ABC's

I am 4DPO and I have been avoiding posting so that I wouldn't talk about my IPS (imaginary pregnancy symptoms) or obsess about the timing of my IUI. I don't even want to discuss the O-like pains I was still having on Tuesday. Nor will I touch on my slightly sore boobs, the mild uterine cramps I've had for a couple of days, or the extremely bountiful and creamy CM I have.

I got this off of Lynn and Coco's blogs. Consider yourself tagged.

A - Age: 24
B - Bed: Queen sized pillow top... mmmm
C - Chore you hate: Pretty much any chore.
D- Dogs: Not my thing. They smell, shed, bark, slobber, and don't use a litter box.
E - Essential start your day item: My husband. He makes it easier to wake up.
F - Favorite color: Pink
G - Gold or Silver: Are we talking substance or colour? Colour - silver. Substance - Gold. White Gold.
H - Height: 5'9"
I - Instruments you play: I play a little bit of piano and a little bit of the recorder - Hello, everybody my age played recorder in elementary school, right?
J - Job title: Teacher
K- Kids: Ouch.
Kick me while I'm down.
L - Living arrangements: I live with my husband, Justin, and our kitty, Emmie, in our beautiful house.
M - Mom's name: Kelly
N - Nicknames: Poupie (not poopy or puppy... The "ou" sounds like the "oo" in "look". It means "Dolly" in Dutch), L-Train, Babe.
O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth: A tonsilectomy when I was 5.
P - Pet Peeve: Finding out that people are pregnant.
Q - Movie Quote: "Look at me and my bad self" - The Emporer as a llama in The Emperor's New Groove (Coco, I also love that movie, and my sister and I laugh hysterically throughout the entire thing).
R - Right or left handed: Right
S - Siblings: Nick, 25, Matt, 22, Giliane, 21
T - Time you wake up: 6:23am
U - Underwear: Umm, yes? What is the question here?
V - Vegetable you dislike: Root vegetables or gourd-type vegetables
W - Why Not: Because they are gross
X - X-rays you've had: both hips, both feet, both ankles, both knees, both shoulders, an HSG, and abdominal X-rays. The abdominal x-rays were to explore a complication from the HSG.
Y - Yummy food you make: Name it. I'm a great cook. (lol)
Z - Zoo favorite: I've only been to the Chicago Zoo.

IUI # 1 (and # 2 I suppose)

I know that I am always intensely interested in the dynamics of people's cycles. Granted, everybody's body is different, but I thought I would outline exactly how this first cycle went. Besides, I'd like it all in a neat little package just for my own information:

CD1 - March 30

CD3 - April 1 - 50mg of Clomiphene, 7.5 mg of Femara

CD4 - April 2 - 50mg of Clomiphene

CD5 - April 3 - 50mg of Clomiphene

CD6 - April 4 - 50mg of Clomiphene, 75IU of Bravelle

CD7 - April 5 - 50mg of Clomiphene

CD8 - April 6 - 75IU of Bravelle

CD9 - April 7 - nothing

CD10 - April 8 - 75 IU of Bravelle

CD11 - April 9 - Ultrasound only showed one follicle at 13mm. Lining was 7.6. E2 - 484, LH - 7.5. Added 75IU of Bravelle.

CD12 - April 10 - 75IU of Bravelle

CD13 - April 11 - Follicle grew to 22mm. Lining was 13. E2 - 1300, LH - 5.8. Triggered with Ovidrel at 1:30pm. Egg release should occur at 1:30am on CD15 (April 13).

CD14 - April 12 - IUI # 1 at 10:45am - 14 hours before egg release - 5 million sperm recovered.

CD15 - April 13 - IUI # 2 at 9:00am - 8 hours after egg release - 3.8 million sperm recovered.

I might go for a Beta on the weekend of the 25th and 26th. But maybe not. I might just assume I'll get AF and look forward to the next cycle, since sperm recoveries were so low and I only had one egg.

Just for reference, here are Justin's sperm analyses so far:

December:
15 million/mL
50% motility

23 million/mL
50% motility

April 12 IUI:
4 million/mL
50% motility
5 million inseminsated

April 13 IUI:
6.8 million/mL
9% motility
3.8 million inseminated

I don't know what's going wrong, but it's making me feel constantly sick to my stomach.

Can't SOMETHING Go Right?

We went to the first of our double IUI's today. My biggest fear was what the results of Justin's SA would be, and how many sperm they would recover. In December he had two SA's done. One was 15 million/mL, and the other was 23 million/mL. Both had 50% motility.

Every since November Justin has been taking about 20 pills a day to try and improve his counts and motility and everything. FertilAid, L-Carnitine, L-Arginine, CoQ10, Fish Oils, Niacin, etc. It has cost us a pile of money.

We were discussing what kind of SA and recovery results would make us happy. I had figured out before that our worst case scenario was only recovering 20% of 15 million/mL (at 50% motility). That would have given us 7.5 million sperm to put right into my uterus. He wanted his count at 30 million/mL, but I figured I would be happy as long as his count didn't go below 15 million. I wanted it to go up, especially after spending almost a $1000 on supplements for him. But I didn't want to count on that. I just wanted him to at least maintain what he had before.

Well, not even close.

His "sample" only had 4 million/mL. 4 MILLION. THAT'S IT.

Since the sample had 5 mL total, we had 20 million sperm to work with. Only 10 million were motile. So the lab performed what I consider to be a miracle in that situation and managed to recover 50% of the motile sperm (that's pretty much the best they can possibly do. Sperm recoveries are generally 20%-50%).

So my IUI had the bare minimum number of sperm that the clinic likes to use for an IUI. Just 5 million. 1 stupid egg and only 5 million sperm. Those make for wonderful odds.

I'm wondering if this sample was affected by the fact that we both got the flu in the middle of January. I'm sure Justin had a fever along with his cold shakes. And we both spent a night throwing up. I'm hoping this, combined with an awkward situation while he was "producing his sample" (being in a doctor's office, people walking past the door, talking) made for just a very bad production. Kind of a wham bam thank you ma'am situation.

Hopefully it goes better tomorrow. I told Justin he better make use of those "reading materials" in the "men's room" while he's doing his thing tomorrow. Maybe things will go better.

If not, next month had BETTER improve. Both of our bodies are being moronic this month.

Happy Easter to Us!

Justin and I opted not to go to Easter dinner today to spare me the pain of seeing two brand new babies and watching everyone fawn over them.

Instead, we went to my CD 13 ultrasound which showed that that little 13mm follicle I had on CD 11 had grown to 22mm! 9mm of growth in just 48 hours! I did take extra FSH on both CD11 and CD12, so I'm sure that really helped the little guy grow. My lining also went from 7.6 to 13, which is awesome.

I took a look at my bloodwork results from CD11, and my E2 was in the 400's (last month it never made it out of the 100's) and my LH was only 7.5. This really excited me, since my LH was sitting around 17 during my entire cycle last month.

I didn't have an LH surge today, so I triggered at 1:30pm. We're going to do a double IUI - one on Sunday morning (CD14), which will be 14 hours before egg release, and one on Monday morning (CD14), 8 hours after egg release. Hopefully that will cover us as much as we can be covered.

In some ways this cycle was really disappointing. I should have had 3-5 good eggs instead of just 1. But at the same time, this is really exciting! This is the first real chance Justin and I have ever had at getting pregnant. I was never ovulating before, so this is the first time we could actually get pregnant!

Part of me is saying "Yeah Lauren, and how many people actually get pregnant on their first try?"

I'm trying to ignore that part of me.

Day 11 Ultrasound - Lame

I went for my CD11 blood and ultrasound this morning. I got up at 4:30 in the morning to drive an hour away to do this and get back in time to start teaching at 8:45am.

This cycle I was on Femara, Clomid, and Bravelle (injectables). It's a medium stimulation protocol that should develop 3-5 eggs. I wasn't getting a good feeling this cycle, and my feelings are always right. I wasn't saying anything online though because I was trying to stay positive (just Justin and my mom heard about my bad feelings).

So I go for my ultrasound and I have ONE freakin follicle that's only measuring 13mm. On DAY 11. ONE SMALL FOLLICLE.

After all the meds I've been taking, my stupid frickin ovaries only managed to choke out one measly follicle. Not even a decent sized one either.

I decided I'm going to inject another vial of Bravelle tomorrow to try and help this little guy grow so we can at least have a shot this month. But I am SO MAD.

It gets better though. I get out of there with JUST enough time to get to work, but I'm on the phone crying to my husband. I'm really upset and distracted. Half an hour later I'm still upset, but I'm starting to pay more attention to the road. Turns out I missed the turn off for the highway I need to take to go back home, and I've gone half an hour in the wrong direction.
Obviously I burst into tears again. At this point it is 8:15, school starts at 8:45, and I'm a good hour and a half away from work.

I ended up calling my principal in tears and telling him I just can't come in today. Then I went back to my clinic and cried on a nurse for half an hour, talking about my crappy life and what we might do next cycle.

At this point that's all I can hope for - that next cycle will work properly. I hate that I have to be afraid about whether I will even ovulate on the massive amounts of drugs I'm taking. I barely even think about Justin's MFI and the fact that even if I DO ovulate I still might not get pregnant. Because I can't even get to the point where getting pregnant is a real option for me. Everytime we try to do the IUI something goes wrong. To me, a successful cycle is now just one where I ovulate multiple eggs. I hate that I no longer equate success with a pregnancy because a pregnancy is so unattainable for us.

I'm still going to try and get this little follicle to mature so we can do an IUI sometime in the next week. But I'm pretty positive it will be a pointless waste of money to do the IUI with only one crappy egg. How are Justin's "challenged" sperm and my crappy egg supposed to create a baby?

Hurray for Caren!

After my big post the other day about the lack of pregnancies occuring in my support group, someone finally got knocked up!!!

Caren informed us this morning that she has received a BFP at 12DPO. Yaaay!

I was surprisingly not jealous. Usually when someone gets pregnant I feel a surge of rage. If there was a way to kidnap them, dig out their embryos and implant them in my uterus, I would seriously stop and consider doing that.

But when I read Caren's post I felt a huge wave of relief. It is possible to really struggle with infertility and still get pregnant.

So Caren, if you read this, thank you for getting pregnant.

Recent Day 3 Bloodwork

I called my office to get my most recent Day 3 test results. I'm not thrilled with them, but they do fall in a normal range. The clinic had to call me back and leave a message on my machine, so I couldn't talk to an actual person to ask for my specific levels for some things that I was just told are "normal." Here are the results:

Fasting Glucose/Insulin - Normal
(I didn't get the actual levels, and I really want them. The normal range for fasting insulin is up to 30. But the normal range doesn't give all the information. A fasting insulin of 10-13 generally indicates some insulin resistance, and levels above 13 indicate greater insulin resistance. The normal range for fasting glucose is 70-110, with 70-90 being the most healthy.)

TSH - 3.12
(Normal is .4-4. I didn't get this tested on my last Day 3 so I have nothing to compare it to.)

Prolactin - 6.8
(Should be < 24. My last level was 8.1)

E2 - 101
(Should be 25 - 75. Mine is too high. Levels on the lower end tend to be better for stimulating. Abnormally high levels on day 3 may indicate existence of a functional cyst or diminished ovarian reserve. Elevated E2 can falsely supress FSH.)

FSH - 7.6
(FSH is used as a gauge of ovarian reserve. In general, under 6 is excellent, 6-9 is good, 9-10 fair, 10-13 diminished reserve, 13+ very hard to stimulate. My last level was an even 7, which I wasn't completely comfortable with. Even though it's "good," it still seems a bit high to me. So I'm definitely not happy that it's up to 7.6 this time, even though it's still "good".)

LH - 8.4
(My last level was 7, which was the same as my FSH. They should be in a 1:1 ratio. If LH is higher than FSH it's a good indicator of PCOS. Normally, LH should be <7, but I'm surprised that it was only 8.4, considering my enormous levels during the rest of my cycle.)

So my LH was higher than my FSH this time. Interesting. I'm now even more sure that I have PCOS. PCOS that appears to be getting worse with time. Maybe this is because the more time passes, the further away I am from when the pill was controlling my hormones.

I really hope my FSH doesn't continue to rise slowly. I know of some people who had normal FSH (like, 7) and then a year later suddenly they had high FSH (14+). I do not want this to happen to me!

I have to try and relax. Freaking about about my FSH can't be good for my follicle growth.

Dr. Lauren

I'm on CD 6 today, which I have been looking forward to since March 17, because it was the first day I could give myself an injection of Bravelle (FSH).

I've been really looking forward to it, but feeling a tiny bit uneasy about injecting myself because I kept picturing this giant needle (like the ones they use for IM - intra muscular - injections). The thought of that needle had me a bit weak in the knees.

Then last night, in preparation for this morning, I watched the instructional DVD that comes with the needle kit. I watched the girl inject herself with the SC (subcutaneous) needle, and then watched her being injected with the IM needle (ahhhh), and suddenly the SC needle seemed like nothing.

Regardless, I did have a couple of freeze moments this morning while I was standing there, pinching my belly skin, ready to stab my stomach with the needle. I kept looking at Justin and then looking down at the needle again. He was about to come over and do it when I just poked it in. No problem.

I sat there, looking at the syringe (the needle was buried in my skin) and though "Wow, I didn't even feel that." So I pushed in the FSH, which burned a little bit. Then I just pulled the needle out and it was done!

It was actually very anti-climactic.

Afraid

I belong to an Infertility Support group on iVillage. It's this amazing group of women who are in varying stages of their infertility. I have appreciated finding this group so much because they are the only other people in my life who understand what I'm going through.

But this group sometimes makes me more nervous. I've been part of the group since January '09. Yet in the almost 3 months since I've been there, nobody has gotten pregnant. Actually, I shouldn't say that. A couple of people have gotten positive pregnancy tests, only to suffer early miscarriages.

There are a lot of ladies on there doing many different treatments every month: ovulation induction, IUI, IVF, IUI with donor sperm, IVF with donor eggs, etc etc. Some of them have been trying for 7+ years. And yet since I've been there, nobody has gone on to successfully get and stay pregnant.

This really scares me. I'm not a "glass half full" kind of person as it is. I tend to expect bad things to happen. I tend to focus on the failure rate of any given treatment, rather than the success rate. This has only been exacerbated by the fact that nobody is having successful infertility treatments. It just makes me even more afraid that we'll try for years and years and never get pregnant.

Furthermore, since finding out about our infertility, one of my biggest fears is miscarrying a baby that we finally manage to conceive. I think it's so much worse to miscarry a baby when you're going through IF. It would be hard enough for the average fertile woman. But for an IF sufferer, they have the added fear that they might not ever get pregnant again!

I love my Infertility Support group. But I have to admit that it really scares me sometimes. As much as I love it, I don't want to be there a year from now, unless it's to offer support and encouragement from someone who has successfully gotten pregnant with two different kinds of infertility.

I don't want to still not be pregnant a year from now, two years from now, or 3 years from now. But all of those wonderful ladies not getting pregnant really makes me worried that I, too, will never get pregnant.

Door Knockers

We live in an open concept house with a TON of huge windows. This has its advantages. For one, we don't need to turn on any lights until the sun is completely set because our house is already so bright.

But the windows also have a disadvantage. When someone is at our front door, they are looking right up into our dining room where we eat. We are often eating dinner and some person will come knocking on our door... Jehovah's Witness, Girl Guide, Heart and Lung Association, whatever. When I was young, if we were eating dinner and someone knocked on our door, they were lucky if we deigned to answer.

Justin and I don't have that option. It's pretty awkward to be sitting at our dining room table while the person we're ignoring stares up at us through our front door.

In the past week I have had to buy Girl Guide cookies and chocolate covered almonds. I'm trying to drop some weight, here! But I feel so mean saying no. With the Girl Guide cookies, her parents were standing at the end of my driveway, silently judging me into buying their daughter's cookies. I don't even like Girl Guide cookies!!

You also have to take into account that I am a cheap Dutch girl. So it's not okay with me to spend 4 bucks on a box of cookies and then just throw them on the table in the staff room.

So I've come up with a new way to get out of buying cookies and chocolate bars from people who come door to door. I will ask "Is it nut free, honey?" And when he or she replies "Ummm, I don't know. I don't think so," I will say nicely "Oh I'm sorry. We have a peanut allergy in our house, so we can't buy it. Thanks anyway!"

Yes, I am going to lie.

But I have to! If the food is there, I will eat it. And my hips aren't happy.