Day 4 Bruno->Weiner Newstadt

Well today was better than yesterday so we are headed in a good direction.  Duncan woke again at 1am, but was back to sleep by 2am.  Hopefully this is also swinging in the right direction.  As a family, we all slept a bit longer because we all needed it.  Yesterday was really tough on everyone. Oh and plus I forgot to mention it was Ryan's birthday.  Definitely not the most fun birthday.  We will have to have a redo to make up for that one at some point. 

Physically, I've been better.  After the whole ordeal yesterday, I have lots of bruises and my wrist and right arm have really big swollen areas.  That's a new fun side effect.  Ugh.  Plus one of the adhesives on a bandage caused a reaction (this is pretty common with me now) so I also basically want to scratch my skin off.  So that's super fun!  Another Ugh :(  I received an email from my coordinator stating that they received my test results and my progesterone is very low.  The doctor said that was ok and gave me a protocol that I will start tomorrow.  This includes 4 vaginal suppositories three times a day and 1 pill taken orally.  It's about as fun as it sounds.  The number of pills I'm taking is really starting to add up now.

Emotional I'm feeling a bit drained.  The weight of the situation is starting to really make it's way into my head space.  While I am so fortunate to have Duncan and feel so grateful, I would love to give him a sibling.  Especially because he comes from a donor, I feel like they would just have such a wonderful bond and story to share  And if this doesn't work,  I won't be able to.  I want him to know how hard I tried when someday he will read this.  Whether it works or not, I sure did try my hardest.  Somedays I feel stronger and braver than others.  I mean I did fly halfway around the world, deplete our entire savings at one point, all on a wing and a prayer that some Russian doctor in the Czech would somehow give me a child.  It's such a crazy idea and even crazier that it worked.  Other days I feel like I could just lay in bed and cry all day and feel sorry for myself.  Life just isn't fair sometimes and what we have been though in order to conceive is beyond ridiculous.  On top of that, I still grieve the loss of Duncan's twin on a pretty regular basis.  Opening myself up to getting pregnant again, also opens up all the fears of dealing with loss again.  I can describe my emotions as a roller coaster combination of them all.  I really do appreciate and feel all the love and support everyone of you back home are sending our way.  On the crappier days or worse feeling moments, its been helpful to remember how many of you are cheering us on.  And maybe in those less strong moment I can lean on others for strength and I thank you for that.

While traveling with our 2 year old has been difficult,  it has also been a very welcoming distraction.  Today was all about him.  I found this amazing place in Brno called the Brno Family Park.  It was an indoor play space that was literally the coolest thing ever.  It had trampolines,  giant inflatables, ball pits, air hockey, two story slides, giant blocks, obstacle courses, bumper cars, bumper boats and a whole upstairs play area just for kids under 4 that had it's own ball pit, play kitchen, 2 story life size doll house and a giant inflatable octopus.  When we first got there, he didn't even know where to go, he just ran from things to thing.  We were there about 4 hours and all of us laughed and had fun.  The best part was that it was about $5 a person.  If for some reason you ever find yourself in Brno with a kiddo in tow, go here!
We then made our way to Weiner Newstadt in Austria.  We found some grass for him to run in, went for a long walk around the neighborhood 0and then found a huge park on the way back.  It had about 5 different play structures.  He loved it.  We made our way back to the room and it was lights out around 9pm.  Fingers crossed he sleeps until morning.  The only real major bummer is this is the part of the trip where vegan/gluten free is non-existent so it was crackers and peanuts for lunch and two granola bars for dinner for me.  Same thing happened last time, so I was prepared,  but that still doesn't make it fun.  Signing off and hoping to get some sleep myself.  Love to you all and thanks again for all the love and support!

Thanks for Reading,
HEATHER

Day 3 Intralipids. Zlin->Brno

Day 3 is described as DIFFICULT and that is putting it mildly.  Poor Duncan is just all over the place with sleep and the time difference really hit him hard.  So Day 3 started at 1am when he woke up just upset.  He didn't calm down until 3am and didn't sleep until 5am.  Needless to say, we were all very tired and not in the best of moods.
We ate breakfast in the hotel and went back to the room to reorganize and pack up. I ran into another couple that spoke English and was there with their 3 year old.  Him and Duncan played for a bit while we chatted and shared our experiences.
Then at 11 it was time for my intralipid infusion IV treatment.   Intralipid is a sterile fat emulsion.  The active ingredient in Intralipid is soya oil. Soya oil consists of a mixture of mainly polyunsaturated fatty acids. It also contains egg lecithin as an emulsifier, which is isolated from egg yolk.  The theory is that it helps women who have had recurrent miscarriage, multiple failed IVF cycles or multiple failed IUI cycles. Intralipids deactivate natural killer cells in a woman’s body which may prevent embryos from implanting and growing properly in the uterus. We have done intralipids with two transfers, one at SDFC with our two normal PGS tested embryos that resulted in a BFN and then again here in Czech with my last pregnancy.   The science goes back and forth on it if it actually helps, but the good thing is it either helps or does nothing, but it doesnt have any negative risks, so we keep trying it. Ryan and Duncan escorted me back and then left to check out of the room and go play at a park downstairs.  
As I mentioned in a previous blog post, the state of my veins are not good.  After living with infertility for so long, and having so many blood tests done,  I have developed scar tissue in my veins.  About 3 times ago, the phlebotomist mentioned it would soon be an issue and the 2 times after that it was increasing harder to draw blood.  Well lucky me, it all culminated today and it became an issue. I was in a room, laying down on a cot and it started with 2 nurses.  I'll spare the awful details, but it concluded with 5 nurses, 1 doctor, 5 attempts in 4 different places and finally 1 IV in my wrist. This was very painful and on top of all that, took every single ounce of energy I had, not to pass out. What should have been a 45 min IV, now became a 2 hour IV because they had to use a smaller vein. 

Finally it was over and they came to remove the IV.  The nurse doing that part didn't speak any English.  She took out the IV and I'm guessing told me to put pressure on it in Czech,  which I didn't and next thing I knew she turned around so I thought she was done and I went sit up and blood just started flowing.  That just about did me in right then and there.  Luckily I was already in a bed so I just laid back down.  She turned back from her paperwork, saw what happened and cleaned me up and rebandaged me and said to wait in bed.  Another nurse came in that did speak English.  At first I thought she was there to see if I was OK.  But then she told me my next appointment was in another room.  I assumed this was for my blood results.  Well it wasn't, it was to take more blood.  See I thought they drew the blood before they hooked up the IV.  Remember I can't watch and they don't speak English this came as a shock.  After all I just went through, I now had to try and give blood.  At that moment, my weakness and fear crept in and I lost it and just started crying.  I asked it I could go back and lay down and do the blood draw back there.  The nurse then realized I was crying and called for back up.  Now a team of nurses were back with me.  4 to be exact.  1 kept saying sorry and the others only spoke Czech.  They decided to go back in through the wrist again and this pain was even worse than the last time, but at least it was very quick.  One nurse kept stroking my hair and another nurse held my hand. They were very sweet and really tried hard to comfort me.  I was just wrapped up in emotions and it all came out at that moment. Being so far from home, being alone it just got the best if me.  They sat me up and gave me a big group hug and tried to show me that it will all be ok even though they didn't know the words.  I will remember their kindness forever.  One of the nurses spotted Duncan outside and opened the window and told me to come over to see my boy. 

That stopped the tears and brought me back to some peace and strength.  Sometimes we just push through the tears and do what we have to do. Dealing with infertility isn't easy and some days are harder than others.  Mark this as a difficult day.
I then met with a doctor who added an additional progesterone pill to the mix.  So in two days I will start the transfer protocol.  The clinic has it's own pharmacy so I grabbed the pills and we headed out.  On a more exciting note, there was a TV behind the reception desk and they were playing Octo Hiity.  I am now officially obsessed with their music television.  It's amazing! 

We left Zlin and headed to Brno.  I had intended for us to visit a science center, but because everything took so long, we didn't have enough time.  So instead we went for a stroll around the city center.  There was a cute farmers market outside our hotel so we stopped and got fresh strawberries, tomatoes marinated in garlic and basil and caper berries. We snacked on those and walked for a bit.  The last time we were here I was on bedrest and never left the room so it was nice to finally see the city.  Before we left, I had found a Thai restaurant that had vegetarian and gluten free choices.  I had fried rice with veggies and Ryan had pad thai.  It was delicious.  On the way back to our room, we stumbled upon a stage with live music.  It was a rock band singing loud and in Czech.  Duncan loved it.  After each song, he said "more music". So we sat there and listened and slowly this metal band put my son to sleep. In his early days Metallica used to do the trick and I just love my little rocker dude and his love of music.  I took a slightly longer route home to window shop and try and discover a bit of the city.  Todays ordeal still weighed heavy on my mind so it was nice to just be casual and walk.  We landed back in the room and made for a quick good night.  
Thanks for Reading,
HEATHER

Labs, labs and More Labs

In my life, I have fainted more times than I can even count, no exaggeration at least 20 times, if not more.  I faint at the sight of blood, so giving blood has always proven difficult.  So of course, because life has a funny sense of humor sometimes, when you live with infertility you give a lot of blood and you do it often.  So as we gear up for round 2, that means more blood work.

Here are my tips for giving blood to make it as easy as possible:
1 - Drink lots of water before you go. This makes your veins bigger and easier to find.
2 - If you are a fainter like me, insist on laying down.  Not all facilities have a place to lay down so call ahead if you need that.  I give blood at a LabCorp and I drive to one further away, but that has a bed for me to lay down on.
3 - Tell the phlebotomist up front that you are a fainter, or that you don't want to watch, or whatever your concerns are and be stern and strict with them.  A lot of them just shine me one and I have to tell them how serious I am.
4 - Bring water or something to drink immediately afterwards.

 Once I learned these tricks it made my life so much easier and its been about 2 years now since I last fainted, and that was only because my IV came out and it was a seriously gross situation.

Now on to the latest round of test.  Below is my initial set of labs to just get a starting off point of where my hormone levels are and iron and a few other key vitamins.  I also did my latest STD testing to bring it all current.  All these tests meant 7 vials of blood.  And I survived just fine.  Just waiting to get the results back.


Tests Ordered
004259 TSH      
010389 Free T3      
001974 Free T4      
006684 Thyroid antibodies      
070104 Reverse T3      
004465 Prolactin      
322744 Hepatitis Panel (4)      
083935 Panel 083935      
012005 RPR, Rfx Qn RPR/Confirm TP      
001321 Iron/TIBC      
004598 Ferritin      
005009 CBC w/diff & PLT      
081950 Vitamin D25-OH      
005215 Sed rate      
001503 Vitamin B12

Thanks for Reading,
HEATHER

Hysteroscopy and D&C

Last Thursday I had a hysteroscopy (camera test) and dilation and curettage (D&C).  The reason why we decided to do this was by process of elimination. Since we have practically tested everything else and because we had PGS tested normal embryos that didn't implant, maybe I am having a lining issue or a uterus issue.  It is very rare for us to have the history that we have had with 3 IUIs and 5 IVFs and zero implantation having known that we at least transferred 2 normals.  So we decided to do a d&c to clean everything out and create fresh new lining for the upcoming transfer.

My Mom was my caregiver and took me to the appointment. This was full on surgery with anesthesia. I was nervous because I never handle anesthesia that well. We checked in no problem. They told me they would bring me back get me set up and then they would let her back to join me.
It took them three tries to get the IV started. As soon as needles are pulled out, I shut me eyes and look the other way.  The first time something went wrong and I felt the warmth of the blood all over my arm and neck.  Something had come loose and blood went everywhere.  It was just about the time when I heard the nurse yelling to another nurse to come help that I started to go down.  Shortly after I fainted.

After 3 attempts, the IV was finally started but because I fainted, they couldn't start the anesthesia right away.  So my doctor came in and talked to me and they brought my mom back to hang out for a bit.  After a few rounds of normal vitals, off I went to surgery.

I woke up in recovery and my doctor informed me that he wasn't expecting to see what he did.  On the camera he found in his words 'tons' of polyps.  He said it looked like a mushroom field in there.  There was a lot but they were all very small.  He sent them off to the lab and they came back all normal, so nothing to be worried about.  He was able to clean everything and remove all the polyps.

I'm trying not to get my hopes up to high, but the more I read about polyps, the more it seems impossible to get pregnant if you have them.  polyps article  So now with a squeaky clean uterus, I'm not officially prepping for our FET in April.

Thanks for reading,
HEATHER