Diese Woche schleppt oder this week is dragging!

Or your Monday realizing it's only Wednesday

A week is a long time to wait until the next beta.

I have continued to POAS every morning. This morning, the line was slightly lighter than yesterday's line, which was the darkest I've had so far from the cheapies. I went to the commissary yesterday and bought 6 dollar tests and did one of those too this morning. That one has a decent line, so that makes me feel a little better. I ordered more cheapies last week before the news and am waiting for those so that I can do more obsessive testing more cheaply.

Other than that, I'm a little nervous at my lack of symptoms. I know it's very early, but the only thing I've really got going on is sore boobs. I've had a tiny bit of nausea and have been grazing a lot to try and help that. Oh, and I'm pretty sure I've got the start of a yeast infection, which means that my hormones are out of whack and I'm eating yogurt. (I used to get a yeast infection every other month on Clomid.) Other than that, nothing's going on.

I've been having bad dreams about my temps dropping (I'm still temping), but they are still mostly up, although not climbing.

DH is gone for the week. I wish he were here to reassure me. We don't normally talk very much when he's gone, but I may call him tonight to see how he's doing.

I'm keeping busy sewing and helping out at the library, alternately thinking about what's going on and trying not to think about it at all. I'm terrified of losing this pregnancy. I'm not even thinking of myself as pregnant. I just can't yet. Until I hear a heartbeat I'm trying to protect myself. Even then, I'm not sure that it will feel real.

The one concession I've made to the news is to wear my cute, more expensive than the usual jeans more often. They are fairly tight and it's possible that I won't be able to wear them in a little while, so I'm trying to get my money's worth out of them.

Only 5 more days until my next beta, and it cannot come soon enough!

CD 31, 19 dp trigger

The journey to now, part one, oder Reise zum Teil jetzt zwei

If you didn't read the first part, you can find it here.

It was so frustrating....

On 11 May, we flew with our suitcases and our cats and, at least for me, without enthusiasm or patience. I didn't want to be back in Germany. I wanted to be close to home, to Mom and Dad, because I expected to be getting pregnant soon and wanted to be close enough for my parents to get to be grandparents.

We landed on 12 May. It was beautiful weather, and in some ways I relaxed a little bit. Our house in Colorado still hadn't sold, and we would have to establish ourselves in this new community, but at least we were here and could begin the process. On the way from the airport to the new base, I could hear Shadow yowling from the luggage compartment under the bus. Poor thing.

Imagine this, but smaller with less chairs.

When you get to a new place with the military, they put you in a hotel until you can find housing. In our room, there was a bed, a desk, a dresser, and one chair. It was DH and I and the two cats in that room for a month. The cats don't get along that well, so we ended up putting the luggage rack in one corner with a suitcase on top so that Shadow could sleep on there and Moo could sleep on the bed with us.

We went about getting settled. When you move overseas, there are a lot of things to do to establish normal life in your new location. There are driver's licenses, some basic language classes, finding a home, getting put into the medical system at the new MTF. Lots to do. We moved into our house (the only one that we had been able to look at) in the middle of June. At the end of June, I finally got in to see the OB/GYN on post. This was the next step in the referral process.

This doctor seemed nice enough, but he was dismissive of what I had been doing to try to help things along. We hadn't been trying quite a year at that point, so he seemed hesitant to work with us, but since I had been diagnosed with PCOS he deigned to give us his expertise. I'll call him Dr. Insensitive.

Dr. Insensitive told me to stop charting, that that didn't do anything anyway. He didn't seem to like that I was on Metformin, but refilled the prescription since I had already been taking it for six months. He prescribed Clomid at 50 mg, told me to get a blood test on CD 21, and we would go from there. He was very sure that I would be able to get pregnant, no problem.

Clomid, the crazy maker

I didn't stop charting, mostly because it's one of the very few things that makes me feel like I have some control over this process. Round one of Clomid was determined to be non-ovulatory by blood test. I was given another round at 50 mg. Same result. The next round was 100 mg, and that was determined to be a proper dosage, due to the bloodwork. That was August. I did another 100 mg cycle in September during which I know that I ovulated late, but Dr. Insensitive had stopped ordering blood tests since one came back positive at 100 mg.

Early September of 2011, my mom had had surgery on her stomach to repair some lingering problems from childhood. The surgery didn't go well and she had another one three weeks later. After I heard about the second surgery being scheduled, I went ahead and got a ticket back home. I left in early October and returned in early November. Those cycles I did not take Clomid; October, because DH stayed in Germany and November because I didn't have access to the medication early enough in my cycle.

In December, I called Dr. Insensitive's office. I hadn't seen him since June and I wanted to have a change in prescription or blood work done to verify ovulation (or lack thereof) or something to move this process along. The receptionist went ahead and scheduled an appointment with the doctor for the week after Christmas. At this point, I felt so discouraged and broken down. We had passed the year mark and the officially infertile status rang loudly in my head.

At our appointment, Dr. Insensitive was, well, insensitive. I told him that the Clomid wasn't working, that I wasn't ovulating. He said that the blood work proved otherwise. I tried to show him my charts and he told me that those were useless and that I really shouldn't bother with them. He asked if I wanted to keep going on Clomid. I said no, but I wouldn't mind trying Femara. He harrumphed at that, and told me to go get an HSG done, and after that, he would put in the referral. His parting words were, "Maybe you won't even need the referral. You could be pregnant by then." His false confidence made me break down. I needed some real hope, not placating words.

DH and I went over to the lab. They used to do HSGs, but didn't any longer because the community that we are in is in the process of shutting down. I had to go to Landstuhl, the big military hospital over here, to get the HSG done. I called them and they said that I should call on CD 1 of my next cycle to schedule the HSG. I was on CD 3, but it couldn't be scheduled for that cycle due to New Year's being in just a couple of days. I had to wait out another cycle.

February came around, and with it, the chance to do the HSG. I called the lab and scheduled the test. I had to get a blood test done for pregnancy beforehand, which is kind of crappy. Dr. Insensitive had put the order in wrong, but the people at Landstuhl were able to work it out. (I got a call the next week, asking if I was going to be in the next day for my HSG. Dr. Insensitive was apparently having some major problems with getting the orders in correctly.)

Ouch

The HSG was painful. I wouldn't call it excruciating, but I would rather not to have to do it again. I had been researching HSGs as soon as I heard about them, so I pretty much knew what was going to happen. There were four people in the room, six including DH and I. I have gotten to the point that I really don't care who is doing or seeing things, if it's going to help get me pregnant. One tube had some adhesions, but the radiology doc managed to get it to open up and the dye spilled through on both sides. I was uncomfortable for about half an hour afterwards and took it easy for the rest of the day, but was fully recovered very shortly.

After the HSG was done, I called and got the ball rolling on getting the referral the rest of the way through. At the end of February, I finally had my referral in hand. I saw Herr Doktor for the first time on February 27th, 2012.

It's been a long road getting here. I've learned that I need to be my own advocate, that no one else is going to push things as much as I will. I've learned that research can be my best friend. Knowing what the next step typically is is very helpful for me. I can anticipate what is coming next and ask about the next step if the doctor doesn't mention it. I've learned that you have to know the system to be able to use it. Checking and double checking is okay.

Through all of this, I have tried to hold on to hope. Hope is the most elusive, slippery, crazy thing that I've found on this journey. The ups and downs of each cycle and the hope that keeps me going despite so much heartbreak. I hope to get pregnant. I hope to have a healthy baby. I hope to be a mother.

CD 22, 9 dp trigger

The journey to now, part one, oder Reise zum Teil jetzt ein

I started writing this post last Monday before my first appointment with Herr Doktor. It's a bit long, so I'm going to break it down into two posts. Here is the first part.

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It's been a long time getting to today. In about an hour I am heading over to the Women's Clinic in my town to see the professor of reproductive endocrinology and gynecology. Also, today marks the start of a new cycle.

Thinking in earnest about having a baby started a little over two years ago. My husband was deployed, but we had decided it was finally time. I went off birth control. I started taking over the counter prenatal vitamins. I started paying attention to things that I had never, ever even considered like where my cervix was sitting and what was coming out of it. Things were going well. In June of 2010, I started charting. DH came home for R&R and we gave it a go. It was only two weeks and the timing was off, so it didn't happen. No big deal.

I'll be honest with you. During the time leading up to R&R, I had been paying attention to the length of my cycles and there was a hiccup on the horizon. My cycle was going to involve me being on my period when my husband was home. My period at that time usually lasted for a week. Out of two weeks. I know some people don't mind having sex when they are bleeding, but I'm a little more squeamish. It seems icky to me. (Or did then.) So, I took the pill for one cycle to try and control when the bleeding would happen. I waited until a week into my cycle and then started the pill. It didn't really work, but I think that's where things started to go wonky.

The two weeks of R&R were over much to quickly. DH left, and I went back to real life. I started running in July of 2010. I ran my first 5k in September at an embarrassingly slow time (56:35). I bought a dress for my husband's homecoming. I ran another 5k, at a better time. (Not sure what that time was because I didn't have a watch and the race wasn't timed.) November 6, 2010 DH came home from his fourth deployment. It was wonderful to see him. We started trying for realsies.

Meanwhile, between June and November, something strange had happened to my cycles. When I first came off birth control, they were "normal" (But we all know there is no such thing. Only average.) But in June, they shifted. Changed. They were longer. Much longer. My charting showed mountains and valleys instead of the plateaus and buttes I was expecting. The cycles were maddening because I couldn't figure out what was going on. My longest cycle so far was 59 days. June 2010 to August 2010.

Anyway, back to DH and trying. A return from a deployment or long term separation from my husband always institutes a kind of honeymoon period for us. We weren't getting anyway closer to making a baby, but we sure were having fun in the process! (Let me tell you, the process is less fun now.) In November of 2010 I had a 17 day cycle. The next cycle was 57 days. I went to the doctor for my annual pap smear in January 2011. I told him how crazy things had been. He listened. I now realize that this is somewhat of a miracle in a military treatment facility. The doctor put me on Metformin, told me that I needed to take some blood tests and get an ultrasound. All of that got done. DH got a semen analysis. He results were great. Then we got the not so good news. I had PCOS.

You have to know something about me. I am a researcher. If there is something that I am interested in, I will find any information available and use it. I read books, blogs, articles, reviews. Thoroughly. When DH and I were getting ready to buy a house, I did my research. I knew neighborhoods, school districts, and average days on market. I took every piece of information available to me and used it. I'm the same way with TTC.

I had read about PCOS, back when things were hunky-dory, and I had thought, "Thank goodness I don't have that! That must be terrible!" Ah the naivety.

There I am, diagnosed. But, I was on Metformin. That should help things. DH and I went back in to talk with the doctor. He said that he would like to give me a referral to a fertility specialist. This freaked me out a bit. I asked what the steps were on the fertility spectrum. He said for PCOS patients usually the first step is Metformin, then adding Clomid to the mix, followed by birth control pills for a few months to regulate cycles and a few months off of them, trying. After that, artificial insemination and then IVF. This scared me. Lots of pills I could deal with, but going straight from that to physical medical intervention seemed like a big jump in level of care. But, we were a long way from that, so I wasn't really worried.

March 10, 2011 was our 10th anniversary. We got married young (18 for me, 20 for him), but things have worked out and we have a good marriage. We like each other. We get along. We like spending time together, and we like spending time apart. For the 10th anniversary, we went to a very ritzy hotel for the weekend. We had room service, which was a first. We ate breakfast overlooking the lake and the golf course. We spent Saturday in the spa, enjoying the different rooms. It was great.

Around that same time, we were waiting for the next assignment. We had hoped to be in Colorado for at least five years, but the Army had other plans. When DH contacted his branch manager (A kind of a career manager for the Army. They work with assigning you to your next job/location.) about the next step in his career, the branch manager thought that we had just moved in December. So, out of the thirty-two months we were in Colorado, five months were "extra".

Anyway, we were hoping to be in the States somewhere and hopefully close-ish to family. That did not happen. Instead, we got the assignment to Germany with less than sixty days notice from orders being given to the day we would fly. Not only did this throw a wrench into our everyday lives, but it put a hold on further progress with TTC. I got a call about a week before we flew out in May letting me know that I had finally gotten the approval to see an OB/GYN on post, but I couldn't go because by that time my medical records were already cleared and I was officially off their books. It was so frustrating.

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I think that's enough for now. I will continue this story sometime. Tomorrow is my second u/s for this cycle. I'm looking forward to see how much further along those follicles are! Grow, follicles, grow!

CD 9

Dankbar Donnerstag, aka: Thankful Thursday; Health Insurance.

Thankful Thursday is something that a few of the bloggers that I read do. It seems like a good idea to recount what blessings one has in one's life instead of always focusing on the negatives. There is something to looking at life's abundance to take one's mind off of life's lacks.

Health insurance may sound like a strange thing to be thankful for, but today, that's near the top for me, for several reasons. Today the reason I'm most thankful for health insurance is my mom.

Mom was born with a flap of tissue between her stomach and small intestine. No food was able to get through. She had two surgeries in her first ten days of life to try to correct the problem. They did the best they could, and she was alive, but apparently cried her first couple years of life and could not keep any food down. But, she grew up and life went on.

Fifty some odd years later, there started to be some problems with her stomach and digestion. She always drank tons of Diet Pepsi (I am talking 8 to 10 liters a day!) and food went through her quickly. But now she was having pain sometimes if she ate a heavy meal occasionally so severe she ended up in the emergency room. She went to her doctor and he recommended surgery to fix the problem. It sounded like it would be a pretty easy fix. She went in for surgery the Friday of Labor Day weekend last year. She sent me a message on Facebook before going in bemoaning not being able to play Farmville all weekend. (Oh, Mom.)

I won't bore you with all the details; I'll just give you the broad strokes. Surgery one, Labor Day weekend. It didn't take. Surgery two three weeks later. I showed up about a week after that and stayed for a month. Mom was moved to a different hospital, then discharged at the beginning of November with ongoing issues. Since November she's been in and out of the hospital several times; maybe a dozen. Right now she's at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota and they have determined that she'll have another surgery within the next several weeks and hopefully the problem will be fixed.


This medical drama has been difficult, so say the least, but (!) that health insurance is a godsend. The medical bills total in the hundreds of thousands of dollars right now, and will continue to get higher. Thankfully though, Mom and Dad have not had to pay most of that. I'm pretty sure all they have paid is their deductible. Every time she goes back into the ER, I thank God that her insurance is there.

My dad went through his own medical drama a few years ago. His was heart surgery, also done at the Mayo Clinic. His bills also were in the hundreds of thousands, and he may have to go back for more surgery in the next few years.

For myself, I'm really thankful that with this fertility stuff we have health insurance. Tricare may not be the best system out there, but it is cheap and, if you jump through all of their hoops, they do provide decent care. They have covered everything so far in our process to get pregnant. The only thing they won't cover is "non-coital means of reproduction". This means that they won't cover the actual IUI or IVF procedure, but they will cover all the meds, U/S, and testing. Let me tell you, if we had to pay that out of pocket, we would be trying on our own a lot longer!

So, health insurance is what I'm thankful for today. It may not be the most obvious thing, but when you need it, it is so good to have.

CD 4

Puregon injektion Nummer eins, aka: First Follistim injection.

I started the FSH injections today. I am not a person who is comfortable with needles and blood. Whenever I have to give blood for a test, I look far away from my arm. The person who is drawing blood always asks if I'm okay. I get pale and I am a flincher.

Yesterday, after figuring out how to put together the injection pen, I found a couple videos on Youtube that showed how to do an injection properly. The one from Follistim was really helpful, because it showed me that I should pinch my fat. I think this is more necessary for people who do not have much fat around the middle. This is not a problem I have.

(I hate videos when the hands have a manicure like this. My fingers are rarely manicured, and even when they are, they don't look like this. Can't they skip the french tips? It looks so...sleazy. Like at any moment that woman is going to break out the toys.)

One video, though, freaked me the fuck out. This woman is obviously nervous, but the way she shrieks during the injection made me blood run a little cold. It was funny and scary at the same time.

I read on message boards and blogs that it helps if you numb the area with cold first. So, I got my pen out of the fridge and grabbed my alcohol swabs. Then I got the cold pack out of the freezer and put it on my stomach. I washed my hands and sat down in front of my supplies.

My hands were shaking and I was very nervous. I put on some Modern Family via Hulu so that I would be a little distracted. I cleaned everything I was supposed to, took off the ice pack, pinched my fat, and slid the needle in.

It really wasn't too bad. I felt the needle go in, though, if I didn't know it was happening, I doubt I would have felt it. I let go of my stomach, pushed the plunger, and waited the five seconds. There was a tiny bead of blood, but other than that, really not a big deal.

I'm glad to have the first injection over. I am hoping that that this is the only time in my life that I ever have to do this. I would not want to do this every day for years. This has a very good purpose at the end of it.

This weekend, I'm going to be on a sewing retreat with a bunch of women in the middle of the woods. I'm looking forward to it. I haven't been on one of these for about a year and a half. It will be a good way to get to know some people. I'll have to do two injections while I'm there and I'm hoping I'll be able to find some ice for the numbing, but if not, I'm sure it will be fine.

So, self injection. Not awesome, but not the worst thing ever by far. And Herr Doktor has promised fewer effects than Clomid, so I'm looking forward to that. I don't expect this treatment to work the first time out, because nothing else has, but I am glad to be at this stage.

CD 3

Bitte schön, Knock me up, Herr Doktor aka: first visit to the RE

DH and I went to the RE this morning. Actually, he's the professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Head of the Gynecological Endocrinology and Reproductive Medicine. Quite a mouthful. We'll just call him Herr Doktor for short.

First, we went to the women's clinic next door. DH was coming from work, so we drove separately. The GPS was trying to take me some crazy route, but I pissed it off and made there anyway. So, the women's clinic. I tell the woman at the front desk that we are there to see Herr Doktor. She says fine, but we need to check in at administration. We go into the office after knocking. No one home. There's talking in the office next door, but I'm not sure if she's on the phone or with someone. So, after a little while, I knock on that door. There's someone in there (who I'm pretty sure was a pharmaceutical rep), so we keep waiting. It's about 10 minutes from our appointment. Finally, I can tell the visitor in the office is getting ready to leave. Just as she's wheeling out her suitcase (this is why I'm guessing the pharm rep thing), the office that we originally knocked on is entered by a woman, presumably the office's resident. We are beckoned in and sit down.

"Sprechen Sie Englisch?"

"Nien."

It's always a challenge, being in a country where you don't speak the language.

"I'm here to see Herr Doktor." I hand her my paperwork.

"Ah, Herr Doktor. Go next door to (German words I don't know). You know?"

Alas, I do not know. "No."

"Ah..." while pointing up high and more German.

"Top floor?"

"Ja, in the (German words) building."

Okay. Top floor of some building across the street with German words I don't know. Got it.

We hotfoot it over there and walk around the building, trying to find the words she said. We see a sign that looks promising and follow it down the street. No building that has the German words we were hearing down here. We've gone too far and go back. "Let's just try this building."

We go inside and head into the first office we see. "Herr Doktor?"

"Ja, up two flights." (I'm translating here.)

We head up the two flights and find the sign for Herr Doktor's secretary. We check in, are asked our birth dates and occupations; Hausfrau for me and military for him. Then we're shown to the waiting room. DH heads to the toilet, and I sit down.

Now, I have not been in a civilian waiting room for a long while, so I don't know if it's this way at non-military facilities in the States, but it is quiet in this waiting room. There is a group consisting of one man and two women (maybe mother and daughter, or possibly surrogacy?) and a woman alone. It is completely silent. No one is talking. There is no music. Most amazingly, there is no TV. DH sits back down and the group of three talk a little. We wait, and wait. The woman gets called back. More waiting.....and more. After a while, the group of three gets called back. Waiting...waiting. Another woman shows up, then another couple. They say "Hallo" when they come in. (Oops, guess we were supposed to do that. Oh, well.) More waiting. Finally, after about an hour (not exaggeration, by the way), we get shown into another room.

This room is about the same size as the waiting room and the nurse is in there. She looks like what you imagine nurses to be. White shoes, white shirt, white coat, white pants, white watch. And she has a green scarf. So, we sit in there a while longer, watching the nurse walking between this room and the doctor's office, which is next door. After another ten to fifteen minutes, we are shown into the doctor's office. He introduces himself by his last name only (This must be a German thing.) and we sit down.

Then the questions. First, why are you here? I said the only thing that made sense to me, that I want to have a baby and haven't been able to get pregnant so far. Then the medical questions. Any surgeries? No. Any pregnancies? No. Have you been on Clomid? Yes. How many cycles. Six. You've had the HSG? Yes. And your tubes were clear? Yes, from what I've been told. Was it painful? Yes.

When was the start of your last cycle? Today. I really thought, as I always seem to, that the last cycle was The One. I ovulated on my own in a reasonable amount of time. (Or seemed to.) I was two days late. Some of my PMS symptoms weren't there, and there were some other symptoms that made me hopeful. Alas, it was not to be. I just kept holding on to this appointment as my hope for the future, at least when it comes to making babies.

Now DH's turn. He's pretty good, thankfully. Herr Doktor seems happy with him. At least one of us is okay.

Herr Doktor talks to us about PCOS. He says he's going to put me on FSH. There will be a pen, I will do injections daily. We'll have an ultrasound in a week. Since it's CD1, they can do blood tests without having to wait, so the nurse will take my blood and then we're to stop by the secretary's and schedule the ultrasound.

Another difference from military treatment facilities (MTFs) is that the doctor's nurse is the one taking my blood. At an MTF, they would put the order in and then you would head over to the lab and sit in another waiting room and have the blood draw there. It's kind of nice not to have to go to another office, especially when I am not yet familiar with this hospital. I have a feeling I will get to know it though.

Then we stop by the secretary's office and schedule the ultrasound. 7 a.m. Ugh. I don't have to get up early, and so usually I avoid it. I think this will be worth the effort though. Prescriptions in hand, DH and I head out and get some lunch. I'll go and get the meds after eating something and going home and taking some Advil for these cramps.

So, that was the appointment this morning. And that's what I'm posting for today. I'll get to the pharmacy fun times tomorrow. I'm glad we've finally gotten to this point. It's been a long road, with several unexpected turns. I have hope that there is an end in sight to this path and a new road on the horizon.

CD 1