Thumb Twiddling

"So... how's that bed rest thing going for you, dear?" my husband sarcastically asked me while watching me clean up the living room.


Yeah. Um. So you know, now I totally get why it is that my perinatologist said that if I get pregnant even so much as with twins he's admitting me to the hospital at 12 weeks. I thought maybe, just maybe, that was a little alarmist, but... no. No, it's totally on the money, and I get it now. He knows me. He knows me very well. I was an extraordinarily good patient and did everything he told me to do in my last pregnancy, but it would be a physical impossibility this time around, and he knows it. There is just no way. I will absolutely shoot myself if I end up with monozygotic twins.

In other news, progesterone makes me hungry, I think. I am almost never hungry, but twice this weekend, I was suddenly ravenous. But absolutely nothing appealed to me. Sigh.


A bunch of you asked if I had anything good enough to freeze yesterday... I hadn't said anything about freezing in part because I forgot to, and in part because I actually don't know. As of yesterday, nothing was there yet, but they just didn't know yet if anything would make it to freeze. I didn't get any calls/messages today, so my guess is no. I'll check with NurseAwesome (whose name, I think, I'm going to change to SuperNurse - I like the parallelism with SuperDoc) on Monday, but ... I'm pretty sure the answer is no.

Speaking of your questions - Lori, the answer to your questions are 1. I live two blocks from my synagogue and 2. Yes.


Someone also sent me an email today asking me if I'd mind elaborating about who my clinic actually is - just for the record, if you're looking for a clinic for treatment, and you're looking for a referral, etc., I am more than happy to share this information (as was the case with this particular friend). If you're asking out of plain curiosity, please respect my privacy. I use a pseudonym for the clinics for two reasons - to keep myself as ungoogleable as possible (in real life terms I mean) and also to protect the innocent - I'd hate to be having a bad day, accidentally say something not-nice about my clinic (not that I can imagine doing so, but you never know, right?) and have that be the impression I leave with folks. I have the highest regard for my clinics, the physicians there, the nursing and professional staff, etc. and I am thrilled to be able to refer anyone else to this wonderful clinic as I believe that they provide the highest quality of care available in a caring, compassionate manner with an individualized approach and proven success rates. And no, I'm not on their payroll.

Finally, I am annoyed with a friend. I made my standard remark about how I'd shoot myself if I ended up with monozygotic triplets. But I qualified it by saying that yes, I know the odds are certainly against it. But hello? I had like 5% odds of conceiving HOMs the last time! Heck, that last cycle, SuperDoc didn't expect me to get pregnant at all. The whole cycle was a disaster that was doomed to fail, and in the eyes of reproductive endocrinologists everywhere, frankly, it did. Which is why when I walked back into SuperDoc's office, he took one look at me and said, "Okay, so how about that IVF with elective single embryo transfer idea, shall we?" And there was no question that that's what we'd be doing this go-around. ANYWAY, I made this remark to my friend and she, in her self-righteous way, as usual said, "I don't know why you didn't think you'd end up with HOM's. As soon as you triggered with, what 12 follicles last time, I knew you'd be pregnant with HOM's."

Let me tell you something... no one. NO ONE knows what's going on with my cycles as clearly as my doctors do, including me. Even I don't have my entire chart with all the associated bloodwork and ultrasounds, etc. laid out in front of me when crucial decisions are being made.

I questioned my doctor's decision to trigger me that day for nearly two years - you all know this. I went back to his office in January and told him that I couldn't understand it. That while I love the smiling faces in the nursery that greet me every morning, and I'm grateful for the gifts he gave me, I'm still plagued by that decision he made that day and could he please tell me why, oh why he made that decision. Suffice it to say, I was more than satisfied with his response. It was clear that he had absolutely no reason to believe that I had any significant risk of an HOM pregnancy. In fact, in all of my other cycles, I had been warned whenever I had more than one dominant follicle, that I could have a twin pregnancy as a result. In that cycle, no such warning was presented to me. What I'd been told, quite clearly, was that I had very little chance that any pregnancy would result from that cycle, and we prepared to move on to my IVF cycle immediately.

There is no possibility that I would still be with this doctor at this clinic today if I thought that there had been any recklessness in that decision on that day. Believe me, I never sought to have HOMs. I love them. I can't imagine my life without them. But it was never my goal, and it most certainly is not my goal to repeat the experience.

It is for this and similar reasons that I choose not to share with the group the logic behind the particular blastocyst that was chosen for transfer. SuperDoc shared with me the grade of the blastocyst that he and the embryologist had chosen, and what the other option had been, and explained why it was the best option. He also explained that he believed with this particular blastocyst, I have, perhaps, a 40% chance of achieving pregnancy (I didn't ask if by that he meant implantation or ongoing pregnancy - I am not sure I want to know). I don't wish to share the grade at this time because I find when people do such things that commenters start making their own judgments as to the odds and likelihoods and all that. And I already have a doctor for that and I just don't want to hear it. I can't hear it, honestly. I have put my trust in my medical team, and that's where I need to leave it, for otherwise, I will lose my grip on what little sanity I have.

I leave you with a picture of George: