95% of the time it’s nothing…

Just got a pre-cancerous melanoma removed on Saturday. The dermatologist had said “when you’re pregnant things grow so be sure to check in with me” and voila…she found something. Well, that’s why I go. This is the third one that’s gotten cut out of me. I take cancer or it’s possibility very seriously. Coming up on Thursday is the three year anniversary of the general check up appointment when the doctor, agreeing with my Chinese doc and acupuncturist, felt things weren’t quite right around my neck and that I should get a scan. 95% of the time it’s nothing…and silly me, I believed her. Of course it wasn’t fine. And I had to have a 6 hour surgery to remove two tumors and my entire thyroid which meant that the treatment after surgery was more aggressive. Basically I drank radiation. When you don’t have a thyroid you don’t have a metabolism, and without a metabolism your stops working. There are drugs to take that can give you a metabolism. The trick is knowing how much. Every person is different and it is not dependent on weight or height. Basically you feel like crap until the meds are adjusted which takes a few months.

And what does this have to do with fertility? Well the day I got the go ahead to start my first IVF cycle after all the tests etc. was the day I found out I had cancer. I was on the phone with the IVF doctor when the cancer doctor called. Too much. Really. After my surgery the first thing I asked when I could think was can I still do my IVF cycle. I’m lying in bed barely able to speak unable to really move my head and all I could do was focus on that. When the cancer doctor said no I’d have to wait six months because I’d have to do some aggressive follow up treatment since the tumor had touched muscle I just cried and cried and cried.

In fact it’s safe to say I never really dealt with the cancer because I was much more focused on wanting to have a baby. Now that we are pregnant (25 weeks) I guess I’m finally wondering to myself if I actually dealt with everything I went through. I don’t know that I have.

Maybe some of you know what I mean – I mean about not dealing with other big huge things in life because fertility/infertility completely takes over. Has that happened to anyone else?

seeing is believing

"this is what we want" said dr.xy this morning when we did our scan. the heart was flickering and we could see blood pumping. it certainly feels real now and i was TERRIFIED to do the scan...im still not comfortable. i know anything can happen all to well and that a good scan now does not mean you make it through the first trimester.

that said things are different this time with a healthy egg. we have a second scan next week and then the hand off to the obgyn (i just found out mine quit so we are scrambling to find a new one).

i was reading some other blogs and the question of being comfortable with a DE has come up here and there. i'd like to say for the record that there has been no looking back since we took the decision to go this route. for us it came down to a few things:

1. our probability of becoming pregnant with my eggs was so low it wasn't a probability but random chance

2. even if we got pregnant the likely hood that there would be something wrong was very high despite the PGD (they can't test for everything). the fact that none of the embryos ever took points to the fact that even though the passed they were damaged.

3. my acupuncturist mentioned to me the idea that the soul chooses it's parents so ultimately how it gets to you: adoption, DE, IVF, the "normal" way doesn't really matter...somehow that idea resonates with us.

so there has not been any looking back. and when we saw at the scan today neither of us thought this is a DE we thought: this is our baby -- and we could see that it was my body that is pumping blood into this teeny tiny life. that said we are very aware and grateful to our donor. we are not pretending she does not exist.

for today i am not scared.

sweating

so no sweating last night...phew. this AM we went for my blood test. I did not take a home pregnancy this time. I have always done this in the past on the 9th day because i've sweated at night and wanted confirmation that the cycle had failed before being told. This time is different. this time im thinking it may have worked and the idea of taking at home test and possibly getting a false negative is what has kept me from doing anything other than the blood test route.

ill get a call late this morning. not really going to try and concentrate. figure why pretend that i can? it's actually what i usually do, but i guess it seems like as good a time as any to do something different.

waiting

well week has gone by fast. i have been mostly able to focus so that's good and the visit from my best friend was great. i have begun to dare thinking that this may have worked.

Why?

Well because the past seven times about 5 days before the pregnancy test i start sweating at night in three places:

1. between my breasts -- a sort of sticky sweat.
2. on the back of my head
3. back of my upper thighs.

I think this is my body trying to get rid of the progesterone that it no longer needs. Once i stop the shots then my body really goes to town for like the next two nights. so much sweat that i keep a spare t-shirt next to the bed so i can swap it with the totally soaked one i am wearing. really.

this time no sweats.

so two more days to see if my theory is correct.

i am cautiously hopeful.

doing 110%

yesterday i spoke to my shrink -- told her the news of our decision...i am amazed at the adaptability of the human brain to rationalize situations, to turn potential negative into positive. but then what else can we do? i mean should we sit around and say how horrible WHY ME?...and that's the epiphany i had one day on my way to the subway two weeks after my second miscarriage...WHY NOT ME? i mean it's not like i want anyone else to have to go through this...and then i realized at the same moment that i am not alone...that there are plenty of people out there going through whatever it is they are going through...and that somehow going through this pain makes me better able to empathize with the pain of others. and i guess that's why i can sit here today at 8:57 AM in front of my computer listening to regina spektor and say it's all going to be okay. a donor egg is of course not what we expected...i mean we didn't even know something like this existed way back when...and last year when Dr. XY suggested it after our 3rd IVF attempt i got so angry...what the hell was he saying...we can do this. MR.B and I agreed we would persevere. that low odds were our friends...that persistence pays off...and so we tried, 4, 5, 6, 7 and now we are here at the threshold of this new attempt, trying something different with a donor egg and hoping that this will be what works for us...cause really when you think about it, when i think about it we've actually had embryos 9 times (2 were previous miscarriages) 7 IVF attempts over 100 fertilized eggs only 10 good enough to put back...we have tried everything not to mention all the body work i do lets see

1. cranio sacral
2. maya massage
3. acupunture
4. very healthy diet in conjunction with chinese doctor
5. every test known to man and women by western docs
6. get my 8 hours
7. rarely drink
8. yoga six days a week
9. gym 4 days a week
10. meditation every day

i think i can truly say i am doing everything i can do. and i know we are going to a great doctor who has also tried everything, and we've spoken to other docs. to get their opinions and it all came to this: donor egg. and even then, even then we must keep in our minds that it is possible this will not work either. okay. enough for today.

ready to launch