Yoga

I signed up for Free Yoga today through the school.  I'm excited.  A few other teachers are going to be doing it to.  The other one who is having similar fertility issues sent me a message saying that relaxing and starting a family go hand in hand so I should sign up.  :)  I did and I'm excited... from now on that's where I'll be from 4:45 to 5:45 on Tuesday nights.  And I'll be at school from 6:30am to 4:30pm.  Bummer about that one.  

Day 18?

I think it's Day 18.  But I'm too lazy to count and check, so we'll go with that.  I'll edit it later if I'm wrong.  :)  

I just took two pills of Clo.mid- now I'm up to 100mg.  I took it at 7pm tonight... I'll take it tomorrow and the next day as well.  Saturday AM I'm heading to RSC at 8am.  I was going to meet up with the other teacher Saturday AM at 11, but those plans fell through, so now I'm not sure what I'm going to do.  Perhaps I'll still go down for the weekend.  :)  We'll see... one day at a time!  

To tell or not to tell

I haven't really talked to anyone going through fertility issues, so I don't know how other people deal with them.  I have talked to another teacher at my school a tiny bit- she's going through the same thing, but she's s bit further ahead of it that me.  (She's as far as one failed round of IVF)  But I haven't really talked to her.  And so I'm left with my question: To Tell or not to Tell.  

Some days I have such a strong desire to keep everything quiet.  From the beginning that was our resolution- keep is quiet so that we don't become the pitied ones.  I don't want every first question when we visit people to be, "So, how's the baby making coming along?"  We already get plenty of well-meaning awkward questions from Johnny's family- I don't need any more probing questions.  They're open enough to ask me ANYTHING and EVERYTHING, so I wouldn't want the chance of questions coming up.  Also, I want it to be a surprise to everyone.  Right now we're keeping the, "We'll see when we'll have a baby." vibe.  We're trying not to let people in.  

BUT... there's the other part of me.  The part of me that wants to let people in.  Because sometimes I feel like this is our own personal shame.  I try not to let it bother me, but isn't it kind of "shameful" (I hate that word...) if you have to hide it from people?  But really, I feel like it's so exciting.  Everything that is going on is really kind of neat.  Science is neat and everything that is happening is neat.  I want to be able to share that with people who really care and who are really interested.  So I really want to share this with someone... not everyone, but someone who really cares.  I kind of want to tell my mom... but I haven't.

Also... I want to share this with someone because, no matter how much I love Johnny and how well-meaning he is... he just can't seem to grasp by this whole thing bothers me so much.  Why I get upset every time we have a set back.  Why I get emotional when they call and say we'll have to wait another month.  Why I get a little sad when I see a baby or jealous when I hear that another friend is pregnant (usually unintentionally... happily, but unintentionally).  He can't seem to get it... so some times I feel like I need someone else there to lean on.  But I go back and forth between the two extremes so much that instead I don't share it with anyone... and I don't know if I want to or not...

So, I wonder, do the majority of people share their journey with those close to them?  Or do they keep it to themselves?

All the background....

So, I've been saving these entries in a notebook for a few months now, but I think it's time to finally save it to the computer... to share with no one.  :)  At least for now...

Back in late 2006-early 2007, Johnny and I decided it was time to try to start a family.  We had an idea that things might now work easily in the beginning, but we remained optimistic, threw out the pills and crossed our fingers.  Ideally in our heads, we were hoping to get pregnant in September 2007 so that we could have a baby in June of 2008.  This seemed reasonable enough- in our heads it gave us 9 months to get things working before we actually expected anything.

I went to the doctors in May of 2007 and announced for the first time outloud that we were, indeed, trying to get pregnant.  TA DA!  I got the congrats, but when I explained the situation, was told that I should come back in 3 months to see how things were going.  So... fast forward three months to August of 2007 (our deadline was fast approaching!).  We went to the doctors and Johnny and I naively hoped we would be handed a prescription for something to help us out and that we'd be on our merry way.  

Oh how we were mistaken!  We were in the office for approximately 5 minutes.  5 minutes for three months of waiting (or 8.5 depending on how you look at it).  Although typically they say you should wait 1 year before you seek fertility help, if you're not ovulating, this rule changes.  And in our case, the rule changed... so here we were with the name and number of a fertility clinic in Lexington that came highly recommended from my doctor.  We called and got an appointment for September (24th if I remember correctly... the day is etched in my memory!).  Another month of waiting... and there our September deadline slipped away.

Prior to the September appointment with RSC in Lexington we had to fill out a plethora of paperwork about our history and lives and families and all that.  Along the way I did a bunch of research about my "condition" and decided that we had a chance.  I'm young, Johnny's young... we caught our issue early.  Yay right.  :)

So... September 24th came and we met Dr. Anania.  She seemed nice enough.  She explained what we had to do-- a plethora of tests and all of that before we could even figure out what to do.  Again, we were naive and hoped we would walk out of the office that day with something in hand.  However, what we walked out with was two pages of instructions for tests to be performed.  I had to have blood work, and ultrasound, take pro.vera, and go in for an HSG.  We scheduled everything and time moved along.  That's the strangest thing... how quickly time passes even when you're waiting for something...

The HSG was what I was dreading because I read that it can cause severe cramping, but I brushed it off.  I like to think I'm good with pain, so I didn't worry about it.  The day of the test came and the test itself went pretty well.  The doctor made a mistake and had to reinsert the dye twice, but nothing major.  The results came back that my tubes were fine, so we were moving on.  The test itself caused me severe pain- so much that I actually got sick from it, but it was over in a little bit of time and I ended up fine for the rest of the day.

Fast forward to November 19th when we were FINALLY able to get our next appointment with Dr. Anania.  Tests completed, we were finally ready to find out what was wrong and what we needed to do to move on.  We discovered that Johnny has super sperm (he's quite proud) and that the problem rests solely on my elevated testosterone levels.  (It was a fun joke for a while...)  

So I was given another prescription for pro.vera to take as well as a prescription for 50mg of Clo.mid for 5 days, Ovidrel, and progesterone support.  I was to take the pro.vera immediately so that I could return for my baseline u/s and bloodwork in the beginning of December.  I took the pro.vera, and went in on Day 3 (December 1).  Everything seemed to go well enough until that evening when I received the phone call.  It was that night- the night that I was elated to start the 50mg of Clo.mid that I received a call saying that, "Oops!  We forgot to test you for Cystic Fibrosis- you shouldn't start the Clo.mid afterall!"  I was crushed.  I almost took the Clo.mid anyways, but decided not to in the end.  Instead Johnny and I went in for CF testing a few days later.  We both were negative... and pushed back one month.

On January 2nd I called RSC to get another dose of Pro.vera.  They called one in and I started the pro.vera immediately.  My Day 1 ended up being January 13th.  I went in on the 15th for my Day 3 bloodwork and u/s.  I then started on Clo.mid at 50mg the night of the 15th.  I took it for 5 days.  The only side effect I had was hot flashes and night sweats.  Gross.  

My first day of Clo.mid I began to get sick.   When I called RSC I was instructed not to take any medications.  This just caused me to get sicker and sicker- I ended up with a full blown sinus infection a week later.  

I took Clo.mid at 50mg the 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th.  I then went in to RSC on the 24th (Thursday) for more bloodwork and another u/s to check the progress.

Day 12 (24th) I had 0 > 10mm on my left and 2 > 10mm on my right (10.5 and 11.5mm).  I was told to come back in on Day 15 (27th).  On the 27th there was little change.  Still 0 > 10mm on my left.  This time I had 3 > 10mm on my right.  Actually 2 were measured at 10mm on my right and one at 11.5mm on my right.  I was then called back in on Day 17 (29th- today).  Today I had blood and a u/s done again.  I was told that I had 0 > 10mm on my left, and only 1 > 10mm on my right.  So... they finally decided to stop testing what I have.   I go on 100mg of Clo.mid tomorrow afternoon.  I will take 100mg for 3 days (30, 31, 1) and then have bloodwork and another u/s done Saturday morning (Day 21- Feb. 2nd) at 8am.  We shall see where we're at then.