I went in for my folliescan today and did not get to see any folicles... but never fear, this time it was a good thing! There were none there because.... I already ovulated! I got that + OPK on Wed and sure enough my temps spiked up very high today, so I went in today thinking that I probably ovulated yesterday. The ultrasound confirmed my suspicion and we were able to see my corpus luteum, what's left of a follicle that has recently burst, and what is responsible for producing progesterone to keep a pregnancy viable in the first few weeks until the placenta takes over. My endometrial stripe (or lining) was at 9.3mm which is good depth for implantation. No cysts were found (which is a huge relief!) so all around, a great visit with fantastic news!
Now begins the long 2 week wait (2ww). On Sunday (3dpo or days past ovulation) I start taking my Prometrium and continue on that for 12 days. At that point I will be 15dpo and ready to test if my temps are still high and AF has not arrived. This is the hardest part of every cycle... the never-ending wait... wish me luck!
Showing posts with label fertility drugs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fertility drugs. Show all posts
Friday, September 5, 2008
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Houston, we've got a + OPK!
WOOHOO! Oh what beautiful purple lines, I love them! So this positive plus the fact that my ovaries feel like they're about the size of grapefruits leads me to believe we might be getting somewhere at last! I have my follie-scan tomorrow, so here's hoping for good news! I'll update once I know whats going on. I heart Femara! :)
Friday, August 29, 2008
Second verse, same as the first?
Well, AF just never did come... A week later I got impatient, called and whined to my nurse/doctor and they told me to:
A) take a pregnancy test... Riiiiiiiiiiiiight, because I would be that lucky? NOT! Of course BFN, I never even ovulated! But ok, we had to make sure.
B) If BFN, then start Femara again, this time twice the dose, 5mg.
So here I am on my 4th day of Femara wondering if this is going to work. I have felt the same little "twinges" off and on since day 2, but nothing else. Something I realized last night was that while not as bad as with Clomid, nevertheless Femara has always given me headaches. Last month I didn't get any and it turns out it didn't work... Are those 2 factors related? I have no idea! Maybe it's just a coincidence, but my paranoid/pessimistic mind is thinking hmmm... no headaches last time, no headaches this time... will next week's folliescan show the same nothingness as last month's? Lets hope not...
A) take a pregnancy test... Riiiiiiiiiiiiight, because I would be that lucky? NOT! Of course BFN, I never even ovulated! But ok, we had to make sure.
B) If BFN, then start Femara again, this time twice the dose, 5mg.
So here I am on my 4th day of Femara wondering if this is going to work. I have felt the same little "twinges" off and on since day 2, but nothing else. Something I realized last night was that while not as bad as with Clomid, nevertheless Femara has always given me headaches. Last month I didn't get any and it turns out it didn't work... Are those 2 factors related? I have no idea! Maybe it's just a coincidence, but my paranoid/pessimistic mind is thinking hmmm... no headaches last time, no headaches this time... will next week's folliescan show the same nothingness as last month's? Lets hope not...
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Wake up sleepyheads!!!
My last Lupron shot was on June 24th and on July 22nd, I started up Femara again, so see if that would help wake up my ovaries and get me ovulating again. A few days after starting the Femara, I started feeling all those familiar "twinges" that got me thinking/hoping that this would actually work! However, something odd happened. I started using OPK's (ovulation predictor kits) and not only were they negatice... they were EXTREMELY negative! By that I mean that usually negative = testline is lighter than control line. In my case, I wasn't even getting a testline period! NONE, not even the kind that you can *almost* will into appearance if you turn the test strip juuuuuuuuuust right and squint! Heehee... ;)
Failure to stimulate was confirmed on my cycle day 11 ultrasound. There was just simply NOTHING there. My ovaries were still fast asleep... I guess they're enjoying their vacation too much, lazy bums! I was instructed to keep temping (just in case) and start Prometrium on cd18, continuing through cd29. All OPK's thereafter continued to be super-negative, so yeah... this cycle was a complet bust. I took my last Prometrium Tuesday night and as of yet, still no AF. As soon as she decides to show her face I will be able to start up the Femara again, but until then... the wait is on. :/
Failure to stimulate was confirmed on my cycle day 11 ultrasound. There was just simply NOTHING there. My ovaries were still fast asleep... I guess they're enjoying their vacation too much, lazy bums! I was instructed to keep temping (just in case) and start Prometrium on cd18, continuing through cd29. All OPK's thereafter continued to be super-negative, so yeah... this cycle was a complet bust. I took my last Prometrium Tuesday night and as of yet, still no AF. As soon as she decides to show her face I will be able to start up the Femara again, but until then... the wait is on. :/
Sunday, July 20, 2008
An Uphill Battle (Part 2)
Before continuing with my story, I just wanted to say thank you to those that have come and visited my little blog on its very first day!It's amazing how less alone you feel when you realize how many others are out there going through the same crud. I'm am so sad that such a painful thread links us, but I'm glad that we can gain strength and comfort from one another's experiences and thoughts!
Ok, now onto the rest of my journey up until now. I think I'll divide it into seperate posts, just to keep things a bit more organized and not so lengthy. Today's post will be about our infertility struggle, by far the worst that Endo has done to me...so far.
Growing up with these "womanly issues" I always suspected having children might not be the easiest thing ever for me. I had nothing to academically back this up of course, but in my mind that part of me just didn't "function right" for some reason and so natuarally I assumed this would come back to haunt me someday. Boy was I right, and sadly enough I had grossly underestimated just how difficult it would be...
I would later (after my Lap) find out that I also have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) which unbeknown to me (at the time) is often found with Endo. My cycles were never what you would consider "normal" and after being on birth control pills for 8 years straight, I expected it to take a while for my body to get it all straightened out. Eight months into trying I still had no idea what my body was doing, so as per my doctor's advice, I started Clomid. I wish I had known at the time what horrid effects this drug would have on my Endo... perhaps, I would have decided against it, but I guess thats why the say hindsight is 20/20, huh? In the 8 months that we did Clomid (along with trigger shots and 2 IUI's) my Endo symptoms grew ten-fold. I developed some nasty cysts that we had to try birth control pills on to make them go away. That didn't work so well, but at least they weren't getting any bigger right? Ha! A few ruptured, and that was hands down some of the worst pain I've ever had. Then the non-stop bleeding began, for which I was placed back on birth control pills, only this time continuously. The bleeding continued... Provera was added to the mix... still I kept bleeding. The last thing my doctor could/would try would be Aygestin, and if the bleeding continued I would have to have surgery... both to stop the bleeding and get rid of the cysts that would just not go away on their own.
Of course the bleeding continued, the pain was at an all time high and I was popping Naproxen and Lortab like candy just to be able to function. I had been asked to keep a daily journal of my pain level, and those last 2 months, there was not a day that went by in which I wasn't hurting somewhere, ususally at a moderate to severe on the pain scale. It was awful... I wasn't sure how I was going to keep going like this. The pain drained me of any and all energy. I was worse than useless! After work I would come home and just crash on the couch. On the weekends I would take my strongest painkillers (because it was the only time I could since I didn't have to go to work) and pretty much just sleep the days away. I neglected my house, my husband, and any other resposibilities I had at the time. It had been almost 2 years since we first started trying to get pregnant, and there I was, still no baby, in worlds of pain, and bleeding to death. Could things possibly get any worse?
Oh yes... they always can. I've learned not to ask that question anymore. On August 31st, 2007 I went in for my Laparoscopy. (I will blog more in detail about that next time) When I woke up I heard the news I was dreading. Yes, I indeed have Endometriosis and a rather severe case of it too. I also found out I had PCOS which at that time meant very little to me, but would soon mean more pills to take, including the not-so-fun Metformin. Eventually all this would also mean a 6 month course of Lupron, which I am just barely resurfacing from. More on Lupron later on as well. So, here I am almost 3 years since we started down this road of trying to conceive, and still no baby. Will we ever get our little miracle? Who knows... but for now we keep chugging along, and in 2 days I will start another treatment, Femara.
Ok, now onto the rest of my journey up until now. I think I'll divide it into seperate posts, just to keep things a bit more organized and not so lengthy. Today's post will be about our infertility struggle, by far the worst that Endo has done to me...so far.
Growing up with these "womanly issues" I always suspected having children might not be the easiest thing ever for me. I had nothing to academically back this up of course, but in my mind that part of me just didn't "function right" for some reason and so natuarally I assumed this would come back to haunt me someday. Boy was I right, and sadly enough I had grossly underestimated just how difficult it would be...
I would later (after my Lap) find out that I also have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) which unbeknown to me (at the time) is often found with Endo. My cycles were never what you would consider "normal" and after being on birth control pills for 8 years straight, I expected it to take a while for my body to get it all straightened out. Eight months into trying I still had no idea what my body was doing, so as per my doctor's advice, I started Clomid. I wish I had known at the time what horrid effects this drug would have on my Endo... perhaps, I would have decided against it, but I guess thats why the say hindsight is 20/20, huh? In the 8 months that we did Clomid (along with trigger shots and 2 IUI's) my Endo symptoms grew ten-fold. I developed some nasty cysts that we had to try birth control pills on to make them go away. That didn't work so well, but at least they weren't getting any bigger right? Ha! A few ruptured, and that was hands down some of the worst pain I've ever had. Then the non-stop bleeding began, for which I was placed back on birth control pills, only this time continuously. The bleeding continued... Provera was added to the mix... still I kept bleeding. The last thing my doctor could/would try would be Aygestin, and if the bleeding continued I would have to have surgery... both to stop the bleeding and get rid of the cysts that would just not go away on their own.
Of course the bleeding continued, the pain was at an all time high and I was popping Naproxen and Lortab like candy just to be able to function. I had been asked to keep a daily journal of my pain level, and those last 2 months, there was not a day that went by in which I wasn't hurting somewhere, ususally at a moderate to severe on the pain scale. It was awful... I wasn't sure how I was going to keep going like this. The pain drained me of any and all energy. I was worse than useless! After work I would come home and just crash on the couch. On the weekends I would take my strongest painkillers (because it was the only time I could since I didn't have to go to work) and pretty much just sleep the days away. I neglected my house, my husband, and any other resposibilities I had at the time. It had been almost 2 years since we first started trying to get pregnant, and there I was, still no baby, in worlds of pain, and bleeding to death. Could things possibly get any worse?
Oh yes... they always can. I've learned not to ask that question anymore. On August 31st, 2007 I went in for my Laparoscopy. (I will blog more in detail about that next time) When I woke up I heard the news I was dreading. Yes, I indeed have Endometriosis and a rather severe case of it too. I also found out I had PCOS which at that time meant very little to me, but would soon mean more pills to take, including the not-so-fun Metformin. Eventually all this would also mean a 6 month course of Lupron, which I am just barely resurfacing from. More on Lupron later on as well. So, here I am almost 3 years since we started down this road of trying to conceive, and still no baby. Will we ever get our little miracle? Who knows... but for now we keep chugging along, and in 2 days I will start another treatment, Femara.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)