I really try not to do what I'm about to do, but I really need to just let it out.
Why? Why is it after every failed fertility treatment do all the pregnancy announcements literally fly out of the woodwork? Why do people feel it's acceptable to tell me on my birthday that they're pregnant - it is just a constant reminder that my body continues to fail me! And worse yet, that I've had another complete year of not achieving what I hope, dream, and long for. Yes, I'm happy for you, but I'm really sad for me. Then on top of that I get a positive Opk, I should be thrilled right? No, I'm not, bc I know even tho we'll BD, it will likely fail because my body loves to reject embryos - and that's if my cervix even allows any sperm to pass. I just can't deal today and I just want to leave work, lay in bed, and cry. It's been really hard for me. I've spent my entire morning in tears after the latest announcement from my cousin. I'm just going to start calling it the curse of my birthday. I hate today a little more than I did this time last year.
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So, the last time I posted, I thought I would have my LH surge, but the tests immediately got lighter, so no LH surge. However, I've been getting O pains, so it threw me off. This is my first cycle after my failed medicated FET, so I'm really unsure what to expect - do I ovulate late? Early? At all? Did I miss it? Did it go when it normally would have, had I not had a fresh and frozen cycle back to back? So many questions, so little answers; the only thing the internet turned up was late ovulation, but my cycles are ridiculously regular, like to the point that if I'm a week late one month, I'll be a week early the next; however, I also haven't done IVF or FET before either.
Last night it became close - super close - to looking positive, which would be a norm for me (positive Opk on CD 13/14). So time will tell, cool thing is I could potentially - with a miracle of course - conceive on my birthday 😬 I've been totally slacking with the circle + bloom, but in my defense, I've been exhausted. Maybe tonight I will start it again, last day was CD 9. I have gone to acupuncture, she told me to do a couple feng shui things to help, so who knows. She also said we'll do support for implantation from now on, since it was theorized that it's implantation failure. Even though I know it's a complete long shot and I have a better chance of winning the lottery, part of me is really holding onto the littlest glimmer of hope that we could get pregnant naturally- no matter how unlikely it is, I still just hope. I know it's stupid, and I know it's just a unicorn crapping rainbows, but maybe I'll be lucky for once and have a magical unicorn run thru. 🌈 🍀 It's cycle day 8 of my first forced natural cycle. I finally got to do my circle + bloom on days 6 and 7, it relaxed me to sleep so I have no clue what the meditations were.
It's really weird not having hormones to take or doctors visits, you switch from having things daily to nothing. I haven't even got to go to acupuncture yet! Work has been very hectic. I have been staying true to a workout regimen, it's been awesome 😬I have finally lost some of the weight gained during the hormones, that's pretty neat. My eating hasn't been the healthiest, but not horrible either. I just haven't had time to cook,and since I'm working out again, I get really hungry during the day, so by the time I get home, I'm ravenous. I am checking for ovulation via Opk, and it hasn't been positive yet, but it looks like it will be very soon - think next day or two. I knew my cycle would be off, wasn't sure by how much. Also,AF after this failed cycle wasn't terrible like I'd heard, I actually passed barely any clots. So that was definitely a plus. Until next time. AF finally came last night! Yes, I'm slightly excited, I was getting nervous that I had zero inkling about it coming prior to it just starting.
I haven't gotten to try my circle + bloom yet, I passed out cold last night; but I definitely plan to try it tonight 😬. I feel like both a lot and nothing has happened in the last few days. I started a work out regiment that is a hybrid of P90X and Les Mills Body Combat, I was going to do the insanity P90X hybrid, but I like martial arts better. I had a meeting with the holistic practitioner and she said I really need to get my gut health under control bc it's throwing off my thyroid and causing an immune response which likely caused everything to flop. To be fair, I was forewarned about this before the last transfer, I just figured it would fix itself. Basically, need to incorporate a few supplements and cut sugar and flour intake for a bit until it's under control. I have IBS-D, or what my older relatives like to call "a nervous stomach", which sucks; every time I get stressed/anxious, even tho I may not necessarily feel stressed or anxious, my body reacts by not holding in any food. So, since I don't want to experience an episode at work, I'm still not really eating. Obviously, this isn't good. Thus, I really need to start using the supplements and fixing this. Quality of life status right now: shitty (pun unintended). So, that's that. We'll see how things unfold, I need to buy OPK's bc I'm out, and I need to know if/when I ovulate these next 2 cycles so I can anticipate my next period. I'm a 14 day luteal phase kinda gal. Which is helpful in knowing when I should expect the next one. Who knows, maybe a miracle will happen, it's not likely, but you never know. Time will tell. Retest is negative. No more meds, time to wait for AF.
Honestly, I'm glad it's over. Those 4 days between negative beta and waiting for a negative second test really blows, it just prolongs the truth and it hurts; last time DH was very optimistic, this time, not so much - we've been thru it before. So what do I plan to do differently?
I'm really going to try to cut coffee down, I started recently again because I've just been completely beat since right before spring break. I won't go radio silent over the next 2 cycles, my posts will likely be less, but I'll try to make sure there's at least a weekly update. I test again tomorrow for confirmation of failure, then stop all meds. Begin forced break.
Honestly, I'm cool with it, finally. At first I was rather upset I had to wait, but I know I'll be much less stressed during June, and the next 2 cycles will be too hectic at work with getting ready for college signing day, testing, fundraising for prom (Committee sponsor right here🙄), prom, and graduation. Plus I was informed I'll be looping to juniors next year and following them up to senior year the following year - I teach one year of a 2 year program; thus I need to get my curriculum situated. What's cool is I can use my down time from ER (egg retrieval) and ET (embryo transfer) to read the texts I'll be using. I'm really hoping they find something while doing the hysteroscopy, like a polyp? Idk some reason implantation failed. I know my last colonoscopy they did find a few polyps, so I'm wondering if it's possible for it to be common? Like if it's there maybe there's some in the uterus? Idk, I'm no doctor. Just hoping the hysteroscopy and endometrial scratch fixes the issue. I'm also planning to lose 15 lbs during this time, and eating super healthy. Which will help the eggs out in the end. I'm also looking forward to hitting up IKEA and maybe a winery or two in a few weeks. I want to tell myself that a finish line is in sight. So here's hoping to seeing one. I still don't have spotting, so I'm still taking all meds, I also haven't tested yet, as I was instructed to test Monday. I may test tomorrow morning for the hell of it. I did have a dream I took a test and it said 4.5 hcg in my system, and I turned to my husband in my dream and was like babe, it's 4.5, we got to wait two days and try again it looks hopeful. So weird.
In any event, I'm going to start a running program, begin lifting again, and when my stomach calms Down, start eating again. My ibs decided to start full swing, I haven't eaten more than a slice of toast per day in 3 days 🙄. I'm hungry. Before this, I had 2 times when it was this bad: when I was first diagnosed 9 years ago, and about 6 years ago - I dropped a ton of weight both times, so maybe this is a small blessing. I went from about 120 to 145 in 3 years while trying to conceive, but I also had really really insanely high stress level from a beyond toxic work environment for 2 years, so I'm thinking that maybe played a role. I've been noticing that I really don't have a support network, at all. I have no one that can relate to me; and people I did talk to, I can see their eyes rolling backwards when I talk about my cycles, so I Just stopped and currently feel extremely and entirely isolated. IF sucks to begin with, but it sucks even more when you are alone. I see myself pulling away from people I considered friends, bc the support isn't there, I sense the annoyance that they feel if I try to talk about it, because I need to get it out, I cannot hold it all in. It's sad really. And people who I did know who also had IF at one point stopped talking to me upon becoming successful in pregnancy. It just amazes me, and then one actually had the audacity to judge me about going thru IVF, I'm sorry but yes, while you may easily become pregnant and had recurrent miscarriage, I'm just trying to get to the frigging first part - seriously?! I wouldn't leave someone behind like that, I just can't bring myself to be that person. I know I have DH, but I can't always unload on him. Lots of the boards are either: ridiculously optimistic bc it's the first time they're doing it, or full of bitter women. When I say I feel alone and isolated, I mean it - completely. Since I was on activity restrictions, I've been zoning out in video games like a kid, just because I needed to fill a void or time. Once I can workout again, after testing Monday, I'll be doing that - that always helps me. I don't get to talk to or see my one close friend much anymore bc of work, that doesn't help. I scheduled a holistic therapy session for next week, those generally help me, but again, I'm paying someone to talk to me. Very sad when I think about it. I did purchase Circle + Bloom both natural and IVF programs. I figure I have 2 months off, I'll do the natural one for the hell of it, I know I have a snowball's chance in hell of getting pregnant naturally (thank you cervix for making sure sperm shall not pass), but hey miracles can happen, my mom and dad got lucky after 7 years and had my sister and I almost back to back. Who knows what is to come, just need to keep occupied between now and my hysteroscopy. My blood draw was negative. However, since I'm not spotting, I need to wait until Monday, test again and then stop meds.
So basically, I asked a lot of questions about why it could've failed and what can be done, asked if my body is just rejecting them, etc. He said all my embryos were good quality, so it's not an egg issue. We're going to do another hysteroscopy before the next cycle to check for fibroids and polyps and also an endometrial scratch to help implantation, as he believes it was implantation failure both times. So that will be in May, next fresh ivf cycle in June. Today, I hate today. I hate it because it confirms another failure. I hate it because I can't do anything until June. I hate myself for still holding a little hope and being naive. I've somehow convinced myself that my baby just implanted late and we're pregnant. I know that's not true, but part of me is still holding that hope. Especially since I didn't test yesterday or today, I have allowed myself to be stupid. I don't know. I'll know in about 4 hours.
It's one day til blood draw and I didn't bother testing today, yesterday's test was still negative; BFN 6, BFP 0. I sometimes wish I didn't test so I could be blissfully ignorant, but then again, better to not be blindsided.
In any event, there will be a semi long break between now and June when we will go again and do fresh IVF #2. In the interim, I'm going to be trying the circle + bloom natural conception to at least try to calm myself and then will try the one for IVF during our next cycle. I also want to try to implement the supplements that are mentioned in Rebecca Fett's book (It Starts With the Egg), and I'll be doing acupuncture again. Tho, this time I'm going to push to do it during the 2WW, as I really felt like I should've this round, but did not. Part of me is really dreaming I'm that exception to the rule of both, failed HPT but positive beta, and fall pregnant naturally after/before treatment, respectfully. A girl can dream right? It would really be nice,especially after my dream of a one and done IVF-er failed. I guess as much as this hurts, I've reached the point that I just expect to fail so it doesn't hurt as much, I'm so used to being disappointed, it's been officially 42 cycles that I've tracked and that doesn't even include the 4 I didn't when we were all if it happens it happens. Super naive. So I guess, 46 total. And from what I'm hearing, my cycles may very well go haywire after I stop meds this time, which is rather nerve wrecking. That's really been the one thing I could count on-regularity with AF, like clockwork, every cycle. 28 days and bleeding before the start of 5th period. I guess I can finally say it gets easier when you're just so used to disappointment. Or maybe it's a numbness? I just expect to fail. I broke the news to my parents that we will not be coming back to visit this summer, my parents kind of get it, but not entirely. They struggled 7 years with IF, did not do the whole IVF thing tho, it was just invented. So they get the heartbreak, but not truly, they had a happy ending, we're still in limbo of it may never happen. |
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November 2019
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