Here We Go Again

This past week I had my follicle check or as I like to call it my egg hatching check to see how many eggs I'm going to lay this month.  I have to find some humor in the monthly follicle check appointments.  So I have 3 mature follicles ready to go.  They are surprisingly on my left side this month.  Normally my right side takes dominance but this month it's my left.  This is probably a good thing because my left side seems to have less scar tissue and less damaged.   The IUI went smoothly 2 days later and now we wait.  C's counts were better than usual.  His counts/motility, etc are normally pretty good, but this month even better than normal.  I think it's because he stopped taking some of the supplements the embryologist in our group told him were really bad for him.  The sad part is when we picked up the paper and specimen from the lab I can now read the whole semen analysis and I said wow that's great and Dr. A said the same.   Dr A said it was the best he'd seen the whole day! :)  Some good news.  So if it doesn't work it's all my fault, just kidding!  Again I'm learning way more about fertility than I ever wanted to know though.  I wish we were just one of those couples who could conceive the old fashioned way, I sometimes envy them.  Oh well, I always say God could have given us worse things in life.  This is what we have in our plan and others' plans our different, but I'm sure not everyone's has  the perfect plan either.  There are always obstacles in life.  But doesn't it feel like when you are TTC everyone else just has it so much easier because they don't have to deal with this same issue.  I'm sure that's not the case, but I feel that way sometimes.  It just seems so unfair.  Everything is in God's hands now and I must tell myself to let it go.  It's not in my control.  I'm trying to not be as obsessive this month either.  I'm not taking every little supplement/vitamin I ever heard would work and I'm not obssessing that I have to be at yoga or have to do this on this day.  It's not in my control and I can't change that.  This was actually the 3rd IUI (4th month on meds), so maybe the 3rd time is a charm.  I just need to find a way to deal with the disappointment this month if it's not our time yet.

Almost The New Year

This week hasn't been the best week.  I think the side effects of the drugs are beginning to kick in fully and I'm not feeling great.  Since Sunday, I felt fine at first but now I feel very light-headed and have a constant ache in my right side where my ovary is.  I'm assuming my ovary was enlarged and overstimulated from the 2 follicles and is sore.  But I guess this is just all the effects of the drugs.  Plus I've been extremely moody and been in that why me kind of mood again.  I get in that every so many weeks so I like to compile a list of the top things a person with fertility issues DOES NOT want to hear or is in other words extremely annoyed by:

1.  "Just Relax and it will all work out":  You don't think I've tried that before and you think that if I just relax and have a couple drinks and go on vacation the magic fertility fairy is going to swoop down and make me magically fertile.  It doesn't work that way. 

2.  "It takes time, have patience":  I'm 31 years old, you don't think I have patience.  I've gone through how many holidays without my own children and how many pregnancy announcements and still am waiting for the day to come.  I have patience.  I don't want to be a 50 year old with a first grader.

3.  "I'm pregnant and I didn't even try":  That's great I'm happy for you.  I have to go through fertility drugs and injections and emotional ups and downs and not to mention the fun side effects that come along with it just to maybe have a baby someday but not know if it will ever work, but I'm glad that you are so fertile and are rubbing it in my face right now.

4.  "Why don't you adopt or just adopt and you'll get pregnant":  Okay #1 it's not that easy it's expensive and not guaranteed.  And easy for someone who has mothered or fathered their own children to suggest.  And also you don't just all the sudden become fertile when the adoption papers are signed.

5.  "You should do these things while you can...when you have kids...":  Who says we are guaranteed to have kids and who says that we have to have kids to complete our lives anyways.  Not everyone is blessed with fertility like you.  What if we are infertile forever, are our lives just over.  Should we just die?  So we should travel now because when we have kids...Well what if we can't have kids then what, are we just useless???  I really do want kids more than anything, but I'm annoyed by people acting like our lives will be incomplete without them.

6.  Pregnant girls who complain about their pregnancy:  I understand that when you are pregnant your hormones are going crazy and you are experiencing a lot of discomfort.  You have every right to vent about your discomfort to anyone else in your life but not someone in my position.  You know how much I would love to be in your position, I'm getting all those side effects probably worse but for who knows for what outcome.  At least you know you have a baby on the way and can enjoy looking forward to it, what do I have to look forward to, oh the possibility of a baby and another month of dreaded side effects and more drugs and more needles.  And at least you are giving up drinking for a new baby, I'm giving up drinking in hopes of a new baby that I might never have.  So shut your mouth and enjoy your pregnancy.

7.  The show Sixteen and Pregnant and Teen Mom:  This show just extremely annoys me, but for some reason I still watch it.  Why and the heck can these girls get pregnant and I can't.  These poor babies most of the time aren't given the proper care or lives they deserve and they publish this on world television.  We would give our baby such a great life in a great home and can't conceive.  Why?  I'm so tired of watching on TV and reading in the news unfit parents having children when we would try to be the best parents and give our kids everything we possibly could.  I just don't understand and it breaks my heart because it's so unfair.

Okay so I'm done being grumpy and feeling sorry for myself.  That is my vent for the day, I needed to get that off my chest.

Merry Christmas Eve

So today is Christmas Eve, I'm very excited to spend my first Christmas with Chuck as a married couple.  We will be spending time with both our families and can't wait to see all our nieces and nephews and how excited they will be for Christmas.  We love them all so much.  Christmas without children just isn't the same, kids bring such a different light to the holiday and always can keep the Christmas spirit alive.
I'm finished with the 5 day femara and the side effects were pretty minimal, a few hot flashes here and there and some cramping but nothing at all bad.  We also had a doctor's appointment today to view my follicles and see how I responded to the drugs.  Yes fertility appointments never stop, 365 days a year it doesn't matter what day it is the treatment continues.  Anyways, so we received good news at the doctor, I had 2 mature follicles on my right ovary of 20 mm.  That is a very good response to the drug and my endometrium lining was also thickening nicely.  So with hia counts coming back good, we are going to give it a shot on our own.  Chuck saw the 2 follicles and thought twins!  LOL.  It doesn't necessarily mean twins but this is why fertility meds give a higher rate of multiples because 2 eggs could release this cycle, though both may not fertilize and implant.  So I had to give myself an Ovidrel shot tonight to stimulate ovulation.  I was a little nervous but it was so easy and painless.  Chuck wanted to give it to me first but I wasn't letting him come near me with that needle ;)  So now I should ovulate in about 36 hours from the shot.  And we just pray for a Christmas miracle!

Let's Start the Rx

The visit with the RE (Reproductive Endocrinologist) at the Institute for Reproductive Health went well.  He seemed optimistic.  Not sure if he has that attitude with everyone, but I'm going to take that as a positive for now.  Any positives in this process are needed.  So he doesn't want to do another lap right now.  (I had a laproscopy 2 years ago to laser out the endometriosis. It's minimally invasive, they cut me open with three small scars and got rid of all the endometriosis and an endometrioma cyst on my right ovary, but the recovery was a little rough.  So needless to say if I don't have to have another one immediately I'm glad for that).  So I've already had an hsg years ago, which is a test where they shoot dye through your tubes and uterus to make sure nothing is blocked, that came back clear years ago so he's not doing another one of those either.  So we get to start right into treatment, which I'm pretty happy about, no more tests as of now at least.
So today I start 5 days of a drug called Femara, it's actually a drug approved for breast cancer and not yet fda approved for fertility yet.  But he said the results are comparable to clomid and the side effects are way less, including less of a chance of multiples.  The nice thing is our insurance covered this drug, we only had to pay for the Ovidrel injection, which considering our insurance is covering all our doctor appointments also, I really can't complain.  So the doctor said on the ultrasound he did last week that my follicles looked small, this drug is supposed to develop these follicles to maturity and ready them for ovulation.  We are not going to go right into IUI (artificial insemination) yet as long as his counts all come back good, because we'd really like to keep this process as natural as we can all considered :)  So now I just take these drugs and we pray for good follicles.