Had a somewhat eventful week--well, as eventful as a break cycle can get. Met with the doc for our IVF#1 follow-up appointment. He was shocked to see us, saying with the embryos we transferred, we should have been pregnant. But alas, I'm not and we have to see him in another 2 weeks where we'll get the results of our immune and DNA testing (yay for being super aggressive Dr!) and I'll do another saline u/s (my doc must sure like shooting salt water up women's hoohas b/c he makes you get one after every failed IVF!). And I have a feeling this is gonna be a looonnngg cycle....again. Sigh. No podcast next week as I will be having fun in the Pacific Northwest for a much needed vacation! Listen in today as I give you my "monkey paw" theory of infertility.

I’m back from a 2 week podcasting break. My parents were in town last week so I wasn’t able to do any updating. But, there’s really not much to update you all on. Well, except for my blubbering incident at my acupuncturist's office last week. Oh, and I’ve gained 3.5 pounds since ER. Yay! Hoping at least to gain another 3.5 pounds before I start IVF again. I’ll get more details on when that will be when I meet with the doc next week. Until then, I'm trying to find other ways to remain stress free other than exercise.

Oh, I wish I had good news to report. Everything kind of went to hell this week. The embryos outside my womb died. The embryos inside my womb died. A filling in my tooth expanded and I need it replaced because my tooth is cracked. And spot came, followed by evil AF-like red spotting. A BFN on a HPT wrapped it all up today. I luckily got my beta moved up because my clinic feels sorry for me having to continue to jab needles in my butt while I have my period. But, we learned some things that hopefully we can take to the next cycle:
1. I have to be on a higher dose of stims. The drop in E2 was no good and spelled disaster from the get go.
2. We need to ICSI the heck out of the eggs. The ICSI'd eggs did a lot better than the non-ICSI ones.
3. Perhaps I need more progesterone help? Some suppositories maybe?

I'll keep my chin up and keep plowing forward. Tomorrow, I'll celebrate one of the few advantages to not being pregnant: having drinks by the pool!

I am participating in a stress and IVF study. I told the coordinator, who is super nice, that I'd pass along her study info to other IVF-ers. So if any of you are interested in participating and are about to start a cycle of IVF, here's the info:

COPING with IVF - Participants needed for Study

Ms. Jennifer Cina, a clinical psychology doctoral student at Adelphi University, is writing a dissertation on coping with In Vitro Fertilization (IVF). As someone who struggled with infertility, Ms. Cina is aware of the complexity of this experience and it is her hope to promote the understanding of women’s experience of infertility and IVF and to help illuminate the process involved. 

Ms. Cina is recruiting participants for a study on coping with IVF. Women who are about to undergo an IVF cycle can qualify to participate in this study that follows stress and coping throughout a given cycle. If you are interested, you will be asked to answer online questionnaires at three points of your treatment – before your cycle begins, one week into stimulation and one week after your embryo transfer.

Your time commitment will total approximately one hour for all three surveys, and you can participate at the convenience of your own schedule via online access. Confidentiality is guaranteed.

To learn more about this study please email the following address IVFstudy@verizon.net.

So do you want the good news or the bad news first? Let's do the bad news. None of my 6 remaining embies made it to freeze. Bummer but not a surprise. They all seemed kind of funky to me. Like one was a 7 cell. How do you get an odd numbered celled embryo? There was only one 8 cell in the bunch that I was hoping would make it but I wouldn't have done a FET with just one embryo anyway.
Good news is my progesterone came back today (which is 10 days past retrieval for those of you keeping score) at a nice 48.7. They like to see it above 40 so in true Gabby fashion, I'm right on the border of not so good but for now, I'm good enough. So at least the cramps I've been having isn't AF showing up way early (at least I hope not).
Still planning on holding out on testing until Sat (15dpo). Still haven't caved yet. :)