Good morning everyone,

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! I'm happy to see 2013 come to an end and make it all a distant memory, bring on 2014!

The last time I posted I had just learned the IVF cycle hadn't worked. It's been a long 6 weeks and this failed cycle was the worst mentally. I went back to my fertility doctor a couple of weeks later hoping I could get one more IVF cycle in before having to see my oncologist a week before Christmas. During that appointment, he said we needed to consider the reason I wasn't conceiving was the cancer could have come back and my uterus could be in distress. The eggs were perfect, they fertilized perfect, the transfer was perfect. Of course for women without my cancer history, sometimes IVF doesn't work but he always has the cancer risk at the front of his mind and I'm happy about that. I hadn't been on my cancer meds for 9 months and that was when I had my last D&C. He said we couldn't talk about another IVF cycle until I get clearance from my oncologist.

I left his office in a panic, calling my oncologist's scheduler asking to reschedule my appointment to ASAP. She asked if something was wrong and I explained I can't do another IVF until I see her and I can't wait. I got in a week later and burst into tears when she came in the room. She said my fertility doctor is just being overly cautious and it would be good to check things out just to see what's going on. She said I could wait till after the holidays but I told her I couldn't wait, the anxiety would kill me. She brought me right then to her surgery scheduler and the soonest day I could go in was Friday the 13th. Again I panicked as I got my original diagnosis on a Friday the 13th but I didn't want to wait any longer. I asked to be first for surgery, she did some re-arranging and I was able to get the 530am appointment, I was so thankful.

Had surgery on Friday the 13th, begged the anesthesiologist not to wake me up in the O/R like I had before but she explained I had to be awake for them to remove all the tubes, etc. I told her I had extreme anxiety and she said she would see what she could do but no guarantees. Apparently she knocked me out good because I didn't fully wake up in recovery until almost 3 hours after surgery was over. My poor DH kept checking on my status as it never took this long before him getting to sit with me. I was put on all my restrictions for 4 weeks vs. the usual 2 weeks and they sent me home with some heavy meds but I didn't need more than a day of them. I learned afterwards that the scraping was very intense to get a very good sample.

The results would be available in 5-7 days but I always get them earlier. Not this time! Every time my phone rang/dinged/etc. I would get butterflies in my stomach. On day 6 I emailed my oncologist telling her I couldn't wait any longer. I finally got a response about 2 hours later with my fertility doctor cc'd on it. Go get pregnant!! The cancer is still being suppressed with the fertility drugs and forced ovulation. I couldn't believe it. I just kept staring at the pathology report and immediately called my DH. I was so happy. Then of course, 30 seconds later I'm emailing my fertility nurse asking if I can refill my prescriptions and start up again. But it doesn't work that way! The worst part is we finally just met our 2013 health insurance deductible and now it starts all over again. But I know I'm not alone in that, it happens to everyone.

I was able to get a cancellation appointment with my fertility doctor on Christmas Eve! I was the last appointment and we were there forever as there was no traffic and then they were running late. I didn't care. I cancelled Christmas with everyone in our family and couldn't find my Christmas spirit anyways. I didn't care if we were at the hospital for 12 hours, as long as I left with a plan. When I met with the fertility doctor, he explained that I just had surgery 11 days ago so I have to wait to heal from that and then he will have to check for scar tissue. So it will be another 30-60 days until I can start a new cycle. I did some bloodwork so he can do a genetic test to see why my ovaries didn't respond to the fertility drugs as expected. He never has a patient show up pretty much right after surgery so he didn't really know what to do with me (but at least he already knows I don't waste any time when he or my oncologist ask me to do something. I follow through immediately. :) ). He said he doesn't expect better results than the last cycle and hopefully I get 2 more eggs like I already did. I told him I'm ok with that and don't want any eggs leftover frozen in storage if I can never use them. We spoke briefly about a surrogate and adoption but I told him we aren't interested in either of those options right now. I want to carry my own baby in my own body and I can't think of anything else.

So that's the long update of the last month. I'm so glad the holidays are over. I can't wait for 2014 to get here. Please keep praying for me, you have no idea how much it means to me. I have several support groups online that I chat with and I get more support from strangers than I do from real family. But that's a whole other topic. :)

Happy New Year to you all, I hope 2014 is a magical year for all of us!