Round 7 results!

Where did I last leave you? Oh that's right. Whining about money and how we wouldn't be able to afford another round of fertility treatments because of Curtis' gallbladder and wah wah wah. Wellllll, in case you didn't already know (and I'm still trying to keep it secret as it's early) but,

WE ARE PREGNANT!!!

Yup. You read that right. Saturday morning I got up, peed in a cup and dipped the little hCG stick in it and came in the living room. I waited 5 minutes and fully prepared myself for the impending negative I have become so used to seeing. Instead, I saw two lines. DARK lines. Those beautiful little pee lines indicated that I was indeed pregnant. I dipped another to make sure after wiping tears and practically jumping up and down. Waited another 5 minutes. Once again, I was pleasantly surprised with another set of twin lines!
I immediately got dressed and went to the grocery store. I bought ANOTHER box of pregnancy tests, this time the digital ones. Chugged a bottle of water on the way home. Peed on the stick. Instead of waiting 3 minutes, I checked after like 1. There on the screen was the best thing I've read to this day: Yes+.

Needless to say, we freaked. Well, I freaked, Curtis remained impassive as he was super nervous. I called my doc and told them about the positive results. The nurse said, "When did you get the positive result?" I said, "I just got 3 positive tests within the last hour." She responded, "Wow! You really wanted to be sure didn't you?" I just laughed, "You have no idea." She then said she would leave a note for my nurse who would call back with the next steps.
The nurse called me back about an hour later, "I spoke with Dr. [Awesome]. Here's what he wants you to do: Pee on three more tests. If those come back positive, take 2 more. If that comes back positive, take just one mor-". The whole time I'm like, "Ok. Uh huh. Honey! We have to go to the store!" Until she stopped and started laughing. She was like, "We're just kidding. Three was plenty. We'll go ahead and schedule your blood beta test for tomorrow morning at 8:30." HURR HURR HURR lady. I was totally ready to go all Juno style- drink a crap ton of Sunny D and pee on every pregnancy test in our little town! Thankfully, they were just kidding and we made plans for the beta.
The rest of the day was spent in awe and prayer...just hoping that the beta would show that this was a viable pregnancy and not a chemical one. We also let those who were chronicling our journey know, but continued to ask for prayers/baby dust/good thoughts.

That leads us to today. We got up bright and early and headed to the big city for our beta test. My Mother-in-law came too. She's been cooped up in the house and wanted to get out for a little while, so we planned a trip to Costco and a couple other stores. We get to the doctor's office and the waiting room gets packed...complete with a couple that had the most adorable set of 7-month-old twins I have ever seen! All the rest of us in the room just stared at them and smiled. Dr. Awesome called a couple back and then waved me back as well. He told me, "We'll get the results today and call you when we know." I asked about continuing the Progesterone gel, which he replied yes and gave me some more. He then took the blood sample, joked about the request to pee on even more tests ("The nurses don't understand. My wife and I did the same thing for weeks."), then wished me well! Off we went to breakfast.
We soon had to cut our trip short as I got a text from a woman who wanted to look at the puppies. So instead of hitting up the stores, we just began the drive home. I was on the phone with my Mom when the doctor called. He told me, "Well I have some good news! Your beta came back mumbled-mubled-5...." I was like, "Huh? Can you repeat the number?" He said, "5-7-5." I think I said, "Holy cow! That's HUGE!". He then laughed and said, "Yup. It could possibly be twins!" To which I fainted.

Just kidding. But he went on to explain that we need one more test to check the doubling (Tuesday at 8am) and then we can go from there. But the number I got was very strong, very good and we're confident this is a viable pregnancy!

So as of right now, I am 4 weeks with an estimated due date of 6/4/13. I have some people hoping for twins and, to be the cliche Mom-to-be, I don't care as long as it's healthy and sticks around for 9 months!!
Just a quick note: Current side effects are just cramping, tiredness and sore boobs. No real nausea yet, though I get a little while eating and I got some while driving. No spotting. Headaches, but I used to get those a lot anyways.

As always, please continue the good thoughts and I'll be back for an update when I get my Beta #2 results back. Until then, lots of baby dust and love!!

Two week wait, 1 week down!

Hey everybody! First off, sorry for my absence during this round's 2WW (two week wait). I have been so crazy busy with work, my Gold Canyon Breast Cancer Awareness Pink Party, puppies and, the kicker, Curtis getting so sick we had to make a trip to the ER, I just haven't had time to blog. It doesn't help that with my new bedtime being right at 9:00pm, I don't have as many hours after work as I used to. Seriously, I am wide awake around 8:00pm. 8:45pm hits and BAM! eyes drooping, head leaning, and soon after, snoring! I have to admit though, I'm actually really loving going to bed and getting 8 1/2 hours of sleep these nights. Somedays I'm still waking up tired, but some mornings I've got a bit more pep in my step! That's WITH my decaf coffee too!

Anyways, back to the procedure. Back on the 11th, we had the insemination. Curtis gave a great sample of 16 million sperm with good motility and quality. We went and had breakfast and then returned for the insemination. They had me double-triple and quadruple check that they had the correct sperm from the correct guy. When the nurse first showed us the sample, it was pink and Curtis says, "It's pink? Why is it pink?" I told him, "That means it's a girl!" haha. The nurse and I just had to bust his chops about it.
As for the procedure....OUCH. I mean, BIG TIME OUCH. Now, the doctor that did the insemination wasn't my normal doctor. It was his practice partner. So I was nervous right there. When he first started, he said, "I'm going to clean all the mucus off your cervix.." and I remember getting all excited cause I had lots of cervical mucus! Yea, that stuff excites me. He then told me that my uterus was tilted forward, which was "Normal. Lots of women have that. It's normal. No worries". When he started trying to insert the catheter into my cervix he was explaining, "A little bit of pressure...the line from the cervix to the uterus isn't straight you see, so I have to feel the way....more pressure." It was not just pressure, it was straight up pain! He ended up pulling it out, and then getting some "scissor looking things" (that is a direct quote from Curtis) and trying again. I think he ended up having to open my cervix a little bit and then he got the tube in. He kept saying, "It's normal, it's normal...Good job guys. Good job both of you." which made Curtis and I laugh later. After the torture process was over, I laid on the table with my knees up for about 15-20 minutes. Then the nurse came in with the post-iui instructions and strongly recommended we have sex that night. I'll be honest guys, that did not happen. I still felt like crap from the iui and was cramping pretty decently and Curtis just did not feel up to it. So, no mattress mambo that night!

Since the procedure I've been cramping off and on. Nothing too severe, just steady cramping like Aunt Flow is coming any day. About 6-7 days past the iui, my boobs started hurting. It feels like it's more than just my normal PMS soreness, but I could just be hoping! I'm currently 12 days past iui and no symptom changes have occurred. I've noticed I'm not...well....pooping as often as I used to, but that could be the progesterone or other stuff. No nausea, no cravings, no weird smells, nothing that really stands out as a BFP. I'm fighting the urge to test, but I keep telling myself that it's too early. The doctor said not to test until Saturday, but I might only make it until Thursday. I've made a post on thebump.com's infertility forum to get a general consensus of when I could potentially test, so we'll see what those girls say. It's strange cause the whole wait since the iui has been me thinking that it actually worked, that I am actually pregnant, until Monday morning. Monday morning I woke up and just thought, "It didn't work. I'm not pregnant." I had a pretty crappy Monday to say the least. Then I woke up this morning and thought, "It did work. I am pregnant!". So, needless to say, I've officially fallen off the deep end during this last week's wait, which is pretty bad considering we already knew I was crazy!

In the meantime, please continue to send your BFP/baby dust, prayers, good thoughts, crossed fingers, whatever that we've finally got what we've spent 3+ years hoping for! I appreciate all of the support!

Round 7 IUI update

Today was the day we finally got good news this round: The injections worked and we have about 4 mature follicles ready to trigger tomorrow night. Here is our schedule for the next couple days:

• Trigger (have Curtis give me the shot of Ovidrel) at 10:30pm tomorrow night. She said that we don't have to do it exactly at 10:30, as long as it's not too much later.
• Thursday morning Curtis has an appointment to "do his thing" at 8:30am.
• My appointment is 10:30am.
• TWO WEEK WAIT!!

After the insemination I'll start my "pregnancy diet". You know, the things a pregnant woman can and can't eat. I'll continue nuking my sandwich meat in the microwave prior to eating it. I will cut out caffeine, which really sucks cause last time I did that, I was falling asleep at my desk by 1!! I didn't realize how much I relied on that morning cup of coffee! And in order to get my caffeine fix prior to Thursday, I'm sitting here enjoying a Cherry Coke Zero as we speak. It's gonna be a long two weeks, that's for sure...

I'm super nervous about the insemination, since it's not our doctor doing it (way to plan a trip to Disneyland DOC! GAH!), but I'm really staying positive. I just keep telling myself that this is it. This is what we needed. I've always thought we would need the IUI, so I'm glad we're finally here.

In other news, I'm not sure if I mentioned it before (and I'm far to lazy to look), but our dog Ava had puppies again. I'm almost positive that I talked about her last litter (last year)...Well, she had another litter this time. Only instead of 2, she had 7! LET. ME. TELL. YOU. 7 puppies is ridiculous. They are only 3 weeks and I'm already counting down the days until we sell them. Thankfully, we already have people interested, but we haven't even got to weaning them yet! I cringe just thinking about it. I keep trying to leave the dirty work to Curtis, since this is kind of "his thing", but my OCD takes over and I have to get in there and clean and try to get the smell out. Ok, I'll admit, I think they're totally adorable and I play with them a bit too, but that doesn't mean I want to keep them or do this all over again anytime soon. Oy vey, it's just a lot of work!

OH! and I forgot to tell you. I was talking to the Dr. Formally-Awesome-Now-Disneyland-Butthead about the cost of the injections I had to take. I told him that I read that they were $500 a shot. He said, "Oh God no! The 5 shots you took were like a total of $200. The ones I will give you were like less than $50 a piece!" Talk about a load off!! Of course I'm hoping that we won't need to take those shots ever again, but to know that if we have to I won't have to shell out $3,500 for medicine, I'm relieved. To say the least! Ha ha.
Also, just a quick side note, I'm watching TLC while typing this and the commercial for Say Yes to the Cure: Lori's Fight came on. Can we say tears?? Damn I'm emotional.

Anyways, nothing but GOOD news today at the doctors! Yay! I'll be sure to give you all an update soon! Lots of love and baby dust to all of you!

P.S. If my Nana is reading this (she just got a computer and I sent her a link, so I'm hoping she figured out how to use it) I love you and can't wait to see you this weekend!! Muah!

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! 

Getting back in the stirrups

Not my awesome Doc......nor my legs 'sigh'

First off, sorry about the graphic title...and the image. I clearly have issues that go beyond infertility.

Yesterdays meeting with our fabulous RE went pretty much according to plan. Maybe it's because I know what a fantastic doctor he is, or maybe I don't set my sights too high, but I swear we spent an hour and a half like a couple of friends just hanging out laughing. I'm honestly surprised we didn't bust out with some beers, although Doc did have himself Circle K 100oz coozie though, so I guess that was hilarious enough.
To kickoff the appointment, even though he knows most of our history, we went over a more in depth questionnaire regarding our health and our family health. I was able to tell him that thyroid issues run in my family, along with diabetes, and that my grandmother had some mild issues with conceiving as well. He immediately set up tests for my thyroid and a 2 hour glucose test, similar to the gestational diabetes test. Since I have PCOS there is a very good chance I am insulin resistant. Not diabetic, but definitely issues with the way my body processes sugars and takes in calories. He said that he and I could both eat a 1000 calorie burger, but my body would take in about 800 calories while his would take on around 600. We're both pretty sure that I will need to be on Metformin, but I'm taking the test to confirm it before just taking it to see what it does like last time. I'm not exactly looking forward to chugging down that sugar loaded concoction, but let's be honest, I've gone through worse during this process!
Apparently some answers I gave during the history questionnaire leads him to think I may have a mild case of Endometriosis as well, some scarring could be the reason my uterus is tilted, but from what he remembers on ultrasounds, he doesn't think it would be enough to require surgery or anything like that. I know how rough Endo is and when he said it could be possible my heart dropped in to my stomach, but he reassured me that it small amounts of Endo can be common (1 out of 36, I think) and that few benefit from surgery (1 in 25). He's gonna be sure that we keep an eye out for it for the time being.
The doctor also discussed my weight. I've never hid the fact that I am overweight, or at least I've tried not to. I've known it and I've struggled with it, but I've not been able to go full force with making a life change. He explained to me that if you took me, the way I am right now, and took away the PCOS, I would have no trouble conceiving. Then he said that if you took me as I am now, with the PCOS, and you took away 10-15% body weight, I would again have no trouble conceiving, so he is wanting to work with me on getting the weight under control to in turn get the PCOS to ease up a bit. We plan to meet after my tests come back and we'll discuss the Metformin and a more specific diet plan. I'll go in to more depth on this issue after that meeting.
Then, we got in to our protocol discussion. With PCOS, we need a plan that gives us a bit more control over the amount of eggs I produce as well as the quality. You see, Clomid tricks the brain in to producing MORE eggs, but it does nothing as far as the quality of them. Injectables (injected hormones) can control the amount as well as the quality. He said that women with PCOS tend to have trouble with ovulation and also the quality of their eggs, so we needed to go at these next rounds with more control (have I said control enough??). He is suggesting that we do 3 rounds of Intrauterine Insemination using Clomid and Injectables. Knowing our situation with insurance and that everything we pay is out of pocket, he says this is a good option for both our wallets and the extra bump we need to get the ol' uterus a working.
I brought up a statistic I heard about the difference between the success rates of IUI's and IVF's being only 15%. If we're doing IUI's with injectables, that can run a pretty penny, and we try for 3 rounds with no success, why not just save that money and go straight for IVF? He reiterated that PCOS can tend to effect the quality of the eggs, meaning that I could produce 20 mature follicles, but I could have only a few, at most, end up fertilized. Doc also said that while he's an aggressive treater, but he is confident that an IUI can get us where we need to go. Of course, we need to get one under our belt and see how my ovaries react, but if after 3 times we get no pregnancies, we will discuss moving on to IVF. I trust his judgement, so I have no problem following his lead.

And, as usual, everything with Curtis is going great. His sperm is fine, he has no family history that is disconcerting, etc. etc, blah blah. That ass ALWAYS has it easy!

Like I mentioned earlier, my doctor is fantastic. We discussed trying to work around my job schedule and the location difference, doing as much as we can in our little town, but also trying to ease up on the financial stuff. It's nice when someone understands that we're middle-class people that still have bills and such, and we can't just drop thousands out of our butts for this. It's also great to hear that, yes Curtis and I are young, but after 3 years of this, something isn't right. So while we wait for my next cycle to begin, we have about 3 weeks, we're going to do the thyroid & glucose testing, get my diet on track, and gear up for our first IUI round to begin!

As always, thanks for reading my absurdly long post (even though I'm sure you're glad it wasn't chock full of my ridiculous quips) and if you're on this roller coaster with me, Baby Dust and good thoughts your way!

xoxo, Lindsay Lou

P.S. I can see that I'm getting quite a bit of traffic, but my followers count is holding steady. Please don't be shy or be afraid to comment. I love meeting new people and I wouldn't mind answering any questions or snide remarks. All I ask is that you be nice, k?