I am being a baby

I 100% fully realize this.  The clomid challenge is not that big of a deal.  I just called the nurse with my concerns to see if she could alleviate some of them, but really after 3 years I think I knew there was nothing she could say that I didn't already know.  This is what she said

1. Since I respond so well to 50 mg and now have to take 100 mg that we should abstain from sex.

2. I do have to go back on day 13 to make sure that I ovulated.  If I haven't and I have at least one follicle at 25 then they will trigger me.  If not then I have to keep going back every frigging couple of days until I am ready to trigger. 

3. They will put me on bcp the following cycle continually until I get rid of any cysts that I get from the clomid challenge.  I am really not trying to be a debbie downer but every other time I have done clomid I ended up with killer cysts, so there is no reason to think on double the meds that I won't have any.

4. The nurse did say that the doctor can drain the cysts although it hurts, so that is an option if I end up with more than one that won't go away.

At least it's not like I have to wait a long time.  I start it tomorrow, I will know by next Wednesday if I pass or fail, hopefully if I haven't ovulated by Saturday I will at least be ready to trigger, and then two weeks after that I will know what the cyst situation is.

Ugh.  

Silver Lining- is that during the month or months that I can't do IVF because of the possible cyst I can lose any weight that I gained while doing the challenge.

Updated:B/W levels are back

FSH- 5.4

E2- 47

No problem there, the only issue now is the insurance company.  Not sure what the issue is since I am already approved to do IVF and it was just a matter of switching practices.  The IVF coordinator is super confused and just called me upset that I went in at all today because the dr/nurse/whoever does it failed to put in my notes that he wanted to see my day 2 levels before we did anything so he could decide for himself if he thinks my eggs are shot or not.   I guess she thought I was just taking matters into my own hands and doing whatever I wanted.  She doesn't realize I don't love the magic dildo cam and wouldn't go in for funsies.

So she is now talking to the doctor and is supposed to give me a call back, in the meantime I am going to call the insurance company to see what the hold up is.

Ok, so she called back and they still want me to do the challenge which sucks basically.  Clomid flares my IC and is a guaranteed cyst.  But you know what who cares, I will probalby be on bcp for a month anyway and hopefully it won't delay us stimming.   The PMS anxiety is just getting to me today.

I go back on day 10 and get my blood drawn to see what my FSH did.  From what I have read it is supposed to go down so we will see.  I have taken this level of clomid several times and it was always fine before so I am hoping we will get the same result.  The next day I see the dr for another consult.  He is really big on consults.  I am hoping there we will get our protocol and get the show on the road.

After being on hold off and on for the last half hour with my insurance we finally have it figured out.  They thought I had two insurances and were waiting for my other insurance to contact them.  I used to cover myself and my husband but then when he started working at the same place they use the birthday rule and he is now the primary.  This confused them but it's all straight now and a letter went out to my new clinic stating that I am approved!

Day 2 Visit

My ovaries are beautiful according to the nurse I saw today.  Compared to my earlier cycles where my antral count was between 6 and 8, I had a whopping 20+ antral count this morning.  It can vary from cycle to cycle but this is pretty amazing in my book.  Who knows what contributed to this, maybe it was the stress I was under last year which I was told can have an effect on it or maybe it was just all the positive improvements I have been making in the last five months.  All I know is I am not going to change anything.

Now I just have to wait to hear back on what my E2 and FSH levels are.  They did give me the clomid script in case i have to do the clomid challenge this month but I am hoping that I don't.  My protocol is still not in the computer yet so I need to get with the IVF coordinator today after I get back my levels as I do not want to wait yet another 40+ days to start bcp.  

I'll update later when I hear more...

**- I was told by my new RE that stress can have an effect on your antral count and your ovaries in general just as it can effect your other organs.  So it was not at all a no stress=pregnancy type thing.  

The derm and undie wrecking periods

I went in this morning to see my derm.  I have some awesome late 20s form of roseca, to me it just looks like an acne explosion but hey what do I know.  I also had 7 moles removed that he put a rush on to see if they are precancerous.  I have moles removed before and they have always come back fine so I am praying these do also.  My wonderful mother didn't believe in sunscreen when we were kids so its sort of expected but it never makes it easier getting them removed. 

 Here's where it gets fun.  At some point from leaving the house this morning and getting to work I got my period.  No light flow here, it was so bad that I bled through my pantyliner and underwear in less than an hour.  I had to run to frigging Target to get new underwear and it's only 10:30. Thank god I wore a skirt today and not pants.

 The good news is that I go in tomorrow now for my day 2 labs and if they come back fine they we get to start IVF again.   If they don't, then we are onto the clomid challenge this month.

Merge!

I finally merged my IVF blog with this one.  I didn't realize it would be so easy, thanks blogger!  My homrones definitely got the best of me during IVF and I am sure not fully sure I remember the reason I started the IVF blog anyway.  Either way, it's merged, all in one lovely place now.

And now I have a kidney infection

Fun times, really.  Ugh.  Let me start off by saying it has been over a year and a half since I have had any sort of urinary infection.  Why?  Because my doctor has me taking antibiotics after sex...

At my gyn annual appointment two weeks ago my dr said he was going to lower my dose of antibiotics I take after sex and he assured me I would be fine.  Yep, not so much.  Last night I was so cold and had the chills so bad that my teeth were chattering.  I almost hopped off the table when he pressed my kidney.   They gave me some good drugs so I should be fine in a few days.   My gyn said to call if I had any problems with the new dose and he would change it back so hopefully by the time this clears I will have my old dose back and this won't happen again.

Sugar Cutdown

How is this even possible?  Just two pieces of fruit a day and a glass of skim milk put you over the sugar threshold for the day.  I don't think cutting out all milk is a wonderful idea and fruit is obviously a better snack then most other things I can come up with.  I am going to have to ask the dr next time I see him how low he really wants me to be with this.  I generally don't drink soda, eat candy bars, chocolate, cake, and I cut out no sugar added ice cream!  I thought this would be good enough but according to the calorie counter I am still over!   Arg.

The protien front is going much better.  I have a delicious shake in the morning and I don't crave a morning snack anymore which is nice.   Then for snacks throughout the day I am going with string cheese and almonds.  

Airing of my issues

I have issues as we all know.  Several of them today in fact. 

Issue #1- I hate blogging/nesting about my insurance.  I feel GUILTY that I have it when so many don't.  So basically I won't anymore.

Issue #2-  I saw that someone on my IF board wrote that IF was the worst thing in the world.  Now, I am not talking IF sucks today, I hate IF, ect ect because we all have those days, months, years.  This was straight up that IF was the WORST thing.  Um, really?  Even when I was depressed and hopped up on prozac last year I could still recognize that there were worse things in the world.

Here's a quick list...

terminal cancer, terminal cancer when you are leaving kids behind, ALS, your significant other dying in some horrific way, becoming paralyzed in some horrible accident where now only you can't have kids but you also can't move, nuclear war, regular war coming to US soil, living in a third world country with no clean drinking water, and if I called my father I could come up with fifty other things.

The reason he can think of so many is because he would always remind me this when I was a teen.  I wasn't  always a happy teen and needed to be reminded sometimes.   And if my list isn't convincing enough, then you need to take a trip to your local hospital and take a look around and then search war on google and look at those pictures.

Issue #3- Life isn't fair.  It's not and never will be.  My husband kills me in this department sometimes or actually a lot.  Yes, the economy sucks.  It sucks we went to college and can't afford to live in a McMansion, have a ton of kids, and the list goes on and on.  Taking my husband and I as an example again lets look at our past

-awful childhood and basically no family for my husband now that he is older

- rape and abuse for me in college

- chronic pain issues, sometimes to the point of where I want to pull out my hair and be alone for the rest of my life because I just can't take it.   

-infertility and miscarriages

So really, why would you now expect life to be fair?  That just isn't logical.   It never has been fair but a lot of good has come also.  If I was never raped I would not have met my husband.  If my pain levels weren't through the roof some days then I would not be so grateful for the days it isn't.  I don't think this is some sort of divine plan at all, it just IS.  I am sure as shit if you looked at your life there is a lot of bad, but there is good to.   I have to remind my husband of this sometimes on daily basis and then there are days were I tell him I will punch him in the throat if he doesn't stop his shit. 

Those are my issues today, feel free to disagree. 

More good news from the new office

I just got off the phone with the IVF coordinator and their billing department.  First bit of good news is that state employees don't have to pay their program fee!  The program fee was for the injection classes and a few other things, which chances are we won't be attending anyway because we have already been through this so I would have felt like that was a waste of money.  The second is that they do their embryo freezing payment completely different.  We give them a check or credit card number and if there is anything to freeze then they put the payment through.  No waiting for months on end to get our freeze money back, me calling once every other week wondering what the hold up is, ect.  

My insurnace company is calling me back at some point today to let me know how much of my benefit I have left.  I know there is at least enough left for one full cycle so that's all that matters at this moment.  

My one diet change that I am supposed to make is to cut down the sugar and pump up the protien.  That shouldn't be too hard besides my beloved frozen yogurt at night.   I also realized upon some googling that my favorite fruits are the highest in surgar.  Go figure.   

I'm back from my 2nd opinion appt!!!

I am in love!  My new clinic has the nicest staff and the doctor was wonderful.  He looked over my file and we talked about my E2 and FSH levels.  My FSH is fine, but the cycle we did IVF my E2 was pretty high to what it normally is on cd3.  He said hands down that they picked the wrong protocol for me and that he would not have used lupron at all.  The question now is what my E2 high because of a cyst or something else.  I go in for day 3 bloodwork whenever my period decides to come.  If everything looks good and my E2 is down to where it should be then we are off to the races.  If not, he is going to have me do the clomid challenge to see if I do in fact have some egg quality issue that were never discovered before.

 I am so glad I went!  I was really ready to give up all hope when the old RE made the toxic dump comment.  Of course my old office neglected to send me my detailed IVF sheets so I have to get those before he writes up the protocol and then I can get my drugs ordered. ---update--they called me right back and are putting it in the mail tomorrow!

 Whoa, I can't believe we are going to be cycling again, and soon!  Is that a small glimmer of hope I see? 

Pub Troubles

I took Chris out for lunch last Friday to a local pub.  The food was freaking excellent, OMG so delicious.  The problem is that they charged my card once and put two additional holds on the card.  So a 25 dollar lunch has turned into 90 dollars missing out of my separate checking account.  Chris and I each have a separate account that is basically our lunch/gas/other incidentals account that doesn't get very much money in it so its sort of a pain in the ass.   

I called my bank today to ask when these charges were going to come off, they keep telling me they are only pending.  Ok, pending or not the money is still not available to me.   Then I call the pub who tells me to check in a few more days and they pending charges should be gone.  Gee, thanks.  Then I ask her if this is a new policy because after it happened to me, someone I know said it happened to them also.  She said it was a waiter error but that it is their policy to put holds on people's debit cards.  WTF ever.  Again, it's only an extra 60 bucks, not a huge deal but its still annoying.  I will definitely think twice about eating there again and if I do I will be bringing cash.

Long Weekend in Review

I will have to say that I had a great long weekend!  We went to the beach and out to lunch on Friday.  The weather was gorgeous and the pugs love the beach so it was pretty adorable.  We went to our friend's daughter's bday party on Saturday afternoon.  She seemed to like what we got her so that was a major plus.  Next up was my favorite part of the weekend...Chris and I went bowling.  Yes, my arthritis/fibro girl bowled three games.  It was so much fun and different, I am so sick of doing the same shit every night and for 26 dollars for shoes and three hours of bowling we will definitely be going back.

Yesterday we just visited the fam, went to the movies, and had our Easter dinner.   My mom gave me a sample of her new acne medicine that the derm gave her last week so I am giving that a try.  I used it with success as a teenager so hopefully this mess will start to clear up soon.  I am seeing my derm, but not for another few weeks and I am desperate which was why I took some of her stuff.  I generally not a drug thief, I swear:)

Second Opinion Appointment-Updated

Is in less than two weeks!  She could schedule me for next week but I know my supervisor likes a little more notice than that.  They must be seriously slow if they have new patient appointments open for next week.  

Yes, we are still going to wait but I just want to know from someone else if it is as hopeless as my RE was making it out to be.  That is all.  If it isn't then with all the testing I am sure they will want to re-do it will still probalby be July before we get to cycle again.  I have also heard he is big on re-doing laps right before you do IVF if endo is an issue so that would take up some time also. Or, if he says he can't help us then that will be that.  

Have I mentioned lately that I have anxiety issues? LOL! 

Update:  The new RE actually sees new patients at my ob/gyns office in Dover.  I rescheduled and my appointment is next Thursday during lunch which works out perfectely.  The gyn basically said he didn't want to touch my crazy cycles with a ten foot pole and to see what the new RE has to say.

Three month countdown

We are definitely going to call the other RE in May/June.  As of right now we have the insurance to cover it so really its silly at least not to try again, right?  Everyone at my husband's work who has dealt with IF has gone through him and they were all successful.  Why three months?  They say it takes three full months for any herbs/diet changes to have any effect on your egg quality and I want to have the best chance possible when we do try again.  Here is a quick list of what I am taking:

Vitex

Wheatgrass

Red Clover and Red Raspberry herbs

Hopefully my hormones will be in perfect harmony by the time July rolls around and I will have slightly better egg quality.  Losing weight and excercising more I am sure will have a positive impact.  Positive thinking, Kate, positive thinking.  

You may be wondering what is going to happen to the magic pee box?  Well, we are still going to use it for now but if the Vitex works the wonders I read it does hopefully my cycles will not be nearly as irregular in the upcoming months and I won't need it.

04/03/2009

I got my file last night from my old RE.  Here are the highlights

1) I thought I was a lot lighter in 2007 than I actually was.  

2)My fsh has steadily increased from 4 to 6 in the past 2 years.

3) My hcg was not 0 after my IUI cycle, even though I specifically asked the nurse if it was at 0 because around 10dpiui I got a positive test.  It was not 0.  She lied to me and I can't figure out why.

4)They were going to use the same protocol for IVF try #2 even though our quality sucked.

I am sure there was more but those were the highlights.  It was about 100 pages long of labs, consult summaries, ect.  The more and more I think about it, the more sure I am that I at least want to go for a second opinion later this year just to make sure that we tried everything we could.  If he says yeah, your old RE was right there is nothing we can do because it appears your egg suck then so be it.  Until then, I am going to religiously start taking the wheatgrass again and I am going to look into other ways to naturally(herbally) get my cycles back on track.  

So hopefully that will be the last we hear from RE #1 and I can enjoy my spring and summer with my magic pee box and my nasty ass wheatgrass powder.

Drama of my IVF continues

It would seem as though the disaster that was my IVF cycle in December just won't go away.  Now my insurance company is denying the claim from my anesthesiologist.  My RE uses an outside company and states they have never had this problem before.  I freak out midly because of the amount and call the pain management center that did the anesthesia.  They state they appealing it and sending my records over and hopefully it will work out.  I also spoke with the RE's office who said they would look into it but they have alway used this anesthesiologist and it has only been an issue one other time.  If it was not one thing it was another with that office.  I loved the nurses and the doctors but the rest of it just seemed to be a clusterfuck.  

The good news is that they are sending me my file for free!  I am going to take a copy to the ob/gyn next week and then I will have a copy if we ever decide to go for a second opinion(which I have been thinking more and more about lately for next winter).  

It looks like it will all work out in the end, it's just ridiculous that I am still trying to get this all straightened out when my IVF was four months ago!

Too much pee on the stick

I somehow managed to mess up my magic pee box for the month.  It already says that I am getting ready to ovulate on day 11.  I thought it was wrong so I used an old fashioned opk last night and it was negative.  I didn't use my fmu because I forgot so I ended up saturating the crap out of it before I left for work.  Either way, as long as I don't screw with it anymore it will still count my days until I get my period and record it.  Next month I am going to go back to PIAC  first and then dipping the stick.  Yes, I am special sometimes.