Wow. It's already been another week. I guess I've been slacking. I wish I had a good excuse, but I really don't, other than being preoccupied with thoughts of moving and freaking out because I still have another THREE WEEKS until my next appointment (although at this point it's only 18 days away).
I do have a new symptom this week!! Last Monday after eating my morning oatmeal and drinking the first of many glasses of water for the day, I had another bout of pregnancy heartburn and it has returned pretty much daily since then. The first time it happened it caught me off guard, so I didn't have any antacids and had to suffer until it passed. I finally got my act together on Tuesday and bought the biggest package of Tums that I could find. (It took me until Tuesday because I wanted to consult with a couple of recently pregnant friends to make sure that Tums are on the approved substance list for pregnant women, which both of them confirmed. They both also reminded me that Tums are a great source of calcium.) Since then I've been downing two Tums pretty much every night, because the heartburn tends to return between 8 and 8:30 every night, and I'm feeling much better.
Other than that, there's nothing much new to report on the pregnancy front. I'm still tired all the time. I've had a couple more bouts of nausea, but nothing serious. I'm also starting to see an increase in my appetite, although I'm trying to keep it in check and make sure that my snacks are healthy ones. I've had one or two spells of lightheadedness, but mostly only when I've been hungry and get up too fast. I can still fit into all of my clothes, although my pants are feeling just a teensy bit more snug than they have in the past few weeks.
I had a bit of a chuckle to myself tonight. J and I went out to dinner, and he asked how big the baby is going to be when I go for my next appointment. I pulled out my iPhone and opened up one of the apps, then scrolled to the information for when I'm 11 weeks along since I'll be 11 weeks, 2 days at my next appointment. I handed my phone to him, and he proceeded to flip through the rest of the weeks to read more about what'll happen with the baby each week through the rest of the pregnancy. Whenever he read something he found particularly interesting or amusing, he would read it aloud to me. This particular app also shows sketches and 3D ultrasound pics of babies every week, so you can see what the baby will look like as it grows, and he looked at all of those, as well. And then he started looking through the info about what happens to me each week during the pregnancy, but he only got as far as the first mention of hemorrhoids and then he stopped looking at that. It was the first time he's seemed really interested in what's going on with the baby, and I think it's got him hooked. I thought it was really cute.
On the new house/moving front, we still don't have a new closing date, but we started packing this weekend anyway. (Ok, so J did most of the packing, and I did a lot of sitting around feeling like crap yesterday and today.) So far we've gotten most of our miscellaneous extra dishes and glassware from the kitchen packed up, as well as our DVDs and J's video games and my unicorns. We've also got a box of books that J packed, but it's too heavy for him to lift so it'll have to be re-packed. We've run out of boxes, though, so I'm going to see if I can beg some copy paper boxes from work (since they'd be free and they're a good size for packing books, because you can pack them full but they're still light enough that you can pick them up) and J's going to make another run to either Lowe's or the UHaul store to get more. We're also trying to map out our game plan for getting everything moved over there, depending on when we close. We're thinking that if we are able to close sometime late this week we'll start moving boxes and some of the more manageable furniture over next weekend, and possibly start unpacking some boxes so that we can reuse them. Otherwise, if we close sometime early next week, J will most likely take over a load of boxes per day, and then we'll move all of the furniture the next weekend when we can (hopefully) get people to come into town or come over and help us move.
That's all the news from here! I hope that everyone had a great Thanksgiving, and is ready to welcome the final month of the year and begin the countdown to Christmas this week!
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
11/13/09 and 11/20/09 ultrasounds and house
I know. I KNOW. It's been two weeks, and this is completely unacceptable. The only real reason that I can offer is that I'm constantly EXHAUSTED, and the fact that I've made it to work every day for the past couple of weeks (although a bit later than I used to make it to work) is a miracle to me, especially since all I want to do these days is sleep. Unless, of course, I'm already asleep and something wakes me up (one of the cats crying, J coming to bed, things like that), in which case I can't seem to fall asleep again and thus, I am writing this entry at about 5:45 on a Sunday morning when I would much rather be asleep. Oh, well. It's a Sunday. I can nap while I'm doing laundry, right?
Moving on, we've had our last two ultrasounds at the fertility clinic. Both of them were great. On 11/13 we were able to see the heartbeat...it was a little flickering on the screen. It was completely amazing. I would have loved to have heard it, but at that point, the heart was too small and wasn't beating hard enough to be heard via Doppler. But we did get to see the baby, and could see that it had grown. We could actually see the baby itself, and not just a line where the baby would be some day. And we could tell that the amniotic sac had grown, and it looked like the yolk sac had gotten smaller (although that could have been my imagination). But we could see the baby!! We were so excited.
On 11/20 we got to see the heartbeat again. Again, we weren't able to hear it, but the ultrasound tech did a measurement, and it came out to be ~144 beats per minute. That little heart sure is beating fast!! The baby had grown, just as expected, and we could see it much more clearly this time (although the pictures that we brought home with us weren't the greatest this time around). We were both glad to be graduating from the fertility doctor's office but also a little bit sad, because after this appointment, I won't have another doctor's appointment (assuming everything continues along as well as it has) until December 17. And even then, we won't be getting to see pics of the baby at every visit like we have so far. I'm telling you, seeing a fertility specialist sure has us spoiled!!
So far, my two biggest symptoms have continued to be exhaustion and sore boobs. I had a couple of bouts with morning sickness earlier this week, but I haven't had any the rest of the week. My pants still seem to be fitting for the most part, which is good - I'm dreading having to go shopping for maternity pants. I seem to be hungry all the time, which is new. I've resorted to carrying an apple in my purse when I go to work so I have something healthy to snack on mid-morning when I'm suddenly ravenous. I haven't yet figured out a solution for what to eat mid-afternoon yet, but I'm working on it. Despite all of this, I'm feeling pretty good. And I was a good pregnant lady and got both the seasonal flu shot (actually, I got that before I got knocked up) and the H1N1 vaccine, so hopefully I can avoid any major illness during this flu season.
And in house news, I think I mentioned last time that there was a question about whether the wiring for the house all had to be in conduit or not. J and I were both under the impression that "low voltage" means anything under 240 V, or somewhere in that range. That's based on our work, him as a EE, and me, in the utility industry. As it turns out, "low voltage" when it comes to houses means "really low voltage" - things like doorbells. We had asked the seller to fix several items that were on the home inspector's list of things that needed to be addressed, including the wiring issue, and he agreed to fix almost all of them except the conduit thing. His response to that was that he hadn't done anything to the wiring in the house, and that it was all up to code. J wound up calling the electrical inspector for the city that we're moving to, and got clarification on the code. Apparently the code was changed in either the late 60's or the early 70's, so depending on when the house was built, not having all of the wiring in conduit is considered "up to code" because it complied with the code at the time that the house was built. We finally were able to track down when the house was built, and it looks like it was built in 1962, which means that it the wiring should be just fine, so that issue was finally resolved and we were ready to move on.
But then came Thursday.
*sigh*
I got a call at work on Wednesday from somebody in the mortgage office asking who she could contact to verify proof of employment for me. I gave her the phone number, told her to listen to the options and that it was buried in there somewhere, and that was that. Then on Thursday she called back while I was gone to lunch. Her message said that everything was still on track so that they were going to be able to complete the loan and close on Tuesday, which is when we were trying to have our closing. But she said that she hadn't heard back from my company yet with my employment verification, and she was still waiting on something from the attorneys regarding the title. I called her back to try to get clarification on what she needed, but she didn't answer so I left her a message. An hour later she hadn't called me back, so I called her, only to have her tell me that she'd gotten everything that she needed, and that we were ready to go. I breathed a sigh of relief.
About two hours later I got a call from J, and the first thing he said was that we're not going to be closing next Tuesday. I asked him why not. He said that, since we're getting an FHA loan, there's a requirement that the contract for the house cannot be dated less than 90 days past when the seller closed on the house. It's an anti-flipping law, or something. And, which we already suspected, the seller of our house is a flipper, and our contract was just barely within that 90-day mark. To get around that, the solution was for us to write a new contract, with all of the same terms, and just have it dated later. That all got taken care of on Friday, so we should be good to go on that part. The thing that is holding us up now is the fact that there's also a requirement that if the contract date is 91-180 days past when the seller closed on the house, there has to be a second appraisal. Since it takes a few days for the appraisal to get scheduled and then processed, and given that Thanksgiving is next week and a lot of people are taking vacations, it may be difficult to get the second appraisal in next week, so it may not happen until early December. Since the bank won't be able to finalize the loan paperwork until the second appraisal is done, that means that we could be looking at mid-December for closing. And that's all well and good, we just want to know when we should plan on doing it so we can line people up to help us move and figure out when to go appliance shopping, since we'll want to do that (and have them installed) before we move in.
Ok. So that's the summary of everything that's gone on for the past two weeks. Well, other than the fact that I went to see New Moon yesterday with a friend, and it was wonderful. I'm looking forward to the next two movies coming out...I can't wait to see them, and I can't believe that we're going to have a baby and a house by the time the next one comes out!! Since I most likely won't post another update before next Thursday, I want wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving! May your day be filled with good food and friendship or family, and may you find many blessings for which to be thankful. I know I have more than my share!
Moving on, we've had our last two ultrasounds at the fertility clinic. Both of them were great. On 11/13 we were able to see the heartbeat...it was a little flickering on the screen. It was completely amazing. I would have loved to have heard it, but at that point, the heart was too small and wasn't beating hard enough to be heard via Doppler. But we did get to see the baby, and could see that it had grown. We could actually see the baby itself, and not just a line where the baby would be some day. And we could tell that the amniotic sac had grown, and it looked like the yolk sac had gotten smaller (although that could have been my imagination). But we could see the baby!! We were so excited.
On 11/20 we got to see the heartbeat again. Again, we weren't able to hear it, but the ultrasound tech did a measurement, and it came out to be ~144 beats per minute. That little heart sure is beating fast!! The baby had grown, just as expected, and we could see it much more clearly this time (although the pictures that we brought home with us weren't the greatest this time around). We were both glad to be graduating from the fertility doctor's office but also a little bit sad, because after this appointment, I won't have another doctor's appointment (assuming everything continues along as well as it has) until December 17. And even then, we won't be getting to see pics of the baby at every visit like we have so far. I'm telling you, seeing a fertility specialist sure has us spoiled!!
So far, my two biggest symptoms have continued to be exhaustion and sore boobs. I had a couple of bouts with morning sickness earlier this week, but I haven't had any the rest of the week. My pants still seem to be fitting for the most part, which is good - I'm dreading having to go shopping for maternity pants. I seem to be hungry all the time, which is new. I've resorted to carrying an apple in my purse when I go to work so I have something healthy to snack on mid-morning when I'm suddenly ravenous. I haven't yet figured out a solution for what to eat mid-afternoon yet, but I'm working on it. Despite all of this, I'm feeling pretty good. And I was a good pregnant lady and got both the seasonal flu shot (actually, I got that before I got knocked up) and the H1N1 vaccine, so hopefully I can avoid any major illness during this flu season.
And in house news, I think I mentioned last time that there was a question about whether the wiring for the house all had to be in conduit or not. J and I were both under the impression that "low voltage" means anything under 240 V, or somewhere in that range. That's based on our work, him as a EE, and me, in the utility industry. As it turns out, "low voltage" when it comes to houses means "really low voltage" - things like doorbells. We had asked the seller to fix several items that were on the home inspector's list of things that needed to be addressed, including the wiring issue, and he agreed to fix almost all of them except the conduit thing. His response to that was that he hadn't done anything to the wiring in the house, and that it was all up to code. J wound up calling the electrical inspector for the city that we're moving to, and got clarification on the code. Apparently the code was changed in either the late 60's or the early 70's, so depending on when the house was built, not having all of the wiring in conduit is considered "up to code" because it complied with the code at the time that the house was built. We finally were able to track down when the house was built, and it looks like it was built in 1962, which means that it the wiring should be just fine, so that issue was finally resolved and we were ready to move on.
But then came Thursday.
*sigh*
I got a call at work on Wednesday from somebody in the mortgage office asking who she could contact to verify proof of employment for me. I gave her the phone number, told her to listen to the options and that it was buried in there somewhere, and that was that. Then on Thursday she called back while I was gone to lunch. Her message said that everything was still on track so that they were going to be able to complete the loan and close on Tuesday, which is when we were trying to have our closing. But she said that she hadn't heard back from my company yet with my employment verification, and she was still waiting on something from the attorneys regarding the title. I called her back to try to get clarification on what she needed, but she didn't answer so I left her a message. An hour later she hadn't called me back, so I called her, only to have her tell me that she'd gotten everything that she needed, and that we were ready to go. I breathed a sigh of relief.
About two hours later I got a call from J, and the first thing he said was that we're not going to be closing next Tuesday. I asked him why not. He said that, since we're getting an FHA loan, there's a requirement that the contract for the house cannot be dated less than 90 days past when the seller closed on the house. It's an anti-flipping law, or something. And, which we already suspected, the seller of our house is a flipper, and our contract was just barely within that 90-day mark. To get around that, the solution was for us to write a new contract, with all of the same terms, and just have it dated later. That all got taken care of on Friday, so we should be good to go on that part. The thing that is holding us up now is the fact that there's also a requirement that if the contract date is 91-180 days past when the seller closed on the house, there has to be a second appraisal. Since it takes a few days for the appraisal to get scheduled and then processed, and given that Thanksgiving is next week and a lot of people are taking vacations, it may be difficult to get the second appraisal in next week, so it may not happen until early December. Since the bank won't be able to finalize the loan paperwork until the second appraisal is done, that means that we could be looking at mid-December for closing. And that's all well and good, we just want to know when we should plan on doing it so we can line people up to help us move and figure out when to go appliance shopping, since we'll want to do that (and have them installed) before we move in.
Ok. So that's the summary of everything that's gone on for the past two weeks. Well, other than the fact that I went to see New Moon yesterday with a friend, and it was wonderful. I'm looking forward to the next two movies coming out...I can't wait to see them, and I can't believe that we're going to have a baby and a house by the time the next one comes out!! Since I most likely won't post another update before next Thursday, I want wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving! May your day be filled with good food and friendship or family, and may you find many blessings for which to be thankful. I know I have more than my share!
Sunday, November 8, 2009
11/6/09 ultrasound results and new house!!
For those of you who are also following me on my Totsite, this is going to be a repeat of the same journal entry I just posted over there. :)
Our first ultrasound was GREAT!!! We were looking to ensure that there was at least one viable embryo in place. We were able to see the amniotic sac and the yolk sac, which will go on to form the placenta later. There was a second blob? spot? something in there that the ultrasound tech didn't focus on, because this one was easily visible and, like I said, we were just looking to make sure there was at least one viable embryo in there. The other thing could be nothing, or it could be another embryo. We're going to look at it in closer detail next week.
Speaking of next week, we're going back next Friday for another ultrasound. This time we're going to be looking for a heartbeat. I can't wait!!
In other news, we had our home inspection on Thursday. For the most part, everything was fine. There were a few of minor things. The furnace is dirty, most likely because of all the construction that was going on during the renovation, and he recommends us getting it cleaned out. There is also some weird setup where a previous owner had a PVC pipe running underground from the back yard into the shed and had a heavy-duty extension cord going through it. We're not sure what that was all about, but it's obviously not up to code. It's easily remedied, though - just pull out the extension cord and cap off the pipe. The counter in the master bathroom wasn't screwed down, but that's another easy fix. The emergency relief valve on the hot water heater didn't have a pipe to direct the runoff toward a drain, but instead was just a valve, which is another easy fix. The inspector also pointed out that there aren't any exhaust fans in the two upstairs bathrooms (not a huge deal, they both have windows) and that the garage door opener that was installed was pretty ancient, but there was a newer one lying in the floor of the garage.
The only major thing that the inspector identified was that not all of the electrical wiring was in conduits. J and I looked up the code for the city we're moving to, which said that low voltage doesn't need to be in conduit, and since pretty much all of the wiring inside the house is low voltage, that would seem to indicate that the wiring doesn't need to be in conduit. I guess we're going to have to wait until we get our final report (we're still waiting on it, but we hope to get it tomorrow) to find out for sure what is going on there, and to try to figure out what we're going to do. We're also waiting until tomorrow to find out the results of the radon test - the radon guy couldn't set it up on Thursday, but he was supposed to go back yesterday to set up for the test and he's supposed to pick it up tomorrow. Hopefully we'll be in the clear there. We're also waiting to hear back about the results of the appraisal, which took place on Wednesday.
All in all, everything is progressing pretty well, for the most part. We're just waiting to hear the final result of the appraisal and get the report from the home inspection and the radon test, and then we'll be able to move forward with buying the house. We're also holding our breaths and crossing our fingers that our little tadpole keeps growing and that we'll be able to see a heartbeat next Friday!!
Our first ultrasound was GREAT!!! We were looking to ensure that there was at least one viable embryo in place. We were able to see the amniotic sac and the yolk sac, which will go on to form the placenta later. There was a second blob? spot? something in there that the ultrasound tech didn't focus on, because this one was easily visible and, like I said, we were just looking to make sure there was at least one viable embryo in there. The other thing could be nothing, or it could be another embryo. We're going to look at it in closer detail next week.
Speaking of next week, we're going back next Friday for another ultrasound. This time we're going to be looking for a heartbeat. I can't wait!!
In other news, we had our home inspection on Thursday. For the most part, everything was fine. There were a few of minor things. The furnace is dirty, most likely because of all the construction that was going on during the renovation, and he recommends us getting it cleaned out. There is also some weird setup where a previous owner had a PVC pipe running underground from the back yard into the shed and had a heavy-duty extension cord going through it. We're not sure what that was all about, but it's obviously not up to code. It's easily remedied, though - just pull out the extension cord and cap off the pipe. The counter in the master bathroom wasn't screwed down, but that's another easy fix. The emergency relief valve on the hot water heater didn't have a pipe to direct the runoff toward a drain, but instead was just a valve, which is another easy fix. The inspector also pointed out that there aren't any exhaust fans in the two upstairs bathrooms (not a huge deal, they both have windows) and that the garage door opener that was installed was pretty ancient, but there was a newer one lying in the floor of the garage.
The only major thing that the inspector identified was that not all of the electrical wiring was in conduits. J and I looked up the code for the city we're moving to, which said that low voltage doesn't need to be in conduit, and since pretty much all of the wiring inside the house is low voltage, that would seem to indicate that the wiring doesn't need to be in conduit. I guess we're going to have to wait until we get our final report (we're still waiting on it, but we hope to get it tomorrow) to find out for sure what is going on there, and to try to figure out what we're going to do. We're also waiting until tomorrow to find out the results of the radon test - the radon guy couldn't set it up on Thursday, but he was supposed to go back yesterday to set up for the test and he's supposed to pick it up tomorrow. Hopefully we'll be in the clear there. We're also waiting to hear back about the results of the appraisal, which took place on Wednesday.
All in all, everything is progressing pretty well, for the most part. We're just waiting to hear the final result of the appraisal and get the report from the home inspection and the radon test, and then we'll be able to move forward with buying the house. We're also holding our breaths and crossing our fingers that our little tadpole keeps growing and that we'll be able to see a heartbeat next Friday!!
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Excuse me while I hyperventilate
Given that we now have a baby on the way, and that our apartment is WAY too small to accommodate us, our two cats, and our bundle of joy, J and I decided on Wednesday that now might be a good time to start looking into buying a house again. So on Thursday we called a realtor that a friend of mine recommended, and she sent us an email with a bunch of listings in our price range. We went through that list and picked several in a bunch of different areas that we liked. On Friday we talked to a loan officer and got the pre-approval process started. Yesterday we went and looked at a ton of houses, and found one we really liked. Today we looked at several more, and decided to make an offer on the one we liked from yesterday before someone else came along and stole it from us. After a couple of rounds of counteroffers, we settled on a price. Now it's a matter of making sure that we have insurance, making sure that all of the loan paperwork gets taken care of, getting the inspection, and having the attorney look over the contract. Oh, and we're hoping to close before Thanksgiving so we can take advantage of the $8000 tax credit that is currently being offered to first-time home buyers. EEK!!!!!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
10/28/09 blood work results
Are you ready for this? Today's beta results: 105. Woohoo!!! I'm going for my first pregnancy ultrasound a week from Friday, and J is going to go with me. I can't wait!!
Thank you to all of you for your good thoughts and well-wishes!!
Thank you to all of you for your good thoughts and well-wishes!!
Monday, October 26, 2009
10/26/09 blood work results
Today's results: beta 49.5. I'm pregnant. Now we just need to hope that everything goes well and my next beta (which will be on Wednesday morning) is at least twice that.
Please cross your fingers and toes and say little prayer that everything from here on out goes the way it's supposed to.
Please cross your fingers and toes and say little prayer that everything from here on out goes the way it's supposed to.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
So far, no news
All of my home tests so far have been negative. I keep telling myself that it's still early yet, and that I have two more days until I go for the "official" blood test on Monday, and that the home tests are less sensitive than the blood test, so even if the home tests are all negative, theoretically my blood test could come back positive. I'm not sure that me telling myself that is working, though.
Even so, I'm still hopeful. I'm still hoping that this cycle will work out, if for no other reason than so I don't have to figure out how to fit in another cycle between now and Thanksgiving or two more between now and Christmas/New Year's. My breasts are still sore and I still keep feeling slight cramps that I'm telling myself are due to a nice little embryo settling itself in for a nine-month stay. Hopefully I don't get disappointed on Monday.
Even so, I'm still hopeful. I'm still hoping that this cycle will work out, if for no other reason than so I don't have to figure out how to fit in another cycle between now and Thanksgiving or two more between now and Christmas/New Year's. My breasts are still sore and I still keep feeling slight cramps that I'm telling myself are due to a nice little embryo settling itself in for a nine-month stay. Hopefully I don't get disappointed on Monday.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
False alarm
Apparently I went through a dead zone somewhere between work and home this afternoon, because I missed the call from my doctor's office. I did get the voicemail, though. The nurse very apologetically told me that they had requested the wrong test be done, so OF COURSE it came back showing screwy results. My progesterone was well above the minimum that they like to see 7 days past ovulation. In other words, I'm still on for the blood test next Monday to determine if the IUI and/or intercourse regimen that we were on last week worked. And not that this is really any indication, but my breasts still hurt and I've had a few cramps off and on today. It could be impending PMS, but it could also mean that everything worked. I guess I'll find out for sure on Monday.
God, I hope it worked.
God, I hope it worked.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Possible ovulation FAIL
Remember how I had an LH surge that was HUGE? As in, it's supposed to be >20 and mine was >60? As in, everyone who I've talked to about it has described it as huge?
Apparently that HUGE LH surge didn't mean crap, because my 7 dpo progesterone level was so low it was undetectable. It should be greater than 15. They're having the lab re-check today's sample (thank goodness, because I can't go in tomorrow morning to give another sample) and having them check my estrogen level, too, this time. Hopefully it was just a lab error, and everything is fine. Otherwise, as the nurse said, "We may have just learned a hard lesson with you this cycle, and we need to give you the trigger shot even if you have an LH surge."
I'm not happy. I've had all of these symptoms (acne, sore nipples, and now aching breasts) that I've been chalking up to the fact that I ovulated and so OBVIOUSLY I'm pregnant now. Now I don't know what to think. My breasts and nipples really do hurt, and I really do have the skin of a 14 year old boy at the moment. Now I'm not sure what it all means.
I guess I'm going to go drown my sorrows in homemade macaroni and cheese (my husband is making it tonight, since I'm no longer in the mood to cook after this news) since I can't drown them with aglass bottle of wine.
Apparently that HUGE LH surge didn't mean crap, because my 7 dpo progesterone level was so low it was undetectable. It should be greater than 15. They're having the lab re-check today's sample (thank goodness, because I can't go in tomorrow morning to give another sample) and having them check my estrogen level, too, this time. Hopefully it was just a lab error, and everything is fine. Otherwise, as the nurse said, "We may have just learned a hard lesson with you this cycle, and we need to give you the trigger shot even if you have an LH surge."
I'm not happy. I've had all of these symptoms (acne, sore nipples, and now aching breasts) that I've been chalking up to the fact that I ovulated and so OBVIOUSLY I'm pregnant now. Now I don't know what to think. My breasts and nipples really do hurt, and I really do have the skin of a 14 year old boy at the moment. Now I'm not sure what it all means.
I guess I'm going to go drown my sorrows in homemade macaroni and cheese (my husband is making it tonight, since I'm no longer in the mood to cook after this news) since I can't drown them with a
Saturday, October 17, 2009
I know. I suck as a blogger.
Apparently I'm not so good at regular updates. But when there's nothing going on, there's nothing much for me to say.
Here's the rundown of what happened on Tuesday.
J went in around 9:30 and did his business. I think the quote of the day was, "I wasn't in the mood to masturbate in a hospital room." That cracked me up. After he left, they analyzed his sample, and then spun it to remove the sperm from the semen. Then they took the sperm and mixed them with some sort of medium which allows them to swim well, and re-analyzed the sample. I showed up at the doctor's office around 10:30 and sat there for about half an hour until they were ready for me. The nurse called me back and then had my sign some consent forms (because that had somehow been forgotten before...whoops!). Then she took me to an exam room and left while I stripped from the waist down. When she came back she went over what was going to happen, and then she got started. She put the speculum in, which wasn't exactly comfortable, and then she started looking for my cervix. Apparently it was really high up there, because she had to readjust the speculum a couple of times so she could get a clear view of what she was doing. Then she sucked the mixture of J's sperm and the medium they were mixed with into a syringe with a long, curved catheter. She explained that sometimes it would take a couple of tries to get the catheter placed well, just because different women's cervixes are shaped slightly differently. Apparently mine was shaped well, because she got it placed without any problems. She injected the sperm, and then propped up the end of the exam table so that my hips were slightly elevated. I laid there for 15 minutes, and then got dressed and left. I made appointments for next Monday to get my progesterone level checked to ensure that I'm producing enough to be able to sustain a pregnancy, and for the next Monday for a pregnancy test.
Now, I'm just waiting. It's been four days, so it's way too soon for me to have any symptoms or for it to even register if this was successful. I keep telling myself that it's too soon, but I also am having a hard time not taking tests already. I had a plan in place for if I'd had to do the trigger shot; I was going to give it a week, and then I was going to start testing to see if the level dropped enough that I had a negative test, which would indicate that the trigger shot had cleared my system, and then went up again enough that I had a positive test, which would indicate that I was pregnant. Now I don't know what to do. I think I'm probably going to start my pee-stick parties next Friday morning, since that will be the 10 day point, and will be the start of when it might show up if it's going to be positive. I just have to not go crazy before then, thinking the fact that my nipples are sore is a symptom and reading pregnancy symptoms into everything I feel between now and then.
I'll let you know how the progesterone test goes on Monday.
Here's the rundown of what happened on Tuesday.
J went in around 9:30 and did his business. I think the quote of the day was, "I wasn't in the mood to masturbate in a hospital room." That cracked me up. After he left, they analyzed his sample, and then spun it to remove the sperm from the semen. Then they took the sperm and mixed them with some sort of medium which allows them to swim well, and re-analyzed the sample. I showed up at the doctor's office around 10:30 and sat there for about half an hour until they were ready for me. The nurse called me back and then had my sign some consent forms (because that had somehow been forgotten before...whoops!). Then she took me to an exam room and left while I stripped from the waist down. When she came back she went over what was going to happen, and then she got started. She put the speculum in, which wasn't exactly comfortable, and then she started looking for my cervix. Apparently it was really high up there, because she had to readjust the speculum a couple of times so she could get a clear view of what she was doing. Then she sucked the mixture of J's sperm and the medium they were mixed with into a syringe with a long, curved catheter. She explained that sometimes it would take a couple of tries to get the catheter placed well, just because different women's cervixes are shaped slightly differently. Apparently mine was shaped well, because she got it placed without any problems. She injected the sperm, and then propped up the end of the exam table so that my hips were slightly elevated. I laid there for 15 minutes, and then got dressed and left. I made appointments for next Monday to get my progesterone level checked to ensure that I'm producing enough to be able to sustain a pregnancy, and for the next Monday for a pregnancy test.
Now, I'm just waiting. It's been four days, so it's way too soon for me to have any symptoms or for it to even register if this was successful. I keep telling myself that it's too soon, but I also am having a hard time not taking tests already. I had a plan in place for if I'd had to do the trigger shot; I was going to give it a week, and then I was going to start testing to see if the level dropped enough that I had a negative test, which would indicate that the trigger shot had cleared my system, and then went up again enough that I had a positive test, which would indicate that I was pregnant. Now I don't know what to do. I think I'm probably going to start my pee-stick parties next Friday morning, since that will be the 10 day point, and will be the start of when it might show up if it's going to be positive. I just have to not go crazy before then, thinking the fact that my nipples are sore is a symptom and reading pregnancy symptoms into everything I feel between now and then.
I'll let you know how the progesterone test goes on Monday.
Monday, October 12, 2009
10/12/09 ultrasound and bloodwork results
The gist of today's results is that apparently my body didn't want to wait for the trigger shot to ovulate. My LH went from 15.4 last Monday, to 15.1 on Thursday, to 8.6 on Saturday, to 62.2 today. Yes, you read that right. So...yeah. So much for a controlled ovulation. Instead, we are doing the insemination tomorrow. EEK!!! Cross your fingers that everything goes as planned!!
Sunday, October 11, 2009
10/10/09 ultrasound and blood work results
Yesterday's results were both promising and disheartening. My estradiol more than doubled between Thursday and yesterday, and my LH was about half of what it was on Thursday. My largest follicle grew from 12.7 mm to 17.9 mm. Unfortunately, that wasn't quite large enough for them to have me do the trigger shot. I'm going in again tomorrow morning for another round of monitoring. Hopefully I won't ovulate on my own before then, although I was instructed to "have intercourse" with my hubby either last night or today so we can cover our bases just in case it does happen on its own. I'm guessing that the trigger will be tomorrow night with the procedure on Wednesday. Hopefully everything will work out the way we want it to. Think non-ovulatory thoughts for me!!
Thursday, October 8, 2009
10/8/09 ultrasound and blood work results
My Estradiol level is going up, which is good. My LH has remained steady since before I started taking Clomid, which is also good. I have two follicles on the left and three on the right that they took measurements on. They asked me to go in again on Saturday morning for another round of monitoring. Keep your fingers crossed for me that my follicles continue to grow and I don't ovulate before then!!
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Twinges
I don't know if it's real or my imagination, but I keep feeling twinges that I'm choosing to blame on my ovaries growing follicles. I'm hoping that they're growing several good ones. I'm curious to see what I find out on Thursday, and when the doctor's office is going to want me to take my trigger shot. And I'm so so so nervous about stabbing myself in the abdomen for this.
And holy cow...how did it get to be 10:15? I need to get off the computer and get to bed so I can get to work at a decent hour tomorrow for another busy day. Good night!
And holy cow...how did it get to be 10:15? I need to get off the computer and get to bed so I can get to work at a decent hour tomorrow for another busy day. Good night!
Monday, October 5, 2009
10/5/09 ultrasound and bloodwork results
According to my doctor's office, my bloodwork today was fine. I also have two potentially promising follicles on my left ovary (7.9 and 9.9 mm) and one on my right (10.8). Hopefully they will continue to grow. I'll go back on Thursday for another ultrasound and more bloodwork. I'll also get a lesson on how to mix my hCG trigger shot and how to give myself an injection. I guess that means that I'll be getting the go-ahead for that trigger shot sometime in the next week or so (which makes sense, because, according to different websites that I've seen, ovulation usually occurs 5-9 days after the last dose of Clomid, which was last night for me), which will be followed by the IUI about 36 hours later. EEK!!!!
Keep your fingers crossed for me that my three little follies keep growing and that everything works out as we hope it will...
Keep your fingers crossed for me that my three little follies keep growing and that everything works out as we hope it will...
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Withdrawal
I think I'm going through withdrawal. I made the executive decision to stop charting when I started this cycle. I kinda figure that since I'm going to have my monitoring done in the doctor's office, they'll be able to pinpoint my ovulation a lot better than I would so there wasn't much of a point any more. It was definitely something that I needed to do for my sanity. The problem is that I'm not actively doing anything any more, and it is driving me crazy.
I'm going in tomorrow for my post-Clomid ultrasound and blood work. I don't know what to expect. I'm just hoping that everything looks good so we can progress with the rest of the cycle.
Oh, and I haven't had the Crazy show up yet. One of my friends said that it really didn't affect her until her second cycle on it. Hopefully, if we need to do another cycle after this, it still won't happen.
That's all I've got tonight. I just wanted to share that I'm going crazy doing nothing, that I didn't go crazy on Clomid, and that I'm going in tomorrow for monitoring. I'll share an update when I have one.
I'm going in tomorrow for my post-Clomid ultrasound and blood work. I don't know what to expect. I'm just hoping that everything looks good so we can progress with the rest of the cycle.
Oh, and I haven't had the Crazy show up yet. One of my friends said that it really didn't affect her until her second cycle on it. Hopefully, if we need to do another cycle after this, it still won't happen.
That's all I've got tonight. I just wanted to share that I'm going crazy doing nothing, that I didn't go crazy on Clomid, and that I'm going in tomorrow for monitoring. I'll share an update when I have one.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Let the Crazy begin...
I know. It's been a week since our return consult with the doctor, and I still haven't written about it. In my defense, I've been crazy busy at work, and then I was out of town for the past two nights. But now things have slowed down and I'm back in town and now I'm ready to write about it.
To keep things brief, he officially diagnosed me with PCOS. It's the diagnosis that I was expecting, so it didn't really surprise me at all. He also said that he wanted to try to figure out what is going on with J. He recommended that J get some bloodwork done to see where things stood with him. He also mentioned with me that I have some underlying health things that aren't really issues yet, but could be in the future...things like the potential for high blood pressure, heart disease, high cholesterol, and diabetes. He said we had two options...we could try to get the some of the underlying health issues under control through diet and exercise to see if that would help my body regulate itself again, or we could start using medication and go that route. The surprising thing was that if we wanted to go the medication route, the doctor said that I wouldn't have to wait for my next period...if I went in and got a baseline ultrasound and bloodwork to see how my hormones and uterine lining look, and everything checked out, I could get started right away. If my uterine lining was too thick, they'd give me something to induce my period and then I'd get started. If we decided to go the medication route, he recommended that we do an IUI as well as intercourse to increase our chances of getting pregnant. He also said that I could either use ovulation predictor kits at home to monitor my progress after I finish the medication to see when I was getting ready to ovulate, or I could do in-office monitoring. If I did in-office monitoring, they would also do an hCG trigger shot and then do the IUI about 36 hours later. J and I looked at each other, and we were both pretty sure that we would want to go the medication route since we're in a bit of a hurry, but we didn't want to make the decision right there in his office. J went ahead and made his appointment for bloodwork for last Friday. Then we talked about it on Wednesday evening, and officially made our decision to go the medication route.
I called on Thursday to figure out what I would need to do. The lady I talked to in the doctor's office mentioned that they still needed to get authorization from my insurance company, so we tentatively set up an appointment for me to go in this morning for the baseline bloodwork and ultrasound so that they would have time to get all of the proper authorizations.
On Friday J got his bloodwork done. The doctor's office called him that afternoon and told him that they want him to take Clomid for a month. He and I had a little chuckle over the fact that we were both going to be taking Clomid.
I called the doctor's office on Monday afternoon to check on the status of the authorization. It's a good thing that I did, because the nurse that I talked to said that she had to re-submit some stuff, but that everything should be taken care of.
Yesterday I spent way more time on the phone than I should have trying to get all of the medication stuff sorted out. First there was a call from the company that manages fertility care for our insurance company to verify whether I had any hCG from a previous cycle...and that would be a no. When I told the lady that it was my first cycle, she gave me a brief runthrough of what I would need to do, and then she said that I should be getting a call from the pharmacy my doctor's office uses for their fertility meds to talk about my copayment and schedule delivery. Then, about an hour later, I got a call from the pharmacy. They wanted to verify my insurance info and discuss delivery. When I mentioned that I might possibly need to start Clomid today, the lady said that I would be able to have that portion of the order tranferred to a local pharmacy and get the rest delivered. She asked when I would know for sure about when I would start the Clomid, and I told her today. She said that they also needed to verify my copayment amounts for the various drugs in the order, so they would call me back today. I got the call this afternoon, and I told them that I still didn't know about when I would be starting the Clomid, so the lady that I talked to today put my order on hold until I could call them back. About five minutes after I got off the phone with her, the doctor's office called and said that everything looked ok for me to go on the Clomid tonight so I called the pharmacy back and gave them my payment and scheduled delivery of everything except the Clomid for tomorrow. Then I called a local pharmacy to have them call the fertility meds pharmacy to get the prescription tranferred and get it filled. And then I took my first dose tonight.
So now I'm waiting for the Crazy to begin...
To keep things brief, he officially diagnosed me with PCOS. It's the diagnosis that I was expecting, so it didn't really surprise me at all. He also said that he wanted to try to figure out what is going on with J. He recommended that J get some bloodwork done to see where things stood with him. He also mentioned with me that I have some underlying health things that aren't really issues yet, but could be in the future...things like the potential for high blood pressure, heart disease, high cholesterol, and diabetes. He said we had two options...we could try to get the some of the underlying health issues under control through diet and exercise to see if that would help my body regulate itself again, or we could start using medication and go that route. The surprising thing was that if we wanted to go the medication route, the doctor said that I wouldn't have to wait for my next period...if I went in and got a baseline ultrasound and bloodwork to see how my hormones and uterine lining look, and everything checked out, I could get started right away. If my uterine lining was too thick, they'd give me something to induce my period and then I'd get started. If we decided to go the medication route, he recommended that we do an IUI as well as intercourse to increase our chances of getting pregnant. He also said that I could either use ovulation predictor kits at home to monitor my progress after I finish the medication to see when I was getting ready to ovulate, or I could do in-office monitoring. If I did in-office monitoring, they would also do an hCG trigger shot and then do the IUI about 36 hours later. J and I looked at each other, and we were both pretty sure that we would want to go the medication route since we're in a bit of a hurry, but we didn't want to make the decision right there in his office. J went ahead and made his appointment for bloodwork for last Friday. Then we talked about it on Wednesday evening, and officially made our decision to go the medication route.
I called on Thursday to figure out what I would need to do. The lady I talked to in the doctor's office mentioned that they still needed to get authorization from my insurance company, so we tentatively set up an appointment for me to go in this morning for the baseline bloodwork and ultrasound so that they would have time to get all of the proper authorizations.
On Friday J got his bloodwork done. The doctor's office called him that afternoon and told him that they want him to take Clomid for a month. He and I had a little chuckle over the fact that we were both going to be taking Clomid.
I called the doctor's office on Monday afternoon to check on the status of the authorization. It's a good thing that I did, because the nurse that I talked to said that she had to re-submit some stuff, but that everything should be taken care of.
Yesterday I spent way more time on the phone than I should have trying to get all of the medication stuff sorted out. First there was a call from the company that manages fertility care for our insurance company to verify whether I had any hCG from a previous cycle...and that would be a no. When I told the lady that it was my first cycle, she gave me a brief runthrough of what I would need to do, and then she said that I should be getting a call from the pharmacy my doctor's office uses for their fertility meds to talk about my copayment and schedule delivery. Then, about an hour later, I got a call from the pharmacy. They wanted to verify my insurance info and discuss delivery. When I mentioned that I might possibly need to start Clomid today, the lady said that I would be able to have that portion of the order tranferred to a local pharmacy and get the rest delivered. She asked when I would know for sure about when I would start the Clomid, and I told her today. She said that they also needed to verify my copayment amounts for the various drugs in the order, so they would call me back today. I got the call this afternoon, and I told them that I still didn't know about when I would be starting the Clomid, so the lady that I talked to today put my order on hold until I could call them back. About five minutes after I got off the phone with her, the doctor's office called and said that everything looked ok for me to go on the Clomid tonight so I called the pharmacy back and gave them my payment and scheduled delivery of everything except the Clomid for tomorrow. Then I called a local pharmacy to have them call the fertility meds pharmacy to get the prescription tranferred and get it filled. And then I took my first dose tonight.
So now I'm waiting for the Crazy to begin...
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Sorry to leave you hanging...
Believe it or not, I do have a bit of a life. Granted, it's not much of one these days, but my I am an active member a sorority alumnae association (yes, I'm a sorority girl!) that meets once a month. Our monthly get-together was Thursday night and by the time I got home all I wanted to do was crawl into bed. It's been a long week both work-wise and TTC-wise, so I needed some sleep (which I didn't get for various reasons). (I'm sure that before long I'll write a post about how I love to sleep but my work hours don't jive with my body's internal clock. It's a problem that has plagued me my entire adult life and it seems to be getting worse as I become older. But I digress.)
I went on Thursday morning to get blood drawn for the re-do of my TSH and Prolactin labs. I got a call mid-afternoon that both my TSH and Prolactin levels were in the normal range. The nurse that called me chalked it up to a lab error the first time around. So I guess I'm in the clear there. But I also checked my doctor's website today and got one more result...my AMH was high. According to this page anything over 3 ng/ml is high, and usually associated with PCOS. I'm well above 3 ng/ml. (I actually saw another website that showed that cutoff as 5 ng/ml, but I'm well above that, too.)
That's really all I have to report at the moment. It's going to be a busy weekend for me. We're in one of our busy seasons at work and I'm up to my eyeballs in things that I need to get done this weekend either because I didn't get a chance to work on them during the week or because I intentionally put them off for the weekend. I'm hoping to be able to stay at home to work on them, but, depending on how distracted I get, I may wind up spending several hours both over both days in my office, which will make me sad. Since I may be otherwise occupied until then, don't be surprised if I don't post anything before the return consult with our RE next Wednesday. I'm hoping to come out of that meeting with a clear picture with what's going on, an official diagnosis or two, and a game plan. I'll be sure to post more when I know more.
With that in mind, plus the fact that it's going on 2 am, I need to head towards bed so I can get a halfway early start to the day. Good night!
I went on Thursday morning to get blood drawn for the re-do of my TSH and Prolactin labs. I got a call mid-afternoon that both my TSH and Prolactin levels were in the normal range. The nurse that called me chalked it up to a lab error the first time around. So I guess I'm in the clear there. But I also checked my doctor's website today and got one more result...my AMH was high. According to this page anything over 3 ng/ml is high, and usually associated with PCOS. I'm well above 3 ng/ml. (I actually saw another website that showed that cutoff as 5 ng/ml, but I'm well above that, too.)
That's really all I have to report at the moment. It's going to be a busy weekend for me. We're in one of our busy seasons at work and I'm up to my eyeballs in things that I need to get done this weekend either because I didn't get a chance to work on them during the week or because I intentionally put them off for the weekend. I'm hoping to be able to stay at home to work on them, but, depending on how distracted I get, I may wind up spending several hours both over both days in my office, which will make me sad. Since I may be otherwise occupied until then, don't be surprised if I don't post anything before the return consult with our RE next Wednesday. I'm hoping to come out of that meeting with a clear picture with what's going on, an official diagnosis or two, and a game plan. I'll be sure to post more when I know more.
With that in mind, plus the fact that it's going on 2 am, I need to head towards bed so I can get a halfway early start to the day. Good night!
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Well, huh...
I got a call from my RE's office this morning. Out of all of the test results, they're most concerned about my Prolactin and TSH, which were borderline high. They want me to come back in tomorrow so they can test them again, which means fasting again. At least we were able to time dinner so that I finished just in time to meet my 12-hour requirement.
I also got my fasting glucose results, and they were good.
Once again, when I get more results, I'll be sure to share them.
I also got my fasting glucose results, and they were good.
Once again, when I get more results, I'll be sure to share them.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
I'm not sure what this all means, but...
(Determinations of good/high/low based on based on this website, for the most part. Cholesterol good/high/low based on this website.)
TSH was high, which is bad.
Prolactin was high, which is bad.
Progesterone was good.
Cholesterol...overall is ok, but HDL is really low, and the Total/HDL is high, and my Triglicerides are borderline high.
LH was really high, which is bad.
Fasting insulin levels may be high, which is bad.
FSH was good (actually, it was in the excellent category).
Estradiol was low, which I think means good.
DHEAS was good.
Like I said, I'm not sure what all of that means. And that isn't everything. That's just what my RE's lab could do in-house. The rest they had to send offsite...I'll get those results in 3-5 days, they were estimating.
In addition to all of the blood I had drawn today, I had an ultrasound. And I have to say, getting up close and personal with an vaginal ultrasound wand during your period isn't as much fun as it's cracked up to be. Sure, you get to see your ovaries and uterus and apparently some cysts, but it's a bit painful, especially when your left ovary is trying to hide. And it's messy. Having said that, though, I was able to see what was going on a lot better this time, and I felt more comfortable asking questions.
I'm not sure what my test results mean...I guess I'll have to wait until we have a return consultation with our RE to figure out what the combination of J's test results and my test results means for us. And speaking of our return consultation, I made an appointment for that. It's next Wednesday. I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to justify the time away from work right now, but the other alternative was four weeks from today and I just don't want to wait that long.
If I see results for my other bloodwork, I'll be sure to post good/high/low thing again.
TSH was high, which is bad.
Prolactin was high, which is bad.
Progesterone was good.
Cholesterol...overall is ok, but HDL is really low, and the Total/HDL is high, and my Triglicerides are borderline high.
LH was really high, which is bad.
Fasting insulin levels may be high, which is bad.
FSH was good (actually, it was in the excellent category).
Estradiol was low, which I think means good.
DHEAS was good.
Like I said, I'm not sure what all of that means. And that isn't everything. That's just what my RE's lab could do in-house. The rest they had to send offsite...I'll get those results in 3-5 days, they were estimating.
In addition to all of the blood I had drawn today, I had an ultrasound. And I have to say, getting up close and personal with an vaginal ultrasound wand during your period isn't as much fun as it's cracked up to be. Sure, you get to see your ovaries and uterus and apparently some cysts, but it's a bit painful, especially when your left ovary is trying to hide. And it's messy. Having said that, though, I was able to see what was going on a lot better this time, and I felt more comfortable asking questions.
I'm not sure what my test results mean...I guess I'll have to wait until we have a return consultation with our RE to figure out what the combination of J's test results and my test results means for us. And speaking of our return consultation, I made an appointment for that. It's next Wednesday. I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to justify the time away from work right now, but the other alternative was four weeks from today and I just don't want to wait that long.
If I see results for my other bloodwork, I'll be sure to post good/high/low thing again.
Monday, September 14, 2009
09-11-09 HSG results, and a play-by-play of my procedure
The results were good. Both of my fallopian tubes were clear and my uterus looked ok. The experience was...interesting.
I'm not sure if every doctor does this, but my doctor had me go to an outpatient surgery center for the procedure. It was one of those regimented places, where they have the same instructions for everyone, regardless of what they're there for. They neglected to call me ahead of time to tell me to a) not wear jewelry and b) not wear contacts. My procedure was scheduled for mid-morning on Friday so I went to work first and had to return to work afterwards, and thus I showed up wearing both jewelry and contacts and didn't have a contacts case or my glasses with me. Luckily they allowed me to leave my contacts in since I wasn't being knocked out. (They also neglected to call to tell me when to show up. I got impatient around lunchtime on Thursday, so I called them to find out because I needed to tell my boss when I would in and out of the office on Friday.)
I signed in and a few minutes later they took me back to squeeze out a few drops of urine for a pregnancy test and get changed. They took my blood pressure, my pulse, and my temperature. Then they brought my husband back to keep me company until the doctor was ready for me. After about 10 minutes or so, a nurse came to get me for the procedure. She took me back to the room and it was scary. I've had tubes put in my ears twice, I had my wisdom teeth removed, and I've had surgery on my jaw, but I don't remember every being this scared of a room.
The nurse who took me back to the room introduced the other nurse and the radiographer. They helped me get up on the table and guided me into position. The doctor had me state my name and the reason that I was there. They put a blood pressure cuff on my arm and a heart rate monitor on my finger. The doctor talked me through everything at first. He pointed out the radiography machine and monitors where I could watch what he was doing. (BTW, it was really neat to see what he was doing. It made it a lot less scary). Then he got into position and got things started. He inserted a speculum. Then he used an iodine solution to clean the opening of my cervix. Next he put on a local anesthetic. So far it was about the same as a PAP smear, comfort-level-wise. Then he inserted the catheter, which was slightly uncomfortable but bearable, and removed the speculum. I got to watch as the dye started filling up my uterus...it was pretty instantaneous, and I thought it was pretty cool. So far so good. He asked the radiographer to take a picture. And then he started moving the catheter around, and that was not at all pleasant. I'd actually go so far as to say that it was painful. He asked the radiographer to take another picture. And then, the next thing I knew, there was a balloon showing up on the screen, and he was moving that around, too. That hurt like a b*tch. I couldn't keep from moving a little bit as he was wiggling it, despite my best effort to stay still. Eventually he seemed satisfied with everything so he asked the radiographer to take a third picture, and then he started draining the dye. I could feel it running down my butt...it was pretty gross. Then the nurses helped me take my legs out of the stirrups and put some mesh panties that had been fortified with a super-strength maxi pad on me and pulled them part of the way up. (I was supposed to pull them up the rest of the way when I stood up.) The doctor went over the pictures with me. The first one showed that my fallopian tubes were nice and clear...good results. He also pointed out a whitish blob in the middle of my uterus that had the dye surrounding it. That wasn't so good. He explained that it could have been some rogue uterine lining or scar tissue (from what I'm not sure, because I've never had surgery on my uterus or an abortion, and I've never (to my knowledge) had a miscarriage). He said that he'd first tried using the catheter to get it to move, and when that didn't work, he used the balloon. He said that since he was able to break the spot up using the balloon he wasn't concerned about what, exactly, it was...all he cared about was that it went away, and my uterus looked good otherwise. Then I was free to stand up and pull on my granny panties with the pad and be escorted back to the recovery area.
The nurse in the recovery area took my blood pressure again and my pulse again and gave me some apple juice and cookies. She also gave me some ibuprofen to help with the cramping, which was pretty rough. (To be fair, I had forgotten to take any before my procedure, which was strongly advised. But even if I had taken some before the procedure, I don't think that it would have prevented all of the pain.) Then she went and found my husband and brought him back to keep me company while I "recovered". She came back about 10 minutes later to take my temperature and give us a survey to fill out, instructions from my doctor's office, and my discharge paperwork. She told me that I was free to get dressed. I had remembered the advice to bring some sort of sanitary product with me, so I changed out of the surgery center-provided undies and into my own. I was surprised to see that I had bled quite a bit following the procedure. Then the nurse walked me outside, and I kissed my husband goodbye and went back to work. I didn't stay for very long...just long enough for a meeting and to get some paperwork done. I left a little after lunchtime and came home and slept. Although I wasn't sedated during the procedure, it still really wiped me out.
Here are my overall observations:
1. It was cool to be able to get results that day, in real time, and to see what was going on.
2. I should have taken ibuprofen ahead of time. As I said before, I don't think it would have prevented the pain completely, but I'm sure that it would have helped.
3. It would have been nice if the doctor had told me why he was wiggling the catheter and balloon around while he was doing it. Getting the explanation after the fact was ok, but I think I would have relaxed a bit more if he had told me why he was doing it as he was doing it.
4. The staff at the surgery center, overall, was really nice in person. Apparently they have some issues with calling people, though...they didn't call to give me instructions the day before the procedure, and they called today to find out how I was doing but, rather than calling me even though my husband told them that they could, they just talked to him. And, according to my husband, the lady who called today didn't seem too terribly concerned by the fact that I'm still bleeding (which I'll get to in a minute).
5. The paperwork I got from my doctor's office said that bleeding was to be expected, but no timeframe as to when that bleeding could be expected was given. As I mentioned before, I was surprised at how much I bled that morning but it seemed to taper off by around lunch time. I came home and slept all afternoon, and thus was up pretty late that night, but there wasn't much bleeding the rest of the night. Nor was there much bleeding on Saturday. But then I started bleeding pretty heavily again yesterday, which meant that either a) I was having some sort of side effect or b) my last "period" wasn't really a period, and I actually started my real period yesterday. So I called my doctor's office this morning. I told one of the nurses what was going on, and she agreed that I probably was starting my real period so we arranged for me to go in tomorrow morning for my Day 3 bloodwork and an ultrasound.
6. I think part of the vast amount of pain that I felt during the procedure was due to the fact that I was about to start my period but I didn't know it. If I ever have to do this again, I'll try to make sure that I schedule it after a good period, and not a "Is it? Or isn't it?" bleeding spell like I had a couple of weeks ago. I'll also be sure to take ibuprofen ahead of time.
So...those are the results. I've got to get up bright and early to get my blood taken and an ultrasound, so I should probably start heading toward bed. When I get the results of tomorrow's testing, I'll be sure to post.
I'm not sure if every doctor does this, but my doctor had me go to an outpatient surgery center for the procedure. It was one of those regimented places, where they have the same instructions for everyone, regardless of what they're there for. They neglected to call me ahead of time to tell me to a) not wear jewelry and b) not wear contacts. My procedure was scheduled for mid-morning on Friday so I went to work first and had to return to work afterwards, and thus I showed up wearing both jewelry and contacts and didn't have a contacts case or my glasses with me. Luckily they allowed me to leave my contacts in since I wasn't being knocked out. (They also neglected to call to tell me when to show up. I got impatient around lunchtime on Thursday, so I called them to find out because I needed to tell my boss when I would in and out of the office on Friday.)
I signed in and a few minutes later they took me back to squeeze out a few drops of urine for a pregnancy test and get changed. They took my blood pressure, my pulse, and my temperature. Then they brought my husband back to keep me company until the doctor was ready for me. After about 10 minutes or so, a nurse came to get me for the procedure. She took me back to the room and it was scary. I've had tubes put in my ears twice, I had my wisdom teeth removed, and I've had surgery on my jaw, but I don't remember every being this scared of a room.
The nurse who took me back to the room introduced the other nurse and the radiographer. They helped me get up on the table and guided me into position. The doctor had me state my name and the reason that I was there. They put a blood pressure cuff on my arm and a heart rate monitor on my finger. The doctor talked me through everything at first. He pointed out the radiography machine and monitors where I could watch what he was doing. (BTW, it was really neat to see what he was doing. It made it a lot less scary). Then he got into position and got things started. He inserted a speculum. Then he used an iodine solution to clean the opening of my cervix. Next he put on a local anesthetic. So far it was about the same as a PAP smear, comfort-level-wise. Then he inserted the catheter, which was slightly uncomfortable but bearable, and removed the speculum. I got to watch as the dye started filling up my uterus...it was pretty instantaneous, and I thought it was pretty cool. So far so good. He asked the radiographer to take a picture. And then he started moving the catheter around, and that was not at all pleasant. I'd actually go so far as to say that it was painful. He asked the radiographer to take another picture. And then, the next thing I knew, there was a balloon showing up on the screen, and he was moving that around, too. That hurt like a b*tch. I couldn't keep from moving a little bit as he was wiggling it, despite my best effort to stay still. Eventually he seemed satisfied with everything so he asked the radiographer to take a third picture, and then he started draining the dye. I could feel it running down my butt...it was pretty gross. Then the nurses helped me take my legs out of the stirrups and put some mesh panties that had been fortified with a super-strength maxi pad on me and pulled them part of the way up. (I was supposed to pull them up the rest of the way when I stood up.) The doctor went over the pictures with me. The first one showed that my fallopian tubes were nice and clear...good results. He also pointed out a whitish blob in the middle of my uterus that had the dye surrounding it. That wasn't so good. He explained that it could have been some rogue uterine lining or scar tissue (from what I'm not sure, because I've never had surgery on my uterus or an abortion, and I've never (to my knowledge) had a miscarriage). He said that he'd first tried using the catheter to get it to move, and when that didn't work, he used the balloon. He said that since he was able to break the spot up using the balloon he wasn't concerned about what, exactly, it was...all he cared about was that it went away, and my uterus looked good otherwise. Then I was free to stand up and pull on my granny panties with the pad and be escorted back to the recovery area.
The nurse in the recovery area took my blood pressure again and my pulse again and gave me some apple juice and cookies. She also gave me some ibuprofen to help with the cramping, which was pretty rough. (To be fair, I had forgotten to take any before my procedure, which was strongly advised. But even if I had taken some before the procedure, I don't think that it would have prevented all of the pain.) Then she went and found my husband and brought him back to keep me company while I "recovered". She came back about 10 minutes later to take my temperature and give us a survey to fill out, instructions from my doctor's office, and my discharge paperwork. She told me that I was free to get dressed. I had remembered the advice to bring some sort of sanitary product with me, so I changed out of the surgery center-provided undies and into my own. I was surprised to see that I had bled quite a bit following the procedure. Then the nurse walked me outside, and I kissed my husband goodbye and went back to work. I didn't stay for very long...just long enough for a meeting and to get some paperwork done. I left a little after lunchtime and came home and slept. Although I wasn't sedated during the procedure, it still really wiped me out.
Here are my overall observations:
1. It was cool to be able to get results that day, in real time, and to see what was going on.
2. I should have taken ibuprofen ahead of time. As I said before, I don't think it would have prevented the pain completely, but I'm sure that it would have helped.
3. It would have been nice if the doctor had told me why he was wiggling the catheter and balloon around while he was doing it. Getting the explanation after the fact was ok, but I think I would have relaxed a bit more if he had told me why he was doing it as he was doing it.
4. The staff at the surgery center, overall, was really nice in person. Apparently they have some issues with calling people, though...they didn't call to give me instructions the day before the procedure, and they called today to find out how I was doing but, rather than calling me even though my husband told them that they could, they just talked to him. And, according to my husband, the lady who called today didn't seem too terribly concerned by the fact that I'm still bleeding (which I'll get to in a minute).
5. The paperwork I got from my doctor's office said that bleeding was to be expected, but no timeframe as to when that bleeding could be expected was given. As I mentioned before, I was surprised at how much I bled that morning but it seemed to taper off by around lunch time. I came home and slept all afternoon, and thus was up pretty late that night, but there wasn't much bleeding the rest of the night. Nor was there much bleeding on Saturday. But then I started bleeding pretty heavily again yesterday, which meant that either a) I was having some sort of side effect or b) my last "period" wasn't really a period, and I actually started my real period yesterday. So I called my doctor's office this morning. I told one of the nurses what was going on, and she agreed that I probably was starting my real period so we arranged for me to go in tomorrow morning for my Day 3 bloodwork and an ultrasound.
6. I think part of the vast amount of pain that I felt during the procedure was due to the fact that I was about to start my period but I didn't know it. If I ever have to do this again, I'll try to make sure that I schedule it after a good period, and not a "Is it? Or isn't it?" bleeding spell like I had a couple of weeks ago. I'll also be sure to take ibuprofen ahead of time.
So...those are the results. I've got to get up bright and early to get my blood taken and an ultrasound, so I should probably start heading toward bed. When I get the results of tomorrow's testing, I'll be sure to post.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Still nothing new to report
This is a slow process apparently.
We had our consultation about a month ago. The doctor suggested that J get another semen analysis, which he did. The doctor also recommended that I call on the first day of my next period to schedule some day 3 bloodwork and set up an appointment for a hysterosalpingogram (HSG). He said that prior to the HSG he'd like for me to have a good, medium-to-heavy flow period so that my lining gets good and flushed out. I expected to get my period within a week of that appointment because my temperatures indicated that I had ovulated about 9 days previously and my temperature dropped like a rock very shortly thereafter, but I didn't. It finally showed up on a Sunday night almost three weeks later, which also happened to be the night before I left to go on a business trip, a trip which precluded me from going in to get my bloodwork taken care of but I went ahead and scheduled the HSG. And then the period turned out to be really short (~1 day) and really light and therefore not at all what the doctor had said that he would like for me to have. Since I wasn't sure if I wanted to waste our time with the procedure if it was going to give us screwy results as a result of my lousy period, I called the doctor's office yesterday and talked to a nurse. She talked to the doctor and they had me go in this morning for a pregnancy test and, since it was negative, I'll be going in again on Friday morning for the HSG. I'll have to wait until after my next period (and hopefully it's a good one!!) to do my day 3 bloodwork, and then we'll meet again and talk about the results of J's test and my tests and figure out where to go from there.
So...that's where things stand. After the HSG on Friday, if I'm up for it, I'll provide another update.
We had our consultation about a month ago. The doctor suggested that J get another semen analysis, which he did. The doctor also recommended that I call on the first day of my next period to schedule some day 3 bloodwork and set up an appointment for a hysterosalpingogram (HSG). He said that prior to the HSG he'd like for me to have a good, medium-to-heavy flow period so that my lining gets good and flushed out. I expected to get my period within a week of that appointment because my temperatures indicated that I had ovulated about 9 days previously and my temperature dropped like a rock very shortly thereafter, but I didn't. It finally showed up on a Sunday night almost three weeks later, which also happened to be the night before I left to go on a business trip, a trip which precluded me from going in to get my bloodwork taken care of but I went ahead and scheduled the HSG. And then the period turned out to be really short (~1 day) and really light and therefore not at all what the doctor had said that he would like for me to have. Since I wasn't sure if I wanted to waste our time with the procedure if it was going to give us screwy results as a result of my lousy period, I called the doctor's office yesterday and talked to a nurse. She talked to the doctor and they had me go in this morning for a pregnancy test and, since it was negative, I'll be going in again on Friday morning for the HSG. I'll have to wait until after my next period (and hopefully it's a good one!!) to do my day 3 bloodwork, and then we'll meet again and talk about the results of J's test and my tests and figure out where to go from there.
So...that's where things stand. After the HSG on Friday, if I'm up for it, I'll provide another update.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Ummm...hi, there
So it's been a little bit longer than I thought it would be. What can I say? I haven't had anything to write about, really.
Even though J got laid off in June, we decided to go ahead with our vacation just like we had planned. We spent a long weekend in Niagara Falls. A friend of mine lives in Buffalo, so we got to hang out with her and her family some, and we got to see the Falls, too. It's a beautiful place, and I highly recommend it, if you ever get a chance to go. We had a great trip.
I turned 30 a couple of weeks ago. I was really freaked out about it, like I was when I turned 20. There's just something so big about changing the number at the beginning of your age...almost like another decade has passed, or something. I'm pretty much over it now, but I wasn't too happy about it at the time.
J is still looking for a job. He has gotten word about a few possibile openings, and I sent his resume to one of the HR ladies at my company, so hopefully something will happen soon.
I finally got my referral to the RE and got an appointment for a consultation. Our appointment is next Tuesday, and I'm all kinds of nervous about what he's going to say.
In other babymaking news, it looks like I actually ovulated again this cycle. It's still too early to tell if anything good will come of it, but we'll see in another week or so. It would really be my luck, though, to get pregnant right around the time that we finally get to talk things over with a specialist. Wouldn't that just be terrific?
That's about all that's going on at the moment. If I have anything exciting to share following my doctor appointment on Tuesday, I'll be sure to update more quickly than I did this time.
Even though J got laid off in June, we decided to go ahead with our vacation just like we had planned. We spent a long weekend in Niagara Falls. A friend of mine lives in Buffalo, so we got to hang out with her and her family some, and we got to see the Falls, too. It's a beautiful place, and I highly recommend it, if you ever get a chance to go. We had a great trip.
I turned 30 a couple of weeks ago. I was really freaked out about it, like I was when I turned 20. There's just something so big about changing the number at the beginning of your age...almost like another decade has passed, or something. I'm pretty much over it now, but I wasn't too happy about it at the time.
J is still looking for a job. He has gotten word about a few possibile openings, and I sent his resume to one of the HR ladies at my company, so hopefully something will happen soon.
I finally got my referral to the RE and got an appointment for a consultation. Our appointment is next Tuesday, and I'm all kinds of nervous about what he's going to say.
In other babymaking news, it looks like I actually ovulated again this cycle. It's still too early to tell if anything good will come of it, but we'll see in another week or so. It would really be my luck, though, to get pregnant right around the time that we finally get to talk things over with a specialist. Wouldn't that just be terrific?
That's about all that's going on at the moment. If I have anything exciting to share following my doctor appointment on Tuesday, I'll be sure to update more quickly than I did this time.
Monday, June 29, 2009
And then a bit more insanity
I can't believe that it's been about a month since I last wrote. In some ways SO MUCH has happened, and in others, nothing has happened at all.
About two days after that last post, I got a message from my doctor's nurse asking me to call her. I thought it was her calling to let me know that the referral had been approved, but instead she was calling to tell me that the insurance company requires a chlamydia and gonorrhea test before they'll approve referrals for infertility. I made an appointment for the next week, but the day before the test I was spotting so I called and rescheduled for last week. It sucked to have to wait so long, but it happens.
In the meantime, J got laid off. It sucks, having to do the whole living on one salary thing again, but we did it for the first 9 months of our marriage, when we were still paying off a truck and a motorcycle and a couple of credit cards and several student loans, and we know that it'll be easier now that everything is paid off. The biggest impact of his job loss is that now we won't be able to save as much for a house, like we were before, and I'll admit that I'm really, really upset about that. But that's about all I have to say on this topic.
Moving on. So I had my completely pointless STD test last week. I was in the office with my doctor long enough for her to apologize about five times for making me take a pointless test, us agree that nationalized healthcare is a good idea, me to tell her about J getting laid off, and her to tell me that I should expect to hear from her office this week about my referral. And that was it.
J called me at work this morning to tell me that the doctor's office had left a message saying that my referral had been approved, and that they were mailing it to me. As soon as I get it, I'm going to call and attempt to schedule an appointment with my chosen RE, assuming I can get one in the last two weeks of July. Once I know more, I'll post more.
About two days after that last post, I got a message from my doctor's nurse asking me to call her. I thought it was her calling to let me know that the referral had been approved, but instead she was calling to tell me that the insurance company requires a chlamydia and gonorrhea test before they'll approve referrals for infertility. I made an appointment for the next week, but the day before the test I was spotting so I called and rescheduled for last week. It sucked to have to wait so long, but it happens.
In the meantime, J got laid off. It sucks, having to do the whole living on one salary thing again, but we did it for the first 9 months of our marriage, when we were still paying off a truck and a motorcycle and a couple of credit cards and several student loans, and we know that it'll be easier now that everything is paid off. The biggest impact of his job loss is that now we won't be able to save as much for a house, like we were before, and I'll admit that I'm really, really upset about that. But that's about all I have to say on this topic.
Moving on. So I had my completely pointless STD test last week. I was in the office with my doctor long enough for her to apologize about five times for making me take a pointless test, us agree that nationalized healthcare is a good idea, me to tell her about J getting laid off, and her to tell me that I should expect to hear from her office this week about my referral. And that was it.
J called me at work this morning to tell me that the doctor's office had left a message saying that my referral had been approved, and that they were mailing it to me. As soon as I get it, I'm going to call and attempt to schedule an appointment with my chosen RE, assuming I can get one in the last two weeks of July. Once I know more, I'll post more.
Monday, June 1, 2009
A bit of insanity, but also, a little bit of hope
In my previous post, I mentioned that J's SA results weren't exactly all that we had hoped that they would be. That was a disappointment, to say the least. But now we know at least one thing that we're up against, and we can start moving on.
I was actually out of town when we got his results, so after I got home, and after Memorial Day, I faxed his results to my doctor's office and included a note asking her to call me. At the time, the plan was that his doctor's office was going to refer him to an urologist, and I wanted to make sure that there wasn't anything else that my doctor wanted to do while we ruled things out on his end. But my doctor didn't call me back last Tuesday, and she was in a different office on Wednesday, so I expected her to call back on Thursday. Which she didn't. And she didn't call me back on Friday, either (although that wound up working a bit in my favor because it allowed me some time to research and clarify a couple of things before talking to her, as I'll discuss below).
We did, however, hear back from J's doctor's office on Wednesday. They said that the insurance company denied the referral to the urologist but instead wanted him to be referred to WIN Fertility, which we thought was a doctor's office until J called to make an appointment and was told that he needed to pick a doctor from the list that they would send him and set up an appointment with that doctor. At that point we got really confused about what was going on, so I Googled WIN Fertility, and apparently it is some sort of middleman organization that manages fertility treatments for BCBS HMO Illinois, or some such nonsense.
Anyway, we got the list of doctors from WIN Fertility, and I started looking at the SART website to see the stats for several of the doctors and clinics in the area. I actually had a recommendation of one particular doctor from a friend, so I tried looking at his stats, but the SART website said that he reports directly to the CDC so I wound up going there to do most of my research. I looked at results for the past five years, and the doctor that was recommended has the highest success rate in the area (even higher than a place that does roughly 1000 cycles a year).
(As an aside, I have to say once again that I'm really lucky to live in Illinois, which mandates ART coverage. Not only does will it make it possible for us to do whatever it is that we need to do to have a child of our own, but it also means that I have lots of doctors and clinics to choose from.)
Anyway, we decided to go with the doctor that had been recommended to me. J called there on Thursday, but didn't know what to tell them about why he was being referred to that clinic. Because of J's confusion, and because I was still all kinds of confused about what, exactly, WIN Fertility does, I wound up calling WIN Fertility today to find out what was going on. And I think that the guy was trying to be helpful, but he wasn't, really. The gist of what I got from him was that if the fertility specialist wants to send J to a urologist, that's fine, but the fertility specialist has to make that referral, not J's regular doctor, which makes no sense to me. I also asked if his referral to the fertility specialist was tantamount to both of us being referred, as it would be if I was referred, and the answer was more or less no, which was fine.
I was really confused after this conversation, but I talked to J and decided to see if I could work around all of the confusion and have my doctor refer me to the same fertility specialist. She finally called me back this afternoon and we chatted. I told her about how J is being sent to the fertility specialist instead of a urologist, which she agreed made no sense. After talking to her, she was kind enough to agree to refer me to the specialist since we're already going to be wasting time waiting for him to see the specialist and then waiting again for a referral to a urologist and then waiting yet again for him to actually see the urologist, not to mention waiting for whatever treatment the urologist may propose, and since we've hit the one year mark for trying. I asked her if she had any specialists that she prefers to work with, and she mentioned a couple that had pretty crappy stats. I told her that I had looked at the list we had gotten and checked stats and that someone had recommended another doctor to me and that I'd like to see him, instead, if she was ok with that. She warned me that he didn't have the greatest bedside manner, but said that as long as I was ok with that she is, and she'd start working on it. She also told me that if I have any questions to feel free to call her. I think I kinda love my doctor.
Anyway, so to sum up this post, which has become rather rambly and long: J's test results were disappointing, but hopefully soon he'll see the fertility specialist, who will most likely send him to an urologist to get checked out, and hopefully I can get a referral to the same fertility specialist to get a full workup to make sure that everything is ok with me and then we can finally get going.
The end.
I was actually out of town when we got his results, so after I got home, and after Memorial Day, I faxed his results to my doctor's office and included a note asking her to call me. At the time, the plan was that his doctor's office was going to refer him to an urologist, and I wanted to make sure that there wasn't anything else that my doctor wanted to do while we ruled things out on his end. But my doctor didn't call me back last Tuesday, and she was in a different office on Wednesday, so I expected her to call back on Thursday. Which she didn't. And she didn't call me back on Friday, either (although that wound up working a bit in my favor because it allowed me some time to research and clarify a couple of things before talking to her, as I'll discuss below).
We did, however, hear back from J's doctor's office on Wednesday. They said that the insurance company denied the referral to the urologist but instead wanted him to be referred to WIN Fertility, which we thought was a doctor's office until J called to make an appointment and was told that he needed to pick a doctor from the list that they would send him and set up an appointment with that doctor. At that point we got really confused about what was going on, so I Googled WIN Fertility, and apparently it is some sort of middleman organization that manages fertility treatments for BCBS HMO Illinois, or some such nonsense.
Anyway, we got the list of doctors from WIN Fertility, and I started looking at the SART website to see the stats for several of the doctors and clinics in the area. I actually had a recommendation of one particular doctor from a friend, so I tried looking at his stats, but the SART website said that he reports directly to the CDC so I wound up going there to do most of my research. I looked at results for the past five years, and the doctor that was recommended has the highest success rate in the area (even higher than a place that does roughly 1000 cycles a year).
(As an aside, I have to say once again that I'm really lucky to live in Illinois, which mandates ART coverage. Not only does will it make it possible for us to do whatever it is that we need to do to have a child of our own, but it also means that I have lots of doctors and clinics to choose from.)
Anyway, we decided to go with the doctor that had been recommended to me. J called there on Thursday, but didn't know what to tell them about why he was being referred to that clinic. Because of J's confusion, and because I was still all kinds of confused about what, exactly, WIN Fertility does, I wound up calling WIN Fertility today to find out what was going on. And I think that the guy was trying to be helpful, but he wasn't, really. The gist of what I got from him was that if the fertility specialist wants to send J to a urologist, that's fine, but the fertility specialist has to make that referral, not J's regular doctor, which makes no sense to me. I also asked if his referral to the fertility specialist was tantamount to both of us being referred, as it would be if I was referred, and the answer was more or less no, which was fine.
I was really confused after this conversation, but I talked to J and decided to see if I could work around all of the confusion and have my doctor refer me to the same fertility specialist. She finally called me back this afternoon and we chatted. I told her about how J is being sent to the fertility specialist instead of a urologist, which she agreed made no sense. After talking to her, she was kind enough to agree to refer me to the specialist since we're already going to be wasting time waiting for him to see the specialist and then waiting again for a referral to a urologist and then waiting yet again for him to actually see the urologist, not to mention waiting for whatever treatment the urologist may propose, and since we've hit the one year mark for trying. I asked her if she had any specialists that she prefers to work with, and she mentioned a couple that had pretty crappy stats. I told her that I had looked at the list we had gotten and checked stats and that someone had recommended another doctor to me and that I'd like to see him, instead, if she was ok with that. She warned me that he didn't have the greatest bedside manner, but said that as long as I was ok with that she is, and she'd start working on it. She also told me that if I have any questions to feel free to call her. I think I kinda love my doctor.
Anyway, so to sum up this post, which has become rather rambly and long: J's test results were disappointing, but hopefully soon he'll see the fertility specialist, who will most likely send him to an urologist to get checked out, and hopefully I can get a referral to the same fertility specialist to get a full workup to make sure that everything is ok with me and then we can finally get going.
The end.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Double whammy
Well, we finally sort of got the results of J's semen analysis. (He talked to one of the nurses from his doctor's office on the phone, but he didn't take any notes so he doesn't remember what all she said.) It looks like he's got a low sperm count and poor morphology (I think that's what he said). He's picking up a copy of the results from his doctor's office tomorrow. But in the meantime, I'm three weeks into my cycle and not showing any signs of ovulation. I'm not quite sure what that means, other than reinforcing my previous opinion that me ovulating last cycle was a fluke.
When you add those two things together, I think it spells big trouble. I won't know anything else until we get a copy of the SA results to my doctor and I talk to her again, but I would imagine that she's going to refer us to a specialist.
So much for being pregnant before I turn 30...
When you add those two things together, I think it spells big trouble. I won't know anything else until we get a copy of the SA results to my doctor and I talk to her again, but I would imagine that she's going to refer us to a specialist.
So much for being pregnant before I turn 30...
Sunday, May 3, 2009
As an aside...
I have a history with Magic 8 balls. A Magic 8 ball partially led to me dating my first love, and they have been eerily right about me about other things in the past. Now the Magic 8 ball that I keep on my desk at work (the one that helps me make the tough decisions) has told me that I'm not going to get pregnant on my own, but that Clomid will work for me. I guess we'll wait and see...
04-23-09 ultrasound results
My doctor called on Thursday afternoon with the ultrasound results, and the first thing she asked was whether I had had a period since the ultrasound. When I told her yes, she said that was good, because the lining of my uterus had been really thick and it would have been worrisome if I hadn't. She said that other than that, everything looked good.
So...now we wait. J finally got the referral he needs to get his swimmers checked out, and hopefully he'll be able to take care of that this week. After we get the results from that, I'll get back in touch with my doctor to regroup and figure out what else, if anything, we can do now, and what we'll have to wait until next month to do. I don't know if the fact that I had a real cycle means that my body is finally starting to do what it's supposed to do, or if it's a fluke. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens over the next few weeks!
That's pretty much all I know. J and I went to St. Louis this weekend to hang out with some friends. It was totally a baby-filled weekend...the friends that we primarily went to see are expecting their first baby (a boy) at the end of June. Another set of friends that we saw have a 9-month-old girl. My best friend checked in to her hospital tonight to be induced, and is expecting to have her first baby (a boy) sometime tomorrow. (She and her husband are in Texas, though, so we didn't see them this weekend.) I'm looking forward to going down there in a couple of weeks, so I can see them and help her out. J and I also went to dinner with my mom and my brother last night, which was good. All in all, it was a good weekend.
And now I need to go check on the stuff in the dryer, so I'm going to bid all of you good night!
So...now we wait. J finally got the referral he needs to get his swimmers checked out, and hopefully he'll be able to take care of that this week. After we get the results from that, I'll get back in touch with my doctor to regroup and figure out what else, if anything, we can do now, and what we'll have to wait until next month to do. I don't know if the fact that I had a real cycle means that my body is finally starting to do what it's supposed to do, or if it's a fluke. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens over the next few weeks!
That's pretty much all I know. J and I went to St. Louis this weekend to hang out with some friends. It was totally a baby-filled weekend...the friends that we primarily went to see are expecting their first baby (a boy) at the end of June. Another set of friends that we saw have a 9-month-old girl. My best friend checked in to her hospital tonight to be induced, and is expecting to have her first baby (a boy) sometime tomorrow. (She and her husband are in Texas, though, so we didn't see them this weekend.) I'm looking forward to going down there in a couple of weeks, so I can see them and help her out. J and I also went to dinner with my mom and my brother last night, which was good. All in all, it was a good weekend.
And now I need to go check on the stuff in the dryer, so I'm going to bid all of you good night!
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Thank God for ibuprofen and heating pads
So...remember how I mentioned that I think I actually ovulated this cycle? Now I'm paying for having ovulated with a period from hell. It started off ok...a little bit of spotting on Monday. A teeny bit of cramping and a light day yesterday. And then last night? All hell broke loose. I woke up around 1:15 uncomfortable, but was able to get back to sleep without too much of a problem. Two hours later I woke up again in PAIN and with the floodgates wide open. I got up, took some tylenol and drank some water, and dug out my heating pad. I finally got back to sleep around 5:00, but by 6:00, when I had to get up and start getting ready for work, I knew that I wasn't going to be able to actually go in for the day. I called my boss and told him that I was going to work from home today and sent J to my office to pick up a bunch of stuff from my desk so I would have something to work on. Then I ate some breakfast, took some ibuprofen, and crawled back into bed to spend some more time cuddled up with my heating pad and wound up falling asleep. I got up again a little after noon and had some lunch, and then took some more ibuprofen and once again crawled back into bed to cuddle up with my heating pad and nap some more. It was an interesting day...I had SO much that I wanted to get done at work today, and if I had been able to be away from my heating pad for any length of time, I'm sure that I would have been able to get a lot done. But as it was, my work computer doesn't work well with the wireless internet at home so I couldn't work on anything today. I finally started feeling better around the time that J called to let me know that he was on his way home, so now I have the whole evening ahead of me. I think I need to go get another dose of ibuprofen, though, so I'm off to do that.
Oh, and in other news, I went for my ultrasound last week, but I haven't heard anything from my doctor yet. When I hear something, I'll be sure to post the results.
Oh, and in other news, I went for my ultrasound last week, but I haven't heard anything from my doctor yet. When I hear something, I'll be sure to post the results.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Interesting. Very interesting
I think I actually ovulated this cycle. I saw a temperature shift about a week after my last quasi-period, and then another one a few days ago. I don't know what that means...I guess it means that I might, theoretically, have ovulated and be pregnant, but the test that I took tonight was negative. So I guess I'll have to wait and see...
Thursday, April 16, 2009
04-09-09 bloodwork results
My doctor's office called today to tell me that my lab results all came back normal. I guess that's good news. The nurse told me that the next step is to schedule a pelvic ultrasound, so she gave me the number to call and make the appointment. I'm going next Thursday evening. I have to drink 36 oz of water an hour before I go and somehow a) not go to the bathroom and b) not pee all over myself. That'll be an interesting trick.
Also, J got finally found a doctor here in town, and scheduled an appointment for a physical. He also told them that he and I are trying, and that my doctor wants him to get tested. His appointment is next week. Hopefully he'll come out of it with a referral to get a semen analysis. If he doesn't, I'll be very upset.
Anyway, I just wanted to give a quick update. If I get a copy of my bloodwork results I'll post them, and if not, I probably won't provide any more updates until I know the results of my ultrasound. Until then...
Also, J got finally found a doctor here in town, and scheduled an appointment for a physical. He also told them that he and I are trying, and that my doctor wants him to get tested. His appointment is next week. Hopefully he'll come out of it with a referral to get a semen analysis. If he doesn't, I'll be very upset.
Anyway, I just wanted to give a quick update. If I get a copy of my bloodwork results I'll post them, and if not, I probably won't provide any more updates until I know the results of my ultrasound. Until then...
Saturday, April 11, 2009
4/8/09 status update (a little bit late)
Below is an excerpt from the email that I sent to some of my friends on Wednesday after I went to the doctor for my annual exam. I think it kind of sums up where we are right now...
So...yeah. That pretty much sums everything up. I went on Thursday and got my bloodwork done...hopefully I'll have those results next week sometime. The doctor said she'd call me when she gets my results, whether they're good or bad. So now I'm just trying to convince J to find a doctor and then schedule an appointment for a physical (he hasn't had one in a couple of years) so he can figure out where he needs to go to get a semen analysis. I'll post more when I know more...
Hey everyone! Before you get too excited, I’m going to go ahead and burst your bubbles and let you know that no, I’m not pregnant, as much as I would like to be. But that is (sort of) why I’m writing.
I think I’ve talked to all of you at one point or another over the past year or so about the fact that J and I started trying to start our family last summer/fall. (I went off the pill in June, but we didn’t really start “trying” until I had my first period in September.) And I think I’ve talked to all of you about either the fact that I suspected that we would have problems, or the fact that we are having problems, depending on when I talke to you. And I think I promised many of you an update when I knew more, but I can’t remember who I made that promise to, so I’m emailing all of you with what I know as of right now.
Basically, I suspected that we would have problems because of my history with irregular cycles, and as it turns out, I was right. I’ve been charting my basal body temperature (a method for determining when/whether you’ve ovulated, among other things) for the past five months, and I have yet to see it show that I’ve ovulated. And, as we all know from health class, that’s kind of necessary if I am ever going to get pregnant.
So I went to see my OB/GYN today for my annual exam (I actually have a new doctor this year, so it was sort of a long visit). While there I told her what was going on and discussed with her my history of irregular cycles and showed her my BBT charts. I also told her that I want to be aggressive about taking care of whatever is going on. She said that because of my insurance she can’t do anything too aggressive until it’s been a full year since we’ve started trying, but in the meantime she’s ordered some blood tests for me and wants J to get hooked up with a doctor to get his swimmers checked out. After she gets the results of my blood tests, we’ll figure out where to go. If everything is ok with my tests and J’s test, then she’ll put me on Clomid. If that doesn’t work for three cycles, then she’ll refer us to a specialist. And if J’s test shows that there’s something wrong, then she’ll refer us to a specialist. (Oddly enough, I didn't think to ask her what we would do if my results showed something was wrong with me, but I would imagine that she'd refer us to a specialist then, too.)
So…that’s where we are. I guess I won’t know more for sure until after I go get my bloodwork done and get the results, and J gets his tests done (whenever that happens).
All in all, I’m trying to stay positive. I’m still hoping that everything will work out, and this can be easily treated.
So...yeah. That pretty much sums everything up. I went on Thursday and got my bloodwork done...hopefully I'll have those results next week sometime. The doctor said she'd call me when she gets my results, whether they're good or bad. So now I'm just trying to convince J to find a doctor and then schedule an appointment for a physical (he hasn't had one in a couple of years) so he can figure out where he needs to go to get a semen analysis. I'll post more when I know more...
Sunday, March 29, 2009
About Me
Wow. I didn't think I'd be starting a blog dedicated to my marriage and our quest to be parents, but here I am.
So...just for some background. My name is Corie. I married J on May 26, 2007. I'm 30 and J is 30. We have two cats named Shishka and Bob (they're both female). We don't have any kids yet, but we're working on it, which is the reason that I'm starting this blog.
What else do you need to know about me? I am really shy when I first meet new people, but once I know them, I have a habit of sharing way more than I should. As a result, there will probably be several posts in here in which I give you way too much information (they'll probably be labeled TMI).
My two favorite shows are Gilmore Girls (I watch Seasons 1-7 on a constant loop) and Friends, but I've recently discovered a BBC show called Mistresses and rediscovered Scrubs and House. I also somehow managed to become an American Idol junkie, and watch 24 thanks to my husband.
I have a plethora of favorite movies...so many that I won't even bother to try to name them all.
I love to read, but I usually re-read my favorites (also on a more or less constant loop) and don't branch out too much. My favorites are:
The Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich
The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley (and the books that go along with it, including the ones that were finished after her death)
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
The Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
I'm a HUGE country music fan. I listen to other stuff, too, but I love, love, love country.
I love the musicals Phantom of the Opera and Wicked. I've never actually seen Phantom, though (but I'm hoping to correct that at some point in the next year or so).
What else? I like to cross stitch, but I haven't actually made anything in years. I have squares cut for a quilt, but I have yet to actually start putting them together. (Hey...cut me some slack...I only bought the materials about 7 years ago.) I guess you could say that I'm borderline crafty, but I have a tendency to start craft projects but never finish them (hence the quilt in pieces).
I spend way too much time watching TV and surfing/reading blogs. I love sleeping more than I should, which doesn't bode well considering my plans to become a parent. I'm a procrastinator, so if something needs to get done, I need a deadline by which to complete it.
And now I can't think of anything else to add to my "About Me" so I think I'm going to wrap it up.
So...just for some background. My name is Corie. I married J on May 26, 2007. I'm 30 and J is 30. We have two cats named Shishka and Bob (they're both female). We don't have any kids yet, but we're working on it, which is the reason that I'm starting this blog.
What else do you need to know about me? I am really shy when I first meet new people, but once I know them, I have a habit of sharing way more than I should. As a result, there will probably be several posts in here in which I give you way too much information (they'll probably be labeled TMI).
My two favorite shows are Gilmore Girls (I watch Seasons 1-7 on a constant loop) and Friends, but I've recently discovered a BBC show called Mistresses and rediscovered Scrubs and House. I also somehow managed to become an American Idol junkie, and watch 24 thanks to my husband.
I have a plethora of favorite movies...so many that I won't even bother to try to name them all.
I love to read, but I usually re-read my favorites (also on a more or less constant loop) and don't branch out too much. My favorites are:
The Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich
The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley (and the books that go along with it, including the ones that were finished after her death)
The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
The Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
I'm a HUGE country music fan. I listen to other stuff, too, but I love, love, love country.
I love the musicals Phantom of the Opera and Wicked. I've never actually seen Phantom, though (but I'm hoping to correct that at some point in the next year or so).
What else? I like to cross stitch, but I haven't actually made anything in years. I have squares cut for a quilt, but I have yet to actually start putting them together. (Hey...cut me some slack...I only bought the materials about 7 years ago.) I guess you could say that I'm borderline crafty, but I have a tendency to start craft projects but never finish them (hence the quilt in pieces).
I spend way too much time watching TV and surfing/reading blogs. I love sleeping more than I should, which doesn't bode well considering my plans to become a parent. I'm a procrastinator, so if something needs to get done, I need a deadline by which to complete it.
And now I can't think of anything else to add to my "About Me" so I think I'm going to wrap it up.
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