• September’s Cycle: I had one large mature follicle (22 mm, I think) on my right ovary on my first monitoring ultra sound on Day 11. So, we triggered that day. I have never had mature follicles that early, so apparently my body responds faster to Fe.mara then it did to Clo.mid. It was so unexpected that I didn’t even bring my HCG injection with me to the appointment, so I had to run home and get back to the doctor’s office before they closed to have the nurse give me the shot. I have not graduated to giving myself (or having my husband give me) injections, and I am not looking forward to the day I have to do it myself. I took 200 mg of Prom.etrium twice a day beginning a couple days after triggering. This cycle ended with a BFN.
• The first weekend in October, we accepted an offer on our house. We had been trying to sell our house for over a year on our own and for a couple months with a realtor. Oh yeah, and the closing date was in less than 4 weeks AND, my husband and I were gone for 2 of the three weekends before we had to be moved out of our house. Crazy! One of the weekends was spent at a Military Marriage Enrichment weekend retreat. It was a nice little getaway for R and I. We talked some about fertility treatments. I found out that my husband really doesn’t like it when I “obsess” about getting pregnant. He sees tracking my BBT as obsessing, and I see it as gaining more information/clues about what my body is and isn’t doing. He also thinks that I am obsessing when I become emotional about infertility. For probably 4 months after my mis-carriage, I could hardly have a conversation about TTC w/out tearing up, and I think this is what he is referring too. I can understand his perspective. He wants his wife back, the one who didn’t break down bawling when she received a baby shower announcement. I have definitely been doing a lot better in this aspect, but there is just no way to go back to not feeling the sting of sadness and pain when we are faced with the inevitable pregnancy announcements, baby showers and births of so many of our close friends and family. So, back to the month of October, it was spent packing, figuring out where we would live in a few weeks, and getting through the inspection and appraisal process. Thankfully my parents came and spent a week with us and helped us get packed and moved out of our house. Selling our house was definitely bitter sweet. It was our first house together and we have wonderful memories from our first home. We also had the most amazing neighbors. Seriously, they were the greatest! But, we are moving on new exciting adventure. We will eventually be building a house on some property we bought a few years ago that is close to a lake.
• October’s Cycle: On my day 3 ultra sound, I had a 2+ cm cyst on my left ovary. I talked to my doc and he said that he doesn’t think it will interfere with the cycle. He said he could take an estrogen level to see if it is active, but it was Day 3 on a Friday afternoon, so we wouldn’t get the estrogen level back in time to start meds for this cycle. I specifically asked him, “So this cyst won’t dominate and stop other follicles from maturing?” and he said it shouldn’t. My gut instinct was to sit out this cycle, because of the cyst and moving, but that voice in my head said, what if this is the month? Needless to say, it was NOT the month. They did another ultra sound on Day 9 and the cyst was still there and had grown a little, and none of the other follicles were anywhere close to maturing. I thought for sure, the cycle would be called off. I asked for the doctor to look at my ultra sound before the nurses gave me the FSH injection. No reason to go wasting $250 worth of meds. The doctor said to go ahead. So, I had another ultra sound on Day 12 and shocker……there were no mature follicles and the cyst was a little bigger. The doctor said to go ahead with the HCG injection, because there could be a mature follicle on my left ovary. Really? What would make him think that????? So, October cycle = $365 worth of meds wasted.
• Beginning in November, I began working part-time (in addition to my full time job) as the worship/music coordinator at my church. Our music pastor accepted a position at church in another state and left the end of October. I played and sang in the worship band and would fill in when our music pastor was gone, so the church asked me to fill in as the coordinator until a full time Music Pastor was hired. The previous music pastor and his family were also renting a house owned by my church that is right next to the church. It was exactly what we were looking for, 3 bedroom, full basement for storage, fenced yard for the dogs and pretty affordable. So, we were able to move into this house and the part-time income from the church is basically paying the rent. It was pretty amazing the way it all worked out, definitely a blessing for my family. Our goal in renting is to finish paying off all of our debt and save to begin building a house on our property. Because of the added part-time income, we will have ALL of our debt paid off by April, maybe by March, and then should have enough saved to begin building by this time next year! I am so excited to be debt free. We went through a Financial Peace University class a year ago and have been working to pay off all of our debt since then. All we have left are 2 student loans.
• November Cycle: Well, the timing was such that my Day 11 monitoring appt and potentially my HCG injection would fall right on Thanksgiving weekend. So, we decided to only take 5 mg Femara on Days 3-7 and forgo the monitoring ultra sounds and expensive injections. It was kind of hard to not know what was going on with my ovaries/follicles, but it was nice not to have all those doctor appointments. I used OPK’s to see when my LH surged. I also got a nasty cold the same weekend that I was ovulating…..fun times. I didn’t take any cold medicine or even excess Vitamin C, because I read in Making Babies that both of those things can dry up cervical mucus. So, I was extra miserable with my cold, but I was hoping it would all be worth it in two weeks when we got a BFP. When I started taking the pro.metrium, I started getting bad headaches the very next day. I had a headache for about 5 days straight, and this was after I had recovered from my cold. Headaches are listed as a possible side effect, but I have never experienced this in previous months. Of course, I thought maybe I was getting headaches because I am pregnant and my body is already producing lots of progesterone (ha! Right, that would be a first) and the added pro-metrium was giving me headaches. Guess what….this was not the case. I got a BFN on Sunday the 12th.
• I started reading Making Babies after reading Courtney’s review on her blog. I am still not finished with the book, but will probably write a blog about this book once I am finished. I have started to implement some of the things from the book.
• December Cycle: It is looking like today will be Day 1, I had a tiny bit of spotting yesterday, but it has disappeared. If today is Day 1, then my Day 11 monitoring u/s will fall right on Christmas weekend. So, I have a bit of a dilemma. Do I just take Fe.mara again? It obviously wasn’t successful last month, but could this be the month? Do I try to work around the Christmas holiday to schedule appointments? Or do I completely sit this cycle out and pray that we miraculously conceive au’ natural? I just don’t know. The least likely decision is to try to schedule monitoring appointments around Christmas, that just doesn’t sound very festive.
• 2nd Opinion. R and I have decided that this will be my last cycle before getting a 2nd opinion. Our biggest issue with my current doc is that he seems content to treat us like every other couple based on statistics vs. digging deeper to find out what our specific issues are and trying to fix or at least treat those specific needs. I think this is pretty typical of western medicine, unfortunately, at least in regards to infertility. I have also had way too many frustrating experiences with his nurses. I think it is safe to say that I know way more about infertility then most of his nurses. Also, it seems pretty simple, but doesn’t it make sense to read the most recent case notes before speaking with a patient? Just a thought. There is only one RE in the state I live in and he practices in a city about 4 hours away from me. But, I recently found out that this RE travels to a city about 90 miles from me to see patients. So, I scheduled a consult with him in January. Yay! I am really excited to get a fresh perspective. His clinic will begin offering IVF in January, which is the first clinic in my state to do this. Very cool, but I am a little nervous that he will be pushing IVF. I will soon find out. I am kind of dreading calling my current clinic to request that they fax my records to the new clinic. Awkward.
• Fun times with the hubby. R and I have a fun-packed December. We went to a concert on Sunday night that was fantastic and stayed that night in a hotel instead of driving the 90 miles home late at night. We are going skiing this weekend and staying overnight at the lodge. For Christmas, we rented a cabin fairly close by. We will spend Christmas at the cabin with R’s Dad and our doggies. It’s been really nice to just enjoy my husband’s company. On Monday night, we were visiting after work. I had to leave to go to yoga, and my husband said, “Do you have to go? It’s been really nice just talking with you.” How sweet is that? I love those moments of just talking, enjoying each other’s company. I have a good man. I feel so blessed that my husband is my best friend.
I'll leave you with a picture of my sweet puppies in the snow.
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