August 30, 2013
Surprise!!!
Next weekend my dad will be 60. So my sister and I decided to throw a surprise party for him. We decided to do it the weekend before his birthday because it's Labor Day weekend and we figured that more people would be able to make it since it was a holiday weekend. Well, that was a great thought, but it didn't really work out. As of right now there is only one other person aside from me that is coming from out of town, but I don't think he'll care. I booked my ticket to come back to Texas about a month ago and wasn't able to call home or talk to them at all so I wouldn't ruin the surprise. I flew in yesterday afternoon and my sister picked me up from the airport. She had arranged to meet out for dinner and the look on my dad's face was priceless! We definitely surprised him! He was totally shocked. My mom knew about the party and knew that I was coming in, but didn't know when, so we were still able to surprise her. I'm looking forward to the party tomorrow. We made an amazing cake for him and have all kinds of fun decorations planned. Getting him out of the house tomorrow has proved a bit challenging, but I think we finally got that squared away It's been so nice being back at my parents house and I'm having a blast being with my sister again. However, I miss my two boys back home like crazy! I've never been the one to leave, I'm used to being the one left behind so this is odd for me. The best part about this whole trip is getting my mind off my infertility. Of course the stupid headaches are still going strong, so that totally sucks and infertility isn't completely gone, but it's not as prevalent in my mind as normal. I'm totally looking forward to our "party" tomorrow!!
August 29, 2013
New Doctor, Renewed Hope
So Reed and I met with the new doctor yesterday. I'm still in an OB-Gyn office, but she does fertility a lot. There are no RE's in the entire state of Alaska and Tricare won't pay for me to go to an RE if that service is offered at my MTF (Military Treatment Facility).
After asking some fellow Army wives about my new doctor as well as my old doctor I found that my previous one struggles with infertility herself, and has almost a jealousy type thing going on. Are you kidding me?!? How can you treat infertility patients as well as OB patients as a doctor with this whole jealousy thing going on?!? I personally know how hard it is to work around OB patients while struggling with infertility. That's why I had to leave my department and go back to surgery. It's just so challenging to be happy for a new OB patient or a new mom coming in for all her OB checks and post-partum checks when I want so badly to be a mom and every effort I have tried has failed.
Anyways...my new doctor did come across as a bit abrasive. Many of the Army wives that I talked to said that my new doctor was horrible and they absolutely hated her. I can see that. She wasn't one to come in all smiles and make small talk with you, but when you get down to it, I don't want small talk and chit chat I want to get pregnant. In fact she came in, sat down at the computer and asked me what my goal was from my appointment with her. That did shock me a bit, but I just told her "I want to get pregnant, and I don't feel like what I was doing was working, so I want a second opinion." I laid out everything that I hoped for, the tests I wanted, the medications I wanted to try, exactly what had happened with the previous medication and such. She said that she thinks that I most likely have PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) despite my labs being normal. I told her that I thought all along that I either had PCOS or an estrogen dominance thing going on. She explained that PCOS is a triad type thing and that you have to have two of the three symptoms/conditions to get diagnosed. One is not ovulating, which I'm not, and the other one for me is acne. At 27 years old my skin still is breaking out like crazy. Like I have to use a particular face wash and make sure to wash my face twice a day and I still have problems. Ugh...my hope is that we can get the PCOS under control and my skin will clear up and I can get my weight under better control.
She made me do a pregnancy test while I was there yesterday since my last cycle started 6/18/13. I had this small fleeting hope that by some miracle it would come back positive, but like normal it was negative. While I understand the reason for doing a pregnancy test, I really wish that she wouldn't have made me do it. Hearing the negative again is heartbreaking. Is it ever going to be positive???
So for now the plan is to do a pelvic ultrasound to get a baseline, and HSG to make sure that my tubes are open and not kinked, if no AF by then Provera to get started and then Femara. At first she was going to make me do one more round of Clomid 100mg, but then changed her mind and is going to just start with Femara. She said that after 3 rounds of something the success rates fall. So we've done three rounds of timed intercourse with negatives and three rounds of Clomid IUI's with negatives, so now we'll try Femara. Hopefully we will only have to do one round and then we'll be good to go!
After asking some fellow Army wives about my new doctor as well as my old doctor I found that my previous one struggles with infertility herself, and has almost a jealousy type thing going on. Are you kidding me?!? How can you treat infertility patients as well as OB patients as a doctor with this whole jealousy thing going on?!? I personally know how hard it is to work around OB patients while struggling with infertility. That's why I had to leave my department and go back to surgery. It's just so challenging to be happy for a new OB patient or a new mom coming in for all her OB checks and post-partum checks when I want so badly to be a mom and every effort I have tried has failed.
Anyways...my new doctor did come across as a bit abrasive. Many of the Army wives that I talked to said that my new doctor was horrible and they absolutely hated her. I can see that. She wasn't one to come in all smiles and make small talk with you, but when you get down to it, I don't want small talk and chit chat I want to get pregnant. In fact she came in, sat down at the computer and asked me what my goal was from my appointment with her. That did shock me a bit, but I just told her "I want to get pregnant, and I don't feel like what I was doing was working, so I want a second opinion." I laid out everything that I hoped for, the tests I wanted, the medications I wanted to try, exactly what had happened with the previous medication and such. She said that she thinks that I most likely have PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) despite my labs being normal. I told her that I thought all along that I either had PCOS or an estrogen dominance thing going on. She explained that PCOS is a triad type thing and that you have to have two of the three symptoms/conditions to get diagnosed. One is not ovulating, which I'm not, and the other one for me is acne. At 27 years old my skin still is breaking out like crazy. Like I have to use a particular face wash and make sure to wash my face twice a day and I still have problems. Ugh...my hope is that we can get the PCOS under control and my skin will clear up and I can get my weight under better control.
She made me do a pregnancy test while I was there yesterday since my last cycle started 6/18/13. I had this small fleeting hope that by some miracle it would come back positive, but like normal it was negative. While I understand the reason for doing a pregnancy test, I really wish that she wouldn't have made me do it. Hearing the negative again is heartbreaking. Is it ever going to be positive???
So for now the plan is to do a pelvic ultrasound to get a baseline, and HSG to make sure that my tubes are open and not kinked, if no AF by then Provera to get started and then Femara. At first she was going to make me do one more round of Clomid 100mg, but then changed her mind and is going to just start with Femara. She said that after 3 rounds of something the success rates fall. So we've done three rounds of timed intercourse with negatives and three rounds of Clomid IUI's with negatives, so now we'll try Femara. Hopefully we will only have to do one round and then we'll be good to go!
August 20, 2013
Still nothing
I've been so down about this whole infertility thing recently I haven't even felt like writing anything. I'm still really down. I just don't get it. Why can't I have a child? I'm starting to think that maybe I would be a good mother and that's why. It's so painful working in OB-Gyn and seeing all the pregnant women and our post-partum patients with their new, beautiful babies. We ha,.ve a patient who is going for a special abortion at 18 weeks down in Seattle. It makes me so angry! She was planning on aborting the baby very early in her pregnancy because it was making her really sick, but then that went away and the pregnancy "got easy" so she kept it. Now she's really sick again, think hyperemesis, and she is telling her family that it is either her life or the baby's and that's 100% false. Why do people like that get to be pregnant and I don't? I would take hyperemesis over infertility any day! My sister-in-law is a truly amazing woman, she had hyperemesis with both her pregnancies. She was on IV fluids and IV medications from 6 weeks until she delivered. That's what a true mother is!
I've been doing the acupuncture still. While I love it I think tomorrow is going to be my last session for a while. Unfortunately our insurance won't cover acupuncture I don't feel like we can realistically afford $130 every week. It's true that it relaxes me more than anything else I've ever done, but I've gotta be honest/realistic and realize that at this point it just it too much. We are wanting to save a lot in case I ever get pregnant so I will be able to stay home for a while with our baby.
I'm currently on cycle day 64 with no sign of af any time soon. I've taken several home pregnancy tests and all were negative and went for lab work recently and randomly did one that also came back negative. My acupuncturist and a naturopath doctor that she works with have done all kinds of things to start my cycle for the last month with nothing. I had irregular cycles before starting our infertility treatments back in December 2012, but nothing like this. Prior to now my cycles were typically between 33-36 days long with my longest cycle being 45 days. My ob-gyn that I have to see for infertility (I can't see an RE because our insurance won't pay for it and there isn't one at all in Alaska) immediately put me on Clomid 50mg despite the fact that I was ovulating on my own. Since being on the Clomid I feel like everything has been messed up. I have gained approx. 15-20 lbs since I started taking it, my mood/mental well being has taken a nose dive, my skin is breaking out like crazy and in the end I just told feel like myself anymore. Has anyone taken Clomid and felt this way then switched to a different medication and had success? I'm planning on doing research on different fertility medications like Clomid and asking if we can try one of those instead. Any advise would be much appreciated!
I'm so frustrated that we have been through 5 rounds of Clomid (4 with 50mg and 1 with 100mg), each time producing only one follicle, and 3 rounds of IUI with no success. I've never seen 2 pink lines. I feel like that is something that my doctor is missing, something that is causing our infertility that she is either blowing off or not looking into it. From our very first appointment with her last October I have asked if the trauma from my husband's IED accident could cause problems since he did have significant bruising and swelling in his groin as well as abrasions on his scrotum. I felt like she blew me off and belittled my feelings. I called the clinic a couple weeks ago and asked for a referral for a second opinion. Thanks to the "amazing" Army system I was told that they are not allowed to send me off post for something that they can do there. So they set me up with an appointment with an another provider. Reluctantly I agreed, but I'm still not very optimistic. I've heard from some other spouses on our base that she is very knowledgeable, but has a horrible bedside manner. Personally I don't care if she's friendly and chatting, I just want her to help me to get pregnant.
I've been doing the acupuncture still. While I love it I think tomorrow is going to be my last session for a while. Unfortunately our insurance won't cover acupuncture I don't feel like we can realistically afford $130 every week. It's true that it relaxes me more than anything else I've ever done, but I've gotta be honest/realistic and realize that at this point it just it too much. We are wanting to save a lot in case I ever get pregnant so I will be able to stay home for a while with our baby.
I'm currently on cycle day 64 with no sign of af any time soon. I've taken several home pregnancy tests and all were negative and went for lab work recently and randomly did one that also came back negative. My acupuncturist and a naturopath doctor that she works with have done all kinds of things to start my cycle for the last month with nothing. I had irregular cycles before starting our infertility treatments back in December 2012, but nothing like this. Prior to now my cycles were typically between 33-36 days long with my longest cycle being 45 days. My ob-gyn that I have to see for infertility (I can't see an RE because our insurance won't pay for it and there isn't one at all in Alaska) immediately put me on Clomid 50mg despite the fact that I was ovulating on my own. Since being on the Clomid I feel like everything has been messed up. I have gained approx. 15-20 lbs since I started taking it, my mood/mental well being has taken a nose dive, my skin is breaking out like crazy and in the end I just told feel like myself anymore. Has anyone taken Clomid and felt this way then switched to a different medication and had success? I'm planning on doing research on different fertility medications like Clomid and asking if we can try one of those instead. Any advise would be much appreciated!
I'm so frustrated that we have been through 5 rounds of Clomid (4 with 50mg and 1 with 100mg), each time producing only one follicle, and 3 rounds of IUI with no success. I've never seen 2 pink lines. I feel like that is something that my doctor is missing, something that is causing our infertility that she is either blowing off or not looking into it. From our very first appointment with her last October I have asked if the trauma from my husband's IED accident could cause problems since he did have significant bruising and swelling in his groin as well as abrasions on his scrotum. I felt like she blew me off and belittled my feelings. I called the clinic a couple weeks ago and asked for a referral for a second opinion. Thanks to the "amazing" Army system I was told that they are not allowed to send me off post for something that they can do there. So they set me up with an appointment with an another provider. Reluctantly I agreed, but I'm still not very optimistic. I've heard from some other spouses on our base that she is very knowledgeable, but has a horrible bedside manner. Personally I don't care if she's friendly and chatting, I just want her to help me to get pregnant.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)