RE Appointment Update

Extremely overwhelmed. This is how I felt after my RE appointment yesterday. I spent the rest of my day in a fog wondering how I got to this point. How is this my life? Today I'm able to see things more clearly and actually write, although I can't remember it all. I read in a magazine once that patients forget 50% of what a doctor tells them. I'm going to do my best, so here goes. I was there for nearly 2 hours and I really like the RE and the nurses I dealt with. The first part of the appointment was spent with the doctor in his office going over my medical history and all of my issues. He seems to think my endometriosis is playing a significant role in why I haven't gotten pregnant again. Also, I may not ovulate quality eggs because my luteal phase and my cycles seem to vary so much. He mentioned that on my D&C report and a transcript from another surgery that my OB noted my lining was especially thin. Hmm... she never mentioned that to me. She also noted I may have a uterine septum (a band of tissue in the middle of the uterus) and that my uterus is extremely tilted to one side. I never heard any of that from her either. A thin lining could prevent implantation. A uterine septum could cause miscarriage. A tilted uterus most often isn't a problem but it could hinder the sperm from reaching the egg. Obviously I will never know what caused my miscarriage, but I am extremely frustrated that these things were in plain sight on my medical records and my OB never mentioned them. ::sigh:: At this point though, all I can do is move forward. The RE went over DH's sperm analysis. He has plenty of sperm and the motility is good, but the percentage of normal sperm is a little low. Not alarmingly low, just a little. Hopefully all the vitamins he's been taking will help. But with my ovulation issues and DH's low quality sperm the RE basically said our chances of conceiving on our own are about 1%. I am not a huge fan of statistics and percentages, but that's what he said. Kinda sucks.

We discussed my issues over the last few months with itching and burning. He thinks I may have interstitial cystitis (IC), which is inflammation of the bladder wall. Supposedly it's very common in patients with endometriosis. He gave me a prescription to try and recommended the IC diet. The diet does not sound like fun at all, very bland-- but having an itching, burning vag most of the time isn't much fun either. I don't enjoy having to walk like I spent all day riding a horse. I have some more research I need to do on it before I start the diet. Eczema isn't completely ruled out and there is a test he can do called a cystoscopy for IC, but at this point I want to try the diet and prescription.

So now the plan. Starting with my next cycle I begin the Clomid challenge. I will be monitored throughout by ultrasound and blood work (CD3 and CD10). I will do a shot of Ovidrel around CD12 and also a booster on CD16, which should help my lining. I will have a hysterosonogram done sometime between CD6-12 to determine if I have a uterine septum and where the fibroids are my OB found during my last surgery. We will probably end up doing IUI on CD14, depending on how I respond. The RE thinks I will have better chances with injectables rather than Clomid so if I don't get pregnant the first cycle I may move on. The IUI and procedure estimates ended up being cheaper than I thought, but still an injectable cycle is going to be twice as much because the meds are just so much more expensive. The IUI itself really isn't that costly. Stupid drugs. I love that I have to pay to have a baby. And it might not even work.

I was a little worried about DH's reaction to the cost of everything. I've warned him several times that this is going to be expensive, and he was so shocked about having to pay $150 for a urologist consultation that I figured he would freak out when I showed him all the paperwork at dinner last night.

Him: "Why didn't you tell me you were so screwed up when I married you?" If you know my DH at all, you know this is a joke and actually a good reaction.
Me: "Well, you're not perfect either."
Him: "I guess not."      ::continues eating::

So, here we go!!

The Best Thing to Happen to my Marriage

was loss and infertility. DH and I had a fight a couple of weeks ago. It was over something completely stupid, but we didn't speak to each other the whole night. The next day we made up and got over it and I started to think back. It had been a long, long time since we had a fight. We used to do the immature not speaking to each other thing at least once a month. It was always over silly things, but we still did it. Thinking back, I can't remember the last time this happened besides our recent fight. The first few days after my D&C last year I woke up crying and spent my days on the couch not speaking to anyone. I expected DH to tell me to get up and treat our loss as if it wasn't a big deal. But he didn't. He brought home dinner each night and sat on the couch with me while we watched TV (he normally sticks to his recliner). He supported me through my grief, attending therapy with me and even reading a book about how husbands deal with miscarriage. Throughout the past year and our struggles to get pregnant again I sometimes forget that he's in this with me. It's not just me who suffers. I was counting the months since we started TTC to fill out my RE paperwork and before I could even finish he said, "it's been a year and a half." Oh yeah, he's been trying with me. He wants a baby too. I hate those stupid sayings about everything happening for a reason or good things coming from bad experiences, but I will say this. This journey has been horrible and awful-- but I love my husband more than I've ever loved him, or ever thought I would. Loss and infertility have given us a stronger, better marriage. I'm betting that's the only good thing we'll get from this. Oh yeah, and Shorty.

In other news, RE appointment is on Monday!

Shorty's Birthday

I'm a week late posting this. Oops, bad furmama. Shorty turned 1 on January 21. I put DH in charge of getting her a treat because he delivers the mail to a doggie boutique, Moochie & Co, every day. I expected him to just get her a small cookie or treat. Then he comes home with this giant Happy Birthday bone cookie! He is so funny, because Shorty is the dog he didn't want, that he got just for me, wink wink. Turns out he paid quite a bit for it too...lol. Before you assume we made our dog sick, the icing and everything on top is made of yogurt and the other ingredients are actually pretty healthy. Of course we didn't give her the entire thing, just a small piece after we took pictures and a video. Yes we took pictures and a video, go ahead and laugh. That what's we infertiles do. We treat our dogs like babies. I guess her birthday celebration is still going on because she gets a small piece of the cookie each day from the fridge. She'll be done with it in a few more days. The video above is not the best (meaning I suck at recording) but you can see how much she loved it. She wouldn't even look up at me. You can also see all her toys and her doggie stairs (DH got those too!). She's spoiled. So what.  Happy Birthday Shorty, we love you so much!

 

No Advice Needed, Thank You

People mean well. It's the same as the inspirational stories I wrote about before. All the stupid, insensitive comments really aren't meant to hurt or annoy me. But they do. I love how people who haven't suffered from IF or miscarriage think they need to give me advice about it. For example, one friend I called the same day of my loss said "you should really get your blood tested for a clotting disorder." Um, okay... because that's EXACTLY what I'm thinking about the day I find out my baby is DEAD. Right. I know she was just trying to help, but I found it extremely insensitive and even a year later it still upsets and annoys me. A month or so after the loss, maybe this would've been a good suggestion. But not the same day, while I'm still carrying a dead fetus inside me. (I had the blood clotting test and it was normal.) This same friend now really wants me to talk to one of her friends because this person had trouble conceiving her first child and is now going through treatments to conceive her second. The fact is, she has a child. It's not the same. Anyone who has suffered from IF or loss will probably tell you this. If someone already has a child, we look at them differently. Maybe that makes us bitter, insensitive bitches. I'm not saying that secondary IF or having a miscarriage after you have healthy children at home isn't hard. I believe it's extremely painful no matter when you suffer from it. But the fact of the matter is, those people can go home and take care of their healthy children. I came home to an empty house. I hope I'm not offending anyone who has children at home by writing this. I am not belittling your experience. I'm just saying that it's different, and those of us who don't have children and suffer from IF and loss have to face the fact that we may never have them.

So back to this friend. I should use the term loosely, as I've been trying to distance myself because all she does is cause me stress. She also said that she thinks my support group online is too "sad" for me. That maybe hearing all the sad news is making me worse. I was devastated for my two friends who recently suffered big losses. But many of the girls I started this support group with are pregnant, or have already had healthy babies. So yes, there is sad news. But there's also extremely happy news, and a lot of love and support. I received a birthday card with chocolates and a ring inside last week from a friend in the group. Totally thoughtful and unexpected. That's what a support group is. We support each other through the good, the bad, and the sad. So suck on that friend.

I got away from the title of this post. My point for writing it was that I don't need nor want advice from random strangers or well meaning friends, unless I ask for it. For my friends who read this blog-- this entry was not about any of you :). I leave you with these two quotes.
"Never take the advice of someone who has not had your kind of trouble."   Sidney J. Harris
"Never give advice unless asked."  German Proverb

Surgeries, birthdays, and deadlines

Yesterday I had my fourth laparoscopic surgery for my endometriosis. I had one in 2000, 2006, 2008, and now 2011. I also had a LEEP done in 2007 and a D&C in 2010. I hope I'm done with surgeries for awhile. Let's hope the next time I'm in a hospital it has something to do with a healthy baby that belongs to me. So the surgery went okay. She was able to get rid of 60% of the endo. I'm not really happy with that percentage, but I guess it's over half so I'm ahead a bit. There was some endo under my right ovary that she was unable to get without risking damage to the ovary. She also did an HSG while I was under, and my tubes are wide open which is great news. My uterus has a lot of fibroids, and I'm not really sure what that means for pregnancy. I will have to get more info at my follow up appointment. Today I'm just really sore and have a hard time standing up straight, but it will pass soon.

Today is my birthday. When I scheduled this surgery, Jan 12 was the first day she had available. I thought it would be nice to be off work on my birthday. It is, except that I woke up at 3:30 when my Vicodin wore off and couldn't really sleep after that. Plus I think it's going to be a pretty lonely day. DH probably won't be home until about 7, and I'm not allowed to drive anywhere until tomorrow so I guess it will be a Shorty bonding day. And Shorty didn't even get me a present, can you believe that? Although I shouldn't complain about today because I did have an awesome birthday party last Saturday and a lot of people came to support me. More than I expected.

Yesterday my mother-in-law commented on how well I'm handling this. Once I really stopped to think about things I guess I am handling it quite well. I wasn't nervous about surgery since it was nothing new, and I'm wondering if my attitude is getting better because all my "deadlines" have passed. I've spent the last year being pretty depressed (see any post below) and I had all these dates in my head.

1. I wanted to be pregnant before my EDD. Already passed.
2. I wanted to be pregnant before the anniversary of my last BFP. Missed that boat.
3. I wanted to be pregnant before I turned 30. See a theme here?

So I guess there's no more deadlines to set. I guess all I can do now is just wait for things to happen. I am still going back and forth about seeing an RE. I got a name from a friend and then one from my OB- turns out it's the same doctor. So I feel good that I got two different recs for the same one. I'm just reluctant to call for a few reasons, number one being money. My insurance will not cover anything that has to do with infertility. I'm just afraid to go spend thousands of dollars when there's no guarantee I'll come out with a healthy baby. Crack whores get knocked up for free. I guess the second reason I don't want to call is that it will make it real. I am infertile. I have been actively TTC with no pregnancy for over a year, which qualifies as the textbook definition of infertile. I'm also worried about all the time I may have to take off work for more appointments. So basically, I'm making up excuses not to call the RE because I'm SCARED. People think it's so easy. I've actually had a couple friends say to me "but you haven't even tried fertility treatments yet." Yes, I did a couple cycles on Clomid and triggers, but no, I haven't done anything more invasive. It's not like strep throat, people! You don't go to the doctor and get a magical pill that cures you. It's a lot more complicated than that, and that's why I'm so scared. I guess I should put on my big girl panties and make that call. ::sigh::

Getting older

Last night I celebrated my 30th birthday, which is January 13. Since I'm having laparoscopy on January 12 we had to celebrate a weekend early. I had a lot of fun, and I didn't have a mental breakdown like I feared. I may have had one too many shots but I didn't cry, so it was a win. I really have no issues with turning 30, except for the fact that I thought D and I would have kids by now. My attitude is mostly "How the hell did this happen? Wasn't I just in high school? Didn't I just graduate college?" On one hand time flies but on the other it passes so slowly....

Of course I couldn't help remembering that last year on my birthday I was pregnant. And the thought that I should a 4 month old baby at home now never left my mind. Loss and infertility are nasty, nasty bitches. It's like being stuck on pause.

Dear Universe

Stop shitting on my friends. Seriously. I have a dear friend who has been there for me since my loss in January. Though we've never met, I feel very close to her. First, she loses her beloved dog unexpectedly at only 6 years old. Like that isn't devastating enough, she just lost both her twins and has to have a D&C. Another close friend who's been a great support to me spent thousands on an IVF cycle that failed. I just don't get it. I have no faith left. If either of said friends are reading this, I love you both and I'm so sorry things turned out this way. FFS, universe. Go pick on someone else for awhile.