I don't believe my eyes!

I got a positive OPK! On CD15!  Am I in an alternate universe where my body acts normal?  Am I dreaming?  Did I give myself my HCG trigger in my sleep and now I'm getting false positives?

I was convinced that I wasn't going to respond to this dose of Clo.mid, and here I am, ovulating 10 days early!  I guess I was wrong!  

I don't know if we're going to really have a chance at a BFP this cycle because we didn't time things too well.  But if I can ovulate before CD20 again next cycle, I'll be ok!

I can't believe how much less stress there is in a cycle where I'm not waiting and BDing for 25 days!!!!!!!!!!! Yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!

So Pretty...

Yes, the title of this post is referring to my uterus.  And yes, I am in love with it because it is so. darn. cute.  I can totally imagine our little fertilized eggs floating out of my tube and thinking that my uterus ROCKS as a place to nestle in and grow!

So the HSG went well.... if you couldn't guess by my new crush on my own reproductive system.  I have to admit it was love at first sight.  *Sigh*

Everything looked clear, everything looked normal, and my RE was impressed by the small amount of dye it took to get spilling from both tubes.  It did hurt like a b**** for about 30 seconds there, but other than that, I am pain free.

Now come on ovaries, get with the program and get ready to spit out some beautiful eggs!! I get to check in on your follie growing abilities on Monday, and you really don't want to end up as the ugly duckling of my reproductive organs, do you?  

Scaredy Cat

My HSG is scheduled for this Friday afternoon.  I have to admit that I am not scared one bit about the procedure itself or the possibility of pain (which of course means that I will end up screaming for hours at the terrible pain).  But I am terrified of the results.

For some reason, I have convinced myself that something major is wrong with my tubes and/or uterus.  It's probably just me thinking that every other time I had testing done, I found out something was wrong, so why would this time be any different.  And part of it is probably my whacked out IF logic, which has me thinking that I can probably still have a baby with a clotting disorder and hypothyroidism, but throw a mis-shapen uterus or a blocked tube into the mix, and that's just one reproductive deformity too many.

Whatever the reason, I just keep imagining my RE telling me, "Well, it doesn't look good.  Your uterus is shaped like the letters B, F, and N, and that's just not a good environment for growing a baby."  Or, "I'm sorry to tell you that you're ovaries look great, but you actually don't even have fallopian tubes.  Better go adopt."

Ahhhh.  Deep breaths.  Those scenarios are both highly unlikely.  Right?

My First ICLW!

If you're new to my little corner of the blogosphere, here is our story in a nutshell.

Mr. Unexpected and I have been TTC since April 2009.  We got pregnant in July 2009, but unfortunately found out at 12 weeks that the baby had stopped growing at around 8 weeks.  It's been a year since we lost our baby, and we haven't had another positive pregnancy test.  We've just started seeing a RE, and we found out I am hypothyroid, so now I am on meds for that.  I also have a clotting disorder, and will need to start Lovenox injections with my next BFP.  We have some more testing to do this week, and this cycle we are also trying Clo.mid with ultrasound monitoring and an HCG trigger shot.  At this point, I can barely even imagine what it would be like to get pregnant again.  Isn't it amazing how a journey like this can suck all the hope out of you?

In more recent news, I (sort of) got the results for Mr. Unexpected's semen analysis yesterday.  I know his total count was 40 million (with normal being >40 million), his motility was 65% (with normal being >50%), and his forward progression score was 2++ (with normal being, from what I can tell >2).  The nurse said it all looked good, but it seems to mostly look borderline... I don't know.  I requested a paper copy, and I will talk with the doctor about it at my ultrasound appointment on Monday.  

I think part of my problem is that with so many things wrong with me (hypothyroid, clotting disorder, late ovulation, luteal phase spotting), I would just be so much more comfortable if everything on Mr. Unexpected's end was just absolutely, clearly, obviously amazing.  A crappy reproductive system meeting a mediocre reproductive system just doesn't seem like a sure thing for getting the job done.  Besides, what else would I do if I didn't manufacture things to worry about out of thin air?

Settling Down

I really feel like things are finally settling down for me, and it's such a great feeling.  

Mr. Unexpected and I were surprised to be on our own for the weekend (due to an unfortunate development that led to a sudden change of plans for my sister, but I am looking on the bright side here).  That meant that instead of moping around the house on Cricket's Angelversary, we were able to get out of the house, into the wilderness, and do some camping and hiking with the furbabies.

Camping, hiking, and just being outside are really what I love.  I am one of those people who just feels at home and at peace as soon as I enter the woods.  Unfortunately this last couple of years has been jam packed with things that prevented us from getting our fix of the great outdoors.  We had a great time, and I have decided that should we still be on this journey to conception next year, we will take a month off of medical assistance in the spring and a month in the fall, just to make sure that we have time to get outside.

Mr. Unexpected actually gave me a much needed metaphorical hand slap this weekend, too.  He said that he loves being my husband, and I said I didn't know why because it seems like only bad things have happened to us since we got married.  He said, "You got pregnant, and that was the best thing that ever happened to us.  Even if we lost the baby, it was still a good thing."

And he is so right.  It's so easy to forget the good parts of this journey.  But the truth is, I cried when I was waiting for my D&C because I didn't want them to take my baby from me, because I didn't want to lose that feeling of connection.  Because I loved being connected to our Cricket.

Cricket, we miss you so much.  We will love you forever.  And even if we never got to meet you, we are so lucky to have had you in our lives and in our hearts.  The months I had with you were the happiest of my life, and I wouldn't give up those memories for anything.

Remembering

One year ago today, Mr. Unexpected and I went to an OB appointment.  I was 12 weeks.  The doctor couldn't find the heartbeat on the Doppler, so she sent us for an ultrasound.  We found out that our baby, our Cricket, had died.  And nothing will ever be the same.

Cricket would have been 5 months old by now.  A real live baby.  A loved baby.

The pain of our loss really does grow less sharp with time.  But there are those moments where you really think about it, you really let it sink in, you really feel the unfairness of it all.  And those moments are.... what?  Yes, they are terrible.  But sometimes I think they are the only time I am being honest with myself.  And all the rest of the time that I'm living life as usual (or trying to, anyway) is all just a big ploy to cover up the fact that I'm so empty.

I miss knowing that our baby is growing inside of me.  I miss imagining Cricket as a boy or Cricket as a girl and believing that I'll get to find out which fantasy is right someday.  I miss wondering what it will feel like when Cricket kicks me from inside my own belly.  I miss Mr. Unexpected kissing my belly and talking to Cricket.  

I miss believing that I will hold my baby in my arms someday.

Yes, the unfairness of it all is so terrible, but sometimes it feels like it's all that I have left.  

Deep Breaths...

I am finally starting to feel a little better, emotionally.  More like a person and not just a giant ball of rage.  I have really been feeling crazy for the past week or two, and it is so nice when that feeling starts to pass and I can just be calm.  

I got a call back about yesterday's bloodwork.  The TSH is lower at 3.6, but still higher than they like, so the Synthroid plan is still on.  The prolactin is back to 20- in the normal range!  That leads me to believe that it was raised due to the high TSH.  But the good news is that means no MRI, and we are on for our monitored Clo.mid cycle!!!  I start with my first pill tonight!

I am wondering if this horribly irritable and depressed mood that I've been in lately is due (at least in part) to my thyroid being out of whack.  My worst days seemed to correlate with when my TSH was highest, and now that the levels are trending down, I am feeling better.  There is so much other stuff going on right now that it definitely could have been a IF- and loss- induced emotional meltdown.  But wouldn't it be crazy if these periods of extreme emotions were physically based?  Just a dream, I guess.

I just want to say thank you so much for all the amazing comments and well wishes over the past couple weeks.  It means so much to know that there are people out there rooting for me.  And that they can understand this crazy rollercoaster.  You're all amazing!

Health Issues

Today I heard from the nurse at my RE's office about the bloodwork I had done on Friday.  It turns out I am hypothyroid with a TSH level of 5.8 (they like to see it under 2.5) , and that I have high prolactin with a level of 68 (they want it under 20).  So I had to go get some repeat blood work done this afternoon.  If the TSH is still high, then I will start thyroid medication.  If the prolactin is still high, then I will get an MRI to look for a pituitary tumor and start bromocriptine.

And our Clomid cycle is on hold at least until we get the results back, probably until next cycle.

And they can't fit me in for a HSG this cycle, either.

Pretty crappy day.

Same Old, Same Old

I wish I could figure out how to convince myself that this year is a fresh start.  Somehow it just feels like more of the same darn thing.  Maybe that's because my new year is starting off with a new period instead of a new pregnancy.  But I need to remember that during this new year of trying to get pregnant, we will have the additional help of fertility treatments.

In fact, this is what's planned just for this month:

1.  Bloodwork for me looking at TSH, glucose, insulin, and prolactin levels (already done, just waiting on the results).

2.  A semen analysis for Mr. Unexpected (scheduled for this Tuesday).

3.  A HSG for me (I have to call and schedule this tomorrow).

4.  Clo.mid (CD3-7) with ultrasound monitoring (to be scheduled tomorrow) and a HCG trigger.

I really hope that it works, because I am starting to feel like I can't take it anymore.

And it doesn't help that this Saturday is one year since losing Cricket.  How could all that time have passed without a new pregnancy?  How can we still be at step 1 when Cricket should be 5 months old?  Come on world, just give me something here.

Starting Over

Today is a fresh start for me.  Well I hope so, anyway.

This birthday brings a new year, and it has to be better than the last one.  Even though this cycle appears to be a bust (increasing spotting, some cramping, and negative FRER at 12 dpo), I have to believe some good things will happen this year.

I will be a mom.  I will be a mom.  I will be a mom.

If I say it enough times, will that make it come true?

Goodbye and Good Riddance!

Dear Age 26,

F&^# you.

You really know how to throw the sucker punches that will keep a girl down for weeks, don't you? And then you don't let up.  You just keep kicking her in the guts until she can't breathe, until she can't stand, until she can't even remember who she is or where she was trying to go with her life.

Well, now you are on your way out, and I am proud to say that I survived you.  And I'm not letting you get away without some good old fashioned verbal abuse.  So, without further ado, let me list the ways I hate you.

1)  You took Cricket from us.  Age 25 let us get pregnant, see our little one's beautiful heart beating, and make it almost all the way through the first trimester.  And then here you come, Age 26, and suddenly, our Cricket is dead and getting ripped from my body and from our lives. What kind of a**hole are you, anyway?

2)  You changed all of our lives forever when my sweet sister (C) had a str()ke.  Suddenly C went from happy 24 year old to totally dependent on equipment and other people for all aspects of daily living, and she will probably never be the same again.  What can I even say about that?  It is just plain f&@#ing unfair, and utter bulls$@#.  

3)  You took me away from Mr. Unexpected for the better part of 8 months.  When C was suddenly dependent on family for 24 hour care, I moved back home (out of state) to help take care of her.  That meant leaving Mr. Unexpected and our furbabies for most of 2010.  Because you hadn't already done enough damage, you had to rip me apart from my husband and my home?  Screw that, and screw you, Age 26!

4)  You took me away from my small support system.  I had only a few people who I would talk to about the things that really mattered.  One was C, and she is gone in that capacity, probably for good.  And we moved away from the other 2 this year when Mr. Unexpected got a job in another state.  Now I have no one in real life to vent to and keep me sane.  That's just cruel, and I will never forgive you for it, Age 26.

5)  You stole $10,000 from me.  That is the actual amount of lost wages from my leave of absence to help care for C.  We could have been sitting pretty for all these fertility treatments we'll need, and now we're struggling just to pay the bills.  I don't usually care about money, but that one stings.

6)  You forced me to give up my PhD.  It should work out that when I take a leave of absence from school to care for my severely disabled sister, my boss is flexible (especially since he isn't paying me- see #5 above!!).  Instead my boss decides to put a completely unreasonable deadline on me due to a supposed budgeting issue.  And then he promptly hires someone to do my project.  And now I get a Master's for 5 years of work.  F@$* everyone!

7)  You gave me a clotting disorder that makes it more likely for me to lose more of my unborn babies.  Yes, that's right, not only do I have to have the normal recurrent miscarriage worries in my next pregnancy, but I also get to do daily Lovenox injections and worry about my increased risk of second and third trimester losses.  Way to stomp on the pieces of my heart, Age 26.

8)  You made me a psycho.  I used to be calm, cool, and collected almost 100% of the time.  Now I am either on the verge of tears or on the verge of a rage attack almost 100% of the time.  I don't know if it was the loss of Cricket, the loss of C as I knew her, the cycle after cycle of BFNs, or any of the other million things that have sucked a$# this year, but something has driven me to near insanity.  And I blame you, Age 26.

9)  You made me infertile.  Add this to the sad, sad list.  We have been trying to have a living child for a total of 17 months, and for 12 months since we lost Cricket.  We are officially defective.  It will officially cost us money to (maybe) have children.  And I am officially losing it over this.  *&#^^&@*@(#*$&&$

10)  You took away the life I dreamed of living.  A year ago, I thought that right now I would have my baby, have my PhD, have enough money to pay off a chunk of my student loans, have enough money to visit my friends, and have C to share my life with.  And now I have none of that, and it's not even clear whether I'll get any of it in the future.  I am truly lost.  What has happened to my life??!??

So, Age 26, you have f#$@ed me over royally.  And now, I'm kicking you out.  I don't need any more major life crises in the near future.  So GET. THE. F#$%. OUT.

Don't let the giant pile of negative hpt's hit you on the way out.

Crystal Unclear

7 dpo: My progesterone is perfect at 26.7.

9 dpo: My usual pre-AF spotting starts.  What the crap?

I don't have much else to say.  I was feeling good about this cycle.  Some spotting and some negative FRERs later, and I'm feeling pretty hopeless.  Stupid body.

Welcome to the 1WW

Well, I finally figured out how to get my blood drawn to check my 7 dpo progesterone (plan 3 worked!)   My progesterone was at 26.7!  I haven't talked to my doctor about it yet, but at least I know I ovulated.  I have had this irrational fear for the last 6 months or so that I haven't really been ovulating, and that my temperature shifts are all in my head because I want so badly to be ovulatory.  But I am happy to prove that bit of paranoia wrong!

I spent the day driving yesterday, heading back home from my trip.  And I have to admit that something weird happens to me when I am alone in my car with my radio blaring.  I cry.  It never used to happen before we lost Cricket, but now it does.  So, Layfayette, IN, I apologize for driving under the influence of country music.  And I have to get the following things off my chest:

1.  Damn you, Tim McG.r4w, for making me cry not once, but twice.  That's just not fair.  I get it, you sing songs with touching lyrics!  Stop rubbing it in my face.

2.  Damn you, R.asc4l Fl.4tts, for making me cry every. single. time. I hear God Ble.ss the Broken Road.  And for making me think about how beautiful it will be to think of this struggle through loss and IF as just part of the path to my babies.  And then for making me wonder if this is really a path to my babies or just a path to a sad, childless life.  That's just cruel.

3.  Damn you double, Tim McG.r4w, for making me cry in a song that isn't even sad.  Now you're just trying to make me look crazy.  Yeah, that's right, I cried when you did a bunch of stuff to make some girl smile.  Yeah, that's right, it's not sad.  GET OVER IT!

4.  Damn you triple, Tim McG.r4w, for making me feel jealous of you for being able to have a little girl.  Even though you missed her birth.  BECAUSE YOU WERE DEAD.  I was officially jealous of a dead fertile.  WTF?!?

And then I ended the trip with unprompted rage.  I spent at least 45 minutes being pissed off because Mr. Unexpected was going to be right (and I was going to be wrong) about what time I would get back home.  And hoping that he wouldn't say anything to me about it, because I would go into a bout of uncontrollable screaming, go into our room, slam the door, and go straight to bed.  But don't worry, I'm not moody or anything.

The Waiting Game

We have now reached the point in our regularly scheduled programming where we wait.  And wait.  And wait.

No real updates on the TTC front.  I am 6 dpo, in that no man's land between the excitement of confirming that I actually ovulated and the excitement of being far enough into the TWW to take a pregnancy test.

The biggest thing on my mind right now is figuring out how to get my 7 dpo progesterone bloodwork done.  It seems easy, right?  Walk into lab.  Hand over prescription.  Get stabbed with needle. Wait for results.

Except.  (There's always an except, isn't there?)

I happen to be out of town at 7 dpo.  The solution is to get the bloodwork done at a Quest or LabCorp in the town I am in... oh, wait.  There are none.  

Okay, then my option is to get the bloodwork done at home on 8 dpo... oh, wait, that's a Saturday, and the closest lab that's open on a Saturday is 45 minutes away, and my family is visiting that day, and I can't exactly say "I have to run out for an errand.  Be right back." and then not come back for 2 and a half hours. 

So now I am trying to get my old doctor (in the city I am currently visiting) to write an order for the bloodwork, which I can get tomorrow at my old lab, and then get billed for.  Because I love paying out of pocket for tests that are covered by insurance.