Day 2

We repeated the procedure this morning.  That was the original plan, even before there was a risk of infection.  I apparently ovulated at around 12AM today, so yesterday was to try to get to the sperm there before ovulation, today was to try to squeak some more in there before it's too late.  Even though the preliminary culture results came back today showing no signs of infection, the culture has to "grow" for a whole week, so they could not risk doing a full IUI in case there still could be an infection.  I got to look at the sample under the microscope again, and there were not near as many white blood cells in it today and those little swimmers were swimming away!  The nurse asked me if Grouper ate his Wheaties this morning, because todays numbers were off the charts in comparison to yesterday - 29.2 million sperm AFTER the wash (yesterday's was only 6.1).  I think that the myth that abstinence builds more sperm has been debunked for us.  We had 2.5 days of abstinence going into yesterday, and yet only 24 hours later, we get 5 times the amount.....hmmm.  The nurse said that she targeted the sample really well today, so I'm hoping that it works.  I'm not super super hopeful, but I guess there's nothing I can do now but wait.  They're giving me the option of testing at home using an HPT (which I won't do because I had an HCG shot, which could potentially give a false positive), waiting,for AF to show up, or coming into the office on the 18th for a blood draw.  I'm not sure what I want to do yet....I guess I'll just see how I feel as the days go on.  I'm going to try to relax and distract myself as much as possible.  Last night I went out for dinner and shopping with friends, which was fun, and my substitute teaching paperwork is due to come through and be finalized by the end of the week, so hopefully I can start WORKING soon!  I'm not going to go full time or anything crazy like that (haha), but it will be nice to feel like I'm contributing to society again.  Grouper got me a 60 minute deluxe massage for my birthday (complete with hot rocks, yippee!), so I think I'll try to schedule that appointment for late this week or sometime next week, too. 

I got myself a new journal that I'm going to use to write down all of this gobbledy gook pertaining to fertility that tends to cloud my head in times like these. Yes, blogging helps, too, but I find handwriting it to be more therapeutic for some reason, and I've really let my journaling slide in the past couple years.  I'm going to try to get back into it, because once I do finally get pregnant, I want to start writing a journal of letters to my child, starting in utero and continuing throughout his or her life until adulthood.  It's kinda corny, but I think it has the potential to be special and could be a valuable keepsake when I'm gone. 

Well, I'd better get busy......it may be a little quiet around here for the next couple of weeks, but then again, it may not, it depends on how delusional I become during this two week wait.  :)

IUI #1 (sorta)

Grouper dropped his sample off and I went in an hour later.  When I went in, the lab tech took me straight back to the lab and let me look under the microscope at all the little swimmers that were doing the backstroke all over the slide!  :)  She said the sample was good - 6.1 million after the wash, and that the motility was good.  Then she said, "BUT....." and I freaked out.  Apparently the sample had a very high number of white blood cells, which is not necessarily a good sign.  The lab tech said that it could be a sign of an infection of some sort, like a UTI or something, and because of that, the doctor said that it probably would not be a good idea to do a full IUI for risk of passing on the potential infection to me.  She did say that the "white blood cells" could actually be immature sperm, but that without sending the cultures to another lab, it would be impossible to tell.

The alternative, which is what ended up happening, was a high-cervical insemination.  The sperm was inserted right at the tip of the cervix, so the nurse who did the procedure said that it's a little more targeted than the natural way, but that the chances aren't quite as high as they would be if we did an IUI.  We're doing it again tomorrow because I've already taken the Clomid and the wash has got to help a bit.......but I must admit that I'm really bummed out because I just once again feel like there's always a catch - nothing can just be easy, there's always got to be a problem. 

I'm trying to stay positive, but I guess everything's out of my hands now.  I talked to Grouper and he said he doesn't really understand, because he thought that if he has an infection, he'd know it, and he doesn't feel like it.  Who knows.  Ugh.

It has begun.....

I was feeling kinda crampy last night and decided to take an OPK just to see what was going on.  I got a positive last night and again this morning, and I called the doc right away last night and left a message - they called me this morning and I went in at 11:45 for my ultrasound.

The doctor said my lining looked good (9.1mm), and I had one follie on my left side that was 24mm, which he says is good.  I got my hcG shot, which didn't hurt at the time, but hurts now....my hip is sore!  Grouper will drop off his "contribution" at 7:30am, I'll go in at 8:30 for my IUI.  The doc recommended that we do 2 IUIs this cycle, so we'll repeat the process on Wednesday.  I'm excited, but I probably shouldn't be as excited as I am. 

The doc also said that if this cycle doesn't work, we may need to consider doing an SA to test for DNA fragmentation issues with Grouper's sperm.  The test is somewhat expensive and the doc said that there's no point in doing it this month, but if our IUIs don't work, we should consider it.  I'm not going to worry about that until we have to, hopefully it's not even an issue.

Wish us luck......

Update

It seems like the past two weeks have flown by - between Grouper working on our floors like crazy and having the house torn up, having to travel to Indiana for Christmas and hanging around there for my birthday, and then coming back and hosting a New Year's Eve party, we've been busy. 

Tomorrow it's back to real life - back to work for Grouper (major bummer) and back to normal for me.  I am going to start trying a little harder to get all of my substitute teaching stuff in order (I've been trying, but I've kinda enjoyed my time off, too), and I'm going to start working on getting the house back in order and starting up some new knitting projects (I have seven pregnant people whose babies I want to knit for that will be here between now and July). 

I started Clo.mid on Christmas Eve and now I've been doing OPKs and just waiting for my LH surge to show up.  It's day 13, and so far, nothing.  I started on 50mg, and I've noticed a couple "side effects" - I get cramping every now and then, but nothing I can't manage, and I've noticed that I have more CM and that it's more watery than normal (TMI, I know, but it is what it is).  I am expecting to get my positive OPK tomorrow or Tuesday (hopefully) and from there I'll call the RE and we'll set up my ultrasound.  Getting my hCG shots through the mail was kind of a pain, but it's here now, and I'm still not sure when I'm supposed to take it and I'm a bit uneasy about the thought of Grouper stabbing me with a needle, but we'll do what we have to do. 

It seems like there is pregnancy in the air all around me - even our priest's sermon today centered on a parishoners's new pregnancy and the idea of love vs. fear and how faith plays such a role in all of that.  It's the first time in a long time that a sermon has actually made me stop in my tracks and really pay attention.  As a matter of fact, I started to tear up a little.  We're trying our best to be positive and enjoy our time as a couple until our wishes come true. 

I hope all of you get what you wish for in 2011 as well.....Happy New Year!

What's been going on at our house.....

The house is torn up....Grouper is putting in hardwood flooring over the holidays, so.....

I'm confined to the basement, doggy-sitting these girls,

because the new one gets into everything (puppies are like that), and poor Delilah is scared of all the noise.  Look how big Remi is! 

She's only about one-third of what she'll be full-grown.  We're in trouble, folks.

I've also been attempting to be crafty!  I painted some ornaments

and knitted a purse, which I'm giving to my cousin for Christmas (she better like it!)

I went to a friend's to learn how to sew.....she did all the machine work because I didn't want to mess it up, but the handstitching that secured the lining into the bag is ALL ME. :)  Now I want to learn how to sew!  It was so much fun!

And I also played Auntie Paparazzi, which is one of my favorite things to do!

They're so cute, I just want to melt.

Especially this little one.  She's at that really fun photogenic age, and I have a million pics of her.

I can't wait to have one of my own....and on that front, I'm going to place the call to the RE right after I finish this post.  AF came today, so Clo.mid should be starting soon!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone!  I hope that you all get what you wish for in 2011!

How it went.

Our appointment was almost 2 hours long.  Most of it was spent in Dr. Max's office, going over our charts and lab results and discussing statistics and terminology.  I've never met a man that has more statistics in his head than Dr. Max.  I guess it's a good thing, though, because he knows his stuff and he knows what the benefits are for us to do certain things vs. other things that may not have as high of a success rate.  Grouper, being an engineer, really loves the way that Dr. Max presents everything because it's totally a numbers game.  Anyway, he started off right away with a number that I didn't particularly like.  He said that with the way Grouper's sperm is and considering that my FSH levels from my blood work last month was 10.6, (it should be 10 or below, apparently) that we only have a 2% chance of conceiving naturally within one year.  Ugh.  He said that he was quite surprised that we were able to conceive on our own the first time, especially after just five months of trying, but that it was a really good thing that we did, because now there are things that he knows about my body that he couldn't thoroughly test for:  the fact that eggs can move through my fallopian tube and implant.  He also said that he wasn't surprised that my pregnancy ended in miscarriage because in all likelihood, the sperm that fertilized my egg was a poorly shaped one, and therefore it was chromosomally (I don't know if I spelled that correctly) defective.  Pregnancies that begin with a poorly shaped sperm have over 50% miscarriage rate before 8 weeks.  As we were sitting there, all of these light bulbs kept going off in my head.  It all kinda adds up and makes sense now.  It still totally effing sucks, but it makes sense. 

He told us that our chances of conceiving will be greatly increased with an IUI or IVF.  He said that if I was over 35 (I'm almost 27), he would say that we need to go straight to IVF, but since I'm not and since my cycles aren't all that bad, we may have a shot with IUI.  He said we can try it for a few months unmedicated, and if nothing happens, then we step it up to either medicated IUI (with Clo.mid and hcG shots) or IVF after that.  He also said that if sperm counts are high and everything with that route is going well, he sometimes does two IUIs per cycle, which I didn't even know was possible.  He said that when sperm is washed, though, they don't test that sperm's morphology, so we have no real way of knowing if it's good or not, but the fact that all of it goes straight into my fallopian tubes and doesn't have to make the entire journey definitely increases our odds.  He said that IVF cycles usually run about $9300 for the initial one with egg retrieval and everything, and every thaw cycle is an additional $1500-2000.  Ugh. 

So we had all the info, and he told us to go home and think about it, and then he said, "Wait, I forgot to ask you where you are in this cycle.  What cycle day are you on?"  I told him yesterday was day 16 and that I've been ovulating on day 17 the past couple cycles.  So he said, "Well, since you're here, let's go check your follicles and see if they've ruptured and how they look, and if they look good, you can have an IUI tomorrow."  My mouth hit the floor.  This guy wasn't messing around!  And I hadn't even shaved my legs!  :)  We went in and looked, and I had 2 follies on one side, one was completely undeveloped and the other one was only about 7.5mm, and the other one on the other side was 8mm....so they were both too small to work with.  He said that now that he's seen that my follies are small, he recommends that we do a medicated IUI right out of the gate.  So, starting with my next cycle, I start Clo.mid and I'll have an hcG shot.  He said we have something like a 28% chance of conceiving.  I'm ok with that, it's a hell of a lot higher than 2%.

This is really happening, I'm still having trouble wrapping my brain around that.  I still want to believe that we can do this on our own, but it's obvious we can't.  When I saw the fact that our consult was labeled "high severity" on our bill, it really hit home.  Hopefully they can help us soon.........

Today's the day.

I apologize for my absence, but it's been a crazy week and a half.  I lost my grandfather on Thanksgiving morning (somewhat unexpectedly - he was diagnosed with liver cancer on Sunday and was gone by the following Thursday) and we've been all over the place ever since.

 At 2:30 this afternoon, Grouper and I will be meeting with our RE, Dr. Max, for the first time.  I'm very excited to finally get something going, but I'm very nervous as to what that "something" might be. 

We've filled out all of our paperwork....tons of it, yikes, and I've got my questions ready. 

I'm still scared that we're going to get in there and he's going to say, "We can't do anything until Grouper sees a urologist," or, "your only option is IVF." 

I think I'm willing to do IVF, but I'm really scared about it.  There are many reasons, and I won't go into them now because I'm still not sure what our options are, but I'm hoping that we can try IUI first and get results that way.

I'll report back once our appointment is over....wish us luck!