Egg donor!!

The clinic sent an email and they have found an egg donor for us!!! We are SO thrilled!! She has donated 4 prior times and they retrieved 22 and 42 eggs in her last 2 donor cycles and both resulted in live births in the last year. The plan for the timeline is that she will come off of birth control pills on February 5th and they estimate that the egg retrieval will be around February 20. From there they will fertilize the eggs with Jason's frozen sperm that's on ice at the clinic and then the embryo's will undergo PGS testing. It takes about 2-4 weeks for the results but we will know in time for my cycle in March!! YAY!!!

I'll need to be on Decpaptyl for the first 7 days of my cycle -- I just need to figure out how to get it as I can't seem to find it here in the US... It does the same thing as Lupron but as I just found out, Lupron is SO EXPENSIVE!! I'll need to do an ultrasound on day 15 of my cycle and anticipate a transfer around cycle day  17-20 and then they want me to wait several days before flying home. Soooo... here is the tentative plan, I'll fly out on March 8 and arrive on March 9 -which should be cycle day 13 but it gives me a little buffer in case my cycle length isn't what I anticipate (I wish I had a crystal ball!!) and then I'll fly home on March 21 which also gives me a little buffer on the back side.

I am going to book my flight tomorrow after talking to my supervisor... I've only been there a week but I am hopeful that it won't be an issue! Fingers crossed! I feel so much better knowing that we have a donor and that she's done this before. 

xo-katherine

Delay

I am so angry right now!! I just finally received an email from Iscare about my donor cycle and they still have not located a donor. Not only have they not located a donor but they are saying that my FET (frozen embryo transfer)  donor egg cycle will be delayed because the PGS testing is taking 2-4 weeks right now. That means that I am waiting 2 more cycles before I can have the FET. UGH!!! I really am SO disappointed. My plan was to try this past cycle - I am awaiting my period and it should arrive in the next few days (unless I am pregnant, yeah right) and then head to Prague after the next cycle. My next cycle should be starting around February 25 and now having to wait until the following cycle around March 22. That means I would go to Prague sometime around the last few days of March and the FET would happen sometime in the first week of April. I know a month in the big scheme of things sounds like no bug deal, right. Well to me it feels like a fucking eternity. Great opportunity for me to practice patience, you say - screw patience. 

We have been actively trying to get pregnant since June 2014. I am finally ready to move onto donor eggs and now I have to wait even longer. I am 38 years old and now I will definitely be 39 by the time I give birth (if it works). Not to mention that will put me with a due date right around Christmas. Yes, I will have a baby ANYTIME - but if I had a choice I wouldn't choose for the due date to be around Christmas. I feel like I am just wasting the days away until I have a baby. I know that sounds horrible. I love my husband and I cherish every day I have with him but I am ready to add to our family. NOW. I am making an real effort to not waste away my days and to enjoy them while we wait - people like to say, oh enjoy it now because you'll miss it once it is gone (ARG! that statement is so annoying) - but today after getting the email all I want to do is crawl in bed and pull the covers over my head and cry away the days. Of course, I just started a new job so I don't get to do that. 

I sent a sternly worded email conveying my disappointment regarding this delay. There is nothing else I can do. I have no say in this process and that is EXTREMELY frustrating. So instead, I listen to my infertility playlist and cry and hope and wish that some day I will be a mother.

Below are some screen shots of my current playlist that is ever changing. I couldn't figure out how to copy the list...

Some of the songs have a word or two that connect with me, others have a whole verse or the chorus. On occasion the whole song speaks to me. With some of my favorites, the words don't relate at all but it is the feeling of the song that gets me - like the Eddie Veder songs. Zombie by the Cranberries has the same feeling to me as my miscarriage. I know that sounds crazy but when the song peaks in the middle (around 3:30min) when she's singing oh, oh, oh.... it is lyrically the same feeling as when I was at the height of my miscarriage. That one cam make me really sob. Some are love songs that people relate to romantic love but I equate with the feeling or longing for a child - like A Thousand Years by Christina Perry. There are three of her songs on my playlist. I love her. One of my absolute favorite songs is My Silver Lining by First Aid Kit. This song was in an advertisement in the movie theatre in Prague and the words are so PERFECT. I love everything about this song. When she says I hear a voice calling out to me - to me I think of it as the soul of my child trying to get to me. 

Everything including the kitchen sink.

I thought I'd start the blog with a pic of us from Prague. This was taken in our first few days there - sometime around the first week of June.

As usual, my mind is on baby making. I got my period 31 days after my miscarriage (I am usually a 25 or 26 day cycle). So I was happy that it didn't take forever for my HCG to drop back down. I took a HPT (home pregnancy test) just to confirm that it was negative because I refused to pay the $150 to have my blood tested. It is not as accurate as it is only sensitive to 25 mUI but with the return of the period I feel pretty sure it has dropped. I met with my OB and let my RE in Prague know we were going to try one more cycle here while we are waiting until I can go back to Prague. 

I took Femara on CD 3-9. By taking Femara, we are hoping to produce more follicles in the hopes that we can do this the natural way. In addition, I had acupuncture this cycle and my acupuncturist suggested that I see the local voodoo doc (he is actually a chiropractor). He deal is muscle testing so we tested all sorts of food, allergens and other things like fungus and bacteria. He put me on a strict diet - no nightshades, no caffeine (including chocolate, ACK!!!), no sugar including honey and maple syrup (stevia is ok), no vinegar, soy sauce, miso, yeast or cheese (other dairy is ok), no corn, no pork, no avocado and no beets. And of course, no alcohol. Boo! I do get to eat grains (yay!!)  but not bread because of the yeast. I also tested for fungus and virus so I have 2 supplements that I am taking - 2 pills of Woad 3 times a day and 3 pills of Undecyn 3 times a day - that is 15 pills a day!! I have no idea what exactly those are targeting but I will try anything!! I am 10 days into the voodoo doctors protocol. I see him on Friday and hopefully I can eat bacon and chocolate again. 

There are a few other over the counter drugs that women often take and I am trying them all! I took Mucinex leading up to ovulation - it is suppose to help thin your cervical mucus to help Jason's swimmers get where they need to go. I am also taking my temperature every morning to help pinpoint ovulation as well as ovulation predictor strips. Usually they say to use one a day to detect LH surge but in the past I have never gotten a positive so I decided to use 4 a day around when I though I might ovulate. It is like a HPT where you pee on a stick and wait to see the line appear except for OPK's need to be the same color as the control line. I actually got a positive on CD13 at 3pm! See pic below. 

The other over the counter drugs I am taking are Claritin once a day, Pepcid 2x a day and Benadryl at night. The thought is that women with unexplained losses take this cocktail of meds to help dampen down the immune system a bit around implantation - so you start taking it around 3-4DPO (days past ovulation). In the cycle that I got pregnant, I was on predinsone (which can be substituted for the benadryl)  but my RE doesn't want me to take it until we are doing the donor cycle. Today I am 3DPO so I am starting that protocol today. I also am going to start nightly guided meditations where I picture myself pregnant with a huge belly. Also, I am keeping my feet warm and the pineapple eating will commence on 5DPO. I am also taking a baby aspirin a day to help with any clotting problems as well as my prenatal and DHA.

Writing it all out makes me feel like a crazy person. I guess I am but I don't really care. I really want to have a child and why not give it everything we've got before I head back over to Prague for our donor cycle. The donor cycle will likely take place around the first half of March. So if we don't get pregnant naturally this cycle then I will book my tickets for Prague sometime at the end of the month. Hopefully I will hear something about the donor sometime soon. 

Emotionally, I still have my moments of hysterical crying. Usually is is a pic on FaceBook or a song that sets me off. Last week after hearing of another friends pregnancy, I made an infertility playlist most of the songs are sad but there are a few hopeful ones in there too. I play it when I need a good cry. It seems to do the job. Any suggestions for my playlist?

xo - katherine

The wonderful, the difficult and the plan.

What a whirlwind the last few weeks have been! We arrived back in Colorado on December 12th and decided it was a good idea to move into our new house on December 13 - the one we bought and closed on while we were in Prague. We had an outpouring of love from our friends and family. They showed up with 7 trucks and 4 trailers and moved us from our storage units into our house in about 4 hours. Not to mention that my entire kitchen was unpacked and put away in that process. Jason's family stocked our kitchen so we were able to start cooking at home right away. It was such a thoughtful and really really wonderful gift. This is the exact reason we returned to GJ - not because we have friends and family that do things for us but because we have friends and family who love us and want to help us despite having busy lives of their own. This has been a wonderful but also difficult transition back. 

The wonderful: First and foremost, WILLIE NELSON!! So happy to be reunited. Now for the rest of the wonderfulness... Jason was hired on at St. Mary's and started on December 21. This was a big day for us as Jason has been working up to a new career for some time and it finally became a reality! Go Jason!! Due to the holidays, he gets a soft start which is helpful in transitioning back into work. I interviewed with the VA hospital for a Time and Leave Clerk position on December 21 and was offered the job that day. Go me! While this position is not my dream job, it does have some dreamy qualities - health benefits and the unrestricted use of the label maker. It is another federal position for me so I will have all of my sick leave restored as well as similar pay despite it being at a lower grade. I don't start for a few weeks which is helpful in getting fully unpacked. We spent the holidays in Montrose and were able to see most of Jason's immediate family. We ate amazing food, played cards, loved on each other and of course played non-stop with the nieces and nephews. Love love love those kiddos. And we saw Star Wars!

The difficult: I have such conflicting feelings and it is hard to manage them at times. Yes, I am excited to be home and have an awesome new house (despite having to sink a chunk of change into the water pipes). Yes, I am thrilled to see family and friends. But here is the hard part... the guest bedroom was suppose to be a baby room. This Christmas I was suppose to give Jason baby related gifts and vice versa. Seeing friends was suppose to be filled with heart-felt congratulations instead of not knowing what to say so nothing is said. I am happy to see friends and I want to bust out crying. I feel selfish for talking about what I am feeling. What do I do in this situation? I don't want to make people uncomfortable by talking about my heartache and people don't talk about what has happened - but why? I have been so open with everything but I have to realize that people just don't know what to say or don't want to bring it up for fear of causing more pain or it is a topic they just are not comfortable discussing. I understand that it is an uncomfortable topic but a simple acknowledgement goes a long way. On the flip side, I have had many women reach out to me and share their heartache. Women I hardly know offering words of encouragement and understanding  and just because I am an open book doesn't mean that I can expect everyone else to be. I am still feeling all the feelings about my miscarriage and infertility and if someone brings it up and I start crying it is another step on my journey to heal. So don't worry that you are causing more heartache - you aren't. You are helping me to be heard and feel what I need to feel so I can heal. No one should read this and feel obligated to say anything or bad if they haven't - I just want to share my feelings so I can try and heal.

The plan: We do have a plan. The clinic in Prague is looking for an egg donor match. She will take all of the medications and her eggs will be retrieved and fertilized with Jason's sperm that they have frozen at the clinic. After testing them, I will return for about a week and a half to Prague for a FET (frozen embryo transfer) sometime hopefully in late February early March depending on when my periods return to normal after the miscarriage. I now know I can get pregnant so now we just need to find the one that will stick. 

xo -katherine

The unabridged story

Dear family and friends,

Below you will find the full story of my miscarriage - including all of the very explicit details as well as a photograph of my gestational sac and placenta. Do not feel as though you need to read the full story and you have been warned about the photograph. What you need to know is that I took a drug called cytotec to induce the miscarriage so that it wouldn't occur while I was traveling on a train or plane. I asked a dear friend her miscarriage story and she told me her unabridged story and for that I am so thankful. Her story clued me in to the need to have this process happen in the comfort of my own home (or in an AirBNB in Spain). I took the drug around 3pm on December 3 and the miscarriage occurred just before midnight. I felt immediate relief after passing the placenta and gestational sac and am feeling better and better each day. We are so thankful for all of the support and I in turn hope that if someone comes searching for what might happen to them if they are experiencing a miscarriage, that this full story can help them prepare for what is to come. Some may think that the photograph is taking it a bit too far but I had no idea what to expect and I was shocked when it happened so I hope all of this can provide help and support to other women. 

We are so excited to be headed home this Saturday and are currently in London with one of my dearest friends - Jessica and her husband and sweet girls as well as her brother Jonathan aka Scruff. We are having a wonderful time and soaking up the friend love. 

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The full story:

On December 3, Jason and I went to the maternity hospital in Malaga, Spain. There was no indication that I was going to have a natural miscarriage any time soon and as I said above, I am so thankful for being encouraged to take action before traveling around the world. At the hospital, the doctor confirmed (again) with an ultrasound that there was not a heartbeat and explained our options - waiting for it to naturally occur, having a D&C (where they put you under anesthesia and scrape out the inside of your uterus), or taking cytotec which will cause the body to abort the baby. I really just wanted it over and went in knowing my options and wanting to have a D&C. The doctor said that it is much better on the body to do it naturally via cytotec so we decided to go that route. All he said was that it would take a few hours for the drug to kick in and that it would be like a heavy period. So we left the hospital and headed back to our AirBnb apartment to get the process started. I had done some reading on what to expect and how to prepare myself with supplies such as pain reliever, hot water bottle and pads ect. Jason went out and got a pizza (for later) and some "Gatorade" and we felt as ready as we could be. Here is the timeline:

15:15 - Took the cytotec vaginally. The doctor instructed me to wet the pills before inserting them - so I did that and we sat down to watch a movie and wait.

15:45 - I took a pain pill given to me by my doctor in Prague. I had read to make sure to stay on top of taking pain meds so that the pain didn't become overwhelming. 

16:00 - I started to experience slight cramps - similar to when I first start my period.

17:00 - Very faint brown spotting, slightly more intense cramps and nausea.

18:00 - Cramps ramping up to full pain period cramps. No more spotting and no blood at all. I did however poop a lot. I think my body was getting ready.

18:45 - Cramps were debilitating. I was moaning out loud for about an hour. There was nothing I could do to relieve the pain. I tried sitting on the toilet, walking around, rocking back and forth, using the hot water bottle, breathing though the pain and into the pain (I could hardly take a full breath and felt like I was hyperventilating) Jason tried to massage my back, hold my hand, I listened to loud rhythmic music -- NOTHING worked. I told Jason that I didn't think I could do it. I wanted to go to the hospital but there was no way I could make the trip.

19:50 - While moaning on the couch, my mouth filled with saliva and I sprinted toward the toilet and violently threw up. Jason says that I wasn't able to take a breath for about a minute because I was uncontrollably vomiting. He might have been a little worried at that point. From there, the constant contractions let up and I had a break of a minute or two in between contractions.  Even though the period cramps were still there between the contractions, I actually dozed off between contractions - I was exhausted.

20:30 - Jason convinced me to take some Aleve. I am afraid of drugs and was afraid to mix the medicine that my doc gave me (which did absolutely NOTHING) with Aleve. But Jason persisted and I needed pain relief. 

21:30 - Contractions were few and far between and the cramps were like heavy period cramps. We decided to resume our movie to take my mind off of the pain.

22:00 - First gush of blood and clots.

22:45 - Heavy cramps continue, no more blood.

23:15 - Ate a piece of pizza as I felt completely depleted. Just after it felt like my vagina was going to split open (different from the uterine contractions).

23:45 - Pain in vagina was intense and sitting on the toilet seemed to help. Thick blood started pouring out as well as clots of blood. Something white came out - turned out to be one of the cytotec pills. More blood but not as much as I expected and then there was a loud plop in the toilet. I fished out the mass and it was a clump of tissue and the gestational sac. Before this, I kept looking to see if I could discern what was what but this was obviously the gestational sac. It was a clear/grayish fluid filled sac and the embryo could be seen floating in the fluid as well as a clump of tissue attached - I assume placenta. I immediately felt better. The pain lessened and from there it was mostly like a normal period. I did wear a Depends to sleep in because I was still expecting more blood and I didn't want to bleed everywhere. AND this was nothing like a heavy period. I had a mini labor and I assume that taking cytotec is somewhat like taking pitocin to induce labor - where the pain comes on fast and furious. I wish that I had stronger pain meds or some natural breathing techniques to deal with the pain.

Over the next 48 hrs I passed more tissue and experienced more intense pain around that time. Occasionally I would randomly have intense contractions. In general, I would say that my uterus felt like someone had drop kicked it. I experienced some pain while peeing and pooping  for the next few days and had really bad intestinal cramps. 

On Sunday I went back to the hospital to confirm that everything had passed and indeed it had. I bled for a total of 6 days and still continue to spot although it is hardly noticeable now. It was a crazy experience and although I felt like I was prepared - I don't think anything could have really prepared me for that experience. Jason, as always, was so supportive and took such good care of me. This process has been extremely hard on us but fortunately, it has brought us closer together and I really couldn't wish for a better husband. We have a plan moving forward but I will save that for another blog post. Much love.  

*************************WARNING, graphic photo below*****************************

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No easy way to say this...

We went in for an ultrasound this morning where we discovered that fetal growth stopped about 10 days ago and there was no longer a heartbeat - it is called a missed miscarriage.. We are devastated. We have decided to allow the miscarriage to happen naturally.  I will discontinue taking all of my medications and that should clue my body in on what has happened - may take a few days, may take a week or more. Thank you for all of the love and support we have received through this process. That is all I have for now.

Heartbeat

I will start by saying that we got to see the heartbeat today!! But now I am going to back-track on the hardest 4 days ever.

On Monday we went in for our first ultrasound at 6 weeks and 1 day. The doctor was able to see one gestational sac and a yolk sac. He said that he expected to see more at this point (fetal pole and heartbeat) and suggested that it was probably a blighted ovum with a missed miscarriage. Cue the water works. WHAT!?! Basically he believed that after implantation the babe didn't develop. He discussed the options suggesting we could have a d&c (where they scrape put the inside of your uterus) vs medications vs natural.  He made us an appointment for a follow-up ultrasound at his private clinic for Friday (6 weeks 5 days) to determine if there was any growth. So, from Monday afternoon until Friday afternoon we had no idea what was happening. Was I still pregnant? Yes, I hadn't miscarried but was the babe still growing? I wanted so bad to believe but I was terrified of what the doctor discussed. After much research, I discovered that at the 6 week stage there is a large range of what can been seen. Often just a few days makes a big difference. I also experienced some major anger at the doctor suggesting this so early on as technically a blighted ovum can't be officially diagnosed until the gestational sac has reached 25mm and then a week after that if an ultrasound shows no growth. I was nowhere close to that. BUT with IVF dates and such are more certain so I get that he expected to see more. Not to mention that dating protocols can differ greatly in the first few weeks depending on who you ask.

The babe is rapidly changing as we found out today. Babe measured 4mm about the size of a sweet pea! The dating the doctor gave was 6 weeks 1 day - so about 4 days behind schedule BUT other medical sites have suggested that this is right on target. He also mentioned that the yolk sac is slightly large at 5mm and again this value is right on the border. The most important thing is that we saw and HEARD the heartbeat!! Really really amazing. We have another ultrasound scheduled for November 30 and at that point I'll be 9 weeks and 1 day. 

The black space below  is the gestational sac and the round part is the 

yolk sac and where the arrow is pointing is the babe!

I have experienced all sorts of symptoms... they come and go. I have the nose of a bloodhound and some pretty strong food aversions. I have been really tired and dizzy. And man, my boobs HURT!! I have had waves of nausea but nothing too bad but my gas is horrid!! Honestly, I'll take all the symptoms because they mean I am pregnant!! 

xo - katherine