking into account the fact that we could never afford that many cycles, I could not withstand the emotional trauma.   

Holding On

I haven't posted in over two months, mostly because I don't really have any updates to share.  But also in part due to the fact that I know some of my former students are readers and I don't want them (or anyone else who has stumbled in) to hear what my inner dialogue has been lately.  I'm that bitter person that others don't want to be around, in person or in cyberspace.  I hate being that person and I hate that anyone who knows me well can see it but I can't seem to shake it.  Being pregnant and then having it disappear has left its mark and I don't know how to fix it.  Time is supposed to heal all wounds but infertility is like that big festering sore that keeps getting ripped open and therefore can never heal properly. 

We have been on hold, trying to save and pay off our debt from IVF while waiting for an income tax return that will pay for a FET.  Unfortunately, I've read too many randoms internet posts about how disappointed other IVFers were that itemizations on Schedule A didn't make that big of a difference on their tax return and now I've convinced myself that we won't get anything back and won't be able to cycle in February.  I had just assumed that having $21,612.92 in medical expenses to claim was going to guarantee a big return when added to the $5,500 in tuition we also paid out in 2011 (yes, we spent that much, no it's not all paid for, yes we did also manage to pay the mortgage and buy groceries on teacher salaries with no help from anyone).

While we've been waiting, my sister had her baby and I love her to pieces.  Lindsey gets sister of the year honors for trying so hard to be considerate of my feelings.  I hate that she feels like she has to walk on eggshells around me but appreciate that she makes the effort.  Two close friends also announced their pregnancies on the same day and I cried big ugly, jealous tears in a bathroom at a work meeting.  Not one but two of my work friends came right into the bathroom behind me to offer their support.  I am that obvious when I'm hurting.  No suffering in silence for me.   

One of the ladies on the bump pointed out a long time ago that someone else having a baby doesn't take away my chance at that baby that's out there waiting for me but it punches me in the gut and sucks the air out of my lungs when a pregnancy announcement comes out of nowhere.  Again, I hate being that person but I don't know how to stop it.  I'm still resisting those happy pills in my medicine cabinet but don't really remember why I was so adamant that I wasn't going to take them.

I'm hanging on, but just by a thread.  I found this on Pinterest and needed to hear it today, so I thought I'd share.   

The Stages of Grief

Anger is one of the stages of grief and that's where I'm at this week. I was really sad when I first found out I was losing my baby. Now, I'm mad. I'm mad at the baby for not sticking around. I'm mad that I cried the night before I turned 30 because I am now an age by which many people are finished having kids and I don't even have the first one. I'm mad because stupid people have babies and I don't. I'm mad because Andrew and I have spent almost twenty thousand dollars trying to get pregnant and have only an early loss and monthly payments to show for it. I'm mad because people keep telling me stupid stuff like, "Stay positive and it'll happen," "so-and-so got pregnant as soon as they stopped trying," and "at least you get to try again." We may get to try again but I don't know many people who have to come up with five grand every time they want to TRY to get pregnant.

Maybe acceptance is a stage that's coming and maybe someday I'll stop wanting to punch everyone who tells me that relaxing will help me get pregnant. I'll believe it when I see it. Until then, I'm going to keep right on being mad that people can go through so much and have so little to show for it.

No May Baby

It was positive. Then it was negative. I am crushed.

We will try again but only after we have paid off some of the money we owe for this cycle (at least the part that is on the credit card) and have enough money for a FET.

Time Flies, Until it Doesn't

It's almost time. Time for THE test. Time for the end. By the way, I made it through this cycle with amazingly fantastic yield. After being cancelled for not responding, the light switch flipped and I got 38 eggs, an unheard-of number. Of these, 33 were mature and 25 fertilized. All 25 were still growing on the day of my transfer. We transferred two and 19 of the 23 remaining were good enough to freeze, also an unheard-of number.

As much as I know I am blessed to have a lifetime of frozen blasts to use for FET (frozen embryo transfer), I also know that Andrew and I don't have the $5,000 we would need to go from a BFN to an FET cycle. So, I am absolutetly torn up waiting for the results of my fresh cycle. Absolutely torn up and it doesn't help that I am taking double hormone shots in the bottom every night. I'm a mess.

Please, oh please, let this test be positive. Of all the tests I've taken in my life, I've never wanted to pass one as badly as I want to pass this test.

Back on Track

I'm on Day Three of stims for IVF 1.2. I cried last night for no good reason, so I'm telling myself that my hormones are kicking because I'm responding "so much better" than I did before. I literally had NO symptoms the last time I stimmed.

I had my suppression check last Thursday and my nurse said I have a "ridiculous" number of follicles and should get a great response. While that made me feel good, I also had a good AFC (antral follicle count=the number of microfollicles that might grow into eggs) last time and didn't respond worth a poop. I'm anxious for my first follicle check tomorrow to see if any of the little boogers are growing.

Please, oh please, let me get through this cycle. I feel like if something happens and I get cancelled again, I will give up and not try again.

I Had Visitors!

In spite of the fact that I don't advertise the fact that I have a blog, two of my very favorite former students happened across my humble little blog and apparently read the whole thing. I got a very lovely message on Facebook this morning that made my day. It's so very nice to know that my kiddos, grown-ups that they are, still remember me fondly. One of the many reasons that I want to have kids is because I have had the pleasure of knowing so many absolutely wonderful students and getting to see them grow up. Thanks, James and Lisa!

I Got Cancelled

Yep. This cycle is over before it had a chance to work. Given the high number of follicles I had before this cycle started, the doctor was very disappointed that I only had five growing on the tenth day of stimming. This led to the decision to call it quits on this cycle and use the remaining money in our account at the clinic for another cycle. This way, we are only out the cost of the medicine for this cycle and the pro-rated costs of the monitoring I've had so far. The doctor is hopeful that a new protocol with more aggressive dosages will yield more eggs.

I'm so disappointed. I know this is the logical decision and that it is designed to maximize our money, but I'm sooo ready to be off this crazy train. I had been sure that I was either going back to school pregnant or having given up on fertility treatments. Now, I'll be cycling during the beginning of the new year.

I Know This Feeling

I've been here before. Kim starts treatment with great hopes. Treatment proceeds. It becomes obvious that Kim is not responding "normally" to said treatment.

It should come to no surprise (to me at least) that I'm a slow responder to the FSH injections. It still stings to have two follie checks under my belt and only minimal follice growth. My e2 level has plateaued so I will be increasing my dosage and likely stimming for an extra day or two. Nothing devastating and this doesn't mean my cycle won't proceed well. It's just another disappointment in a long line of disappointing treatment cycles.

I'm attempting to pull myself up by my bootstraps and get my positive outlook back.

Today's Cost: $700 for extra shots. (Offset by the $300 I made working with my brother this week)

Shot One!

Shot One is in the history books! The needle is tiny and didn't hurt at all. It stung a bit after it went in, but nothing worth thinking about. The hardest part was getting the hang of drawing up the liquid and then mixing it in three vials of powder and ending up with the same amount you started with. I wasted one needle tip when I put the wrong one on, but I have gobs of needles, so no worries.

$160 worth of Bravelle (follice stimulating hormone to make the eggies grow)

My first deposit in the sharps container!

The Cherry Limeade cupcake from Gigi's that I've been saving since Thursday to treat myself after the first injection!!

If you got any spare warm thoughts and/or prayers, please say a few that these eggs start growing!

I'm Suppressed!

sup-press: (verb) to vanquish or subdue, quell, crush

It's an odd expression, but the goal of my doctor's appointment today was to make sure that I'm suppressed and ready to start stimming. They did an ultrasound and an estradiol blood test to make sure that the birth control has done its job and has suppressed my natural hormones. As aforementioned, my hormones are wacky and I'm glad they've been quelled!

The ultrasound tech said that I had lots of micro follicles just waiting to grow once I start stims and my e2 level was below fifty so I'm officially starting the shots on Saturday. I will go back for at least two ultrasounds and e2 checks next week and then my retrieval should be sometime the week after that. After waiting for what seems like forever, this party bus is finally rolling. I'm excited and scared to death.

I also had a mock transfer done today to make sure there won't be any issues with my cervix or uterus when it's time for the real transfer and, according to my nurse practioner Rebecca, I have a very cooperative cervix. It hurt like a turkey but was nice to hear that everything should go smoothly when they transfer my embryo(s). I took it as a good sign that they used a Cook catheter for the procedure. Cook Pharmaceuticals was founded by the late Bill Cook, the same guy that founded the world champion Star of Indiana drum corps, Andrew's home away from home for five summers in the late 80s/early 90s. Hopefully, Bill's looking out for us.

Total cost today: $0...'cause I already paid for it in the lump sum payment...

Thank You, FedEx Man!

I just got my IVF meds delivered and I feel like a kid at Christmas. Only IF can make you excited about having a sharps container of your very own!



Total Cost Today: $2552.84

The Check's in the Mail!

Andrew just left to put the check in the mail for the actual doctor/lab cost of our IVF cycle. It's actually three separate checks to the lab, the surgery center and the fertility center itself. I was standing over his shoulder watching him write out the checks when he gave me a strange look. I guess I was being a little intense but it was a momentous event for me. Apparently it made him nervous, so I quit. I actually took a picture but I will refrain from posting it here since you can clearly see our names, address, phone number and bank account number. That's probably asking for trouble.

I'm making myself feel better about how much money we just turned loose into the cosmos by reading the IRS codes about claiming medical expenses on your tax return. FYI, you can claim medical expenses if you spend more than 7.5% of your adjusted gross income (AGI). Mission accomplished. You can also claim travel to and from appointments at $.17/mile so I've started a log of all of our trips. So far this year we are up to about 1500 miles going back and forth to Nashville.

Total cost today: $10,250...it's all downhill from here!

Medicine Batch #1

There are an overwhelming number of drugs that you take when getting ready for and going through IVF. Mini-batch number one for me includes Provera (bottle) to start a new cycle, antibiotics (six white pills) to kill something(??) and birth control (little pack) to suppress all my hormones. I'm pretty excited about the pills because my personal hormones are wacked out and I think they deserve to be suppressed and replaced by artificial ones.



Total cost: a very pleasant $22.28!

Yep, I'm a Planner!

Andrew and I spent the first half of the day in IVF class. I loved it. Lots of information and an official IVF calendar that's just for ME! Of course, the financial session was no fun, but I'm choosing to think of it as the best way in the world to spend the equivalent of the cost of a mediocre car...

When my next cycle starts, I'll go back on birth control. Everyone always points out the irony of starting bcps when most of us stopped them months (in our case--years) ago when we decided to start ttgp. I'm past irony; I'm ready for some action that involves a fairly decent chance of finally ending up with a baby or TWO! From there, it's shots and more shots.

My IVF nurse is wonderful and coincidentally has a music degree, so Andrew thought she was swell. She said it was a great time at their clinic and lots of people seemed to be having great cycles. I'll take all the good karma I can get and have decided to think of this as the "perfect time" for us to get pregnant.

As a side note, my husband (admitted needle-phobe) made it through the shot class portion of the morning with no major incident. According to him, the needles are much smaller in real life than he'd imagined. I still think I will be having a nurse friend give me the ones that I can't reach to do myself, but it's nice to know he might could do it if the need arises.

Things are looking up at the Mroch house! Any doctor's visit that ends with a calendar party is fun times in my book!

Moving Along

Andrew and I have an appointment at Nashville Fertility Center next week, so I'm trying to mentally prepare for what they might have to say. It could range from "You responded well to the medicine this time. We'll try that a couple more times." to "Yeah, you might as well suck it up and give us all your savings for an IVF cycle." One is infinitely cheaper and the other is infinitely scary. I'm just about ready for scary. We've taken this process much more slowly than many couples in our same position. I'm finished being patient and moving slowly. My last chance at having a 2011 baby just passed, so I'm working against the clock.

If only my biological clock was this cute...

It'll Be Okay

I found a new quote a while back that really speaks to me. In fact, I often repeat it to myself when I'm sad and/or stressed out about IF.


"Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end."


I don't even think about what might happen that would make me give up on trying to have a baby. Even though people are beginning to ask why I don't just give up and adopt already, I still feel like there are things yet to try and time yet to wait. I tried to explain to someone not too long ago that, for someone who is trying to conceive and has even the tiniest chance of doing so, to "give up" would mean that one morning I would have to wake up and think "I'm done. I give up. I admit defeat." Instead, I get from one day to the next by thinking that something is bound to go my way at some point and, if I give up, I will miss my chance. Besides, I don't think anyone really understands that adoption can be even more expensive than fertility treatments.


I'll take hope any day, even if it's only a tiny sliver.

National Infertility Awareness Week-Myth Busting

As a part of NIAW (National Infertility Awareness Week), women all across the country are using blogs to address popular myths concerning infertility. Even though I don't have a widely-read blog, I wanted to do my part to bust my least favorite myth, "Just relax and you'll get pregnant."

My first experience with the infamous "Just Relax" advice was with my family doctor almost a year after we started trying to get pregnant. When I confided in her that we had been trying for a while and that I was getting frustrated, she whipped out her prescription tablet and told me I needed some anti-anxiety medicine to help me relax.

I can't tell you how hurtful it was to hear that. It implied, at least to me, that I was doing something wrong. That I'm the reason I'm not getting pregnant. That all I need to do is get a grip and I'll instantly conceive. That my personality is at fault. I know it isn't true and I know that the people who regularly tell me this mean well. I still want to throat punch them.

In reality, more than 90% of infertile women are so because of physical problems that prevent conception and/or successful pregnancy. There are actually very few people for whom relaxing is really the answer. Do I understand that reducing my stress level is desirable? Absolutely. Will it "fix" the hypothyroidism and poly-cystic ovarian syndrome that prevent me from ovulating? Not in a million years.

By the way, I don't take those pills. I got the prescription filled and then put it away. I don't want to be one of those people who has to take medicine to take the edge off of my life. I don't judge anyone who does. In fact, I totally understand. Just because I didn't take one today doesn't mean that I won't take one tomorrow. I look at the bottle in the medicine cabinet sometimes and then shut the door, hoping the day will come when I won't even think about them.

Maybe one of these days I'll figure out just how to relax. In the meanwhile, I'll keep using a specialist (several of them, in fact) to figure out how to get my body to cooperate and my stubborn ovaries to let a few eggs loose.

If you know someone who's struggling with infertility, please don't tell her to relax. Tell her you've got your fingers crossed and that you wish her good luck and comfort in hard times. And, for God's sake, don't tell her you got pregnant the first time you tried.

For more information about infertility, please visit RESOLVE, the National Infertility Association.

To Tell or Not to Tell?

One of the decisions every couple makes when they start trying to have a baby is who, if anyone, they will confide in. Some people tell no one until they're pregnant. Some people share every single detail with everyone they know. Most people, including me, fall somwhere in the middle. I only told a very few people when we first started trying, more because my husband preferred the privacy than because I did. As the months rolled along, I shared with those I work closely with because they deserved to know why I acted like a crazy person when I was cycling and few other close friends.

Because I'm from a small town and getting closer to thirty, it is perfectly routine for people in my hometown to ask nosy questions about when Andrew and I are going to start a family. He's rather aloof and people tend to leave him alone and spare him the nosy questions. Me, not so much. Before we were even trying, I would smile and give some generic answer about how we were waiting "for the time to be right" or "until I finished my master's degree."

As time went along and it became painful to be constantly reminded by near-strangers that I still wasn't pregnant, I started being more upfront with people. Nothing shuts a nosy old woman up quicker than, "I'd love to have children. We've been trying for __ months and have started fertility treatments. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be working." The result of all this sharing is that I now get the "Poor Kim" look whenever the topic of babies comes up. As mad as that makes me, it's still easier to deal with than pretending everything's rosy and that we don't have kids because we don't want them. There probably aren't any people left that I know in my hometown or at work that don't know we are having trouble conceiving. I hate the pity, but know that there will be dozens of people celebrating with us when I finally do get pregnant.

Whatever you decide about telling or not telling, be ready to be the topic of conversation, particularly if you live in a small town.