It must be a sign!

I have been whispering this to myself all week. Who am I kidding, 12 months worth of whispers and I believe them everytime! Here are few:

I am so tired - That must be a sign of being pregnant, it is written everywhere. Even before that little egg implants, it is affecting you, right?

Cramps, wait no, is that a twinge or a cramp? - I swear, I have never been so aware of cramps in my life. AF never caused much disturbance in my life, but now that I am TTC, I swear every pinch or pull I feel has to be a baby growing.

Boy, what do I smell? - I have a weird sense of smell, some things seem to be overpowering when they aren't for my husband and other times, I can't smell at all. Though in these two weeks waiting to see if I am magically pregnant, anytime a smell bothers me, I swear it is morning sickness starting.

That milk just made my throat burn - Must be a sign right? Why would milk hurt my throat, just out of the blue. Is it reflux, is it my body changing overnight? Must be a sign of something!

All of these are a sign that I am neurotic during these two weeks waiting. Maybe if I actually believed the 5% chance we have to conceive naturally was real, then I wouldn't worry so much about every sign. The odds are stacked against us and I am alright with that. I like a challenge, small, medium, large, I like them all. So bring it 5%, I challenge you to break me down!

The drinking/non-drinking game

In the past during the TWW, I didn't think much about having a glass of wine if the mood struck me (except during IVF). Because of this, I never had those stares signaling they knew what was up. This time is different. I wanted to abstain during the TWW, both for the best chance of this month being THE month, and to help reduce the extra calories (yes I know, selfish but we do have a cruise coming up). Here has been the reactions from friends:

Wife of the Year Award: After ordering a water at a bar known for their beers, our friend smiles at me as if he knows something. It doesn't help that just two weeks before we met for dinner and I ordered just a water. He didn't see the beer I drank at the bar before that. My response: to smile back and say "it's my husbands turn to have a few tonight". Seemed like a wife of the year award to me!!

Food Won: While visiting friends out of state (and who always enjoy a few drinks with) I proclaimed I ate myself silly at dinner and could not fit anything else, even in the liquid form, in my stomach. Luckily my stepdaughter agreed with me so she wasn't suspicious this time but I did have to hear from my loving friends "what are you 80?" I wanted to respond " well, no I'm not, just trying to give my body the best chance to impregnate itself after 12 months of trying". Though, this response would put quite an awkward cloud over the evening.

Only about 10 more days to go. Avoiding social situations may not be possible so time for more "excuses". Any ideas?

And 2WW Begins...

Maybe I should have called this blog the Fertility Roller Coaster. The up's and down's you go through just in the month is enough to make it seem like a roller coaster.

Mother nature does a crazy thing, she makes you wait. I have never been good at waiting, I like to plan, that is my Type A personality coming out. I won't find out until Dec. 19 or around that time comes, if any of this effort this month paid off. So what is a girl to do? Blog! =)

Smiley face

Smiley face showed up this morning, tested again this afternoon and it was gone. Both had the same concentration so I guess they are right that you must test twice a day to catch the surge. Happy to see the smiley face, fingers crossed!

OPK madness

OPK, for those who don't know, stands for ovulation prediction kit, or so I think. Basically, it is similar to a pregnancy test but it tests a surge of LH hormone which is a sign that your body is about to ovulate. Get a positive test, start baby dancing to try to catch the egg, just like what was shown in the Great Sperm race I posted last week.

These tests are not as clear as a pregnancy test. Seeing a second line is very common, but you must see a second line that is as dark as the control line. Talk about going crazy! So this month, I chose to try out the ones that give you a smiley face when it is positive. They are about 20x more expensive, but as clear as day when saying yes or no. If they work, they are way cheaper than going through IVF again.

Getting pregnant used to be easy, or at least that is what we were taught in school. The science behind it makes you wonder how there can be so many "mistakes" out there!

Great sperm race

Just watched this great video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SFOpHiS-tA&noredirect=1, The Great Sperm Race.

They should show this in schools, there is no gross graphics and it is pretty funny by using real people as sperm.

Oh the things we learn as adults!

Adoption Investigation

Last night I had a wonderful conversation with an acquaintance on her journey to adoption. Similar to many women, she had one child biologically but ended up with secondary fertility issues. Instead of trying IVF, her husband and her decided to reduce the heartache risk and use the money and their emotions and start the adoption process. This woman was adopted herself so it was amazing to see that she was going to pass on the gift of a home that her mother did to her 30 some years ago.

My husband and I have talked a little about adoption but it is too early in our fertility journey to decide on it. A major question is, do we do international or domestic adoption. The woman I spoke to last night decided to go the domestic route and should have a baby in her arms in less than a year.

I did some research on international adoption and some restrictions were shocking to me. Here are a few:

Age
Sure, we don't want individuals creeping towards retirement to adopt a baby, but 38?? One country required if a parent was 38 or older, they could only adopt a child over the age of 3. Really? Is 38 the new 58?

Years of Marriage
I agree on one hand that couples should be married for more than a day before adopting but requiring 3-5 years seems a bit much, especially if in those 5 years you surpass the elderly age of 38. In addition, some countries require if one partner had been divorced once, the current marriage needs to longer than those on their first marriage. Really?

Salary
I agree that couples need to be financially settled and assume anyone who can drop $20-30k to adopt a child from an international country, that would put them in that financially sound group. However, this is the kicker. It appeared that the household income averaged about $10k/pp in the house. Really? These groups are willing to hand over a child to a couple who is 25 years old, married for 3 years but only making $20k? Seems a little skewed to me.

All in all, adoption is a wonderful gift, both from the birth mother and the adoptive family. Maybe I am not ready to accept adoption as an option. Maybe it is because after being told my body has failed as a female, now the adoption agencies are judging on more uncontrollable areas such as age and length of marriage, leaving me with a bitter taste in my mouth.

Anyone gone through the adoption process or talks with any agencies? What have your experiences been?

Thanksgiving is over, now waiting on Christmas

First, I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We had a blast visiting my parents and relaxing for four days. Luckily my parents know about our first attempt at IVF so no worries surrounding "the question" all newlyweds are asked after being married for a bit. Though, because it failed, I see, or maybe I just project it, a hint of pity. I will take that instead of an awkward conversation of if we want kids and then seeing the pity look.

IVF was pretty easy for us to do. Shots were easy, my hormones were always in check, though my body regularity when it comes to that "time of the month" decided to mess with me this time around. Of course it came right after stopping all of the drugs, but unlike the first time, which I never made it to a second cycle since I jumped right into the FET, "the friends" as we like to call them, never showed up. As a woman trying to get pregnant, this was exciting. Hope filled me with thoughts of being pregnant once again, laughing at the money already spent and being able to be pregnant naturally. Every day for the 7 days I was late I took a pregnancy test. And of course, no second line.

Logically I knew I wasn't pregnant and I was just a little off from the FET, but what is life if you don't have a bit of hope. Well, Thanksgiving came and so did "the friends". Good news is we can finally start to really try naturally. I am stocked up on ovluation sticks (I think I should have bought stock in ClearBlue Easy a while ago) and ready to go. Who knows, maybe we will have a christmas surprise this year!

Here goes...

Anyone who has tried to get pregnant knows the dreams and the joy that you start out with. Of course you hear stories of friends who took over a year to get pregnant, but then again, you know the same number of other friends that it took 1-2 months. If you average those out, you figure your odds are 6 months or so. Every month you pick apart every twinge, every day, in hopes a little bean has found its way to your uterus. But no luck.

What to do, right? Who do you talk to? How many times can you take hearing "just relax", "it will happen when you least expect it". These pep talks are well intended and in many forms, mimic the ones you heard after a tough break-up, claiming, you would never find "the one".

Don't get me wrong, my friends and family all mean well, and I knew there would be struggles before we ever started to try. See, my husband had a vasectomy in his younger years and we had it reversed. We are one of the lucky ones that sperm did return, but not many of them. So little that doc gave us a 5% chance of conceiving naturally. Hmmm, that seems a bit low, but still worth a shot.

Fast forward a few months of trying, we decided lets go forth with IVF. There was no reason to think anything was wrong on my end until the HSG. Those who don't know what type of test that is, it is where they insert dye into your uterus and watch it flow back out, checking for adhesions or blocked tubes. Well, I was found to have a blocked tube, OY! Fast forward again to the saline sonogram, the doc saw that same blocked tube was blocked on the top and bottom, known as hydrosalpinx. That drops chances even further for IVF.

We moved forward with IVF, being given a 40% chance versus 60% (still not bad right?). We got a big fat negative. Here is the tricky part, I went in for a second opinion and the Hydro could not be found and no where in my record, over the 12 visits or egg retrieval did a doctor see it. They chalked it up to a misdiagnosis.

We did a FET, got another negative. So here we sit, no answers on why it didn't work, still waiting in line to jump on the fertility ferris wheel.