Day 33

I told myself I would wait until Friday to take a pregnancy test.  I had estrogen patches for 7 days (8?), so I figured I would wait 7 days after the typical end of my cycle.  Since my cycle has apparently not ended yet.

However.  I didn't really take the holidays into account.  As we all know, Thursday is Thanksgiving.  If I am pregnant, I want to avoid alcohol (obviously).  If I am not pregnant, I would like to take full advantage of the holiday and my sister's excellent wine selection.  So I am not sure what to do.  At the moment, I'm pretty sure I only have one pregnancy test left.  It may or may not be expired.  Do I throw caution to the wind and use it?  I realize most people would say throwing caution to the wind would be to NOT use it, and the cautious thing to do would be to use it before Thursday.  But I don't want to test too early and be disappointed.  I don't want to jinx it (I know, it sounds crazy).

What do I do???

Day 32

So when I first stopped using birth control, pretty much exactly one year ago, my first two cycles were 32 days.  The next one dropped to something like 26 days, and I can't remember what cycle 4 was like, but it eventually settled on 28 days, and everything was peachy, other than the fact that I never got pregnant, which was the whole point of stopping birth control.  Also, cramps and heavy bleeding weren't so peachy.

Today is day 32 of this cycle.  Obviously, this cycle isn't going to be normal.  I had surgery on day 5.  I had estrogen patches on my stomach from day 5 through day day 14.  (Speaking of which, I haven't had an allergic reaction on my stomach in several days now.  I think the adhesive is completely gone.  Yay!).  I had a stent in my uterus for 8 days.  I have no idea what my next period is even going to be like, considering I had 10 fibroids removed from inside my uterus.

I just have no idea what I should do if my period continues to not happen.  At what point do I start testing for possible pregnancy?  I mean, I'm assuming it didn't happen this time, considering I spent over 1.5 weeks not having intimate relations with my husband, smack dab in the middle of this cycle (although who the heck knows when the middle of the cycle actually was???  I have no idea!).

In an attempt to cheat fate and force a pregnancy to happen, I finally went out and spent $40 on a new menstrual cup.  I was waiting because if I got pregnant, I wouldn't need it for a good nine months.  Of course, I didn't get pregnant, so I figured I might as well buy it.  Chances are, now that I've spent the money, I'll get pregnant, and if I don't, I'll have a new one to use.  Win-win, right?

Updated: I'll add that I usually have some spotting during the week before my period starts.  Considering I had spotting for a week after my surgery, I'm not sure if there's anything left to spot.  I have had nothing so far.  I don't know what this means.

Update the second: I also spent $33 on the clear blue digital OPK. And I technically spent $32 plus tax on the cup.  So that's $68 that would be wasted if I got pregnant.  Is it weird that I think the more money I waste, the more likely it is I'll get pregnant?

28 days

Today would have been the day my period arrived.  It shows no signs of showing up.  I don't really expect it to, considering my recent surgery and subsequent estrogen application, but I do wish I had some clue of when it will arrive.  I'm very eager to start testing for ovulation!

In other news, I went on a quick shopping spree yesterday.  After seeing myself in the mirror, I was absolutely appalled.  I have to lose weight!  But I never seem to have time to exercise.  I get up super early in the morning to get everything ready for the day.  I'm at work for 10 hours a day (including lunch, which I often work through).  I don't get home until after 5, sometimes closer to 6, and I generally immediately start dinner.  After dinner, I spend quite a bit of time cleaning, if I have the energy.  By the time that's all done, it's usually around 8 and I'm exhausted.  I really want to exercise more, but life is sapping my energy.

Yesterday at work, we had our weekly team meeting.  There are about 15 people on my team, give or take.  We're already counting down to one expected birth in March (we like countdowns - we're also counting down to Game of Thrones Season 5, one coworker's wedding, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas).  Another coworker announced that his wife is pregnant with their second child, due in April.  He already has a 15-month-old at home, whom we already had a baby shower for.  Luckily, no one made any comments to me about why I haven't gotten pregnant yet.  I guess the few coworkers that I told spread the word about it, which I'm grateful for.  I don't mind the regular pregnancy announcements nearly as much as I minded people nagging me about it.  It's not like I'm infertile on purpose!

Speaking of infertility.  I'm 36 now, so technically I'm infertile after 6 months of trying, right?  But when we started, it wasn't too far past my 35th birthday, and we're about to hit the 1-year milestone next week, so I guess I'm definitely infertile now.  Yay for labels!

Nothing happening

I haven't really been writing because nothing has really been happening.  I'm waiting for my period to start, which in normal circumstances would happen at the end of this week, but because of the post-surgery estrogen patches it may be a little late.  On the one hand, I want it to be on time so my schedule will continue uninterrupted and I can immediately start testing for ovulation (well, by immediately, I mean 12 days after it starts).  I'm also a little impatient to see what it will be like now that I am 10 fibroids lighter.  However, I decided to have a bunch of people over for a dinner party and Mario Kart 64 competition this Saturday, so if my period is still heavy and painful, I would prefer for it to wait until after the party.

So that's where I'm at right now.  I'm assuming I ovulated sometime in the last week or so, so it's also possible I may be pregnant.  Hahahahahahaha.

Oh yeah!  I had an allergic reaction to the patches this weekend!  The patches that came off 10 days previously.  I suspect that I didn't get all of the adhesive off (I can still see some of it in a few spots) and for some reason my skin decided to react.  I have very sensitive skin, but I honestly wasn't expecting a reaction this long after removal.  So that was cool.  Not.

Mondays

I actually had a pretty good weekend, aside from our dogs going a bit wild in our man-cave/spare room/media room/possible future baby room.  I mostly stopped bleeding.  It's so light right now I can barely even tell, which is awesome because...  well, I'm tired of bleeding.

I've started exercising again.  It's frustrating because I used to be able to do a lot of the stuff I can't do know, but at the same time, it feels good to be working on getting back to that again.  I went outdoor rock-climbing with my husband, my sister, and my sister's family this weekend.  It was a beautiful day, the trees were all (FINALLY) changing color, and it was so nice to be outside.  The adults climbed while the kids played (and went through my backpack and purse and my husband's wallet, which was actually quite amusing).  I could just barely keep up with everyone else, since I've taken a two-week break, and my arms are killing me today.  But it was soooo good to get outside!

I did a bunch of work around the house, including fixing a broken sprinkler line.  For some reason, the line that I broke is connected directly to the main water source for our house instead of through a separate connection like the rest of our sprinkler lines, so I had to turn off the main water valve in order to fix it, and it had to stay off for a few hours while I bailed water out of the area, dug out the entire line where it was broken, cleaned everything off, and then repaired it.  My neighbor's house is empty, so I occasionally walked over there to wash my hands as necessary, and luckily Kaiser called while my hands were actually clean.  My next surgery (that I really, really don't want to have) will most likely happen in January.  I'm hoping there will be nothing left that needs to be removed, so that recovery will be short and we can move straight on to trying drugs.

My husband brought up IVF on his own, and is actually considering it now.  He has a coworker who used it to get pregnant.  His coworker is 50 (or thereabouts) and his wife is somewhere between 40 and 50, and it took them several tries to get pregnant.  (His coworker was our wedding photographer, and they were due sometime after the wedding, so the baby has been born, and we haven't actually seen our wedding photographs yet because he's been quite busy).  They referred to the pregnancy as their $40,000 baby.   Obviously, that scared my husband quite a bit.  I hadn't realized that was at the root of his reluctance to use IVF.  Obviously, we're going to try on our own until after my next surgery, but by then hopefully we'll have a better idea of what we want to do.  I really don't want to have to use IVF, but I also don't want to spend a year trying while my fertility dwindles away and then have him decide that he wants to do it after all.

And in other news, I still haven't found my wallet. No charges have been made on any of my cards, so I'm pretty sure it's either in the house or in the garbage.  I'm requesting replacement cards today, but I want to wait a wee bit for my driver's license, since that will unfortunately cost money to replace.  Why do I have to be so scatter-brained?

Still bleeding

I had my period during the week leading up to my surgery.  Then I had a week of post-surgery bleeding due to the stent.  I had the stent removed Wednesday, and the bleeding continued, so I emailed my doctor yesterday and he told me I could expect bleeding for another 2-3 weeks.  I'm SO TIRED of bleeding.

Anyway, my AMH level is 0.85 (which is a DRASTIC difference from the test I had in May/June when it was 1.35).  That level is in ng/ml, but I converted it to pmol/l and that number is 6.069.  Which is at about the 25th percentile for a 36-year-old woman.  Which actually isn't as bad as I thought.  (I'm using this chart for those of you interested in where I'm getting my statistics).  My doctor seemed to think going straight to IVF was the best option, assuming we were planning to try IVF at some point.

Here is where things get a little tough.  I'm not AT ALL excited about IVF, mostly because it's expensive and there are no guarantees, but also because it just sounds like a lot to be doing to myself (shots and meds and horomones and whatnot).  I will obviously be bearing the brunt of this myself.  I personally think our IVF options aren't all that expensive - $7000-$10,000 per try if we use my eggs, which are still viable, but I think there are ways of making it less expensive.  I'm not willing to take out loans, though.  We already have enough student loans to take on any more debt.  However, if we are going to try IVF, I'd rather just get to it and not deal with months of waiting and injecting myself and whatnot.  My eggs aren't getting any younger.

My husband, on the other hand, is dead set against IVF.  He keeps saying "we don't have that kind of money".  That's true.  We don't.  But we definitely spend money on things we don't need to, and we could save that kind of money more quickly than he realizes.  But I'm beginning to think he doesn't want children as much as he originally thought, especially considering he doesn't actually have to do all that much in order to have them, other than not spend money on all of the frivolous things he likes to spend money on.

So now I'm wondering how much I should plan to do.  Should I go through with a second surgery?

I'm back!

So I had surgery last Wednesday.  It went well!  They were planning to remove the 2 or 3 fibroids that they thought I had.  They ended up removing 10!  So the surgery itself lasted 2.5 hours instead of only 1 hour, but my uterus should be pretty clean now.  The surgeon inserted a stent to keep my uterus open while it healed.

Recovery sucked.  The stent caused really awful cramping and backaches.  For the first few days, I didn't feel well enough to do much of anything, except for get up to go to the bathroom.  I lay in bed, my husband brought me food, and I tried not to think too much about what the rest of the house looked like.  Mornings were especially bad, at least until the painkillers really started kicking in.  I got the stent removed yesterday (not fun, but in the overall scheme of things, not horible).  It's 8 days later, and I'm finally back at work and feeling like a human again.

Unfortunately, during the time I was out 1) My dogs knocked my laptop off of my dresser and it is now dead, 2) My really expensive racing bicycle was stolen from my garage, and 3) I misplaced my wallet.  I'm fairly certain it's in the house, since I didn't leave the house that day, but I could kick myself for taking it out of my purse and then putting it... somewhere else, apparently.  I vaguely remember thinking that it wasn't a good idea to not be putting it back in my purse, but apparently I didn't listen to myself and now it is gone.  I have been tearing the house apart trying to find it.  I am at a complete loss.

On the fertility front, the doctor wants to go back in sometime after mid-December to make sure there isn't a lot of scarring, and that the fibroids are gone and there is enough uterine cavity space for a baby to get started.  I got the results of my AMH test - it is 0.85, which is not good :(  Combined with an FSH of around 12, well...  I'm not going to get my hopes up. 

The doctor has instructed us to keep trying before my next surgery, and if I do happen to get pregnant, then we'll know this surgery worked.  If I don't get pregnant, I'll have the second surgery and then move on to a combination of pills and injectables.  And I have also been instructed to begin testing for ovulation once my next cycle begins.  I'm VERY excited about that, as I really want to know what is going on.