Fumbling Towards Eggstacy

Round Two (or is it Round Five?)

My beautiful daughter -- my dream come true -- is now one year old and walking. She loves swimming class, strawberries, yogurt, dogs, books, peekaboo (this somehow hasn't gotten old yet), sitting on dad's shoulders, going down slides (and trying to go back up), and the Upsidedown Show (a family fave). I am truly in heaven to have such a joyous child in my life. (and my husband likes her too).

 

If it weren't for my struggle in having her I'm not sure I would soak up each moment with her to the same extent. I do doubt that I could ever love another child as much as I love her. But even with that doubt I am certain I could love another child and make room in my life if blessed to that extent.

So now I'm ready to give it another go. Here's a run down of my efforts:

• I verified that I have insurance money left for another IVF. I do, thank goodness.
• I met with Dr. Swanson at Conceptions two weeks ago and he ordered blood tests and an U/S.
• FSH  is 9.0 which is good. Two years ago it was 10.4 (lower is better - doc wants to see <10).  Although you're only as good as your highest #.
• E2 (estradiol) is 28, it just needs to be < 80.
• LH was 5, just needs to be <= FSH.
• Resting follicle count was 13 and probably even more that the tech couldn't see (the nurse said they are happy to see 10).  
• I get my AMH # in another week and get my Day 10 FSH checked next week.
• I've been doing acupuncture, taking herbs, taking heavy duty liquid vitamins.
• I'm doing clomid starting today just so I don't "waste a month" of eggs while I'm still in my 30s. Dr. S gave it less than a 5% chance of working and I'm fully aware it probably won't work but hey what the heck.
• I'm considering taking bee pollen & royal jelly to improve egg quality but am scared of anaphlactic shock!! Also I haven't started taking CoQ-10 or L-Arginine or L-Carnitine but they're all sitting right here on my desk staring me in the face.

I asked about taking growth hormone with just a clomid/IUI cycle and doc says he won't prescribe because there are no studies to back it up. Because of my age myeggs may have hard shells which means they won't fertilize unless [a] growth hormone is used to make them better quality (which I think means softer shells too) or [b] ICSI is done where the embryologist actually punctures the shell of the egg and injects a single sperm. This helps because even the heartiest sperm may not be able to puncture the shell left to its own devices.

My biggest challenge is that Dr. S wants me to stop breastfeeding. I never thought I'd go this long (13 months) but here I am. DD shows no signs of wanting to stop and the more I read about BF the more I'm fine with going longer. However with IVF drugs it's not recommended, and BF may lower the chance of getting pregnant, IVF or otherwise. But DD is down to just twice a day and doc checked my Prolactin. If it is low it may not interfere too much. But he still says stop.

No idea if anyone reads this anymore but I need somewhere to capture all this data so it might as well be here!!

The Morning Sickness Post

It's not over yet.  I'm ten weeks today, so probably 2-4 weeks more at best.

 

Unless you have morning sickness, this post may not be for you.  But if you have it, read on.  It always helps me to find someone who suffers my ailment.  Morning Sickness Misery Mamas needs company too.

 

I’ve been experiencing bad m/s for over a month now.  It’s not bad enough for an IV because I can keep enough food and fluid down.  But it’s not solvable by a few saltines either.  We’re talking actual puking 5 – 10 times a day.  This post isn’t pretty but I think some ugliness is called for here.  After all, if women can blog about their bodily fluids, I can blog about my m/s.

 

One thing I’ve discovered is that there are different categories of vomiting.  They range from a Category 1 vomit where you have one or two dry heaves.  And they go up to a Cat 5 where you have 10 or more “wet” heaves, if you will, in a session, where you lose your meal from hours ago, where you’re on your knees in front of the toilet, red-faced, tears streaming, body shaking, wondering if you just coughed up an internal organ.  (I did say it wasn't pretty.)

 

In order to avoid grossing you out too much, I’ve substituted the word “episode” for all other lovely words in our vocabulary for getting sick.

 

Here are the remedies I’ve tried and how they’ve worked out for me.

1. Promethazine 25mg – A single pill knocked me out for about 18 hours.  Not conducive to trying to live life, especially for a working girl.  Plus this is a Class C drug, meaning that studies on animals show adverse effects to a fetus.
2. Zofran 8 mg – I took these every 8 hours for 5 days.  It decreased my episodes from about 10/day (most Cat 1, 2, and 3) to about 4/day, Cat 4 or 5.  I'm not even sure if that's an improvement.  But anyway it's not worth it because even after attempting to counteract the constipation with Colace and Benefiber, I didn’t have a bm (i.e. poo) for 5 days straight.
3. Unisom Sleep Tabs (the kind with doxylamine succinate – white & orange box), 25mg – I've taken these for the past few days. (or, more accurately, evenings).  It helps me to take a half pill one hour before bedtime.  When I awaken, I have no groggy feeling, plus I'm at about a 50% lower risk of an episode.  I tried taking these during the day though with less than ideal results (duhh -- they are a sleeping pill).   A half pill first thing in the morning made me sleep until lunch.  A fourth of a pill first thing in the morning staved off an episode until lunch.  But the fourth-of-a-pill zombified me through the afternoon.  Even so I'm trying it again tomorrow.
4. Ginger Root Tablets, 250mg 3x/day – Tried this for a few days, didn’t notice any impprovement.
5. Vitamin B6, 25mg 3x/day – I took this for 5 days, with no noticeable results.
6. Acupressure Wrist Bands – I’ve had these on constantly for the past month.  Don’t know how much they help but it’s so easy to do, I figure why not just leave them on.
7. Acupuncture – Effective in the very short term but depends on the practitioner.  After a session with my regular female acupuncturist, I’m usually better (as in no episode) for 6-10 hours.  It is well worth the $20 copay just to be able to feel semi-normal for a little while.  With a alternate practitioner (when my regular person was out), I received zero relief – in fact I had an episode in the bathroom down the hall from the office immediately afterwards.
8. Ginger Tea – After getting sick on Constant Comment (cinnamon tea), I can’t bring myself to try this, even though a new box is sitting on my kitchen counter.  It’s probably a miracle cure.
9. Peppermint Extract – I boil about 30 drops of this in 4 oz of water at night and sniff it while taking my prenatal so that I can choke down the horse pill without an episode.  I should probably carry this around with me all day long, come to think of it.
10. Peppermint Tea – this came right back up.
11. Peppermint Candy – same result as the tea.
12. Fresh Lemonade – same result as the tea.
13. Popsicles – same result as the tea.
14. Jolly Ranchers / Lifesaver Candies – same result as the tea.
15. Fresh Air – A good sniff usually delays an episode.  Really I should just live life outside.  It’s cute when a dog sticks its head out a car window, but not so much when a grown woman does it.
16. Crackers – You’ve got to be kidding.  Nada, nothing, no help whatsoever.
17. Protein – I have never once had an episode where a protein came back up.  Of course I have no desire whatsoever to actually eat protein foods so this is one of those cases where I know what’s good for me but have a hard time doing it.  Like working out and avoiding sugar.
18. Ginger Ale – The bubbles seem good but the sugar makes me queasy, so in small quantities – like a fourth of a glass – this is alright.  However I’m told there is no actual ginger in Canada Dry so the therapy must be the carbonation?
19. Prenatal with no iron – I do feel a bit better the next day if I either skip the prenatal (don’t worry this doesn’t happen often) or avoid one with iron.
20. Cola – Little sips of DH’s Coke seemed to help, but seeing as I avoid caffeine and aspartame, I didn’t want to take more than a few sips.

  

Things I’ve discovered that nobody told me:

1. Imagery – Try to not think about food.  If you start to think about food, or if you feel an episode is imminent, immediately picture yourself walking in the great outdoors, sniffing the freshest air you’ve ever smelled.  This is an essential skill especially when in public and at risk of an episode. 
2. Walking – Although nausea doesn’t go away when walking, walking seems to delay an episode until at least an hour afterwards.
3. Hugging – Having a husband or someone to hug after an episode is key.  This person should love you enough to want to hug you even if you have puke-breath.  Don’t expect any kisses though.
4. Dogs – Having a dog follow you to the bathroom, lay on the floor next to where you’re kneeling, and look at you like she wishes she could help is emotional support of the bestest kind.
5. Pumpkin Pie – Maybe this is just my lame excuse to eat it, but it seems to settle my stomach a bit.  I avoid the crust to cut calories.  Makes sense, since I give my dogs pumpkin when they have digestive issues.
6. Low fat buffalo mozzarella cheese – a little piece of this before bed helps decrease nausea a bit while falling asleep.
7. Pudding – a few spoonfuls of pudding before bed has the same effect.
8. Cherry-flavored Chapstick -- for some reason the smell of this puts my tummy to ease.

Hopefully this helps someone out there.  I know everyone's different but for sure there's enough similarities in the female body to make it worth sharing what helps and what doesn't help an individual.  If you are suffering like me, I feel for you, there’s just no way to make it go away, and management of m/s to lessen its annoyances is be a bitch. 

IVF #3 - Transfer Day

Today was transfer day -- doc transferred 3 8-cell embies.  Seeing as I'm on bed rest and already bored, this is going to be a detailed post.  If you want the reader's digest version, well... the first sentence which you already read sums it all up.

I showed up at 9 a.m., and it was very quiet, nobody around that I could see, so I first went to do my blood draw.  Then thank goodness on my way out, I ran into my acupuncturist who was there to meet me.  She took me in a back room where I chugged my 32 ounces of water and lay down on the table for my 25-minute pre-transfer session.  There was no music, and I forgot my iPod, so I sat there in silence and tried to think positive.

It wasn't easy because yesterday I had gotten the "day 2" call from the embroyolgist who gave his report:  1 more fertilized, which brought the total up to 7 of 8.  Of the 6 that were fertilized by Thursday, 1 was "acceptable", 1 was "almost acceptable", and the other four were "behind."  I didn't want to blog it because I felt embarassed at the not-so-impressive results.  When I called my acupuncturist with the transfer time, it felt pointless to even ask her to show up with me -- what if that one "acceptable" didn't even make it to day 3???   I was bummed out most of the day.  Almost to the point of being a cranky ass bitch but not quite.  I did a little internet research on donors.  I found a donor site where you don't have to register in order to search a database with photos, and I picked out a woman who kind of sort of looked like me.  Well OK she was prettier than me.  And taller.  I looked into the cost of it ($20 - 30K min, out of pocket).  That helped me feel a little better, even though we don't have cash for it yet.  But it kept me from feeling totally helpless and hopeless. 

After the pre-transfer acupuncture, the embryologist met with me.  He showed me pictures.  I'd scan the emby pics for your viewing enjoyment, but for some reason, can't get the scanner to work, so maybe later.  He had two embryo pics.  The first one showed three 8-cell blobs, one of which had 10% fragmentation, the other two which had 15%.  Not perfect, but compared to my very low expectations, it sounded perfect enough to me!  And, compared to last time, when I had one 8-cell, 2 7-cells, and 1 6-cell, all of which were about 25% fragmented, this was good news.  His next picture showed the four other embies -- of those, 3 were 6- to 8-celled with a lot of fragmentation, and one (the one that fertilized a day late) was a 5-cell with no visible fragmentation.

He recommended transferring 2 or 3 of the 8-cells, and none of the others.  I asked if transfering the 5-cell would increase the chances, and he said no, but he's hoping it'll make it to freeze.  He gave me pregnancy rates for transferring 1, 2, or 3 (I think it was like 25%, 48%, and 60% -- which I'm sure wasn't taking into account fragmentation or past IVF failures, but it's not like I expect him to be a walking Google).  It was hard for me to just leave the 4 he didn't recommend putting back, especially at this juncture where I truly think this will be my last IVF ever with my own eggs.  I was tempted to say "just throw them all in for the hell of it" because it seems like it wouldn't hurt anything (I mean, really, who actually has seven take, especially a 37-yo with multiple failures and DOR!!).  But in the end I took his advice and asked to have the 3 8-cells transferred.

There was no Valium this time.  Probably for the best since I'd be driving myself home.  DH was (still is) rock climbing.  Which is fine, he's ADHD and probably would have driven me nuts, especially as I was trying to relax during the needle portions of the mornng.

Nurse asked me to undress and sit on the table so she could check my bladder to make sure it was full enough.  She said I could empty it a bit (thank god, I was scared I was going to leak during the procedure).  She gave me a Dixie cup and said I could pee out two cups worth, but I only peed out 1.5 cups worth just to be safe.

Back on the table, the nurse gave me a blankie since I complained it was cold, which I would have normally kept my mouth shut about in an effort to be polite, however my acupuncturist made a big point of telling me to keep warm at all times.  I was even wearing a long-sleeved fleece top.  Doc came in (not the doc I was expecting, but that's OK) and had no problem whatsoever with the transfer.  Good hands??  My other two transfers were both problematic, requiring reloads and a bit of finagling.  I saw the catheter on the U/S screen. 

After loading the embies into my uterus, he passed the empty catheter back to the embryologist, who took it back in the lab to reload it, this time with semen.  This particular clinic saves semen from DH and puts it in after the embies to mimic the environment of real sex.  There's a possibility that the semen triggers the uterus to get ready to accept embryos, and although nothing is proven, the clinic figures it can't hurt.  I like these guys, they seem to be doing as much as they can.

After that, they leaned be back at about 30 degrees and had me stay in that position, alone in the room, for 10 minutes.  Good idea...no clinic had ever done that before, yet I had done it many times after bms.

My acupuncturist re-punctured me and for a second time I sat needled in silence.  Before leaving the room, she told me to breath deeply and open my heart.  I spent time in my head thinking of any negativity I felt toward any person and tried to heal it with love and forgiveness.  I also told my little embabies "welcome to my belly", and I envisioned what my body would look like in Sept, Oct, Nov, etc, all the way up until birth-day, when I pictured having a little baby on my chest in a hospital.

Normally I wouldn't do this because it feels like a form of torment to want something that I can't have.  But for the sake of positive thinking and sending good vibrations from my mind to all my other body cells and to my little embabies, it seemed like the right thing to do.

Conceptions recommends five days -- FIVE!! -- of bed rest.  I'm already wanting to escape from the couch!

Eggs Retrieved

My ER was today, with 10 eggs retrieved.  Not bad considering that on our last try at IVF#3, in March, I never made it to ER due to two leading follices, and cycle was converted to an IUI.  This time around, I was officially acepted by my new RE as an IUI patient with the option to convert to IVF if I had at least 4 follies, due to my "poor history," so I trumped the 4-follie criterion.

I had a 6:30 a.m. conference call for work, and then woke up DH at 7:30 a.m.  He was up til 2 a.m. last night chatting with his niece and nephew after we all went to see the Police at Red Rocks (great show!), and needless to say, was not too excited to be awakened.  Of course I think, why does he have to be a grump when we're trying to make a baby.  But then I figure, it's not like he was up late drinking -- he was up late being a very cool uncle to two teenagers who love him to death.  And anyway, he cheered up once we got to the doc.  Being a health care worker himself, he always goes out of his way to make the health care workers smile because he knows what it's like to be in their shoes.

Things were quite a bit different at Conceptions compared with CCRM.  At Conceptions today, I was the only ER patient of the day.  When I had my last ER -- with CCRM back in November 07 -- I was the 12th, and last, patient of the day and was wheeled out to my car in the dark.  Seems like the fact that they have only my eggies to focus on today is a good thing.

Tomorrow we'll get the fertilization report, and on Friday (day 2) the embryologist will be able to tell us if it's a 3-day or 5-day transfer.  At that point (day 2), the embies should be at the 2- or 4- cell stage.  Should be interesting to see what embryo quality is since last time we had high fragmentation.  With 4 straight months of 2x/week acupuncture, and HGH, I'm hoping for better quality.  The criteria for day 3 versus day 5 transfer is that, if > 4 look good on day 2, then they plan a day 5 transfer.  I prefer a day 3 regardless of what they look like on day 2, but I'll wait to see what they look like before putting my foot down.  No sense being adamant now about going against their preferred ways of doing things if I'll only have a few good ones anyway.

I'm happy that on transfer day, the embryologist is going to have a full size pic of every embryo for us to look at.  I've never got to see pictures before.  My first embryologist, in Tampa, said that taking pictures was bad for the embryos.  The current embryologist says that's not the case.

Not much to do now other than send those little embies happy thoughts.

Fear

Here's Sarah McLachlan performing Fear.

I fear
I have nothing to give
I have so much to lose
I have nothing to give
We have so much to lose...

These song titles are way too easy to relate to infertility.

My IUI is scheduled for Monday morning.  Then I hop on a plane.  No bed rest, no special doctor's orders.   I've never done an IUI before, so it's a bit of a novelty to me.  I had a pre-surgery check-up with Dr. G yesterday, just in case Dr. S. recommended retrieval, and so I bombarded the poor guy with questions.  He looked tired.  I asked him if he would recommend an IUI given my circumstances (2 lead follicles).  He said, your chances are about equivalent with an IUI and an IVF.  I asked if he thought a lower number of mature eggs at trigger meant better quality.  He said no. 

My biggest fear now is that my fertility jumped off a 14'er in the last 7 months.  My last IVF wasn't too shameful.  This one, however, is not impressive, in a "you absolutely, positively need donor eggs" sort of way.  I have feelings of embarrassment as I talk to the nurse and doc now, as if I have failed them.  As if I should have known, given my age, that my body would not be super responsive indefinitely. 

I fear that the fact that some of my meds had an expiration date of June 08 means that they went bad.  And, I fear that that's not the case.

I fear that this is as good as it's gonna get with stimm drugs from now on.

I fear that God is punishing me for putting work before motherhood.

<Is this as fun for you as it is for me, dear reader?  I fear my readers are going to start charging me for reading this and providing therapy to an in-denial, over-the-hill IVF'er, LOL.>

I fear that I've made mistakes down this road.  For my first IVF, I went to an oddball, sub-par, two-man-show (OBGYN + embryologist) in FL.  The doc was super nice, but he had a policy, due to religious reasons, to only fertilize as many eggs as you want to put back.  I had 18 retrieved, so 16 were just tossed from the get-go.  I was a year younger then, so some of those may have been my lottery tickets to mom-hood.  His embryologist insisted on being paid cash and had a huge "save the squirrels" farm in Lakeland, FL.  No lies.  In my defense, I went to these guys because they had gotten a 41-yo friend of mine prego with twins with her own eggs.  At the time I didn’t realize how much luck was involved there.  But she put back 6 embies.  I didn't know to put back more than two embies.  I didn’t know that other REs fertilize the whole batch of eggs and watch them all.  I didn't know about acupuncture use for IF.  I didn't know about blogs.  There is so, so much that I didn't know about IVF.

I fear that I waited too long between IVFs 2 & 3.  A lot can happen in 7 months.  For anyone reading this who is over 35 and thinking of taking a long break, I'd urge you to not do it.  I think it was a mistake.  I know it takes some major pushing, but I urge you to push yourself.

A week from Tuesday, I have an appointment with Dr. Swanson from Conceptions.  Because I suspect the CCRM Dr. S's won't let me do IVF with my own eggs anymore.  I’ll do a follow-up consult with Dr. Su as requested but that’s what I’m expecting to hear.  Thing is, I have about $40K of IF insurance left, so I'm hoping that some doctor will let me try longer.  (I hesitate to write this because I know so many don't have insurance.  But I'd trade anyone, any day, $ for better eggs of my own!  And trust me, I am not rich.)  Even if I have to fly out to NY or Vegas or somewhere else to go to another clinic, I'd like to use every penny of it, if only to be able to say I tried every which way I could with the funds I was fortunate enough to have available to me.  Maybe I'll try the whole Chinese herb thing, get my spleen chi in balance.  I'm thinking to give treatments another year and perhaps at the same time, pursue adoption.  With adoption, GS only wants to do it if we can get a baby who otherwise wouldn’t have much of a chance, like an orphan from another country.  With donor eggs, GS isn’t on board at all.  I am, quite frankly, open to anything -- DEs, domestic, foreign, older, younger, crack baby.  Seriously.  I think.  As long as I can put a kid in daycare, since I have to earn money to feed the kid and all.

And ya, there's like a 10% chance or something the IUI will work.  So there's that.  But with those chances, I've got to be pragmatic.

I can tell you this, if I have a daughter via birth or adoption, I am going to have her freeze plenty of her eggs as soon as she's old enough.

My husband brought a CD with him to Naples with a bunch of pictures we've taken since we've moved to Denver, so he could show his family.  Mostly of beautiful places we've been, but also of our home and dogs.  When he showed them to his uncle yesterday, he told me, his uncle said if he sees one more dog picture, he's going to bark.  Looks like I'm already a weird dog lady.  I want to at least get a chance to be a weird mama.

Good Enough

I had this hokey idea to name my next 11 posts using the song titles from Sarah McLachlan's album "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy."  She IS my favorite singer, so my website name is very much a tribute to her talents.  "Good Enough" seemed like the easiest to start with.  I could probably write a hundred-page essay on this phrase, but I'll spare you all.

Monday I had my first U/S to check for cysts; none found.  Then I had my blood draw -- it was fine.  Had a sit-down with my nurse, Ellie, and she showed me how to use the Gonal-F pens.  For my last two IVFs, I did Bravelle (Like how I said "did" so it sounds like I'm doing naughty drugs?  My first IVF I told my RE that GS "ate" my Valiums so I needed a new RX.  I am such a non-druggie nerd.)  It's my understanding that Bravelle comes from the urine of post-menopausal women and Gonal-F is synthetic.  Wonder if I'm losing out on quality?  Hopefully synthetic is good enough.  (This theme thing reminds me of Toastmaster meetings where you're supposed to use the word-of-the-day).

I asked Ellie if the U/S tech should have checked my blood flow since I had issues last time.  She said sure, so I had two wandings in one day, yay.  My blood flow is no longer reverse diastolic, so that's a good thing, since that means no Viagra suppositories for me this time 'round!!  My uterine blood flow impedence, however, is still high.  They like to see values under 3, and my PI values are 3.75 and 4.75.  When I asked the tech for the values, she said, "they are out of range."  I said, "you can't give me numbers?  I'm really a big numbers person"  She repeated, "they're out of range."  But, she hooked me up and printed me something that showed the #s.  Guess it's a policy now that they can't give details, because last time around they volunteered the info.

So my PI values are not currently good enough.  Last time around, they were initially 4.5 & 5.5, but after 4 acupunctures, went down to 2.8 and 2.9.  When I had acupuncture later that afternoon, I told that to my acupuncturist.  After I said it, I realized it might seem like I'm blaming her, because after I said it, she acted cold toward me.  Damn.  Well, in all honesty, I have to admit I wondered if it's the acupuncturist, since I went to someone different last time.  Should I go back to the last lady?  That was Terrel Kennet, who's on the list for CCRM.  Or maybe I should go to both and go 4x/week.  I don't know what to do about my blood flow.  I read somewhere on the all-knowing Internet that crawling 10 minutes a day can help.  Guess I could get down on the floor and play with the dogs.  I've read studies that say PI values don't matter, and other studies that there's a big correlation between PI values and IVF success rates.  Argh.

As far as the work meeting, it's now in NYC, and everyone on my team is pissed because management still hasn't decided who needs to be there.  We're merging with another team so they're still figuring out who's on which project.  I get the feeling they'll ask me to stay on this project.  So I still have that dilemma.  I was thinking of going for the PGS afterall, just so I can go to the meeting, since ER is Monday, and the meeting is Tues - Thurs.  I wouldn't care so much, but it's a big IT project and if I'm the assigned Business Analyst, I really should be there, as they'll be revisiting requirements.  Perhaps joining over the phone would be good enough.

One more thing -- I have been cheating on my diet, big surprise.  I'm eating like a handful of chocolate chips every day (because it's the only fun, "off-limits" food we have in the house!), which may be good enough during the bcp & lupron phases, but is not good enough during stims, which start tomorrow. I'm going to have to crack down.

========================================================================================== 

Update 5/15-- I figured out how to embed YouTube videos, so here's Sarah McLachlan performing Good Enough.

I never would have opened up
But you seemed so real to me
After all the bullshit I’ve heard
It’s refreshing not to see
I don’t have to pretend
She doesn’t expect it from me

Bad Spleen Qi and High On Acidity

Just got back from appointment #2 with my new acupuncturist Madalina (who now works here).  I think she is awesome in case anyone in Denver is looking for someone.

After doing some funky pulse-checking technique, and looking at my tongue, she said I have compromised spleen chi.  Apparently this is not abnormal for a woman my age.  I asked what to do, and she said to just keep up with the diet.

At home, I referenced The Infertility Cure, by Dr. Randine Lewis.  For spleen qi deficiency, it says, amongst other things, to avoid cold veggies, especially "energetically cold" veggies like lettuce and spinach.  How does anyone figure out that lettuce has a colder energy than broccoli?!  I've been having a big salad every day, so sounds like a better choice would be steamed veggies.

Also, I asked Madalina if she had any of those little pH papers so I could check my pH (acidity / alkalinity) level.  She did!  Yay!  This should be a fun science experiment, and will surely show how well I've been following my diet!  But -- it's 6.4.  Not good, she said -- should be 7.  Damn, I've been doing this diet for almost a week now, and was expecting perfection a bit too soon.  However, I read here that before a meal, a 6 is normal.

Sometimes I wonder if any of this honestly matters at all.  BUT, being the good student of the Infertility Experts of the World, I will follow their advice and see where it takes me.

I Do Not Heart Diets

Today I went to a new-to-me accupuncturist.  It was at East West Health Center in Greenwood Village, in the same office as my PCP, and their site is The Fertility Cure (oddly similar to The Infertility Cure which most of us have read, maybe they got special permission to use the name?).  I knew they had a full staff of acupuncturists, but last IVF, I went where CCRM sent me.  This place works with Conceptions.  But it's super close and time is precious and so it's my new place.

The acupuncturist, Madalina, was great.  Nobody ever looked at my tongue before and told me I must be stressed because the tip is red.  She asked if I was type A.  I said I'm a recovered type A.  I wasn't trying to be funny but she laughed hysterically, which was good because she is soooo serious and super super smart, and it was nice to know she could relate to regular folks like me.

She had me write down information about my eating habits.  When she reviewed them, she shook her head and said, you might want to change a few things.  Yeah, yeah, I'm already planning to, really!!  She gave me a diet.  My last acupuncturist never gave me a diet.  Some of the diet rules I knew.  Well OK, all of them I knew, but some of them I pretend not to know, so as to not be overwhelmed with dietary changes.  At any rate, now I have MORE rules.

- No refined carbs, including pasta.  She said Whole Foods has pasta made entirely out of vegetables that's OK though.

- No diet soda -- I was going to give up Nutrasweet anyway, which also means giving up gum (except for Dentyne Fire because it's the only one I know of that doesn't have Nutrasweet).  She told me some kind of flavored sugar substitute I can add to water, to replace soda, again available at Whole Foods, I can't remember the name but hopefully I'll know it when I see it.

- No decaffinated tea (not to be confused with herbal tea).  Bye-bye Earl Grey.

- Lots of alkaline foods.  Check out this site, Natural Alkaline Foods.

So tonight I went to the store and bought lots of alkaline foods - spinach, fresh tomatoes, raisins, cantaloupe, lemons, bananas, potatoes.  I brought them home and GS said, "Oh now we're getting serious here.  Hans and Franz are on their way."  I said, these damn eggs are going to be top quality if I have anything to do with it.

Also I'm going to try to go gluten-free, as espoused by gluten-free girl, and which first came to my attention by Super Ovum.  Having to read labels totally overwhelms me so this one I plan to do half-assed as well as I can.

Too bad I HATE HATE HATE diets.  I'm all for eating moderatly and healthily, but I must have a problem with authority because I don't like someone telling me what to eat or what not to eat.  The last time I went on a diet was over a year ago when I did the South Beach diet for two weeks and didn't poo for over a week.  I know I should apologize for TMI, but I'm so over that.  Anyway, that alone was enough to scare me away from diets.

Just think about Hans and Franz (that is going to be my new mantra).  Without this %#$@!* diet, they may never be. 

Persistence

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.
- Dale Carnegie

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
- Thomas Alva Edison

I am in need of some inspiration and so found the quotes above.  Tomorrow I start my BCPs, as planned.  Then I have to go into the office later in the week for a hysteroscopy to make sure I don't have any scarring from my D&C.  If I pass that test, then I'm officially IVFing in May.

This may be the last chance I have to do IVF with CCRM with my own eggs due to my egg quality.  My eggs didn't look good last time.  But, Dr. Surrey said, "that was only one data point."  If, however, we get two data points with the same information (meaning bad embryos which point to bad eggs in this upcoming cycle), then he would not advise me to try again with my own eggs, and would steer me to donor eggs or adoption instead.

PGS is an option, but one we decided against.  Since I had so few decent embryos at day 3 last time, which indicates a problem with egg quality, if that scenario presents itself again, PGD would not do us any good other than to verify quality -- or lack thereof -- subsequently allowing us to bow out of the rest of the IVF cycle and thus avoid the whole transfer / 2ww / possible miscarriage & D&C experience.  It's not worth $5K to us.  Instead, we'll put in the very best quality embryos and hope for the best.

I do not want to think too much about the dire consequences if this one is a bust.  Those fears are in my head, but I am going to tuck them away, purposely, into the denial folder of my brain so that they don't interfere with the happy happy joy joy thoughts.  As tempting as it is to just go through the motions of IVF, withholding hope so that I won't be too disappointed, I want to be psyched and happy and energetic and positive about this cycle.  AND SO I WILL.  I do realize how fortunate I am to be able to do IVF with some of the very best doctors and embryologists in the world.  How fortunate I am to have a loving, supportive husband, as well as loving, supportive family and friends.

And since I'm a planner, I've planned the strategy for this cycle:

- Do electro-accupuncture 2x/week (same as IVF#2)

- Remove sugar, dairy, chocolate, and wheat from my diet

- Add more fruit, veggies, and legumes to my diet.

- Remove soy from my and my husband's diet (this one's a bitch since we're both addicted to Kashi protien bars)

- Get to sleep by 10 pm every evening and sleep 8 hours a day

I'm thinking of doing the following...has anyone heard anything good or bad about?

- Add L-Arganine supplement

- Avoid tea (I drink tea every day but if it may help I'll cut it out)

Any other suggestions?  I'm open to anything anyone's heard that helps increase egg quality!!

Here we go again.  Happily and Hopefully and Honorably. 

   

NAET'n to it

Has anyone tried NAET?  It's a cross between acupuncture and alergy analysis.  I heard about it from a masseuse at Cordillera about a month ago, she said there's a really great guy in Vail who does it and who helped her sister get pregnant (using the therapy...where's your mind?!).  The theory is that hormonal allergies in your body can compromise fertility.  I found a woman in Denver who does it, Dr. Cynthia Cortini at Clinix.  Not that I'm recommending her, because I'm not sold on this quite yet, although the idea of it sounds pretty groovy. 

The first appointment, she met with me, talked about my problems, and explained the concept.  Basically it considers an allergy anything that restricts your body from operating at full efficiency...not necessarily something so bad as to cause a negative reaction. 

Next she had me lay down and she did a baseline strength test using my arm.  She then proceeded to hand me vials of different things, such as egg, sugar, and hormones, and each time did a strength test on my arm.  Certain things decreased my strength noticably and those were supposedly the allergens. 

She treats one alergy per session, by placing the acupuncture needles in the proper points for that sensitivity.

Seems like possible BS, you say?  Yeah I'm thinking that.  But hey, I'm willing to give it almost anything a try at this point.  And I should mention that my insurance covers it.  Who'd have thunk!!  Anyway, wanted to know if anyone has heard of or has had experience with this therapy?

Here's another blog - The Informal Matriarch - where a woman talks about her experience trying the therapy on her son.