Ohhhh I’m frustrated. I have been doing Weight Watchers since August 22nd. I lost 1 lb the first week, .2 the second week (yes, that is point 2 pounds) and then I gained a pound at my meeting last night.
Mother F-er.
I am doing this with 4 other women I work with. One goes to a meeting in another town and the other 3 are doing it online. It’s great to be doing this with people at work because there are usually so many obstacles at the office that having 4 other people to help each other stay on track is great. Also one of the woman is usually the one who brings in baked goodies or has candy on her desk so having her on this journey with us is good because she doesn’t do those things now!
This is the reason why I have joined and quit WW so many times in the past. I have always lost at such a slow rate but I have never lost this slowly before. I also have a good amount to lose so it’s not like I’m just dealing with a pesky 10 pounds here. One of the women in my little group has probably 30 pounds more than me to lose but she’s already lost 18lbs (she started 3 weeks before me)! So I know we all have different amounts to lose and I understand that we’re not going to lose at the same rate but I mean come on!!
I have been very good with tracking and staying on program up until the weekends. We usually have so much going on and are constantly out at someone’s house or out to eat that I try to be good but I don’t do such a good job of tracking everything and I am sure my portions are off. We do get those 49 extra points to use during the week that I tend to use up on the weekends (at least I think I do, not 100% sure since I don’t track 100% on the weekends).
So yeah, I’m probably doing myself a disservice with my lax WW-ness on the weekends. I know I know everyone says the secret to the program is to TRACK EVERYTHING. My leader could tell yesterday that something was up so she came over to talk to me. She’s so super nice. She said that some people actually take a month before they start to see the results. Geez, I never knew that. She offered to look at my food list next meeting… so now I have to be REALLY good and track everything since I have to hand it over in a week!
There is a really nice woman named Becky who I usually sit next to at the meetings. She overheard me talking to the leader and told me about an aqua aerobics class that she’s going to take. She said it’s at the local rec center and she did it last year and really liked it. She said that it starts next week and it’s 6:15-7 and one day a week. I’m not that thrilled about the prospect of getting in a bathing suit and then going into the local pool with a bunch of strangers… I’m not even that thrilled about getting into a bathing suit and going into our backyard pool in front of my husband… but I went home and signed up.
I’m going out to Indian with some girlfriends tonight and I know that if I wasn’t “handing in my homework” in a week I’d be pretty lax on the tracking, maybe not even track or just eyeball it. But today I went online to the restaurant’s website and then compared it to the WW etools and already picked out what I’m going to have so I know the points (Chicken Tikka – 5pts for 4oz, which is a little bigger than my palm). I am leaving myself some points wiggle room for a glass (or two) of wine and then of course it comes with a side basmati rice (3pts for 1/3 cup) which I am sure is not factored into those 5pts.
I need to do this. I need to succeed at this. I feel like at this point, I have no choice. I need to do something that is life changing; I can’t do a quick fix. I have seen that this works. I have met people who have had great success on Weight Watchers. Maybe my body is just all messed up and it’s going to take me longer to lose the weight… seems like the pattern in my life, takes me a lot longer to get to a goal than my peers (hello, infertility).
So maybe this whole thing with my leader looking at my food journal is a good thing because it will force me to be more accountable since clearly just being accountable to me is not enough.
I can do this.
I will do this.
I will succeed.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Friday, August 30, 2013
It's just me, the (secret) sad sack
I've had kind of a tough week. But let me back up a little bit...
7 weeks ago my best friend (since we were 4) told me she was 6 wks pregnant with her second!! She literally told me after she peed on the (3) sticks. She had told her husband (obvi), her mom then me. I felt so honored that she told me even before she went to the doctor. Her simple answer was, "you're my best friend, I need you." She announced on Facebook at 12wks with a super cute pic of her 3 yr old daughter hold the ultrasound pics up high with a "Soon To Be Big Sister" shirt on. It was adorable. She has PCOS and was always told how it was going to be hard for her to get pregnant. Well first month trying... blammo. Pregnant with her daughter (who was born 2 days before our wedding). Her doctor said how it was a fluke and to not expect it to happen again... and wham! Pregnant the 1st month when trying to have the second. I'm so happy for them, they are amazing parents and have really great families.
She got her 12 wk tests back and there was a high marker for Downs Syndrome. She just had more extensive tests last week and has to wait another week for the results and see if she'll need an amnio. I'm asking you all to pray for her, the baby and her family. No matter what this baby will be loved immensely but just praying everything is ok.
On Tuesday I found out that my other close friend is also pregnant with her second child. She is actually due a week after my BFF. This one is a little more bitter sweet because we went off the pill at the same time and were excited to be pregnant together... well she's another one who got pregnant the first month with her son. It took them 6 months to get pregnant with the second, which it still pretty quickly. I didn't think it was going to impact me as much as it has. I think because we both planned to start TTC at the same EXACT time and here she is pregnant with her second miracle and we're still without ours... it's a hard pill to swallow. But... I haven't let anyone know how upset I really am. I finally called my mom and told her today but she's the only one I've really let know how deep this hurts. My husband doesn't even know. I just don't want to be the person who always has a sob story, "oh poor infertile J." The sad sack. No, I can't do that. I was in a really good place with this whole journey before I found out about my friend on Tuesday and I just went into a downward spiral of depression. I paste a happy smile on my face and laugh at all the right jokes (and tell all the right jokes) but when I'm alone I let myself cry. Pathetic. I cry in the car, in the shower... like I said, pathetic. I just need to get myself back to that positive place again. My husband knows something's wrong but I think he's waiting for me to say something. I just don't want this whole infertility thing to consume our relationship. I don't want this to define us as a couple and so far I don't think it has.
So yeah... also, here I am CD43. Yep you read that right... Cycle Day 43. The first day of my last period was July 19th. I have taken 2 tests (one on CD36 and one today) and both negative. No miracle for us this month but I was kind of expecting that... but of course when you pee on that stick you're still holding out hope that it just *might* be positive. I've been seeing the chiropractor/acupuncturist 2x a week since CD14. He is so super nice and his staff is really great. His office is closed next week for vacation and he said when he comes back he wants to try something new. I'm not sure if I screwed my cycle up because I was drinking that FertilitTea, it's screwed up from the fertility meds, or just plain screwed up. I'm also concerned that I didn't ovulate this cycle because I've consistently had a lot of CM (sorry TMI). Today is the first day I've had what I call the "irrational seeing red anger" for no real good reason so I think that AF is on the way. I'm hoping so because I'm looking forward to starting a new cycle with the acupuncture. I will not be drinking that tea this time and we'll see how it goes...
7 weeks ago my best friend (since we were 4) told me she was 6 wks pregnant with her second!! She literally told me after she peed on the (3) sticks. She had told her husband (obvi), her mom then me. I felt so honored that she told me even before she went to the doctor. Her simple answer was, "you're my best friend, I need you." She announced on Facebook at 12wks with a super cute pic of her 3 yr old daughter hold the ultrasound pics up high with a "Soon To Be Big Sister" shirt on. It was adorable. She has PCOS and was always told how it was going to be hard for her to get pregnant. Well first month trying... blammo. Pregnant with her daughter (who was born 2 days before our wedding). Her doctor said how it was a fluke and to not expect it to happen again... and wham! Pregnant the 1st month when trying to have the second. I'm so happy for them, they are amazing parents and have really great families.
She got her 12 wk tests back and there was a high marker for Downs Syndrome. She just had more extensive tests last week and has to wait another week for the results and see if she'll need an amnio. I'm asking you all to pray for her, the baby and her family. No matter what this baby will be loved immensely but just praying everything is ok.
On Tuesday I found out that my other close friend is also pregnant with her second child. She is actually due a week after my BFF. This one is a little more bitter sweet because we went off the pill at the same time and were excited to be pregnant together... well she's another one who got pregnant the first month with her son. It took them 6 months to get pregnant with the second, which it still pretty quickly. I didn't think it was going to impact me as much as it has. I think because we both planned to start TTC at the same EXACT time and here she is pregnant with her second miracle and we're still without ours... it's a hard pill to swallow. But... I haven't let anyone know how upset I really am. I finally called my mom and told her today but she's the only one I've really let know how deep this hurts. My husband doesn't even know. I just don't want to be the person who always has a sob story, "oh poor infertile J." The sad sack. No, I can't do that. I was in a really good place with this whole journey before I found out about my friend on Tuesday and I just went into a downward spiral of depression. I paste a happy smile on my face and laugh at all the right jokes (and tell all the right jokes) but when I'm alone I let myself cry. Pathetic. I cry in the car, in the shower... like I said, pathetic. I just need to get myself back to that positive place again. My husband knows something's wrong but I think he's waiting for me to say something. I just don't want this whole infertility thing to consume our relationship. I don't want this to define us as a couple and so far I don't think it has.
So yeah... also, here I am CD43. Yep you read that right... Cycle Day 43. The first day of my last period was July 19th. I have taken 2 tests (one on CD36 and one today) and both negative. No miracle for us this month but I was kind of expecting that... but of course when you pee on that stick you're still holding out hope that it just *might* be positive. I've been seeing the chiropractor/acupuncturist 2x a week since CD14. He is so super nice and his staff is really great. His office is closed next week for vacation and he said when he comes back he wants to try something new. I'm not sure if I screwed my cycle up because I was drinking that FertilitTea, it's screwed up from the fertility meds, or just plain screwed up. I'm also concerned that I didn't ovulate this cycle because I've consistently had a lot of CM (sorry TMI). Today is the first day I've had what I call the "irrational seeing red anger" for no real good reason so I think that AF is on the way. I'm hoping so because I'm looking forward to starting a new cycle with the acupuncture. I will not be drinking that tea this time and we'll see how it goes...
Friday, August 9, 2013
Weight Watchers
Well the Paleo hasn’t been working out the way that I had envisioned. It is a lot harder to be on that strict of a diet when your spouse if not than I had anticipated. I ended up cheating a lot more than I had wanted to so I decided that this isn’t for me at this point. It’s a wonderful diet and I felt really great when I was doing it but it’s so hard to do it when your spouse (and pretty much anyone else you spend time with) is not on board.
My friend K at work mentioned that she wanted to do Weight Watchers and I thought it would be a great idea if we did it together. There is a meeting on Thursdays at 5:45 that works out perfectly with our schedules. Our friend D is also going to do it as well but she’s going to do it online. I’m very excited to try this – I did it about 10 years ago and lost a bit of weight but I heard that the new program is a lot better. It’s hard for me when the hubs wants to order pizza and I’m struggling with: “do I just toss the diet out the window and have pizza too?” or “I guess I’ll get the house salad which is really just iceberg lettuce, some onions, tomatoes which have seen better days and a couple cucumbers – yum.”
The new program is touted as a “lifestyle” not a “diet.” I mean, look how good Jennifer Hudson looks! I follow her on Instagram and she definitely eats normal stuff… including pizza and ice cream! I am going to try and incorporate the “good fats” like I learned with the Paleo. Who knows, maybe that’s something they talk about as well? I’m not a fan of processed foods so that might be hard but the majority of fruits and veggies are “free points” so that’s really great.
I have to do something. I went to a big box store with my sister-in-law on Wednesday and I saw the reflection of someone standing next to her and it took me a couple seconds to realize that it was my complete side profile… gut, butt and all. Yowza. You know it’s bad when you don’t recognize yourself. Le sigh. I had lost a lot of weight (60lbs) about 8 years ago. I started to go to the gym every single day and I was very diligent about what I was eating. But that was before I had a 9-5 job, a husband and a house to take care of. It seems like there aren’t enough hours in the day and if I have an extra 2 hours I’d like to spend them with my love not going back and forth to a gym. I do, however, get up and hour early every day and walk on the treadmill. I would really like to get into running but I feel like I have too much bulk on me for that right now – lol. Once I lose some (ok, a lot ) of weight I want to give it a try.
When hubster and I started dating I wanted to woo him over with all my cooking skills – cream sauces included. It certainly wasn’t the low fat/low cal cooking I had been doing for myself. By the time we got married I had gained about 30 pounds. Then when we started the infertility treatment it was a slippery slope… I tried hard to eat well and ignore the intense hunger and cravings I was having all the time on the medicine… well… here we are 40 pounds later and my gut/butt are bigger and still no baby :/
Yep. There’s the quick and dirty. I gained A LOT of weight on those meds.
I have a friend who is starting IVF in September and she is very weight conscious (I think she border line has an eating disorder and I’m not even exaggerating) and I have not told her how much I gained on the meds. We haven’t seen each other in years but rekindled our friendship over Facebook when she message me and asked if we were having fertility issues… I think that’s how we started chatting… anyway we now just text. ALL. THE. TIME. The doctor told her she had to gain 6lbs before she can start IVF and it completely freaked her out. So yeah, I’m not telling her about it because I don’t want her to have any more on her mind than she already does/well with the whole IVF process.
Anyway- I looked up WW and pregnancy and WW doesn’t recommend that you stay on program while pregnant but I found a couple blogs where the woman were on WW and then got pregnant while they were still overweight. They used the WW tools to make better choices while pregnant and added more points/calories to their daily goal. I don’t know- I’ll look into it more if I get to that point. I’m sure my OBGYN will let me know what I can and cannot do.
We are going to start on the week of the 19th… I need something to obsess over to keep my mind off the baby business! I’m sure I will incorporate this next adventure into my blog… so stay tuned!
My friend K at work mentioned that she wanted to do Weight Watchers and I thought it would be a great idea if we did it together. There is a meeting on Thursdays at 5:45 that works out perfectly with our schedules. Our friend D is also going to do it as well but she’s going to do it online. I’m very excited to try this – I did it about 10 years ago and lost a bit of weight but I heard that the new program is a lot better. It’s hard for me when the hubs wants to order pizza and I’m struggling with: “do I just toss the diet out the window and have pizza too?” or “I guess I’ll get the house salad which is really just iceberg lettuce, some onions, tomatoes which have seen better days and a couple cucumbers – yum.”
The new program is touted as a “lifestyle” not a “diet.” I mean, look how good Jennifer Hudson looks! I follow her on Instagram and she definitely eats normal stuff… including pizza and ice cream! I am going to try and incorporate the “good fats” like I learned with the Paleo. Who knows, maybe that’s something they talk about as well? I’m not a fan of processed foods so that might be hard but the majority of fruits and veggies are “free points” so that’s really great.
I have to do something. I went to a big box store with my sister-in-law on Wednesday and I saw the reflection of someone standing next to her and it took me a couple seconds to realize that it was my complete side profile… gut, butt and all. Yowza. You know it’s bad when you don’t recognize yourself. Le sigh. I had lost a lot of weight (60lbs) about 8 years ago. I started to go to the gym every single day and I was very diligent about what I was eating. But that was before I had a 9-5 job, a husband and a house to take care of. It seems like there aren’t enough hours in the day and if I have an extra 2 hours I’d like to spend them with my love not going back and forth to a gym. I do, however, get up and hour early every day and walk on the treadmill. I would really like to get into running but I feel like I have too much bulk on me for that right now – lol. Once I lose some (ok, a lot ) of weight I want to give it a try.
When hubster and I started dating I wanted to woo him over with all my cooking skills – cream sauces included. It certainly wasn’t the low fat/low cal cooking I had been doing for myself. By the time we got married I had gained about 30 pounds. Then when we started the infertility treatment it was a slippery slope… I tried hard to eat well and ignore the intense hunger and cravings I was having all the time on the medicine… well… here we are 40 pounds later and my gut/butt are bigger and still no baby :/
Yep. There’s the quick and dirty. I gained A LOT of weight on those meds.
I have a friend who is starting IVF in September and she is very weight conscious (I think she border line has an eating disorder and I’m not even exaggerating) and I have not told her how much I gained on the meds. We haven’t seen each other in years but rekindled our friendship over Facebook when she message me and asked if we were having fertility issues… I think that’s how we started chatting… anyway we now just text. ALL. THE. TIME. The doctor told her she had to gain 6lbs before she can start IVF and it completely freaked her out. So yeah, I’m not telling her about it because I don’t want her to have any more on her mind than she already does/well with the whole IVF process.
Anyway- I looked up WW and pregnancy and WW doesn’t recommend that you stay on program while pregnant but I found a couple blogs where the woman were on WW and then got pregnant while they were still overweight. They used the WW tools to make better choices while pregnant and added more points/calories to their daily goal. I don’t know- I’ll look into it more if I get to that point. I’m sure my OBGYN will let me know what I can and cannot do.
We are going to start on the week of the 19th… I need something to obsess over to keep my mind off the baby business! I’m sure I will incorporate this next adventure into my blog… so stay tuned!
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
Acu/ Chiro Update
Just a quick acupuncture/ chiropractic update! I had an x-ray on Monday and it showed that I have arthritis in my lower back :/ All stemming from that damn accident in 1998 (the gift that keeps on freaking giving!). The chiropractor said that it makes sense that I haven’t gotten pregnant… that with the inflammation and pain I’ve had (for years) in my back I’m not getting enough blood flow to my uterus, that the pain receptors in my brain are sending it to my lower back and away from my uterus… I just thought I had lower back pain because I sit at a computer all day… oh and because I’m a fat a$$. LOL!
Lord I pray that he’s right and what he’s doing at my appointments works. He said that he’s had a lot of patients come to him for infertility and there are a bunch of pictures of different babies in his office (I am optimistically assuming that they are satisfied patients saying thank you, haha).
Fingers crossed!
Lord I pray that he’s right and what he’s doing at my appointments works. He said that he’s had a lot of patients come to him for infertility and there are a bunch of pictures of different babies in his office (I am optimistically assuming that they are satisfied patients saying thank you, haha).
Fingers crossed!
Friday, August 2, 2013
Acupuncture, Chiro... and softcups! Oh My!
I went for my first acupuncture and chiropractic appointment last night… it was awesome! I decided to try an alternative route while on our break from the IF clinic because I have read so many wonderful things about it. I have a friend who tried for 3 years and attributes her 6th IUI finally working because she had acupuncture.
I saw my OBGYN (yearly pap) on Tuesday and of course I burst into tears when she asked how everything was at the IF clinic. She is so sweet and so nice. She told me that the patient she saw before me went through 5 IVF’s and when they decided to take a break she got pregnant at 42. She kept saying to me, “don’t give up, don’t give up.” She said she has many many patients who have taken a break from the IUI/IVF treatments, relaxed, and then got pregnant. She also said something else that I found to be very interesting – she said that “this has nothing to do with God. It doesn’t mean that you’re not a good person, this is all about science.” It was almost like she had been reading my mind. Not that I blame God- there are too many awful things in this world for me to go to a place where I start to blame God. But the part about me being a good person – that’s something I’ve said many times. “Aren’t I a good person? Aren’t we deserving people?” It certainly gave me something to think about.
Anyway, she was very happy when I told her I was going for acupuncture. She said that she has heard many success stories in her office about acupuncture and hopes that I call and give her good news very soon. I went to a doctor who does acupuncture and is also a chiropractor. The first appointment was more like a physical with him getting to know my body and he was doing all these measurements, stretches, and checking my reflexes. He asked about any “trauma” to my body besides what I had written on the forms and I told him I was a passenger in a bad car accident in 1998 and I was thrown out the back passenger window (it’s a miracle that I survived and didn’t have any broken bones). But I landed on my hip and then slid 20 ft on my side. I have tendonitis and bone spurs in my shoulders and as I have gotten older, I always have lower back pain but I attributed it have a job where I sit in front of a computer all day. He said that I’m all “backed up” in my hip/pelvis area because of the accident and that may very well be why I’m not getting pregnant.
Well, that’s surely something.
After he adjusted my back a little he had me go into another room and the nurse put electrodes on my back for some electric stimulation. Then I laid down and he put 11 needles in my body – my forehead, ear, neck, stomach, pubic bone, legs and ankles. I didn’t feel a thing. I only felt a light tap, like he was tapping me with his finger. It was actually very relaxing. Then he took them out, I rolled over and he put 4 more in my back.
I need to get an xray of my spine to make sure there isn’t any arthritis and he said he wants to see me 2x a week for the first month. I’m not sure if it’s going to always be a combo of acupuncture and a chiropractic visit but I feel pretty good today!
Today is cd16. I got my first “high” on the CBE Fertility Monitor on cd14 and then it went directly to a “peak” day yesterday and today. I read in the booklet that you can get 1 – 5 days of highs before the 2 days of peak so I guess I’m right on target. I drank a quart of the FertiliTea every day up until cd15. I have read conflicting things online that you can drink it all through your cycle or that you need to stop at ovulation so I figured better to be safe than sorry and just stopped at ovulation. But I ovulated around the same time as I usually do when I’m on all the medication so that’s pretty amazing. Who knows if it’s the tea or just a fluke cycle… guess I’ll have to see what happens next cycle with the tea.
Ok… has anyone heard of softcups? I read a lot about them online and they are used as an alternative to tampons/pads when you have your period but online a lot of people are using them for after they have sex to keep the sperm in there. Let me describe them to you… they look a lot like one of those rubber “livestrong” bracelets and it has a silicone piece on one side like a “cup.” You pinch the sides of the band together and insert it and the idea is that it keeps all of the sperm from coming out and closer to the cervix. I think that the good swimmers go to where they are supposed to go right away and then whatever comes out are the “rejects” (lol) so I'm sure about the effectiveness of this. But women were swearing up and down that that’s how they conceived. I looked them up on Amazon and they aren’t that expensive and again the women were singing its praises. It can’t hurt to try it I guess but I can only imagine what the hubs would say when I take one of those out of the nightstand after sex…
I saw my OBGYN (yearly pap) on Tuesday and of course I burst into tears when she asked how everything was at the IF clinic. She is so sweet and so nice. She told me that the patient she saw before me went through 5 IVF’s and when they decided to take a break she got pregnant at 42. She kept saying to me, “don’t give up, don’t give up.” She said she has many many patients who have taken a break from the IUI/IVF treatments, relaxed, and then got pregnant. She also said something else that I found to be very interesting – she said that “this has nothing to do with God. It doesn’t mean that you’re not a good person, this is all about science.” It was almost like she had been reading my mind. Not that I blame God- there are too many awful things in this world for me to go to a place where I start to blame God. But the part about me being a good person – that’s something I’ve said many times. “Aren’t I a good person? Aren’t we deserving people?” It certainly gave me something to think about.
Anyway, she was very happy when I told her I was going for acupuncture. She said that she has heard many success stories in her office about acupuncture and hopes that I call and give her good news very soon. I went to a doctor who does acupuncture and is also a chiropractor. The first appointment was more like a physical with him getting to know my body and he was doing all these measurements, stretches, and checking my reflexes. He asked about any “trauma” to my body besides what I had written on the forms and I told him I was a passenger in a bad car accident in 1998 and I was thrown out the back passenger window (it’s a miracle that I survived and didn’t have any broken bones). But I landed on my hip and then slid 20 ft on my side. I have tendonitis and bone spurs in my shoulders and as I have gotten older, I always have lower back pain but I attributed it have a job where I sit in front of a computer all day. He said that I’m all “backed up” in my hip/pelvis area because of the accident and that may very well be why I’m not getting pregnant.
Well, that’s surely something.
After he adjusted my back a little he had me go into another room and the nurse put electrodes on my back for some electric stimulation. Then I laid down and he put 11 needles in my body – my forehead, ear, neck, stomach, pubic bone, legs and ankles. I didn’t feel a thing. I only felt a light tap, like he was tapping me with his finger. It was actually very relaxing. Then he took them out, I rolled over and he put 4 more in my back.
I need to get an xray of my spine to make sure there isn’t any arthritis and he said he wants to see me 2x a week for the first month. I’m not sure if it’s going to always be a combo of acupuncture and a chiropractic visit but I feel pretty good today!
Today is cd16. I got my first “high” on the CBE Fertility Monitor on cd14 and then it went directly to a “peak” day yesterday and today. I read in the booklet that you can get 1 – 5 days of highs before the 2 days of peak so I guess I’m right on target. I drank a quart of the FertiliTea every day up until cd15. I have read conflicting things online that you can drink it all through your cycle or that you need to stop at ovulation so I figured better to be safe than sorry and just stopped at ovulation. But I ovulated around the same time as I usually do when I’m on all the medication so that’s pretty amazing. Who knows if it’s the tea or just a fluke cycle… guess I’ll have to see what happens next cycle with the tea.
Ok… has anyone heard of softcups? I read a lot about them online and they are used as an alternative to tampons/pads when you have your period but online a lot of people are using them for after they have sex to keep the sperm in there. Let me describe them to you… they look a lot like one of those rubber “livestrong” bracelets and it has a silicone piece on one side like a “cup.” You pinch the sides of the band together and insert it and the idea is that it keeps all of the sperm from coming out and closer to the cervix. I think that the good swimmers go to where they are supposed to go right away and then whatever comes out are the “rejects” (lol) so I'm sure about the effectiveness of this. But women were swearing up and down that that’s how they conceived. I looked them up on Amazon and they aren’t that expensive and again the women were singing its praises. It can’t hurt to try it I guess but I can only imagine what the hubs would say when I take one of those out of the nightstand after sex…
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Back to Basics
Well here we are again. I feel like it’s over 2 and ½ years ago when this journey started. Since we’re “taking a break” from the fertility meds I’m going to try some different things this time then I did way back in the beginning when we first started to TTC.
I am not temping this time. I was a religious BBT temper (Basal Body Temperature). Every morning for a year and half (no matter where we were) at 5am my alarm would go off and I would stick that BBT thermometer where the sun don’t shine in my va-jay jay. Hubster had no idea what I was doing and I think after a while he stopped hearing my alarm. He is a very deep sleeper… me, not so much. So a lot of times after I would take my temp I would not fall back to sleep. Made for some pretty tired days. The idea is that at the same time every morning before you really move you take your temperature. It’s your base temp and you will see throughout your cycle it should go up when you’re going to ovulate and peak at ovulation. Then during the 2 week wait it’ll either go up up up until you have a positive pregnancy test or start to fall when you’re going to get your period. I did this every day for over a year and a half. I have a nice big folder filled with charts. On the charts you also put what your cervical mucus (CM) was like (dry, sticky, egg white) and when you had sex. It was really interesting to see how my cycles went, they were (are) really long and it was good to have that to show my OBGYN and then later my Fertility Specialist. I read the book, Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler, and it was really really informative. I recommend anyone who is starting on this journey to read this book. I learned a lot about the goings on in my body. But this time I feel like I do not need to go through all that again because frankly after a while it stressed me out.
I also will not be using OPK’s (ovulation predictor kits). Well, I should clarify – I will not be doing OPK’s like a mad woman. I would get the “cheapies” from Amazon (like 40 for $6) and use them in conjunction with the temping. I would start them on day 8 or 10 and then do them 2x a day until I ovulated. Sometimes I would not ovulate until day 25 (during 40+ day cycles- that sucked). I had a whole system down pat. I would stop drinking liquids at 9 am, hold my pee, and take the OPK at 11 am. Then I would stop drinking liquids at 2:30 pm, hold my pee, and take the OPK at 4:30 pm. I would do this until I ovulated. Talk about stressful! So yeah – I will not be doing that whole thing again!
I had mentioned in the prior post that I was looking to get a Clear Blue Easy Fertility Monitor on eBay. Well I got one! This seriously makes the whole process so much less stressful. I ended up getting it the day that I wrote the last post and then it arrived at my house on Monday! I read the booklet and you can set the monitor up for a new cycle up until day 5 and my day 5 was Tuesday so it was perfect timing. Every morning you get up and push a button on the monitor. You have a 6 hour window of time to do this, for example, I pushed the button for the first time at 7 am. So I can now get up and push the button anywhere from 4am-10am. That is SO MUCH less stressful than temping! Starting on the morning of day 6 it asks you to insert a stick when you push the button (of course it’s a special stick for the machine). Same concept as an OPK- hold your pee (so it’s more concentrated) and then pee on the stick (or like me I pee in a Dixie cup and then dip it in there for 15 seconds because I pee all over my hand the other way), then insert it into the slot in the machine. It then flashes for a couple minutes and it tells you if you’re low, high or peak. You want to have sex every other day starting on your first high. Some people have sex every day starting on the first high but my doctor said that once a man gets over 30 they could be shooting blanks if it’s every day. This machine is worth it just so that I’m not temping and peeing on OPKs all the time for days on end. That all seriously stressed me out because it was all that I was thinking about. I might start doing the OPK’s once a day (probably at like 4 pm) once I get a high but we’ll see. I might just see what happens with the machine this month.
I also have to keep in mind that I only have one tube… so even if I ovulate every month it’s not necessarily on the side with the tube. Grrr frustrating.
Anyhoo – nothing I can do about that. But I am taking the CoQ10 that the FS told me to take. I also started to drink something called “Fertili Tea.” I got it on my favorite place (Amazon, of course) after reading a bunch online about it when I was looking into the CBE Monitor. It has Vitex Agnus Castus (Chasteberry), Green Tea, Red Raspberry, Ladies Mantle, Nettle Leaf, and Peppermint Leaf. These are all things that are supposed to help women with long cycles (*jumps up and down waving hand, “Me! Me!”*) and general reproductive health. It was created by a fertility specialist and all of the ingredients have been scientifically proven to enhance fertility. Sign. Me. Up. It’s a lose tea so I used a mesh tea ball. I actually made it last night and drank it today, haha. I filled a glass quart mason jar with boiling water (4 cups) and then the tea ball with the lose tea and let it steep overnight. This way I was able to pour it over ice and drank it on the way to work this morning. It’s just too warm out for me right now to be drinking hot tea. I didn’t put any sweetener in it and the only way I can describe it is that it tasted almost like peppermint tea. If you do not like peppermint then this is not the tea for you, lol.
I am still trucking along with the Paleo. I’m mostly doing a modified version of it though. I’m sticking to the basic premise of no dairy, no legumes, and no grains/carbs. So pretty much veggies, fruit, meat, egg whites (because I can’t eat the yolk, makes me physically sick) and nuts (but no peanuts). I will be honest that I do cheat sometimes. Like last night we had tacos – I always have a taco salad versus the shells because I can’t eat corn (I’m allergic to it). I tried to have the taco salad with just a mescaline lettuce mix, shredded carrots, tomatoes avocado and the taco meat… but it just wasn’t cutting it without a little sour cream! So I had a little spoon full and all was well with the world. I feel like if I really stress myself out and not let myself cave every once in a while then I will not stick with this. I know myself. The Paleo diet also says that you should have all organic fruits and veggies and only grass fed meats. Well… I do what I can. But I will say I’m certainly feeling better and sleeping a lot better. I’ve also started to slowly but surely lose some weight too (halleluiah).
Hubster and I have been getting up almost every morning and taking our boxer for a walk. We have a small manmade lake near us that is a mile around that we do at least 2x (depending on what time it is since I have to get ready for work). We also live in a very rural neighborhood so it’s nice to walk around there as well. He has been working on his final thesis for his masters so this gets the dog tired out so that she’s lazy for the rest of the day and he can work. I think it’s good that we’re both getting up and getting the blood flowing – I know it’s beneficial for my reproductive organs and I can only assume it is for his as well.
Clearly “taking a break” doesn’t mean just going with the flow! My cycles are so irregular that I felt like if we just did our thing I would be constantly wondering if we had missed my ovulation and (I know myself) stressing out about that. I feel like the monitor takes all the guess work out it.
So… here we go :)
Friday, July 19, 2013
Doctor Visit
We had our appointment yesterday with Dr. B. There was also a new OB fellow who sat in – we go to a clinic which is a part of a large teaching hospital so we are used to students and fellows being in on the appointments. This gal was not one of my favorites because she sat there the whole time picking at her nail polish while I was making a tissue pile on the desk because I was crying (of course I was). That was annoying.
Anyway.
Dr. B said that the entire team (meaning all of the doctors/students/fellows in the practice and the embryologists) sat down to review our case. There is no real cut and dry reason as to why we aren’t getting pregnant. My eggs look good and really the only “thing” with me is that I only have one tube. Hubs sperm look good and he had had some additional testing done on his stuff after the first failed IVF and all those tests came back with great results. They do not know for sure why when my eggs and his sperm are combined for IVF that the embryos aren’t surviving. Good news is I did get pregnant so one of the embryos did attach but bad news is obviously the embryo started to die.
He then presented us with 4 options.
1) Cornell University in New York. They would take some of the cells from my uterus and use them to make a base medium for the embryos to grow in the petri dish. Not a new procedure but not something that our place does. The thought is that the embryos could do better in a medium made from my own cells that would closely mimic the natural environment. He said that he has referred patients there and some have gotten successfully pregnant and some have not. This costs upwards of $15,000 with no insurance coverage and most likely this price doesn’t include medication. I would be able to do some of the blood work and ultrasound monitoring at the clinic that we currently go to in CT but the majority of the monitoring and all of the procedures will need to be done at Cornell. They are at least 3 hours from us and with 6 hours of travel time alone this is not a feasible option with my job,
2) IVF with ½ Donor Sperm. The embryologist has a “gut feeling” (those are Dr. B’s words) that the issue is the hubs sperm. Even though all of his testing has come back with flying colors she thinks that this is what the issue is- that it’s something with his sperm not meshing correctly with my eggs. So we would do the same long down regulation medication protocol like the last IVF. He said they would try a different medium in the petri dish for the embryos but they would fertilize ½ of my eggs with hubsters sperm and ½ with donor. If there are good embryos with hubsters sperm then we would use them and freeze any left. If there aren’t any good embryos with hubsters sperm and the only good ones are with the donor then, obviously, we would transfer the ones with the donor sperm (and freeze any left). We would then know if the issue is in fact hubby’s sperm. The IVF would be $8,060 (the financial gal gave us this price due to our combined income). This doesn’t cover meds or the donor sperm. The donor sperm is about $600. My meds last time were almost $7K but I have a lot left so I’m not sure how much we would have to spend on medication. There is a program that we can apply for that if we meet the criteria we can get assistance with paying for the meds. But in any case, this is the option that Dr. B recommends.
3) IVF with Donor Eggs. The embryologists say that it is not my eggs and we didn’t really go into the details of this option because Dr. B isn’t really that convinced that it’s my eggs either. But if the donor sperm option doesn’t work then we would know that it is my eggs. However… donor eggs alone cost upwards of $10,000. That’s just the eggs. I’m not sure if this is an option that we will explore because of the price but we will cross that bridge if we get to it.
4) IUI with ½ Donor Sperm. Dr. B threw this one out there merely because of the cost. This is the most “cost effective” option. Donor Sperm is $600 and the IUI is $300. So without meds it would be $900. Without meds it is a crap shoot though because I would have to be monitored to see what side I’m ovulating on. Since I only have one tube if we did a non-medicated “natural” cycle and I ended up ovulating from the non-tube side then the procedure is a no go and we wait for next cycle. So it could potentially end up costing more than $900 if it’s over the course of more than one cycle because of the monitoring. But if we go this route and it ends up not working we won’t know why it didn’t work – was it the sperm or did we just not catch the egg? No way of telling.
Afterwards we met with the woman in the finance department. That’s where we got the numbers I mentioned above. Needless to say we left there with our heads spinning and a lot of paperwork.
We didn’t talk about it for a couple hours; we both took the time to process everything that we had heard and sat on the deck later that evening to talk. I’m having a hard time with the donor sperm option. I honestly didn’t think that I would but all of the dreams that I’ve had about our kids and any time I’ve thought about them I always envisioned little boys who look like the hubs. Of course I know how stupid that sounds. I take full ownership of how moronic that whole thought process is. I have no idea why I feel that way and I think in time I’ll get over it because hubs doesn’t have a problem with it and he’d be the one without his DNA in the mix. If we chose to use donor anything we need to have a consultation with the psychiatrist anyway, which I think makes total sense. That’s a huge step and I think meeting with a professional to hash it out is a good idea.
Another thing I have a problem with, and hubs agrees, is that this is a whole lot of money without a guarantee that it will work. I know that we have been very very fortunate to have had the insurance coverage that we have had and that a lot of people go through this process paying out of pocket and taking that risk that it won’t work on the first or even third try. But for us that’s a huge gamble and we’re not sure if we’re ready to take that yet.
So what we agreed on is that we should take a few months off and just try on our own. Dr. B said that there isn’t any reason why I can’t get pregnant on my own. In thinking about that now I don’t get it since he said that the issue most likely lies with my eggs and his sperm coming together but maybe that’s just when it’s done artificially? I’m not sure. In any case that’s where we are now. I went on eBay and got a Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor and some sticks to go with it for a pretty good deal. I feel like we’re starting right back at square one but I’m almost excited about it. I had borrowed a CBE Monitor from a friend way before we started all this IF jazz but I only got to use it for one cycle. When she lent it to me she was pregnant with her third (she has 7 year old twin boys) and she ended up losing the baby at 14 weeks to trisonomy 13. It was heartbreaking and of course I was ok giving the monitor back because they wanted to try again. Once they were ready to try again she ended up getting pregnant rather quickly and now has a 7 month old little guy. I decided to just buy my own because it will be good to have if it works and if we end up trying for another one in the future.
So yeah. Lots and lots of info. I ended up getting my period today (which makes the huge waterfall of waterworks yesterday make more sense). I think I have to use the CBE Monitor starting on day 1 so I wouldn’t be able to use it this time anyway. Maybe we’ll just have sex starting on Day 4 and then every other day for 10 days. The monitor comes with some ovulation sticks that aren’t for the monitor so I might use them. I don’t always ovulate in the middle of my cycle and my cycles are not a “normal” length (this time it was 39 days).
So we’ll see how this all works… onto the next adventure in baby making!
Anyway.
Dr. B said that the entire team (meaning all of the doctors/students/fellows in the practice and the embryologists) sat down to review our case. There is no real cut and dry reason as to why we aren’t getting pregnant. My eggs look good and really the only “thing” with me is that I only have one tube. Hubs sperm look good and he had had some additional testing done on his stuff after the first failed IVF and all those tests came back with great results. They do not know for sure why when my eggs and his sperm are combined for IVF that the embryos aren’t surviving. Good news is I did get pregnant so one of the embryos did attach but bad news is obviously the embryo started to die.
He then presented us with 4 options.
1) Cornell University in New York. They would take some of the cells from my uterus and use them to make a base medium for the embryos to grow in the petri dish. Not a new procedure but not something that our place does. The thought is that the embryos could do better in a medium made from my own cells that would closely mimic the natural environment. He said that he has referred patients there and some have gotten successfully pregnant and some have not. This costs upwards of $15,000 with no insurance coverage and most likely this price doesn’t include medication. I would be able to do some of the blood work and ultrasound monitoring at the clinic that we currently go to in CT but the majority of the monitoring and all of the procedures will need to be done at Cornell. They are at least 3 hours from us and with 6 hours of travel time alone this is not a feasible option with my job,
2) IVF with ½ Donor Sperm. The embryologist has a “gut feeling” (those are Dr. B’s words) that the issue is the hubs sperm. Even though all of his testing has come back with flying colors she thinks that this is what the issue is- that it’s something with his sperm not meshing correctly with my eggs. So we would do the same long down regulation medication protocol like the last IVF. He said they would try a different medium in the petri dish for the embryos but they would fertilize ½ of my eggs with hubsters sperm and ½ with donor. If there are good embryos with hubsters sperm then we would use them and freeze any left. If there aren’t any good embryos with hubsters sperm and the only good ones are with the donor then, obviously, we would transfer the ones with the donor sperm (and freeze any left). We would then know if the issue is in fact hubby’s sperm. The IVF would be $8,060 (the financial gal gave us this price due to our combined income). This doesn’t cover meds or the donor sperm. The donor sperm is about $600. My meds last time were almost $7K but I have a lot left so I’m not sure how much we would have to spend on medication. There is a program that we can apply for that if we meet the criteria we can get assistance with paying for the meds. But in any case, this is the option that Dr. B recommends.
3) IVF with Donor Eggs. The embryologists say that it is not my eggs and we didn’t really go into the details of this option because Dr. B isn’t really that convinced that it’s my eggs either. But if the donor sperm option doesn’t work then we would know that it is my eggs. However… donor eggs alone cost upwards of $10,000. That’s just the eggs. I’m not sure if this is an option that we will explore because of the price but we will cross that bridge if we get to it.
4) IUI with ½ Donor Sperm. Dr. B threw this one out there merely because of the cost. This is the most “cost effective” option. Donor Sperm is $600 and the IUI is $300. So without meds it would be $900. Without meds it is a crap shoot though because I would have to be monitored to see what side I’m ovulating on. Since I only have one tube if we did a non-medicated “natural” cycle and I ended up ovulating from the non-tube side then the procedure is a no go and we wait for next cycle. So it could potentially end up costing more than $900 if it’s over the course of more than one cycle because of the monitoring. But if we go this route and it ends up not working we won’t know why it didn’t work – was it the sperm or did we just not catch the egg? No way of telling.
Afterwards we met with the woman in the finance department. That’s where we got the numbers I mentioned above. Needless to say we left there with our heads spinning and a lot of paperwork.
We didn’t talk about it for a couple hours; we both took the time to process everything that we had heard and sat on the deck later that evening to talk. I’m having a hard time with the donor sperm option. I honestly didn’t think that I would but all of the dreams that I’ve had about our kids and any time I’ve thought about them I always envisioned little boys who look like the hubs. Of course I know how stupid that sounds. I take full ownership of how moronic that whole thought process is. I have no idea why I feel that way and I think in time I’ll get over it because hubs doesn’t have a problem with it and he’d be the one without his DNA in the mix. If we chose to use donor anything we need to have a consultation with the psychiatrist anyway, which I think makes total sense. That’s a huge step and I think meeting with a professional to hash it out is a good idea.
Another thing I have a problem with, and hubs agrees, is that this is a whole lot of money without a guarantee that it will work. I know that we have been very very fortunate to have had the insurance coverage that we have had and that a lot of people go through this process paying out of pocket and taking that risk that it won’t work on the first or even third try. But for us that’s a huge gamble and we’re not sure if we’re ready to take that yet.
So what we agreed on is that we should take a few months off and just try on our own. Dr. B said that there isn’t any reason why I can’t get pregnant on my own. In thinking about that now I don’t get it since he said that the issue most likely lies with my eggs and his sperm coming together but maybe that’s just when it’s done artificially? I’m not sure. In any case that’s where we are now. I went on eBay and got a Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor and some sticks to go with it for a pretty good deal. I feel like we’re starting right back at square one but I’m almost excited about it. I had borrowed a CBE Monitor from a friend way before we started all this IF jazz but I only got to use it for one cycle. When she lent it to me she was pregnant with her third (she has 7 year old twin boys) and she ended up losing the baby at 14 weeks to trisonomy 13. It was heartbreaking and of course I was ok giving the monitor back because they wanted to try again. Once they were ready to try again she ended up getting pregnant rather quickly and now has a 7 month old little guy. I decided to just buy my own because it will be good to have if it works and if we end up trying for another one in the future.
So yeah. Lots and lots of info. I ended up getting my period today (which makes the huge waterfall of waterworks yesterday make more sense). I think I have to use the CBE Monitor starting on day 1 so I wouldn’t be able to use it this time anyway. Maybe we’ll just have sex starting on Day 4 and then every other day for 10 days. The monitor comes with some ovulation sticks that aren’t for the monitor so I might use them. I don’t always ovulate in the middle of my cycle and my cycles are not a “normal” length (this time it was 39 days).
So we’ll see how this all works… onto the next adventure in baby making!
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