IVF#3 8DP3DT - Always Something to Worry About!

So last night I took a FRER, and this morning I took a digital, and here you go:

(also a better pic of yesterday afternoon's stick)

So it's definitely BFP. Of course, now begins the contemplation of whether it's multiples, and if so, how many.

If that weren't enough, this morning I woke up with the heavy-tummy feeling completely gone, plenty of energy, no nausea, no moodiness, boob soreness gone and it doesn't seem like I have to pee. So now, even though I'm staring at the pic of the digital that says PREGNANT, I am second-guessing whether it's going to end up a chemical. And trying really hard to redirect those thoughts to "this is going to work, it HAS worked, we're taking a baby home this time." But ooooh, it feels like each little triumph is such a double-edged sword, because the stakes get higher.

And I guess it's always going to feel that way. After a positive beta, "will it double?" After a doubling beta, "will the ultrasound be ok? Will there be heartbeats? How many?" After a successful ultrasound, "will the next one be ok? and the next? Will I make it through the first trimester?" I think it's just never going to end. The uncertainty of TTC just turns into the uncertainty of pregnancy, so all this positive-thinking discipline I've been working on is far from over.

In the meantime, I am pretty far behind at work and have a bunch of meetings today. This week will likely be spent playing catch-up from the week I was out, before I can get to the new project my boss has assigned.

But, I did get an email back from the Greek clinic today, with the letter for my RE here ordering the beta test. So after my morning meetings I'm going to call to set the appointment for the blood draw.

She also sent me the egg donor's profile, so now I have information on both of them.

Egg Donor: 25 years old, white skin, brown hair, brown eyes, Type A-, 167 cm tall (about 5'6"), 50 kg (about 110 lbs), a dental assistant.

Sperm Donor: From Cryos International Sperm Bank, Donor #6567. Danish, blue/gray eyes, brown hair, 6 feet tall, 192 lbs, Type O+ (same as me!), an "interactive digital media" student.

That's all the info available for each of them, as they're both anonymous. But it's enough, I think - looks like we're likely to have a brown haired kiddo! Trying to focus on the positive possibilities rather than the not so positive ones at the moment. Hey, we've made it all the way to a second pink line. That's huge! So we just have to make it to beta now. This is going to be the one, right? <3

IVF#1 CD11 we're leaving tomorrow

This week has been a whirlwind of preparations, from wiring money to Europe to packing to trying to get things at work squared away to minimize what my boss is going to need to cover for me and dealing with a staff member who has resigned and having two vacancies to fill... I am exhausted. But it's done now. The only thing left is some house cleaning. We're getting up super early tomorrow morning in the attempt to start preparing our bodies for the dramatic time change, so we'll do more cleaning before our ride comes to take us to the airport.

Then it's off to Rome, then Athens. Our embryo transfer is scheduled -- get this -- TWO HOURS after stepping off the plane. Yeah. And I did get the profile for our egg donor... Much less info for her than for the sperm donor, but I know she's 26, with fair skin, light brown hair, and blue-green eyes. She's 5'7" and apparently has a clean health history. This is her first egg donation, though she has had one successful pregnancy of her own. Combine that with our red headed Danish sperm donor.... And we see what we get.

We also find out if we got any good embryos, or have enough to freeze, and have to decide then how many to put in.

Then we wait, and wander around Athens, and take some tours and other neat stuff, and keep every possible appendage crossed that we get a positive pregnancy test...

IVF#1 CD4 Greece is a GO!

We have plane tickets. We're leaving this coming Saturday, the 6th, and somehow the fates arranged it so that we have one extra bonus overnight layover in Rome! So here's the itinerary as it stands for now:


Saturday, December 6th:
Leaving Denver at 10:48 AM. Arriving at JFK Airport in NYC at 4:27 PM.
Leaving NYC at 8:12 PM. Overnight flight to Rome (8 hours.)


Sunday, December 7th:
Arriving in Rome at 11:40 AM. Taking the train to downtown Rome (about 30 minutes)
Taking a walking tour around the heart of Rome to see as much as we can, including the Parthenon and the Colesseum.
Staying overnight at B&B Elevenrome.


Monday, December 8th:
Check out of the B&B by 6 AM. Walk to the train station (about 30 minutes.)
Take the 6:37 AM train to the airport (about 30 minutes) and arrive by 7:00.
Leaving Rome at 8:40 AM.
Arriving in Athens at 11:40 AM, where our tour package should provide transportation to our hotel.




We will have 6 overnights in Athens total, and 3 overnights in other places as part of the tour package. So at some point during the trip we will be taking a half-day tour of Athens, a one-day cruise between Aegina, Poros and Hydra islands, and tours of Olympia, Delphi and Meteora (with overnights in/near each.) The travel agency is choosing the hotels for this part of our trip, so I'll have to update the itinerary once we get more details about how that's going to work.


Wednesday, December 17th:
Check out of the hotel at probably 4 AM. Our tour package should provide us with transportation back to the airport.
Leaving Athens at 6 AM, arriving in Rome at 7:05 AM.
Leaving Rome at 10:30 AM, arriving in NYC (JFK) at 2:20 PM.
Leaving NYC at 8:14 PM, arriving in Denver at 10:59 PM.


And in the meantime, we'll be continuing our Lupron injections. The Greek Clinic asked me to start taking my estrogen supplements on a steadily increasing schedule, starting yesterday, so we've added that, too. I bought the tickets in my maiden name since that's the name on my passport. Hoping it won't cause an issue, but there isn't time or money to get my passport reissued in my current name.


I've started a travel documents pouch for our IDs, plane tickets, reservations, Rome and Athens maps, and anything else I can think of that we might need in paper form in case we don't have internet access. I'm also going to have to start a packing list. And, I only have a week at work to prepare for being gone for two weeks. The plan is to take two full weeks off of work, which means that I'll have a good four days (Thurs - Sunday) after we get home to recover from jet lag, put my feet up and keep on resting in the first part of the TWW.


Then it's back to work for two and a half days, a half day for Christmas Eve and a full day for Christmas off of work again, another day of work that Friday, and a weekend.  We should know by New Year's or so if we are pregnant.


Oh my gosh, this is really happening. The clinic promised to send me the bio of the egg donor tomorrow... I am assuming that means they used my picture and chose the most available donor already, and that she's already got treatment underway.


I will say that the choice of egg donor is one bit of this process I'm less than pleased about. The truth is we're not picky so long as she's healthy and fertile, but it sounds like the clinic pretty much chose her for us without offering us any options. I am also concerned whether they are really giving us a "fresh" donor, or whether they plan on using frozen eggs from an earlier donation... because I haven't heard anything from them about syncing a donor's cycle with mine, or whether she's on meds right now, or when her retrieval date might be scheduled, and I'm a little annoyed since their website was pretty clear that the package included a fresh donor egg. If it turns out to be a frozen one instead, it's not like we're not still going to go through with it... but I will be sure to let folks know that what their website says isn't accurate.


I can't believe we're going to be in Greece in a week. Holy cow.


Please, everybody, cross every available appendage in the hopes that this works...?

Meds are here, Procedure delayed

So my meds arrived on Saturday - three boxes of Lupron, which came with syringes, conveniently, so that I don't have to go buy extras - three boxes of estrogen - one box of progesterone (because I already have some left over.)


But, because my period started way early, my procedure had to be rescheduled. I now won't start injections until the 15th of November, which pushes my transfer date back to early/mid December. Much better in terms of plane ticket prices, at least, but I'm worried. I'm now on the eighth day of this period, when they usually only last about five days. I'm finally just spotting, so I should be done today, but between that and how short this last cycle was I've got this awful feeling that maybe there's something wrong... what if we go out there, spend $13,000 on this, and still don't get pregnant?

I wasn't able to sleep last night, thinking about it. My mom reminded me a few days ago that she went through menopause at my age (35) and I'm so worried that it's happening to me now too. And I don't know whether embryo transfer works if you're menopausal??

Anyway, I'm just really nervous.

I got my dress done for the event this weekend, and got my apprentice sister's coat done. My embroidery skills are dreadful but at least from a bit of distance it will look nice... Wish I'd had a little more time, as it would have been nice to put laurels in more places, but I just couldn't squeeze in more than four. Hopefully she likes it. I am nervous about my dress, too. I finally got it altered enough to where the waistline sits in the right spot and the back doesn't scrunch. But it's made out of cheap materials and faked layers, partly for ease of dressing and to be cooler when camping, and partly because I have like NO money to buy fabric right now. I hope that it looks okay.

Since I didn't sleep at all last night I finally just got up and came in to work early. Hoping that means I will get to leave work early today, so I can go home, clean the kitchen, make dinner, get in a little editing and then get to bed. After the event this weekend I'm going to have to focus on nothing but edits... but the nice thing is, edits are due before the Greece trip, so I won't have to spend our vacation worrying about them. All in all, the delay in this treatment is for the best. I know it is, since my body is obviously resetting itself right now, and it will probably make for a less stressful last-minute thing for the donor too. Oddly, they still haven't sent me a list of their available female donors, so I have no idea if they're picking someone for me or just waiting until my cycle is ready before calling one in.

Anyway, that's what's on my mind this week. Two weeks, then, before injections start up again. I guess we're really stretching this year's OLW (CONCIEVE) into the last possible moments, aren't we? :P

Time for an update - treatment should be starting soon

So here's what's happened in the last week:

My estrogen, STD and ultrasound results were forwarded to the Greek clinic.

The clinic sent me a prescription for the medications they want me on: decapeptyl, progynova, and utrogestan. After a lot of googling and calls to my pharmacy, turns out this is basically Lupron, estrogen and progesterone. So today, I have to call my RE's office and see if they will issue me prescriptions based on the Greek prescriptions, so that the pharmacy will honor them. I'm a little concerned about the cost of the Lupron, which looks to be about as expensive as the Follistim was. :(

I closed on my HELOC, and there is now $15,000 sitting in my bank account. But I also have $3500 sitting on my credit card. Between that and the cost of these meds, plus the $7000 procedure, $1200 for freezing leftover embryos, $2800ish for two plane tickets, and about $1800 for hotel/tours and the
like... plus what will probably be $2500 in meds, we're looking at around $18,000 in debt when it's
all said and done. Ayyy. I'm sincerely hoping I'm overestimating some of these costs. It's still probably $10K less, or more, than doing a procedure with a donor egg over here. But I will be so devastated if this doesn't work.  X.x

The clinic sent us the website of the sperm bank they work with (http://dk.cryosinternational.com) and asked us to pick a donor. Kaitlin and I fell in love with one profile in particular, a redheaded actor/comedian with such a delightful personality -- only to learn that we wouldn't be allowed to choose him because he hadn't chosen to be exclusively anonymous, and Greek law will only allow us to pick from anonymous donors. So it was back to the drawing board last night, and we spent probably three hours going over the other options. Finally settled on another red-headed guy. Kaitlin really likes the idea of giving our kiddo the chance at red hair. And the names we've picked out are strongly Irish, so it does seem like it would be apropos, somehow. I emailed the clinic again last night with our second choice, here's hoping it goes through.

I've been emailing with a Greek travel agency as well (www.fantasytravelofgreece.com). We're going to get a touring package, to make the most of the money we're already spending just to get to Athens. At first I was really hoping to do an island tour - especially Lesvos, which I've always wanted to see - but most of the islands aren't very active in the winter, and apparently traveling between them is a bit rough and expensive. So rather than spend most of our time on a ferry or waiting at airports, we're just going to do an expanded tour of Athens and the nearby area instead. The package includes a half-day tour of the Acropolis, a four-day "classical" tour of neighboring areas like Olympia, Delphi and Meteora, and a one-day island cruise between three of the smaller islands, in addition to hotel stays. I did ask them for less expensive hotels, as it's not the bed we sleep in that I want to spend my money on. So we've narrowed it down to the package and hotel bracket we want, and I just need the actual
transfer date so I can buy plane tickets and make reservations.

It's looking like the trip is going to happen end of November / beginning of December. I'm actually hoping for December, because the last week of November is Thanksgiving and the cost of plane tickets goes up several hundred dollars. Ugh. But I don't really get to dictate to my body, or the egg donors, what I want the timing to be. I guess we just see how it plays out.

The Greek clinic asked for some photos of myself, I guess so that they can narrow down their list of egg donors and send me a few options to choose from that are similar to me in appearance (and available).  I'm waiting to hear back from them on that.

Now, add to all of that the fact that I got the edits for my next book back from my publisher, and they want them returned by December 1; and there is a big SCA event in two weeks that I'm trying to make an appropriate dress for AND do some work for my apprentice-sister who's being elevated to Laurel (it's a really big deal in the group); and all my staff's annual performance evaluations have to be completed next month before I leave on a vacation; and I am feeling just a wee bit overwhelmed with trying to coordinate everything.

Still, it feels nice to think that we're taking action, above and beyond the "let's take some meds and throw some sperm in there and wait to see if it takes, knowing it's unlikely" approach that we've had all year. I am praying to every power in the universe that might be listening that this will work (and work the first time, and work with just one embryo.) Who would have ever thought that getting pregnant would be this hard??

Tests this morning

I went to the RE this morning and had another blood draw and ultrasound. They printed out the Greek clinic's email, and they're going to email the results to them for me.

In the meantime, I got an email back from the Greek clinic. They're quoting a price of 5500 Euros (about $7000) which does not include freezing of leftover embryos or my own meds. I was expecting that it wouldn't include my meds, but a little confused that it doesn't include the freezing. Their website says that an embryo donation IVF will cost 4800 Euros, so I was assuming the extra 700 was for freezing... if it isn't, and I have to pay an extra 1000 like they've quoted, then I'll have to adjust my budget by about $1000 in order to account for the freezing of leftovers. Eeep. Doesn't mean I'm not moving forward with it, but I did send her an email back asking where the extra 700 Euros came from. I wonder if the prices on their website aren't up to date?

In addition, she said that their success rate is that about 60% of patients get a positive pregnancy test, and the live birth rate is 46%. But I am wondering if that is with donor eggs, or if that's their overall clinic's success rate including ladies who do IVF with their own eggs. Their website specifies a 70% success rate with donor eggs, which leads me to believe that either they are inflating their rates for their website, or else the number she's quoting me includes both standard and donor egg IVF. Anyway... if the birth rate is 46%, then that would mean that 76% of their positive pregnancies result in a live birth, or just over 3/4 of them. That sounds about right. But it does leave some food for thought. If 60% of patients get a positive test, it stands to reason that many of those patients opted for a 2-embryo transfer rather than just one. I am curious to know what the success percentage is for those patients who opt for just one... is it about the same? And I am curious what percentage of those live births were twins?

I may ask her these questions later, or just save them for the discussion when we're actually in Greece, about how many embryos to put back. A lot of it will depend on the quality of the embryos that result, anyway. If we get at least one really high-quality one, then I think we'll just transfer that one. If they're all somewhat questionable quality, then I might risk 2.

Anyway, I've been keeping an eye on the exchange rate, too. It's 1.28 right now. If it drops to 1.26 or lower I may go ahead and try to change my USD into Euro while the rate is lower. They're predicting that it will be at 1.24 next month, and continue to decrease, so I figure I should probably wait as long as I can to make payments in the hopes that the rate will keep dropping in the next few months. For example, today 5500 Euro is $7040 USD. But if the rate were to drop to 1.24, it would be only $6820 USD -  a $120 difference. And that $120 could cover nearly three of my ultrasound co-pay appointments here. :P So while I am waiting for test results and more information from the Greek clinic, I am entertaining myself with budget planning - LOL.

Kaitlin and I are looking through the Cryos International sperm bank now, to find the donor we want. So far the front-runner is a red-haired actor/comedian/gamer geek, whose profile is utterly charming and full of personality. Since both the names we have picked out are strongly Irish, it wouldn't hurt to have a red-headed kiddo. :P

Now to wait for the Greek clinic to get my test results so we can see what happens next...

BFN #6

AF showed up yesterday, making it BFN#6 for the year. And we've now used up all our vials of swimmers. I'm not pleased with how this last cycle went. Between my work situation being so stressful I could barely eat or sleep throughout the injections, to asking the doctor to run an ovulation test on my blood sample because I was SURE I was ovulating early (and lo and behold, I was right), to having the IUI done two days after the positive ovulation test (when I pretty much always ovulate within 12-24 hours of a smiley)... I wasn't holding out much hope for this one. And sure enough, just 9DPI, AF showed up again. Cycle's the most expensive one yet - somewhere around $4000 - and it was a complete bust.

I'm so tired of throwing money at this and ending up with no results. I'm so tired of being poked with needles, and probed with scanners, and being crazy hormonal all the time, and having cycle after cycle where we don't even get to make an attempt because my body's not cooperating. Having a baby is supposed to be a delight. It's supposed to be something that happens out of love and joy and pleasure. And this is getting ridiculous.

So that's it. I am DONE pussyfooting around. I emailed the Greek clinic today to find out how to get the process started, and I was approved by my bank for a Home Equity Line of Credit that's going to front me the money to pay for an overseas donor embryo cycle. I think the process is going to end up looking something like this:

-Greek clinic emails and requests information and doctor tests.
-I have tests done, send results and info to the clinic
-Greek clinic sends donor lists. Kaitlin and I look them over and send our choices back.
-Greek clinic contacts our chosen egg donors, and we figure out which one is available and willing.
-Egg donor begins her cycle at the Greek clinic; goes on meds.
-I have my clinic here monitor me and put me on any meds needed to sync my cycle with the donor's.
-Clinic lets us know what date we'll need to be there for a transfer; I buy plane and hotel tickets and make arrangements with work to take the time off.
-Egg donor goes in for her retrieval, while we arrive in Greece.
-We spend 9-10 days exploring Athens and nearby islands.
-We go to the clinic and have the transfer. Still debating between 1 and 2 embryos. My little voice of reason says that 1 is the wisest choice, since their success rates are 70%. But my little voice of impatience is stamping her feet in the background, so we'll see...
-I spend the next couple days on bedrest (This isn't a requirement, from what I understand, but it sure couldn't hurt.)
-We get back to the States and I return to work.
-We find out in a couple of weeks if I am pregnant. If not, we gear up for one second round, using any frozen leftover embryos from the first cycle. That one will cost us about $4000 or so, as it will be a short trip.

We'll have an adopted embryo, meaning that the baby won't have a genetic link to either of us... but on the plus side, he/she will be something of a "designer" baby since we get to pick both the donors. So we will still be creating someone utterly unique, and just for us... and I'll still get to experience pregnancy and make sure I'm giving the kiddo the healthiest possible start to life.

So that's the plan now. And my brain is rushing into full-on planning mode. While I'm really frustrated and sad that all the attempts we've made thus far haven't panned out (we could have already done a Greek cycle for the money I've paid out so far this year) it's nice to feel like maybe we have the opportunity for greater momentum than we've seen all year.

I'm not giving up on my OLW for this year - CONCIEVE. There's still some time for that, right?

In the meantime, working on my next book and waiting for the edits to come back on the second Ithyria book. Daydreaming about how nice it would be to be able to be a full-time author, and knowing I'll never pay off the debt I'm about to leap into if I did that. Pfft.

IUI#5 CD16 0DPI - ROUND FIVE!

IUI #5 kicked off this morning. Kaitlin came to the appointment with me today. And I'm feeling optimistic, much more so than last cycle. I have a very thick lining, and at least two good-sized follies; and our new donor's sample was nearly twice the volume of the last one (.9ml instead of .45) and had over 22 million motile swimmers (compared to 7.4 million in the last one). So with three times the swimmers and an even better lining, I am hopeful that we've got a good chance this round.

Plus, I had a dream last night about giving birth and breastfeeding. :P Good sign??

This one cycle has cost nearly $3000, between needing two 900IU vials of Follistim instead of one, and needing more office visits than last time, and having to order more swimmers. It would be really, really nice if this was the one that took. Most of the forum posters who have had success with injectables say that their second injectable round was the lucky one... so I'm holding on to hope. At this point it feels like we've been waiting for a BFP for so long that if it does show up it won't feel real. I've had so many dreams about seeing those two pink lines... if/when it happens I think it's going to feel like I must still be dreaming.

So let's see... if we get pregnant this time, due date will be May 5th. Cinco de Mayo baby! Even better, his/her birthdate would be 5-5-15. LOL... And hey, it also means that I'd have May/June/July off of work for maternity leave, and that's a delightful prospect.

The cramping hasn't started yet, but I'm expecting it to show up in an hour or so. I'm really looking forward to the TWW this time, as it means a reprieve from daily shots and every-other-day blood draws. The insides of my poor elbows are black and blue right now! The nurse also called in a refill of progesterone, so I'll be back to taking that this time around. Since my LP last month was only 10 days it seems like the smartest course of action.  Admittedly, it was nice to have my definitive answer sooner, as it meant we could move onto the next round more quickly. But if a longer wait is the price I have to pay to be sure I don't miscarry a potentially successful pregnancy, then it's worth it. So progesterone starts on Friday night... and then we just have to wait and see. Our test date will be 8/28. Fingers crossed!

IUI#5 CD4 - Things are rolling again

I got a call two nights ago from the RE's office - still just CD2 - and they asked me to start my Follistim that night at a dose of 150IU. So Kaitlin's given me the shots, that night and last night, and I have an ultrasound/bloodwork appointment for Friday morning. I think I'm going to stop by the Avella pharmacy first and pick up my trigger shot, to minimize time that I'm out of work.

I also ordered the swimmers and had them shipped to my RE, but they haven't received them as of this morning when I called... I asked them to call and leave me a message once they do get them, just so I know they arrived safely. Two little vials, and they're so darned expensive. I am hoping that with this new donor, the samples may be fresher (he runs out of supply quickly, so he must be popular and currently donating) and maybe there will be a higher motility count. It would also be really nice if this donor's chemistry was maybe a little more compatible with mine.

In the meantime, stress at work is escalating again.

IUI#5 CD2 - Moving On

Yesterday was just plain awful. On top of being deeply disappointed about this fourth BFN, I am also stuck with a really heavy, miserable AF. The Clomid and birth control has made most of my past cycles really light, but since I had a nice fat lining on the Follistim, I am now getting to enjoy a full-on, cramp-til-I-want-to-vomit couple of days. Ugh.

But, my darling fiancee brought home yellow roses (my favorite color) and chocolate cake for me yesterday. After two shots of Grand Marnier and three tylenol I was still hurting so badly I couldn't get comfortable on the couch, so finally I just gave up and went to bed early. I wanted to be unconscious through the worst of it. The cramping is not as intense today, but still really unpleasant, and I am feeling cranky and not at all able to focus on work. But I can't exactly go home, because I have a meeting with my boss this afternoon that I have to make sure I'm "on" for. Dreading it, but I'll make it through somehow.

Was late to work again this morning so I could go have an ultrasound done, and there's at least one bright spot in all of this: I DON'T HAVE LEFTOVER FOLLICLES THIS TIME. [Insert the Hallelujah Chorus] We can actually start another round right away. There are no words for what a relief that is... it's been so discouraging to have to take nearly every other month off of TTC to go on birth control instead. I think if I'd found out that we were going to have to skip August too, I might have had to go home crying for the rest of the day.

So, there's a silver lining after all, and I just placed another order with NorthWest Cryobank. We decided we are going to switch donors, to see if maybe a change in swimmers will give us better luck. We're going with #9319: brown wavy hair, green eyes, ambidextrous, tall, artsy and science-y. I think his "baby" photo looks a lot more like Kaitlin than our first donor, too (she says he looks like her brother.) Also, one of the other forum users has already had a successful pregnancy (a girl!) with this donor. Since we have two rounds of injectables left, I ordered two vials. If neither of the next two attempts are successful... well, we're going to have to pull out even bigger guns, and prep for a trip to Greece for IVF with both donor eggs and sperm.

I also had to call the pharmacy to get a Follistim refill. Between the $819 in swimmers/shipping and the $740 in injectable drugs - in addition to the usual trigger shot, IUI procedure, and probably at least 4 ultrasounds at $45 each, this cycle's going to run us a lot more than any of the others - somewhere around $2800. Still a small price tag in comparison to what the Greek donor cycle will cost if it comes to that... but it's more than I can afford in one month, so we're going to be carrying a bit of credit card debt for the next few months.

Most of what I've read on internet forums seems to indicate that of the ladies who got pregnant using injectables, injectable cycle #2 was the one that worked. So maybe, just maybe - with a change in swimmers and a second round of meds - maybe we'll get our BFP this time.

I think this most recent BFN has been the hardest, and I'm not sure why. I wasn't feeling all that optimistic, from the moment we did the IUI and found out our swimmers had lower motility than expected... but I guess it's because the meds had been so expensive, and I'd made it through all of those scary daily shots, and it just seemed like after seven months of trying it should be our turn. When it didn't pan out... when I got up yesterday morning expecting to take pregnancy tests for the next few days and instead found that AF had arrived... it was just a lot harder than the other BFNs have been.

I think, after so many months trying, that both Kaitlin and I are feeling a little stuck. This process is so expensive that we can't really move on with our lives and do the other things we want to do - have a wedding, install a floor in the basement, take a vacation, not really anything - until we get our BFP. And most of our plans for the future revolve around the things we want to do after that BFP comes, after we know we're adding a new member to our family.  I'll be changing my name. We'll be eloping, probably, to another state to get married (we want a wedding here, too, but I don't want pregnant-bride wedding photos; I want the chance to have the baby and then work off the baby weight so I can feel pretty in my wedding pictures. So we're doing a legal elopement, pre-baby, and a legal, local full-on wedding in a year or so afterward.) And then there's family vacations, house renovations, and the like, all of which are dependent on when... and if... we get pregnant. It feels like life is on hold pending the outcome of this long, expensive, exhausting, emotionally draining process.

Part of me would like to take a break from TTC for a while, but there's no time. My eggs are already so diminished, in quantity and quality, that it has to be now.  If the next two cycles don't work, though... then we'll probably take a break for a few months, to pay off the remaining debt of these cycles and try to save up enough to get started on the donor cycle in Greece.  And in a way, I am hoping that if the trip is necessary, it will feel like a vacation and not just another battle in this infertility war.

If I ever have a daughter, I think the one bit of motherly advice I want to make sure to pass on is that she shouldn't wait too long to start her family, like I did. I hope she gets her fertility checked early so she knows how much time she has. I hope she doesn't have to go through any of this. Not that I want her to be a teen mom or anything, but... I wouldn't wish this agonizing process on anybody.

Moving on....