Our Baby Journey: Part 3

You made it to the end of the story!

At this point you are probably thinking, drama, drama, drama. Yes, that is true. But, what part of a quest to create a new life isn’t dramatic? After taking the shots and the trigger I developed OHSS. I gained 10 pounds of fluid around my abdomen in about 3 days. My skin was stretched, my muscles were stretched and I looked like I was 5 months pregnant. After several days of feeling like hell we called the doctor’s office. They told me to rest -_- Thanks a f@#%$^& lot. So, I rested. After about a week of severe pain we called again and they scheduled me an ultrasound appointment. Oh! I forgot! One of the most important parts! 

Forgive me.

When you do this infertility treatment, they also fail to inform you of the time commitment. Every other day for two weeks I had to either have blood drawn or have an ultrasound done. Not the happy ultrasounds either. We’re talking up the you know what. 

Back to my final ultrasound during my OHSS. Now as I explain what is about to happen, keep in mind what I just told you. I had been going in from April 1^st to April 20^th and getting either blood drawn or ultrasounds done EVERY OTHER DAY. When I went in to my ultrasound on April 20^th I was hoping someone would find answers to why I had OHSS so bad and why I felt like crap. 

The LAST (if I could capitalize this more, I would) LAST thing I was expecting was for my doctor to start the ultrasound, look at me and say, “That’s a pregnancy!” Um, I’m sorry what? Then he asked me when I started my treatment. I told him it had been a couple of weeks, but not long enough for a pregnancy to be showing up on an ultrasound. He is poking around and measures the little blur on the machine and finally tells me, “That’s a 6 week pregnancy.” At which point I told him to shut up. Really. I think I was in shock. I told him that it wasn’t funny and that he better not be joking. Then they handed me a picture of the little squiggle, said congratulations and showed me the door.

Walking out of that appointment I can honestly say my mind was blown. My mind had never been blown like that before. It was the weirdest feeling. I told my hubby he was going to be a daddy in the parking lot. Not my finest moment. But, like I said, I was in shock.

We were SO excited and SO happy. We were also a little confused. How could this have happened? How could we have gone in every other damn day for blood work or an ultrasound and NO ONE knew I was pregnant the whole time. The kicker is that I was pregnant at my first infertility appointment. I was pregnant the whole time. Wtf. Now, it is not entirely their fault for not knowing. I took an at home pregnancy test before starting the Menopur and it was negative. But still. Come on.

So, now I am most definitely pregnant. We went in again at 8 weeks and saw the baby wiggling around. It moved its little arms and legs for us and its heart was beating away. We are so lucky. (I am going to cry writing this) We are beyond lucky. I don’t know how or why it happened, but thank God it did.

Now keep in mind, not every one's story ends the way that mine does. Next time you ask a couple when they are planning on having a baby, why they haven't started a family yet, or what they are waiting for... think about this. Think about how you may be making them feel. Have a little tact. Please :)

Our Baby Journey: Part 2

This is part 2, if you are confused.... go back and read part 1. Duh :)

Back in April we decided we were ready to start trying. So, I went off of my birth control and waited for something to happen. Nothing happened. Let me get graphic, no ovulation and therefore no period. This went on for several months. After getting an ovulation test and confirming that ovulation was not occurring we decided to look into it further. Now, most people do not have amazing OBGYN’s like I do. Most OB’s make you wait a year before coming in with infertility issues. Mine, was great. We went in after six months (which seemed like an eternity) and he was very receptive to the issue. He suggested we start trying a progesterone pill to induce a period. I tried it. It didn’t work. So, we went back in and he suggested we take the plunge into infertility treatments. We agreed that it was something we wanted to try. He started us a 50 mg of clomid and was very optimistic. Every single month I got my hopes up, and every single month I didn’t ovulate. After the 50 didn’t work we went up to 100 and 150. After trying the 150 with no results he suggested we go to an infertility specialist because he thought we needed a more aggressive treatment. All we saw were dollar signs.

That brings us to March of this year. We went in, met with our new doctor and he guided us into the overwhelming world of infertility medication (for real). This stuff is no joke. After our first appointment we were excited and optimistic to be trying a new medication. We went home and got on the computer because you can’t just get this stuff from any old pharmacy. Oh, no. You need to research and find the cheapest pharmacy. After about a half an hour of research we were a bit discouraged. The prices were outrageous and most of the decent prices we found were from Canadian pharmacies (which we were not allowed to order from.) Deciding to bite the bullet and order the medicine, as expensive as it was, felt a little like walking the plank. Thankfully for us we had a great representative at MDRX who clued us in to Alexander’s pharmacy. That, ladies and gentlemen is who you need to talk to. Your pharmacy will price match with Alexander’s or you can order directly from them. Don’t get me wrong, it was still thousands of dollars, but it was a better price than the other places. Once we had the medicine ordered we took the “shot classes” and learned what my daily torture would be like for the next several weeks. Then the medicine came and I did about two weeks of shots of Menopur with a trigger shot of Novarel. What a horrid experience. I am not going to sugar coat this. It was an awful experience. During the shots I was an emotional wreck and after the shots I was in so much pain I didn’t know what to do with myself. There are several things they don’t tell you about this medicine ahead of time (probably because most people wouldn’t do it.)

 1. Menopur burns like you are injecting liquid fire into your leg. Battery acid if you will. For me, I found that injecting in my leg instead of my stomach, mixing the medicine a couple of hours before you inject, icing the injection sight and rubbing the medicine in to disperse it helped a ton.

2. Mix the Menopur with more dilutent. I used double the amount of dilutent they initially told me to. Especially when I had to up my dosage of Menopur and put more into the syringe. You don’t want that stuff concentrated. Yikes.

3. Novarel doesn’t burn. It just creates a softball sized lump in your thigh that gets hot and hurts like f#$% for a week or two. Oh, and a red rash. Yay.

4.  Menopur and Novarel can cause OHSS. What is OHSS, you say? Well, it is ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome. In simple terms, your ovaries swell up, you retain ridiculous amounts of fluid in your abdomen , you can’t breathe, and you want to die it hurts so bad……. and organ failure, if you’re really unlucky.

Our Baby Journey: Part 1

So this is one of those blog posts that you shouldn’t read if you don’t want to know the truth. There will be several of these as I post my story. But, let me explain why I feel like I need to put it all out there. When you are dealing with infertility it is often not something that you want to talk about with the people closest to you. For my husband and me, we felt that it would take away from the reveal when we actually were successful. Also, there is a feeling of embarrassment and inadequacy that comes hand in hand with infertility. That is hard. Really, really, hard to deal with.

This is really hard to explain. I’m sure anyone who has been through a difficult illness or something similar can understand. When dealing with infertility you start to realize that there is this whole world of people who are dealing with infertility as well. We used the Internet as a resource for most of our information, because there was no one to talk to. Even on the Internet the information was scarce. People just don’t want to share. When you are in the middle of this whole mess you hear about people who have stories that are more positive than yours and you think “they don’t have any clue what I’m going through” and you hear about people who are struggling so much more than you. Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, you turn your head away from those people. You don’t want to acknowledge their struggles, because if you acknowledge their struggles you acknowledge that it could happen to you. You might have a long, difficult, heart breaking struggle and never end up successful. It’s a lot to swallow.

It has been a long and emotional year. Most of this blog was written toward the end of my personal infertility journey. For those of you (most of you) who either don’t know me, or haven’t asked about the personal details of what conceiving was like for me, let me share it with you now. Last year in April my husband and I decided that we were ready for a baby. We had been feeling ready for a while but stupidly let other people’s opinions about when we should have a baby, get in the way of our own wishes. When you want to have a baby, all of a sudden it seems like everyone decides that you shouldn’t. I have heard things like, “you aren’t ready,” “you will have to give up everything,” “don’t have kids,” “you need to finish school,” “you need to have a career before deciding to have kids,” “you are too young,” “You haven’t been married for long enough.” None of those things were appropriate to say. There is NEVER a good time to have a baby. They ALWAYS change people’s lives, and you know what? People adjust. So, if you are one of those people, who think that they are wise and tell others when to or when not to have kids. Don’t. Seriously. No one appreciates it.

Vacation Time!

Between dishes, laundry, spider killing and Criminal Minds I have made sure to leave time to blog one last time before vacation. That's right, VACATION! Woo hoo! Only 1 day 14 hours and 41 minutes stand between me and the gorgeous beaches of Riviera Maya. Although I am super excited to go on vacation, travelling out of the country always gives me a little bit of anxiety. I always read the stories about tourists being abducted and held for ransom. Fingers crossed, this doesn't happen as often as everyone seems to think it does. Lately, when I tell people I am heading to Mexico for vacation their first reaction is "Oh, are you sure that's a good idea. (Insert horrid thing that happened in Mexico here) But, I'm sure you'll be fine..."
-_- Seriously. What is wrong with you people. On a brighter note. I am still packing. Not over packing, just packing. I have given some serious thought to what needs packed for this trip and I feel a little more prepared this time compared to the last time we left the country. This time I have an entire bottle of anti-diarrheal medicine. Gross? No, what's gross is not leaving the bathroom for the entire week you are on vacation. Not going to happen to this girl. I have also carefully chosen appropriate bathing suits, sunscreen and cover ups. Bringing everything else is optional. 

Leaving on vacation is hard work. I don't care what anyone says. You have to clean your house, wash all of your laundry, pack, clean out your fridge, do all of your dishes and make sure there isn't any trash in the house. Who knows who might be in your house while you are gone, you can't leave it a mess! Not to mention it sucks coming home from vacation and cleaning your dirty house. So, here I am with one day left cleaning like a mad woman. Until I found the spider, that is. I just don't do spiders. Just looking at one sends me into a shivering fit of the heebie jeebies like you've never seen before. It's not rational, but it happens. Right before writing this blog I spotted a spider on the wall. Did I mention I have an unbelievable spider-dar? So, I spotted this disgusting thing on the wall, got up slowly, went over to get my husbands shoes (not mine, ew) and went back over to kill the spider. When I got the shoe close it fell off of the wall and into the crack between the floor boards and wall. Dammit! So, I put up the shoes like a barricade and sat down to wait. Finally, the spider climbed back up the wall, I got up off of the couch, picked up a shoe, went to smoosh him, and s*%$ he is GONE. Like, gone with the wind, gone. Never to be seen again. Which I can't say I really mind. Except... I think this is the same spider I spotted in the bathroom about a month ago and got away from me then too. Ugh. I'm sure we will meet again
 :(

So, what have we learned from this blog, you ask? 1. Pack anti- diarrheal medicine when leaving the country (You will need it). 2. Do not EVER turn your back on a spider.

The grass is ALWAYS greener

Well, it's true ladies and gentlemen. The grass is always greener on the other side. I am officially done with my student teaching and school. Now I am a professional stay at home person. What I always wanted, right? If it is what I always wanted... then why am I SO BORED? I thought that once I was at home and had lots of time on my hands that I would be able to put myself on a schedule. Our vacation next week is making a mockery of that plan. I feel like I can't commit to anything because as soon as I start it will be ending. I have a whole list of things that need done around the house before the end of the year! I haven't done a single one of those things. And do you know what? I like working, I actually like working. Weird, yes. Crazy, yes. But, I like the stability and consistency it brings to my life. I am not cut out to be a free spirit. The problem is that I can't find the perfect job. There is always something "off" and I am unhappy in my new position before I am 6 months in. This is extremely frustrating to me considering I am outrageously in debt thanks to my student loans. Thank goodness I have a wonderful husband who keeps this whole circus act up and running since I have peaced out on life. Hopefully by the end of May you all will understand where I am coming from and why I have been feeling so purpose-less. Until then, you have to put up with whiney woe-is-me posts. Sigh.

If I have to suffer through daytime TV and the Kardashians.... so do you.

In case you need a visual. Here I am, feet up.