10 posts tagged “infertility”
When we last discussed this, I had decided to take the summer off from "trying" after 3 unsuccessful months of Clomid. After the 3 months off, The Nug and I decided to do 3 more rounds of Clomid, this time with IUI. That stands for intra-uterine insemination. This is where the fun began for Sean. Now, after taking Clomid days 5-9 and having the utero-cooteral region wanded to confirm the presence of eggs, we didn't just take a trigger shot. Nosireebob. Now we went to the nice little room with porn across town where my husband, with my help, of course, put his contribution into a cup. It was then washed, counted, reported upon, put in a nice little test tube and shoved down my bra for a cozy trip back across town so it could be placed in the place where it could do the most good.
Have you ever seen the catheter used for IUI's? No? It's a small, nay, tiny, little innocuous thing. However, the cervix, she does not like plastic threaded through her. Not. At. All. Also? This. This was the straw that broke the camel's proverbial back. That was the 3rd round of Clomid with IUI's, and notice I said IUI's, because that doc did 2 for each cycle, roughly 36 hours apart. The second one of that round went like this. And I didn't say it in that entry, but I did end up crying afterward. That sonofabitch HURT. When it also didn't work, I procured a referral to a reproductive endocrinologist.
Now, first things first, not only did this involve a major decision because we thought it was going to cost lots more, but we also have to drive 2.5 hours to get to the nearest one. Our worries over the cost were basically unfounded, though, because she was cheaper on most things than The Nug's office. Also, I was very, very lucky and didn't have to progress to IVF. Very. Very. Lucky.
On November 30, 2005, I had my intake phone interview. On December 17, 2005, I had my first appointment. The RE listened to me, and miracle of miracles, thought she knew what was wrong. As in gave me a tentative diagnosis instead of throwing drugs at me. It was awesome. Notice I said tentative, though. She wanted to confirm it with surgery. On me. With scalpels and everything. The last week of January, 2006, I had the surgery. Full report is here, but suffice it to say that the initial diagnosis of PCOS was alive and well. And treatable.
Treatable.
At this point in the game, that word sounded suspiciously like 'ok'. Oddly enough, PCOS is linked to insulin resistance, which is treated with diabetic medication, even though it's kinda the opposite of diabetes. So here I am, trying to get pregnant, on birth control pills and diabetic medication. It seemed pretty darn surreal. One month of bcp's got me good and healed through the month of February. The diabetic medication was supposed to give me diarrhea and makes many people lose weight, which the RE said I needed to try not to do. Not to worry, my body reacted to that much like it reacts to any foreign medication....constipation! YAY! (Speaking of reactions to medications, that surgery taught me that I'm allergic to Vicodin. Good to know in case I ever wanted to develop a pain-killer addiction.)
March 1, 2006: Period, followed by Clomid, some injectible stork steroids, wanding, and a trigger shot.
March 21, 2006: IUI, not painful at all.
March 31, 2006: Positive home pregnancy test.
Positive.
For real.
For keeps.
February 8 and 9 Sean and I went skiing. I didn't offer the boob when I got back, and Dora didn't ask, so there you go. Of course, she's been sick since then. I think we're pretty lucky that she wasn't on any antibiotics until she was 14 months old, but unfortunately she inherited the gene from the women in my family whose bodies decide that if anything funny is going on, like say antibiotics, or snot, or OH look that cloud is shaped funny, then it's time to be constipated. Poor girl. I have to say that I have never been so glad of seeing the last medicine in a bottle gone. It was WAY worse than the double ear infection.
Speaking of skiing (weren't we?), I am an old, old, decrepit woman. And out of shape. That is all.
In the realm of tmi, I offer the following: I had a period on January 21st (very heavy) and another on February 22 (very light). For those of you playing along at home, that is exactly one normal cycle. Or, well, you know, normal-ish. Odd. Very odd. So I guess we are entering into the realm of BabyWatch 2.0 (henceforth known as BW2.0). You'd probably be well-advised to tune out now. Things could get stupid.
The Dora update is that besides being sick and constipated for most of February, she is delightful. Picking up new words and new games at a rate faster than I can count. She pretended she was nursing this morning. She pretends to 'drink' out of toys that kinda resemble cups. She tries to fool us into believing she has 'kat-sis' (glasses). Also? The cuteness is kryptonite. Resistance is futile. Maybe I will get off my ass and post a picture to prove it, but don't hold your breath.
When you think the most stressful part of your day is going to be Christmas shopping, and you end up being wrong, you know you have had a no good very bad day. December 21, 2007, was Dora's 1 year checkup. Even knowing she was going to have to get 5 shots and a finger stick, I still thought finishing up the Christmas shopping was going to be the worst part of the day. I was wrong. The pediatrician heard a heart murmur. She didn't want me to worry, because everything seemed to be fine, but she wanted me to go RIGHT NOW to the hospital to get 2 chest x-rays and an EKG. Follow-up appointment with the heart specialist February 14th. The week following that checkup, we attended six Christmas's including the one at my house, and hosted a dinner party for thirteen. I think I can officially say I'm tired of 2007. Bring on 2008, and a cheery message at the heart doc's. (I really, truly don't think anything is wrong, but trying to convince my internal worrier to stop is pretty well futile.)
In all, I have to say 2007 has been one of the best years of my life. I've watched Dora grow from a lump on the couch to a walking talking little girl. People are right, you just can never understand what it's like to have a kid until you have one. Wearing your heart outside your body, indeed.
We've been slowly working towards weaning, with nursing only happening first thing in the morning and last thing at night. The nighttime feeding is mostly for her comfort, so it will probably be the next to go. She has even skipped it a time or two. The morning nursing, however, allows me to doze sometimes as much as 2 hours after Dora wakes up because I bring her to bed with us, so that's going to be a tough one to cut. Getting up at 5:30 continues to hold no appeal to me. Yea olde left boob never gets engorged anymore, even if it's more than 24 hours since she's used it, so I think it's probably not producing much milk at all. She never was the work horse of the deal anyway. Rather unmotivated I'd say, but still hanging in there for thirteen months, so we can't give her too much flak.
My cycle still hasn't returned, despite a rather abrupt dropping of all daytime nursing. I did feel rather PMS'y for several weeks earlier this month, so it's only a matter of time I think. I suppose then we'll have to start worrying about the next pregnancy, but all in all, it's been a fine twenty-two (22!) months of not bleeding (except for the post-partum business). Hopefully I can get back on my infertilty story soon and get it all caught up before we start Infertilty Version 2.0.
I hope you all had a very merry Christmas and are planning a fine new year.
After our first miscarriage, I was pretty shell-shocked. I was on Men-Est, which combined with the trauma of miscarriage, allowed me 2 blessed months of no bleeding. After all the months of bleeding, it was a healing time, not only for my body, but for my psyche. Of course, as soon as the regularly scheduled bleeding resumed, we were back to watching my basal body temp like a hawk and screwing like monkeys. Basically that's all we did (besides work on the new house) between March and October. Every month the see-saw cycle of high hopes, dashed by the sight of blood on the toilet paper, followed by lots and lots of drinking. Lather, rinse, repeat. It led to some entries in my diaryland diary that looked like this. Finally in October 2004 I ended up with a fertility monitor and what looked like a cooperative uterus. I was full of hope. And 4 days late. You can see where this is going, right? Bloodbath, population: me, that's where it's going. (What? Did you think I was talking about a cute widdle cuddly baby?) Another early miscarriage.
Several cycles later and we are to January 2005 and this diaryland entry. Finally, a diagnosis of infertility. I could have had that label earlier, but I couldn't face it. So in January of 2005, I had a hysterosalpingogram. Also known as the shoot-radioactive-dye-into-your-uterus-and-take-x-rays-test. It wasn't nearly as bad physically as I had been led to believe. Uncomfortable, but that was it. Emotionally, well, that's a-whole-nother ball of wax. I took the whole day off work and after the test I went over to a girlfriend's house and we made and ate a batch of chocolate chip cookies. I was hopeful that the dye being forced through my tubes would facilitate an easy egg path and nice pregnancy, but like so many other pieces of rubbish crap that infertiles try to convince themselves of, it was exactly that.
The HSG came back OK. Kinda funny looking once the dye exited my tubes, but my tubes were clear. I was officially infertile. Guess what that means. You got it! No more insurance coverage for anything coochie related. Beginning in February I was on Clomid. The Nug was monitoring me pretty closely, so I got to be pretty good buddies with a very cute wand monkey named Luke. I was ovulating every month, my lining was perfect, and the sex was methodical. I was still not getting pregnant. I wrote this post about how much money I'd spent in the first couple of months of being an official infertile. I'm now laughing at myself, because WHOO! A COUPLE THOUSAND BUCKS! I wish I could write a letter to myself saying. "Oh Honey, chill. This is only the beginning of the wallet hemorrhage. You have no idea how much money you will spend to become a parent." After 3 months of Clomid, The Nug suggested I take a break over the summer and we would discuss the next step and possibly see a reproductive endocrinologist in September.
I was disappointed, horribly disappointed, but resolved to enjoy the summer. You should know that I didn't stress about it at ALL. Seriously. I wasn't even thinking about it the WHOLE TIME.
My anal ass was not able to control this. Not with all the monitoring and all the drugs and all the google searches in the world. And I thought I had it bad. So many people have had it so much worse than me. But this is about me, and next time we'll talk about how I thought things were going from bad to worse, but it turns out scalpels are good news.
At that first appointment, Dr Nug made me feel SO grateful and hopeful. Grateful because when I'd been married to my ex, I only went to Planned Parenthood for any kind of female healthcare, and PP in rural Texas was NOT quality healthcare. One lady there took almost 10 minutes of digging to find my cervix. I know 10 minutes doesn't sound like very long, but when someone is digging in your cooch, 10 seconds is pretty long. Anyway, Dr. Nug started me on some bio-identical estrogen (estrogen made of yams and soybeans) and then said he was going to run several blood tests, including a pregnancy test, just to get all my baselines. I kinda laughed at him, but he was very reassuring and said "Even if you are pregnant, this estrogen won't hurt anything." I believed him. When the nurse called later that day and left a message on my machine saying congratulations, I was elated, but only for a moment or two. Because remember all that bleeding? It was still happening. When I called her back, she told me to stop taking the estrogen, and I told her that the doc said it wasn't unsafe during pregnancy, and she said "OK, then keep taking it." Now, I knew that progesterone was the hormone that supported pregnancy, but I figured the good doc knew what he was talking about. When the bleeding didn't stop, Sean and I pretty much resigned ourselves to an early miscarriage. It was a heartbreaking Christmas.
My gift to Sean that Christmas was a trip to Washington DC to see the new airplane museum at the Dulles airport. He's a total geek like that, and besides, we'd never really gotten to take any kind of honeymoon, since we married at the height of planting season that year. The trip was scheduled for the second week in January, and when I still hadn't actually miscarried by then, I started kinda getting worried. I called Dr. Nug's office and asked for progesterone supplements. The nurse said she could probably call in a prescription for me. The nurse promptly called back and said Dr. Nug wouldn't prescribe the progesterone, because this early in pregnancy, there was nothing to be done to prevent a miscarriage and she suggested canceling my trip unless I wanted to end up in an out-of-state emergency room. We went on the trip. I still didn't miscarry. My boobs started feeling fuller. I started feeling pregnant. We allowed ourselves to hope, and get excited. We came home. We moved across the street. In the middle of moving, I miscarried. January 15, 2003. I labored most of the day at work, having what I'm now are certain were 45 second contractions every 2 minutes. I finally left a little bit early, came home, and spent several hours sitting on the potty. Sean kept coming to the door asking about me, and I got irritated at him interrupting my concentrating on the handle of the drawer in front of me. I finally kinda felt a huge blob come through my cervix, pushed a little bit, and there it was. A big blob of blood in the potty. I didn't call Sean in. I didn't do anything. I looked for a moment, then flushed. It took about 3 days with a heating pad for my uterus to stop being sore. It took several weeks to stop bleeding. It took several months for me to be able to talk about it. It took several years to feel not-guilty about it. In fact, I felt guilty until my first appointment with my RE, when I told her my history and she said "If the doctor had given you the progesterone when you asked for it, it probably would have prevented that miscarriage." I tend to feel guilty over everything (lordy, lordy, parenting is plagued with guilt), but I finally feel ok about this miscarriage. I did what I could do for as long as I could do it. I think that baby was a boy. I searched and searched until I found what he looked like when he passed. I have two friends who got pregnant about the same time I did, and they both have little boys. When I'm around them, I always think of mine.
(Please note that this picture came from a pregnancy that had to be terminated because it was ectopic.)
Technically, the beginning probably has something to do with my always irregular periods, or possibly with my non-eating status during my first marriage, but I'm just going to start with my second marriage. The good one. The one where I want kids.
When Sean and I first started dating, he told me that it would be ok if I got pregnant. We weren't having sex yet. That's how Sean feels about kids. The more the merrier, and the sooner the better. Sean and I got married May 18, 2002. I wasn't quite done with college, but I didn't want my ex-husband's last name on my diploma (BLEAGH!) and we were really just considering waiting because my dad had been helping me financially a lot with college, so we were going to keep letting him take the tax break on me. Anyway, I finished up the part of college where I lived 6 hours away the next December, and several months later, because of all the problems the pills were causing me (bleeding 3 weeks a month mainly, but one memorable pill, Yasmin, made me psycho) we decided to toss the pills and start using natural family planning as our contraception, with the idea that if it failed it would be no big deal.
So here we are in April of 2003 with me waking up taking my basal body temperature every morning in order to PREVENT pregnancy. I scoff at my 2003 self. For some reason it was really important to me for us to make the decision to get pregnant, and for it to not just happen in the heat of the moment. I may have some residual scar tissue left over from the fact that I was unplanned, not to mention my need to control EVERYTHING. In August, we finally had the conversation where we decided to start trying. Since I'd gone off the pill I'd had nice regular, albeit 40 day, cycles. My BBT was indicating that I was ovulating, so I thought this would be a piece of cake. I mean, seriously, my mom got pregnant twice on the first try, (or not-try, in my case), and her mom had 4 kids in 5 years. It took her 5 years because she was on birth control with the last one. So I start calculating due dates. And I start bleeding. And bleeding. And bleeding. Like when I was on the pill. Within a few months, I was only having a day or two a month where there was not some type of blood exiting my cooch. I can't tell you how much fun this was.
In December, my 'heavy' period during all the bleeding was a week late, my boobs hurt and the blood had been pretty much non-stop for 4 months. I'd been on a TTC webboard and I'd googled my heart out. Nobody had any answers, so I finally made a doctor's appointment. I know! What a novel idea, huh? I went to see a guy we will call Dr. Nug, because he reminded Sean of Ted Nugent. And this is where the story gets really interesting. And expensive. Tune in tomorrow to hear about the surprising test results!
I knew it was bound to come sooner or later. The first time Dora got sick was weekend before last. Some sort of nasty virus that was like a horrid cold with a fever. Poor girl woke up with a snot covered face until this morning. That's 10 full days of snot-face, if anyone's counting. I have never been so thankful that my mom is a nurse, I'll tell you that much.
Things to remember:
1. Motrin works better than Tylenol at controlling fever, but if you rotate them, you can give them every 3 hours, rather than waiting the 4 between doses of Tylenol or the 6 between doses of Motrin.
2. Make peace with the snot. Constantly wiping at it will cause your precious baby's nose to become so irritated and raw that it cracks and bleeds and your baby screams and cries and then you will feel like a child abuser, not to mention scum of the earth. And also you might cry.
3. Let me preface this one by saying I AM SCARED SHITLESS OF SIDS. But, babies who can't breathe through their noses very well will sleep better on their tummies.
4. Sometimes, babies who are 7 months old can sleep on their tummies and not die of SIDS.
5. My SIDS monitor is WORTH ITS WEIGHT IN GOLD. OR PLATINUM. OR A MILLION DOLLARS.
6. I think my irrational fear of SIDS is tied up with my recurrent miscarriages back in my infertility days. Which brings me right back to my infertility posts that I keep thinking I'm going to write.
7. (Just to keep up with the numbered list that at this point has nothing to do with things to remember about babies being sick...) You guys have a good day, and I wish snot-less noses for you all.
In keeping with tradition, I am only updating when Dora is another month older. Go me.
Little Missy Prissy is now sitting up wonderfully, and rarely falls over unless she means to. She hasn't quite figured out how to pull herself upright when she falls over, but she will do it herself if you offer her your hands to pull on. Speaking of pulling, she has pulled herself up to standing several times, and seems much more interested in doing this than in crawling. Tummy time usually consists more of rolling around time, and she gets pretty frustrated after just a few minutes of trying to crawl. She is beginning to figure out how to get up on her hands and knees, though, so I'm sure true mobility is near. I guess I should start considering some childproofing, huh?
This last weekend we went on a trip up to Minneapolis, and Dora was a champion traveler. We had 4 flights, and she slept for 3 of them. Of course, the one that she was awake, she managed to reach over and knock water into the lap of the girl next to us. To her credit, the girl was VERY sweet about it, and thankfully had a change of clothes with her to change into. In fact, everyone we came into contact with was very nice and helpful. Maybe I should have started traveling with a baby much sooner! (HA!)
Coming soon to a blog near you: I think I'm going to try to put my story of infertility down chronologically. Some of it is on my diaryland blog, but I was too caught up in the emotions of it to really document it while it was going on. It's not something that I want to lose sight of, since I will most likely be dealing with it again. I also think I have lots of info that might be useful to people. We'll see how that project goes.
Dora loves the water, and we have spent several afternoons splashing in the kiddie pool in the back yard. She has also spent some time on the combine with Sean, and LOVED that. There was just so much to look at and try to get into. I am really loving my new 4-10's schedule.
And how is your summer going?
Seems like I only check in on Vox when I'm doing my monthly Dora updates. Bad blogger. In the meantime, I missed a very important announcement over at still's place. (They're expecting a baby!)
This has been a big month for little Dora. She's sitting by herself, and she cut her two top teeth. She got her bottom two when she was only three and a half months old, so now she has four! She's doing this horrible grinding thing now that she has teeth that match up, and I'm really hoping she gets over that soon. It makes a sound akin to fingernails on a chalkboard, which makes my spine tingle. The good news is that we're giving her some table food, and she is LOVING it.
We had Dora Christened last Sunday, and all the family was in. I think 24 people ate lunch at the house that day! And my baby was beautiful in her gown, not to mention pretty good in church. That's the first time she's made it all the way through the sermon without going to the nursery
Tonight my younger brother-in-law's band (Pants Mandolin) is playing in Amarillo at the Golden Light. I'm really excited about going. I haven't been out in months. The momentous event that will accompany this is Dora's first night at Grandma and Coco's house. I know she will be fine, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to be zooming down there as soon as I wake up in the morning. Also, if you hear of someone getting arrested for pumping breastmilk in a bar parking lot in Amarillo tonight, don't worry, I'll find a good lawyer.
My four day a week schedule is AWESOME. The days are long, but I really love having the three day weekend. My stress level has come down considerably since starting this schedule. Now I have a day to run errands, a day to clean, and a day to actually take a freaking break and enjoy my daughter!
Both of my brother-in-laws have been at my house this week, and it's really been nice. The older BIL is helping Sean cut wheat, and the younger one has been keeping Dora during the day except when they need an extra hand in the field. He is SO GOOD with her, and she just loves him. Whoever ends up parenting with him can thank me for the training! HA! The sad part about all this is that Sean has just had no time at all with Dora lately. When I left this morning the two of them were snuggled up together, though, so maybe he got some time with her this morrning. Such is the life of a farmer.
In other breaking news, I quit taking my pills the day Dora hit 6 months old, June 11. That's the earliest my doctor said it would be ok for my body to get pregnant again. Of course, with all the breastfeeding, I'm not even cycling yet. That's good, because I'm really not ready to dive back into this whole thing again. For a normal person, this would mean that I'm not ready to be pregnant and have another kid, which is pretty well true, however, the thing I'm really not ready to deal with again is infertility. Which is another post altogether.
I suppose it only makes me normal to be kinda freaking out right about now. I mean, I'm 36 weeks pregnant, that's allowed, right? (Aside: It's very...odd...for me to consider things in terms of a normal pregnant woman. After two plus years of battling infertility, considering anything as a pregnant woman period is amazing. But back to the freakout.) The nursery is finally painted, and the hubby is supposed to be putting the furniture back in it today. I have all the stuff from my shower that needs to be unpacked, washed, and put up. I have almost everything I need (provided I win this stroller/infant seat/carseat base on ebay in a few minutes), but I'm being faced with the prospect of, well, you know. Squeezing something the size of a watermelon out of my lady parts. And then taking care of that something even when she's a teenager and starts to think Calista freaking Flockhart looks great. OH! And don't forget about using the above-mentioned lady parts for their original duties sometime in the next decade so my husband doesn't leave me! So, we'd all be worried if I weren't freaking out, right?
Can you tell I go Thursday to check to see if I'm dilating yet?
Holy kamoly Batman, I think I'm gonna have a baby.
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