Throat Ripping

Here is a post that I wrote a couple of weeks ago but didn't post because I was in kind of a dark place at that time and I didn't want to scare anybody;)  After re-reading it today, I think it is pretty entertaining & worthy of sharing, so please enjoy:

This week I had an awesome afternoon with my good friend Jen and her 2 cute kiddos!  Their family just moved back to MN after living in Illinois for the past 2 years and I was thrilled to get together with her!  Caitlyn is 3 1/2 years old and is a great nose picker (she said that she learned it from her dad) & Tristan is 6 months old & he's very skilled at barfing, smiling and sleeping.    He can do all three of those things like a champ!

Side Note:
Tristan would have been a great candidate for baby snatching if he wasn't so in love with his mom's boobs.  I don't blame him, they are pretty nice.  And Caitlyn would have been an easy one to steal because she was very willing to come home with me already.  And I totally would have taken her with me but I really draw the line at kids who eat their boogers - so good job Daddy Chris, I guess what she has been learning from you has totally paid off)

We spent a lot of time catching up and although it had been a loooooooong ass time, it still felt like we just saw each other yesterday with a ton of things that happened overnight.  We shared updates and stories and laughs.   Of our stories, we both had recent experiences where we needed to remind ourselves to "take it with a grain of salt"

I am going to try and remind myself of that regularly because aside from the fact that I really have no ability to prevent my facial expressions from demonstrating exactly how I feel, I am also on a significant level of mood altering drugs so my feelings are amplified by about 1000%.  (I just added some new drugs to my dose of daily goodies, so I apologize in advance if this goes a little dark)  

In efforts to prevent myself from completing any throat-ripping & you from needing a package of throat lozenges (see video for visual), please practice the guidelines below.

GUIDELINES:

1. Until I have had my lab blood work for the pregnancy test, do not under any circumstances ask me if I am pregnant, if I feel pregnant or anything of the like.  If you do, what I will really want to say to you is:  "yes, you f'ing idiot, I feel pregnant because every f'ing drug I take is meant to make me feel that way including constipation, hurty boobs, irritability, bloating, zits, etc, etc"  What I will actually tell you as nicely as I can "We will announce the hopefully very positive news to our families as soon as we find out and I will post it on here soon after."  (My grandparents are exempt from this rule for two reasons:  they have already broken it & they are probably the only ones that will not irritate me when they ask again - you get a free pass when you are 85+ years old.)
2. You can for sure ask me how I am doing as long as that is what you are really asking...if you attach a bunch of emoticons & !'s to the question, I am going to assume you are really asking me one of the forbidden questions in #1 & will direct you to this blog post which will make me feel a little better & will probably hurt your feelings.
3. If you haven't been through what I have been through or something similar, please do not offer unsolicited advice.  The amount of research & professional resources I have utilized should earn me a masters in the topic of infertility & I feel very strongly about statistical evidence & my own intuition.  Although I know that almost everybody's intention is to help, offering unsolicited advice does the exact opposite +  it makes me want to swear at you. 
4. Take whatever I say (or show you with my facial expression) with a grain of salt. 

Heavy exercise, cocktails & Mexico

My heart is filled with tears & my nose is full of boogers.  Lil babe decided not to stick around so I/we are really sad...really really sad.  

In true Angie & Matt style, we immediately booked a trip to Mexico to join some friends for their wedding & that we are truly excited for :)

So the stealing babies chronicles will continue.  Fear not, I have a piggy bank  full of funny stories that I can't wait to share & will keep us entertained until the next round of IVF.  

Xo,

Angie

Home Run?

Being that today is Twins opening day, I think it is fitting to use baseball terminology.

Did we hit a home run?

Yes, but the call is being reviewed.

OMG, what does that mean???????????

It means that I am pregs!! Woot Woot!
BUT
my numbers are low (not woot woot, more like ahhhh shit - what now?!?!)

What Now is that I have to go back in a few days to get tested again.  If my numbers don't go up that is the equivalent of them telling me that my play is not a home run, but instead an out.  So obv we want those numbers to go up. up. up.

This is the furthest we have made it so I am excited and happy and a little nervous.  The proof is that I am smiling and crying at the same time.

So I am going to assume the best and take a lot of deep breaths and stay really busy over the next couple of days praying, wishing & hoping for awesome results to come.    My friend Joe always tells me not to use up my wishes on stupid stuff...I think he would agree that this is the stuff worth spending your wishes on so please throw a penny in the wishing well on our behalf!

Thank you for being my audience & for all of your support!

XO
Angie

How am I feeling?

"How are you feeling"  is a question that I have been getting in a few different forms and while I have been giving the "Good" or "Fine" standard answer , here is the real answer to that question:

To be honest, I am completely in a Funky state - and not Stevie Wonder kind of funky.  My emotions are totally erratic, I feel like swearing at people, I am shitting bricks and I feel like I'm in a special kind of hell.   Great news of those feelings is that those are all well known side effects of IVF!!

What do I mean special kind of hell?

Well, the two week waiting period from when they put those lovely embryos into my uterus to when I go in for my pregnancy blood test feels like what I imagine purgatory to feel like - I am waiting to be judged if I am worthy.  While I am doing many things to stay positive, I am terrified that it will not work.

If you are a statistical kind of person, below are are the historical success rates for our round of IVF.   This might help you understand my feelings of terror combined with hopefulness.  These statistics are specific to my quality of embryos and day of transfer to my uterus.  To put the quality of our embryos into super simple terms, our Embryos showed up for school 3 days in a week and got a B on their tests.  Embryo's that get an A on their tests show up for school 5 days in a week.    (BTW: In school I would have been stoked with a B average if it meant I only had to go to school 3 days/week)

STATS:
40-50% of IVF embryo transfers like ours have been successful.  This means that 50-60% are unsuccessful.   If you are a gambler (& we are), these are pretty decent odds and definitely worth a role of the dice.   But unlike casino gambling, the risk feels like it might kill you.  

So that is my real, honest, totally truthful response to how I am feeling.  I just need to make it until next week which I know I can do.  And when next week happens, we will let our families know the hopefully positive outcome first and then I will share the news here soon after.  If you feel sharing it on here rather than in a personal message is impersonal, you are probably correct but please understand that I am absolutely exhausted from this process & how anybody finds out is not high on the "I Care" list.  Trust me, I would way rather have a really creative and cute announcement that surprises everybody, but that is just not going to happen.

In case you are wondering why I have to wait for a blood test to find out if I am pregnant:  I can't take a regular pee stick pregnancy test due to my IVF drug habit.

~Angie

Micro & Nano

As promised when I came down from the valium high, the temporary names:
Micro & Nano

I was originally thinking to name the embryos Hishi & Shihi because we don't know their sex, but Matt veto'd those names....he had a cat growing up that they named Hishi.  For years I heard stories of this cat and thought Hishi was a japanese name & had some special meaning... only to find out that the real spelling of the cat's name is He/She because they didn't know if it was a boy or a girl.  A special meaning after all.


Speaking of cats....Harley decided to go for a little joy-ride and chase a cat through our neighborhood around 9pm on Saturday night....he knew he was in trouble and his guilty walk looked something like this as I reprimanded him:

Little shit.