Updates

While I do plan on staying away from all the baby related stuff, I will likely offer up a weekly update on here. I don't want to fall completely off the face of the Earth. So here we go...This week I started my Provera as a result of not ovulating my last cycle with the medications. As soon as I start my new cycle, I'll be taking a double dose of the medications and hopefully will ovulate with the increased dosage. I will be doing ovulation tests and charting in hopes of catching a good egg. In the mean time, I intend on staying focused on other areas of my life. I've been doing well on my weight loss and hope to continue that as we trudge along into the next year. I am wrapping up the second half of my classes, and I'm doing great as always. That's one thing I can always count on... that and my amazing support system. My husband and sister are there for me through it all, and I cannot even begin to express how blessed I am to have them. I'm not exactly hopeful on our trying to conceive journey, but I am certainly with high hopes that I will continue to have all the love and support I need along the way. Until next time...

Taking a Break

I plan on taking a break from blogging and Baby Center. I cannot fathom the idea that I will be the last person to get pregnant. Damn near every person I started out with has gotten pregnant, and those who aren't are getting close. I'm glad they are getting pregnant, but right now, it's just too much for me. Good luck to anyone who is still trying, and congrats to anyone with a precious bean.

Adult Content

You may have noticed I updated my profile with a warning for adult content. Why, you might ask? Oh, because I want to do this... FUCK THIS SHIT!!!! I am seriously so mad right now. The medicine officially is not working this cycle. I didn't ovulate. My temperature is low, and honestly, so are my hopes. This is one of those days where I want to tell everyone to fuck off and go hide in a hole. Instead, I sucked it up. I even faced the public going shopping. At the same time, I'm still in a shitty place. I didn't ovulate even with medicine.... even with medicine which has proven to work in the past. This clinical trial can suck the big one! I'm ready to throw in the towel. I want a baby desperately, but today, I feel like maybe I'm just not meant to be a mom. Maybe I'm just not meant to have that precious miracle. Maybe.... just maybe... fate fuckin' hates me!

Home Sweet Home

After nearly a week, I am finally home sweet home! I went on a vacation with some of the women from my husband's family (his grandma, mom, aunt, and cousin), and of course, I dragged Mama J along too. We went to Sin City and remained as sinless as it comes. My sister and I were hardly drinkers, and we barely put in $25 in... together! It was a pleasant experience going to the strip in Vegas, a bunch of sweet museums, the Grand Canyon, and Hoover Dam. 

Quite frankly it was exactly what I needed. Not once since we started trying to have a baby have I really let it all go. I had very few thoughts about it, and I was pleasantly calm about it all. I had some rough experience with ovulating late, and I thought for sure I'd be focusing on it as normal. Even now, as I sit at home, I am pleasantly reminded of how cool it feels to just be okay with whatever happens. I'm in what I believe is the two week wait (believing since I didn't confirm ovulation), and I am feeling quite confident that everything will be okay. I have been a tad moody, but other than that, I don't really feel all the terrible things that normally come at this point. I am happy to say I am just going with the flow and enjoying this lull time in my cycle.

Just My Luck...

It's my pity party, and I'll cry if I want to. Yes, that should be my slogan. I've done really well without crying especially considering the medicines make me extremely emotional. I managed to go through the entire first day of our 19th month of trying without crying. It seems like the 15th of every month just hurts my heart, as it marks another month gone without success. Yesterday, I wish I could say the same. Some days it is just too much, and yesterday was one of those days. In addition to that, I am really worried about my appointment tomorrow. 

Before I can explain my frustrations, I need to give a little background information. After a woman ovulates, the follicle that released the egg is called a corpus luteum. It starts releasing progesterone which helps build up a nice and cushy uterine lining among other things. About seven days after the egg releases, the progesterone level peaks. It slowly begins to decline, and a week later, your period comes. If you are pregnant, it will maintain a higher level and continue to produce progesterone to support the pregnancy. The 14 days (approximately- mine is 16-18 days on medicated cycles) between ovulation and a period is called a luteal phase. Hence, the mid-luteal appointment I am going to tomorrow should be around 7 days after ovulation has occurred. Well... today or tomorrow is the day of ovulation.

This leads to my frustration. They base whether I ovulated or not on the progesterone and ultrasound. It is really hard to determine if ovulation has occurred through an ultrasound, and the progesterone level is not going to be nearly as high as it should be to indicate ovulation since I will have literally just ovulated. My biggest fear is that they will base their assumption of ovulation on this, and I'll be stuck trying to prove to them that I ovulated. Of course, it would be the cycle that I picked to take off of temping that I would have this happen. 

So here I sit. More stressed than I should be, and the whole point of me taking this month off was to be calm. Oh well... I guess that's just my luck. You have to take what you can get and just deal with it. Here's to hoping that I get my positive test this cycle, and I won't even have to deal with their crap! Oh.... Here's to hoping!

Story Time

Tuesday marks the end of another month, and we will be starting our 19th month of trying to have a baby. Then, the next day will mark 3 years since my husband proposed and asked me to be his wife. When I mentioned to him that it was coming up, he smirked and of course, the story of our proposal came up. He loves to pick on me with this one saying I was nosy. I always assure him, I already knew, so there was no point in being snoopy. In light of trying to keep things upbeat especially as we embark the second half of our second year trying, I will share our story. :-)

It was the first big snow of the year. We had some flurries before, but this was the first time it was coming down hard and wasn't melting away as it hit the ground. Now, I need to add some details before this blustery day came about. A couple weeks before, he decided he was going to go up north to see friends without me, and this of course, was my first sign. Then, I'm not kidding, while he was up there, he texted me asking what size ring I wore. If that doesn't give it away, I don't know what does. Of course, I was thrilled by what might come, and I was anxious that as the holidays were approaching, he might ask me. After all, knowing there's a ring doesn't mean we're engaged yet!

Back to that cold, snowy day. We were driving back from a nice dinner, and I decided to be a smarty pants. He absolutely hates when I play with his glove box, and being the turd I am, I decided to flip it open to annoy him. Much to my surprise, I see a Zales bag in there! I slammed it shut and just looked at him like oh my gosh I'm so sorry! He said, well you might as well open it up. I said I didn't want to, as I was still in shock of what I had just found. He whipped it open and threw the bag at me. Here's the kicker, there was no ring in there. It was in fact the pick up ticket for the special order. He said they had called him to say it was in, so we were driving up there to get it. 

At this time, I felt terrible- I had ruined (so I thought) the proposal! We passed our exit and continued to trudge along in the first snow watching people spin out and get stuck. I suggested we just go back, and he said no, we're getting it tonight. It was a long, quiet ride as we went along. We talked a little bit, but I just kept apologizing for ruining the moment. We finally made it up to the mall, and it hit me. We were sitting in the same parking lot we would meet in for our dates. He told me to wait there as he went in for it. I was sitting there reminiscing over the times we had met there and all the sweet moments we had shared. All of the sudden, and yes, I am totally serious here, our song came on the radio. As it eased into the chorus, "Because tonight will be the night that I will fall for you, over again...." he joins me in the car. He opens the the box, and right there, as our song was playing in our favorite meeting spot, he asked me to be his wife. Immediately, I broke into tears saying yes. 

The point of this story is to say we have been through it all. We have had moments where things seemed to be going every way but the right way, but in the end, it was perfect. Sometimes I have to remember that even though we are facing hard times and things aren't going the way I want them to, we are on our way to where we should be. Every failed cycle is a new beginning, and one day, I will be sitting there holding a baby in my arms with my husband by my side knowing this was all worth it and exactly the right time.

Random Thoughts

Today I decided is a perfect opportunity to lay it all out there. Whatever is going through my head, I'm going to write it. In normal conversations, I express my opinions with tact and respect. With this blog post, you can just throw that tact out the window, and if you're easily offended, please look away. 

My first thought of the day was how am I ever going to handle another pregnancy announcement? With so many in recent months, I honestly can't imagine how I will respond to the next one. Yay for your pregnancy, but here I am, still infertile and without. It's not that other people being pregnant that makes me upset; it's that I'm not. If I were pregnant or in fact already had the baby given the amount of time I've been trying, I'd say good for you. Instead, I'm sitting here going WTF?! When is it my turn?

I reflect back to when I was in high school and first told having a baby would be a challenge. This is exactly what I feared. I put up that wall and told myself I didn't want a baby for this reason. Here I am, acknowledging by all means that I want a baby- I want it desperately. Now, I just have to face the fact that I knew this was coming. I knew that life was going to be hell if I wanted to fight this fight. 

And today, I am fighting this fight. Tact free and disrespectfully honest- I am fighting this fight!

Calm

Today I woke up on my own- no blasting alarm. Even with not going to work, I was waking up to an alarm at 8 am every day. Most times I would go back to sleep, but I had that alarm every morning. Today, like every day this week, I woke up on my own. I have shunned the alarm because with that alarm came taking my temperature. I've done away with the thermometer because I can't handle the stress that comes with it. In fact, I've done away with all of my trying to conceive crazy antics. I am not taking my temperature. I'm not taking ovulation tests. I'm not monitoring all those nitty gritty details. We are doing one thing- having sex. Yep, we're doing it the old fashioned way this time. I know when my fertile time is, so we're just bumping uglies until we can bump no more. ;-) In doing all this, I feel calm. I feel like this is what I needed. I know I am ovulating, and I'll have my doctor's appointment to prove it. Why go through all the stress of it when I don't have to? I got up on my own, did my fertility restoring yoga, and I did my homework. I was so calm that I didn't even stress for my first test of these classes- and whadya know, I got a 95% on it?!

Now, I am not saying I regret temping, and I'm certainly not saying I won't go back to it. In fact, I will probably do it again the cycle after we are done with treatments because I won't know the date when I ovulate. However, the one thing that these meds do is keep my cycle down to a T. I don't need a temperature rise or pee stick to tell me because I can read my body well enough. All the temping and testing did was stress me out. Here's to hoping that I can remain calm, enjoy the crazy amount of sex we'll be having, and have a good cycle. As they say at the end of my yoga... Namaste!

Why?

Well... I anticipated it. In fact, I really thought it would be a miracle if it was any other way than this. Our new insurance doesn't cover any fertility treatments, and we are stuck paying everything out of pocket if this trial doesn't work out. Figures that just another thing doesn't go our way. Today is a day of whys. Why did I get stuck with this stupid PCOS? Why can't we get pregnant like everyone else does? Why can't the insurance cover the one thing we need it for? Why is life so damn unfair!?!?!

The Colors of Infertility

The Colors of Infertility

With each cycle, we face the deep red,
the color we inevitably have learned to dread. 

As can be expected with the cycle anew,
another lost chance, to feel so blue.

A new sign of hope as we see the light,
That bright yellow comes with such delight.

The new opportunity gives us the go,
We fly through the green- no time to slow.

As we come to a halt we courageously wait,
The violet mystery  faltering our fate.

Deep in our thoughts, yet another week,
the indigo anticipations feeling so bleak.

Hoping to finally see a second line,
a single pink streak, no baby of mine.

The dark clouds begin to bring the fear,
the black is coming, the end is near.

Alas, we wait for our crimson prison,
our infertile colors once more are risen.

Author: Yours Truly 

True Words

Every time I start writing a post I literally type out a few sentences and backspace. It usually takes me at least five tries before I settle with something. What I've noticed is that 9 times out of 10 it is because I am afraid of some kind of judgment in what I am writing. What started out as a genuine blog about a person trying to have a baby with PCOS is now being hindered by my fear of what others may feel. I want this blog to be completely genuine and showing the true misadventures of what it is like to face PCOS when you want a baby so desperately. Thus, I refuse to hold back my feelings any more. If someone is offended by my words or what I have to say, then so be it- Don't read it! This is the one place I can truly explain what it feels like to be infertile, and I have to let my true expressions out. Take it for what it is. If I feel bitter that day- I'm saying it. If I feel hopeful that day- I'm letting it out. If I just want to rant about whatever this misadventure has served up for me that day- I guess that's okay too. The point is- if you won't like what I have to say- please, I won't be offended- take a hike.

You Must Not Quit

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh, 

When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don't you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns, 

And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don't give up though the pace seems slow--
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor's cup, 

And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out--
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt, 

And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit--
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

- Author unknown