Someone hand me a baby!

Still waiting on the outcome of this cycle.  I don’t feel either excited or depressed.  I’m anxious to feel better again.  The cabergoline worked to an extent when it came to preventing the OHSS again.  The pain, while not good, was bearable and not nearly as bad as last month.  The swelling, however, hasn’t been helped.

I went in to Dr. B’s on Monday for bloodwork and ultrasound and, again, Sherry was really surprised by how swollen my poor ovaries are.  But what else is new?…  She did see, however, two distinct corpus luteums… lutea?  Which is what is left of the collapsed follicle after a woman ovulates.  It produces progesterone.  Other than when I had my lap, no one had ever mentioned seeing one of those on my ovaries before.  It was big and obvious and even I could see it on the screen.  Excellent.  Unfortunately, she also saw a few large follicles that didn’t ovulate.  Crossing my fingers they don’t turn into cysts.  But seeing both of the corpus lutea was great!

It was followed up by excellent hormone numbers for a cycle day 19 check.  My estrogen was still nice and high at 395 and my progesterone had rocketed up to 147 —  the highest it’s ever been.  While my estrogen isn’t as high as last cycle (900+), it’s much much higher than anything I had pre-lap.

The numbers, coupled with the corpus lutea, are excellent indicators of a beautiful ovulation and sustained uterine lining.  I wish it could tell us more.  It looks like we had at least 2 eggs this cycle.  Maybe more based on estrogen numbers.  But 2 is a fine number.  Much better than 6…

Symptoms-wise, my belly is swollen from the ohss and attracting stares if I don’t keep it under wraps…  Thankful, over the past few months, I’ve collected a nice variety of flowing shirts that hide a nonexistent pregnancy from the stares and questions of students.  I love them, but in their minds, I’m young and married and should be having babies… They’re waiting impatiently.  Meanwhile, they’re having babies before me…  Blech.

I’m more moody than I’ve ever been on a medicated cycle.  I’m venturing to guess that I’m even more moody than I was after 3 months of lupron.  Maybe not so weepy, but a lot more angry.  It’s irritating.

My boobs hurt again.  They’re always fairly painful after a novarel trigger.  Then it goes away and doesn’t come back.  They were uncomfortable for a couple days, and now they’re starting to hurt again.  That could just be pms.

My skin is clearing up.  I’ve never had such painful breakouts as I did this cycle.  I don’t know if it was the cabergoline or just the prolonged use of fertility meds, but it really hurt.  Progesterone supplements usually help clear my skin and over the last few days it’s finally clearing up.  I always breakout before my period starts though, so that will be a sign…

Other than that, I’m working a different, but not necessarily new, job as one of my supervisors is on a surprise maternity leave.  She just adopted a brand new baby.  I got to hold her on Monday and it was heavenly.  I don’t think I’ve held such a little baby since my niece was born 8 years ago.  I usually shy away from newborns, but knowing the struggle they went through to get her, I couldn’t help but snuggle her a little closer.  It made me realize how badly I want a baby.  Being pregnant is just a vehicle to get a baby.  I don’t really care how our baby comes to us anymore.  I’m realizing that a little more every day…

More this weekend. 🙂

Follicle, Oh, Follicle

Well.  We’re back to it again.

Yesterday morning, I woke up with a knot it my stomach.  It was my first monitoring appointment in 3 cycles at Dr. B’s.  What would we find?  Had all of the chiropractic work done anything?  I snuggled in bed with the greyhounds for half an hour instead of eating breakfast and fixing my hair.  Ponytails at the RE’s office are cool, right?

I met up with a friend who just had her first IVF transfer a week and a half ago.  She was getting her first beta done (I’M SO EXCITED!!) and waited while I had a very romantic Valentine’s Day date with the ultrasound probe.  We found a 15mm follicle on day 12 with my estrogen at only 83.  My uterine lining is a little thin, so I’m now taking baby asprin once a day on top of my other supplements.

I don’t know how I feel about this.  To make it easier, I had just started to think we were just going through the fertility treatment rounds before we finally made it to adopting our take home baby.  I’ve been really excited about this adoption lately and far less sad about my infertility than usual.  Knowing my body is still responding and hasn’t completely shut down my reproductive organs made me stop and reexamine my feelings.  When let myself think it really wasn’t an option to have biological kids, I forgot how much I want them.  Getting caught up in this “maybe” or “what if” is really making me feel so conflicted.  And I know, it doesn’t really matter how I feel.  Either we’ll get pregnant within the next few months, or we won’t.  If we don’t, we’ll adopt.  That’s the plan.  Either way, we get a baby.  It’s just throwing me for a loop to get back into it and to know if we’re close to a pregnancy or not.

Anywho, I go back on Monday to recheck if this adorable follicle has made enough progress and if my estrogen is where it should be.  We’ve agreed to trigger with an ovidrel injection if my Lh levels are too low and everything else looks good.  It will still be a later than preferred ovulation (day 16 or 17), but it’s an ovulation.  I’m worried they’re going to tell us to cancel the cycle because my estrogen is so low.  Crossing my fingers that it rockets up to 150+ by Monday.

And for an “awwww” factor, here’s Snow White being more adorable than my follicle. 😉

 

Hope everyone has a nice weekend!

OHSS

Yep.  I’ve officially developed the dreaded Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome.

The cramps I was feeling the days after Monday’s IUI were just a precursor to yesterday’s OMG I’M DYING, SOMEONE IS STABBING ME WITH A KNIFE pain.  After a brief call to Dr. B’s office, I was told to take some tylenol, rest, and come in for an ultrasound in the morning… Talk about tough love.

Today they found lots of fluid in my abdominal cavity and enlarged ovaries.  Woo! The bad news?  There’s nothing they can do about it other than keep an eye on it for now.  The good news?  It won’t affect my ability to get pregnant this cycle.  Even worse news?  If I am pregnant, it’s going to last even longer thanks to the excess hcg that will be in my system.  At least then it will be worth it.

They’re checking my white blood cell count, just in case, and I was told to clear my schedule and stay off my feet for a while and to hydrate like crazy.

I had to stay home from class last night, so I was home for Halloween.  I hung out on the couch and watched Jeremy hand  out candy.  This is the first time we’ve ever handed out candy, so it was kind of exciting.  Until Jeremy opened the door with the bowl of candy and said, “Hey, little girls..” to 2 little girls.  It was a little creepy.  We had to have a discussion on the proper way to talk to small children without freaking their parents out. 😉  He had the hang of it by the end of the night.  He definitely made the evening humorous though.

Skilly and Bella really liked the activity.  They had never seen Trick or Treaters before.  Alice hid under the bed. 😉

10 days until testing day.

Done and Done

WELLLLL, the IUI is done.  It’s been just over 24 hours.  Too early to test? Maybe? Yes?  😉

But in all seriousness, thanks so much for the comments yesterday.  I’m feeling cautiously positive.

Jeremy and I got up just before 6 am yesterday morning in order to get to Dr. B’s by 7.  We were both dragging our feet getting ready and ended up running out the door with barely enough time to make the 25 minute drive.  I think we were both a little apprehensive and a lot nervous about what the morning would bring.

After he did his thing, they told us to go to breakfast and be back in an hour or so.  I thought they were a little crazy for thinking we would be able to eat and think about anything other than what was going to get shoved up into my lady parts in an hour, but we actually had a surprisingly nice time at breakfast.  We haven’t had a ton of time lately to just sit and chat.  We’ve had so much company and so much going on with the house, that it was really nice to just have a few minutes to ourselves before things threatened to get crazy again.  I know I also needed the time to finish wrapping my head around what was about to happen.

When we got back to Dr. B’s, they got us right into the room and had me change.  I was expecting something way over the top, but the whole thing was so informal and so relaxed.  I needed that.  I needed them to act like this was normal and ok.  I needed to feel like I wasn’t a failure for having to go through with this.  And they definitely gave me that.

Now.  Things might get a little TMI, but since you’re reading a blog where I frequently talk about my lady parts, I’m going to assume you’re ok with that. 😉
Sooooo, in the speculum went.  Not comfortable when you’re just getting an exam, even more uncomfortable when you know what’s coming next.  Then the catheter.  Ugh.  She warned me before she started that I would probably feel some pressure and maybe a little bit of cramping when she was almost to the top of my uterus.  Almost as soon as she started the cramping was excruciating.  I was going to just go with it, but she decided that there might be something wrong and called another nurse in to do an ultrasound while she inserted the catheter.
They squirted the cold ultrasound gel onto my stomach and immediately found my uterus.  She inserted the catheter again and, like before, the cramping was awful.  The nurse doing the ultrasound told her to stop and pull the catheter back.  She had been hitting the top of my uterus with the catheter.  Multiple times.  Evidently, I have a really short uterus.  Ow.  Ow. Ow.  They told me that shouldn’t have any impact on my ability (or inability) to get pregnant.

BUT, they kept the ultrasound on and turned the screen towards us while the injected the “specimen” 😉 into my uterus.  It was just a blob of white, but it was actually really neat to be able to see that.

I was a little crampy off an on yesterday.  I ended up staying home from class, and am actually really happy I did.  Today, I’m still crampy and have had just a small touch of spotting.  I’m super tired, but that could just be from the excitement and stress.

I took Skill to the dog park earlier and we were both exhausted after walking the island for half an hour.  I’m going to focus on napping and making his winter coat and hat for the rest of the day.  I saw this picture before we got him and decided I HAVE to figure out the knitting pattern for this hat.
Her site is in Swedish, but even with after using google translate on the whole page, I didn’t see anything for the actual pattern.   Soooo, Skill and I are going to figure it out ourselves.  And it’s going to be adorable! 🙂
Other than that, we’re taking the weekend easy. It will be our first relaxed weekend since we’ve moved in.  Jeremy is cleaning the garage and I might bake something delicious.

Prometrium starts on Monday.  Does it make anyone else dizzy?  I’m going to start taking it at bedtime, because last month I looked like I was drunk 20 minutes after every pill… 😉

Moving Day is Tomorrow!

Yikes! Where have I been?  Out of control…  The movers come tomorrow afternoon, the house is move-in ready as of 1 am this morning, we go meet our greyhound tomorrow morning, and my uterine lining/progesterone levels are holding strong.

Not too shabby for the past week. 🙂  We spent a crazy amount of time getting this house ready over the long weekend.  Painting and cleaning and carpet cleaning and jungle patio overhauls ensued.  I know I overdid it, but such is life.  I haven’t gotten pregnant so far by taking it easy.  I am, however, taking it easier this week.  I’m feeling tired more easily and I’m far more emotional.  I’m resting when I need it and trying to get some extra sleep.

My mom and step dad and Jeremy’s parents helped us a lot, which was a gigantic relief.  Jeremy’s parents helped with all of the high VOC painting so I could stay away from the fumes, and my mom and step dad whipped our patio into something just beautiful after the previous owners let it turn into the Jungle Book over the summer.

We met some of our neighbors and they’re all so nice.  They’re all older than we are, but we kind of expected that.  They all just seem to be happy that someone bought the house and is starting to take care of it again.  We’re really enjoying watching the house transform into something loved and well cared for.  The longer we spend there and the more projects we do, the more we love the house and can’t wait to make it into the perfect home for our family.  I can see us living in this house for years and years to come, changing and improving things along the way.

It’s two blocks from the elementary school, two blocks from the river walk, and still nice and close to both of our families.  It has plenty of room for visitors and plenty of options to change as our family grows.

How are things on the family front?  We are 8 days past ovulation.  I’ve been taking prometrium supplements twice a day since Sunday.  My uterine lining looks good.  We’re at cycle day 26.  Farther than last month, still a few days to go.  I’ve been a little crampy off and on for the past couple days.  Nothing super painful, just uncomfortable.  It usually stops when I lay down.  I’ve also lost 4 pounds in the past week.  I know I’ve been really active, but I’ve also been eating like a horse, so I’m not sure what that means.

Dr. B doesn’t want me to test until Thursday… I don’t know if I can hold out that long.  I’ll definitely be waiting until early next week though.  I’m terrified that the oviderel will still be in my system and I’ll get a very very false positive.  I don’t have a good feeling about this cycle though.  I have a feeling my period will start before I get a chance to test.

Today, I’m going to finish packing and day dream about picking our greyhound tomorrow. 🙂

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. 🙂

Mucus Overrated.

Remember that time a few months ago when I thought we’d figured things out?  Remember when that turned out to be all wrong? Remember when we thought we’d figured it out again?  And then that turned out to be wrong? Again.  No?  Well, it did.

Today’s monitoring appointment was bad.  All around.  My estrogen at day 13? 53.  Everything I’ve read said it should be at least 100.  And follicles?  A couple on my right ovary, but they’re all too underdeveloped.  And my post coital test?  1 sperm.  1 single, non-swimming sperm.  Why?  They’re leaning towards thick cervical mucus, but they’re repeating a semen analysis just to be sure.  Luck us.  They’re not bothering with another blood draw/ultrasound before I “ovulate.”  They don’t think it would be beneficial.  Jeremy and I are both going back next Thursday.  They’ll be checking follicles, progesterone, and sperm count.  Fun, right?

I had a bad feeling last night.  For some reason, I was dreading going to the office today.  Granted, the post coital test was freaking me out, but it was more than that.  The dread was still there when I woke up this morning and it  persisted all through the appointment.  After that, it just put me in a bad/gloomy mood (more so than usual).  But, because of the gloominess that was there when they called with these test results, it didn’t feel as bad as I thought it was going to.  It sucks.  I really really really sucks, but I’m not curled up in the fetal position in the shower bawling.  I’m saving that for after next week’s appointment. 😉

If you’ve never had a post coital test, it’s a lot like a pap smear.  A really awkward pap smear…  They ask you when you had intercourse the night before and then get to it.  I had some cramping afterwards.  It wasn’t awful and the nurses are totally used to it.

I don’t really know what to think about this.  It’s silly to draw conclusions until we have the whole month’s worth of data, but it’s hard to not see the very worst in this situation.  In my head, we’re going to be jumping straight to an IUI, but in reality tweaking my estrogen levels might fix everything.  It’s impossible to know for sure until after next week’s test.

We could be receiving some heartbreaking information a week from now.  Or we could be filled with a renewed hope.  I can’t focus on it though.  I can’t keep thinking about it like I am because it’s not doing any good.  I’m so thankful we have our house to think about now.  We’re still looking at August 30 for closing.  That’s just 28 days from now.  4 weeks.

We spent some time at Home Depot this evening picking out the hardwood floors we want to put it the living room, dining room, hallway, and bedrooms, and the white subway tile we’re putting in the kitchen and bathroom.  I’ve got almost all of my books packed up.  22 boxes of books are chilling in my living room right now.  We’ve picked out paint colors.  I just have to keep moving towards that goal.  Keep packing.  Keep thinking about decorating.  It makes me happy and I need all the happy I can get.

Mantis Attack! ;)

The juicing is still going on.  I’ve lost 4 pounds so far and am definitely noticing that I have more energy.  I’m going to head to the gym tomorrow morning and see how it goes. =)

We’re still juicing for breakfast and lunch, but we’ve decided to eat raw fruits, veggies, and good proteins for dinner.  We grilled some chicken last night and added it to a spinach salad.  I think it was the best thing I’ve ever tasted. 😉  We also used the chive vinaigrette I posted about.  It was awesome!  I’m so glad I didn’t throw those flowers away.  They were beautiful and delicious! 😉  I might start dabbling more in homemade salad dressings so that we have more healthy options.

It’s been super nice here the past two days, so I’ve gotten out into the garden a couple times.  My sister and niece hatched some baby praying mantises (mantids, if you will) for me and brought them over on Sunday to get released into the garden.

When we were little, my dad found an adult praying mantis, who we named Fred.  Fred lived in a plastic tank in our sunroom and we fed him insects we found outside.  Then Fred laid some eggs. 😉 Oops.  Sorry, Fred.  But since there was no Mr. Fred, there weren’t any babies.  Fred lived with us longer than she would have in the wild and she was an awesome pet. 🙂  I always thought it would be neat to have another one, but insects make me a little more nervous than they did when I was 5.  When my sister asked if I wanted some for the garden, I was all over it.

Not even half of them will make it, but I counted 15 hanging out in the chamomile patch yesterday, which I think is a pretty good number.  They’re already bigger.  They’ll continue to molt until they reach their adult size, which could be bigger than Molly. 😉
 I saw a few earlier when I was planting this salvia for the butterflies and the bees.
 And, I put up a super basic trellis for the pickling cucumbers.  I wanted to try to grow them vertically this year since they really tried to take over last year.  The regular cucumbers aren’t big enough for a trellis yet, but these guys have little baby cucumbers all over. 🙂

Things are good around here for now.  I’m feeling good, and haven’t looked at a chart or a calendar in a week.  I don’t even know what cycle day it is.  It’s really nice.  I’m not nervous or stressed out like I usually am.  I’ve hardly even thought about making a baby this month.  Probably because I know it’s not going to happen.  I’m still ok with that though.  This has been a very much needed break that has me feeling a little more “normal” and a little more like me.

We had lunch with some friends over the weekend.  They had a baby in November and we hadn’t seen him yet.  I was pretty stressed out about it, but it turned out to be ok.  He was super cute and I can honestly say that I enjoyed him. 🙂
The most upsetting part about our lunch was being told that I’m different than I used to be.  It didn’t sound like a compliment.  I feel like I’m more of an adult than I was a year ago when we last spent time with them.  I feel that I’m more responsible and toned down.  I can honestly say that I’m far more equipped to handle a baby than I would have been a year ago.  It’s still sad to think that I’ve changed so noticeably into a different kind of person.  However, I’m more proud of myself than I used to be, so maybe it’s not so sad.

Also, Regina Spektor‘s new album came out yesterday.  She’s speaking to me. 😉  I’m awake, Regina, I’m awake!

Let’s Play Golf..

Not really.  Actually, I hate golf.

BUT, after 3 1/2 hours, an excruciating exam, and 2 ultrasounds (one that involved me getting up close and personal with the transvaginal ultrasound probe… shudder…), they finally found the cause of last weekend’s pain/ yesterday’s I thought I was dying pain.

I have a golf ball sized cyst on my right ovary.  A  freaking golf ball.  As in bigger than my actual ovary.

How big is an ovary normally?  For those of you that enjoy comparing things to food, it’s about the size of a greek olive.

If you can’t tell, this is really bothering me.  I know that clomid causes cysts.  That’s part of it’s job.  But this thing is huge and has overstayed it’s welcome.

What does this mean for this cycle?  I haven’t the slightest idea.  They did a pregnancy test at the hospital last night.  It was negative.  BUT they only did a urine test and I was only 8 days past ovulation.  I didn’t cry until I was getting the ultrasound done.  Because it hurt.  And I was angry.  This whole thing sucks.

Soooo, the prognosis is to keep an eye on it and hope it doesn’t rupture.  yay… I know there isn’t much they can do, but I feel like we didn’t need this.  What does this mean about next month’s cycle?  Is it safe to keep taking the clomid?
I’ve pretty much written off this month as a wash.  I got a tan in Texas out of it though, so I suppose it’s something.

The pain is better today, but it still hurts a lot.  I’m afraid to take anything stronger than a tylenol just in case.  Bella and Alice are keeping me company. ❤

Obligatory Infertile Mother’s Day Post.

I’m in a lot of pain today.  From my bellybutton down, it hurts.  My doctor pretty much told me to take a tylenol and suck it up.  And she wonders why I feel like she doesn’t take me seriously… 😉  I didn’t have pain like this last month, but if she tells me not to worry about it, I’m not going to.  I’m just going to lay on the couch and whine that I’m dying. 😛

Clomid, I’m going to punch you in the face.  With my fist.  Hard.

I was at Target with my sister this afternoon.  They put baby swimsuits right by the books.  They were really cute.  =/

I’m in a funk.  And I’m pretty sure it’s stemming from Mother’s Day.  Last year was irritating.  This year it feels unbearable.  I haven’t looked at cards.  I’ve only briefly thought about flowers.  If I can get away with hiding in bed all day on Sunday, I’ll count it as a day well spent.

Honestly?  I’m angry about Mother’s Day.  I’m angry that we can’t celebrate the way we should be celebrating.  I’m angry that I’m in so much pain right now.  I have zero faith in my reproductive system this month.  Probably because we got our hopes up so much last month.  I’m angry that I’m putting my body through this, but know I would be kicking myself if we didn’t try our hardest.  I went to freaking Texas so we could give it our best shot for goodness sake.  I’m angry that I don’t want to celebrate Mother’s Day because I have the best mother and mother-in-law a girl could ask for.

And I’m tired.  I’m so tired of thinking about this.  I’m so tired of being angry and sad.  I’m so tired of the constant roller coaster of emotions.  I’m so tired of beating my body up like this.

I would really really really like a glass of wine.  Or maybe a bottle.  But I can’t.  Because I’m a responsible infertile with another  10 days to wait.  fml.

Also, I currently weigh more than I’ve ever weighed in my life.  Clomid water weight or not, this is not improving my mood.