As we’re not doing any treatments as the moment, and I don’ think it’s particularly healthy for my soul to just come here and whine, I think I’m going to take a break from the blog for now. We’ll probably start Lupron Depot sometime at the beginning of the year to treat the pain of my endo and prep my ute for the FET in the spring, so I’ll come back then with crazy stories of hot flashes and such.
Things I could have bought if I got PG like normal people November 15, 2009
I don’t know why this just came to mind, but here you go. Any of these, plus some.
Pay off my student loans and the kitchen remodel.
Buy a hot tub. A big one with lots of jets. And a deck to go around it.
Buy a projector and some kind of fancy sound system. And a new couch with recliners.
A bathroom remodel.
A headboard for our bedroom, new dressers, and pay someone to paint over the hideous stencils that I never have time to deal with. Plus some other stuff.
A VW Sportwagen Clean Diesel TDI. 50+ MPG baby! Plus new bikes and a rack to go on the back of it.
A horse.
A year of Owen’s college education (ok, maybe not quite)
All of that we’ve skipped and have nothing but 7 embies that may never stick.
FML.
I’d be happy about giving up all of that because I’d rather have a baby than any of it, but right now it just seems like wasted money.
Be well hydrated! November 15, 2009
It’s good for your health!
But please take these OPKs (ovulation predictor kits) and hold your urine for 4 hours before using one. Oh, and try not to drink in those 4 hours. Also, if you could actually do the test at 4pm, that would be great.
Did I mention that I take Mucinex to increase EWCM, for which I need to drink lots of water to make it work?
Yeah…
I am actually really good about getting 80+oz of fluid a day, but it’s much harder when you have to stop for 4 hours and not have drunk too much before that so you can actually hold it for 4 hours.
Normal test results are good, I guess November 11, 2009
I had 2 more “shot in the dark” tests to try to figure out if there was anything strange wrong with me.
Fasting blood sugar test came back fine. I forget what this was testing for exactly. All I know is I had to drink the sugar goop and hang out at the office for 2 hours. I think it had something to do with PCOS, which can also have insulin complications. I don’t have PCOS, but I do have some markers for it (high antral follicle count, especially), so I think the RE was just ruling it out.
The one I was more interested in and the one I specifically requested was a fasting homocystine level. Elevated homocystine levels would mean the MTHFR was wreaking havoc in my body. That level should be between 5-15 micromoles/litre and mine was 5.6, so that’s good (from what I can tell, being on the low end of that scale is a good thing.) Now this is after I had been taking folic acid for a while, so it might have already been doing some good. That’s fine, though. I’ll be taking it for the rest of my life anyway, so it’s good to know it’s doing its job.
It gets really frustrating, though, to not know what the problem is. I have a host of fairly minor issues that have been diagnosed (stage 1-2 endometriosis, compound hetero MTHFR, slightly low progesterone, and Ben’s morph is good but not stellar.) All 3 of those have now been addressed, they weren’t super serious to begin with, yet I’m still not pregnant.
I wish somebody could say “ah-ha! This is IT! This is why you’re not pregnant! We can fix this!” But they don’t.
On an unrelated note, it’s starting to really amuse me when people ask me for TTC advice. I don’t mind. I do know some stuff about charting, some basic fertility tests, etc. But hello! Why are you asking ME?!! Clearly whatever advice I have does not have a proven track record!
ETA: good news. A couple days of normal water and salt intake and my weight’s back to what it was before Vegas. WHEW! Water weight, I guess?
Vegas is bad for the diet. November 10, 2009
I’ve been doing really great about working out 4-5 times a week for the past 6 weeks or so. I’ve been watching what I eat (mostly). It hadn’t show much on the scales yet (4 lbs, give or take), but I figured it would take some time. I find that frustrating, but it’s what “they” say. (Though if you’re my husband, you can lose 5 pounds by giving up potato chips for a week.)
This has secretly been part of my “get healthier and maybe miraculously get pregnant” plan (part of my effort to “try, but not consciously.”)
Then I went to Vegas. Unfortunately, what happened there did not stay there. It came home on my butt.
I was only there 3 days and I gained 4 lbs. WTF? I didn’t even eat THAT bad. If the food was bad (as it was for 3 meals), I just picked at it and mostly skipped it. I did have dinner at a fabulous French restaurant (Hubert Keller’s Fleur de Lys) and one fabulous breakfast (Blintzes at Carnegie Deli), not to mention a whole lot of margaritas. I also walked a LOT.
No more margaritas for me, I guess! Think it will take 6 more weeks to lose the 4 I had previously lost and another 6 to lose 4 more? ARGH!
I like this November 5, 2009
“Life isn’t about how to survive the storm, but how to dance in the rain”
I wasted 4 digital tests this month November 4, 2009
because I didn’t plan ahead and buy the internet cheapies. At least the digitals were on sale! Still $5ish per BFN. Next time I’m just going to flush a $5 down the toilet.
It goes something like this. Put cap on stick. Watch it for a second.
Go do something else for a minute to pretend like you’re not watching the stick (as if watching it will somehow affect the outcome.)
Find excuse to return to bathroom and nonchalantly glance at stick.
Return to fake important work outside bathroom.
Walk once more towards bathroom, knowing results should be up now.
Heart pounding. Close eyes.
Pick up stick.
Open eyes.
Throw stick away with disgust.
Stupid sticks.
Meanwhile, back on the farm November 3, 2009
Child #1 continues a long tradition of foiling my efforts to get a cute Halloween picture. This was the best out of 100 shots 
I could have skipped that whole BFP thing November 3, 2009
Last month. if I had just had a big fat “not pregnant” last month like every month, I wouldn’t have had any hope of this happening on our own.
Now this month I’m kind of bummed about it all over again.
Stupid body.
Which came first, the energy or the working out? November 1, 2009
I’m going to have to say the energy. I don’t know what’s making me feel better, but I’ve had more energy in the last month or so than I’ve had in probably 4-5 years. Definitely more than the last year, when I was sick almost constantly.
The ENT doctor had me start Grapefruit Seed Extract (immune booster, some anti-bacterial properties) and probiotics (good bacteria for the gut.)
I was diagnosed with compound hetero MTHFR and am now taking mega doses of Folic Acid and other B vitamins (usually taken for low energy) and a baby aspirin a day to counter that.
Something in there (or maybe I’ve just been lucky, but it feels like more than being just being “not sick”) has made me feel really good lately.
It’s hard to not be depressed when you’re going through IF hell AND you’re too sick to do anything most of the time. This is a vast improvement. At least now I just have to deal with the emotional turmoil without the physical part making it worse.
I know a lot of people say that working out gives them more energy, but first I had to have the energy TO workout, and I finally feel like I’m there. A couple weeks into the new regimen I started getting up early about 5x a week to workout. I didn’t kill myself doing it. Started with maybe 20 minutes on the elliptical and some yoga. Threw in some strength/aerobic combos on the wii.
Anyway, it’s good to feel back to normal again. I feel like I’ve been doing coke or something I have so much energy.
It reminds me of the first time I flew with Dramamine. It was the first time I flew and didn’t want to throw up the entire time. I kept thinking, “is this what the rest of the world feels like on a plane?”
Now I’m wondering if this is what the rest of the world usually feels like. I’m a fan.
