Meds are on their way!

I started my BCP yesterday, and it's of course been awhile since I've taken them since I didn't for my IVF cycle (I think I took a few days for one of my surgeries). It was funny when I went to pick them up at the pharmacy, since they called them in and apparently my RE insists on brand name BCP (odd since legally they have to be exactly the same) which were $53 for one pack. While not a big deal in the scheme of things, I found it ironic because I almost always took generic ones, so I've never paid that much for three months of them when I actually took them for their intended purpose. I asked if that was the price w/insurance, since this is the only med that would be covered under my regular insurance. It was actually somehow MORE with insurance, which makes no sense at all, so I paid for them on my own.

Freedom called this morning to finalize my FET med order. Since a lovely local fellow IFer, who is now pg after I raved about and she went and did IVF @ AF, sent me 30 E2 patches she had left over, this saved me a couple hundred bucks. So my Lupron, HCG, PIO, tetracycline, medrol, and prometrium is only $370. Not too shabby, beats the $2500 we paid for our fresh cycle meds. Too bad we don't have more embies to do FETs with before having to do a fresh cycle again.

FET is ON!

It's been quite a week, which I will undoubtedly drone on about later...

But this morning AF FINALLY decided to show (right on time!), so our FET is finally ON! It's been a REALLY long 2 1/2 months of waiting to get to this point again.

I start BCP tomorrow and the meds schedule lasts the next 6 1/2 weeks, with my transfer tentatively scheduled for Wed. April 27th. This puts my beta in exactly 8 weeks, on Mother's Day weekend, May 7th...

Walls and flowers

I finally got out all our saved past years of Cavallini wall calendars which I've held onto because the art is so great. I found a few vintage maps (of Rome and Paris) that fit into our existing frames over our bed since I was ready for a change. I can't believe I had actually saved the mattes all this time, which saved me from having to buy new ones.



These are in place of the silk pillow covers from India... (old shot of our MB)



I'm taking my sweet time, but we are going to get a proper bed at some point. They have some nice ones at the RH outlet that I've got my eyes on, otherwise we'll throw together a DIY headboard. We've got the rocker in our room for now. The MB is basically done, but the bath is another story...

Some pics of the WE bookshelves we finally put up in the family room. The Ravinia frame was a sweet gift for my work last year on the Exec committee, but the happy family (and the fact that it came during my cycle) made me cry. :( I need to find a good pic to put in there...




Since I already had all this stuff before the shelves were up, and they are now full, I am not buying anymore nautical tchotchkes. I gave myself license in the family room, but I think it's silly to decorate a non-beach house like one, so this is where it ended. Some day I will need all this stuff...

Since we are trying to be budget minded, but I LOVE flowers, I decided to pass on the fresh tulips over the weekend (talk about self control) when I saw a great orchid plant (for the price of few bunches). It will be a major feat if I don't kill it, but we are enjoying it in the meantime...



I finally got a new light for the dining room, now we just need to install it. But don't hold your breath, it might be awhile... ;)

Good and Bad

I got some seemingly good, but very surprising, news late last week. The project I've been on at work for the last year and a half that was supposed to launch in late January, and was rescheduled for April, is now likely launching without the roadshows that would have required me to live on the road for all of April and May. Yippee!!!

I was very relieved to hear this as we are gearing up for our FET in that time frame. And even though I do have a rough schedule for my FET, it is all dependent on when AF comes (hopefully late this week) and how my monitoring appts. go after BCP and Lupron (tentatively @ end of March) and my lining check in ~mid-April. Then the transfer would be ~ the end of April. As you know if you've been through this process, these exact dates are not knowable in advance, and if my IVF was any indication AF, will take its sweet time to arrive.

This was a major wrinkle to me being present at all of the 16 cities we had planned for the seven weeks from launch to Memorial Day, though my bosses were very understanding when I told them that I would need a back-up, but wouldn't know more than a week or so in advance whether or not I'd be at any given city (or not).

So if this isn't happening at all, it's one less this for me to worry about coordinating. Thank goodness.

The bad news is that since we are now OOP and saving every penny, we've decided to forgo any travel this spring until we knew more about what was going on with us, even though we haven't been anywhere since last summer (not counting India, as it certainly wasn't a vacation). But we had been thinking seriously about having DH join me at the launch in San Francisco and taking a weekend in Napa/Sonoma while I can still wine taste (gotta love FETs!). It is one of my favorite places, but DH hasn't been, so we thought it would be a nice little getaway that wouldn't be totally on our own dime. But this is now off.

Also, it is very odd for us to launch a project in this way. All of the other projects have roadshows, and the alternative that has been suggested is not going to be very effective in getting us to our $1B growth goal. Just another indication of the short sightedness of my company and how even though they are a major multinational financial services firm, it's run like a start up where no one knows what they are doing. Which is not terribly comforting for as long as I have to be here.

On that note, I've been applying for new jobs, but am thinking I will hang tight until at least the end of our cycle in May. Not that our FET outcome is any guarantee (obviously), but I've gone from always thinking I'd go back to work after baby, to not wanting to work after baby, to not really wanting to work while pg. Not that this would be the "responsible" thing to do given the opportunity cost, we could certainly manage, but I'm actually getting tired of always doing the most responsible thing (from a purely financial perspective) as it hasn't really gotten us much of anywhere in our real lives in any way that really means anything and it is rarely been what we've wanted. So we'll see...

Another missed opportunity

Well I'm not having the greatest luck getting into IF studies... You may remember how I interviewed for an acupuncture for fertility study last Spring (has it really been that long?). But alas it was not to be. I'm pretty sure the Dr. just wigged out when she saw the heft of my medical records, as we had a very nice visit. At least my friend C got to participate.

Recently, I started looking at other IVF clinics in our area, in case our FET fails and we need to cycle again in the near future. The second best success rates in our area (behind where we are currently) is with InVia, Karande & Associates. I was of course very excited when I saw that they were offering FREE IVF for participation in an experimental drug study. What could be better when you are OOP? Assuming it's all on the up and up, of course. I'm not 35 until Sept., but sadly that will be here soon enough.

So I finally called the clinic today to find out more about it. The nurse couldn't have been nicer, but she warned me they are in the last TWO days of screening for the study. Ugh! The drug has already been tested on 21-34 year olds, in which both the control group and test group had similar success rates. It is being used in Europe and China, and the FDA wants to see more data on 35+ before approving it for use here. She didn't give me the name of the drug, but it's a daily ovarian stimulant that has been reformulated to last for 7 days. Crazy, huh?

Anywho, of course the response to the study has been "overwhelming" and they are not sure when the next one will be offered. She said to keep an eye on their website for future studies. We had a nice little chat about where we were and I will definitely be calling them again if heaven forbid we get to that point. They are much more conveniently located to where we live, coincidentally in the very same office building as RE #2.

I've tried not to dwell on it here (I have to remind myself there might be people reading this ;)), but I've been having a hard time coping with all that has gone on. But I am a very optimistic person (2nd only to DH, though he's also been rocked), if anything for me it's a coping mechanism that I've developed and has gotten me through lots of tough times, and am similarly optimistic about our upcoming cycle. I am just ready for us to get a real break already. I am so so tired of everything that shouldn't really be, being so damn hard. Life is tough enough, and I really don't like feeling miserable all the time. I feel like I'm on freeze frame, while I watch the world go by. The more time that goes by and the more that goes wrong, the more energy it takes and the less energy I have to remain optimistic.

And honestly it's getting even harder to relate to people who didn't have to work for everything little thing that they have (especially those who are unappreciative) than it was before. Who would have thought after my past experiences, that would even be possible? Not a pretty place to be...

Got my eye on...

My swimsuit for this summer! Swim sale and it's mine!

Dr. Malpani on beta levels

Dr. Malpani on betas

How funny is it that Dr. Malpani (an RE in Mumbai, India, where DH is from) is citing a study done by our RE in Illinois. Small world...

Why is it so hard to make sense of your HCG levels ?

HCG (also known as beta HCG or just beta) is a very special molecule. It's unique in that it's produced only by the placenta (very very rarely, it's also produced by some ovarian and testicular tumours). This means that for all practical purposes, it's found only in pregnant women and is therefore a very good marker for pregnancy.

Since the HCG is produced by the placenta, the levels of HCG rise as the pregnancy develops, and there is very good correlation between the health of the pregnancy and the HCG level for the first few weeks of the pregnancy (from about week 4 - week 7, as calculated from the LMP, last menstrual period).

However , it can be hard to make sense of your HCG blood levels. Let's look at some of the pitfalls in monitoring your beta levels.

Most patients naively assume that a beta of more than 1 mIU/ml means that it's positive and that they are pregnant. This is not true. The new kits are very sensitive , and even men can have levels of upto 10. This means that a level of less than 10 mIU/ml should be considered to be negative.

Secondly, remember that the HCG is produced by the placenta and not by the fetus. This means that the HCG levels may rise , even if the pregnancy is not viable ( such as an anembryonic pregnancy or a missed abortion).

Since HCG levels rises exponentially, there is a very very wide range of normal. This is why it's very hard to interpret just one level in isolation . It's important to check at least 2 levels at least 48 hours apart to determine the trend . In a healthy pregnancy, the levels should double every 48 - 72 hours. If they do not do so, this suggests your pregnancy may not be healthy.

It's not possible to determine whether the pregnancy is single or multiple based only on the HCG level. While it's true that HCG levels are higher in multiple pregnancies than in singletons, because there is so much overlap, you cannot jump to any conclusions based on the HCG level alone. This is why it's important to interpret the HCG level in conjunction with vaginal ultrasound scanning results.

Also, normal ranges can vary widely from lab to lab, because they use different kits. This is why it is important to check your HCG level from the same lab each time !

Finally, HCG levels are useful only in the first 7 weeks of pregnancy. After this, ultrasound scans are far more useful because they provide much more information about the location of the pregnancy; how many sacs there are; and whether the fetus is growing or not.

NORMAL SINGLE PREGNANCIES

Day after HCG or LH (DPO) mIU/ml

Day Avg. High Low #
14 48 119 17 12
15 59 147 17 18
16 95 223 33 23
17 132 429 17 21
18 292 758 70 19
19 303 514 111 23
20 522 1690 135 13
21 1061 4130 324 12
22 1287 3279 185 22
23 2034 4660 506 13
24 2637 10000 540 16

The information in the table above is part of a study carried out by Dr. Sherbahn