Thankful

Today is Miles third birthday. His birthday, always around Thanksgiving, makes me feel extraordinarily thankful. For his healthy, exuberance, and just that we have him at all. The morning that he was born feels like a lifetime ago. I remember the complete joy and thrill of welcoming our son into this world and utter lack of fear that while I recovered from my c-section, he was being stabilized with IVs and on a respirator. In fact, other than a fearful kiss on his wet forehead, I did not see Miles on November 25, 2008. Dave took pictures and I had to wait twenty-four hours until I could meet my little turkey in the NICU. Then it was another 48 long days before we could bring our bundle of joy home.

Throughout the IF journey, I have met so many amazing women struggling for their first child. It always gives me pause at how fortunate we are that we have not just a child, but Miles. I never knew the power one person could bring to change your life and know that all of this effort – the delays, losses, setbacks and frustration – are worth it ten times over in having a child. I am just so damn lucky for what we have and regardless of what happens next, plan to hold onto that gratitude.

And I am also thankful that we have a new FET date of December 2nd! Before Miles woke up to birthday kisses, I was at CCRM for lining check and bloodwork. The extra estrogen and uber herbs from Dr. Liang kicked in. My lining is up to 8.2 and my estradial is at 1549 (from 200 three days ago). Yay! So I will be back in Denver next Thursday for the Friday transfer. Hotel, car and airfare are booked. Now just gotta figure out the childcare. Anyone want to babysit?

And other delay

So just when you think its okay to pack for the trip, plan out the free weekend that is only days away and even relax a bit, IVF throws me for another loop. Today, I had my lining check and estrogen check. At my first estrogen check, it was low but CCRM increased the Vivelle patches to four every other day, from 1, so I assumed I’d be fine.  Assume something else you can never do in IVF.  Shannon, my nurse, called at 4 and as soon as she told me she had to wait to hear back from Dr. Surrey, I knew things weren’t going to be good.

Not only is my estrogen still low (200 when it needs to be 300) but my lining is too thin (7.3 when it needs to be 8).  And there goes my carefully laid out plans that may I remind you, I’ve already changed. Dr. Surrey wants to push my transfer back a week to December 5^th.  Mondays are a little hard as it requires me to find someone to watch Miles for two days while I am gone. Grandma and Grandpa who are here now aren’t up to spending another week with us just to help out. After some begging and pleading, Shannon agreed to  Friday the 2^nd provided my lining and estrogen look good this Friday.

So because we are going to be in Denver anyway for Thanksgiving, I get to visit CCRM one more time for the appointment. And bonus, no extra costs – its already covered in the thousands I already forked over. Of course, its not money in the bank, I will need to spend another few hundred dollars to fly back to Denver again! But this time, I am waiting until we are 100% certain the FET will happen before buying my ticket.

Yes I am lucky

So last Thursday at my Junior League meeting (yes, I joined the Junior League which is so not me but I really like it), the get-to-know-you icebreaker was to tell everyone where you live and how old your kids are. As usual, I was the only one in the room to have one child. This caught some attention. “You only have one?” one woman called out, “Wow, you are so lucky!” All of the other women gave each other knowing glances and laughter. Yes, just one is so lucky. I wont deny that but please, have the sense to not say that to a woman of a certain age with a small child.

I am sure this nice woman meant no harm but seriously just because you got pregnant with your three kids on command does not mean its so easy for the rest of us. Beneath my smile, I am slowly dying inside. I shouldn’t need to share why I am off to Colorado each month but wish that before people speak, they could just f**king think that perhaps just one is not a choice.

Perhaps I was more than a little sensitive. That same morning, Miles started talking about his little sister and brother, named Spencer (also a Thomas train). He has always loved his friends baby brothers and sisters but had never expressed his own wish for one. Knowing that this is now part of his awareness raises the stakes on this transfer even more. Its not just for me and Dave anymore. I don’t want to let him down.

Final Stretch

In IVF, nothing ever, ever goes according to plan. For the FET prep, I opted not to take BCPs the month after the retrieval. It gave me the illusion that we might conceive naturally (and trying is fun) and more importantly, BCPs give me awful headaches and I’d rather skip extra hormones. The benefits of BCPs is that it pretty much ensures when you get your period thereby the date of your FET. My cycle is typically pretty regular so I assumed I’d be safe. Wrong! My period came a week late. Our best laid plans of doing the FET before Thanksgiving had to be changed. So it goes but the important point is that we still have our normal and will transfer within a couple weeks!!

This is our last big effort. If this fails, then we officially move onto adoption. Since our homestudy, I haven’t been able to take the next step on birthmother outreach. Mostly because its not cheap. Five thousands dollars on the low end to fifteen thousand for the high-end, promise-you-a –baby-in-six-months agency. I’ve talked to four lawyers and two agencies and learned a great deal about the process. That is a good thing if we need to go down this path.

At the get-go, we were told that we had to accept our child would likely have exposure to alcohol and drugs. The sad fact is that most birth mothers don’t follow the same health protocols that those of us trying to get pregnant. The homestudy application required us to list what drug and alcohol exposure we’d be willing to accept. I assumed a little bit of alcohol was fine given that my OB told me that when I was pregnant. And cigarettes, pot, heroin, crack, cocaine were absolute no-nos. And I was wrong. Apparently alcohol is the very worst thing for a fetus. Worse than cigarettes, pot and even heroin. Calls to multiple pediatricians backed up that claim. Wow! That was a surprise.

But I am getting ahead of myself. We are still in the IVF game. I am not ready to adopt a knocked-up potheads baby. My baby is still frozen in a Colorado lab. I have four Vivelle patches glued to my abdomen and will shoot myself up with 5 units of Lupron before I go to bed. Tomorrow, I will drink my fertility smoothie, do my 20 minutes of fertility yoga followed by the self Uteran massage and listen to the Yoga Nidra for Fertility. I am focused.

Bitter

In Miles preschool class, five of his classmates mothers are pregnant. Another six have siblings under six months old. The rest already have older children. I am the only one with just one. Well there was one other but she moved her son to a different school.

This wouldn’t be so bad but it’s one of those schools that is all about community. And that community likes to jump in and help a family in need. A family in need is one that has a newborn. So biweekly these days, I receive emails congratulating yet another family on the birth of yet another fricking kid and asking that we cook a meal to help the tired parents.

No! I am sorry I cant do it. I cant smile at their bulging bellies, ooh and aah over their wrinkly newborn or even feign empathy watching them negotiate a Snap and go while their three year old runs into the street. I am bitter. Bitter that for them, this is the hard part. I am tired of waiting and trying, of hoping and praying and being pissed off and bitter at the mothers of my son’s friends. Why is it me that has to inject myself with endless hormones, gulp down herbs, go for weekly acupuncture and everything else one is supposed to do and still come out empty-armed?  Age? Maybe although one of the moms is also 40 and conceived as soon as she started using a Clear Blue Digital Fertility Monitor. Oh if it were so easy!

OK done with the vent. And yes, I know I am lucky I don’t have cancer, we live in a nice house, I have a great husband and my son is the cutest thing in the world.  But it still doesn’t seem fair.

Whats important

Today was about Miles. After being born at 30 weeks, he spent 46 long days in the NICU. While he has grown and thrived, we almost forget that he was a preemie. That we spent the first year watching his every development and comparing him to his peers, worrying that he didn’t crawl until he was a year or walk until he was 18 months old. Because he talks clearly, jump off stairs, read books, complete puzzles, counts to 30 and knows how to use my iPhone, I want to believe it is all in the past.

Today was our third and final follow up at the Whitney Clinic. The first was when he was 8 months corrected (based on when his actual due date), the second when he was 18 months corrected and this one at age almost 3. We meet with a nurse practioner, child development expert, neurologist and social worker which makes for a long morning for a little one. Up until now, it was clear, he was not quite where his peers were but overall, there was no cause for alarm. According to the neurologist, he wasn’t close to being on the [autism] spectrum and though behind he was right on track for his corrected age.

That was until today. I watched in amazement as my miracle child under the direction of a child development expert, completed puzzles games for 4 year olds with the concentration of a 5-year old. And as any almost 3-year old would do after 45 minutes of concentration and being woken up too early, he started to get over-excited which in Miles world is hyper-active. This led to the next part of the evaluation of gross motor skills in which he ran the hallways, kicked and threw a small purple plastic ball and climbed up and down stairs, stopping only to jump off the highest one. Exhausted and over-stimulated, he flopped to the ground leading the therapist to comment that he still “tottered”.

This led to her sharing her concern that he is very behind in his gross and fine motor skills and suggesting that he get Occupational Therapy (OT). Later the neurologist suggested he might have apaxia (a disorder of the brain and nervous system in which a person is unable to perform tasks or movements when asked, even though: The request or command is understood). This was after Miles was pronounced Lalala as WaWaWa. I commented that as a child I had a lisp and had speech therapy. He responded that I probably had apaxia as well and really it was not a big deal but as parents, we need to be aware so we can help him as he deals with these issues. He too suggested Occupational Therapy while sharing that Miles is a precocious, intelligent child.

I was expecting this last appointment to be the icing on the cake, not that my son needs expert follow up. I don’t want to hear that his prematurity is still affecting his life. He is thriving, isn’t that enough? Cant we just move on already? I say this knowing just how unscathed we’ve been compared to our NICU cohorts. Still its just another reminder of  a time I’d like to forget. We will get a final report in a few weeks with a formal recommendation for OT.

This afternoon Miles screamed at me to push him “faster, Mommy, faster, like a rocketship” on his new swingset.  A reminder of how lucky we are even if he still totters and asks for a wuwuby before bedtime.

Going back to Denver!

Well, looks like we are still in this race. The call with the CCS results came today - a week early. Out of four blasts, we got one normal. Woohoo! Of the other three - one was T21 or Downs, T16 - would have been a miscarriage and 1 was what Dr. Surrery called chaotic. While I would have liked to have more normals, learning this just emphasized why the CCS is so important. That T21 embryo looked great and at UCSF they might have chosen it, unknowingly, and if it implanted, I would have been back at square one two years later and out another $30k.

In the world of IF, its hard to plan ahead, even a couple months. Coincidentally both my parents, my sister and brother planned to be in Denver for Thanksgiving. We'd hoped to be able to join, do the transfer and celebrate Miles' third birthday on the 25th. But not wanting to jinx anything, we hemmed and hawed if we'd make it so it feels good to have a plan for at least the next two months.

So we are cautiously optimistic. Dr. Surrey gave us 50% odds of success. A flip of the coin. Last time I heard those odds, it was the likelihood that my second pregnancy would result in a live birth. We know how that ended.