All good, allllll of us!!!

Everything is okay! Thank you, Lord!

I have an enlarged right ovary and a Mama cystie hanging out on him. That’s what’s causing the sharp stabby pains that began yesterday. And even though I don’t notice a difference in how I feel, apparently my hormones are firing away.

BECAUSE NOW THERE ARE TWO GESTATIONAL SACS!!! Holy crap, that “shadow” was a second baby. Both have yolk sacs, and there is a flickering heart visible in one. Our second (surprise) poppy seed is a day behind the one we saw on Friday (5w4d and 5w3d). Oh my GOSH you guys!!!! We are having twins!

We are on Cloud Nine. And also completely and totally freaking out. (In a good way.)

I’m so happy we’re heading off on vacay and can begin to let this sink in. And I think hubs is going to need a drink or two, stat. 🙂

Vacation eve + weird sharp pain (blaaah)

Please don’t freak out or worry because then I will freak out and be worried.

I woke up early to hit the gym for a mini ellip session and as I was puttering around the apartment getting myself together, I suddenly felt a sharp pain in what I think is my right ovary region. The pain is not even close to excruciating, but it’s scary since I’m already on a red alert anxiety level of 10+. Anyway, the sharp, super-specific pain comes and goes and is maybe a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10. It’s there—and it continues to be there intermittently—but not so uncomfie I felt like I couldn’t come to work or need to go home or anything. (Obviously I did not go to the gym this morning.) It seems to be worse after I’ve been sitting and suddenly get up. But it’s always just kinda there, coming in and out of focus.

My immediate reaction was that it is the cyst on my right ovary either rupturing or growing. Or maybe something’s up with that fluid pocket/shadow they saw on the u/s on Friday? But then I began Googling and let me just tell you there is some incredibly doomsday-ish stuff out there that pops up when you enter the right (or wrong!) words. Not. Cool.

So I could’ve just rolled with this and ignored it because it’s not THAT bad, or whatever, but I called the RE’s office because I wanted a nurse to tell me it was nothing to worry about. I had to leave a message. Then I sat through my performace review at work with my two bosses and honestly it was kind of ridiculous how incredibly distracted I was. (Perfect timing, while discussing my future and my strengths and weaknesses and all of that serious work stuff. Gah!) Right after that totally-important-meeting-I-was-indifferent-about-given-my-circumstances, the nurse and I talked. She didn’t really venture to guess what was going on—though she liked my cyst idea and reminded me that my ovaries are still enlarged from the stims—asked me to come in for an ultrasound tomorrow. And she said if the pain worsens I need to go to the ER.

All of that sounds very serious anad scary and I honestly just wanted the reassuring Mom-ish voice on the other end to tell me not to worry one little bit. Ha!

I hope and pray and hope and pray and hope and pray—with all of my heart and every cell in me—that everything is okay on that screen tomorrow morning. I hope that little sac is a few days bigger. I hope….so much.

In happier news, we leave for VACATION tomorrow afternoon…Oregon here we come! So I will be out of the blogland loop for about a week. (And I’m sorry I’m already a bit behind but between my early deadlines with vacay and the review stuff this week has been nutso.) This also means no Google for me, which is a long time coming. I’m hoping the distraction does me some good—and I’m really looking forward to QT with hubs and the gorgeous northwest scenery. At any rate, I’ll do a quickie update before we head to the airport.

Hopefully I can fall asleep tonight. I’ve felt a bit vomit-ous with anxiety most of the day, to be perfectly honest. (Unfort not morning sickness….still no symptoms here.)

Zen zen zen zen.

And here we are

We triggered last night (twelfth night of stims, not too bad!) and will IUI tomorrow. We officially have one good follie on the left, with a “maybe” on the right (if it works really hard to catch up). I had a bunch of follies hanging out in the 12-13ish range and there was talk about canceling or converting to IVF. So, we triggered quickly to save the cycle. Phew.

I love Dr. Awesome. I love his knowledgeable, compassionate nurses. I love his online patient portal where hubs and I can access my daily monitoring results. I love his protocol. I love that he is checking my P4 in a week. I love that I have a Beta test scheduled and don’t have to take an HPT. I love his aggression with my treatment. I love his caution. I love everything about clinic #2.

It had to be done

You know how I’ve been to a half-dozen out of town weddings recently? Well, I just bailed on the final one that’s the last weekend in July after RSVPing “yes” two weeks ago. I hemmed and hawed over sending that RSVP, but ultimately decided that there was a VERY slim chance I would be cycling and unable to go. Plus, the wedding is in my hometown and thanks to this spring and summer filled with weddings and monitoring, I haven’t flown home to see my siblings and parents since CHRISTMAS! I was excited to go home.

But our priority is making a baby. With five months on the bench with those dang cysties since October, voluntarily sitting out a month just wasn’t an option for hubs and me after our second round of injects/IUI didn’t work. Honestly, I was really really relieved and happy when Dr. A gave me the green light to cycle after Saturday’s baseline monitoring.

So I made up an excuse and last night I told my childhood friend that I could not be at her wedding. (Absolutely nooooo desire to share my very private medical situation with anyone but hubs, my parents, and you guys!) She said she was “bummed but understood.” And now I’ll give the same party-line to my little brother and little sister and older brother (who was maybe going to fly home that weekend, too, so we could all be together). And even though I know this is the time to put hubs and me first, and to take care of my body and put the rest of my life on hold so I can be here for treatment, I still feel like a selfish jerk. You know?

Oh well, it’ll all be okay. Zen zen zen zen.

Injects 3.0

CD2 monitoring at clinic #2 this morning. (Allllll the way out in the ‘burbs.) Blood work, super-intense ultrasound measuring everything and looking for abnormalities, an injections class, paperwork signing. Of course, during the u/s, a residual cysie was discovered on rightie.

Getting warmed up

Quickie update. I went into clinic #1 for an ultrasound to check out my cyst this morning. It’s gooooooone. Which means I’ve stopped taking BCPs and I hope to  begin injections on Thursday. For those of you counting, yeah, that leaves a few BCPs in the packet. In other words, I’ve fast-tracked myself. Suck it, remaining pills. 🙂

What’s the rush? (Besides the fact that my as$ has completely fallen asleep from warming the bench for so long?) We’re heading to the Chesapeake Bay for another wedding on Friday morning. The hardest part is that we’re staying at a tiny B&B with three college girlfriends, two of them are bringing their babies. It would be nice to have a little hope in my heart, don’tcha think?…So thank the LORD I will be injecting this weekend.

I told hubs last night that I was dreading this morning’s ultrasound. Not because I was afraid the cyst would still be there (which I was worried about). I’m afraid because I know how brutal each monitoring appointment can be…how freaking emotional I become as I anaylze my response to the medicine. Hubs looked at me calmly (he is omni-calm!) and said, “But you’re always emotional, so what’s the difference?” Haha. So true. And I’d rather be emotional with hope as an undercurrent, instead of emotional on the bench.

So, I’m waiting for my period, then waiting for baseline monitoring. Then, hopefully, injects 2.0. And meanwhile, blood tests and hubs’s SA at clinic #2. Heck yeah!

Meandering through June

I ran 8 miles in the pouring rain early on Saturday morning. I felt slow and heavy, and my legs still burned with the after-shocks of the hard (untrained!) effort of running the race last weekend. But I reveled in every step. I felt relief that the storm kept the Moms and Dads with their baby joggers off the lake path. I sloshed along and felt my lungs searing, my quads burning and my feet freezing; it all felt good. And then I walked/limped into our apartment, looking like a drowned rat, and I poured a mug of steaming coffee, cuddled into a cozy sweatshirt, and just sat there sort of staring into space: too tired and numb to think or to be scared or to feel sad.

Running is my escape.

*****

Hubs and I joined a CSA for the first time this summer! We’re sharing a weekly delivery of farm-fresh produce with three other friends. The first shipment…..romaine lettuce (sorta a snore, we’re using for side salads), spinach (we used it as a topping on a homemade deep dish pizza last night), kale (sauteed with shallots and garlic and lemon and served alongside leftover grilled chicken after a late night at work on Friday). With the leftover spinach, we’ll make this awesome bean dish, which is hearty enough to serve as a main course. The real toughie in the box was rhubarb, which hubs and I have never cooked with. We’re making a strawberry-rhubarb crisp tonight to follow hubs’s pulled pork and my homemade potato salad (with real mayo, no store stuff!).

You can see why I really should run 8 miles every day, right?

****

Meanwhile, we spent Memorial Day weekend planting veggies, herbs and some flowers. We also bought some cushions for the wrought iron furniture on our (tiny) front and back decks. We’ve live in this apartment for three years and had never done all of this! OMG, now I could literally live (with a book and a glass of vino) on my back deck. It. Rocks. (Dudes, I went to Home Depot four times and Target two times in the course of three days!)

I must say that I melted a bit watching hubs get down and dirty with the plants as we potted them last weekend. He keeps checking on them, too, making sure they have enough water and remarking on the weather and how the sun or clouds might effect them. 🙂 Ohhh, my sensitive little heart. Imagine if I ever get to see him with our baby?

****

We’ve also been decently social lately. (Ugh, I’ve been such a little hermit. Especially with the break…I just…I have nothing to say to anyone right now and it’s horrible, I know, but it’s how I feel.) We went to a birthday party for a college friend on Tuesday night. I was sooooooo not in the mood to be social and celebratory, but I sacked up. It ended up being a fun party and it was distracting. It majorly helped that the group we were hanging with was mostly singletons, so babiesbabiesbabiesbabies = not on their minds. Thursday night we went to a spur of the moment dinner at a restaurant called Schwa with some friends. That was freaking awesome. (More on that in another post. We went to THE BEST restaurant in Chicago/possibly the country and it’s not really fair I’m acting all, Ohhh, whatevs, I’m being social about one of the best meals of my entire life!!!)

*****

We have our consult with the new RE on Thursday morning. I’m sure I’ll get nervous in a few days, but for now I’m just excited. I wonder what this new RE will think of my treatment thus far? I’m worried he’ll look at my nine months with clinic #1 and say, “I cannot freaking believe they had you on Clomid three times given your hormone levels!!!!” or something like that. I’m equally worried he WON’T say something along those lines. 🙂 Oh geez, can I give an RE a break?

Anyway, T-minus 3-days until the Dr. Awesome consult. Looking forward to the appointment takes a bit of the sting out of my daily cocktail of BCPs, Pre-Naties, supp supps, etc. I’m gonna run and cook and garden my way through Thursday.

I miss the old me

The BFN on Wednesday was expected but of course it still sucked. I got back into bed and quietly cried while hubs hugged me. But I think I bounced back pretty well. I talked myself into focusing on the positives of the cycle and tried to see the BFN as bad luck….not further proof that my body is f-ed up. I have to work hard not to think about it too much. Not to wonder if there’s more bad stuff going on with my body that I don’t know about. “Normal couples only have a 20% chance of conception each cycle.” Haven’t we all been told that a bazillion times? I know it’s true. But normal couples don’t have the meds to produce multiple follicles. And they aren’t taking Ovidrel to ensure a strong ovulation. And they aren’t having expertly prepped swimmers deposited into their uterus at the perfect time.

You know?

So I wonder…..what went wrong in May? Did my mature follie(s) hold a good egg or was it empty? Did I even ovulate? Did we time the IUI correctly? Did we fertilize an egg? Did the embryo divide correctly? Was my lining too thin for implantation? Did an embie try to implant? Did it start to and then stop? What went wrong? Everything? Nothing? Bad luck? And so on and so forth.

******

So I went to CD2 monitoring very early this morning and unfortunately the injects left me with a cyst on the right ovary. Once again, I expected it. I mean, I pretty much talk about my cysts and benched months ad nauseum. But it still hit me pretty hard. I was secretly hoping for a miracle….that I could begin injecting tomorrow night and numb myself—to the questions I posed above—with a fresh start and some hope.

But my body let me down again. My body can’t ovulate. It doesn’t produce LH like it should. It has trouble with its lining. It can’t get pregnant. And it develops cysts and benches me. Over and over again.

*****

I used to be very proud of my body. How it can run marathons and bike for hours and swim more than a mile and walk all day. How it carries groceries and lifts weights effortlessly. How it sits at a desk all day and works hard. How it sleeps soundly. How it still can play soccer and basketball and tennis 13 years after I stopped playing competitively. How much love it is capable of. How motivated and disciplined and overachieving it can be. This year has slowly eroded my confidence and love for my body. My body keeps letting me down. It feels weak and fragile and jealous and lonely and….broken. I don’t even recognize it most days. Especially not on monitoring days.

So I’m doing something crazy tomorrow morning. I got a last minute entry into the 10-mile Memorial Day Weekend run I’ve done every year since I moved to Chicago. It will undoubtedly be my slowest 10 miles, EVER. I am not trained or even close to prepared. I’ve run once in the past 2.5 weeks. But I think I can finish the distance and I want to participate in a race—where I feel happy and comfortable and hopeful and excited and joyful. I want to feel the sore muscles all weekend long and remember that my body can accomplish awesome things.

I need to remind myself what my body is good at. Because I am losing faith in it by the day and it’s breaking my heart.

Time did not fly

A year ago today I was running the Boston Marathon. I was super fit. I was happy. I was confident. Thinking back to this day a year ago, it does NOT feel like yesterday. It feels like that was an eternity ago. I don’t even recognize who I was back then. I feel different in every possible way.

When months and months went by sans period after going off BCPs, a lot of people (my Mom, Google, my acupuncturist, my new IF therapist, etc) suggested it was because I was currently/had been working out too much and needed to gain weight.

At my thinnest during training I weighed 118 pounds. Now, a year later, I weigh 135. (And I feel every pound I’ve gained….the love handles and bigger breasts….all the stuff you’re supposed to bemoan about pregnancy. Oh well.) I’m not sure if you can tell, but I’ve had quite an evolution with working out, even since I started this blog. I still run for endorphins and to de-stress and so I can eat two cheeseburgers in one weekend if I want to (like I did this weekend!), but I’m muuuuuuch less Type A about it. Now, if I miss a day or don’t feel like working out, I don’t, um, sweat it. Instead of feeling like a run has to be 5 miles long to “count,” I am now totally fine running for 15 or 20 minutes with my hubs or by myself. I haven’t been this lax about working out since I was in college.

It’s hard to know what those years of intense exercise have “done” to me fertility-wise because I was taking BCPs and getting regular periods the whole time. By the time I was off the pill, my exercise had gone down to running five or six days a week and lifting a few times a week. A lot more than the average person, but not much for me.

Dr. K, who hubs and I finally meet with tomorrow afternoon (cue the dropping-stomach and nerves), actually specializes in eating disorders and extreme exercise. I have never had an eating disorder. But I think if you do endurance events (over and over again) like I have, that counts as extreme exercise, so I welcome her opinions and thoughts about how my treatment might need to be tweaked given my history.

I’ve been doing a lot of research online (yes, always working toward my Google PhD) and some women who have extreme exercise in their pasts also have chronically low LH levels. I don’t know if I have this, but I do know my LH has never been high enough to trigger a positive OPK, even back in October when I “borderline” ovulated. For that reason, some REs give these women a FSH + LH injectable (like Menopur), instead of a straight-up FSH inject (like Gonal-F). I definitely want to hear her thoughts on that.

Blaming my infertility on running and triathlons hurts because there’s nothing I can do to take them back. But, there is something oddly appealing about being able to say, “Okay, THIS is why I’m going through this.” Does that make any sense? Those experiences were wonderful and made me who I am today, so I bristle at the thought of regretting them. On the other hand: I truly do regret them. They were ways to fill my time while I was waiting for hubs to be ready to have kids. They were not necessary.

On Friday afternoon I heard about some news about a woman who is an Olympian and actually came in THIRD PLACE at the Boston Marathon a year ago today. I am pretty much obsessed with her and have been for a while. She’s beautiful, down-to-earth, intelligent, and SMOKING FAST. She also was skeletor thin, had no body fat and ran 120+miles/week. She took time off her running career in September to start a family….and she’s already four-months pregnant. I just….kind of can’t believe that if I over-exercised and it’s the whole reason I can’t ovulate, that this person who runs for a LIVING, and has been beating up her body with exercise since she was a middle-schooler, could get pregnant within a few months of trying.

Every one is different. The body is a mysterious thing. Yada yada yada.

What’s wrong with me? If running and exercise didn’t do this to me, what did? Why do I even have to know? What does it matter?

Please fix me, Dr. K.

Life on the bench

I have about one month to kill on the BCP-front. You’d think I would be freaking AWESOME at being benched because I’ve gotten so much practice over the past eight months. Well, not so much. It feels like I’m back in my freshman year of high school, and it’s the first time my basketball coach has moved me up for the Varsity game*. I’m absolutely scared to death, but sooooo ready to rock & roll. I’m dying for him to send me out onto the floor…I’m desperate to show him what I can do. If only I could just get into the game. Alas, this month, like that night, there is nothing I can do but wait. Here’s how I’m trying to distract myself this month…..

*Oh, and I might be a little hopped up on March Madness and the big game tonight. (Hey, I won one of the pools I was in…I picked Duke to win it all and had them meeting West Virginia in the Final Four! It doesn’t matter that it was completely random and that I had no idea what I was doing!)

Wednesday, April 7 – My (gulp) 31st birthday; hubs and I are going out for Mexican. Margaritas!!!

Friday, April 9 – Sunday, April 11 – My BIL’s wedding weekend in Florida with hubby’s family should keep me distracted! I’m bringing my tennis racquet and a stack of mags.

Monday, April 12 –  Our awesome-est work event of the year is tonight.

……this is a dead zone….gotta come up with something distracting…..

Tuesday, April 20 – Consult with Dr. K

Thursday, April 22 – Monitoring to check in on the cyst BEFORE I stop BCPs. (Go away, Scrappy!)

Friday, April 23 – Monday, April 26 – Spa trip with my Mom.

Thursday, April 28 –Sunday, May 2 – Fancy-pants wedding weekend in NYC.

Monday, May 3 – Come home to fluffy lining and a few phat-y follies…..HOPEFULLY!