Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Let's Get Physical, Physical

You ladies are all fabulous! This advice is so helpful.
I called the nurse at my RE's office and she said a pap is fine, but a tetnus shot is not. But then, reading your stuff, I did use clomid this cycle, so I'll tell the Dr. who does my physical and she what she says. The nurse did tell me to make sure that my Dr. knows we're ttc.
Oh goodness.
But isn't it funny, now that I'm such a regular with the lovely vaginal ultrasounds, the part I'm most nervous about for a physical is no longer the pap! I'm going to feel like a professional when it comes to that!
So you may be asking, what is the new worst part of the physical? For me, I think it's standing on the scale in the hallway. Booo!!!!!!!! Even when I was slim and trim (unlike now) I still hated that part.
What is the worst part of a physical for you guys?

Monday, July 21, 2008

Question...

One more thing,
This Friday I'm scheduled to have a physical with my regular family dr. (I like to do that once a year). But this means a pap smear. Okay, so then I will only be 7 dpo, so it will be too early for a pregnancy test.
1. Will a pap smear affect the potential baby I may or may not have? Don't they open your cervix? Could that harm an embryo?
2. I know I need a tetnus shot. Could that cause a problem?
Let me know. I can reschedule the physical if there are problems, but I want to get it out of the way if not.

Thoughts? Advice?

I Feel Like I Came Out of the Closet

So last Wednesday I was at a small group from my church. It was all women I knew very well, minus one new lady. Actually it was co-ed, but when we shared prayer requests we split up men and women.
So here I was. Do I share? I've had PLEANTY of opportunities to share, but the timing just never was right. Well, as people we sharing, I already started crying. So I either had to tell the truth or make up some story about why I was crying whily Kathy was asking for prayer for her kid to get home safe from Magic Mountain.
So I shared.
And I cried.
The thing with that group is, while there are some single gals, most of them are old enough to be my parents, or just slightly younger. But I know for a fact that three of them have had miscarrages, and I just realized it was time (that and the clomid just made me do it! Thanks a lot for the tears.).
Everyone was real supportive... and then it came...
The one women I don't know very well says: "You know, I don't know if this helps, but my sister when through infertility for 10 years. As soon as she stopped crying about it and gave up trying, she got pregnant".
Um, yeah. She's a sister in Christ, and she meant well.
BUT ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?
Really. My endometriosis will go away if I stop trying to get pregnant? I'm sure those ten years were really easy for her sister (this women has two small children).
Anyways, besides that snafoo everyone was really nice and kind.
And then yesterday at church people were nice. Too nice. But hey, I'll ride this through as long as I can. And I really do want them to be praying for my husband and I. It's been long enough keeping this issue in the closet. Let's be 'real'. What's the point in hiding this? (Except for the knuckle headed comments like that one)

Side note:
I found out that one of my friends (not a good friend, but the type of friend where you have dinner together a few times a year) cheated on her husband. With an 18 year old.
She has 3 kids, and her husband's mother just passed away (but I think things were going on before her mother in law passed away).
They're both christians and it just goes to show that no one is free from sin. I'm not, she's not... It's just awful. Both my husband and I keep thinking about how something like that happens. I think maintence on a marriage is so important. When we're careless with things, they break.
They came to our church yesterday, and I was so proud of them. The whole family came. I think most of the people there knew what happened, but I was so impressed with our church for how they surrounded this family. I don't know what will happen with their marriage, but I'm glad they're trying to work through it.

This was a long post. Sorry, I've just been so busy! Hope to hear from you guys soon!

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

I'd Rather Go Out Swinging

Today I went back to the RE's office. I have to say, so far, I really love the staff there. I don't see the Dr. very much, but that's okay because the nurses are so together and with it I don't feel like I need to. I also know that if I do need to, I can just call and schedule an appointment.
So, here are the follicles (sp?) this month: drum roll...
On the right (good ovary) we have a lovely 18 mm black circle.
On the left (less than good but not bad ovary) one 25 mm, one 21 mm, and one 19 mm.
That right, four follicles. Clomid goes well with my ovaries.
So before I get all happy and excited, the nurse takes my hand (with a camera in my special no-no place mind you) and gives me the scary triplet talk. Have any of you had this? It's scary.
She says that a triplet pregnancy is almost a 50% higher risk than a twin pregnancy. She asked if I would reduce ... heck no!
She said I would have to have a tremendous support system. All things I agree with. And what do you suppose my answer was?
Bring on the Hcg trigger!
Here is my reasoning:
1. June was 2 full years, 24 cycles of trying for us. I appear to ovulate normally. We are not pregnant and it is not explained. I often feel like if it was going to happen, it already would have (only on my more pessimistic days do I feel that way).
2. Considering the above, I'm really feeling like this is taking four cycles and slamming them into one. A shot to try four times but only taking up one month. This works for me!
3. I want a family. 3 kids would be a blessing. 2 kids would be a blessing. But I'm praying for 1 kid. I'll take whatever God gives me. The way I figure, God chose to grow all 4 of those follicles and this was his plan. If I get a baby this month, awesome. If I don't, then at least I won't have wasted this cycle.
It's like being up to bat. I can wait for the perfect pitch and watch my chance fly by, or I can take a swing and at least say I tried. My coach used to say, 'it's better to go out swinging than looking'.

Monday, July 14, 2008

There is Room for Optimism

Last night my DH and I had a conversation about money. We were discussing what to do with our leftover money from our tax return (praise Jesus for small financial blessings!). There are a number of things we can do to the house, and typically each year we've done some major stuff with our tax return : New Windows, New paint, New carpet, New furnature, New backyard, etc. We've been very blessed.
But this year I've had a tug on my heart saying that we should be saving for In-vitro. I don't feel like I'm going to end up with insurance that covers any of the costs, and from what I'm reading from all of you guys, it seems to run about 10-20 thousand dollars. Is that right? For any of you out there with numbers for me, I'd love to hear how much it cost you or your friends.
It's also a very scary place to be because I want a baby so badly. I want a baby that looks like me and my DH. And it's been two years of trying now. I really don't expect to ever see those two pink lines because it feels like it would have happened by now.
So we started a savings account. But we're calling it a Baby account. There is room to be optimistic here. Maybe it will be for baby furniture and not for baby making.
This is a really scary place to be.
The path less traveled, huh?

Sunday, July 6, 2008

back from the beach

You guys are all so great. This is the first month I've been apart of this blogging world, and I'll tell you, it's better together. As much as I wish we didn't have to come to each other for support, I think it says a lot about the human spirit and how we really do need each other.

On to the next...
I think it'll be a few more months of the same. Mostly because there doesn't seem to be a reason to head to IUI since we don't know why we're infertile. I may ride this one out for a while. And becuase this is probably the cheapest I could do. With this new job comes new insurance, so I'm going to hopefully speak with the benefits specialists tomorrow so that I can determine if any of my options cover infertility. Oh how I wish they did. I'm not feeling lucky on this one though.

I hope everyone had a relaxing fourth of July. I went to Ventura/Oxnard with some friends and had a lovely weekend of hanging out, watching movies, and generally over-eating. A great formula for fun.
Tomorrow is not going to be easy to sit with 35 seniors in high school and teach them about the legislative branch of gov't and the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility in Economics.
Whopedie-doo!

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

No Clever Title

Just a BFN.
Really. All day I thought 'maybe this is it'. I was sitting at my desk while my summer school students were taking a test on the Constitution. I was thinking about baby names. I was thinking of reasons it would not be good to be pregnant this cycle... New Job, No White Water Rafting trip this summer, etc. But in my heart, I hoped I was pregnant.
But I'm not. AF came one day early. But I still POAS just because I can. I thought 'everyone loves a good clomid story', so maybe I'll have one to add to it.
But really people, what's the deal? I have no real reason for being unexplicably inferile, so why when we have a Dr. helping us to time things and I saw one if not two eggs in there am I sitting here with sore boobs and no baby?
My first reaction was annoyance. Now is coming the grief. Two years. June was two years of actual 'trying'.
And now I have to start thinking about next cycle. And what may lie beyond all of these cycles. IUI's, IVF, Adoption.
You may ask yourself, how did I get here... and so the song goes.

I'm going to go look for happy bfp stories elsewhere. Baby dreams to you all.