I Believes...in Serendipity?

I had my first "serendipaciousness" moment on my rainy, dreary drive home today. Stuck in traffic at the same spot it always backs up I realized I made it half way home without checking out any license plates. I look in front of me and I had my moment of fate or shall we say serendipity.

 

This one hit me like a ton of bricks. Here was my sign. Was it my dad in heaven, crying tears for me, telling me to stay strong? Of all the plates, and all the phrases, what happened in our magical universe that put this plate in front of my eyes?

What makes this plate so special to me? Let me explain...

My favorite movie is Serendipity. I know a little chick-flicky but I love everything about it. When we went to NYC this past winter, my DH surprised me with a stop at Wollman Ice Skating Rink (the one in the movie where he drops the glove) because he knew how much that would mean to me. In that movie there is a line that grabs me every time: "I think we make our own decisions. I just think that fate sends us little signs, and its how we read the signs that determines whether we are happy or not."  Now was this my sign that I've been longing to see?

My favorite Christmas movie is The Miracle on 34th Street. No, not the remake, the original from 1947 with a young Natalie Wood.  Here again, what is my favorite line of the movie? It's when little Susan is in the car with her mother and Fred Gailey. She's peering out the window and says to herself "I believe...I believe... It's silly, but I believe."

My favorite quote comes from none other than the late, beautiful Audrey Hepburn. "I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles.”

Now what does this sign mean? I would like to think a bunch of things:

I believe that this journey has made me a stronger person.

I believe that this journey has made my marriage stronger.

I believe that even if I can help one person get through this journey with an ear to listen or a shoulder to cry on, that I've done my job.

I believe that this IS my month.

I believe that we will ALL get our BFP's.

 

I Love the Pink Stuff

I will admit, I was a crying, paranoid wreck last night with the stress of adding the pink "sperm extender" to the sample this morning. I kept thinking I wouldn't get it to proper temperature and then kill all the spermies. I managed to wake up at 5:00 AM, take the pink stuff out of the fridge, then sit there with it in my hand while I brought it up to above room temperature. Woke up DH at 6:00 AM and  then began the mission. I'm not going to go into detail but let's just say it's a miracle he stayed focused. He gets the gold-star for being able to finish after laughing hysterically in the middle of it (ladies, please don't let your man bare-ass fart while you're trying to be romantic and collect his spermies. Let's just say tears of laughter will result). Added the solution and prayed like I've never prayed before. I shoved the cup between the boobs and bonded with his sperm for the next two and a half hours until my 8:30 appointment. 

I proudly walk into the RE's and pull that cup out and pray again. I sit there for what seems like forever until they call me back. She tells me to get undressed so I know I had to do something right. She tells me that his count is excellent and the motility is above 50%. Woo-hoo! I didn't kill the spermies!!! Don't know what that pink stuff really is called but whatever your name pink stuff, I love you!  She does one final ultrasound to see what follies we have to work with.  I was hoping for at least a 24 after having a 20 on Thursday. Unfortunately, only one grew, one stayed the same and one shrunk a little: 22.5, 19.5 & 18.5. Don't get me wrong, I'm still stoked that I have 3 mature follies and my lining is looking good at 10.5. She squirts them in and then has me lay on my left side for 10 minutes.  Now we wait...

I go for my P4 next Monday but the real fun begins this Wednesday when I get to turn my vagina into a dairy farm again. Bring on the Crinone and cottage cheese. Who knows maybe this month it will resemble ricotta. Oh, the dairy possibilities are endless! 

One little side note, I'd love to thank Chaseing Dreams for making my hour commute so much more fun today. I drove to and from work checking out license plates. Made the ride so much quicker. While I didn't find a BFP plate, I did find a HSX (which reminded me of my horrible HSG experience) and a FNP (freakin' never positive). Well, here's to hoping I have a better sign (license plate) tomorrow!

Photo courtesy of Chaseing Dreams and her lovely license plate spotting

What Did I Tell Ya?

Call me psychic (or psychotic) but I knew my ovaries were kickin' ass & taking names this month. Had my CD12 check-up yesterday and get ready for it...3 mature follies! The right was pretty mellow with only 6 smalls but the left, oh my favorite left, was kickin' it in high gear with a 20, 19.5 and 19 plus a gaggle of smalls. I was all psyched thinking I'd be on my way to an IUI today or tomorrow but I guess my E2 & LH had other plans. 

The original plan was to do my IUI tomorrow at their main office outside of Philly (the satellite office I go to is closed on Saturdays). I left with my little trick-or-treat bag of goodies including my trigger, the infamous little sterile cup, the paperwork and the magical pink solution to keep the swimmers alive. Get back to work and put the shot & pink stuff in the fridge at work (yes, it's a good thing I work in a small office. Don't need people messing with my trigger. I can hear it now...who left their drug paraphernalia in the fridge? Oh that's mine, just need  to shoot up tonight before I go to bed). Anywho, I get the call in the afternoon that we're just going to wait until Monday. WHAT? I have 3 mature follies and you want me to wait 4 more freakin' days (insert deep breath here and remind myself that they know what they are doing)? My LH & E2 aren't near the surge range yet & they say I have time. I calmly agree and make my appointment for Monday morning. After I hang up the phone, paranoia strikes again. I pull up my charts from my previous trigger cycles to see what CD I triggered & what my follie size was. Phew...I am reassured again and I feel the insecurity subside. Even though I have triggered 4 previous times on CD12, my follies never measured less than 26. Quick do the math, biggest current follie is 20 on Thursday, add 2 per day (average) take that until trigger day (CD14) and what do we get? 24. That's right Bob, tell her what she's won. Well, she's won a shot to the stomach and a chance for a baby. Yay :) Now, let's just hope that with me triggering late Saturday night that the follies won't go pop-goes-the-weasel before my appointment on Monday. If I find out it did when I'm laying there with a full-bladder and half-ass naked. I may just lose my bladder right there on floor. 

I usually don't ask for much, but I need all of you to send me some sticky follie vibes until Monday and pray to the deity of your choice that my follies stay strong.

Rockin' Ovaries

Big props to the menstrual gods who were on my side and let me survive the CD3 exam with minimal blood loss.  Looks like I have a chance at some good follies this month. I have 4 on my right and 7 on my left. We decided to go with the same regimen of 5 mg of Femara with a follow-up appointment next week. We're still debating on whether to do a back-to-back or single IUI. I mentioned to my RE my concerns about DH working so far away. This is probably common knowledge to most of you, but she told me not to worry that they have this solution that will allow the spermies to live up to 6 hours. This was a complete relief to me as I was wondering how we were going to work around his new schedule with no time off.  Again, the weight of the world was lifted off of my shoulders. 

Now for the good news!!!! I got the results of my blood work back and my numbers are phenomenal for an old had like me at the ripe ol' age of 35. My AMH is at 3.28 and my FSH is 5.21. Both are in the upper percentile taking my seniority into account. My TSH is also FINALLY stabilized at 0.60. This is the first time since I was diagnosed last May that my numbers have stayed the same for 4 months in a row. I think it's safe to say we finally figured out my perfect dosage of meds is 125 mcg of Levothyroxine.  With these results plus the amount of follies, I finally feel like things may be falling into place. 

I also brought up the idea of adding injectibles to the mix come December should I still not have my BFP. She thinks that with how well my body is reacting to the meds and my good reserve that it is definitely a good idea. Even though my insurance doesn't cover the meds, she said I wouldn't need that many and she could see about using donated meds to help reduce my costs. This is why I love my doctors. It really is important to have a doctor you can trust and who is willing to work with you and your financial situation. Not all doctors are in it for the money. If you find one who is just out to make a buck, look elsewhere! Some truly do care about you as a patient!

Raggin' & Proud

Here I am CD2 and have never been more excited to be raggin' it! Last cycle was a complete bust and I am so ready to get back to normalcy. Someone please make sure I NEVER take a sanity break again, please! Turns out I O'd super late on CD26 and my progesterone was horrible (guess I really do need those meds & suppositories).  I will be back on here again posting about what's going on. I apologize for being so quiet the past month or so but I really tried not to put any extra focus on TTC in hopes of lowering some stress. Yeah, didn't really work like I planned, but hell, what ever does? Go in tomorrow afternoon for the adventurous CD3 u/s & b/w where you just pray it's a "light" day. Seriously, out of all the crap we go through, this is definitely the one thing that grosses me out the most.  Why can't they gauge our hormones on CD1? You can create all these other amazing procedures like FET & ICSI but you still need us to come in when our vag's are bleeding like a ruptured femoral artery? I don't get it!

On a side note, I do have GREAT news to report. My DH started his new job today! Big hip-hop hooray for second income finally coming in. It's been a long 5 months with him being laid-off and we're both so happy to finally not have the stress of finances adding to our infertile journey. This is also another reason why I took off the past couple of months. Financially we were at our end. The only problem is that it's over an hour away so our timing is going to be a little trickier. His old job was located in the same business complex as my RE making appointments & "donations" very easy. Of course, this new job is the exact opposite direction. He was hired through a technical staffing company so he won't be FT for six months but that's fine with us. I am just praying their health insurance kicks ass and gives us some additional options on treatments. I am fortunate as my company pays my insurance 100% and does cover some treatments (IUI, bloodwork, ultrasounds, some meds). It does not cover injectables, IVF, ICSI, etc. I already sent him on a mission to find out what plan they have so I can look into it.  

Here's to hoping that this new job is only the start of good things to come.