Lots o' updates

I had my follow-up appt with Dr. Boob this morning and all went well. It's two weeks after my surgery, so they needed to remove the sutures and listen to me whimper about the allergic reaction I've been having to the surgical tape. There's not alot they can do for the rash, it's all gross and dry now, so it's a matter of letting it flake off. But it's such an itchy mofo, it's driving me bananas. The doctor said I could try benadryl but was not all that concerned. And I guess when you spend all day with cancer patients, an "itchy" nipple is pretty low on your list of priorities.

She again went over the biopsy results, that they found absolutely nothing bad this time (yippee!) but said that my risk of developing breast cancer one day has double/tripled over the rate of the general Caucasian female public. I say Caucasian, because there are pretty drastic differences in rates amongst races, so I was judged against my peer group. Over the next 5 years, my risk (at my age) is 1.5% to another's .5%. Still a 98.5% chance of NOT developing it, and I'll definitely take those odds. Then, my risk of developing BC by the time I'm 90 (if I should be so lucky) is 24% to others 12%. I don't LOVE those odds, but it's still saying I have a 75% chance of not developing it, ever. Dr. Boob is great, we both lean on the aggressive side for treatment, so she thinks with good monitoring, even if I did develop anything eventually, we'd catch it early. The plan is to do a follow up ultrasound on this issue in six months and then move to the usual annual mammograms. She said I could have the option of also staggering in annual MRIs. I'll have to research this, especially the risk of repeated MRIs. I know they have a risk false positives, so it's mostly a choice of potential needless surgical biopsies for the peace of mind that you're catching anything early. My gut says that I would opt to do the MRIs -- I'd rather be safe than sorry, but I'll need to ponder.

I was also going to write about the chromosomal karyotype results that I FINALLY got on Peanut today, after repeated hounding of the OBGYN's office. But, alas, I need to do some work, will post on that tomorrow...

GOOD news for once!!!

I was not expecting to hear back from my breast surgeon so soon - I only had the surgery last Thursday so I figured the pathology from the excisional breast biopsy would take a least a week. When the phone rang just 5 minutes ago and I saw the hospital on the Caller ID, I knew it was her and I was scared. I was not mentally prepared for this yet.

I answered the phone and immediately my beloved, no-B.S. doctor just got right to the point. They saw nothing bad, not even the atypical hyperplastic cells that were seen on the less-invasive biopsy in July! Yay, yay, yay! This is the best news possible, I hadn't even been hoping for this much, I thought the best case scenario would be that they saw nothing worse than before. It didn't even enter my brain to possibly entertain the idea that they'd see NOTHING bad.

The doctor said there was the slightest chance that they excised the wrong area as the first biopsy should have left a clip in my breast to pinpoint the exact spot. However, the first biopsy radiologist didn't leave a clip because the nodule appeared to somewhat collapse as she biopsied it, which made her confident that it was only a (fluid-filled) cyst. We were both surprised to see an abnormal pathology on that one. They're 99% confident they got the right spot, and so am I, being the one poked and prodded. They did a pretty thorough ultrasound in the area before skewering me with that wire last Thursday, and this was the only obvious nodule, so - again - confident we got the right spot. The doctor also said this latest pathology also showed microscopic earlier trauma to the area, meaning it was almost definitely the area biopsied in the past.

I have a follow-up appointment with this doctor next week, to check on my incision and we'll talk about follow-up care to make sure I'm good going forward, probably another ultrasound and mammo in six months. I warned her that I was going to be asking her opinion on whether continuing fertility stims would be a bad idea for me and she launched right into it. She said if all she cared about for her patients was as a breast, she would advise them never to do fertility meds, never smoke, never drink, never do anything that could put the breast at risk. And she acknowledged that playing with your female hormones is not a great thing for any of our reproductive organs. But, she was so cool and adamant that she cares about her patients as a whole person and wants them to be happy and healthy as complete people and clearly having children is a big part of what will make me fulfilled and because of that, it's worth the risk. I told her my plan to do stims for maybe six more off-and-on months (IVF, break, IVF, break, etc.) and by then I'd be ready to move on to donor eggs anyway and she said six months in the scheme of things won't make a difference anyway.

I'm practically crying as I write this. Both from relief but also because I have been starved for good news over the past year. Two miscarriages, a practically zero response to three IUIs and IVF and four surgical procedures always had me looking around the bend, waiting for the next slap in the face. It's been such a long time since I hung up the phone after speaking with a doctor or nurse and had a smile on my face and it feels great.

NoodleGuy just got home and we're off for some celebration sushi and maybe even a scorpion bowl! Yippee!

Well, Big Day #1 turns out to be not so big...

The OBGYN appt went fine, I'm healing well - but grrrr.... the tissue analysis is not back yet. I adore my OBGYN so I don't blame her, I know those results sometimes take a while. She's going to call me when she gets the results, probably within the week. Bah, talk about anticlimactic.

We're both pretty sure it'll be chromosomal but she thinks unless it's the exact same problem as last time (balanced translocation on chromosome 18) that it's more of a crapshoot (egg pun intended) than something with which a geneticist could help. She did not discount my fears that stims are causing my breast cell issues, as she says that environment is a factor and I'm definitely altering the environment. But I told her our plan, if the breast surgeon thinks it's OK, to possibly do a couple more IVFs until the spring (with PGD) and if nothing happens, get a full boob workup again to make sure I didn't mess up more cells, and then move on the donor eggs. It'll be timed well with next year's tax refund, to help pay for it, so that's good at least.

I'll know alot more of where I'm going in the next few weeks after the results phone calls (miscarriage and boob) next week and STBY follow-ups with the breast surgeon and RE the week after.

More waiting, I guess. Patience is a hard-won IF virture.

Big Day #1

So, this morning at 11am I have my follow-up appt with my OBGYN. It's exactly two weeks since I found out that Peanut had no heartbeat at 10 weeks (or stopped at 9w5d to be exact). It was so awful mostly because of the shock. After fabulous betas and two great ultrasounds at 6 and 8 weeks, I actually let myself feel good. I had been spotting pretty badly from weeks 4-7.5 and was nervous for the 8-week ultrasound, but after Peanut measured right on target, had a heartrate of 159bpm and the NP gave me an A+, I actually really started to believe that the pregnancy was real. And then, boom. No heartbeat at 10 weeks. Seemingly out of nowhere.

Today I find out the results of the tissue analysis after the D&E. I suppose they'll also do a quick gyn exam to make sure everything's healing as it should but I don't really care about that. I seem to be frustratingly healthy as far as healing, ovulating and all that. I just can't conceive a chromosomally normal baby. I'm 99.9% sure the results here will be chromosomal abnormality again, so the question will be where we go from here. It'll be 3 strikes against us chromosomally, if it is. The first miscarriage (balanced translocation at chromosome 18), a failed IVF in June (which was after a perfect 8-cell, grade 1 embryo was transferred and my RE says that 90% of the time when perfect embryos don't implant, it's due to chromosomal issues) and then this one.

So, I'll gather my info today, try not to cry in the waiting room with the insanely huge pregnant women. I need to try to turn my brain off from too much analyzing or negative thought today if the results are what I think they'll be because I need to try to go into surgery tomorrow (Big Day #2) with some sort of positive energy.

I'm trying, at least.

Apologies

Oh, blogosphere, I owe you a big apology. I don't even know where to start. So many things have been happening, so I've been swamped. But it's mostly been that I have a few RL friends that read my old blog and I wasn't ready to share the news with RL people and was so incredibly slow about moving everything over to a new blog.

Anyhoo, the big news is... I'm pregnant!!!! On a break cycle! Me, the woman who only ever mustered one single follie on 15 days and hiroshima doses of stims for IVF. I got pregnant on the cycle AFTER by last IVF BFN. WTF?? We weren't even trying!! Sure, I was temping, but that was just to see what my cycles were doing leading into IVF#2 in September. But we drank like sailors and ate like crack addicts and though we BDed, it was the fun kind not the get-your-preseed, assume-the-most-penetrating-position-regardless-of-pleasure-or-comfort kind. Then, unbeknownst to me, on the day that my eggie was getting down with DH's swimmers, I had a minor surgical procedure. Finally I went mountain biking (and continued to drink like a sailor) over a long weeked when implantation was taking place. Go me! Do everything wrong and it worked!

My only ever other BFP was a bitterwsweet one. I never really gained steam and we knew from the betas that it was most likely doomed: 12.5 at 14dpo, 60 at 17dpo and 246 at 20dpo. So I went in with trepidation this time and the betas rocked. 299 at 15dpo and 2,087 at 20dpo. The 6-week u/s measured at 5w5d (not unusual for that weirdo LMP dating technique to be off by a couple of days for a natural pregnancy) and though I was warned that many people don't see a h/b until 6.5-7 weeks, there it was, going strong, at 117bpm! Oh, I forgot to mention that I've been spotting since week 4. Not the "safe" brown spotting, but the dreaded red spotting with little solid flecks. I was fairly calm when it first started leading up to a nervous breakdown the day before my u/s. I drove an hour to the clinic, determined to make them test me on the spot. And they would have, but my nurse convinced me that it was OK, the signs were not unusual. Plus, I would have have to go with Dr. Dirtbag instead of my beloved RE scheduled for the next day. So I waited and it was great.

So, now, of course, I'm panicking again. The spotting continued through earlier this week, until a lovely bout of diarrhea seemed to have traumatized nether regions enough to behave with the spotting for the past few days. Oh, and that unpleasant bathroom experience was not random, but from a cruise to the caribbean I'd been on for the past week. Never did I want to take a vacation less -- crazy IF lady must fly, drive 5 hours to a port, cruise to Swine Flu central for 7 days and then travel the reverse just as she finds out she's 6 weeks pg and spotting. Nice! The cruise was fun and blessedly relaxing (will post pix soon) but with the worries + the bathroom issues, I was never so happy to get home this Monday.

Now for a little dose of reality...my happy news is somewhat off-set that on this very same day of hearing my only ever great beta, I finally tracked down my lame PCP to get the results of a breast biopsy I had a few weeks ago. I've been trying to get the results for a week. FINALLY they called me back (thanks for nothing) and said the results showed some atypical cells, stressed that they did NOT think it was cancer. Long story short, after pow-wowing with a breast surgeon and my RE several times, we've decided to go ahead and have the area removed (out-patient surgery) as soon as I enter the 2nd trimester. The area may very likely not progress any further or be offset by the increased progesterone now in my system -- I will post later on about my theories that the high fertility stims I've been on may have caused this problem. But anyway, though surgery while pregnant is not ideal, this isn't a major one. It'll be local anethesia + sedation instead of general anesthesia, which is good. And we all decided that getting the area out + allowing me not to worry about it for the next 14 months (pregnancy + nursing) was more important than the very small chance that something could go wrong. Not an easy decision, but once it was made, it felt like the right one.

So... whew!! That's my story. I have a 2nd u/s tomorrow morning (8w1d). It should have been at 7 weeks or so but I was on that poop-inducing cruise. So, it's been 2.5 weeks since my last u/s with continued spotting and I'm pretty nervous for tomorrow. But determined to think positively.