My Appt

My doctor’s appointment sucked. From the moment I walked into the building until the moment I left. Let’s start with the exciting “are you fucking kidding me” story. I walked in and the waiting room was empty. SCORE! No pregnant women! I let out my sigh, paid my co-pay and sat down. Minutes later a car pulled up and I looked out the window to see a woman carrying an infant carrier walking up. Awesome! She walks in and it’s obvious she’s still recovering from her delivery; she has a newborn baby boy in the carrier and with her is this young looking pregnant girl. Based on the conversation I overheard between them and the doctor’s staff. The woman was mom, the girl was her teenage daughter, and the boy was her son. Her teenage daughter isn’t even old enough to drive yet she’s more than halfway through her pregnancy. How special, mom and daughter get to experience pregnancy together. :insert eye roll here:

I bite my tongue and just go back to looking at my phone while they proceed to stare at me. Not glance, STARE. Then in walks another pregnant teenager with her mom and young child. I figured young child was the grandma’s, but NOPE, that was the teens as well. She’s on to baby #2.

I don’t have anything against teen parents. I really don’t. A lot of teens step up to the plate, grow up and raise their children. There are quite a few who don’t though and I have a feeling based on their conversations, these two girls were in that “don’t” category.

Finally I get called back, hallelujah. Dr. Awesome’s nurse and nurse intern do the normal line of questioning and once the nurse got into my history (the loss, IF, etc) the nurse intern’s eyes look like they were about to bulge out of their head. She caught herself and her complete look of shock, but a little too late, I saw it. I tried to stay optimistic though, Dr. Awesome always makes me feel better. He’s optimistic and always smiles so I couldn’t wait to see him.

About 10 minutes later Dr. Awesome comes in. No smile, holding a dictionary, er, my chart, and sat down. He thumbed through my file for a moment before he finally sucked all the oxygen from the room. My clomid cycles were “textbook.” My charts were “beautiful” and our timing was “fantastic.” He thought for sure in 3 cycles we would have gotten there, but we didn’t. Before we proceed with anything else he wants to do some additional tests and based on his tone and how he was speaking, I have a feeling he thinks the issue isn’t solely on me. He wants an HSG on me and a SA for T. I figured at any point he would smile and say it’s just precautionary, but that never happened.

Finally he said it; we might have to go to a Reproduction Endocrinologist. I wanted to cry. He explained that if T’s SA comes back with an issue, we’ll have to go to a RE. If it turns out he’s good, he will only do 3 more medicated cycles (with another med) before he recommends a RE. He ended up saying the term RE like a dozen times. He explained how some things are just out of his reach and he doesn’t have the necessary equipment and resources. That sometimes on the outside an issue looks easy to fix, but in reality it’s not. He ended it with saying we need the results of these two tests before we can move forward.

His nurse gave me the orders for the SA and explained when CD1 comes along I need to call her so they can schedule my HSG. I left the office feeling defeated. Sad and defeated. I know we don’t have the results back and it could be everything else is fine, but the fact that my optimistic doctor lost that tone makes me so pessimistic. If he is losing his optimism, then I sure as hell will be.

The reality is if it comes back that there’s another issue, we will be right back and square one. Needing a RE and not having the resources to see one. It will be at least a year, at best, before we can even entertain the idea of seeing one. Since it’s 100% out of pocket we will need to save money to pay for this. Then once we see the RE, it will take time to save money to pay for the procedures they think we need. Just more and more waiting. More and more optimism and hope going down the drain. I am hoping and wishing and praying T’s SA comes back normal and that clomid just wasn’t our drug. Otherwise my dreams of being a mom are quickly slipping out of reach.

Back To OPK's

I will admit, this cycle has been so hard getting back into the swing of things as far as temping/charting is concerned. I thought it would be hard to give it up. Nope, not as hard as getting back into it.

Anywho, I managed to find my flow again and even used OPK's this cycle. So there you have 'em. As normal, have my typical fade in and fade out. Yada, yada. Just the normal OPK game that I'm just so over playing.

I did notice something weird though and that's my temps. I'm not sure if my thermometer is dying or my body is just freaking out because my temps have been crazy close together. Normally I have a jump up and down, but it's been pretty consistent. I guess we'll see next month what it does.

So now we wait to see how long my LP is. Here's hoping it's long, but I'm not holding my breath.

We Survived

Somehow we managed to survive the 1 year anniversary of our m/c. To everyone else it was a normal day, but all day my mind just replayed the events from 03/20/11. What I was doing then. What I was thinking then. All the details just over and over. It’s like my brain was on repeat and no matter how hard I tried to change my train of thought, I just kept going back.

I was very thankful that our baby was on the minds of others yesterday too. I had a few close friends from the message boards facebook message me. Another friend texted me. On the message board there was a call out to me and everyone was offering their hugs and thoughts/prayers. It meant so much to me to know that our baby was being remembered by others, not just us. To have people acknowledge that we DID have a baby and that baby is gone, there aren’t any words to describe it.

I’m glad the day is over and while it wasn’t as bad as I had played it out in my mind, it definitely wasn’t an easy day either.

Spawn, I love you sweet baby! To the moon and back!

It STILL Hurts

1 year ago today my world was a much different place. Instead of bitterness and sadness, it was full of hope and excitement. Three little words brought forth a love I never understood, until then.

“That’s your baby.”

1 year ago today I had the u/s that was scheduled to confirm a blighted ovum before moving forward with any type of treatment. The tech was supposed to confirm the baby didn’t develop. I prepared myself for it. Instead he told me the most amazing news, that my baby did develop and my baby had a heartbeat.

1 year ago today I cried many tears, but this time of happiness and relief. Our little one was a fighter! Our little one was bull headed like his/her mommy & daddy. Our little one was there and was growing and in November we were to be parents.

I wish I could go back to that day. I wish for a moment I could experience that joy again. Its days like today that remind me no matter how much time passes or what awesome things may come, my heart will forever ache for the baby I never got to know.

Spawn, thank you for holding on long enough to let mommy & daddy have the joy of seeing your perfect beautiful heart beating. Until the day I die, that will be one of the most amazing moments of my life. I love you my sweet baby, to the moon and back.

215 days..

**We’re now counting down the days until we leave for our trip instead of days until we board the boat**

Excuse my random blogging sabbatical. I’ve noticed since we’re not currently riding the treatment train there just isn’t as much to blog about. No overanalyzing symptoms or freaking out over OPK’s so not much to report there. The break has been nice really. To not stress 24/7 about it has really been good for us as a couple. I’m definitely going back to charting next cycle simply so we still keep an eye on what my body is doing exactly, but our world isn’t going to revolve around it.

There have been some questions as to what are we doing exactly. Are we trying or avoiding? The answer is neither. We are not actively trying to pregnant, nor are we avoiding it. There will come a point where we will actively prevent and that is July. July is when final payment for the trip is due and we pass the 100% refund mark. After that having to cancel will lose us money and that’s something we’re not down for. So if we aren’t with child by then, then we will actively prevent until our trip is done.

Speaking of the trip, we got our backpacks! While I haven’t traveled with it yet, I have messed around with it and it’s awesome! I had a bit of a ditz moment though because I couldn’t find the straps to wear it as a backpack. Apparently they are removable and tucked away in this secret compartment on the backpack. The backpack is sweet though and I’m very pleased with the purchase. I will be using it this weekend when I dog sit for my parents.

Another trip update, we are starting to finalize the excursions we will be doing! Our most exciting (and nerve wracking) one will be in Cairo as we are doing an overnight excursion! I was very much so on the fence about it because of all the civil unrest there, but from what I’ve heard/read as long as you aren’t walking the mean streets of Cairo by yourself at night you should be fine. I guess they tend to avoid large tour groups since there is usually a fair amount of people. So we’re hoping that’s the way it goes. This excursion also offers a lot of amazing opportunities that we couldn’t have otherwise, so we’re rolling the dice. I’m sure it’ll be fine.

That’s about all I got. I might start posting once I start charting again just to keep my OPK pics up since I do know some people actually reference those, but don’t expect the crazy “OMFG is this it” type of post for a while.

Edit: 8:37 pm
Just booked our hotel for after the cruise. Was lucky enough to get the same hotel as our pre-cruise days in Rome!! Woot!

Finalize decision about trip
Put deposit on cruise
Put in for vacation
Put in for vacation (T)
Pay remaining balance of cruise
Book airfare
Sign up for shore excursions
Book hotel for days before cruise & after
Make sure vaccines up to date
Get visas for required countries
Get all US Embassy info for each country