We had another ultrasound yesterday and I guess things looked good so we are going back in again tomorrow. The nurse said the doctor is concerned I will ovulate on my own before the trigger. I am not really sure why that would be a problem, but I will take their word for it. At last report my lining was an appropriate thickness, I had a larger follicle on each ovary at about 13 mm, and then another 12 mm ish one on each ovary. I also have a plethora of smaller ones in the 10-11mm range. 

They said they want the follicles to be 18 mm before I trigger, I am guessing that the art right now is getting those bigger ones to mature and then to trigger at just the right moment before the smaller ones catch up. Less I become pregnant with a litter of children and qualify for my own reality show.

In other news today is the first day of the Tour De Fleece. What's that you ask? It's a spinning event where you spin every day of the Tour De France. You pick something challenging on the harder days of the ride and you rest on the days the cyclists rest. I have failed every year that I have attempted this so far. I am having a little party this afternoon to kick it off. 

I THINK things looked good on my ultrasound yesterday. My RE has a policy where they tell you any follicle less than 12 mm is not measurable, which is bull because you can watch them measure the smaller ones and see the numbers pop up on the screen. Yesterday I for sure had an 11.5 mm follicle, and two other smaller 11 mm follicles and one odd sort of kidney shaped 10-11 mm follicle. The ultrasound tech gave me this information after much pleading on my part, but made me promise not to tell the doc she told me. So I am just telling the internet about it instead. 

They said they would call me by 3:00 and let me know what to do. I waiting until 3:10 and called them. I thought that was reasonable, but the nurse sounded a bit grumpy on the phone. She said "Take 75 tonight and tomorrow and then come back Friday". And that was it. I wish I had asked what my estrogen levels where and if they thought things looked good, but I was off the phone before I had the chance. 

So we are a bit in limbo. I think things look good, we should know more on Friday. My friends on Ravelry have reassured me that those numbers look good. What I don't know is if all 4 follicles mature if they will cancel the cycle because the risk of multiples is too high. When I have asked how many follicles is too many they have been very vague, so we will wait and see.

So far I have done 5 days of the Gonal-F shots. We did 150 IU for the first three days, and now we are down to 75 IU. I have an ultrasound this morning and after that I will increase/decrease my dose depending on response.

I have to admit, doing the shots has been harder than I thought it would be. Luckily we have had very few side effects (mostly, I am just very bloated a bit emotional), but the actual puncturing myself with a needle is hard. I thought the first one would be hard and then it would be easy, but psychologically it's harder than I thought to puncture the skin. Last night my friend who is an RN showed me how to do it in my thigh though and that was much easier, so I think I will do that from now on.

Mr. Chickadee and I are both feeling pretty anxious about my ultrasound this morning. We have yet to have confirmed ovulation, so we are nearing the point where it all went to shit last time. I am trying to tell myself that CD 7 is early and if there isn't a lot of growth that does not mean the whole thing is a bust, but I know that I am going to feel crushed if I leave there with no measurable follicles.

Wish me luck that my ovaries are not continue to stink at being ovaries.

Hello again

I've been absent for a while... our last cycle was so crushing that it has taken a while before I felt like I could talk about my empty uterus and I have not been in the mood to photograph my crafts. Truthfully, my mental health has not been a good state overall. Try as I might to just live my life, I am constantly thinking about infertility.

What do I think about? It varies day to day. Some days I think fondly of the children I know I will have eventually, some days I think about how many days I have until I have a chance of ovulating, often I think about dates coming up and wonder if I could be pregnant by then, or I think about friends that I know are trying and how I am going to react if they get pregnant. Mostly I think about how unfair this all is, and what I did in a past life to deserve this.

Right now I am patiently waiting to start my menstrual cycle. Once that starts I can start doing my injections the next day. Then I go in for an ultrasound on CD 7 to determine if my ovaries have done anything or are continuing to be the useless pieces of crap that they have been all along.

I'll update as conditions warrant.

We met again with the doctor last week and have a new plan. We are going to do 3 weeks of birth control pills to suppress the ovaries and give everything a rest and then we are doing Gonal-F shots. We will start with 3 days of 150 and then 2 days of 75 and then go in for an ultrasound and see how things are progressing. I have to wait a little bit to start my birth control pills because I want to be sure my husband is home for any follicles that have grown and he is away June 20-24.

I am of two minds about this. On one hand I am really excited to try shots and I am pretty optimistic that they will work, but on the other hand I am terrified they won't. We are starting to run low on options and it scares me that I won't be able to have biological children at all. 

The other downside is infertility is really, really, really expensive. I am working over 50 hours this week and next week and it's exhausting me. My job is pretty physical and I come home tired and aching all over. At least the time is passing quickly until our next cycle this way.

Well that sucked

Had my second ultrasound yesterday and I did have a little bit of follicular growth, but nothing bigger than 12 mm which is what they want to see. My estrogen level was also very low so my doctor's office called and cancelled the cycle. We were completely crushed that Femara was not successful in inducing ovulation. We had prepared ourselves that it might not make us pregnant the first time, but we were really hoping that it would at least give us a shot at hoping that we might be pregnant for a couple weeks.

In the fertility community there is an expression called the two week wait, it's the time period between ovulation and taking a pregnancy test (or getting your period, whichever comes first). People get very excited during this time period as they endlessly google signs such as "weird forehead sweating on 4 days post ovulation" to see if anyone has ever had this as an early pregnancy sign.

It's SO frustrating to have never since we started trying to conceive to ever have had a hope that it was even possible that we could be pregnant. And every treatment that we start that fails to induce ovulation brings us closer to running out of options/money and it scares the crap out of me.

We are going back to see the doctor today, we are really hoping he will have some good ideas for some next steps

Disapointment

Well I went in today for a cycle day 12 ultrasound and things are not looking good in there. Blood work showed low estrogen (not good) and the ultrasound didn't show any follicle larger than 12 mm. I am in the waiting game right now. I should know more on Tuesday when I go back for a follow up, but as of right now I am not feeling terribly optimistic. True some women are late responders to Femara, and still ovulate but on a later day, but others don't respond at all. I feel like I am not going to respond at all. 

I think the worst part of infertility is the feeling like your entire life is on hold while you wait to get pregnant. For example right now I know that I have 72 hours before I find out if I can grow a follicle and I most interested in those 72 hours passing as quickly as possible. I know that I only will be alive on this earth for a finite number of hours and I should probably enjoy every one of them (or at least try to). I wasted my entire summer last year worrying that I was infertile only to discover that yup I sure am and now I am worried I will waste this whole summer worrying if I will ever ovulate. 

It's been a rough day.