Doing my research

Although I found through the American Pregnancy website that my baby's heartbeat should be normal at this stage, I did find a study that had a lot more information. Click here for the full study. It breaks up the slow fetal heart rate into smaller categories (slow and borderline) and compares the chance of demise in each category. Then they list the chance of demise for an initial slow heart rate followed by a normal heart rate at 8 weeks. Because my baby's heartbeat was 90 bpm, I was in the borderline category (90-99 bpm). That means I have a 17% chance of demise in the first trimester. Those odds don't see bad at all considering a normal heart rate still has a 9% chance of demise. Now if my baby's heart rate is normal at 8 weeks (or maybe even the next ultrasound) then its chance of demise drops to 7.6%, which is almost the same odds as those pregnancies who had normal heart rates at 6 weeks and normal heart rates at 8 weeks.

I am still somewhat concerned because a "slow" heart rate is considered to be less than 90 bpm and the chance of demise in that category is 60%, which is reduced to 25% if the 8 week ultrasound shows a normal heart rate. Those odds are pretty crappy. Because my baby's heart rate is right on the border, I can only hope that my doctor counted the heartbeat right (or maybe even undercounted).

On the positive side (if there is a positive side), the study said that the demise often occurs within one week of the first detection of the slow fetal heart rate. So if I can make it through this week without any issues then hopefully I can continue to enjoy this pregnancy instead of worrying all the time.

Should I hope?

Let me just say that I really appreciate all the thoughts and prayers you guys have been giving me. My husband firmly believed the doctor was wrong so I called Nurse D at Womack for a second opinion. She was pretty upset that the doctor told me the things he did. To recap the situation, he had sat down with us and focused on the fact that this could not be a viable pregnancy. He mentioned that they don't make any determination till after a second ultrasound but that he was very "concerned" about the health of the baby. He stated over and over again that things didn't look good and what he saw was not "normal" for a 6-week scan. He was supposed to see a sac, he was supposed to be able to measure the baby, the heartbeat was supposed to be faster. Nurse D disagreed with all of that. She said at Womack they never expect to see much during a 6 week ultrasound which is why they don't schedule the first one till 7 weeks. She gave me renewed hope when she told me that two girls this week came in for a D&C because there was no fetal pole on their last ultrasound and lo and behold, they had normal pregnancies on their scan this week. She did mention that I could miscarry but told me nothing could be certain until next week. My HCG levels came back at 13,319 so that's still within the normal range of 1K-56K. I think that my doctor today said the wrong things to us and made us believe that there was very little hope for this pregnancy. He focused too much on what he was "supposed" to see instead of what he was actually seeing. Apparently Madigan and Womack disagree on what is "supposed" to be seen at a 6 week ultrasound. It has me very confused right now. It sucks that I have to see this doctor again and I have no choice to find another RE (military insurance sucks sometimes) but at least I got a second opinion from Womack.

Ireland, here we come....

As you can tell from my title, the ultrasound wasn't exactly a success. The spotting and cramping are gone so I felt quite foolish sitting in the ultrasound room this morning. I thought they would tell me that I overreacted a bit. Instead the doctor said he couldn't find anything. Well, that's what he said at first. There was no big black hole to indicate a sac (as shown below in a normal ultrasound, this is NOT a picture of my uterus).


Instead he saw a few wispy areas of black that were broken up by gray areas so it was very hard to tell whether it was one sac or not. Then he saw a flutter on the screen. He thought it was a heartbeat. I didn't see shit, honestly, but Brandon said he saw it too. The doctor counted the heartbeat and said it was about 90 bpm (beats per minute). He said that is much slower than it should be at 6 weeks. The "baby" (which I didn't see either, I have no idea how he could tell there was a baby on the screen) was also very tiny and he said it should be much bigger and more visible at this stage in the pregnancy. In other words, my gummy bear was a runt. He was not optimistic at all but he threw the "I still believe in miracles" bit in there.

Still, he told me to continue my medications. They took my HCG today and I have a repeat ultrasound and bloodwork on Tuesday to determine the final outcome.

Brandon thinks the doctor is wrong, that the heartbeat and size of the baby is actually normal. According to American Pregnancy the heartbeat should be 90-110 bpm at 6-7 weeks. I called the nurse to ask if the fact that my tilted uterus had anything to do with it. She said that it could, but the doctor's main concern is that the baby is much smaller than it should have been. My main concern is that there was really no defined sac. Brandon is still holding out hope that next Tuesday will show a bigger baby. As for me, I'm taking off the rose colored glasses and planning my consolation trip to Ireland. I guess Tuesday will render the final verdict.

I spoke too soon *UPDATE*

This morning I woke up with spotting. Very light spotting but it was still there. I had been a little nervous over the past week because I would see some blood on the progesterone applicators but it never turned into actual spotting so I haven't thought much about it. Now it's there. I even had a few teeny tiny clots with some red blood. I'm very concerned. I'm 6 weeks today and it's right around this time that I had my last miscarriage. It was the only other time I had been pregnant. For the first time last night I didn't have to get up in the middle of the night to pee. My boobs stopped hurting. I wasn't as tired yesterday as I usually am. I wonder if my body knows before I do that I'm not pregnant anymore. I hope I can get an appointment today for an ultrasound. I'm not sure if I can make it till next Tuesday, especially if the bleeding gets worse this morning.

I always told myself that even if I miscarry, I'll still be happy for the few weeks of joy that I felt knowing I was pregnant. But after my last bleeding scare, when I thought I had miscarried back then, I thought to myself that the devastation I feel after losing my baby would never be able to make up for the few moments of joy I had. If I do miscarry, I wonder if I'll ever be able to think back on this pregnancy and remember the happy times. If I don't miscarry, I wonder if I'll ever be able to enjoy this pregnancy and allow myself to relax.

**UPDATE** It's 11 am and the spotting is off and on. It goes away for a couple hours then comes back. I still have my cramping however. I've always had dull cramping off and on for the past two weeks but today I have the dull cramping along with some sharp pains near my left ovary. I get the pain about every 10 minutes or so. It's nothing too painful but it is pretty uncomfortable. I spoke with the nurse and she moved my ultrasound appointment to tomorrow morning. I'm not sure if I'll be able to see a heartbeat but at least I'll be able to see if the baby is measuring on schedule and if I have bleeding in my uterus. The nurse seems to think I may have irritated my vagina with the all the progesterone use since I've been seeing blood on the applicator for the past week. I just can't wait to get a dose of reassurance tomorrow.

Thinking about my first baby purchase

The agony of waiting another week until my ultrasound has got me pretty crabby and impatient lately. I've been trying to keep myself busy but it's difficult at work when my mind tends to wander. My workload isn't as high because I'm giving alot of it to The New Guy so he can get trained on all the stuff I do. So I pretty much sit around and answer his questions all day.

I'm thinking about making my first big baby purchase after the ultrasound next Tuesday (because buying some bigger clothes). I want to buy a doppler. I found a decent one for $150 and it seems well worth the price to be able to hear my baby's heartbeat whenever I want. The website says a heartbeat can be detected as early as 8 weeks but the standard time is 10 weeks. So I'm not sure if I should hold off on the purchase "just in case" something goes wrong at my second ultrasound appointment. I'm still debating.

Has anyone out there purchased or rented a doppler before? If so, what did you think of it?

Asshole of the Year

If you're one of those wives who loves their husband unconditionally please stop reading this because it's written by a woman who is NOT in love with her husband right now.

As I've mentioned before, Brandon and I play lots of computer games. We even met on an online computer game. We used to play quite frequently but over the past six months I've lost interest and pretty much stopped playing. Brandon, however, has not stopped playing. He's said multiple times that he plans on quitting and he'll stop completely once we move to Groton. He'll "for sure" quit when the baby comes. Well if he wants to save our marriage he's gonna have to quit ALOT sooner than that.

Yesterday I left work an hour early because I was tired and needed a nap. I texted the hubby and told him to wake me up between 5 and 5:30 pm since he hadn't gotten home yet. At 6 I woke up on my own and came downstairs to find my husband on the computer playing his game. While he continued to play I did the dishes, took out the trash and made myself dinner while simultaneously baking cookies for my co-workers. He didn't offer to help at all. In fact, he barely said more than five words to me. Afterwards I watched TV for an hour while he played some more. Still no acknowledgement that I was even in the room. When it was time for me to go to bed I went upstairs and threw his pillow down at him and told him to sleep on the couch. He said "WHAAAAT?!" but did he stop playing his fucking game to come upstairs and find out why I was mad? NOPE. He continued to play! Last night he played his computer game for FIVE.STRAIGHT.HOURS. He didn't even bother getting out of his uniform when he got home from work. He just sat right at the computer and started playing.

I'm sorry but I don't think it's okay for a relationship to be trumped by a video game (or anything else for that matter). I also don't think it's okay to not apologize for being such a dickhead. It's one thing to play a game together, as a couple. But for the past few months I've been bored out of my mind finding a hobby to keep myself busy while he plays his game. I've tried other computer games but didn't like them. I'm still too scared to go to the gym, at least until the first ultrasound. And I live in Seattle so it's not like I can do anything outdoors because it rains for 80% of the year. Last night was the last straw for me. The least he could have done was carry on a conversation with me or help out around the house before jumping on the computer!

So Brandon, if you're reading this you've just won the Asshole of the Year Award. No amount of flowers will buy you out of the doghouse this time. I'm beyond pissed at you.

Symptoms are Waning

Over the past few days I've felt less and less symptoms of pregnancy. Last week I had a little nausea, cramping, dislikes of certain food and extreme tiredness. Now I feel almost nothing. Occasionally my boobs will hurt or I'll feel like I need a nap but those symptoms aren't as in-your-face as the ones I had last week. I know I shouldn't worry but I am. Brandon says my body is probably just adapting to being pregnant now. But I'd rather have a whole day of cramping and sore boobs than a day filled with...nothing. This will be the longest two weeks of my life.

And now we wait some more

This 3 week wait will probably be hard than the 2WW I just had! No more betas or tests to show that my baby is growing as it should. It is particularly hard for me because I was pregnant once before and lost it around 5 or 6 weeks. It was back in 2003 when I was married to my ex-husband. I don't consider a "real" pregnancy because although we were taking Clomid and actively trying for a baby, I didn't know I was pregnant until the day of the miscarriage. My pregnancy tests were all negative and I got a period on time. There was no indication or symptoms of a pregnancy. That is why I'm trying to have more hope for this one, because I got the positive HPT's and I'm feeling the early symptoms of pregnancy.

They aren't much but I've found that I can't eat big meals anymore. I've become a seriously picky eater. For some reason the food just doesn't taste good. I feel like I want to spit it back out. Or maybe it's a texture issue. I'm experimenting with food to see what I can tolerate. It's mostly fruit right now. I had a tiny bout of nausea yesterday but today I seem perfectly fine (other than the fact that I woke up at 5 am with a growling stomach). Because I'm eating smaller meals I have to eat constantly, almost every hour unless I'm sleeping. I don't mind it but it's taking a while to get used to.

I'm also extremely tired. I mean super tired, like I just stayed up for 48 hours and I desperately need sleep. Only I haven't stayed up for 48 hours, it's only been about 9 hours and then I'm ready for a nap. I've been sleeping about 9-10 hours a day which may be too much and contributing to my sleepiness but I can barely stay awake at work. As soon as I get home all I want to do is eat and go straight to bed. Needless to say, none of the chores are getting done so Brandon will have to pick up the slack this weekend...while I sleep.

Yesterday I also bought my first baby-related thing. I bought the book "What to Expect when You're Expecting" and a pregnancy magazine. It felt weird buying something like that but I like the book and I learned last night that my baby is the size of a strawberry seed. Next week it will be a gummy bear. Geez, NOW I know why I'm hungry all the time! What's up with the food references in a pregnancy book? Did nobody think that was a bad idea when they were writing it??

Anyway, so the next three weeks may be pretty boring on this blog as I try to keep myself occupied with my upcoming move to Groton, CT. Yippee. I should be about 5 months pregnant by then. Poor Brandon will have to pack up the whole house alone, or at least move the boxes around for me while I pack. At least the military moves the boxes and furniture onto the truck and all we have to do is drive our vehicles to our new place. We are still debating about whether to sell his car so we only have to drive one car (and thus split the driving time between us) or just take both cars across the US. We'll need to make a decision soon so we can put his car up for sale if we decide to go that route. We're also debating about whether to buy a house or rent an apartment. Renting houses out there is rare as they are mostly vacation rentals and we don't want to live in base housing again. They'll only give us a tiny 2 bedroom townhome (based on our family size) and we could easily get a 3 bedroom with our housing allowance out in town. So many decisions to make!

Beta #2 and my 100th post

Today I had my second beta. Nurse D said they want to see my beta double +/- 15%. That means my range of a healthy beta rise is 190-258. My beta was 297! That means I am officially pregnant. I'm currently 4w2d (4 weeks 2 days) and my due date is October 20th. I'm not sure if I should read too much into that beta number (twins?) but I'm just taking it one day at a time. I put my beta chart down below. It looks like I'm in the high range. By the way, the Singleton title means a single baby. It has nothing to do with my last name. :) My first ultrasound is Tuesday March 2nd. If all goes well at the ultrasound appointment we had hoped to officially announce our pregnancy to family and friends. Unfortunately it looks like that won't happen.

You see, the cat's out of the bag. One of my co-workers that reads my blog has been "hinting" to my other co-workers that I'm pregnant (which is the same as telling them KELLY!!). Don't try to deny it, I have sources. So now I can't get through a day of work without someone coming up to me and asking me how I'm feeling or how I'm doing, sometimes followed by a sly wink. I can't stand it anymore. I can't possibly go another three weeks saying "I'm fine" with a straight face. My co-workers' poor attempts at making small talk make me want to laugh hysterically.

So now it's time to out my family. I have Google Analytics, Mom, I know you're stalking me. Who else from Macon would be reading my blog. Pappap, you visit my blog three times a day?? I didn't know I had that much interesting stuff to read about! Just don't tell Mimi I cuss on here. It'll be our little secret. And there's no use outing my sister Becky because she's the one that emailed me two HOURS after I posted my first pee stick picture!

So come on out of the lurking closet, people. Say whatever you want, ask whatever you want. Just don't rub my belly. It may be protruding a little bit but I assure you, it's just fat.

Show and Tell: Infertility Witch Doctor

For this week's Show and Tell post I want to share an eBay advertisement that a fellow cycle buddy showed me. This witch claims that for only $12 she can cast a white magic spell on you that will help you with your fertility woes. You can even conceive twins! You mean to tell me I could have saved thousands of dollars in fertility treatments and gotten a simple spell cast on me to cure my infertility? Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit! This sounds totally legit, right? I mean, she offers a guarantee (notice she doesn't say money-back guarantee) and she's got 100% positive feedback. So what could possibly go wrong? Maybe just the fact that her voodoo could turn your future kids into frogs but for $12 the risk is totally worth it! And I bet she makes a ton of money.

Today's beta is brought to you by the letter B and the number....

112!!!!!!

That's much higher than I anticipated. I was hoping for something between 60 and 80. My bleeding has completely stopped as of this morning. Last night before I went to bed there was another small clot and some brownish spotting but it wasn't bad. This infertility crap really takes you for a loop. After seeing all that blood yesterday I thought for sure this ride was over. But perhaps I just had some excess lining I had to get rid of. I suppose we can just take it one day at a time. Next beta is Friday.

Quick question- I've seen some bloggers with a beta line graph that shows normal, low and high betas and then you can enter your own beta numbers to compare. Does anyone know where I can find that?

PS- For non-IFer's a beta test is a blood test used to determine just exactly "how" pregnant you are. Are this stage in the cycle the doctor wants to see a number above 50 but any number above a 5 is technically considered a positive test. The number should double by Friday (+/- 15%) to indicate a healthy developing pregnancy. If the number does not fall within the range or is lower than the first beta then it's considered a chemical pregnancy and a miscarriage will happen. If its tripled by Friday then, well, maybe it's twins.

The worst day of my life *UPDATE*

Not only did Brandon's detailer screw him on his orders and we're probably moving to Groton, CT instead of any other place we'd like to go, but I started bleeding today. I found out around 2, right before I was getting ready to go to my acupuncture. Bright.red.blood. All over my pad. And did I mention the clots? Now that I've wiped away all the initial blood and clots (and there was a lot) there isn't much coming out. Nurse D said that if I go through a pad an hour then I should go to the ER. I've pretty much lost all hope in this pregnancy. What's worse is that tomorrow's beta will tell me nothing I don't already know. What I need to know is if the numbers will go up or down. If this bleeding could mean nothing or if it means that I've lost everything. I need to know if the fact that I put in my Endometrin two hours late had anything to do with the blood. Today is such a shitty day.

**UPDATE** It's been about 3 hours and the bleeding is almost gone. Almost. I still have bright pink/red blood when I wipe but nothing makes it onto the pad. I guess that would be considered spotting at this point, right? Thankfully there are no more clots. I am hoping and praying that the worst is over and the bleeding will taper off over the next day or so. I'm having very slight cramping but it's been off and on like that for a few days now so I don't know what to think about that. I'm still confused about what happened. Perhaps my body just had some extra lining it had to get rid of? I passed about 4 or 5 small clots but not a giant one to indicate a lost embryo so as long as the clotting stays gone I think I can start to breathe again.

Dear God, Please don't scare me like that again. I would appreciate it.

Blog Award!!

I know I'm just getting around to this but I'd like to thank Laura from Please let this be it for nominating me for the Beautiful Blogger award.

The instructions that go along with this award are as follows:
•Thank the person who nominated you for this award.
•Copy the award and place it in your blog
•Link the person who nominated you for this award.
•Tell us 7 interesting things about you
•Nominate 7 bloggers
•Post the links to the 7 bloggers you nominate.

Seven thing that I happen to find interesting about myself....hmmm, let's see

1. I'm left-handed. It runs in my family on my mom's side. My mom and aunt both have it. I think one of my grandparents would have been left-handed but they were taught to write with their right (wrong) hand. It's something I'm very proud of and I hope our kids turn out left-handed.
2. I was married once before, for about 4 years. Our marriage wasn't very strong and there were many factors that contributed to its downfall but I don't regret marrying my ex (or divorcing him). I believe that everything happens for a reason.
3. Brandon and I met online. Not the typical online way with the dating websites, oh no. We're way too unique for that. We met on an online game called Everquest II. Yes, we're nerds but it works for us.
4. I was a band geek in high school. I was in the colorguard for 3 years and winterguard as well. For those that don't know what the colorguard is, we spun the pretty flags with the marching band. It was the one thing I was extremely good at. I wish I had continued it more through college but I quit after my freshman year.
5. Everyone has their vices. Mine is gambling. I would say I'm addicted but if I was truly addicted we wouldn't be paying our bills or have money to pay cash for IVF. Still, the husband has to keep me in check when we go to the casino. But I've only been once in the past 6 months so I'd say I'm doing pretty good.
6. I like to collect magnets from every place I visit. I have some from almost every state in the US. They cover my fridge and I've even had to put some on my stove hood. Sometimes I go through them and throw out the old ones that don't stick but I have about 50 magnets right now.
7. My biggest fear is death. I haven't had to deal with it much as I still have much of my older relatives. The ones that are gone died when I was very young. I'm very deathly afraid (haha) of everyone around me dying or myself dying and leaving everyone behind.

The 7 bloggers I nominate are:

Hoping for a Baby
c by the sea
baby, interrupted
Heart Cries
Busted Plumbing
A Seattle couple's story
Everyone else but me

10dp3dt

My second line this morning looks exactly like the line from yesterday. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't concerned that this could turn out to be a chemical pregnancy. Beta is tomorrow.

9dp3dt

The line is much darker today than it was yesterday. I'm feeling over the moon. I can't wait for my beta on Wednesday! On a side note, when Brandon and I went grocery shopping last week we needed some spaghetti sauce. We usually buy Ragu but Brandon wanted something different this time. We bought Prego. Coincidence? I think not.

PS- Family and friends who know me personally, PLEASE read the note on my sidebar!! Someone failed to notice that yesterday and I got an email. You know who you are!!

Curiosity Killed the Cat

Actually the vet killed our cat about two weeks ago but you all know I didn't mean that saying in the literal sense. It meant that armed with my new supply of pregnancy tests I decided to test again this morning. And then I saw it. The faintest of faint lines. I thought at first that I was just seeing directly through the paper to the line underneath, the one that shows up when you're actually pregnant. I pulled out an unused test to see if I could see those lines. If you look carefully at an unused pregnancy test you can actually see the invisible lines underneath. But they're a grayish color. My line was pink. Barely visible, but pink. I asked the husband for a second opinion. Actually I flipped on the lights in the bedroom and stuck my pee stick in his face. After his eyes adjusted to the light, he too said he could see the line. But maybe he was just eager to get me to turn the lights back off. So I'm sharing the best quality photos I could make. Taking a picture of a pregnancy test is hard so forgive me. I have a $500 camera and the damn thing wouldn't focus. Click on the photo for a better look.

Can't Expect Miracles

Today I'm 7dp3dt and I took a HPT this morning. It was negative. I was a bit disappointed but not surprised. I bought the digital kind so I'm wondering if I should stick with the regular ones since I can inspect the line(s). My sore boobs and spotting are gone and for the past two days I've had some lower abdominal cramping. Today is worse than yesterday. I'm beginning to get a bit worried but I heard from some preggo ladies that it could actually be a sign of pregnancy? I never thought cramping would be a good thing. For me it's always been a sign that AF is about to show up. Anyone want to weigh in on that? If you had a positive beta, what were your symptoms like during the 2WW and when did you start experiencing them? I'm waiting till Monday to POAS again. Maybe I'll have better news by then.

5dp3dt

For you non-IFer's my title translates to "5 days past 3-day transfer". Which is where I am right now. I started back to work today and tried working 10 hours to make up for my lack of working all week. I made it to 8.5 before calling it quits. Let's see how far I make it tomorrow. By the end of the day I was so completely exhausted. We took the dog to the dog park for a while and the fresh air kept me awake but as soon as we got home I crashed on the couch. I slept for three hours. When I woke up my boobs felt like 20-pound weights. Usually during the 2WW I'm grabbing them and squishing them around to see if they're sore. There was absolutely no need for that today! It's not so bad right now but they hurt like hell when I first got up. Also, I've been having a teeny tiny bit of spotting. And when I mean tiny, it's tiny. Like a pencil eraser tiny. Not that I've been inspecting my TP when I go to the bathroom or anything. So.....other than the sore boobs, pencil eraser spotting and the feeling that I could sleep for 1,000 years not much is going on in our household today. I might POAS on Saturday.

PS- For any of my Fertile Thoughts friends who read my blog, I've been officially banned for two months. Apparently the founder "Dave" is a sensitive nitwit. Some of my cohorts were making fun of his contest he had on there and their threads were removed and they were banned. Well, they can take our threads but they'll never take our FREEDOM!!! So the girls created a blog. I mentioned on Fertile Thoughts to the remaining girls that some people got tired of the censorship and referred them to the new blog. Well apparently referencing said blog was evil enough to get me banned, even though they have not specified what Community Guideline I have violated. I doubt I will return to Fertile Thoughts and although they have a wealth of information on their forums, their censorship is ridiculous and I am no longer referring friends and family to their website. I simply do not feel it's the "support" forum they claim it is.

Show and Tell

I've always read Mel's Weekly Show and Tell but never participated because I never had anything to show off. Well now I do! Today I'm sharing the one and only picture I have of my embryos.



See the two dots close together in the middle of the picture? The dot on the right is the catheter and the dot on the left are my two embryos shooting out into my uterus (and hopefully snuggling in by now). The doctor at our clinic doesn't give the close-ups of our embryos unless we actually give birth from that cycle. I guess he's had experiences where some women have gotten too attached to the pictures in the event of a BFN or miscarriage. So this is the only picture I possess right now of my future children. Pretty neat, huh?

My Consolation Prize

It's 4dp3dt and I'm not feeling a damn thing besides my sore stomach muscles. Which is just as good because I don't really feel like thinking about anything during the 2WW. I don't feel like analyzing every little twinge or oddity. I would just rather relax and sleep until it's over with. My beta is Wednesday the 10th. Tomorrow I think I will return to work although I'm starting to dread it. Everybody knows why I've been gone and I don't want people asking if I'm pregnant yet or when I'll find out. I've decided that I won't officially announce it until we see a heartbeat on the ultrasound. Of course I'll blog about my beta results but not many family and friends read my blog anyway so I should be safe. Another reason I don't want to return to work is because I found out during my IVF cycle that one of my co-workers is two months pregnant. Yippee. So if this cycle ends up with a BFN then I'm not sure how I'll handle that. I might ask to switch departments. Brandon suggested that I just quit my job but I make pretty good money and don't really want to do that, especially if the military makes him stay here for another year or two.

Brandon and I discussed quite a bit about what we'll do *if* this cycle doesn't work. Are we willing to try another fresh IVF? Are we willing to do adoption? We're honestly considering just living childless for the rest of our lives. But who knows. But I did decide on one thing: if this cycle ends up negative then I will get a pretty sweet consolation prize. That way I still have SOMETHING to look forward to this year. My consolation prize will be a trip to Ireland. We will probably go sometime in the fall when it's cheap and stay for at least 10 days, maybe two weeks. I've always wanted to visit Ireland ever since I was a little girl. I want to see the castles and abbeys and the Cliffs of Moher and meet the people. Brandon isn't too thrilled about going, he doesn't see the point. As he puts it, "We're not big beer drinkers and that's all they have in Ireland, pubs!" but I just think he doesn't have the travel bug as badly as I do. He said if I'm interested in castles then we should go to Europe, they have plenty of castles there. It's true, I'd love to go see the Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany (the one that the Disney Castle was modeled after) but I'm not really interested in visiting Europe right now. I'd rather go to Ireland. Nothing against Europe but I just think the people are friendlier on the Emerald Isle.

Some people have asked "Why don't you just save that money for another IVF?" and I realize that $2,000 would help with the cost of another IVF or adoption, but I feel that a vacation for the two of us would be really nice. Every other vacation I've taken has given me something to focus on and for once, infertility does not become the focus of our lives. That's why we take so many vacations! That is also part of the reason why Brandon and I considered living childless instead of trying more fertility treatments. I don't want to look back on the last 5 or 10 years of my life and see that it was completely consumed by infertility treatments. I don't want our lives to have revolved around cycles and medications and doctor appointments. I want to look back and see that even if we weren't able to produce a child, our lives were still fulfilling and happy. Travel really makes me happy. I love visiting new places, meeting new people and having those memories to look back on.

So if things don't work out and I end up with a BFN or worse, a miscarriage, then we'll be spending a nice two weeks in Ireland and just being happy with each other. In the end I can at least feel confident that infertility will not affect the strength of our marriage and may even make it stronger, whether we end up with children or not.

The Dark Side of IVF

**TMI ALERT**

Everyone knows that the IVF process isn't exactly a cakewalk. But nobody ever talks about it. Maybe they don't want to feel whiny since so many other women have gone through it before. But I'm going to discuss the really nasty parts about IVF.

I'm pretty overweight. In fact, I'm technically considered obese for my height and weight category. I knew I would gain some more weight after starting the meds but I never expected to gain TWO pounds in just one day! The medications make you bloat up like a whale. During the entire stim week I was impatiently waiting to dump these eggs into a petri dish so I could start feeling better. Boy was I wrong.

One of the other IVF girls staying at the Fisher House mentioned that the anesthesia would make you extremely constipated. We were given stool softeners which I took once or twice a day. Four days after retrieval I still had not gone #2. I was getting a little uncomfortable. I called the nurse who suggested I take Metamucil, milk of magnesia or magnesium citrate. I opted for the Metamucil. That helped me produce a VERY small bowel movement. I was starting to get in a lot of pain. My stomach was hard and distended. I looked like an Ethiopian who swallowed a marble. It hurt to yawn or breath deeply because I felt like my stomach muscles and skin could not stretch any further and my organs would explode. My IVF friend gave me a bottle of magnesium citrate. Again, it helped just a TINY bit. I called the nurse again because I was getting very concerned. She told me to take an enema and if that didn't work then I'd have to come in for an appointment (not sure what the doctors would have been able to do though). I tried the enema and finally had success. However, after having six days of a completely stretched stomach my muscles are very sore to the touch. I felt like I've done 1,000 sit-ups. It still hurts to eat a large meal or breathe very deeply and my stomach is still protruding quite a bit, although it's no longer hard.

The magnesium citrate and stool softeners worked for the other girls but my advice is that if you're going through IVF and get very constipated after the retrieval, DON'T wait six days to try something. The mag citrate tastes like total crap and the enema wasn't fun either but I wish I had done both earlier in the process so I wouldn't have felt so miserable. And if you're in pain from the constipation, don't take the Percocet to relieve that pain. That only makes you more constipated. I learned that the hard way. If we ever decide to do a fresh IVF cycle again that I'll be bringing TWO enemas with me....just in case!