Weight Loss Series Week 6: 100-Mile Goal Met, The Dreaded Plateau, Egg Retrieval Before Frozen Embryo Transfer?, & A Turn of Events

Last week I got a little lazy with tracking my calories and keeping up the exercising, and it showed on the scale. But for this new week, and new month, I am looking forward to getting back in the swing of things. I want to try to keep the momentum going of changing my lifestyle to become healthier. I am brainstorming some ideas to try breaking my current plateau.

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Catch-up on Previous Weight Loss Series Posts

Weight Loss Series Week 1: Fertility Clinic Closed, Focusing on Health

Weight Loss Series Week 2: 100 Miles in April Challenge & Online Infertility Group

Weight Loss Series Week 3: The Difference & BFFs with My Treadmill

Weight Loss Series Week 4: Variety is the Spice of Life & Virtual DIY Walk of Hope

Weight Loss Series Week 5: Tough Week, NIAW, & Mini-Goal Met

Countdown Until Target Weight Date: 4 months & 25 days (as of 5-6-2020)

100-Mile Goal Met

I am happy to announce that I did it! I was able to complete the 100 Miles in April Challenge that my work participated in. I was kind of lazy in my last week compared to the other weeks, but I completed the challenge just in time! I’m looking forward to doing this 100 mile challenge again for the month of May. I think if I were to change my approach for this next month, I would try to be more consistent throughout the month instead of taking several days off from exercising and trying to make up for the lost time in long workout sessions. Other than that, I really enjoyed the challenge. It definitely got my butt off the couch more.

I already started my mileage for this month, Kurtis and I went for a drive out to Portage and walked the Blue Ice trail which was really nice. Near the beginning of that trail were these surreal looking trees that had moss clinging to the branches. I told him they looked like Dr. Suess trees as we stared up at them. He said it reminded him of the trees he saw in Oregon, very green like that.

Our recent walk on the Blue Ice trail in Portage, Alaska. It was cool to see the moss growing up the branches. See more photos of our hikes on Instagram @hopingforbabyblog

Further down the trail it opened up into a beautiful, scenic river. It was a wide river but was also very calm, with the sun shimmering off the water. I loved how the mountains were in the background with snow still covering the tops. This hike made for some great pictures. My goal for this summer is to get out more and discover new trails. We’ve driven past this trail before but this was the first time we actually walked it.

The Dreaded Plateau

So this previous week I was starting to slip back into some of my old habits, and the scale was proof of this. Dang it! I wouldn’t say I was fully indulging like I used to, but I was getting a little too loosey goosey with how I was doing things. I stopped tracking my calories and I was working out less. The scale has held steady and I didn’t lose any weight recently.

I’ve told myself I’ve got to get back into the swing of things because I still have work to do on getting healthy. I started brainstorming some ideas on how to challenge myself in different ways so I don’t revert back to my old ways. Sunday I decided to do mini-fast to help me get back on track.

Another idea I have is to challenge myself to improve my running speed. I want to improve my time for completing a 5K (or 3.1 miles). I haven’t focused on my time much before, but in general when I do alternating jogging and walking I average about 1 hour to complete 3 miles. So if I can shave that time down that would be great. My goal is to see some weekly progress with this time. Although the pandemic has shut down organized walks and running events, I’d still like to focus on this for myself.

Egg Retrieval Before Frozen Embryo Transfer?

One of the big questions I’ve been thinking about lately is whether I should do an egg retrieval before my FET. Why would I do this? Well, my fertility clinic in Seattle is still closed and it’s not possible to transfer my embryo now. I found the clinic called CNY, based in New York, has been doing fertility treatments and is not shut down. I was already planning on going with CNY in a year or two (depending on if I get pregnant with my embryo from Seattle), so I am debating whether to go ahead and do the egg retrieval in New York.

I have low ovarian reserve and a low AMH level, so time is of the essence for me. The longer I wait to do fertility treatments the less chance of having a healthy baby. I’ve heard that is precisely the reason for many clinics choosing to stay open, because they have some patients with certain diagnoses that if they do not have a baby now, they may never get that chance. If anything, I want to at least freeze my eggs. But ideally I’d like to freeze some embryos in New York, prior to transferring my Seattle embryo.

Earlier this year, I called up my Seattle clinic and asked them about the process of transferring my husband’s frozen sperm sample to CNY. They told me that I would need to become an established patient first at CNY before they could start that process. There is a fee to ship the specimen because it requires special handling in the cryopreserved container. I can’t remember the amount they quoted me to ship it but I think they said several hundred dollars, compared to all the other fertility treatments that is just a drop in the bucket.

The idea of wasting an egg each month with my menstrual cycle does not sit well with me. Natural conception during this waiting time is not an option for me, because the likelihood of another miscarriage and risk of health issues for me would be high. I’ve had three different doctors advise me against trying on my own again. So yeah, natural conception is out the window. But maybe if I am able to “bank” some new embryos during this pandemic, I won’t feel like I’m wasting time just sitting here waiting for my Seattle clinic to open. I have a phone consultation with CNY on May 15th so maybe they will be able to schedule me for an egg retrieval before the Seattle clinic opens.

A Turn of Events

I wrote everything you just read the other day, in preparation to post it on Tuesday. But there has been a recent turn of events as far as my fertility plans. I was lying in bed this morning with these thoughts weighing on me:

“How am I going to afford to go to New York right now to do an egg retrieval while my Seattle clinic is closed?”

“Will I have to take out a personal loan to afford another cycle?”

“Will I hear back from anyone today about a second job?”

“What if the pandemic sees a second wave of cases and I need to cancel my egg retrieval in New York?”

“When will I be able to do my FET my one embryo?”

So most of those questions I didn’t have an answer for. But I thought I could at least tackle one question right away. Before I even got out of bed, I decided to call my Seattle clinic and ask them if they had any idea when they would reopen. The guy who answered said he was just with the answering service because they were all in a meeting, and that he had no idea when they would reopen. Dang, still no answer.

Today marked one month since the last time I received any update from my clinic. I decided to send out an email asking my medical team if they knew when they might reopen. I quickly got a response back form my nurse who let me know that they decided to reopen for women over 25 and for those with an AMH level below 1.0. I’m both of those! We sent a couple messages back and forth and I am all set up with starting my FET process again.

I am over the moon excited to be starting up again. I told myself that if my Seattle clinic was not open by the time I had my phone consult with CNY, then I was going to proceed with my egg retrieval in New York. My one and only little embryo is finally going to be transferred. My nurse is creating my calendar of medications today. I already have all of my meds from before when I was originally scheduled to do my transfer on April 24th. I used none of my meds, and none of them have expired, and for those reasons I am grateful for not having lost any money on meds like other women have experienced.

My hopes are way up right now and I’m hoping that nothing will interfere with this process again. The only thing I can think of getting in the way is that my flight might be cancelled or delayed. The reason I think this is because I’ve had family and friends who’ve tried to come back home from out of state and their flights got delayed several times, and this was multiple people I’ve talked to. I think my best bet is to arrive in Seattle several days prior to my FET, just in case my flight gets cancelled or delayed.

Since we all know fertility meds tend to bloat us because we retain a crazy amount of water, I’ve decided to pause my Weight Loss Series for now. I’m still going to be focused on getting as healthy as I can before my FET. I’ll be starting back up with my FET posts here shortly, so keep an eye out for new posts about my FET. Those posts will be a continuation of where I left off prior to the COVID clinic shut downs. In other words, I’ll be starting back up with FET Week 13.