The Bleeding Begins

I’ve always been a fan of technology, especially when it allows us to do things like take pictures of our bloody maxi pads and text message them to our wives at work.

Yeah, I did that today.

You see, I stopped the “pregnancy” sustaining meds on Sunday, and have been off work all week waiting to get this natural miscarriage over with. On Wednesday, the spotting began, though I can barely call it spotting, as it was like one smear per day (I’m not apologizing for the TMI), and unworthy of the panty liner changes.

But today, sitting in the car, on our (me and dogs) way home from the conservation park, I could feel the twinges I distinctly recognize as my angry cervix opening it’s long and hostile mouth. Ten minutes later, it let out a loud roarrrr and bloody clots and tissue started to waterslide, landing on my panty liner.

Lovely right? Cervical sea monsters and waterslides.

It seems to come in waves though. As the waterslide is vacant at the moment. I do feel some tingling in my uterus, perhaps some cajoling of the next sliders into the queue.

I know there’s a whole lot that needs to come out of there, and worry that this is gonna take a while.

Tomorrow is the review appointment with our RE (which I nearly had to bribe someone to get). I will likely try to get an appointment for a D&C, as this waiting is killing my will to live, and I’m anxiously waiting to just move on from this already. The pregnancy symptoms (morning sickness and food/smell aversions) are downright cruel and make me feel so shitty- both physically and emotionally.

Other than that, we’re gonna take the opportunity to also ask the RE where we should go from here. I know he’ll just encourage us to do the last FET, but since we have his attention for a few minutes, I hope we get a chance to talk about his speculation on why we keep miscarrying with my eggs, as well as whether DW’s nearly 39-year-old eggs would be a good option to move forward with. My GP seems to think that DW miscarrying twice with my eggs and me miscarrying once with my eggs is still within the realm of normal, but if this guy is an “expert” on fertility, I want to get his gut feeling on this.

Anyway, Happy Friday everyone!

Wish me luck on passing these “products of conception” quickly and completely.

12 More Hours

My life is anything but boring.

Over the course of one hour:

– my dad booked us flights to Vancouver
– we planned a three day sailing trip through the San Juan Islands
– I told my dad we were trying to get pregnant
– I was berated over iMessage and things like “I was damning the child to hell”, and “the child will not be raptured”, and the “rapture is coming soon” were mentioned
– I was threatened with being disowned if I tried to get pregnant
– I was disowned by my ultra-Pentecostal, fanatical father
– our flights were cancelled

And now here we are, just under 12 hours away from our embryo transfer. One day I will address my very complex relationship with my father, but not today.

I got an urgent-sounding voicemail this morning, from the embryologist at the fertility clinic. They were trying to convince me to transfer only one embryo. According to them, I am young (32), the blastocysts are of excellent quality, and they don’t think it’s necessary to transfer both because they think the chance of success will be high given my stats. I argued with them for a minute or so, and maintained that I want two thawed and transferred. I realize that there is a chance of twins, which pose their own unique risks, but I’m healthy and willing to take the extra 10% chance of having one successful live birth by putting two instead of one (60% vs. 50%). Plus, DW had two transferred during both of her FETs and none of the four ended in a live birth. Interesting that they didn’t call before hers to discuss this, even though we used my eggs.

Anyway, it’s been carbalicious around these parts. Yesterday, we drove across two cities to shop at my favourite gluten-free bake shop, Molly B’s. They have the best breads and desserts, and Friday is the best day to buy from their storefront as bread is baked that day. I bought three loaves of cheese bread and one tray of butter tarts. Her brother also owns a gluten-free business, making specialty artisan breads and pastas. I got to taste-test their Calabrese baguette, and bought one immediately because it smelled like real bread, tasted like real bread, and was chewy like real bread. His bakery is called Nate’s Bagels. His loaf was so delicious, that I pretty much demolished it in 24 hours.

DW picked some Roma and yellow pear tomatoes, basil, and garlic from our garden and I made bruschetta. We’ve basically been eating bread and bruschetta for the past four meals. Here’s a picture of Molly B’s gluten-free cheese bread, our homemade bruschetta, and some chicken breast (for good measure).

(I’m pretty sure that the yoga I did today did not burn off sufficient calories).

Tonight, I’ll eat some pineapple, watch some Netflix, and dream about babies.

5 More Days… And Gluten-Free Crepes!

Today’s Uterine Lining: 9.5mm

BIG update: Our FET is scheduled for Sunday, August 3rd at 6:50 am! One day ahead of what I had anticipated. So instead of being 6 days until the transfer, we’ve got 5 days….

It’s with another doctor, which I’m neither thrilled nor disappointed about.

I reduce my Estrace to 2mg twice a day (down from three times a day), and start taking vaginal Endometrin three times a day, and oral Prometrium three capsules at bedtime. This is when the Calvin Kleins get really sloppy.

I have a massage booked for tonight, and tomorrow I’ve got an acupuncture appointment with a colleague that I used to teach with at the chiropractic college. I also have my last ball hockey game tomorrow night. At least I’m hoping it’s my last 🙂

DW and I made gluten-free crepes for dinner last night (we love having breakfast for dinner), and they were amazing!

The recipe for the crepes themselves are from Gluten Free on a Shoestring

They were so good that they made DW remember her Oma, Wilhelmina, who used to make crepes with butter and brown sugar.

So last night, we made gluten-free crepes à la Wilhelmina.

Steps:
1. Make crepes
2. While crepes are still hot, butter on one side
3. Sprinkle brown sugar over the buttered surface
4. Roll up
5. Enjoy!

Updated Plans

So I’ve got a bunch to update you on. We had a review appointment on Wednesday with the RE, to discuss DW’s two recent miscarriages.

The RE really didn’t have much to say. I brought all of my questions, typed into notepad on my iPhone, and we went through them all. He has no answers for why DW didn’t stay pregnant. He did say that it was unusual given our excellent conditions.

The embryos or the uterus, who is the culprit?

He looked at the embryologist’s notes on our 5-day-blasts, and they are excellent quality, and all survived the thaw, which is also an indication of quality. He said that genetic or chromosomal issues are weeded out very quickly in these early phases, and that since I’m young, the quality of the eggs is unlikely to be the problem. But of course, not all eggs were meant to become live births.

He suggested two possible next steps:

1. Aggressively investigating into DW’s immune system and uterine health through more blood tests (one of which costs $600, and can only be analysed in the States), and a hysteroscopy to visualize uterine abnormalities. If her immune system is found to be overactive (essentially attacking the embryo like it is a parasite), then a combination of immunosuppressant therapy (intralipids) might happen so that she could still carry. A colleague of mine has gone through this treatment (with the same clinic), 3 times I believe, and it didn’t work. If it’s polyps/fibroids or some scar tissue, we could probably have them surgically removed (my guess).

2. I carry.

Obviously, option 2 makes more logical sense at this point, given the circumstances. However, there is also the factor of DW’s feeling physically connected to these future babies, which is the whole reason for us going down the path of IVF in the first place.

So, we decided on both paths, concurrently. We will do the investigations and see if DW maybe has some polyps/fibroids/scar tissue/uterine abnormalities or too many natural killer cells or other immune issue, and we will get me ready for an FET at the same time.

Some of the ducks are already in a row, and some of them the clinic has taken out of the rotation so that we have to put them back. It is really frustrating because I’m sure that it’s just a money grab on their part.

For example, my endocrinologist called yesterday to tell me that my thyroid levels are right on target (so no adjustment needed). Yay! She basically gave me the green light to giv’r this cycle. Also, my period just started on Thursday, so I could’ve started on the estrace today.

But instead, the clinic wanted to repeat their big ass blood screening panel to test for everything under the sun (that they had done in May 2013 and January 2014), as well as another sonohysterogram.

Yes, I bolded that. Another SONOHYSTEROGRAM. I think it’s completely unnecessary because I had one done last year, and nothing has changed. I also think it’s unnecessary because he was just up in there in January during my egg retrieval, and the main reason for it is to check the patency of the Fallopian tubes, which isn’t even involved in an FET. Plus, it’s another hundred dollar cost out of pocket for us.

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ll remember that the sonohysterogram was extremely painful for me. I bled substantially on the paper sheet that covers the medical table, as well as in my underpants on the drive home. They said that it shouldn’t hurt and that I could return to work that day, but despite taking Tylenol before the procedure, I ended up sitting in the car crying from my angry cervix pain and uterine cramps, wishing that DW could drive me home.

I still get nightmares about that sono.

From now on, I shall refer to it as the sononightmarogram.

Anyway, since they insist on repeating this damn sono (booked for the 20th), we can’t do the FET this cycle.

So I guess I’ll continue to play ball hockey twice a week and party like a rockstar during World Pride, at the end of the month.

Meh. I’d rather be trying to have a baby….