Hi everyone! Welcome, to my blog about our attempts at trying to conceive. Before I give some history, let me forwarn you – there will be way too much information given, much of the time I’m sure. If you don’t like it, you’re free to move on to someone else’s blog, but we have a network of family and friends rooting us on that don’t mind the nitty gritty so this is for them. And p.s. you're going to see lots and lots of abbreviations for things (sorry, chalk it up to too much time on fertility-related message boards the last two years) but I will put some helpful text for the non-message board folks. So here is our story up till now…DH (dear husband) and I are very happily married. I am an old fart in the fertility world and a cougar to some people as I am 37 and my strapping young DH comes in at 29. I have two grown children, DD (dear daughter) is 21 and DS (dear son) is 18. I also have one granddaughter (9 mos) and another grandchild on the way. So what am I doing starting all over? Well for one, DH has no children of his own and would make THE BEST Daddy in the world! For me, I’ve found my life partner and would love to have children with him. I’m older, wiser, more stable financially, and have a lot of love left to give a little one. August 2008 - Our journey started with a trip to Chapel Hill, NC. Having previously had a tubal ligation in 1996, my wonderful friend T and I traveled down to Chapel Hill, NC for my tubal reversal surgery. DH was away on a mission so T was game to go with me for this life changing surgery. Thank you forever and ever T! She and I had an excellent time catching up, the surgery went well, and the doctor was able to repair my tubes leaving me with 8cm on both sides. Woo-hoo, let the baby-making begin! Well, kinda…The first few months were pretty much awash…with DH away, we found out just how difficult it was to time air travel around my ovulation. When we came home, timing was no longer an issue, but we still had no luck getting that elusive BFP (big fat positive = positive pregnancy test.) But, no fear - even without fertility issues it can take most couples 6-12 months to get pregnant so we’ll just keep trying. And we did some "not trying" too. After all, soooo many people kept saying “Just stop trying and it’ll happen”. Well folks that may work for some, but my Fertile Myrtle days are over and “not trying” didn’t do us any good either. May 2009 – By now, DH had been home for awhile and we’d had a good 6 months of “well-timed intercourse” as professionals like to say. Who am I kidding, we’re still newlyweds, having lots of sex around ovulation (or any other time of the month) is not a chore for us. So we decided I should have a hysterosalpingogram (HSG) done to see if my tubes were still open. It is possible for scar tissue to form in the tubes following surgery so we wanted to make sure this wasn’t the case. The test itself was easy – you go to the radiology department of the hospital, they put a catheter up through your cervical opening into the uterus, and inject dye into the uterus. Then you and the medical staff watch (with baited breath) to see if the dye goes into the tubes and spills out the other end indicating no blockages. And YIPPEE, both of my tubes were open! The doctor performing the procedure even remarked they never see HSGs with both tubes open after a tubal reversal. We’re stoked at the great report, hope that the HSG has “flushed” out anything that may have been in the way, and keep on trying. August 2009 - 1 year and 1 day after my tubal reversal surgery I POAS (pee on a stick) like I have dozens of times in the last year and WOW, it's a BFP!! We're pregnant!! We're ecstatic!! Our first beta level where they measure hCG was 42.5...ok, it's low but hey we're pregnant, the surgery worked!! 2 days later I start spotting and AF comes on full force before we could even get the results from the second beta back (which was down to 18 by then by the way.) They call this a chemical pregnancy. I don’t care what they call it. It doesn't make it hurt any less. I cried an awful lot that week, but we kept telling ourselves "At least we can get pregnant" so we had a renewed sense of hope. September 2009 – DH had his semen analysis done. We’d had it scheduled before our BFP so figured it’s probably a good idea to get it done anyways. Poor guy had to give it up in a bathroom stall at the VA, but he persevered. :-) And his numbers came out great, YAY!!! So we keep on trying.Now, at this point I should share a bit about what "trying" entails. We already covered the “well-timed intercourse” but we tried just about anything I found out about through others including:- OPK's (Ovulation Predictor Kits) to see when "prime time" was coming up.
- I learned how to gauge where my cycle was by checking my cervical position (CP)...yeah, that wasn’t fun.
- I tried using a BBT (Basal Body Thermometer) to know what day Ovulation (O) had occurred. But I rarely sleep a whole 3 hours without waking so it was nearly impossible to get accurate readings.
- We tried different positions DTD (doing the deed) and different positions after DTD - i.e. the pillow under the butt afterwards, legs elevated against the wall afterwards, laying on my stomach afterwards, etc.
- We tried many things to improve my complete lack of fertile cervical mucous (CM) most likely thanks to all the procedures I've had done on my cervix. We tried Preseed (sperm-friendly) lubricant, taking Evening Primrose Oil cycle days (CD) 1-ovulation then switching to Fish Oil the rest of the cycle, drinking grapefruit juice from CD1-ovulation, drinking green tea from CD1-ovulation.
- DH tried drinking Red Bull 20 minutes before DTD. People claim it gives a man’s swimmers an extra boost.
- I’ve taken prenatal vitamins for 2.5 years now and I drink decaf coffee.
I’m sure there’s even some I forgot! The important thing is that despite all of our months and months of "trying" we have never stopped having fun and we’ve kept our sense of humor, THANK GOD!!!
January 2010 - OMG we have another BFP!! Maybe, just maybe this time will be it!! First beta level is 270. Wow, that's a lot better than last time! Second beta was 600 - YAY it more than doubled!! Now we wait for the ultrasound (u/s). The u/s was scheduled for when I would be 6 weeks 2 days along (despite my requests for an earlier one given that my tubal surgery puts me at higher risk for ectopic) but Mother Nature had other plans. A major snowstorm hit closing my doctor’s office and postponing my u/s for yet another week. I begged the nurse to get me in earlier, but she said nope and that was it.
February 2010 - At exactly 7 weeks pregnant, I started to spot and had some cramps that didn't feel right. I called the doctor (who didn't call back) and after waiting 3 hours with no call back, we went to the closest ER. I think I already knew it was an ectopic pregnancy but since my pain wasn't horrible I was hoping maybe it was just an ovarian cyst or something like that. No such luck...large mass on the right tube, blood in the abdomen. I needed emergency surgery that night where they removed my right tube (“congestion” and a large blood clot in it) AND my right ovary (which was hemmhoraging at this point.) Oh, and when I checked my voicemails the next day from my hospital bed, the doctor had called back later that evening to say we should come in the next day to take a look. Thanks a ton doc! I don’t want to think of how much blood I could have lost by that point! Well needless to say, I completely broke down after this loss. I was in a fog for weeks; I still don’t really know how I functioned. We stopped trying and started preventing for a couple months until we could figure out if we even wanted to risk another pregnancy.
June 2010 - We decided, yep, we'll risk it. After starting our "trying" again naturally the last couple months, we decided to consult with an RE (reproductive endocrinologist.) We met with him, really liked him, and had loads of bloodwork (b/w) done to check for thyroid issues, progesterone deficiencies, clotting disorders, glucose levels, ovarian reserve, etc.
July 2010 – B/w came back good and on CD4 the RE did an u/s to look at my antral follie count or AFC (antral follicles are resting follicles that could potentially be stimulated with medication.) My AFC that day was 9 which is not bad at all considering I only have one ovary left. We’ve decided to try IUI (Intra-Uterine Insemination) aka Artificial Insemination as our next step. My egg(s) , DH's sperm, and a bit of help from medical science and a catheter to make it easier for them meet up. Right now, we’ve got about a week left in the dreaded 2WW (2 week wait). This is the the 2 week timeframe between ovulation and either a BFP or Aunt Flo’s arrival and I can tell you the 2WW ALWAYS drags. But at least if AF shows up this time, then we’ll be getting this IUI party started.
Hope you’ll tag along for the ride. More to come as the preparation for IUI has already begun…
