good news?

I was telling a couple friends about the doctor visit yesterday, and the need for surgery, etc. And one of them said "that is excellent news!" Really? Needing surgery on my uterus is excellent news? I mean, I totally get that it is at least something fixable, but there's still a risk involved. It's my uterus, for godsake; I kind of need it to be in good working condition. "Excellent" news would have been "that growth in your uterus disappeared on its own" or "your husband's motility is now 90%" not "it's a fibroid, and it's huge, so you definitely need surgery, and if those cysts don't go away, you will need more serious surgery."

Sure it's a step toward our goal of pregnancy, but it still kind of sucks.

It's a Fibroid!

I had the sonohysterogram this morning. Much easier than the hysterosalpingogram in February. The doctor today said that the amount of saline used is much less than the amount of dye used with the HSG, and that's usually what causes the discomfort. They only need the saline to open up the uterus a bit, and the dye needs to travel all the way through the fallopian tubes.

Anyway, I was wanded again with the ultrasound wand, and she checked out my ovaries. She thinks my cysts are smaller, but she wanted to compare the pictures to my previous pictures from a month ago. And the growth in my uterus is most likely a fibroid, and it's big and round. It currently takes up more than half of the space in my uterus. The doctor said that its picture belongs in a textbook. Well, that's something, right?

So once my period comes, I will call and set up a hysteroscopy/laparoscopy. It will be decided which one the morning of the procedure. If my ovarian cysts are smaller or gone altogether, then a hysteroscopy will be enough to remove the fibroid. If the cysts are the same size, then a laparoscopy will be done to remove both the cysts and the fibroid.

The doctor told us not to think of this as a wasted month, waiting to see what the cysts would do, because they wouldn't be able to proceed with any kind of treatment until they are gone anyway. Fertility drugs and ovarian cysts do not mix!

It's kind of scary knowing that I will have a type of surgery in about a month. The only surgery I've ever had was having teeth removed (two wisdom and four others before braces), so at least I have experienced anesthesia. But it's a surgery involving my uterus. I kind of need it to be done well since I definitely want to have kids. One of the risks with the kind of fibroid removal they will be doing is Cesarean delivery. As long as the baby has room to grow in my uterus, I don't really care how they get it out.

This Time I'm Pissed

Last night my odd friend (the one who SEVEN DAYS AGO said she wasn't sure she even wanted kids anymore) told me she just found out she is pregnant. She found out on her birthday weekend. How nice for her. She and her husband told us this in the parking lot as we were leaving a rather fun karaoke party. So my night ended with me crying my eyes out on the drive home, and then for another half hour once we were home. My husband was awesome as usual, holding me until I was done, telling me that we would be next.

The other couple told us that as well. "We're pregnant; this means your next." Really? Does it? Or will it be three (or more) others that I know just started trying? And then she said that she thinks sitting in the same room with her pregnant co-worker for 40 hours a week is what did it. Really? 40 hours a week for SEVEN MONTHS with a pregnant woman is what will do the trick, huh? And then her husband said the comment that made me walk away towards our car because I knew I was going to lose it because of me being pissed and sad at the same time. He said, "They better warn the last girl in the office about the water. hahaha!" Fucker. That's a fantastic thing to say to an infertile couple, a couple that he KNOWS is infertile. I think my husband and I would drinks gallons of that water a day if it actually worked.

More Waiting

Well, apparently the RE's office only schedules semen analyses for certain times of the day. So we have to wait for D's until September 10th. That seems like forever away. They said about a week and a half after his test, we can have our "plan of attack" meeting. So a little over a month from now, I will know what our chances are, and if they recommend IVF or IUI.

bad timing

Since my period finally started, I called the doctor this morning to set up my bloodwork and my sonohysterogram. Bloodwork for tomorrow morning, so I will be a little late for work. No problem. Sonohysterograms are only performed on Fridays and Mondays, so I am scheduled for 8am on Monday. The problem is that I am a teacher, and I am also scheduled for out of the classroom training on Tuesday, and also scheduled for out of the classroom curriculum writing on Wednesday. So now I will be out of the classroom three days in a row. This sucks. And of course, I will probably have three different substitutes. Fantastic.

One More Thing

D and I have been watching the British show Coupling lately. We got to the end of season 3, and one of the girls ends up pregnant. Earlier in the episode, they mention that she and her guy went to get tests done, and there is something wrong with her, and "it would be a miracle" for her to get pregnant. Because of my light fertility interest, I immediately wanted to know what her condition was: blocked tube? PCOS? Endometriosis? no eggs? polyps?

No specifics were ever given. She is told she can't, and then magically, less than a month later, she can. If only that was an option in real life.

Odd Friend

So I have this friend (who is really the wife of one of my husband's best friends), and she and I had a bonding moment in February when we discovered that we were all struggling to get pregnant. I am only a couple years older than she is, and I had already gotten the preliminary blood tests done and had an HSG, and D had had his semen analysis. This friend claimed that she and her husband had been TTC for 18 months, but hadn't had any tests done.

Last night, a few girls (including this friend) and I were hanging out. This friend knows all about mine and D's first fertility specialist appointment. Her advice last night was that we should go see a Reproductive Endocrinologist. I was all "um, yeah, that's what a fertility specialist is. I just say 'specialist' because my non-infertile friends understand what that means." Then she kept going on about how frustrating it is to not get pregnant when you want to (I totally agree there!). Then she was telling me that she thought her husband should go to a urologist. I asked if he had had an abnormal semen analyis then. She said he still hasn't had one. I told her they could save some money and just get the semen analysis done for like $30, and then only go to the urologist if there is a problem. I then asked if she had had any tests done yet, and the answer is still no. My question is if you are really frustrated with not getting pregnant in the two years they supposedly have been trying, wouldn't you want to know what the hell the reason is?

I must have given her a look, because then she said that she wasn't completely sure that she wants kids anymore. WTF?? She said she has a co-worker who is 31 weeks pregnant, and she is very uncomfortable right now, and now this friend is wondering if she wants to actually go through all that. Really? You didn't know that pregnancy, growing a human being inside your body, would be uncomfortable towards the end? I personally think it is worth it once you have your baby in your arms.

I am starting to think she just says things to fit in, and either hasn't REALLY been TTC, or maybe she and her husband were talking about it but hadn't made a decision yet, but she wants to know what's going on with me and D, so she pretends she is in the same position.

No one wants to be infertile, so it's odd to me for someone to PRETEND to be infertile.

Finally!!

My period started this morning. I've never been so excited to see it arrive, but it means I can get started on the next part of our process.

Caught Up

I just copied over most of my posts from my former (crappy) blog. Enjoy. :)

Yesterday, one of my coworkers brought her new baby (along with her toddler and 6 year old), and I got to hold him for a while and I got to give him a bottle and burp him. It was fun. And I also got to experience what it would be like to have a baby and a toddler (I wish!) because the toddler wanted to play with me while I was holding the baby. For an hour, it was doable. For longer than that, I'd probably have to put the baby in his crib to sleep.

Of course, I realize that once I have my own baby, I won't hold him or her constantly, but when a baby is put in front of me, I am not going to put it down until I absolutely have to...you know, like to do some work.

Waiting

After three weeks, and three home pregnancy tests that were all negative, I gave up on my period coming naturally. I called the doctor yesterday and got a prescription to make my period come.
When I picked up the prescription, the lady at the counter asked if I had any questions. I did because I had forgotten to ask my doctor how soon my period would come after taking the 10 doses of medroxyprogesterone. She went to get the pharmacist, who said "what was the questions?" So I repeated it, and he said it should come within a day or two of the last dose. He left, and then the lady says, "weird that someone WANTS their period to come." So I responded with "well, it kind of needs to come if we are going to proceed with what comes next in trying for a baby." She responded with, "you're trying to get pregnant?" "yes." Even though I really wanted to say "what do you think 'trying for a baby' means?" And I also really wanted to say, "well, it's not exactly good formy body to NEVER have a period. And although I do enjoy the convenience of not having it, it's kind of necessary." But I didn't think she would understand.

Our first fertility specialist appointment

Well, we had our first appointment. Mostly just going over our records, but D got blood drawn to test for STD's. Apparently, they do this standard before doing a semen analysis so that they know if they need to take extra precautions with the sample. Once those results are in, D will have another semen analysis done. The fertility center's lab looks for other things that the general lab doesn't, so the doctor said the results might be better than what he got before.As for me, I got my first vaginal ultrasound. Not too bad except for the one ovary hiding behind my uterus, so I got the wand jammed into me a bit. There was a blob in my uterus, and my first thought was "holy shit, am I actually pregnant?" But then the doctor said it was probably a polyp, but she wants me to take a pregnancy test tomorrow just in case. Then she measured my ovaries because they were freaking huge. She said they were probably hyperstimulated from the last round of Clomid. So once my period starts, I have to call to get day 3 bloodwork drawn and set up a sonohysterogram to check on the polyp. If it is a polyp, then surgery will be required to remove it.
After all those things are done, then we will discuss the best approach for getting us pregnant.

Backstory

I was first married right out of college (11 days before my 22nd birthday). Because we were young, we decided to wait five years before trying to get pregnant. When the five years were up, he wasn't ready, so we decided to wait one more year. Throughout our marriage, I was always planning around and referring to our future children. Examples: When he was shopping for a car, he wanted to get a two-door. I told him that once we have kids, that would be a huge pain, so he got the four-door. When we first moved in to our house, we spent time trying to decide which of the bedrooms should be his music studio and which should be the future kids' room (the one closest to our bedroom, or the one closest to the bathroom). We had names picked out.When the "waiting for him to get ready" year was over, he told me he wasn't sure he wanted kids at all anymore. I told him he needed to figure it out. A month or so later, we saw a cute baby dressed up as a pea pod for Halloween. He decided he could handle it, so we set a date to start trying. As it approached, he started becoming more and more distant. I had bought a book called "Do I Want to Be a Mom?" that helped solidify my desire to have kids. He read it too, and all it did was reinforce how much kids change your life. He told me that he didn't want to have to make room for a child. I didn't want to have to give up the life that was promised to me and that I still wanted. We talked about various "compromises," such as we have a baby, but I am the one mainly responsible for it, but ultimately decided that that would not be fair to the child.In the end, we divorced fairly amicably, sold our house (neither of us could afford it on our own), and moved to separate apartments. I was 29.

After my divorce, I dated a couple guys who were totally wrong for me. Then I met D. And he was perfect. We dated for a little over a year before he proposed, then had our wedding about 10 months later. He knew the reason for my divorce, and when we first talked about when to start trying for a baby, I suggested the fall because the baby would be due at the beginning of the school year (I'm a teacher) when I had gotten a pay raise for earning my master's degree. D suggested we get started in July so that the baby would be due in the spring and I could have four months with it (eight weeks maternity leave, then the summer off) before going back to school. I was so excited to be with a guy who wanted to start trying for a baby SOONER than I wanted to, instead of postponing. :)We had stopped preventing pregnancy about a year before our wedding, but still trying a little to avoid our most fertile times, although the closer to the wedding we got, the less careful we were.After the wedding, we started aiming for the "correct" days, but no luck. Throughout the school year, more and more of my friends got pregnant, and I was hoping the next one would be me. In January, I made an appointment with my gyno to get tested because I was 33, and wanted to make sure everything was OK. All the blood tests that she ran came back normal, so we scheduled a hysterosalpingogram (HSG). This showed that my tubes are, in fact, open. The test is painful for some people, but for me, it was mostly just uncomfortable. When the dye was first injected it hurt pretty bad, but as soon as I remembered to breathe, the pain went away. Since everything looked good, the doctor prescribed Clomid at 50mg just to make sure my body was producing the best eggs possible. D was tested shortly after, and the doctor told me everything was normal except his motility was "a little low." But she didn't sound worried about it, so we didn't worry either. The next month we tried Clomid at 100mg, and again the next month. That month my period was late, and we thought we had finally hit the jackpot. But the home test was negative, so I went in for a blood test...also negative. A week later, still no period, so they ran another blood test...still negative. So they prescribed Prometrium to bring on my period. It finally came, three and a half weeks late. Then they bumped me up to Clomid at 150mg. At the pelvic exam to make sure I was responding well to the Clomid, the nurse practitioner again mentioned D's motility being "a little low." So I asked exactly how low is a little low, and she said "well, the normal range starts at 69%, and his was 5%." I said "that's not a LITTLE low." And then I was pissed that I had taken fertility drugs for four months at ever increasing dosages, when the problem probably isn't with my body. So we had D tested again, and this time everything was normal except the motility was 2%.That was when we decided that I wouldn't take Clomid again to give my body a break, and we made an appointment with a fertility specialist, and shortly after making the call, I turned 34. D is about to turn 32. The appointment is in two days. I'm worried that they will tell us that IVF is our only option for getting pregnant. I'm hoping that they can either find some reason for the low motility and fix it, or tell us that an IUI had a good chance of being successful.Well, that is the short version of what we have been dealing with in the past year. I didn't get into the emotional stuff at all; that might come later.

First post

I started a blog a while ago to vent some of my frustrations, but that blog was VERY cluttered with things trying to be facebook or something. So now I am here. I will repost my other entries in a day or two.