blood test results were negative. again. i asked the nurse if they recommend another cycle, and she said it's up to me. when i get my period and go back in i will talk with one of the doctors. i just don't know what to do at this point.
tomorrow i'm off to new orleans, to drown my sorrows in copious amounts of coffee and alcohol for four days. cause that's healthy. but at least i should get my period by the time i get back and then we can figure out what comes next.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
No extra happy birthday to me
Well, the pee test was negative. My hopes are a bit dashed, though I know it's still early. I shall enjoy my birthday as best I can and hold out hope for good news on Wednesday. Sigh.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
IUI: round 3, day 22
well, here's something different. i've had cramps since yesterday, cramps like before my period. which wouldn't be terribly strange if this were a normal, natural cycle. but since i'm on the progesterone, my body doesn't get the message that it's supposed to have a period and i haven't had cramps like this in the other two IUI cycles. generally i have cramps (and really sore boobs) for a few days after the insemination, which seems to be par for the course. but then they've gone away and i've just felt... normal. i'm wondering if these might be implantation cramps. it's ten days post-IUI. i also have a headache, but that could be because i am not feeling 100% (sore throat, etc.). my boobs aren't really sore, but they're a tiny bit tender. like i still can't sleep on my belly normally. not sure that any of that matters. but the cramps... that seems significant. that's physiological, not hormonal... and i know i can't depend on my hormones right now. in any case, i like to see something a little different. gives me hope the outcome of this one might be something a little different.
i may take a home pregnancy test on monday. i haven't taken one yet since we started IUI, but from what i've been reading online on fertility message boards (which, really, no one should read unless they want to make themselves crazy) by 12 days after giving yourself the trigger shot they say your hormones could be adjusted enough to give you a normal result on a pee test. and since monday's my birthday i figure... why not? you never know. even if it's negative it's still not hopeless at that point. but if it is negative... maybe it'll help me brace myself for possible bad news on wednesday.
i may take a home pregnancy test on monday. i haven't taken one yet since we started IUI, but from what i've been reading online on fertility message boards (which, really, no one should read unless they want to make themselves crazy) by 12 days after giving yourself the trigger shot they say your hormones could be adjusted enough to give you a normal result on a pee test. and since monday's my birthday i figure... why not? you never know. even if it's negative it's still not hopeless at that point. but if it is negative... maybe it'll help me brace myself for possible bad news on wednesday.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
wishin' and hopin'
it's day 15 and i know there's a long wait ahead, but i'm definitely very focused on it this time. the good news is that i'm still feeling hopeful! though i don't know if feeling hopeful for two weeks will be a good thing if i end up disappointed again.
i went to acupuncture yesterday for the first time, and i'll be going back about every ten days or so. it was a really great session. he has a very holistic approach, so we talked a lot about me and my life and situation before we started, which i know helps the process for me. he is so nice (and... uh, smokin' hot) and given his track record with fertility clients i am excited to start this process. he was really pleased with the timing... for some reason i'd thought it would be better to see him before IUI (what do i know?), but he said this was great to help with implantation. he started out by looking at my tongue and feeling my pulse, and was able to say just from that assessment that he could tell i have an issue with thirst (so true -- i am thirsty ALL the time) and that he thinks my yin and ying are out of balance: i'm deficient in yin. which is what makes me thirsty and hot all the time. he gave me some suggestions of foods and drinks to try to balance things out (and things to avoid: caffeine, alcohol, sugar... sigh), and obviously targeted the acupuncture treatment toward that and some "stagnant blood" he could feel. i know some people are skeptical about eastern medicine but it makes so much sense to me and i really believe it, and i think that will make all the difference. he had me do a lot of visualizing and breathing and the actual acupuncture was quite lovely and relaxing. definitely a nice way to end the week.
my boobs have been sore and i have had cramps since just after the insemination this week. i'm pretty sure that also happened the first time (i don't remember it last time) but i don't remember how long it lasted. the internets say it's normal to feel that way post-ovulation and post-IUI, but i'm kind of hoping it doesn't stop because that might be a good sign.
i'm back on the progesterone suppositories (ugh) and my belly's a bit whacked out already, but otherwise all else is fine. school is super busy, as is life in general, so i'm guessing the next week and a half will go by pretty quickly. my birthday is fast-approaching, which isn't too much of a downer at the moment. probably because i'm so hopeful right now. my birthday falls on a monday, i'll find out if the IUI worked on wednesday, and then i leave for new orleans on thursday. the timing is nice. i can celebrate my birthday happily and optimistically, and if i get bad news on wednesday at least i will be in my second favorite city for the weekend and i can get drunk, drunk, drunk. and i go back to acupuncture the day before i go in for the blood test. i wonder if he'll have any inklings if i'm pregnant by that point! you'd think he might. but really... who knows. who knows???
i went to acupuncture yesterday for the first time, and i'll be going back about every ten days or so. it was a really great session. he has a very holistic approach, so we talked a lot about me and my life and situation before we started, which i know helps the process for me. he is so nice (and... uh, smokin' hot) and given his track record with fertility clients i am excited to start this process. he was really pleased with the timing... for some reason i'd thought it would be better to see him before IUI (what do i know?), but he said this was great to help with implantation. he started out by looking at my tongue and feeling my pulse, and was able to say just from that assessment that he could tell i have an issue with thirst (so true -- i am thirsty ALL the time) and that he thinks my yin and ying are out of balance: i'm deficient in yin. which is what makes me thirsty and hot all the time. he gave me some suggestions of foods and drinks to try to balance things out (and things to avoid: caffeine, alcohol, sugar... sigh), and obviously targeted the acupuncture treatment toward that and some "stagnant blood" he could feel. i know some people are skeptical about eastern medicine but it makes so much sense to me and i really believe it, and i think that will make all the difference. he had me do a lot of visualizing and breathing and the actual acupuncture was quite lovely and relaxing. definitely a nice way to end the week.
my boobs have been sore and i have had cramps since just after the insemination this week. i'm pretty sure that also happened the first time (i don't remember it last time) but i don't remember how long it lasted. the internets say it's normal to feel that way post-ovulation and post-IUI, but i'm kind of hoping it doesn't stop because that might be a good sign.
i'm back on the progesterone suppositories (ugh) and my belly's a bit whacked out already, but otherwise all else is fine. school is super busy, as is life in general, so i'm guessing the next week and a half will go by pretty quickly. my birthday is fast-approaching, which isn't too much of a downer at the moment. probably because i'm so hopeful right now. my birthday falls on a monday, i'll find out if the IUI worked on wednesday, and then i leave for new orleans on thursday. the timing is nice. i can celebrate my birthday happily and optimistically, and if i get bad news on wednesday at least i will be in my second favorite city for the weekend and i can get drunk, drunk, drunk. and i go back to acupuncture the day before i go in for the blood test. i wonder if he'll have any inklings if i'm pregnant by that point! you'd think he might. but really... who knows. who knows???
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
another round done
had the second IUI this morning and it went really smoothly. fast and easy, and the count was good (better than yesterday, though i can't remember the exact number). AND the doctor said it looks like i ovulated yesterday, as we expected. which is great! even though they've told me in the past that it was "fine" that we did the IUI just before i ovulated, i could tell by her voice that this is preferable, which -- of course -- makes sense.
i start the progesterone suppositories on friday (sigh) and then it's just wait, wait, wait until two weeks from today. i'm going to acupuncture for the first time on friday, too, which is a little later than i wanted to start (he's a busy guy) but could help with implantation and whatever else, maybe. can't be a bad thing, anyway. i have a really good feeling about this time. :)
i start the progesterone suppositories on friday (sigh) and then it's just wait, wait, wait until two weeks from today. i'm going to acupuncture for the first time on friday, too, which is a little later than i wanted to start (he's a busy guy) but could help with implantation and whatever else, maybe. can't be a bad thing, anyway. i have a really good feeling about this time. :)
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
IUI: round 3
my arms look like i'm a heroin addict and i'm embarrassed when my colleagues catch a glimpse of them, so it must be... IUI day! seriously, a week of blood taken almost every day is just abyssmal for the appearance of one's skin. but i guess there are more important things to think about.
we went this morning for the 1st insemination of this cycle. yes, i said the 1st, because we're doing another tomorrow. yippee! when the doc did the ultrasound she said our timing this round was "spot on." i still had the two big follicles, one in each ovary, and she said one of them looked like it might have been ovulating at that moment. they can't see that very precisely, so it's impossible to know if it's in-progress or not... it's all based on the size of the follicle. but i sure as heck feel like i'm ovulating. i had cramps all day and night yesterday and a host of other symptoms that i aptly recognize now but don't feel the need to list in detail on this blog. not that you must care about TMI if you're following along here. but as of this morning, things were still ripe enough to take another go at it tomorrow -- figuring i'll ovulate sometime today and still have time for things to do their magic for another 24 hours or so (give or take).
the specimen wasn't quite as spectacular today, no doubt because there was a significant depletion of the sperm stores over the weekend. hee hee. but -- it was still 29 million, which the doctor said is still a good specimen. between 20-40 million is a normal count... so 29's fine, just not "good" for the likes of my husband, Sir Super Sperm Count. the doc said the motility was a bit lower, in the 40%s, but with IUI that's much less important. we're putting them right where they need to go!
and, honestly, i think timing is much more important than anything else in this process, and i feel a billion times more confident about the timing this round than the last two times. i understand the logic of doing it early to make sure we didn't miss ovulation, and because the sperms can live for a couple of days anyway, but clearly it's better to do it right when i ovulate. (and even better, in my opinion, to have some backup sperm from the weekend that might still be swimming around in there.) it woo hoo! so we're back tomorrow morning for another insemination, and then my poor veins can heal and i don't have to stab myself with anything undesired for the immediate future. rock.
we went this morning for the 1st insemination of this cycle. yes, i said the 1st, because we're doing another tomorrow. yippee! when the doc did the ultrasound she said our timing this round was "spot on." i still had the two big follicles, one in each ovary, and she said one of them looked like it might have been ovulating at that moment. they can't see that very precisely, so it's impossible to know if it's in-progress or not... it's all based on the size of the follicle. but i sure as heck feel like i'm ovulating. i had cramps all day and night yesterday and a host of other symptoms that i aptly recognize now but don't feel the need to list in detail on this blog. not that you must care about TMI if you're following along here. but as of this morning, things were still ripe enough to take another go at it tomorrow -- figuring i'll ovulate sometime today and still have time for things to do their magic for another 24 hours or so (give or take).
the specimen wasn't quite as spectacular today, no doubt because there was a significant depletion of the sperm stores over the weekend. hee hee. but -- it was still 29 million, which the doctor said is still a good specimen. between 20-40 million is a normal count... so 29's fine, just not "good" for the likes of my husband, Sir Super Sperm Count. the doc said the motility was a bit lower, in the 40%s, but with IUI that's much less important. we're putting them right where they need to go!
and, honestly, i think timing is much more important than anything else in this process, and i feel a billion times more confident about the timing this round than the last two times. i understand the logic of doing it early to make sure we didn't miss ovulation, and because the sperms can live for a couple of days anyway, but clearly it's better to do it right when i ovulate. (and even better, in my opinion, to have some backup sperm from the weekend that might still be swimming around in there.) it woo hoo! so we're back tomorrow morning for another insemination, and then my poor veins can heal and i don't have to stab myself with anything undesired for the immediate future. rock.
Monday, September 12, 2011
IUI: round 3, day 10
today's day 10 and my ovulation monitor says it could be an ovulation day. this didn't please me especially, since it's not an IUI day. but i knew it was coming -- i had "high fertility" indicators both saturday and sunday on the monitor. and ya know what? even though they don't recommend having sex right before IUI, we made good use of those high fertility days this weekend. my hunch is that was not a bad decision, for a variety of reasons. :) and since we're not doing the insemination until tomorrow, it'll still be almost 48 hours for the hubby's sperm stores to regroup and for my innards to clean themselves out. in my medical opinion, that is a-ok.
and when i went to the doctor this morning, they could see that i was close to ovulation but that the process hadn't started yet. she said depending on how the follicles look tomorrow, we might only do one insemination this cycle... but who knows. the body is very unpredictable. the past two cycles i've worried that we've done the IUI too early; all signs were pointing to ovulation so they pushed ahead, but it took longer to happen than they expected. so maybe this is a better deal. AND the double dose of injections has definitely made an impact. i have follicles in both ovaries: one super large one in each, and two or three medium sized ones that might also develop in time. bonus!
so tonight i give myself the ovulation trigger shot, which i don't think is necessary but i understand them needing to cover all the proverbial bases, and we go in tomorrow morning for another exciting adventure in insemination!
and when i went to the doctor this morning, they could see that i was close to ovulation but that the process hadn't started yet. she said depending on how the follicles look tomorrow, we might only do one insemination this cycle... but who knows. the body is very unpredictable. the past two cycles i've worried that we've done the IUI too early; all signs were pointing to ovulation so they pushed ahead, but it took longer to happen than they expected. so maybe this is a better deal. AND the double dose of injections has definitely made an impact. i have follicles in both ovaries: one super large one in each, and two or three medium sized ones that might also develop in time. bonus!
so tonight i give myself the ovulation trigger shot, which i don't think is necessary but i understand them needing to cover all the proverbial bases, and we go in tomorrow morning for another exciting adventure in insemination!
Friday, September 9, 2011
IUI: round 3, day 7
went back to the doctor this morning and things are progressing, but rather slowly. i am surprised especially since i've been giving myself two shots a night. i thought by the time i got in there today things would really be hopping! but i guess they had the right idea when they checked things out on tuesday. as of today, i have one follicle developing in my right ovary and two in my left. they are still fairly small, but i think this is actually much more normal than my last cycle. they want me to continue the two shots a day and to come back on monday. that will be day 10 of my cycle, so i'm guessing the IUI will definitely happen tuesday and wednesday. and, lucky us, it's the weekend and i'm not on the rag, in the midst of IUI, or using the gross progesterone suppositories... so maybe that means we can actually have sex! fancy that.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
IUI, Round 3
got my period on saturday. this has been a rough one. not my period, i mean, but my emotional state. i'm doing okay, but it's definitely getting more difficult to go through this process. doesn't help that school's starting, so i just have much more on my plate. luckily i had therapy last week on the day i got the bad news, so i worked through some of my initial frustration. my therapist reminded me that i'm not obligated to continue on this path, that i do have some choice, and that i could just decide to skip a cycle or take a little break from all of this. in the end, i decided NOT to take a break... but something about the simple realization that i had the option made me feel so much better. sometimes i just feel like i'm spiraling through this mechanized process completely without agency, so it was nice to remember that i am still in charge of my body.
the good news is that i called the insurance company to find out how much of my 2011 $5k worth of benefits has already been used for the treatments thus far, and they've only billed $400 towards my fertility assistance benefits! i guess that's just been the IUI procedure itself, and all of the doctor visits and bloodwork have just fallen under my regular medical care. that was amazing news. i've also finally decided to get in touch with the supposed "miracle worker" acupuncturist in my neighborhood to give me an added boost, and something a little different to focus on as we move forward.
thus, i went to the doctor this morning to get things rolling. again. sigh. it's day 4, and this time there are no crazy early-developing follicles. (last cycle there was a fairly large follicle already formed on day 3.) the doctor said everything looked good, and she wanted to increase my medication this time around. so instead of one shot, i'll be giving myself two shots each night. and the doctor doesn't want to see me again until friday -- which makes sense in a normal cycle (day 7), but i was surprised given my early-ovulating history that they didn't want me to come in sooner. but. they're the experts. and, honestly, it's great that i won't be late to school on the first or second day with the students.
trying to stay positive, and even though i'm sleep-deprived and stressed out by back-to-school insanity, it's not bad to be distracted.
the good news is that i called the insurance company to find out how much of my 2011 $5k worth of benefits has already been used for the treatments thus far, and they've only billed $400 towards my fertility assistance benefits! i guess that's just been the IUI procedure itself, and all of the doctor visits and bloodwork have just fallen under my regular medical care. that was amazing news. i've also finally decided to get in touch with the supposed "miracle worker" acupuncturist in my neighborhood to give me an added boost, and something a little different to focus on as we move forward.
thus, i went to the doctor this morning to get things rolling. again. sigh. it's day 4, and this time there are no crazy early-developing follicles. (last cycle there was a fairly large follicle already formed on day 3.) the doctor said everything looked good, and she wanted to increase my medication this time around. so instead of one shot, i'll be giving myself two shots each night. and the doctor doesn't want to see me again until friday -- which makes sense in a normal cycle (day 7), but i was surprised given my early-ovulating history that they didn't want me to come in sooner. but. they're the experts. and, honestly, it's great that i won't be late to school on the first or second day with the students.
trying to stay positive, and even though i'm sleep-deprived and stressed out by back-to-school insanity, it's not bad to be distracted.
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