a sticky situation

Hey, didja hear? I'm pregnant! :)

Oh, you heard? Well, I never tire of saying it. Seriously, I kind of want to tell everyone I see. That phrase "shout it from the rooftops"? Yeah, I now know what that means.

Anyway, I'm a few days shy of 4 weeks pregnant. So far, so good. Nothing much really to report.

Oh, except for the fact that because of my Factor V Leiden and PAI1 (blood clotting disorders) for now, I have to give myself a blood thinner shot every morning.

I went in today to learn how to do it. It didn't really hurt but it was hard to actually DO it. I am not sure I actually did; I think the nurse pushed my hand a little. So, I'll see how easy it is to do tomorrow morning.

Anyway, I say "for now" because tomorrow I have an appointment with a hematologist to see if I will need to take a blood thinner for the rest of my pregnancy.

Giving myself a shot every day won't be fun. But I can honestly tell you- I just don't care. Nothing can take away this high of knowing we're going to be parents. And if it helps keep this pregnancy healthy all the way until the end; well, it's more than worth it.

~M

poppyseed

I tried so many different ways to start this blog entry off in a witty way.

I'd type 3 or 4 sentences, re-read what I wrote, and then hit DELETE, DELETE, DELETE. Start over. Not quite right.

Nothing was coming out the way I wanted; nothing was sounding good enough to describe how I am feeling.

How am I feeling?

OVER. THE. MOON.

You guys- we did it! I'm pregnant!!

The nurse called me yesterday afternoon and gave me the news. I didn't believe her. I made her repeat it while I ran to find an empty office so that I could shed my tears of joy in private. I just started shaking and thanking her over and over again. Laughing and crying and smiling bigger than I thought possible. We DID it!

I promptly called Ian and he didn't answer, so I just sent him an email that simply said "IM PREGNANT!!" in the subject line. Yes, in my haste, I didn't even give a damn that I forgot the apostrophe. He called me back and we both just laughed and said "I can't believe it!" and shed a few more tears of joy. I then broke the cardinal rule and called my mom and brother and a couple of my closest friends. Hey- I figure, if we're blogging it, might as well tell people.

After stopping off at the store to buy Ian a jar of olives so that he could FINALLY, after over a year, enjoy his drink of choice- a gin martini, I walked in on this scene, and a BIG hug from Ian:


Also, Ian had set up a video camera, to document the first time we saw each other after hearing the news. :)

If you're wondering what is next to the flowers, well, it's pretty darn cute. He got the baby its first baby food (though, we know we won't keep it until the baby actually needs it. It's symbolic, y'all. :) )


And, baby's first toy. A little whale for the tub.


I have THE cutest husband in the world.

Then, Ian made himself a martini, and made me a diet ginger ale- straight up with a twist of lime. :)



(Please excuse how messy our counter is.) We ordered in dinner and just beamed the rest of the night.

I went to bed early Sunday night, because we had to get up EARLY on Monday for the blood test. Yes, "we". My sweet, sweet husband wanted to go with me and take me out to breakfast afterwards, so that we could tell baby the day we found out that he/she was coming in to our lives, we could say we had breakfast together that morning. Mind you, at this point, we had no idea I was pregnant, and I frankly wasn't optimistic.

I've never been more happy to be wrong.

I woke up this morning at 2:30am and decided that I wanted to take a home pregnancy test so that I could see the word "pregnant" come up on the screen. I was a little nervous, b/c it was possible that not enough HCG had built up in my system to get a positive result. But, this is what I was greeted with at 2:30am:


The best word EVER. :)

We are VERY aware that we're not out of the woods yet. With my PCOS and blood clotting issues, we have to be aware that problems could arise. This would be really sad. BUT, it is some comfort to know that we did it on our own- no IUI, no IVF- just some drugs and a KICK ASS doctor. So, I know we could do it again.

For now, we're just going to enjoy knowing that after over a year of trying, lots of tears and stress and heartache, I've got a little tiny poppyseed sized baby inside me right now, and I just can't WAIT to go on this journey with my little family.

NOTE- VERY IMPORTANT: While we are telling the few of you that read this blog, and also close friends and family members, we don't want to tell EVERYone. So, if you're mine or Ian's facebook friends, please don't post anything about this yet, and please don’t crazy telling people. :) I realize that sounds silly since I'm putting this in a blog, but right now I don't have a ton of readers as far as I know, so, we just want to keep the news semi-quiet-ish until the 12 week mark. Thanks everyone. :)

~M

an easier wait

So, last week I ovulated. I showed you my lovely chart, and here she is again- still looking quite lovely:


As you can see, my temp is staying up there so far; which is good. For those of you who read my blog but have NO clue about fertility or reading one of these wacky charts, I'll break it down for you. So, basically every morning at 6:30am, I take my temperature. Your temperature upon waking is called your Basal Body Temperature. I've been doing it for over a year, so my thermometer has little teeth marks on it. :) Anyway, my temp usually is somewhere in the low 97's (which is fairly average) in the first part of my cycle- the follicular phase. So, the point of these charts is to see when you ovulate. As you can see on my chart, on day 15, the temperature is significantly higher. This means I most likely ovulated on day 14 during the day or while I was sleeping. So, charting your temperatures can help you see a pattern in your cycle so that you can more accurately plan. In a cycle where you don't achieve pregnancy, your temps stay high for 12-16 days or so, and then drop back down when you get your period, and it all starts again (as seen last month):


Now, this is the FIRST cycle that has behaved "normally", so, my other charts don't really help me see a pattern. But, maybe if I don't get pregnant this cycle, with my current medication, they'll keep behaving this way, and I will start to see a pattern! This will help greatly.

Anyway, last month when I FINALLY ovulated on day 70, it was SUCH a hard wait to wait those 12 days to take a blood test. I think a lot of this had to do with how insanely long that cycle was. This time around, it has been a lot easier. I truly envy women who are trying to conceive and had a normal length cycle each month. Because seriously, this time around has been SO much easier since I've had so much less time to wait.

That being said, I'm still quite anxious for Monday (when I take my blood pregnancy test). This cycle I feel no symptoms at all, whereas last cycle I had all SORTS of symptoms that could be construed as pregnancy symptoms. Usually the progesterone I take makes me feel kind of crappy, but not this month. Perhaps my body is just getting used to the progesterone- who knows. Again, for those of you who are not reading about fertility daily, my doctor prescribes progesterone to take right after I ovulate. If I WERE to get pregnant, this would help support the pregnancy as my progesterone levels are a tad low. Once you ovulate, your body naturally releases extra progesterone. But if you don't have enough, like me, a little pill every morning and evening will do the trick.

So, this week has just been waiting… and this weekend is just more of the same. But, I'll know one way or the other on Monday afternoon, if we were successful this month. If so- wahoo! If not… well, back to the drawing board.

Hope this wasn't a boring post!

Have a lovely weekend, all.

~M

No fairsies!

Check it out.

Some people have all the luck.

:)

~M

photo found here

a chance of rain

Sorry it's been since Tuesday since I blogged! I didn't have anything very exciting to blog about until Wednesday afternoon, and then I just figured I'd write about it on Thursday. But, I didn't get to it.

ANYway, so, remember when Tuesday I was all "boo hoo! My follicle has disappeared! Woe is me!"? Well, I had blood drawn on Wednesday morning to check my progesterone and estradiol levels to see if I'd already ovulated or was about to, or wasn't even close. If I wasn't close (i.e. the follicle had disappeared) Dr. D was going to start me on another (higher dose) of clomid. This did not appeal to me, but, I didn't want another 85 day cycle, so I was eventually fine with it. BUT. They called me on Wednesday and said my progesterone was at 300 and my estradiol was at 100 (do I know what this means? no.) and that I was about to ovulate. YAY! So, it turns out my follicle was just probably being shy and hiding behind my uterus or some other organ. And lo and behold- Thursday morning- my temp was up! I tried not to get excited, b/c it could have been a fluke high temp but then this morning- another high one! YAY! Fertility friend (the online charting website) won't confirm ovulation until you have 3 days of elevated temps in a row, but I'm confirming it. :) Ovulation you guys! On day 19! Like a normal person! Here she is:


Isn't it lovely? Oh, and just to compare it to LAST cycle:

What an improvement! Yay, modern medicine and acupuncture! :)

I got my blood drawn this morning again to test my progesterone levels. I don't really know why. Maybe to confirm ovulation? Who knows.

So, another slight worry of ours is the news we got from Ian's doctor about the motility and morphology of his guys possibly making things a bit more difficult for us. Basically, a normal healthy couple has about a 25% chance each month to get pregnant. And yes, that's even if you're timing it perfectly. Ian's doc said that with our issues, we have about 1/2 that chance, maybe a little more. He suggested that next cycle, if we don't get pregnant this time, that we move on to IUI.

Ian and I were in the kitchen on Wednesday night chatting, and I said, "you know, 10-15% chance each month is really low. If the weatherman said there was a 10-15% chance of rain, I wouldn't bring my umbrella with me." Then he wisely said, "Well, yes, but if someone told me I had a 10-15% chance of winning the lottery, I'd sure buy a ticket." :) I like that better.

Oh, and also? This morning, the weather said 20% chance of rain. I didn't grab my umbrella, and when I went outside… it was raining.

I guess you just never know. :)

Happy Weekend, all!

~M

photo source unknown. please comment if you know.

tests, recaps, etc.

So, I'm tired. And I just don't have it in me to come up with a witty title. Thus, the lame title.

So as you know, I went in to the doctor on Friday to see where my little follicle was. I found out that I had a follicle on my left ovary that was 14mm. A mature follicle is 17mm.... so, it was almost there! Super D told me that I'd most likely ovulate by Monday, and if I hadn't by Tuesday, to come in. He also told me to take OPK tests on Saturday, Sunday, Monday to see if I was going to ovulate. I told him that they never work for me, but he told me to just give it a try in case.

Saturday- negative
Sunday- negative
Monday- negative

Was I surprised? No, not really. I was just convinced that my body doesn't register on those tests (they say specifically if you're on fertility meds or have PCOS that the tests may not work. Since both apply to me, it's not surprising that they don't work).

So, I went in today as he requested. I thought I'd go in, the follicle would be mature, he'd give me that magic shot he gave me last time, and blammo! Ovulation!

Yeah, no.

He did the ultrasound. Looked around all up in my bizness. Guess what? The follicle is now GONE. Now, there is one logical explanation for this- I ovulated! Except. Except my temp did not go up. It always goes up when I ovulate. It goes up when most people ovulate! The other explanation- the follicle went away. Is this possible? Can't be, right? Sadly, yes. So... I thought this was going to be a normal cycle. But, it very well may not be. I'm going in tomorrow to get some blood drawn to test my estrogen and progesterone to see if I've ovulated. If so, coolio, if not, I have to do a SECOND round of clomid/dexamethasone. That's right; 2 rounds of fertility drugs in one cycle. Because it seems as if my body rides the short bus, and doesn't know what to do when it gets fertility drugs.

On the Ian front, he got all of his tests back. Basically, some of it confirmed what we knew already; Good sperm count, 15% normal morphology (which, on some websites it says is on the low end normal and other sites say it's just low), and a new piece of info, his motility (how fast/well the guys move) is now a little slow (it was normal before). Good news is, he seems to have a good DNA structure to his boys. He's getting one more test this week to confirm that, but at least that's good. His doctor now recommends we do an IUI. I spoke to my doctor about it today and he said he'd look everything over. First of all, if I didn't ovulate, we have to get that ready to happen before we consider an IUI. So, that's the first step.

I feel like I could write more and more about this, but as I mentioned, I'm just tired and just wanted to update the basics.

We are both getting increasingly frustrated and discouraged, but I'm fighting to remain hopeful. I want this to work. We want this to work. We are more than ready to add to our little family of two.

I'll let y'all know what the blood tests say tomorrow.

~M

oh, good. more things.

So, remember that test I took last week? The one where I passed out and sweated profusely and convulsed in the waiting room and then cried in front of a bunch of strangers? Yeah, that was a proud day. Anyhoo, this was a test for something called thrombophilia, or Factor V Leiden. I was not worried about this test. Super D was mostly doing it because I did have a blood clot in my leg several years ago, but he wasn't really worried about me having it. Well guess what? I do. I have the blood clotting disorder called Factor V Leiden. Basically, this means my blood clots too easily, causing higher risk of blood clots, pulmonary embolisms and strokes. And in pregnant women, higher risks of miscarriage, preeclampsia and stillbirth.

What does this all mean? Well, I'm still doing research on it all. This does mean I'll probably have to take 2 baby aspirin for a day for the rest of my life. Until I get pregnant, when I will most likely have to move to an injectable blood thinner called heparin.

You guys? I'm not going to lie. This is all kind of freaking me out. I feel like, yes, we are finding all these reasons why I might not be getting pregnant, and that's good, because we can address them. But I feel like this last year with my PCOS and now this, I'm just feeling like I'm totally unhealthy and a ticking time bomb. I mean, I inherited them both, so it's not like I did it to myself, but still.

Basically it seems as though if I exercise, don't sit for long periods of time (ha ha! um, ok... not sure what I'm supposed to do about my desk job... guess I'll be getting up more), keep well hydrated, take specific supplements and eat a specific diet, I should be ok for the most part. Oh, and the baby aspirin. But, I am a little worried, because since I had my blood clot in my leg several years ago, it frequently swells up in the heat (like kind of big) and I'm worried that maybe there might be more clots in there. I've been reading about people who have tiny clots and don't know it. So, I guess I need to go see a hematologist and get it all checked. Hopefully they'll just say 2 baby aspirin a day are enough and that I won't need more until I get pregnant.

I will also need to see a hematologist when I'm pregnant, to make sure all is well with the baby and the daily medication I'll be on. I don't know all the details about that either yet, mostly because I'm not pregnant yet.

So, that's my new news. I go in tomorrow for another post coital test (to see if the baking soda solution works to help me not kill all the sperms) and also to get an ultrasound to see if this round of clomid worked. I'm really crossing my fingers that it did, because I need some good news right now.

I realize things could be worse, and that people deal with much worse things, but I just feel like I'm just about to my capacity of things I can handle in the health department right now. I'm really hoping that all comes back normal with Ian's tests so that we don't have to add more things on to the pile.

Ok, my whining session is over now. Time to suck it up, and move forward.

~M

P.S. future baby

So, your future dad and I have been having every test under the sun. Ian is almost all done with hopefully every test he'll have to have during this process (fingers crossed and knock on wood). One of the last ones was a test called the SCSA test. Here's a short description of it:

The SCSA®, or Sperm Chromatin Structure Assay, quickly and accurately identifies men who are less likely to achieve a term pregnancy naturally or with IVF. It does this by determining the percentage of sperm with high levels of DNA fragmentation, i.e. the DNA Fragmentation Index (% DFI) as well as the percent of sperm with abnormal proteins and morphology that inhibit fertilization.

Anyway future baby, you probably don't understand any of that (frankly, we don't either). BUT, what we do know, is that Ian had to do some crazy science stuff to get HIS stuff safely to the lab in South Dakota.

On Saturday, FedEx dropped this crazy thing off at our doorstep:

On the inside of it was this second tube that was all frozen and crazy that he put a sample in and then sent back to the lab today. And it was HEAVY. He struggled to even hold it up for the picture. (By the way, he told me to crop his head out because he said he looked like a "goon". I thought he looked cute. :) ) I guess it's so big because it can last all frozen up to 7 days in that crazy contraption. Anyway, he had tons of fun carrying that heavy contraption on the subway and to the FedEx by his office today in 100 degree heat.

So there you go, future baby of ours; the things we do so that someday we can meet you. :)

~M

dear future baby

I'll be honest with you, future baby. Today was not a good day. I went in early this morning before work to the lab to get some blood drawn for a test my doctor ordered to test for thrombophilia. Thrombophilia is a propensity to develop blood clots and can make it harder to get pregnant and maintain a pregnancy. I don't think the doctor actually suspects I have it, but he's just testing everything he can, and I did have a blood clot in my leg once before (though it was just a superficial clot and was most likely due to the fact that I'd just had a cast on that leg for 3 months).

Anyway, so, today I had the blood drawn for the test. I'm not a fan of getting blood drawn, and have almost passed out a couple of times. I think I usually just psych myself out though. However, today they took 16 vials (some were quite small, but still!). I actually said to the nurse "wow, um, that's a lot of vials". Anyway, after I was done, I was feeling woozy so I went and sat in the waiting room. Then things started to get all fuzzy around the edges, and I broke out in a cold sweat. Then, I have no idea what exactly happened. The next thing I remember is being shaken awake by a woman asking me if I had diabetes, because I just had a small seizure like episode and had passed out. I was really scared when I woke up, because I had no idea what had happened, and like 6 people were crowded around me. I felt like they'd all just woken me up from a dream or something and I also was having trouble putting words together. So, I did the really mature thing, and started crying. I was so freaked, because it had felt like I was dreaming, or asleep, and then all of the sudden all of these people were around me, and I didn't know what had happened, and I couldn't talk very well at first. Super scary. It turned out ok though. I just laid down there for about 20 minutes and then went across the street and got something to eat and headed home. Slept for several hours.

Anyway, I'll get to the point, future baby of mine. If you ever question whether or not you were wanted; this is your answer- 1000 times yes! We've been poked, prodded, examined and drugged more than any other time in our lives all for you! So, yes, you are very wanted.

But, if you ever give me grief, I MAY use this day to guilt trip you. Just a little. ;)

love, your future mom

~M