Black holes of happiness...

I was just talking to my husband about having nothing to write on my blog this morning because I've run out of things to complain about since I've been little miss happy clam lately, and he said, "well you can blog about happy things too." And my immediate response was that I didn't want to be over here tooting about how good I feel lately while other people aren't feeling the same way, and he answered back, "Well you aren't all sentenced to a life of misery!" And then I just thought, my god, you are so right!

I think that as soon as women begin to experience fertility issues they take all the blame and shame upon themselves and become like a black hole, just sucking up all that responsibility and bad feelings about it, creating an atmosphere in which it is impossible to be happy. I know I was doing it, it is really hard not to take full responsibility and throw yourself into fixing the problem, ignoring all your other emotions. Once you realize that you're doing it, it is harder still to stop because that means letting go. You have to let go of that responsibility and pass it to someone else to hold for little bit while you relax. I gave mine over to my doctor to hang onto, and you know I've been feeling fantastic lately. If we go through a few months of assisted fertility and we're still unsuccessful I'll have to make a conscious effort not to collapse in on myself and become a black hole again but I'm hoping I can do it. This may sound silly, but sometimes I think it is easier for me to be angry and nasty than happy and positive. My poor husband didn't give me the nickname "Doom and Gloom" for nothing, I earned that title! Well, those days are over! I'm working on acquiring a new nickname, "So Happy and Positive it is Annoying to All Around Her," and I think it is so far so good! :)

Funny, I used to find those little smiley faces just so annoying...

I dreamed a dream...

So the other morning I had the most amazing dream. I dreamed that I was taking my two newborn twin boys to a check-up at the doctor's office and then the doctor suddenly turned to me and said, "You're pregnant again!" We did an ultrasound and sure enough there was a little baby girl in there! It was a little farfetched, I highly doubt that twins are in my future or that a doctor can tell someone is pregnant just by looking at them or that you can even get pregnant directly after giving birth, but I don't care I loved it! I was holding both of the twins and looking down at their little heads (I couldn't see their faces, but I tried) and I just got this rush of pride and that was shortly followed by love and joy in enormous quantities.

Now, I think one of two things happened, either I have reached a new level of crazy or my brain is doing things to help get its body through a difficult situation. When I woke up, I felt glorious. I wasn't even a hint sad or upset because I had a taste of what it might be like to have a baby and that was enough to keep me going, so I'm going to go with my brain is helping me out a little here. I do know that often people have pregnancy dreams when something big in their life is coming to fruition, at the end of a huge project they had been working on, or embarking on something life changing...any kind of thing that could be equated to giving birth. I think of an artist completing a masterpiece after months of work, and I can totally relate that to someone giving birth. While I haven't completed any masterpieces lately, I am finding myself feeling much differently now that we've seen our doctor. So maybe my brain is just showing me how I feel so I can keep this feeling going, which is like the pregnancy train has finally pulled out of the station! We boarded this darn train MONTHS ago and we've jut been sitting here waiting for our conductor, now he's finally arrived and now we're off to destination pregnancy!

I've passed the torch...

It has been so nice and stress free around our household ever since we went to the fertility specialists. I have been able to completely let go of all the stress and tension I had been holding on to about not being able to get pregnant because I guess I let go being able to do it naturally. It was difficult, especially in the past month or so because it turned out that I was the one with the fertility problem but ever since we went to the doctor I haven't been worried. I've stopped taking my basal temperature and using the OPK's and we are just going with the flow and are no longer timing sex.

I don't know if it is right for me to just totally dump getting me pregnant in my doctor's lap but it has certainly made it a lot easier for me to cope lately. I think I have just finally allowed myself to acknowledge that we need help instead of beating myself up every month for a fertility problem that is totally out of my control. Our doctor just kind of swooped in and took the reins and by doing that he took all of the control away from us which simultaneously took all the pressure off of us. Now I realize that I am more than happy to give up the control of all this infertility nonsense and sit back and relax while somebody else does all the work and the worrying for me. It may be wrong to have so much blind faith in our doctor, and it may come back to bite me later but right now I am feeling relaxed and happy and I'm not giving that up just yet.

Why I can't wait to get my period...

Now that we are on the move with our plan, I cannot wait for my next two periods to be over! Who ever would have thought that I would find myself looking forward to my periods?! It is just so great to be excited about something again and I am really looking forward to finally knowing if there is something wrong. Most importantly I am finally looking forward to getting pregnant again. I had just gotten so disheartened about the whole situation that I even stopped thinking about the fun stuff, like baby names, and dreaming about who the baby would look like and stuff like that.

Plus, since I have finally been given the diagnoses of dysmenorrhea (which just means that I get enough pain during my periods to limit my normal activity, a fancy way of saying that I get cramps from hell if you will) I also kind of feel vindicated. I have been complaining to my OB/GYN for the past 8 years and I always get the same answer. Painful cramps are normal, chunky periods are normal, blah blah blah. I would just leave my annual visit and tell myself that everything was fine and then the next period I got being fine flew out the window. There is no way that the pain I feel every month could be considered normal. Other than a having a baby with my husband, there is nothing that I would love more than not having to put my life on hold to sit with a heating pad for 72 hours straight once a month! Hopefully by doing all the testing we'll be able to figure out if there is a reason why my periods are so darn painful and then remedy the problem. Even if I can't get rid of them, if I could just get pregnant those 9 months and then the time I'd hopefully spend breastfeeding would give me such a wonderful break. My dream in life is to have a baby, stop having cramps forever and win the lottery, and in that order. Of course if we could just have a baby, I could care less about the cramps and the lottery.

Our plan of attack...

Like I said before, we are a team with a plan now and I thought I'd share our initial plan with you. First things first, we figure out if I am actually ovulating. We did the trans-vaginal ultrasound and saw no ripe follicles ready to pop out an egg and the subsequent blood test confirmed that I not ovulated yet so I go in on Friday for another blood test. Basically we do blood tests until we can confirm a change in hormones indicating ovulation.

After that, everything is kind of put on hold until my next cycle. The next three tests we'll do need to be done after the start of my next period. First up is the clomid challenge test (CCCT). That entails taking clomid orally and monitoring my hormone levels to determine my ovarian reserve, or the quality of the eggs that I have left. This test will enable us to identify whether or not my eggs are good enough to be fertilized by my husband's super sperm. If I flunk this one we will most likely turn to the alternatives at that point: adoption, using an egg donor or giving up entirely. Needless to say, that test is freaking me out.

If I pass, we move on to the next tests. The hysterosalpingogram (HSG) and the hysteroscopy. They are both super fun and you guys are going to be so jealous and you'll all want to have them done. The HSG involves filling me with a special dye that should end up filling my entire uterus and fallopian tubes. If it does not, that will indicate a blockage and we move on from there to either unblock it or work around it (IVF). The hysteroscopy involves filling me with sterile salt water and then sticking a tiny little telescope up there to visualize my uterus so they can detect any scar tissue, polyps, fibroids or any other abnormalities. Along with the hysteroscopy they'll take an endometrial biopsy to rule out an infection or inflammation of my uterine lining.

After those three tests are preformed, we'll take the information we've gleaned from them and move on from there. It's onward and upward if I can just pass the CCCT! I think we can still try this month, but next month (the month of trying to see how many liquids they can fill up my uterus up with) will be out. This means that the next two periods I get won't be wrought with anguish over yet another wasted cycle with no pregnancy because I'm not doing anything differently yet! I've got a free pass on the agony for the next two months and I am just one happy camper!

Insurance abusers...

We are beginning to suspect that my OB/GYN may have been a bit of an insurance abuser. When we saw our new doctor yesterday, he looked at the results of the semen analysis and saw that we went to the urologist and he looked at us and said, "Your OB sent you to the urologist? Did he kick you out of his office when you got there?!" Because the sample's numbers, across the board, were really good and the sperm count itself was ridiculously high, we never should have gone to see the urologist as there was no concern of male infertility. But the urologist actually ordered a second semen analysis along with a test (that is NOT covered by our insurance) to see whether or not my husband's swimmers could penetrate through a hamster's eggs. I did a little digging on the hamster egg test and it is pretty controversial. For one thing a lot of doctors don't think that the results really mean anything but more importantly they kill the hamster that they get the eggs from!

Now, it is a long shot that my OB was doing that just so the urology practice could charge our insurance company, but the two practices are affiliated so we were being cynical and thinking that maybe they do a little "referring" of patients to each other's practices for doctor visits and tests that are completely unnecessary just so they can make the extra bucks. Talk about a conspiracy theory! What is more likely is that my OB was just busy with her practice and other patients and didn't feel like making the time to think about what might be going on with us so she passed me off to the fertility specialist and my husband off to the urologist. She was completely right in sending me to the specialists, but she was completely wrong in sending my husband.

Faster and easier for my OB? Yes. Ethical? Probably not so much. However, after yesterday's appointment with our new doctor I'm feeling pretty confident in his and his practice's ethics. I don't think they are out to waste our time and money just so that they can turn a profit, the profit is just an added benefit. I just finally feel like someone has our best interest in mind.

Oh, what a beautiful morning...

What a day! What a relief! I could not have imagined going to see our reproductive endocrinologist turning out any better! It was seriously amazing. We got there and we met with our doctor and he talked to us about everything, starting at the very beginning. We started out with how babies are made, literally, and went on from there. Then he took an extremely precise medical history from both of us and then we began to discuss what our potential problems may be.

He told us that my husband has a sperm count and quality good enough to populate the entire continent of Africa which made us laugh and instantly feel more comfortable, especially my husband as he can now officially relax and no longer worry that he's got any issues whatsoever. We really already knew that but it was still nice to get a confirmation.

Once we got the male infertility off the table we moved on to me and began talking about my cycles and how they are long, somewhat irregular, painful and etc. Then the most amazing thing happened, our doctor asked me when the first day of my last period was and I said, "June 23rd," and he said, "Oh good you are on day 14 so you should be ovulating, let's do an ultrasound and see." Then he jumps up and says, "No time like the present!" We walked across the hall and he did a trans-vaginal ultrasound and saw that I didn't have any follicles ready to pop an egg and either I had already ovulated or I will soon. Then he sent me across the hall again to have some blood work done to confirm whether or not I had ovulated. Everything was done right then and there! No prescriptions written, no referrals needed, no appointments made with other doctors in other buildings, just immediate action with results coming in tomorrow. It was fantastic!

He even told us that the phone should be our best friend and we should call him whenever we feel like it. We have NEVER had a doctor say that to us before! He said we could call him 10 times a day if we wanted to, and he would even answer the phone! No calling and having to talk to the nurse on call or leaving a message and never being called back. He even discussed, without being asked, the ethics on the fertility business and he just made us feel so reassured that their practice wasn't going to treat us like lab rats so that they could charge us and our insurance as much as they could get away with. We are going to identify the problem in the quickest and most cost effective way and then (hopefully) remedy the problem in the quickest and most cost effective way. We are a team with a plan now!

Today was just a really a good day, and hopefully this feeling will stay with me for a while because I haven't felt this good in 11 months.

PS: While I was proof reading this post I got a call with my blood work results showing that I had not ovulated yet. I got that done like 2 hours ago! AMAZING!

Tomorrow, tomorrow...

So tomorrow is the big day! I cannot express how nervous and excited I am for our appointment with our local superstar reproductive endocrinologist. I have really high expectations and so does my husband and after so much let down I don't know what we are going to do if this group of doctors doesn't meet them. I know I've said before about how bounced around we were feeling about our earlier experience and we are just so ready for someone to take us and coddle us and just make everything all better. Ah, wishful thinking.

It does sound kind of funny, but it is like we are looking for a fertility fairy godmother. Not only do we want results, and quickly too of course, but we want to be handled with care as well. I just want someone to be nice to me and treat me as if they were treating a friend with fertility problems. I don't want to be just another statistic for the specialist group. This may be too much to ask, but it doesn't hurt! The whole process of assisted fertility seems to becoming such a lucrative business to be in; if people have the means they will pay anything to have children. I just hope that they recognize that yes, we'll pay as much as we can but we are still people with feelings at the end of the day.

Too much TV...

I cannot stop watching every show that I can get my hands on about pregnant women on TV. The discovery health channel is punishing me with it's line up of "I Didn't Know I was Pregnant," "A Baby Story," and "Bringing Home Baby," plus specials on people who have had multiples or just crazy things that happen like this 75 year-old middle eastern woman who had a 45 year-old calcified fetus in her abdomen and I am the freak who can't get enough!

I said to my husband yesterday, "I've got to stop watching this stuff!" And he just looked at me like, DUH! I can't help it though! Plus I can get such an emotional reaction to some of the stories, case in point there is a show called "Pregnant and Addicted." I would highly recommend NOT watching that if you are struggling with fertility issues because all it did was piss me off. This poor woman who was previously addicted to heroin, found herself pregnant (with her SECOND child) while in the beginning stages of her methadone treatment and doctors recommended staying on the methadone as withdraw symptoms can cause spontaneous abortion and other just as terrible things. But staying on the methadone is only the lesser of the two evils and the baby could still be born with some pretty serious developmental problems and most likely addicted to the methadone like the mother so the baby would have to go through terrible withdraw symptoms that can last up to a month. And all I did was sit there and think to myself how unfair the world is. I just want one baby that I could provide a great home for and this woman has two children unintentionally and is struggling to care for either of them. Sitting there full of jealousy, anger at the world and anger at my body just made me disgusted with myself for feeling that way. I know I am only human and I know I am doing my best with our situation but sometimes my best is pretty embarrassing.

Soy and estrogen...

I just read that soy affects a women's body similar to estrogen and can make it difficult for sperm to swim to the egg. Of course I got this off the internet from something a non-doctor wrote so who knows if it is true but I am certainly finding it interesting.

Because of the hair loss issue that I am having, I decided to do a little adding and subtracting to my diet to help stimulate my thyroid and soy was one of the things that you should cut out. I just find it so fascinating because soy is in EVERYTHING! "They" use it as a filler to replace actual food substances in human food and dog food, and probably cat food but I don't know since I'm not a cat person.

When our dog got cancer, soy was one of the things we cut out of her diet as well. Her brand name dog food that she was eating was mostly soy! Our vet recommended that we chose a food in which the first two ingredients are meat and we did. And she was much healthier for it. I just want to eat fresh, non-genetically altered, pesticide, preservative, and hormone free healthy food, and I need it to not be so damn expensive! I get it that it is cheaper to make food that has been is altered to grow bigger, be resistant to disease, and last longer on the shelves but I am having trouble getting pregnant over here people! I need my body to be as healthy as it possible can be and I need to be saving money so we can afford pay for our visits to the specialists!