Well… We Did It.

And by “it” I actually mean two things…

1. We bought a doppler. I’m still torn about the whole thing, I don’t want to drive myself crazy with this thing, but I knew there was no way I’d survive an entire month between doctor appointments! So it came yesterday and we gave it a shot. It took a long time at first, but we did find the heartbeat! I mean, we think it was it, it had to be right? Nothing else in there would be making that noise and beating at the appropriate rate, right?! Ha. So once that was out of the way and I was feeling more secure again, that led to the next “it.”

2. We told the world. We made it Face-freakin-book official last night. I had decided how I wanted to do this a long time ago, like way before we were pregnant. I thought, if we ever get there, darn it, I deserve to have my moment – but I didn’t want to do just another annoying picture, I wanted to try and educate people. So I came up with the idea to make this video:

Now, a couple of things… I had intended not to show my face in this video, I mean it was all about reading the cards, why do I need to show my face? But Matt insisted we show our faces. Had I known that was going to happen I would have showered and a) done my hair b) put some makeup on and c) worn a much cuter outfit. But… oh well. I just wanted to get the thing done. There are a couple things about the video that drive me crazy, like the fact you can see me licking my finger every five seconds so I can easily grab the next card and so on, but again, whatever, I just wanted to get the thing done. So we finished it and I started getting so full of anxiety, I mean, it’s a big deal to tell the world, especially when you’ve been through so much and you’re still scared something could go wrong. So there was that and then I also started worrying that this video was dumb, or cheesy or would come across self centered or something. But I did it, I posted it. And oh.my.gosh. I still am so overwhelmed by the response I’ve received. My Facebook has been constantly blowing up since I posted it last night. All kinds of people coming out of the woodwork! So many people not only commented on the video but sent me private messages, telling me about their struggles with conceiving, telling me they also have PCOS, telling me our video was so moving and they cried the whole time. I seriously was not expecting this reaction at all. I’m overwhelmed in the best way possible. I had seven FB friends who shared the video, it’s been amazing to see the people who I don’t even know who have then commented on those shares – and said they wanted to share it too! It’s incredible. I’m SO happy I made this video – even if I don’t look awesome in it. 🙂

Drama Queen.

So, uh, just kidding about my last post…

I just got off the phone with the nurse we met with this morning… I can start the injectables again on Friday. Sigh. They took blood this morning from me and the nurse explained that there was a chance they would still start me depending on if anything was going on with the cyst. Since nothing is apparently going on (estrogen was low), I’m good to start. I didn’t bother mentioning that before because I didn’t think there was anyway it was going to happen.

Now I just feel like an idiot. I’m a big drama queen. A complete mess of emotion. But atleast we get to keep moving.

And the Bad News Just Keeps Coming…

I’m struggling. I’m seriously struggling. I’ve been doing so well for so long and I fear I’m slipping away again. I’m losing faith, I’m losing hope.

Went to the doctor this morning for my baseline ultrasound. There’s a cyst, probably leftover from the stimulation of the last cycle. From having this happen back in the fall, I knew all too well what that meant – nothing happens this month. I started crying right there on the ultrasound table. I cried in the bathroom changing. I cried getting my blood drawn. I cried waiting to go back to talk to the nurse. I cried the entire half an hour we talked with the nurse. I cried and cried and cried. I’m falling apart.

I’m trying so hard to grasp on to my faith, instead I just want to say over and over again, why God? WHY? Why me? Why is this taking so long? Why is all our money disappearing? Is this not meant to be? Are we really not supposed to have children? Why are women, who should never be mothers, able to get pregnant without even trying – multiple times, but those who want nothing more and would be wonderful mothers just can’t. Why is the world so unfair? I feel like I have learned a lot along this journey so far, maybe God just has more for me to learn, more to show me. But I’m not sure how much more I can take. I feel like I should be throwing myself into my faith right now, reading, learning, praying, clinging, but I just feel so lost. I feel so distant. I don’t even want to go to church anymore because there are babies and kids and happy people everywhere. This is killing me.

I don’t know what to do. I just want to curl up in a ball and sleep for the rest of my life.

I’d appreciate any and all prayers you may have to offer for me.

Is it summer yet?

Started injectables (Follistim with TI) round 4 this past Thursday. I had a super busy weekend, which was really nice, kept me from obsessing over everything. The only minor hiccup, which really turned out fine, not much of a hiccup, was that while we were at a huge fundraising event on Sunday, I had to give myself my shot… I did so while I was in line to get my picture taken with a pro athlete hahaha. My husband kept telling me to run to the bathroom, but I wasn’t taking any chances and gave myself the shot very discreetly, if I do say so myself.

Had an appointment for an ultrasound and blood work Monday morning. Two measurable follicles! Both 11mm and we were very happy with that, I think this is the earliest we’ve had any measurable, so that was exciting. I’d also like to note that both of these follicles are on the RIGHT, which is worth mentioning because the cyst I just had removed and the previous two cycles all happened on the LEFT. Naturally. Isn’t life funny? Anyway… got a call with the blood work results and my estradiol was only 43. 😦 They didn’t seem too concerned about it, but decided to up my dose to try and jumpstart that.

When we met with the nurse after my ultrasound she said that they should see me back on Wednesday or Thursday, we requested Thursday because there was rumor of a big snow storm coming Wednesday. Well, now I’m second guessing that decision… Oy. I’ve heard conflicting forecasts, but it sounds like there is potential for a lot of snow after midnight tonight through Thursday morning. So I guess I’m kind of screwed either way. Ahhhhh! Normally I’m all about getting a big snow storm (and hopefully a snow day off of work!), but now I’m really worried about having to travel almost an hour for this appointment in the snow. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens, but we WILL make it there on Thursday morning!!

I’m also a little concerned because I’m not feeling awesome today. I really hope I’m not getting sick and that if I am, that it doesn’t affect things for this cycle. Crossing my fingers and saying prayers that a nap will help me fight off whatever I’m starting to feel, that the follicles are growing like crazy, my estradiol is going way up and that we can make it to there Thursday without any weather issues. Seriously though, is it summer yet?

The Coast is Clear.

1. My period FINALLY arrived, on its own, on Sunday.

2. Ordered more Follistim on Monday.

3. Had my baseline ultrasound this morning.

4. Everything looked good and we start injections again tonight!

PHEWWWWW. It’s always an anxiety attack the morning of these appointments. History has taught me it’s not a sure thing we’ll be starting another round right away, so I was very relieved when we got the go ahead. YAY!

Next ultrasound and bloodwork is Monday morning. Fingers crossed my little follicles start growing like crazy over the next few days!

On a completely different note, has anyone had any experience with, or know anything about ‘fertility yoga’? I bought a DVD set on Amazon and started it on Sunday. If nothing else, it’s a nice, relaxing half an hour or so, but I’m hoping it may actually help things along… Any thoughts or experience with this?

Namaste.

For Your Viewing Pleasure…

Wednesday will be four weeks since I had my surgery. I had planned to post some pictures from the surgery sooner, but I had to scan the sheets of pictures and then crop each individual picture, blah blah blah. I finally got around to doing that over the weekend, so here’s a few shots from my big surgery… Totally gross, I know, but I’m so fascinated by them.

Cyst at bottom of tube – and smiley face ovary!

Ugly, nasty, evil cyst.

Seriously, how freakin ugly is that thing? With its red viens, ewwww!!!

Deflated cyst. Bye bye evil Arvin!

2nd much smaller cyst that they also removed.

And here’s what I looked like when I got home…

12 hours post-op

36 hours post-op

 

So, in a nutshell, there’s my surgery in photos. Hope I haven’t grossed you out too much.

Valentine’s Day Review.

I’m so happy I made it through yesterday, turned out to be a pretty decent day too!

Started off rocky though, I woke up to the news that Lady Gaga needs surgery on her hip and is cancelling the remaining 21 shows of her tour. I was supposed to go see her on Tuesday. I’m so disappointed. What’s worse is that it was my Christmas present to two of my favorite people as well, ahhh! So that combined with the fact that my husband threw a little tantrum on the way to the doctor, had the morning off to a crappy start (luckily we got over that quickly haha).

We got to the doctor’s office, checked in, waited to be called back, got called back and had my doctor look at my incisions for about 5 seconds. He said they looked good. Then we met with him in his office and discussed what’s next. We’re set to start round 3 of injectables with timed intercourse as soon as I start my period. I said, it’s day 29 and there’s no sign of it coming so far, do I need to start Provera? He said we needed to wait another week, that I should have ovulated, but often with having surgery things get out of wack and an early or late period happens. I asked him why he was so sure that I ovulated. I told him it’s just frustrating to have to wait another week, only to not get my period and then have to spend another ten days taking Provera and then waiting for my period to finally come. I told him historically when we’ve done this I have not gotten my period on my own. He was awesome about it and said, okay, I hear what you’re saying, why don’t we get some blood work and we’ll find out within the next day or so if you ovulated. Then he decided while we were at it he might as well get some other levels checked since it has been a while. He also decided he wanted to do another SA on Matt.

After we were done meeting with Dr. M, we waited in another room for one of the girls from billing to come talk to us about the previously mentioned unexpected bills. The good news: When we paid $733 to their office, they had overcharged us by over $400. I forget the exact amount, $460 something I think. The bad news: Apparently those other bills I got are not a mistake. I’m very irritated because I KNOW that I was told that our plan was the $1,500 deductible and then everything was covered. That is not in fact the case. This very helpful lady explained to us that after the $1,500 deductible, they will pay for 80% and we are responsible for 20% – until we hit $5,000 out of pocket, THEN they cover everything. So, I’m annoyed, but atleast I finally know what the deal is. I hate all this crap, all this insurance, deductible crap is like Greek to me. Someone just freakin explain it to me in terms I can understand. I guess she did, which is greatly appreciated. So, they are mailing us a check for the $460 something that they overcharged us, so that will more than cover the $414 anesthesia bill, which is awesome, but we’re still stuck with that freakin $1,200 bill for the surgery center. I am NOT happy. Oh well. Such is life I guess. Atleast now I finally know and understand and can expect that we will be responsible for 20% of everything we do from here on out (through the rest of this year anyway).

After that whole ordeal, we decided since we were already there, Matt might as well get the SA over with so he didn’t have to make the long drive again just for that. So he went to take care of that and I got my blood work done.

Then, we finally hit the road. As usual, the appointment took much longer than I thought it would, but it was important to take care of all these things, so it was worth it. I ended up getting to work much later than I thought I would, which normally isn’t a big deal, but we had people coming in from our national organization to do training with us. So when I arrived my friend told me that my boss had been having a conniption asking where I was and when would I get there. Luckily, she seemed to be the only one bothered by the whole thing. Everything went very smoothly then. I think I may have even impressed the people that were training us. I probably shouldn’t let my mind go there, but for the past week I’ve started wondering if maybe I might eventually be able to get my full time job back. A week ago one of the women from our other office was out here and when it was just the two of us at one point she asked me if I missed the part of my job that was taken away from me back in September and she asked me that if the opportunity came, would I want to do it again. Then she said something to the effect of, good to know for the future. So I have no idea what that was all about.  Between that and then several interactions yesterday… I don’t know, I know that I am an asset to this organization and I am not being utilized the way I could/should. Sigh. I don’t know.

After our training, I checked my phone and I had a message from my doctor. They had my blood work back already, awesome.

Progesterone – 8.3, ovulatory

Pregnancy – negative

Prolactin – 9.8

Testosterone –51

TSH – 3.5

DHES – normal

None of those numbers mean anything to me except the progesterone, but apparently everything was normal, which is awesome and I did in fact ovulate. Which is actually great news, my period should come soon and I shouldn’t have to take Provera for ten days. Let’s go, let’s get moving so I can start another round of treatment!!

It turned out to be a very nice evening too. Just a quiet night at home, but I got an amazing gift. And I’m not talking Valentine’s Day related… although the beautiful flowers, two Pandora charms and three course meal (as my husband called it – bread, meat, chocolate hahaha) made by Matt were all pretty awesome too!!! But this gift… the gift of finding someone who knows exactly how I feel.  I was playing on my phone and scrolling through instagram when I came across a picture of the same PCOS awareness bracelet that I have. It was posted by a girl I know from the activity I was involved in back when I was in college. I literally gasped. I then read the comments on the picture and it was obvious to me that we are in the same situation. I ran upstairs, grabbed my bracelet, put it on, had Matt take a picture and I then sent the picture and a note to her in a Facebook message. We wrote back and forth several times last night sharing what was going on with us. I was – still am – so excited. Obviously, I would never wish PCOS or infertility on anyone, but finding out you know someone who is going through literally the same exact thing as you – someone you can talk to that just gets it… what an incredible gift.

It was a good night. 🙂 Now if my period would just show up…

One of those… days? Weeks?

Ugh. I’ve been doing so well. But the past few days have been a little rough. It all started last week when I got a call from a friend announcing her second pregnancy. A few days later while playing on Babybook, there was another one. This time Matt’s friends from high school are pregnant… again. My heart just sank. When will it be our turn? Then the next day I had a meltdown. This will probably sound stupid, but it all stemmed from trying to make plans with my two best friends from high school. We’ve been trying to make plans for the three of us to get together for weeks. Every time we thought we had a date something else would come up and screw things up. Well, once again, for like the millionth time, on Sunday I get a series of emails that the latest date isn’t ideal because blah blah blah kids. And like, I get it, I have absolutely no idea what it’s like to plan around kids, but at the same time, they have no idea what it’s like to be dealing with something like this. I know it’s not the intent, but it’s just been kids thrown in my face this entire mess. I’m like, I don’t even wanna freakin get together anymore, just forget it, this is way too painful, it’s not even worth it. My husband walked in after I had read an email and he said what’s wrong??? And I just started crying. Ugh. I’d been doing so well, I couldn’t even tell you the last time I cried before then. Ahhhhh. Oh well, we’re still getting together, just later in the day than planned.

So I’ve been having a rough few days and then the icing on the cake came just a couple hours ago. Again, scrolling through freakin Facebook what do I see but a picture of a newborn baby girl, born just this morning to my ex…. Well, not technically my ex, we were never anything official, but we might as well have been. I didn’t even know that they were pregnant – again. UGH. If there is a silver lining to this it’s that for like ten years now I’ve thought about how I wanted him to have a daughter. A daughter to fall head over heels in love with and to want to protect forever. A daughter that he would realize no man should ever treat her the way he treated me all those years. It’s a stretch, but that’s my silver lining.

On top of all this, I’m in the midst of trying to book a house at the shore for us and my extended family. We finally found the perfect house for the 11 of us and by some miracle it’s still available the only week of the summer we are all able to make it work. I spoke to the owner this morning and have been trying to email him information since to make it official. We’re having email issues as I have not heard back from him and tried to email him again only to have it kicked back to me. So I’m freaking out about this too.

I’m having a rough day. I’m feeling pretty sorry for myself. I hope tomorrow will be a new day with a new outlook. I hate feeling this way. I’m anxious to get back to the doctor next week. I think part of my blah-ness is also due to the fact that there’s nothing going on again. For a few months there I was constantly focusing on what’s next in treatments, everything just kept moving and it was great for me. Now that I’ve had this surgery (which is great!) and am pretty much fully healed from this surgery, I’m feeling good and ready to go again. I hate waiting around for my period to come… or not come and then have to waste more time with Provera. We’ll see what happens at the doc next Thursday. In the meantime, atleast The Bachelor starts in a couple minutes, that should take my mind off things for a couple hours atleast.

Who’s next?

Goodness, time has gotten away from me again. It’s been almost a week since I’ve updated. I had all of these wonderful details I planned on writing about, I can’t even remember what they were about now. Oh well.

I came back to work on Monday, it was good to get out of the house finally, but I was definitely feeling very tired and weak after laying in bed for five days straight. I was very grateful to be working part time on Monday, I came right home and took a nap. I needed to get out of the house though, it was time haha . I’m feeling back in the swing of my normal routine now, although, I am so stinkin sick of being tired. I’ve always wondered why it is that I’m always tired and I think I’ve finally realized it must be this freakin PCOS. I feel lucky that I do not have a ton of PCOS symptoms. I’m not overweight, I don’t have excessive hair growth, but I do find that I am ALWAYS tired, it doesn’t matter how little or much sleep I get, and on top of that, most nights, no matter how tired I am, I have a hard time falling asleep. It is so frustrating. I was exhausted when I came home from work yesterday and I forced myself NOT to take a nap, so I continued to be exhausted all evening. I went to bed early, I was in bed before 10 o’clock, couldn’t fall asleep. I laid there for atleast an hour and a half, quite possibly much longer, I try not to look at the clock. AHHH. So now I’m tired today, I feel like I might as well take a nap when I get home because either way I won’t be able to sleep tonight, so what’s the difference?

On a totally different subject, I got another pregnancy announcement yesterday. Sigh. A friend from church, but I’ll tell you what, I really appreciate the way she told me. She called me yesterday morning and told me right away and told me that she wanted to call and tell me and not have me find out on Facebook. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I appreciated that. Honestly, I was beginning to wonder if that news might be coming soon anyway, their little girl just turned two, so I figured it might be in the works. I told her congratulations and that I really appreciated her telling me and that I am happy for them, although forgive me that I won’t be gushing all over her. She said she absolutely knew and understood that and she felt really bad having to tell me. Of course none of this is her fault and she shouldn’t feel bad at all, but hearing her say that made me feel good. It’s nice to know that she was considering my feelings and feels bad that this is hard for me. We had a nice conversation and I just can’t say enough how much I appreciated her call. She posted a really cute picture on Facebook last night making the public announcement. It actually affected me more than I thought it would, but it was okay – especially since I already knew it was coming. I got blindsided by a Facebook pregnancy announcement of a good friend back in October and it REALLY hit me hard. I was, admittedly, in a much darker place then, but it really hurt me. Pretty sure I had to go to the bathroom and cry (saw it at work). She later told me that she didn’t tell me in person because she didn’t want me to feel awkward and she didn’t want to upset me, which I said I appreciated at the time, but in hindsight, I definitely prefer  the sensitivity of letting me know in private so I’m not blindsided. Anyway, that’s enough of that for today. Can the next announcement please be mine?

Bye Bye Evil Arvin!

So yesterday was the big day, I had my surgery! I’ve been quite comfortable in my bed for the past 24 hours having my husband waiting on me.

Somehow I managed to not get sick before this surgery. I don’t know how, by the grace of God. If you said a prayer for me, I can’t thank you enough. EVERYONE is sick and I was so scared to attend the one public event I had to be at over the weekend. I decided to be totally ridiculous and wear a dust mask to try to keep the germs away and/or give the illusion that I was sick so that people would not want to come near me. So this is what I looked like all night.

It was a sports themed banquet by the way and I was the emcee, which is why I’m wearing a referee shirt, clever, eh? And don’t mind the dorks behind me.

Anyway, moving on, I did not sleep well on Monday night and woke up feeling very anxious on Tuesday. Luckily, I kept busy at work and the day moved pretty quickly. When I got home I tried to clean the house and make sure everything was in order so that I could just relax and not worry about anything during my recovery time. I didn’t have a hard time getting to sleep Tuesday night but I kept waking up and once I finally fell into a deep sleep my alarm went off at 5:30am. I got up, got ready and we were out the door around 6am. Got to the surgery center a little before 7am. That place was wonderful. We have nothing but great things to say about our experience there. The building is beautiful and super clean and the entire staff was wonderful. Got myself checked in and sat around for a few minutes before they took us back to the pre-op area. Took my blood pressure and temperature, asked some questions and then I changed into my gown and robe, got to keep my big, fuzzy socks on so I was excited about that. It’s the little things. It was time to head back to the operating room, so I kissed my hubby goodbye and as he headed back to the waiting room I headed to the operating room. Laid down on the table, waited a minute, answered a couple more questions and the last thing I remember before passing out was them putting the mask over my nose and mouth and feeling this weird pain in my left arm. Still not sure what that was about, it really hurt and then I was out.

When I woke up they were getting ready to wheel me out of the room and they took me to the recovery area. My mouth was so dry and felt so nasty. They put me in the recovery area and it felt like forever before someone came back to see me (it was probably like 5 minutes max, probably less). Finally someone came over and asked me if I wanted a drink or ice and I said yes, please! She brought me ice, which had never felt so good in my mouth and then I said, “Can I have my Matt?” I think the only thing I wanted more than a drink was my husband. J A minute later there he was with me. Cathy, my wonderful post-op lady, asked me if I wanted a drink and snack. I ended up with some Pepsi and cookies. Matt kept trying to force feed me cookies, but my mouth was so dry, all I wanted was liquid. I hadn’t even thought about the fact that they would put a tube down my throat so I was so confused as to why my mouth was so messed up haha.

My doctor came over a few minutes later and went over everything with us and showed us pictures! I’m like obsessed with these pictures haha. They’re so gross, but so fascinating to me. I need to scan them and then I’ll post some. Anyway, Dr. M seemed quite pleased with everything. He said this surgery definitely needed to be done and everything went very smoothly. Arvin (my cyst, who we named after Arvin Sloane from the TV show Alias that we’re currently watching) was definitely causing problems. I was still very out of it at this point so I can’t remember details very clearly, I’m not sure if Arvin ended up being larger than we realized or if it was just the position of it that was more troublesome than we realized, but it definitely needed to be removed. They also removed a much smaller additional cyst. No endometriosis or anything else though. The only other thing is that my uterine lining is a little inflamed. We’ll have to wait about a week to get results back on that, but hopefully that’s something that can simply be fixed with an antibiotic. And with that we were done, Dr. M took off, we finished up, I got dressed and they wheeled me down to the car.

I got home and went right up to bed, slept for a couple hours and then although I wanted to sleep some more I couldn’t because I had to go to the bathroom very three minutes but couldn’t really go. Man, now I know what it must be like to be pregnant and have to pee tiny amounts all the time. I wasn’t expecting that at all, super annoying but that seems to have subsided now. My throat was very sore yesterday from the tube being down it, but that’s feeling better today too. My incision sites are still very sore. Very sore. My husband went to put his arm around my stomach just a few minutes ago and I screamed and he was all like “what???” What do you mean what?? Haha. Other than that I’m feeling pretty good. Still moving slowly and obviously sore in my abdomen, but overall feeling pretty good. Glad to be staying put in my bedroom for a few days away from the deep freeze that’s happening outside!

I’m excited that this is over and we’re in the recovery phase and hopefully things can move forward again next month! I need to call and make my post-op appointment today, I think I’ll do that now and then resume my TV marathon… or maybe take a nap.