my Self

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Fort St John, BC, Canada
My husband, David, and I had been trying to have a baby since November of 2007. After 'letting things happen', we got the amazing news that we were pregnant in June of 2008. Sadly, that pregnancy ended at 9 weeks with a natural miscarriage. After two more chemical pregnancies, we turned to fertility treatments in 2009. That decision was a disaster, with lousy medical care and poor monitoring. In December of 2009, we made the huge decision to move onto IVF. Things fell into place like magic and we began treatment on January 15, 2010. After a blighted ovum in March, we did a successful FET in June, only to endure another blighted ovum in July. We kept up and underwent another IVF in September/October of 2010 with the arrival of our son, Brogan in July of 2011! After our lovely success (finally) we decided to undertake yet another IVF treatment and hope for a sibling for our little red headed boy. Well... so far it's worked. Our story continues below!

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Forced to Obsess

I have a 22 year old staff member who I am pretty close to. She's worked with me for two years, and is a very kind girl. She's not the first person to say, "I think you need to stop trying so hard, and just let things happen." If I weren't taking my temperature, and charting, and saw my doctor, I would have just kept miscarrying over and over. (I have very low progesterone). If I don't keep track of my CD, I don't know when to take my clomid. If I don't know when I ovulated, I wouldn't know when to start my progesterone. If I don't take pregnancy tests I wouldn't know when to stop, or increase my progesterone. It was only because of my insistance on getting betas and progesterone tests that my LPD was detected...less than 1% chance and I caught it.... I'm travelling to my wedding this month. I'm sick of testing, and temping. DH and I got pregnant 3 times out of six monthswe were actually able to BD during Ovulation. GETTING PREGNANT IS NOT THE ISSUE... it's KEEPING MY BABIES.... How do I *relax* when I am FORCED to monitor myself?

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Finally. An Answer and Some Relief

Okay. So... at 17DPO I went and got a beta done and it was the worst number we could have had... it was 5. Which means that technically I was pregnant, but at that many days past, it was either a really super late implantation or the end of a chemical pregnancy. We were in limbo for a while... my temps were still really high, but after a couple more HPT's that were BFN.. we opted to stop the progesterone and let my cycle end.

I finally started spotting this morning - I suspect this will progress quickly into the beginning of my next cycle. I'm VERY excited about this - we are almost an entire week overdue.

THE GOOD NEWS:
The good news is that my progesterone supplementation is working. It kept my temp high (even for a few days after stopping) and certainly delayed my period. That means that when we get a good fertilization and implantation, we're at a very high rate for a successful pregnancy.

THE BAD NEWS:
Well.... no real bad news I guess... other than another chemical pregnancy. I don't mind those - it's just the dangers of testing early. If you play that game, you take those risks. I would rather give birth in the first few months of 2010 so that David is closer to coming home, and avoid that entire christmas baby thing if possible. Fun, but not really logistically perfect with the store and David being gone all winter.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Pregnant, Bitch or Nut

I can't even say it with conviction. Even though I just spent my first bout of gagging and urping into the toilet bowl. Just a nice conversation with David one moment and the next I am contemplating just what a crappy housekeeper I truly am when 6 inches away from the toilet seat.

Even though I cried so hard I blew snot bubbles at David over such things as
  • my new jeans were too big

  • my shoes were all wrong for my outfit

  • I hadn't done my toenails so I couldn't wear open toed shoes

  • David wasn't helping enough at the store

  • when David DID help, he made me feel bad

  • or I had to give him too much direction

Then.... when I was done with all that.. broke into hysterical laughter and then sobbing again... finally cleared up the boogers and tears...he said,

"You are either pregnant or nuts."

Bam! Sobbing again!

Okay I can laugh now. So can David... he was really awesome with it all....

So with being a certified bitchy nut, I also had a very sore back and boobs.

Here are my latest tests...

The skeptic tells me to beware. These tests were pretty much DRY before I got anything I could actually photograph. But... the dreamer in me thinks...evaps don't have color. Evaps don't get darker over time. Evaps don't happen three days in a row. And that cheapie internet stick at the top? I've been TRYING to get a freakin' evap for days now... That line is thicker than I could hope for...

I don't know. I feel pregnant.... and I don't feel scared this time.... I just wish those lines would come faster. Never enough, eh? Never enough? Gun shy.. this would be my fourth pregnancy in a year.

My niece asked me the other day, in a concerned voice, if we were going to 'keep trying'. I was kind of shocked at the question... is that what people think? That we should give up? That it's not working for us, that we are too old, or infertile? I don't think of ourselves that way at all... after being immersed in the Grief & Loss boards, our problems are the common cold when compared to the real cancer of infertility. We get pregnant just fine... and our issue is easily solved with proper medical care. It's just getting a good, sticky egg, and that's just a numbers game, one we apparently are getting better at playing.