My Shoes

I'm wondering if there is anyone out there in my shoes who has had success at my age with conception with all my problems.

Facts:
43
Army Wife (means at times I'll be doing it all alone)
miscarriages
Endometriosis
Hypertension
Fibromyalgia
CFS
Oh and the list goes on.

But really with the blogging community I'm starting to feel alone.  Its not the fact that there have been a lot of BFPs lately.  If anything it gives me some hope.

But there is the reality.  I'm 43.  I have endometriosis.  I have other health issues.

Has anyone my age been able to get pregnant with these issues?

With their own eggs?

With donor eggs?

Have they been able to carry to term?

If not to term to viability and have that baby survive?

I'm hoping that there is someone out there my age, with similar issues, that can give me a light of hope.  Oh and yes, age does matter to me.  I need to find someone 42-44 or older that has gone through what I have.

I'm not tossing away my friends but I'm looking for someone who is like me that can give me advice.

Is it still advisable to continue on the journey?  Should I try for donor eggs?  Or am I just throwing away a nest egg on a futile hope that the endometriosis won't cause me to reject the embryo?

How I Celebrated Mother's Day

I woke up at 0430 hrs and started crying.  Then I argue with my spouse about how crappy our life was, then more crying.

Finally two hours later I went back to bed.

I woke up several times before I decided enough of the depression and hauled my self out of the bed.

The fun started shortly there after.  The room was spinning.  I checked my blood pressure and it was 107/70.  Kind of low for me and I had taken my blood pressure medicine 5 hours before checking the pressure.

Looks like I had a wonderful case of Meniere's for the day.  So happy Meniere's Day to me for yesterday.  I walked into door, knocked stuff over, burned my thumb making pizza from scratch...damn oven I know it just jumped out to bite my thumb.

If I tilted my head back the room would spin ever so wonderfully like I was drunk.  Wish I had been drunk since at least that would have been more fun.

J treated me well yesterday.  Over the weekend, starting Friday he gave me ruby earrings, two plants, cake and ice cream oh and a  card.  But of course I made him pizza so I deserved cake and ice cream because I make fantastic pizza.

I survived yet another Mother's day.  I test with a HPT today since I'm 14 DPO...BFN.  Oh well it was a cycle off.  What did I expect?  The breast tenderness, nausea, uterus pain, headaches, food aversion, and heightened sense of smell can all be traced back to other problems I have that are chronic.  Funny how they all developed over a four day period and not all at once.  Such is life!

I hope all my friends here survived Mother's day.

12 dpo, Nothing Yet

I'm still here waiting.  I'm going to be waiting for a long time too.  I'm waiting for lab results on the gluten, I'm waiting for the HPT to hopefully show two lines though I do have my doubts and I'm still waiting for the orders to come in which will separate me from my spouse for who the heck knows how long this time.

Last night the stress of everything got to be a bit too much and I started with chest pains.  Yeah, so not fun. I like to plan.  Right now I can't do a thing but sit there and wait staring out the window or finding something to numb my mind.  I can't make a grocery list of things to buy for J to pack up.  Things that I know he'll need like an all-in-one body wash because I don't know when he has to pack out and leave.  I don't even know if he'll be going to an area where they have real showers.  Our Exchange sells dry shampoo for a reason.

On the fertility front, its now cycle day 22 and I'm 12 days past ovulation.  Usually I would have shown a faint second line by now.   I normally run a 25-28 day cycle so I still have time to show one way or the other.  Oh and I'm damn well scared that I might actually be pregnant and have to go this alone considering we all know that I'll be on bed rest with my hypertension and with no one around that can be at my beck and call.  Well okay its not like J would have been at my beck and call but if something went wrong he would have only been four miles away not thousands of miles away like he will be now.

Can you believe that within a half hour of starting the endometrin I had cramping and really bad nausea?  I never had it that bad before.  I was shaking, cold and felt like I was going to hurl.  When I used it last IVF I must have transitioned from one hormone to the endometrin without much of a second glance because I really don't remember shaking, being cold or wanting to hug the toilet.  A bit of nausea last cycle but not like this.  Anyhow the endometrin slime has started again.  In a few days I'll know if I have to continue with this or if this natural cycle of two follicles on the left ovary failed me.  I realize that at my age my eggs are pretty much rotten, still its nice to know that I can ovulate on my own.

While J is deployed I'll be coming to grips with the fact that I will never have a biological child of my own if this cycle has failed.  We will be deciding on the egg donor route or none at all and just closing up shop.  I need time to grieve for the three recent miscarriages and the one I had years ago.  I just need time to re-evaluate where I'm going in life and see where I should go from here.

Reading Up On The Reason Why

I've been doing a lot of reading up on the subjects of miscarriage, IVF, and pregnancy over the past few weeks.  I knew what could happen but now I want to find out why.

I need to know why if only to figure out a way to help prevent another miscarriage.  Maybe if we try again we can use a different protocol.  Changing out medicines might make the difference or perhaps a change in dosage amounts.

These were my facts:

1) I have a BMI of 32.  I need to lose more weight to sustain a healthy pregnancy.

2)  I have hypertension.  I need to find techniques within my means of lowering the blood pressure to help my medications work better.  My cardiologist doubled my hypertension medicine before the start of the injections.  I need to avoid stress.  Well perhaps I should just divorce and forget IVF right?  Nope not going to happen.  My spouse and I love one another too much to let this end our marriage.

3)  My age is 42.  Nothing I can do about that detail.

4) I have fibromyalgia.  I wonder if that is causing some of the issues with my fertility.

5)  I have two small cysts on my thyroid gland.  Though they aren't seeming to cause any major problems with my thyroid producing the hormone I do wonder if they still might of concern.

6)  I have endometriosis.  Again nothing I can personally do about that issue.  Losing weight and exercising isn't going to make it go away though it might make the endo pain a bit less.

7)  Not all my follicles were developing at the same rate.  I lost out on several good sized follicles by doing what the doctor said and waiting several days for the other ones to develop.  I went from four good ones to two and of the two one made it.  So maybe different strength drugs or different meds are needed. I always have plenty of follicles on clomid.

Now what I found out is this:  SHIT HAPPENS!  Yes, just that.  Sometimes even if thing are perfect, like my 8 celled embryo (JR) something can and will go wrong.  No matter how much I want to lay the blame on someone else it happened.  Sure the stress I was under probably didn't help the cause but what can I do about outside influences?

So I'm still reading and hoping to find a cause.  Something that will pinpoint the problem area with an "ah-ha" moment of clarity.  Something that can be fixed so it doesn't happen again.  If you've got a clue, I'm all ears.

Relaxing

Photo by me of me taken today.  I'm relaxing today.  Well trying to at the least.  Today was a marriage counseling session.  J and I are working on building a better us and trying to decrease the stress he brings home with him. 

Yes, he's been getting on my nerves and raising my blood pressure.  Its not healthy for me to have it that high.  Our counselor has now suggested a better way for J to deal with his work stress so that he doesn't bring home as much of it.  He told him to take up to 20 minutes when he gets home and just putter about the garage or in another room and leave me be. 

I can't handle his stress.  I've told him that there is nothing that I can do for him to fix any issue he might have with his job.  That is a solid fact.  I'm not a soldier I'm just a soldier's wife.  I can cook, clean, help raise a family but I cannot and will not tell him how to do his job.

So this afternoon we went to the pharmacy and picked up my script for the double strength blood pressure medicine Labetalol.  I now take 400 mg a day of it.  Three years ago I took just 100 mg once a day.  There is only so much Zen breathing, Yoga and a low sodium diet can do when there is so much stress in my life.  Going through an IVF cycle is very stressful!

Still a photo of me taken by me today.  I'm wearing one of the gifts that J gave me for our anniversary.  Its a very interesting pendant which is handcrafted.  Its a drusi stone in the center with mother of pearl discs on the two sides and two silver leaves, one above and one below.  I loved this pendant the moment I saw it and I had to have it.  Lila Drake in Port Townsend is just the jewelry store I need when I want to find that unique piece at a great price.

Oh the sweater is new too.  Since I've lost so much weight I deserved the sweater from the clearance rack at the Eddie Bauer outlet.  I went shopping there last weekend with J and my bestie S.  We are planning on going back there again soon.  Who knows maybe this long weekend.

I'm starting to learn that shopping can be a great stress reliever as long as the stores aren't that crowded and you are with good friends.  I've never been one to like to shop but I think I might be changing my mind about that particular contact sport.