Changes

My CD 20 monitoring appointment didn’t tell us anything good.  Except that my reproductive cycles are seriously messed up– which isn’t good.

On the ultrasound, they saw an 18mm follicle on my right ovary.  They were unhappy with both the size of the follicle (they want it to be around 21mm) and the day of my cycle.  My estrogen came back at 118 (they want to see 250-300).  Around day 14, not day 20.  I definitely haven’t ovulated yet.

The nurse called me yesterday and told me that normally they want patients to continue to try to get pregnant on unmedicated cycles, but they’re recommending that we stop trying this month.  They said if we somehow happened to get pregnant, with the small size of the follicle and my low estrogen, it probably wouldn’t end well.  Bummer.

I was hoping that Thursday was the end of our monitoring cycle, but since things are still changing in my body, they want to do one more blood draw and ultrasound next Friday to see if I managed to ovulate.  The following Monday, we’ll meet with Dr. B and discuss our options.

What are our options?  With how low my estrogen is, you’d think the clomid would have worked.  Instead it just gave me some monster follicles that turned into cysts.  I’m not doing any more research.  It’s not doing me any good.  I’m waiting until we see Dr. B.  I’m hoping he will come up with a kick ass treatment plan.  Or any treatment plan.

In other news, we close on our house in less than 3 weeks.  It’s going by WAY faster than I expected it to.  Probably because we have a lot of other stuff going on.  We spent one evening this past week exploring the river walk by our new house.  Aurora, IL  is built around the Fox River.  Aurora used to be a great hub for trading back in the day because boats could get up and down the river with relative ease.  The downtown sits directly on the riverbanks with lots of bridges connecting the east and west sides of the city.  I was born and, other than while I was away at school, lived on the west side my whole life.  Growing up, our schools were on the west side and most of our friends lived on the west side.  We never had much reason to leave the west side until now.  Our new house sits on the east side of the river in North Aurora.   We can walk to the river in less than 5 minutes, and the river walk there is gorgeous.  I was never a big fan of taking walks just for the sake of walking, but I’ve changed my mind.  I’m excited to take the dog there on walks and to eventually take our kids there on their bikes for an evening ride.

In my mind, this house represents a new beginning for us.  It’s giving me hope in our future and showing me that life will continue to move forward and not stay as stagnant as it feels right now.

Grad school starts in less than 3 weeks too.  There are a lot of changes coming up and I am more than ready for them. 🙂

19: Birth Control Optional.

I got up bright and early this morning to go to my CD 3 blood draw/ ultrasound.  I was having pain off and on all weekend, so I knew the cysts were still hanging around.  Getting put on birth control after the past month of craziness didn’t sound all that bad.  Especially considering my next period is due right around when we’re supposed to close on the house.   Yuck.

So I dragged myself in and got poked and prodded a little more.  Imagine my surprise when the nurse announced I am cyst free! 🙂  She said all the pain was probably just my body working to getting rid of them.  I’m relieved that we don’t have this hurdle to jump over anymore.  We can move forward with a monitoring cycle and (hopefully) get to the bottom of this.  No birth control.  Unless we feel like it. 😉

I’ll update on my blood work later.  They were checking base hormone levels and ovarian reserve today.  I still think it’s amazing that they can do that.  🙂

Honestly, I feel rather ambivalent towards the whole ordeal.  I know these are good things, but they don’t feel like they’re “good news” necessarily.  Just information I didn’t have before.  Maybe I’m finally learning to exercise caution when it comes to my emotions.  That isn’t entirely a bad thing.

Anywho….

The weekend was good.  I spent a good chunk of it trying to distract myself from my period starting.
My goal with the garden this year is to not let anything go to waste.  Last year, I wasn’t ready for the huge amounts of fruits and vegetables that the garden ended up producing.  I’m sorry to say that some of it went bad before I could figure out how to use it.  I canned a lot of tomatoes and jalapenos last year, and plan on doing the same this year, but I also wanted a little variety.  I got this book on modern canning for Christmas this, and started utilizing it over the weekend.

Friday, I oven dried a big batch of tomatoes.  It only got to 85 degrees out that day and it was supposed to be the coolest day we’ll have in a while, so I wanted to have the oven on all day while it was relatively cool out.  They turned out nice and caramelized.  I stuck them in freezer safe jars and froze them to use later.
Next, I added to my already impressive zucchini store, turning 4 zucchini into 14 cups of frozen pureed zucchini.  I currently have 22 cups of zucchini hanging out in my freezer.  I need to find more zucchini recipes.  The 2 or 3 dishes I use zucchini in are getting very worn out.

Yesterday, I canned apple jelly using the apples from the funky apple tree in my mother- and father-in-law’s back yard.  It came out really yummy and tastes like candy apples.  Definitely not bad for my first try at jelly.  It’s not as clear as it was supposed to be, but I used cheese cloth instead of a jelly bag, so that’s probably why.  I’m curious if I let it gel too much or not enough.
I’m a little afraid to open one of the jars. 😉  I suppose too runny or not runny enough, it should taste the same.
Canning foods makes me happy.  They typically last for long amounts of time, which is probably why I prefer it to cooking in general.  A complicated dinner is gone after a few minutes, but home preserved foods last throughout the year.

 

Waiting

For the first time in almost two years, I’m waiting anxiously for my period to start.  I want it to start.  Dr. B is almost positive that we won’t be pregnant this month, and I’m convinced that I’ll finally start feeling better once it does.

The stabbing, burning pain from the cysts has turned into an intense cramping.  It was getting a little better every day, and I was starting to have a little more energy every day.  Until I woke up at 4:30 this morning with the worst cramps I’ve had in years…   Blah.  I’ve been sleeping a lot.  Some days I can’t stop eating, other days food sounds like the worst idea ever.  I’m hoping the calorie intake is balancing out.  I only have one vicodin left.  I’m saving it just in case things start to feel worse.  These cysts are definitely worse than last time, so I’m assuming they’ll take longer to feel better.  I can touch my stomach now, which is a huge improvement.

It’s still making me crazy that all of this pain is really for nothing.  There’s nothing good or beneficial about this.  There will be no baby from this.

The cats, however, are taking full advantage of all of this laying around…

 

Wisconsin Cysts.

It’s been almost 2 weeks since I’ve posted and my motivation is seriously lacking.

I finished up this month round of clomid and ended up with the worst side effects yet.  I felt horrible up until last Tuesday or so.
The weekend before last we went to visit one of my best friends and her family.  We wanted to see them before we see the RE this week, because we have no idea what he’s going to tell us.  I was pretty physically uncomfortable the whole time, but it was nice to spend some time with them.  They have 2 little boys. One is two and a half and the other is 10 months old.  I was a little worried about spending too much time with the boys, but they’re such happy kids that it was pretty nice to be around them.  The hardest part was seeing Jeremy holding the baby in church on Sunday.  It made me a little teary for a minute because my husband looks good with a baby in his arms.  He looked right.
We went hiking with them before we drove the 5 hours home.  I pushed my body through it and was happy to have done it.
 We were only home 2 days before we turned around and went back to Wisconsin to stay at my mom and step dad’s cabin for the long weekend.  My parents, sister, and niece were there too.  They’re remodeling right now, so not having AC in this crazy Midwestern heatwave was an experience. 😉  Not having access to the internet though, was surprisingly refreshing for Jeremy and I.  We both spent the time trying to recharge before seeing the RE this week.
We had another HUGE bonfire, although it was no where near as much fun as the two we had in February.
 Saturday, we visited a cute little winery that’s just down the street from their cabin.  We did some tasting and bought a couple bottles.
 Around the time this picture was taken, I had started feeling a little bit of pain in my lower abdomen.  I had ovulated the day before (3 days early, YEA!), and was hoping it was just from some super awesome follicles doing their thing.
By the time we got back to the cabin the pain was excruciating.  Worse than the last time I had to go to the hospital with my golf ball cysts… Jeremy hopped into the car and drove me to the closest ER, 20 minutes away.  They got us in relatively quickly and had to go about their blood work to check for a pregnancy.  I laughed a little bit.  I kept letting them know I was taking clomid and cysts were probably the culprit.  They’re such a small hospital that they had to call an ultrasound tech who lived an hour away to come check things out.
Meanwhile they were force feeding me water.. and not giving me anything for the pain “just in case” I was pregnant (I laughed again).
 The ultrasound might have been the most painful procedure I’ve ever had done.  No transvaginal probe though, which kind of made my day.  She found 3 HUGE cysts, 1 on the right and 2 even bigger on the left.  And no evidence of pregnancy. 😉  Duh.

After that, they finally offered to dope me up with some aleve and vicodin.   I was pretty happy from then on. haha.  Jeremy?  Not so happy that this was happening in the first place.  Not pleased to pose for a picture with his slightly high wife. 😉
 The ER doctor was older and just didn’t think a cyst could cause pain like that and wondered if one might be leaking.  But then, he didn’t seem 100% sure of what clomid does.  I assured him it wasn’t the first time and asked to go home.  They gave me a generous prescription of 20 vicodin, which I was able to fill at 10:30 at night in the middle of no where, Wisconsin at a PRESCRIPTION MEDICINE VENDING MACHINE…
 Amazing.  Chicagoland needs these.

 

My favorite part of this experience?  Out of the 2 female nurses and female ultrasound tech, all three of them had experience with fertility medications.  The first had a daughter who is pregnant with her second child using clomid, the second has a 7 month old that she conceived while on clomid and an injectable, and the ultrasound tech has 14 year old twins that she conceived using clomid.    All three of them were the most understanding medical personal that I have ever met.  They were sensitive and caring and wished us luck.  I’ve never met someone in real life who has used fertility medication to get pregnant and told me about it, so to meet 3 women with success stories on a night that I felt so incredibly defeated was a huge boost.

They understood how much we’ve struggled and how horrible these drugs make you feel, but they were able to offer such positive lights on the situation.  It actually made these cysts and this hospital visit worth it.   I really think it’s true that some people are put into your life when you really need them.  These women were wonderful for sharing their stories with me.

Soooo, we see the RE for the first time tomorrow afternoon.  Unless he has something super amazing planned, we’re going to refuse clomid again.  If it doesn’t work this month, we obviously need to try something different.  I’m far less nervous than I thought I would be, but then I have vicodin swirling around my body, and that just makes everything better. 😉  I really want to ask him, however, what it means that 50 mg of clomid is producing these giant cysts.  Maybe he’ll have an idea of what’s going on.

I’ll update you tomorrow.

Also… Where is the weirdest place you’ve ever peed on an OPK or pregnancy test?  Me?  Just off of US-39 North in the middle of Wisconsin…. 😉  It would have been so much more gratifying had it been positive. ha.

Cysty Ultrasound Day

We spent the first half of our anniversary at the beach yesterday.

And the second half in bed watching movies, while periodically rubbing aloe on each other after we fell asleep in the sun and didn’t put on more sunblock. 😉

OW!

In other news, I was adamant with my doctor that my cysts be rechecked before we start another round of clomid, so today’s ultrasound day.  I’m not nervous about it because there’s no way that it will hurt as badly as it did last month.  I’m still having twinges of pain off and on, but I’m really hoping it’s just ovulation pain.  Today is cycle day 22, so I have 2 weeks before starting clomid again.
I have an appointment with my doctor tomorrow and I’m really hoping it will be productive.  I want a game plan for the rest of them summer and I’m going to push HARD for an IUI by the end of summer if the clomid still isn’t working.  I plan on making it perfectly clear that I want her to be more aggressive with our treatments.
Why move so fast on the IUI?  As of Monday, I have two forms of health insurance until December 31.   Two.  Both cover a portion of fertility treatments, so we’re going to utilize them as much as possible while we have them.

It’s a little scary to think of doing an IUI so soon.  We had planned on waiting until next summer to try our first one, but this makes more sense, so we’re rolling with it.. 🙂  It’s silly to go through this month after month when if we just tried something else, it might work.  We just want to have a baby.  At this point, how it gets here seems almost irrelevant.

That’s so weird to say that when just a few months ago I was lamenting that we aren’t going to be able to make one on our own.  It really bothered me.  Now, I just want this horrible situation to be over as quickly as possible.

I have to start drinking my 32 oz of water in about an hour.  Yikes.

My question for you ladies is:  If you ever had an ultrasound while you were NOT pregnant, did it bother you at all?  Did seeing your very empty uterus really suck?  That’s how I felt last time and am trying to look at it more positively this time.  Trying.

17: Just Kidding.

I was obviously a resident of Crazy Town earlier.  My period started and it’s really Cycle Day 1.

No clomid this month in hopes that my cysts will clear up on their own.

I’m going to start a 10 day juice fast.

I’m also going to drink some wine tonight.  Because I can.