Sorry ICLW ladies

But I suck. Again I failed to meet the posting quota. And then I feel guilty for everyone who posts comments for me and I don't leave them in return. So ladies, I'm sorry, I know you understand but I still feel bad.

Thanksgiving with my family went great. I loved on my niece the whole time and didn't feel angry, jealous or bitter at all. Go figure, I guess we all have good days and bad days.

Since we aren't doing an IUI in December I'm trying to get back on my diet. I won't be able to work out as much since I'm working more but I can still eat right and try to work out at least 3 times a week.

I'm not better

All this time I thought that I was healing emotionally. I was spending all this time with my niece and nephew and not feeling bitter, angry, jealous or overly negative about my situation. I really felt like I had accepted it and moved on. I wasn't even dreading the holidays. Until yesterday.....

We went out of town to see DH's family. His brother had a baby this summer but we hardly ever see them. When we did see them this summer I was completely okay and enjoyed meeting my new little niece. Yesterday on the way home I just started crying. DH's two cousins had their little baby girls there also and all the old feelings came back to me. I don't know if its my stress and frustration over possibly actively TTC again or what but I was so bitter and jealous all day. I cried for two hours all the way home. DH said he knew I was upset because I didn't hold or play with any of the babies all day. The pain I thought was healed hit me so hard and raw like it just happened, like the past two years of peace and joy were all just a dream. Two years ago about this time we were preparing for IVF. The IVF that led to losing our baby and with it the hopes of us ever having children. Somehow I found hope again the past two years and now with the holidays and possibly going back to the RE, I feel as though I am in the same hopeless broken place I was two years ago.

As broken as I was yesterday and despite all the tears my heart still whispered "don't lose faith, you will be a mother someday". I just know that is the truth, even when the future looks completely dark.

P.S. Mary, if your reading this I really missed you yesterday. The inlaws are so much more bearable with you there!

Grrr to you RE!

Ugh! This RE makes me so mad! I finally called today and they said since they haven't seen me since May of 2009 they consider me a new patient and I have to wait a month to get an appointment. I insisted there was nothing new to talk about so a new patient office visit isn't necessary but they wouldn't listen. They probably just want to make me come in so they can essentially start over, make me redo all my tests and make DH have another SA. You know, weasel more money out of me. And then they will say they don't recommend IUI and we should really do IVF. I don't want to go have an office visit with Dr. Idiot. He will only say the same things he always says to me. There will be nothing new. So it looks like we won't be doing an IUI until January now. I guess I shouldn't have procrastinated so long in calling them. I so hate this RE and wish we had different options. Unfortunately he is the only one within a 4 hour drive. This makes me so mad, I really truly hate dealing with this clinic.

So I guess we have a new plan for December. We've never tried this method for fertility but it seems to work for everyone else. Since I will be ovulating around the time of our best couple friends' wedding, the new plan is to get totally smashed at the wedding, then go home and have sloppy drunken sex. Come on, it works for everyone else, right!?

Sunday Confessions

I have a few confessions to make as an infertile. Although infertility doesn't control my life the way it used to, it still sneaks in when I'm not expecting it and I haven't totally broken free.

1. I say I gave up scrapbooking because I don't have time. The truth is I don't take pictures much or scrapbook anymore because my last book got full after our Mexico vacation. When we got home from that trip we decided we were going to start trying to have a baby and I planned on starting a new scrapbook with that next big step in our lives. That was over 4 years ago. Now I just can't bring myself to start a new scrapbook of our same old boring mundane lives, it just doesn't seem worthy of a new book. So I don't scrapbook anymore because of infertility.

2. I almost broke down and POAS last month. I haven't done that for two years and realize our chances are nil. But I had killer PMS and caught a touch of the flu at exactly the right time to make me think.....just maybe. Now I'm terribly ashamed to admit how foolishly close I came to doing it.

3. I've caught myself daydreaming a lot lately about having a baby (twins to be exact), planning the nursery, thinking about names, how I will break the news at work and to the family, holding and loving them, watching DH melt when he sees his babies. I think its just my hopefulness for our IUI but this is the first time that my fantasies seem like they could become real. I HATE that I'm setting myself up for such disappointment.

4. I'm not dreading the holidays this year. I love being around my nieces and nephew. In some ways I pretend they're mine, but not in a creepy psycho kidnapper kind of way. It mostly just fulfills my mothering instinct to care for them, even changing a diaper is secretly satisfying.

5. I'm ovulating this week and DH and I have had sex quite spontaneously and in random places. Infertility is a sex life killer and we are finally starting to enjoy it like newlyweds. I'm afraid doing an IUI will suck us back into the world of infertilty treatments and pressured sex again. I'm determined not to let it take hold of me again, I don't want to go back there.

ICLW

I'm trying ICLW again, hoping with the holiday I'll have more time to read and post comments. Last time I had a hard time meeting the quota. But I so love finding new blogs and getting comments on mine! Anyone who is new here can check out this post, which was my intro and our IF story for last ICLW that I participated in.

Diet Update: I have not been counting calories since I hit my plateau two weeks ago. The good news.....I haven't gained anything. The bad news.....I haven't lost any more. My goal to lose a lot of weight by our IUI was a big failure. However I did still lose 7 lbs and I'm still working out for 30 minutes 5 days a week. So for now I'm happy to be down 7 lbs and anticipating our hopefully upcoming treatment cycle.

Fertility Update: I still haven't called our RE to beg for an IUI. I'm sort of dreading it. I know they will be reluctant and if so I plan to start with a sob story about how we can't afford IVF and we haven't done any treatments in 2 years so we just want to try something, even if chances of it working are not good. If they are still reluctant my plan B is to tell them I'm paying them to do what they do and there are no life threatening or health reasons not to do it so they better just give me what I want. If I choose to throw my money away on a hopeless cause then what should they care as long as they still get my money. My hopefulness of this working varies from day to day. According to the math we should have about 10mil good swimmers post wash. However they are saying we have 0% morph, even though other labs say morph is normal. But morph is still being debated on its importance. And since the urology labs consider it normal, I think its not as bad as the RE makes it seem. I wish I had one of those REs that doesn't think morph matters. So if we get around 10mil I'll be hopeful, if its 5 or less I'll be convinced it was failure before I even leave the office. On my positive days, I tell myself that God is the ultimate creator of life and my crappy RE is only a tool. It doesn't matter what the RE says or what our numbers are, if God says this is our time then we will get our miracle. If He says we have to keep waiting then even if we had a totally normal sperm count, we still would not be pregnant. My RE and his attitude does not determine the success of our treatment. Only God can make it successful.

Maybe next week I will find the courage to call the RE again and we'll see what they say. If I talk them into it our IUI cycle will begin in two weeks!

Hope's not giving up

Earlier this week I talked to DH about doing an IUI. He didn't give a definite answer because he never really does, he just states the pros and cons of each choice and says whatever I think is best is what we should do. I hate that! Eventually he said we should make the RE do what we want. After all, we're paying him for services, why would he deny us? The only reason I can think of is because of his ART statistics. If he does a bunch of IUIs that don't work, that doesn't look good on statistics. There is no way to put a footnote that we didn't stand a chance but insisted he do it. DH also agreed that in some ways its good we're going back to the RE because we know the routine and we know what to expect. I was having a little anxiety over where and how the new doc would do the IUI and mostly about where DH would give his sample. Public bathrooms don't work well for him and we live too far away to do it at home yet too close to get a hotel room. So at least at the RE they have the special rooms where DH is comfortable doing his business. At this point I was still having my ups and downs about whether to do it or not. Mostly my downs when some sort of action is required like making a phone call to the doc or going to an appointment because I'm just afraid of traveling this road again. It consumes you, it disappointments you, it hurts, and once your on it there is a fear of never leaving it. But on my up days I'm so excited because I really feel like the time is right for this to work for us. Oh how disappointed I will be if it doesn't!

Then last night we were watching something on tv where a spouse died and somehow the conversation came up about moving on and he said he would have to remarry because he has this overwhelming desire to have a family. We've had this conversation before but usually he says he'd have to remarry because he needs sex and couldn't get that outside of marriage! Although I know he deeply desires a family, I was still a little surprised to hear him say that. So that's when I decided I have to keep trying. Even if I'm ready to throw in the towel, DH is obviously not. In my heart I know we will have a family, I just don't know when or how. I can't give up, hope doesn't give up.

Bummer

I called the nurse back this morning and she said that they can't do IUIs because they aren't able to wash the sperm at their clinic. They can only do Intracervical insemination. Well wouldn't that have been an important detail to point out at any time in one of the many prior conversations we've had about doing an IUI?!? The doctor even kept referring to doing IUIs because I would have noticed if he had been saying ICI instead. So now its back to the RE to force an IUI on them or to throw in the towel. I haven't talked to DH yet. If times were good we would definitely pursue it. In fact if we were in good economic times we would probably get another IVF loan. But the economic future is very uncertain and we are naturally conservative people. There are some very smart people out there predicting some really tough times ahead and relatively soon too, not just in some far off future. Many people I know live in a bubble where they think such hard times can't happen in America but I believe hard times can and will come to America. Many people are already feeling it. I'm just very reluctant to spend money on anything but necessity these days. On the other hand I feel like we should do it at least once while we can afford it. Of course it probably won't work and we'd end up just throwing that hard earned money away with a doctor I totally can not stand to work with. But what if it did work? DH says its not a good time to be supporting a family but we have 100% faith that God would provide for us and we would survive. Kids don't NEED tons of toys and fancy things. All they need is a food, shelter and love. I'm pretty certain we can provide that even if times get tougher. That is IF we were lucky enough to be blessed with a child. I'm not sure that's ever going to happen. And I'm not sure I have the strength to start over and put my whole heart into this journey again.

Discouraged & Bitter

Today I called my new doctor's office to talk about doing an IUI cycle in December. When I had seen Dr. M in June he said that of course IVF is our best option but that if we wanted to do an IUI in December when DH's counts were up it wouldn't hurt to try and he'd be willing to do it. We'd have to see what the post wash counts were before he could say what our chances of success would be. The nurse today said that my chart didn't say anything about an IUI in December and that it said he "did not recommend 6 IUI cycles before moving on to further treatment". Well duh, no one is talking about doing 6 IUIs here. I wonder if that is their standard procedure since he is just an ob/gyn. Maybe they sometimes try that many IUIs before referring people to the RE. Of course I'm doing things backward so that does not apply here. Regardless of whatever my chart says I got a very bad vibe from the nurse like my chart really said "Will NEVER Get Pregnant - Hopeless Cause!" So I'm not sure if the nurse just didn't understand our situation or if this new doctor that I was really excited about was only lying to make me feel better. Maybe there is no chance for us. I had a really hard time picking up the phone to call today. I really feel like this is what we should be doing but its so hard to get back into it. I've been looking forward to it for so long and now I feel like I'm forcing myself to go through with it. Its a painful road to travel and its scary to go back down it. Life is so much better without appointments, huge bills, drugs and worrying about whether or not be hopeful. I can't help but think we are only wasting our money and why would I put us through this again. If nothing has working in four years there is no reason why it would work now. And why does it have to be so fricken hard all the time? Why can't we just have sex and get pregnant? Its so easy to get caught up in the anger of how unjust things are. I always said we were not giving up just taking a break for a while. Today I'm seriously feeling like its time to throw in the towel for good. Really truly give up on having a family. How sad to think about giving up but I feel so disappointed that no one seems to have a positive attitude for us. Makes it hard for me to have a positive attitude too. If I feel this way already, how awful will I feel when we do an IUI and it fails? I'm not sure I have enough hope to go through another "if you insist we'll try it" IUI. I don't have the strength to push for something no one seems to think is worth doing. Maybe we should just do IVF again. But these are uncertain economic times to be spending $10k we don't have and I'm not sure I have the heart to put into that either. I don't know why this is so heavy on my heart today, I have not felt this negative about our infertility it a long time. Perhaps its the PMS talking. The way I figure the math we should have somewhere between 8-12 mil post wash, for sure 5 mil and according to the one lab most of them are normal morph, while the other lab says 0% of them are normal. So lets just meet in the middle and says some of them are normal and everyone says 5-10 mil motile post wash is good odds for an IUI. Why doesn't anyone else see it that way? I really think since we did IVF everyone automatically takes our other options off the table and says we should just do IVF again. Like its just no big deal to do it again since we did it once. Yeah people IVF is no big deal, especially when your 100% out of pocket.



The nurse said she would have to talk to the doctor to find out his opinion and get back to me. I waited all afternoon and of course she called five minutes after I finally left the house. I'll call back in the morning and we'll see if the news is any more positive.

Did Eve Have PMS?

Today as I'm lamenting the woes of PMS, I wondered why would God do this to women? Especially infertile women, I mean after all we go through He could at least take PMS away from an infertile. Ironically birth control helps rid PMS symptoms but is that an option for an infertile? To answer my own question I began thinking that Eve probably never had PMS until she ate that stupid fruit. Can you imagine how awful she must have felt after all these terrible consequences her and Adam suffered? How do you get over the guilt of ruining a perfect world and opening it up to sin and all the terrible things that go with it? Including PMS! I believe one thing we need to remember about the whole story is that God still loved Adam and Eve in spite of their misbehavior and He totally and completely forgave them. But do you wonder how Adam managed to forgive Eve? It could have only been by the grace of God because if DH and I were living in a perfect world and I made him eat a piece of fruit that shattered the perfection and brought pain and suffering for generations until the very end of time.....I have a seriously hard time believing DH could forgive me for that. I'm sure if he did it would definitely require some big time help from God.

But I digress.....back to pondering the woes of PMS. Why is it that sometimes PMS is really terrible and sometimes I hardly notice it at all. This month it is terrible and I still have 5 days to go. For the most part I usually get about 5-6 days post ovulation where I'm tired but still feel pretty good. About a week before AF shows I start feeling lousy. But its not always the same symptoms. Its just enough to drive an infertile crazy thinking, "well I didn't feel this way at this time last month - maybe I'm pregnant" or "I feel way better than I did at this time last month-maybe I'm pregnant"......"my bbs hurt maybe I'm pregnant"......"I have cramps on day 7 maybe I'm pregnant"....."I have to pee all the time maybe I'm pregnant"......."I fell asleep at 7:30pm.....maybe I'm pregnant"......"I'm spotting on day 10, I had a weird dream, I had insomnia, I felt like throwing up, I have a headache, I'm starving---maybe I'm pregnant".......BUT I'M NEVER PREGNANT!!!! How cruel is that? And I've always been told that PMS symptoms only start a few days before AF but that just isn't true for me, I have a whole week of serious cramps, crankiness, bloating, starving and general feeling crappiness. So maybe there is something wrong with me but all the doctors say I'm normal. I don't feel normal, I feel like a crazy person. What I don't understand is why can't it be the same all the time so I wouldn't always be guessing. Even though I know to ignore the symptoms cause its always just PMS, I can't stop that small little whisper that says "miracles happen". Please God, have mercy on all the infertiles and take away their PMS.

By the way, its nearly impossible to diet when battling serious PMS so I'm off to make some peanut butter cookies and shamelessly eat them until DH comes home and takes them away.

Giuliana & Bill

If your not up to date with this show or watch it at all, Giuliana (from E! News)and Bill (Apprentice winner) are bringing attention to infertility. They have failed IUIs and now an IVF that ended in miscarriage. Their story is very similar to ours. They thought everything was fine until their first ultrasound where they found out they lost the baby. I was 100% feeling their pain the past two episodes. I can't imagine how difficult it must be for them to put these episodes on the air for everyone to see. In last night's episode Giuliana was having lunch with a friend who got pregnant about the same time as she did and they were discussing the loss. I can't imagine the strength that must have took. I likely would have cut that friend out of my life for a while. I think its awesome that they are bringing infertility and ARTs out of the shadows. I feel bad but I honestly like it when Giuliana cries about the loss, I think people need to see how painful it really is to lose a baby in that situation. There is only one thing about infertility that they aren't bringing to the spotlight. That's the financial hardship it puts most of us in. Obviously if they chose to they could do ARTs until they get a baby but for most of us the money factor puts an end to our dreams.

Speaking of that.....one week from today I'm going to call my new doctor and ask if there are any tests he wants to do before our IUI cycle. On one hand I'd like to have him redo some of the bloodwork to make sure everything is okay on my end, its been 4 years since I've had any tests. But on the other hand I'd really like to not pay for all the testing to be redone. If he thinks everything is okay, then I'm fine with that except for my progesterone. I'd really like to have it tested on a natural cycle. The only time my old RE ever checked it was when I was on clomid. Since sometimes my LP is short and last month I spotted for 2 1/2 days before AF, I'd feel better knowing its okay. AF is due towards the end of next week and then its hopefully only one more cycle til our IUI.