Friday, October 31, 2008

Trick or Treat

The last couple of days, my temp has been crazy high. Like 99.8 high. Basal. So I've been thinking that I either have a triphasic basal temp chart ....or lymphoma. I kind of feel equally convinced of either. I woke up this morning and temp'd. 99.9. Hmm. Woke up ...got in the shower and immediately started gagging. Which made me soooo incredibly happy. But then I thought ...well. I guess that could be a lymphoma thing too.

I went to work at the second job today ..and felt sooo blessed. Because I only had 8 patients scheduled instead of the normal 27 - and they had blocked my schedule to get me out early to get ready for Halloween. Very nice treat that I wasn't even close to expecting! All day at work I had sort of a low crampy/cervical pain type thing going on and what I was sure was going to be AF showing up. So. That sucked pretty much all day. Clearly lymphoma or something else to give me a long lasting low grade fever.

I came home to a very excited teenager that was dressing up like a gothic girl. Complete with spray painted black hair, black nails, black lipstick, and about 25 fake piercings in her nose, lips, ears, eyebrows, etc. I helped her get started and decided to POAS. Just as the test started running, she knocked on the door to ask for help. So ..I threw the test in a drawer and started helping her with her hair and make-up ..thinking how grateful I was that this is a costume for her and not her life. So not her life that she thinks it's an outrageous costume, even. I laughed to myself at how goofy it is to be getting a teenager ready for Halloween at the same time I'm eagerly testing for pregnancy. She ran out to get her skeleton tights ...and I opened the drawer.

Apparently? I only need to call a reproductive endocrinologist to get knocked up. Well ...theres the clomid and OPKs and the crazy amounts of sex that happened, but I'm still convinced it was the call that did it. I might call him (the RE) and pay him the $14,000 anyway.

Positive. 10 days post ovulation. Really, really positive. Don't have to squint to see it positive. I was so immediately shocked and giddy that I slammed the door back shut when she walked in and couldn't stop laughing. She, of course, thinks I'm crazy. And she's mostly right.

But today? Today I am happy. Really honest to God happy. I'm not going to think about the babies that we have lost. I'm not going to think about the ones that haven't made it. I'm going to feel hopeful and wonderful and excited about the life inside me right now. Tonight I'm going to hand out candy to incredibly cute monsters and let myself think about next Halloween.

We'll save crazy paranoia for next week.


Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Sticks and stones

To add to my list of issues? Peeing on sticks obsessively and being absolutely thrilled and crushed on a 2 or 3 times daily basis as I watch lines appear and then evaporate.

Why do we torture ourselves with this craziness?? Admittedly, I'm worst than most. Because umm...it's cheap for me. I purchased 100 pregnancy tests for like ...$15 through the office. I know that will make a lot of you hate me ...but it's truly an awful thing. I'm thinking that I'm not pregnant - although temperature, OPK, and timing wise it's probably still too early to test. My breasts hurt and ache and feel soooo incredibly painful like they haven't in years. I've been slightly nauseated here and there but nothing I'd write home about. I do have a fairly persistent ache in my right lower quadrant which I'm diagnosing as cyst or endo or something and not entertaining the idea of ectopic. But anyway.

I've literally tested for pregnancy 3 times a day for the last several days.

Because ..as stated earlier? I'm full on crazy people. But not if you're one of my patients. Then I'm totally sane. I swear. Totally. Sane.

I would laugh my ass off at a patient if they did this stuff because seriously ...how can I be that stupid and still have a fairly respectable job? I *know* how this crap works ..but I still test. And still feel soooooo incredibly amazing for the 30 seconds or so that the test looks like it might be positive. And then so incredibly sad and lost and hopeless when it's not. And then I repeat the process in 4 or 5 hours just for the fun of it.

I shouldn't officially test until Halloween. But obviously? I enjoy torture.

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Hmmm...

How do you know if you're crazy? When you have complete conversations with yourself?

My favorite thoughts today:

1. "My nips are definitely sore ....ovulation and the presence of the long missing progesterone?? Could it possibly be from pregnancy ???? How exciting would that be??"

2. "Maybe your nips are sore from you checking to see if they're sore every 15 1/2 seconds."

Monday, October 20, 2008

Cycle Day 23

I went for my Day 21 Progesterone level even though I knew that I did not ovulate. Because I knew that I did not ovulate, I was only about 80% completely devastated when the progesterone level came back two hundredths of a point higher than a level that would classify me as being in menopause. Seriously. Two hundredths of a single point.

My body is goofy so I continued to OPK thinking that for some reason maybe I would ovulate later than I was supposed to. And today? I had the most ridiculously positive OPK that I've ever seen. So if I wake up in the morning and my temperature is up, I might schedule myself a stroke. Because we actually did have fairly well timed sex.

What makes me sad in all this? The utter relief that I feel at even the very slightest chance of leaving infertility behind. I could literally feel the tension roll of my shoulders at the idea that I may possibly have ovulated. I think I'm going to take a deep breath and relax with that feeling for a while. I'm not even going to entertain the idea of recurrent miscarriage for like ...two weeks even.

And ...just for my record ...and in case it works (hope will kill me yet)....my regimen this month:

Metformin 1 gram twice daily
Cinnamon 2 grams twice daily
Vitex twice daily
Clomid 100 mg cycle days 5-9
Aspirin 81 mg daily
Mucinex 600 mg twice daily

Monday, October 13, 2008

Ambiguity

I am fortunate enough to have established a wonderful relationship with my mentor. She taught me what it meant to be a nurse practitioner. Taught me how to embrace being a *nurse* when I felt like I was functioning like a physician ...and how to combine the rolls. She retired after a recurrence of ovarian cancer, and I took over her job. She's doing well now - but besides the job, she also left me the vast majority of her books that remain in what is now my office. She was a very earthy not quite granola crunchy kind of health care provider and I loved it. A couple of months ago, I had a rare break between patients, and picked up a book to help pass the time: Womens Bodies, Women's Wisdom. I nearly immediately flipped to the chapter on infertility, and got pissed. Like ...raving lunatic MAD. The line that set me off:

"On a personal level, many women do not get pregnant because in their hearts they really do not want to - they are afraid of the demands a child will make on them."

Also? This:

"In one study, women who were unsuccessful with fertility treatments were found to be more successful in the outer world than those who conceived....Many infertile women are working sixty to eighty hours per week and are exhausted; then they pursue having a child as though they were writing a Ph.D. dissertation."

Most of the chapter speaks to the causes of infertility. The author is fairly adamant that a big part of infertility is the infertile's indecision regarding whether or not she is ready for and truly wants a child. That much of infertility is somehow resolved when the individual figures out the conflict. She also talks about a lot of other psychological factors. My initial thought was to rip the pages of the book out and have a book burning party. But after stewing on the subject for ...I don't know ..a couple of months, I'm kind of perplexed.

Because maybe ...I am ambiguous about it.

I do wonder how I will manage a very busy career and a newborn. When I had the golden child, I was fortunate enough to work for my dad in a family owned business. I was essentially a stay at home single mom for 2 very blissful years. I don't know how to do it any other way. I don't know if I could drop a newborn off at daycare, pump all day, and be okay with the role conflict at the end of the day. I also worry about my relationship with my husband. Because of his medical issues, he's not entirely gung-ho about the baby thing. He's worried that he won't be around long enough. I'm also terrified of that ...but not in the same way. I tend to worry more about random accidents and sudden death that I do his particular health issue ...but he's the one that spent the day in the ER with a near death experience yesterday. I worry about finances. I worry about going back to sleeplessness. I worry about the total selflessness that occurs with a newborn when my 13 year old is pretty much on auto-pilot now. My soul aches for the overwhelming love you feel for a child that is moving inside you. I ache to share the experience with my husband because I did it all by myself the first time. I need for him to know the type of love that a parent feels for their child. I wonder if some of my behaviors aren't self-destructive. You know...like ...threatening divorce every time I take Clomid. And not exercising enough. And not eating the right foods and not avoiding the wrong foods.

I am ambiguous. I am infertile. But ....am I infertile because I feel ambiguous?? I hope not.

I hate ambiguity.

Cycle Day 16 .....and Luck

Or the lack thereof.

Can I just say something? I think God hates me. Personally. Like ...on a really serious level.

I'm still OPK negative which pisses me off all by itself what with the swollen ovaries and pain and such. Except that yesterday, while I was 180 miles away at my sister's for a nephew's birthday party, my husband, while grocery shopping, was suddenly carted off by ambulance to the emergency room nearly in a coma. When I found out? My first thought ..please let him be okay. My second thought? When I knew he was okay? Damn it. This is totally going to throw off the every other day sex that is required in this baby making process.

And that ....is why God hates me.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Where's Darwin when you need him?

I stayed home from work today. I have a yucky nasty cold and my right ovary feels like it might be approaching the size of a small cantaloupe. Yay for me. The thing is ...I wouldn't normally cancel a days worth of patients for a cold but I'm crabby and somewhat sad. So ...I stayed home and curled up on the floor with a heating pad, comforter, a cuddly puppy and some pillows. The bad decision I made? Watching reruns of maternity ward on Discovery Health Channel. What the hell happened to survival of the fittest? The first episode was filmed at a hospital that I worked at in my former life. Mom #1 ....a crack/marijuana addict who smoked until the day of delivery and delivered a crack addicted baby. Mom #2...obviously cognitively challenged and homeless delivered a baby with a massive skull deformity that will need a lifetime of special care and someone that knows how to handle him. At age 48, people. 48. I can't even wrap my mind around how a 48 year old not incredibly sexy looking homeless woman has SEX much less conceives unassisted.

People laugh at me when I say that my daughter is as perfect as I could hope for. They think I'm bragging - but I swear I'm not. Even at 13, she is wonderful and caring and doesn't step a toe out of line. She was the ideal infant (if you minus the fact that she didn't sleep through the night until she was 3. Years.). I guess I always figured that God gave me what he felt like I was able to handle. Because as a 20 year old single mom, it would have taken something just slightly less than perfection for me to lose it. But then, if that's true? What about these women? And their children? My heart breaks for them just as it does for the hundreds of women that write blogs to ease the pain of infertility and loss. It just seems so out of balance to me. How can a crack addicted mother care for a crack addicted infant with a good outcome for either of them? If Darwin is right, and survival of the species depends on natural selection - something has gone horribly wrong in our civilized world.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Holy Hot Flashes

Otherwise titled .....I decided to clomid this cycle.

Which ...realistically, was probably not a great idea timing-wise. I chose a week that I had hospital call (translated: an 80 hour work week) to intentionally make myself psychotic. And by chose I mean that my completely unpredictable cycle decided to start itself during the worst week of the month possible. So ...most of my weekend went something like this:

At the hospital:

Me: Tell me about what brought you to the hospital?

Unsuspecting patient: I blah blah blah life threatening symptom.

Me: Did you ever have anything that felt like blah? (I'm fairly certain that the hospital may have just turned the heat on. It was supposed to be cold this weekend. I think they might have misjudged it a little).

Unsuspecting patient: Why yes! I did have that symptom that means I need to head directly to the angiography suite to have a clot removed from my brain before I become a vegetable!

Me: Fantastic! Let me go (get completely naked and bathe in ice water and then) arrange that for you (because clearly we are both very near to death as I have developed a fever of approximately 112 degrees in the last five minutes!)

At home after working 80 hours and perhaps not in the most relaxed state of mind:

Husband: What do you want for dinner?
Daughter: I'm starving!
Me: I seriously would have thought that the two of you could have figured SOMETHING out without me this weekend because I am obviously the most important person in the household and have been slaving all weekend and you both pretty much just suck for not kissing my feet and greeting me with roses.


So yeah ...Clomid. Aside from a touch of irritability, hotflashes that literally feel like they may have come from hell, and a visit from the long missing libido - Clomid has gone fairly well so far. Heheh....I haven't even threatened divorce. Yet. I still have those two pills to swallow tonight though ...give me some time. And then my life will be ruled by the scheduled peeing on sticks (of the OPK variety). I'm also contemplating calling the friend OB/Gyn to schedule myself a date with the dildo cam ovary check ultrasound and then possibly blackmailing her for an HCG trigger shot which I have never done before! Baby by blackmail? Does that sound healthy for the intended new life?