I finally had a good weekend

Not that I've had bad weekends per se, but I've been working so much lately, including on the weekends.  This weekend my husband and I dropped the dogs off for their first stay at a dog hotel, and headed off on our motorcycles for a wedding brunch and then camping on the coast with his parents.  The coast was beautiful, and I'm excited to know that motorcycle camping is not only doable, it's easy!  It makes me feel good that if we aren't able to start a family, we'll still have good times together.

We returned home yesterday to a very quiet house, since only the two cats stayed home.  Well, I should say when we returned home it WASN'T that quiet, since I opened the door and heard water running and just about freaked out.  Luckily, it wasn't a leak, but the kitchen faucet was running full blast.  Apparently one of the cats has figured out how to turn it on.  In the middle of a drought.  So now we have to dog-proof AND cat-proof.

My husband worried quite a bit about our older dog, Lola.  She's almost a year old, so she's not really older, but she seems to have had a traumatic time before we adopted her from the shelter, and when she gets scared, she won't eat or play or do anything really.  He thought she might be traumatized by being in a shelter-like environment, but both dogs were super happy when we picked them up.  Their report cards said that Lola was a sweetheart and spent a lot of time just hanging out with the people or relaxing during playgroup.  Apollo, our 7-month-old, had to have a time-out because he was harassing other dogs.  I'm not sure if he was humping them or just being annoying, but he can get very exuberant at playtime.  He's not aggressive or mean, he just REALLY wants to play.  A bonus was that they slept all night out in the sunroom, so we got a good night's sleep.

In other news, I feel like I might actually be ovulating right now.  Maybe.  I had a dream the other night that I was pregnant (with a girl, btw, and I was disappointed, but I don't know if I was disappointed that I knew the sex or that it was a girl.  I don't think I'll be able to talk my husband into it, but I'd prefer not to learn the sex if we ever do get pregnant).  I'm hoping it was a prophetic dream.

I got back in!

I somehow got logged out and couldn't remember my password to get back in.  I entered every password I could think of, but nothing worked, so I gave up for a bit because I've been SOOO busy at work (14.5 hours on my day off!).  I just tried again, and I'm back!  Woohoo!

So I saw the doctor two weeks ago about the MRI.  It was a strange appointment in a way.  I definitely have fibroids, and he definitely wants to take them out.  He also mentioned that he could see follicles.  That seemed awfully weird for the end of my cycle, so I emailed him later, and he said follicles were good.  So I just don't know.  Maybe they're the shriveled up follicles that didn't mature? 

I also have a cyst in my liver.  Awesome.  Could potentially be dangerous if I get pregnant.  Super awesome.  He called another doctor while I was there, who said they usually ignore asymptomatic liver cysts, so I guess that's that for now.

So the surgery scheduler called me a week ago and said that they were pretty much booked for November, and December wasn't open for scheduling yet, but she'd see if she could squeeze me in.  She asked if I would be willing to take a cancellation and how much notice I would need, and I told her one day.  She said she'd finish scheduling everyone who was ahead of me and see where I could fit in, and I should call her back in two or three weeks if I hadn't heard from her.  If I don't hear from her by next Wednesday, I will probably call.  I really, really don't want to have surgery, but if I DO have to have surgery, I want to get it over with.

Just keeping my fingers crossed that this month is the month.  That would put delivery at the end of July, when it's hot as hades around here (but thankfully not humid), but at this point I'll take it.  I'm tired of feeling like we're in limbo.

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...