Well, hello FREE FET

So..
Last week I started experiencing some lower left side pelvic pain again when walking, coughing, sneezing, peeing etc.. I finally called on Thursday morning because I just couldn't take anymore of it and I was growing more and more concerned since all major symptoms and pains were  suppose to have already gone away with the start of my period..
The next morning I went in for an ultrasound and low and behold, that problem-child, asshole ovary on the left was still enormous. Dr. D (my new fav) gave me more percocets for the pain and also prescribed me a birth control pill to be taken for only 10 days until my next ultrasound appointment. He said the pill should prevent my ovary from producing the hormones that are fueling the problem. I'm happy to report that after having taken only 3 pills so far, I already feel 20 times better.
After the ultrasound was complete, I was sent across the hall to see nurse P (also my fav) to go over the timeline of the FET (frozen embryo transfer). She started going over the medicine I'd be taking, when to start it, the correct dosages for each day, blah blah blah.. And then she said in about 24 days we'd have to come in and sign the thaw consent forms!

Huh?! There is no way we are going to come up with $3000 in the next month to do this transfer!

I let her finish her spiel and then calmly asked her when we would be responsible for paying and she looked at me sort of dumbfounded and replied, "oh no honey. You don't have to pay. It's free. You got OHSS! We aren't going to punish you for that!"

OMG! What? No way. Did I just hear that correctly? We don't have to pay?

All this time I was so stressed out about being so close, and still so far away from our end goal! And if only I would have known that a week and half ago after being told the transfer was cancelled! To say I was relieved and excited would be a total understatement. I was a lot of things. I was such an absolute mess of emotions that Mrs. Nurse P got to see me cry for the first time. The kind of cry with a straight, ugly face and gigantic alligator tears! 

Yuck

After the leaving the doctor's office, I surprised Barry at work with the news and afterwards we had a celebratory lunch at High Tide Burrito. 

So, here is my new tentative schedule:

4/17 - Start BC

4//26 - End BC

4/27 - Ultrasound to confirm ovary has shrank

{wait for "mini-period" to come within 3 days of last BC pill.}

4/29 - Start of period (assuming it takes 3 days to start.) Begin Estrogen pill (1 pill twice daily)

4/30 - Increase Estrogen to 2 pills twice daily

5/1 - Increase Estrogen to 3 pills twice daily and continue until confirmed pregnancy.

5/10 - Begin Progesterone (gel suppository) and continue until 10wks pregnant.

5/11 - Ultrasound to check uterine lining thickness and blood work to check hormone levels. 

5/16 - Transfer Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5/23 Home Pregnancy Test

5/28 - Blood work to confirm pregnancy.

OHSS - the 'coming down' emotions.

OHSS is a bitch and the emotions you feel after being told that your transfer is cancelled because of it  is pure devastation.  I was told that there really isn't much you can do to prevent it and the only way for it to get better is to start your period so you basically just have to wait it out and take your pain pills like you're suppose to.
Leaving my embryos behind wasn't easy. I'm already so attached to them.
It only just now hit me, last night actually, at what they really are.
They are mine and Barry's. Our creations. We made them all by ourselves.

 (well. no. I guess we didn't. But that's not important.)

They are our embryos and to me, they may as well already be our living, cooing, breathing, babies.
I can only imagine how ridiculous this sounds from an outside perspective but that's truly how I feel in my heart and I just want my babies back where they belong; with me.

Also feeling your body get back to it's normal self is bitter sweet. For the past 3 weeks, I've cried at literally EVERYTHING overly happy/sad and everything in between as well. I wouldn't have made it through without the support of my family and my loving, understanding husband.

Dr appointment today went well. My bloat has gone almost completely though not all the way and I can breath while caring on a conversation!!!!!! My ovaries are still really big but the  ascites is improving. 
They said we could choose to wait a month before we start out FET or we could jump right in just as soon as I start my period in the next couple of days. Medically, there is no advantage with choosing one or the other. I keep going back and forth with this one and haven't yet made a decision. I guess ultimately, money will be the deciding factor.

10am appointment experience vs my normal 7am time.

The dr office was weird today. I had to park on the 4th level which threw me off. The elevator in the parking garage was  a very bumpy, loud, scary as shit ride and I'll never use it again.  There were old people with walkers everywhere. There was a line around the corner just to board the inside  elevator I always use.  Then I go to step in and the doors simultaneously try to mush me in front of a very big crowd who did nothing to stop the relenting sabotage. For a second I seriously thought I was a goner.  The waiting room was packed and full of pregnant ladies talking about themselves.  And I had  to sit on the couch.....by myself, because the loner seats were  taken. But the receptionist, who I've never even spoken to somehow rememberd me by name and face and asked immediately how I was feeling. Which was nice. And, up until today, my percocets hadn't been making me feel weird at all. Almost as if I were just taking Tylenol instead of a narcotic. But today, of course, as soon as I signed in a sat down they hit me and I was feeling spiny.
Lovely.
As I sat there for nearly an hour waiting to be seen, I prayed I'd be able to find my way out of the confusing ass parking garage by at least 3:00.

OHSS

And just like that..
It's all over.

I read some where that in order to get OHSS, at least 10 follicles have to produced.
Well, I only produced 7.. so that "10" rule is BS.

Transfer day and losing hope..

I should be so excited right now that I get my baby(babies) back on board!!
Instead I'm terrified of what today will bring.

The pain from my left ovary only intensified last night. I called the Doctor on call and she told me that she'd call me when she got into the office today to set me up an early appointment for an ultrasound before the scheduled transfer to make sure everything is alright.
As much as I'd like to believe I'm the biggest wuss and all of this is just nothing, I have a pretty bad feeling that it's something. It was so severe last night that it woke me up at 2:30 this morning and I wasn't able to ever fall back asleep after that. I just tossed and turned trying to get comfortable enough but the pain was too much. at 3:45 I thought about waking Barry up to take me to the ER because I noticed that the pain was radiating to my middle and right side as well, but I was just too fucking tired to do anything about it.
I'm so scared they're going to cancel my transfer today :(
I should be hearing from the clinic soon..

6 days past trigger.

SO! It's the day before Transfer.
Today I feel... nervously hopeful.
I'm totally hopeful everything will work out exactly the way that it's suppose to. But that's what I'm so nervous about.
My left ovary is angry. It feels 5 times its normal size which is odd, because I only had 1 mature follicle on that side. The other 7 were on my right side which I barely even feel unless I'm bending over or straining. Something in the back of my mind is telling me that the left ovary is trying to ruin my plans of a fresh transfer. Hopefully it's just a huge Corpus Luteum cyst and I don't have any fluid or blood leakage over there. The pain is definitely flirting with the 'severe' threshold. I know I compare my pains to my last ectopic a lot but I do it for two reasons. One being that, to date, it was the worse pain I've ever experienced and two, the pains are in the same area. Although my ectopic obviously occurred in my tube, it happened at the very end of my tube, right next to my ovary. So the pains, to me, feel pretty alike. And I will say the pain I'm feeling now, DEFINITELY feels strikingly similar to how it felt during my last ectopic both spatially and in terms of the degree of which it hurts..
During my appointment tomorrow, I'll certainly be asking the doctor to check it.
Worse case scenario, it's something serious, they freeze my embryos until the issue is resolved, Barry and I fork out another $2,500+ and we have a frozen embryo transfer in a couple of months, (assuming we have anything to freeze tomorrow, and if we do, assuming that/those embryos survive the thaw to be transferred.)
But back to the positive thoughts.
I didn't receive an update today on the babies because they wanted to let them rest up in the incubator, undisturbed. So we won't even know how they're doing until we get to the clinic tomorrow at 1pm. 

FINGERS CROSSED.. 

I have prayed and prayed and prayed and all I can do is trust in God's will. 

"Lord, please let this work."

3dpt-5dpt (Sat-Mon)

The short version:

This was me on Saturday:

The weekend was painful.  SO very painful.
Friday after getting home from the retrieval was easy; all I did was sleep. Aside from when I had to get up to use the bathroom, I had almost no pain thanks to the T3 they prescribed me. I still felt quite a bit because it's just Tylenol with a bit of codeine, but I didn't feel as bad I thought I would.
That is, until Saturday came around.
Not only did I pray for the good results of our possible babies, but I prayed for poop as well.
Saturday was pretty painful but no as bad as Sunday.
Sunday I still hadn't "gone." And also had no more painkillers to take. None that were approved, anyway. HOWEVER, Sunday I got the call! An update on our embryos.
Of the 8 follicles aspirated, 5 were retrieved. Of those 5, 4 of them were mature and ALL 4 fertilized. THAT'S 100% FERTILIZATION, FOLKS! I have never been more relieved! The Dr went on to explain they grade them by two factors. one, on how many cells they have and two, the amount of fragmentation; on a scale of 1-4 with 1 being no fragmentation and 4 being severely fragmented. The more fragmented they are, the less of chance it has at implanting and becoming a healthy fetus. They told me that 1's are rare. They mostly see 2's. So in other words, most pregnancies are a result of a grade 2.  By day 3 they want them to be between 2-4 cells.
Mine were as follows:
4 cell grade 1
4 cell grade 2
4 cell grade 2
1 cell grade n/a

That means I have 3 perfect babies so far!!!! I couldn't be more happy with this number.

Monday was the worst day yet. I had chills, sharp pains in my back between my shoulders, dull achy pains in my lower/middle back near my kidneys, sharp pains in stomach, up my side, and period-type cramps in my lower abdomen. It was absolutely awful. I left work early, went home, and guess what, I pooped. I shit. it. up. y'all.
Relief is an understatement.
I immediately felt better. Almost all of the preceding symptoms vanished. All was right in the world again.
:)

AND guess what?! I got another embbie update!!!!

Keeping in my mind that they want to see them at 6-10 cells by now, here's how my little Fox/Mickler babies are doing:

8 cell grade 1
10 cell grade 2
6 cell grade 2
they didn't mention the 4th, so I'm assuming that little guy didn't make it. [RIP]

I have named them already.
The first one is SPARKLE
The second is GLITTER
and the third is AVERAGE JOE.
This first two are doing reallllllly well. The third is still doing great. He's a little more average and likes to take his time to the finish like. His two front running sisters are just showing off a little. 

Day after retrieval. (3dpt)

I'll post more on Monday but I wanted to give some sort of update on how it's  going.
Really, all I want right now is to poop. All would be right in the world if I could just get this train moving again. I took 3 colace this morning and ate 2 activia yogurts so hopefully something will happen pretty soon.


Aside from my lovely constipation news, not much is going on.
Last night I turned to Barry and said, "our babies are chillin in a dish at the firm. All 5 of them!"
He said, "Yep, our first night without the kids."
Hopefully the FIRM has good babysitters on hand
I'm kind of freaking out!
I prayed yesterday for them and got so emotional in the middle of my prayer.
I can't stop thinking about them.

1 DAY PAST TRIGGER

So... this happened this morning  >_<

I decided to test the trigger... Which is really code for, 'I just wanted to see two pink lines again' since I can for at least the next 5 days or so until I pee it all out of my system. Typically is takes 1 day per 1000 units to flush out, so since I took 5,000 units,  it should take around 5 days.

But getting back on track.. How did the Trigger shot go, you ask? Stressful.
Bear totally forgot that we were suppose to trigger last night and was a couple minutes late getting in. Naturally, my hormonal and unreasonable self flipped my shit as soon as he walked into the house. I told him I needed my shot at exactly 9pm like the doctors notes said, not at 9:07. After going around and around in the kitchen, we agreed to argue after he gave me the shot but not before first taking it from him and storming out of the room saying, "I'll freaking do it myself!!"
Lucky for me, I married the right one. Bear being his normal, sweet, soft-spoken, let it roll of your back guy, calmly chased after me, carefully took the syringe from me and told me he'd do it, that he wanted to do it.
  I walked over to the kitchen counter, lowered my undies, showed him where to stick it, and how to administer it and then turned around and slightly bent over.
And then boom. It was over. I didn't even feel it. It was by far the easiest shot yet.
Afterward  I turned around and threw my head on his chest as quickly as I could so he wouldn't see the giant smile on my face.  Just as he started to apologize I looked up at him and told him through an uncontrollable laugh that I was fine, I just needed the shot. Things literally went from 10 to 1 in less than 10 seconds.
Hahaha!
That man has the patience of a Saint, I swear.

What he had to say about the administering the trigger shot:
"I felt like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. 'GIVE ME A FELT FUCKIN PEN!!'"

Anyways.. Today I felt nauseous, so bad at one point that my face was as white as a sheet.. It even freaked me out. I think the only reason I didn't get sick was because I had absolutely nothing in my stomach at the time. I can only assume that it's the HCG floating around in my system.  Also the usual: sore painful boobs, sore back, sleepy, constant dull headache... That's about it. I think being so excited about everything is really helping to offset the pressure and pains in my belly. I obviously still feel everything, especially when doing certain things, but I like to think the excitement and positive vibes are helping.

To add to the bright side, other than my antibiotics, I don't have anymore meds to take in the morning or night. Thank God since I was running out of spots on my stomach to stab myself. I feel like my tummy, below the belly button, is just one big bruise!

TRIGGER IN T-MINUS 6 HOURS

We made it!!

Day 15. Who'd have thought.
I took my last Cetrotide this morning and I'll take my last 2 Bravelles at 6:30 tonight. Then at 9pm, my lovely, dearest, husband gets to drive a 1.5 inch needle into my hip and inject me with 5,000IU's of pregnancy hormone to trigger my perfect little potential future babes to full maturation  in preparation for the egg harvest on Friday.
Perhaps with Friday being Good Friday, we will yield Good results.
I do find it ironically funny that all of this egg talk is happening the same week as Easter.

As far as feelings go.. I'm tired and sleepy to the extreme. I'm  sore. Like, every where. Even my left side, with it's lonely little 1 follicle, hurts just as bad as the right. My back hurts like I'm on day 1 of a new cycle, and as of 2am this morning, I've had a constant, annoying headache. I've read a lot of other IVF'ers post about the infamous headache that sticks with them from about half way through stims until the egg retrieval is complete and I thought I was lucky enough to not have to deal with it, but I think this one is here to stay. I'll also add that the bloat and pressure in my lower belly is enough to make me grateful for having no more than the amount of follicles I currently have. There. I said it. I have officially moved on from the "discomfort" phase, and into the "painful" phase. I feel like every couch or sneeze could potentially rupture my ovary and It's not fun.
With having said that, I should also mention that I'm in no way complaining one bit. I'm forever gracious no matter the outcome,  of having lived through these experiences over the last couple of weeks and I'm so glad that we were able to have the chance at it. I will hold these moments close to my heart for the rest of my life as I do with the amazing and painful ones that brought us this far.


Summary:
Weight- 112.6
2 Vials of Bravelle (150IU) pm
Cetrotide (0.25mg) am
Novarel HCG  (5,000IU) 9pm
Ciproflaxin (1 pill in am/pm)


I won't be having another ultrasound until the ER on Friday so all I can do is guess, but if we assume that my follicles grew another 2mm overnight like they did the night before last, here is what they should be today:
R:  19, 19, 18, 18, 17, 16, 15
L:  17
Over the next 42 hours or so, they will hopefully grow another 1mm (because of the Bravelle) and then another 1mm-3mm thanks for the the HCG Trigger. Hopefully my lining will plump up a little more too in the next 2 days.

STIM DAY 14 (Tuesday)

I seriously can't believe I made it to day 14 on stims.
The doctors and nurses are quite astonished it took this long for my ovaries to fully stimulate.We were all  under the impression that in less than 10 days I'd be lugging around 2 grapefruit sized oves and now look at me. Day 14 with only 8 follies, 7 of which are on the right ovary alone.

So I went in Tuesday at 7am for a follow up and couldn't believe me eyes! My follicles grew 2mm overnight! 1 of them even grew 3mm!!
R:  17, 17, 16, 16, 15, 14, 13
L:  15
Endometrial Lining: 9mm
 Not sure why my lining is shrinking????? The Dr didn't seem concerned though.
They didn't run blood work so I don't know my e2. I guess OHSS is off the table since you need at least 10 follicles to become overstimulated. No complaints here.
 The Dr said he wanted me to stim for one more night to give those "13's and 14's a chance to catch up for triggering."
I sat there completely dumbfounded as I contemplated, in the back of my mind, which credit card I was going to apply this $650 charge to for the third time in a row. As I walked out to meet with the nurse for more meds, I was greeted by a lovely new nurse whom I'd never met before. She introduced herself and led me into her office to go over the HCG trigger shot and have me sign a few forms. In the few moments of small talk that we had on the way to her office, I  realized right then, that she was my favorite. After showing me how and where to administer the trigger and going over the importance of it all, she left the room briefly to go grab all of my medications and syringes. When she returned, she the plopped the Menopur, Bravelle, and Cetrotide in my lap and told me, "these are free. Another patient here donated it back to the clinic and it's all yours."

I seriously could have cried. 

I must have thanked her 7 times. 

I wanted to just hug her. 

I should have just hugged her.

 The only thing I had to pay for was the Trigger which was only $80. "Only." Listen to me. There was a day not long ago when $80 was a lot of money in my penny pinching eyes. Now I get excited if I get to leave the clinic after having swiped my card for anything less than $250.

Weight-113.0 (the bloat is real, y'all)
2 Vials of Menopur (150IU) pm
4 Vials of Bravelle (300IU) pm
Cetrotide (0.25mg) am