HSG Results and IUI take #3

DH and I had a nice weekend away to relax, and slow down a bit. Of, course, AF reared its ugly head on day two of the vacation. I knew that it was coming, so it wasn't a surprise, but it was still hard. I think the holidays have also added to my grief, because I have had some days of being just plain cranky and days of the sobbing tears that come out of no where. Christmas is one of those times of the year that marks the passage of yet another year- another year with things not looking how I thought they would, how I wanted it to be....

We are back to RE land this cycle after trying a DIY cycle this past month. I had an HSG yesterday and a follow up appointment today. Good news is that my tubes are both open. Bad news is that my uterus doesn't quite look how they want it to. Could be scar tissue, could be a polyp (although not too likely), could just be a mystery but they just don't know. I am suppose to have a follow up test (a saline sono something or other?) to explore this further next cycle. So basically (once again) it is more info, but not more answers. And they have no idea if any of this would have any impact on getting pregnant.

Today is CD7 and I just took my last dose of Letrozal. As I have mentioned before, I have sort of been straddling two RE clinics. I have been doing my IUIs at the clinic near our house and getting some 2nd opinions (and now recently doing the HSG) at the clinic in the city. Now I have to decide where I will actually have my IUI done this cycle. Stay with the place I know and that is 5 minutes from my house? or Go to the place where I had my HSG? This is the decision that I need to make today. We'll see...

When we do our IUI (probably new years eve day or new years day- nice, huh?! insert sarcasm), it will have been just shy of two months since my husband's hernia repair. He still believes (and I am hoping) that the hernia was negatively impacting his sperm count. Three months is how long it can take for counts to rebound, but our doctor said that if there was to be an improvement, we would see it incrementally. Hoping this is true. Cuz I am getting tired of doctors. Adding in a urologist to the mix is a layer of this journey I just want to avoid.

12dpo

I don't feel great today. I don't know why. I think AF is coming, so that is probably it. But I just don't feel myself.

I have lost hope in this cycle. Just a gut feeling. I also took my temp this morning after not charting it for the past week. Which truly doesn't tell me much having missed many days of temping, but I am convinced my temp is on the way down.

Today is 12dpo. The final POAS time is almost here. I almost tested today, but then realized I think I only have one peestick left. So I am waiting...

There are glimpses, when I am so centered, that I can embrace the idea of "someday" having a child, and be totally at peace with not knowing when that "someday" will be AND I can simultaneously find joy in the planning in other non-TTC areas of my life- like travel, getting in better shape, or career aspirations. There are moments!

But then, more often then not, I feel like I can only have one or the other- I can only be TTC OR having a full life in the hear and now. I just wish I could not get so wrapped up in this TTC. I wish I could not care what happens with the 2WW, I wish I could just trust that it is all going to be okay and that it will happen eventually....

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The b**bs hurt so badly. They have hurt everyday since I ovulated. 12 days people! I am so tired of them throbbing. And google is freaking me out (and pissing me off)- I can't tell if I have a nice healthy level of progesterone and that is the cause or if I have too much estrogen and low progesterone and that is the cause. But they really shouldn't be hurting for 12 days straight?!! This isn't even a medicated cycle- this is just my own hormones flippin' out.

Once upon a time

When we first found out we were pregnant (the first time). We decided not to tell my family. It was really really hard to keep it from them. I talk to my family every day, they like to know all about what goes on in our lives. And I had to work very hard to not spill the beans.

but we were going to be visiting them- And I would have been 9 weeks when we were visiting. And my favorite aunt was going to be there as well. It was perfect. I was giddy with excitement at the gifts I had had made as a way of announcing it to my family.



Instead, I called my family in advance of the trip and told them we were pregnant, but going to miscarry. These gifts, and my innocence, got stuck in a box, in a closet somewhere. Our time spent with them felt more like preparation for a funeral. It was..

And it was not how I had planned....

Until.

If this cycle is a BFN (I know, so much for optimism when I am already thinking BFN), but if it is, I have 4 more cycles to have a child born in 2010. Anything beyond 2010 and it marks one more year, added to the list of years we have been TTC. And it is also 4 more cycles of TTC before we will have reached that magic 1 yr benchmark and labeled infertile. Technically I think we already bear that label with two miscarriages, but we have yet to go more then 12 months without getting pregnant. First pregnancy came on second month of trying (oh, how I look back on that on shake my head- it seemed so easy). Second pregnancy came after 7-8 months of trying (but I can't say we were trying very hard for that whole time i don't think.) Now, trying for pregnancy number three, we are on cycle 8 I think.

POAS in about 6 more days for this cycle....

and then...

4 more tries....

I know it is twisted to even count like this. But this countdown keeps coming to me as our reality. In part it feels like a goal to achieve- "okay, (pat pat on shoulder pads" just 4 more tries. we can do this." In part I think this helps give me a timeframe of when I need to make the next decision. More on to adoption? IVF? Do Nothing? Keep trying the same? I am giving myself 4 more cycles until I need to deal with any of those questions.

Too much thinking time on my hands

This weekend DH asked me more than once- "You seem a bit pensive?". I don't know why exactly. I think I have had too much time on my hands- (nice problem to have, huh?!) I have been counting and recounting the days until I can POAS. Why I recount them, I don't know- it isn't like it changes from one minute to the next. I spend too much time thinking "what if". Too much time to hoping for the outcome I want. I also (for the first time in a long time) really believed that getting pregnant IS possible this cycle, and then it dawned on me that that also means a miscarriage would be possible. Which I know, I can't even go down that road of worrying. But sometimes I get so caught up in our difficulty GETTING pregnant that I conveniently forget that staying pregnant has been our even bigger problem.

So I have decided to stop charting my temp the remainder of this cycle. The only reason I would chart is to watch for the temperature drop signaling AF is near. And I don't want to daily put energy into waiting for that. I am hoping that by not charting for this next week, I can just "be" and let go.

choice

Two weeks ago I got an email from the job I had applied for and done a preliminary interview. The email said that they would be contacting the finalists that make it to round #2 interviews within two weeks. Time's up. I did not get a call.

And I am so absolutely relieved.

I have started seeing a counselor. I have gone only twice so far. Two 50 minute sessions and the light bulbs were going off all over the place. For the days and weeks following the appointment I was seeing things differently, asking different questions, walking a new path--- or rather getting back on the track I want to be on.

In hindsight, I can see that I applied for that job out of desperation. I was at low point and in that funk, everything seemed even worse off than it really was. I was feeling like I was unappreciated and underutilized in my one job. And feeling like my non-profit we started was going no where and facing roadblock after road block. I was growing desperate and losing hope in the TTC process. And I was feeling like I no longer had control over getting in life what I wanted.

So I applied for a full-time job. And got a first interview.

I used to have a counselor years ago that I saw regularly for a while and then just intermittently. She retired, I was feeling balanced, and it was a good time to walk away from counseling. But years later, after I came back from grad school, I felt the need to start again. I searched and search- finally chose one, and after 4 or 5 sessions it just wasn't a good fit. She wasn't very good. That was a year and a half ago and I have since drug my feet finding another one- But about a month ago, I realized, it was no longer an option to drag my feet. I needed to take the plunge again. Two sessions later I like this one well enough, but more importantly I feel like she is good at what she does. She has been very systematic with me in exploring the edges and the heart of things and asking the right questions.

Getting that first job interview was the final straw for me to find a counselor. (That should have been a clear enough red flag for me that the job wasn't the right direction- when getting a job interview causes you to want to see a counselor, something istn' right) I knew that following this path of this new job was stirring up stuff and I was having problems discerning whether to follow the job possibility or not.

In the first session, the a-ha moment was as simple as her asking the question "What are your priorities?" She also prefaced this with talking about the "costs" involved in pursuing any dream. There is a cost involved- financial, but also a personal- time, energy, health etc - to me pursuing my own start up business. There is a cost in me working a part time job in that it doesn't advance my career as much as a full time job and pays less. There is a cost to trying to get pregnant. And There is a cost in taking a full time job, even though it pays more, I would still have to give up other things in life.

It became so clear to me that the path I am on is the path that I am choosing. I think I had started to feel like I know longer had a choice in life (victim mentally). But I have started to realize that this IS what I want. I am okay with the fact that being in a part-time job lacks the clout, salary, and career advancement of a full time job- but it means that I have time to pursue my own business (not to mention all the infertility appointments). It makes for an almost ideal job when we do have a family, given it is in my field of work and it is only 2 1/2 days a week (with a daycare on site and at the same place my husband works). And I am okay with it because I am choosing to invest this chapter of my life to growing our family. And given our TTC journey, it is taking more of an investment then I had planned on or wanted, but given those are the cards we have been dealt, I am CHOOSING to give it my all. Even if I have to give up a little here and there.

At some point, my choices might look different. At some point, I might decide that the sacrifices are too much, and I might change my direction. But for now, I am finding some freedom and direction in acknowledging that, while there are costs to any path I choose, this is what I am choosing.

Update on this cycle

I have been horrible at commenting lately. I am still reading along! And will engage again soon I think.

We took a break this cycle from the world of IF treatments, and it has been so good for me. I am breathing again. It was a hard decision to make- but in the end it was a good decision. We will resume next cycle with and IUI and a HSG. I am also going to be changing from Clomid to Letrozol (spelling?)next cycle for a couple of reasons (a post for a later time).

But for this cycle, our TTC journey and my reproductive equipment is my own. No doctors, exams, blood draws, medicines, NADA!

Of course, that doesn't mean we are not trying. :)(feel free to stop reading if you don't care to hear me talk about -you know, ahem- the husband and I, and you know what)

We are not taking a total break. Smile, smirk, grinning ear to ear. And it has been wonderful. Oh, how I have missed the old fashioned way. Just the two of us, no doctors, no medical equipment up my who-ha, no rushing to the lab with swimmers in a plastic cup. And sure, there is still temperature charting each morning and I have peed on 5 OPKs in the past several days, but when it comes to DH and I being together- it is just us, no agenda, no burden, no "trying", it is just us! Sigh..heaven.

In some ways it has even been empowering- to be in charge of my own attempts at procreating. In doing IUIs, it definitely can feel like it is being done "to you" and you are a long for the ride, a passive recipient with no control in the matter. (okay, we never really have control over the outcome, but you know what I mean).

As I have been learning, my cycles seem to work how they are supposed to as far as I can tell. My BBT temperature spike and my positive OPKs and DH and I doing the woopdy-doo all worked according to plan this cycle. We did everything within our power. (Side note: this was my first time using OPKs on a non-medicated cycle- I have to say that I think I enjoyed the thrill of being able to get a positive on a pee stick. After so many negative pregnancy pee sticks, even a positive OPK is a boost to my confidence.)

So, we enter the 2ww. But in the meantime, I am going to the gym again, have gotten back on track at weightwatchers, and feeling a lot more centered. Now, the goal is to keep centered even during IUI cycles.

Still trying to trust that there is a bigger plan in all of this.