Almost there....

My hysteroscopy and laparoscopy are tomorrow and I am soooo nervous!  There is so much that is still up in the air.  We aren't completely sure what he is going to find when he gets in there so it is all such a mystery.  Of course my OCD has kicked into high gear with all my nervous energy, so I'm getting everything in order so I can come home to a clean house and laundry done without anything to think about when I come home tomorrow... or for the rest of the weekend!  I scheduled the cleaning lady to come tomorrow morning while I'm in surgery so the house will be nice and clean.  My mom bought me a stress relief shoulder hug from Origins... it smells so yummy and will hopefully help me to relax as we try to get back into this baby making business!  Keep you posted =)

1 day 'til answers!!

Only 1 day of work left until I will finally have answers and can move on with TTCing.  It will be so nice to not wonder what is going on with  my body and have the possibility of something being wrong lingering over my head.  Nervous... but excited.

Tax day was today... first tax season since we've been married.   The pending tax return will be so welcomed after all of the medical expenses!!  I never dreamt that TTC would cost us so much... usually after this many visits to the RE, ultrasounds, bloodwork and hospital visits there would be a bouncing baby at the end.  For us there are just bills... and lots of them!!  Luckily, I changed jobs in August - from being self-employed to working for the school district - and our benefits are awesome!!  Don't get me wrong... South Dakota pays their teachers the lowest in the 50 states (seriously), so I don't get paid much, but the benefits make up for it... kind of!  Not to mention I am definitely looking forward to the 2 1/2 months I have off over the summer... hopefully I'll be incubating!!  One can only hope.........

2 days to go.......

Only two days of work until my hysteroscopy and laparoscopy and I will FINALLY get some answers!!  I can't stop "googling" everything to do with a hysteroscopy to remove intrauterine adhesions (cause that's what I've self-diagnosed myself as having!) and getting pregnant afterwards... it has become a disgusting addiction!! 

A relaxing Sunday!

I LOVE my Sundays and my hubby! He got my washed my car, fueled it up, changed the oil, put in a new headlight, rotated the tires and got the oil changed!! I spent a couple hours doing a couple ladies' nails this afternoon. I do shellac manicures for some of my friends and one of them brought over a new client today. She just happened to be an RN for a group of OB/GYNs in town, so I got some great insite from her! She said that the RE we are seeing is great at what he does, but told us NOT to rush into doing IVF... let my body get back to normal and give it a really good try for awhile. However, she isn't married and doesn't plan to have kids and I'm starting to realize that people who haven't ever had to "try" to get pregnant can very easily tell you to take your time or relax and stop thinking about it and it will happen... if you've never been TTC for a year, you can NOT relate to the feelings we feel. Anyway, she said we were in great hands and he is good at what he does. She gave me a couple great recommendations for OB/GYNs when we get to the point that I need one... Our RE will follow us for the first 12 weeks of our pregnancy and then send us to the OB of our choice. It was so nice to get an RN's opinion on everything we are going through...

Only 3 days left until the surgery... definitely getting nervous and very anxious.  I'm ready to know what exactly is going on!!

Impatient....

I am definitely getting impatient. Even though it was a short week at work, it seems to be lasting forever. I've been receiving calls all week from the hospital as they are doing all of their preoperative paperwork. When talking to one of the ladies from the surgical center today, she mentioned something about a possible d&c... I freaked! That is what got me here in the first place... What the heck?! Of course I followed it up with a call to the RE's office. At my appointment on Monday I didn't really get a chance to talk with him about all the possibilities with the surgery. The nurse told me that he will be as conservative as he can be. Since he isn't sure what he is going to find in there he has to plan for the worst so he has all the tools available for the d&c. She wasn't really able to answer my question about what he does after the surgery to ensure correct healing and decrease the chance of scar tissue reforming. I have read that estrogen is very common and so is a intrauterine ballon... So much to think about! The nurse offered me an appointment to talk woth the RE, but there isn't much to ask that I can't ask the day of the surgery. It is kind of frustrating because we don't have any idea what is going on in there, so he can't tell me exactly what procedures he needs to do! Ugh!

Funny for the day... The nurse told me to come with a full bladder because they will want me to take a pregnancy test prior to the surgery. Well that would be a miracle... Pretty sure if nothing comes out, nothing is going in!

Normal...

Today I realized that I would give anything to just be "normal". I don't even care that I'm not pregnant right now, I'm just really pissed that everything is so screwed up and our lives have been on hold for so long. Having a miscarriage is bad enough, but I relive it everyday because of all of the complications I'm having. I'm hoping the procedure next week will help get us back on track, but I'm struggling to positive right now.

On an up note, I started using my OvaCue fertility monitor yesterday... not really sure why!  We won't be able to try this month, but I figure I might as well get some practice under my belt. I'm going to keep track of my readings on this blog just for fun! I'm going to work on adding a tab at the top of the page so if you are interest in seeing my readings you can go there!  I won't be able to take my readings all month since I'll be having surgery mid month so I will start with my next cycle... we are crossing our fingers that it will come without incident!!

I can see a glimmer of light......

I love my RE's nurse, Jess!!  She is always so pleasant to talk to and always goes above and beyond!

Just got off the phone with Jess... bloodwork indicates that I'm at the beginning of a new cycle, so all of that pain was exactly what I thought it was.... my period.  She talked with the RE and he wanted to proceed with the hysteroscopy and laparoscopy to investigate what is going on.  I am scheduled for the surgery next Thursday at 10:30 am.  She said to expect to be off work for Friday and the weekend could be long.  Sounds like the CO2 they use to expand your abdomen creates some pain in your shoulders and chest... wonderful!  I am so glad that he will be able to remove any adhesions or scarring that he sees during this one surgery.  We should get some definite answers in the next couple weeks!!

I originally had oral surgery scheduled for that same day.  I have 5 dental implants and one that has been giving me problems for about a year.  Last year, one of them became infected and I was losing bone, so I had to have a bone graft.  It seemed to be healing nicely, but once I got pregnant my body had trouble fighting off the infection and it started getting worse again.  I have to have the implant completely removed and another bone graft put in... UGH!!  I can't have 2 surgeries in 1 week so I had to rescheduled that one for April 5.  Looks like I have a busy month ahead of me!

Starting to get some answers... kind of?!

Loving that I have the day off today, but not so thrilled that I had to spend the morning at the RE's office.  I called the on-call RE yesterday to let them know I was in a crapton of pain and she told me to take some ibuprofen and the nurse would call me in the morning to get me in.  My lifesaver nurse, Jess, called me right away at 7 this morning and was able to get me scheduled at 10:30... it was the longest 3 1/2 hours of my life! 

Got to the RE's office and they started with an ultrasound.  U/S showed that my lining was starting to break down so I should be having a period.  They didn't see any clotting or pooling, which means the blood is flowing out my fallopian tubes?!?!  Nobody seemed real concerned about this.  I loved the u/s tech today, she always tells me what I'm looking at and what she is looking for/seeing.  She looked at my ovaries and they looked great... lots of little follicles and one dominant follicle that looked like it was getting ready for next month.  So there is some good news!

I met with the RE's PA (physician's assistant) after the u/s and she gave me a couple options...
#1:  Start medical treatment this month - clomid, trigger shot, etc and see what the month brings
#2:  Hysteroscopy with laparoscopy to look at the uterus and abdomen to physically see what is going on

Tough decision... I can't even fathom "wasting" another month just to end up in the same place, but the thought of spending more money makes me physically sick to my stomach.  I had to go with my gut instinct and told them I wanted to go forward with the surgery so I know there isn't anything wrong.  Sometimes you can't put a price on a piece of mind!  I talked with the nurse before I left and she definitely agreed with my decision. 

I had some bloodwork and a urine analysis done before I left the clinic today.  The nurse was going to call as soon as she got the results and talked with the RE about what we talked about today.  She should be calling in the next couple hours......

More coming soon...... 

Seriously... what is wrong with me?!

Well.... still waiting for AF to arrive, but kind of thinking it is never going to come. I was so excited because I was up all night with cramps - yes, I said it... I was EXCITED to have cramps. By the time I got up in the morning I was even spotting! The cramps continued to get progressively worse and by now I am in excruciating pain... ugh! However, I still have not started my period and all spotting has stopped. I'm having a serious flashback to my last cycle post d&c when I ended up in the ER because the cramping got so bad that I was almost positive I was going to die! I have a horrible feeling that something is wrong after the d&c. Last time I was at the RE's office, he talked about the possibilities of Asherman's Syndrome (scarring and adhesions) or a stenotic cervix... both resulting from my d&c in November. Of course I've done my research and am absolutely terrified that both are a definite possibility. He talked about doing a hysteroscopy with laparoscopy to get an internal look at my uterus and abdomen. The RE wanted to call and schedule an ultrasound as soon as I started my period or the terrible cramps started to see if my endometrium was shedding and if so, where it was going. Morning can't come soon enough so I can call the nurses and see if I can get in right away in the morning. I'm going to press for something to figure out what is going on inside of me. I'm so sick of waiting and can't do this another cycle without knowing that my lady parts are back to working normally... or at least why I'm not back to normal. I have the day off tomorrow so I'm crossing my fingers they can get me in early and possibly squeeze me in for any tests they need to.


  I am officially exhausted...

The year in review......

Hello! My hubby and I both just turned 30 and have been trying to conceive for almost a year. The past year has been a complete rollercoaster of ups and downs. Needless to say, we are having a harder time getting pregnant that either of us ever expected. I wish I would've started this blog a year ago when I actually started this journey, but I'll do my best to catch you up to speed on where we are now....

I married the love of my life on March 28, 2011. We got married at a beautiful resort in Cancun, Mexico. We shared the day with 11 of our closest family and it was everything I ever dreamed of.

I had been off birth control since February 2011, but this officially began our journey to conceive. I am a smart, rational, and pretty reasonable women and am anxiously wanting to start a family with her wonderful hubby. We are both absolutely ready to be parents, not to mention the alarms on my biological clock are sounding wildly!

As unappealing as the majority of the new moms and currently pregnant women make pregnancy and motherhood seem, I am dying to experience the pits and peaks for myself.

In November, I unexpectedly found out I was pregnant, but after 5 weeks found out the little peanut was now our little angel baby. I had a D&C on November 15 and felt completely helpless and empty. My hubby was my rock. He held me when I needed comforting and gave me space when I needed to be angry. The range of emotions that I experienced were amazing.

I never held you, but I feel you

You never spoke, but I hear you

I never met you, but I love you....

We are now 13 weeks post d&c and haven't had a normal cycle. The cycle I had in January was severe cramping, but no bleeding. The RE (reproductive endocrinologist) assumes that I had no uterine lining built up since my d&c, but is closely monitoring this cycle. I've had ultrasounds and bloodwork and I just finished 10 days of Provera to attempt to bring on a cycle. It's pretty hard to get pregnant without AF! AF = Aunt Flo - yes, I now talk in TTC (trying to conceive) lingo! I should get AF anytime in the next 2 weeks... and if I have to wait the whole 2 weeks I may or may not go lose my mind!

I am tired... exhausted... frustrated.. annoyed....... mostly tired. Everyone always says to just stop trying and it will happen. I wish I could! I wish I could stop and put it on hold, but that is impossible. I can't stop temping and charting and POASing (peeing on a stick).... I now have a new fertility monitor! I just ordered the OvaCue - a fertility monitor based on electrolytes in your saliva and your cervical mucous. It actually confirms ovulation, so I'm pretty pumped!

Alright... that is the last year in a nut shell............ Let the fun begin!