baby-making chronicles

Once upon a time this blog was a trying to conceive chronicle. I was so fresh-faced and wide-eyed. Four years later, I’m blessed with a 3 year old that my wife carried, and a trail of BFNs (see lingo below) and early miscarriages that I carry in my heart. I pondered deleting this blog altogether once I made the decision to be more than my fertility status, but this has become a part of who I am. So it remains. And I remain trying, though I don’t speak of it often.

In case you happened upon this blog looking for advice on what to do on your own fertility journey, or you’ve read previous posts and had no clue what was going on, I leave you this lexicon and timeline of my trying to conceive attempts. I hope it serves you well.

~Aleia (way past midnight on 4/2/12)

Lingo

A= my beautiful wife
LA= little A, my beautiful daughter (she was “pepita” in utero)
cd= cycle day
dpo= days past ovulation
tww= two week wait
ttc= trying to conceive
af= aunt flo
bfn= big fat negative
bfp= big fat positive
cm= cervical mucus
opk= ovulation predictor kit
hpt= home pregnancy test
ivf= in vitro fertilization (test tube)
iui= intrauterine insemination (turkey baster)
re= reproductive endocrinologist (fertility dr)
fmu= first morning urine
dildo cam= transvaginal ultrasound
u/s= ultrasound
m/c= miscarriage
POAS= pee on a stick. euphemism for taking a pregnancy test.

Tries

try #1 5/08– at home insemination; BFN

try #2 6/08– at home insemination; BFN

try #3 7/08– at home insemination; BFN (Find out that my wife IS pregnant!!)

try #4 8/08– at home insemination; BFN

try #5 9/08– at home insemination; BFN

try #6 10/08– use an RE; clomid; BFN

try #7 11/08– RE; femara and menopur; cancelled cycle

break

12/08– RE; diagnosis of blocked tubes; stop my journey

3/16/09– our BEAUTIFUL daughter LA is born!!!

break over

1/10– diagnostic cycle; hsg– no blocked tubes!

2/10– clomid challenge

try #8 3/10– gonal-f 75; BFP! chemical pregnancy

try #9 4/10– gonal-f upped to 112.5; bfp/chemical?? either way, not pregnant

try #10 5/10– gonal-f for TWENTY days; acupuncture; BFN

try #11 6/10- natural cycle, hcg trigger, last iui cycle (i think); CANCELLED. I just needed an emotional break.

third break over

try #12 10/10-12/10- starting IVF cycle! developed 22 eggs, 17 retrieved, 11 mature, 5 fertilized, 2 transferred, 2 didn’t make it to freeze, 1 never divided. 3 day transfer. positive pg tests 9dp0-11/12 dpo. negative tests 13-15 dpo. chemical pregnancy. bfn officially.

try #13 2/11-8/11- lots of testing to figure out why i have so many repeat chemicals. A hysterosalpingogram (HSG) with camera- Normal, Thrombo panel-Normal, PCOS testing (fasting insulin/glucose)– Normal, endometrial biopsy- Normal. I forget what else. Did birth control regimen twice- 6 weeks each. I had to repeat b/c I had a lot of breakthrough bleeding suggesting I did have a period, I switched RE’s, my period stopped coming altogether w/o birth control, and general fuckery. I started Lupron early July, Stimmed mid July. Managed not to overstim or coast, alternated between 75 and 27.5 gonal f. Though I had over 50 follicles (30 something of which were of size), I only triggered 13 because they did a half-dose trigger. Of the 13, 9 were fertilized. 2 were implanted in me. 4 stopped growing after day 1, the remaining 3 didn’t make it to blast. BFP on Beta #1 August 15th, but only 6.5. Beta #2 2 days later negative. Waiting for miscarriage/period to start. Chemical #4. No frozen embies means having to start from scratch again.