Apt Update

(cycle 47, day 11)

I finally got my apt with my doc to go over what's next as far as fertility is concerned since its been 12 cycles without a pregnancy (save for a possible chemical back in april that is unconfirmed and may have been just a false positive).

she's sending us for a few more tests that need to be done before an RE will see us:
-SA for DH
-STI testing for us both (required by the RE)
-CD3 testing for FSH, prolactin and TSH levels
-CD21/7DPO testing for progesterone levels and to find out what my blood type is since I have no clue

she's referring us to an RE but we need to get all that testing done before they will even book us an apt and they book 4-6 months in advance  : (  she made it sound like we're probably headed toward getting an IUI done with the RE since we can get pregnant on our own, we just might need some help with the selection of sperm (depending on the results of the SA) or the delivery of the sperm into my uterus/tubes. the unfortunate part is that we have to wait about 1.5-2 months to get referred because of the way my cycle is falling when we go to Ontario for MIL's wedding. if I had taken the apt for july 14 with my doc and just waited til after the apt to go on holidays, I would've had it done that day because that was cd3, rats. just missed it. so that test won't be done until early September unless I don't O for another week this cycle (which isn't likely since I'm showing signs of it happening by Saturday...) or O today or tomoro (which also isn't likely since today is only cd11 and that would be extremely early for me) to allow that test to happen either the day before we leave or the day after getting back. but the way its going, i'll be cd4 or later when we get back. though it probably isn't that big a deal since DH has to find the time to get his SA done and that's probably going to be closer to when I can get that cd3 test done anyway. he has to go to the city (the lab he has to drop it off at is just over an hour away on a good day) and have it at the lab within an hour of collecting it. collection time for those tests at that lab is between 10am and 1pm, Monday to Thursday. it would just be way too easy for them to collect on Friday's since DH will have 2 Friday's off by the time I get that cd3 test done so he wouldn't have to leave work for 2.5-3 hours in the middle of the day, grr. he'll probably use his lunch for some of that time so he's not taking too much time off work, but its right at a time when we're taking holidays left and right. but it has to be done, I'm not waiting til xmas for him to do it and then not seeing the RE til next summer... if we get all the testing done by early September, we'll be at the RE early next year, when we've been ttc for 4.5 years...

so in the meantime, while waiting for that as of yet to be booked apt, we can continue TTC and hope to get pregnant on our own. she also prescribed 2 rounds of clomid for me to give us a bit of a boost and see if that's all we really need. so I'm already too far in this cycle to try it, so next cycle i'll be giving that a try. I was curious to see if she would prescribe that to me given that I O on a regular basis and clomid is typically used for women who don't O, have really irregular cycles or O really late regularly. the good thing about clomid is that you typically will release more eggs which means a higher chance of one getting fertilized and becoming a baby. the downside is there's a much higher chance of multiples, something I've always wanted to avoid  : /  if it happens, it happens, I'm not going to die because of it, life would just be stupidly hectic for many years and very expensive when you can't feasibly use handmedowns for the next one because the next one is the same age using the same things at the same time... thank god we plan on setting up RESPs so secondary schooling is way more affordable and that will be our contribution to their schooling.
...and now I'm getting way ahead of myself  : P 

I'm gearing up to O this cycle already and I'm hoping none of these tests will be necessary, but its a necessary step if doing it on our own just isn't going to work.

AF showed up

(cycle 47, day 10)

so after crazy temp rises, my temp jumped off a cliff and well below the coverline at 11dpo and even further at 12dpo. I also started spotting about 3 days before she showed up, which has never happened before and I was hoping the first of those 3 days was implantation, but alas, it wasn't. just AF being her unpredictable self. I seriously haven't had 2 cycles in a row be the exact same. I went from pretty super regular to being all over the place. went from about a 27 day cycle to 34, 29, 27, 26, 33, 29, 26. I feel so lost with my cycles. I never know what to expect and I can't count on the next cycle being a normal one because when I do that, it does the exact opposite. I haven't had this much fluctuation in a long time.

so we go the doc tomoro. I don't know what to expect from that appt. I'm hoping requisitions for tests instead of just a consult so we're not wasting more time than we already have. i'm not even sure I have a year left in me to keep trying. I might if we're doing more than what we have been, like IUI's or IVF's or something to help us along, otherwise, what's the point in continuing to try on our own?

anyway, I started writing this on cd2 but then got occupied by a week at my aunt and uncle's cabin in Saskatchewan and am now on cd10 and hoping to O by end of this week because DH will be away next weekend at a hockey tournament in jasper... god only knows what my cycle is going to do. I started getting creamy cm pretty early, but its also only cd10 so I should start noticing more fertile signs very soon if I am going to O before the weekend.

fluke

after seeing my temp rise yesterday to a nearly never before seen high, today's was much higher. it went from 36.93 to 37.68. but I also ended up with a fever last night so I don't feel like I can actually use those temps in my chart  : /  it started yesterday with a sore throat and then by mid-afternoon I had really bad back pain. when I got home, I decided to just lay on the couch instead of go for a walk/run like I was planning. I started taking my temp to monitor it and it got as high as 38.7 before going to bed. my bbt and morning check on my temp (which I did about 5 minutes after getting out of the shower, not at the same time as bbt) were basically the same, around 37.7. so I don't know what to make of it and i'll probably have to toss the temps from the last 2 days out so it doesn't skew my chart. I will be going to the walk-in clinic this morning though so I can get rid of this sore throat before holidays start.

I don't have time to be sick! in the 5 days I have before holidays, I have to make a batch of buttertarts to bring to the cabin, clean my truck, take my cousins swimming at our city's new pool and do more baking with them, bring my dog to a friend's place in the city to dogsit her, step class, laundry, pack for a week, and finish a set of plans. I'm not busy at all  ::)  I should be able to get it all done, but it will probably take up my entire weekend. ugh.

but seriously, I wish I could count on my temp right now cuz it makes me happy to see it so high, even if I haven't seen a bfp yet... because yes, I'm still a poas-aholic and started testing at 8dpo...

i bet you're tired of this now, lol

(cycle 46, day 23, 9 dpo)

my temp went up this morning. like a lot. like to a temp I don't normally achieve in the 2ww, ever. I have 3 charts that have a temp over 36.90 but its an isolated temp and only lasts a day so I'm interested to see what it is tomoro. to say I'm now getting hopeful is an understatement  ; ) 

 

 

i'm doing it again...

(cycle 46, day 22, 8 dpo)

...I'm being hopeful. at least until I temped this morning  : /  my temp was going up earlier than normal and my boobs started hurting a couple days sooner than usual, but then this morning I had my usual 8dpo dip. I still plan on testing by Thursday, only because of my holidays next week, but its not with as much hope as I had yesterday... *sigh*



ETA:  I totally forgot to mention anything about a freaky dream I had over the weekend...

so my bf who's wedding I'm standing in October might be making the out west because of her fiancé's job. with planning the wedding in Ontario, she isn't looking to move just yet and wants to at least wait until after the wedding to make the big change (if they decide to move out here since his job is flying him back and forth). well I dreamt that it turned out that the possibility of her moving out here wasn't known to anyone else and then she freaked out on me and told me I was pretty much the worst friend ever. I begged her and she just kept saying mean things like "of course you're trying to do what you can to fix this, but you can't. damage is done, I hope you're happy, yadda yadda yadda". I woke up, I almost thought it was real and was actually worried about our friendship! but thank god it was just a dream. of course it wasn't until today that I thought maybe it was a prego symptom *insert eyeroll* jesus. I just can't help myself from being hopeful can I?

back in the 2ww, again.

(cycle 46, day 17, 3 dpo)

another 2ww, another dollar. back to Oing on cd14. I wish my body would go back to doing the same thing every cycle instead of being different every cycle. it gets old not being able to count on when I'll be fertile because its not the same every month. I want that predictability back!

thankfully Oing on cd14 this cycle means i'll be able to get confirmation for my doc before going on holidays, and not have to be at the lab for god knows how long on the day I plan on leaving for the cabin. I plan on testing next Thursday so that if I get a BFP, I can test again on Friday to be sure its not a fluke and then go to the lab in the afternoon. that's if I even get a BFP this cycle. if I don't, I can't wait to enjoy drinks at the cabin!

numb? defeated?

I feel like I'm just going through the motions of TTC lately and while I still get pissed off seeing others get what we want, I just feel numb to it all at this point. or at least numb to our situation, I'm definitely not numb when others express their happiness over things that happen for them seemingly easily...

while I wish we could just give up, I know that I'd have to go on the rest of my life being jealous and resentful of those who get to have kids and that's not how I want to live for the next 50+ years. I want to know that we did what we could, but I'm also tired of doing all of that. I know we haven't even scratched the surface as far as things we can do to help this since we haven't actually been tested for infertility purposes, but 4 years later, I think we've paid our dues. I'd love to know that we will for sure get pregnant, even if I don't know when but at least at some point in the next 6 months and it actually turn into a real, live baby. at least it would give me peace of mind that we'd get what we want so badly, but we don't.

I really hope the doctor visit in july helps answer some of these questions or we somehow get fast tracked to get things figured out and it doesn't turn into a long drawn out process and we get to 5 years without any answers...

last chance before help

(cycle 46, day 1)

AF showed up if you couldn't tell by my cd1 status....  : ( 

I started getting really hopeful and could swear I saw a hint of something on tests, but I think I've got line eyes and I'm willing myself to see things cuz when I take a real good look, there's nothing on them other than the control line. my temps were keeping me hopeful since they were staying up until this morning. so now that I can't depend on my temp to drop a couple days before AF shows up, I think I'm just going to temp til I can for sure confirm O and then put the thermometer away til around cd10 to temp for O again. no point in getting myself excited when temps mean nothing anymore.

so with that, I also set up an apt with my doc to start talking about what our next steps are and what tests we need to do so we can get on with getting our THB. we've been as consistent as possible with TTC and we only avoided 2 cycles this year. its now starting to take a toll on our sex life where we really only have sex when there's a chance it could turn into a baby. we've been doing so well over the last almost 4 years not letting it get in the way of having sex outside of my fertile window, but its now started to creep in. not like we get busy every other day or so when I'm not fertile, we were still only once a week or so kind of couple, but that's been gone for 2 months now and I'm noticing the difference in us. I'm hoping getting help will take the pressure off of us and we can go back to normal. I won't let the doc tell us to try something different for a couple months because that won't work. we've waited long enough and if we have to implement a different BDing schedule, it will just end badly by putting pressure on us to perform when they want us to instead of what we can muster ourselves. no point in going through that, though I don't think they would do that us given how long we've been TTC...

so we have one cycle to get it done before I see the doc and probably one cycle before we get answers or some kind of outside help. of course if this cycle works, I can turn my apt into an apt to get an US requisition since it would be the right timing for that, but I also would have to somehow hide it for a week with family at the cabin... would be pretty fucking hard to avoid drinks for an entire week without someone noticing and saying something. though I've also thought about getting news out right away next time so we don't have that to jinx ourselves with like the last 2... all of that is hypothetical since the chances of it actually happening are slim (I feel like a broken record cuz I'm sure I've said those words in almost every single blog post over the last 6 months...).

we'll see what the next month brings... hopefully something good before we go through the rigours of infertility testing....

still in the 2ww

(cycle 45, day 26, 10 dpo)

I oddly have no urge to test early this cycle. probably thanks to my average temps. they're following the typical pattern so I'm not expecting this cycle to go any differently. if my temp is up tomoro, I'm waiting at least one more day to see if its a fluke like that other cycle I had a crazy jump at 11dpo. but yeah, not expecting different results with something that's the same as before. there's still that small shred of hope left that because others have had no tip offs that they were pregnant before AF was due that maybe that could be me. but that small shred of hope is just that, a shred. I don't actually believe it would happen like that...

so I guess I'm finally making that "please help us" phone call next week  : (  I never thought we'd be having to do this. we have one more cycle to try before I'd see the doc so maybe the threat of that will shock my body into doing something different, like, you know, get pregnant. it seems to happen for many other women (obviously not everyone). though so does getting pregnancy relatively easy and since I definitely don't fall in that category, I'm not expecting a different outcome.

oh 2ww, how i loathe the

(cycle 45, day 16)

we've done what we could this cycle, now we wait. at the end of my last post, I added that I started getting ewcm, well that continued for about 4 days! I'm starting to think though that it was aided along by the amoxicillin I was on at the beginning of my cycle when I had a pretty bad throat infection... either way, if it helped give me good cm for a cycle, i'll take it. I just hope it wasn't a one time thing and I'm actually back to normal and will continue getting fertile cm each cycle from now on and it wasn't just the amoxicillin making a difference.

I also thankfully Od at a more normal time this cycle. it might have been yesterday or today, I'm not really sure and hopefully my temp goes up tomoro otherwise, I might have to give up temping this cycle cuz there's no way that if tomoro's is still low that I didn't O for 3 days after a positive OPK... oh, I also got back my fade in pattern on my OPKs this cycle  : )  after noticing the ewcm I started my OPKs on cd11 instead of cd12 just in case. on cd13 the test got a bit darker and then on cd14 it was a blazing positive all day and back to just barely negative on cd15. normally I would O the day after a positive so I figured today's temp would be up signalling that yesterday was O day. so that's why I'm hoping tomoro's temp is up otherwise I won't know what to make of my temps.

we got at least 2 BDs in this cycle. I really have to give props to DH cuz he's really been trying to do his part for the last 8 months. the first couple months after the MC we took it easy but since we've been back to really trying, he's really been trying. it definitely hasn't gone unnoticed. but that's also why I don't want to wait much longer to get help or see a BFP, I don't know much longer he can keep up the routine  : /  I know he would like a break from having to BD on particular days and go back to BDing whenever the mood strikes us. its been hard having to stay motivated and I so appreciate his efforts, it would just be nice to be rewarded with a BFP for those efforts for once...

well I guess we'll see how this cycle plays out. same timing as last year, same days of the week for everything, just a number day different.... if I don't get a BFP for father's day, i'll be calling the doc to schedule the appt...