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Well, cycle day one has arrived a couple of days early, and with a definite vengeance. Today marks the beginning of our first, and hopefully last IVF cycle to conceive our first child. Tonight I will take my first birth control pill and baby aspirin.
The next two months will be a whirlwind of meds, blood work, injections, ultrasounds, hotel stays and lots of four hour car trips.
We are hoping that in the end, we will be blessed with a healthy pregnancy. Until then, we’re just trying to enjoy the rest of our summer and stay as positive as possible.
Yesterday I went to my third ever Reiki session with Lisa. When we sat down, she asked me how I had been doing and I told her that we’ve decided to move on to IVF and will be starting that at the end of this month. I also told her that I’ve been feeling so much less stress and pressure lately. I’m not sure if it’s because I feel like IVF is going to work for us, or if I’m just over my obsession, but whatever it is, I feel good. So she said let’s get started and see what comes up.
She started by putting her hands over my eyes and normally within a minute she takes her hands off and we talk about something. The first session she said “You’re all in your head, aren’t you?” and the second session she said “Tell me how you’re feeling about moving on to IVF.” This time, she had her hands there for a good 5 minutes and didn’t say a word. Finally she moved on to my head and she said “You REALLY are feeling so much more calm.” I agreed and said that I felt so much less stressed about everything. I mentioned how we had told my parents about our upcoming IVF cycle, actually our fertility struggles in general, and how they had offered to watch our dogs and go to appointments with us and everything. I said how it was nice to know that we had their support. By this point she had moved her hands over to my chest and she immediately said “So tell me what it is about telling your parents that has left you with a heavy heart?” Shock. That’s all I could come up with was shock. I started giggling because I immediately knew what she was picking up on, but I was so shocked on the inside. While telling my parents did not go at all how I had envisioned it going, I certainly didn’t feel bad, sad or hurt about the way it went. Or did I?
So I explained to Lisa what had happened, and mentioned that I was surprised by what she had picked up on because I didn’t even know that I felt anything other than impartial about the subject. She said that there was definitely a blockage in my heart about this subject and we needed to fix it. Lisa sensed that the “little girl” part of me felt like she was hurting and that she wanted recognition from her mom. Like when you were little and fell and skinned your knee, you wanted mommy to pick you up, take you inside, clean you up and make you feel better. I didn’t get that from my mom when we told her about the IVF and the little girl inside of me wanted that recognition of her pain and struggles, but it never came. So Lisa had me envision a younger version of me and had me tell young me that it was OK. That mommy didn’t even realize that we were struggling with infertility and didn’t know how to react. Mommy didn’t mean to be hurtful in the way she responded, she just didn’t know how to respond in any other way. And as hokey as it sounds, it worked. Though I can’t honestly say that I felt hurt by it, I did find myself replaying the whole discussion with my parents over in my head once or twice a day, so it was probably weighing on me. Since my Reiki session, I haven’t thought about it at all (until I started to write this post, that is).
After that, most of the rest of the session was devoted to getting myself into a “good place” for the start of our IVF cycle. She had me ask my mind, body and spirit to clear any blocks that might be in the way of our success and then to give thanks for all of the work that my mind, body and spirit have done so far. At the end of the session, I felt good and ready to start on our IVF cycle in a couple of weeks.
In other IVF news, we got our home equity loan squared away so we’ll have the money ready to go when we need it. Our plan is to put the whole shebang onto 3 or 4 credit cards (gotta get our points!!), then pay those off immediately with the home equity loan. Then we will likely use some of those balance transfer checks that we get in the mail all of the time to transfer the money from our 7.45% interest home equity loan onto “no interest until September of ‘09” credit cards. I think that we’ll definitely be able to handle things financially and hope to have the debt paid off in three years or less.
We also got a rough estimate of our IVF calendar yesterday. I was concerned about the timing of everything since Mark was supposed to go to Vegas for work the week of September 21st and I also though that was going to be the week of my retrival. As it turns out, my estimates were off by a week and I won’t go for retrieval until the week of the 28th, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. It’s crazy how having that calendar right there in front of me makes me realize how real this really is. Two weeks from now I should be popping my daily birth control pill and we couldn’t be more excited! How crazy is that?
So last summer we got some new across the street neighbors and the woman just happened to be pregnant. Of course it was a lot of fun for me to see her out and about in the neighborhood all cute and pregnant. We aren’t really good friends with them, so we didn’t have to hang out with them too much, but we would chat with them frequently. The minimal exposure to her pregnancy suited me just fine and she gave birth to their son in November.
Today their blog popped up on my blog reader as having a new post, so I went to check it out. There was an adorable picture of their 8 month old son and at the very bottom, the news that she is pregnant yet again.
Holy crap. I’ve presumably been lapped in the big game of trying to conceive. Obviously I have no idea how long it took them to conceive their son, but I’m guessing that since she was able to get pregnant only 8 months postpartum that it didn’t take them too long to get pregnant with the first.
So yeah. That feels just great. Fortunately, I have my own good news to share. We’ve been accedpted into the shared risk program and I’ve already had my sonohysterogram, so we’ll be starting our IVF cycle with the start my next cycle! We are really happy to have everything figured out and ready to go.
Oh yeah, since I never did a follow up post, here is how everything went down. On Monday I called the financial services lady once again trying to get a hold of here and of course, no dice. I was freaking out, second guessing our decision to go to MIF (our fertility clinic) because we couldn’t get anyone to call us back. Finally Mark called and for some reason she decided to respond to his message. Long story short, her mother was very ill the week prior and she was out of the office all week. She kept thinking that she was going to back each day, but wasn’t able to return to work until Monday. So when Mark finally got her on the phone, she apologized for the lack of communication, explained the circumstances and managed to arrange our IVF education class for us on Thursday as well.
In the end, everything worked out great and we were able to knock out both the SHG and class at the same time. We had a good time in Iowa and are feeling really good about our upcoming IVF cycle! Now I just have to find the patience to wait it out!
So last Tuesday we got up bright and early to head down to Iowa for our consultation with the new clinic. We were really early, so we had some lunch and then went to the mall for a bit before heading over to the clinic. We registered with the receptionist and were taken back within a few minutes. The nurse that took us back took my weight and blood pressure and then we met with Dr. C. As usual, he started with the whole medical history bit, and went through my records and entered all of my test results into his system. After that, he went through all of the basic causes of infertility and crossed them off one by one and ultimately came up with the conclusion that we have unexplained infertility (duh). The only possible explanation that he gave us for our difficulties in conceiving was that that it is possible that Mark may have developed antisperm antibodies as a result of a hernia repair surgery that he had last year. If that were the case, it would lead to fertilization problems, which could explain why we’re not pregnant yet.
Once he officially gave us his diagnosis, he said that he guessed that we were ready to move on to IVF since most people wouldn’t travel 4+ hours for clomid and IUI’s. BINGO! At his clinic, they do ICSI for 90% to 95% of their IVF cycles, and he would recommend that for us too because of the possibility of antisperm antibodies and ICSI would bypass the entire fertilization issue.
Dr. C seems to think that IVF will do the trick for us, and of course we are hoping that he’s right. He said that I have responded well to the oral meds in the past and that bodes well for how I will respond to the injectables. He also thought that we should be able to participate in the shared risk program which will allow us to do three fresh IVF cycles along with any associated frozen cycles for one fixed cost. The nice part about this particular program is that meds are included in the package price which is a HUGE cost savings. Comparing my previous clinic’s shared risk program to this new one, we will save somewhere between $6,500 and $17,500 depending on how many tries it takes us to get pregnant.
So before we can move on, Dr. C said that I would l need to have another sonohysterogram/mock transfer. This will be done so that he can determine the curvature of my cervix so that inserting the catheter for the embryo transfer is as easy as possible, and also to determine the shape of my uterus so that he can put the embryos in the “sweet spot” where they will have the best chance to implant. Mark and I also both had to have blood tests for HIV, Hepatitis, etc, which we did on Thursday.
All that’s left now is to have a phone meeting with the financial advisor Monica and then take the IVF patient education class. And unfortunately, that seems to be where we’ve hit some stumbling blocks. Dr. C said that he would have Monica (who also seems to be the person who determines if we can participate in the shared risk program) call us last Wednesday to go over everything. Well, today is Monday, and we still have not heard from her. I left her a voicemail and also sent her an e-mail, and still no response. My mock transfer is scheduled for Thursday and I need to know if we are accepted into the shared risk program before then. If for some reason we cannot be a part of the shared risk program, then we will likely not go forward with this particular clinic due to the distance. There is no sense in heading down there for a mock transfer if we won’t be pursuing treatment with them. So at this point I am beyond frustrated with the lack of communication.
Additionally, we need to attend a patient education class before we can start IVF. It just so happened that they were doing one of these classes on the very same day that we were there for our consult. We actually asked if we could stay and do it then since it would save us a trip, but the receptionist insisted that we must have all of our pre-testing and financial appointment completed before we can take the class. We had asked Dr. C if there was any way that we could do both the SHG/mock transfer and the class on the same day, and he said that it would probably be doable. Well when I called to make my SHG appointment, the receptionist told me that the next class wasn’t until late, late August. What?!? Do they only do these classes once a month? If we had to wait until late August before we could take the class, we would miss a whole other cycle, which is certainly not what we want at this point.
So I called on Friday afternoon to see if there was any way that we could pay extra to have a special class just for us. If not, could we start the birth control pills BEFORE we took the class since you don’t really need a whole lot of education to pop a BCP. Either of those two options would work out just fine for us (of course we’re hoping that somehow we can arrange a special class just for us on Thursday, which would save us another trip down there), but we still have not heard anything back yet.
I’m frustrated because when I initially contacted this clinic, I had asked about doing treatment from out of state. Monica had responded that they just had a client from Wisconsin get pregnant from treatment there the previous week, which made it seem like they were experienced in dealing with patients from out of state and that perhaps they were accommodating to their needs. So far I have not noticed that to be true, and my frustration with their lack of response is certainly growing with each passing hour with no return phone call.
In my heart, I feel like this is the clinic that we need to be at and we will get pregnant from this. But at this moment, I am so upset and frustrated, I just don’t even know what to do with myself. I know that frustration is the last thing that I need when we’re going to be starting IVF, so I really hope that the communication improves from here on out. I have no idea what we will do if it doesn’t.
In more positive news, a woman in my real life support group who has been undergoing IUI’s for over a year (her husband is sterile due to cancer treatments) finally got her BFP. It was so thrilling to hear that it finally worked for her. I cannot imagine taking 12.5 mg of Femara and doing two IUI’s every month for 15 months. The stress and emotion of 5 IUI’s was nearly too much for me.
Additionally, two women from my online buddy group are also pregnant, one of which was just about to start IVF for severe male factor infertility. She thought that the only way they could get pregnant was IVF with ICSI and somehow they got a miracle BFP. It is exciting to know that it is happening for other women. On one hand it makes me think that if it can happen for them, then it can happen for me. On the other hand, of course, it makes me wonder how come they can get pregnant with presumably such major issue, but we can’t with presumably minor or non-existent issues. It’s a frustrating mixed bag of emotions. But I am very truly happy for all of them. I’m just wishing that our time comes soon too.
So I was watching HGTV the other night and on came a commercial for Lowe’s. Essentially there’s a woman who looks to be 6, 7 or possibly even 8 months pregnant on the phone saying “Well mom, it looks like we’re going to have to pick out couple more names…we’re having triplets!!!”
Good lord. Are you kidding me?
Does Lowe’s honestly believe that in today’s day and age people don’t find out how many babies they’re having until the woman is as big as a house? I sure hope not. I’m guessing that they’re aware of how stupid this commercial makes them appear, but they just couldn’t resist the obvious increase in store traffic that this great commercial would bring. Riiiiiiiiight…
In non-pregnancy commercial news, I am super excited for our appointment with the new clinic on Tuesday. We are so hoping that we will be accepted into the shared risk IVF program and can get started soon. Please keep us in your thoughts as we move forward with this next step.
Well, I’m exhausted since I can’t seem to get myself into bed at any sort of reasonable hour when my husband is away on business trips, so I’m going to finally go to bed.
At the dog park just about a year ago, an acquaintance told me that she just found out that she was pregnant. She went on to say that they had been trying for 11 months before they finally got pregnant. Without thinking about what I was doing, I blabbed that we had been trying for a while too, I guess mostly because I felt like she could relate to the difficulties we were having. I was shocked that I just opened my mouth and told her this, especially when I hadn’t even really told any of my close friends about what was going on. But it was too late and I couldn’t take it back, so I just kept questioning what they had been through and how they got it figured out.
When I finally got all of the details, it turned out that they were just mistiming things each month. Her cycles were very irregular coming off of birth control and so it was hard for them to cover their bases every month. She went to her OB/GYN and asked for help and was told to just keep trying. A few more months went by and she went back to the OB/GYN, but happened to see a different doctor on that day. The OB/GYN suggested that they try using OPK’s to help maximize their chances. They did, and what do you know? She was pregnant the next month. No blood work was ever run, no clomid was ingested, no artificial inseminations took place, all it took was good old fashioned well timed sex.
Now I felt like even more of an idiot for opening my mouth about our difficulties. I didn’t have any of the same issues that she did. I had great fertility signals and knew when my most fertile time was each month which was corroborated by the charts that I kept. Timing was certainly not an issue for us. As far as I knew at the time, my biggest problem was chronic spotting and had actually just had my blood drawn that day for a 7DPO progesterone level. She hadn’t even heard of having your progesterone checked and so was no help with that issue. In fact, she seemed to know virtually nothing about infertility at all. Up until the month prior, she didn’t even know about OPK’s. I just couldn’t believe that in 11 months, she had never typed the words “infertility” or even just “how to increase chances of getting pregnant” into Google.
When she had initially told me that they had been trying for a while, I felt hope because if it could work for them after so long, then there was a good chance that it would work for us as well. My hope faded a bit when she said that their problem was just a matter of timing because we had already gone though six very well timed cycles.
Of course I didn’t let it get me too down. In fact, I fantasized about getting pregnant soon and being able to go through pregnancy together with her, albeit a few months behind her. How great it would be to have someone in real life to discuss all of the weird changes that pregnancy brings? And how wonderful for us to have kids approximately the same age?
But as we all know now, the months slipped by as I continued to remain not pregnant and her little boy is four months old now. So at the dog park last week, I asked her what she and her son did that day. She told me how they went to Target to try out convertible car seats since he’s almost outgrown his infant carrying seat. She was explaining how she was doing research and looked up reviews on different seats, but still wasn’t sure what to get. I felt somewhat helpless to provide any advice since I know absolutely nothing about buying anything baby related, but then it crossed my mind that many, many months ago (when I naively believed I would get pregnant within a matter of months), I purchased a book called Baby Bargains. While the title implies that the book is about thrifty tips for buying baby gear, but it’s actually more like a consumer’s guide to all things baby related. They review nearly every model of every baby related item that you could think of and provide info on costs and manufacturer reputation. So it’s rumored to be a fantastic resource for anyone who needs to buy baby stuff.
I never envisioned that this book would sit, alongside of 5 or 6 other pregnancy/birthing books, on my bookshelf for over a year. So I offered it to her. Much better for her to get some use out of it than for it to sit on my bookshelf unopened and unused. While I was glad to have someone get some use out of it, it was just another reminder of what I don’t have. At this moment, we’re not pregnant, and to admit that it may not happen for us any time soon was somewhat of a relief. I do think that in some ways I’ve put way too much pressure on myself in regards to getting pregnant. I always feel like “What if it doesn’t happen this month? What will we ever do with ourselves?” I’ve made getting pregnant into the only thing that I really strive for anymore and that’s not fair to me. In some ways, passing that one book on has helped me to realize that I’ve been unfair to myself in creating possibly unrealistic expectations for us. It helped me to release some of that pressure that I’ve built up for myself and allowed me to let things go just a little bit. It was like coming to terms with where we are now and letting go of that constant fear of what might happen if it doesn’t happen. It was an unexpected, yet very much appreciated side effect of doing nice for someone else.
There is one thing that has become increasingly clear as I’ve struggled with our fertility issues; I am spoiled. Spoiled rotten. I’m used to getting what I want, and usually when I want it.
Everyone says that youngest kids are spoiled and always get what they want and I guess from my experience, I can’t really disagree. While I was most certainly not a spoiled brat demanding things from my parents, they did tend to give me most everything I wanted.
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My parents sent me to a private driving school the summer before I turned 16 because I had just missed the cutoff to get into the class at school (though this was probably a little selfish on their behalf as well because then they wouldn’t have to drive me around anymore).
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My parents paid for half of three week long field trip to Europe when I was a junior in high school.
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My parents paid my tuition, room and board while I was in college. They even paid for me to spend a semester studying in France.
Beyond all of the financial support they have given me throughout the years, my parents have always been there for me emotionally. Sure, we’ve had our disagreements, but I honestly could not ask for more compassionate, kind and caring parents. They have always been willing to stop whatever they’re doing at the drop of a hat in order to help me out with whatever was going on with me. I can’t imagine how different my life would be without their constant support.
Even as an adult, without the assistance of my parents, I’ve been pretty spoiled.
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I got every job that I’ve ever interviewed for
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I got every house that I’ve ever wanted
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I got the man that I wanted
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We make enough money that nearly anything we want, we can just go out and buy or do
On the whole, I’ve been exceptionally fortunate. And spoiled.
Except for this one thing. We can’t manage to have a baby on our own.
The frustration of wanting something so bad, but not being able to get it is beyond anything that I’ve ever experienced before. And it’s different from everything else that I’ve ever wanted in that there’s no guarantee that I can get it, no matter how much time, money and effort I throw at it. This is something that I have, quite literally, no control over. And I’m still struggling to try to figure how to handle it.
Great news! I had my blood drawn yesterday for the first of my clomid challenge test FSH levels. Last time I had my FSH measured, it was 12.9, which translates to “diminished reserve.” Of course an FSH of 12.9 will effectively eliminate me from participating in any sort of shared risk IVF program, which is what we ultimately want to do, so yesterday’s draw was really important to me. I was hoping that the months of acupuncture, reiki, meditation and various supplements that I’ve been taking would have had some effect on my FSH.
It seems that all of my hard work has paid off since my FSH was NINE this time around! And I know that FSH does have some variation between months, but holy crap! It dropped 4 points! So this bodes well for us getting into the IVF program that we are most interested in.
Since women who have elevated FSH usually fail the clomid challenge test, I’m not actually going to take Clomid. Dishonest? Yes. Will it (hopefully) help me to get what I want in the end? Yes. Do I feel bad about lying? No. Everyone says that age trumps FSH, and since I’m 29, I have to believe that we’ll still be able to conceive within a few tries at IVF. If fact, I have a feeling that the clinic will be making money off of us since I’m fairly confident that we’ll get pregnant on the first try. So I don’t feel bad about being dishonest.
So now we need to begin the process of requesting that our medical records be sent to me so that I can filter though them and keep the one test sheet that shows my 12.9 FSH to myself. We will be making a consultation appointment this week so we’ll be getting going with everything really soon, hopefully!
So that’s what’s going on! Hopes are high and we’re feeling good!
1. Since it’s a special night for your and your husband, make sure that you take a test before you go out. If it’s somehow miraculously positive, you want to be able to celebrate, right?
2. When that second pink line miraculously shows up, faint, but definitely there, prepare a special way to tell your husband that after 18 months and 5 IUI’s, you’ve finally done it!
3. When your husband comes home from work, tell him in that special way and share a brief moment of sheer happiness.
4. When your husband asks how you know, you pull that test out of your pocket to show him those two beautiful pink lines, only to realize that the 2nd pink line has faded away to nearly nothing.
5. Assure husband that you know way more about pregnancy tests than he does, and a line is a line, therefore you’re pregnant! Besides, the pee you used to test with was REALLY diluted and most women get darker lines in the morning. Tomorrow morning’s test will undoubtedly be very obviously positive.
6. Be sure to chat about how great it is that you finally got pregnant the cycle before you were going to move on to IVF and discuss all of the ways that you can spend the money you were planning to put towards IVF.
7. Continue to celebrate and discuss all of the fun things that you happily won’t get to do now that you’re pregnant, like take cruises, go to amusement parks, etc.
8. If your husband is still a bit hesitant to let himself get excited about this pregnancy because of the “barely there” second line, just remind him that no matter what happens, for this moment, you are pregnant.
9. The next morning take a test using some super concentrated pee. When the line shows up even fainter than yesterday’s (or maybe it’s not there at all, you’ve just convinced yourself that it has to be there since you ARE pregnant, after all), chalk it up to the fact that some women get better results in the afternoons instead of the mornings.
10. Run to the store at lunch to get more tests so that you can see those two beautiful lines when you test again after work.
11. When only one line shows up after work, find someway to tell your husband that you must have been wrong somehow.
12. Realize how absolutely foolish you were to jump the gun and the pain that you have caused your husband and yourself. Promise yourself that you will never, ever get so caught up in two faint lines again.
So that’s my Monday evening and Tuesday in a nutshell. Why the second pink line? I have no idea. It’s definitely not an evap because the line came up within a minute or two and it’s definitely pink, just faded very much from how it originally looked. It could be a chemical, I suppose. If not a chemical, then I have no explanation.
I feel absolutely horrible for getting Mark all worked up only to have it taken away today. When I saw that second pink line come up yesterday, the feeling was unbelievable and I couldn’t believe how narrowly we’d escaped having to do IVF. But more than anything, I was looking forward to sharing my excitement with my husband. He was so excited and happy for us, despite the fact that he wasn’t completely sure if it was real or not. What hurts me the most is knowing the hurt I created for him. I cried today. Not for myself, but for the confusion, disappointment, and pain I created for him. I’ve learned my lesson and will not say anything in the future unless the test is blaringly positive or if a digital test says pregnant.
So I’m back into research mode since we will be moving on to IVF next. There are lots of small things that we need answers to in order to select where we will be doing our IVF cycles and it seems that answers are difficult to come by sometimes. But we will keep plugging away and know that someday we’ll get ours too.
The spotting started at two days past ovulation this time around and has not let up at all. I’m puzzled as to why I’m spotting because I took the HCG trigger, which in the past has kept the spotting away until much later in my cycle, and also because I’m taking progesterone. Those two things in combination have kept the spotting away for the last two cycles, so this cycle is a mystery to me. Part of me wonders if it could be due to a ruptured cyst? Either way, I’m frustrated and losing hope again.
The IUI yesterday went well. After a 35 minute delay in the waiting room, I was finally taken back. I did a much better job of staying calm this time though, trying to make my body as calm and welcoming to those little spermies as possible. The count was 89.3 million and motility was 87%, so I’m feeling good about that. For some reason the progression stat was missing from the computer and I started to get concerned about that, but then I realized that the numbers are really irrelevant. Last month we had a count of 132 million with a progression of four (which is the best) and still didn’t end up pregnant, so it seems that the numbers are not an indicator of success and therefore not worth stressing about. The nurse did mention that lab technician told her that it was a really good sample when he/she passed it off to the nurse, and that’s good enough for me.
Anyway, now that waiting game begins. I can’t tell if this two week wait will go quickly or slowly. Mark is going to be very busy with work responsibilities through Monday, so that leaves me on my own for large chunks of time. Ideally I would use this time to get things accomplished around the house, take the dogs to the park and generally keep my mind off of anything fertility related. Of course I know myself pretty well, and though I have good intentions, I can’t say that I think I’ll actually follow through with them. I guess we’ll see.
Anyway, my laptop power cord literally blew up (sparks flying and everything) last night, so I’m without power to my home computer until the replacement cord arrives. As such, updates will likely be lacking until the new cord arrives. Hopefully less computer access will make this two week wait go by even faster!
So I went in yesterday morning for my CD11 ultrasound to check and see how many follicles I was growing and how big they were. I couldn’t see the monitor too well and Dr. O wasn’t telling me the sizes, so I really had no idea how they were measuring. I could tell that they were getting pretty big, but he shocked the hell out of me when he removed the wand and said “Well, they’re ready to pop so you’ll trigger tonight and IUI Wednesday morning.” What?!? The last two cycles I’ve ovulated on CD16 (with trigger on CD14), so I was really expecting the same thing this time. In fact, I was so confident that I wouldn’t be doing the trigger until Wednesday or Thursday that I told my mail order pharmacy to deliver the trigger to me today, on Tuesday.
I should preface this with a little history on how my day started yesterday. I arrived at 7:30, right on time for my appointment and I was the first person in the waiting room for my ultrasound yesterday. Within five minutes there were a couple of other women waiting as well and one couple was taken back after about 10 minutes. At that point I started to get pissed off because I had the very first appointment on a Monday morning. Really, what could they possibly be doing that was keeping them from calling me back? At 7:50, 20 minutes after my appointment time, I was finally taken back. I quickly stripped off my pants assuming that the doctor would walk in at any second since they were so far behind. But no. There I sat, watching the minutes tick away on the clock. Every minute that passed I was getting more and more pissed off. I could hear the doctor leaving the room next to me where the couple that was taken back before me was, so I knew that someone would come for me soon. But no.
Finally there was a quiet knock on the door and in walks the nurse practitioner. She said that Dr. P wanted her to come and check to see how my bladder was doing. I looked at her weird and told her that I was just there for an ultrasound, so I didn’t have a full bladder. She said that’s what she thought and that Dr. P was probably talking about someone else. She said she would send one of the doctors in to see me right away, but still the minutes ticked by. At this point I was struggling to stay calm. A good five minutes later Dr. O FINALLY shows up to do the u/s. There were no apologies or explanations for delay, which made me even more frustrated. At this point I had been waiting for 40 minutes for a 10 minute u/s. I usually try to cut doctors some slack when they are late for my appointments because I know that they have other patients who they have to see and they can’t control how long their patients want to talk, etc. But in this case I was the very first appointment of the day, which means that they were delaying my appointment strictly for themselves and not for any other reason, which really ticked me off. I was furious and fighting back tears of frustration.
So add to my very (self inflicted) fragile state the added pressure of having to trigger a full three days before I was expecting it when I didn’t even have the darn trigger in my possession yet, and I was about to lose it. I was also stressed because the follicles were so big already (21.3mm, 20.7mm and 18.8mm) that I was concerned that might be ready to come out on their own without the trigger shot, but since I hadn’t been using OPK’s yet there was a very distinct possibility that I could have missed my surge.
When I FINALLY got back to work, I peed on an OPK and it was very negative, so that alleviated my fear of having missed my surge and I called the mail order pharmacy and they were able to cancel my order so that I didn’t end up with two trigger shots. Mark was able to pick up my trigger shot at the local pharmacy for me over lunch which really helped me out. After work I had an acupuncture appointment and that always helps to relax me, so what started as a very stressful morning actually ended up being a pretty decent day in the end.
Despite the crazy day yesterday, I’m feeling good and optimistic about the IUI tomorrow. And I’ve resolved that no matter how Mark’s sample turns out, I will stay positive about this cycle.
Yesterday I fell in love. Not with another man, but with Reiki and Divine Coding. This is funny and strange to me because Reiki is not something that I really even believe in or understand. Just telling Mark about my session makes me feel embarrassed and silly because it sounds so hokey and ridiculous, but it really does work wonders for me.
While my Reiki lady Lisa is doing the Reiki, she uses her Devine Coding skills (which I’m even more skeptical about than the Reiki itself) to intuit how I’m feeling and what’s going on with me. It’s absolutely amazing what she is able to glean from placing her hands on my face for just a few moments. She uses whatever vibes she’s getting from me to guide our session and to talk through things.
This second session was very different from our first session. At our first session, after she determined that I was “all inside my head” and told me that I needed to find a creative outlet, the rest of the session was just Reiki and quiet time, no more talking.
Yesterday’s session was much more like a mini therapy session. We did so much more talking than we did last time and tried to come up with ways to cope. The first thing that we worked on was the fact that I need to not be mad or upset with my body, regardless of how betrayed or upset I am by it. She made an analogy about how if I were to go to my place of work and I knew that everyone there didn’t like me and thought I was doing a crappy job, would I want to go to work and do a good job? The answer is no, of course not. That’s how I need to view my ovaries and reproductive system. If I’m feeling negative towards my body and my ovaries, of course they won’t respond in the way I want them to. Instead of projecting animosity towards them, I need to give them love.
So she had me imagine sifts or screens beginning at my feet and sifting all the way up through my body and up to the top of my head that would filter out any negative feelings towards my body. Then she had me imagine tossing those screens full of negative gunk into a bonfire so that all of the negative energy burned up and then she had me replace the empty spaces where the negativity was with love. I felt so much lighter after the screens had sifted all of the negative energy away and then when I replaced those empty spaces with love I felt a tingling swirling sensation, which was really cool. Again, it sounds silly, I know, but it really works for me.
The second thing that we worked on is that I need to focus on the here and now. Instead of getting myself all worked up about IVF right now, I need to focus on this cycle. There is a potential that we may not even need IVF and I really need to focus my energy on this cycle right now, and send good positive thoughts towards what we’re dealing with at this moment. This struck a chord with me because I mentioned in my last post that I’m pretty much dismissing this cycle and already looking towards IVF. So I will renew my focus and try to work as hard as I can to stay positive about this cycle and where we are now and not stress about the possibilities of what might happen in the future.
Throughout all of this, I found it very interesting that while I was laying there, my mind kept wandering back to two specific trips that I taken when I was younger. One was a trip to DC in the summer after 8th grade and the second one was a three week trip to Europe in the summer after my sophomore year. While I thoroughly enjoyed both of these trips, I don’t often think about them, so I wondered if there was some significance. I mentioned these images to Lisa and she kind of helped me to discern what importance they might have for me and why I would keep conjuring them up.
Ultimately, I think that these images were coming to me because these were journeys that I went on that I really had no part in planning. I’ve been on lots of trips since those two trips, but I’ve been the coordinator and planner extraordinaire for said trips. These two particular trips were different in that I paid my money, went on the trip and enjoyed myself. Someone else did all of the planning, research, and coordinating for me…all I had to do was show up. I’m sure that this is some way of my subconscious telling me that I need to just go with the flow a bit more and trust in my care providers so that I can enjoy my life as it is now without all of the worry of this other, very different, journey that I’m on.
Anyway, that’s the recap of my Reiki session for this month…definitely worth the money and time investment. I took my last 5 Femara pills last night, and I’m sending lots of love and appreciation to those ovaries of mine so we’ll see what it all adds up to on Monday when I go for my ultrasound.
Well, after nearly three months of a concerted effort to not consume any sugar, sugar substitutes, caffeine or alcohol, I’m off the wagon. Mark and I went to a wedding for a former co-worker yesterday and I determined that I was going to allow myself to fully enjoy the day eat and drink whatever I wanted. Since I made the decision early in the morning, I also picked up some peanut butter M&M’s and some Nestle Tollhouse cookies when we were at Target getting the card for the wedding. The M&M’s and cookies didn’t really taste as good as I thought that they should have, so I was wondering if the absence of sugar in my diet had altered my tastes, but the cupcakes that they had at the wedding were FABULOUS, so I guess my theory probably wasn’t correct. Sugar, check. Caffeine, check. Might as well throw some alcohol in there for good measure, so two glasses of white wine were consumed at the wedding as well. It was a great time and totally worth it.
And today I don’t feel the least bit guilty about it, but I am left wondering what to do about things now. I know that eliminating alcohol is something that I will continue to do because I wasn’t a big drinker in the first place so it’s not a huge sacrifice to make. And honestly, cutting the sugar out of my diet was a lot easier than I thought it would be, and even if it doesn’t even directly help me to conceive, it’s still just a healthy thing to do and helped me to lose 6 pounds without any other diet modifications. But dealing with infertility is a stressful thing and there are times that I think that sometimes a little sugar for comfort is nice. So for this moment, I’m planning on getting back on the wagon tomorrow and I guess we’ll just see where things go from there. One thing I’m sure of is that I’m not capable to having a just a little bit of sugar. I’m definitely a binger…once I get that taste in my mouth, there’s no stopping me. As a testament of that, two thirds of the bag of M&M’s is already gone. It’s shameful, I know.
In completely unrelated news, I went to Wal-Mart today to pick up my prescription for Femara. When I picked it up, I was notified that they were only able to partially fill the prescription and that the rest would be in tomorrow. So I only have enough pills to get me through tonight, and then I need to go back tomorrow to get the rest. Sigh. Why is nothing at Wal-Mart easy? Of course the easy solution would be to transfer the prescription to a different pharmacy, but the cost savings at Wal-Mart is pretty significant, and I’m a cheapo.
And as you’ve probably already figured out from the previous paragraph, we are indeed pursuing one more round of IUI with Femara. When we started seeing Dr. P and Dr O, we agreed that we would give them at least three shots at IUI before moving on, so this is it. I’m hoping that the third try is a charm, of course, but if not, then we are ready to move forward with IVF. In fact, we’re so ready to move on to IVF, than I’m pretty much writing this entire cycle off and already thinking ahead and trying to plan our IVF path.
After discussing some options with Mark, he’s ready and willing to throw $30,000 towards one of those “you’ll get a baby within three fresh cycles of IVF or you get 80% of your money back” kind of deals. Of course since I’m stingy (and also partially because I think that we would have a really good shot with IVF and might get lucky on the first try), I’m not as ready as he is to sign up for such a huge financial commitment. If we were lucky enough to succeed at our first try at IVF, then I’d forever be kicking myself for “wasting” that money. Without a doubt, it’d be so worth it to spend the money and get a baby out of it, but I’d rather just give one cycle a shot and see what happens.
Of course the caveat to the whole thing is my FSH. I’m not sure that we would even qualify for any of those “money back” programs with an FSH of 12.9. And what if we did sign up for one of those programs and then find out at the first IVF that my eggs are no good? Can we get a refund for part of that fee and opt out of the rest of the cycles? Domestic donor egg cycles are way too expensive for us, so converting the rest of the package to a DE cycle would be out of the question.
And then there’s the option of doing an IVF vacation, which I’m TOTALLY on board with. This would definitely be my first choice as to treatment options if we need to do IVF. I am most interested in the Czech Republic right now as their costs are very low and they have great success rates. Not to mention that the Czech Republic is a beautiful country to boot! I spent a few days in Prague on vacation when I was studying in France and it was gorgeous and I would absolutely love to go back. The biggest issue with doing IVF abroad would be the time commitment. If we were to do a cycle with my own eggs, we would need to take at least two weeks off of work. Donor egg is a much shorter time commitment since I wouldn’t need to be around for monitoring; we would just need to be there for egg retrieval and again for transfer, probably a week or less, but we aren’t ready to pursue egg donor yet.
Anyway, there are a lot of options out there, so there is much research left to be done. Regardless of what path we choose, I am feeling very hopeful that a baby will be a part of our near future.
Have you ever been in a difficult situation and expected a friend to be there for you? And how disappointing is it when that friend not only doesn’t step up to support you, but completely ignores you? It’s hard to deal with when you’ve been supportive to that friend through her tough times, but when the shoe is on the other foot, communication practically ceases. It’s an added stress that is definitely not appreciated when already dealing with the stress and emotions of infertility. How disappointing.
I decided to test today so that if the test was negative, I could try to get a head start on plans for next cycle before my cycle actually began. If I’m not pregnant this cycle, then I want to call both my acupuncturist and my RE and discuss what they think I should do next.
I wanted to ask the acupuncturist if she thinks that my body CAN get pregnant right now, or if we have so much work to do that I should stop the IUI’s for now until my body is ready to accept a pregnancy.
I wanted to ask my RE if it makes sense to keep doing IUI’s with Femara, or if we should move to injectibles, or if we need to consider donor egg, donor embryo or adoption.
It looks like I’ll be making those calls today. Not only was the test negative, but it appears that I’ve started to bleed a full two days early on top of it. I’m completely numb.
This weekend we went up north to spend time with Mark’s family. His mom is retiring from teaching 5th grade this year, and the school district threw a party to honor all of the retirees. The drive to his parents’ house is approximately four hours long, so we had plenty of time to talk and what did we talk about? Baby names, of course.
We’ve had baby name discussions before. In fact, before we were even married, we’d already picked out our future daughter’s name, Atlanta Terra. Mark thought it would be super cool to have a daughter named Atlanta AND have her initials be ATL. Then he read Freakonomics, which said something about how people with “non-conventional” names face uphill battles in regards to getting accepted to college and in the job market (or something to that extent). I think that soured his feelings about the name, and over time, my fondness for it has diminished as well.
So we’ve brought up names randomly in the past when we heard one that sounded good, but we haven’t really had any formal discussion as of late. I think that is mostly because we are both tired of dealing with infertility and just don’t want to let ourselves get too wrapped up in the fantasy of actually getting to name a child.
Anyway, I’m not sure how the whole discussion started, but before I knew it, we were in the midst of a two hour round of the name game, suggesting names to each other back and forth. It was fun and funny and it was nice to be able to allow ourselves to think about actually having a baby again. It’s been so long since we’ve even acknowledged that we could get pregnant someday that it was kind of a relief of sorts.
And here are Mark’s definite choices if we were to end up with boy/girl twins: Emmy and Oscar, like the awards, with middle names of Pebbles and Bam Bam respectively. As you can tell, the conversation was less than serious at times. It was a nice break from the seriousness and stress and pressure of trying to conceive.
On a completely unrelated note, I caved when I was at the store the other day and bought a three pack of pregnancy tests. I was getting some contact lens solution one aisle over, and when I walked by the HPT’s, I just quickly grabbed a pack and kept on walking. I know I shouldn’t have done it…if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that if there are HPT’s in the house, I WILL pee on them. It doesn’t matter if it’s too early or if I still have the Ovidrel trigger in my system, I’ll still pee on them.
But I don’t have a plan in mind as to when I will start peeing on them this time around. Ideally it would be best to wait until the 29th which would be two weeks after ovulation, but I’m fairly certain that I won’t be able to hold out that long. Right now I’m shooting for the 27th, and it shouldn’t be too difficult since this weekend is Memorial Day weekend and we will be pretty busy and distracted most of the time. Of course a little part of me wishes that I would have peed on one a few days ago so that I could have finally seen a test with two lines, even if the two lines were due to the trigger lingering in my system still. Today is ten days past trigger, so it has probably already passed through my system and wouldn’t show up on a test.
Anyway, I’m still living life day by day. The meditation CD is working wonders for me in regards to getting a good night’s sleep, so I will definitely continue using that. I’m still trying to find a good time to try out my yoga DVD…I’m hoping I can find a block of time this weekend while Mark’s at the park with the dogs to try it out without distraction. Oh, and I’ve scheduled another Reiki appointment for June 5th, so if this cycle is a bust, at least I have that already scheduled as an additional comfort and stress reliever. So all in all, things are good right now. Let’s hope this trend continues!
My temp spike this morning indicates that I did indeed ovulate yesterday. Lesson learned…I need to trust my body and the meds a little bit more. So now comes the fun part, two weeks of waiting to see if it worked. I’m hoping that the wonderful spring weather combined with lots of activities will make it fly by!
Not much to report, other than the sample that Mark provided today was PHENOMENAL! 132 million swimmers with a progression of 4! Wow! I’m hoping that this is the last IUI report that I have to do.
So I have immensely enjoyed riding my bike to work the past few days (it’s National Bike to Work Week, for those who are unaware). All of the trees are spouting leaves and the crabapples and magnolias are in bloom. It’s gorgeous.
But even more wonderful than the physical beauty, is the smell. The smell of lilac and magnolias is just intoxicating. The smell of a freshly cut lawn… These are the smells that take me back to my childhood, a time when things were simpler and I had no cares in the world. All of the neighborhood kids would stay outside playing games until the sun went down and our parents called us in to get ready for bed. It’s a nice reprieve from the reality of being an adult and all of the responsibilities that come along with it.
As for the source of my confusion, I’m fairly certain that I’ve already ovulated. This doesn’t make any sense at all though, since I’ve been testing twice a day since Saturday and never got a surge. I took my Ovidrel trigger shot last night at 8pm, and according to Dr. O, most women ovulate right around 38 hours after taking the trigger. If that’s true, then I shouldn’t ovulate until 10 am tomorrow.
So what gives? Are my surges just so short that testing twice a day isn’t catching it? Or does my body react weirdly to the HCG shot and ovulate early? I don’t know. I will definitely be asking Dr. O tomorrow.
Other than this morning, I haven’t been temping at all this cycle so I have no idea where my coverline should be, but tomorrow’s temp should tell the tale. If it’s high, as I expect that it will be, we’re skipping the IUI. I’m definitely bummed about this, especially since we didn’t get any old fashioned baby making in lately because we were abstaining for the IUI. It basically translates into a wasted cycle, which makes me sad. I was having a really good feeling about this cycle and to have it end as a bust is disappointing.
I see that my blog has been hit a few times by women doing a search with the terms “fertility” and “Femara.” I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about Femara from my previous post Fertility Hogs and Why Femara Sucks, because as a whole it has been GREAT for me. Since I started seeing my new RE and we bumped the dose up to 12.5mg, I’ve had 3-4 follicles and my lining was great. I also have great cervical fluid and nearly no side effects to speak of, other than the one day of intense headache and a few days of sore shoulders.
I’ve never been on Clomid so I can’t provide an objective comparison, but Femara is rumored to have fewer side effects, and I’ll definitely take that. Many women seem to have issues with Clomid thinning their lining and drying up their cervical fluid, neither of which I’ve encountered on Femara.
And as for the study that seems to suggest that Femara is linked to higher rates of birth defects, I think that a number of the methods used for that study were flawed and therefore the study holds no weight for me. If you’re concerned about the reports of higher birth defect rates when using Femara (Letrozole) then I would encourage you to read this article. It certainly helped to calm my fears.
I will continue to use Femara until it is determined that Femara and IUI will not work for us at which point we will move on to injectibles or IVF. I’m willing to assume the risk (however large or small it may be) in order to gain the benefits (shorter half life, doesn’t thin the lining, doesn’t dry up CF) that Letrozole has over Clomid.
Go to almost any infertility blog today and you will see a post that is somehow related to Mother’s Day. This isn’t one of those posts. Well, I guess technically it is since I just mentioned it, but it isn’t me lamenting about how difficult Mother’s Day is for me.
To me Mother’s Day is just another day. I’m no more upset or sad today than I am any other day of the year. Today I went out to breakfast with my husband and my parents, and spent the afternoon with my cousins celebrating a birthday. All in all, it was a great day. And other than the following exchange, I didn’t even think about the fact that we’re childless.
Cousin H: How are the boys (referring to our two dogs)?
Me: They’re doing well. Chili has actually decided to not be a pain in the butt all the time anymore.
Cousin H: I guess it’s time for kids then!!
Other than that, I hardly thought about kids, babies, or TTC at all today.
Of course that does concern me a bit, I guess. Sometimes I wonder if that means that I don’t want children badly enough. If this day doesn’t upset me more than any other, does that mean that I shouldn’t be a mom? I don’t honestly think so…ever since I was a kid, all I wanted to do was be a mom. Although I want to be a mom more than anything, I CAN imagine my life without children. It’s not what I want, but I can imagine it and I think that I could be happy without children.
But I’m not ready to give up on my dreams of being a mom; compared to many, we’ve only just begun this journey. There may be many more childless Mother’s Days in the future for us and I can’t speculate how I’ll feel for those days, but for now, today it just another day.
U/S today showed three nice sized follicles, two on my right (17.2 and 16.9) and one on my left (19.7) and a couple of smaller ones on the right also (14 and 12.5). Dr. P wants to wait to do the trigger for a bit longer than normal to try to get the 14mm one to catch up enough to be ovulated. So I’m to continue to test for my surges and if there’s no surge by Tuesday, then I will trigger, and the IUI will be on Thursday. I really, really, really hope that this round works.
Well, after months and months of putting it off as an unnecessary and very expensive test, I finally had my HSG done today. It went fine and both tubes are open. The right was slow to flow, but did eventually go, so perhaps there was a small clog of some sort? I don’t know. Additional good news is that there is no septum, nor is my uterus bicornuate, so yippee for that! The bonus was that the entire procedure was nearly painless. The worst parts were how she had me hold my legs to insert the catheter which gave me leg cramps, and two seconds (literally) of intense cramping. Other than that it was a piece of cake.
I guess in the end it was an unnecessary test because everything was normal, but at least now I have that peace of mind and don’t have to worry about having blocked tubes or a wonky uterus.
Up next: ultrasound on Saturday to see how things are progressing in those ovaries of mine. I’ve got my fingers crossed for good results.
So here’s today’s gripe. A couple of years ago when Chili was just a puppy, I was walking him and Popeye around the block. A few houses down from ours, a little boy came running up to us and just LOVED Chili (who wouldn’t though, right? That dog is freaking adorable!). So I asked him if he had a dog of his own. He said no and his mom came up behind me and said “He doesn’t need a dog, he’s got 5 brothers and sisters to keep him occupied!” Yikes. That’s a lot of children. So a couple of weeks ago, I was driving down the street and I see the same mom crossing the street to pick up a ball one of her kids kicked across the street. She was as big as a house, clearly ready to be popping out another child soon. Yesterday as I was riding home from work, I notice that there are pink balloons all over their yard and a “It’s a girl sign in the front yard. Good lord, the next child has arrived.
I immediately think that this is clearly a very selfish woman. She is hogging all of the fertility on the block, and very obnoxiously so. She’s already got SIX children! What in the world does she need with another one? Share the love woman! Then I thought about the formers owners of our house who told us that the block is known for twins. They had a set, the next-door neighbors have a set, and two houses down there was a set. So what the heck is up with all of the fertility hogs that live on my block?
End of rant.
And because I know that you are super curious as to why Femara sucks, here’s my explanation. Yesterday I had really, really, REALLY bad tension in my shoulders and I had a terrible headache yesterday too. My shoulders were super tight last month around this same time frame, and I also suffered from a really bad headache then too. Of course I should give Femara the benefit of the doubt and say that my sore shoulders could have been from sleeping funny the night before, and that my headache was probably due to the fact that I am really bad at drinking water during the weekend, so I was probably just massively dehydrated, but the coincidence seems too obvious to ignore. Either way, I’m feeling much better today and I’m hoping that this month works for us so that I don’t have to go through this again next month!
This weekend the inevitable happened…one of our friends asked me if I was pregnant. I knew that people were probably suspicious since I haven’t had a drink in over two months and I usually have a drink or two when we get together socially. Well, this weekend we went to a local brewery and then to a vineyard with another couple. I don’t drink beer because I can’t stand the taste of it, so I don’t think that they were too suspicious that I wasn’t beer tasting with them at the brewery tour, but then we went to lunch and everyone else got a beer for lunch and the bartender asked me if I wanted anything and I told her no.So then my friend Tracy turns to me and says “Jess, are you pregnant?” I quickly replied “no” since I’m not, and she said “I just had to ask since you haven’t been drinking lately.” I told her that I’ve been feeling like I’m losing my mind lately, that I can’t remember anything anymore and I used to have a great memory so it’s kind of freaking me out (which is all true, by the way). I need to keep all of the brain cells that I do have. I’m sure she probably thought that was a pretty lame excuse, but she just shocked me the way she asked it just flat out like that. But that was pretty much it, and I was relieved that we didn’t have to get into a more in depth conversation about it right then.
So after lunch, we drove out to the winery. The guy serving up the wine asked how many would be tasting and I said “three” right away and explained that I would sample from Mark’s glass. After sampling a couple of wines, Kyle turns to me and said something to the effect of “So Tracy was wondering if there was a reason why you weren’t drinking.” Obviously he had not heard our conversation earlier at lunch. I told him that she had already asked me and no I’m not pregnant. Of course he couldn’t leave well enough alone and asked if we were trying. I kind of avoided the direct answer and just explained the same thing to him that I did to Tracy, that I feel like I’ve been losing a lot of my mental acuity lately and it’s bothering me, especially since my grandfather died from Alzheimer’s. They responded to that since a couple people in Tracy’s family have the disease, and mentioned that they both kind of felt the same thing when they hit 30. So that effectively killed of any further pregnancy or trying to get pregnant conversation, which was fine by me.
In hindsight, I kind of wished that I would have just told them. It would have put all speculation to rest, and I know that we could trust them with our secret. I think that I might have told them if the question had come up a little more gradually, instead of out of thin air like it did. We have had conversations with this couple in the past regarding kids, and we’ve just kind of lied and said that we’re just enjoying being married right now and avoided committing to any particular time frames. I think part of their curiosity is maybe driven by the fact that they’re trying to decide if they want to have kids. I get the feeling that they may be more inclined to decide one way or another if they knew that any of their friends were either definitely going to have kids, or definitely not going to have kids.
There are times when I wish that we would have told a various people, but then when I think about actually telling people, I am immediately uncomfortable. I still have not come to terms with the fact that us not being pregnant is my fault. And I know that whose is “at fault” for us not being pregnant is completely irrelevant, but it still bothers me. I can imagine how ashamed I would feel telling people that we’re having difficulties and then of course they would assume that it was a problem on Mark’s side. I would have to jump in and defend him and say that things are great in those regards, the problem is that I’m running short of eggs and I may have a wonky uterus that is preventing implantation. It really is like a dirty little secret to me and my face gets hot and flushed just thinking about telling anyone about it.
There have been times that I’ve thought of telling my parents, because I’m sure that they would be willing to help us out financially if we ever needed it, not to mention the fact that my mom would probably love to do Reiki on me. The thing that keeps me from telling them is the pity that they would feel for us. I can just imagine my mom’s face and knowing how painful it would be for her to know that her daughter is struggling to get the one thing that she wants to the most. My mom has this amazingly pitiful face she gets when she knows that you’re hurting, and it just makes me feel even more miserable than I already do. I know that my news would solicit that face, and thinking about that just makes me not want to tell her. I don’t want to be pitied and I know that she can’t help it; it’s just her natural reaction, but it’s still not what I want.
So for this moment, we will go on as is…not telling anyone who doesn’t already know about our situation. I am sure that things will change for one reason or another eventually, but for now, this will remain our little secret.
A week or so ago I asked my acupuncturist if she thought that my body was ready to be pregnant. A couple of the women in my support group have been told that it will take them 3-6 months or 6-12 months before their bodies are ready to carry a baby, so I wanted to know what she thought of my situation. She was quick to remind me that those are just impressions, and that any woman could become pregnant at anytime. Yes, yes, I understand all of that, what I want to know is whether my body is ready or not. She mentioned that my strong stomach pulse could be problematic for me, I believe was an indication that my adrenals were overworked, or something to that effect. She said it was a sign that I was “burning the candle at both ends.”This struck me as odd, and I was surprised by it. I’ve been trying really hard to keep myself stress free lately, hoping that it will have a positive effect on my body. As such, I’ve only been doing what I want to do and in fact, feel like I’ve gotten quite lazy because of it, so the fact that she got the impression that I’m overextending myself really shocked me. She suggested that I see another practitioner there named Lisa who does Reiki. She said that Reiki can really help you to let go of things that are bringing you down and help you to re-center yourself to focus on the important things.
My mom was really into Reiki a few years ago and so I let her do a few sessions on me. Though I felt pretty open minded about it, I felt as though I never really got much out of it. I could feel heat where she had her hands, but other than that, I usually just fell asleep. Because of this, I was a little hesitant to sign up to give away $60 just for a nap. As the days went by, and I felt more and more stressed over where my cycle was going (or not going, as it were), I realized that money was just money and that I owed it to myself to give this a shot. I’m already spending nearly $1,000 each cycle, so another $60 certainly wouldn’t hurt, and if it might help, then it was worth it to try it.
I arrived at the appointment and she explained that she uses not only Reiki, but also something called Devine Coding. My acu had mentioned this to me before, so I had a chance to research it a little bit before I went in. Reiki is basically about using universal energy to re-tune the body, and Devine Coding uses angelic power and energy as well. Yes, it’s all a little hokey, but I’m desperate and willing to try anything. She went over my brief intake questionnaire and noted that I’ve been having a lot of left shoulder pain lately.
We began the session with some music and diaphragmatic breathing (belly breathing). Then she began doing the Reiki on me. After about five minutes, she says to me “You’re all in your head, aren’t you?” Wow. Yes, I really am. I was amazed that she was able to deduce that just from feeling my energy.
She asked if I had any “creative” outlets; anything that I can “lose” myself in and lose complete track of time. The sad truth is that other than infertility research on the internet, no, I really don’t. I could sit on the computer reading about various infertility subjects from the second I get home from work up until the minute I went to bed and be completely engrossed in it. But that’s not relaxing. That’s not an outlet. And it’s certainly not healthy.
So she suggested that I find something that I can use as an outlet. It could be yoga, running, painting, reading, swimming; anything that I can do that will get me “out of my own head.” This makes sense. And it’s something that I’ve TRIED to do, but I think I just wasn’t ready to commit to it, and that’s why it didn’t work for me.
After she discussed finding an outlet, she continued on with the Reiki. She had me think of a relaxing color (I chose green) and had me envision green energy flowing from her hands into my head. With every breath in and every breath out, the green energy was filling in the cells of my body and the spaces around the cells, resulting in complete relaxation.
That was pretty much the extent of the session. She would move from my head to my shoulders and all the way down to my feel all the while telling me to relax and envision the green energy flowing into me. Then she worked back up and spent what seemed like a lot of time on my stomach area.
The next thing I knew, she was telling me that we were done. She said that she could feel that I let go of a lot of things and she thought that it was a very productive session. She said she could tell that I was very, very relaxed and had let my mind go. I thought that I might have fallen asleep, but she was pretty insistent that she thought that I was just in a highly meditative state. In either case, it was definitely an interesting experience. I left assigned with the homework of finding myself an “creative” outlet or two, and trying to let go of things that are holding me back.
While I was walking up to the desk to pay for my session, I wasn’t quite sure what to think. I felt a little bit better mentally, but I still wasn’t convinced that it was all that I thought it would be. My shoulder still hurt even though I knew that the Reiki was supposed to help with that. On my drive home though, things started to click into place.
I realized that I felt lighter, like a giant weight had been lifted off of me. I realized that instead of thinking about how this session will hopefully lead to a BFP in the end, like I do after all of my acu sessions, I was only thinking about how great I felt. It sounds so clichéd and I feel ridiculous even saying it, but it was like I was a whole new me. A new, refreshed, ready to meet the world me. And it feels great! There were absolutely no tears on cycle day one, and more importantly, no sadness about it either. As crazy as it sounds, I’m actually looking forward to this next cycle, instead of dreading it.
Over the past couple of days, I’ve realized that TTC is no longer at the forefront of my mind every second of the day. I don’t know how it works, but I do know that Reiki worked for me. Whatever it is that I was able to let go of, has made such a drastic change in me. Instead of fear, sadness, anxiety and depression, I just feel relaxed and at peace with where we are and what we’re going through. The change is just phenomenal.
Additionally, I realized the morning after my session, that my shoulder wasn’t bothering me at all anymore. All this time I’ve attributed my shoulder pain to a bike that doesn’t fit me well. Now I wonder if it wasn’t just a bunch of built up stress all along.
And there’s one more major physical change that just blows my mind. That really strong stomach pulse? It is nearly non-existent now.
I ordered a yoga DVD and a meditation CD to help me to relax and I’m signing up to use a pottery studio over the summer. I will also be going in for Reiki once a month during my “off” week from acupuncture. My focus will be on trying to keep my mind relaxed, enjoy my life and focus on all of the good things that I already have instead of dwelling on the things that I don’t have. I am looking forward to each and every new day now instead of dreading them.
I am now a firm believer in the powers of Reiki.
I can’t continue to do this anymore. It’s not even an emotional thing for me anymore. Honestly speaking, things have gotten a lot easier for me emotionally the last few months. I could continue to speculate as to why things are easier, as I have done in previous posts, but I guess it doesn’t really matter to me why things are easier; just that they are.
It’s not the physical toll that is bothering me, not that the physical aspects have ever been that overwhelming. However, 12.5mg of Femara did a lot more to my body than 5mg ever did. My left shoulder was intensely sore and tight for about a week because of the hormones. Acupuncture helped, but it was still pretty miserable.
What’s bothering me the most lately is the unknown.
I want to know if we will ever be able to have our own biological children. I want to know if my eggs are of a good enough quality that I will be able to be a part of the genetic make up of our baby. If I knew, for certain, that on May 29, 2011, for example, I would give birth to a baby that was half of me and half of Mark, then I could wait for that. I can have all of the patience in the world to wait for our biological children if I only know that things would happen for us eventually.
On the other hand, if my eggs are not good enough for us to conceive a baby, then I want to know that now, so that I can move on to other options. Being pregnant is one of the only dreams that I have for myself as an adult. I want to be able to experience everything that comes along with being pregnant. If donor eggs will allow me to be pregnant and carry our children and experience labor and birth, then I am 100% on board with pursuing that avenue. A few months ago I fretted about using an egg donor because our children would not have any genes of mine. Now I realize that it doesn’t matter to me that our children would not genetically be a part of me because families are made up of people who love each other. Where they came from or whose genes they have is irrelevant.
But even more than being pregnant, my biggest adult dream is being a mom. It is because of this realization, that I am completely willing and excited to adopt, if it is determined that I am unable to carry children or if the toll of trying to conceive gets to be too much.
I am 100% open to any of these options and would be happy if any of them brought children into our lives. The problem is that I don’t know which path will bring us children in the end.
How long do you spend doing one thing before you turn to another? How long do you fight before you give up on a dream in one fo