Try, Try Again

When you fail what should you do? Try, try again! And so that is what my plan is. I'm disappointed and sad but need to just keep pushing forward. If I get really lucky I'll be able to have my ultrasound on Veteran's Day when I'm already off from work and then the IUI would hopefully follow on Saturday or Sunday. I need to save as much of my leave as I can so that I'll be able to take a maternity leave.

The Annoying Mom

No, I'm not talking about my mother! I'm talking about those moms who incessantly chatter on about their children. It's one thing to tell a funny, cute, endearing story about your little one, it's a completely other thing to go on about the minutiae of what your child does during the day and night. You know, the mom who tells you in painstaking detail about how her child woke up at 2:03 a.m. and then they had to get out of bed and say "what's wrong sweetie" and then their child just kept crying so they picked them up and rocked them for exactly 14 minutes and then when they laid them back down in the crib the child started wailing again so they had to go find a pacifier even though they had said they were never going to use pacifiers and then finally the child feel asleep but woke up again at 5:24 a.m. and was calling for mommy so the mom had to get up again and now she's up for the whole day and she's exhausted but oh, the baby had such a cute grin that it just made everything okay until she changed his diaper and the poop was a mushy green and so that made the mom wonder if the kid is sick and should she call the pediatrican or not.............and on, and on and on...................

I listen to conversations like this multiple times each day and honestly, it's beginning to wear on me. I have children, I get it, and at the same time I don't get it. My children and not my sole interest in life and even if they were I am smart enough to know that they aren't the sole interest of my co-workers lives. Tell me the story about one cute thing your kid did yesterday but please, I'm begging, stop short of telling me the details of your child's poop.

Seeing God

When I was little and riding in the car with my mom she would sometimes say "look at the sky, you can see God peaking through the clouds." She was referring to when the sunlight streaks through the gaps in the clouds. I remember thinking how cool that was, that I could actually see God. Of course, now that I'm older, I know that isn't God, but then again, I suppose if I believe that God created the Earth, the universe, the sun, etc. that perhaps it in a way it is Him looking down on little 'ole me.

This morning as I was driving to work I saw God. Over the lake was a massive wall of dark and ominous clouds but just over the lakefront was beautiful blue, yellow sky with misty streaks of light breaking through. It was quite the sight to see.

Back in the day, before I became so jaded, I would have taken such a beautiful sight as a good sign. But, now I just see it as beautiful but really attach no other meaning to it.

Today I am 10dpo and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't make a second line appear on the test strip this morning.

Testing Out the Trigger Just Got Harder

I have a small stockpile of home pregnancy tests in my bathroom closet and my plan this cycle was to test out my trigger shot. My collection includes some internet test strips, some FRER sticks (results 6 days earlier!!!! is what it exclaims on the box) and one or two CBE digital tests. My problem is that both the internet cheapies and the FRER test for very low levels of hcg and so that makes it harder to test out the trigger. I tried Saturday morning and got a clear positive with the internet strip and then tested again this morning and got another positive. So, I tried a FRER this morning which was negative within the time frame but faintly positive later. It kinda sucks to have to waste tests trying to see a negative. I guess the good news is that if I have a FRER turn positive within the testing time frame later this week I'll know it's a real positive. Let's hope that is what happens. I don't feel pregnant.

Packages

Lately everyday when I come home there is a package waiting for me. Don't you just love getting packages? Mine have been coming due to a borderline obsession I seem to have with on-line discount shopping sites such as zulilly, the mini social and haute look. Each day I get an email telling me that new things are available for sale so I go, just to check it out, but inevitably I find something super cute for QT or SB and it's so easy to just click and buy it.

The other day this is what arrived:

How could I resist? I ordered it in the 9 month size since the trend is that my babies are chunky and grow out of the smaller sizes super quickly. The only question now is when will I have a baby to wear this?

Now is the Time

I was paging through a catalog last night, as I am apt to do as I receive about five new ones each day in the months leading up to Christmas, when I saw a silver ring inscribed with the saying "Now is the time to be happy. If not now, when?" It hit me like a ton of bricks. Yes, of course, NOW is the time to be happy. Why wallow in misery when you can choose happiness? I am happy quite a bit of the time, like when I see SB and QT playing with the kitten and laughing until they are almost crying, or when SB falls asleep next to me in bed right after telling me how he loves me more than anything on this earth, or when the kids and the husband give me big hugs before I leave for work every morning. So, I'm making progress. I just need to kick the sadness over my losses to the curb and remember that now is the time.

I'd also love to kick the massive headache I have today to the curb with some Frova, but unfortunately, I'm not supposed to take migraine medicine when I'm waiting to see if I'm pregnant. I'd love to think that this is a good sign but I think the headache was brought on my atmospheric pressure as it rained last night and also possibly by the progesterone that I'm on. That's the bad thing about progesterone, it can make you feel pregnant even when you're not. Cruel, cruel progesterone.

A Year Ago Today

I've reached the point in time at which I'm going to be saying "a year ago today" a lot. So, this is the first in a long line of posts to come:

A year ago today I found out that I was pregnant.

Today I look back with such sadness and I'm getting teary eyed just typing this. I know I should be looking forward instead of looking back. I know I should be hopeful that this IUI works instead of focusing on my losses. I know I should just be thankful for the wonderful family that I have and perhaps give up the fight. But, ultimately, the heart wants what the heart wants, and my heart wants my babies back.

Anticipation, Anticipapapation

Without anticipation of a certain outcome you could not really have disappointment. I know this and yet I continually allow myself to come up with crazy expectations. This cycle I took 12.5 of Femara EACH day for five days. That is a higher dose per day than most women take their entire cycle. So, my expectation was that I would develop three or more follicles. I actually worried that I would develop too many and that we wouldn't be able to go forward with the cycle. I wondered what it would be like to find out that I'm pregnant with triplets. And on and on and on.

Yesterday I went for my follie check and guess what? One. One freakin' follicle. I know all I need is one good egg so I'm actually not too disappointed, I'm more concerned about what my only developing one follicle on such a high dose of meds means for the future. How many would I develop in an IVF cycle, two or three? Would we be wasting our money even trying one?

And, of course, my expectation now for this cycle is that I will get pregnant so once again I am setting myself up for some huge disappointment.

IUI is scheduled for tomorrow morning. For those who are keeping track, that will make about ten hours over a five day period spent driving to and from doctor's appointments. That is crazy.

And the Winner Is.....

Option number one.

All of my test results came back normal with the exception of the MTHFR gene mutation which we already knew I had. The recommendation is to get pregnant and then return for early pregnancy monitoring which entails weekly blood work and ultrasounds. Yes, weekly. Certain blood tests would be re-run as certain problems only become activated by pregnancy. So, although my natural killer cells tested normal they could go into overdrive if and when I become pregnant again and at that point we would do IVIg. I understand not treating something that isn't wrong but I struggle with waiting until I'm pregnant to find out something is wrong and then treating it while crossing our fingers that we're not too late. I can't help but feel like the last pregnancy was behind from the very beginning and so even if I had gotten treatment right away would it have helped? And, that is another frustrating thing, I'll never know. I'll never know if anything would have helped the other pregnancies and worse, I'll never know why we lost them.

Be Kind 39

I'm 39 now and feel the pressure of time passing as it relates to having more children. Last year I felt as though I still had two good years ahead of me and a plan in place. As it turned out, I was actually already pregnant and just didn't know it yet. But, as we all know, that pregnancy ended followed by another loss just six months later. So, 38 kinda sucked. I'm hoping that year 39 will be kinder and gentler to me and my babies.

Today is the big day for test results. I have another consultation with Dr. Coulam and all the results, for both me and the husband, are in. I'm nervous. I keep trying to come up with the scenario that I'd be okay with but honestly there isn't one. Option one would be that she tells me all the tests were normal and wouldn't that be good news? Well, yes, except that would still leave me with no answers as to why I lost two babies and really wouldn't give me a ton of comfort going forwards. Option two would be she says such and such is wrong and these are the treatment options. At least then I would have a partial answer but oh the pressure of having to make decisions about moving forward. Should we keep trying, what are the risks, what are our odds of having a successful pregnancy, will the treatments even work, etc. Option three would be that she just tells me that it would be best to not have more children. Clearly, a devastating option, and yet freeing in that it really leaves me with no decisions to make other than if we want to pursue adoption and what to do with our little frozen embryo. Why can't life just be simple for once?

Well, What Do You Know

At the ripe old age of 39 (I guess I won't be 39 until next week but still) I am considering changing careers and going to medical school. Okay, no, not really, I am way too old for that but I think I could if I really felt the calling. Anyway, the thought pops into my mind because guess who called today to say that I need to reduce the amount of my thyroid medicine? Yep, endocrinologist man called to say exactly what I said in my post yesterday and exactly what I said to him two months ago when he insisted that I should stay on the same dose.

Just call me Dr. Kelly.

Blindly Moving Forward

Today my new cycle started and so with a bottle full of Femara on my desk, a syringe full of Ovidrel in my fridge, and a massive stash of progesterone and Lovenox, I am set to begin an IUI cycle. I called the clinic today and scheduled a day 11 ultrasound and am hoping that my blood work and consultation with Dr. Coulam happens prior to that ultrasound. The ultrasound is scheduled for the 16th so I really just have next week. Yikes.

In other news, my thyroid is still very wacky. Four months ago my TSH was over 5. After a mere one month on medication it plummeted all the way down to 0.10. At that time I asked the doctor if he was going to change the dosage but he firmly answered no and told me that I had the test done too soon and that I needed to stay on the same dose and get tested after I'd been on the meds three months. Well, it's been three months and the results are in and my TSH has dropped even further to 0.03. Clearly, to me anyway, I am on too much medication and it is making me hyperthyroid. I only have one pill left so before I go and refill the medication I am hoping that the doctor will call and let me know what in the world he thinks is going on.

And so, despite have basically zero answers, I am moving forward.

A Different Kind of Two Week Wait

Ugh. I just got off the phone with Dr. Coulam's office and got the bad news that it could be another full week before they have my blood work results back. How can it take two weeks to do blood tests? At this stage in the came I shouldn't be surprised by this or even disappointed but I am.

So, now here I sit contemplating how much longer I should keep using the progesterone, trying to hold off on getting my period so that we could hopefully get the results, have the consultation, do IVIg or intralipids if necessary and still do an IUI this cycle. I keep thinking that it's all doable but deep down I'm thinking that it's really not. Things will not just fall into place how I need them to and we'll end up missing out on yet another cycle.

Next week I turn 39. At this point, every cycle is important.

IVF is Back on the Table!

Just the other day I posted about wanting just one day where things seemed to go my way. Well, perhaps today is that day.

I've been testing this week and each test has shown just one dark pink line. It's looking like I am not pregnant. And so, with that in mind, I decided to move ahead and fill the femara, ovidrel and progesterone prescriptions I've had since we thought about doing an IUI back in April prior to finding out I was pregnant. The husband made his 100th trip to the Walgreens to get them filled. Later that night he made his 101st trip back to pick them up. Here's where things get good - my insurance paid for them!

I thought that maybe we just got lucky so I decided to do some investigating. I called my insurance company and questioned if Gonal-f or Follistim were covered drugs. Yes, indeed they are and I can even get a 15 day supply for a mere $35 co-pay. Holy cats! I am in heaven thinking that we could do an IVF and have the meds virtually paid for. Of course, that still doesn't answer where we're getting the $11,000 to pay for the actual IVF procedure, but it sure is easier to come up with $11,000 than $18,000.

In this moment, I am happy and excited about the future.