Cycle Day 12 Trigger Shot day :)

Yesterday we got the great news that we have two perfect follicles! Yay :)
The next step was the not so fun trigger shot, but I put on my big girl pants and got it done.
Today I have had a massive migraine and lots of nausea.

But in the end it WILL all be worth it!

So tomorrow will be our second round of IUI and my lovely husband will be there with me. I do feel this time around might be it and I am crossing my fingers it is :)

Thoughts of becoming a mom again one day

There are women that become mothers without effort, without thought, without patience or loss and though they are good mothers and love their children, I know that I will be better. I will be better not because of genetics, or money or that I have read more books, but because I have struggled and toiled for this child. I have longed and waited. I have cried and prayed. I have endured and planned over and over again. Like most things in life, the people who truly have appreciation are those who have struggled to attain their dreams. I will notice everything about my child. I will take time to watch my child sleep, explore and discover. I will marvel at this miracle every day for the rest of my life. I will be happy when I wake in the middle of the night to the sound of my child, knowing that I can comfort, hold and feed him and that I am not waking to take another temperature, pop another pill, take another shot or cry tears of a broken dream. My dream will be crying for me. I count myself lucky in this sense; that God has given me this insight, this special vision with which I will look upon my child that my friends will not see. Whether I parent a child I actually give birth to or a child that God leads me to, I will not be careless with my love. I will be a better mother for all that I have endured. I am a better wife, a better aunt, a better daughter, neighbor, friend and sister because I have known pain. I know disillusionment as I have been betrayed by my own body, I have been tried by fire and hell many never face, yet given time, I stood tall. I have prevailed. I have succeeded. I have won. So now, when others hurt around me, I do not run from their pain in order to save myself discomfort. I see it, mourn it, and join them in theirs. I listen. And even though I cannot make it better, I can make it less lonely. I have learned the immerse power of another hand holding tight to mine, of other eyes that moisten as they learn to accept the harsh truth and when life is beyond hard. I have learned a compassion that only comes with walking in those shoes. I have learned to appreciate life. Yes I will be a wonderful mother.
~Anonymous

Beginning of this months adventure IUI#2

Today is cycle day 4 and it was time to get my blood work and scan before beginning Clomid. Got up at the crack of dawn and started my long drive to one of the two Shady Grove facilities that are open on weekends. My BFF came with me as my replacement husband as my man is still offshore and she did a superb job in acting like my significant other. :)

 My lining looked great at 4mil, and I had 7 potential follicles on each side of the ovaries and was give the all clear signal to start Clomid. YAY

This cycle I feel good about it and even have butterflies fluttering around my tummy just thinking that this might be it! In one months time we will once again know. Cross your fingers for us on this second adventure of our journey.

Prepping For The Next IUI Cycle

I might have had a few hard days after my first IUI ended up with a Big Fat Negative! Sure I cried like a baby, yelled out a few not so nice cuss words, and drank a few glasses of wine. But I am over it now, and I am ready for this next cycle of only my AF would arrive! I would have never thought I wanted cramps and the "battle of Gettysburg" as bad as I do right now. AF always arrives 24 hours before my dear husbands comes home from being offshore for long periods at the time (every single time), so its probably holding out another week to be a stick in the mud as usual.

My meds; Clomid, Ovridel, and Promitrium has been ordered and on its way and today I got my new stash of preggo tests. I always order a pack of 50 ovulation tests and 25 pregnancy tests from a company called Wondfo thru Amazon.com. As I am now doing IUIs and all monitoring is done at the fertility clinic, I do not need the ovulation tests. So I ordered 50 pregnancy tests! Yes 50 tests. It may sound crazy, but I have a plan :)

First off the Wonfo tests are super cheap at $0.33 a piece and they really do work and I never pay shipping. Theses tests will pick up HCG number as low as 25 and I think they are more reliable than First Response. The green tests in the picture is basically the same test except a tad bit more sensitive at 20 HCG positive reading. They are more expensive at $0.85 a piece, so not really worth the buy in my opinion.

Secondly, last month I tried to be very good and listened to the doctor when he said; DO NOT TEST until day 14th when you come back in for a beta blood test. So as the nice little school girl that I am I agreed and did not buy any tests. I drove myself crazy not knowing if the HCG was out of my system or if the progesterone was making me sick. etc etc etc So this time around I will test to see how long the trigger medicine sits in my body and continue to test until day 14th to see I can get an answer before going in for the ever dreaded beta test. I love science so this little project should be fun.

I am still taking Pregnitude and I love it! No side effects, super easy to take, and its nice knowing I am helping my eggs as they develop. Many women say their skin has gotten better, but not me. My face looks like I am 13 all over again which is probably a side effect of all the hormones I have been taking in the past 28 days. What I have noticed is that I am no longer like I could kill a person for some sweet yummy chocolate, as the matter of fact, I am not even craving sweets or bad bad carbs :) WINNING!!!! So thank you Pregnitude for that!

I forgot to take a picture of my 81mg Baby Aspirin, and my prenatal pills I am taking. But we all know that women who struggle with infertility take way too many pills than they are comfortable with.

So now what do I do? I wait... AGAIN But this time a little bit more armed in the conquest of snagging us a little bambino :)

Good luck to all you TTCers out there and may God bless you all!

Beta Testing Day after my very first IUI

Today was the big Beta testing day after my first round with IUI. I got up early and drove the fun one hour drive to Shady Grove. Blood was drawn and then I went on my way. I knew I would receive a phone call around 2pm with the answer, and I must say I was not looking forward to the call. I am one of these people who are very in-tuned to my body and I knew my test results would be negative. I have had no implantation bleeding, no frequent urination, no tender breasts and the preggo feeling was not there.

These past two weeks have been very long for me, and I need a better plan for next time. The good thing is that my dear husband will actually be home in a few weeks and help me thru the 2WW, and knowing that makes our next step feel better. The hard part today was the phone call from my sweet contact nurse Chris. She did not sugarcoat the results and said she did not have good news. The test results where 0 HCG and its time to plan for the next cycle. She is by far the best nurse I have ever had the privilege to have on my team and her sincere caring really made me feel better.

Then the email to my husband who was waiting on pins and needles somewhere offshore of Brunei. The email was probably the hardest one I have written in a very long time. How do you tell your husband over email that he is not going to be a father this month? The only way I knew how was to keep it short and sweet with a little bit of; We can do this! ending. These are days I hate his job! It would be so much easier to pick up the phone. 

The plan will be to continue with the same protocol as I last cycle since my body responded well and matured 4 follicles. Cycle day 3 I will have a scan to see if things looks good, if its a go I will take 50mg of Clomid during cycle day 3-7. Day 12 I am back in for a scan to count the follicles. Depends on the follicle growth when I will trigger, but I will use the same as this month 250 of Ovridel. Then Promitrium from the day after IUI until test day. (or longer if I get a BFP) What will be different this time around is that my lover boy will be home for a fresh IUI so that gives me more hope that this next cycle will go better.

Where did I think things went wrong?
I really believe I ovulated too late. I triggered on Thursday and had a frozen IUI the following Friday and Saturday. On Sunday night into Monday morning I felt the ovulation cramping and I kinda knew at that point the cycle was over for me. Even though my husbands sperm count was way above normal, it was frozen and with frozen sperm they live for up to 5 days in utero but they loose their motility after 24 hours. I tend to think that you need to be able to swim and move in order to meet that illusive egg. So for my next cycle I am so glad about the fact that my husband will be home and give us the chance with a fresh sperm IUI cycle and if I ovulate late again, its an easy fix ;)

So tonight after my son goes to bed i will allow myself a glass of wine and a good cry, then I will brush myself off and try again. I will not give up as I know God is just waiting for the perfect chance to give us a new miracle or maybe even 2.

<3 <3  <3   <3    <3
 

Week into my two week wait

Today I am officially a week into my two week wait post IUI. I had IUIs on Friday 6/22 and Saturday 6/23 and I am happy to report that the wait is going quite fast. It may or may not have anything to do with me running around all day long with my 5 year old crazy boy. Its been doctor appointment after doctor appointment for my poor little man. He has allergies you would not ever believe! He is allergic to most foods, all pollens and molds and a few pets here and there. He has Celiac disease as well, so that makes for a great combination of what he can and cannot eat. And due to his severe pollen allergy he has now started to react to fresh/raw fruits and vegetables. He gets bad hives all over his mouth and throat when he eats any fresh produce. His allergist and pediatrician has thrown their hands up and given up and I am now waiting to get in with the leading allergist in the county at Johns Hopkins Childrens.

Then when things started to calm down again as if on cue my crazy boy goes and yells in my sleeping dogs face. My dog did what any dog would do; bit him. So off we rushed to the hospital. Thankfully it was not that deep and he only needed to get a good deep cleaning, a steri strip and some antibiotics. He almost gave me a heart attack and gave himself a life lesson about sleeping dogs.

Then again after things started to calm down we got pummeled by a nasty storm that took out power-lines and rendered us without power for about 12 hours. During the storm both me and my boy nestled up in our "safe" closet and read a book until it passed. We have several trees down on the farm and the sounds of chain saws has been buzzing in my head all day as our neighborhood gets cleaned up. We are having a 100F day today and I am so freaking happy to have my AC running. :)

I have one more week of waiting and I cross my fingers it will be a boring week with not much action so I have time to get some much needed organizing done. My office is a wreck and my sons room is in need of a toy extraction and book shelf clean up. That should take care of the next 5 days at least. The rest of the days I will be sitting here wondering if my body feels any different or will I get my AF any day now?

One more week until the big test!
 

Wham Bam Thank you ma'am and the two week wait

This weekend has been very busy filled with driving for hours every day and IUIs. It started Friday morning waking up at 5am to get ready and drive in rush hour traffic. I had to call in 2 hours prior to my IUI appointment to authorize the little swimmers to be dethawed and processed. And then it was all about the big long drive! Let me just say that traffic around Washington DC is not pretty at any time during the day and rush hour is basically a stand still all around.

I got to the fertility clinic in time and everyone was really nice. They all kept asking me where my husband serves with the military and got pretty caught off guard when I told them my husband is a commercial diver who works offshore most of the year. Guess they have not met a Diver Wife before. You see, my husband and I only manage to time it perfect about once a year and every time we have miscarried over the past 4 years. Not a statistic I wanted to be a part of. But at least we now have a chance to get pregnant every month with IUIs. But I tend to digress...

The nurse took me to the room where the magic was going to happen. Let's just say the room was less than cozy. A typical appointment room with a OBGYN bench and a sonogram machine. She asked me an ungodly amount of questions about both my husband and I. Birthdays, social security numbers, is this your husbands handwriting, is this your hand writing etc etc. I can really appreciate the length Shady Grove go to ensure that the correct sperm is used. And it really put my husband at ease. Once the interrogation was over it was time to get the party started.

The vial containing the sperm was so small that I had to ask the doctor if it was enough. She started snickering and told me that was one of the most common questions she got with every patient. She explained to me that with an IUI they bypass the one big hurdle sperm has, the Cervix. The sperm is released in the uterus and with the high sperm count my husband has it is no worries at all. Many people come in here with very low sperm count and get pregnant in their first IUI cycle. I guess I should listen to her, but I cant help myself think that my body is used to a MUCH bigger amount than it received this weekend. lol

It was all over in the matter of 30 seconds! Really! Then I was reclined for about 5 minutes and was told to just relax today and come back tomorrow morning for the second IUI. All I would think was Wham bam thank you ma'am! That was a no frills, no time to mess around, no time to chit chat kinda of deed. And out the door I went.

Then on Saturday is was a complete repeat of the first IUI; interrogations, 30 seconds in heaven and a 5 minute recline. Then both the doctor and the nurse went over my instructions for the next two weeks and wished me the best of luck. They were all very very nice! And I really feel like I have a full Shady Grove team behind me cheering me on. And that is a great feeling.

For the next two weeks all I need to do is remember to take my Prometrium every 12 hours and not stress about the next two weeks. The medicine part is easy to do, but the not worrying part is a little bit harder. These next two weeks will be filled with anticipation, worry, hope, prayers, and what ifs. All I can do is get thru every day and get one day closer to that Beta test day. Let's hope the time goes quick.