Past and Present; or, How to Handle a MTHFR

Thanks to everyone who commented or e-mailed me with your advice on last Friday's post. Your suggestions were invaluable and have helped clarify some things for me. I'm so grateful to have a community of women who have been in this position to turn to when things become challenging.

Lawyer Guy is going to find out the max allowance for the FSA today, which should help clarify matters. He's also going to confirm that fertility treatments are permissible expenses (I'm sure they are, but we want to be extra-sure). Additionally, a friend of mine from my message-board support group (who is currently pregnant) offered to mail me several unused gonal-f pens of hers, enough it seems to get me through one round of injectibles+IUI. Given all this, we're leaning really heavily to putting $5000 or so in the FSA (or whatever the max is) and trying to do at least one, maybe two IUI cycle with injects. If the meds are free for the first it will be quite reasonable to pay for both, and I agree with all my bloggies who said it's a good way to test out my response to the stims before the high pressure of an IVF cyle commences.

Obviously, this is all contingent on the outcomes of the next few cycles and our conversations with Dr. W. But I feel like I have some perspective on the situation and a plan, and that always helps.

Also giving us some clarity (though not as much as we'd hoped): Dr. W's office called with the results of my RPL testing today. I tested positive for hetero MTHFR mutation, but everything else was normal. The nurse said that Dr. W is not concerned about the hetero mutation and doesn't fall in the camp that associates it with higher risk of pregnancy loss. The only snag is that the lab didn't test my homocysteine levels, so I need to have another draw to test that when I go in for monitoring for my January Clomid+IUI cycle.

While I'm a little nervous about the hetero MTHFR, I'm beyond relieved that I have no translocations or abnormalities on my karyotyping (and that LG is also free of them). Hetero MTHFR seems to be very common, and I've seen many women identified with it who have healthy pregnancies, so I'm going to hope that it won't cause any harm and that my homocysteine levels come back normal-- or, if they don't, that there's an easy fix for that.

Other than some reflection on hypotheticals and a smattering of test results, not much is happening reproductively right now. I should be getting back together with Pissy in a few days. I think she'll be happy to see me again, but you never know with her. I'm still buried under a mountain of student essays to grade, and after I finish that comes the preparations for Christmas, and then our New Year's trip to the Bahamas, and then AF right when we get back. And then it's 2011 and a new year and a new cycle, and this time a new year is going to actually signify something new for us, dammit.

Gimme a Break; or, Return to the Beginning

It's funny how my perspective can change so completely in such a short time. Four months ago, I was diligently tracking my ovulation and body signs and anxiously hoping to time sex in exactly the right way to ensure the pregnancy that absolutely had to be around the corner.

Now, neither Lawyer Guy nor I believe we'll be able to get pregnant again without medical intervention. As he put it, "If we're not getting pregnant with help, how are we supposed to get pregnant without it?" So we're facing the prospect of a brief return to unassisted conception with something less than confidence and very little hope.

We didn't have an easy time deciding to take a break for the month of December. A large part of my heart wanted to barrel forward regardless of any possible impediments or scheduling complications. But Dr. W. didn't want to do an IUI with a frozen sample, because she said they are less successful. She advocated trying to squeeze in an insemination the morning of LG's flight to Vegas. But knowing the unpredictability of my body's ovulation schedule--even on Clomid--I foresaw a stressful week of sweaty palms and racing pulse at every monitoring appointment as I hoped even more than usual for progress.

Given that this is our last chance at getting pregnant without injections, we want to give it the best shot possible. So I'm reuniting with Pissy the CBEFM for a month, and then we'll tackle our last Clomid+IUI in January. Taking a month off will also give us the benefit of a later ovulation than I would have had on medication, so if my some divine miracle we manage to get pregnant this cycle and not miscarry, our due date will be a week or so later, which will make attending my sister's wedding next August more likely.

The Sloper household tends to struggle when there are difficult decisions to be made, so these have not been an easy couple of days. LG was worried that I will resent him for going on this Vegas trip and pushing our plans back, which I assured him I won't. He kept trying to get me to tell him whether I thought he should back out of the trip or not, and I refused to do that. I want him to have a nice weekend after dealing with so much stress the last several months. I also want to do everything possible to have a baby. So I just told him to do what felt right and I'd support him in it.

(And now that he booked his trip I'm having my typical horrible premonitions of plane crashes and disaster, but I'll just have to deal with that).

I guess if we have to go on a break, December's not a bad month to do it in. I've got masses of grading to finish over the next three weeks, and Christmas shopping and present wrapping, and cookie baking, and carol singing, and cocoa-drinking, and then Christmas with my family. I'm promising myself that this is the last year I will spend in limbo like this, so I should make the most of the time with LG while I have it.

Don't Cry Over Spilt Wine; or, Choose Your Own Ending

Last cycle (cycle 4 post-miscarriage, for those counting), I made a decision. I decided I was taking a break. I was packing up Pissy and putting away the basal body thermometer and reclaiming my life and trying that hot new "just relax" technique that gets the kids all excited these days.

And then I cracked and went back to peeing on things. As you do.

This cycle, I made no pronouncements. I made no decisions. I made no declarations. Nope. I just forgot to refill my box of Pissy's peestrips. And lost my BBT at a hotel.

Look's like the break's on me.

* * *
I truly thought I was going to be fine on the m&m's due date last weekend. By this point, I understand that my first pregnancy was not meant to be, that something else lies in my future, that I've got to look forward rather than back. I greet every month with possibly misguided optimism, even if I don't always convey that here. And I don't even think to myself, "I wish I hadn't lost the baby" anymore, because I don't know who I would be right now if I hadn't lost the baby. Acceptance, right?

On Friday, Lawyer Guy and I had date night at a steakhouse before the welcome cocktail party back at the hotel. We had a great time and drank some wine and laughed together and I looked very pretty and all was well. Then we made our way to the hotel and met my friend the bride's family and her wedding party, and since I'd had pinot noir with the steak at dinner, I broke my 9-year streak of never ordering red wine at a party and got a glass of cabernet.

Fifteen minutes and one wildly gesticulating bridesmaid later, said glass of cabernet was empty and said cabernet was all over my hair, arm, chest, shoes, and the rather expensive, beaded, embroidery-embellished silk tunic I bought from a little one-of-a-kind shop on my trip to London last summer.

The bridesmaid felt terrible and frantically tried to find a 24-hour dry cleaner (none in Tampa, it appears), to dab the giant, blossoming stains with club soda, and to convince me it would come out when it was washed. But I knew the outfit was ruined (as indeed, it is) and was trying to hold it together until I could be alone. I didn't want her to feel worse about her accident than she already did.

After she left and I changed for bed, I pretty quickly began sobbing about my tunic, much to LG's dismay, and then somehow started keening "I miss the baby" over and over. The two things of course, as LG rightly pointed out, having nothing to do with one another. But in my mind, the fact that I was coated in cabernet rather than blood on the eve of my baby's due date had some deep three-in-the-morning kind of significance.

* * *
The break isn't quite as drastic as I made it out to be before. I had a few of Pissy's sticks left and was using one sporadically every few days, contrary to her methodical likings, as I waited for the new box to arrive. I took my temperature three or so times before losing the thermometer in Florida. And I added a new element to my already burgeoning pre-ovulatory routine: vitex (aka chasteberry root) in an herbal supplement, said to help regulate ovulation.

On Saturday, the due date, I went to the wedding. I wore my 30th-birthday purple petal dress. I danced to Madonna and Michael Jackson with my friends and Cole Porter and James Taylor with Lawyer Guy. I drank just enough and not too much. No one spilled anything on me. Everything that night was easy and happy and--yes--relaxed.

And then the next morning, with my very last peestick, Pissy gave me a Peak. On CD 16. About a week earlier than I expected.

* * *
This might turn out to be the ever-irritating story of The Accidental Break Cycle, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Got My BFP. This might turn out to be the amazing story of a Very Sad Day and Its Very Happy Ending. This might turn out to be your run-of-the-mill story of The Girl Who Spilled Wine on Her Tunic, Cried About It, Went To a Wedding, Woke Up the Next Morning, and Got Her Period Two Weeks Later.

As always, anxiously awaiting that last page.

Why Can't I Quit You?; or, Folie a Deux

You know how this is a break cycle? You know how I'm relaxing? You know how I'm just letting nature take it's course and not trying to intervene or stress my husband at all?

Sigh. Allow me to show you an unsent letter to an old foe:

My Dearest Pissy,

How did it all go so wrong? We had one of the best first dates of my life. We laughed, we talked, I shared my dreams and fears with you. I was so afraid to trust again, but you supported me! You gave me all the confirmation I needed, just when I'd given up hope. And you were right, dearest Pissy. You told me my Peak Days and rewarded me with a BFP. I thought we would be companions for the rest of my (reproductive) life.

But since then, everything has changed so much. You're so unpredictable. I never know how you're going to react to what I give you. I know many relationships thrive on variety, but they also need stability and security. And Pissy, your two days of High and ten days of High, your ever changing Peak days-- it all became too much. I needed some time away to clear my head. I needed to say goodbye.

But I just can't leave you. Even when I know we're no good for each other, I still can't do it alone. Pissy, the box of pee sticks from my knocked-up internet buddy arrived yesterday, and like a junky just out of a mandatory rehab stint, I was jonesing for my fix. That foil wrapper peeling away between my fingers, the slow creep of blue as the strip absorbed my pee. Pissy, it was good to be back.

Just don't tell my husband.

Your Victim, Your Lover,
Secret Sloper

According to Leslie, This Would Be Stage 6; or, What I Don't Want

I want to post about what a wonderful birthday I had. I want to post about the familiar blue box containing sparkly earrings that Lawyer Guy withdrew from a secret drawer that morning (after swearing up and down that the party was my present). I want to post about the shopping trip with my sister to NoLIta that led to me purchasing my birthday party outfit. I want to post about the fabulous dinner LG and I had at Locanda Verde and the wonderful calls and texts and e-mails I received all day from friends and family around the country.

I don't want to post about the sinking feeling that has been slowly setting in over the past few days, the end-of-the-2ww feeling, the heavy, dull, listless feeling of yet another failed cycle.

I don't want to post about the phone calls I've been guiltily dodging from Recently Trying Friend, whose decision to celebrate her birthday "low key" last month alone with her husband and whose sudden desire to meet up for drinks (after...hmm...let's see...four months of silence) are like some Banksy guerilla art installation all over that freaking wall: PREGNANT LADY HERE. I don't want to post about how even the thought of another pregnant friend in my life--another pregnant former bridesmaid, another shower to paste on a fake fucking smile for, another sequence of interminably similar questions to ask (Did you pick a name? What's your nursery set? Are you learning the sex? When are you due? What stroller are you registering for?)--sets my heart racing and palms sweating and stomach roiling and tears streaming and NO, I CAN'T DO THIS AGAIN! NOT NOW! NOT YET!

I don't want to post about Mother's Day. I don't want to post about trying again. I don't want to post about nieces and obsessed grandmothers with one-track conversational minds and soon-t0-be mamas parading their stretch-jersey swaddled bellies all over town in celebration of Spring and their own delightful fecundity.

I want to post that I'm pregnant. But I can't.

So I'm posting this: I'm taking a break. And contrary to the wisdom of busy bodies everywhere, it's not some nifty new fertility treatment I'm trying out. I'm tapped out. I'm drained. I'm gutted, spitted, and fried.

So enjoy your little nap, Pissy the CBEFM. Return to your drawer, my good friend Tempy. Maybe I'll call you back up to the big leagues next month, and maybe you'll be playing for the minors all summer long.

For the near future, it's just me, Lawyer Guy, and whatever sperm-meets-egg magic the good Lord sees fit to provide.

And you, of course. I can't leave all of you. After all this time, I've gotten used to having a crowd in the bedroom.