Get Lindsay Knocked Up Plan - A

Well, as you all know, we met with the doctor last week to discuss our test results and where we're going to go from here. Essentially, our Plan A. According to the doctor Curtis' sperm looks fantastic. Motility, count, etc. is all right where they would want them to be. She said all he needs to focus on is being as healthy as he can be (she doesn't know him like I do). Lucky Bastard! I, on the other hand, have it a bit more complicated. In order to be diagnosed with PCOS you need two of three symptoms: irregular periods, poly-cystic ovaries, or high androgen (testosterone) levels. I have the ovaries and the high androgen's. Luckily, my periods have always been regular. Sometimes a few days late or what have you, but only once have I ever skipped one entirely. I've always had 12 a year. So that's good news!
Basically, the plan is to make me SUPER-ovulate. I felt the need to put "super" in bold and all caps...I think it really portrays the deep, Wizard-of-Oz-like voice I hear when I say it in my head. Is that just me? Ok then...moving on...The doctor gave me a choice between Clomid and Femara. Here are the differences that she explained to me: *WARNING: Bullet points coming up. Gird your loins if you have a distaste for them...*

• Clomid tends to produce more multiples (3' & 4's) than Femara for women who ovulate regularly.
• Femara is more expensive than Clomid.
• The side effects of Femara don't tend to be quite as intense as Clomid (try saying that to the women I googled. Explosive diarrhea what?!) 
• Femara also helps your uterine lining more than Clomid.
• Less ultrasounds(monitoring) on Femara than Clomid.

The more we talked it over, the more I felt like we should start with Femara. After doing all the research*, I completely stand by my decision. So she gave me a 3 month prescription for Femara that I will start next month when I start my cycle (we missed the deadline this month). Apparently this drug is to be taken for 5 days starting on cycle day 3. In those 5 days it tricks my brain in to thinking that I am not producing estrogen, so that I end up producing double estrogen. Then around day 11-12 I go get an ultrasound. I also start peeing on my OPK's (ovulation predictor kits). Once we get a positive one, we cross fingers, legs, and shove a pillow under my butt after intercourse. Then we pray to every God that we can think of, even though he apparently hates us**, and hope that we conceive. Rinse and repeat for the next couple months. Oh, and if for some reason I do not ovulate, they have this nifty little shot they can give me to force my body to drop an egg. We'll also do a blood test one week after my positive OPK to make sure that I did in fact ovulate and my reproductive system isn't playing tricks on us. She's a sneaky bitch sometimes, so you have to watch her. 

I also spoke to my doctor about Metformin. I had read about it online and I know that some women who are diabetic or just trying to ovulate go on it in conjunction with Clomid or Femara. She said that if I wanted to be placed on it, she would write me a script, but I requested to get my insulin & glucose levels checked first. Thyroid issues and Diabetes runs heavily in my family and since I am already over-weight and PCOS-diagnosed, my chances for diabetes has risen. I feel that it's a good thing to have checked out and for me to monitor. If it seems as though I am pre-diabetic or anything like that, I will request the Metformin and work with my diet and exercise. I figure the more informed I am about what my body is doing, the better off I will be. If I don't seem to be pre-diabetic, I will not request the Metformin and I will just do what I can with diet and exercise. I don't want to be on medication unless it's necessary.
Apparently the doctor won't have me on this plan for too long. Taking Clomid or Femara for longer than 6 months/cycles increases your chances for ovarian cancer. If Plan A doesn't work, we'll move on to Plan B, which will probably be IUI. The costs of that procedure isn't near as high as IVF, but it will still be a plan that may have to wait a bit for some saving up. But, my hopes and focus are on Plan A right now. I'm doing everything against my nature to not borrow trouble and to just take this one step at a time. I really am trying not to stress.
In the meantime, if any of you have more information on Femara or Metformin, I would love to hear it. Side effects, pros/cons, horror stories or successful conceptions, I want to hear it all! Everything I google seems to be from 2005-2008, so any other links or information is greatly helpful. Oh, and baby dust doesn't hurt either :)


*By research I mean googling.
** I'll explain at a later date.