Caution: Do Not Mix

It is, perhaps, not ideal for one's stress/sanity/overall health to be combining:
-1 impending IVF cycle (took the last birth control pill today!)
-1 hellish stretch at work (hopefully to calm down by early next week)
-1 gigantic emotional blow, in the form of news of the death Wednesday of my college mentor
-1 seat on the board of directors of Bat Girl's preschool and its attendant duties
-2 different weekend extracurricular activities for a 4-year-old (violin and swimming)--what was I thinking?
-1 Big City kindergarten admissions season, involving (so far) three separate aptitude tests and at least 5 school tours (AND THIS IS JUST FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL)
-and oh yeah, a husband and a child who happen to need a little attention too

Deep breaths. My friend/acupuncturist has instructed me to try to be in bed by 10 pm every night. I've succeeded once in the last week. I was actually doing pretty well on the stress-management front last week, but this week has exploded in a mess of craziness. I'm hoping things should calm down in the work department next week, so I can chill out a bit. Like I've said before, I don't believe that stress is THE answer to anyone's fertility, but I think it's plausible that the orders-of-magnitude greater levels of life stress I've had during this current round of TTC, compared to when I got pregnant with BG, could be A factor.

I'm due at the clinic bright and early Monday morning, for bloodwork and wanding to make sure I'm ready to start the Letrozole. Going to ask Dr. SF about my new fear--what happens if the Letrozole does nothing at all for me--and ask the nurse to help me puzzle out which of the many needles I got in my big bag o'drugs last night goes with which med. I'm terrified of the PIO injections so I'm also going to ask if I can use EMLA cream or something similar to help me get through them.

And speaking of the meds, here's something I'm feeling grateful for this week: Thanks to my excellent health insurance (no one appreciates really good health insurance like an infertile lady who's been laid off and struggled to find coverage, amirite Yo-yo Mama?), my entire supply of medication for this cycle, including 3 900-IU Gonal-F pens, 1 Ovidrel pre-filled syringe, 4 Ganirelix pre-filled syringes, 5 vials of Menopur, 14 Letrozole pills, 2 vials PIO, and assorted Medrol and doxycycline, cost me...$254.00. Amazing. So lucky.

Quiet

I've been feeling very quiet about this cycle, and I guess last cycle too. I've spent 371 posts (at last count) and thousands and thousands of words documenting in painful detail everything about my IF, my pregnancy, my breastfeeding struggles, my IF again, every injection of every cycle. And now that things are getting serious, I've withdrawn. Pulled inside myself, not feeling the desire to put it all out there.

I think I just haven't had the desire to examine this--this, what's going on right now, the reality of heading into IVF--all that closely. I'm taking it day by day.

Anyway, here's what's happening. We had our appointment, had many tubes of blood drawn, I had some cultures taken and my husband had another SA. I asked Dr. SF about the possibility of getting our transfer canceled due to OHSS (my big worry) and he said that while of course it's always a possibility, especially with PCOS, the fact that we're doing a low-stim cycle should reduce the risk. He also said that because they monitor so closely at this clinic, it's very very rare that they ever cancel a transfer due to OHSS. But, he said, if we did not want to sign a consent for cryopreservation, we could change our minds if this unlikely scenario came up--we would just have to come back in and re-sign the forms.

Then it was form time. We signed "DO NOT CONSENT" for cryopreservation, assisted hatching, and ICSI. Basically we just consented to the IVF itself. I was kind of annoyed with our nurse--she was a little disorganized (very unusual for our clinic) and was asking me questions and contradicting herself about stuff we had discussed less than a week earlier on the phone. When I finally told her, "We actually already talked about this on Friday," she was all, oh, sorry, I talk to so many people, but I thought, uh, yeah, but why not WRITE THINGS DOWN in that fancy computer system?

Anyway, I started the pill last week. I'll be on it for 3 weeks. I'll be on letrozole the 24th through 30th, then start injections the 31st. Retrieval probably around the first weekend of November.

Dr. SF called me back this week to strongly urge that we sign the AH consents. He warned that if we ended up having to do a day 3 transfer (rather than day 5 as would be ideal), AH would give a much better chance of implantation. But AH and ICSI are both dealbreakers for my husband, so we didn't even consider it. It's true that we are making choices that reduce our chance of success. But we're doing it with open eyes.

Birth announcements, pregnancy announcements (and yes, they were real announcements--that stupid breast cancer meme didn't make it onto my newsfeed at all, thank goodness) keep pouring in. I snickered when we were sitting in our clinic waiting room and saw the flyers for an upcoming support group, with the title in huge colorful letters: EVERYWHERE I LOOK I SEE PREGNANT WOMEN.

Ah, another disjointed post. Sorry. I've got a lot going on at work right now too, but I'm trying to compartmentalize it. Head down. Get it done.