PART 2 of the (very) bumpy road

Somehow my whole post was not published so I will continue the story here...

After eating some very bland "real food" I was sent home to recover. I was out on sick leave for the whole week as I was still experiencing pain and totally depleted from eating next to nothing. I am still in some pain now but I am back at work.

Now back to the embryo's...

While in the hospital, I received two bits of news - first was that only one of our little snowflakes was normal. They guaranteed us two so they are on the hunt for another donor. In addition, my IVF doc instructed me to stop all of my medications and to cancel my trip to Prague due to the pancreatitis. I am so sad that I am not on a flight right now headed to Prague... I was supposed to leave today. Boo!!!

Then to make matters worse, my OB, who ran some tests for my RE in Prague called to tell me that I have a positive antiphospholipid antibody (APA) which is an autoimmune test and that she was going to refer me to the high-risk OB so they can help me through this process. What she said it basically means is that it can be a challenge for those with a positive APA to carry a pregnancy to full term and that I would need to be on injectable blood thinners for my entire pregnancy. She said she has one patient that has only ever made it to 20 weeks - with no live births and another who with the help of blood thinners just gave birth. So, yay another something to complicate this whole mess. I really am sick of hearing myself complain but WHAT THE FUCK. I am ready for a break. Seriously.

I did talk to my RE in Prague today and he assured me that we can do a natural cycle FET (so no estrogen or lupron) but that I would need to be in Prague from around ~day 7 of my cycle until day ~25 of my cycle. That is almost 3 weeks and I had just enough sick leave to cover the 2 weeks I was to be gone for this trip. Hopefully my work is ok with me taking 3 weeks of leave and about 2 weeks of it will have to be without pay. The reason that I want to do a no estrogen cycle is that estrogen can cause pancreatitis however I do not think that was the cause as I hadn't been on any estrogen for months when the pain appeared and I had only started it the day before I had the severe pancreatitis attack. In addition, he wants to transfer our one genetically normal embryo as well as an untested embryo from the new donor. It is kind of crazy to think that we could have two children with different biological mothers. Weird.

So now I have to wait for them to find a donor and I am not sure how long that will take... ugh so frustrating!! I am so ready to be a mother but there is nothing I can do except to try to get my body ready -- On the agenda is more yoga, starting a meditation practice and to try and be in the moment.

The (very) bumpy road

I just realized that half of my post didn't show up. I will post another blog update with the rest of the story...


Where do I start?

Last week I had been contact with the clinic discussing the various scenarios regarding our 2 frozen embryos and the doctor was having the results rushed. We were to call on Tuesday (March 1) to find out the fate of our little snowflakes. This was good news, as I would know before flying to Prague if we would have anything to transfer. This would also determine if the clinic would be searching for another donor - we were guaranteed 2 normal embryos.

Now to back up a bit, over the past month I have been having this pain in my abdomen. Sometimes it was just a little uncomfortable, once I considered going to the hospital but mostly it was this nagging pain that I chocked up to stress -- maybe an ulcer?

On Saturday, I had some pain after lunch but nothing to severe. Later that day I had a glass of red wine while making chicken pot pie with Jason's sister Kim -- while sitting down to eat I was hit with a hot flash and felt ill. At first I thought it was a side effect of the medications I was on to prepare for my frozen transfer in March but then the same pain in my abdomen returned and it was so severe I couldn't find a way to get comfortable. I kept moving around from the bathroom to the bedroom to the living room, trying to get comfortable. Jason brought me a cold wash cloth but nothing seemed to help. Finally I told Jason that we needed to go to the hospital. On my way out to the garage, I threw up and thought I sure hope that I am not going to the hospital for something silly like the flu. Once we get there the waiting game begins. The pain had subsided and I considered in my mind just going home. I think we waited about 1.5 hours until we were taken back to a room. They hooked me up to an IV after taking some blood. I refused pain meds as the pain was nothing like it was when I cam in and chatted with the doc about the options - possibly my gallbladder. After an hour or so, he comes back in and says -- well it's not your gallbladder, you have pancreatitis. What??!? My labs showed that my lipase was just under 7000 and the value was supposed to be less than 400. Damn. The doc said that I could finally have some water and if I tolerated that without pain, then I could go home. 

Long story short, I was admitted into the hospital and stayed for 3 days. I was on a clear liquid diet for the whole time I was admitted until I wanted to go home then I had to eat real food.