Sunflowers and Signs

So I'm beginning to be optimistic and that scares me.. but maybe there are signs out there.
During my prep for my FET last September there was a lone sunflower. Though it was small, it grew out of a debris field. Since my group name was 'September Sunflowers' I thought it was a fitting sign of things to come. That sunflower died with the confirmation of my chemical pregnancy.

The next week another sunflower popped up in the rock yard, and I thought.. maybe this means I should keep trying. Keep in mind, my chemical was confirmed on the anniversary of my mother's death. My mom LOVED sunflowers. Her entire kitchen was sunflowers, her favorite perfume was Sunflowers. They always remind me of my mom. So I thought maybe she was telling me not to give up.

So what does that mean? Well- in the exact same spot as my 'do not give up' sunflower is another sunflower. Look! It's flipping huge- like a really huge sunflower.. the kind that stay for a while. I'm so reading into this too much- but how could this not be a sign? Even if its just from my mom since my beta is around her birthday.

Results and some thoughts

I went for scans today- but first I'll talk about this quote I saw yesterday and it really sparked my interest- especially since it's from Grey's. (I'll be using it next week for IDOB).

This really got me thinking. I have been in both places: Clearly the heartache from infertility, but also not knowing what the next step is going to be. In the world of IF, the "plan" is the key. So I'm giving huge hugs out to any ladies who are not sure what they want next because I believe they need the most hugs.

And now my results:

3 follicles! Say what? Yup- I got another one. Not too surprising since the last scan required some pushing on my ovary just to see the two. But they are getting kinda big.. 19-22. Remember the only proven good egg was triggered at 18 and we know it had no SERs- so being that big kinda worries me a little. My RE commented "Wow- that was fast" Because I know he doesn't like to see me over 20- but he did know that I normally go pretty fast without meds- or he would if he memorized my file.. ha ha. 

Anywho- they are all on the left side! Yay!!! Remember tilt ute- all fluid go toward the left- so I'm thinking this might be the IUI where I actually get my 10% chance of it working. Woohoo! 

So in other good news- I'm scheduled for the first appointment so I will most definitely be at work/school on time both Monday and Tuesday. Damn it, I am going to get there to claim an air conditioned room!!

Keeping it positive because we all know that's how the pee stick should be!! 

Drugs

So every weekend I fill up my not-so-little pill cases for the week. Lately it has been a struggle to get everything in. Luckily I stopped the estrogen last week, the antibiotic yesterday and will stop the letrozole tomorrow (hopefully). But I will also be adding one trigger shot and one booster shot, more lovenox and progesterone suppositories. So I need to make a schedule for all these drugs- I have work from 9am - 11am, so I want to make sure I don't need to take anything during my workday.


**My Drug Schedule**

4 a.m. - Levothyroxine (on empty stomach & can't eat for 90 minutes after ; take 4 hours before calcium or iron or antacids)
5:30 a.m.- Progesterone (vaginal)
6 a.m. - DHEA, Folgard, Vit. D, B12, CoQ10, Prednisone & Lovenox injection (& food)
8:30 a.m. - Prenatal Vitamin (must be 2 hours after eating and 1 hour before eating & not with calcium)
11:30 a.m.- Progesterone (vaginal) and aspirin/calcium combo pill (& food)
5:30 p.m.- Progesterone (vaginal) and CoQ10 gummies
6-7 pm - Metformin (with dinner) and Lovenox injection
11:30 p.m. - Progesterone (vaginal) and Cabergoline (Tuesdays and Fridays only)

I'm glad I did this- because I think I can fit in an antacid during the evenings. My tummy has been feeling pretty crappy with all of these pills.

Even with only 2 hours of work 4 days a week (and my 3 hour commute), I never feel like I've done nothing because these drugs seem to take up a good majority of my day.

Scan Results

So right now I have 2 follicles around 15mm on my left side. At first I thought- wow, I had 2 last month and didn't risk quality with all these drugs- but nah.. we're going to be positive.
Know why? Because the doctor who did my HSG said every time she squirted in the dye it went straight to the left tube- she had a really hard time and had to put a lot more dye than she wanted to get it into my right tube. (She didn't want to put a lot in because of the allergy and my wee little ute)
So I thought- imagine how crazed I'd be if I had all my good follicles on my right side? I'd be a lunatic. I'd probably have my RE on the IUI day and I'd try to explain to him why it might be a good idea to do IUI in some weird pose... but I don't have that.
All my follicles are on my good side. So this is a good thing. So I am happy about it. I think I can finally count this as one 'good' chance with IUI.
Oh, and it will be Monday & Tuesday or Tuesday & Wednesday! From here on out, only positive thinking.

Some *Good* Things

In an effort to keep my blog from being an all out complaint board- let me share some good things.

• School's out and I got a Summer School job. Just enough money and hours to allow me to actually enjoy the summer.
• I joined a book club! Yay! So happy to be able to do something productive!! And I never read enough.
• Our contract at work was PASSED! I will have enough money for a donor egg cycle with my retro-check. (I know better than to think I'll get it before October)
• Which means- I got a raise. About time, about time..
• My tuition reimbursement is more money than the Disney vacation I am going on with that money. You know what that means? I may see a Dooney & Burke Disney purse in my future! Or maybe one of those underground tours... 
• I've finally started doing my own sub-q injections! (3.5 years later) And I think I'm doing very well. See.. DH did his 3 days ago and that's a nasty bruise. Mine are all super light.

So I have to leave for the RE now. Hopefully I'll have more good things to say later.

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When is Enough Enough? (Edited)

If you haven't noticed- I'm a pretty anxious person and I worry more than most. I also hate making decisions and hate confrontation even more.
But right now it has come to the point where something with my RE has to change. I feel so incredibly sad about this since I really liked him, referred him to others, and thought he was a great doctor. I am just concerned I am not getting the best possible care. DH is writing a letter to him explaining all the issues we've had and seeing how we can change it. We are thinking about giving up on my nurse. She's a ditz, but my RE asked me to give her another try...that was over a year ago.
At this point I feel like I'm supervising her.

Examples:

• I emailed her before starting my IUIs (which we planned for since January) asking if there was any paperwork I needed to fill out. And I had 4 packets to complete and needed updated bloodwork for me and DH.
• On CD1- after I emailed her I had CD1 of my super predictable cycle- I had to remind her to order my drugs.  And they needed preauthorization that was never done- so I had to drive to the pharmacy twice to get them. (It's a specialty pharmacy about 90 minutes from home- so not convenient)
• And since she waited until that day, another RE ordered my drugs. So, it was the wrong trigger and wrong needles since I typically take menopur IM.
• After my CD3 monitoring she did not call until almost 4pm to tell me I shouldn't follow the plan. By that point I had already taken the drug for the day. (ok- maybe we share equal blame here- from now on I'm waiting until being told to take meds)
• When I asked about the HSG she wrote back to take more estrogen and she would order doxy for the procedure. I had to remind her that she needed to order the estrogen and that I cannot take doxy so she needed to order a z-pak instead. (I get that she might not remember or think to read my chart about the doxy- but if you tell me to take a drug, shouldn't you ask me if I need it ordered?)
• When I told her I was nervous about taking the estrogen she responded that I shouldn't worry because the estrogen would already do it's thing. Does she not have a clue that estrogen caused my eggs to be rotten my last medicated IVF cycle. What a shitty thing to say... I know not a huge deal...
• After talking about the HSG for days, having it scheduled, I still had to remind her I needed a script for it.
• So after the whole weekend with the 'plan' changing and I missed it in an email, I was told my nurse would email on Tuesday. So I find out Tuesday that my plan changed again and to start one of the drugs that night. That was it. Nothing else.
• Wednesday- I wait around to see if my nurse writes again since I am taking more than one drug this cycle. I am also hoping DH would handle it, since I didn't want to be involved, but I was free and he was having a rough day. So I wait until the last minute to call her. She says she was on her way out the door and I ask when to start my other drug. She tells me I start tonight. (How the fuck was I supposed to know that? Were you going to call me? Why do I need to double check this? Why?!?) And then tells me that the plan was changed again (And I knew that how?) So now in an effort to not feel blindsided, I ask when I come back in. (Also, I'm trying to coordinate an appt with the RI, so any advance notice helps). She tells me I am still scheduled to come back in on July 1st.  So she knows my plan changed and everything else was moved up 4 days and tells me to take these drugs for a full week unmonitored. Completely dangerous and would cause me to lose the whole cycle. So I had to tell her that it seemed like an awfully long time to be on menopur without monitoring. (Like HELLO?? Are you sure you work in a fertility clinic? And as a nurse?) So she gets an idea that maybe it should be moved to 2 days after starting the menopur, like the original plan but she wasn't sure if that would be ok, but she'd check. 

I guess the part that really ticks me off is this responsibility I feel. If I am not looking out for me, who will? I know from my own research and asking questions to my RE that the letrozole can only be taken for 5 days. But would my nurse have told me to stop if day 5 is before a weekend? And she sometimes emails at 11pm on Fridays- I don't think any patient should be tethered to the email that late. It's kinda crazy. I will be asking my RE when to stop on Friday. The part that really sucks is I really need to step back mentally, I am way too involved. I don't want to research any protocols, I just want to have faith in the plan- but with all of this- I feel like I can't do that. I feel like something will go wrong.

Like last December when a nurse called and told DH trigger was on Saturday, and then called me and said it was on Sunday. And I even called the on-call RE to confirm which one. He said my chart said Sunday- so I did my first IUI 12 hours after trigger- and not 36, which is the norm. And I did question an RE.. I can't keep wasting this expensive donor sperm.. I keep saying I just want 2 IUIs to fail before I move onto Donor Eggs, but is it so hard for me to expect to nothing will go wrong and I might get the whooping 10% chance I'm actually supposed to have? 

So this all happened yesterday.. right before therapy. DH is fuming mad. He wants to write the founders, the doctor and the nurse. And I'm sure he will. He wants daily phone calls. I preferred e-mails and to know what to expect a few days in advance (like a real plan). So we need to square that away. My therapist was also fuming mad. She knows I'm kinda done with advocating for myself. I didn't think it would feel like a full-time job.. 

Like I said before, I don't like confrontation- but enough is enough, right?.. I need to step back and know someone has my best interests and some knowledge about IF. I know DH has my best interest, but he wouldn't know about the monitoring or how long you should take drugs or any of that. I'm not even sure he would know to ask for a script for tests. 

We are also pretty upset with the RE for not calling me last week- and I feel like this could be avoided if I was in the loop- but whatever. That's kinda how I feel..

(Edited to add)I forgot to mention- DH is so upset and he keeps saying we should threaten to leave. He doesn't get it. They are wildly successful clinic and we have uterine problems, egg problems, and zero sperm. Other clinics may not allow me to use my eggs, or have really crappy results, or a horrible lab. Even though I'm not confrontational, I'm more scared they would drop us as a patient. I know that doesn't mean I deserve less care- I get that. And I truly hope they aren't putting all their effort into patients who really have a chance, and I'm a pity patient. I don't even want to think about that because I am hoping no one is thinking about me that way. I just want to have less stress and responsibilities. 

HSG

So I had my HSG on Tuesday. Luckily my results came back normal (woohoo!) but it was an awkward and long test for me.

I'm not exactly sure why but I could not relax at all during the test. I pushed the speculum out twice (I  have rockstar kegel muscles) and that was after I relaxed enough for her to put it in.
I must say the doctor that did the procedure was really helpful. She was worried about my shellfish allergy but I told her I had contrast before and it was never a problem. Then she informed me that all of the tests I've had before didn't actually contain iodine. Say what? Why on Earth did they always ask me if I was allergic before the test? And why did they say I was fine afterward?

So I had to hang out after the test and be sure I didn't have any problems. It just so happened I was already on prednisone for my inflammation issues- and that is the typically pre-treatment if you do have an allergy. So my nurse had me hang out in her station while she helped other patients. Of course, I immediately had an itch on my leg and I'm thinking this is only in my head but I'm afraid to scratch it, because then it will be itchy and its not a hive. Oh, the conversations I had with myself were pretty hysterical that day. Because then I thought my throat feels tight. But maybe I'm thirsty? Or dehydrated? Phlegmy? Now in hindsight- I drank 3 bottles of water before the procedure and had been going very hydrated all day- but it was a good thought.  I asked for water, thinking that would solve everything. Nah- it was definitely getting tighter.

So they started a line- just in case- and gave me some benedryl and a bed.. And then I needed to find someone to get dropped off at the hospital to drive my car and me home. Luckily, my sister was allowed to drive by now after her surgery and her bf was with her and could drop her off. Whew! I told DH and we figured we could go out to dinner and just drop my sister off since she lives between the hospital and my house. (Of course the hospital was 40 miles north of my house)

And the benedryl bursted open in my throat (yuck!) probably because it was swollen. So I'm just relaxing in the bed and I noticed I was having a palpitation. They are becoming more common these days and I look at the monitor and its silently alarming because my pulse is less than 50. I was thinking of taking a nap since I had to be there a little bit and I was getting kind of sleepy, but then my pulse got even lower- so I figured it was better to stay awake. And then the doctor comes in and says I can go home soon- and she looks at the monitor...  She wanted to send me to my regular doctor, but I told her my pulse is always low- which it is, but I'm normally only on one of those monitors after anesthesia, so I thought it was that. She kinda bought that and saw that my pulse didn't really change since I was on the monitor and I have perfect blood pressure. But she did say that I need to make a cardiologist appointment because it can be a real problem when I become pregnant. (It's been so long since I've heard that... my lingo is 'if' I become pregnant.. it really took me back, but anyways..) So I'm adding that to my list of crap to do for the summer. Oh yeah- and I need to see an allergist about getting an EpiPen.

Here is my lovely abnormally tiny uterus...