Today started off horrible. It turns out last night I forgot to turn my alarms back on and ended up waking up 15 min before I had to be at work. Fabulous! Then I looked in the mirror and looked like freaking Medusa with my hair going all different directions and realized I must shower...there's no skipping that this morning. Finally I arrive at work, a mere 33 minutes late. I also decided to do a pregnancy test this morning. Surprise, surprise it was negative. Shocking I know. That being said I'm currently only 11dpiui so it could still be too early. I have read several stories of women who tested negative up until day 14 or so, but it's still disappointing. Then as if that isn't all bad enough today I get a call from my husband telling me about his doctors appointment. To say that was a huge let down is like saying Mount Everest is a small hill. He said that the doctor couldn't explain what was causing his pain, and that it is actually quite common in men. Then she said that based on his second SA results she doesn't understand why we can't conceive. She said that as long as the volume was over 1ml (his was 1.2 ml) then there shouldn't be a problem. They did finally do the testosterone check that we have wanted since he got home from deployment last April, but said that it wouldn't be an accurate number because it was drawn in the late morning and it's supposed to be drawn first thing in the morning. Ugh! He said that are somethings that she ordered for him to do once he got back up here, but said that overall it was a total waste of every one's time and money for him to go down there. I had so much hope put into this appointment! I'm hoping that if his testosterone does end up coming back abnormal that they will treat it or have him go into the lab up here and have it redrawn and not just say that it's off because of the time that it was drawn and blow it off. I think what frustrates me the most is that everyone seems to be blowing off the fact that he did have lots of trauma to his genital area in the IED and that could have lasting effects. He said that he tried to tell her that several times, but she just seemed to brush it aside, which is exactly what my doctor did when I told her.
The good news is that I had a great conversation time with our temporary roommate tonight and that my husband is coming home tomorrow. Despite the fact that he drives me absolutely nuts frequently I miss him like crazy when he is gone. I love having the ability to really stretch out in our bed, but totally miss cuddling with him. I can't wait to come home from work tomorrow and see him! Plus the two of us and our temporary roommate are headed out to the hockey game tomorrow night, which is sure to be lots of fun and excitement.
March 28, 2013
March 26, 2013
Longest 2 weeks ever
I'm over halfway done with the awful 2ww. Currently I'm 9dpiui, and try as I may I can't stop thinking about it. Did it work? Are the symptoms I'm having now related to pregnancy or just the lovely pms? I can't express how hard it is for me to not take a hpt, but I told myself I would wait until day 14. I have found so much "distraction" and encouragement from reading other fertility blogs and the fertility forums. I find such comfort in knowing that I'm not alone in this battle. I read this today on a blog and decided I couldn't have put it better if I tried.
Anyways, moving on. Hubby leaves tomorrow morning for his appt with urology. I'm so anxious, scared, and excited about this. I'm not naive enough to think that we will get all the answers and have a plan when he arrives back home on Friday, but at least we will have a start. I'm hopeful that they will finally do blood work to check his hormone levels and have an appropriate examination (the first one since the IED accident). He is actually quite anxious about it, which despite all the crap I've been giving him about it, I don't blame him at all. I would probably be just as anxious, in fact I probably am. My biggest fear is that they will do tests that come back saying that our only option is IVF with ICSI. All that is fancy lettering that means having to have an intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection; a type of in vitro fertilization when the sperm is directly injected into the egg cell. This would happen if he has a lot of anti-sperm antibodies due to the trauma from the IED. If that is the case that would mean lots of money out of pocket for us, having to go to Washington and take lots of time off work, and having to go on the wait list for up to a year. What's so frustrating is that I feel like all of that should be covered if that does end up being what we have to do because this was caused by a groin injury sustained while deployed as an active duty service member. There was a bill that was put before Congress two years ago that would have helped people in that situation, but it died and never even left the Senate. That's another rant for another time though.
I'm trying really hard to remain cautiously optimistic about our IUI working though. I've got my fingers crossed that this weekend will bring us good new both about the outcome of his appt and about the IUI!
"When I think about my infertility (which I do... all.day.long), I think about the heart ache, pain and sadness that it has brought into my life. And with every passing day, it has only gotten worse. My heart aches more with every single day that passes. When I look at myself in the mirror, I see a hurt woman. I see depression. I see weakness. In fact, not only do I see the weakness that stares back at me, but I feel that weakness. I feel it with each and every monthly bout of cramps I get signaling that my period is just around the corner. And I feel it with swollen eyes that sting from the tears that fall down my cheeks every night as I go to bed and silently say my prayers."I have tried to describe to my husband multiple times how I feel about everything. He hates that I get so upset and so has decided that he doesn't really want to get too optimistic about anything because he doesn't want me to be more upset when it doesn't work yet again. I've tried to explain that no matter what attitude we take about it at the beginning of the cycle I will feel the same let down and depression at the end of the cycle.
Anyways, moving on. Hubby leaves tomorrow morning for his appt with urology. I'm so anxious, scared, and excited about this. I'm not naive enough to think that we will get all the answers and have a plan when he arrives back home on Friday, but at least we will have a start. I'm hopeful that they will finally do blood work to check his hormone levels and have an appropriate examination (the first one since the IED accident). He is actually quite anxious about it, which despite all the crap I've been giving him about it, I don't blame him at all. I would probably be just as anxious, in fact I probably am. My biggest fear is that they will do tests that come back saying that our only option is IVF with ICSI. All that is fancy lettering that means having to have an intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection; a type of in vitro fertilization when the sperm is directly injected into the egg cell. This would happen if he has a lot of anti-sperm antibodies due to the trauma from the IED. If that is the case that would mean lots of money out of pocket for us, having to go to Washington and take lots of time off work, and having to go on the wait list for up to a year. What's so frustrating is that I feel like all of that should be covered if that does end up being what we have to do because this was caused by a groin injury sustained while deployed as an active duty service member. There was a bill that was put before Congress two years ago that would have helped people in that situation, but it died and never even left the Senate. That's another rant for another time though.
I'm trying really hard to remain cautiously optimistic about our IUI working though. I've got my fingers crossed that this weekend will bring us good new both about the outcome of his appt and about the IUI!
March 23, 2013
Bittersweet
I now have a new nephew. He was born last night and I find it very bittersweet. My husband's older brother and his wife are the lucky ones. I'm so very happy for them. They already have a daughter who is 10 I believe. They tried for years to have her and then for years to have another one experiencing cancer and many miscarriages along the way. My sister-in-law and I had a lovely conversation about children and infertility last summer just a couple of months before she got pregnant. Despite the many years of infertility struggles she told me that they never felt like seeing a fertility doctor was for them. She seemed so at peace about it all, I totally envy that. She kept saying that she knew that if they were meant to have children then God would give them children. I wish I had that strong of faith. Unfortunately, I don't. She is totally an inspiration to me. I hope that one day I have the patience and faith of her.
Little update on our infertility journey. Today I'm 6dpiui. If everything worked out our little bean could be finding it's way to my lining and settling in for 9 months. I'm very nauseated today, have a horrible metallic type taste in my mouth, my boobs have really started to hurt and I'm exhausted. I know that it's really too early for symptoms, but I can't help it. Anyone who has ever been through the tortuous 2ww will understand. I know that the majority of my symptoms today can be attributed to the fact that both my husband and I are still sick. I'm opting to be optimistic today.
Today we had a totally Alaskan experience. The community center for post had a "Mush Madness." Mushing is the same thing as dog sledding. It's hugely popular up here. In Fairbanks, we have one race that alternates starting and finishing here called the Yukon Quest. I'm very fascinated by dog mushing. Those dogs are all so smart and strong and the relationship that the musher has with each dog is amazing!
Little update on our infertility journey. Today I'm 6dpiui. If everything worked out our little bean could be finding it's way to my lining and settling in for 9 months. I'm very nauseated today, have a horrible metallic type taste in my mouth, my boobs have really started to hurt and I'm exhausted. I know that it's really too early for symptoms, but I can't help it. Anyone who has ever been through the tortuous 2ww will understand. I know that the majority of my symptoms today can be attributed to the fact that both my husband and I are still sick. I'm opting to be optimistic today.
Today we had a totally Alaskan experience. The community center for post had a "Mush Madness." Mushing is the same thing as dog sledding. It's hugely popular up here. In Fairbanks, we have one race that alternates starting and finishing here called the Yukon Quest. I'm very fascinated by dog mushing. Those dogs are all so smart and strong and the relationship that the musher has with each dog is amazing!
March 22, 2013
Feeling Discouraged
I'm 5dpiui today and not feeling as optimistic as when we were done on Sunday. Sunday afternoon we were both so darn optimistic that this was going to be our month. His "donation" was much larger than before and everything seemed to go so smoothly. Then Monday hit us. I was so crazy sick! Although the severity of the sickness has subsided I still feel very nauseated all the time. I can't eat anything with any real flavor because it makes me more nauseated. Ugh! I don't know if the almost constant nausea, the weather, history or a combination of all the above is what's causing the mood change or what. I love sunshine! It makes me so happy! That's my biggest challenge with living in Alaska. The super short days in the winter. We are back to having long days now, but the last two days it's been really overcast, we even had snow yesterday.
I wish that I could just fast forward 1 week. Then my husband would be home from his appt in Washington and we find out if it worked this month. The hormones from the HCG trigger shot on Satruday have definitely made me have crazy dreams, unfortunately all of them involve pregnancy or newborns. Some of them are crazy, yet happy and I hate waking up in the morning knowing that wasn't real and some are just plain out in left field crazy. I figure I'll know when the shot is out of my system because my dreams will go back to normal.
I was talking to my husband about this all last night. I was telling him that I feel so alone. There is no one that I know that understands what I'm going through. They don't get the pain/frustration/disappointment every month when AF arrives despite everything that you tried. A friend of mine told me how horrible it was when it didn't work for her the first month they tried and then didn't understand why I couldn't celebrate when it happened so easily for her next month. I just don't understand why I can't be a mom. I had three dreams in life. One was to be a nurse, which I accomplished with a lot of hard work and family support. The second was to be a wife and I got married Jan 3, 2009, to a man who truly loves me and get's me. Finally the third was to be a mom. I had no clue how hard this would be. I keep asking myself, what have I done wrong to not be able to be a mom, or how is it that people who are unfit parents have tons of kids. It really starts to wear on me! Plus I hate that the passion in our life is gone. Now our "intimacy" tends to run on a schedule. We have to force it on certain days of my cycle for optimal fertility chances and our best chance of conception happens in a doctors office! Why can't I just get it on with the man I love and have a child 9 months later like everyone else?
Sorry about the overall little pity party today. I wasn't kidding when I said that I was down today. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day and this will be our month!
I wish that I could just fast forward 1 week. Then my husband would be home from his appt in Washington and we find out if it worked this month. The hormones from the HCG trigger shot on Satruday have definitely made me have crazy dreams, unfortunately all of them involve pregnancy or newborns. Some of them are crazy, yet happy and I hate waking up in the morning knowing that wasn't real and some are just plain out in left field crazy. I figure I'll know when the shot is out of my system because my dreams will go back to normal.
I was talking to my husband about this all last night. I was telling him that I feel so alone. There is no one that I know that understands what I'm going through. They don't get the pain/frustration/disappointment every month when AF arrives despite everything that you tried. A friend of mine told me how horrible it was when it didn't work for her the first month they tried and then didn't understand why I couldn't celebrate when it happened so easily for her next month. I just don't understand why I can't be a mom. I had three dreams in life. One was to be a nurse, which I accomplished with a lot of hard work and family support. The second was to be a wife and I got married Jan 3, 2009, to a man who truly loves me and get's me. Finally the third was to be a mom. I had no clue how hard this would be. I keep asking myself, what have I done wrong to not be able to be a mom, or how is it that people who are unfit parents have tons of kids. It really starts to wear on me! Plus I hate that the passion in our life is gone. Now our "intimacy" tends to run on a schedule. We have to force it on certain days of my cycle for optimal fertility chances and our best chance of conception happens in a doctors office! Why can't I just get it on with the man I love and have a child 9 months later like everyone else?
Sorry about the overall little pity party today. I wasn't kidding when I said that I was down today. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day and this will be our month!
March 21, 2013
A bit of a change
Initally we planned for our blog to be a way to keep our family up to date with everything going in our crazy adventure called life while we live in Alaska and where ever else the Army sends us. However, we quickly discovered that one: our life is boring and two: we have other means to keeping in touch with our families. However, I have decided to take this over as more of an outlet for my thoughts. I'm an open person and don't hesitate to share what's going on with others. Here's a hopefully short summary of what's weighing on my mind lately.
Right before he left for basic training in April 2010, we decided that it was time for me to go off birth control. We had been married for 15 months, wanted to have children, and knew he was about to leave for at least 3 months. Well, during the inital 8 weeks of basic training we both discovered that we were ready to try to start out family. He ended up getting injured in basic and sent home for convalesant leave and we "worked" like crazy to start our family that month. Unfortunately that didn't work, and was just the start of our story. We were finally reunited in Alaska, of all places, and tried for another 4 months or so with no success. Then came the dreaded year long deployment to Afghanistan. Unfortunately the deployement was no uneventful. He was involved in an IED accident. Thank the Lord he wasn't harmed really badly, but did injure his knee and groin. He's now been home for almost a year and still no children for us. We finally got a referred for infertility testing back in October. Finally I thought...we'll get some answers. Boy was I wrong! All we really found out was that I'm normal/healthy and he has low count, but my dr won't do anything for him and can't refer him until he has 2 SA's done and they can only be done every 3 months! So began the journey that has taught me that I have no patience! We did our first round of treatments in December 2012. I took clomid and then had to cancel the IUI for that month because I ovulated on my own. Then in January I took clomid again and ended up getting to have the IUI done. Unfortunately, due to stress and anxiety on him we had a horrible sample, which ended up also being a blessing. It showed my dr how big our problem was and got the repeat SA done. During the 3 months waiting for that I put him on all kinds of vitamins and supplements. His count did come up significantly, but was still low so he is finally getting referred to a doctor to examine everything. I'm so happy about that because no one had done any real exam on that since the IED! He leaves next week for that fun adventure. I'm super jealous about that though because he gets to go down to Washington!! So jealous of that! We had our second IUI done on Sunday and I'm going crazy waiting. I wish there was a way to find out sooner than 14 days if it worked or not.
So that didn't turn out to be a short summary really, but oh well. I never thought about infertility, especially being so young. I always thought that it only occured with older women. I have struggled a lot with our infertiility wondering why it was happening to us, if I was supposed to be a mom at all, am I just supposed to adopt children...and many many more questions. I am being forced to learn to be patient, and have really developed a new love and respect for my husband. This whole experience has definitely put a strain on our marriage at times, espeically while I'm taking Clomid, but he has stood by me and supported me the entire time. I could not have asked for a better partner to go through life with!
Right before he left for basic training in April 2010, we decided that it was time for me to go off birth control. We had been married for 15 months, wanted to have children, and knew he was about to leave for at least 3 months. Well, during the inital 8 weeks of basic training we both discovered that we were ready to try to start out family. He ended up getting injured in basic and sent home for convalesant leave and we "worked" like crazy to start our family that month. Unfortunately that didn't work, and was just the start of our story. We were finally reunited in Alaska, of all places, and tried for another 4 months or so with no success. Then came the dreaded year long deployment to Afghanistan. Unfortunately the deployement was no uneventful. He was involved in an IED accident. Thank the Lord he wasn't harmed really badly, but did injure his knee and groin. He's now been home for almost a year and still no children for us. We finally got a referred for infertility testing back in October. Finally I thought...we'll get some answers. Boy was I wrong! All we really found out was that I'm normal/healthy and he has low count, but my dr won't do anything for him and can't refer him until he has 2 SA's done and they can only be done every 3 months! So began the journey that has taught me that I have no patience! We did our first round of treatments in December 2012. I took clomid and then had to cancel the IUI for that month because I ovulated on my own. Then in January I took clomid again and ended up getting to have the IUI done. Unfortunately, due to stress and anxiety on him we had a horrible sample, which ended up also being a blessing. It showed my dr how big our problem was and got the repeat SA done. During the 3 months waiting for that I put him on all kinds of vitamins and supplements. His count did come up significantly, but was still low so he is finally getting referred to a doctor to examine everything. I'm so happy about that because no one had done any real exam on that since the IED! He leaves next week for that fun adventure. I'm super jealous about that though because he gets to go down to Washington!! So jealous of that! We had our second IUI done on Sunday and I'm going crazy waiting. I wish there was a way to find out sooner than 14 days if it worked or not.
So that didn't turn out to be a short summary really, but oh well. I never thought about infertility, especially being so young. I always thought that it only occured with older women. I have struggled a lot with our infertiility wondering why it was happening to us, if I was supposed to be a mom at all, am I just supposed to adopt children...and many many more questions. I am being forced to learn to be patient, and have really developed a new love and respect for my husband. This whole experience has definitely put a strain on our marriage at times, espeically while I'm taking Clomid, but he has stood by me and supported me the entire time. I could not have asked for a better partner to go through life with!
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