FET 6: T minus 2 (2/21/18)

This post was originally written on the date in the subject line. All posts for FET 6 were saved as drafts and posted together as a series on one day. Read more here. 

Two more sleeps until transfer. Scheduled the cleaning crew for Thursday morning. Scheduled a massage for Thursday evening. Transfer is scheduled for 1:15 PM on Friday so we're supposed to arrive by 12:45 PM. At noon I'm supposed to empty my bladder and drink 16 - 20 oz within 15 minutes and hold it until after the transfer. K.

I'm excited and calm. I'm worried and nervous. I'm simultaneously thinking "this is it" and "what a waste." I want to believe that this time it will be different and just can't believe it will be. We've been eating takeout almost nightly. Chinese food tonight; grill yesterday; bagels the day before. I don't know why, I've just been reluctant to cook and tired to shop for groceries. I don't think I'm trying to self-sabotage by pumping my body full of msg; I think I'm getting all the takeout cravings out of my system so that I can avoid it for the weeks after transfer. 

On Friday night we have guests coming and I plan to have literally everything ready before I leave for work. I plan to leave work at noon and meet my husband at home before we go to the clinic together. Once I get home I'll have time to take a shower and get to the clinic with time to spare. At least that's the plan.

Today I went for a checkup for my eyeballs. I saw this article and decided it's time to get my itchy eyes checked out *shiver* Thankfully no eye worms and my itchy eyes are just... itchy. She recommended some eye drops. I also mentioned the eye twitch I've been having on my right eye but she wasn't concerned: caffeine, stress, dry eyes, lack of sleep.... all possible causes. It's pretty minor and has been receding the past few weeks. I told her we're ttc with treatment and she's like, "Yeahhhh.... that kind of stress can take a toll." I didn't even know I was stressed.

Purim 2018

Purim was on Thursday. Between preparing mishloach manot and doing my part of the potluck meal it kept me busy. Even though we didn't host for the first time in ten years (we were both working), it turned out to be a lovely day itself.

Tuesday I had an appointment for my yearly eye checkup. I had a little twitch in my right eye plus they were both dry so timing worked out well. She didn't find anything specific to cause the dryness or twitch but suggested drops I can start using. She said the twitch can be anything from stress, lack of sleep, caffeine, etc. Later in the conversation she looked at my medical history and meds I'm taking and saw a prenatal and asked, are you pregnant? And I said, "trying... IVF stuff." To that she responded, "Well, there you go: that can cause a lot of stress." Since then the twitch has actually been getting better and fading away - maybe the drops help too. 

This past weekend we had the craziest winds. There were downed trees and neighbors losing power. Our house is older and one of the things that needs updating is the windows. They're not very energy efficient and the winds were just seeping right through making it so cold. I found a space heater to put in our bedroom last night which made a huge difference but we weren't comfortable leaving it on overnight. We had it on for a few hours with the door closed and then turned it off right before bed. It worked really well and now I carry it around to whatever room I'm in to keep me company. If I tried to turn the heat up to the entire house it would pool around one room and shoot my electricity bill up through the roof; this is a much better solution. 

Over the weekend I also had some stomach issues. I don't know if it was something I ate over Purim (we ate a lot of junk) or on Friday, but I had the worst stomach pain on early Sat morning. I ran back and forth to the bathroom literally every 20 min until about 5pm. I didn't have anything left and still I was having stomach pains as though I needed to go. Not even gas was coming out at that point. We considered going to urgent care to get it checked out. I'm a big fan of checking things out and going to the doc for even the most minor things, but this felt silly - it was just a little bug, right? I wanted to see if it would resolve on its own. It was concerning that it wasn't resolving fast enough, and without getting into too many details there were also different colors that were  unexpected and causing alarm. I hadn't really eaten all day because I was worried it would make it worse. After shabbat I took a hot shower and it seemed to really sooth whatever tension was causing the cramping/urge to go. I guess being cold all day wasn't helping? I don't know. I went to a post-Purim party and had a nice time - no bathroom emergencies. It's not completely gone but I'll keep drinking water and monitoring. Maybe it was a stomach bug and hopefully it's over. I will say I feel about 10 lbs lighter. 

I'm currently fighting with the clinic about a new charge on my account. Last year's February cycle produced two embryos, one tested healthy and the other not. We transferred the healthy one in April which resulted in the blighted ovum. The other was cryopreserved. A lot has happened in the meantime and since it's not a viable embryo I kind of forgot about it until last week when taking inventory. I asked my nurse to get rid of any of the non-transferable embryos so she said she'll get paperwork ready. In the meantime, they want to charge me for another year of storage. I'm not paying for storage for an abnormal embryo we're not planning to transfer and about to thaw and dispose. So the due date was 2/24 for payment. No notice that it's coming up, no heads up or anything. The card they have on file was replaced which is the only reason I got notified. They were trying to just take the payment directly and it didn't go through. It's amazing that the departments there don't talk to each other. Now I have get some paperwork notarized and send it over and then dispute the charge. It's always something.

Day 6

A few quick updates:


IVF:  We're moving along!  Today's monitoring included bloodwork and ultrasound. Meds upped again and I'm scheduled for another appointment on Friday.


Eyes: In other news, I also had my eye appointment and apparently I have dry eyes. I got some eye drops and the symptoms were better almost immediately. She suggested to take them every few hours for a week so I'll give it a try.


Acupuncture: I'm looking into more information. I've heard from some people that acupuncture helped them relax throughout the cycling process which led to successful transfers and pregnancies. I know acupuncture isn't a miracle, and if it was required as part of the transfer process it would be part of my treatment plan. I'm not a stressed person and I have a pretty positive attitude. Even so, it's a stressful process so acupuncture can't hurt, right? It costs $140 for the first session and $90 for each session after that. It's not covered by insurance. So is it worth it for "can't hurt?" I'm not sure.


Home décor: We're having a hard time tracking down a contractor to do our basement.  We have two we're vetting but so far we haven't been able to nail down a date. It's the first phase of major house decorating so it's annoying that it's being held up. New update on that soon.


Looking ahead: Pesach prep is going to be right around a potential FET. We usually have guests stay over and I don't know if it's a good idea this year. Best case it will be right at the beginning of a preg; worst case... we'll be grieving another negative beta. I don't know the answer but I'll explore more in a future post.

Day 4

Snow again! 

Second time I've had to go in for bloodwork where the roads were covered in white. Luckily it's President's Day so schools were closed which meant less traffic. I was prepared to Uber it if I felt uncomfortable driving but thankfully the roads weren't too bad and I was able to get to and from the clinic without traffic issues.


I went in for day 4 monitoring. I made sure to drink lots and lots of water last night and this morning. As soon as I woke up I chugged a bottle of water and that unsettled my stomach a little. Note to self: don't chug cold water at 6:30 AM.  It seems to have done the trick, though, because the bloodwork part was easy and quick. Things are so much simpler when the veins cooperate.


Ultrasound was next and things look ok. Cyst that they saw at the baseline appointment seems to have gone away, so yay for that. I got the call from my nurse already with results (have I mentioned I love my new nurse?) and they're upping the meds, as expected.


Other than the aforementioned nausea I'm not feeling many noticeable symptoms. I am getting a headache every so often which is unusual for me. Probably related, my eyes have been bothering me also. It seems like they are puffy and stuff gets trapped in them but when I look in there there's nothing. I work a lot with Excel spreadsheets so it's possible they're strained. I also find myself squinting when it's really bright in a room or outside, something that never used to bother me. It's almost as though my Rx is no longer right for me, like it's too strong, even though I've been wearing glasses since elementary school.  Is it related to the IVF treatment? Who knows.  I made an appointment with the eye doc to check it out.