Just call me Overachiever!

We just got back from our appointment with Dr. Awesome and got the results from my glucose test and thyroid and some other test that I can't remember what it's called. Ready for the results? Drumroll please!

• Insulin Resistant? Negative! I passed that test with flying colors. 
• Thyroid issues? Non-existent! 
• The other test I can't remember what it's called? All good too!

Yup, you read that right. Even though it seemed that PCOS was out to get me and ruin all our plans, it seems to have drawn the line at my metabolism and my ovaries. You know, only the real important parts. Ba dum tiss. 

Anyways, it looks like there will be no need for Metformin after all. Thank goodness! That drug was not the most pleasant. I'm actually very relieved to hear that all tests came back so good. He did mention that there could still be a bit of endometriosis, but that it's not something that would require surgery. He therefore concluded that besides my PCOS flaring up, we are in the unexplained infertility category...just a smidge. That news is a bit disheartening, but my doctor is still confident we can get "the job done" soon.

So, in the meantime, while we wait for Aunt Flo, I am to continue with my dieting and get ready to call them on Cycle Day 1...which may come sooner than it did last cycle because the "girls" are already sore as heck. Perfect timing, of course, as our 3-year anniversary is next week. UGH. You can't win for losing with infertility, I swear! 

Also, I know I said I would give a blog post regarding the diet conversation we had, and I am still open to doing that, I just wanted to see if anyone was interested in reading about that or learning some more information on it. If you are, please let me know and I will gladly give the lengthy details. If not, I'll spare some of you the sleep-inducing post. 

Until next time, Good Thoughts and Baby Dust!!

*edit: One thing I forgot to mention was that I asked my doctor what his thoughts were on putting TTC on hold to give me more time to diet. He explained that while some women do that, they are generally way more overweight than I am and that from what my glucose tests show, I am at a small chance for Gestational Diabetes. He said the only ways I would probably get GD is if I became pregnant with twins or if I started gaining a bunch of weight super fast. I told him that while we would be ecstatic if I got pregnant with twins, I did not plan on straying from the diet plan we discussed. I'm committed!

P.S. I saw another pregnancy announcement on Facebook today. I finally blocked that awful app that posts "Your baby's progress" week by week. Is that shit really necessary? There's books for that. Please quit shoving it down my fucking throat. If this keeps up, I'm gonna block over half my friends by Christmas! :'((

Last Week Recap

Where do I even begin? Last week was QUITE the adventure! I guess I'll start at the top:

Last weekend (7th-9th) we helped my Mother-in-law move in to her new house. Thankfully I had just received my flu shot because on Sunday, Curtis got the flu and was sick as a dog! He even called off work on Monday and slept for about 20+ hours. I was hoping he'd be better by my glucose test on Monday morning, but alas he was not and I had to go by myself.

Speaking of the glucose test, that was so much fun, let's never do it again! Seriously though, that was rough. I made my appointment first thing in the morning knowing that I had to fast prior to it. I got in and she made me give a urine sample, then took some blood while explaining the test to me: "First, I'm testing your urine to be sure you have been fasting. The blood is a baseline sample, along with your thyroid sample. Next, you're going to drink the sugar concoction. It tastes like Orange Soda without the carbonation and a lot more sugar. You have four minutes to drink all of it. You may feel dizzy, light-headed, a sugar high, nauseous or sick. You can not have ANY water for the first 30 minutes. After that, I'll call you back for another urine sample and blood sample. Then you can have water, but don't drown yourself. After another 30 minutes, marking the 1 hour mark, you will have to give another urine sample and blood sample. Don't worry, we'll alternate arms. Then we won't call you back until the 2 hour mark is done. You'll give urine and blood, again, but then you will be finished. Any questions?" Now, I know I have a flare for the dramatics, but guys...THIS.TEST.WAS.AWFUL! That's no joke. The first hour was the worst. Within the first 15 minutes my lips went numb and I felt like I was gonna pass out. I remember thinking, "Good think I'm in the hospital already!". It was bad. Water helped a little, but I didn't finally start feeling better until after the halfway mark. Then I was immediately 1000x better! When I was telling the nurse, after the first 30 minutes, about my side effects she remarked, "Sounds like you got all of them then! Be thankful you're not pregnant and having to do this!" I explained to her, "That's actually the reason that I'm doing this. I'm trying to get pregnant and my doctor wants to see if I am insulin resistant. Hopefully I'll be back in 10 months doing this again, even though it totally sucks!". I wasn't mad and she couldn't have known why I was doing it, so I figured explaining it was enough.
Today I have my appointment with our RE to discuss the results of the test, at 3:30pm, so I'll be sure to give you an update on that as soon I get them myself.

Work has been crazy busy, but I'm raking in the overtime hours, so let's not count that as a complaint. I will admit, there are plenty of days that I do complain about my job, but I am very thankful for it and the money it gives me to help provide for my family. It's hard to remember that somedays though, so I definitely need to work on that!

Yesterday, our female German Shepherd gave birth to 8 puppies. She started around 10am and had 7 by 4:30pm. We thought she was finished, so we moved her in to our spare bedroom and went to my Mother-in-law's for dinner. When we came back, she was fine and so were the pups (the picture below). This morning, we checked on them again and found one pushed off to the side. It was dead. My heart just broke and I couldn't stop thinking about it the whole way to work. When Curtis got back home, he called me, "I think the one that died was a stillborn. I let Ava outside to go to the bathroom and re-counted the puppies. There's still 7 puppies. There's still 3 girls. I think this one might've died inside of her and she had her last night. So we would've had 4 boys and 4 girls, but...we still have 7!" As sad as I was, I was also a bit relieved that something didn't go wrong and one of them died. I am feeling a bit guilty since she had one while we were sleeping, but that means it came 12 hours after the first, which I am hoping is unheard of.  Who knows if there's anything we could have done even if we had  been awake?
Anyways, these next 8 weeks will be quite the roller coaster with that many pups! Weaning and teething and trying to potty train and growing...we did it last year with two, I can only imagine how "fun" 7 is going to be. But I have to admit, I can already see their fluffy little butts running around the yard in the autumn leaves and I am SO excited for that! Here's a picture of them just a few hours old:

Other than that, Friday marked 1 week officially on my 1200 calorie-a-day diet. I downloaded the My Fitness Pall app for accountability. I weighed myself last Tuesday and was 206 lbs. As sad as that made me, I know it's also not my heaviest, so I was comforted at that. BUT, I do remember how hard it was to break out of the 200's so I need to do my damnedest to stay out of them once I get out of there again. 

I did weigh myself this morning and I'm sitting at 204lbs, which breaks down to about 2lbs a week, which is healthy. I'm hoping the Metformin, if I get on it, will help make that 3-4lbs a weeks, but it's good to know with diet, and honestly, very little exercise, I can still lose a decent amount of weight. Yay! It's the small victories, ya know?

If any of you have My Fitness Pal, please feel free to add me! My username is Linseeloo. 

Today we're on cycle day 21. If we're going by my last cycle I should expect Aunt Flow anywhere between the 26th (Curtis & I's 3 year anniversary...awesome >.<) and the 30th. Right now, my nipples are sore as hell, so I'm starting to think that she could actually come sooner, which is good cause I can't wait to get started on our first round of IUI! So wish us luck for appointment this afternoon and I'll be sure to update as soon as I can! 

As always, good thoughts and baby dust! 

He's not so lazy afterall!

That really only goes for Curtis' sperm. Curtis the man? He is super lazy. I love him to death, but Sloth is definitely his biggest sin. But, we're not here to talk about the man, just the lovely little tadpole Curtis' (I apologize for any physical gagging that just occurred. I'll make it up to you). I got a call from my doctor today, well, actually the call was from one of the nurses my doctor works with. I can't recall ever meeting this woman, and I hate myself for not being able to remember her name, but she sounds like the sweetest old lady ever...besides my Nana. I called the message service that my doctor's office has to retrieve the results of Curtis' sperm analysis. SOLN (sweetest old lady nurse) left the message and said, "The sperm analysis came back with the results that everything is good. SPERM.ANALYSIS.GOOD." Bahahaha! She did the same thing with my HSG test, "Everything looks good. HSG.GOOD." God Bless that woman. I really hope she is the nurse I'll be spending most of my time with. I hope that when I do get pregnant, she is the one to call me and my message will say, "You are pregnant. SEX.GOOD." I think that would be fantastic.


Well, with the results of all tests (still waiting on Ultrasound) coming back "GOOD", minus the blood work and possible PCOS diagnosis, I'm assuming that my doctor will tell me we will start on the plan she gave to us back at our first appointment. I'm dubbing it the infamous Get Lindsay Knocked Up Plan, version A since it's our first plan. Here is what she typed up for us:


Cycle day 1 is first day of bleeding.
Get labs done cycle day 3.
Start clomid/femara cycle day 3. Beware side effects :) <---- I shit you not, there is a smiley face.
Start ovulation predictor kits cycle day 11.
Ovulation should occur 24-36 hours after positive kit.
Start follicle checks with ultrasound in the office cycle day 11.
May need several ultrasounds to follow follicle growth.
May need trigger shot to help ovulation if ovulation predictor kit negative.
Every other day intercourse.
If no menses 14 days after ovulation, check pregnancy test.
Be healthy, take your prenatals, try not to stress!

Ok, 1) I'd like to note that Trebuchet font is niiiiice. I may change to that! 2) you will note the title of my blog at the very end of that list 3)That damn smiley face scares the shit out of me.
I pretty sure that this is course of action the doctor will place us on. I am totally on board for it too! I'm not thrilled about the side effects of the drugs, but I'm excited that it could possibly be this easy (please remind me that I said this, I may need it as I have a big habit of speaking too soon). The 20th cannot come soon enough!


Also, mini-update: We've decided not to buy a house right now as we are going through some more baby mama drama (my other blog) that we may need to bring our lawyer back in to and that's NEVER cheap. We also have to buy a new car and with our credit not being the best, we're having to put a pretty substantial down payment on it. It sucks being a grown up *pout*.


That's all for now. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

PCOS and me

Wellll, looks like I survived D-Day...or T-Day since it was basically my testing day. Although not without some casualties - my vagina is currently at Deafcon 4 and is hiding out in the bunker reserved for The President, refusing to come out until Monday. She was not pleased that she was poked and prodded so much yesterday, and since that bitch is CRAZY, I've decided to just go ahead and let her hide out. Hopefully when she returns she'll have forgiven me. If not, this journey could get a lot harder than it is already!
Now since I lurve me some bullet points, I'll break down my experience according to each test I've endured thus far:

Pelvic Ultrasound: First ultrasound I've ever had. Pretty much the weirdest thing I've ever seen too. I know that all the sex education classes I had were forever-ago, but I always thought I was pretty knowledgeable about my body and it's subsequent parts. I was not aware that my uterus looks like a catfish at the bottom of a murky river. Seriously, when did that happen? I thought I was gonna see the Texas Longhorns logo. 'Parently not. All the while I'm thinking this, the tech goes about her business, recreating the Grand Canyon in my vagina. When the tech finally got my ovaries in view, I may or may not have waved "Hi kids!" at all my little follicles. I also may not have said in my sternest mommy-voice that they were grounded for life if they didn't get fertilized real soon! And SHUT THE DOOR WERE YOU BORN IN BAR-oh, yea. Woops! Rebellious little punks those kids are just like their parents already.
Soon, the tech tells me that she thinks she see a "double uterine lining". Indicating a possible Double Uterus. Double the pleasure, Double the fun?? She wouldn't elaborate, but since I am not with child nor ever been close, I'm assuming it'll be more like the twins from The Shining. Now, because of this finding, she wants to look at my kidneys. The right one looks fine, I guess, although it seems we're still watching an episode of River Monsters*. The left one, looks normal to the tech, but to Curtis** it looks like Jabba the Hut. To me, however, it looks like Davey Jones from Pirates of the Caribbean. So we have now taken to lovingly referring to my uterus as The Kraken. And as you can tell by the picture, the Kraken loves to destroy semen seaman.
Results: Unknown at this point. I have to wait for someone with a M.D. (or equal value) to let me know...even though the tech has me thinking I have two uterus' at this point. RELEASE THE KRAKEN!!!

Hysterosalpingogram (HSG): My heart was pounding. Not only was I scared to death of the test, but Curtis wasn't allowed back there with me, as it's a form of x-ray. TOTAL.DRAMA.QUEEN but we'll get to that. The fertility office was very nice. There were an obscene amount of copies of a local magazine that the doctor had made the cover of (for his success in ART), but the staff was very kind and they offered free soda (SCORE!). They made me take a urine pregnancy test (BAHAHAHA-Nice joke lady) and then get in the room for the procedure. Unlike the doctor said, I did feel the shot numbing my cervix, but it wasn't horrible. The cramping did suck, but when doesn't it suck. When the dye started to show up on the screen, I was finally rewarded with the Texas Longhorn symbol I'd been looking for, of course not quite as pretty as the diagram. I told the doctor what the tech said (I really hope I don't get her in trouble!!) and he said he didn't see anything like that. Relief! The test lasted a total of 5 minutes and I said total.drama.queen earlier because looking back it was NOTHING. The worst part of the whole thing was him cleaning my cervix and not because it hurt, but cause it's one of my least favorite feelings. I cringe just thinking about it. YUCK!
After we were done with the test, my vagina hollered something unmentionable-it rhymed with "I hate you punt"-and went in to hiding. I haven't seen her since.

Results: The great fertility doctor said he was going to send a hard copy to my fertility doctor(and OB/GYN) because once she gets the Ultrasound Tech's report, "She's going to be a bit confused. Everything looks great to me!". THE END.

Just kidding.

Labs (bloodwork) that I had done last week, but didn't talk about it until now cause it wasn't that big of a deal...until now: The nurse called me today (Friday) and said that my Androgen testing came back with high levels of Testosterone. That, leads them to believe that I may have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). And here I was thinking that my beard was because I am Polish and Italian; that my anxiety came from my Pop (grandfather); and my acne was just a given because all my cousins had acne issues...it just ran in our genes. Well, apparently so does this. While I'm relieved to know that it's something medical and not "Maybe God just doesn't think it's your time...", I'm scared. I'm aware that PCOS is way more common these days, and I like that it explains a lot of other things I have going on, but it still made my stomach**** drop a bit to hear it. Of course, the nurse explained they will have to wait on the Ultrasound to be sure that I have it, but knowing how my blood levels turned out and all the other symptoms I have, I won't be too surprised to hear that I do indeed have PCOS. We have a follow-up with my doctor on October 20th, so that she has the results from all of our testing in. Curtis goes in next Friday for his "test" and if you're friends with him on Facebook, you'll see his sad little countdown (I've forbade him from posting what he's counting down to). It's so lame to hear him complain about it! Does it make me a mean wife to hope that they want him to test a second time?? Yes, I think it does and I have no shame!

In other news, I had a co-worker bet me $20 that I will be pregnant in 6 months. I really wanted to say, "Instead of $20, how about a nice punch in the wiener?? And how about I collect on that loss now??", but I held my tongue. I wish people would stop telling me that "When you quit trying is when it happens." Really? I tried that whole "Please don't get pregnant. I will do anything, please don't fertilize my eggs!" When we first got together....6 years ago! It really doesn't work. He also said, "Sheesh, I wish I had that problem." No, you don't, cause then you wouldn't be able to rub pictures of your grandbabies in my face every chance you got. Asshole.



*Curtis and James' (my step-kiddo) FAVORITE.SHOW.EVAH.
**My husbands name. Why it took me 6 posts to finally get it out, I don't know. My feeble attempt at anonymity, I suppose. Who cares now when I've already talked of farting?***
***I'm sorry for that by the way.
****I hate the word tummy. It makes me cringe!