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

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

The Bad Advice

My friends and family mean well, they really do. They don't realize their words hurt me more often than they help. I'm sure every couple struggling with infertility have dealt with this from their loved ones as well.  To be honest, sometimes they are kind of funny later when I'm dwelling on them. They often bring laughter and tears. I want to discuss some of the most memorable moments.

I have two close friends that were both teen mothers. They both have beautiful daughters that I love dearly, and they both know that my husband and I are TTC. They've both guilty of blurting out bad advice or unwanted advice. I don't want this to come off like I"m angry with them, because I'm not but. If you haven't yet, this would be a good time to check my tab at the top labeled "TTC Etiquette"   They've both said they would "have the babies for me", and that I can borrow her daughters as often as I want to "play house", and that I better not plot to kill them so I can be her daughter's "new mom". They've both offered to "give" any unplanned pregnancy babies to us. Of course, I let them know when they've hit a particularly sensitive nerve.  They always apologizes, and try again to make me feel better. The only time I actually get angry is when I realize they don't understand their own conceptions, cycles, or fertility. Both of their pregnancies were completely unplanned.

Here are some more gems : "I want to have a garage sale, I wish you'd just hurry up and get pregnant so I can give you all my old baby stuff."  Sometimes after they let "I hope I'm not pregnant." slip they'll shoot me an apologetic look and say "Sorry!" Occasionally if I'm feeling under the weather, if I call in to work, the first thing my friends or coworkers will ask when I return is "So?! Are you pregnant or what?!"  and I always say "Or what."

My own mother still says things like "You know I'd carry them if I could."Though she and my friends know it's my eggs that are the problem, not my uterus. It's like they only half listen to what I tell them about the medical stuff. My mom is also the only one who's uttered the dreaded "Maybe if you'd just relax...go on vacation!"

My Mother-in-Law struggled with infertility, but she won't speak about it. It is for sure touchy, and I don't want her to feel like she has to tell me anything uncomfortable. She and my Father-in-Law were married for nine years before they had my husband. She said once that they started trying a year in to their marriage. My husband says he remembers being about 7 or 8 and his parents asked him what he thought about them adopting a brother or sister for him. He was all for it, but now no one speaks about it and he is an only child. The first time I had dinner at their house as the new girlfriend she said "I'm only 90% sure that he wasn't conceived in a car." I don't know what to think about that.

Anyway.... I feel better getting that off my chest. Next time I'll discuss all the crazy adoption connections in mine and my husband's family tree.