The Waiting Game

I think my life long lesson will always be patience... I guess with all the waiting I've done I still haven't reached a patience zen so here I am, waiting once again for something.  In this case I am waiting for next week's results.

I want this month to work

 So.

Freaking.

Bad.

And I'm afraid that it won't. I'm terrified that it won't work.  I'm freaking out that it won't work.  Or that it won't take or won't last.  And that all our money will be gone because we keep getting ginormous bills that I have no idea how we're going to pay. 

Not that the money is what is important here... it's the BABY.  I want a baby. I've wanted a baby since I was a baby.  And I've had to wait almost 27 years now to get one... if it works this month.  If not, the wait will continue for probably another couple years because we can't afford this again.  My emotions can't afford this again.  I am spent.

 

I hate the waiting game. The 2 weeks until you can pee on a stick.  In my case this month it's a blood test... hooray... i wish they had a frequent rewards card or something that would get the 10th blood test free.  Because I think I'd have at least 3 freebies by now.

*sigh*

And so we wait.  Hopefully the wait will end in a little miracle.   My little miracle.

I need a miracle.

Please keep praying for my miracle. 

Oregonian

Last week Dustin and I finally made the switch to Oregon drivers licenses and plates.  Our Utah plates expired at the end of this month so we grudgingly knew it was time.  Oregon makes you take the written test when you get an Oregon license and I hadn't taken that test in over 10 years!  So we did a little bit of studying and we both passed the test with flying colors.

Because we are officially Oregonians, I thought I'd write a few ways that I have become a true Oregonian:

• I like dogs.  I have always HATED dogs.  And now I like them.  I even want one.  Big dogs still scare me and I don't think I could ever have a big dog, but little puppies are so. freaking. cute.  A little terrier will be a part of our family hopefully in the next 5 years... when we have a house and the money for one!
• I am deficient in Vitamin D.  Curse you rain clouds!
• I use reusable grocery bags.  I'm so earth friendly.
• I like camping.  Everyone in Oregon likes camping.  Dustin and I had never been until this summer... and we went 3 times.  I love camping at the beach.  Maybe next summer we'll be more adventurous and do mountain camping.
• I buy local produce from our neighborhood farmer's market. We even participated in a summer long CSA.
• I hardly ever do my hair.  No one in Oregon ever cares what they look like. 

My heart will always belong to Utah, but for now, it is fun being an Oregonian!

IUI Update

Just thought I'd give some updates from my previous post.  I'm trying to blog more actively than letting it go and then never blogging because I have too much to write and don't know where to start.

Our mid cycle ultrasound showed that there are THREE follicles ripening very nicely.  My doctor informed us that that means we have a possibility of having TRIPLETS, but it's less than 1% of a chance.  She made sure we were aware of the possibility and asked if we would like to proceed knowing this information, to which I said YES.  3 follicles to me means that there are 3 chances of having at least 1 successful one.

My doctor also stressed the importance of getting my other blood work done about the recurrent miscarriages so we spent our Friday night doing blood work- 2 vials were done at my doctor visit because on the traumatizing day of 6 vials, the phlebotomist did the wrong size on some of them!  I then had 6 more vials done at the hospital that night for recurrent miscarriage diagnosis-- 8 vials in one evening! I got the results from some of my bloodwork on Monday and they are worried about varicilla.  Apparently I'm not immune to the chicken pox even though I had it as a child!  They said to go ahead with the insemination this month but if I do not get pregnant this month, then I'll need to get the vaccine and wait a month.  I also was low in my Vitamin D, which is not a surprise for living in Portland, but that's easy to fix with a supplement.

We decided to not do the HSG this month.  Between treatments and the DMV, we just don't have the funds this month.  Hopefully it works this first cycle and we won't have to do it at all!

My trigger shot was last night and this morning I got this:

So excited to see a smiley face!  That means the trigger shot worked and my insemination is scheduled for tomorrow!

Sometimes I wonder if I should feel weird about talking about insemination... cuz I don't feel weird.  I think it's because I'm talking about a medical procedure and not a hot steamy night that gets us pregnant.  Either way... in 2 weeks from tomorrow we will know if there is a baby Creer (or Creers) on the way!  I am excited and nervous and hoping and praying that it goes well!  We are basically putting all of our money and faith into this-- all chips are in!  I get scared that it won't work and that this will have been a waste.  I know that whatever the outcome is, it will be for a reason... I'm just hoping the outcome is what I want.  As easy as it is to say "it will be for a reason" right now, it will be VERY depressing.  Fingers have been crossed, prayers have been said, now all we can do is hope for the best!

thank you

I want to thank everyone who read my last post and sent such sweet comments or messages.  I really do appreciate all of you and your words of hope, prayers, and encouragement!!

Talking about infertility has not always been easy for me.  For a long time I was so mad at myself and my body for not working the way it is "suppose" to.  It made me feel like I have a huge flaw that I can't fix on my own.  And asking for help is not my strong point.  I'm very independent and like to do things on my own.  I even wear the pants in my marriage, there's no doubt about that. So going to a doctor for something that was supposed to be so easy was a huge struggle for me.  And for a long time I was very angry at EVERYTHING and EVERYONE.

When we lived in Utah, I didn't tell many people of our struggles.  Only our parents knew about our first pregnancy until I miscarried and then the rest of our families and a few friends were told.  The second pregnancy went a little longer so by 8 weeks after my first doctor appointment, we told more people and then had to tell them that I had miscarried a few weeks later.

I hated telling people. I hated the sympathy.  I felt like people just felt sorry for me.  They probably did.  They probably still do.   But I'm ok.  Things aren't always roses and rainbows, but I have worked through the anger and disappointment and have learned to be happy.  Sometimes I have bad days and I let myself be sad or angry or whatever, because I'm HUMAN and we all feel that way sometimes.  Opposition in all things, right?

When we moved to Portland I guess I figured I had a fresh start.  We weren't trying to have kids right away since we had zero health insurance and as I talked to the sisters in my new ward, I was able to find a lot of support and similar experiences.  There are a TON of women in my ward who have gone through infertility-- I don't feel so alone!  In Utah all you see are millions of women having babies all the time.  In Portland, people think it's crazy to have a baby so young.   And most of the dear sisters in my ward who have younger kids had a battle with infertility.

Finding support through these sisters and others who have gone through infertility really gave me comfort.  That's one of the main reasons I took my blog off from being private.  I don't imagine I'll ever be able to have a blog as amazing as Kenna's (let's face it, I'm just not as amazing as Kenna with all she's gone through and is STILL going through!), but I want to be a means of support to others who are going through hard times.  We all have a lot we can share and learn from each other.

Hopefully all my posts aren't depressing, but I hope that you can feel my sincerity and openness as I post about ALL the things that go on in our good life.  That's right, this is still a good life!  We have trials and opposition that come our way, but we can make it through them! I have no idea how fertility treatments will end for us.  We might never be able to get pregnant!  But we are hoping and praying and exercising faith that things will work out for the best.

And in the mean time, we'll enjoy this crazy adventure as best as we can. :)

So from the bottom of my heart,

THANK YOU.  

I hope you stay tuned.  I know I'm going to have to post about how this month goes now that I've explained opened it all up for discussion.

Fingers crossed it's good news. 

busting out the big guns

This October marked 3 years of trying to conceive for us... that's 36 months my friends.  36 cycles that didn't work out the way we wanted them to.  36 heartbreaks.

Now before you proceed further into this post, know that you will know the intimate details of my cycle whether you want to or not.  My boss and coworker know them as well as some people in the ward, and I'm not afraid to talk about them anymore, so go ahead, get to know me and my Aunt Flo.  We'll be official best friends.

My insurance through my work started in May so we decided to go see a doctor in June and start back on the clomid wagon in July.  I was hopeful that things would go similarly as before, with the exception that we'd end up with a baby in the end and not a miscarriage.  The doctor seemed nice enough and we ran some bloodwork in addition to doing a semen analysis for Dustin.  All things came back normal and being 20 pounds lighter, we were excited to start treatments again.  We put a  pause on "project look good" and moved forward to "project make a baby."  After all, this doc even had us doing day 21 progesterone tests to monitor ovulation... make sure the clomid was doing what it should.  How could we lose?!

And so we got excited.  July came and my BBT charts looked promising... day 21 results came back as low (meaning they said I didn't ovulate) and so we moved ahead to August.  Afterall, in both pregnancies I had from clomid, it was the 2nd round that did the trick.  This time we bumped the dosage up.  August's chart looked good and then day 21 results came in... and were lower than July.  Which means the doc wasn't very happy with me and now they wanted me to maybe do one more month but then send me off to a specialist.

I was starting to feel a bit crazy.  My charts were good, so something must be working, right?  Also, basically everyone I've ever talked to about infertility asked me if I was diagnosed with PCOS-- to which the answer is NO.  This doctor went over the usual symptoms with me: weight gain, increased hair (like on your neck or chin), depression, difficulty losing weight, and of course, infertility.  I sat there like, 'um, yes, those are all me.' and then he looked at me and said, 'meh, you look fine.'  REALLY?! That should have been my first clue to seek help elsewhere. 

But I didn't and so September was going to be the month, we just knew it.  We were on the higher dosage of clomid again and the charts looked good.  Day 21 progesterone results came back and... still low.  I was frustrated.  We had gotten so excited.  I even let myself start buying baby things.  And we were having no luck.  So in October we made an appointment at Oregon Reproductive Medicine to see a specialist while doing one final round of clomid in hopes that we could make a miracle.

The meeting with the specialist was fine.  She was very thorough on how the female cycle works with hormones and all that jazz and talked about things we could do to move forward-- There are more tests to be done and lots of money to be paid, but there is a plan in place that is more aggressive to make "project make a baby" work.  She also made me feel better about my progesterone draws.  She told me I was ovulating, that even if my results were "low", they were still above ovulation range, which means I wasn't crazy after all.  But she still didn't diagnose me with PCOS.  I even asked her about it--she said that because I generally have regular cycles that I probably don't have PCOS... though you CAN possibly be regular and still have it.  Blarg.

Infertility is depressing.  I won't lie.  There are many times that I have broken down and just couldn't take it anymore.  I had Dustin give me a blessing and I felt better, but the heartache that comes each month is always there.  When we were told about the more aggressive treatments we got excited-- "we could be pregnant next month!" was all we could keep thinking.

And then the end of October came when it was time to make a decision-- the proposed plan was to do up to 4 cycles of IUI with additional testing such as a hysterosalpingogram (HSG for short--its a big word for an x-ray dye test for your uterus/tubes to make sure all the lady bits are ok/not blocked), genetic testing, ovarian reserve testing, FSH/Estradiol testing, the works.

For those of you who don't know what IUI is, it is a fertility treatment that uses a catheter to place a number of washed sperm directly into the uterus. The goal of IUI is to increase the number of sperm that reach the fallopian tubes and subsequently increase the chance of fertilization.  It starts with a Day 1 (can be done days 1-3) ultrasound to get a general baseline.  Then a medication is taken days 3-7 and a Day 12 midcycle ultrasound is done to see how your ovaries are reacting to the medication-whether you're ready to ovulate or not.  Then comes the trigger shot-inducing ovulation.  Give it a day or and you're back in the office having the husband do his business so they can wash the sperm and get all the best ones ready to inseminate you a few hours later.  Wait 12-14 days and BAM, you have a baby.  At least, that's the plan.  In all actuality, we learned that chances of getting pregnant on our own is about 2%.  With IUI, it bumps it up to 20%.  Not super promising, but it's 1000% more of a chance of pregnancy that trying on our own.

 And it costs a lot.  Of course it's not as much as IVF, but it still has a pretty penny on it.  Not to mention that my health insurance covers NOTHING to do with infertility.

 So this decision of what to do for November was hard.  Christmas is coming up and with my brother's wedding in December, we had the unexpected cost of plane tickets to Utah for the holidays.  We also need to register our car in Oregon and get Oregon driver's licenses and that can cost a bit too.  Dustin's student loans this quarter aren't stretching as far as other quarters as well--he is taking an extra class/seminar this quarter to get a special certification for the Graston technique and we got him a chiropractic table since he is in adjusting classes now and needs to get a good feel for adjusting.  Money is tight.  That's how grad school goes, right?  If we waited a few more months, we could always lose more weight too and hope that that helps with fertility... So many factors to consider!

But we really want a baby.  I convinced myself that we would wait until January when we will be getting more student loans, promise of a tax return, and a Christmas bonus from work.  But every time I thought I was convinced, I really wasn't.  I would feel depressed.  And then the thoughts and excitement from our first appointment with the specialist came creeping back into my head--"we could be pregnant next month!"
And so I let that win.  Because I felt happy about it instead of depressed which is good enough for me!

And when my period started this week, we made the call for the baseline ultrasound.  I went in for it this morning and the ultrasound part was fine.  My uterine lining is fine and my ovaries have plenty of eggs in them.

What was TRAUMATIZING was the 6 vials of blood that they wanted for blood work!!!  I was not prepared for that.  My arms are known for being terrors when it comes to giving blood--remember how I was shunned away from the plasma center because my veins were deemed unsuitable?!  And now they wanted 6 vials.  Wow.  So I was poked once and got half a vial.  Then it stopped.  So I was poked again. And again.  And then we called for backup.  Where I was poked again, and then finally on the FIFTH attempt, we found a winner vein to complete the other 5 vials.  Seriously traumatic.  Especially when I had to check out and pay $563 for all the trauma.   (I told you it was a pretty penny)

Fail.

The good news is that I shouldn't have to do those nasty things again.  At least, I don't think so.  They were for fertility testing and now we know the results- my FSH and my Estradiol are both completely normal-meaning my ovarian reserve is just fine and I'm not menopausing anytime soon.  My TSH (thyroid) came back as HIGH (which I had tested before by lame doctor man who said it was normal), so I am starting on a thyroid medication tomorrow.  I'm kinda excited about that just because I've wondered if there was a problem with my thyroid for a while now (hello, I gained HOW many pounds?!), but was told it was normal.  I hope this really helps. Thyroid symptoms can also be similar to PCOS symptoms so maybe it's just a thyroid issue all along?  I dunno, guess we'll see!

I did get a prescription writeup thing to have MORE blood work done at a different clinic (that can take my insurance) for some tests that will check out possibly why I've had 2 miscarriages.  I might give that some time cuz after today's trauma, I'm gonna have to build up all my strength for that. 

I also have a prescription to start Femara which is like Clomid but with less side effects (um, hello, why didn't we pick that before?!).

This Friday I have my HSG and then next Friday will be my midcycle ultrasound.  In 26 days we can know if I'm pregnant or not! 

This is progress people!  The plan is in action and moving forward!  Sure, we'll be broker than broke when it's all said and done, but hopefully we'll end up with a bouncing bundle of joy in 9 months.  Fingers crossed, prayers said, good vibes sent out to the universe.

If things don't work out this cycle, we will take a break until at least January, maybe another month or so to boost up the funds again.  (Thank goodness for HSA money left over from Storesonline!!)

So there you have it-- the big guns have been busted out and we are attacking this fertility head on.  If you so feel the need or desire to pray for us, please do.  If you so feel the need to send us money, I'll give you our address hahaha.  We're hoping for the best and will keep you posted!