12-1-2009 - Trying for Darwin - Aug 2007

My mood while writing this blog: same

August 1st, 2007

06:45 pm: CD 10
OK, so as you can tell from my subject, my first IUI attempt was not a success. I would have posted sooner, but things have been hectic around here.

My test day was supposed to be the 26th, but AF came on the 23rd. It was not a totally normal period in that it was very heavy to start with a lot of clotting and ran heavy like that for two days, then went straight into being really light and then spotting for a couple of days and that was it. Usually, I am light on the first day, heavy for two days, medium flow for two days and spotting for a day or two. So that was odd. Plus, usually my luteal phase is around 15 days and this time it was only 12, which is also unusual. Regardless, AF did come, so I'm not PG.

My DH and I were leaving for vacation on the 28th, so I called my nurse on the Monday AF started to find out if my vacation would get in the way of me trying another IUI right away. I really didn't want to just sit around not trying. I felt upset enough that it didn't work and it made it worse to think that I would have to wait to try again. Well, my nurse talked to the doctor and called me back and said that they didn't think it would be a problem and I should come in Wednesday (the 25th) for an ultrasound to make sure...

My ultrasound showed that my lining was thinning out really well, but my follicle from the last IUI did not ever shrink at all. It was still sitting at 19mm x 21mm. So this shot down my chances of being able to try again right away. My nurse said that sometimes this just happens and that it isn't normal, but it also isn't uncommon. She said that often when this happens once, it may indicate that it will happen on every ovulatory cycle, but we won't know until we try again.

So I have to wait until cycle day 28, take an HPT and call to get a prescription for Prometrium (which my doctor prefers over Provera) to start my period if it doesn't miraculously start on its own (which, I'm obviously not holding my breath). Once it starts, we'll try again and hopefully this time the cyst will be smaller or I don't know what will have to be done.

It was discouraging news. I'm glad I followed it up immediately with vacation because it gave me a chance to get away and not think about it for a few days. Now I'm back and updating and thinking about it and I'm really overall no less disappointed and no less depressed about the whole thing. In fact, part of me is TOTALLY FUCKING PISSED that my body is such a PIECE OF SHIT and won't work the way it is supposed to and because of ME, I have to wait and even worse, my husband has to wait for my STUPID body to decide to cooperate.

My DH is really supportive and understanding, thank God, because if he wasn't, I think I could never forgive myself for being infertile (even though I know it isn't anything I can control). But I can't describe to anyone I know how much this all makes me HATE myself on such a deep level. Because how can I hate this process and not hate my body for causing it? And how can I hate my body without hating me? It's so confusing and debasing.

So that's it. That's where I'm at. I've cried over it and been angry over it, but none of these emotions change it at all. I'm not pregnant. Maybe I never will be.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

August 3rd, 2007

12:22 pm: CD 11
This cycle can't possibly go by fast enough. I really fucking hate not being able to even TRY to get pregnant. I'm going to see my best friend tonight for the first time in a month. I hate that my relationship with her suffers because I hate looking at her pregnant body. I hate myself for being jealous. Why can't I just get over it???

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

August 5th, 2007

04:23 pm: CD 14
I'm halfway to my ptest date before I can start the prometrium to get into the next cycle. My whole life has turned into an all-encompassing effort to conceive. I don't enjoy my job anymore and that makes my TTC journey even more urgent to me because I would just like to have SOMETHING in my own life to be happy about.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

August 6th, 2007

08:46 pm: CD 15
Wouldn't it be totally unbelievable and yet completely amazingly awesome if somehow I got pregnant without any help this month? I know it's almost too much to hope for. I don't have high hopes, but I'm still trying. I don't think I could ever stop trying...

It is so odd how for couples with infertility, getting pregnant by having sex begins to seem almost unnatural. After a while you forget that that's the way normal people get pregnant. I mean, you don't forget, but the action and the intended goal seem to become disconnected as you reprogram yourself to realize that pregnancy through intercourse is something that just won't happen for you. Do people get pregnant that way? It just seems so easy.

Through my early years of sexuality, getting pregnant was this big looming threat that hung over my head and I did whatever I could to avoid it at all costs. I never would have thought then that one day I would be desperately chasing that dream down as it dodges me at every turn. Funny how things change.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

August 7th, 2007

09:49 pm: CD 16 - The Financial Burden of Infertility
I just responded to a friend's entry about the cost of treatment and it occurred to me that if I really want to give a complete account of the difficulty of infertility in this journal, the financial burden is something people would want to know about.

Here's the tab on my fertility treatments thus far...

$ 500.00 - bloodwork, exams, screening, including 2 hr. insulin resistance
test BEFORE starting treatment
$ 200.00 - 4 cycles of Clomid medication
$ 1200.00 - HSG procedure (my insurance refused to pay, still getting bills)
$ 150.00 - Semen analysis on DH
$ 900.00 - Follistim for one cycle
$ 30.00 - Generic HCG for one cycle
$ 1575.00 - 7 vaginal ultrasounds and rounds of estrogen/progesterone tests
$ 300.00 - 2 semen analyses/sperm washing
$ 800.00 - 2 IUI's on 2 consecutive days

$ 6555.00 total spent so far, and roughly $3600 total for one round of IUI. This is all pre-insurance cost. Luckily, my insurance covers at least some of almost everything, so the after-insurance breakdown is...

$ 180.00 - bloodwork/testing
$ 40.00 - 4 cycles clomid
$ 1200.00 - HSG (ouch!)
$ 10.00 - semen analysis on DH
$ 150.00 - Follistim
$ 5.00 - generic HCG
$ 385.00 - 7 visits ($20 copay + $35 out of pocket per visit)
$ 20.00 - semen analysis/sperm washing
$ 180.00 - 2 IUI's

$2170 TOTAL out of pocket; roughly $750 out of pocket for one round of IUI.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

August 9th, 2007

08:01 pm: CD 18 - Ovulation?
I started temping two days ago on CD 16. Mainly because I figured if I was going to ovulate on my own, it would probably be around that time. When I took off my bra that evening, my breasts were feeling rather tender. Then, the next morning (yesterday), my temp took a nosedive. I was waiting to see if I had fertile CM, but it seemed to be creamy and thick all day long. In the evening it started thinning out and my DH and I BD'ed. When I laid down for bed, I was cramping on my left side. I thought maybe it was from BD'ing, but when I woke up this morning, my temp spiked and the cramps continued for the first hour or two I was up. I've had fertile CM all day long. I won't get to temp tomorrow because I will be up most of the night tonight and out of town tomorrow, but I suppose it's too much to hope that I ovulated on my own. I may not be fertile, but I sure am persistent.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

August 13th, 2007

08:22 pm: CD 22
My temp is all over the place. I'm gonna stop temping again. It's too stressful. I should have known I wouldn't ovulate and temping does nothing but give false hopes anytime there's a spike. So I will just call my nurse for a Prometrium script and wait until Sunday when I'm supposed to test. I'll start the Prometrium Sunday and get myself emotionally prepared for the next IUI cycle. That's that.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

August 16th, 2007

06:50 pm: CD 25... errr... 1???
I've started spotting this evening. I don't know if it is CD 1 coming or just another of those random spotting days. Just waiting to see...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

August 17th, 2007

06:24 pm: CD 26
So I'm not on my period, so that last bit of spotting was not the start of AF. I don't know what it was about, really. I used to never have spotting, but since I've started this fertility stuff it seems like I have an occasional random day of spotting followed by nothing. It's strange. I don't think from the temps I took that I ever ovulated. So I don't think it's implantation spotting. I will almost certainly be starting to take prometrium within the next few days to start AF .

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

August 18th, 2007

05:10 pm: CD 27
Tomorrow is my test day. Then I will be able to call Monday and get my script for Prometrium. It will be another couple of weeks before I can expect AF to start so we can get into another IUI cycle. It all happens so painfully slowly. I wish it would move a little faster...

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

August 21st, 2007

09:52 am: CD 30
Every time I walk by my pregnant coworker, who is due in three weeks, my heart dies a little. I spoke to her about her pregnancy yesterday. She said it took them a month to get pregnant. She said it only went so fast because she had it all planned out what time of the month they needed to have intercourse before she ever even went off of birth control. Like it's just a matter of knowing when to do it. Like if you just do it during that time, you are bound to get pregnant. I almost laughed. If only it were that easy. She knows I'm trying to get pregnant and asked me how long I've been trying. A year and eight months. Almost two years. It seems like five years. It has been forever.

A piece of me deep inside thinks I will never be pregnant. I will never know what it is to feel a baby growing inside of me. I feel such despair at the thought that I can't even begin to express it. I can't afford to do this fertility thing forever. At some point I will have to give up. Someday I will have to face that it isn't going to happen for me. What then?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

August 23rd, 2007

06:56 pm: CD 32
The stomach flu has been going around work. I felt intensely sick to my stomach while blow drying my hair this morning and had to sit down. I've had a half-nauseous headache for at least a couple of hours the past three days in a row. I hope I'm not getting sick...

BTW, I meant to call to get my prometrium script today, but I was so busy I didn't have time. I will have to do it tomorrow first thing in the morning because they are only open a half day on Fridays.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

August 30th, 2007

10:33 pm: CD 39 - Rough times
I've been having a hard time pretty much constantly for the past couple of weeks. I'm feeling pretty hopeless. Part of me is starting to ask myself what would it mean to me if I never have a baby? Would I even want to live? Could I handle it if it came to that? I don't know the answers to any of these questions, but I know that just by asking them I've sunk to a new low emotionally. I don't know how long I can take getting BFN after BFN. Something has to give soon, or I don't know how I will cope. I'm so sad. So incredibly sad. Why won't this just happen?