it was negative.

not sure who i was kidding to think it would work.

maybe im not meant to be a mother.

Nerves are getting the best of me.

I'm nervous. This wait is killing me.

I can't help but think the worst. How do I prepare for the worst? How do I bounce back from this if it isn't positive?

I find myself just laying around in my own thoughts...worrying and freakin' out a bit.

Honestly at this very moment nearly every friend of mine is pregnant. Well, maybe that's an overgeneralization but a lot of them are. My childhood best friend is 8 weeks pregnant, a friend of mine who went through IVF also just found out she is pregnant (yesterday). It's like a slow and painful papercut.

Day After Transfer

Holy shit. It's done -- now we wait.

I'm happy to present our 2 perfect Grade A 8 Celled Embryos. They've moved in to their new home yesterday and we're hoping they find the accommodations adequate enough to stay a few months :).

The doctor that transfered them into my uterus said, "They're perfect, we couldn't have asked for a better outcome. We have to tell you the grade and quality before we transfer them. They are great."

All I can say as for physical feelings: I'm tired. I've slept alright last night but I'm just still tired.

The BETA test date: March 31, 2010

I'm sore, I'm uncomfortable and I'm bruised.

I can't even express how sick I am of getting blood work done. I have to get stuck at least 2 times in order for them to get a vile of blood. I'm so bruised and want this to be over with and I want my baby in my arms...

AND THEY'RE OFF!

It has begun! I gave myself my first injection about 20 minutes ago -- it wasn't bad at all. I barely felt it.

I got a sonogram today as well as a baseline blood work-up. Everything is perfect! I also have 11 follies on my left ovary and 12 on my right ovary. They are all small but they're there!!! The nurse told me that the set-up is going perfect right now. Gave me a great metaphor about what is going on right now, too: "Picture this as a horse race. All the horses are lined up behind the gates. We want all the horses to finish at the same time, but if one or two horses go a little faster that's ok -- but to finish at the same time is what we want." It made sense to me!

I couldn't be any more excited to stab myself with a needle!

SO EXCITED TO STAB ORANGES!

I can't even tell you how excited we are today! Chris and I are beside ourselves because we are going to do the injection teaching class today! This means we begin stim shots tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Holy shit!! I can even put in to words how excited I am about this.

It's hilarious because we were told to buy oranges to practice on -- so last night we went to Big Y Supermarket down the road from our house to buy them. I was so meticulous picking my orange out: "This one is to soft, this one is to hard, this one has a bruise, this one has white shit on it..." -- I felt like sleeping beauty picking our her damn bed. I was choosing an orange people -- AN ORANGE! Hahaha! I found the perfect orange to practice with, too. Chris literally was like "Why don't we get a bag of them? We can eat the rest too!"...he's a nut. He chose his orange in like 2 seconds -- he wasn't very choosy hahaha. In the picture my orange is the right one -- can you tell I was going for perfect circumference?

I'm happy today. I'm honestly excited and pretty happy. I think I'll bring my video camera along to the class. Maybe not record the class, but I want to record our thoughts and stuff. I say this now, but I'll probably forget LOL.

Wow I'm so excited to the point my stomach is bubbling up! Remember a few posts ago when I said my stomach is directly affected by my emotions...perfect example!!!

I need the levee to break...

I feel so depressed still. I know the nurse said I'll begin to feel better as the meds get out of my system, but I just need some semblance of relief. Feeling like I'm going to cry all the time is no way to live my life -- at any point. I'm angry too...SO angry for no real tangible reason.

I'm also feeling cabin fever -- I need to get out of this house. I need to go somewhere and just GO. I think I'll take a long drive today. Where to? I don't even know yet...just as long as I keep driving.

There's this place in Vernon, CT that I used to go to when I felt "blah" called Henry Park. It is this thing that looks like a castle that overlooks about 6 towns. You can see so far when it's daylight outside. I went there a lot in High School partially because I went to school 10 minutes from there, and partially because I needed to get that sense of peace in my life. At any rate -- who knows where I'll drive to today...or if I'll even get off this fucking couch.

Blue Skies Ahead

I'm so relieved to have taken my last birth control pill last night. I can't wait to be ME again and to feel happy again.

No sex in the champagne room...or anywhere. No seriously, don't touch me.

As most of you know because I've posted updates via YouTube -- I've been down in the dumps. For the past 2 weeks I've felt nothing but depression, sadness and just plain "blah" with intermittent parts of happiness here and there. The nurse had told me this would happen, but I wasn't to sure on the extent of the depression. I'll tell ya', I would cry at the drop of a hat (never in public) and I want nothing more than to just stay at home and eat and be sad. Thinking that it was the stresses of this journey getting to me -- I'd play along. I'd stick it out.

I called my doctor's office and left a message on the IVF team's voicemail. I asked the nurse to call me back because I had something personal that I was having an issue with and didn't want to leave a voicemail about it. So, Marcia the nurse, called me back later that day. Thankfully I was in my office so I could take the call immediately. I told her my issue and she said "Oh, it's the birth control pills! You're on something called a "mono-phasic" dose as opposed to the normal "tri-phasic" dose that you'd get if you were taking it regularly." She went on to say "You'll feel depressed, cry at any moment, and have no libido." The libido thing was honestly the reason I was calling LOL.

I can't stand the thought of sex. I can't stand the word sex. I don't want to be touched, kissed, or even thought of sexually. Chris is really supportive but he is so fucking sensitive that it drives me up a damn wall sometimes!!! With this it just makes me insane!! We had a long talk 3 nights ago (that prompted the call to my doctor the next day) about why we weren't having sex. Now, it's not that I haven't tried to be interested!! Hell, I've even tried to start my OWN goddamn engine but it's just dead in the water right now. Nada. Zilch. ZERO libido!!! ::sigh::

But, all-in-all the decision was to stop my pill a day early.........ya' that's all the relief I could be offered. I was hoping for some Zanex LMFAO!!! No dice. So, that's cool with me I guess. After tonight I only have 1 more pill to pop and I'm done! Either I'll begin the meds on Thursday or CD2 -- whichever comes first.

Send me some good AF vibes ladies! I need 'em!!!

Sad.

So depressed today. The stress and frustration of the journey has gotten to both myself and my Husband. We don't know how to get out of this rut. We don't even know how to comfort each other. We need help.

IBS & "The Pill"

I'm realizing that while I was on Birth Control all those years (from age 15-25) I had stomach issues. Not your normal oh, my stomach hurts issue -- IBS rather. I noticed that when I because very happy, or very sad, very angry...anything that was an exacerbated version of an emotion - my stomach would freak out. It would come out both ends and sometimes at the same friggin' time!!!

Needless to say it was a nightmare in High School.

I knew when my period was coming because I'd be running back and forth to and from the bathroom...I suppose that was the "best" thing about being on birth control. Thinking back at it now I could have skipped the entire BC bullshit to begin with!!! I couldn't have gotten pregnant anyhow!!!!....ugh shit...sad.

In High School though, I'd manage my stomach upsets by smoking a LOT of pot. I'd smoke pot nearly every day a couple times a day. Not only for my stomach because that would help calm it down...but for my sanity. I was the girl that was in every group. I had friends with the pot heads, music kids, jocks, cheer leaders, geeks...yadda yadda yadda. You name it - I was friends with them because I've always been pretty outgoing. I felt most at home with the people that partied a lot though. So...I stuck with it until I met my Husband.

But, that's a whole different story :)

I'm mainly posting today to say that I realize now how much birth control pills effected my life for the past 10 years. I missed out on a lot of things because of my stomach issues. It was really horrible man...really horrible.

For instance:

• For 4 months straight all I could eat was white rice.
• I had to undergo a Colonoscopy and Endoscopy at the same time.
• Went to a nutritionist that put me on a raw food diet.
• Couldn't process raw foods: i.e. Lettuce, uncooked veggies/fruits.
• Had to carry a pad and baby wipes with me at all times for "issues".
• Carried a bag of stomach meds at all times: i.e. Pepto, Mylanta, Immodium (my Best Friend for YEARS!), Gas-X, Nexium, Prilocec, Tagamet.
• Always needed to know where the bathrooms were everywhere - even went to the extent to be seated next to a bathroom "just in case".
• Couldn't go on trips without taking an Immodium before "just in case".

All-in-all it was the friggin' pill. I got off the pill and ALL MY BATHROOM ISSUES WENT AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now that I'm back on the pill (last pill February 28) I'm having the same problems. I will NEVER take the pill again after this.

Medication has arrived

My medication came in today. This pic isn't the meds but an image I found from Google. Still - the only thing I don't have is the Yaz pills and the products in the purple boxes. All else...is mine.

It's very overwhelming.

A lot of needles.

On a non-ttc related event -- my life at work got much simpler or much more complicated. But, I do think it's gotten a lot simpler. My assistant was going to get terminated today however he resigned upon his own free will. He's been giving me a goddamn headache ever since November and it's finally over.

Edge Of Darkness - in more ways than one...

I feel so-so today. Not as bad as I previously felt on Saturday after the test was done. Still a bit nauseous and still gassy.

Chris and I went to see Edge Of Darkness (with Mel Gibson) tonight for our "Un-Valentine's Day" together. It was a good movie, I liked it -- lots of plot twists and a well written movie. Chris is such a critic and hates every movie he sees LOL...men. Mel Gibson, however, still looks great for his age. He's a very Handsome man -- short...but handsome nonetheless.

Speaking of "Edge Of Darkness":
Thoughts of this not working keep creeping in to my mind periodically. It scares me.

I'm a Gemini thru and thru, so I always (and I mean always) have two sides of things stirring around in my head. One part of me is saying "Sarah, relax. You're young enough and healthy enough to get pregnant and stay pregnant. Don't worry. This will work." Then I have the other side of me thinking, "If this doesn't work...I don't know what I'll do. I don't know how I'd come back from something as devistating as this."

My worry is showing now, isn't it?

The doctor's office called me back regarding my numbers for the glucose testing. The original blood draw prior to me drinking the glucose drink were slightly elevated - 2 points elevated. Aparently the normal range is 35-99 or something. Mine was 102. The other 2 times my blood was drawn was normal, thank god. I asked the Marcia the nurse if it was going to upset our timeline. She assured me it will not. Thankfully.

Glucose Testing

I had done the 2 hour Glucose test screening on Saturday February 13, 2010. I got to the lab at 7:55AM to begin the test around 8:10AM (they had to check everyone in, too). I had done this test about 3 times before this so I knew what I was getting in to! I got in there, had my blood drawn to begin at a base level, then sat down.

About 20 minutes after I drank 10oz of the gross orange glucose drink I began to feel my stomach getting upset. I asked the nurse where the bathroom was and she pointed around the corner. Needless to say...I went in and out of there the entire time!

An hour passes and the phlebotomist draws my blood again to see how my body is processing the sugar. Still stomach upsets...gas, bloating and frequent bathroom trips!

Another hour passes and the phlebotomist draws my blood for the final time. I had to go to work right after this and at this point I was wondering if I'd be able to work my full shift feeling this way.

I arrived at work feeling nauseous, dizzy, headache and still the urge to go to the bathroom. Thankfully, one of my employees was scheduled in at 11:00AM and it was 10:30AM when I arrived. I was only alone there for 30 minutes. When she got there she took one look at me and knew something was wrong. I don't know if it was evident by the 3 tiny band-aids I put over the needle marks on my hands, or if it was the complete loss of energy in my eyes.

She is Hypoglycemic and is familiar with the look of sugar withdrawal! I told her I hadn't eaten yet and she said "Dude, you gotta eat or you'll pass out!". So I took her advice and went to Dunkin' Donuts to get some food. I work in a mall, so as I was standing on the down escalator I started to feel really cold. I had clamby hands, sweating, dizzy, nauseous and then I started in with "tunnel vision" - it felt like I was going to black out. I got to DD and ordered a plain bagel with veggie cream cheese...needless to say I HOUSED that bagel!!! I don't even know if I breathed while I ate it hahahaha!!!!!

Even after eating the bagel I felt the same. Still shaking at this point too. I called my doctor.

The nurse on call told me "You need to eat! You need to have OJ, protein and sugar...FAST! Or else you're going to pass out!" No one told me this at the lab.....I was pissed. Pissed, but sort of glad because I got to eat a shit load of candy with a free pass. I bought about $9.00 worth of loose candy from the Sweet Shoppe in the mall, got Gatorade and OJ also.

After eating the sugar I began to feel a little bit better, but still not 100%. My blood sugar was still not regulated. My employee said, "You need protein to keep your blood sugar regulated." so I had about 1/4 cup of mixed nuts. Didn't help.

At this point it has been 5 hours and I'm still feeling this way. Normally at work I'm energetic, fun and upbeat. Today I was lethargic and felt in the way for the 5-6 hours this was going on. I called the doctor again and this time got the On Call Doctor.

You'll love this part...

Now, I've been looking up "glucose testing - what to expect before and after" for the past few hours, so I sort of knew that this was all due to the test. HA! The doctor actually told me that I have a GI infection and this most definatlty does not have anything to do with the glucose testing. I said that to all my employees and they disagreed as much as I did. I know my body and I didn't have a damn GI infection...stupid. GRR!!!

So, it's not about 6 hours in to my shift and I'm feeling better. I went about my day with no breaks, I knew that if I stopped - I'd be out. I just kept on 'a truckin'!!

As of now, I look like a heroin addict because of all the damn needle marks! My veins are so small they can't get to any vein in my arms. Only my hands, and it's very painful.

BUT! It's all over. I'm looking forward to March 3 when we have our injections class.