CD 1 The FET is on!

Today is CD 1 and I started my birth control.  Yes that very pack of birth control that I had to explain in detail to Dr. Gillard was necessary to get me pregnant.    I still think she needs to go back to med school.

I've been cramping with bend over moaning pains off and on for two days before I started to bleed.  I already know this cycle is going to horrible.  With any luck I'll look back on the beginning of this and say it was all worth it as I go through every known emotion over the next few months.

I reminded my husband last night that the Alora patches make me very cranky the night before a new patch is applied.  I found out why when read all about the side effects online.  I really wish I could have gotten pregnant an easier way.  Must remind myself daily this is all worth it.

I'm eager, I'm excited, I'm elated!  Thank you God for gifting me this chance.

Variety

Just a bunch of random things today.

First I want to send out congratulations on a infertile getting pregnant.  I met her on the TTC board five years ago.  Yesterday I found out that her IUI worked.  So happy for her.

Second my Dad is settling in nicely to the nursing home where he'll be for about 20 days.

Third, CD 1 is here.  Yay or boo.  Yay because I get another chance.  Boo because I'm sick and most likely this cycle will produce crap for follicles.

Fourth, my favorite RE Doc should be back this month.  Hoping he can give me some insight on where to go from here.

Fifth, odd dream last night.  I was a computer generated animated character similar to what you'd find in Brave or Shrek.  But the really odd thing was that I was trying to pee on a stick to see if I was pregnant and everyone wanted to watch.  Just gross!  I think my subconscious was trying to tell me that by blogging about every aspect of the TTC I'm losing my privacy though I am gaining support.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.  Think I'll be staying home this weekend and not going to church either.  Still feel rather lousy and I have seven more days of antibiotics to go.

CD 1

I started this morning.  I rather knew from the ultrasound that this cycle was going to be a bust when even my doctor had no confidence.

I called my clinic and left a message with them to try to schedule a mid cycle ultrasound.  This means if all goes well I'll be ovulating a few days before Christmas.

In other news, a friend offered me a rare gift today.  I met this particular woman while in college.  She is married to one of my husband's friends, again from college.  She and her husband are lucky enough to have three sons.

The gift she offered me was precious.  She, from what she said, has been talking with her husband for a while about what J and I are dealing with in infertility.  She is willing to be the donor and surrogate for J and I.

Now the only problem is that she lives clear across the country.  J doesn't yet know about the offer.  You can bet I'll be talking about it with him tonight.

It is something we'll need to talk about for a while too.


With my stage III endometriosis the chances of me being able to donor eggs and having a baby as a final outcome and not another miscarriage are slim.  I realize that if I do have my friend do all this for me that my insurance won't cover any of it and I'll be paying out-of-pocket.  More to think of.  I can't put us into further debt for my wants and needs.

I can still hope for a miracle.  I don't deserve any more than the next person.

100 Days

One hundred days has come and gone.  Last night CD 1 hit.  YAY!

Tomorrow I have lab work and an ultrasound at the RE office.  Oh joy I get poked and prodded while bleeding. 

The bleeding was heavy at first last night and now its so darn light I could probably get away with a pantyliner.  This is the usual for me when I've had to use progesterone to get it started or when I got done using progesterone after yet another failed clomid cycle.

I knew it was coming soon when I started craving my PMS foods.  I've been good but I can hear the potato chips calling my name and saying for me to please eat them. 

I have a dental appointment on Friday.  Gad I hope my gums don't bleed too much from the hormone levels being screwey.

But yes speaking of hormones I'm really hoping that the E2 level is down and the cyst is gone.  I can hope right?  I've had enough bad cramping over the past few days that I would only hope that maybe, just maybe it ruptured.  I'll know more tomorrow.

Still dealing with the green nasal discharge and breathing issues.  Chest hurts to take a deep breath.  Things are just fun times here right now.  Hear me WHINE!  I'd say roar but that would hurt to try to do so I won't roar I'll just whine.

CD 1 Again and Again and Again

Photo by me of J and I out at the wreck the Peter Iredale at Fort Steven's State Park in Hammond, Oregon.  The wind was quite fierce on Friday with the rain turning the kicked up sand to mud.  When we got back to our vehicle one side was covered with mud.

On 25 October 1906, the British sailing vessel the Peter Iredale landed on a sandbar off the coast of Clatsop Beach where it stuck and is still today.  No known deaths.

Photo by J of me at the wreck site.  I was doing a rather obnoxious pose with my tongue sticking out acting all well, I guess wonky.


This was perhaps the only day I didn't have to use my cane on the trip.  Because of this our first day of a mini holiday I wore myself out.  I climbed, walked and played.  I paid for it the following days but really it was worth it to just have fun for one day.

I climbed up to the second landing in this the Astoria Column located in Astoria, Oregon.  J made it all the way to the top but even with taking my rescue inhaler I just couldn't muster up enough oxygen to make it there with him. 

The Column stands 125 feet high and has 164 steps half of which I climbed. It was dedicated on 22 July 1926 and its original cost was $27,133.96.  However the cost to restore the column alone in 1995 was one million, the staircase another six hundred thousand and that was done in 2008.  Crazy how much stuff costs these days.

We stopped for lunch at the Wet Dog Cafe and Brewery in Astoria, Oregon.  We both had burgers with sides of fries.  I just couldn't finish the burger, eating only half of it and giving the other half to J.  Oh it was quite tasty but my stomach is really acting up lately. 

Okay so today is the beginning of hopefully a long cycle for me.  I'd like this cycle to last approximately 40 weeks give or take a couple of weeks.  You ladies know what I mean.

J had the last two of his wisdom teeth pulled at 0720 hrs today so I'll get my HCG blood test tomorrow and pick up my clomid at the pharmacy while I'm at it.  This is our very last chance with my DNA.  I'm not worried, I can always do donor eggs.  I know its still a pipe dream but hey I know for a fact all of us infertile bloggers keep trying against the odds.

By the way the test results for the Celiac came back as unequivocal unpronounced.  I only have a sensitivity to the gluten which is a good thing but still sucks.  Still my stomach has been hurting more and more with anything I put in it.  I'll have to keep that appointment with the gastroenterologist for later this month.  

This coming Monday I have an ultrasound to see if I'm ovulating.  I hope I will be, fingers crossed.  I'll post more photos and information tomorrow.  Now its time to go baby my hubby as I'm sure after having two teeth pulled he needs some loving care.

Starting Over The Hard Way

Today I got my wicked red witch of a visitor.  Oh I knew it was coming.  But before we get into that I'll tell you what I am doing to prepare for the WTF appointment later this month.

I guess you could say I'm carb loading.  Not that I want to but really it seems as though I have no choice.  If I want to get the proper testing done I need to be prepared.  I know I must have a sensitivity to gluten, wheat, bran and oats.  Whenever I eat the stuff I end up in the bathroom and its not pleasant.  However because I've been eliminating it from my diet over the past 6 months, thus just one more reason why I've lowered my blood pressure and lost the weight, I won't show positive at all for the Celiac Disease if I did have it.  No in order to show positive or have proper testing I have to be eating the stuff that makes me sick for at least 10-14 days.  I guess its a good thing that I researched it a bit, looked through my old medical papers. and asked my mom about the family medical history.  I have just enough time before the appointment to get the crap back into my system. But I'll have to tell them that I was abstaining from it for half the year as that might still mess with the results a bit.

Today I'm baking bread.  If there is just one way that I can still control some of the sodium I ingest daily its through my own efforts.  Right now the dough is rising in the kitchen.  I had to turn the heat up in the house from 62 to 67 and turn the oven on two hours early to warm the kitchen enough to get the yeast to work.  I'm going to hate the Minol bill when it comes in.

Back to why my own bread.  If you've ever taken the time to read packages you'll notice that most breads are 120 mg of sodium to about 200 mg of sodium per slice.  Since I'm on a sodium restricted diet of 1000 mg a day I have to cut corners.  My bread recipe uses 1 1/2 tsp of salt in it for the two loaves.  I use Celtic Sea Salt which is about 550 mg per teaspoon.  Math time 775 mg for the 1 1/2 tsp. divide that by two loaves 387.5 mg per loaf.  I get about 10 slices out of each loaf  so that is about 38.75 mg per slice.  No other ingredients in this recipe have sodium in them.  So I could say pig out and eat a whole loaf of bread and not worry about my sodium content.  Note that I also use unsalted butter when I eat the bread or other low sodium and no sodium spreads. 

Oh I know I'm going to be hurting.  Gross factor here:  by the end of the day I'll be wishing for loperimide and a large tube of preparation-H. 

No choice it has to be done.

Now for CD 1.  Its here.  It hurts.  I tried to call the RE nurse to let her know about it but I only got the voice mail with her promising to get back to me asap.  Its been over 2 hours.  I may or may not hear from her later today.

Yesterday I went to see my PCM.  I wrote about that a bit.  I was put back on my nebulizer and the flovent to go with my flonase and emergency inhaler.  I guess he heard something and wasn't pleased.  Well he wouldn't be very pleased with me right now if he knew I went off it all and ditched my vitamins too.  I'm only staying on the high blood pressure medicine right now.  All the rest of my medicines could affect the upcoming tests I'm going to demand to have done.  Steroids are notorious for messing with results.  I have three prescribed to me right now.  I'm noot going to take them until the tests are done and the results in hand.  I need to know why my body is rejecting or killing off the embryos.

I just hope that the Army medical staff takes me seriously.  They should, I have enough wrong with me that I should be seeing several specialists monthly and my PCM monthly too according to my EFMP forms.

CD 1: IVF #2 Begins

I awoke this morning to a phone call from my REI nurse at Madigan returning my phone call from yesterday.  My calendar is now ready with the scan times and drug dosing for the next IVF.  I'm waiting for the microdose of Lupron to show up which won't be here until early January.

My protocol has changed a bit.  I'll still be using Lupron but I won't be starting it like I did last IVF, this time I'll be waiting until the day of my first scan, the suppression scan.

I'm excited.  Sure I'm a bit sad that the first IVF resulted in a miscarriage but I have hope again for this IVF.  Yes, I know I always keep hope.  I had hope for the natural cycle that I had in-between too.  I had the implantation bleeding on the right day but somehow it just didn't stick.  It never even made it to a chemical pregnancy this time.  But its still nice to know that some part of my body still work at least half way at my age.

Today looks like from the toilet tissue wiping to be day one.  Bright red bleeding was there.  I'm always prepared with boxes of tampons and packs of pads so its not like its ever going to be one of those, "hun, please run to the store for me?" days when it happens.  Well, I hope that never happens at least.

I am thinking of no longer buying tampons.  For the past year or two using them has grown very uncomfortable.  I'm not sure if its the endo pain or what.  They don't work that well for me either with the amount I bleed.  I'm changing even the supers in under an hour when I have my heavy days. 

Bleeding is always a messy subject but somehow I always felt in better control of it, mess-wise, when I was able to use a tampon with comfort.  Now I'm becoming paranoid thinking that perhaps my body is trying to tell me something when it wants to reject it.  Maybe having a tampon sitting inside my body collecting all that blood just isn't good for it.  I'm thinking about the bacteria breeding ground its creating.  While I, knock on wood, have yet to ever have a yeast infection I do wonder if using a tampon could create the proper environment to get one.  Shudders to think of that particular mess.

The REI nurse told me that I could start the birth control by day two of my new cycle.  I don't have enough time to go for another natural cycle before I'd have to be on the pill so I'll be starting it by tomorrow I'm thinking.  My cut off date to start birth control is the 18th of December.  I'll be ringing in the holidays with migraines.  Birth control always gives me migraines and tension headaches.

The sound of the television, the one in the living room makes a slow leak noise of a balloon with buzzing, will give me headaches while on the hormones too.  I love watching the holiday movies too.  I'm a real sucker for the old black and white versions of  Its A Wonderful Life,  White Christmas,  and The Bishop's Wife.  Cary Grant plays an angel in the last one.  Got to love Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye (spelling his last name?).  I love to watch the dancing scenes in White Christmas. 

Well I'll be spending my holidays with my paper chains, snowflakes, and other craft works to decorate while I watch my holiday flics.  I'll be relaxing and hoping that this will be the cycle to grant me my dream baby.