All Appendages Crossed.....

I think it's about time Dave and I have some good luck with this.  What do you say?

I had my blood work done this morning and my estrogen levels are up from 253, yesterday, to 412, today.  While my blood work may say there is activity going on it all means nothing to me until I see in the ultrasound what was really happening inside that baby house.

The lining of my uterus wasn't as thick as she had hopped but she says I still need at least 3 more days of injections to fully mature the follicles.  Hopefully in that time the lining will thicken to their liking and the stars will begin to align.  My right ovary is the dominate one.  Its always produced more follicles than the left and this time was no different, not that I mind in this case.  There are four follicles maturing on the right side and only one on the greedy left.  That's right girls and boys....a total of five maturing follicles this cycle!

In an effort to continue to mature the five follicles that have already been called to the pitching mound, but also not recruit any more which would cause me to hyper-stimulate again and make them cancel the cycle, we are tapering back our medication to one vial tonight and half a vial tomorrow.  Saturday we will be returning for more blood and another ultrasound.

Hold that thought....my alarm is annoyingly beeping in the background reminding me it is time to stick myself....


Alright, now that that's taken care of.  Where was I?  I begged my Dr. not to cancel this cycle when we see her Saturday.  Hopefully when we go in we will still be in the "safe" zone and they will let us proceed which will in turn give us something even better to look forward to.

I am crossing everything I have.  Please cross all your appendages for us too....

So Far So Good....

I had my blood drawn this morning and my estrogen came back at 253, just the perfect number!  I continued with two vials of FSH again tonight.  Tomorrow morning I will be going for more blood wok and will be following up in the afternoon with an ultrasound to see if and how many follicles are maturing.  I am hoping for some magic here!!

Other than that I have no more "news" to report.  I did however catch the last hour of The Proposal staring Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock while running at the gym this afternoon.  It is quite possibly the most adorable movie I have seen in a long time, well....so was Life as We Knew It.  Anyway...if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.  I am a total softie and love chick flicks that make your heart skip a beat and force a grin from ear to ear so keep that in mind before opening a new tab on your internet and adding it to your Netflix que.  Ryan Reynolds is a stud (not nearly as good looking as you Dave, if you happen to read this) and Sandra Bullock is adorable!  Its just a good ol' fashion love story for us hopeless romantics...

Becoming a Pro...

I am a little late and behind on posting the follow up to my Dr appointment on Saturday, I know.  But before I get to that I have to brag a little.  As you know, I have been a total wimp when it comes to receiving my shots.  It would start to get better toward the end of a cycle because I would get be getting use to them again.  As soon as we would stop for a while and then have to start up again, I would resort back to being the same chicken I was on day one...minus the fainting thank goodness!  When we did my shot on Saturday for the first time in a really long time I did not stall or flinch!!  Now, this may be because we were running late for a company dinner and I had no choice but to buck up and put on my big girl panties.  I don't care what the reason was, I'll take it.  This was no fluke either.  Its been a breeze doing the injections every night since.  Watch me jinx myself now!

On to the important but not nearly as interesting stuff...Everything looked good in the ultrasound on Saturday.  My ovaries are back to normal size and I am finally out of the danger zone with hyper-stimulation.  What a relief that it!!  I was so sick of not being able to run, always worrying about falling or getting knocked over, and sleeping with my legs up on this awful wedge to keep them elevated.  I like to sleep on my side and be able to toss and turn.  I am also loving that I can workout again and release some stress.  I ran for the first time in weeks yesterday.  Well, let me rephrase that, I walked and ran for the first time in weeks yesterday.  It was only four and a half miles and was harder than h-e-double-hockey-stick but I got through it and felt amazing after!  I'm sure I only have a few more days or a week left to be able to do this so I am going to soak it up while I can.

Now that we have a better understanding as to how my body reacts to the medication we are able to start to fine tune the dosage to try and get my body to mature 3-4 follicles in one cycle.  My body is quite stubborn in the beginning of the shot cycle.  It does not like to cooperate and will keep my levels low.  We started this round with two vials of FSH a day for four days to try and not make the cycle so long and drawn out.  Hopefully my estrogen will steadily increase with that dosage. I go back to the Dr. tomorrow morning for more blood work and depending on my levels I may go in Thursday for an ultrasound.

The tricky part is to not allow my levels to spike like they did last time and possibly turning me into the next octo-mom.  We know that as soon as my estrogen hits 200-250 it then takes off like a rocket.  In an attempt to avoid this we are going to start to taper my medication back as my levels reach higher.  Hopefully this time we will have better luck at this guessing game and not make 1 follicle like the firs time and 7 like the last.

In an attempt to de-stress and get a break from reality we decided to become boat owners.  We will now be spending our free weekends floating around some body of water...

An Unexpected Surprise...

I have two more days of progesterone pills left that I now no longer need to take!!!  I went to the bathroom this afternoon at work and much to my surprise I had started my period.  I am not supposed to technically start until 4-7 days after taking my last pill but you bet I am not complaining.

We have an appointment at 7:00 am tomorrow morning for blood work and an ultrasound to make sure my ovaries are doing okay.  When I called the Dr's to schedule the appointment they asked me if I had medication at home so I am assuming that means I will need to start injections again sometime soon.

I never thought I wold be so happy to give myself shots but I literally can't wait.  I feel like we are finally going somewhere with this process again and hope this trip leads down a good path...

The First of Many...

Tonight I shed the first set of tears I have cried in a while.  By a while I mean like...two weeks, ugh!  I have had one of those "why me" afternoons where I have wallowed in my own self pity.  I am confused, frustrated and tired.  Instead of thinking "when it happens" I am now thinking "what if it never happens".  I have gone from being positive and trying to pick out a new girl name that we can agree upon to thinking about adoption.  How can my mood change so drastically in day or two?

This is just the beginning of the heartache and tears.  When the progesterone kicks in I will be a train wreck. Right now I wouldn't mind running away from everyone and everything....

Bring On The Crazy...

Yesterday marked 3 weeks to the day since my last Dr's appointment. She had told me after quitting the medication I was to srart my period in 2-3 weeks. So, when yesterday came and went with no period I was rather excited and hopeful thinking maybe just maybe we somehow were pregnant. That was short lived...I took a urine test last night and a blood test at the Dr today both of which were negative, of course!!!!

I called this morning to see where we go from here and to ask why I hadn't started if I wasn't in fact pregnant. The answer I was told was much like all the others I have gotten..."this can happen with hypothalamic amenorrhea". I of course had to know why and what happened with the follicles then. Apparently my body body did not produce LH, the hormone that triggers your body to release the follicles, just as it does not naturally produce FSH, the follicle stimulating hormone. Why, no one knows. It is par for the course with everything I am going through though. As for the 7 mature follicles...they dissolved andwere absorbed by my body. What a waste of 7 good eggs if you ask me!!!!

In order to finish off this hell of a cycle that started back on May 31st I will start taking 10 days worth of progesterone. Lord pleas help poor David! I absolutely loath this stuff. This is the hormone they use to thicken the lining of your uterus and stop you after 10 days to force your period. It makes me miserable. I will cry tears of sorrow then get depressed, the kind where you don't even want to get out of bed, not.or.breath. And then when those fun parts are over I turn into a raging bitch. It is unlike any other mood swing you could image. When I told Dave that I had to start taking progesterone pills again he asked if I could substitute them out for the suppositories like we used after the completion of a cycle. I already asked that too buddy...no cigar! When I told him how much I was dreading taking them again because of the crazy that comes with them he proceeded to say "you think you are....?" Gotta love those husbands!

Tonight I will be taking my first pill. There are 10 days worth to take and after 4-7 days after that I should start my period. Which means in just over 2 I can start a new cycle. I'm so ready to be done with this and start to try again. I have had a long enough of a break and am ready to get back to business...

Happy Birthday America...

As I was walking out of Home Depot with Dave this afternoon I realized how lucky I am.  Life may not be working out as I hoped and dreamed it would have but that doesn't mean there isn't lot to be thankful for.  Nothing spectacular happened in this trip to trigger these thoughts either.  Today has been a rather mellow 4th this actually.  We woke up late, had breakfast at 11am and did not even get out of our jammies until noon.  We stopped at a few stores and aimlessly walked around looking at things we would like to someday get.  At Home Depot we picked up a new transformer to hook up all of the outdoor landscape lighting and a new dimmer switch for the family room.  It was a simple trip but something triggered an emotion that made me look at Dave and melt.

We have been together just over 8 years now but have never been at a better place in our relationship.  I can honestly say that I love him more today than I did in the beginning. At first it was puppy love but now, now I adore, respect, admire and truly love that man.  As I sit here writing this I can not even think of the words I want to use to describe how I feel for him because it is that strong.  My life would be nothing with out him.  He is the calm to my storm, the ying to my yang and like xanex for my crazy.  He balances me out like no other.  He is not what I thought I would end up with, not nearly as affectionate and loving as I had thought I wanted but I don't care because he has turned out to be more than I had ever dreamed of.  He has is flaws do don't gag in disgust of the love fest I am having.  I know do that when I see new couples who are soooo in love.  Do you not remember my last post?  Believe me, it ain't all perfect...I'm just having a moment :)
I hope everyone had a safe and happy 4th...

And to make you giggle...my mother-in-law is convinced that we are going to have twin boys if any when we get this party started.  So much so she had already started preparing and getting me the essentials, a double jogger and a double stroller...

A Moment of Weakness...

I am sitting here watching Tosh.O, eating chocolate ice cream and reading shape magazine...yes, I have stooped to a whole new level of pathetic!!! I am having a miserable day. I am exhausted for one. My sleep has been awful lately. I got cramps in my legs one night, our fight had kept me up much later than normal and sleeping with my legs elevated with a wedge is keeping me from sleeping me comfortably on my side.
I can not wait to finally be cleared from this hyper stimulation either. I wouldn't be surprised if that in itself contributed to my lack of sleep and sudden depression. Like I said, having to sleep on a wedge well, sucks. I am tired of not being able to do anything with impact or work out because of the risks and complications that could cone from it and the swelling is quite annoying as well.

So to get to the point of this vent fest...I feel that I have been pretty good lately. I've been strong, positive and hopeful...until today. I'm sure your thinking "funny, she always says that". I do always vent on here and talking about my frustrations but that's because this is where I get my frustrations out and I don't feel a need to blog about all of my good moments. I don't necessarily need to vent when things are good.
Maybe my crazy is kicking in because I know I should be starting my period any day now. Funny enough it was a 3 day weekend I was in this situation last time. I have been looking forward to the next cycle and hopefully having luck the next time around but right now I'm not feeling that great about it. Im scared. I'm feel like its never going to happen for us. It's been 7 months of being in infertility and my spirits are low.

I know patience is a virtue and I should just relax and wait it out but its hard when you see people getting everything you have hoped, dreamed and planned for and they are in no place to be having a child and didn't plan it in any way. It gets discouraging once in a while...