let's end the maddness already!!!!

still waiting on provera to work her magic. In the past, when I routinely took provera (every two-three months) it worked faster and faster each time--I think the first time I took it, it was 14 days after the last pill that I got my period. I've gotten it as soon as on day 3 of provera. Last time I got it on day 5, and here I am, 3 days post provera, day 5, periodless.

Come on!

(have another post floating through my mind, but it's not ready to be posted yet. another suprisingly similar to p.i. feeling I'm having as s.i.)

timing.

sometimes i just wonder about god's timing.

i'm sick. my boy is sick. my husband is sick.

i cannot remember ever being so congested in my entire life. I haven't tasted food in two days. (oh, but for some strange reason I've eaten plenty of it--with no taste!) my head just hurts. I can't remember what it feels like to just breathe.

my boy is wheezy and is getting these horrible treatments four or five times a day (and I had to convince the dr. to let us let him sleep at night instead of waking him for more!)

i've barely had time to process any kind of s.i. stuff going on. probably a good thing.

i did finish up provera yesterday and fully expected to get my period today (or even yesterday). Not yet. It's probably not the worst thing in the world as in my projection of *magic* days in the coming months, I see lots of conflict. If the meds work like last time and I ovulate, it should happen around mid month the next few months--fine for February, but in March I'm out of town for 8 days mid month and in April M. is out of town mid month for 4 days. Sigh.....

Think maybe God is telling me something?

the run-around

did I mention that there were all sorts of tricky insurance things with all this?

well, there are. and it's so frustrating.

had to have my labs rewritten so they could be done at the university health center instead of at the hospital. (fine, a little annoying, but whatever) My pcp, who is horrible, had me drop them off so she could rewrite them. I did, promptly.

that afternoon they called and said they needed me to meet with a nurse to sign a consent form (i guess they were rerunning the hiv test, fine, no problem) and so she could go over the tests with me. this really bugged me as three separate people had done this at the re's office already. so i had to schedule an appointment--the two they had left were both during the boy's naptime. (turned out this wasn't a big deal as he has an ear infection and a nasty virus so he hasn't been sleeping too well during the day anyhow). so i take the one for yesterday even though i think the whole thing is so stupid.

when i get there, the appt is actually with a dr.--they took my vitals and everything. when he turned up in the office he was like, "what can i do for you?" no clue why i was there. spent the next thirty minutes trying to figure the whole thing out with him. at one point he said, "frankly, i think it's ridiculous that you're here." frankly, i did, too!

so, hopefully i'll be able to get my labs done next week, but it'll depend on if my (horribly inept) pcp can get her act together.

CD 102
metformin 1500
provera, day 3!

The Big Day!

CD 100. I hope I never see you again, ever!

I took provera this morning, and I'm happy. I hope to start my period this weekend. (I can't get used to referring to my period as AF). I am totally going to blog about starting my period and I can't get over how freaking weird that is. Oh well, such is IF, eh?

I'm working hard, per nancy's suggestion, to view myself as just any other person ttc their second instead of someone dealing with secondary if. I guess if I make it to May (that would be one year since non b/f and not preventing pregnancy since last year this time) I'll have to call myself a secondarily infertile person. But maybe not yet...though i'm having a hard time viewing myself as just an ordinary ttc-er, what with all the doctor's appointments, pills, etc. But I do know that many folks try for months and months with no discernable issue...

I guess I just kind of feel somewhere in between, like I don't fit in IF and I don't fit in TTC. And that I don't like. I want to fit somewhere nice and neat and be settled, calm. Not that fitting into IF world would make me feel settled or calm. Anyway, babbling.

here's to the close of a (100 day) chapter and hopefully the opening of a much better (28 day resulting in pregnancy) one in a few days.

CD 100
Metformin 1500 mg
Provera, Day 1

vent of the day: i hate insurance!

and I can't wait to get my greedy little hands on some provera to end this cycle. Still waiting on the doctor's office for the official okay to take it, after bloodwork done yesterday. It's not even three yet, but I want to call unless they forgot about me, but I also don't want to be that patient.

i think i may have given the false impression that i was upset about dr. f. I don't really care, at least not today, that she is one of those kind of doctors. I had the most amazing ob when i was pregnant, and my fertility specialist prior to pregnancy last time around was pretty great, too. I had been warned that doctors at this office were much less warm and much more businesslike, so I wasn't surprised.

i'm thinking, maybe this time around, at this stage in the game (early, yes, I know....I'm hoping that some of you who've been ttc much longer than me don't resent my early stage angst--though I also want to say that while we've only been doctor-visit-style ttc since Oct, we've not prevented pregnancy since Nov. 04 and I stopped b/f in May, so I may not be quite as new to this as some of you may think....), I'm fine with the cold pro. Once I get to Texas in a few months I imagine if we're still ttc I'll maybe want someone a bit more warm and fuzzy.

who knows.

CD 99 (#$%@!)
Metformin 1500mg
hopefully provera, day 1 tonight!!!!

a little peanut butter and jelly sandwich (in)fertility update

had my appointment with the new re (reproductive endochronologist), Dr. F, this morning. the highlights:

• on the way was frustrated by a delay due to a funeral procession and thought about how odd it was that death was delaying my quest for new life. (and then how crazy I am to get frustrated at a funeral procession, especially one that was only four cars long which is more than kind of sad.)
• arrived only to wait for literally ten minutes for the elevator in the parking garage. i was annoyed, but not as annoyed as the woman I waited with who was in labor and experienced three contractions while we waited. at one point we made eye contact and she started crying, and then i started crying.
• realized that my new office is not just a women's health center, but an office of "reproductive medicine". The upshot of this is that I was not surrounded by pregnant women. the downer? I was surrounded by a lot of women dealing with infertility and it was sad. i felt a very strong bond to all the women i saw in there, my heart was full for each of them. this is hard.
• the doctor was running an hour late. I learned later this was due to an earlier hystersalpingogram that was (to quote Dr. F) "challenging". She described in detail for me how the patient cried and cried through the whole thing, in so much pain and that it got so bad she almost refused to complete it, but the woman begged her to do it. (i can barely type this, I just hurt for this woman) Dr. F. then strongly recommended I get the same procedure in about two weeks. The same part of me that identifies with that woman's pain knows I will agree to do it, though I haven't officially decided yet.
• two pages of another woman's file were found in the middle of my records from my old clinic. Dr. F hadn't heard of any of the doctors I'd seen in the past, and I could tell she dismissed them because of this. She wondered aloud why the OB I saw in December didn't prescribe me clomid (she said my case was so straightforward). When I told her that she said it would have been unethical for her to prescribe it as she didn't know enough about clomid, Dr. F said, "She is an OB? Well, I guess if she felt it would be unethical, I have to respect her for not prescribing it." Basically, Dr. F was wholly unimpressed with my treatment thus far, but did note, "I guess that in the end it was them [said with excessive disdain] that got you your beautiful baby, though". I felt a little defensive of them, esp. considering they did, in fact, get me my beautiful baby boy.

are you wondering where the pb and j comes in? here it is:

so, get this: Dr. F declared at the end of her presentation of my treatment plan that we do not have a fertility problem. I have an ovulation problem. (so to clarify: I am the one with the problem. Yes, it is me who has the problem. Problem is mine.) She said, "when you ovulate, you get pregnant." Isn't that a hilarious thing to say?! It's true, I suppose because as a nearly thirty (okay, I'm 13 months away, but still, NEARLY THIRTY!) year old woman I've ovulated once and I do, after all, have that little egg all growed up sleeping in his crib at the moment.

Okay, so I've been thinking about the whole "you don't have a fertility problem" statement and it just doesn't make sense to me. I mean, that egg problem sure seems to be a fertility thing, doesn't it? I mean, it's like saying that if you have no bread, but you've got peanut butter and jelly you don't have a pb and j making problem but a bread problem. But you know, if I was in that situation, with a surplus of the pb and the j but no bread, I'd say I was having a pb and j making problem.

okay, I admit, once I started typing all that out it sounds a bit different than when I was brainstorming a few hours ago and when you start getting all technical with the analogy, you know, thinking, "wait, so what is the peanut butter in this comparison? and what is the jelly?" it actually has a lot of potential to get more than a little gross and offensive. Perhaps I should have stuck with the basics and not attempted to get creative....oh well.

I honestly feel great, tired from the stress of the appointments (my blood pressure was WAY up--it's usually on the low side and today was pretty high), but excited about the two prescriptions I have now, the four appointments I have in the next month and hopefully the chance for another baby.

I had a moment today, at the office, when I held onto that possibility for more than a second (which is usually my self-imposed limit) and it felt good. really good. great even.

ps. i do know that thirty (or 28 11 mos is young, esp when it comes to fertility stuff, don't get me wrong.)

tomorrow.

My re appt is tomorrow. I'm strangely excited, though I don't think it's wise.

I remember that last time around the worst days were doctor appt days. They were the days that no part of me could deny this was happening...

Of course, I also remember the resolve that typically returns shortly after an appointment and the high that comes with the hope and feeling like I'm at least doing something of CD 1-14. (Let me just remind you how distant a memory CD 1 is to me now...It wasn't even HALLOWEEN!)

And, it should be said that of course, I also remember the anxiety and fear of CD 15-27.

And then there is CD 28.

Too many negative pregnancy tests to count on CD 28.

I hate CD 28, even more than CD 97 (which is today).

I hope that a way secondary infertility differs from primary is that I'm busier, and maybe too busy to feel the intensity of this roller coaster of emotions.

I'm afraid what will actually happen is things will get stored up and it'll be like I'm on one of those roller coasters that just plunges you hundreds of feet down all at once.

I don't know. Neither option looks so good.

oh, and rember that post that was titled something like "aarrgghhh" (she asks sheepishly), well, my dear friend called today to apologize and ask my forgiveness for her insensitivity. Made me cry. She is a really good friend and I do forgive her.

until tomorrow.

StupidFreakingCD 97
Metformin 1500mg
1 Day until RE Appt!

hey you--it's me, two years ago. quit your compaining!

I was wheeling my child through the grocery store by my old house a couple of days ago picking up i don't even remember what and I passed a woman who has worked there since the place opened about five years ago (and since I go to the grocery store (and target) about three times a week i 'know' her). She's younger than me, I think, single, I think, and was actually headed out of the store with her groceries.

for some reason I wondered what she thinks when she sees me. I am a mom, who has time to visit the grocery store multiple times a week, during the day, so she can probably tell I am a stay at home mom. I wear a ring on my finger (that is quite lovely, frankly) and so she probably also knows I am married.

i wondered if she wished her life was more like mine.

i have no reason to believe she did, other than the without a doubt knowledge that two years ago, if I had been in her shoes, seeing a mom with a (absolutely adorable and perfect in every way) little baby in the cart wheeling through the store, I would have.

of course, nowadays I generally feel like I want other people's lives (with my current cast of characters, of course, I'll even take my own history, primary infertility included). I want the life of a person who is not infertile. Who at least ovulates. ever. Who didn't struggle with fearing the future instead of looking ahead with hope (blog title be damned).

But then I think back to myself, two years ago.

I had just started to take metformin for the first time and was horribly sick. I'd been trying to get pregnant for about 16 months and had yet to ovulate even one freaking time. I was SO PISSED that I might go another year childless when I just wanted it so bad. I melted down all the time. I cried in front of strangers, at my doctor, at school, at church. ANYWHERE and EVERYWHERE. I saw pregnant bellies and hated their owners (strangers or, worse, friends). I wanted a baby more than anything.

And that me--if I saw this me in the grocery store would have said, "I have it all!" My heart would have burst with joy at seeing that little boy and knowing that he was mine, my happy ending. I would have sworn to never ask for another thing so long as I live.

And yet, here I am, two years later. With the dream come true napping in his crib, asking for more, yearning for more, desperate for more.

And this knowledge, the knowledge that others out there, those who are experiencing primary infertility (me two years ago!) might look at me and see what they want, might hear of my wanting more and expressing pain and feel resentful, even disgusted at my greed produces a sense of self-hatred that makes secondary infertility uniquely different from primary infertility.

CD 95
Metformin 1500 mg
3 days til RE appt!

And yet I

ARRRRRRRGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

later, I may post a more sensitive entry regarding the subject matter of this post, but now I just plan to vent.

consider yourself warned.

so i had lunch with a friend today, my closest friend in town probably who has a daughter a couple months younger than my son. she was a faithful friend throughout primary infertility and rejoiced with us when we got pregnant and has really loved my son. Three months ago she found out she was *surprise* pregnant with her second. This was right around the time I had my first appt with my dr and while the news, which was not delicately or sensitively relayed to me, stung a bit, I've adjusted to it for the most part...though I do fight jealousy (of accidental pregancies) quite a bit. this friend also knows my current t.t.c. status and knows I've got an r.e. appt next week.

so we sit down and she promptly asks if I've spoken with a mutual friend (who is only kind of my friend--our sons are the same age but who is a close friend of hers) lately....when I said no, she SUPEREXCITEDLY says, "She's pregnant! They're so excited! They were surprised when she was a few days late and she thought 'surely not!', but she is! She's pregnant! Everyone's pregnant! Isn't getting pregnant easy?! I mean, it just HAPPENS! WHEN YOU'RE NOT EVEN TRYING! It's so easy. SO so so so so super easy. I love it! Hey--why aren't you pregnant yet?! Come on--it's SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO easy!"

okay, I exaggerated on that last part a bit.

do i need to tell people who were around the first time and know we're doing the infertility thing again now that relaying pregnancy news needs to be done sensitively? DO I NEED TO TELL THEM EVERYTHING? Get a clue.

I just want to check out (see previous post titled alone). done with fertile friends. done with friends in general.

done.

alone.

maybe the hardest part about infertility, especially when it's my PCOS that is at the root of infertility in this family, is that it's so isolating.

i have always been blessed with friends. GOOD friends. I have a dear friend that has been by my side through everything since middle school. I have four amazing college roommates with whom I still have monthly phone conferences/bible studies. I have five extremely close friends from church. And on top of that I have two sisters! (oh, and my mom, sisters in law, aunts, mother in law, etc....women everywhere!) God has richly blessed me with beautiful women in my life.

Of those women, two have even an inkling of what this is. one is a friend who struggled with infertility for several months before conceiving her daughter--she is now enjoying a surprise pregnancy so I feel like I shouldn't even count her among those who know this pain. (but the honest part of me knows she has felt probably more than a little bit of it). the other is my sister, who is engaged to be married, has PCOS and struggles even now knowing it might be a problem. But she hasn't done most of this pain (yet--hope she never does).

So it's me.

And my husband supports me, but he does not feel this. Infertility is not his thorn, as it is mine. And I think it is less a struggle now that our boy is here. But he does know it's mine and loves me through it--but that's just it, he's loving me through it. it's mine.

infertility is mine.

alone.

misery loves company, and my misery is seeking company and it's not there.

i hate it.

the re's office called today to say that a. I should arrive ten to twenty minutes early on tuesday to fill out the new patient forms b. I should bring a book because Dr. Fox tends to run late.

great. could this get any better?

this morning I was feeding my son some milk just after he got up and I was thinking about infertility, more specifically about treatment and I just felt overwhelmed with feeling like I can't do this again, and not only that, that I don't want to.

don't get me wrong. I want a baby. Of course I do.

It's just that I go to these infertility support message boards, read about PCOS, look at other infertile women's blogs (actually, I should say women with infertility, my sister is educating me on person first language) and I just feel beat down with all the work that goes into making a baby for those of us for whom it doesn't come easily and I just get mad. really mad. really really really mad.

and i, frankly, do not think it is fair.

although, as my pastor says I don't think anyone really wants to be treated fairly. You know, as a whole, in my life, to be treated as I deserve. I have a sense of the depth of ugliness of my heart, the sinfulness of me that is actually only a fraction of what God sees (and loves me anyway--ALLELUIA!).

However, I sure feel like I deserve a(nother) baby most days. but when I look at the little boy sleeping in his crib now and when I think about the past thirteen months (and one week) with him I know I've never once felt like I deserved him, not even a little bit. Ever since meeting him, even when I just found out I was pregnant, I was overwhelmed by the knowledge that this human was a GIFT. And not at all one that I deserved.

So I'm thankful for him, my boy. But I am (way more than) a tad bit grumpy. And I'm tired and nervous about embarking on treatment again. And I wish I didn't have to do all this junk and could just try to get pregnant because my body worked.

Oh, and have I mentioned that to top off the grumpiness/lack of fairness, this time around my body is suffering many more of the side effects of metformin? Last time around I was a little sick for about two weeks and then a few weeks after that I got pregnant and felt fine. I've been on metformin for nearly three months now and I still get horrible cramps about three times a week. Insult to injury, I tell you.

grumble grumble.

(remember how I said I see my own sinfulness? much of this entry is proof of my sense most of the time that I deserve whatever it is i want. what a spoiled girl I am!!)

CD 91 (isn't this absurd?!)
Meformin 1500

grumpy, tired.

green

i am a jealous infertile person.

last time around, i feel like the thing i was always learning about was control--that i was not in control of my fertility, my family, my life. . .(of course i still fight this all the time) but this time around when I feel myself trying to take over I can look back at those years of my life and say, "remember....." and I do.

but now i'm fearing (yes, fearing) that the area God will be pushing me to grow in is jealousy.

a couple nights ago i ate with two friends, one single and one married with three young kids, including a set of twins, one with a heart condition. After my single friend started crying relaying a story of her own jealousy of a recently married friend the three of us realized we'd all trade our own lives (in some ways) for each others, problems included. give me the freedom of single life over infertility and the demands of raising a toddler! Give me the problem of three under 2 1/2! And they both said they'd take my infertility over their lives.

we all envied each other. and it was eye-opening and it was ugly.

when i hear that friends are pregnant, which as a 28 year old with many young married friends, I do ALL THE TIME, I am not happy instinctively. I am jealous. There is a physical pain involved that takes time--more than i can afford to spend--to heal. Just this weekend I learned of a friend, a close friend who is "accidentally" pregnant with her second (her first is four months younger than my son!) and I just went out of commission for the rest of the night, and through to the morning even after not sleeping well.

and to admit this instinctive level of jealousy which is ultimately selfish--I mean, what is it other than saying, "I deserve that!"--to admit this, is shameful. and the cycle continues. . .

i hate infertility.

CD 87
Metformin 1500
12 Days til RE appt!

the title.

I grew up in Texas where it's warm most all the time. I often wore shorts on my birthday, which is next month. Shortly after I got married I moved to New England and met winter head on. It snows here, and it's cold. I've enjoyed the past five winters quite a lot, actually, once I got used to it.
We decided a few months ago to move back to Texas, and I'm really happy about it. I thought that knowing this was my last winter would make me really savor each snowfall, each biting cold wind, but I was wrong. I'm very winter-bitter. It's cold, the snow is nasty looking right now (see photo), and it's flat out HARD to live in a winter climate with a toddler in tow. I'm what I've dubbed winter-bitter. (of course, just as soon as winter ends, I'm headed back into a Texas summer which will surely have me longing for New England.)

But back to my title. I took that photo out in front of my house today--it's gross, month old snow on the ground, but today it's melting because it's beautiful, unseasonably warm today. The sky is blue and there is a warm breeze. It's in the sixties.

This morning I looked outside and I felt hope rising up inside me....that feeling New Englanders get around here in March and April when you know the winter is ending, a tingly feeling all up and down your arms and a joy so pure you almost can't help but smile. The world is fresh, a time of new life once again, the pain and cold of winter over.

That was bubbling up from within.

And I knew I had to stop that hope because it's January! The beauty and promise of today a fluke. It'll be months before that freshness, that joy, that beauty will arrive to stay. . .and certainly between now and then there will be times I fear that the spring will never come. To hope otherwise, as a resident of New England is dangerous.

Infertility is my own personal winter. It's cold. It's ugly. It's painful and it's even HARD to do with a toddler in tow!

My spring? The thing is I'm not sure. There is a story to my life whose conclusion I cannot see, though it has been written. I hope it includes more babies. (I even hope it includes more pregnancies.) But I am not the author, so I wait. And in this case, I'm going to hold on to the hope, however dangerous, because the giver of that hope is is the one who loves me most, who wrote the story, who knows the end and who made it all work together for good. I can trust that and I choose to today.

Here's to hoping dangerously.

this new blog.

This is a new blog for me. I blog my family life elsewhere, but I need to blog my infertility life, too, I've decided, and frankly, I am not sure my readership over there could handle it and I'm not sure I want to find out. Oh, they know what is going on, but they don't know.

I am a woman. A wife and a mom. I have Polycystic Ovaries Syndrome (and I hate those words more than any others in the whole world...I hate even typing them. Hate them. Hate them. I hate them.) and my husband and I are trying to get pregnant.

I never decided I wanted to be a mother, it was just there. . .can't explain that, but I just knew. I was doodling not only my name next to my crushes' names, but also baby names before I'd even had a real boyfriend. So the pain of my infertility began at fifteen, when I was diagnosed with PCOS....I met my husband when we were nineteen and after dating for less than a year I felt compelled to tell him we may never have children, if we were to marry. (I knew, like many women do, but he wasn't yet convinced.) It was one of the scariest conversations I'd ever had. He married me anyway, and we stayed on birth control for two and a half years because we were naive and thought we might get pregnant accidentally.

The day my neice was born, we went off birth control. Eighteen months, three rounds of clomid, two months of metformin, lots of tears, dozens of doctors appointments, one pcp, two fertility specialists, one false positive pregnancy test and too many real negative ones, fervent prayer, angry exchanges with my God and a lifetime's worth of yearning later I learned that I was pregnant. Eight months later my little man entered the world.

The day I learned I was pregnant a fog was lifted. I no longer wondered if I would ever be pregnant. Of course I was terrified I'd lose the baby and even had a couple extra ultrasounds simply because I felt so well that I just knew my baby had died. But a huge thing had happened and I knew it. I could get pregnant! I was pregnant, and the life inside me made me a mother and no one could ever take that away.

The joyful blur of the first year of motherhood coupled with the lifted fog numbed the pain of infertility...until that familiar yearning returned this summer, around the time my little man started sleeping really well (and by extension so did I!). . .I want another one.

So here I am, officially trying to conceive. again.

Will you join me?

CD 84
1500mg Metformin
first re appt, Jan 22