Updates on Laurel (and other stuff): December 2005

Laurel has had a great couple of evenings...

Night before last, I had laid her on the floor on her side, and she managed to roll to her tummy, push up on one elbow, pull the other one through, and then once on her tummy proceeded to roll all the way to her back! I'm not sure that's what she was going for, because she was really startled and a bit scared, but it's been a LONG time since she did a 3/4 roll so we were all excited and clapping even as she was pouting. But last night, I think she did what she'd been trying to do. This time, when I put her on her side, she rolled to her tummy, got up on one elbow, and pulled the other arm through until she was up on both elbows. Then she pulled herself forward towards Bob a little with her arms! She has NEVER done this before, not ever. I mean, this is the girl who once didn't seem to know she HAD arms. So, we're pretty excited here.

Here's the IVF update...

I had an u/s yesterday morning, but didn't get to talk to the doc until yesterday evening (his front office staff are incompetent boobs - I'll spare you guys the whole story). Anyway, upshot is that there are four good-sized follies and three small ones (for anyone who has done IUI or IVF and so knows from numbers, here they are - 2 15x12s, a 14, a 12, an 8, a 7, and a 6). Not as bad as it could be or as good as I hoped, I guess. Dr. S seemed to think, given my IUI results (the best cycle being 5 follies) that four decent-sized follies was about to be expected, although I'm wondering why am I taking 4 shots a day and 3 different meds only to get about the same results as I did with one med, one shot a day? He did say that there is some chance that the 8 and the 7 might get big enough to harvest. I'm supposed to keep taking the meds and get another u/s tomorrow morning, which is scheduled for 9. My guess is we're looking at retrieval on Saturday or Sunday, which will be unfortunate from a Laurel standpoint (I'm sure she's going to be real thrilled sitting around in a waiting room with Daddy), but good from a having to take off from work standpoint. And then whoever fertilized and divided goes back three days later.

So that's the latest. I know that egg quality at my age is not the best so frankly I was hoping for more so there'd be more chances, but who knows - it could turn out that I'm just cooking up a few really good ones. I hope I hope...

Second u/s report...

Most of the follies weren't round and I can't remember the second dimension, but the larger sides were 21, 20, 20, 18, 16, 12, and 10. So one of the little ones had a real growth spurt, and I guess (given that Dr. S told me they harvest anything over 10) that they will be able to harvest all 7, although he also told me that the smaller ones might not be mature. Still, there are five decent-sized ones in there now, one more than I had on Tuesday. I pressed the doc who did the u/s for his guess as to what was going to happen next, just because heaven knows when I'll get to talk to Dr. S today. He was reluctant to guess but admitted that he thought the trigger would probably be tonight, with retrieval on Saturday (that was my guess too, based on my IUI experience). Onward and upward!

Ooooh...actually managed to talk to the doc before 5 for a change...

Trigger is at 9:45 PM sharp tonight (we're going for church directory photos at 8:30 so I think I might actually take it with me!) and I have to be there at 7 AM Saturday (UGH! We're going to look for a nearby hotel) for retrieval at 7:45. Transfer will be Tuesday, don't know the time yet. That torpedoes our plans to go to the Messiah Sing-In Tuesday night, but hopefully for a good cause.

Long morning at the children's rehab center...

We were there from 9 AM till about 1:30. Very mixed bag today, although I have to say that Laurel was a really good girl, very cooperative.

First we saw the orthopedist. He launched right into telling us that he thought we should really consider a baclofen pump for Laurel. This is something about the size of a hockey puck that would actually be surgically implanted under her skin and would allow an anti-spasticity drug to be delivered directly to her system (as opposed to giving it to her orally, where it tends to not be all that effective and make kids really sleepy). Well, frankly, the idea of inserting a hockey puck-sized thing with a catheter (that will have to be refilled every 2-3 months with a needle) into my kid is making my stomach churn. (For those with strong stomachs, here's a description: http://www.clevelandclinic.org/health/health-info/docs/2200/2210.asp?index=8997 ) On the other hand, I know they have been real miracle-workers for some kids. On the other other hand, I think most of those kids were more purely spastic than Laurel is. The doc wants us to talk to a different doc about the pump, but meanwhile, I plan to do lots of research.

The next thing we did was visit PT and OT. We spent most of the hour trying Laurel in different chairs - as we told them, it would be really nice to have a chair for her for our basement family room. But naturally, the one she (and we) liked the best was the most expensive - $2700! It had some really cool features though, like adjustable height - it can go from almost on the floor so she can be on the same level with the other kids to fitting at any table (I would love for her to have this chair at school). They think our insurance might pay for it - we're dubious, but we'll see. We'd hoped to try out their trike, too (turns out they've got the same kind Laurel tried in SF) but ran out of time. We can either get a prescription from our ped for her to have a trike evaluation, or they can lend it to Laurel's school for a day. We're leaning toward doing the latter, in the spring. They also gave us an application for a foundation that has bought or helped buy trikes for special-needs kids in the past.

Then we did the CP clinic peds nurse and doctor. The nurse spent some time with her doing this like playing with a ball and ringing a bell and was really pleased with how Laurel tried to push the ball toward her when asked and anticipated where the bell was going to ring. Both the nurse and the doctor were excited to hear about her recent accomplishments on the floor! And the nurse commented on how alert she seemed. But the disturbing part of that visit was that the doc was rather more concerned about the breast development thing than her ped was. He said that he thought there was some on the right as well as on the left, and that if it's due to hormonal changes, those could ultimately affect her growth. On the other hand, it could be due to the seizure meds. But we decided to have them do a blood draw to check her hormone levels, and if they are abnormal, we'll follow up with the endocrinologist. If it is a hormone problem, the doc said it's fixable but she would have to get a shot every month. SIGH

The last appt was with nutrition, which we had to wait forever for because they promised us they'd tell the nutritionist we were in that room waiting for her and then they didn't. But once she finally got there, it was quick, since Laurel is growing so well (this visit had her even bigger than the checkup at the ped's office - 38.8 lbs and 42"). We just filled her in on what we'd been doing and she said Laurel was growing well and to give her a call if we felt her growth was falling off. And we finally escaped.

Like I said, mixed bag - we were very proud of how well Laurel put up with all the stuff we put her through today and how well she "performed" for the nurse (it used to be that she would not do the stuff at the doctors' offices that she'd do at home). The chair was cool (if we can get it) and it was good news that we might be able to get some funding for her to get a trike. But the baclofen pump and the breast development thing have given us a lot to think about.

We're back...

They got six eggs. Bob had a moment's worry about failure at the wrong time that almost turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy, but ultimately, all went as it needed to. We also got hit with the news when we got there that we were going to have ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection - where they actually stick a swimmer into each egg) because they didn't have the labs to prove we didn't need it. Since this is $1500 and our insurance is only covering 75% of the lab fees because it's out of network, we weren't exactly thrilled. I immediately hit the doc up about this when he walked in, because when I saw him he said we wouldn't need ICSI, but he had also brushed me off when I'd asked about whether we needed any more lab work on Bob. What he told us this morning was that they prefer to practice ICSI when there aren't many eggs, to lower the chances that we lose one or more bacause they're fertilized with two sperm or something stupid like that. Well, OK then, since this is our one shot we don't want to take any unnecessary chances, but thank you so VERY freakin' much for the heads' up. It's not like he didn't know I wasn't going to have a lot of eggs - heck, I had more than he'd expected.

Oh well, anyway, it's over, we're back, we've done all we can do for now, and I'm going to take a nap...

Fertilization report -

Five! Five of the six eggs fertilized! We are SO excited, this is better than we'd dared to hope - I was hoping for four but would not have been surprised to only get one or two. Those old eggs, ya know. Anyway, we won't know anything more about them until Tuesday, the doc said they don't usually check them on Day 2 unless they're worried. But he said it would be very, very surprising not to have enough to transfer on Tuesday.

WOO-HOO!

So the transfer will be tomorrow morning 

at 8:30. Which means Laurel will have to go again, since that's when she would normally get on her bus. But that's what they had. I suppose it's probably extra early so they can make their holiday party at 11:45, since they had told me they usually do them more around noon but that that was not likely to happen tomorrow.

The beta is to be on Christmas Eve. I'm going to have to pick the lab slip up early, since the office is closed Christmas Eve - and so is the lab at the outpatient facility - I'll have to go to the main hospital to get the bloodwork done. I don't know if there's any way I can get the results that day, but I'll POAS in the morning in any case. I guess it'll either be a magical Christmas, or one we're trying to pick ourselves up off the floor for...

Here I am...

The Valium they had me take before the procedure really knocked me for a loop - I slept for the hour bedrest afterward, slept the whole way back in the car and had to head for bed the moment I got home. I just woke up a few minutes ago.

ANYWAY! All five had divided, although four had done a much better job of it. I guess embryos are graded on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being best (but the doc said they don't see that very often). There were four 4s and a 2. (We even have pictures!) The doc was open to transferring 3, 4, or 5. I think mostly because our attitude this whole cycle has been to do everything so there'd be no regrets or what-ifs if it doesn't work, we decided to do all five. Of course, now I'm paradoxically afraid both of having twins (the doc said that at my age the chances of more than two making it are very, very small - there are just too many chromosomal abnormalities in "old eggs") and of it not working! But the doc said that the results were way, way better than he would have expected given my history with the IUIs.

So now I'm supposed to be on bed rest - through Thursday, the doc wants, but I'm not sure about taking that much time off work (I have a deadline on Thursday, too). It's not like I do more than sit in front of a computer all day. Also, I haven't leveled with my boss about this and I'm not sure what to tell her. But then there's that "do everything, no regrets" thing...anyway, for now I think I should head back to bed.

Thanks for thinking of us!

Symptoms...and about the holidays...

Last night I was doing some marathon Christmas shopping while Bob stayed home and fed Laurel (who was too sad to shop), and by the time I'd been pounding around the mall for an hour, I started having lots and lots of abdominal twinges. I told Bob when I got home that the kids wanted me to sit down.

Also this morning I seem to be getting short of breath really easily - something that also happened early on with Laurel. I remember it wasn't that long after the BFP - maybe the next day, or the next weekend (I had tested on a Saturday then too) - that we went on a hike that we usually considered pretty easy, but there's a moderate grade to climb at the end and I wasn't too sure I was going to make it! I kept having to stop every few steps. Anyway, I'm gasping every time I climb the stairs this morning.

Anyway, although I'm still worried about what if I get a BFN on Christmas Eve, I'm mostly grateful to be doing this now because there is a lot of distraction. I'm also finding, though, that I'm not as sorry as I thought I'd be that we're not going to Minnesota - it really removes a whole layer of stress from the holiday, not having to prepare for a big long trip or have all our gifts ready to ship tomorrow as well as Bob's family's (since Laurel was born, we've always shipped the gifts ahead of us - otherwise the luggage gets completely out of control). The first day off bedrest, I was completely paranoid about whether I was doing too much, but I've settled down since then and am just glad to have lots of things to do.

Well, speaking of things to do, I should go do them! Thanks so much for thinking of me...

Rough morning...

Well, it started last night, actually, when I found out that the person who'd been hired to do some cleaning and shopping for Mom was quitting after her second time out there because it was giving her such bad asthma. But then this morning, I'm sitting there peacefully addressing Christmas cards and I get this call saying, "This is Catherine from Blah Blah Blah Service" (the service through which the person had been hired) and it's a tone of voice that I know CAN'T be good. The summary is that she feels that Mom needs more than their service can offer, in terms of both her living conditions and her health condition, and they won't be going back out there. Then maybe 20 minutes later another person calls me from the same service and says that it's time for my sister and I to reach a decision, get a court order, and do what needs to be done to get her out of there. They both pushed the idea of getting a nurse out there to do a health assessment, and the second guy additionally wanted to get a social worker out there. By the time he was done, I was promising to call her doctor's office to see if they could send out a nurse, and the county Department of Aging to find out about social services and next steps.

UGH. OK. I knew this was coming. We all knew this was coming. My sister, when I called her afterward, said, "We knew this was coming." But I REALLY wasn't looking for it to come RIGHT NOW. I was having such a nice relatively non-stressful Christmas season, too. Very thankfully, my sister offered to take over on the phone calling, and I gratefully accepted. She's supposed to call me tonight and let me know what she learned. And I need to take some deep breaths here...and let go for now...in...out...in...out...

Oh, no. And now I'm spotting. SHIT. I just want to run away...

Thanks so much for thinking of me!

I haven't seen any spotting all evening (and BELIEVE me, I've been looking! ), so I'm feeling better - it honestly wasn't that much spotting as these things go. I was just absolutely wiped when I came home tonight, between the mother thing and the spotting thing, and I made like a lump all evening. I feel guilty now (cards to address! laundry to do! the tree to decorate!), but better.

And I'd better get my progesterone shot, fill out Laurel's book for school, and get to bed...tomorrow I need to go to Laurel's class Christmas party and make up for some of the work I didn't get done today...

Well, crap, after staying away all day it's back. This really seems kind of late for implantation...

I've moved into cramping and having a backache. I called the doctor's office and talked to his nurse to make sure we shouldn't up the progesterone or anything, and she said no. She did also say that spotting is VERY common, and cramping less so but still entirely possible with pregnancy. She wasn't sure about the backache, though.

So that's the latest...

On the good news side - we finally got Laurel's blood test results from the visit to the children's rehab center on the 9th, and they are completely NORMAL. Her hormone levels are WELL below anything that would be of any concern for early puberty. Phew. The doc said that this just happens in about one girl in a hundred (there's even a term for it, but I can't remember what it is) for no explicable reason, but with normal hormone levels there's no reason to believe that there will be any further, um, developments.

OK, for anyone who needs to know what's going on TODAY ...(I AM glad to have such a great cheering section!!) The spotting is worse this morning - more solid-colored than streaky, and more of it, but still just when I wipe. The cramps and backache are better, at least than last night (the cramps got so bad last night I had to stop rearranging the lights on the tree and sit down), although they're getting a little worse the longer I'm up. Obviously I did resist the urge to test, although I laid in bed for a while this morning and thought about it. I'm really trying to make the day be more about appreciating what I've got and getting ready for Christmas than about whether or not I'm pregnant.

So that's today's news. Gotta get on with things!

OK...I don't know what to think...it's a faint positive. SO - maybe I'm really PG, or maybe I was and I'm not anymore, or maybe like the nurse told me it was really too early to use an HPT after the trigger shot. But, it's not a negative. (quoting Bob ) So I am off to get my blood test, as fast as I can.

So the doctor says....

"You're pregnant!" The magic number is 49 (according to a link someone on the Over 35 board gave me, normal for a singleton IVF pregnancy at this stage is between 33-223). The doctor said they look for 50, but he'll take 49. I told him about the spotting (the cramps and backache have gotten better, but the spotting is about one shade off red at this point) and he said he wasn't worried about it, just keep taking the progesterone shots.

Of course, I have to get more bloodwork on Monday. Not looking forward to that - the folks at the hospital I had to go to (because the outpatient care center I usually go to is closed for the holidays) were totally incompetent - it took two of them four tries before they finally got any blood.

You know, I always imagined how overjoyed I'd be at this moment, but I'm more doing shocked disbelief right now. I was so convinced last night that this was a bust, I started talking with Bob about adoption. I think maybe I'll believe after the second set of numbers on Monday...

Bad news...

The number didn't go up at all. 45. I have to go in for one more beta on Thursday. I can choose to keep taking the progesterone or not until then - but there's probably no good reason to. Continuing would just be on the slim hope that the lab made a mistake.

I'm not totally surprised. Between what the sticks I peed on yesterday and this morning said (yesterday's was somewhat darker, but today's was back to being squint-worthy) and what my spotting did (it almost went away Christmas Eve through Christmas morning, then came back last night), I kind of had this sense that the little bean was growing for a while and then stopped. But I can't stop crying anyway...bawling my guts out, actually, because I know this is it for TTCing. Bob and I had already resolved that if this didn't work we would try to follow the lead of several of our friends and adopt a Chinese girl...so I know this isn't the end of our hope to become parents again...but it IS the end of our hope to be biological parents again, and this is clearly going to take some working through...

Thanks so much for thinking about me...

I'm not really doing so badly. The best explanation I can come up for it is that I have for some time had a sinking horrible feeling that we were NOT going to be able to be biological parents again, but whenever I brought up the possibility that we might need to look at adoption, Bob always dismissed it as too expensive. So I've been living with fear for a long time that the end of the fertility treatment road meant the end of any chance to be a parent again.

Basically, two things happened in the last week and a half that changed Bob's mind. One is that I ran into an old friend at the church Christmas party (who adopted a girl from China several years ago) and spilled my guts to her about what was going on. She said to me, "If it doesn't work out and you want to know about adoption, call me, I can give you lots of information." And I said, "I've heard it's $20,000, and we can't afford it." Then she told me that first off $20,000 is on the high side of the range ($15,000-$20,000, she said), secondly we could get a loan (although I wasn't all that impressed with that, because it won't be that many more years until we have to take one out to have the house made fully accessible), and MOST important, that there is a $10,000 tax credit for adoption. I had no idea. That all made Bob feel better about the financial part. Then when he played at his quartet last Tuesday, the hostess's adoptive Chinese daughter ran up screaming "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" when the hostess' husband came home. And Bob thought about that after I asked him about adoption on Saturday night, and (after at first getting really mad at me that I brought it up, but with the low number I needed a safety net SOOO badly) he said, "I could do that."

So. Right now I'm a confused mess of emotions - I'm still sad, but also relieved that as we finalize plans to redo Laurel's room (OK, confession time here - Laurel is only now finally moving to a big girl bed. We decided to redecorate along with the new furniture - I had her pick between pictures from the Penney's and Sears kids' room catalogs) I don't have to think about getting rid of the crib and changing table just yet. Not to mention the boxes and boxes of Laurel's baby stuff I've been hoarding. Every time I've thought about getting rid of that before getting to use it on one more baby, it's just ripped my heart out.

Just to further confuse the issue, the spotting stopped. (Yes, I'm still taking the progesterone.) I do NOT want to get all excited about that only to have my hopes dashed again, but it's definitely adding to the confusion. I'm trying really hard not to think about it too much, but it's impossible not to think about it when I go to the bathroom every so often!

So, that's where I am...for now I'm in a lot better shape than I was yesterday. Having had plenty of previous experience with grieving, I know that might not be the end of it, but I'm trying to take it one day at a time. Thanks again for thinking of me! 

Turns out I won't get my results until late today...We're leaving for Pittsburgh today, and I hadn't planned to do that until I got my results. But it turns out that getting the test through the outpatient care center means that the sample isn't even picked up until 2, and they don't expect to get the results until shortly before they close. I gave the nurse my cell phone number, so hopefully I'll still find out before the end of the day, and I'll try to post from Mom's house tonight if I can. Meanwhile, we will just have to pack for all eventualities... Waiting stinks...

"There can be no positive outcome."

That's what the doc said when I told him my blood test result - 49.6, not significantly different than Monday's or Saturday's. Apparently all I've been doing is prolonging the inevitable. He said it was time to stop taking the progesterone. I just need to let the miscarriage happen.

I'm not as bad off as I was Monday, but it was still hard to hear. Not spotting for the last three days, I'd allowed myself a glimmer of hope. I'm already doing better now than I was when I talked to the doctor (about 4 1/2 hours ago), although I'm expecting when the bleeding starts, that's going to be really hard too...

OK, gotta go, Laurel needs to get out of here and get to the hotel...I'm not going to do any cleaning until after the Social Services person has done her assessment tomorrow...