Baseline

Had my baseline ultrasound today for IUI #2.1 and the large cyst on my left side seems to have resolved itself, but there now appears to be a cyst on my right side measuring about 20mm. However, RE feels like this is likely residual from my cycle that just ended. He also guessed that I didn't ovulate for the last two cycles and that's why my period has been so wacky.  He thinks Dr. Schmidt was wrong 2 cycles ago and that I hadn't actually ovulated yet, but since my period started so soon after surmised that I likely didn't ovulate at all, even though I had taken clomid.

We decided to up to the clomid dose this time from 50mg to 100mg, even though I've previously gotten good response on just 50mg of clomid, because of the last two cycles. I had 1 refill left of clomid and in anticipation of this appointment sent it in to be refilled, knowing that if the baseline was good that I'd be starting clomid today. With that the RE gave me a prescription today for 5 more pills at 50mg so that I could take two a day. Well stupid insurance denied the claim for the second prescription because it was 1 day after refilling the exact same medicine and dosage. Which is stupid because it's a separate prescription, but whatever I've done nothing but battle the insurance company since we starting this process so why should this be any different. So I left the pharmacy with 5 pills today and will hopefully go back tomorrow for the remaining 5 pills.

I'm scheduled next Thursday for my mid-cycle ultrasound and if all stays on track we are looking at IUI next weekend. Hopefully the increased clomid will produce at least 3 strong follicles and we can have another good IUI. Fingers crossed.

And of course had to wear some awesome socks today for the appointment.

All about Q

When I started this blog I never intended it to be fully focused on my fertility issues and journey. In fact, I started it before I knew for certain that I was facing fertility issues, I did however have a feeling that it was the path we were on, long before testing or treatment. Infertility and everything that comes along with it has certainly consumed a large portion of what my life is now, but it is by no means my entire life and the rest of all that life seems to get lost here. So this post is all about Q, because he is honestly my entire life and the light and joy that keeps me going everyday.

Where to even begin? I know all parents say things like this, but Q is the most amazing little person I've ever known. He is smart, he is funny, he is caring, he is sensitive,  he is loud, he is energetic, he is competitive, he is overly social, he is weird, he is creative and the list could go on and on. One thing he most definitely is, is a Mama's boy. It's gotten better as he's gotten a little older, but there is no doubt about it, he prefers Mama above all else. When he was younger this was very exhausting, now as I see it starting to slowly slip away it makes me sad. His comfort zone is sucking his thumb and sticking his hand in my armpit. (I did mention in the above list that he is weird, so consider that fair warning.) He's done this since he was able to consciously direct movement of his hands and arms. I nursed Q for 14 months and I think it all stems from that, because in nursing him there was always one arm/hand tucked under my arm.

At 3 (and nearly a half) years old, Q is super into puzzles and Pinocchio and playing games and Wii sports resort and swimming and writing letters and the color yellow and sleeping with Eeyore and Reese's cups and racing and bowling and working in the kitchen and making up words and face-timing with Grandma and Grandpa. He loves to play with other kids, especially kids older than him. And he loves to talk to everyone, all strangers included. He's always interested in whether I'm happy and asks me often and has recently started telling me he does certain things because he loves me. For example, I'll ask him why he likes to sleep in bed with me and he'll respond "because I love you".

He is always happy and has the best smile in the world. He loves to be funny and make others laugh. He is ridiculously athletically inclined, seriously this kids has ab muscles like you wouldn't believe.

He has changed my life for the better from the moment he was a second line on a pregnancy test. I am by no means a perfect mother, but Q makes me a better person every day. He reminds me to slow down, to get down on the floor and play a game, to let the laundry sit another day, to cherish the moments laying with him right before he falls asleep as he's snuggled right up against my body. The pure joy he experiences with every little thing we do helps me to see the joy in those little things. No matter what I will always be grateful that I was the one lucky enough to be chosen as Q's Mom.

And now for fun I leave you with a few pictures of the most amazing little boy I know.

For the second time in January....

I'm cycling again, with mixed emotions. I'm excited that my period has started and I'm ready to get back to the RE and get moving again, but this cycle was only 20 days long and last cycle was 18. Feels like something odd is going on. On top of that I've been spotting on and off since day 8 this cycle and had some bleeding after sex (which sometimes happens, sometimes not), but maybe all of it together might be giving us picture. I hope so, I really hope this will help lead us to change in protocol that will lead us to a pregnancy. My period started full force yesterday late afternoon, after spotting all day, the nurse at my RE wants to count today as day 1 since full flow didn't start till somewhere around 4:30 yesterday. Whatever, works for me. Oh and did I mention that my flow is heavy, like heavy heavy, like soaking a super tampon every hour and half heavy. I'm scheduled back at the RE on Thursday at 9:45am for a baseline ultrasound and to talk through all this junk. Two cycles in 38 days, I think my body might be trying tell me something.

Gratitude Journal #2

Today I am grateful for the 75mins of yoga this morning that helped to quiet my mind.

I am grateful for the lesson in yoga that infinite patience results in immediate gratification (it's amazing how perfect it fits my situation).

I am grateful that after two days of stomach pain my belly finally feels better.

I am grateful for a full nights sleep last night.

I am grateful for the 15mins of snuggles that I had with Q this morning in bed before the day started.

I am grateful that Q's school offers a parent's night out so that IG and I can go see a movie tonight.

I am grateful for my dogs, who are always there to stick their heads in my lap even when I don't want it.

Gratitude Journal

I was a huge Oprah fan or rather I still am a huge Oprah fan, but I was a religious watcher of the Oprah Winfrey show.  I used to DVR it and when I was on maternity leave and at home alone for 12 hours a day with newborn, it always felt like my adult hour. She was the only daytime talk show I watched regularly. Anyways a few years back Oprah talked about keeping a gratitude journal and writing in it everyday the things you are grateful for. I can't remember the deeper lesson behind the gratitude journal, I mean obviously it helps you to focus on the things that are good right now in your life, but I think there was some deeper lesson behind it all.

Anyways, lately I find myself so consumed by my journey with SIF that I feel like I can't think of anything else. I think I only have one week a month where I don't feel totally consumed by this and that's usually my fertile week where I've moved out of feeling disappointed and sad that another cycle has ended with AF and into feeling hopeful that maybe something will finally work. But then I move into the 2WW and I'm consumed all over again. I have a hard time concentrating at work and a lot of the time just feel like I'm gong through the motions in the evenings with Q. And then I feel so guilty for not cherishing what I have. 

So I was thinking about the things I am grateful for and thought maybe some form of a gratitude journal would help take my mind out of the dark place IF takes it for the majority of my month. 

I am grateful for the beautiful, funny, caring, loving son that I already have. 

I am grateful for a body that woke up and functioned to the best of it's ability today. 

I am grateful for a husband that will do pick up and dinner tonight so that I can go to a spin class. 

I am grateful that we have the insurance coverage and financial stability to seek treatment. 

I am grateful that I sit in an office with windows.

I am grateful that I have music to help get me through the day. 

Well this has been fun

The last two cycles have been a cluster to say the least. Last post I wrote about how IUI #2 was cancelled because the RE thought we had already missed ovulation...but I just couldn't believe it. I mean if I had tracked my period correctly (which I don't think I did) the ultrasound was day 10, if my period truly started on 12/13 then the ultrasound was day 6. How is it possible to ovulate prior to day 10, not to mention day 6. It just didn't make sense. Well must have been the case because AF was here again on 12/31 - Happy New Year to me!!!! Do the math there are only 18 days between periods. Now that's a short cycle, that's got to be an indication of something right? I haven't had a chance to discuss with the RE because I haven't been back since that botched ultrasound. 

If things over the holidays would've gone better then I would've gone in on Jan. 3 for a baseline ultrasound, but sadly and still shockingly my Grandmother passed away on Jan. 2 and I was out of town and couldn't/wouldn't/didn't even think about making my RE appointment. My sweet Grandma went into the hospital the day after Christmas and everyone was fully expecting her to be out by New Years...how fast things went in just over week is so shocking. We still had unwrapped presents for her under the Christmas tree. In addition to that Q had the flu for Christmas, came home Monday from school with a fever, visit to the Pediatrician on Christmas Eve and spent Christmas crying, whining, laying on the couch, generally miserable. He was sick for the entire week. In addition to that we had a major, major issue at work, requiring me to come in on my time off and even work on New Year's day. So while I was at work my Grandma was moved to hospice and I couldn't leave until the next afternoon to go see her, missing the last awake moments I could have had with her. I think it might be possible that the stress of all that brought on an early period...but who really knows these days. 

My Mom told me that at one point my Grandma told her that she was seeing little barefoot babies walking around, I asked Grandma if one of them was for me and if she saw them again could she send one my way because I've been trying really hard for one and that I had a lot of love for that little baby already. I know she is at peace and I'm happy to have another person up there on my side, but the finality of death never seems real to me. I have such a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that she really isn't here anymore. And on top of that I'm so sad, unbelievable sad that infertility robbed me of the opportunity to see her with another baby. That woman loved babies almost more than anything else and my son was the first great-grand child that she got to spend a significant amount of time with. The joy he brought her these last three years was a blessing and I wanted so bad to be able to do that again. She had said that she thought Q was the love of her life, she loved that little boy so much. She told me at the time I was pregnant with Q that she now had something to live for, maybe if I could've given her something else to live for she would still be here. But I couldn't. And now she's not here. And it's so unfair. If I would've gotten pregnant as easily as I didn't with Q then I would have a nearly 1 year old baby already. I hope she's up there pulling for me, I know she is and hopefully she will send me a special soul to love. 

So this cycle we are completely un-medicated since I couldn't make it for my baseline appointment. We are trying on our own, but I haven't felt like I've ovulated this cycle at all and I'm not at all hopeful. I feel like we've just lost more time basically being on hold these last two months. Two months feel like such a precious amount of time. This journey has felt like a million steps back and never one step forward and it's definitely starting to take its toll. I feel unbelievably out of control, I feel sad all the time, I snap at my  husband and my son and my dogs because I can't take out my anger or my hurt on my own stupid body and I don't know where else to put it. I feel so alone and hopeless and lost. 

And add to all that, that over the holidays I found out that my best friend from high school, who was diagnosed with PCOS when were teenagers,  was able to easily get pregnant. In fact she had already set up and went to a consultation with a RE, the whole time being pregnant and not knowing it. The one person in my real life that I thought would be able to relate was able to randomly ovulate and was lucky enough to have sex when that happened. And it's not that I'm not happy for her, I am so happy for her and she will be an amazing mother, but I'm so sad for myself. My heart is so hurt at this point I don't know where to go and I feel like not one person in my life truly understands. 

Trying To Make Sense

I have spent a lot of time on my infertility journey trying to make sense of it all. Trying to determine where the curve was that moved us from easily able to conceive to a complete inability to do so. Trying to decipher my temperatures and analyze every little aspect of my cycle. Trying to navigate the lingo and world of infertility and specialists and protocols. And I still don't have a grasp on it. I've spent countless hours researching, lurking message boards, stalking blogs and trying to learn from others journeys, but I still feel lost and confused. There are so many aspects of infertility that are uncertain. I am uncertain if the medications or IUI or IVF or anything will help us achieve this goal. Being diagnosed unexplained there isn't even any certainty in what is causing us to struggle this time around.  And it all feels like a shot in the dark. Who knows what protocol will work, because who knows what's really wrong. And in all of it I always feel like I'm doing something wrong. That if I was just able to do it all right then we would be able to get pregnant. For the majority of this journey I have tracked my cycle with temperatures and OPKs and cervical fluid and all other things and even though on paper it looks like we've timed things right, I'm never confident we have. I'm uncertain that we did everything we could in each cycle to make us successful. I question my body, I question my thoughts, I question my plans and my Dr's and my husband. I question when to have sex and if it should be every day or every other day or abstain before IUI or not. I question if I even know when my period actually starts.

Prior to this journey I never questioned my body. It's always been good to me and I've always tried to be good to it. I feed it healthy foods, I rest it, I keep it limber and fit, I give it vitamins and nurture it when it feels run down. But now I feel like its my enemy. That it's blocking me from achieving my greatest desire. That it's mocking me and turning on me. When I was pregnant the first time, my body was amazing. Conception was easy, pregnancy was easy, labor and delivery were easy, recover was easy, breastfeeding was easy. But this time around my body is failing me and I don't know why and I don't know how to change it.

This cycle has been the most confusing to date and adding more things into the mix just muddies the water. Each cycle on clomid my period has gotten lighter and shorter. This time around I started what I thought was my period on Monday 12/9. Let me also say, I've never spotted before a period. Ever. I know my period is going to start by the fact that a day or two before hand I will see some brownish color CM, I do not consider this spotting as it is only visible when wiping and looking really closely. And I didn't even know this happened until I really started monitoring every aspect of every cycle when I started this journey. So it wasn't even anything I was aware happened before trying to conceive this time. So when I started to bleed enough to need a liner or a tampon (even though it wouldn't soak the tampon) I thought it was my period. Therefore, I assumed 12/9 to be CD 1, called the RE, got a clomid refill and started taking the clomid on day 3. I did however take a test on Wednesday before taking the clomid just to make sure because my "period" was so light, I wanted to make sure. It was of course a BFN, so I took the clomid and assumed that as previous cycles the medicine was just making the period lighter and shorter. Then Friday rolls around and definite heavy bleeding starts. I was completely unprepared, I was in Chicago for work and only had a single tampon that was in my purse, I hadn't brought anything with me because I thought at that point my period was over.

To confuse matters even more my trigger was 11/22 and my IUI 11/24, which I had two very large (26, 29) follicles on my right side. So if the trigger worked as it should and forced ovulation 24-36 after injection then I would have had to ovulate on the latest 11/24, but my period didn't start until 18 days later - is that even possible? In the 20 cycles that I've been tracking I've never had an LP longer than 15 days. So does that mean I never ovulated or did I mess it up by taking the clomid too early? When bleeding did start 3 days after starting the clomid, I just stayed the course and continued to take the clomid, taking the last one on Sunday 12/15. And I can't seem to get any answers.

Now let's get even more confusing. I had an ultrasound appointment yesterday (2 days after my period stopped and 3 days after my last clomid). Last cycle my ultrasound was on day 10 and my follicles where already huge (which I found out this time around they like to catch them before they are that large - great thanks for not telling me that last cycle). So yesterday would've been day 10 had my period started on 12/9 or day 6 if my period started on 12/13.  And what does the ultrasound show - looks like I've already ovulated - um WTF? There is a large cyst on my left side like 26 mm and a very small follicle on my right side at 12 mm. There is fluid in the cavity and what the RE called a whitening of the uterine lining, which was only at 7.7 and which is consistent with ovulation. Confusion. Utter confusion - when did my period really start how is it possible to ovulate 3 days after stopping clomid and 2 days after stopping bleeding. When asked the RE replied "yeah that would be really early" - um thanks for the information. So I was instructed to take my temperature this morning (which I haven't been tracking this cycle because I've been doing a lot of traveling, home 2 days in the last 2 weeks and thought I could give myself a break since I was being monitored with ultrasounds and would be able to get a good estimate of ovulation). He told me that if it was 97.2 or somewhere in there then I likely didn't ovulate and was just really early in my cycle, but if it was over 98 then that would indicate that progesterone was in my system. My temp this morning was 98.08, seriously? I went back and tracked all previous cycles, never have I ever, even with off times or sleep deprivation or alcohol had a temp outside of the 97s before ovulation. Confusion. Complete and utter confusion.

Needless to say IUI #2 is cancelled at this point. They said they don't really think it would do any good to bring me back tomorrow for another ultrasound and asked if I'd been having sex....well no because 1. I was out of town 2. IG has been really sick and 3. I've never ever, to my knowledge ovulated this early. But as I'm realizing in this journey, my knowledge isn't always so good. Who knows maybe I've been ovulating early all long and just never knew it. When asked if the follicles could still grow the nurse said they usually grow 2 mm a day so it's possible that by Friday the one on the right could be at 18 mm and they try to catch them between 22 mm and 24 mm. To which I asked, was I too late last time because my follicles were 26 mm and 29 mm?? And she said yes that is later than they like and that usually follicles of that size that haven't ovulated naturally aren't going to - what?!?! So if my follicles have been large in the past (which I wouldn't know because this is the first time I've had ultrasounds) then there's a possibility that I have had all the symptoms of ovulation but that it hasn't been happening. Thanks for sharing all this with me RE and staff. I'm new to all this so great to find this stuff out nonchalantly.

On top of all this, I don't feel like I've ovulated. I always have pains and back aches and this magnified since taking the clomid, so maybe there is still a chance that we haven't missed the window this month. IG and I will continue to have sex over the next week and I will track with OPKs and my temp, starting today forward ( I took an OPK yesterday and this morning, both negative). Maybe we'll be lucky, maybe we will get a Christmas miracle. We conceived last time in December so maybe this is our magical month.

RE is now going to bring me in early next cycle for a baseline ultrasound before starting the clomid again to make sure that the large cyst on the left side did dissolve and to see how things look before enhancing them with medication. It wasn't deemed necessary for me to have all this monitoring before, because I have no obvious signs of issues. I know many of you would advise me to run as fast and as far as I can from this RE's office and believe me I hear you, but the other RE's in my area are not considered centers of excellence as deemed by my reproductive resources insurance coverage. So if I don't want to pay OOP, then I'm stuck here. But I feel like every time I go, instead of feeling more enlightened or more confident I just feel more confused and disappointed.  

One thing I do know for certain, is that there is nothing certain about infertility.