Day one of phone calls...

First of all, thank you everyone for you overwhelming support. I always appreciate it, it means so much to me.

As for day one of phone calls and more in depth internet searches...
Of which, this website has helped a great deal with understanding Embryo Donation/Adoption, and finding clinics to call about it, http://www.miracleswaiting.org/

The clinic I am switching too does not have an in-house Embryo Donation/Adoption program. But, they will do a F.E.T. with donor embryos if you have embryos donated and sent to their clinic. Their estimated cost for a F.E.T. and medications, is about $2,300 without insurance coverage. This does not include blood work, ultrasounds, legal fees, and of course the transfer of the embryos from the donors clinic to my own clinic.

My old clinic may have some type of program maybe, but it goes through their lab. I called them today, and we're playing phone tag right now. So, maybe I'll know more tomorrow.

But, going by an estimated cost of everything from what I've seen online, if I go with the new clinic and find a donor on my own, it could cost anywhere from $3,500 to $7,000... which isn't so bad considering my last cycle of injects would have been around $4,500 actually, if I had paid for my medication that is (Thank goodness I had donated medication, right?)

I found a clinic out of state that does Embryo Donation for $4,500 with a payment schedule in place (so it doesn't cost all that up front) Of course, it's a 6 hour drive away.

There is one in New Jersey that has an extensive program, but I don't know the cost, and it's also an 8 hour drive. They have your regular doctor handle everything except the initial consultation and the transfer.

That is of course me still assuming I am able to go through with this. I still don't know that part, which by all means is the most important part right now.

The research continues.

Because an object in motion...

I haven't been trying to concieve really, because a body doesn't work with defective parts (right?), so instead I have been researching. What can I say, it's my coping mechanism. Always has been, not going to change now.

It started with a consultation with a newer RE clinic in the area.

I thought: Maybe we can see if they are more competent. Yes, I said competent.

I have come to blame the whole debacle of my last medicated cycle on my current RE's incompetence. And I have decided that if I hear another person say that I should, or could, respond too well because I am "young," I am going to scream. Shoot me full of drugs at a higher dose people, I am not that the norm... stop trying to peg me down.

I mean, really? I am an anovulatory 24 year old. I stopped ovulating before I was 21. I didn't respond to Clomid hardly at all. I needed a high dose of Gonal-f before stuff started happening. So, let's stop pretending, shall we? I may be "young" but my ovaries aren't dumb. You can not trick them so easily.

Whew, mini-rant over.

Anyway, a body in motion stays in motion, right?

So I have moved on to researching other options, because we agreed to one last injectable cycle. After that, we agreed on adoption.

So I was looking at some stuff the other day, because Dr. Go.ogle is the best professor ever (Shh, don't interupt. No snickering in the back!) And I stumbled back across some information about Embryo Donation/Adoption. I have seen this before, but dismissed it. Before they'd even consider me, most places require proof that I can carry to term... which I have not so far.

But then I got to thinking, I techinically can carry to term. All my repeat loss testing says I should be able to. As my RE, Dr. BlowsSunshine, said, my miscarriages were "just bad luck." (Trust me, another rant in and of itself.)

But my testing says I should be able to carry to term... so maybe I would be able to participate in Embryo Donation/Adoption. Wheels are turning. While we weren't successful in carrying to term with our own, could I with someone elses? Would I be allowed?

Embryo Donation is like as Embryo Adoption, though the term sounds like you are donating you aren't, in both cases you are receiving donated embryos to use for a F.E.T... but it's called Donation if you go through a clinic, because it is technically the contractual transfer of property (By law embryos are still an iffy subject. So, they are technically private property right now. At least that is my understanding.) What happens in this scenario is you and the donor have signed a contract about the embryos, and then proceed like in a normal F.E.T. If I found a clinic to go through, the cost is comparable to what it is going to cost us for another cycle of injectables (Since I have the stupidest ovaries ever and would need lots of drugs.)

If you go through an agency, it's called Embryo Adoption. It costs more for the process and fees, and comes complete with a home-study and everything. Embryo Adoption is out, because it's overall cost is close to as much as Domestic Infant Adoption would be; and if we did Domestic Infant Adoption we would have that guarantee that there was a baby at the end of it, which is not so with Embryo Adoption. And if we saved that much money up, I'd just feel more comfortable going with something that has more of a guarantee that I will eventually get a child.

I don't know, and I dare not get too hopeful. I don't know if any fertility clinics in the state actually offer this through them. And, if they do, they could turn us down, we could try it and have the embryos not thaw (always a possibility), have them not implant (very possible), have another miscarriage (never far from my mind)... but really, most of those same risks apply to our current course of treatment; I may not make the eggs I need (evident from my numerous failed attempts), egg and sperm may not meet, they may not implant, they may miscarry (again)...

So, really the upside, if we got to do Embryo Donation, is this: we'd know that there was an egg, and a sperm, and an embryo was created. A leg up from where we have been all this time.

I've been busy this past week looking into this. I yearn for it to be a real possibility, but I know that with my luck it won't be. Or it would be and something would go wrong. Who knows.

Because a body in motion, stays in motion; unless it's acted upon by an object with unblanaced force- like infertility, or miscarriages, roadblocks, doctor incompetence, lack of funds, root canals, or the loss of hope.

I am going to ask the new RE at my consultation, and find out if their clinic offers it and if I would be eligible. I also plan to call other REs in my state and see if any of them offer this, and about their guidelines. The only way to find out, is to ask. Right?

If we can do this, we may move forward with this instead of a last injectable cycle.

Only time will tell.

In a Funk

I'm in a horrible funk lately.

I think, and it always comes back to this, it's because I don't ovulate.

Being a twenty-four year old who doesn't ovulate, who stopped ovulating before I was even twenty-one, well... it's kinda depressing. I feel like I've already stumbled on menopause and I'm past my prime. I put off going to get my progesterone filled, and I put it off, hoping that maybe my stupid body can figure this all out... but it doesn't, ever. So, finally on cycle day twenty-eight, I finally went and got it filled already. I filled a few days ago, with six lovely refills on stand-by. And you know I'll need them, because my body is stupid, stupid, stupid.

And of course we have to get the "safe" kind of natural progesterone, just in case I do ovulate and don't realize it (Which, in 12 months of charting has never happened, by the way. I always know if I have ovulated or not. But what do I know of my own body, right?) And for some reason this type of progesterone is more expensive than birth control pills... what's up with that?

You know, sometimes I feel like I might as well be on birth control pills. I wouldn't ovulate either way. At least with birth control, well if I take it for four to five cycles and stop, sometimes I get a freaky post-birth control ovulation. That's how I got pregnant the first time; a freaky post-birth control cycle, in which I managed to ovulate on cycle day forty-four. But no, I keep taking the progesterone because I don't want to prevent... although my body is preventing me anyway.

Such a funk. Not trying, and my body is preventing. So I am really, just not trying even though that is not by choice.

I suppose it has given me time to relax and just exist without focusing so much on my temperature and pills and injections and doctor's appointments. Even though trying to concieve is still on my mind, it isn't quite as much right now because I know, I know, that there is nothing I can do to try right now. It's all out of my hands, completely and utterly.

I've been trying to fill the time with leisure reading, video games, movies, mild house renovation (I need to finish painting the hallway, and I need to install a new ceiling fan... I'll get around to it eventually, I swear.) But to the core of all this, I am still thinking quite often about trying to concieve, and how I can't do anything right now. So I focus on how it's out of my hands, and if it wasn't for the miracle of modern science it would remain out of my hands forever. I mean, not that long ago women in my situation wouldn't have been able to do anything at all other than leave it up to faith and go about their lives.

Yet I feel like I am back then, right now, because I can't do anything about it. The insurance company won't cover anything, they even gave me crap when I called to see what repeat loss testing was covered under our policy. While we can put back a decent amount of money each month, more than enough to cover a child, we can't put back enough to cover treatments.

Yes, we can eventually, but it takes so long. Especially given how much medicine I will have to use this time around. If I had paid for my medication last injectable cycle, I would have paid a total of $4,000. It would take us four months to save that up comfortably. And that disgusts me that we can be so well off, to be able to put that kind of money back a month, so much more than my family and friends, and yet we can't afford to get pregnant. To be able to afford a baby, but not to get pregnant, it's ridiculous.

Like I said, funk.

This quarter of school is coming to a close, two more weeks. Then I have a month off. Then, back at it for the final act before graduation. Then, the curtains will close on that chapter of my life forever.

I'm ready to graduate, but I also fear it. I've spent my last five years at that campus, it's become so important to who I am. I know most of the faculty by name, some out of affection others out of displeasure, and all the English faculty know me by name. I'm gonna miss them, but I'm very happy that I'll never have to write an essay for them again. The essay's are easy now, effortless, but I still dread them with a passion. They're tedious, and since I learned all the little tricks to appease each professor they haven't been very educational; I just write something shocking for S-, something original and outlandish for B-, something with a unique spin for Sa-, and just B.S. through everything for N-.

I think I've been at this school for too long. I'm more advanced than many of my classmates now, and this causes it's own unique challenges for me these days. Part of it is the freshman, fresh out of high school, and so immature. Even when I was a freshman I wasn't that ridiculous, but I also lived a very different life than them. I didn't want to, part of me wanted to be some carefree child whose mother and father took care of everything for, from a car to tuition and everything in between... but then I wouldn't be me. It was the trials that got me here that made me who I am. It's what made me stronger, resilient, and able to tackle real life. But then again, it's also made me bitter, depressed, and afraid of living.

But that's neither here, nor there.

Bottom line, I am in a horrible funk. My life is transitioning without me, and I am watching it fly by. In December I get to attend my commensment ceremony, a figure in black amidst a mass of figures in black. And hopefully, after that, we will be able to go forth with one last cycle. Our last hope and attempt at a biological child. While we might try later on in our lives, this is the last try for a very long time. My life next year is something I can't even make any predictions about, because Decemeber is going to be a climax; a giant hill, and I can't see over it to what's beyond. A career, a baby, a new home, adoption... or unemployment, no baby, same home, still no baby... who knows.

Only time will tell.

Haunted

Let me start by explaining how close our house is to our neighbor's house, it's maybe 3-5 feet away. It's windows on the side facing our house are exactly parallel to ours. We have to keep the shades drawn indefinitely for privacy's sake.

The house next door is a rental property. It gets a new resident every three to six months. They all move in, and out, under the cover of darkness. I shit you not, one day the house has people in it, the next it's empty. One day it's empty, and the next there are different people in it. It's nuts, a regular three ring circus. And it's always full of crazy people.

Our current neighbors are pretty young. There are like two different families living there. They have a dog, or two, that they leave tied up in their backyard by the fence. Every time we go into our backyard, for anything at all, they start barking at us. It's a bit annoying, but I do feel really sorry for the dog(s).

They apparently also have a baby, or two, or something. I have never seen these babies. But, I hear them crying during the day, and at night. And there was mention of them once, one of the females next door came over once for a flashlight. Their breaker needed checked because their power went out, and she was sobbing up a storm because there was no power and they had babies over there, and she was alone and freaking out and just could not cope. My husband went over and helped her with the breaker, but even he did not see these babies.

But, we know that they're there. They cry, or it cries- and it's like a ghost. The sound comes through our walls, even with the windows shut. I can be perfectly content with A- watching television, but then I go upstairs to use the bathroom, and I walk by the open hall window, and I hear it. And it hits me, and I walk more slowly. My pace stops, and I pause. But only for a moment; and then I keep going.

***

Last month I was in my poetry class, and we were listening to poems and writing down phrases we liked. We then were given a name sticker, one of those "I am ___" ones. We had to take a phrase, and claim our true name. And so, I became, "I am Alive Enough for Now."

***

Everywhere I love to go, I am afraid to look up as I go. I see people toteing around there beautiful children, I hear them scold, I hear them love, I see them reprimand, and I see them hug. And I pause. I feel my heart swell up into my throat, then sink. Sometimes it's like a vice is on my chest, an invisible hand reaching in and stilling my bleeding heart. Some days, I feel hallow. There's no pain, there's no joy- I'm sleep walking again. I am haunted by nursery rhymes, and strollers. I feel detached, watching the world around me but not being a part of it. Sometimes I wonder if the world can see it; can it see the agony within, that I am incomplete and walking amongst them; no longer simply haunted now, but a ghost myself.

I've seen so much in my life, been through so much. I know that this itself is not the end of the world. I know I should be thankful for what I have, and just be happy; and I am happy. But it's not enough.

This break from trying to concieve, it will be a good thing. Of this I am sure. But, just because I am on a break, it doesn't mean I can turn the pain off. I am still haunted by an unattainable dream, I am still reminded every day of what the past 27 months have done to me, and what the future looks like. I still have a long road ahead of me- whether it be that one last cycle, or adoption.

Here's to not trying, but not preventing. (C'mon, you know I don't ovulate, even pumped full of drugs. If I had a post-injectable cycle ovualtion, it would be a miracle. And I don't hold my breath for those.)

Son of a -

So, definitely a no go.

P4 1.9

Today is officially cycle day 1.

I talk to the RE tomorrow, and have a baseline... and a Q and A session.

Q's like,
"What the hell went wrong?"
"What are you going to do different?"
"Why didn't I ovulate?"
"Can we try higher doses of injects and HCG?"
"Where is my baby?"

There better not be any cysts. I will be a mad woman if there is!

Wait, I'm already a mad woman...

Too soon

If I wasn't still in denial I would call this cycle day 1. It's way too soon for cycle day one. Since I am in denial, I am going to deny it until I get the results from my progesterone draw... I won't call it anything at all, except unfortunate.

I wonder if I even ovulated at all.

Quiet

As you may have noticed, I have been a little MIA here lately. I didn't mean to, it just sort of happened. I think part of it was being busy; with school, with work, with ridiculous family bickerings. The other part is that I don't have much to say right now, I'm really just trying not to think too much about where I am currently and what's coming up.

I slacked off all day and now must face the consequences: late night laundry.
So, I figure that if I was ever going to have the time, it would be now.

The abdominal pain finally subsided a few days ago. Thank goodness, that was ridiculous. I was told it may come back when I give myself the booster HCG trigger- which is tomorrow - but we'll see. I also go in for my P4 tomorrow. So, we'll finally see what is up with that number I guess.

I tested yesterday and the test came back negative, so I am assuming the trigger was either completely out or mostly out.

I thought everything was going fine until today, when I noticed quite a bit of spotting. I am now on red alert. Part of me wants to believe it was implantation spotting, but part of my fears the worst... the spotting was quite a bit more than it would be for implantation spotting, so I wonder if the end is near already.... I am only 8 days past ovulation. It would be total chaos and disorder.

I suppose that I'm going to have to just wait and see what happens tomorrow.