Follies on the brain

I had a sleepless night Tuesday, just counting the days until today's follicle and bloodwork check. Recovered with a great sleep Wednesday (partly because the acupuncturist gave me a special sleep needle, mostly because I was exhausted). Then I had a freakishly great day on Thursday: Highly productive at work; lots of energy; positive attitude; loving feelings toward all humankind; thinking it didn't matter how things went with the cycle because I was just so damn lucky to be alive and should be grateful to even have this experience. (WTH on that last part! Must be the drugs.)

Last night (still Thursday), I fell asleep fine, but then I awoke at 3:00 (stupid Friday) and resorted to counting the minutes until my 8:30 appointment. I lay there just tuning in to my ovarian sensations and trying to cheer on the 11 follies counted last week. "Come on, my pretties. All together, now, grow, follies, GROW!"

I tried visualizing them, but I didn't really like the true-to-life image. Sometimes I'm just better with the figurative, so after a bit of psychedelic drifting, er, clever word association, I began thinking of the perfectly symmetrical and synched-up chorus lines from old-time stage follies. I want my follies to behave like those pins, all crazy-in-step and full of vim. And you know, from the prominent, buzzy twinge-y feelings I have on both sides, I think they are.

The appointment went well from the "poor responder" POV. All 11 are still there, with 7 currently out in front, of fairly uniform size (10–12 mm), and on track for maturity by ER in another 6 or 7 days. The 4 lagging behind (6.5–8 mm) are close enough to surprise (yay) or drop off completely (boo, whatever). My lining looks good. Didn't write down the individual follie sizes/placements or ask about the E2 number because I'm leaving some details alone. I don't need to do the math, nor can I do anything to affect it.

The rest of the day? It sorta stunk: Spent my acupuncture session resenting the 4 hours out of this day I spent at/getting to and from the clinic; spent WAY too much time in the pm dealing with all things IVF (new appt schedules, meds reorders, trying to guess the ER date for an anxious DH); totally ignored my sister's perfectly well-intentioned phone message asking for an update — I felt inexplicably annoyed to get it; got very little quality work done; and wore a frownie face, mostly, while walking my just-happy-to-be-outside-and-sniffing dog in gorgeous weather at a picturesque state park.

"Must be the drugs again," I told myself tonight. I'm sure they're playing a part. But really, I know that even though I was indeed happy about today's monitoring appointment, deep down all I've been doing since is wondering if there's anything even in them thar follies.

We'll see soon enough.

Sleeping like a __________ lately

One of my earliest posts talked about my fits of sleeplessness as we started the cycle. Although I felt all of it was directly related to nervousness surrounding IVF, in the absence of the impending ART reality, it could just as easily have been about anything I might have had on my mind — good, bad, or otherwise. I've had similar fits since childhood. I'm a chronic late-night thinker — talker, too; but I don't do much of that anymore because DH is a chronic falls-asleep-like-a-hibernating-bear something-er.

Typically, I am slow to fall asleep, stressed or not. My head hits the pillow, and I am alert, no matter how tired I felt minutes before. (Family, DH, former roommates, and friends from my prime slumber-party years can vouch for that.) For as long as I can remember, I've been accustomed to experiencing at least one night a week in which I just don't sleep well. And whenever I feel stressed, I tend to follow up that one bad night with several nights of sleeping poorly and one night of crashing hard. Then the cycle starts fresh at Sleepless Night One and repeats itself until whatever mini-storm has passed.

I noticed shortly after posting about not sleeping that suddenly I was sleeping through the night. Every night.

The magic of blogging? I doubt it. I'm thinking it might be a result of pushed-down stress. My theory is that the effort it takes to maintain the even keel I've been on results in a super-tired brain/body at night. And so I sleep when normally I would not. Or maybe I am simply handling it well. Or, maybe acupuncture helps, or BOOM, I broke a lifelong behavior pattern without even trying.

Tough to know. Then again — does it really matter? Sleep is good for me right now. It's probably best to let sleeping "rhymes with w!tches" lie.

Sleeplessness

I've been having trouble sleeping since January 1. That's when I started the BCPs to quiet my ovaries. Not entirely convinced that they needed that extra help before starting the more powerful drugs, but that's the protocol my RE uses. I worry that — like so many IVFers I've followed online — I will respond better to a different protocol. Clinics have to start with the procedure they feel is best for most and then tweak from there. I get that. There is no telling how I'll respond until we try it.

But thinking about the astronomical costs, both financial and emotional, makes me ill even on the premise that every part of the cycle plays out perfectly. The meds cocktail might be exactly what I need. I might produce a fair number of eggs (*cough,* for my age). Maybe some of them will fertilize properly — 2, 3? — and turn into viable embryos or blasts that can be put back into my uterus. If there are more than 2 survivors, perhaps there will be 1 or more to freeze for a later FET . . .

Notice how I don't carry that through to a positive outcome? I can't take myself there. That kind of hope is too painful for me. Over the years I've trained myself to tamp down my hopes, to stay as neutral as possible.

So, if I respond well to the protocol, we will have a complete IVF cycle. If I respond poorly early on, we can stop and convert to IUI (a procedure nobody recommends we try under other circumstances). If I respond poorly in an ambiguous might-be-okay-but can't-tell-yet way and we make it to retrieval and transfer, AND the poor response leads to a poor result, well, we are SOL. (Not in my acronym list, but you know that one.) We're also out of tries.

Should I hope for an early indication that the meds won't work? A small part of me does, because I almost never see 40-somethings succeed on the first IVF try. Meds, procedures, approaches get adjusted after that "dry run" cycle.

It don't come easy, Ringo. Sleep, I mean.