Boring Pregnancy Update

Not really much to say here.  16weeks yesterday (or tomorrow, depending on how you calculate from our slightly weird FET).  OB appointment last Monday and heard the heartbeat - no ultrasound at my OB's office.  Ultrasound this Thursday at the antenatal center - on the recommendation of the MFM who did the CVS that we start growth monitoring at 16 weeks.  The OB seemed skeptical about the ability to judge growth at 16 weeks, but gave the referral.  I just want to see our little bean again.  I hope he's doing well.

I've gained pretty much no weight from my transfer day.  I've been up 2 or 3 pounds (in the 1st trimester) and lately down 1 or 2 pounds from that conception day weight, but mostly just holding steady.  The OB doesn't seem concerned.  My husband says my body shape is changing - the lower belly is sticking out more (of course that's mostly just my ultra-flabby stomach muscles that haven't seen a sit up since before the last pregnancy).  I've been running or walking 3 miles every day so hopefully the baby is taking the fat off my thighs!!

I mostly forget that this is a donor egg baby.  Last week at the OB appointment, they had a woman come in after my appointment to see if we were interested in joining a genetics study the hospital is doing.  They had given me a flyer at a previous appointment.  The idea is to follow the development of the baby for 2 years with a few simple blood draws as well as a blood draw from the mother.  I could have just told them that we weren't interested in participating, but I really would have - I think it would have been really interesting and I'd have loved to support the research.  But, of course, the baby is not genetically linked to me (well, it is, familial-y since it's my sister's egg, but....) so I just told them that and said I figured that wouldn't fit into their research protocol.  And I was right.  So we won't be participating.  But I think that was the first time in a week or two that I'd thought about the donor part of this baby.

I was even at my sister and BIL's for my nephew's birthday party this past weekend and my BIL congratulated me since we hadn't seen each other since we'd told them I was pregnant.  And I think I even forgot to think then about the fact that this baby was the product of his wife's eggs.

I hope this continues to be a very boring pregnancy.  It's in that stage where I forget I'm pregnant a lot of the time.  Except for going to bed at 8:30 or 9 every night :-)  Of course, as I've been telling people, I'm not sure if that's because I'm 42 and have a 1 year-old or because I'm *pregnant* and 42 and have a 1 year-old.  Hard to tell sometimes.

Karyotype results

Incredibly, the full karyotype results from my CVS done a week ago Thursday came back this past Wednesday.  The results weren't due until next Tuesday!  All normal, yay!

So, we went ahead and started telling everyone - at 13 weeks - feeling kind of early to tell, but oh well.  First up - my sister and her husband.  Caught them in the car headed to soccer practice for their eldest.  Haven't had a chance to talk with my sister since, but since she was the donor of the egg we wanted to tell her before anybody else.  We've decided not to tell our parents and Mr.Right's sister about the egg being from my sister until later.  Preferably face to face - probably around Thanksgiving.

There are a couple of reasons for this.  Obviously, we wanted to explain to them in person what we did and offer them an opportunity to ask any questions in a more detailed way than you can do by phone.  Also, as I thought about it further, we didn't want to give our parents and my SIL something that they felt they had to 'hold back' when otherwise being excited to tell other people about our pregnancy.  E.g. I wanted my Mom to be able without reservation to tell her sister all about it (there's a little element of competition there - my Aunt is expecting her 6th grandchild in early February).

We don't intend to keep the fact that we used a donor egg secret forever, but we want to be the first people to tell our son about it.  For us, that necessitates keeping the circle of people who know before he's old enough to comprehend, quite small.  We think it's only fair.  So, as we discussed with my sister and BIL during our counseling sessions we intend to keep the knowledge to just my parents, Mr.Right's mother, his sister and brother-in-law and, possibly, my sister's in-laws.  At some point around the time when our son is able to understand, we'll probably tell my sister's boys as well.  They'll genetically be half-brothers.  Beyond that, it will be up to our son about whom he wants to tell.

I have no idea if this is the "right" thing to do, but this is how we've decided to handle it.  I know there are people who advocate talking about it from day one with the child and everyone around them.   Honestly, with the degree to which I quite often forget that we used a donor egg now (heck, I even forget half the time that I'm pregnant at all, e.g. I was totally getting excited on Wednesday night to go to one of my 'mom's night out' evenings and thinking about the couple of glasses of wine I'd be drinking......until I realized, oh yeah, I'm pregnant!) I imagine I may have a hard time remembering once babyboy is here that he's the product of a donor egg (except, of course, for those times when he's acting up and I can blame it on my sister!)

Anyhow, we're out there now.  I hope this pregnancy sticks around.  Feeling pretty great actually - trying not to gain any weight yet.  I just looked at my records from last pregnancy and I'm already 2 pounds heavier than I was at week 18 last time!  Of course I started this pregnancy 5-10 pounds heavier at conception.  A 3 mile woods trail walk every day with the dog and pushing E in the Bob stroller should help keep weight in check to some extent (if I can stop eating ice cream every afternoon!)

46, xy!

Yes, it's a boy!  And, as of yesterday afternoon we know that we have normal numbers (a pair, that is) of chromosomes 13, 18 and 21.  Phew!  Full karyotype results in another week, but given that Mr.Right  has already had a full karyotype and has none of the more common genetic issues, we're pretty sure that all will be ok.

Nevertheless, I let Mr.Right talk me into holding our news for another week.  His argument is that we'll be that one week further along the downward slope of spontaneous miscarriage.  I'll be 14 weeks when we tell my sister (whom I'm calling first) and our parents and Mr.Right's sister.  We decided that we'll wait until we see our parents in person to tell them about the egg being from my sister.  So, that may be as earlier as the weekend of October 20 for my parents.  We might not see my mother-in-law until right before Thanksgiving though, so not sure how we're going to do that.  Maybe we'll just wait until around T-day to tell my parents and my mother-in-law.

So, E will be the queen - the only granddaughter on both sides still.  I hope she likes having a younger brother.  I do have to say I was just a little bit sad that she won't have the experience of having a sister - my sister and I are obviously close.  But, that's such a minor thing compared to the giant miraculous fortune of getting to have another child!

That's all I have time for, for now!  (This giving up the morning nap - we're on week 3 of that - is great for flexibility in getting to the store, etc. in the morning - but on a rainy day it taxes what little creativity I have to keep E entertained for 4.5 - 5 hours straight!)

CVS and waiting

CVS Thursday.  All is ok so far.  Awaiting the initial FISH results - probably with a call on Monday.  But, the good news is the nuchal fold is measuring only 1.26 something which is normal (my MFM makes a practice of measuring nuchal fold in a pre-procedure detailed ultrasound even though I didn't do the bloodwork part of the NT testing).  So, there's hope that this isn't a fetus with chromosome abnormalities.  Obviously given that it wasn't my egg, but my sisters's egg (retrieved at age 37) we were already having some measure of hope that things would be normal.

Baby was measuring exactly 12w2d at the appointment and flipping around a good bit.  It never ceases to amaze  me despite the gazillion ultrasounds I've had, just how much you can see even at this point - the nasal bone (yay!), the stomach, the bladder with urine in it, the hemispheres of the brain, let alone 5 fingers on each hand!

We'll find out the sex with the FISH results (hopefully Monday) as well.  We haven't decided whether we'll wait until the more detailed results come back - probably 10-14 days - or go ahead and let our family (including my sister whom I've kept in the dark so far) know that I'm pregnant sometime next week (assuming all is ok with the FISH results).

In the meantime, E turned 1 on Monday.  I can hardly believe it.  She had a great time at her birthday party on Saturday.  She had 2 of her 1st cousins and 3 of her 2nd cousins here to celebrate with her (and 14 people stayed overnight at our house Saturday night!)  She's finally getting more teeth.  She's had 2 bottom teeth since early June, and finally we're seeing I think 4 top teeth on their way.  One is definitely further along than the others and it just seems like it's taking eons for it to make any progress. Up until now, she'd only been using a pacifier when she goes into the crib for naptime or nightime, but she's basically carrying one around a lot of the day now.  And you can see that's she's just chewing away on them.  But I can't get her to chew on anything else (like those plastic water-filled rings you put in the refrigerator - just too much work to carry them around versus being able to be hands-free with the paci, I think!)

We're still cautiously optimistic about this new baby.  There's a long way to go yet.  And it almost feels like we're fertility 'virgins' since my pregnancy with E ultimately went so smoothly.  It's like that's our most recent experience now and you start thinking that's the way this one is going to go.

But I've been letting some sneaky thoughts in now and then - should I move E to the room next door or leave her where she is and put the baby in the other room?  Except if it's a boy, the other room was freshly painted a very subtle grayish lavender and that won't work for a boy and I don't want to repaint that room since it was just done and we could move E's furniture and even her lavender accessories to that room and they'd look just fine and her taupe room wood work with boy-color accessories and on and on and on........  Too early to think about all that.  Although I guess we'll know sex next week.  Anyhow, trying hard not to get too far ahead of myself.

Hope you all have a spectacular weekend!

9 week ultrasound

Whew!  It's still alive.  Measuring 9 weeks exactly.  Saw the umbilical cord, spine and a leg bud hanging down (baby was upside down).  Gestational sac seems to be just slightly smaller now.  Dr.Dry thinks it's not an issue.  Heartbeat is 165.

We've been going to these OB ultrasound appointments at the fertility clinic at 1:15 p.m. the last 3 appointments.  It works for Mr.Right since he's only a 5 minute drive away and that's his lunch break.  First patient of the afternoon isn't until 2 p.m.  But, because we don't have childcare at that time of day (I only have Monday and Wednesday mornings right now), we have to bring E with us.  So, she's been there for every appointment.  At first we were trying to respect our clinic's policy of no children, but realized that at that time of day we were almost always the only ones in the waiting room.  And the staff, when asked, were very encouraging about bringing her in so my husband could be in the ultrasound room with me.  Thus, E has seen her (crossing fingers still!) sibling already.  Indeed, she seems to be fascinated with the ultrasound monitor that's turned towards me (and Mr.Right and E.)  So cute!

So, OB appointment next Monday - which should be totally uneventful.  It's with the nurse practitioner and I have a short list of issues for her 1) no toxo screen, 2) I'd like a referral to the MFM docs we saw last time at the antenatal center for monitoring, 3) I'll let them know we've already got the CVS scheduled for September 27th.

Interestingly, though, we had a discussion with Dr.Dry about monitoring through the pregnancy.  I asked whether the placenta was my age or the age of the egg donor.  He said the placenta came from the embryo - so I guess the answer is the age of the egg donor.  I was interested because would you monitor a 37 year old (age of my sister when she donated) for fetal growth?  (I've been assuming we'd do fetal growth monitoring since we did so when I was pregnant at 40/41).  I think we're still going to request monitoring (hence request #2 above) though.  Even though the placenta itself can be an issue, I imagine there are non-placental issues related to my age (42) that will warrant the monitoring. It was reassuring last time.  And my OB doesn't have an ultrasound machine so we we'll be in the dark (so to speak) there.

So, here we go.  We still have hurdles to jump - the genetic one mainly.  But I'm less worried this time around given my sister's age and history.  But, we've been on the short end of the statistical stick before, so you just never know.  But, here we are at 9 weeks with a - for now - seemingly normal pregnancy.  Can't cross enough fingers and toes.

Intermittent update

Just a quick update as E is about to wake up from her nap:  went in this past Tuesday at 7 weeks, exactly, for another ultrasound.  Baby measuring spot on 7 weeks.  Heartbeat was good.  Sac still a little small, but apparently grew appropriately from the previous week.  I'm trying not to worry about that too much (a round of Dr.Google on "small gestational sac" was a bad idea.)

Next ultrasound is not scheduled until Tuesday after Labor Day which will be 9 weeks exactly.  Had hoped to get in end of this next week, but it just didn't work out.  That will probably be the last appt at the fertility clinic. Then it will be on to the OB's office (hopefully).  I've already imagined the conversation to set up appts there:  "What's the date of your last period? "  "Uh, well, that's going to be irrelevant since it was sometime in June and it's not going to give you the right dating for the pregnancy since it was an FET."  I mean, I'm sure they've dealt with the pregnancies from fertility treatments before but the receptionists and medical assistants at this practice sometimes don't strike me as too bright.  oh well.

And we have a CVS scheduled as well.  September 28.  Which will be 12 weeks 3 days.  We debated about doing it the Friday before - at 11 weeks 3 days.  But, we're planning a birthday party for E that Saturday and, theoretically, I'm supposed to stay off my feet as much as possible for 5-7 days after the CVS so that wouldn't be ideal (especially since we're, of course, not breathing a word of the pregnancy to anyone, including our parents, until we get the CVS results back.)  We went several rounds of discussion about the CVS, but ultimately decided that we just didn't think we could be comfortable waiting out a pregnancy without definitive knowledge of the chromosome situation.  And there's no way I'm waiting until 18 weeks to get that information from an amnio and be faced with terminating then.  Weighing all that against the risk of miscarriage with the CVS - which at the doctor who's doing it is something like 1 in 350 or 400 - we decided we need to do it.  If we get that far, that is.

In the meantime, I tend to forget I'm pregnant.  Oh yeah, except for the daily Lovenox injections.  And the still every 3-day Delestrogen IM injections (although I'm off the PIO, thank goodness!  Maybe with a IM shot in the butt only every 3rd day my husband will actually be able to find a relatively un-bruised place to inject!)

Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!

Heartbeat

At exactly 6 weeks today, we saw a heartbeat.  The yolk sac was a little hard to spot, but it was there.  The "pregnancy" as Dr.Dry always calls it at this point, is measuring spot on 6 weeks.  The one little thing he did say (and, yes, leave it to me to pick out the eensiest bad thing) was that the sac was measuring a little small.  But he seemed to imply that they sometimes see this with FETs and we just have to wait and see how it grows - like any pregnancy at this point.

So, we go onward.  We're still being cautious about excitement here.  We had a preliminary discussion, Mr.Right and I, about whether we're going to do CVS or not.  I think he's leaning towards it.  Dr.Dry, when asked today by Mr.Right, said he thought he'd do the NT and then an amnio if we wanted to be 100% sure.  I don't know.  There was something about knowing 100% at ~12/13 weeks that we had a chromosomally normal pregnancy that really put us at ease last time.  And I'm not sure how I'd deal with the uncertainty until an amnio since I haven't had to do that before.

On the other hand, it's not my egg and I have a lot more confidence in my sister's eggs than mine - given her age and lack of any history of pregnancy loss.

E went into the ultrasound with us.  Our clinic has a policy of no kids and we very much understand and wanted to respect that, but the only way for me to go to the appointment was to schedule it at 1:15 p.m. and have Mr.Right meet me in the parking lot to look after E.  So, of course, 1:15 is pretty much the first appointment after lunch and there was absolutely no one in the waiting room so I asked if Mr.Right and E could come in and they said, of course.  Then, as luck would have it, we had to wait around until nearly 1:45 for the scan.....argh!  But several torn-to-bits tissues and some crinkly paper later, E did very well.

Another scan in 7 to 10 days.  The nurse who was there was clueless about when I could stop the PIO and transition to endometrin so I'll have to email my regular donor nurse.

That's all from here!  Good news.  I hope it continues to go that way.  But, you never know.  Anything can happen.

Appropriately rising

That was the word yesterday after my 2nd beta came in at 622.  Another beta tomorrow morning.  We're very grateful.  Although as I told the (perhaps a bit overly) chatty phlebotomist yesterday morning, we have a long way to go yet.

I feel a bit oddly detached from this pregnancy.  I remember complaining bitterly last pregnancy early on that I didn't *feel* pregnant and couldn't there be a little blinking light or something to assure me (on a second by second basis) that I still *was* pregnant?!?  At times, now, I kind of forget.  Like when I was taking the deli meat out of the frig today at lunch about to make a sandwich.  Now, I happen to think the whole listeria from luncheon meat is a bit overblown, but still, who needs the nitrates in luncheon meat anyhow?  But it took me a minute or two of making my sandwich before I thought, oh, I  probably shouldn't eat this because I'm pregnant.

But maybe it's just the distraction of having E around.  She's so active now, crawling at warp speed, loves to crawl up and down the stairs and has just started pointing at everything this week. She's 10 months and 2 weeks and it feels like she'll be walking in no time.

Fingers still crossed through beta tomorrow and through ultrasound - probably end of next week I'm thinking.

Positive!

At the risk of jinxing ourselves (really, do you never get over expectations of the worst, even when you've had the best of luck?), we've got a positive beta.  303 at 17 days past ET.  Given that we thawed embryos that were frozen on day 1 and transferred them on day 3 (of thaw), I'm not even sure how many DPO you'd say that is.  I think it's a reasonable beta. And the nurse said it was, so I'm going with it.

Just to fill in the gaps since the last post.  4 embryos survived thaw on Wednesday, July 18.  On the day of transfer, we had one 7-cell, one 6-cell and two 4-cells.  We transferred the two best on Friday, July 20. (The other two didn't make it to re-freeze so this became our only shot with the embryos from my sister's eggs.)

Since then:  daily PIO shots and Delestrogen shots every 3rd day continued.  Sister-in-law, 2 nephews (5 1/2 and 2 1/2 years old), brother-in-law, mother-in-law at my house; then off to the beach with said in-laws for the first half of last week and then swapped in-laws for my parents and my sister's family the second half of last week (with one day overlap on Wednesday for all 4 nephews to play together! E had a blast with her 4 boy cousins!); and back home.  Exhausting.  But good.  And now, the best news.

So, here we are.  Happy, of course.  But, with early loss experience I think you never really can let yourself be completely excited even with a good beta.  And even once you've seen a heartbeat - which won't be for a while.  So, we'll try to take it one day at a time.

And then there's genetic abnormalities.  And I think especially once you've had that experience you definitely don't count your chicks (so to speak) until you know for sure there are no abnormalities.  My sister's eggs were just 37 years old so they definitely have less of a chance of being abnormal than mine, but nevertheless, we'll be waiting until we're sure everything is normal until we tell anybody (if we get that far.)  We haven't really talked about whether we'll do CVS again.  It went so well for us last time that I'm kind of inclined to do it again.  It gave us such a sense of reassurance to know that there were no genetic abnormalities, even though it was really just the trisomies that we were most worried about.  The doctor we used last time has a clinical miscarriage rate of something like 1 in 400 so the risks of CVS don't really give me much pause.  But, we'll see what we feel like when we get to that decision point.

Anyhow, there we are.  2nd beta on Wednesday.  The waiting game never ends, does it?  But I am very grateful for this opportunity at a second stroke of luck.  Hopefully, it sticks.  If it doesn't, well, we'll deal with that then, right?

Four embryos!

I haven't posted in forever, so here's a short recap:

• we are in the middle of an FET with the embryos we froze last August from my sister's egg donation
• we froze 5 embryos on Day 1
• they thawed them yesterday

I just received the first report this morning and we have 4 embryos still cleaving, 1x3-cell and 3x2cell.  Apparently this is right on track:  should be 2-4 cells today.  We are scheduled for a Day 3 transfer tomorrow, but it might go to Day 5. 

We had told Dr.Dry we wanted to only transfer 1 really good (excellent) one.  We were a little on the fence about transferring 2 'good' ones (with a 20-25% chance of a twin pregnancy).  It's not that I don't think we can handle twins and, even though I never really thought too much about having 3 kids especially with our late start and troubles getting and staying pregnant, it would be kind of cool.  But I so very much don't want to risk losing both babies just based on the higher risk of a twin pregnancy (and a twin pregnancy at 42 + years old to boot!).  Anyhow, we decided last night that, if the circumstances were such that there were really only 2 'goodish' embryos, we would probably just go ahead and transfer both.  Maybe it's crazy and maybe if I lose both twins during the pregnancy I'll regret it, but it seems like a reasonable risk at this point given the age of the eggs (my sister was 37 when donated).

Meanwhile, as I'm on the phone receiving our embryology report, E is screeching in my ear having just woken up from her morning nap and continuing to test out the volume on her vocal cords.  She's ALL OVER the place right now - crawling circles around the house, pulling up on anything she can and doing this funny thing where she pushes up on her feet and then sits straight-legged plop down on her little bum.  A total riot!

It has not gone unnoticed by me that I have a lot less riding on this fertility treatment than anything before E was born.  It will be disappointing if there is nothing to transfer tomorrow or Sunday or I don't get pregnant with these embryos from my sister's donation.  We will probably try an anonymous donor.  But, even if we don't?  I just don't feel the stress and desperation this time around.  

The IM injections (2 last night - both del estrogen and progesterone in oil) suck, but somehow it's also just not that big of a deal.  I kvetch and moan a bit when Mr.Right is getting the shots ready and doing the injections, but I'll live.  Even on the dreaded - and previously mad woman-making - progesterone I feel a little tired, but not desperately unhappy and foggy-brained (at least not yet, maybe it takes a while to build up) like I used to when we were doing IVF rounds pre-E.

Anyhow, I owe a much longer update here.  For now, I'll leave you with this:

And we're off.....bye bye, my own eggs

Here we are, again.  But there's no going back this time.  There's no last, did-it-on-our-own just before moving on to donor egg embryos. This is it.  I'm starting birth control pills on Saturday.

In some ways it was a relief.  My past few cycles had been 23 or 24 days long and, as usual, my body decide to eff with me and make this one 26 days long - just so I might get my hopes up that we'd actually pulled off another miracle.  It is a relief, though, to get on with it.  To get the HSG, mock ET, bloodwork, mammogram all scheduled within the next 21 days. [Oh yeah, and just for good measure, an appt with my OB/Gyn for a biopsy of 2 white spots she discovered while doing my annual exam/pap test this past Tuesday - yay for me :-/  ]

Since E can't go with me (no children allowed) to the HSG and mock ET, it was weighing on my mind about how I would get it all scheduled within the the 2 mornings/week that we have a babysitter.  But, as soon as it became CD 1 an hour or so ago, I got on the phone with my clinic and got everything scheduled.  Even scheduled such that I can still take E and the pup to my parents' lake cottage in 3 weeks.

I can't tell you how many times a day (like, every second of the last 2 days) I spent thinking - what if I'm pregnant with my own eggs again?  I so thought I was done with all those mind games.  A lot of the time it would lead me down a road of fantasizing about having another child with my eggs and what a great 'story' it would be about how my body responded well to pressure/deadline (i.e. with the threat of going to donor eggs the very next cycle.)  On the other hand, I did also worry that any pregnancy with my eggs might also lead us down the not-genetically-viable path again - given my age (42 next week!) and history.

So, here we are.  And, really, it isn't even that great of a shot with the 5 frozen embryos we have which were made with my sister's eggs.  They were frozen on day 1 so we really know nothing about their quality.  The plan is to thaw all 5 and see what we get.  We can re-freeze once if there are enough to re-freeze.  We've had the discussion about how many to transfer (if there are any to transfer), but we're going to wait and make a decision based on what the embryos look like.  I'm pretty terrified about having 2 embryos implant and then losing both just based on the difficulties of twin pregnancies (and a twin pregnancy at the age of 42 - although I had a super-healthy pregnancy at the age of 41).  I'd rather transfer one at a time and not run the risk of having no take-home-baby.

At the same time as I'm finding myself revving up all these fertility-procedure obsessions, I do sometimes remind myself:  we already have our miracle.  And she's enough.  Even if nothing works out (and we've already told ourselves we would probably try anonymous donor egg if none of the embryos from my sister's eggs works out.)  We have a beautiful, gorgeous daughter.  Yes, we'd love to give her a sibling.  I'd love to be pregnant again.  I'd love to parent another child - who inevitably (and not because they won't be from my eggs) will be different - as siblings always are - and will present different challenges to us as parents.

For all the pain we went through getting to this point, I really am grateful that I can approach this round of fertility treatments from a much different perspective now.  But I'll never forget how desperate I felt the first time around.  And I realize that for many out there, that desperation continues.  I am truly lucky that we are where we are.

Our miracle is 8 months old today:

Update: Life is good

It's been mid-February since I posted.  I did write one post a month or two ago, but it never made it to the 'publish' phase.  So, as quickly as I can (before the morning nap implodes - as it did yesterday - but, fingers crossed, hopefully not today), here's a quick rundown:

1.  7 months and 2 weeks - can you believe it!?!  E is so, so, so much fun these days.  Crawling (mostly in reverse, occasionally forward), grabbing everything (magazines at the grocery checkout - yep!), making lots of noises and blowing lots of raspberries and generally taking everything (and everyone!) in.  I can't believe how much fun this age is.  It really does make up for those first few really hard weeks and months.

2.  Back to my long-term 2 day/month consulting gig + a short-term, fairly intense, consulting project mostly in the month of March that took me on my first international trip since quitting my full-time job 2.5 years ago!  It was a quick one, thankfully.  I left Saturday night and was back by Wednesday afternoon.  Doha has changed a lot in 6 years since I was there last!!

3.  Vacation two weeks ago in Kiawah - bliss.  Having Mr.Right with us all day, every day was fantastic. He got to spend so much time with E.  We did almost nothing - went to lunch at the Seabrook club one day with family friends.  The rest of the time we napped, went to the beach, rode bikes (E in a trailer which she loved!), walked the dog on the beach and ate (cooked in the condo - no restaurants because E's bedtime is 6:30/7).

4.  TTC#2:  oh yeah, back at it.  Well, we've been "at it" since E was 6 weeks old, but as I think I reviewed in my last post from February it took a while to get my cycles back.  So, we've had maybe 3 or 4 "real" cycles but no BFP - of course.  We went to see Dr.Dry week before last about using our frozen donor-egg (sister) embryos.  I had Day 3 FSH, etc. done last week and revealed an FSH of 10 (I had previously had 9, 10s, 11s over the years.)  Dr.Dry talks about the body 'resetting' after a pregnancy and the FSH isn't bad, but we're not that hopeful.  I'll be 42 in less than a month and it took us 2 years of trying to get a genetically normal pregnancy.

Nevertheless, I'm dragging my feet a bit.  Mr.Right was all ready to jump right to the frozen embryos.  Of course, I needed to get HSG and mock embryo transfer done again and then a month of bc pills before a transfer.  We decided while we were in Dr.Dry's office that we'd see what the FSH said and if it wasn't crazy high we would give ourselves one more month on our own.  In the meantime, I'd get the HSG done between end of period and ovulation (Dr.Dry claims HSG can sometimes be 'therapeutic' - essentially clearing things out for an egg to drop).  But, I couldn't get on the schedule for HSG until day 11 of my cycle (this afternoon) and I tend to be an early ovulator so I was worried it would mess with the (albeit incredibly slight) chance of getting pregnant this month.  So, Sunday night as Mr.Right was suggesting a roll in the hay, we decided to delay the HSG.  I'll do it next month while on bc pills - screw the therapeutic effect for this month.

I know I'm dragging my feet a bit.  And to his credit, Mr.Right said he'd let me delay going to the donor eggs for months if I wanted to.  Of course, I know the statistics are such that even 6 or 12 more months of fooling around by ourselves will not get us, statistically, very much closer to a pregnancy - and especially a genetically-normal pregnancy.  But, I don't know, I feel like I just want a little more time.

We have ruled out doing any kind of IUI or IVF with my eggs - even though Dr.Dry suggested we might try IUI.  I don't respond well to the stimulation drugs.  And, frankly, I can not imagine how I would manage getting into the office for bloodwork/ultrasound every other day with E.  I know I'll have to go for one or two lining checks for the FET, but I think we can figure that out.

We were done with IUI and IVF with my eggs before.  And we're still done.  Not going back there.  I am prepared to use the embryos created with my sister's eggs.  I was before we miraculously got pregnant on our own and I will be again.  It might just take me a month or two to, once again, let go of my own eggs.

5.  First plane trip with E this weekend!  Aaack!!  I hope it goes well.  Only a 1.25 hour flight, but still.  I fear turning into those people I used to avoid in the security lines at the airport.  Oh well, I guess I am that person now!

At the beach, 3 weeks ago:

TTC#2

Wow!  It isn't even a monthly birth-day update for E and I'm actually posting something.  (But just because I have to brag a bit:  E is now 4 1/2 months.  She's discovered that she loves sticking her tongue out and she's just this week taken to the exersaucer - even making some of the toys spin around/play music!)

So, back to the reason behind the post.  TTC#2.  Yes, I totally will understand if you're still TTC#1 and are just disgusted reading blog posts from women who have one and now want more.  But it seems like more and more of the bloggers I follow are here.  It's great news in a way - they've successfully made it through the infertility/pregnancy/new mom journey at least once!  But, TTC#2 seems to present a new set of issues.

We're there.  Or, at least, we'd like to be.  Just to recap recent history:  I stopped breast-feeding at Christmas/New Year's/E's 3 month birthday.  So, it's been 6 weeks.  But no AF yet.  Mr.Right and I got back in the saddle (so to speak) at around the 6 week mark.  It wasn't all that comfortable those first few weeks, but definitely in the last month or so things have gotten back to normal for me.  Amazingly enough we seem to find the time on weekend afternoons when E is napping (we haven't yet been interrupted, lucky!! :-)

About 2 weeks ago I experienced what I thought was a pretty good amount of cervical mucus - oh yeah, bringing me right back to all the TTC cycles tracking that kind of stuff (along with temperature, O kits, etc.)  So, I attacked Mr.Right on a Wednesday night and we managed to pull it off every 2 days through that following weekend.

So, this morning, he asked whether I thought I should maybe take a pregnancy test.  I've taken one twice so far - once on Christmas morning and a second on Jan. 24.  My thought was that I wasn't going to torture myself by taking one more than once a month - especially since having not had a cycle yet I have absolutely no idea where I am in a cycle.

I hate being here again.  Getting my hopes up and then, inevitably, having them dashed with a negative test.  To recap even more ancient history:  I'm now 41.5 years old; I've been known to be anovulatory.  Just given my age our chances in any given month are way less than 5%.  We know this.  We want to try for a few months on our own, but obviously can't spend the 2+ years it might take to play those odds out.  I don't respond to stimulation well (hello multiple failed IVF (like, didn't even get to retrieval) cycles).  So, no more IUIs or IVF for me.  We have, however, 5 frozen embryos created from eggs my sister donated.  The big question will be when to start back down that road.

At this point, on one hand, I want to get AF so I know that I might have a chance of getting pregnant on our own.  On the other hand, of course, it would be nice to be already pregnant.  Of course, that's highly unlikely.

Maybe I'll wait it out another week before testing.

On the other other hand, since I used Lovenox and Folgard at the beginning of the successful pregnancy that gave me E, maybe I should test sooner rather than later?

Ugh.  All this again.

But, it's different.  E is here now and we are so very, very lucky.  I'm not yet sure if it makes any of this TTC'ing any easier.  It certainly hasn't put me at the same depths of despair I experienced last time around, but it's early days.  For now, one month at a time, I guess.

4 months!

Time is flying by here.  E was 4 months old two days ago.  There's a lot to say about what's happened in between my last post and today, but I fear I've no time to write it.  I'm back at consulting part time - back at my 2 day a month gig plus taking on a major short-term project that will be due beginning of April so I've been spending every spare moment I can get working.  It helps to have a nanny coming in Monday and Tuesday mornings and finally in the last few weeks E's morning nap has been getting a big more regular.  I'm still torn about using that time to run on the treadmill versus work.  I decided yesterday morning to get up at 5 a.m. to run on the treadmill.  Mr. Right, in solidarity, got up as well - of course, he worked on work stuff while monitoring the monitor.  I finished about 6 a.m. and took over the monitor so he could get ready to go to work.  This morning, however, I had to be up for a 5 a.m. phone conference with people in Doha, Dubai and Canberra.  No running.

Ok, that's a completely random set of sentences that has no coherent theme.  But it's about how things go these days.  Here's a coherent theme:  We are so, so, so lucky.

It's just fascinating to see what new things E does every week.  This week has started the squawking phase.  She seems to just like to hear herself be really loud.  So much fun!

She's got pretty good head control now when supported to sit up - either by me or in the bumbo chair.  I fear the cloth diapers keep her from really bending well at the waist, though, keeping her from doing much sitting up by herself.

She's still smiling lots.  My favorite time of day is when I go in to get her out of the crib either in the morning or from any nap.  She lies there in her Woombie (a godsend since we failed at swaddling!) and just gets the biggest, widest smile on her facing looking right up at you.  She's such a happy baby in the morning!

Otherwise, I'm doing pretty well.  The complete exhaustion of the first few months has passed.  We ended breast feeding around New Year's.  From week 7 I had decided to give up trying to increase my milk (I never got more than 15-16 oz even on the Regalan, pumping 8x/day, etc.) and just nursed each time she wanted to eat and then gave her a bottle of formula.  It was pretty good.  At least a lot better than the first 7 weeks when I was driving myself crazy trying to increase my milk.  And I guess I could have continued on like that for a long while, but we decided to begin to move to 100% formula around the 3 month mark.  Even though the odds are not good given my age (very few good eggs) and ovulatory inconsistency, we wanted at least a shot at trying to get pregnant again on our own.  Of course, I've not had one menstrual cycle yet so that probably doesn't bode well.  But we'll try for a few months and then probably around April re-connect with our RE to talk about seeing if the 5 frozen embryos we have from my sister's donated eggs are any good (frozen on day 1) and can be transferred.

I'm not really looking forward to going back to the clinic, but I regard it all - including the possibility of failing with all of the embryos we have - with a lot less emotion than last time around.  I can envision a life with just E as a single child.  I'm not preferring it, but it feels less like it would be the 'end of the world' if it happened.  I'm pretty sure Mr.Right feels the same way too.  I do think we'll give each and every one of those embryos a shot.  And I actually think if none of them works, we'll probably go ahead and do at least one anonymous donor round (probably not multiple rounds though).  But, we'll see when we get there.

One thing I find surprising.  I am really getting nostalgic for being pregnant.  Although to some extent I think the nostalgia is as much about *not* having a baby on the outside to care for as it is about being pregnant itself. (I know, and the whole time I was pregnant I just wanted to meet her!)  It was in some ways such an idyllic summer - taking my pregnant belly for a 3 mile walk every morning with the dog.  So much easier to get out of the house than with a 4 month old for the same walk!!!  (Although, E loves, loves, loves going for a walk in the woods either in her Bugaboo or in the Baby Bjorn.)

So, that's probably all that I have time for today.  If anybody is still out there following me (thanks TeeJay for the prod! :-) ) I can't promise I'm going to be terribly regular at updating, but I am still reading your blogs.  And occasionally, I even get to use two hands to type and leave a comment!

Our little cutie: