Baby steps

I had my ultrasound and blood work this morning.

I won't know the blood results until much later today.  The doctor had a CBC drawn to check on how my body's doing with the Lovenox, and those results won't be in until tomorrow.  

But the ultrasound was good... I think?

Last week, the CCRM nurse said they wanted to see my lining over 6mm today & my estrogen levels at 50 or greater.  They said a lining on the 19th of over 7.5mm would be "beautiful".  

Today my lining was 7.6mm!  Phew! Yay! I'm happy about this.  I've never had a problem with too much lining (as I've heard can be a problem for some people), so I'm not worried about that. 

The one weird part (to me) is that the nurse said my lining was triple lined (trilaminar).   Here's a picture.  You can decide for yourself. 

Looks triple lined too me. 

I wasn't expecting to hear this.  Especially with my transfer not until March 1st.   Is it too soon for this? Is there such thing as too soon? I hoped it would be this way at my next lining check on the 19th.  

I don't remember paying attention to this when I was having my other FET procedures.  I don't know if this is normal.  Am I making something out of nothing? I'll be googling.  But I'm curious if you have any thoughts?  

Update:  The nurse got back to me very quickly.  She said that a triple pattern should be seen as the lining is developing.  That my labs and ultrasound are perfect at this stage and I am right on track.  (*)Breathes a sigh of relief (*)

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Also, I've been doing the acupuncture that was recommended by CCRM twice per week.   

The naturopath hooks up the acupuncture needles to an electrostimulator.  She asks me when I can feel certain intensity of sensations, with the goal of making the points in calves higher than those in my lower back.  The needles are in the right and left sides of my body.  

Something minor but nonetheless interesting has been happened.  When I started out two weeks ago, the stimulator had to be turned up much higher on my left side than my right to provide an equal sensation.   This week, when I went, she told me that the stimulator was set almost identically on both sides.

I'm not sure what I think of the acupuncture.  It costs $60 every time I go.  That part I don't like and neither does my dear hardworking bill paying hubby. What I do like is that it makes me feel like I'm doing everything I can.  And feel relaxed afterwards.  

It it increasing my uterine blood flow like it's supposed to?  That may never be known.   But the ultrasound images look good, so I suppose it's not hurting anything. 

 PS) I'm still abstaining from caffeine including chocolate.  I miss chocolate.  The end.   

Visit with the Naturopathic Doctor

This afternoon I had my first acupuncture session with the naturopathic doctor. It was good.  And uneventful which is what I like.  :) I appreciate the doctor because she is very relaxed and a good listener.  I feel like she asks really good questions.  And she doesn't push the sales of any of her supplements or other procedures.

She did a lot of research on some of the supplements I was taking and also some new ones since our last visit.

Some of the things she shared with me:

• The active form of CoQ10 (which she pronounces as co-Q-ten) is called Ubiquinol.  She recommended this over the regular CoQ10 supplements.  She said that research actually shows CoQ10 it can positively affect the fertility of men as well.   It is expensive and about double the cost of regular CoQ10, and I just paid about $51 for a bottle of 60 x 100mg pills.  
• Regarding my vitamin D3 deficiency, she suggested to increase my dosage to 2000 IU per day because 2000 IU is what is recommended for pregnant women anyways.   
• She reminded me that gel capsules are easier for the body to absorb than hard pill form.   She said that if the hard pills are small enough (as they are with the D3), then the body can probably absorb them alright.   She also said if I am taking a supplement three times a day, I may not need to worry about getting time released supplements. 
• The recommendation for DHA for pregnant women is 200 mg.  She suggested that getting this in the form of a fish oil (with EPA as well), is a better way to supplement.  She said that the DHA is for baby's brain development and EPA is for my health.  She said if there is one general supplement she would recommend to everyone it would be fish oil.  
• She told me the prenatal vitamins I had chosen were ok, but did not have any iron in them.  She thought this was fine, as long as I switched to one with iron if I were to become pregnant.  She said that iron can be hard to digest and cause constipation.   My family doctor told me that I was slightly iron deficient in the spring.  She said that iron deficiency takes a long time to correct, and that iron is hard to get out of diet alone.   Because of this, I think I'm still deficient.  I decided to take her brand of prenatal multivitamin because it has iron in it, and is not in hard pill form so it should be easier for my body to absorb. 
• DHEA has been taken in studies with cancer patients in dosages of up to 1600mg.  The research also said that in general it should not be taken for more than 6 months at a dosage of 50mg.  I'm going to continue with my dosage of 75mg per day. 
• She said the research doesn't show much support for L-Argenine and so she suggested I skip it. 
• I asked her to look up any other supplements that could help.  She said the other naturopathic remedies and supplements seek to alter hormone levels.  She didn't think it was a good idea to do them in combination with fertility treatments I plan to undergo and I agree. 

I told her that taking a handful of pills with every meal makes me feel old.  She didn't have a suggestion for that.  

All in

It seems I'm coming down from the emotional high that I had when leaving Colorado.   I kind of feel lame writing that - as if going to a fertility clinic could ever be a high, but, I guess I'll take what I can get.

I got my period yesterday, so it seems that the countdown is officially on.  I'm hoping to have all of my paperwork compete to attempt an IVF stimulation cycle in January, and a FET (hopefully) in February.  There's been a lot of tears (all mine) since November in getting to this point.  I'm scared of flushing a big wad of money down the toilet and coping with the emotional fall out if there are more negative results.

As I put it to D the other night while on a walk, this is it.  We are now all in as it relates to having a genetic child.  If this doesn't work (we're giving ourselves two IVF cycles depending on the results of the first CCS screening), this door will officially be closed for us.

Saying we are all in kind of makes me gag a little in side.  And I think I know why.  I've always been a procrastinator.  After some life coaching afforded to me in a previous career made me realize that my procrastination stems from wanting perfection.  Basically, it goes like this.  Something is hard or outside of my comfort zone.  If I procrastinate long enough, and don't have enough time that I am saving myself from disappointment if things don't work out.  There's always the thought that "I could have done better if I... had more time/tried harder", etc.

That's not the case for IVF.  I can't say that we've really procrastinated on a lot of things.  We've been chugging along this path for five years now.  Always in line for more tests, more procedures, more results.

These will be our last attempts at OE IVF.  And it makes me very emotional to think about it.  We are flying across the continent, to go all in.  This is it.  I've never felt this way before because there's always been more embryos, more chances left, more options out there.  God, please help us.

I've been following a blog for several months (http://lifeandloveinthepetridish.blogspot.ca) which I've grown to love.  She's a woman who persevered through much more than I think I could with all of this. She's survived cancer, seven IVFs and six, yes, six miscarriages.   One of the things the author has talked about is regret management.  I like the idea of this.  Hers involved a lot of very interesting things.  Mine are more basic.

1)  I've started exercising.  Today was my first day, and I joined a boot camp style fitness class.  I'm doing this to help stabilize my mood and to feel better about myself.  Because if this is all a bust, I'm going to need all of the help I can get.  It's been long enough that I've been making excuses (fertility treatments work great).  I will be stopping when I'm stimming, but until then it's a go.   At least I'm hoping to keep even with the house over the holidays.

2) I'm starting acupuncture. This is for overall health and to try to increase blood flow to my uterus.  At CCRM, during my one day work up they told me that I have "reverse flow" with the main arteries around my uterus.  They would like the flow to be under a 3.0 but my results were 3.62 and 3.5 left and right respectively.   When I go back to CCRM I'm going to have another doppler ultrasound to see if any of these things have changed my blood flow.

3) I've given up caffeine, even decaffeinated drinks and chocolate. When I had my doppler ultrasound, I wasn't allowed to have caffeine for three days prior because it reduces uterine blood flow.  Man, oh man. This has been hard for me.  I love sweets.  And it's Christmas.   I cheated once last Saturday and had a decaffeinated coffee, but other than that I've been caffeine free since November 29th.  I love a warm creamy drink (I'm drooling right now just thinking of a tall white chocolate mocha or coffee with french vanilla sweetener, literally).  This is difficult for me.  

4) I'm continuing with my supplements.  DHEA (3 x 75mg per day), CoQ10 (3 x 200mg per day).  1000 units of vitamin D (CCRM tested and I am slightly deficient).  And a prenatal vitamin with DHA.  This may slightly change when I see the naturopathic doctor today.

5) I'm going to continue to eat mostly home cooked meals with lots of veggies and lean proteins.  For my morning smoothie I'm going to start adding more greens.  Right now it's frozen raspberries, a banana, a frozen spinach puck, orange/veggie juice and greek yogurt.  I'm experimenting with adding celery and cucumber and kale.

As for drinking wheat grass or any other disgusting concoction, I just don't think I can handle any more changes.

This is it.  This is me.  I'm all in.  And it's scary as hell.