T minus 12 days to FET

Well it looks like we are on track for our transfer on the 27th.  I am so excited!  My lining check this morning was great, it was 10.4 which is really good especially since we still have so much time left to go.  The wonderful ladies at AF (who are also really excited) went out of their way to look up and tell me our two embryos were frozen at 4AB and 3AB.  For the in depth description, from AF's site, on what all this grading means, click here. 

The Gardner blastocyst grading system assigns 3 separate quality scores to each blastocyst embryo:
1.Blastocyst development stage - expansion and hatching status
2.Inner cell mass (ICM) score, or quality
3.Trophectoderm (TE) score, or quality

Expansion grade Blastocyst development and stage status
1 Blastocoel cavity less than half the volume of the embryo
2 Blastocoel cavity more than half the volume of the embryo
3 Full blastocyst, cavity completely filling the embryo
4 Expanded blastocyst, cavity larger than the embryo, with thinning of the shell
5 Hatching out of the shell
6 Hatched out of the shell

ICM grade Inner cell mass quality:
A Many cells, tightly packed
B Several cells, loosely grouped
C Very few cells

TE grade Trophectoderm quality:
A Many cells, forming a cohesive layer
B Few cells, forming a loose epithelium
C Very few large cells

Example of a 4AB blastocyst...

Those eggs/embryos are just about ready to hatch, almost in time for Easter. ;)

I have to stay on the Lupron through Wednesday and continue with the patches, tapering them down to two beginning next week.  I will switch out the Lupron for my PIO shots and hCG trigger next Thursday.  I have acu next Thursday again and am working on my pre and post ET acu scheduling.

Last day of work!

And it couldn't come soon enough!  I am so tired, and I don't really know why.  I've been sleeping better lately than I have in a long time, though it was awfully hard to get up this morning.  I am so ready to get off these meds.

My CMO, who's been spending most of his time working in Brazil lately so I haven't seen much of him, took the time to stop by yesterday to say goodbye and wish me luck.  I haven't told anyone but my boss (and a few co-workers) about what we have and are going through, but he did ask if it was okay to tell people up the chain why I was going on leave last year, so my CMO knows.  He was very nice and wanted to know what I was doing next (if I was going to work) and to let me know that I was welcome to come back if I wanted (not likely) or that he'd be happy to give me a recommendation if I needed one in the future.  It made me feel really good that all my efforts here over the last year and a half haven't gone completely unnoticed and that I'm leaving on decent terms.

Now if I could just take a nap...

It's finally Spring!

Though it feels like we skipped right to summer.  What a glorious weekend it was here!  It was in the 60's on Saturday and well into the 80's yesterday, the warmest weather of the year so far.  Amazing!  I had an big burst of energy, so I got a lot done.  It was a good weekend to have all the windows (and doors) open so I did some spring cleaning and finally got to some painting (our second living room end table, the trim in the powder room and guest bath, and the back door).

This Wednesday is my last day at work.  It is a little weird.  It's the first time I've quit my job without another FT one lined up in almost ten years.  But we've got a ton going on, so it's not like I'll be sitting around.  I leave this Sunday for the Vegas project.

The last two weeks I've been to the acupuncturist, she's been doing the "Swedish Protocol" on me.  Unlike the last year and half when I've laid on my back and she's put needles in my head/face, stomach, arms/hands, legs/feet, she's put me on my stomach and used just a few in my upper (for anxiety) and lower (for my ute) back, to which she attached the little charger so I felt/looked like a middle school science project.  This is supposed to be pumping up my lining, and I believe that it is because I can actually feel my ute twitching during and after.  Totally bizarre.  I'm going again on Thursday to get in another session before my lining check on Friday morning.  Though this has never been an issue for me before, we aren't leaving anything that would potentially delay our transfer to chance.

If all is good this Friday, then I just have a P4 check a week from Thursday, and the transfer on the 27th.

Since there are so many things that could go wrong with this cycle, I'm starting to look into where we would want to cycle again if for any reason this FET doesn't work out.  I don't know anything about our embies, so we've probably got a roughly 50/50 shot. Our intention is to keep cycling until either we get a take home baby or we decide we just can't do it anymore. It should be an interesting summer... ;)

Documenting silence @ the mid-point of FET

Not much going on here, but I'm going to make a bold statement.  FETs suck worse than a fresh IVF cycle.  I am four weeks in and I'm longing for the structure and relative speed of suppress, stim, retrieve.  I've done two weeks of BCP and two more of Lupron and will continue Lupron until at least my lining check, which is next Friday.  I've gone through my first two rounds of patches.  Your body is not able to stay on it's normal cycle w/an FET, so my s/e are weird.  I am finally not spotting now for the first time since I started a month ago.  It will be another month before I know if it worked, then best case cue 2+ months of anxiety. 

I have to figure out where I'm going to put four estrogen patches on my belly tonight.  I've obviously never wanted to be heavy, but it would come in handy right about now.  I've tried them higher up and on my back hip before, but they don't last anywhere that bends.  I've wasted one already by putting it too high this week.  That leaves the space below my waist and between my pelvic bones, oh and ideally not where the last two were or where the next four will be.  And then I have to find somewhere in there to keep doing my Lupron shots.  This should be interesting.

I would otherwise be getting AF soon (and have the cramps to remind me), but since I've started the patches I'm having discharge like I'm ovulating.  My body is wondering what the hell is going on.

I'm in my last few days at work and besides the occasional silent freak out, I am happily riding things out.  Plans are coming together for the Vegas consulting project and I think I'm going to take at least a few weeks off after.  We close on the refi on Saturday and we are finally getting our taxes finalized, so this money is flowing out the door...

A headboard quest

We've had our king bed for over a year now. My how times flies. We love it and are not sure how we managed before.

Here's a super quick pic of what it looks like now.  Links to my recent art project and the pillow quest. Other pillows from Hastens and Fabindia, other bedding from BB&B...

It seems like I've been looking for a headboard for ages. I think there might be an unwritten rule that if you have a blog and a bed, you must attempt to make a DIY upholstered headboard, but somehow I just can't get myself psyched up to do this. We just always seem to have too much going on to spend our weekends on projects like this. So I'm on the hunt for something that doesn't cost an arm and a leg... And now I'm thinking I'd like something that will come to the house, for free...

One possibility... (I love this fabric)
Turkestan Twilight headboard

Since I finally found a new light for the dining room @ Lowe's, I still have my CSN giveaway I won last year. Somehow I've managed not to spend it yet. Not for lack of trying, there is just way too much stuff on that site.

So from CSN stores...

Another option... (and the current front runner)
Skyline Nailhead border in Velvet Pearl


I liked this one too, but given our sloped ceiling and unless we nix the pics above the bed or adjust it really low, it won't really work.

I also looked at this one, but I don't think I like it as well as the one with the nailhead border.  I have a bit of an addiction...

As DH says, once I get a bee in my bonnet about something there is really no stopping me, so I will finally be making a decision soon. What do you think?

"The Guest House" by Rumi

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

~ Rumi ~

FET baseline

I went in this morning for my FET baselines (u/s and b/w) after the longest gap in visits (6 wks) in many months, and they went and redecorated the clinic.  It looks great!  I noticed some new furniture in the waiting room, but then all the exam rooms have new paint and wallpaper (in a lovely soothing slate blue, one of my all time fave colors) and art.  Good work AF! 

Speaking of the other AF, I'm tiring of her.  She came three weeks ago (which started our FET prep), but then I spotted for the whole two weeks I was on BCP.  Then after the BCP were done, she came again (as she was supposed to).  But I'm ready to be done with her, as this is a little too much like my post-m/c never ending bleeding for me.

They said the u/s looked good and the b/w too.  I start E2 patches today and get to lower my Lupron to 5. :)  I go back again in two weeks...

After the last several weekends out of town, I go back to acu tomorrow.  Can't wait!  I always feel so great after I see her, and I'm needing that right now, badly.  Haven't decided yet whether I'm getting up and out early enough tomorrow morning to go my support group, which now meets in the city.  It's somehow been three months since I've been, so we'll see.  I'm already sleeping a little better after my big work event and giving notice this week.  Onward and upward!