Today, I had my IVF #2 transfer.  All three of the embryos made it to day 5 blast !  YAY !!   I transferred them all.  One was a perfect 4AA, the second was a 2 AA and the third was a day behind growth-wise but the Embryologist said it looked good. 

Here are my little lionesses:

When I arrived at CNY this morning, I went up for acupuncture with a camera guy in tow.  The acupuncture session was so relaxing, I fell asleep !  I never sleep during the day like that. I was awakened and taken downstairs for my transfer.  My RE, Dr. Grossman, did my transfer.  After the transfer of all three embryos, I went back upstairs to the spa for the second acupuncture session.  I fell asleep AGAIN !   It was a nice nap. 

I left the center and headed straight to The Tailored Tea Room to get five buttermilk scones to take home.  I left there and then my mom, cameraman/producer headed to Cheesecake Factory for lunch.  After lunch, we hit the road to DC.  I drove 1/2 way and then my cameraman/producer drove the other 3.5 hours.  We did not hit any traffic stalls and I rested in the back seat until we got to Reston, VA then I hopped out at a grocery store to get a pineapple so that I could cut the core. 

My mom cut the core out for me and then I sliced it into 5 pieces and ate the first nights piece. 

My doctor told me to take it easy and that this would be a great week to just chill out on the sofa and watch movies, eat healthy fruits, veggies, and food, and RELAX….  I intend to do JUST that ! 

I have made a list of veggies that I want my mom to pick up from Whole Foods tomorrow and the Farmers Market and I am going to lie around her house and let her pamper me.  It was hilarious that the acupuncturist assumed that my cameraman/producer was my partner !  He instructed me to relay and just let him so all the work.  LOL

I called my fertility clinic this morning to check on my embryos and the embryology report from yesterday states that one of the four expired but the other three looked excellent.  They are dividing properly and appear at that stage to be great quality !

Tomorrow morning is my transfer so I am going to take it easy today.  My mom and I are on our way out to a local tea room for noon tea and will grab lunch at a nearby eatery that is supposed to be really good.   My film crew will be here tonight at 10pm so I will make sure I get plenty of rest since I have to get up at 6 am tomorrow to pack the car, eat breakfast and head to the fertility center for acupuncture prior to my transfer.

Prayers please !!  🙂

My nurse just called with an update and guess who has THREE EMBRYOS and waiting on the 4th to possibly catch up?  ME !!!!!

Me and God had us a little talk yesterday and again this morning and I surrendered to Him all of my anger, all of my disappointment, and all that rage and I told God that I am trusting in Him to turn this around because I know ONLY He can and I KNOW He was NOT going to forsake me.  I promised Him that I was going to stand on HIS WORD and He is not a man that He would lie.  After that little talk, I felt this peace wash over me like a waterfall and at that point, I knew everything was going to be okay.

I can not tell you how relieved I am that I am still in the game.  The only sad thing is, we do not have enough time to thaw my frozen embryo to transfer that one too.  I would have to wait until Monday to do that and I do not want to risk the other embryos just to thaw that one.  If necessary, I will do an FET later.  The FETs are included in my contract so I would only have to buy the meds.  I report to the fertility center on Saturday an hour a half prior to my transfer so that I can do acupuncture.

Thank you all for your prayers and well wishes.  For those who do not believe that prayer changes things, there is your proof !

My RE and I spoke and I learned that yesterday when my eggs were retrieved, surprisingly, they were immature.  Later this morning, miraculously, the eggs matured and they were able to ICSI them.  Dr. Grossman said that we now wait to see if they divide and we likely will not know anything until Thursday and if they do divide, then he will do the transfer earlier (Thursday or Friday), instead of on Saturday. 

Dr. Grossman said he didn’t expect that I would have that few eggs in light of the number of follicles I had and it was a surprise that the eggs matured the next day.  He said should this cycle fail, then the only thing I can do is cycle again.

My mom and a few ladies I have spoken to on the boards suggested that I do a lower med dosage next cycle, as most REs give high doses for our age bracket and they have personally experienced better cycles with lower doses.

Now I need to wait.  I am trying to focus and keep the faith.  This is one of those times when you want to curse God and wonder why you are going through this when all you have been in good and kind.  People who are ratched and evil pop out babies like popcorn.  I am a successful woman with a great heart and (1) no Mr. Right and now (2) no babies.   REALLY GOD?  THIS is the masterplan?  What happened to being in your PERMISSIVE WILL as well as in your DIRECTIVE WILL?   What happened to “anything you ask in my name and believe in your heart that you can have, you will?” and “my Word will not return until Me void?”  or “Ask and it shall be given?”  or……….. So many promises we are supposed to stand on and in return we get what for believing? 

I am very certain that this is exactly what the enemy wants us to believe.  He wants us to distrust God.  I just question what kind of God do I serve that my enemies are blessed, those who thumb their nose at God are blessed, the ratchet, whorish, do what the hell they want people are blessed and those who obey and go out of their way to BE a blessing to others can not seem to catch a break?   Under what act is THAT okay?

Is now the time I am to allow my lips and my life to preach the same sermon?  HOW do you expect me to keep trusting and to keep believing when YOU are not doing your part?  At what point do you give up and just say EFF it? 

I am beyond frustrated. Thousands and thousands of dollars out the window. Weight gained.  Thousands of dollars in baby gear that I may have to give away.  The toll the meds take on our bodies….

I can not help but be pissed !  Both my best friends got pregnant and were not even trying…. OPPS !  And here I am, paying to get pregnant, and it is like money down the drain.  I am angry ! 

So many other women out there are just screwing around with any Tom Dick and Harry and popping up pregnant and they can not even afford to get pregnant, let alone afford the costs of raising a child and Shaquitta and nem have five or six little bay bays running around.  REALLY GOD? 

I am so angry.  Trying to vent all of this out so that I can get myself in a better place to fight and move forward fighting until I get to the end. 

It does not help that my mom looks at me this morning and says “well, God does not intend for all women to be mothers.”  Well to that I say, FUCK THAT !  I am NOT buying into that bullshit. 

God says that anything we ask for in HIS name, we shall have.  So damn it, I want a billion dollars, a husband who meets every single criteria that I have asked God for, and I want to give birth to healthy twins who will be everything I have prayed to God for them to be.   How hard is that? 

For the first time in my life, I am in a place where I feel like I have NOTHING worth living for.  A fleeting thought, but all the same I now see how people end up in that space.   I pulled myself up and thought of all the things I am blessed to have and all the things that could be wrong in my life that are not, and for that I am grateful.  I just need the rest of this crap to line it up so that I can be happy.  I will never be happy without children.  I deserve to have that after all the struggle and hell I have had in my life.  I did not just wake up like this !  I have worked my behind off to get to where I am at this point.  I just need to complete this story.

I would say pray for me, but at this point, I can not see where it helps or hurts.

#brokenhearted  #madatGod  #pissedattheworld  #tryingtofindareasontohope #tryingtofindareasontopray

I got the dreaded call from my fertility clinic this morning, as I knew was going to happen, this cycle is a bust !  None of the measly four eggs collected will fertilize with ICSI.  The nurse said the embryologist will check them again tomorrow and attempt fertilization, as they may not be ready for ICSI just yet.

I have the sneaky suspicion that this cycle is just a bust. I have not had a good feeling about it since I started stimming.  I have been in a crappy mood from the onset. 

I do have one embryo that is frozen from the first cycle, but I do not want to transfer just one embryo.  I want twins so I can be done !   If I transfer just one and it turns out the same as last time, it would be just as devastating.

My mom wants me to just go the donor egg route.  I will wait and see what the embryologist says about the eggs they retrieved.  I am now thinking that I need to go to CCRM or another center with a higher guarantee for advanced maternal age.

I would rather pay more money and have a competed cycle that keep paying less money for more cycles and have more heartbreak.  CNY is a great clinic and they have had success with women in my age bracket, but after two failed cycles, I am not going to continue at the same clinic in hopes of a different outcome.  Even with doing donor eggs, I do not want to take that risk, as the problem could very well be me.  More later….

This morning, my film crew and I got up at 5:30 am, drove to Walmart to grab a few CF cards for the camera gear and then came back to the hotel to get showered and dressed.  The film crew and my mother went to breakfast, while I suffered in silence in the room, lol.  

I arrived at CNY Fertility Center and Spa at 8 am, thinking I had to do acupuncture prior to retrieval, however, it is only done prior to and after transfer.

I signed my mom up for spa treatments and then went downstairs and waited to be called back.  I went to the back, got dressed in a hospital gown, socks, and a CNY terry cloth bathrobe, got weighed in, and then escorted to my operating room.  The nurse asked me a bunch of questions and then started my iv. She started my intralipid infusion prior to retrieval since I had two bags to do.  A few of the nurses who know me came by to say hello, as did Dr. Ditkoff.  The embryologist came in and introduced himself, and the anesthesiologist came in and explained what he was going to be doing.  A bit later, my RE, Dr. Grossman came in and spoke to me and asked if I had any questions.  The anesthesiologist came back, put propofol in my iv and the rest is a blur ! 

I woke up with a little cramping and I just rested as my intralipid infusion finished. I learned that they only got four eggs this time and I was a bit disappointed. I know that after a D&C, a lot of women have decreased egg counts and follicle counts but typically the eggs are normally healthier because of the “reset.”  I am very nervous about how many will fertilize and make it to 5 day blasts.  I was hoping to have a lot of eggs so that I could do FETs is necessary. Now I am really nervous about the outcome of this cycle and hope it is not a bust !

I got my discharge instructions and got dressed and then waited in the lobby for my mom to finish her spa treatments.  The nurse went to get the film crew from the conference room they were waiting in.  We left, went to Smashburger for lunch and then came back to the hotel.  I fell asleep at some point and missed my soap operas.  I woke up around 3:00pm. 

I feel pretty good.  The last time, I had a lot of bloating and this time, I feel normal.  I went out with my mom to the bank and then to the grocery store to get french onion dip for my chips.  Now I am back in my suite and about to make a big juicy burger and baked potato.  The hotel is doing Italian today and I am not a fan of stuffed shells. I will update after I get my fertilization report.  Please pray that my eggs all fertilize and make it to day five !!

This morning, my mother and I went over to the Niagara State National Park and took a boat ride around the Falls on the Maid of the Mist.  The picture above is one I took with my camera phone as we got pretty close to the Falls. 

After spending time at the Falls, we hopped in the car and drove the 4 1/2 hours to Albany, unpacked the car, unpacked luggage in our suite, and then went to dinner at Cracker Barrel.  My mother is in love with their Sunday Chicken dinner !

We went grocery shopping and then I went to Staples to hunt down a portable hard drive that my film crew texted me to pick up to store the footage tomorrow. 

I am relaxing in the suite, eating fresh popped organic popcorn now and watching television.  My film crew will be getting in around midnight and then I am going to sleep and getting up at 6 am to shower and get ready to head out to my 8 am arrival time at CNY Fertility and Spa.  I am getting acupuncture prior to my 9:30 am retrieval.  I plan to take it easy tomorrow once I am released.  I got my Gatorade, brazil nuts and ground sirloin to make my burger tomorrow when I get in.  I love that my hotel has a full kitchen in the suite !  They serve breakfast and dinner daily as well have a wine social in the evenings, but I am not to keen on tomorrow’s dinner menu of stuffed chicken, lol.  So I will have a nice baked potato and a juicy steamed burger with cheddar and swiss.

Wish me success tomorrow !!    I am BLOATED !  I feel like someone injected my ovaries and abdomen with water.  Its a weird sensation, but it does not hurt.  I will update tomorrow after my procedure.

Today is trigger day !  It has been such a LOOOOONG time to get here since my miscarriage in June.  I have so many mixed emotions and am a bit nervous, but this is it !

Today, I spent most of the day at Niagara Falls in the garden for my besties wedding. It was simply beautiful.  They had the reception at a nearby hotel.  I felt bad that I had to leave an hour before it ended so that I could get back to my hotel and get ready for this 9:30 pm trigger shot.  I have 58 minutes until trigger time !

Tomorrow is a great day because all I have to do it take my prednisone, synthroid, prenatal, vitamin d, and folic acid. No injections !  woot woot ! 

My mom and I are going on the boat cruise around the Falls tomorrow and then will be driving the 4.5 hours to Albany.  My film crew is coming in from NYC tomorrow night at 11:30 pm.  I can have nothing to eat after midnight and I have to report to CNY at 8:00 am for acupuncture and my procedure is at 9:30 am. 

Please keep me, my eggs, and my soon to be embryos in prayer, in your positive thoughts, and in your hearts.  This entire journey is such a hardship and so painful.  At the end of it, we hope and pray that we have a baby or two in our arms.