Muddling Through

It's been a few weeks since my last post....end of June/beginning of July is pretty busy in our family! We went out of town for the holiday and had some birthday celebrations in between.

Just a small update. We've figured out some of the financial problems from the previous post, and have a plan of action...now we're just trying to implement it. Having to wait on some documents from the bank to send to our builder so we can get reimbursed for half of the taxes that they were supposed to pay for last year, and once we get that (it's been said they have a quick turnaround....let's hope it's true), then we can work on the rest.

That said...we've taken this month off in regards to the scientifically-enhanced baby-making processes. Don't get me wrong...we're still trying! :) Just took a pass on going through the specialist and all the appointments and sonograms and meds for this month, until we can get the finances worked out. We might skip next month too, depending on if we get the budget worked out.

But, we're trying to make it a priority to keep on track. We don't want to put it off until later, because of my age. I'm 36 1/2 already, so the more time we let go by, the more risk factors we encounter. I can see where he's coming from, but I guess I'm also a little bit in denial about it. It's a little hard to explain. I'll get into all of that more in a later post. So, anyway...point being....we don't want to put things off for a year. So, we're going to do what we can to make it happen.

So, I've tried to temp and check my body stats more thoroughly this month, but so far the charting still says I'm not fertile yet, but I also skipped while we were out of town, and last weekend...so hopefully I didn't miss it! ;) I don't think I did....things are looking pretty good as I interpret them right now, so I'm going to keep charting, and keep seducing, and we'll see what happens!

The Other Shoe Is Dropping

The first shoe is obviously the fact that we are having to go through this whole process to get another baby in the first place. Kind of like our adoption plans falling through, I think we were both kind of wondering when something would go wrong with this process.

In the course of about 18 hours, from last night to this afternoon, 3 separate and completely unrelated financial whammies have occurred, which will at the very least, postpone our plans a few months, and maybe permenantly...unless we win the lottery (which I must keep reminding myself that I have to actually buy a ticket for that to happen!) or have a rich unknown relative pass on and leave us a fortune (not likely).

We're still reviewing things to see what we can do. We do believe there are some errors in some cases that will be in our favor when corrected, but it's not enough. We were going to be scraping the bottom of the barrel for the extra $1000-$1500 we'd need each month for the treatments/appointments/drugs, and I'm 99% sure that's not going to be possible in the next few months.

I'm going to wait another week before calling Dr Pinto to let him know things are on hold.

Dr. Pinto

Today was our first appointment with the Reproductive Specialist. It was a very informative appointment. We first met with Dr Pinto in his office. He went over our history and discussed the basics of fertility and fertility issues. He did some really cute hand drawings (upside down, no less!) showing us the progression of egg loss as women get older, and how the brain and ovaries work together (or not) and what effects PCOS can have on the ovulation process.

Side Bar

Did you know that when a female baby is in utero at about 16 weeks, she has about 6-8 million eggs! By the time the baby is born, she's down to about 1-2 million. By puberty, 350,000. From that point, we lose, for various reasons, about 3-11 eggs per month! And this greatly increases the older we get, along with diminished quality. Wow! That was eye-opening information for sure!

Okay, back to the post

Dr. Pinto then went over how he likes to start the process. First he wants to determine an approximation of my egg quality and quantity. This is done most easily by blood tests on specific cycle days, to check the FH and estrogen levels in my blood. Until that is determined, he doesn't really want to discuss possible treatments/procedures. He's definitely the type that will tell it to us straight and not waste our time. He'll go over all the results and give us a reasonable expectation on what he thinks our chances are. After the initial tests, if everything looks good, then Kevin will have his 'boys' tested and we'll decide on a plan of action!

He also wants to do a Clomid Challenge Test to see how my ovaries respond. I'm not worried about this, since I've used Clomid in the past; but just hearing him call it that conjures up images of games shows and booming voices! LOL!

Next, he did a sonogram and he didn't see anything that concerned him. He's confused as to why Dr Lopez's office is telling me I have a polyp on my ovary. He agrees with what I found online....polyps don't happen there, cysts do. So, he's not sure what they saw, and he hasn't received their records yet. He thinks it might have been ovulation-related because their sonogram was done on Day 15 (how cool would it be to see an egg as it's ovulating!!!). He said there were signs of possibly PCOS symptoms on my left ovary - about 7-8 follicle masses that weren't released, but nothing serious or harmful (maybe this is why the ovary felt enlarged to Dr Lopez?!?!) He had mentioned possibly doing a hysteroscopy to check out the condition of my uterus, too, but during the sonogram, he said he didn't see any fibrous tissues or anything else, so he's not going to do that yet.

He gave me orders for getting my blood drawn on cycle day 2 or 3 for checking the FSH and estrogen levels, and prescriptions for Clomid and Provera (to take in case I don't start my period on my own soon....I'm due anytime, but with the last few cycles being so whacked out....who knows). He said to do a home pregnancy test on Wednesday if still no sign of a period, and then call them, but more than likely he'd have me start the Provera then.

All in all, I really like him. He seems attentive, told us he'd give us his cell phone number in case we ever had any questions (didn't seem to get it though! Need to ask at next appt!). And he has 3 offices that are all fairly convenient to work (within 20 mins at least). So, we'll see what happens! I'm going to go ahead and start temping and charting again, too....couldn't hurt!

New Beginnings

I originally created this blog about a year ago with the intentions of blogging our family's journey towards adopting a child from China. A few days later, we found out that dream would not be happening, for many reasons. I'll explain that more in a future post, but for now, I'm going to begin with the new direction our lives are taking us.

A little background, before we had Lily, Kevin and I experienced infertility issues.  We took the drugs, did the injections and even tried one round of IUI (intrauterine insemination) with no success.  After being referred to an RE in 2001, we did one visit, had one additional test (a hysterosalpingogram - HSG dye test to determine if there are any blockages in the uterus or tubes), and took a break.  Shortly after, we moved back to OK for a year, then moved to AZ in 2002, a few months after Kevin had gastric bypass surgery.  All this time, we were not using any birth control, my cycles continued to be out of control (frequently 60-90 days long) and we weren't even thinking about trying to get pregnant.  Then, at some time in late March or early April 2003, the miracle happened and we conceived Lily.  Why God chose this time to bless us, we will never know, but our lives have never been the same since!

Since having Lily, my cycles have been fairly normal (28-30 days).  Other than the mini-pill taken while I was nursing, we have not used any contraception, other than natural planning (avoiding certain times of the month when we expected to be ovulating) and even then, not really 'planning' to avoid pregnancy, just not really trying.  Over the past year, though, we've gone more from avoiding that time to focusing on that time.  We told ourselves we weren't really trying, but that if it happened, great.  I think this was our way of protecting ourselves in case it didn't happen on it's own again.

Now, enough time has gone by that we're ready to admit that we want another child.  Lily is 4 1/2, and she's beginning to ask about having a baby brother or sister (well, usually a sister).   It was time to admit that we were finally 'trying' all along. I'd been procrastinating and hadn't had my 'yearly' checkup in well over 2 years; also, after 4 years of normal periods, my body finally decided to go out of whack and screw with me, giving me a 35 day cycle in Jan, then Feb/Mar was about 56 days!  So, I finally went for my 'yearly' checkup yesterday.

After reviewing my history and the fact that I am now 36 and have tried fertility treatments in the past with no success, my new OB/GYN Dr. Lopez didn't want to waste any time.  She immediately referred me to a reproductive specialist to get us started on this roller coaster again.  She also indicated that my left ovary felt slightly enlarged and she wanted to do a sonogram to determine if there were any issues that could be causing my irregular cycles (cysts, fibrous tissues, etc...).  I go next Thurs for that. 

So, it looks like I will now be using this blog to post about our experiences with infertility, visits with the specialist, our thoughts and emotions as we go through this process, again.  The first time was extremely difficult; I think partly because we felt so much more pressure then to try and make it happen, both for ourselves and for each other and our families.  And we didn't communicate with each other very well about it all.  But this time around, we're older and more mature (hopefully), we have a stronger relationship, and we know what we're heading into.  And, most importantly, we already have Lily, and it's hard to expect another miracle to happen when we were blessed with such perfection the first time around.