Happiness Cycle Day 13: Intralipids

I’ve got two hours to kill while hooked up to an IV bag of intralipids, so I thought I’d type up a post with my left hand. It’s harder than it seems!

I had a crappy sleep last night, as something’s up with my digestive system. I had the worst bloating and gas, which continued overnight and into the morning (poor DW). My diet is so clean right now, that I have no idea what could be causing it. My colon felt like a balloon that was inflating and reaching its maximum stretching ability. As I lay here hooked up to a bag of mayonnaise, all I wanna do is fart. But because they’re checking my vitals frequently, and I’m in a closed room, I’m trying to hold it in. Unpleasant!

Anyways, I’m happy to be doing the intralipids. It gives me some hope for this FET. While I wish we had two embryos to transfer, that’s nothing I can change. All I can do is give all of my love and hopeful energy into this embryo. The RE finally reviewed all of my immune results and wants to put me on prednisone, fragmen, and baby aspirin, in addition to the estrogen and progesterone that I will be starting someday soon. I’m happy that it seems like we’re finally being taken seriously now. Fingers crossed that our embryo is a good one, and that he/she thrives inside me.

As for the intralipids, today I’m having 100mLs injected into a bag of saline, to create a 20% mixture. Then the mixture is introduced to my bloodstream via IV cannula. I’m glad that I brought a blanket, because I feel so cold not being able to move. I also brought my iPad, a decaf vanilla Earl Grey Tea almond milk latte, and two slices of the paleo banana bread that I made last night. I haven’t been able to do much other than type on my iPhone.

Once I get a positive beta, there’s another infusion (approx four weeks), and then one more after the six week ultrasound. Each treatment is $750, and out of pocket.

The cannula hurt going into my arm, but is fine now that it’s in. I can’t feel the intralipids at all, though I feel colder than usual overall.

The nurse comes by every 30 minutes to check my temperature, blood pressure, and heart rate,

It’s been about an hour and a half, and I’m almost done:

Tomorrow I have to go in for monitoring blood work and ultrasound again. Hopefully we will find out when our transfer will be. We also meet with our family doctor, who will hopefully agree that it’s in my best interest to continue being off work until I’m in the right state of mind to deal with those additional stresses. DW has taken the day off tomorrow to support me.

More updates tomorrow!

Immune Testing Results

You may recall that I had some testing done after it was revealed that I miscarried a chromosomally normal embryo back in September.

Here’s the post about it, if you don’t remember.

Anyway, it’s been three weeks now, and the results have come in for most of them, except for the natural killer Th1/Th2, the $640 test that is sent to California for testing.

It has all come back normal.

I’m skeptical on many fronts, as I have very little confidence in the reliability of lab work that isn’t repeated. In 2010, I had some abnormal blood work results that forced me, my GP, and some specialists down an ovarian cancer rabbit hole. The abnormal blood work was corroborated by some abnormal ultrasound findings, which suggested a rather large multi-chambered tumour on my right ovary. The blood work was repeated a month after I had given away my chiropractic practice thinking that I was going to die (who wants to work during their last year of life?), and was totally normal. A slew of medical specialists were convinced to see what they wanted to see, all because of what we speculated to likely be a “mix up” in the blood lab.

Anyway, I am not sure what to make of all of this. I’m not sure that my RE’s testing is comprehensive, but we are led to believe that my immune system did not kill the embryo.

If our embryo is truly chromosomally normal (I question this sometimes too- though I’m told that it’s a bit more reliable because they culture the samples for a long time to distinguish between mama and embryo tissue), and my immune system did not kill our embryo, then what did?

As mentioned above, I’m still waiting on the NK cells results. How much do you wanna bet that they will be normal too?

Right now we’re waiting for my period to begin (in probably a week or so), and then we’re off to embryo transfer #4, with our last embryo. I’m particularly anxious about the chance of success with this transfer, as we’re only transferring one. Each of our previous transfers, we’ve transferred two. I’m trying to remain hopeful, as this embryo deserves to come home, and be loved. It’s just difficult to be hopeful when 2013 and 2014 have been filled with disappointment. I’m trying to find meaning in it, maybe something that I’m supposed to learn, but I’m struggling and it’s really breaking my spirit.

Anyway, lone star, you are so loved. Come home and stay with us forever. Your mama et maman have been hoping and praying for you to choose us.