Do you SEE what I SEE?

23 Monday Apr 2012

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I took this picture of my shower stall glass a few weeks ago after I had finished showering.  Do you see what I see or is it just all things related to fertility (and my lack of it) are seeming to jump out at me?

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To update on my infertility front, my husband and I went to see the big wig RE at my clinic about a week and a half ago.  His recommendation is that we move to IVF, but even then my odds of conceiving will be about 10%.  My ovaries are basically old and just don’t want to make eggs much anymore.  My period came last week and I held off contacting them to pursue the IVF because I’m not sure it’s the right path to choose.

In the meantime, I read the book “Choosing to SEE” by Mary Beth Chap.man.  It put some things into perspective for me by reading about her most difficult and darkest days after losing her five year old daughter in an accident.  She still doesn’t understand why it happened in our human mind terms, but she knows God is using what happened for His greater good.  So I have translated that a bit into my life; maybe I don’t have a baby and won’t have a baby for a reason.  I don’t know what the reason is but at some point I have to give up my trying to control my life (and my infertility) and give the trust to a Higher Authority than myself.

Now what?

01 Sunday Apr 2012

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I have no idea!  The main RE at my clinic called me on Tuesday while I was at work and I didn’t catch the call and he left me an message about calling him to discuss it, maybe changing my meds, or if I want I can come in on a consult to talk about our options.  I haven’t called him back but I think I will call this week and schedule the consult when my husband is home so my husband can truly grasp how serious and complicated IVF treatment will be for us.  Oh, and they were able to freeze two vials of my husband’s sperm when he went in on Monday BEFORE we found out we’d have to cancel this IUI.  Greatness.

Other than that I’ve been good.  My last official day of work was this past Friday and I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that tomorrow I don’t have to be there.  Though I’m technically still an employee that “works” one day a week by answering questions, being on call for assistance, etc.  Which I can live with.

I ran a mock 5K yesterday and my time from my last 5K which was five weeks ago has improved by over a minute, so I’m pretty stoked about that. 

This week I’m hard core working on getting our business up and running.  Go me.

Cancelled

26 Monday Mar 2012

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I went in for my IUI monitoring appointment this morning and the RE found no follicles growing so she advised me to cancel this cycle.  The way she left it was that the other RE that runs the clinic will call me to discuss my options but I don’t think another IUI attempt is off the table.  We’ll see what happens when he calls.

After I left the office, I called my husband to tell him the news.  He left town today for ten days so right before he left he had gone into the clinic to leave behind a sample, which was a waste of money since I found out three hours later that the cycle would be cancelled.  Well, not completely a waste of money since they will be frozen and stored there for the short term.  I told him the news and started to tear up and felt like just having a meltdown but I kept it in.  He told me he loves me no matter what.  I just wish he were home right now.

I had planned on going into work after the appointment but decided to make it a complete sick day because I knew I just wasn’t in a good emotional state (it’s my last week of work anyway at my current company, next week I start on other endeavors).  I came home and took a long luxurious two hour nap (something I NEVER do) and that helped me feel a bit better.  I also went to my running group tonight which has helped me as well.

I just don’t know what to do next.  I think maybe my body is saying it wants to shut down the business of baby making once and for all.

Hot Flashes

25 Sunday Mar 2012

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I’m on CD12 today and all week I’ve been having serious hot flashes, more so then the last two cycles when I did clomid + injections.  Even in church this morning I had a hot flash and it was cold in there, I’m NEVER hot in church.  It’s toughest at night, especially with the hubs home and two dogs in the bed with me.  I keep going from hot to cold all night it’s really crazy. 

I went in on Thursday for one of my monitoring appointments and I’m told that “stuff is brewing”.  I go back again tomorrow and hopefully we’ll be close to being ready to trigger.  Hubs is going to be away starting tomorrow so he gets to go in tomorrow morning and leave a sample behind for them to freeze so we can use that later this week when it’s time for the IUI.

I’m going to go fly today, that will hopefully get me out of this sad funk I’m kinda feeling.  In our Bible Study group this morning we were talking about being thankful and one of the questions asked was “how do you teach your kids to be thankful?” (I guess to illustrate how God uses situations to teach us to be thankful for what He does for us) and I almost started crying.  I looked around the room and I was the only one there that doesn’t have a child.  I started tearing up but made myself take a deep breath and told myself to stop feeling sorry for myself.  I am really blessed in the life I have now and the husband I have, etc.  I just am so disappointed that I am struggling with getting the one thing I really want and ultimately I know I have no control over the situation but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t get to me sometimes.

CD4 for IUI #3

17 Saturday Mar 2012

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Well I did get my period on Wednesday and after a two minute discussion with the hubs, made the call to get in on Thursday for my baseline ultrasound.  I was cleared to proceed with the IUI (no cysts) and the RE actually remarked that it looked like I had ovulated on my own last month.  I responded with “Well, it didn’t work”.  The two RE’s at my clinic are always so positive and friendly that I feel like sometimes I need to do a better job myself of not always thinking of the negative response.  That or I try to make jokes as a way of coping with all of this.

I don’t know my husband’s schedule yet for April so I’m not sure if he’ll be home or not for his part.  I will know better I think when I go back for my next ultrasound when the IUI will take place, plus I will know his schedule by Thursday afternoon so I can figure out if he’ll need to go ahead of time and let them freeze the swimmers for this round.

The meds arrived today (other than the clomid which I had filled on Thursday and it’s my second day today taking that).  I’m sure my neighbors wonder why I’m getting boxes via Fe.dEx on a Saturday marked “refrigerated shipment” (box was left by our gate since I was at running group when it arrived; anybody on my block could have had some free infertility injectables!).

I ran two miles this morning with my running group and this afternoon I actually dove (twice) into the new swimming pool at the “property” that was finally finished this week.  The air temperature was around 70 so it wasn’t bad.  My MIL was there to witness my craziness but I wanted to do it so I did (she didn’t try to stop me and was surprised that I had actually gone through with it).  It wasn’t even that cold!

Hubs is away for about a week and I miss him this time (I miss him every time he leaves but the degree varies based on several factors) but it’s probably good he’s not here during the clomid days because those can get pretty ugly.

IUI #3?

13 Tuesday Mar 2012

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I suspect that my period will make an appearance tomorrow.  I have been INCREDIBLY grouchy and cranky the last two days (husband has bore the brunt of it unfortunately since he’s home).  Which means I have to decide within the next day or so if I am ready to do IUI #3.  I’ve been enjoying drinking coffee (though I have kept it to 75mg of caffeine a day and when I miss a day of coffee I am not a miserable person) and eating sushi and having the occasional glass of wine.  But then I think about what I’m missing in life and it’s so much more then the little comfort things.  I am missing a child and I really want one and I know my biological clock really is winding down.  I’ll be 42 in three months.  I have to do something now or it may be too late.

Awhile back I speculated that the woman that was coaching my 5K group was struggling with infertility so at one point a couple of weeks ago I happen to hint at what I thought was going on with her in an email and she replied back that I was correct!  Turns out she’s been through a lot more then I have without much success.  And she is going to CC.RM in Denver for her next IVF in April.  We exchanged war stories a bit and wished each other the best and agreed we’d pray for each other.  She was seeing the same RE that I am currently seeing also which disheartens me a bit that maybe he won’t be able to make this happen for us.  I asked her to let me know how her experience goes with them.  I’m hoping for all the best for her.

One of those weeks …

08 Thursday Mar 2012

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Ever have one of those weeks that just makes you crazy with how many things can come crashing in on you at once?

First, the brother of a co-worker/friend of mine was killed in a car accident last week.  He was 38 and had a wife and 2 year old son.  Makes me think that I have so much to be thankful for.  I, along with two others, did a group road trip five hours south of here to attend her brother’s funeral today.  As I sat in the funeral chapel listening to the inconsolable wailing of his widow, I thought about my husband and how devastated I would be if something would ever happen to him.  And how glad I am that I do still have him here with me in this world and that I need to better appreciate that fact on a lot of levels.

Second, one of my MIL’s dogs got out and is missing, this happened within 15 minutes of finding out about the above.  So my MIL has been inconsolable all week.  I’ve looked all over for the dog, she’s looked all over for the dog.  My husband is on a trip out of the country so I’ve been her sounding board all week.  I love her dearly but I don’t know what else to do to help her think positively and not worse case scenario.  I know I would be a mess if one of my dogs disappeared but at the same time I think I would figure out a way to cope and accept it, kind of like how I’m coping (mostly) and accepting (mostly) my infertility issues.

Third, this week has been a very tough week at work for me.  I’m training two people to take over my responsibilities and I am not seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, that being where I can leave there and go do other less stressful things with my work life.

Fourth, I’m going home this weekend to see my BFF and my mother (three hour flight from here).  My mom is out of the hospital but they have her in a rehab place for the time being until they feel she can be sent home and can take care of herself.  This all makes me so sad because I live here and she’s there and I should be the one that is taking care of her.  My husband and MIL want her to come here to live with us so I’m going to talk to her about it but I am not sure she’ll go for it.  But I can at least ask.  I just hate it that she’s getting older.  Flashback to the funeral today when I also thought about how more and more funerals are part of my regular life now.

I need to cherish every moment, we all do.

Really?

02 Friday Mar 2012

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So someone that does not seem to be made of parenting material and certainly doesn’t exude responsibility as one of her core traits, is pregnant.

And yet so many of us who have been trying for so long with all of the right intentions can’t even get a sperm and egg to meet up for the long haul and so we continue to wait and wait and wait to be in the pregnancy spotlight.

It’s just not fair that she’s pregnant and I’m not.  And now I’ve wasted too much of my precious brain activity thinking about her and this as well.

 

37 minutes 55 seconds

27 Monday Feb 2012

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That was my time for the 5K (my first one ever) that I ran on Saturday.  My goal was to be under forty minutes so I was really pleased that I pushed myself the way I did to improve my time as much as I did.  Go me!  Now I’m already thinking ahead to my next run.

As for the next run, my training group is still going to get together for now to train together, and our “coach” has agreed to do an intermediate 5K training group for us starting in two weeks.  I’m not sure what I want to do because I really want to work on running a 10K but I really like this group a lot.  Interestingly, our “coach” (the one I think also is struggling with IF) wasn’t going to coach a group but has agreed to take us on but she told us up front in the email today that she wouldn’t be able to run at all with us and also that she would be going out of town for two weeks.  So I responded to just her on the email and basically told her I was pretty sure I knew what was going on with her personally and because I’m going through a similar situation it’s easy to recognize the signs.  I apologized if I was overstepping a line but I wanted her to know that she and her husband were in my thoughts and prayers.

I suspect she’s going to CC.RM in Denver for her treatments.  I looked at their success rates today on the internet and I was impressed.

But then it comes back to the other part of my life where I’m going to try another IUI in March and if I get pregnant I will probably halt the running altogether.  So maybe just trying to stay fit doing the 5K intermediate training group is the answer for now.

In the meantime, my mom is still in the hospital but improving daily.  They are saying she’ll get out soon but they’re still treating her for the serious infection in her legs.  Plus she has high blood pressure and they now have her on blood pressure medication going forward.  I’m planning on going back home next weekend to visit her and also spend some time with the BFF whom I haven’t seen since November.

I had to go back to the gynecologist today to have my blood work redone – this time after fasting for twelve hours.  So we’ll see.  I really don’t want to have to be medicated for anything involving blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, etc.  I’m optimistic that the tests will come back with a determination that if I continue eating healthy and working out like I have been that I can manage it through diet and exercise alone.

Work is completely stressing me out.  Today is the last week I work four days, next week I’m down to three days, and after that only two days a week through the end of March.  There is so much to get done along with training the new people (yes, two new people now) that I don’t know how I am going to get it done.  I’m so worried about the work I’ve done there going to shambles because they won’t have “Super Me” there to micromanage every last detail.  But I know I have to leave.  I had lunch with my husband today (let’s call what I ate my last “hurrah” lunch in anticipation of giving up all things fattening for awhile) and he reiterated to me that I have to quit working at my current job and help him and my MIL get the family business up and running.  It’s just hard to walk away from something that I feel like I have so much invested in.

130 over 100

23 Thursday Feb 2012

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Yep.  That was my blood pressure yesterday upon arrival at my gynecologist’s office.  I decided during this break between IUI’s that I would squeeze in my annual gyn exam and also my mammogram as I’m about three months overdue for both.

I left work in a rush with things left undone and guilt over having to leave early to go to my doctor’s appointments.  On my way there, I got a message on FB from my mom’s best friend telling me she had to take my mom to the doctor (made her go actually) because she was having pain in her legs and they were talking about admitting her to a hospital.  So of course my blood pressure was elevated by the time I got into the exam room.  I told the nurse that was surely the reason because my blood pressure has NEVER been that high (the lower number has never gone above 90 ever that I can recall).

Well the Dr came in, granted this is my gynecologist (whom I love, he’s great) and he told me he wanted to just run some blood tests on me because of the blood pressure issue.  I agreed that it would be fine.  What was sweet about my time with him was that he remembered when I was there over a year ago telling him that my best friend had just been diagnosed with breast cancer and he remembered and asked me how she was doing.  I was happy to report that after a year of treatments and surgery she’s been declared “cancer free”.  I just thought it was nice that he remembered or else maybe he read it on a note he made on my chart at my last visit but either way it was appreciated that he asked.  We also talked about my IF treatments and where I was at and he encouraged me to keep trying.  The nurse also told me while she was doing my history with me that they had a doctor in their practice that was 49 and just had a baby, with the help of IVF from the same RE I’m seeing.  Kind of gave me hope that being old wasn’t going to be the end of my attempts at having a baby.

So the actual pap smear and the rest of the joys that go with it was over in about five minutes.  Funny how I’m so used to being in the stirrups now and having someone probe my nether regions that it doesn’t even phase me.

Then I headed to my mammogram and that was pretty routine.  Last time I was there it was my first time and I went soon after I was 40 and literally two weeks after my best friend, also 40, got her breast cancer diagnosis (definitely scared me into taking my breast health more seriously).  Well my results didn’t come back normal back then so I had another mammogram, after which they decided to do a needle biopsy.  The results came back that everything was fine, nothing to worry about.  However they did put that little marker chip in my breast during the biopsy so of course I was all curious to look at the radiologist tech’s screen to see the chip during this year’s mammogram.  It was still there.

Anyway, on my way home I found out that my mom was being admitted for severe cellulitis and they were doing a battery of tests on her (my mom is not in healthy shape and she NEVER goes to the doctor as she doesn’t like them) so the whole drive home from the doctor I was stressing even more than before I had my blood pressure taken.  I finally talked to my mom later that evening after they got her to her room and they had put her on morphine because the pain in her legs was that bad.  I talked to her for about 30 minutes and I’m still trying to figure out if I need to fly back home (I live 1000 miles away from my mom) and be there or if this is something that I can wait on as I have plans to go there in two weeks or so already.  She told me the doctor said she’d be in for a few days to maybe a week but I don’t get the impression that it’s life threatening but it’s very serious.  I am glad they’re doing all of the tests on her because I worry about her having unidentified health problems.  I also sent her flowers for today but I haven’t gotten a chance to talk to her yet today because they have her on a lot of morphine apparently and she’s zonked out.

So needless to say yesterday was one of those days when I just couldn’t seem to catch a break.

Oh, and the kicker is the Dr’s office called me back today with the results of my blood work.  I have high cholesterol (224 I think and they say anything over 200 is bad) and my triglycerides are really high plus my blood sugar was a little high.  Excellent.  Now I have to go back Monday morning after fasting for 12 hours so they can run them again and see if I really have issues that have to be addressed.  Unbelievable!

Tonight was our last group run and we only did half of the distance we’re running on Saturday so we can “taper” off.  I’m going to miss my group.  I really have enjoyed training with them.

I am definitely taking the day off tomorrow as I have to take 1 dog and 1 cat to the vet for the yearly shots plus I have so much to do with regards to the businesses.  I’m so ready to not work at my “real” job anymore because obviously I’m still letting it stress me out way too much.  Less stress would be ideal, especially if I have any chance of conceiving a child before I’m 42.

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