Who woulda thunk it?

At 5:30am I woke up to cramps.   And, drumroll please... MY PERIOD!!! CD 1 on Feb 1.

I am breathing a big sigh of relief.

I've never been so happy to have cramps and a heavy period in all of my life. 

Go figure after yesterday's back and forth with the nurse and doctor.   And the ultrasound revealing a triple-line lining yesterday.  Hmm.  

And about my rant about what would happen if I didn't call CCRM.  For this time would have made life a bit easier if I had just left things.  But, you know what though? I don't regret because it caused the doctor to pay more attention to my file. 

First thing on today's list was a call to the on-call nurses to see what I should do about my lupron dose.    Yesterday my nurse said even if my period showed up to stop taking it.  I'm not so sure if that's a good idea.  I could continue on the old calendar without missing a beat.

I asked for something to be sent to me (a mini calendar of sorts) yesterday, but never got one.  So there is probably not much for the on-call nurse to go on to direct me.  

Oh, and I'm also wondering if this changes the need for the $1000 Lovenox order I just placed yesterday night.  Doubt that one, but I'm going to ask. 

So much fertility stuff happening lately! 

The results will give us our answer

"The results will give us our answer".  That's what Schoolie said.

But what I got was: "he's perplexed".  I probably never ovulated.  My body needs to be "reset".  They want to put me on a mock cycle. 

The protocol:

1.  Stop the lupron. 

2.  Estrogen priming (2mg 2x day of estrace.  For 16 +10 days)

3.  Add Endometrin on day 17.  3x day for 10 days.  Continue with the estrace. 

4.  After the endometrin get a period 4-7 days later (ha! this sounds familiar). 

5.  In the next cycle they will add the estrogen patches.  I will have a lining check and they will monitor my estrogen and progesterone to make sure I don't ovulate through. 

The option she gave me: When do you want to start this new protocol? Today? Monday? 

Given the tinge of blood on the u/s wand, and these ever present cramps, I wonder if my period just may show up tomorrow? And, yes, I'm pleading with the universe- please, please just show up tomorrow! I won't be mad at you, I promise!!!

I asked, if I got my period tomorrow would they let me start?  She gave me two answer at two different times in the conversation.  A) She says none of this has been right with my body, that we need to just shed this lining and be done.  B) that yes, if I got a period tomorrow we could just start right away on the estrogen patches.   

I decided to start on Monday.  To give myself two bonus days and time to get my meds. 

There was some debate on if I should stop the lupron immediately? Or wait until I start this mock cycle on Monday?   She told me to stop it.   Even if I get my period she says it will not affect next month's outcome because they will be monitoring me (commencing 1 week after starting patches).   

Her reminder to me was, "Don't read into this".  She said this is not going to determine our chances of success.  That I can grow a nice thick lining.  She told me that I was kind, and that she never dreaded calling me after I wished her well at her new job.  I needed to hear that, the second part was a nice bonus, and the first part really helped calm me down.   

I asked her overall what the doctor thought happened this month? She said she didn't get an answer to this. 

I asked her who my new nurse was.  Was she new?  She said no, that she was her supervisor, and she had been consulting with her all along when my body wasn't cooperating. 

I asked again (first time was yesterday) if the lupron could have affected my period?  She says that depot lupron could do this.  That it's a heavy dose and it shuts down the pituitary gland completely and stops a period.   However, I was on tiny doses (10 units).  She doesn't think the tiny doses would do this to me.   D and I are both thinking differently though.  We think the lupron has over suppressed me for IVF - why couldn't it over-supress me in this way?  Maybe this makes no medical sense but it's a funny coincidence that I've never had this problem before taking the lupron. 

An hour, I got another call.  

She said that Dr. Schoolcraft wants to add Lovenox to the list (an injectable blood thinner).  40 mg every day.  Yipee.  Bring on the bruises. 

I also got a chance to ask her if it was less risk to just take the pill for the month, rather than these higher doses of estrogen and progesterone?  She said she would ask the doctor.  Later, I asked when people start the pill and she said between days 1-5 of their cycle.  I was like, "oh, so not day 52?", she said she'd check with the doctor, but she thought that he wanted more control and to "bring out the big guns" with this protocol.   Hmm. 

For the protocol after the mock cycle, they said they would monitor me closely, but there was a 10-15% chance that I would ovulate through.  I reminded her that I was usually in the small odds for weird things to happen.  

I asked her if we should regroup with Dr. Schoolcraft?  She said it wouldn't likely have anything different to say.  D says he felt like it was a waste of time the last time we did it, that he didn't learn anything.  I don't want to throw good money out the window for the consult but also don't want to be cheap while we're already spending this much money.  It's actually quite stupid that it's not just included in this.  Many of the other CCRM doctors don't charge for regroups I'm sure.  I'm going to look into that more on Monday. 

Menstrual madness and the last couple of days

So... what does cycle day 52 look like for this woman?  It's emotional. Big doses of anger, disappointment, sadness, anxiousness.  This picture above might as well be of me, because it's how I feel.  Except she should have puffy eyes and blotchy skin from crying.  I'm pretty sure if D was being honest, he'd tell you that is the woman he's been looking at the past couple of weeks too.

Yesterday I sent an email to my nurse  to check in.  It reminded them that it was cycle day 51.  That I had waited the 10 days after taking the progesterone.  That I was not seeing any other signs of my period coming despite having slight cramps every day for the past two weeks (it has actually probably been three now that I think of it).  

I asked her what the plan was going forward?  How long will they let me wait for a period?  What medicines/tests are they thinking of?  Etc. I specifically asked for her to check in with all of this with the doctor.  I feel like she doesn't ask him, that she with some help from the other nurses are making too many guesstimates. 

I didn't decide to fly across the continent for this nurse.  I did so for Dr. Schoolcraft, the superstar lab and AND his well trained team.   A package deal, but I need him to be the quarterback, not the supervisor from a distance - which is what I feel like is happening at this point in time.  I'm going to continue to request that the doctor review my file.  

At around 4pm (in my time zone) the CCRM nurse responded.  "This is not typical at all.  Can you get in to your local clinic for blood and ultrasound tomorrow?"  Then a few minutes later I got another email that said Dr. Schoolcraft thinks there will be an answer in your test results on what is going on.

They requested an ultrasound for lining thickness and pattern, hCG, LH, Progesterone, Estrogen.  

If I hadn't followed up with them, I am quite sure that I would not have heard from them to follow up with me.  They had not requested for me to call if I had not got my period.  With the weekend coming it would have likely been Monday or later that they would have possibly even thought of my case. I feel like I'm on their back burner.  This makes me so mad and disappointed.  

D says at least at our local clinic we knew that they were thinking of us every day.  

The CCRM nurse told me she was expecting my lining to be nice and thin at today's ultrasound.  

This morning, I had my ultrasound locally.  Today I had my long time IVF nurse because my new donor nurse I was recently switched to was off unexpectedly.   She asked me how things were going and I had a hard time keeping it together.  I was fighting tears and she just kept saying how she was so sorry and she knew we were going to be good parents one day.  This made me want to cry even more.   She has a kind heart and I am grateful for her. 

She checked my lining.  And it was 6 point something.   Not thin.  And it was triple striped! What the heck?!? They told me over two weeks ago that they through my lining looked luteal.  And not to mention that I've had 10 days of progesterone, and they saw what they thought was a collapsing follicle over 2 weeks ago.   When she took out the vaginal probe she drew my attention to the slight pinkish tinge on the end of the probe.  That was the first pink (etc) I'd seen in well over a month. 

She wondered if it was the lupron doing this to me? I told her the CCRM nurse said that the lupron was just to stop me from ovulating through the estrogen patches that I was supposed to start after my period came.  That the CCRM nurse said it wouldn't stop a period.    My local nurse didn't seem to think that was the case, but I trust CCRM more on this one.  (Any of you have experience with this?)

My CCRM nurse called to say that she received the ultrasound results but not the blood yet. She said it was triple lined, and thick. It was very surprising to her.  She asked if the ultrasound person could have made a mistake?  I said no, that I saw it too, that I had a copy of the ultrasound and I would scan it and send it to her (she said her copy that she received by fax wasn't that clear).  She asked me if I had a lot of discharge with the progesterone, and if they were expired?  I told her I shoved those things in as far as they would go, and yes there was some discharge.  I double checked the progesterone, and no it wasn't even close to expiring. 

Then she told me she got a new job.  And that I was going to have a new nurse as of Monday.  I'm kind of feeling neutral about this.  I think it will depend on how much I like my new nurse.   I hope I like her.  Her name starts with C and she's Schoolcraft's donor nurse.  Do any of you CCRM-ers have her? 

I ended the call by asking her if she could really get as much information as possible from Dr. Schoolcraft, to give us as much as possible to go on.  She said she would. 

......

I just made a call to my local clinic for the blood results.  I couldn't wait for CCRM to call, I wanted to be prepared with some questions for them. 

My levels were:

LH 5.8

Prog 0.6

Est 40

hCG >1

I don't know what that means.  I thought something would jump off the page for me, but it doesn't.

.................

Two other things in my online life have upset me.

Over the last couple of days, I've been following a Resolve.org post.  I don't go to this site often, but there was a time that it was my lifeline.   I stumbled upon a post of a woman who had just experienced a stillbirth after a long journey with infertility.  Reading that post and seeing such raw grief was terrifying.  It has set me back.  I cry for her and all of the other women who wrote in to support of her, sharing similar experiences.   I am so terrified that after our struggle, that this could one day be us.  I don't know that I could pick myself up after that type of loss.

Another blogger, Mara from A Blog About Love, wrote recently about how she and her hubby have decided to end their fertility journey, and that they will not be pursuing adoption because they are out of stamina.  Before infertility, and early in my journey I could never understand how people could give up on their dreams of having children.  Now, after almost 7 years of infertility, I understand.  Knowing that feeling frightens me.  

...................

Oh, and to boot I am having a problem getting my money back from The Donor Source.  After two months of emailing to receive my promised refund I still don't have my money!  They've been telling me that they were "waiting for accounting to sign off" on it FOR THE LAST MONTH.  So yesterday, fed up, I told them if they didn't get back to me by today that I would be taking much more severe measures.  I hadn't totally determined what severe was going to be yet.  I imagined phone calls to senior management, trying to get the credit card payment returned as fraudulent by my credit card company, a letter from my lawyer or something of the sort. 

After getting another "I've done all I can do, it's sitting on the CFO's desk" from my contact person, I called the CFO directly.  

I'm usually very terrible at giving people negative feedback or giving them a piece of my mind.  Except for to D, poor guy.  However today fuelled by my extended PMS and other frustrations, I called the CFO.  

I told her that it was completely unprofessional to withhold a refund for TWO months.  That it affects people's lives to not have this money.  I listened to her apologize (which sounded somewhat genuine but not overly enthusiastic).  She told me the money would be put back on my card today, as she had now signed off on it.  I told her that I wasn't going to belabour the point, but I really needed her to understand just how totally unprofessional this was, and that I was disgusted.   She agreed that it was unprofessional.   I took her private phone number down just in case the money didn't show up today. 

So far, it's not here.  

....................

Ya, so um... that's my rant for the day.  Happy Friday?  Hope yours is going better than mine. 

48!?!?

It's cycle day 48.  WTF?

The nurse said it can take up to 10 days to get a period after the progesterone suppositories.  I'm 7 days past them.

Every day I get some slight cramping, and think that "this must be the day".  But nothing.

This has to be some kind of personal record.

I can't help but feel like I've transitioned from perimenopause into menopause.  At age 34.  Oh man.

PS) Took another pregnancy test for D.  It was a BFN.

Nurse Reassurance

I talked to my nurse yesterday about how late my cycle is.  I was upfront with her that I was just worrying, and needed her reassurance.   She was very kind and gentle.

She told me about how my medications would be adjusted (no vivelle or change in leuprolide until a certain number of days after my period starts).

She told me it takes some women 10 days to get a period after stopping the progesterone.  That made me feel better too.

Most importantly, she told me that it wouldn't  affect my lining or next month's cycle in any way.  Deep down I think I knew this, but I needed to hear it from her.   She also told me that it's ok to call if I'm feeling worried.   I won't pester them with this.  Seriously- my anxiety is enough to drive me (and probably hubby) crazy, I don't need to drive them crazy too.  Just her saying those words was nice to hear and did the trick for me.

For the time being, D has forgotten about the pregnancy test too.  So, I guess this helped him too.

We will continue to wait.

PS)  Is anyone else in a cold climate and starting to feel a little stir crazy from all of this weather this winter?  Yesterday D and I wanted to get out for a walk but it was just too cold!   With doctor's orders to keep my heart rate below 140, I don't know what else to do for exercise when the outdoors are unfriendly.   Anyone have any suggestions?

Cycle Day 43 and Counting

D wants me to take a pregnancy test.

I took one over a week ago just to settle my mind with the negative.  I didn't expect a positive in any way, but I just needed to get it out of my head.  I didn't mention it him.

He says if it was positive that we could be hurting the baby with the Leuprolide shots.

I'm sad that there's a little hope in him that is going to be squashed again soon.

Still waiting

So my body has decided that it is going to take it's sweet time to have a period.  I'm on day 42(!) right now.  This has happened a few times in the past couple of years.  It never really inconvenienced me much when it happened then.

This time though, it has successfully increased my anxiety.  Because I finished my endometrin yesterday and I'm still taking the lupron.  The doctor thought I would have my period by yesterday. 

I know, it's only one day, but I can't help but worry that it's going to mess up my lining or hormone levels for next month. 

If there was any sign of it coming I might not be as worried.  I sometimes spot a bit before it shows up, but this time I haven't.  

My moods haven't been great, and have been kind of PMS-ey but that could also be the meds.  Or it could be depression related.  I dunno. 

Tomorrow I'm going to call the nurse and tell her I'm feeling anxious about this.  I'm going to ask her if it's a big deal? And how it can affect my next cycle.  

Tonight, D and I are going out for dinner with friends that we don't see often.  It will be a nice treat to have a meal out on a weeknight.  We're having Italian too, my favourite!