I’m fine *

* Fine here having the meaning I broke down while trying to study Hebrew and started sobbing in a coffee shop with my husband trying to console me.

For the record, it was an adorable little baby asleep on her Mum’s shoulder that did it, and not the Hebrew studies or the husband.

I am not one of those IFers. For the most part, when I see preggo folks and people with their adorable kiddos, I am not one to get sad, jealous, etc. I think this is simply due to the fact that I am blindsidedly optimistic that one day that will be me. I have yet to begin to believe that I will not be pregnant and give birth to a happy, healthy baby.

But I think IVF just takes all of it to a new level. It is tough to keep the rest of your world spinning when you have to jab yourself in the gut a couple times a day. When your whole schedule is run by appointments, visits, injections and BFNs, it’s a bit of a challenge not to focus every energy on something that comes so naturally to so many. And it’s times like those that you can’t help but say: “Why not me? And what if it’s never me?”

Editor’s note: For the assholes out there who do not have the courage to post their continually cruel remarks about why I have not yet been blessed with children, let me just say I am not actually asking you “why not me” and am not really inviting you to e-mail me your litany of my failures. I know, I know. Wear a sheital an ditch the baby stuff in the house. Point taken.

I’m usually good about this sort of stuff. I can maintain an even keel in the worst of storms. The shots didn’t do it for me, but God love her, that gorgeous four month old asleep after nursing killed me.

Brush up your Shakespeare

and haul out your IVF horror stories. I’m having work travel plan remorse. WTF was I thinking when I said I could travel for work in mid-May?

What’s the longest IVF stimulation cycle you’ve ever heard of? As in, what is the longest you have heard from someone starting stims to egg retrieval and subsequent transfer (canceled cycles don’t count)?

As in, there is no way I still won’t have the embies back by May 15 if we’re doing a day three transfer? Right? Oh please, please say it’s right. You can’t take them with you and get them put back in somewhere else, can you? Would you need to buy them another seat? Can they just sit in my lap? You certainly can’t swallow them and hope they get to the right place? Cause you can do that with BCPs — they are equally as effective in either end.

Today’s panic is brought to you by my company-paid non-refundable $840 May 16 plane ticket to Denver.

Assuming you don’t read this until Sunday, Sunday’s panic is brought to you by the prepaid room at the Adam’s Mark hotel for two nights at $420 a night.

In case you’re slow on the uptake, Monday’s panic is sponsored in part by my co-worker who has never been to Denver and damn near refuses to take company trips because the last one they sent her on was a complete disaster. She is only going because I am going.

____________________________

In other news, Tuesday’s panic is brought to you by the fact that four nights of stims seems an inordinately large amount of time to go without an ultrasound or bloodwork given that this is my first cycle.

Though the funding has yet to come through, Wednesday’s panic is partially funded by the fact that we are planning on freezing embryos in the U.S. but not really planning on doing another cycle in the U.S. Can you take your frozen embies on aliyah with you? Do they get their own little Nefesh B Nefesh hats? Do they need visas? If not, that means we’ll probably just have to discard them here, which I just hate to do — all of course assuming that God willing we’ll have that many embies.

The other part of Wednesday’s panic is funded by viewers like you. Thank you. *

* Just kidding of course. You guys always keep me calm.

I (heart) Lupron

Got the results back from the u/s and bloodwork. They never give me real numbers, but I’ve been told I am A OK to start stims tomorrow. They don’t need to see me until Tuesday, since my body appears to be reacting to the Lupron exactly as planned.

That means I’ve got a couple days to get the house cleaned, get some rest and get packed for the Big City. I’ll be there Tuesday through Friday morning, and maybe a bit longer depending on when we trigger.

On the other end, I’ve got to fly out to Denver for three days in mid-May, which should help to take some of the time out of the 10-day wait.

Today’s panic? That we won’t have transferred the embies out by the time I have to head to Denver. I leave on May 16, so things would have to be pretty screwed up by then, but given the lack of cooperation my body had for the IUI, I’m still a little panicky.

And it gives me something to focus on that’s after this cycle. It’s weird to even contemplate a date in mid-May. Oh yeah, I forgot. Pass or fail, life goes on.

Ain’t that a kick in the head?

I don’t have any news on the cycle just yet.

I got rear ended on the way to my CD 3 u/s and bloodwork. Minivan hit me and pushed me into a station wagon.

B”H I’m not really hurt and the car doesn’t have a scratch on it. Airbags didn’t go off — so it couldn’t have been that bad — but I smacked my head on the steering wheel. The minivan driver didn’t stop, but the station wagon did. I was all good and proceeded to my appointment.

My doc (albeit a reproductive endocrinologist — but I think she spent more time in med school than I’ve been alive) — who deigned to see me just long enough to shine a pen light in my eyes — says mild to moderate concussion. Having had several concussions in my ice hockey career, I would say this is mild (I didn’t lose consciousness, no nausea, mild dizziness, feels like a killer headache, and my pupils are pretty reactive to light). I promised I would drive myself over to the ER in the Big City, but of course I went home instead.

My head did start to throb a bit on the way home — it’s nearly three hours. I feel like arse right now and am going to bed as soon as the hubby gets home. Gotta wake up every couple hours when your noodle is scrambled.

More news as it happens here at Casa Kirby.

"Conquering Infertility"

Or, “Why your husband just doesn’t get it.” *

Okay, so I read the book. Didn’t really enjoy it. Didn’t really get much out of it.

Have I clearly missed something? The relaxation exercises only helped me fall asleep while I was reading it.

You know what would help me fall asleep at night? Being pregnant with twins.

(Okay, I think that was the lupron talking.)

And I don’t really feel as though there were any earth-shattering revelations. And the whole overtone had a bit of an infomercial feel. As in, if you come take one of my overpriced classes, you’ll be able to sleep at night.

Right — cause if there’s two things a woman in the midst of an IVF cycle has a surplus of, it’s money and the ability/time to travel.

To hell with coping strategies. I’m sticking with my chocolate and gradually escalating attacks on my husband.

And I’m joining the Barren Bitches Brigade. Want to join me?

* In all fairness, my hubby rocks my world. He is a generally good guy and has been good about taking care of me through the nightmare that is IVF. That said, he really freaking doesn’t get it. And if I have to explain one more time about how we really can’t know in advance when ER will be, that boy’s going to get a swift PIO in the ass. How do you like them apples?

Off topic: Let’s learn Hebrew together! Does anyone know how to say:

“How do you like them apples?”

And what is the word for “epidural”? I’m getting that on a t-shirt.

I know, I should probably be focused on the words for apartment, movers, resume, employment, and “please do not evict us, we are poor,” but I’ve been known to put the wagon before the horse. Just read the post about the spreadsheet.

Call me an optimist

Time to answer some of the loads of e-mail, comments, etc.

“Whatever happened to your muskrat pelt?”

Um. As bad as the hair dye job was, it still isn’t as bad as Pelty (yes, I named it). I’m back to being a scarf/snood/baseball hat kind of girl for the time being.

“You haven’t said much about your triathlon training.”

That’s because there hasn’t been much training. Since we are for sure making aliyah, there isn’t a wealth of time or money for it right now. I’m putting all efforts into staying well rested, healthy and cheap in hope this IVF cycle works. That mixed with fabulous nausea, mild to killer headaches and general laziness, and suffice it to say there has been very little to report.

“Why are most of the links in your blogroll to people who are already pregnant or have kids?”

Dunno. I guess I am optimistic. And even though most of them had an IVF success, I think it’s fair to say most of them still had a rough road. Easy to lose our sense of pity for them when they have a beautiful baby, but once an IFer, always an IFer I think. If you want me to link to you, just send me a note at whattoexpect2007 (at) hotmail (dot) com.

Allformybaby writes:

“Wow! I didn’t realize that cutting your hair could send you to eternal damnation! You should post a pic.”

Well, we don’t really do the whole eternal damnation, fire and brimstone thing. But the period of counting the omer is a period of mourning and most folks do not cut their hair in that time.

As for the picture, the badness is gone. Let us never speak of it again.

Rachel Inbar, my hero and yours, writes:

“I colored my son’s hair for Purim. I took a box of platinum blonde (he’s got dark brown hair) and left it on like they said. It came out a beautiful copper color …”

Alas, mine was copperesque, without the beautiful part. It is now kind of a reddish brown. Serviceable, but not really what I was going for in the long run.

She also writes in regard to IM shots:

“It doesn’t get much worse, it’s mostly the fear that hurts, at least for me… (I did give myself about 200 shots, so I have some experience.)”

I met someone the other day that had to give two PIO injections a day for 36 weeks to prevent miscarriage. My knee-jerk response (B”H, in my head) was: I would never do that just to have a baby. It took me a few seconds to get to: Who the hell am I kidding? If they tell me at 12 weeks that I can’t stop the shots, I mean really, who would actually quit?

I hope your 200 were accumulated over several healthy pregnancies.

And several of you left very kind notes about my “profound deficiency”:

The nurse confirmed it was just covering the bases for all possible scenarios. If it makes this cycle more likely to be a success, I’m all for it.

******

In other news: I think CD1 is right around the corner. I’ve heard Lupron periods are lighter and shorter than the rest, so I’m kind of afraid I might fail to realize it. I think I start stims on Friday (what day of your cycle are you supposed to start stims?).

Anyhoo — keep the messages coming and I’ll keep replying.

It’s official

The big news is probably going to be anti-climactic if you regularly read this blog.

We returned our paperwork to Nefesh B Nefesh last night.

We are officially making aliyah (moving to Israel) this summer. We pretty much knew we would, but it took us a bit to commit. We were hoping we would hear from either Tel Aviv University or Ben Gurion University about the hubby’s grad school applications, but none such luck.

We are just going to go for it, pray for the best and make whatever adjustments are necessary to make it work.

Although it is kind of scary, it’s super exciting. We have gotten estimates on shipping and the rates looks really good. I am looking into retraining in technical writing for as early as August or after the chagim (holidays – specifically, the high holidays in September and October).

To my loyal Israeli readers, we are in need of an apartment in Modiin: preferably two bedrooms, 100 sq. meters if possible, near a bus line, and not that expensive. We are not picky about the neighborhood, but would gladly hear your suggestions. We are working on some leads, but would take any others you can offer.

When we get there, first felafel is on us.

Life lessons learned

So, you might remember the offhand note in a recent post about coloring my hair. It went a little something like this:

“And I am going to bleach my hair until it’s really blond. Do any of my frumsters out there do crazy ass stuff with their hair since no one can see it?”

Which prompted a barrage of e-mail on how I’m not supposed to do this while we’re counting the omer. For the record, I’m coloring it, not cutting it, and have been told by a Rav this is okay. Thanks though for your fears for my immortal soul.

Moving right along. The picture on the box was of a Cameron Diaz-esqe color. That is not quite what I got out of it.

The color my hair adopted was not something seen in nature. As the not-so-subtle hubby put it:

“Is that what they meant by blond?”

So I spent motzi shabbos rectifying the situation. It is browner now. Not what it was before, but I no longer look like a two-bit whore either. Baby steps, I guess you could say.

In other news, I took my last BCP. Hopefully this means my tryst with the Pepto will soon be at an end. Stims start on Friday, so it should make for an eventful weekend!

Check back with me tomorrow when I (finally) answer all the e-mail and comments. There will be some other big news too, or so we hope.

News flash, among others

Yeah, so remember that part where I said I wasn’t having any side effects?

If you don’t, scroll down a bit. It’s just two posts away. We’ll wait.

I think it was ProjGen that recently said, if you blog it, it will come.

Natch. Had what I think was a hot flash on the way home from the grocery that was so bad I wanted to rip my top off and drive around in my skivvies. B”H, no, I didn’t.

In other news: Took the BCP. All better.

And I am going to bleach my hair until it’s really blond. Do any of my frumsters out there do crazy ass stuff with their hair since no one can see it?

The next installment of dumb things I’ve done lately

But first, shocking revelations I’ve made lately:

If you go to sleep at night, you will be able to wake up while it is still morning and actually feel good. “At night” here having the meaning “before 3 a.m.” when you are expected at work before 10 a.m.

Don’t fix what isn’t broken. If the Pepto lets you keep stuff down, keep taking the Pepto.

There is no shame in napping.

And I wholeheartedly endorse the Godiva plan: you get one chocolate for every shot you take. When the IMs start, you get one chocolate for every shot you take and one chocolate for every shot self-administered.

And now, our featured show.

Dumb things I’ve done lately:

What is with the weird dreams? Maybe it’s the Lupron? I’ve had two doozies as of late.

First time, I dreamed I gave birth to a Barbie doll. Complete with box.

Next up, I had a dream I gave birth to seven kittens. Each individually wrapped in a plastic bag, so that when they took them out of the bags they were dry and fluffy, but had a lot of static in their fur. They kept crawling around the hospital bed (yeah baby, both dream deliveries “took place” in hospitals) and kept swatting at my IV lines.

Okay, so this is the biggie. Don’t tell my clinic, but I must have lost a BCP. I ran out of active pills last night, so I’m headed to Target to get more and will have to take one this afternoon and then get back to schedule tonight. I’m hoping that the injections will trump the BCP and I’ll be okay. But don’t. Tell. Anyone.

I think that attempting to remove your syringe from the vial while you still have the bottle upside down is just a right of passage. I passed mine last night. I think I only lost a small drop of Lupron, but considering it costs about a bazillion dollars per milliliter, I felt like a bit of an ass.

And I can’t help but note that I am completely getting my hopes up about this cycle. I know so many cycles fail, but when you’re an IVF virgin, the prospects look so unflinchingly fabulous from this side.

Moreover, have I mentioned I want twins? Really, really want twins? Yegads, what has become of me.

Anyhoo – out the door to Target (that’s Tar-zhay, for the uninitiated) and to the grocery to get the goods for Shabbos.