Cd18

I got this beauty last night on CD17. It sure did surprise me. I thought for sure I wasn't going to ovulate this month. This puts me one day closer to CD1 and starting IUI #6!!!!!! Yes that is excitement in my typing :)

My interesting day!

 

This seriously happened to me about 20 minutes ago:

 

True story of working downtown OKC. I had to go drop a Fed-Ex package off for my boss. Sitting in my vehicle and a guy starts running up out of nowhere and scared the shit out of me. I locked my doors and just looked at him in shock. He told me to roll down my window and I yelled asking what he wanted. He replies "Maam I promise I am not going to hurt you" Does any situation starting out with those words end well? He goes on to show me some sort of medical bracelet and says he has cancer and is wearing a diaper. Then he says it looks "warm and toasty " in my car. He begs for some money and I am still shocked. Jeez I am such a small town girl that does not belong in the city!

Feeling Good

Well I was afraid that I had developed a dry socket from my tooth extraction last week. I had the worse pain ever Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This morning I woke up and my mouth is feeling so much better. I have check up tomorrow so they can get a good look and make sure everything is healing!

So I have huge blogger news, our very own Cristy from http://searchingforoursilverlining.blogspot.com just had her second beta and numbers are looking great. This is one of a handful of people that I have truly became friends with and my heart is so filled with joy that she got her bfp. Still early in pregnancy, but please stop by and give her a HUGE congrats!!!!


So in my TTC news, I have notta! Today is cd16 and still no positive ovuation strips. It was mentioned to me that my chemical last month could very well being playing a big part in this. Not sure if I will ovulate or not. Right now my biggest thing is getting to CD1 so we can start our iui's up again. I am going to ask my doctor if we can do femara with follistim this cycle. For some reason I think the femara helps with my chronic low progesterone levels, so I want to stay on it for as long as possible.

If you haven't, please check out my private facebook group for infertility and/or pregnancy after infertility. You can click on the top tab of this page and get the link! We are building up a great strong and supportive community.

Funny Infertility Friday

Happy Funny Infertility Friday everyone! I hope you have a great weekend planned. My husband and I are going to the boat and RV show at the fairgrounds this weekend. We love to camp so this is right up our alley.

Tooth wise I am still having problems eating, but just mainly sore every where now verses pain.

Enjoy:

No fun in tooth town

My title pretty well sums up my last few days. I will give you a little back history. I am scared of the dentist. I had a few bad experiences when I was younger (including a dry socket for 5 days with no pain meds) If any of you have ever experienced a dry socket you know the pain I am referring to. The dentist I was seeing at the time didn't believe in pain medication so he pulled my wisdom tooth and out the door I went. After two days of horrific pain I called and asked if it was normal. He told me to basically suck it up and take some Tylenol and this is suppose to work on pain of a dry socket. Finally after 5 days and seriously contemplating suicide. My aunt told me to go see her dentist. He said I had the worse case of dry socket he had seen in all his years of practice. He gave me some good pain medications and I had to go in three times to have the packing changed. Since that point I hate the dentist! I did breakdown last year and have a deep cleaning and they had to numb both sides of my mouth. It wasn't as bad as I expected. Well within the last few months I've had some pain in my upper back left tooth and finally had to break down and go. Long story short it was either a root canal or extraction. I wasn't paying $1700 out of pocket to have a root canal so I opted for the $135 extraction. Sitting here now wondering if that was the best idea. I will save you all the gory details, but lets say this experience wasn't to great. I still can't eat anything because it hurts unless I am on pain medications. That is a huge problem because they make me sleepy and I can't take them at work. I sat here yesterday in pain waiting for 5 o clock so I could go home and take my pain meds and hopefully eat something. Today I thought it would be better, but its a no go.

I think that this cycle is pretty much over. I started taking Femara on cd4, but do to my tooth hurting so bad I was sick and only took it for (4) days. With all the pain medication etc. I have been on for last few weeks, I haven't taken any of my vitamins etc for the past week. I am in generally bad shape to make a good quality egg this month. Guess I should be happy we had to take a month off from iui or that would have been a couple hundred dollars wasted. 

Okay my whine fest is over for the minute. Hope everyone else is having a good week!


Updated:

I broke down and took pain pill at work. This is should be interesting day

Ramblings

I figured while I was sitting at home waiting to go see the dentist today and get a tooth pulled, I would update on some emails between me and my clinic.

Last week I had emailed my clinic about the article that Dr. Braveman wrote in reference to positive ana test and the link between miscarriages. My doctor said he was not a strong believer in the fact of postive ana and miscarriages etc. When I read this email I was so beyond pissed. I emailed my RN at clinic and basically told her that Al and I both feel like Dr. H has given up on us and that is a horrible feeling. I didn't know where to go from here because if we quit treatment our chances of getting pregnant are even slimmer then now. I also went on to say that I am sick and tired of doctors dismissing studies etc. so easily without even trying treatment. I mean seriously what can it hurt? She emailed me back immediately and tried to tell me that Dr. H has not given up on us and is willing to implement some of the procotols I asked for (short term). She asked me to please give them another shot and wait until my next u/s to come in and speak with Dr. H. face to face. I hate this! I feel like we are stuck in between a rock and a hard place with him. There is another doctor in my clinic that I love and she is Dr. H's collegue. Would it be inappropiate of me to ask for her instead of mine? I feel as a woman she is more in tune to my needs and is so kind and amazing. She may not agree with the immune protocol either, but I feel that she would maybe work harder for me? With this being such a small clinic, would it create bad feelings etc? When one doctor is gone, the other does procedures, u/s etc. so I would still have to see and be treated by Dr. H. Such a hard place to be.

I have talked with my husband about getting a second opinion and possible treatment through another clinic here in Oklahoma City. Our insurance wouldn't cover appointments, bloodwork or u/s. That is a huge added expense on top of what we pay now. Since ivf is out of the question, I don't really see the point of a second opinion. I can't imagine any doctor saying to just stick with iui verses ivf. I just don't know.

Maybe it is our lack of wanting to change doctor that is keeping us in this position? I do have some hope with the possibility of seeing Dr. Kim later this year though. We only have this  year and possibly part of next year before we move on and move past having a child together. 

I just never thought almost (3) years later I would be here. Never.  I also think that being at this point (3) year later really makes it a realistic thought that it won't happen. It starts to settle in more with me and I think I am learning to accept this situation more daily. I am ashamed to admit, but my chemical pregnancies are getting easier to handle. My failed cycles aren't as painful. I don't think I will ever get excited about seeing a positive pregnancy test again. Or be excited after a positive beta. Please don't get me wrong, I am not bitter or even angry....... I am coming to the point of accepting what is. That doesn't mean I won't continue trying everything I can while we have the time, because I absolutely will.

The little quilt that could......

As you all know, I started quilting about 5 months ago. As of today it has been a complete and totally failure on my part. I bought my first ever sewing machine and couldn't even read the directions without being confused. My husband help me put everything together and then I was out of the gates running. Over confident I started my first baby quilt for my quilting project. Well this Christmas I took my machine and quilt to my MIL's house so she could show me how to actually do the quilting and backing, plus binding. After being as nice and loving as possible she delivered the bad news to me. My first quilt was a complete mess (in my words, not hers). All the settings on my machine were wrong and my stitches were to loose and to long. I guess this quilt top that I did would have fell apart after a few washings. Well I can't make poor quaility quilts and send them out for a new baby! She gave me classes and I have all the settings on my machine fixed now. I have started quilt #2 and the topper is coming together, all the stitches are a nice even quarter inch seam. I am hoping to take a quilting class this month or next so I can learn how to actually do the quilting and binding since we weren't able to tackle that project with MIL this Christmas. I will go back and eventually redo quilt #1, but it has given me hell. I took this stupid thing apart three times! Now I am working on a cute little girls quilt for a fellow pregnant blogger. Thank goodness I have plenty of time to finish and get it out to her!!!

Her is a pic and also note that I have set up a tab with my quilting adventures!

 

Funny Infertility Friday

I have seriously been slacking on my Funny Infertility Friday with everything going on.

My furbaby Pics

Just thought I would share my fur baby pics today :)

 These are the outside cats ( Irma and Chester) that we feed. Oh yeah and now a possum also.

 Al loves to cuddle with all the animals and almost all the animals love it EXCEPT lilly!

 Izzy scratching his back

Poor Boomer (chocolate lab) is injured from a fight with  our other dog Porter (not pictured). Max our kitty is keeping him company.

Max is either helping Boomer feel better or trying to get in on the warm fire action.

In case any of you are wondering. We have three large inside dogs and two inside cats, plus two outside cats and now a possum. My husband is NOT happy about the possum though. .He was going to shoot it with a bb gun the other night. I had to put my foot down and tell him he would do no such thing!  He was hungry and cold :(

Questions

http://www.preventmiscarriage.com/Reproductive-Immunology/Immunologic-Causes/Antinuclear-Antibodies-ANA-.aspx

For the last few days my brain has been working overtime. I don't know if I am at the point of grasping straws or what. Honestly I am tired of failed cycles, but I am really tired of being told that no one knows why. We have been tested for everything under the sun and according to my RE everything comes back within normal ranges. Well if everything were normal then I would be getting pregnant. After A LOT of research over the weekend I am really starting to think and/or convince myself that I do in fact have an underlying immune issue that is causing the chemical pregnancies.  As I have stated before I never got a solid diagnosis of Lupus but it has always been in the back of my mind. I had several of the markers, plus three positive ANA tests. I also had the inflammation in joints. I recently heard about two doctors in the U.S. that are Reproductive Immunologist and do believe and treat patients that are in my situation. I know that many RE's don't believe in this area of medicine and there aren't a lot of studies supporting this treatment.  Regardless what my doctor thinks, I am going to make an appointment and travel to Chicago. I think it would be totally irresponsible of me not to. I feel like I am at such a dead end right now and have no other place to go. What if I am right? Then I will get pregnant and be so happy that I decided to pursue this option. What if I am wrong? Then I haven't lost anything except more money. My husband doesn't want to set up the appointment until early summer so we can save money up for the trip and bloodwork etc. I would love to get in earlier then that, but totally understand where he is coming from. I also decided today that I am putting off my Lap surgery for a few months. I have the lab slip to be tested for MTHFR but doctor wants me to wait six weeks before I have the test done (due to my current miscarriage). From the stories I have read about this Doctor Kwak Kim, she is able to run test for specific titlers that other RE's will test and it comes back normal. Maybe I am crazy (I don't know anymore). 

So our plan is as follows:

I have to take this month off due to doctors instructions

Feb & March we will do iui with either Femara or Follistim

April or May surgery

June or July- Travel to Chicago for consultation and test with Dr. Kwak Kim.


****Plans are subject to change according to my crazy thought process for the day***