Saline Ultrasound Results

Today was my saline ultrasound plus bubbles, and let me tell you, the bubbles added PAIN. I remember the last saline ultrasound not being so bad. I mean, of course it's not the most comfortable thing in the world and it hurt while it was going on, but it was fast. This time, since I was the genius who wanted to get a look at my tubes, he added the bubbles and then spent a heck of a lot more time in there (even adding more saline) showing me exactly what was happening.

Here's the basics. My uterus and my tubes are both totally clear. No problems at all. Yay! Er.... wait a second. If my bloodwork is fine, my uterus and my tubes are clear and healthy, then why the heck am I not getting pregnant? Suddenly, all these emotions just slammed into me. Where is the real obstacle? What's going wrong?  And if the tubes are clear of any scar tissue, is IVF really the right next step? Did we try hard enough with the IUI's?

When the doctor was done and I had to get up, I got woozy because this time there was blood. Also, this sharp pain shot up my right shoulder and I felt like I could hardly breathe. Gas from the bubbles? I'm guessing that had to be it. I toughed it out and went to the consult with the doctor. He asked what we want our next step to be. I expressed my doubts about why the previous 2 IUI's didn't work and he basically said it's never a guarantee and if we wanted to do one more IUI w/ Clomid before we move on to IVF, we can.

Wow, after all the confusion of the last week and all the emotions, that just really hit me hard. How do I know what the right thing is to do now? George doesn't want me to do IUI and Clomid next cycle because I'm working on my fifth book and my plan was to finish it and get it published before I moved on with any more fertility treatments. Basically, he thinks there's no way I'll finish this book in time if I'm also doing an IUI. So, his suggestion is to substitute the IUI for the IVF in October's cycle. Give it a chance and if it doesn't work, move on to IVF in November.

But then I look at the calendar and just don't see how this is going to work. Let's say we do the IVF in November and it works. That would mean a 16 hour drive to NJ to visit George's family in early December when I'm only a few weeks pregnant. Then, another 8 hour drive there and back to Georgia to visit my family for Christmas. All that driving and traveling in the first trimester of a PCOS pregnancy, which is already high-risk for miscarriage? I'm just not sure that's the best idea. Of course, if IVF doesn't work, I'll be a mess the entire holidays and having to be around people and their kids isn't going to be fun either.

Of course, George then says that maybe we should just wait and do IVF next year. And this is how it happens. Things always getting pushed back and never working out the way I think they will. I feel like such a mess right now. I would much rather do the IUI and have it work without having to go through the injections and emotional rollercoaster of IVF, but we've already done two with no luck. Who is to say this time could be any different?

So, the saline ultrasound answered some questions and brought up a heck of a lot more than I was ready to deal with. I can't even imagine what it must be like to have a conversation with your spouse that decides you're ready to start a family and then a few months later, you're pregnant just from having sex and being a normal couple. That must be the best feeling in the world.

Too Much Information

I think I'm suffering from information overload. Either that or too much change all at once. With IVF coming up, I feel this rush and this pressure to make all these changes I haven't been able to make over the last several years. Things like diet and exercise and getting my head on straight.

On one hand, it's great that I'm finding the motivation finally to make some changes. I've been following this fruit and veggie fast for four days now and am doing great. I wouldn't have been able to do that a year ago. No way. I've also been religiously going to the gym three times a week to work out. I'm excited to see these changes.

On the other hand, I'm reading a lot and talking to a lot of people and finding out that I'm still so incredibly far away from where I need to be. This is the most frustrating feeling for me right now. Yes, I'm going to the gym 3 times a week, but the books I'm reading say that for PCOS, I should be working out at least 30 minutes a day, 7 days a week. Yikes! I'm doing good, but it's STILL not enough. I'm eating this fruit and veggie fast and finally getting rid of my dependency on sugars and fried foods, but when I went to acupuncture today, he gave me a lecture about that not being good for PCOS and how I need to be eating protein with every meal and it needs to be chicken or beans and how whey protein isn't good enough, etc etc.

Then, he goes into this whole speech about how I must not love myself enough to eat the right things and that's the reason food has been such a struggle for me all these years. He said that my issues probably stem from something in my childhood, blah blah blah. I just sort of fell apart. There's too much information out there and the more help I seek in trying to find the right path, the more lost I feel.

What I'm realizing more and more is that the world is full of people who THINK they know. They think they know the best diet or the right way to treat someone or something. They think they know what you've been through or why you are a certain way. They think they know a better path. But the truth is, it's only a very very few people in this world who really understand me. Who really know what I've been through or what my struggles are. Even when it comes to diet, there are a million different ideas about what is best for us as humans. I'm starting to realize that the only person who really knows what I need is me. Sure, I can pull ideas from other people and places, but the only person who understands my needs and knows exactly what I need is me.

I don't think I'm going back to that acupuncturist. He made me feel like crap all day today worrying about my diet and these changes that I was so proud of up until the moment he lectured me. I'm getting protein, just not the way he thinks I should get it. Regardless of what he thinks, fruits and veggies are so much better for me than what I was eating before I started this diet. For me, it's a good change and if he can't support me, he's not going to be part of my team right now.

I guess my struggle right now is this: In a world full of so much information, how do we know what's right for us? For where I am right now in my journey, I think what's right for me is trusting my own instincts and finding something that works. Anything that makes me feel bad or doubtful or crappy can just disappear into the background.

Rough First Day

Today was NOT easy, let me tell you. As someone who eats out most of the time and makes choices like pizza, chicken fingers, fries, and such, eating only fruits and veggies is not only a shock to my system, it's a shock to my psyche. I did it though. Well, it's 9:45 at night and I'm snacking on broccoli, cauliflower and carrots, so I'm almost done with Day 1. I'm hoping it gets easier as it goes. I've pretty much been hungry all day even though I've also been eating all day. It doesn't seem to make sense, but when you add up all my calories, I'm still way under my 1500/day allotment.

I also worked out for an hour and a half this morning, which took a lot out of me. I know in the end, it will be worth it. Food has had control over me for far too long. If I didn't have PCOS, I might not be as concerned about eating the wrong kinds of food, but eventually what I eat is going to be a matter of life and death for me. I'd rather start now before the death part feels any closer! I definitely don't want to get diabetes or heart disease and the only way to really avoid those things is by eating right.

Can you tell I'm trying to pump myself up here? I'm going to need a lot of positive self-talk over the next 39 days. I might honestly come out of this a brand new person. Just 39 more days. I can do this.

Fruits and Veggies

I have made a very important decision. I have decided to go on a 40 day fruit and veggie fast. For me, this is a HUGE deal, lol. Food is my comfort and my stress-reliever and has been for years. Unfortunately, the foods I crave and want are things like chicken fingers, fries, cakes, candy, doughnuts, soda. These are all things that are bad, bad, bad. They are particularly bad for me because I have PCOS. All of those foods cause crazy spikes in my blood glucose levels and my body has a hard time regulating those levels and bringing them back down, which in turn causes all types of hormonal issues within my body. With only about 60 days remaining until my IVF cycle, I have decided to go through a detox program to both clean my body of toxins and to reset my cravings.

Am I terrified? Yes. Oh God, yes! I've never done anything like this in my life except when I was first diagnosed with PCOS and a nutritionist suggested I become vegetarian. I did it for several months before my then-boyfriend made fun of me for not eating steak and it was all over. Oh, how weak I was back then, haha. Now, I am hoping to be very strong and stick to this program that I know will make me healthier, help me detox and get rid of all the negative things in my digestive system, and hopefully help me jumpstart some weight loss. The weight loss will definitely help come IVF time, when the meds will surely put some weight back on. Ha!

So what is a fruit and veggie fast? This was my question when my personal trainer first suggested it to me. Basically, it's exactly what you would think it is. For 40 days, all I eat are fruit and veggies. No nuts, beans, meats, absolutely no animal products whatsoever - so no cheese, milk, eggs or anything like that. I am going to supplement my smoothies with protein powder (no artificial sweeteners! thank you Jay Robb Whey protein) and I have already told myself I am allowed on special occasions to put some peanut butter on my celery. But only rarely.

My acupuncturist told me to back off the caffeine anyway, so that was on the plan regardless. I imagine I'll be experiencing a few headaches in the days coming up as my body goes through some caffeine withdrawal. I haven't been having a lot of caffeine lately though, just some sodas here and there, so it shouldn't be too awful. Also, my trainer's wife told me that as your colon becomes cleaner, you do start to get some pretty serious gas pains. Great, lol. Not looking forward to that one, haha.

So what all did I buy today? I made a trip to whole foods with my trainer and his wife (amazingly sweet of them to take me under their wing) and bought all organic fruits and berries like raspberries, strawberries, watermelon, cantaloupe, bananas, apples, oranges and grapefruit. I also bought tomatoes, japanese sweet potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, celery and kale. Another non-fruit and veggie cheat I'll be using is almond milk for the smoothies, by the way. Oh, and I bought a huge bottle of pomegranate juice, which I've heard is great for boosting fertility.

I officially started the fast tonight at dinner. I made a banana, raspberry, strawberry smoothie with almond milk, ice and protein powder. It was delicious! I am also drinking lots and lots of water and plan to go tomorrow to stock up on San Pelligrino sparkling water that I can drink with lemon and pretend it's sprite, LOL. I'm hoping to use a cute new notebook I bought to record all of my foods every day.

Overall, my plan now includes a 40 day fast, regular exercise, acupuncture, chinese herbs, metformin, prenatal vitamins, vitamin D supplements and lots and lots of water. I want to spend some time before IVF begins also working on stress-management techniques like meditation. In my heart, I know that I am doing all I can to make our dream of having a baby come true. I want to be my best self and I want to be healthy so that when I do get pregnant, my body will be a great, snuggly home for a little one to grow. I'll let you know how it goes!

Updates to the "Plan"

I got a call from my nurse yesterday. I haven't talked to her much in a while, so it was good to hear from her and get things settled in my head. Now that AF has arrived, I have officially started marking things off my IVF to-do list. Yay! I set up my CD 5-9 saline ultrasound for next Tuesday. This is to check for fibroids and any issues with the uterus that would prevent an embryo from implanting. Also, the nurse told me that Dr. T wants me to re-do my Day 3 bloodwork. That's the bloodwork that checks hormone levels, AMH, and FSH (which helps them determine quality and quantity of viable eggs remaining). I had this done last October, but they wanted more recent results. So, luckily I talked to her in time to get it done this cycle.

I went in early this morning to have blood drawn and damn, they took like 9 vials of blood! It was crazy! I decided to also get my infectious disease labs done since it's one of the IVF requirements. On Tuesday, George is going in with me to the saline u/s and he'll do his inf. disease labs then too. Also, he'll give his sample for freeze. Our clinic requires a back-up sample just in case, for whatever reason, the husband can't "perform" or isn't able to give a sample on the day of the egg retrieval. Hehe. George never is looking forward to this. I can't imagine how awkward that must be for a guy, but he's a real trooper.

The exciting thing is that after next week, we'll be almost through all the major pre-requirements to starting IVF! All we'll have left is the education class where we learn to mix the medicines and learn how to do the injections and such. And, of course, there's the little thing of payment. Ugh. Haha. I know in the end, it will be worth all the money we're spending. Luckily, we also have great insurance that will reimburse a lot of it, but as it stands right now, it's still going to cost several thousand dollars.

Nurse C said that on Tuesday, Dr. T will sit down with us after the u/s and discuss the official protocol we'll be using for our IVF cycle. I'm anxious to hear which drugs we'll be using and how it will all go down. She said whenever we're ready to start the cycle, we'll just pay the money and they will go ahead and order the drugs. Some people on my babycenter IVF forum have already ordered their meds, so I was kind of freaking out thinking I was way behind, but Nurse C said their pharmacy usually overnights the meds, so there's no reason to plan that far in advance. I'm so relieved to hear that! I feel like we're in very good shape for our cycle and I can't see anything standing in our way right now. Definitely good news :).

First Acupuncture Appointment

Yesterday, I had my first acupuncture appointment. George went with me even though the appointment was mostly for me. His swimmers are above average, hehe, so not much work needed there! (thankfully!) Still, he's always so supportive and tries to go to as many appointments with me as possible. The appointment was an hour and a half long and we started out by talking about basics like nutrition, my cycle, our plan moving forward, etc. I really liked the guy. He seemed very knowledgeable and easy to talk to. He wasn't pushy or judgmental in any way, which was also good.

It's no secret that my eating habits need to change. I typically skip breakfast and only eat twice a day. He was telling me that is a huge no-no. I should definitely be eating a healthy breakfast and then eating at least every 3 hours to keep my blood sugar levels stable. I have heard this before, but hearing it again just makes it sink in more. He also gave me some herbs to take that he said will help control my blood sugar levels. It's called Gymnema leaf extract and I'm supposed to take it 20 minutes before my evening meal. What's exciting about this for me is that he said I should be able to stick with just the 1,000 mg. of Metformin I'm taking now without going back up to the 2,000 mg. This is very good news for me. My stomach tolerates the 1,000 mg. pill just fine right now. It's the 2,000 that literally kills my stomach. He said that while metformin is good for regulating the blood sugar levels, it also works to keep some other minerals from being absorbed properly into my body. I'll do whatever I can to minimize my metformin intake but still get the benefit of the controlled glucose levels. Yay! Good news there.

After we talked for a bit, he gave me my first acupuncture treatment. I laid on my stomach, face-down on the table. He put needles near my ankles somewhere and in my calf, then in several spots on my lower back. I was nervous about how the needles would feel. Sometimes it pinched a little going in, but it didn't hurt, which was good. Then, he hooked up these little wires to the needles and put 15 herz through them, making them vibrate. He said this is good for getting the blood moving. He explained how this will work to bathe my ovaries and send blood flow to the uterus, stimulating the follicles to grow and mature the eggs faster. With PCOS, one of the major problems is that eggs take so long to mature and cycles are so long, by the time the egg is ovulated, it isn't any good anymore and pregnancy can't happen. He hopes to get me ovulating a little bit early and make the eggs stronger and more mature. Do I really feel this is possible through acupuncture? I'm a little bit skeptical, to be honest. Clomid seemed to do the same thing, but it still didn't get me pregnant. On the other hand, I would be beyond thrilled to get pregnant naturally before we start IVF!

After about half an hour, he came back in, took out those needles and had me turn over. Then, he put needles in my ankles, feet, arms, hand and one in the center of my forehead. He felt my "kidney pulse" and at first said it was a little bit weak, then after about twenty minutes, he said it was much better. I didn't really feel particularly different, but I'm going to trust the process and hope for the best. I go back next Monday afternoon for another follicular treatment and to discuss a total plan for my health coming up.

One thing he did say that gave me pause was that he recommends at least 3 months of acupuncture for me before we move on to IVF. Right now, there are only two months planned before we start. I really don't want to put it off any longer, to be honest. Still, I want to give this the best shot, so I feel torn. Who's to say one more month of acupuncture would make the difference? There's no way to know that. On the other hand, I want to come through IVF knowing I did everything I could to make it successful. No regrets, you know? We'll see what his plan is for me when I go in on Monday. Overall his fees are very reasonable, so I should be able to do whatever he thinks is best as far as continuing treatments and herbs. I'll keep you updated! It just feels good to be getting started and moving in the right direction for our miracle baby!

CD 1

AF came this morning. While I was working out, of course, lol. I got home from the gym and it was on. Cramps full force, which only adds insult to injury when you're TTC. It's like, not only do you have to deal with the blow of not being pregnant yet again, you also have to deal with feeling like complete crap and being in excruciating pain. Ugh. I am going to take another tylenol and hope it goes away by this afternoon.

The good news is that I was finally able to schedule my CD 5-9 ultrasound. It's one of those pre-requisites to IVF, so this will be a very good step in our journey. I had one of these done last year, but the clinic requires it to be done within a few months of IVF just to make sure there are no fibroids or tumors in the uterus that would cause IVF to fail. I feel confident that everything will be fine, so this is just going to get us one step closer to the good stuff. Dr. T is going to put some kind of "bubbles" in the saline this time around so we can get a clearer look at the tubes. I realize this seems strange since we're doing IVF and the tubes will be bypassed, but for my own peace of mind, I want to know if my tubes are blocked in any way or not.

So, the saline ultrasound is scheduled for 3:15 PM on August 9th. That's next Tuesday. On the phone, the nurse told me to be sure to take some tylenol or other pain killer about an hour before I come in. Nice. I hadn't been thinking about the pain of it, lol. I've been so focused on the process, I had forgotten to think about how the saline u/s felt. It does kind of suck for a few minutes, but I don't remember it being awful or anything. Hopefully this time will be the same.

I also left a voicemail for the nurse I work with most directly. I'll just call her Nurse C. I asked her to please call me back when she gets a chance so we can discuss my IVF protocol and whether I need to come in for a specific "plan" sort of meeting with her and Dr. T. Today marks the officially 2 month waiting period before we start our IVF cycle on October 1st. I'm very excited and very nervous at the same time.

Oh, and today is my first acupuncture appointment! 6:00 PM tonight. I had to fill out a ton of forms. Think I will print out my charts from FF too and take those with me. We'll see what he has to say tonight, but I'm hoping it will help me relax and also help us conceive. I feel like even though IVF is still 2 months away, we're finally starting to take real steps towards it, and that makes me very happy. On CD1, I usually am feeling depressed and wondering if I will ever feel the joy of seeing those two lines on a home pregnancy test. Now, though, I can truly find hope that I just might see it in 3 months or less!