Cold Turkey

I'm no longer nursing Ian. Yesterday morning at 5 am was the last time Ian nursed from me. As of today, I have gone cold turkey. My right boob (the only one I've been using for the last 2 months) is a bit full and achy, but I've taken some Advil and think I'll be able to get through the day. Just like when I dropped the nighttime nurse 1 week ago, Ian didn't seem to care much that he wasn't nursing. My husband got up with him this morning around 5:15 am and gave him a sippy cup full of 3 ounces of 100% breast milk. He sucked that down and then drank some more cow milk. So he's doing okay. I'm going to keep sending Ian to daycare with a mix of breast milk and cow milk until I run out of breast milk, but I already know that Ian will drink 100% cow milk, so that's a relief. I'm sad that we are at the end of our nursing relationship but happy to see that my son is still thriving and happy. And I can take the next 2 months or so to just have my body back before we head into a FET cycle!

We just booked a trip to St. Croix at the end of May and I look forward to scuba diving while on vacation. One of the benefits of not being pregnant is that I will be able to dive worry-free! We are traveling with my in-laws and so it will be nice to have 2 extra sets of eyes on Ian. When 2 of us our diving, the other 2 can stay and play with Ian on the beach. We were also able to use the points we have accumulated on our credit card to buy our 3 roundtrip plane tickets. So that saved us over $1500, which is super awesome! It makes me feel better about all of the credit card spending we have done lately. :-)

***Update***
I just called my RE's office to let them know that I stopped breastfeeding. I now have to wait 4 weeks for my prolactin levels to drop and allow us to move forward with a FET. The bloodletting is already in my calendar for April 22. :-)

***Update***
Have I mentioned that my right breast is full and sore? It could definitely be worse, but ow! I am looking totally lopsided. I stopped using my left breast to nurse Ian months ago and my right boob is as big as it could be right now! I hope no one at work notices!

Appointment with RE

I'm back from our appointment with the RE. She was much more pleasant this time around and actually seemed to have a personality. :-) Here are the facts. She highly recommends trying the 3 frozen embryos before doing a fresh IVF round. They are embryos made from 2 years ago and so have a better chance of having good genetics. Given my age, blood work results and prior IVF success, she isn't worried that we are wasting precious time doing FETs. She has no doubt that I will respond well to the next IVF (if we have to do one) and even said that the only reason we had only 4 eggs last time is because she purposely had me on extremely conservative doses of the stimulating hormones. I'm okay with this plan. I like the idea of using up the frozen embies so that we don't have to make the decision of whether or not to keep paying the storage fees!

There is a 50-50 chance of each of the embryos being viable after the thaw. Each of the embryos is frozen in its own straw and the lab will thaw them sequentially. So they will thaw one, wait to see if its viable (i.e., more than half the cells are still alive) and if it's not, move on to the next one. That way, they won't waste any if more than one is viable. Apparently, if an embryo survives the thaw, it has the same chance of becoming a baby as an embryo from a fresh cycle. And transferring more than one does not increase the chances of a round working. So the plan is to thaw one-by-one and transfer back the first one that is viable (if any are viable). I want to stick to my guns and not transfer more than one each time because I really don't want to risk having multiples. I'll have to remind myself of this if we start having multiple failures.

Each FET will take up 2 months of time. So if all 3 embryos are viable (unlikely) and each FET with one of the embryos fails, we're looking at "wasting" 6 months of time before moving on to IVF. I'm okay with this timeline. I want to have another baby 2-3 years younger than my son. If the first FET works, we're looking at the 2 year timeline. If we move on to IVF, we're looking at closer to the 2.5 to 3 year timeline.

So the next step is that I have to get a uterine ultrasound tomorrow (on day 5 of my cycle). This is a requirement for insurance approval (as is the CD3 blood work). They need to make sure that my uterus is still good post-pregnancy and there isn't anything wrong. Then I have to stop breastfeeding and wait 4 weeks for my prolactin levels to fall. They won't do a cycle on someone who is breastfeeding because (a) the hormones/steroids aren't good for the baby and (b) high levels of prolactin can interfere with implantation. I plan on stopping when Ian turns one, which is in only 5 more days! Then after my next period, I can test my prolactin levels and hopefully they'll be low enough so that after the next period, we can start the FET cycle. So this puts us on target to do a FET in mid-May, early June. Wow!!

I think it is very fortuitous that I got my period back this past Monday. It was perfect timing. I was able to get my CD3 bloodwork done the day before my appointment with the RE (which appointment I made months and months ago) and I'm even able to get the uterine ultrasound done tomorrow! I am full of hope right now!

**** Update - My uterus looked just fine.

CD3 Bloodwork

Since I got my period yesterday (for the first time in almost 21 months!), I decided I might as well call my RE to see if I should get my CD3 bloodwork done for our attempts to have Baby #2. I was surprised to find out that the doctor said that I SHOULD do it. They won't test my prolactin levels because I'm still nursing Ian, but they said they could go ahead and check everything else (and apparently it doesn't matter that it's my first period in a really long time). So that's tomorrow! I know that a FET (or IVF cycle depending on what we decide with the doctor on Thursday) is a couple of months away at the very least, but it feels good to take steps towards that goal. So tomorrow I'll head over to the lab and get my blood drawn. And then on Thursday, we have the appointment with the RE to come up with a roadmap to Baby #2.

Part of me is SO excited to be starting this again. Part of me is absolutely dreading the mind games that I inflict upon myself. I have such mixed feelings because in order to take the next steps, Ian has to stop breastfeeding. They won't give me any drugs or do any kind of cycling while I'm still breastfeeding. So I need to make the conscious decision to stop that and wean my son. I also kind of want to have my body back for a little while - some time when I'm not injecting myself with hormones, not getting wanded up the wazoo, not pregnant, not recovering from a C-section and not breastfeeding. I just want to be me, if just for a month or so. So I may work that into the plan.

Thoughts about Baby #2

I'm sorry if this is painful for anyone reading who doesn't yet have Baby #1, but I really want Baby #2. I'm the youngest of 3 children and I really want Ian to have a sibling (and I can only hope and pray that he and his sibling have a great relationship). I don't care whether that sibling is a boy or a girl as long as that little child is healthy. But I'm starting to get nervous. Ian will be 11 months old on the 16th, which means I really do have to start thinking seriously about Baby #2. And the anxiety has already set in. We have 3 little frozen embryos waiting for us and I'm desperately hoping that one of them will become Baby #2 so that I don't have to go through the misery of another IVF cycle. But Dr. Google isn't my friend and I learned some alarming statistics about how 30% of frozen embryos do not survive the thaw. That means that statistically, one of our little guys won't even make it to transfer, leaving us with only 2 embies. Two chances. I'm nervous. Our appointment with our RE is in roughly 3 weeks and since I know nothing about FETs, I'll have to get lots of information from her.

Oh, and by the way, I STILL don't have my period 11 months post-partum. Hrm. I'm still exclusively breastfeeding Ian, but now that he's eating lots (and lots!) of solid food, he's not drinking that much. He nurses at 5 am and at 7 pm and during daycare, he gets two three-ounce bottles of breastmilk. So I would have thought with this decrease in nursing/need for breastmilk, my period would have returned. Nope. As of next week, I'm going to stop pumping at all and we'll use my frozen stash of breastmilk for Ian's daycare needs. Hopefully, by dropping the pump, my period will return. Otherwise, I'll just need the RE to give me meds to start my period. And by that point, Ian will be just about 1 year old and we can start him drinking cow milk. I'll be very sad to stop my nursing relationship with him (extremely sad actually), but it really is time to get the show on the road for #2!