Round 1 (Again)

I haven't forgotten about you and I'm sorry I've been MIA. The only internet I have right now is running hotspot from my phone. I barely have enough service to work the phone itself, much less run the computer. It took 20 minutes of waiting to get this page to load so I could write this post. You would think someone would have come up with a better way for people that travel to have Wifi since our data slows to nonexistent speeds after so many GB. If someone could please do that I would really appreciate it!

Anyway, I had my appointment with my RE a few weeks ago. We are going to try Clomid for a while first and see what happens. I started on 100mg this time instead of the 50mg. Last time I was on it I ended up on 150mg before I called it quits. I'm currently on cd 6 (ugh). He mentioned possibly doing IUI if we don't have results with Clomid. I don't know if I would do IUI again or not. We tried it twice before and had zero results with it. He did test my AMH and I am patiently waiting for the results. To be honest, I'm pretty nervous about that test. As most of you probably know, AMH will tell us if I have enough eggs left to even bother ttc. I have often wondered if I have a low egg count and now I get to find out. Fair warning, if it comes back bad I will probably cry and curse a little bit. My main goal right now is get our credit cards paid off so that we can go to CNY in New York and do IVF. They are very cheap compared to many other centers and they have a great success rate. I have talked to many people that have gone there and I am determined that we will get there in the next year or two. I am currently in phlebotomy class so that I can get a job and help financially. Hopefully that will speed up the process and we can get there sooner rather than later.

I'm definitely having a hard time lately. Every day someone on FB posts that they are pregnant. This has been going on every day for the last few weeks. I'm seriously not exaggerating, not even a little bit. I know you won't believe that, but it's the truth. Every. Single. Day. I know there are a lot of people that get mad because that bothers me, but I really can't help it. It's not that I'm not happy for them, because I really am (mostly). It's just that every single new announcement is yet another reminder of my body's failure to do the one thing it was naturally designed to do. Just another reminder that all of the firsts I am experiencing with my daughter will more than likely also be my lasts. It's so frustrating that I am trying to so hard and doing all of the right things to make it happen and yet it's so easy for other people. I had really hoped that having my daughter would make the pain of infertility easier to deal with. I always thought that if I could just experience motherhood that it would be enough for me. In many ways it is and in many ways I'm totally okay if I never have another baby. The problem is that you never stop feeling broken. My body doesn't work the way it is supposed to. Period. Having my daughter hasn't changed that and hasn't changed what it feels like to know that. And it's not just having a baby. If we weren't ttc I would still be having problems because my cycles are so irregular. I have cysts on my ovaries that cause me excruciating pain that people think I exaggerate. My cramps are so painful that many people wouldn't be able to deal with it. It hurts. It hurts emotionally and physically. It's a lot to cope with and it's totally draining. Then, on top of all that, I feel like a failure to my husband. After many years and two losses I was finally able to give him a child, but he wants another one. Nothing can make that feeling of letting him down go away. I'm 30 and I've had fertility problems since my early 20's. My chances of getting pregnant now are pretty slim and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. I think the thing that irritates me the most is that nobody that hasn't experienced problems can even begin to understand or empathize with what I'm going through. So it's basically like I have to deal with it all on my own and that's really hard. Sometimes I just need to breakdown and cry. I need to let it all out because holding it in just gets harder and harder, but when I do that people make me feel like I have no right to. It's a vicious cycle and it never ends.

*Baby Dust*

The Cherry On Top

I'm so upset and irritated right now that I don't know if I want to scream or cry. I will probably do both before it's over. I'm so over Obamacare and "Affordable" health insurance. We have been paying $683 a month this year for coverage for our family. That's more than one of our truck payments. Insurance through my husband's job would be $1200 a month, which is more than one of his pay days. We've had to struggle just to survive and put food on the table and keep some sense of normalcy for our daughter. We are living in our camper, semi moved to another state for his job, rented out our house, cut every non essential bill we had. We did everything you are "supposed" to do and we still can't afford it! How did anyone back this plan? How does anyone think this is affordable? In all of Obamacare there is only two good points. 1. Kids can stay on their parents insurance until they are 26. (Personally I think this should only apply to students and if you are married, have kids and filing your own taxes then you should have your own insurance.) 2. Insurance can't turn you down for pre-existing conditions. The rest of it is crap. When they decide whether or not you get premium help, they only care if the employee can get affordable insurance through their job. They don't care at all if you can't afford the family plan so that your spouse and kids can have insurance. I guess they just want you to get that penalty at tax time.

As most of you know, we have been trying to get pregnant again for almost three years now. I had another miscarriage in August and now I have made an extremely heartbreaking decision. Since we can't afford this "affordable" health insurance, we are going to have to go without insurance next year. The penalty is a little more than what one month's premium would be, so obviously it's WAY cheaper to take the penalty. A little over $12,000 cheaper actually. Since short term insurance doesn't cover maternity and according to the state my husband makes too much money even on unemployment to get state health insurance, that means I can't get pregnant. There is no way we could afford prenatal care and labor and delivery costs out of pocket. We both want another child so bad and I really can't explain how mad it makes me that any chance I had (and my chances were already slim) is taken away from me by this stupid insurance law. It's not like we didn't already have everything going against us when it came to having a baby. It took five years, two miscarriages and so many doctor visits to have our daughter. It's already been almost three years and one miscarriage since we've been trying again. Then throw this on top of it. I wish so bad that I could put into words what I am feeling, but none of the words that I can think of seem to do what I'm feeling any justice. Just suffice it to say that I'm mad and a I'm mad as hell!

That's not even the best part. The job that my husband came back to in Ohio is more than likely only going to last about three more weeks. Then he will laid off again. For the third time this year. It will be about a week before my daughter's birthday and two weeks before Christmas. Being that it will be the end of the year and cold, most jobs won't be hiring. My stress level is going through the roof. I am losing my grasp on my hope. Family is supposed to be the foundation of everything and our country has made it so that it's easier to get help and get insurance if you are single rather than a family. There is NO help for a working family. What is happening?

This year has absolutely been the worst year for us. I hope and pray that next year is better. If it gets any worse I honestly don't know how we'll make it. We could really use some prayers, good thoughts or whatever you believe in coming our way.

Honoring My Angel Babies

This has been a hard year for us. My husband has been laid off twice and we've moved back and forth between two states trying to figure out what to do. Every time we think we are okay again, something else gets thrown at us. The stress of dealing with how we are going to pay our bills and be able to survive has been tremendous. This has led to discussions of dropping our health insurance. I'm not totally comfortable with that idea, but we honestly can't afford it anymore. To top it off, the paper I received today says that they are quadrupling our deductible, lowering what they pay and raising our premium almost two hundred and eighty dollars. We would be paying almost a thousand dollars a month if we kept this policy. Of course the Marketplace website is down, so at the moment I can't even look to see if there are any other plans we could switch to. I seriously doubt I will find a plan that is worth what we would be paying though. It looks like we would be better off taking the penalty at tax time.

The biggest reason I'm nervous about dropping insurance is my health problems. They are always lurking in the background. My daughter might get sick once a year, but even then she has only been sick enough to go to the doctor once and the medicine they gave her didn't even help. It just had to run it's course. I had another PAP come back positive for cervical changes again this summer. That makes the third one in about eleven or twelve years. The last one was just last year and the biopsy came back such low grade the doctor didn't even count it. This year I managed to get away without a biopsy, but she did do cervical curettage inside my cervix. That was more painful than I was expecting and worse because it takes longer than just snipping a piece off. Luckily, that came back negative for pre-cancer. I'm worried that my luck is running thin and feel that I need to eliminate a lot of my risk and have a hysterectomy. We've been trying to get pregnant again for almost three years now. I did finally get pregnant in July, but my levels quit doubling and I miscarried again in August. I think if I don't get pregnant in the next year that I will move forward with the hysterectomy. It's a scary and heartbreaking decision, but I'm tired. I'm tired of being terrified of every PAP. I'm tired of having horrible cramps. I'm tired of the pelvic pain that I have pretty much all the time. I'm tired of temping, tracking, waiting. I want my daughter to have a sibling. I think that is such an important bond. Someone to always have your back and someone you have when once the parents are gone. I don't want her to ever feel truly alone. She is growing up and the time truly goes way too fast. I don't want to spend any of her childhood stressing out about getting pregnant. I just want to enjoy it. She very well may be my only baby, so I need to soak it up that much more.

If you read my last post, then you know that I recently started a photography business. I really wanted to do something to honor my angel babies. It's not fair that I will never know who they would have been or get to have pictures of them. I made a picture that is very special to me. This picture has all of my babies in it. It's my precious daughter, my rainbow baby, surrounded by the siblings she'll never know. It isn't perfect, but I love it. I plan to do a few more and I really want one with me and my husband in it too. It will be the family picture we were robbed of. I have always wanted to be able to have some kind of reminder of my lost babies. I don't want it to be like they never existed and I don't other people to forget either. Some people get tattoos (and I plan on that too), some light a candle every October and there are other ways to remember them. I just needed something that made them more real, more tangible and for me this does it. What do you do remember your lost ones? Check out the picture below and I hope you all have a great day!

And The Cycle Continues...

Well, here we are a little over a year since my last post and not much has changed. My cycles are still even more irregular now than they were before I had our little girl. You would think I would have come up with some type of coping mechanism for dealing with the uncertainty every month, but I still haven't. I still allow myself to go buy pregnancy tests and be disappointed several times a month. I started back on the Pregnitude. It did such an amazing job of regulating my cycles before I got pregnant that I decided to give it another shot. I really hope it wasn't just some fluke and that it makes things even out again. I still get those really weird muscle twitches that feels like a baby kicking. After some research it seems that many people that have been pregnant still feel what I call phantom kicks, even years after giving birth. We still haven't had any luck getting pregnant. Our baby just turned two in December and I haven't been pregnant once. I am thankful that there haven't been anymore miscarriages, but disheartened that it seems my baby journey may have ended. When we were trying to get pregnant before I got pregnant at least every other year.

Every time I look at our little girl my heart breaks for her. Not knowing the joy of growing up with siblings. Not knowing what it's like to have someone that always has your back at the times when your parents can't. I hate the thought of her being alone if something happened to me and my husband. Sure, she has other family and I'm sure that they would keep in touch. It's just an entirely different kind of bond you have with a sibling and I feel like a failure for not being able to give that to her. Before we had her I felt like I was failing my husband and now that she is here, I feel like I am failing her. Don't get me wrong, I know it's not my fault. However, it is MY body that can't preform a basic natural function.

I suppose at some point we will go back to our reproductive endocrinologist. The time just doesn't feel right yet. I don't look forward to the feeling of being a lab rat. The poking, prodding, procedures and medication...I just don't think that I am emotionally ready for all of that again. A big piece of me wants to just throw in the towel, wave the white flag and get a hysterectomy. Just be done with all of it and all the emotional and physical trauma that goes along with it, but I can't. I'm not a quitter. I know I would regret it if I did that. As long as I have all the essential parts, there is hope. I just can't find it in myself to dash that little bit of hope away.

As for our little girl, she just celebrated her second birthday. She has my blue eyes and unruly curly blonde hair. She has her daddy's temper and because we are both stubborn, she can be hard to handle. I wouldn't have expected anything less coming from the two of us. She will be a fighter and she will be strong. I have no worries about the life that she will make for herself. She is laying in the floor at my feet sleeping as I type this, wore herself out throwing a temper tantrum.

At this point, my blog will become more of a journey through my everyday life and not only about my infertility. My life is so much more than that and I refuse to let infertility define me anymore.

For any of you reading this that are currently ttc, lots of Baby Dust!

It's a....!

We had our Gender Reveal Party last week and it was really great! We did a country/western theme with a beautiful cake, cowboy/cowgirl decorations and balloons. Everybody came out and had pizza, cake and cupcakes. My best friend and I were up until about four in the morning making sixty cupcakes and some cake pops. I never wanted to bake again after that, but it was well worth it. We set up a chalk board and let people vote whether they thought it would be a boy or a girl and the majority voted girl. We did the cutting of the cake for the reveal and had the inside of the cake dyed the appropriate color. Our baby is a GIRL!! So glad it's not a secret anymore and now we don't have to keep going back and forth on boy names. 

The day before the party was my appointment with the doctor. I have gained back two of the pounds I lost and everything measured exactly right on the ultrasound. She weighed ten ounces. So even with my weight gain being somewhat off, she is gaining like she should and I was so relieved. My next appointment is August 21. I can't wait until I am around 26 weeks, because then I can schedule my 4D ultrasound appointment. They don't actually do them until 28 weeks, but they like for you to book in advance. The last private ultrasound we did, we actually got several really good 4D shots. She is a little diva already. She had her hand up on her forehead in a few shots and she likes to show her butt off. She absolutely would not cooperate with the ultrasound tech at the doctor's office and even put both of her hands over her ears at one point. I think she was a little upset that they wouldn't leave her alone while trying to get the measurements. I am still absolutely terrified that something will go wrong and cause me to go into labor before she would have the chance of surviving or that she will for some reason be a stillborn. The farther along I get, the more hopeful I am. Most people don't worry at this point and think I am crazy for still worrying, but there are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to what is wrong with me. So, I just can't put all worries behind me yet. Not until I have her in my arms. 

The last three days I have been having horrible ligament pain. To the point that I can't move, walk, breathe or anything. Of course, she chooses the times when I'm hurting the worst to be the most active. Right now it seems her sleeping habits are awake really late at night to early in the morning and then asleep all day and evening. Her movements are getting stronger and hopefully it will be easier for my hubby to feel them soon. Right now it is still kind of hard to feel from the outside, but he has felt her a few times. My hubby actually had to leave to go back to Ohio for work today. Not only do I miss him so much already and being pregnant and him being gone makes it worse, but now he won't be there to rub my belly when I'm hurting. It actually helps a lot. We finally made some decisions on how we are going to set up the nursery and what theme we want to go with. Now it's just a matter of him getting the time to work on it and his pay days getting straightened out so we can buy the stuff. 

Well, I guess I am going to get off here and get some food and a couple of movies. Then it's home to cuddle with my furbabies and get used to my house being empty for the next two weeks. Hope you all have a great night!

Waiting Game

So I went back for my HCG test last Wednesday and my levels had gone up to 282. They more than doubled from what they were on Monday at 121. Day before yesterday I had an early ultrasound done and it showed a 7.5mm gestational sac, but no fetal pole or heartbeat yet. It is still really early since I am only 5 weeks and that is completely normal. I go back for another ultrasound on next Wednesday and should be able to see something then. The doctor still has me on the Progesterone supplement and I am still taking my whole food prenatal vitamins and DHA. I've been trying to eat a lot of fresh salads, fruits and veggies with chicken and grilled meats. I cut out caffeine almost completely and have been trying to drink tons of water. I am hoping that all of this will help me to carry the baby to term this time. 

I have still been cramping, but fortunately it has mostly been due to constipation. The Progesterone has that lovely side effect and they told me to start drinking Metamucil to help with that. I must say, that stuff is not the greatest tasting. I had tried yogurt, water, green veggies and fiber filled cereals and none of that worked. So, Metamucil it is. For the most part, I have been doing nothing but laying in the bed and watching Netflix. I do have to go to the barn and check on my horse, but other than that I try not to really be up and moving about too much. I got the last of the medication we had ordered for the aggressive IUI cycle we were going to do before we found out I am pregnant. Let's just say, I really hope I carry this baby and never have to do that cycle. Number one, because I don't want to go through another miscarriage. Number two, that's a really big needle! 

As far as symptoms go, I haven't really had any. My breasts have been extremely sensitive and sore, but that's about it. No morning sickness or anything like that. I have gotten nauseous maybe two or three times, but it wasn't bad. I have had maybe two headaches and a few dizzy spells. Most days though, I don't have any symptoms. I almost wish I would have more symptoms, just so that I know that I am still pregnant and everything is okay. I know that sounds strange, but when there aren't any symptoms you worry that something is wrong. 

My best friend came in from Virginia to take me to my ultrasound appointment and will probably come in and take me to the one next week too. My hubby won't get off work until Wednesday morning. So he may be able to meet us out there, but wouldn't be able to come get me and take me himself. I think she was pretty excited to get to see the ultrasound before anyone else though. 

My hubby has another week before he gets to come back home from Ohio. This hitch has been particularly hard for us. He has had a hard time at work with things going wrong and worried about me and the baby. I have had a hard time because I've been worried about him and the baby. His truck got damaged this morning when the flow line blew and put dents all over it, chipped paint, busted his windshield and covered it in oil base mud. We are still waiting to find out how they are going to handle getting it fixed. He said that if someone had been out there when it happened that it may have killed or seriously injured them. The company men are trying to get them to break procedure and do something that could get someone hurt. Luckily, the driller is refusing to do it. I am still worried to death about my hubby tonight though. 

Right now I am just in a waiting game. I have to wait for each new ultrasound to know that everything is fine and the next week just can't come fast enough. The doctor I am seeing now, which is my reproductive endocrinologist, is only going to see me for a few more weeks to make sure everything is progressing okay. Then he is going to release me to go back to my regular ob. The thing is, I don't trust my regular ob to take good care of me and keep a good eye on me since my previous miscarriages make me high risk. They didn't do a good job with the first two miscarriages, so I will be looking for a good ob out in the same place my RE is. When he decides to release me, I will ask him who he recommends. I am so nervous and anxious for my next ultrasound. Come on next Wednesday!!!

BFP!

So, I had my HSG test on Thursday as planned. I took a pregnancy test before I went and then they tested me before I went over to the hospital. Both of the tests were negative, no surprise. After the test was over, the doctor said that it "...couldn't be more normal". We went over my lab work and he said everything looked great, but one of the tests he ordered didn't get done. That test was the AMH test for ovarian reserve. They drew more blood for that test and we discussed the upcoming IUI cycle. I told him that all of my medication was ordered and we were just waiting on it to arrive. Nothing else for us to do until the meds came in. The plan was that I would call once I received all of the medication and then he would have me come back and go over what the protocol would be. At that time they would also teach my mother how to give my injections. I was getting a little excited to get things started and so happy that all my tests and lab work was normal...but things changed a little two days later.

I had been testing with my Clearblue Fertility Monitor and never got a peak reading, it just stayed at high. I've never had that happen before and especially not for that long. It had been showing high for two weeks. My Ovacue Fertility Monitor never showed that I ovulated either and started giving me error boxes. I got a full ferning test on cycle day 6 and my bbt showed that I ovulated on cycle day 8. As far as I was concerned, this cycle was all screwed up and nothing added up to a definitive ovulation day. I, like most of us, am a testing freak. I have pregnancy tests everywhere at the house and test all the time, just because I can't stand it. So, imagine my surprise when I tested Saturday morning and it was positive. I just kept saying, "Oh my God!". I didn't really believe it. I called my husband and told him to come to the house because I had a positive test and I wanted him to tell me I wasn't crazy. I bought two other brands of tests after that and took a regular one and a digital one and they both said pregnant too. After two years, I finally had a BFP again!!!

But wait...I just had dye injected through my uterus and into my fallopian tubes and a steady stream of xray blasting it. How is that going to affect things? On Sunday I left a message with my doctor and the nurse called me back first thing Monday morning. Later that day I went for HCG and progesterone levels, plus they called me in a prescription for progesterone supplements. When the doctor called later with my results, he just couldn't believe I was pregnant. He said my HCG levels were great at 121, my progesterone wasn't great, just okay, but the progesterone prescription should take care of that. They don't seem to think that the HSG test will cause any complications. I have to go back tomorrow for follow up HCG levels to make sure they are doubling and the doctor wants to see me next week. I also decided that I am going to go off of the day my bbt said that I ovulated. It makes sense since we bd (baby dance) on that day and two days before. That would make my due date around December 19. I just might get a Christmas baby!!

I have been cramping some and it's a lot worse at night, so I've been a little freaked out over that. I know that they says it's normal, but I cramped with both of the other pregnancies and miscarried them both. So I'm a little worried. I don't plan on doing anything really until the first trimester is over. Just a lot of laying in the bed and sitting around. Hopefully, if I am really careful, I can hang on to this one. My husband left to go back to Ohio for work today. He will miss the next couple of doctor's appointments and I hate that if something goes wrong he won't be here. Right now, I guess I am going to get ready to go to the grocery store so I can stock up and not have to leave the house much. Prayers and lots of baby dust are appreciated. I also want to give a big thank you to everyone that has already showed their support for me, you guys mean a lot. <3

Game Plan

Today has been very bittersweet for me. The first thing I did when I left the house this morning was go to the funeral home. Today I said goodbye to one of the best friends I've had. I wasn't sure before I left the house if I was going to be able to go in the room and actually see with my own eyes that he was gone. I was sick to my stomach all the way down there and when I finally saw him laying there it just seemed so unreal. Even now I feel like I could call or text him and he would answer me. There will definitely be a hole in my life and the lives of my family that nobody else will ever be able to fill. I hate that I couldn't go to the actual service and show support for his family, but this was a very important doctor appointment and he would have wanted me to go. 

The doctor visit had my stomach twisting into knots too. Sitting in that waiting room and waiting for my name to be called was awful. A million things kept going through my head. What if they tell me there is something really wrong with me? What if they tell me I'll never be able to get pregnant again? What if they tell me that I'll never be able to carry one to term? What if they tell me they can't help me? Once the nurse finally called me back and got my vitals, she started with the questions and wanting to know who in my family had what health problems. There are a lot of things that run in my family. We've got cancer, heart problems, thyroid problems, my great aunt had multiple miscarriages and the list goes on and on. I kept waiting on them to tell me that I'm just genetically screwed. Going back into the actual office of the doctor was the worst. That's when we started going over my past medical records and the exhaustive list of things we tried, that ultimately failed. By the end of it though, we had a game plan. The doctor wasn't really happy with some of the work another doctor had done, so he ordered a ton of blood tests (about ten or twelve vials) and is scheduling me for an HSG test next week. The course of treatment that was decided on was an aggressive IUI cycle. He seems to think that I will respond better to that and it's cheaper than IVF. I do have to agree that if I end up with more than three embryos, that I will selectively reduce. They won't allow you to carry more than three. Although, judging from my past experience, I don't think that will be a problem because I am typically a poor responder. Also, he has been doing this for thirty some years and has only had that happen about three or four times. The meds are still pretty expensive and we are having to pay everything out of pocket. So, if this one doesn't work we will see what the doctor recommends, but we will only do a max of two of these cycles. Financially, if two don't work then it would be better for us to get the loan and go for in-vitro. Not to mention, it's been five years and I'm getting impatient. When we do the IUI cycle they will also do a full semen analysis with the andrology lab. My cycles have been getting shorter and shorter. I ovulated on cycle day 7 this time and that's going to give me about a 19 day cycle length. This makes me worry because it makes it hard to predict if the hubby is even going to be able to be home when the IUI will need to be done. The meds are way to expensive for wasted cycles. We hope to be able to do start the medication and do the IUI my next cycle. The meds are ordered from Europe though, so it will depend on when they get here. It should be here in about three weeks max. I'm not getting my hopes up this time. I'm just going to try to roll with things and if it happens it happens and if not, we move on to the next step. I seriously have to keep stress levels down this time. I'm so ready for things to go right for a change. At least now I can say that we are seeing the doctor and actively trying to get our healthy baby again. It's been two years, which was my last miscarriage, since we saw the doctor for my infertility. 

Now I just want to drop a note about the Pregnitude. As far as the doctor is concerned, I can still take it. I am also thinking that maybe that has something to do with my cycles getting shorter. I would definitely recommend giving it a shot. Of course I am on prenatals and DHA too. The prenatal vitamins I choose to take are a whole food veggie cap. They are called Baby and Me.

I want to say thank you to everyone that has shown support to me over the years and to all my readers, especially the ones that comment how much they can relate to my story. You guys are why I keep this blog up. I want you all to know that you are not alone and maybe I can give a voice to what you are feeling for those of you that are afraid to speak out. Visit the Facebook page for info and to connect with other people. I would appreciate your thoughts and prayers as we start back on this journey. Thank you all!

Failure

Thursday officially marked day one of my next cycle. That makes the last one only 24 days long and I ovulated around day 12. My luteal phase is always 12 days, never varies. So one thing I can say for sure is that the OvaCue Monitor was right on when it came to what day I ovulated. Although, it wasn't the day that it told me I ovulated. I had to interpret the data, but once you know what you are looking for it's pretty simple to do. The only problem with interpretation is that you can't know in advance really what day you will ovulate. To compensate for this I went ahead and ordered test sticks for my Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor. My temps were also right on as to when AF would show up. I don't know if I should be worried or bothered that my cycle was so short. I think it would be considered a normal cycle, but mine are always so long that I guess I just feel strange having one so short. The really good thing is that my cycles are finally in what's considered a normal range and I am ovulating.

It's still another five days before my hubby will be home. The first week always seems to fly by, but the second week feels like it drags on forever and a day. The day after he comes home is the appointment with the reproductive endocrinologist. I am so nervous and anxious about it that it really makes me feel nauseous. On one hand, I am really happy that I might finally find out what is wrong with me and get the right treatment or get a treatment that works. On the other hand, I am absolutely terrified that he is going to tell me that I will never have kids or that there is something more serious wrong with me. The more I think about it, the more all these different scenarios run through my head and I don't really know what to expect. I have pretty much convinced myself that in-vitro is our only option and I am even more convinced of that after talking to my regular ob. So, just in case that is what it comes down to, we are trying to get financially prepared for that. I hope that I can get pregnant without doing that, but I'm not holding my breath. After five years, if they use other treatment and it's not working in a few months, then I will probably request to go ahead and do it. I can feel myself running out of time since I will be 27 this June. I know once I hit 30 that my chances go down and then once I hit 35 they go down even more.

On another note, I'm a little on edge because of my last pap results. The letter I got in the mail says that there were mild changes, but since those changes weren't caused by HPV or anything else that they could find, they aren't worried about it and are going to call it normal. I know usually this is the protocol and I know usually it is nothing to worry about because the immune system typically will take care of it, but I've had this before. In 2003 I had a pap come back abnormal and they did a biopsy. At that time I had high risk pre-cancerous cells and they monitored me every six months for two years. It's just scary to have that and now ten years later I have one come back low risk for absolutely no reason that they can find. I'm a little nervous about it. Maybe I'm over reacting, but after the scare ten years ago, I just can't help it.

I also recently found out that two people that are very close to my family both lost a parent. I am completely heartbroken for them both. I wish there was something I could do or say that would make them feel better and take the hurt away, but I'm really at a loss. I know there is nothing I can do to help them except just be there if they need me, but that just doesn't seem like enough. This situation also drives home that we never know how long we have or how long our loved ones have. That's one of the reasons I hate it when someone says that I have my whole life ahead of me and I have plenty of time to have kids. We don't know that. We don't know how long I have or how long my husband has. We don't know how long our parents and grandparents have. I want to have kids while my husband and I and the rest of our family are still here to enjoy them, watch them grow and be a part of their lives. That's really important to me. Yes, I feel like a failure because I can't do the one thing that a woman is supposed to be able to do. Yes, I feel like a failure because I can't give my husband a child of his own. There is so much more to it than that though. Most of all I feel like a failure because I remember my brother when I was pregnant. I remember him talking about all of the things he was going to do with my child, all the things he was going to buy and all the things he was going to teach my child. I remember talking to my sister in law and her telling me all the reasons why she was going to be my child's favorite. I remember what my parents were like when I was pregnant and how much certain people in my family looked at my baby as a whole new reason to be a better person. I remember how excited my mother in law was when I was pregnant. My mother in law passed away before my last miscarriage. She will never know her grandchildren or be a part of their lives. So yes, I feel like I am letting myself, my husband and my marriage down, but more than that I feel like I am letting my entire family down. My brother has no other siblings. The wonderful girl that he is engaged to has siblings that could make him an uncle some day, but that will be a different bond. I think my heart breaks for him most of all.

Silver Lining?

It looks like I finally have some good news to report. We signed papers on the house today. The only thing we are waiting for now is the appraisal and they have to inspect for the insurance. Once that is done we can close and it will be ours! :) Right now it is just a waiting game, but we are hoping that everything will be ready to go when the hubby gets home from his next hitch at the end of the month. I will be so glad when all of this is done and over with and I don't have to worry about whether or not I will have a place to stay or a place for my animals. This has been the most stressful thing we have had to deal with and there have been a few people that made it more stressful than it needed to be. 

I also went to the doctor today. He is the only OB around here that I trust and that I feel really wants to help. We discussed my situation in detail and he gave me a referral to a reproductive endocrinologist. It's been almost five years, so it's past time to see a specialist. I really hope that they can finally pinpoint what is wrong with me and fix it or tell me that it will never happen. This waiting in the middle and not knowing if it will ever happen or if it is even possible is something I just can't do anymore. I got a copy of my medical records while I was there and found out that I have had more tests done than I thought. So that will help with the list of tests I have to have done if we do the IVF trial. The Cystic Fibrosis test alone was going to run about $1,500. Lucky for me, I have already had it done. Right now I am still trying to decide if I want to go ahead with the trial or not. Since we don't know why I've miscarried both times I have been pregnant, I am really afraid to go ahead and do the trial. I'm afraid if it works and I get pregnant, that I will just miscarry again. Then I am out all the money I paid in travel expenses and medications for nothing. I kind of really want to see this specialist and get an idea of what is going on with my infertility and miscarriages before I risk that. The problem is, I can't wait until then to do the trial. The trial is kind of a now or never thing. Although, talking with my doctor today, he thinks that in vitro might be my best bet. So I don't really know what to do and I only have a week, maybe a week and a half, to decide. Of course, when I talk to my hubby about it, he tells me to do whatever I think is best. Hmmmm....but I don't know which is best. :\ 

I have been using the Pregnitude and the TTC Kit, but I haven't noticed any changes in my cycles or symptoms. This is only cycle day 8 though, so maybe it is still too early to tell anything. I am still using the Fertile-Focus Microscope and the Ovacue Monitor, but neither has given any indication of getting close to ovulation yet. I will keep you updated with any new information that comes up with all of that. My appointment with the reproductive endocrinologist is March 27 and I will be sure to let you guys know what they tell me and what kind of options they give me. As soon as I decide whether or not to do the trial, I will update with that information too. 

Now it's off to spend time with my hubby. I only have him for one more week before he leaves back to Ohio for two weeks. Baby Dust!

Impatient

It seems as though my supplements are working, so far anyway. I thought I ovulated not long after starting my supplements and I predicted that I should start on this past Friday. My ovulation is painful enough that I don't actually need my monitor to tell me when it happens. The only thing my monitor is for is to tell me the fertile days up to ovulation and for the most part it has always been right on. I started spotting on Friday and then I actually started early Saturday morning, so I think the supplements are actually doing their job. I was pretty skeptical at first, but not so much anymore. I guess we will see how this cycle goes and whether or not it is a "normal" one. In my book a "normal" cycle is one that doesn't go over 35 days, is at least 28 days, has a luteal phase of at least 12 days and at most 14, and of course I have to ovulate. I consider this past cycle regulating itself a small victory and if this next cycle stays on track then I may allow myself to once more think there may be hope in getting pregnant again after all. In five days it will be exactly one year since I lost my second baby and I haven't been able to get pregnant since then.

Hopefully these supplements work, but if they don't I have a whole list of other things to fall back on. I have a list of tests I want to done, medications I would like to try, I want to try IUI again and I would like to see a new reproductive endocrinologist. I have come across a few other conditions that I could possibly have, especially since none of the doctors I went to actually ran any tests to rule out other causes before saying I have PCOS. There is one condition called Non Classical Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia that I would really like to be checked for. This condition is genetic, so there is no curing it (PCOS isn't curable either). However, treatment is low dose glucocorticosteriods. Treatment can give back full reproductive capabilities and lower miscarriage rates. This condition mimics PCOS almost exactly, but anxiety and depression are also markers for this condition. I was diagnosed with panic/anxiety attacks years ago and battle with depression on and off. A simple blood test can determine if you have NCCAH and newborns can be screened for it so you know first thing if it was passed on. It's not life threatening and you do not need life long treatment. If you have been diagnosed with PCOS or think you have PCOS and the PCOS treatment isn't working, then you may want to get checked for this condition because PCOS treatment won't help it. Some people have both conditions and need treatment for both in order to conceive.

There are so many different directions I could go with my treatment from here and it is extremely hard to pick just one and stick with it long enough to give it time to work. I want to get pregnant NOW and I can feel I am running out of time. There are so many tests to possibly have done, procedures to try and medications that may work and I feel like I am going to run out of time before I find the miracle one that works. I know that any treatment takes at least three months to reach full potential and longer than that for most results, but it's so hard to not want to try something else every cycle. I know I have to give the supplements I'm doing now until the end of December at least to see if they are working, but I already want to try something else. I have lost all patience when it comes to getting pregnant. I hope those of you reading this and ttc have more patience and more luck than I do. Baby Dust...

Angel Babies

I guess most of you know that October is Cancer Awareness Month, but did you know that it is also Pregnancy, Infant and Child Loss Awareness Month? Those of us that have angel babies will use this month to honor and remember our lost children. For those of you that have never lost a child or pregnancy, I would be willing to bet that you know someone that has, even if they never told you about it. In our society today, miscarriage and child loss is still a very taboo subject. It is not to be talked about or brought up in conversation. If we can't talk about it, then how are we ever going to cope with it? Please, anyone that is reading this, do something to show your support for the ones around you that have suffered loss. The ones that it will matter to will notice, I can promise you that. It may even make them feel like they can open up to you and share their story. I had no idea how surrounded I was by people that had gone through similar experiences as myself, not until I decided to open up about my own story. People like me are everywhere, whether you believe it or not. There are probably even some in your own family, a family secret that has been locked away. People like to think that if you don't talk about something then it isn't true or it's not real. The truth is, when you are dealing with something like this, it makes it that much harder. It makes us feel like nobody cares that our child died. We feel alone, like we are now outcasts of society. We feel like there is something wrong with us. People often think they are doing us a favor by not talking to us about it, but that only makes us feel more isolated. We WANT to remember them and talk about them. We WANT to know that other people remember and most of all, that other people care about our loss. When something like this happens you need a support system. You need people there beside of you, holding your hand and helping you cope. It's just too much to try to handle by yourself. October 15 is the day that most of us celebrate with some kind of act to remember and honor our angel babies. Do us all  favor and help us in remembering and honoring our lost angels on that day. To those that have suffered loss, it will mean more than you could ever know. 

I have personally been having a hard time lately. It seems the more time that passes, the more I think of the two babies I lost. I wonder what they would have looked like, what kind of personality they would have had and if they would have been boys, girls or one of each. I never got to hold them, but I miss them more than I could ever put into words. In 9 more days it will be a year exactly that I lost the second one, he/she should have been almost a year and a half old right now. My first one should have been almost three now. I know deep down in my soul that I will never have children, I just wish that I could make my heart come to terms with it. Then I could stop thinking about it, worrying about it, researching it and trying every possible treatment that I can come up with. I just wish the doctors would tell me that I will never be able to get pregnant again. I think hearing it that way would put my mind to rest, but instead they keep telling me I should be able to get pregnant and carry to term. Then why haven't I?? I have so much anger, bitterness and hurt stored up inside me and I don't know what to do with it anymore. 

Anyone that has been following my blog knows that I dreamed of my mother in law (who passed away) and losing my baby before it actually happened. Now here it is almost exactly a year later and I dreamed of her again. I can't for the life of me figure out why and to tell the truth it is a little bit creepy. I also can't remember what the dream was. I know I was sitting at a table outside and it was apparent that she had been gone a long time. Everyone else at the table was taking turns getting up and hugging her. Eventually I was the only one left and I sat there looking at her, not knowing if I should get up or not. Then she looked at me and told me to come over. I stood up and slowly walked over to where she was standing and she hugged me. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and instantly I felt a huge relief. I don't know why. I don't know why she was there, who the people were or what we were doing and I can't remember what happened after that. All I remember is this huge feeling of being okay. Anyone that knows me will know why this is so weird for me, but I'm not going to go into detail about it here. 

I know women with PCOS and endometriosis can get pregnant and carry to term, it happens all the time. Especially women with these conditions that eat better and take the medication, but none of that has helped me. Obviously they are missing something. I don't know what, but I know there is something. I just wish they would figure it out and give me a definitive diagnosis and outcome. I want so bad to go to Johns Hopkins and see the fertility specialists there that I can hardly stand it. Our insurance isn't as good as it was though and it would be costly, not to mention gas money and a place to stay. The way that the hubby works would make it extremely hard for when both of us need to be present at a visit. I guess I am just at the point where all I can see there is left to do is throw my hands up in defeat. I don't know what to do, where to go or if there even is anything else I can do. Money makes the world go around and when you need help to have a baby that statement is as true as ever. I wish I had $30,000 just lying around to try in-vitro or adopt, but I don't and never will. It's time to slowly start giving up I think.

~If you would like some ideas on what to do on October 15 to show your support you can google Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness or go to www.october15.com and see the ideas they have there.~

*Don't forget to share this blog with the share button at the top of the page, so that it may reach others that need support. Also check out the facebook page, there is a button for that too. Lastly, subscribe so that you never miss an update. Baby Dust!*

What Now?

My little black cloud has struck again. The hubby's truck still isn't fixed, it needs a new transmission, and my truck now has something wrong with it and needs new exhaust. We woke up this morning to it pouring the rain and a lake in our bathroom floor. Apparently the roof of the camper we spent $12,000 on is now leaking. I still haven't gotten my positive test and should start on Friday, hopefully the supplements do their job and my cycle at least regulates. Also, after being in Pennsylvania for three days, we had to drive four and a half hours back to West Virginia because Torrey's job transferred him to a different rig. He had three hours of sleep before we had to drive down here and then he had to go straight to work and work a 16 hour shift. He has worked 16 hour shifts since we got here and is only getting about three hours of sleep. I feel horrible for him. As of right now, I just want to crawl under the covers of my bed and stay there. I don't want to go anywhere, do anything or talk to anyone. I feel like the whole world is conspiring against me and I'm destined to always be miserable. The bad just won't stop coming. I'm just so tired and so ready to give up, on everything. 

One good thing I can think of in all the bad is that we are now only two and a half to three hours from home instead of seven. We are now close enough that people can come visit on the weekend, plus it saves a ton of gas money. Mom and dad came up and visited this past weekend and are coming back up this coming weekend so that we can go to the haunted asylum here in Weston. We are actually set up in a mobile home park that also takes campers. It is a much nicer place than where we were in Pennsylvania. The campground up there was a little scary and had some pretty shady people staying there. The place we are now is very nice, pretty and quiet. I feel much safer here, even when I'm here all night alone. There are also a few stores and fast food places right up the road, instead of 20-30 minutes away. Who knows, maybe we will move our house search to this area.

I am still taking my supplements, although it's been hard to keep up with since my sleeping schedule keeps changing with the way the hubby has been working this time. Everything seems to be going well, but the test will be whether or not I start on Friday like I should. I will do my last dose of progesterone cream Thursday night. I will consider it a small victory in my infertility journey if this works and maybe even begin to let myself hope that I may actually get pregnant and stay pregnant. My boobs are still sore, and even though it is frustrating, I'm not complaining. They are also fuller than they were before, not bigger, but fuller. I had only let myself hope a little that they may do that. A lot of the supplements I am taking are also the ingredients that are in several over the counter breast enhancement pills. I think it may have something to do with the hormone balances. People like me have too much male hormone, so when this is lowered it may allow the breasts to develop a little more. At least that is my theory anyway. The hubby even noticed that they feel firmer. 

I have decided that I will give my supplements until May and if I don't get pregnant then I will go back to the doctor. Although, if my cycles don't regulate in two more months I will go ahead and go. I don't want to put it off longer than I have to because my cycles are getting longer and longer and I'm ovulating so much less frequently. My last cycle was 64 days long and I'm currently on day 51 of this cycle (a normal cycle is 28-35 days long). So my odds of getting pregnant are decreasing dramatically, especially when you consider that my odds are already low even when I have normal cycles.

I just feel so overwhelmed with everything and I have no idea what to do. I don't even have the willpower at the moment to sit and think about it and try to figure out what I should be doing. I'm slowly losing my grip on hope and I'm losing what fight I had left in me. So, I am going to go check that my towel is still holding back the lake in my bathroom and then I am going to go back to bed. Hope everyone else has a wonderful day.

To all of you out there that are struggling with infertility, PCOS, miscarriage, endometriosis, etc. - Always remember that you are not alone. I know that it feels like you are, trust me I know, but you're really not. I know that many of you don't want to talk about it and I completely understand that too. However, sometimes talking about it with other people that know exactly what you are going through, or just knowing that there are others like you, can help more than you would ever think it would. So "like" the Facebook page and know that you are not alone. You don't have post anything or say anything, sometimes just being able to go there and know that everything you feel is normal and that others feel the same way can help a lot.

*Don't forget to check out the Facebook page. There is a link at the top of this page. Also, subscribe to this blog so you don't miss an update. Baby Dust...*

Heartache: Part 2

We waited a few months to really start trying again after Torrence, although we weren't preventing either. I finally got pregnant again in the Fall of 2011, but I didn't want to let myself get too excited about it. As soon as I found out I called the OB I had gone to the first time, but requested to be seen by a different doctor. I went in for my first appointment and made clear that I wanted this pregnancy followed very closely so that there were no situations like the first time. I had to go for an HCG blood test every two days until my levels were at a point that they decided any further testing would be irrelevant. 

They scheduled me for an ultrasound as soon as my levels indicated I should be far enough along for something to be seen. The last time I had been in that building was when I lost my first baby, so going in there now made me more than a little uncomfortable. To tell the truth, I was terrified of what the ultrasound would show. I vowed to myself that I wouldn't look at the screen until I knew everything was okay. Just like the first time I was there, I went in, undressed and laid down on the table. I had my husband and my mother with me this time, only my husband was with me the first time. When the tech came in, I took a deep breath and turned my head towards my husband. I waited as she got the image on the screen. She told me that I was measuring at five weeks and then I heard this amazing sound, my baby's heartbeat. It was music to my ears and it meant that everything was okay. I let my guard down for a split second and a single, lonely tear slid down my cheek. Before we left, the tech printed a picture of my little baby (which I still have) and I looked at it every chance I got. I bought a doppler off the internet and I sat and listened to my baby's heart all day long. At times it was hard to find and little butterflies would tickle my stomach as I panicked, but then I'd find it and all was well. 

I had allowed myself to do what I had promised myself I wouldn't do. I told myself I wouldn't get excited, I wouldn't get my hopes up and I wouldn't allow myself to believe that I would carry this baby to term, but I slipped. Then, just like I knew it would, things went down hill. I noticed one day that I was cramping. They weren't particularly painful and cramps should be normal to some extent, but I knew this was different (mother's intuition again?). The night before I had a dream, more of a premonition I guess. I have no idea where I was in my dream. All I know is that it was a huge building. Think of the college dorms for every college in the country put together into one building and that's how big it was. There were people everywhere, thousands of them. They were standing in doorways, coming out of rooms, chatting in hallways, swimming in an enormous swimming pool, etc. Around this building was nothing but a sea of the greenest grass you have ever seen and some huge trees in various places. I was on the third floor of this building and seemed to know exactly where I was going. I walked down the stairs, across a courtyard and into a hallway that ran through the building from the outside. When I got to the first door on my left, I seemed to hesitate for a second before I opened the door. There was a small walkway and then it opened up to a huge room filled with chairs, like a waiting room. There room was empty, except for one woman holding two tiny babies, one in each arm. The woman was my mother in law, who had died four months before I had this dream. I stopped once I was standing in front of her and she looked up at me and smiled. Then she reached the two little babies towards me and said "You've never gotten to hold them have you?". The two babies were mine, my little angel babies, even though I was still pregnant with one of them. When I woke up I had a cold sweat, I was crying and I was shaken to my core. 

So, the morning after I noticed the cramps I was woken up by severe pain in my lower stomach. For the rest of the day I did nothing but lay in the bed, the ONLY time I got up was to go to the bathroom. That night I noticed some spotting and I decided that I was going to the emergency room. I called my husband and told him that when he got home I needed him to take me and then I called over and told my mom. When my husband got home at about 3:30am, the three of us loaded up and drove the hour it takes to get to the hospital. After waiting for what felt like forever, the doctor came in and told me that they would do a vaginal ultrasound. He did not even try to hide the fact that he thought I was wasting his time and that there was nothing wrong with me. He told me the cramping and spotting was normal. Eventually the ultrasound tech came and took me back to the tiny room they did the ultrasounds in. I think I was literally holding my breath as I was waiting for her to get everything ready, not only because I was so nervous, but also because it hurt like hell. She pulled the image up, punched a few buttons and there it was. A mother can't mistake that sound. My little baby's heartbeat was there and completely normal, but I still knew something was wrong. The tech did a bunch of measurements, told me everything looked fine and then pulled the probe out. She didn't even seem the least bit concerned that it was absolutely covered in blood and never even mentioned it. Once I got back to my bed, I happened to overhear the doctor I spoke to before and he was on the phone. He was talking to one of the doctors from the OB I was going to, more specifically, he was talking to their so-called "fertility specialist" that I had had seen in 2010. The on call ER doctor told him that he thought my problems were in my head and that I was worried for nothing, just because the baby's heartbeat was okay. Nobody cared or even tried to figure out why I was bleeding so bad. My discharge instructions were just to rest and take it easy until the bleeding stopped and go to my next scheduled appointment at the OB. I was furious and I most certainly was NOT crazy. If I was crazy enough that I could manifest actual blood then something is wrong. 

When I got back home I put myself on bed rest. I didn't get up for anything but the bathroom. Torrey left for work at 3:30pm and I tried to just sleep until he got home, but that wasn't happening. I started cramping so bad that I couldn't even hold still, I just rocked back and forth. Later that night I went to the bathroom and it was over. My baby was no more, flushed down the toilet like garbage. It made me sick to even think about it and I was furious all over again. I will never, ever, even if my life depends on it, go back to that OB or that hospital. Nobody ever showed any kind of concern, believed what I was telling them or even what their own eyes showed them. The only blessing was that this miscarriage wasn't as bad as the D&C was. My body for the most part returned back to a normal cycle pretty quickly, or what's halfway normal for my body anyway. 

I think because I had prepared myself to lose this pregnancy it wasn't as hard on me, if anything it made me even more determined. I still wasn't ready to go back to a fertility doctor, so I continued my charts and used my monitor. The first part of 2011 I thought I might be pregnant again. Actually, I'm pretty sure I was. I took two pregnancy tests about three days before my period was due and they were both positive. Not the kind of positive where you have to hold it a certain way up to the light to see it (don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about), but a real positive. However, five days later my period decided to show up. So, I'm thinking it was a chemical pregnancy. Not a whole lot has gone on between the chemical pregnancy and now. For the time being, it is kind of a waiting game. So far I have gotten pregnant every other year and if the pattern continues I won't get pregnant this year. I guess we'll see. I have decided to take more of a natural approach to my infertility though and see if that works, but I'll talk more about that tomorrow. Don't forget to check out my Facebook page. If you want to keep up with research and what is going on in the infertility world, plus information on infertility in general, then "like" the page. You can also connect with other people going through something similar and/or share your story. If you don't have a need for the page yourself, then please share it in case someone on your friends list might have a need for it. Most of us keep our infertility a secret, so you never know who may benefit from it. Thanks for reading and thanks for all the wonderful feedback I have gotten so far. Baby dust! <3

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Heartache: Part 1

I have been putting off writing this post all day. This one will involve something that I try hard not to think about too much and that hurts my heart terribly. Once the second IUI failed in getting me pregnant, I just couldn't make myself do anymore. I told myself that I was done, that I wasn't going to try anymore and I wasn't going to think about it anymore. I tried to convince myself that I was capable of going about my life and acting as if not getting pregnant was completely normal. But I can't. It's not possible. There is not one day that I don't think about it and the more I try not to, the more I do. With every period comes a new wave of hoping "maybe this month" and with every month that I don't have a period, there are boxes and boxes of pregnancy tests taken. I have even seriously contemplated getting a full hysterectomy so that maybe I can live my life normally and not have this hanging over me, but I just don't have it in me to deny myself of that little sliver of hope that I cling to. I use every ounce of self control I have to make myself not buy pregnancy tests, but I never last long. I always have this fear that maybe this time I am pregnant and if I don't make sure so that I can go to the doctor that I will miscarry again and it will be my fault. 

I did really well from the end of December 2010 through the first few months of 2011. I didn't test with my monitor and I didn't even track anything on my calendar. I used a few pregnancy tests, but not nearly as many as I had been. I think something in me had given up a little bit, and then March came. First, let me give you a little back story. When my husband and I first got together in the beginning of 2008 he was working on a drilling rig. His schedule was to work for two weeks and then have two weeks off. A couple of months after we started dating, I had moved in at his house and his job was transferred to Pennsylvania. Since I wasn't going to see him for two weeks at a time, I told him I wanted a puppy to keep me company. We were living at his parents house at the time, so we had to okay it with them. They said it was fine, but it had to be a Boxer or a Rottweiler. I chose a Boxer. We looked everywhere and finally found one in Kentucky. We drove just across the Kentucky border and met the people that had her. The puppy was a little older than we had originally planned on getting, but she was beautiful. She was white with a brown patch over her right eye and she had a crystal clear spot in her eye. I named her Torrence. Torrence was my child. She went everywhere I went, and I do mean everywhere. Spoiled doesn't even begin to cover the way she was treated. We never left her behind and if she couldn't go, neither did I. In the end of 2008 we moved in with my parents and they had a fenced in yard, so Torrence could run and play unhindered. Eventually, after watching one of the other dogs, she learned she could also jump the fence. We tried everything to keep her in. We even tied her to one of those old, heavy clothesline poles that was buried in the ground, but she just pulled it over and drug it around the yard.

Now back to March of 2010. We had finally decided that the next weekend we were going to buy that special wire fence that has the electronic collar that shocks and see if that would keep Torrence from going over the fence. The weekend was only a few days away and Torrence and I were in my bedroom eating. When I got up to go to the bathroom I forgot to shut my bedroom door. I noticed she wasn't there as soon as I walked back to my room and I ran to the front door, but I was too late. As I stuck my head out the door I heard a sickening smack. I instantly turned and ran back to my room, I knew what that noise was. I quickly put some shoes on and ran out the door, out the gate and down our little side road towards the main road. Once I got to the end of our road I saw a man walking towards me. He asked me if I knew anyone that owned a white dog (she had a collar on with tags), I told him she was mine as I kept running towards the top of the hill. When I got there she was lying on her side on the side of road and I knelt down beside her as the man kept talking. He told me that her and another dog (our other one that taught her to jump the fence) came out of nowhere chasing a cat and never slowed down when they reached the road. He was behind the car that hit her, the car that didn't even have the common decency to stop, and he stopped and carried her out of the road. When I first knelt down her eyes were open, but I didn't think she was breathing. I started to put my ear to her chest when she suddenly took a very wet sounding breath. I told the man to run back to my house and tell my dad to get my truck. While he was gone I just petted her and talked to her. She never even tried to move, just stared up at me. Dad came up with my truck, but my mom and brother also pulled in with the blazer. We decided the back of the blazer would be better and dad started to put her in. As he was setting her down, she started trying to squirm to stand up. I had to hold her down to keep her still. I laid there with her, talking to her, petting her and holding her tongue out the side of her mouth to help her breathe. I made sure to ask the man what side she was hit on before we left so I could make sure she was laying on the correct side. We were about twenty minutes from the vet's office when her breathing started getting more shallow and there were longer pauses in between. She let out one breath and I kept waiting for the next, after a few seconds I shook her and was willing her to breath with everything in me. She took two more after that and no more. I laid my hand on her chest and felt her last heartbeats under my palm, her eyes were still staring right at me. My brother drove us back home and I held her in my arms the whole way back. Once we got there they put her next door in the guest house. I called Torrey and told him what happened (he was working in the mines now) and then I sat over there in the kitchen floor holding her in my lap until he got home. I felt her once warm and vibrant body grow cold and heavy and I shut her eyes for the last time. I wrapped her up in a blanket when he got there and went back over to mom's. I just didn't have it in me to watch him bury my baby in the cold hard ground. I felt like I had just lost my two year old child. Torrence's death was harder on me and caused me more pain than my miscarriage ever did.

I think this was the first time I was ever terrified to be pregnant. I hadn't had a period in over a month and had been waiting to take a test when Torrence died. I felt like if I was pregnant that I had traded Torrence's life for the baby's life. I didn't want to be pregnant at that point and I was afraid how it would taint my view of the baby if I was (even though I knew it wouldn't have been the baby's fault). Luckily, it turned out I wasn't pregnant. I don't know why, but for some reason that night I felt a strong calling to read my Bible. I started doing Bible study every night when Torrey was at work and we started going to church again. I felt at ease for the first time in a long time. I like to think that Torrence was here for a reason and that reason was to lead me back to my faith. Not necessarily to my faith in God, but to my faith in myself and in my marriage. I've always fought with my faith in God, but it wasn't until my infertility problems that I lost faith in myself. I felt like I was broken, like I was less than a woman and like my time here on this Earth is pointless. I like to think that Torrence served her purpose when she died by giving that back to me. As involved as we eventually were in the church, the politics finally made me weary of it (which is always what happens). My faith in myself slips at times, but it's at those times that I think of her and I talk to her and I seem more at ease. I've always been told that God doesn't allow animals in heaven, well I don't know if I want to believe in a God like that because I know that Torrence is my angel. So it's definitely something I struggle with. Everyone tells me to relax and put my faith in God, well I did. I did that wholeheartedly and without question for a long time and all it did was give me more drama to deal with than I had in the first place. 

Just a few nights of sleeping without Torrence and not having her by my side made me come to the conclusion that I needed another dog. We looked for a few weeks and I was losing hope because I wanted a very specific dog. I wanted another Torrence, as close as I could get anyway. Then I found this picture of a little white puppy with a brown patch. The patch was on top of her head instead of over her eye, but I knew she was "the one". I didn't care how far away she was or how much she cost, I had to have her. We ended up not only getting her, but getting her brindle sister too and for free. So now I have three angels. Torrence to watch over me and Torren and Sydney to keep me company. The older Torren gets the more she looks like Torrence. Her personality is a little different of course, but she is a lot like her too. Sometimes I can look at her and almost forget she's not my Torrence. 

Get Back In The Saddle

Why? I think we can all agree that we say this one little word over and over again. This one little word that seems to hold so much power over us. It's as though the answer to this question is the magic key that will unlock the door to our infertility and let us conceive, but it's an illusion. Knowing why won't take away the longing for a child of our own, won't take away our heartache and won't give us that feeling of self worth back. No, we fool ourselves into thinking that the answer to "Why?" could change everything. Maybe we just need something to blame and knowing why would give us something to attach that blame to. We all have our theories, but I think mine may be a little different than everyone else's. I call it my Little Black Cloud. 

My Little Black Cloud is a very simple theory really. You hear people joke about having a black cloud over them because of all their bad luck, well that is essentially what I think. Of course I don't believe there is literally a black cloud that follows me everywhere that only I can see. However, I think it's there in spirit. For as far back as I can remember there has always been this feeling of never quite being able to be happy. Of course I have my moments, but they never seem to last and I enjoy them with my breath held waiting for the pin to drop. Bad things seem to be my life. Every good thing that happens to me is always closely followed by something bad and rarely do the bad things come one at a time. Some people would say God has chosen me to endure these things to encourage others, some would say that it's my fate or destiny. I just call it my Little Black Cloud. I can always feel it lurking in the shadows, kind of a twisted comfort because it's what I have come to know as normal. There is a song called "Black Cloud" by the group Crazy Town. Take a listen to it, it's kind of my theme song. 

A small demonstration of my Black Cloud is next. Once home from my D&C and feeling well enough to get out, physically anyway, I decided to go ride my horse. Riding is very freeing for me, it's just me and my horse. My life seems to stand still and nothing else matters, nothing is wrong. On this day though, things were different. I had gone through my pre-ride routine, got her into the riding ring to warm up and, after going around a few times, I noticed that she was being extra stubborn that day and seemed to have a bee sting on her side. While trying for the millionth time to bring her up from a walk to a trot, I apparently hit her bee sting. This caused her to start bucking and eventually I went flying over her head and landed with a nice thud directly in front of her. Being the good girl that she is, most of the time, she stopped dead in front of me and stood guard until Torrey got to me. The first thing I told him once he bent over me was that I thought my collar bone was broken. After managing to stand up it became very obvious that it was broken and looked as though it would pop through my skin. I made my way to the truck and fought with crawling inside while Torrey loaded Callisto up in the trailer. So here I was, just days after my miscarriage and I was headed to the hospital again with a broken collar bone. Yay me. The doctors wouldn't do anything for me and advised against surgery, saying that it usually did more harm than good. Now, three years later I look a little like a freak because my bones never grew back together and my bone still looks as though it's going to come out of my skin.

So I was getting back in the saddle figuratively and literally. When it came to trying to get pregnant again I was ready more than ever to get to work. My Cloud had other plans though. After the D&C I bled for six months straight. Finally I was fed up and called the OB I had gone to before, only because they were close and I didn't want to bleed to death. They told me they thought I had quit ovulating and made me an appointment with their fertility specialist, or so they called him. That appointment was the quickest and most disappointing of my life. He came in, did a literal two second exam, prescribed me Clomid and walked out. I had no idea what had just happened. I was hoping for blood tests, an ultrasound and all those other tests they use when diagnosing infertility and got none of it. Instead I got a cocky doctor that thought Clomid fixes everything and has no time for patients. 

I took the Clomid for the first month and used my fertility monitor, and nothing happened. The doctor upped my dosage of the Clomid and started me on another cycle. When nothing happened again the second month, he upped the dosage again. The same thing with the third month and by this time I was taking the maximum dosage he could prescribe me. Still, I wasn't ovulating. Frustrated beyond belief, I took a break while researching other doctors. A tip I got from a few people I know sent me a couple of hours away to another doctor. This one had really good stats when it came to treating infertility and had helped the people that told me about him get pregnant. 

I was ecstatic when I got to my first appointment with the new doctor and he did an ultrasound first thing, after going over my history. I had some blood work done, but not as extensively as I had hoped. Although, he did give me a diagnoses and that was amazing. I was diagnosed with PCOS, which of course isn't curable. It is treatable, but treatments don't always work (there is my Black Cloud again). I figured treatments were better than nothing and went into it with high hopes, I should have known better. PCOS comes with insulin resistance that isn't detectable in a regular glucose screening most of the time, so I was put on Metformin for insulin resistance. Since I had been on Clomid before and with no success, he prescribed Letrazole instead. He had to up the dosage once, but other than that it seemed to do it's job in making me ovulate. He always checked to make sure I was going to ovulate and that I had ovulated with an ultrasound. He did a semen analysis on my husband also. A laparoscopy was preformed as well as a few different procedures while he was in there. He made sure that my tubes were clear, checked for and removed some endometriosis and did ovarian drilling. Month after month I still wasn't getting pregnant and it was time to try something else. The next step was an IUI. (I'll explain all the medical lingo at the end of the post.) The doctor combined the Letrazole and Metormin with an HCG trigger shot so they could manipulate my ovulation and inject the sperm into my uterus at the optimum time. By the time two of these procedures failed, I was burned out again and an emotional wreck. 

That was the last time I used any kind of medical treatment for my infertility. I feel the medical world has failed me for now and it's time to explore other options. I do believe that if I don't get pregnant in time (I can't really say how long) that I will go back to the medical world and to a new doctor. There is more extensive testing and new procedures I would like to try and, if all else fails, I will turn to in-vitro as a last resort. In these first two posts we have traveled from August of 2008 to the end of 2010. Although this has been a very condensed version of what I have gone through, I'm sure more elaboration will come in time. For now, I just want you to have an idea of where I have been so that you can follow along with me on the rest of my journey. The comments, messages and kind words I have gotten from the first post are very appreciated and make reliving all this worth it. I think one more post should catch us up to where I am present day, and I think that one will be one of the hardest for me to write. If you have any questions, let me know and I'll do my best to answer them. Please "like" my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/GotAnyKids to get in touch with others that have infertility, keep up with what is going on in the infertility world and raise awareness about infertility. September is PCOS awareness month, so please reach out and let others know about this disease. Someone that has it and doesn't think anything of it might just need to be told how serious it is so they will get treatment or someone that doesn't know they have it may go see a doctor. Thanks for reading.

This section is for information:
Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) is a hormonal imbalance in women. Usually causing too much estrogen, too little progesterone and too much androgen (male hormone). 1 in 10 women have it. Even though it is called Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, it does not always present with polycystic ovaries (I don't have polycystic ovaries). Very little is known about this disease at this time. Some symptoms are: 
*No Period
*Irregular Period
*Excess Body Hair
*Small Breasts
*Thinning Hair
*Deeper Voice
*Acne
*Dark Skin Markings
*Swollen Ovaries
*Polycystic Ovaries
*Diabetes
*High Blood Pressure
*High Cholesterol
*Obesity
Most people that have PCOS and get treatment are able to get pregnant and carry a child. There are increased risks of infertility, endometrial cancer and breast cancer for those that have PCOS. If you have any of the symptoms for PCOS, PLEASE get checked. It can cause other slightly worse complications if left untreated. 

Endometriosis is when cells of the uterine lining grow in places they are not supposed to be. It can cause pain, irregular bleeding and infertility. 
Symptoms:
*Pain during and/or after intercourse
*Painful periods
*Pain in the lower abdomen before or during your period
*Cramps for 1-2 weeks before and during your period
*Pain with bowel movements
*Lower back pain at any point in the menstrual cycle
*Cysts
Symptoms can be mild to severe or nonexistent. There is no cure, but can be treated to a certain extent.

Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) is when an ultrasound and usually medication is used to pinpoint ovulation. The woman then goes to the doctor where sperm that has been inspected, separated and washed is placed into the uterus via a catheter. The male must be there to provide a fresh sperm sample unless donor sperm or frozen sperm is used.

Allow Me To Introduce Myself

"Got any kids?" It took a long time before I was able to let this question roll off my back, though I still cringe every time I hear it. Now I try to simply plaster a smile on my face and reply with "No, not yet", all the while trying not to roll my eyes or let out an exasperated sigh. I have the feeling it's the same for most people in my position. As long as that is as far as the question goes it is innocent enough. However, when you get the people that press further and want to know what you are waiting for it gets a little trickier. At that point you get to decide whether or not to lie, give a half truth or go into the full blown story as to why everyone but you seems to be popping out babies. I usually opt for the blunt "I can't have kids" response. It seems to do the job in keeping more unwanted questions from being asked and I'm just left with the pitying sideways glances and an "I'm so sorry". 

My name is Callie and I am 26 years young. I married the love of my life, Torrey (24), on May 02, 2009. I am an animal fanatic and usually have more than I can count. The ones that never change are my two boxers (Torren and Sydney), my calico cat (Brownie) and my Quarter Horse (Calisto). I live in a small coal mining town in Southern West Virginia, however my husband was recently laid off from the mines and went back to a job in Pennsylvania on a drilling rig. My time is halved between my camper in PA and my home in WV. I have an amazing family and the best friends, but they don't always understand what it is like to be in my shoes and can often make me feel worse than I already do (my husband included), even though I know they don't mean to. This first entry will be the start to a long journey. I don't know how long it will take to catch up to present day, but I guess we'll see.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I have infertility. Unexplained infertility to be exact, for the most part anyway. In August of 2008 my husband and I were busy planning our wedding and we decided to go ahead and start trying for a family of our own. I had expected there would be some difficulty given that I would need time for the birth control pills to leave my system and I had had irregular periods before. Not to mention endometriosis runs in the family and, with my extremely painful cramps, it was a good bet I had it too. I had also had a scare with HPV and high risk pre-cancerous cells a few years before. 

Once I went off the pills we started trying with all the vigor of most soon to be newlyweds, but as the months passed and nothing happened I began to wonder. When I say "nothing happened", for the most part I really mean "nothing happened". I would go months with no period at all, although for some odd reason my debilitating cramps never came back once the pills were gone. I charted religiously and bought a fertility monitor. Finally, a month after the wedding (June 2009), and ten months since we started trying, I noticed that my boobs were extremely painful and I hadn't had my period (again). I decided to go ahead and take a pregnancy test and was awestruck as it showed TWO pink lines. I made a doctor's appointment, bought all the books, picked names, started looking at things we wanted to buy, and it was all for nothing. I went into the doctor's appointment at nine weeks. They told me everything was perfectly fine, except I had a tilted uterus and they couldn't hear the heartbeat on the doppler. According to them that was completely normal, even though I only weighed 108 and everything I read said that we should have been able to hear it. I went home and went about my life as if nothing was wrong, even though I felt it. I don't know how or why, but I knew something wasn't right. Mother's intuition maybe? 

My next appointment I was between twelve and thirteen weeks. Once again there was no pitter patter of a heartbeat on the doppler, except for my racing one, and I still looked like I did before I got pregnant. The resident that was trying to find the heartbeat worked for about ten minutes before she finally went and got the doctor. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that isn't a good sign. The doctor searched for about five minutes and sent me next door to have an ultrasound done, the paper he gave me to take them said "threatened abortion". I'll never forget seeing those awful words glaring back at me. 

When I finally got into a room I undressed, laid down on the table, put my feet in the stirrups and took a deep breath. Once the tech had the image on the screen she just sat there for what seemed like an eternity, tapping buttons and rolling the little ball on the control panel before she too went and got her supervising doctor. Then he said it. "This fetus isn't viable." Talk about bedside manner. He then went on to tell me he was sorry and printed out an ultrasound picture before he walked out of the room, but there was one other very important piece of information he gave me. My baby was only measuring at nine weeks. My baby was already dead at that first doctor appointment (I was closer to ten weeks at that appointment) and I carried it for another month because the first doctor didn't send me for an ultrasound. I was cold and numb, physically and emotionally. I got dressed and walked back to the truck with Torrey. They scheduled me for a D&C and I went across the street to the hospital. Family was called and given the news and a few people came to the hospital with us. 

While waiting for anesthesia, I had several nurses and the doctor herself come tell me their miscarriage stories. Even though I am very grateful for them sharing their stories now, at that particular time it did nothing to help me or ease my pain. It just made me cry that much more. I was told not to worry, that just because it happened this time doesn't mean it will ever happen again and that I would be more fertile afterwards. Boy would I blow both of those theories out of the water. Once I was home I was also confided in by a few family members and several friends that had miscarriages I had never known about. Though it was very enlightening and encouraging to know how often it actually happened and that they went on to have healthy babies, I still felt as though I was all alone in this experience (and still do).

Mostly I was just devastated. That was my child. Anyone that has a child, think what it would be like to lose that child and then add onto that never being able to hold it. That's what it's like. It may not be a baby to some, but to me it was every bit a baby as one out of the womb. On the ultrasound it looked just like a baby, just smaller. As far as I am concerned, I am a mother. My babies are a little different because they are angel babies. There was another emotion hiding just below my heartache too. I was mad, I was straight up pissed off. The only thing I could keep thinking was that it wasn't fair, why didn't the first doctor catch it and why all these other people can get pregnant and I can't. People that don't want kids get pregnant, twelve year old girls get pregnant, crack heads, alcoholics and every type of person in between can get pregnant. Why can't I?