An open letter to Miley's friend

Hi Milie's friend,

I would like to introduce myself. My name is Kami and I am going through fertility hell too. You don't know me and I don't really know you. I don't even know Miley. I'm probably not even spelling her name correctly. You see, I know Miley's sister. Today, Olivia told me about her sister's friend (that's you) and the trouble you are having trying to conceive.

Now, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, "Wonderful! Now my reproductive story is fodder for everyone's casual conversations." There is some truth to that, I suppose, but please don't take offense.

I just want you to know that I am here to listen if you want to talk. I heard your story and my heart just broke for you. I know you have friends who have "been there" and are there to support you, but I understand that maybe that isn't what you need right now. Maybe you need someone who hasn't been successful yet. Maybe you need to talk to someone who may never be successful or if she is, not with her own eggs.

I promise I won't tell you what you ought to do. I promise I will listen. Sometimes I might even say that I understand. Now I know my limits, so I might say some of the following. I might hope that it will help. I might say:

• It's not your fault. You have done nothing wrong. Sometimes life is just plain unfair and cruel.
• I know you have worked very hard to have a child. You deserve to have a child. You deserve a child that is the genetic as well as the biological offspring of you and your husband.
• It is so hard to hear your doctor tell you that your chances are low. I have heard those words and I have thought, "You are wrong! It can't be, not after all we have been through, not after how hard I have worked! Keep trying. Please - maybe you missed something. You must have missed something."
• And what's up with the 40-somethings who are given a 1% chance, produce one embryo and . . . have a baby?! Why not me?! Why not you?!
• I don't know why we are given choices we don't want. I wish I could fix it too.
• I'm sorry.
  

I gave my number to Olivia and asked her to give it to Miley. Maybe she will pass the number on to you. If you get it, please call. I would love to get together. I suspect I will never hear from you, but I just wanted you to know that I am thinking about you.

Kami

A little bit happy

Thank you everyone for the support. It is so nice to be understood. It has lifted my spirits.

I am also kind of embarrassed to admit, after all my whining yesterday, that I am excited this morning because Belinda is starting her Follistim today. Yeah! It feels strange to be excited and sad over the same event.

I am so thankful for Belinda. I can't imagine doing this with an anonymous donor. I love that she is sharing her experience with me and supporting me through this. Gosh, I hope this works.

A little bit sad

I had my cd3 b/w today. This is the appointment where I would get the call to start gonal-f. Oh such excitement! I couldn't wait until 7 pm when I could take my first shot. That would start twice daily shots and every-other-day appointments. I loved those shots. I LOVED those appointments. I was doing something.

Not so this time around. This time instead of starting twice daily shots of FSH, I will be taking twice daily pills of estrace. I don't go in for another four days. I miss seeing my RE every other day. Sometimes I wish things were different.

Limerick Chick (or why I'm keeping my day job)

Tales from my Dusty Ovaries
She won't be visiting wineries
It's the two week wait
Approaching the big date
Wishing her cute little babies



Infertile bloggers are we
We'll spread 'em for any RE
We just want a baby
A boy or a lady
Or Upon Awakening, live child free


Thanks for the fun, Lori!

Is it the mocha for breakfast?

I am so excited I can't sit still. I can't work either. I am bouncing off the walls.

Why?

I just spoke with the office manager from my clinic. That might not seem like a big deal, but I have had ideas bouncing around my head for months about ways they might improve things at the clinic and it was so nice to get those ideas out of my head and into someone's hands who might be able to do something about it. The best part about it was that I think she was very receptive!

A bit of background: My clinic has very caring, compassionate people, but you would never know it. I have heard from many other patients (not all, buy many) and my OB that my clinic doesn't care, that it is only about the stats, that my RE has no bedside manner. I believe that is absolutely not true. I believe that because I am a connection junkie and I watch for anything that might mean a person is paying attention. My RE, for example, does this little squeeze on the shin when your in the stirrups sometimes. After a few visits, I realized I only got the squeeze when I was having a tough day or scary moment. A ha! I just got my RE's equivalent of a bear hug! Now I even miss it when I don't get it (I wonder if I should start faking distress? hmm . . .)

The other thing is that their donor program leaves something to be desired. They have great rates, but again the warm fuzzies are missing and they have a very small donor pool.

I told the office manager I would be happy to:

• Share my story in an effort to help recruit more quality donors
• Participate in a patient advocacy group
• Help new patients understand that their doctor really does care. "Here is what I know and here is what you can watch for" kind of thing.
• Anything else she thinks that I could help with to make the experience of the patient as positive as possible.

So many of these ideas the office manager had already thought of and she was at least as passionate about it as I am. I know this is a long ways from things actually coming to fruition, but it sure is excited to think of the possibilities. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

OK, back to work. If I can manage to focus. Tonight I will post my limericks which can already be found at Weebles Wobblog.

MEG!

Meg of Perpetually Waiting . . . what is going on with your cycle? I hope all is going better than you imagined. If there is a way to keep up with how you are doing, please let me know.

IVF #5 official launch day

Thank you everyone for all your good wishes and support. I really needed it today.

I was SO nervous this morning. I could barely sit still. Yet, I managed to be 40 minutes late to the morning clinic. I just didn't want to sit around for a long time in the waiting room feeling like a loser. I was so late they were waiting for me! Ah, well, it's not like they don't know I am high maintenance already.

I was very nervous going in, but it all went well. Belinda and I chatted for quite a while waiting for our blood draw. It was nice. After we parted ways, she called me to see how I was doing. She could see "something" in my eyes. I was so touched! I was a bit sad/happy/excited/scared.

All is good to go. The nurse (my favorite RE wasn't in today) counted 12 antral follicles for Belinda. I am off the BCP's and Belinda's last day is tomorrow. On Saturday Belinda should start the big drugs.

Thanks again for everyone's comments. I hope I return the favor often enough.

Some good thoughts

I followed Mel's Friday Blog Round up to Miss Inconceivability and was inspired to blog some thoughts that came to me from reading this post. She talks about blogging about the negatives more often than the positives. It reminded me that I often do that as well. I might think about blogging after a good day, but I seem to not get around to it. So here is some positive thoughts from earlier in the weekend.

I have, at times, been very excited about this upcoming IVF. I mean VERY excited.

I realized the other day, after talking to a friend who has two babies via donor embryos, that I had a very hard time defending my position that it was a REALLY BIG DEAL that we were moving to donor eggs. I was talking to a woman who would understand where I was coming from, but it still seemed so shallow. As if no one else's genes could possible match my own. Smart enough? Nope! Pretty enough? Nope! That "special something"? Nope!

Keep in mind, I am not going to be winning any Nobel Prizes or beauty contests. I, ahem, do have that "special something" - just ask Brad, he'll tell you (stop him before starts listing my faults please). But everyone has something special and our child (if we are so fortunate to have one) will too.

The conversation continued and while I was trying to back away from "my genes are just the snizzle" my friend said, "Well, you can always try again with your own eggs." My first thought? "Oh, god, I can't go through that again." My heart just sank at the thought of it. I can't keep trying the same thing and expecting different results.

Why, then, was I so sad when I went with Belinda for her physical? Why was it that all I could think about was that we cared about her eggs and not mine? Didn't I already tell myself in this post that I had decided her eggs were my eggs? Maybe, I told myself, it is the reality of the IVF cycle. Maybe it is a control issue . . . needing to let Belinda take the lead, so to speak. Maybe these do play a part, but after talking to my friend about her donor embryo babies, something else occurred to me.

Perhaps, I am lamenting the loss of a genetic connection so that I don't have to face the fact that this might actually work. If I acknowledge that, I might get my hopes up and I desperately, desperately want to avoid more disappointment. I can't emphasize enough how much that scares me sometimes. I mean, if DE doesn't work, what will? Still, that knowledge does change things a bit. I know that I can survive crushing disappointment. I also know that it feels really good to be hopeful and excited. Why not choose hope?

So with that thought I have been quite excited and sometimes even hopeful. When I found out on Friday that our suppression check had been moved up from Thursday to Tuesday, I could barely stand the thought of getting through the weekend. I was on cloud nine all day on Friday. I allowed myself to imagine a positive beta, transitioning to my OB, giving birth, having a baby. I enjoyed our evening out with friends. It felt good to just be alive and together with people I cared about.

I was having such a great time, I didn't bother to tell anyone about it. I hope this post rectifies that a bit.

I did have a bit of a sad morning on Sunday. I was feeling the sadness and grief of losing Ernest, of our failed IVF cycles, of what could have been if things had gone differently. In the end I called Belinda because I knew her excitement of the upcoming cycle would rub off on me - which it did.

So . . . tomorrow is suppression check for both of us. If all looks good, Belinda will start the big drugs on Saturday. I will start estrace and baby aspirin (because of increased risk of preeclampsia with DE). Wish us luck!