Updates!

I have heaps of things to update so I'll try to be brief.

I've been absent for quite a while due to family drama. In my post Constant Change I told you that my Grandpa was diagnosed with cancer. We did everything medically possible for him. Radiation took care of the tumor coming out of his cheek. However, the radiation caused a wound to open directly behind where the tumor had been, back behind his right ear. My Grandmother did the best she could to heal it, but it became quite clear after a while that it was never going to get better. He continued to grow weaker, stopped eating, and the wound got worse and worse. We were able to make his wish of never having to live in a nursing home come true. After a stroke late in the evening on March 30th, my beloved 93 year old Grandpa passed away at 5 in the morning, March 31st 2013.

It's been a struggle, getting used to a life without him. He was such a sweet, kind, gentle, wonderful man, and I will miss him all the rest of my days. My Grandmother is doing well, considering. He just happened to pass away on Easter Sunday, and my grandparents were married on Easter Sunday (April 5th) 1953. We buried him the day before their 60th wedding anniversary. Grandma said that Easter Sunday counted, and that it was their proper anniversary.

Anyway, the days since have been spent packing up the apartment my grandparents shared and preparing my own home for my Grandma to move in with me. It will be an adjustment for sure but I think it's the best thing for all of us.

Okay: back to TTC. It's resolve.org's Infertility Awareness Week. Since my last update, I have stopped charting my BBT because my numbers were coming out as complete non-sense and it's not going to work for me. I have started using O.P.K's and haven't had a single positive one even thought I continue to have a regular cycle.
Also,I had the worst period that I've ever had. On January 4th, my dear husband's birthday, I had started my period the day before and everything seemed normal.  I got up at my normal time for work and stood up from out of my bed. I had the sensation that I had bled out of my tampon but then it got scary. I bled and bled and bled, it went all the way down my legs, down to my feet, and kept going. I had never had anything even comparable to the amount of blood loss I was experiencing. I tried to wait it out, sat on the toilet for about 30 minuets but it wasn't stopping. I woke my husband, he didn't know what to do anymore than I did. I waited some more, I called my mom, called my best friend, they didn't know what to do either. Two more hours passed and I called my Doctor's office when they opened. I spoke to my gynecologist's nurse and she immediately suggested emergency room.

I got to the emergency room, with my husband and mother about 10 in the morning. I got my own room about 1:30.  They did lots of exams, tests, ultrasounds. The answer they gave me was that it was just a freak symptom of PCOS and they were "surprised it hadn't even happened" to me before. I felt like an idiot going to the E.R. for heavy bleeding but it really was an EXTREME, FREAKISH, CRAZY amount of blood. I did get some great news from the E.R. visit. The transvaginal ultrasound showed that my left ovary is in really good shape, especially for a woman with PCOS.

When I went back to work the next day, the word had gotten around what had happened to me. Also, my manager's wife had had her baby on the 4th, and a coworker's granddaughter had been born on the 4th. So I would get e-mails that went along the lines of "Hey, did you see how many babies were born yesterday? Aren't they the cutest? B.T.W: sorry about what happened to you yesterday, did you have a miscarriage?" 
Not cool. Absolutely, not cool.

In the middle of January, Jon finally went for a Semen Analysis. Which was exactly zero percent fun according to him.  Long story short: the nurse practitioner who was in that day had to idea how to interpret the results as they came back from the lab.  So I have a print-out from the lab and I'm going to take it with me to my next gyno-saur appointment.

So that should get us caught up now. It's CD1 of Cycle 34 (pretty sure it's 34 now). We're actively cleaning, repairing, updating our home to prepare for a home appraisal. We're going to get a new home loan before we make any drastic changes in our TTC journey.

Best Wishes

Infertility Awareness Week

According to Resolve.org this week is Infertility Awareness Week. This post will be short and sweet. I just wanted to announce that I'm going to try to come back to blogging. It's important that we all get our stories out there. There might be a woman out there right now google-ing her symptoms and looking for someone else in her shoes.

New Gyno-saur

I really did mean to post this sooner, but it is a weird time in my life. My work life has been completely turned up side down and the good news is I should be working from home very soon. I can't wait!

Anyway, I did have my first appointment with my new Gynecologist. He was on time, polite,and respectful I was pretty impressed. My only complaint is that he didn't come in to meet me before I was nude. It's just a pet peeve of mine. I don't want to meet someone for the first time while completely naked wearing a paper gown. We discussed my horrible cycle with the 17 day long period, and then the cycle I had after that with a 9 day period. He of course suggested birth control to regulate my cycle. I had to look him in the eye and say "My husband and I are trying to get pregnant." It felt really bizarre to confess out loud. I don't tell very many people because I feel like a 14 year old girl on the Maury show telling the world that I'm ready for children.

He did a pap smear and then sent me to the laboratory for a thyroid test. Both of my tests came back perfectly normal, so that's good news. Since both tests were fine he suggested we try OPKs and timed intercourse. I have considered using OPKs before but my husband thought they were kind of intimidating. Now that I've explained exactly how the OPKs or LH strips work he's changed his mind and thinks it's a great idea. Yay!

Currently I'm on CD 31, which is highly unusual considering I have a 25 day cycle. Husband is getting kind of antsy, he wants me to go ahead a do a pregnancy test. I haven't yet because I don't want to get my hopes up too high. On the other hand: My BBT chart this cycle was the best I've ever had! It's the first time that the Fertility Friend application on my phone has given me the ovulation cross-hairs that stayed the entire cycle. Also we BD'd the ovulation day and the day after. I think I'll wait until this Saturday or Sunday before I think about testing.

Wednesday the 10th is my wedding anniversary, so if I could manage to get my BFP before then I would win the best anniversary present ever award.

Best Wishes

My Worst Cycle

So I've recently had a new and terrible experience. My last period was supposed to start on about July 28th.   I try not to get worried or get hopeful unless 6 or 7 days pass without any sign of Aunt Flow. This time only a couple of days passed and AF showed up on July 30th and it was really light on CD1 and CD2. I started to think I was going to have a light easy period for once in my life. CD3 rolled around my period started to get a bit heavier but I still thought it was normal. CD7 rolled around I thought my period was going to lighten up and vanish. CD8 my period got really heavy, like unusually heavy. This continued until CD14. I even had some vaginal pain on CD 10 but never had any cramps. My husband and I were getting really concerned. I even thought for a moment about going to the emergency room. I'm stubborn enough I decided to wait it out and try to get an appointment with a gynecologist.

I finally decided that I needed to see a doctor on CD16, still bleeding but not very heavily. I don't currently have a gynecologist. Or Gyno-saur as I tend to call them. I called the clinic closest to me that is owned by the same hospital system that I work for. Their referral coordinator took my information and said they'd call me within 4 or 5 days to let me know if the doctor would accept me as a patient. Ugh. My awful terrible period finally ended on cycle day 17. I have never had a period last longer than 8 days and that was only one time.  My periods are almost always 6 or 7 days. They called me on CD19 and said that the doctor that I wanted agreed to see me as a patient. So that's good news. The only problem is the first available appointment is September 18th! That's madness!

The worst part is, today is CD25. If I have a 25 day cycle on average, and you count the first day of spotting as CD1 I could start my period AGAIN any day now. If so, I'm going to call the clinic and ask if they can work me in sooner.

And now for something controversial: I know other countries have vastly different healthcare systems. I've been watching several TTC vloggers on Youtube from different countries. They sometimes have to wait months and months for an appointment because of their universal heathcare, so I know I have it better than they do, but still the wait seems ridiculous to me. It's hard for me to form an opinion because I know that there are so many people who don't have insurance and don't have any way to pay for the healthcare they need.....but then a big angry bitter part of me says it's not fair that I have a job, have insurance that I pay heaps of money for. Why should I have to wait months for an appointment when the people going to the doctor ahead of me don't work, don't have insurance, and I my tax money supports them?  I'm really really torn on the issue.

I'll try to make another post next week to keep my two post per month average, I think I might cover my still crazy and completely unpredictable BBT charts.

Best Wishes

Constant Change

I'm only just now starting to realize at the ripe old age of 23 that the only constant in life is change.

My husband and I got a fantastic deal on our new car. It's a five year old Jeep Compass. Nothing remarkable but it is a huge step up from our last car. Having a car payment is a strange thing for us but I don't think it will be an upheaval in our financial situation. I really like it and it's nice to have a car that I'm not embarrassed of. It's also nice for my TTC heart to know this is most likely that car I will still be driving when we get to bring a baby home. *Sigh*.

My little brother has lived with my husband and I since he was 16. He has had odd jobs here and there but about two weeks ago he got a great job. He is making double what I do. I'm a little jealous but I'm really happy for him. I no longer have to split his daily living expenses with my Grandmother so this has been another great change for us. I can't help but think he will help us out later down the road if we TTCing gets to the point of IVFs and / or adoption.It might sound strange to some, but we have a really tight knit family and we help each other out first and foremost before spending on ourselves or any material possessions. '

Now for the sad change... My Grandfather is 92 years old, and we just found out that he has a cancerous tumor in his salivary gland. It's swollen out off the right side of his jaw, looks very alien, and it's causing him pain. He will start radiation treatments this week to try to shrink it. At this point we know he can't stand anything more invasive. We just want the actual tumor to be smaller so it won't cause him pain anymore. It's not technically terminal but it's just really hard for me to accept that my Hero won't be around much longer.  It's hard for my to accept that my Grandfather might never meet my children. He's the sweetest, kindest, most gentle old man that has ever lived. It's impossible for me to list all that he has done, and all that he means to me. For starters he only reluctantly retired from being a math teacher at the age of 70 to stay home and take care of me. My parents couldn't afford for my mom to stay home with me so my Grandpa was my all day every day care-giver from when I was 6 months old until I started Kindergarten. I always have been and will always continue to be Grandpa's girl.

Anyway, two good changes, and one sad one.  Aunt Flow was supposed to arrive today, and she hasn't shown up yet. That's always good. If I had my way this would be the very month that she doesn't show up. I don't want to see her again for...hmmm. I don't know....Does about 10 months sound okay? I could use a break from Aunt Flow.

Best Wishes

Turbulence

My husband and I suffered a terrible loss this week. Our one and only car has died. It was only 13 years young, with 272,000 miles, and we will miss it dearly. It was my husband's first car that he's babied along for the last 10 years. This has caused some turbulence in our world. We live about 35 miles from work so we absolutely have to have a car to get back and forth 70+ miles each day.

Anyway, we're not poor but we do struggle financially. We're young and dumb and shouldn't struggle as much as we do. We make enough money but we live the wrong way. We are not prepared at all to replace our poor car. We haven't had a car payment in years and years.

It might seem completely unrelated to TTC but it's not. It's hard to put my numerous ideas in an order that makes sense.

Money always takes a TTC in a big loop. The money we're having to spend on a new car or repairing our old car could be spent on TTC. When I say "new car" I do not mean "new". My husband and I would never go buy a brand new car. We're only talking upgrading from our embarrassing old rust wagon to something 5 or so years old with about 100k less miles. The old car we have is not suitable for a child, if that is the car that will take our baby on it's first car ride I will be a little ashamed of myself. If we got a new car, it's a couple years commitment for monthly car payments, even less and less money for us. I know that we have to get a different car eventually I just really wish we had more time to prepare. 

Honestly this turbulence has made me reconsider TTCing. I can't be alone in feeling this way when faced with hard decisions. In the back of my mind old cliches say "When you stop wanting it, it will happen." and then I get excited for the mystical fertility magic of "stop thinking about it".

This is cycle day 23, and Aunt Flow should be here probably late this week. Until then I'll be car shopping and crying.

Best Wishes

My first BBT chart

It's CD8 of my new cycle, and I'm still keeping track of BBT. Below is a picture of my first chart. I only missed one day and that was because I was taking care of my grandparents and forgot to take my thermometer with me. It started off great, high temps, sudden drop but that was only CD4. After that it was level until CD 8 and then it went on a crazy roller coaster. I don't know what to think. My husband thinks that my temps get too low, he says he's uncomfortable with anything under 96 degrees. I went to my trusty doctor Dr.WebMD and it kind of suggested hyperthyroidism. I am starting to think that purchasing the cheapest thermometer ever made was probably not a great start. I will probably go buy another one, better quality and use both and at the same time to compare. I still have not made a real doctors appointment, even thought I said I would. 

My temps this month are already crazy again. As high as 97.9 and as low as 96.3. I really am going to make an appointment with a new doctor. I want to know about these crazy BBT charts and see if there is anything they can do for my 7 and a half day periods when I only have a 25 day cycle. I'm sick of feeling like I'm constantly on my period. Ugh. 

If you have any ideas or experience with crazy BBT readings let me know.

Best Wishes