Cramps. Yay! Yay?

So I've started cramping and (I think) a bit of spotting.  It seems my monthly funtime is on its way.  Yay!  But at least I probably didn't accidentally kill my non-existent baby! 

Tomorrow morning is my big appointment, where I will hopefully know a ton more.  I'm looking forward to it, not only to get the info, but also so I can sleep in a bit and get to work late.

Terrified

I had my MRI on Thursday.  It really, really sucked.  I am sort of claustrophobic.  It's not that small spaces scare me, I'm more scared of being stuck, so being in the tube wasn't too bad, since I felt like I could just reach up and pull myself out if I needed to.  It was FREEZING inside, so it was really hard to keep still since I was practically shivering.  I also had dye injected, which I did not realize was going to happen.

They made me take all my piercings out, which was really awful.  I've had my tragus (the little piece of cartilage by your ear, but is really attached to the side of your face, if that makes any sense at all) pierced for about 20 months.  I really didn't think it would be a big deal to take it out, but I couldn't get it back in afterwards.  I also couldn't get my nose ring (pierced for only 3 weeks!  I would have waited if I'd known!) back in, so I decided to wait until Friday and go to the piercing shop to have my jewelry reinserted, especially since I wanted to get a different piece for my tragus anyway.  Well, apparently the tragus is one of the locations where the hole shrinks really, really quickly.  She had a REALLY hard time getting it back in, and it really hurt.  And then two days later I woke up in the morning and it was so swollen I couldn't even see the ring.  I cleaned it really well, and it's fine now, but dang, that was a terrible experience.

And now I'm absolutely terrified that perhaps I actually did get pregnant this cycle and now our baby is going to be mutated since I had an MRI.  I haven't spotted at all, which is weird for me this far into my cycle.  But I honestly didn't think I had even ovulated yet.  I don't even know what's going on anymore.  Right now I'm on cycle day 25, so only a few more days and I'll know for sure.  Also I have my follow-up on Thursday, so I should know a lot more then.

Happy birthday to the wonderful man in my life

Today is my husband's 34th birthday.  He's the best thing that ever happened to me.  He's loving, kind, funny, handsome, and does so much for me that my heart just about bursts thinking about it.  Every weekend, he gets up early and goes and gets coffee and bagels while I stay in bed.  EVERY WEEKEND.  He's really the best.  Tonight we're going out for all-you-can-eat sushi and then fancy gelato, and this weekend we're going to a beer-fest and then having a barbecue at our place afterwards.

I'm excited because finally when I go to the doctor, they won't think my husband is 3 years younger than me when he's really only 2 years younger.  Also, I get all-you-can-eat sushi and it's not even my birthday!

So tomorrow is my MRI.  I'm not nervous, other than the fact that there's a 1% chance I might be pregnant and the MRI probably isn't good for that.  I don't think I'm pregnant, though, because as far as I can tell I haven't ovulated.  I don't understand how that can happen, but there you have it. I haven't had anything that could possibly count as a positive on an ovulation predictor test yet.  I don't even know what cycle day I'm on anymore, since it doesn't really seem to matter (I think maybe 19?  Yup, it's 19).  I have the follow-up with my doctor next week.  and then after that I can hopefully get surgery scheduled for early-to-mid November, and the maybe start trying for a baby before the new year.  If it all works out and I'm pregnant by December/January, I'll be extremely pregnant when it's over 100 degrees around here, which is the one thing I wanted to avoid, but at this point, if that's the way it's going to work, I'll take it.

Good news! I think, anyway...

My doctor's appointment yesterday went well.  At first, the doctor wasn't convinced that I had fibroids, although he agreed that there were some abnormalities, and that fibroids were possible.  He showed me my ovaries, and how out of all of the follicles on the right (that I couldn't even see last week) one had taken the lead and had grown quite large, and the others remained small.  He did remark that the winner was a bit large for only CD12, he thought it looked more like CD 16.  He showed me one of the large arteries in my abdomen, and asked if I was a runner.  He said he could tell by the size of the artery.  It made me miss running, but considering how much my ankle was hurting on Monday when I wasn't even doing anything, I don't know if I'll ever get back to running.

So after the ultrasound, we went to his office to talk.  He looked at my husband's test results and said everything looked fine.  He looked at my FSH, and wasn't too concerned.  Considering one number was 11.7 and one was 12.8 (I might be slightly off there, I can't remember exactly) and they were taken at the SAME TIME, he said being slightly high didn't matter, especially since my AMH was normal and I had a reasonable number of follicles.  He never would have guessed that my FSH would be that high after looking at my ovaries.  After looking at the pictures from my HSG, he said there were definitely some abnormalities and considering everything else was normal, the only reason he would think that we're not pregnant by now is because the abnormalities are likely fibroids.  He thought surgery was the way to go, but he explained that there are different kinds of surgeries depending on the location and type of fibroids, and now he wants to schedule me for an MRI so we can get a better idea of how to proceed.  So now I'm waiting for a call to schedule that.  Hopefully it won't be crazy expensive.

I really liked this doctor a LOT.  Let me list the reasons:

1. Now that I'm treating fibroids rather than getting specific infertility treatment, he had them charge me for a regular appointment, which is covered at the regular rate by insurance rather than the 50% copay I would have owed for an infertility appointment.

2. He kept getting confused about my age and thinking that I was 31 instead of 36.  He said I looked really young for my age (which is true, but I also don't wear makeup or wear business clothes for work, which tends to make me look younger).  This could end up being a bad thing if he keeps forgetting that I'm actually in a bit of a hurry to start a family as I don't have a ton of time left, but right now it's nice.

3. I weighed 3 pounds less than last week!  (Obviously the doctor had nothing to do with this, but it still made my appointment better).  AND my blood pressure was finally back down in the normal range.  After suffering from low blood pressure for most of my life, sometime in the last two years my blood pressure has been borderline high.  I don't really know what's causing that.

Anyway, now I'm waiting for the phone to ring to schedule my MRI.  Waiting, waiting, waiting.  I'm going to have to develop some patience.

Waiting again :(

Well, the doctor (surgeon?) with whom I was supposed to have a follow-up today got back from vacation and cleared his afternoons for the week, so my appointment was rescheduled for Saturday.  Now, I know that infertility treatment often involves weekend appointments, but I would prefer not to have weekend appointments unless they're absolutely necessary.  But that's the next available appointment, and I don't want to put surgery off for too long, so I'm taking it.

I've been keeping up on my OPKs still.  I guess I forgot to tell my husband, because he cleaned the bathroom and threw away my pee cup.  I think he was a little taken aback when I came into the kitchen demanding to know where my pee cup was.  He told me he thought it was for drinking and he threw it away.  I really hope he didn't use it to drink water out of!  Anyway, yesterday was cycle day... 10.  I had to stop for a second and count.  I forgot to pee until 10 last night, and I'm trying to keep it between 5 and 6 in the evening, but I completely forgot.  Anyway, no positive yet.  I know it doesn't matter, but it would be nice to know that I'm doing SOMETHING right.

So now I have to wait until Saturday.  Ugh.

Edit: Well, they called and rescheduled my appointment AGAIN.  It's tomorrow!  Yay!  Hopefully I'll have more answers soon!  Must remember to print out my AMH results tonight, as they have apparently gone astray...

Well, that was somewhat reassuring

I had my RE appointment on Wednesday.  My husband wasn't able to come with me, which turned out to be ok.  The appointment went fairly well, I suppose.  The doctor agreed that my FSH was higher than ideal, but he didn't think it would pose a huge problem, so that made me feel a bit better.  He did an ultrasound and showed me my innards (it looks like black blobs with white lines; I couldn't even figure out what he was looking at when he was counting follicles).  My ovaries are both there (yay!) and between them I had 9 follicles (which I think is good).

The biggest issue, and what he thinks is causing our problems, is that I have several fibroids, none of which is particularly large, but at least one of which is in a spot that is probably making conceiving quite difficult.  He suggested removing it, without even doing a hysteroscopy to take a look around first considering how long it can take to schedule surgery (5-6 weeks) and how old I am (I don't want to talk about it).  So I have a follow-up on Tuesday with the doctor who will likely be doing the actual surgery, so he can take a second look and make sure going straight to surgery is a good idea.  Considering all of the tests I've had in the past, including ultrasounds with a full bladder (so much fun!) and a hysteroscopy 4 years ago, I have a feeling surgery will be a go and sometime in late October these damn fibroids that make my life so miserable every month will finally be gone.  I can't wait!

Even if we never end up having a child, I'm hoping that removing the fibroids will at the very least result in much more reasonable periods.

So I'm not suffering from PCOS, and my ovaries aren't QUITE that old and dried-up (although the doctor did say there are some clinics who wouldn't even try helping me because my FSH results would risk their stellar success records), and I can actually do something about what is likely to be the main problem, and I'm feeling pretty good about it.  I'm just hoping I can get an appointment that's not the day before Halloween (they do surgeries on Thursdays), so I can try to enjoy it a bit this year.  As soon as I figure out my costume.

Edit: I forgot to mention ovulation.  I mentioned it to the doctor.  He told me it didn't really matter whether I'm ovulating or not, because once the fibroid(s) is/are gone, the medication I'll be on will make me ovulate either way.  And he doesn't really trust the at-home kits anyway. So I'll continue testing for my own scientific purposes, and not worry about the results.

It's that time of the month again

Just got back from a mostly lovely labor day weekend in the mountains.  We ended up coming home a little early because the dogs tore a hole in the tent, but overall it was a really nice weekend, and I'm happy I had the opportunity to spend some time outdoors.

We ended up leaving early due to the tent issue.  It's a 4.5-5 hour drive, and we left at 8:15 pm.  I hadn't had very much to drink yet (I was cooking, so I was waiting until campfire time) so I ended up driving first.  Even though I had taken quite a few painkillers, my cramps were so bad that I ended up pulling over on the side of the freeway so my husband could drive.  It was awful.  I'm not enjoying the return of 3 days of excruciating cramps, although the extremely heavy bleeding has not returned.  I don't know if I should be happy or worried about this.  I guess I'll talk to the doctor when I go in tomorrow.

I'm getting a little frustrated with friends who I've talked to about my infertility problems.  Most of them are the exact opposite of helpful, and say things like "well, remember X and Y who had problems and then they got pregnant the old-fashioned way in a few months?  I'm sure you just need more time!"  Right.  Because having slow sperm when you're 31 is the same as having dried-up old eggs when you're 36.  I think it's time to stop confiding in people.  My husband wants to talk to everyone about it, and in theory I'm on board with more openness, but telling people we're having problems makes them think that the problems are solvable.  I'm not quite ready to tell people that my 3-day FSH level was high, which means bad things for my eggs.  That kind of detail seems a bit TMI.

Anyway, for my records, here's how this period is going:

Days -5 through -7: spotting (light)
Days -4 through day 0: nothing!
Day 0 (Friday): nothing!  (should have been day 1, but whatever)
Day 1 (Saturday): Period starts mid-morning, very mild cramping.  Take lots of painkillers, cramping ramps up during the night
Day 2 (Sunday): Tons of blood in the morning.  Take lots of painkillers, cramping subsides until evening.  Take more painkillers, cramping is TERRIBLE.  Bleeding stops mid-afternoon.
Day 3 (Monday): Lots of cramping that tapers off towards evening.  Very little blood, none in the evening at all.
Day 4 (Tuesday): No blood overnight, but heavier bleeding this morning.  Some cramping, but tapers off after painkillers.

OK.  Whew.