Day 10 of SHOTS!! (More complaining..)

Well, I've been on these damn shots for 10 days now, and they are just buckets of fun. When I was on the birth control pills, I had very mild side effects from the Lupron. Like being cranky and a little nauseous.  Now that the bc has stopped, I feel all the side effects like 10 times more. It makes me soooo tired and double cranky and nauseous and I've had this headache for like 10 days straight now. And yesterday I felt like I had a fever. But aside from that, its really not all that bad, lol. I have until friday of just taking the Lupron shots and then I have a doctors appt that morning. I have to get up at friggen 6 am for because apparently they ONLY do ultrasounds between and 7 and 8 am and its never at the office by my house.. always the further office. Since i stopped the bc, i've gotten my "period".  No one warned me that I wouldn't get an actual period,  so i was assuming that because i was on bc for 6 weeks, that i was gonna have this extreme opening of the gates river of pain huge flow, but instead, i just have cramps and not even enough to wear a pad, which I guess is nice, because I don't like pads.

I went to my teaching class on how to mix my shots and i took my mom as my note-taker, which is good because i think she wrote down what the nurse was saying verbatim. They literally sit there and show you how to mix your menopur, and then they give you this little fake piece of skin?? Kinda looks like a buttcheek and feels like one too. So once you finish learning that, you learn how to inject them into the fake butt on the table. It was all very scientific. It was also very overwhelming. Because I always seem to underestimate just how many shots/ how many times a day i'm getting them. But I do understand now why they gave me so many needles , and thats because you have to mix the meds with the bigger needles than swap out for a smaller ones. All very scientific once again. My husband is getting excited because the retrieval is about 2 weeks away, but I cant seem to get excited, I'm too nervous, besides that my energy is soooo drained from all this excitement. I've said this before and I'll say it again, If I didn't have my husband to go through this with I would go crazy. Even as I'm writing this he is sitting next to me joking around about all of this. My mom has also been a huge help. She is always ready and willing to do whatever I need her to do at the drop of a hat, like going to my appointment with me the other day.

There's not much else to say.  I have my u/s on friday and I get my new list of injections (what, when and how much to take) of the new medications.  In the mean time I am still praying... and napping...

Day 4 of SHOTS!

I've though long and hard about posting an update on how the shots are going because I hate to complain. I know how lucky I am to be able to even afford these shots and be able to afford the whole in-vitro process, so I don't want anyone to think I'm complaining whatsoever. I'm just telling it like it is. Days 1 and 2 were ok. I had terrible insomnia on nights 1 and 2 and every day since I have been absolutely exhausted and kinda foggy in the head. It's nice being home because I can do a little housework and nap and then do a little more housework and nap some more, but I've been trying to not nap so much because then I don't sleep at night. When I get through at least 4 straight hours of sleeping at night, we consider it a big success now. My husband is still trying to get the hang of giving the shot every morning and I give him a lot of credit for being a great nurse. He gives me my pills each night before bed, and my shot every morning now, and to top it all off he puts up with my bitching about how I'm feeling all day long. He should get an award.

They make me feel like crap all day. Like I'm getting over the flu but without the chest cough. Just a feeling of being run down and tired after doing something as easy as the laundry. And I've had a bad headache since I got my first shot and it hasn't gone away yet. I keep thinking sleeping will help, but my new weird sleeping patterns aren't really helping me out with it. I get my shot at around 6:45 every morning and then, since I can't really go back to sleep, I read my book for a while until the itchiness in my belly goes away. And then I get up and I'm immediately irritable and cranky. It makes me laugh sometimes when I wake up and realize I have a cranky face on and I don't even know why I'm mad.

So far, that's how I've been feeling. My husband has been feeding me chocolate every night (trying to counter the moodiness I think!) and just being an all around very comforting and patient person. I have another appointment this Thursday for a class to learn about how to give my fertility shots, or how to make them? or mix them together or something? I'm actually not exactly sure, but I do know that I have no idea how to use that refillable injectable pen they gave me, so maybe that's what I'll be learning how to use. I'll update then. Until then, I'm still praying. Talk to you all soon :)

SHOTS!!

Shots!! Shots!! Shots!! Shots!!Shots!! Shots!! You know like that song.... This is what my husband has been singing to me every night for the past week. Not the whole song mind you, just that one part because I've been walking around saying the word shots at random times like it's the plague. So that's his response to lighten the mood lol :)

Well the big day has finally arrived. My mom came over on Tuesday to keep me company while we waited for the arrival of my big box of SHOTS!! The pharmacy told me it would come between 7am and 9pm so I basically had to sit around and wait all day for it. Lucky for us it came at around 2pm so we weren't imprisoned inside the house all day! I guess I was expecting something different. Not that I wasn't expecting little vials of drugs and some little needles to go with it, I just wasn't expecting SOOO many needles to come in the box. There must be over 100 needles in that box. The tiny insulin needles for the lupron shots that I started taking today, the injectable needles for the fertility drugs and some other much bigger needles for some other drugs that I have to take and then I think even more insulin needles in another bag, and then a smaller bag of littler needles and then some other refill injectables... Seriously, I may not be the best here at math but the ratio of little vials of drugs to needles is WAY off... Let me clarify one thing though, I'm not taking insulin. They're called insulin needles because they are the tiny needles that diabetics use to inject insulin. I am using insulin needles to inject myself with Lupron.

I got my first shot of lupron this morning given to me by my wonderful husband. I haven't slept in about 5 days because I had been having nightmares about doing the shots wrong. Either we inject too much, or too little, or the wrong drug and then we have to go back on birth control and wait another month and everything gets pushed back again. I know, ridiculous, but really not so ridiculous because this is a very exciting yet very stressful process to be going through and my subconscious is just messing with me every night after I fall asleep.

So before we went to bed last night we went on YouTube and found a video of a woman giving herself a shot of lupron and giving a tutorial while she was doing it (isn't the Internet great?). We went to bed thinking, ok so it looks pretty easy, I mean she gave it to herself, she didn't even need someone else to give it to her. So this morning when it was time, we got up and my husband got the needle ready and I layed down on the couch and he gave me the shot. It was unpleasant, as I had assumed it would be because, hey, it's a shot, but it wasn't the end of the world and I am more than prepared to do it again tomorrow morning and my husband was so good with everything, he made the whole experience a lot more pleasant than if I had to inject myself. He really was a rock star, he didn't even bat an eyelash at the whole thing and he really doesn't like needles at all! After that, I went back to bed for a little while before getting up to go to work and my tummy was itchy at the injection site for about 15 minutes. This is an immediate side effect apparently but it wasn't so bad and I fell back to sleep soon after.

So far that's all the excitement of the past week or so, and I am ready to catch up on all my sleep tomorrow after my next shot. I'll update soon with more side effects in about a week or so. Talk to you all soon!

First appointment with the IVF coordinator

Well, we had our first appointment on Monday with the IVF coordinator. We made ourselves sick worrying about it because we have never gone to that doctors office and had a good appointment or gotten good news so we were wondering just WHAT was in store for us. Every time it's "well you have a huge ovarian cyst, or you have a blood clotting disorder that makes it harder to get pregnant, no the clomid didn't work again, no the IUI didn't work.. I see some fluid in your uterus and I don't like it" Seriously, not ONCE have we had a good appointment, but this time, the stars aligned and for once all was right with my uterus. Thank you Jesus for that.

So, the very first step in the IVF process is going on birth control so I don't ovulate this month. It's so nice to not have to pee on ovulation sticks for once, but it's a little strange going on birth control. He says he has to time when I get my period so he can time everything else. So I've been on birth control for 2 weeks and my ultrasound looks great... the cyst is completely gone, the fluid is long gone, nothing negatively new in the old baby making basket (They also did an infectious disease (STD) test before the whole thing started and we were both completely fine. Let me tell you-- no matter what anyone says, even if you're 100% sure you don't have any STD's, it's still a huge relief when they call you and say you're perfectly healthy lol).

Here comes the best part... So we're on this mega high from having our first GREAT ultrasound and the IVF coordinator comes in with our next step in the process. Now we were both under the impression that the shots began November 4th, AND that they were injectables like my eppi pen. We couldn't have been more wrong (this is another great example why you should never believe what you read on the internet). So the IVF coordinator comes in with this syringe and this little tiny glass bottle or fluid and she starts showing my husband how to fill it up and where he will be injecting me. And I think time stopped for a whole 45 seconds and then the blood left my head so fast I thought we were both gonna pass out. She made it looks so simple. "Oh it's so easy, the Lupron should come in the mail by next Tuesday and you will need to start the injections on Thursday morning. It's so easy!" the nurse kept on saying how easy it was and even she could do it but I mean come on, you're a nurse of COURSE you can! This doesn't come second nature to us non-nurses here. Especially my husband, who expressed great concern months ago when we began entertaining the idea of in-vitro.

It is something we're gonna have to get used to though. Once the Lupron shots end, we start shots of the fertility drug. If all goes well and babies magically appear in my uterus at the end of all this, I will need to go on Heparin shots for my first whole trimester, so basically shots start next Thursday and (fingers crossed) end sometime in February!

Still praying, but mostly saying thank you to God this month. Our biggest fear was that SOMETHING was gonna happen and they were gonna tell us we had to postpone it another month but nothing like that came up. Kinda sorta starting to get excited now. Just kinda, though.

Oooh, where to begin.

I stopped writing after last month because I was upset. I thought writing a blog would be an easy way to get my feelings out but in fact it's a lot harder to do than I thought. The clomid didn't work the first time around and my husband and I sort of gave up hopes of ever getting pregnant. We didn't give up trying, we just both sort of came to the conclusion at the end of July that we didn't really believe it was ever going to happen. I've said it before because we've been feeling this way for a while but now we're getting scared that that's the ultimate truth. Despite what the doctor says about us being young and healthy and what high chances we have. So we gave up for about a week. After that, we pulled ourselves together and snapped back to reality and decided to keep on going. It's been very hard for us and that's partly why I've been so quiet on here lately but a lot has gone on and I thought I'd write in with an update because the next few months I think there are going to be A LOT of updates.

Well this month, September, we were supposed to be starting the fertility shots. We did one round of clomid in July and the next step was the fertility shots. By the way I went to the doctor this morning for a routine ultrasound and my ovarian cyst from the clomid is gone, as is the random fluid in my uterus that he kept seeing during every other ultrasound. I am in tip top uterine condition for the first time in about 6 months or more.

Now, before I go any further let me explain about our insurance. We have great medical insurance because my husband works for Verizon and even though they are still negotiating their new contracts (they were on strike for 2 weeks over this!!), the medical covers just about everything including infertility specialists. The problem, however, is that it only gives us a certain amount of money towards this. Forever. Once that money is gone, we're done with the fertility treatments. then we just try on our own from then on. Ok back to where I was.. We had a meeting with the doctor to discuss the next step, that being fertility shots, and he said he would see us in a month when it was time to begin.

Well last week I went by myself for a meeting with the doctor. Now that the strike is over I have to attend these meeting and make all the big decisions by myself since my hubby is working overtime! Well we started to talk about the shots and what that would entail. He explained the whole thing to me and I kept asking him what was the difference between the shots and clomid. I still think they are virtually the same thing except one is a weak series of pills and one is a strong series of shots. They both work on the same principal: use them, pee on ovulation sticks, get inseminated or have sex on the right day and maybe, possibly get pregnant that month. Then he offered me a third option.

He pulled up my insurance info and we started chatting about how much was left before we capped out and how much everything would cost and how many rounds of this or that we could do. We weighed together our chances and mixed it with costs and he then suggested in vitro fertilization and he said that it was covered by our insurance and we could do it for 2 rounds before capping out at our coverage limit. He told me everything there was to know about it and exactly how to process worked and how long it would take. He offered us this option the last time we saw him but we turned it down because we didn't think our insurance would cover it. Now that we know it does, I made the decision to jump on the chance. The whole process takes about 3 months so the actual fertilization part won't be taking place until mid-late November, but we are looking forward to it and I will try my hardest to keep blogging during all steps. I haven't stopped praying, no matter how hard it has been or how hopeless it seems. Talk to you all soon. Step one is calling the IVF specialist when I get AF this month.. Looking forward to that phone call! :)

Not this month.

Well this has really been a crazy month. First, 5 days of clomid making me feel like a crazy person. Then an IUI on my anniversary. The 2 weeks that followed was like a roller coaster, yet again. This whole process has. Thanks to the clomid, my period is late. My cycle was/ is 34 days and counting. I still haven't gotten my period yet but I'm assuming it will come tomorrow. I had a blood pregnancy test on Monday and it came back negative. I then went for a clomid check appointment today and the doctor found a large cyst on my ovary which he said was caused by the clomid and would apparently go away on its own. Lets hope so.

My 2 options were as follows: the first was to increase the clomid this month to 100mg. The second was to wait a month because of the cyst and increase the clomid next month. My third option- and this was the option my husband and I chose- was to wait one month, and then start fertility shots next month. He didn't give me any more information, or a name of the drug, he just said we can start on the shots next month. We have an appointment on September 2nd to discuss these shots. I'm not afraid of needles whatsoever and will do anything it takes. i told him I felt hopeless and he said I had a very good chance of getting pregnant. I don't know. Some days the hope is so high and some days it doesn't seem worth the trouble to be let down all over again.

I'm not looking forward to getting my period this month because I'm afraid the cyst is going to make it even more painful than it usually is. i have seriously painful periods. I get completely incapacitated and end up having to take double doses of Tylenol and aleve and I still get no relief. On the other hand, I just want the damn period to come so we can get this entire month over and done with and start again next month. This sucks. I can't believe I have to wait 6 weeks or more to try again. This seriously sucks.

anyway, I'm sure you can all see whats going on in my heads-- been like this for the past 4 days. what a joy this next month will be. Oh and then after the shots, if I do become pregnant, I need to take more shots the whole first trimester! This is a lot to look forward to (ha, ha). That's all for now. I apologize for the depressing post. Maybe next time I'll have some new symptom to discuss and think about.

Back to my prayers (can they even hear me? Maybe I should start shouting them...) Talk to you all soon.

Well that certainly was fun!

Saturday morning was as interesting as it could possibly be. Our alarm went off at 5:30 am. Last year on the day of my wedding I said- "sweetheart, next year on our first anniversary I want to wake up at the crack of dawn and go do something awkward and painful." I'm so glad my loving husband remembered and made my day as special as possible. All my dreams came true...

Seriously though, I really am kidding. Aside from the IUI we had an amazing anniversary. We got to the doctors office around 6:45 am --- thanks to my impeccable driving skills (i.e. 85 mph on the parkway the whole 23 miles without getting pulled over) and arrived just in time for my husband to give his sample to the lady at the front desk (VERY awkward for all parties involved.) Then we waited. A whole hour and a half. It wouldn't have been so bad if not for the music in the waiting room that was just a touch louder than waiting room music should me, combined with the waiting room TV that was playing some dvd that I see every time I go in for an appointment. None of the interviews coincide with each other (dinosaurs and then Ricky Gervais) and they play it loud enough to be heard over the already loud waiting room music. So strange.

Well after the thrilling 90 minutes of my husband and I trying to entertain each other enough to stay awake, they called me in for the big show. Really, I think it was a show. There was a doctor I had never met before performing the procedure and a nurse and my husband and me in all my glory on the table with a paper napkin attempting to keep myself covered from the waist down. They always seem to make those things like 1 inch too small to so everyone sees my butt the second they walk in the room and if I try to do anything like make the napkin cover me, well it's a napkin so it rips and then nothing gets covered and then I have half a napkin where a whole one would at least pretend to cover maybe half a butt cheek.

So the doctor comes in and is all ready to go and I assume the position and he takes the thing and sticks it in my nooner as hard as he possibly can to open me up, I think. It hurt. Really bad. My husband then felt bad and held my hand. And then before he injects me with the sperm he's like "you have a tilted uterus" all serious like the world is ending and I freak out. Thanks unknown fertility doctor. You really know how to put my mind at ease when I'm the most vulnerable. So then he pushes down on my belly to straighten out my uterus before injecting me. This makes me hurt double. I'm getting squished and stretched in all different ways and right at the end the doctor goes: "does that hurt?" No doc. But just for good measure, I'm gonna punch you in the face and then after, I'll ask how pleasant the experience was for you. His bedside manor kinda sucked but the end result was that there was sperm where the sperm should be. He said it was in the fallopian tubes and that's good cause apparently my tilted uterus was making them hard to get there. And I know I ovulated cause I was clomid crazy and my pee stick was positive. Then he shook my hand and said something along the lines of "go have sex the next 3 nights now. And good work." or something. I don' really remember. I was a bit too traumatized from the past 5 minutes. --don't get me wrong, I knew what I was in for and I'd do it again a hundred times to make a baby but I just thought you all might want to know about my experience.

After that we drove on into the sunrise for some rest stop food before driving the hundred miles to our anniversary extravaganza!! I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I had writing it. We're still saying our Saint Gerard prayers every night. We have this paper that my aunt sent me with 2 prayers to him that we take turns reading every night. We still have faith. Thanks for listening everyone. Talk you all soon :)