14: Young Infertility

14 months.  I’m still frustrated.

I was bouncing around on pinterest last night and I kept coming across articles that blamed growing infertility on the fact that women are waiting longer to have kids.  That women in their 30’s and 40’s aren’t nearly as fertile as they were in their teens and 20’s.  While that’s all fine and dandy, what about people in their 20’s?  Is that to say my infertility isn’t as bad as someone in their 40’s because I still have time to work on it?  Does it hurt less to feel like my body is failing me every month?

So, I googled it.  and I came across this blog.  She stopped updating it in 2010, but a post from 2006 caught my attention.  She wrote, “I know I’m not the only young infertile woman out there. I also know that I’m not the only young infertile woman who feels like she isn’t a “real” member of the infertility club because she’s not backing up against advanced maternal age. The benefit to being young and infertile is obviously that I do, in theory, have more time to try to get pregnant before I hit menopause. I’m incredibly grateful for that time, especially since we’d like to have more than one child someday. Still, I am infertile, and that hurts me just as much as it hurts someone who’s 10 years older than I am.”

I realize we’re in the minority, but I don’t like that young infertility is so incredibly minimized in society.   Just because I have time, doesn’t mean I want to take all of that time to figure things out.  I don’t want to be one of those couples who waits years and years to discuss treatment options.  I don’t wait my eggs to get any older than they already are.  I want to be young with my children and my grandchildren.  I want to see as much of their lives as I possibly can.

At this point, I’ll be less than a month away from being 25 before we have a baby.  And while that’s still incredibly young,  how old will I be when we manage to have our second?  Will a third even be an option?  I’m still frustrated.  Can you tell?

BUT, I’m going up to my mom and stepdad’s cabin in Wisconsin today.  We’re burning down their barn. It’s the little things in life. 😉  It will be a nice weekend to recuperate from the past month.

Pre-Baby Shopping Confessions.

Just as a side note… If you search “HSG test” in google images, my uterus is no where to be found on the first 10 pages.  I don’t know if I should be appalled or grateful.. 😉

This has been the topic of a few other Trying to Conceive blogs lately, and it’s been on my mind a lot for some reason: buying things for your baby/maternity wear before you get pregnant.  Dude, I’m totally guilty of both of those things.  The first month we were trying to get pregnant and I was blissfully assuming it would only take a month or two to actually get pregnant, I was shopping for one of my best friend’s little boys’ Christmas present.  My thought process that one can never have too many books led me to the toddler’s book section.  More specifically to the Dr. Seuss books.  I love Dr. Seuss.  One of the things I’ve been most looking forward to buying our baby is a complete collection of Dr. Seuss books.  I picked out Put Me in the Zoo (it’s not actually by Dr. Seuss, but it’s still adorable).  I gave him the little stuffed animal that matched.

I was so positive that I too would soon have a little person, that I bought myself a copy.  After it sat on my desk for a few months, I convinced myself that I had jinxed us and it made it’s way into the bottom of one of my filing bins.

I swore that I wouldn’t buy anything else until we not only were pregnant, but through our first trimester.  I’ve done really awesome for the past year at not even thinking about buying anything baby related…

 

WIP = Work in Progress.. I ❤ knitting terms.

Until Ravelry sent me an email that their WIP maternity shirts were back in stock.  I signed up to be emailed when they got restocked almost a year ago…  It all went downhill from there.

I currently have 2 of them sitting in my office with a 3rd on the way.  No, I’m not stocking up.  Their sizing runs epically small and I’m waiting for my extra large to come in the mail.  I promise, I’ll send the other two back.  Although… Wearing the large now wouldn’t technically be lying since this whole thing is a work in progress…. 😉

 

 

 

 

Finally, this onesie.  I have a really bad habit of going back to this picture when I’ve had a really bad day, or have a month when I’ve really gotten my hopes up.

It usually goes something like this: Get teary.  Put on melancholy music such as “Heartbeats” by Jose Gonzalez or “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri, open my “For the Future Baby Geelen(s)” board on pintrest, look over all of the wonderful things I’ve been collecting, get even more teary, end up looking at this onesie with “Heartbeats” on repeat.  Repeat once or twice and get on with life.

I gave in to how positive I feel about this month and bought it.  It’s also on its way here.  By the time it gets here, I’ll either being a complete mess or completely elated.  Either way, it will serve it’s purpose.

Those are my pre-baby shopping confessions.  NO MORE!!  What are your thoughts on this?  Are you guilty of pre-baby shopping?

Also, 9 DPO. 3 days to go.

 

Boo

I’ve been feeling a little bad with a cold the past couple days.  Just congestion for the most part.  My temperature on my chart has been high for me, but not technically a fever (think 98.4 when it’s usually 96.8).
I came home from the Animal Expo today to find Jeremy sprawled on the couch sporting a very nice fever. 😦  He’s a trooper though.  He’s freezing with the chills, but keeping himself uncovered so he doesn’t get too warm.  He’s been popping tylenol like a champ.  We have to keep his temperature down so it doesn’t mess up his sperm analysis next month.   He NEVER gets sick and now he’s been sick with a fever twice this winter.  And just when things were supposed to be getting back to normal…  WHAT IS GOING ON????

Also.  We’re 8 days past ovulation.  4 to go.

ESL Changes.

Today was a wonderful day.  I’ve been feeling kind of down both emotionally and physically the past few days, but I feel a million times better.  Positive things make a wold of difference. 🙂

I’ve been substituting for the Downers Grove ESL group for the past 2 weeks and I’m really enjoying them.  There are only 4 of them, but they’re relatively advanced.  They encourage me to read things in Spanish so they can correct me for once. 😉  I actually think my Spanish is slowly improving.  Today was my last scheduled day with them.  I’ve been on the fence about asking to be transferred there permanently.  They only have 1 teacher, while we have 4 in Bolingbrook.  It doesn’t seem fair.  Today was going so wonderfully that I thought I had just about made up my mind.  And then those wonderful students asked me to stay in Downers Grove with them.  They told me they really liked how I explained things and that they were really happy with how much they were understanding.  That totally pushed me over the edge.  I called in before I even started my car to go home and asked for a transfer.  I know my Bolingbrook students enjoy me and goodness knows I LOVE them, but they have some very capable teachers out there.  The other Downers Grove teacher is a wonderful lady, but she doesn’t know any Spanish, and to the students, making an effort in Spanish speaks volumes about your capability to teach them.  I think she and I will make an awesome team.  I think this will be a wonderful change for me.

I never thought I would enjoy teaching.  I started teaching ESL to get a better understanding of what it meant to be a teacher.  I thought it would be a neat experience and a good chunk of volunteer work to put on my resume.  Now, however, I’m starting to think there are very few activities I enjoy more than teaching.  I think I’d be happy as a clam to do it every day for the rest of my life.  I wish it happened more than once a week.    I’m so lucky to have been able to have the chance to try this profession out before I spent years of my life in school for it.  I am eagerly anticipating get my masters degree in education. 🙂

Meanwhile, this month is kicking my butt…  For serious.

BUT, looking positive, I did ovulate 2 days earlier than normal.  We’re currently 5 days past ovulation.  Yay!!  Maybe the acupuncture is working?  I can tell you that acupuncture is doing a world of good for my circulation.  My hands and feet are usually painfully chilly.  These days, they’re the warmest parts of my body. 😉

 

HSG-tastic

I had my HSG test yesterday.  I’m not going to lie, the procedure itself was excruciating.  The 600 milligrams of ibuprofen they had me take an hour before hand didn’t even make a dent.

Dr. M. put a catheter through my cervix.  The catheter had a balloon on the end, which she then inflated.  She injected the dye and quickly took a series of x-rays.  The whole thing took less than 5 minutes, but I thought I was going to die.  I’m sure actually being pregnant and going through labor greatly rivals how awful it was, but to date, this was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced.

As soon as she took the catheter out, the pain decreased almost completely.  I had a really dull ache the rest of the day.  Last night, I really just felt uncomfortable, but today I’m feeling pretty crampy.

The procedure itself hurt a million time more than I imagined, however afterwards hurt considerably less than I was expecting.  I suppose it was a good trade off.

And now for some pictures, yes? 😉  My mom was awesome and came with me.  They let her stand behind the glass with the computers.  She took pictures for me.  Because she’s the best.

Yep, those are MY lady parts. 😉

Not sure what you’re looking at?

All labeled, just for you 😉

And just what were the results?

Perfection.

Here is Dr. M informing me that, not only are my lady parts perfectly shaped and in the perfect places, they’re also perfectly clear…

I may or may not be crying here.  It was involuntary..  Don’t judge me. 😉

 

 

 

So now?  We wait.  Jeremy’s next test is at the end of March.  If he’s got perfect swimmers, we start on clomid and cross our fingers.  If not, then she passes us off to an infertility doctor and we start seriously considering insemination and continue to cross our fingers.

She wants us to continue to try this month because I haven’t ovulated yet and the dye may have washed some gunk out of my fallopian tubes that the x-ray didn’t pick up.

So for the rest of the day, I’m hanging out with my stick on heating packs.  I’ve got acupuncture later and I’m dragging myself to my kickboxing class after that.

Also, I sent in my deposit for grad school! Wooo!

Cleaning and the Dairy Diet.

The past couple of years, I’ve really started channeling my nerves through cleaning.  My husband knows when something is really stressing me out when it’s 10pm and I’m scrubbing our kitchen spotless or suddenly folding laundry that’s been sitting for days.  I’ve decided this is great for keeping things clean, especially with everything that’s been going on lately. 😉

My HSG test is scheduled for 8 am tomorrow morning.  I have to get to the hospital at 7:30, which means my mom and I are leaving my house at 6:45.  I’m nervous.  I’ve gotten such mixed reviews from everyone about how much it hurts during and after.  Some women are fine, but others found it awful.  Dr. M told me it would hurt.  I’m looking forward to finding out if anything is going on.  A big part of me is really hoping there’s something little and fixable going on in there.  Something that would explain and take care of everything. 🙂  That would be wonderful.  If there’s nothing there, we’re back to square one again.  Also, be prepared to see pictures of my inside lady parts.  I’m getting copies. 😉

I’m having a charting issue again this month…

I don’t know what this is all about…  My acupuncturist says it’s because my liver is hot.  But why is my liver hot again when I’ve had some decent looking charts the past few months?  I’m wondering if it has something to do with the temperature in our bedroom…  Someone likes it to be crazy hot in there while we’re sleeping.  I, however, like it to be nice and cool…  I’ve been losing the battle.

Meanwhile, I’ve decided to embrace the high fat dairy diet…
It worked for the mice… 😉   If you have no idea what I’m talking about, watch None In the Oven’s “Dairy” episode.  For real though.  Since there have been some studies that the higher fat content in dairy products help with ovulation, I’ve decided that it can’t hurt to start drinking whole milk.  I work out 5 times a week, I deserve some organic whole milk. 😉  Jeremy, however, is sticking with skim.

Sooo, I’m spending the rest of the day cleaning and catching up on Etsy orders.  We’re planning on being at an Animal Expo in a couple weeks, and I’m way behind on things.  Updates tomorrow.