The results are in...

I'm going to keep this short and sweet, I'm not pregnant. It didn't work and to say the least I'm just beyond devastated! I had my blood test done this morning and they just called me and told me the results. I cried and cried and them threw up and them cried some more. I just thought this would work and I prayed and prayed and did everything I could and it still failed. I'm having a hard time accepting it's over and this whole month was a waste. Why didn't it work?

I said I wouldn't do it...

But these stupid opk's are laying around from the walk of hope we did. I got like 4 packs of 20 ovulation sticks so lady night in a moment of weakness I pulled one out and peed on it and to my surprise it was STARK white in the test area! Like no line whatsoever! There was a control line just NO test line which has never happened before! I always get a little line during the month at any given point in my cycle but I haven't ever gotten nothing. It really got me worked up and really sad! I just cried and cried because I knew that it wasn't a good sign. I couldn't sleep last night either and just kept tossing and turning and thinking about the phone call we are going to get on Tuesday. I went from cautiously optimistic to straight up Debbie Downer in one day. I know in reality I'm not "out" until they tell me I am but I guess I have lost all real hope this worked. I don't feel pregnant and I feel like God is telling me ahead of time so I can prepare myself. This is like straight torture though, this waiting and praying. I just want to curl up in a ball and cry my eyes out right now but I can't. I feel bad for Ry too because last night he saw how upset I was a I'm pretty sure he felt helpless. He kept reminding me that we did everything we could, we really gave it out all and that he was proud of me for sticking through the treatment. I just feel so defeated already and I think that bums me out more. How do you pick yourself up and put on a face like it doesn't hurt? I wish we hadn't told anyone that we were doing this cycle like we originally planned. I just know everyone is going to be so disappointed in me when they find out it failed.

The struggle

So today I'm fighting all my urges to go and pick up some dollar tree tests. I was thinking maybe I could test the hcg out of my system and then I would know if I got a real positive after it I would actually be pregnant. All of these symptoms would be from pregnancy and not in my head you know?  But alas I have decided not to do it. I think it will put more stress and frustration in my life. I'm putting this in God's hands and we will find out Tuesday when I get my beta test if this worked. I still don't feel any different though, my boobs are still really sore and swollen and I'm still really bloated. I have been having more dreams but they are more random and vivid. I also pee all day and night! I swear I wake up 5 times a night to either go pee or just random no reason waking up. Part of it is Emma ending up in our bed every night got whatever random reason. She has been really clingy the last few weeks. She will go months sleeping in her own bed and now it seems like the last few weeks she ends up in here at 2am. When you ask her why she comes up with different excuses "I was too hot/cold/scared of the dark/legs hurt (she has grown 3 1/2 in the last year alone)" I don't really mind it to be honest though because I love waking up and having her snuggle me. It sets the mood for the day for sure and getting showered in little hugs and kisses makes my day. It won't be like this forever so I want to enjoy it while it lasts. If this is my only time experiencing these things I want to remember them and I want her to remember them too!

Where did my symptoms go?

It's weird that I keep having dreams of twins and in my dreams I'm super freaked out about it. Maybe it's that psychic that I saw before I met Ry that told me I would have 3 kids and only 2 births. I always assumed that meant I would adopt one until this infertility stuff and then I started thinking maybe it was twins. I have tons of dreams of my future children though, I dreamt a lot about them when I was pregnant with Emma. I don't feel pregnant though, I feel better today than I have been. My boobs are still swollen and sore and I feel the bloat and heavy feeling my stomach but I think that is just a side effect of the Endometrin. I'm actually pretty sure that this didn't work and I'm delaying the fact that I'm going to find out next week. I have 1 week left to find out if this actually worked or if we will be a 3 person family from here on out. I asked the nurse what happens if the beta comes back postive and she informed me I would have to get a blood draw every other day to make sure the numbers go up. It freaked me out thinking if this works and then I lose it it's going to be more devastating than not getting pregnant at all. I'm trying to stay postive though, hopefully this worked and there is a little baby growing and multiplying cells in my tummy. Emma this morning wanted to look at pictures when she was in my belly and when she was a baby. It's always so sweet when she wants to talk about how all the pictures of her she is being held and loved on by so many family and friends. She knows how much we all love her and she knows that she is one of the best things that ever happened to us.

Seriously heartburn... Can you not?

So I ended up calling my doctors office about the heartburn because it's seriously driving me crazy. It's to the point where I feel like throwing up because the acid is just sitting at the base of my throat and tums isn't really cutting it right now. All the research I found online said it could be the Endometrin but I wanted to check and the nurse and doctor both said it wasn't the medicine. That if it continues I needed to call them because it isn't a known side effect and I may need to get on something if it's getting worse. In the back of my mind I start thinking what if it means I'm pregnant. My mom said her first signs of being pregnant long before her positive test was heartburn and it was the same way with my girlfriend Jessica when she was pregnant. So now that is messing with my mind lol! My boobs are gigantic and super sore and swollen which is normal for the progesterone and  so is the cramping and bloating. So basically everything but the heartburn is from the medicine. Other that I'm feeling really great! My head is in a good place and I'm looking forward to my beta test but I'm not feeling stressed about it. I know that it could go either way but I'm really not going to fall apart if it's negative. Maybe the last 2 years of heart break month after month has started to make me numb or maybe I finally have found peace with my infertility. I know that I have done everything I can to try and make this happen and there isn't anything else I can do. It's in God's hands know and I just need to wait and see what he decides. I'm just lucky that I have gotten to experience motherhood once and have a gorgeous and smart 4 year old and for that I know I'm a lucky lady.

5 days post trigger and 9 days left of my tww

So far I'm okay with the Endometrin. It hasn't been nearly as bad as the other stuff they had my on last time as far as side effects go other than the cramping and the heartburn! Omg the heart burn is horrible. I don't remember eating so many tums in my life. I have it when I wake up, during the day and at night! I also started having to get up in the middle of the night to pee. All of these from what I have researched though are normal side effects of the progesterone. Boobs hurting, cramping, heartburn, peeing, nausea and every other symptom pregnant people get are what I'm experiences but mine is being caused my my medicine. I forgot exhaustion... But that's a given! I'm still on a roller coaster of emotions though, one minute I'm happy day dreaming about maybe being pregnant and the next I'm sad thinking that I'm only delaying the inevitable and this didn't work. Either way though I'm a lot happier for the most part than I have been. It's weird but deep down I have this excitement... But I don't want to share it with anyone aloud because I may jinx it so I write it here. Here is my safe place to talk about the things I don't want to jinx myself or end up looking dumb if this doesn't go the way I want. Please please let this go the way I want...

Oh cramps how I loathe thee...

Well based on my headline you know what's wrong with me! The cramps are here and I have a feeling they plan on staying since I'm on the progesterone. The good news is I didn't have any crazy dreams last night like the last time I was on them and I thought a whale made me curtains out of its hyde. Weird I know but I had some crazy ass dreams on the stuff last time. Other than the cramping I'm okay though, boobs are swollen and tender and I have a nagging headache but overall it doesn't appear too bad. My man re-enlisted today so Em and I went out to his work for that and then I came home and cleaned the house and moved some stuff around the living room. I love moving furniture and rearranging. I don't know why but ever since I was little I would do it whenever I was stressed. Maybe my sub-conscious uses it as a way to wipe the slate clean or something.

The dreaded 2ww

Well I ended up triggering Tuesday night. They called me shortly after my last post and said my E2 was 451 so I was in my window to trigger. I either had 3 or 4 mature follicles when I triggered so hopefully one of them latches on and becomes a baby!!! I have been feeling so many mixed emotions the last few days. I'm glad that we decided to try one last time and I really couldn't have asked for a better cycle. I had a great amount of follicles (not too many but still more than I thought) my levels were great and I was able to quit smoking and drinking so try and give this the best possible chance at working as I could. I know my doctor was disappointed we weren't using IUI but it just feels like spending a few grand for that when I could just save it for bills, Christmas and everything else isn't possible. I'm trying to remind myself to be optimistic but to be realistic at the same time. I was doing laundry last night and thinking how weird it would be if this worked... How magically amazing to finally be able to be pregnant again. I was talking to my best friend yesterday and we started talking about our experiences with our secondary infertility. One year ago she was where I was... Almost exactly one year ago to be exact, we are actually only 2 days apart on our cycles. She found out the 28th of November and I'll find out the 26th. She is my inspiration though, she's so strong and she never gave up.

Are we done yet?

So I ended up going to the office on Sunday up in Newark for an ultrasound and bloodwork. Everything looked good but I have gone in for 3 days straight including today for bloodwork and ultrasounds. I had 2 follicles Friday and then Sunday I had 3 on the right ovary and today I have 3 very large on the right and now a new one sneaking up on the left which kind of came out of nowhere. They said more than likely I'm going to trigger tonight because we don't want these getting any bigger and we don't want to have too many follicles. I already had to sign the waiver because I have 3 and had to acknowledge the possibility of multiples. I really don't care though one is good for me. If we end up with twins that's okay too. Triplets would be hard but we would be okay... I just am praying one of these fertilizes and sticks!!!!

Day 5

Just got back from my appt getting my ultrasounds and bloodwork. On the ultrasound it showed that I have 2 dominant follicles that are about 13 and 12 and the. 5 smaller ones on the right and then an 11 and a bunch of smaller ones on my left. It doesn't look like my left is responding as well as my right but it's still pretty early. I'm waiting for a call later telling me where my blood levels are at and when I need to come back and what my dosage is going to be for the next few days. It looks like I'm going to be headed up to the Newark office Sunday though to get checked since the Dover office isn't open on the weekend. I had to order another vial of the Follistom though since I only had a 600 vial. The Lady I saw today said I would most likely need 10 days of stims. I'm still nervous though if I am going to over-stim and have a cancelled cycle. So hopefully everything works out and I only have 3 follicles by the time I trigger. Last time I triggered I only had one follicle and obviously it didn't work so at least having 3 good ones I would have a better chance of getting pregnant. Obviously the odds of multiples increase with more follicles but the odds of just having one are much less.

**update** doctor called and all my levels from bloodwork are good to go so I'm continuing on the 100 units and going back Sunday morning to have another ultrasound and bloodwork. I also scheduled myself a massage while I'm up in Newark :)

Here come the mood swings...

So it all started this afternoon when we couldn't decide where to eat, originally I planned on cooking dinner but I thought I was feeling better and wanted to get out of the house for a bit. I was just going to grab a coffee from Dunkin and run over and feed a friends fish since she is out of town but then we decided on eating out. We don't eat out much just because it's expensive, unhealthy and Dover doesn't have a lot of options. So we're driving and neither one of us can agree on somewhere to eat, both getting hangry (hunger turning into anger) and Em is in the back rattling off about something and I feel like I'm going to snap. Finally we picked a place to eat and then ran to grab a few things and then came home. THEN it happens again out of no where I'm pissed again. In between the bedtime routine, my daughter screaming and refusing to sleep like a normal person I just feel rage. I often wonder during these cycles how I would handle 2 kids and maybe my infertility is because I can't handle Em sometimes that's why I can't have more. Right now my rage is mainly on I'm upset that I have to do these treatments. I'm angry that I have to stick myself every night injecting this crap in me and I don't even know if it's going to work. Why is it that people who are horrible parents are the most fertile? The crack heads on the the streets who dump their babies in trash cans, why can't they be infertile? They should be... But nope they are more fertile than me! That's when the anger turns into a pity party for one though. It's this cycle, it's these drugs, they are making me crazy... I hope that's what it is and that I'm not actually losing my mind!

Day 3 of injections

So I'm on my third day of injections and I'm already feeling like poop. I did get my flu shot on Monday which was the same day I started my injections so  I'm wondering if that's what is causing some of the blah feeling. It's weird to think each night when I'm sticking myself that these little follicles in my ovaries are hopefully growing. I keep thinking about them... Like thinking what if one of them is my potential future child. I have to keep checking myself though back into reality because there is a very high possibility that this won't work though. I don't want to get my heart broken again so I just have been trying to stay positive. This isn't going to be the end of the world if it doesn't happen. If this works it will be a miracle but if it doesn't then I think we will finally know that I just don't have good eggs and having another child naturally isn't it the cards for us. I often find myself during the injection cycle talking to my stomach though, holding it much like I did when Em was in there. I feel protective of it and I don't really know why... I guess deep down I hope that one of these little guys/girls will stick and in 9 months I will be holding them in my arms. Part of the reason I started this blog was so I could go back and reflect on how I was feeling during our journey. Maybe someone who is out there is reading this and is going through the same thing. If I can help anyone feel a little less alone then it's worth it to me.

Cycle Day 3- baseline and ultrasound day

So I just got back from my RE for my baseline and ultrasound. Everything looked good so I am starting my follistom tonight. I had 18 pre-follicles which she said was really good. I will do 100 units every night and since I had so many I go back Friday for another ultrasound and bloodwork. I'm not trying to get my hopes up but I'm just hoping and praying it works this time. I need it to work this time because this is our last shot at this. Ryan and I talked about what would happen if this actually works and I think we have become so used to the failure that if we get pregnant we won't know how that will feel. 3 years of wanting and praying for this to happen and now we just have to wait and see if this is what God had planned for us. If it doesn't work though I will go back to work when Emma goes to school and then we will save up to adopt. That's our plan B. Plan B however is much more expensive than plan A. I will be posting some pictures later too of is doing the shots.

Never dreamed I would be a statistic

"According to statistics collected by the Center for Disease Control, 11% of couples who already have a child go on to experience secondary infertility. That's approximately 4 million families, or about half of all infertility cases."

WHOA!!!! 


Secondary infertility is caused by the same problems that lead to primary infertility. Those causes include:

• Male infertility due to low or absent sperm count, problems with sperm shape (also known as sperm morphology), or problems with sperm movement (also known as sperm motility).
• Problems with ovulation, whether irregular ovulation or anovulation.
• Blocked fallopian tubes.
• Endometriosis.
• Fibroids.
• Recurrent miscarriage

SAY WHAT????
 
Okay so now that I have given you that little bit of information, I can continue.  So obviously I am hoping that because I have this whole endometriosis thing, which for the record I can't spell right to save my life and it takes me looking it up to make sure I am spelling it correctly. Even my stupid auto-correct can't spell it and well if auto-correct can't do it, what makes you think I even stand a chance. I obviously am not a spelling and grammar nazi and I am sure for those of you out there who are, you either reading my blog for the first time or you come back to use it as a drinking game. So in either case your drunk off your ass or your heads about to explode from all of the misuse of the English language.
Any who....so I never thought I would be a statistic for infertility. There were so many other things I was holding out to be a statistic of. I already feel the pressure at times being that I was pregnant before marriage, we have been together less than a year, both came from divorced families AND being an active duty military family. So when you talk about a stacked deck, me and my husband have beat those odds and we have only been married for four years. A very blissful and amazing... oh who am I kidding, I love my husband and he loves me and no one is perfect.
Man I keep getting side tracked and this kids is why you should lay off the caffeine and not have 3 cups to get moving in the morning. All of my infertile's out there are screaming "NOOOO NOT CAFFEINE" Well guess what ladies, I am don't care today because I couldn't sleep last night! When you picture a person going through this what do you see? I can tell you right now

Here we go... Again!

So we have decided to give the injections one last shot. Today is cycle day 1 and I'm already a wreck. I'm so scared and anxious that I feel like I'm going to puke. I'm scared that it's not going to work again and there is a part of me terrified that it might actually work which brings on a whole new fear. Emma is 4 and could I really handle another child? Can I really start over from scratch? Am I ready to accept that if this doesn't work that it's officially the end of our journey? We decided that it would be best not to tell anyone about this round of treatment. It was really hard for everyone when it failed last time and we don't want to put anyone through it again. I feel like a failure as a woman because I cannot just get pregnant. I feel like a failure as a wife for not being able to give my husband another child. I feel like a failure as a mother not being able to give my daughter a sibling. I don't want her to grow up alone and with us not being around family I worry that I will become to attached to her and Ryan because I'm so afraid of losing them. I know I'm not a failure deep down but I still feel like it either way. I'm preparing myself for this journey and I know no matter the outcome there is only so many things I can control. God is going to be the ultimate decider of this. He is either going to bless me with another child or he is going to hopefully give me the closure I need to know that it's not going to happen. So stay tuned since I will be posting pictures and daily blog posts about this. Hopefully it will be a desirable outcome but if it isn't, I'm going to be okay. We are going to be okay because at the end of the day I have an amazing husband and daughter who I have been blessed with and that I love and cherish more than anything.

Things not to say to someone dealing with Infertility

So if you look around the interwebz you will find so many lists of what not to say to someone dealing with infertility. Some of these apply to both secondary and primary infertility, but I am going to list my favorites and all of these have actually been said to me personally. Now if I know you in real life and you have said one of the following to me... well please don't be offended and take it personally. Chances are you weren't the first and won't be the last person who has said it to me, and this is more of an explanation of why I find it hurtful or found it hurtful at the time. **DISCLAIMER** Before this journey, I would have been guilty of saying things like this without thinking too. Now without further adieu...

1. Just relax it's going to happen- really? Is that what I have been doing wrong? I am not relaxed enough to get pregnant... Stress doesn't cause infertility! Let me repeat that STRESS DOESN'T CAUSE INFERTILITY. Unless you are so stressed that it causes you to stop ovulating... but the process of going through infertility isn't going to do it.

2. Can't you just be grateful for the one you have? Some people don't even have one and never will? Okay, I am so beyond grateful for the one I have. She is my everything and I love her beyond words, but don't try and tell me that wanting to expand my family means I am ungrateful for the one I have. Also, do not compare 2 apples... just because someone doesn't have any children and maybe cannot have any, doesn't mean that I should be compared to them. I do have a child, and I do want more children and it's none of your dang business how many spawn I want to produce. I didn't tell  you what to do with your uterus so please don't tell me what to do with mine.

3. You can have one of mine/ all of mine. Whoa.... first of all I don't want your spawn either. Don't get me wrong I love kids, but just because your kids are acting up or whiling out, don't be an ass and try and "give" me them as a consolation prize for my broken baby maker unless your actually serious about giving me them. So bottom line, unless your seriously considering giving me your child/ren,  DON'T OFFER THEM TO ME!!

4. Why don't you adopt? A lot of people who adopt get pregnant right after that. Here's the thing, adoption is very expensive and is a very long process. You don't just buy a baby like a car and take a loan out for it and BAM!! you get your baby. It doesn't work like that and it's much more complex than you think. Also it's not something we (personally) haven't considered, we are just waiting to decide if it something we are going to be able to do. Also there are no statistics proving that people "magically" get preganant after they adopt and no it doesn't give you a tie in for "well they stopped trying so maybe it was the stress"

5. It's God's timing/In his hands/Not meant to be. I am rolling all of these into one because they are all just really annoying and frustrating things say to someone who is going through this.God doesn't choose to give one person a baby and then make it so another person can't to punish them. You may not be using the word "punish" but I can tell that is something that flashes through my mind when someone uses those phrases. I cannot count how many nights I have had "Talks with the big man" trying to understand all of this. Wondering why a crack head on the street continues to get pregnant over and over, or that person in the abortion clinic is getting their 5th abortion. I have given up trying to understand the "WHY?" because I will never know or be able to understand.

6. You've been pregnant before, so it'll happen again. Just give it time. Here is the thing, just because it happened once doesn't guarantee it will happen again. "According to the National Survey of Family Growth, more than 1 million couples grapple with secondary infertility" A lot of them go unreported because if they are struggling they are also less likely to seek treatment. Most couples who choose not to seek treatment often just live as a one child family.

7. What about IVF? Have you ever looked at the cost of IVF? Holy balls it's expensive, like not just the price tag but have you look into what it entails from an emotional and physical aspect? I'm guessing YOU haven't, but you know someone who has right? Not only are you looking at about $20,000 in a cycle... yes you read that right, A CYCLE. There are no guarantees it will work and it's a lot of physical and emotional stress on not just you, but your body and your family. Remember my post about going through the injection cycle? Well, I am guessing it's like that times seventy billion!!

8. Have you tried ____? It worked for us.  I have tried a lot of things... ovulation kits, propping my ass up with the pillow, laying a certain way, having sex a certain way, taking this, not taking that. exercising more, exercising less, losing weight, gaining weight... I have also been seeing an actual doctor who specializing in all of this.

9. I know how you feel, we tried for __ months.  Unless your filling that statement in with something longer than a year and adding that you also needed to seek to fertility treatments, please refrain. I am not minimizing your struggle, I am not to compete with you in who it took longer, I just don't want to hear about how it took you 3 whole months to get pregnant so it is pretty much the same thing. It isn't the same thing so please don't tell me it is, because it is hurtful.

10. SO WHAT CAN I SAY??????? Well there really isn't a whole lot that you can say, but being there for someone means a lot. Let them vent to you, let them cry on your shoulder, be supportive of them and their decisions, if they decide to stop treatment or continue it. Treat them like you would want others to treat you. Give them support but please don't give them advice. If you were diagnosed with a disease I doubt you would go to your friends to ask them for advice on the treatment right?

Hopefully this post  was helpful, insightful, fruitful, yada yada yada. I sincerely hope no one got their panties in a bunch while reading this because it was not my intention. I would never had known how to deal with this if I hadn't been put in this situation. Looking back, I am pretty sure these phrases have left my mouth  at some point as well so I am not innocent. I don't think I ever said them to anyone going through fertility issues but I am sure I have said them to someone who was "TTC". I am off to spend this wonderful spring day cleaning.

Living in the shadows...

Sometimes I wonder if I am alone in my struggles with infertility. I often wonder if there are other people like me who feel like I feel. That may sound strange to some people considering the answer to this particular question is "No, there are a lot of people who are going through it or that have gone through it"
So why I feel like this?
Having infertility is a disease that you can't see. Having secondary infertility is just as tough as primary. I am not going to argue with someone who has primary infertility and tell them I have it worse than them, just like I am not going to tell you having secondary is worse than primary. I will not belittle somebody feelings or situation and I expect the same from others. It's not a pissing contest, it's not something anyone can control. I wouldn't wish infertility issues on my worst enemy, and I am a pretty spiteful person at times.
I feel like I am alone dealing with this disease. I was ashamed and embarrassed when we first started dealing with it. I felt broken and less than womanly. I felt like a bad wife because I couldn't give my husband another child, a bad mom for not being able to give my child a sibling, I felt like I was a failure as a woman. I couldn't do the one thing that God created me to do again and it felt like a slap in the face. I thought maybe I was such a terrible mom to the kid I had that I was being punished by infertility. I didn't like going around people who could pop kids out left and right. I was mad at them for being able to do so and I was jealous as hell.
Why me? Poor me or my... This is how I used to feel on a day to day basis and would stay holed up in my house for fear that I would see a pregnant person or see a newborn baby and lose my shit.
FAST FORWARD...
I don't feel like that anymore because I have come to terms with myself and my body. My baby maker is broke and it feels like there is this magically little fairy taunting me and telling me "I might give you your fertility back... or I might just keep it". Well bitch, you need to decide what your going to do, but in the mean time I am done letting you control me.
I am  done letting my "infertility" keep me from being myself. Thank God I am done with the hormones for a little while, because between the injection cycle and birth control and then just the added stress of the testing, treatments and surgery it was like the exorcism at times in this house. Talk about mood swings, you think someone who is PMSing for a few days out of the month is bad? It was like I was PMSing for 4 months straight and between the hot flashes, cramping, acne breakouts, constipation, exhaustion, insomnia, poking myself with a needle, getting blood drawn, having thing crammed in your yahoo... well I will just stop there but you get the picture. After my surgery, our RE asked us if we wanted to jump back into treatment and Ry and I declined and said we needed a few months off. It had become a little too much for all of us, and it wasn't fair to Emma either.
So now it's a waiting game... I won't lie and pretend like I don't think about getting pregnant every day because I do. I think about it a lot and I don't know if that is something that will ever change. I mean I am assuming that if I do get pregnant it will change obviously but I also wonder if I will spend every moment of my pregnancy scared of losing it. I don't want to do that either since that's what the goal is in all of this. So today, I will breathe and I will enjoy life. I will still dream of expanding my family and I will still hold on to hope that it will happen one day. I will not be sad about it for more than 5 minutes a day. I will allow myself that brief time to be angry, bitter, pissed off, sad, whatever I feel like and then I will move on to the rest of the 1435 minutes of the day where I am accepting of the things that I have no control of and the things I cannot change.

Short and sweet

Today's post is going to be just that, short and sweet. We have been really busy the last couple of days, and I have been pretty exhausted and not in the mood to blog. I have been making an attempt at spring cleaning and am hoping that once it's a little bit nicer out I want to hold a yard sale again to get rid of some of the junk piling in up in my garage. I hate clutter and I'm the kind of person who when things aren't organized I feel like my head is going to explode.
We went through  Emma's clothes finally and let me tell you something, she has an insane amount of stuff. I was holding on to everything thinking I would have another child by now, but since that hasn't happened **yet** that I really need to let some of it go. It's hard when certain outfits remind me of something special, a memory made in them, a place we visited or who gave it to her. BUT I will end up on an episode of hoarders if I don't get rid of some of it. I save the important ones and put them away but I know that she will not care in 20 years if I kept an outfit she wore to the park the first time she went on the swings, or a shirt she wore the first time she didthis or that. I need to clear some room out and continue making memories in her head or maybe worry about taking pictures for her to see someday. So with all that being said, I will hopefully have something better to post tomorrow.

Infertility Awareness Month

Happy April 1st to everyone, hope you all had an awesome Easter. So April is Infertility Awareness Month because April 21st-27th is National Infertility Awareness Week. I am also excited because I plan on doing the Walk of Hope in Washington D.C. on June 22nd to show my support and help bring awareness to not only primary infertility but to secondary as well.

Here is my link for fundraising   FUNDRAISING-PAGE,

I decided to only attempt to raise $100, I know that doesn't sound like much but to be honest I am not quite sure how much money I will be able to raise via family and friends and I wanted to make sure it was an amount I could commit to paying myself if I don't raise anything. I am excite d to do it though, one of my bestest friends just did the one in AZ and she also suffered from Secondary Infertility and she beat it and is pregnant with a little sweet baby girl right now! It's weird to say "she beat it" but she did, she is an infertility survivor. Just like anyone else who is diagnosed with a disease, if you are able to overcome it you become a survivor of it. I doubt she will ever forget the pain and things she went through to get where she is now. She is someone I admire so much when it comes to this journey, because she has been in my shoes. She never gave up and always believed that it would happen and when it comes down to it, that's a quality you can't ignore. Despite our up's and down's she has always been there for me no matter what I hope she knows how much I love her :)

I hope that one day I can call myself a survivor of infertility as well. I hope that one day I will be holding a sweet baby and all of this will have brought me to him/her. That's what the Walk of Hope is to me, a hope that one day I will overcome this obstacle I am facing and while I will never forget what we as a family have done to get there I know I will appreciate every single moment.

I often find myself thinking about these "moments", Emma is growing up too fast, or at least too fast to my liking and I wonder what it would be like to not have this nagging feeling in the back of my head that this is it. This is the only and last time I will get "first's" not just with her but with any child. Maybe I try to make her "first's" that much more special because I am only going to  get one shot at this and I am going to do it bigger and better. I reflect back to my pregnancy and wish I would have enjoyed it more, while she was a baby I wish I would have done this, or done that different. I wish I wouldn't have been so eager for her to get to the next milestone and stopped and enjoyed the one she was at a little longer. I often find myself overlooking things she does now because I don't want to taint her memories of me and I spoil her rotten. She isn't rotten of course, she isn't perfect either but she is my baby, at least for now she is. I don't look forward to her going to school (some days I do) and I don't even wanna think about her dating and driving a car and all of these things that are so far in the future but the truth is they aren't. Life goes by so fast and I have made the choice to live it and not rush it, to live in the moments that I am given with the people I hold dear because isn't that what life is about?

Hoppy Easter

Wish you all a wonderful Easter. I am busy spending time with my 2 favorite people, enjoying this rainy day together. Tomorrow is April 1st which begins Infertility Awareness Month so check back tomorrow for a special blog! Love you all!!

Where do I belong?

So in an effort to find support aside my own circle of friends and family I have joined several groups on Facebook. I joined a couple groups of women experiencing secondary infertility, a military infertility group and more recently a group for endo. I thought maybe if I could find others who were going through the same things I was, I would find a sense of belonging.
I don't really fit into the typical mold of a military wife, I don't really enjoy gossiping and I certainly do not like being at the other end of what seems like the relentless cattiness and backstabbing. I spend a lot of time inside my house for fear that if I go out, I will be brought back into the drama that was my life about a year ago. I also find it hard to see all of these women get  pregnant with ease and actually have the ability to "plan" their children around  deployments, school, jobs etc. I am so envious of them, that they have the ability to do so, while for almost 2 years I feel like I have held on to some hope that I too will magically become pregnant so I shouldn't get a job and put Emma in preschool, or go to school because I don't want to start and then have to take a block of time out to be home again.
So back to where do I belong in all of this, when people think of infertility they assume I don't really "count" because Emma was conceived naturally without being planned. When people Endo they usually have a lot of pain and we are talking not able to move and being on high doses of pain medication pain, and I don't have that, not yet at least but that could change down the road. I obviously don't fit in with the fertile myrtles because I can't just look at my husband and get pregnant, and I don't really fit into the secondary category as well as you would think because of my age.
Research is showing that women who suffer from secondary infertility are more likely in this category because women in general are waiting till they are older to start families. I didn't have Emma till I was 25, and now being 28 I am not sure when or if I will have another one. There is still the unknown factors as well as to what is causing my infertility. If you read my first post I told you that my RE (reproductive endocrinology)  told me that he thinks that all of the issues they found are the reason why I haven't conceived, but he also has mentioned that I didn't respond "as well as I should have" to the super ovulation drugs which could indicate an issue with my egg quality. There really isn't a test they can do to check the "quality" aside from when you do IVF they are able to examine your eggs when they harvest them prior to your "planting". The idea that I have bad eggs scares the crap out of me! Other than quantity, quality is not something they can fix. Now I don't have 20 grand to find out  either way, and I am not sure if that would be something that we want to do.  As of right now our plan is to let my body heal from the surgery, let all these different drugs I have pumped into my body get out, get back into shape and just let the next few months roll. If nothing happens in a few months then we will try one more round of super ovulation, and if that doesn't work, well.... well let's just hope it does! Positive thinking, I will get pregnant! I will get knocked up! I will not lose my ever loving mind! I will be happy!
In all seriousness, at the end of each and every day I thank God for what I have now. I thank him for blessing me with an amazing child who makes me laugh everyday and keeps me on my toes. There is nothing more profound to me then watching my daughter learn something new, have an experience, or make a memory. I hope that someday that she will know just how grateful I am for her. I thank God for giving me a husband who loves me unconditionally. No matter which level of bat shit crazy I am acting, he just smiles at me. I love watching him and Emma play together, grow together and make memories together. I hope one day she finds a man just like her daddy, and he loves her as much as we do.
There are days I feel sorry for myself and not being able to have control in this whole thing. There are nights I long and dream of having a house full of children and hearing them laugh and play together brings tears to my eyes. I wonder if Emma will be angry she never had a sibling to grow up with and that we will place the burden of us getting older on her alone. For now though, I relish in the fact that she is 3 and she doesn't know any different. I can't let my thoughts run wild and I have to remind myself that its the here and now that matter. What we do today, is what counts and that's is how I am going to keep living.

**WARNING GRAPHIC PICTURES**

So I am debating putting my pictures up of my belly after my surgery. They aren't pretty pictures but I did do daily pics just to show what it looked like, not only for myself but if anyone else wanted to see out of curiosity. When I got pregnant with Emma I gained almost 70lbs, I was 150lbs when I got pregnant and was a size 3 thanks to a healthy diet and working as a manager at LA Fitness and I loved working out!! I didn't really even gain that much weight at the beginning of my pregnancy but somewhere around the 5th or 6th month it my belly just kept growing and growing super fast. I was 215 when I delivered Emma. A lot of it was water weight and well extra blood and my giant child! I was 38 weeks when I delivered Emma via c-section and she was 8lbs 6oz and had a 14in head and was 20 inches long. She was a big girl and had I not been induced I wonder what she would have ended up being. I got blessed with a massive amount of stretch marks not only across my entire stomach but my poor boobs went from B's to DD's during my pregnancy as well. I used to feel really self conscious about the stretch marks, Ryan has never said anything about them and neither has anyone else, but to me I just hated them. About 2 months ago I was in the bath tub and Emma came up and started looking me over, and she pointed to them and asked what they were. I told her that when she was a baby she lived inside my belly and grew big and strong and my skin had to stretch to allow her to grow. She looked at me, back down at my belly and then touched them and told me that she thought they were beautiful. It made me cry just thinking that my 3 year old didn't see this as disgusting marks  but as beautiful marks that I earned while I carried her in my belly. It changed my whole outlook on my body after that. The scars that we have because we are women who carry our children are earned and they aren't something to be ashamed of, they are something we can be proud of. I may never wear a bikini in public but it isn't because I am ashamed of my scars. So if you are still reading this I will assume that you are wanting to see these pictures. The first one is before I started my fertility treatments, back in December 2012

Day of Surgery, Getting ready to go back!

 This is right after I got home. As you can see my stomach is really swollen because as I mentioned they fill you up with gas to be able to navigate around the organs. There are 4 incisions (one being inside my belly button and the one on the bottom they cut along my c-section.

Here is Day 2, still pretty swollen but it had gone quite a bit from the prior day. I still was having a lot of chest pains and pretty much was sore everywhere.

Day 3, I was actually feeling good enough to stand up for short periods of time without feeling dizzy or nauseous, I was still really swollen and the bruising started to come out.

Another side shot of Day 3

This was Day 4, I was feeling a lot better the swelling had gone  and I obviously wearing my favorite stretchy pants since they ride low enough not to  rub on the incisions.

It has been almost 2 weeks since my surgery and I would be lying if I told you I felt like myself, because to be honest I don't. I still have my moments where I look down and see these new scars and I wonder if I will ever have another child. I wonder if I will be able to show them and tell them that I went through all of this to bring them into the world. I wonder if these will be reminders to me that I can't have anymore more children. I really just spend a lot of time wondering about the what-if's. What I do know is that I am strong enough to handle it no matter what it ends of being. Infertility isn't a joke, and neither are going through the treatments. Putting yourself and your body through this is not something I think anyone would choose to do for shits and giggles. Putting the stress of infertility on your relationships, friendships, marriage and family is really hard. I say over and over again how lucky I am to have an amazing husband because he truly is an amazing  husband and father to be able to endure this storm. I hope one day I will be able to carry another child for him, and give my daughter a sibling. If I can't though it will be okay, I will be okay and we as a family will be okay. I am grateful for what I have here and now and can only look forward to what the future holds.

Let's start at the beginning...

I haven't really been very open with a lot of people about what has been going on for the last year and a half. I have not really discussed the issues that have been going on with fertility mostly because I didn't really have any answers to give. I felt that if I was to mention the issue of fertility we were having that I would be bombarded with a million questions and would be given  millions of little of pieces of advice that at the point I was at, would not have been received very well. By that I mean, I may have told you to "screw off and mind your own business"
When Ryan got home from his deployment in October 2011, we started actively trying to have another baby. I would have started sooner however without him being here that posed an obvious issue. I figured that since Emma was not really planned and we had such ease getting pregnant with her that getting pregnant again would be very easy. I have never been so wrong in my life
The first 6 months were pretty stressful and I didn't really get much support from family and friends because it had only been 6 months and it had taken people almost a year to get pregnant with their kids. After the first 6 months I started using tracking apps on my phone and ovulation kits. I became a POAS (pee on a stick) addict and I thought every ache and twinge for sure was me getting pregnant.
Then we hit a year... and I knew something was wrong. I wasn't sure what it was but I knew that this wasn't normal, so I scheduled an appointment with the doctor. He ran his tests and called and told me that all of my blood work checked out and that  I was fine. I asked him if he could refer me to a specialist so that they could do more extensive testing, and he agreed.
We went and saw a doctor at a very well respected Reproductive Endocrinology Practice in Delaware in November. They gave us a check list of tests that would need to be completed and then after everything was done we would make our game plan. Ryan and I both had blood work again, I had several days of my cycle that I needed to come in on so they could check for specific levels of hormones to make sure I was ovulating, they checked my AMH which is ovarian reserves, FSH, progesterone etc. Ryan had has swimmers checked and I had ultrasounds done to check for any issues. I also had a Sonography and HSG done.
We met with the doctor at the beginning of December and he told us that the good news was that all of our test came back normal. However, when dealing with infertility issues this isn't really "good" news, because this meant we were unexplained secondary infertility. He then gave us two options, we could try a cycle of what is called super ovulation or I could undergo a laparoscopy (. http://www.ivf.com/laprscpy.html)
We decided that we would try one round of super ovulation (http://www.ivf1.com/superovulation/) and timed intercourse and if that didn't work we would agree that something else was being missed so I would do the lap surgery. My body had other plans for us that month and when I went in to do my baseline ultrasound before beginning injections I had a huge cyst on my ovary and was forced to wait until the following month.
We tried our first round of injections in January after my cyst went away, I did 75 iui of Follistim for 10 days while going to the doctor pretty much every other day for a ultrasound and blood work to check the growth of the follicles. At first I had quite a few growing and they were doing pretty good, but then all of a sudden they disappeared and I ended up having one follicle that was 20mm on the day that I "triggered" with Ovidril.
Triggering drugs force your body to ovulate outside your bodies normal time. I then did progesterone suppositories for 2 weeks until my BETA (blood test checking for HSG) which happen to fall on Ryan and I's 4th Wedding Anniversary and also was exactly 4 years and 4 days after we found out we were pregnant with Emma. Mother Nature decided to save me the grief of waiting for my BETA tests though and had my period show up that morning.
After all of this, we were ready to go ahead with the lap, it was the only thing that made sense. I was really scared and reluctant to do it because other than a c-section with Emma that I was awake for I had never had any surgeries and aside from that I had never been put under. I also was not looking forward to the recovery process and not being able to do stuff I was used to doing,I and was scared of what they might find.
We called my mother in law who came in to help keep Emma distracted and visit with her and Ryan while I recovered and on March 7th we headed to the surgery center. Emma had been diagnosed with RSV a few days before my surgery and we had informed not only the surgery center but my doctors as well. They told us as long as when I came in I didn't have a fever or cough that I would be good to go. That didn't go as planned as we waited in the back hooked up to IV's for 3 hours before they decided that because of the risk I posed being exposed to RSV that I would be sent home and would need to come back the following week. Talk about mad I was piping steaming hot and I gave them an ear full! Fast forward to the following week and my amazing friend Jessica graciously accepted my request to take me to my surgery while Ryan stayed home with Emma. The surgery itself wasn't bad, because I don't remember it lol. I guess I was under for about an hour and a half and I awoke up with 4 incisions instead of the originally planned 3 I was told I would have. I have put some links up throughout this post since I am not really going into much detail about everything. If you really are interested you can click on them and they will give you better descriptions of everything. The first few days after the surgery were pretty rough for me, they fill you up with gas to maneuver around and as that gas comes out it shifts around in your body causing all kinds of aches and pains. For the most part I just stayed in bed and took my pain meds and slept because I had a hard time moving too fast or too far. Lucky for me I have one of the most amazing husbands in the world and he took stellar care of not only me but of Emma and the house and everything else.
Last Tuesday we had our follow up and this is where we are right now. During my surgery they found mild Endometriosis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endometriosis in my pelvis and my ovary. They found benign polyps inside one of my tubes and on one of my ovaries. They also found some adhesion's and apparently one of ovaries and my tube had attached themselves to my colon. Everything was removed or burned off during the lap.
There is good news and bad news with all of this, we still don't know if this is what is causing my infertility. We don't know if this means I will be able to get pregnant again without the use of drugs like super ovulation or if I conceive again naturally. I am trying to learn as much as I can about endometriosis because there isn't a cure for it, there isn't even a specific reason that some women get it and some women don't. There are a lot of uncertainties right now as far as my fertility goes. My goals right now are to continue recovering from this surgery and get my body healthy again. I want to be more open about this journey and I want to be able to support other's like myself who aren't sure where they fit into the whole infertility thing. So stay tuned because there is more to come... also for more information about infertility check out http://www.resolve.org/