Pre-Doctor's Visit (& no baby) Angst

The BBT charting software I'm using seems to think I ovulated a little over a week ago (somewhere in the 40's as far as cycle days go). I happen to think it's incorrect, or that it's one hell of a piss-poor ovulation. Let's say it is correct. I'm still not ovulating until well into anywhere from cycle day 20 something up to cycle day 40 something... if at all.

What. The. Hell. is WRONG WITH ME?**

I'm just gearing up for my endo visit soon and thinking about how doctor after doctor (minus the TCM practitioner who thought I was a mess) says over and over again that I'm just the picture of health and should have a baby in no time. They are all so puzzled by my apparent rosy cheeked splendor in the face of all that is wrong with my reproductive system. All I can figure is that my "normal" blood level ranges are much smaller than others' for a healthy system. For example, my TSH levels had to get down to 1.33 before I felt more like a "normal" person. Get them up anywhere around 3-5, and I am not a happy camper. Maybe it's the same with other ranges? So just for shits and giggles, (I sure am swearing a lot in this one!) I decided to let you know some of my ranges. Peruse them oh wise Dr. Googlers and armchair diagnostic fiends. If you have any crazy ideas, throw 'em my way. Then I can ask the endo when I get in there what she thinks. I certainly don't know what to think anymore. I'm tired.

(I'm only including those that either I think could have something to do with it or that I have no idea if it does have anything to do with it.)
Glucose - 95 mg/dL
Urea nitrogen - 11 mg/dL
creatinine - .64 mg/dL
sodium - 140 mmol/L
potassium - 4.2 mmol/L
chloride - 102 mmol/L
CO2 - 26 mmol/L
Calcium - 9.9 mg/dL
protein - 7.0 g/dL
bilirubin - .6 mg/dL

Free T-4 - 1.5 ng/dL

C-Peptide - 1.5 ng/mL

DHEA sulfate - 105 mcg/dL

insulin - 5 uIU/mL

prolactin - 16.2 ng/mL

Testosterone (total) - 33 ng/dL
Testosterone (free %) - 1.24%
Free testosterone - 4.1 pg/mL

**Obviously I'm aware that I have (possibly) PCOS and Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. What I'd like to know is why my reproductive system is still crap when all signs point to the idea that I should at least be ovulating better since the Hashi's is under control and the PCOS is apparently "mild."

Blah

Have you ever gone into work and suspected that your area was chosen as the new locale for "Survivor" without your knowledge? Just askin'....

Introspection

Today I was reading a mildly entertaining book about a woman turning 35 who still hadn't figured out what she wanted in life and hadn't settled into her own skin. I started thinking about my own life and realized that as I've gotten older, I've relaxed more into myself. Most of the time I like who I am. My relationship fulfills me, and I feel pretty, talented and happy on my best days. I also like the values to which I've chosen to adhere and am glad I was able to figure that out before 35.

I was looking at a photo of myself recently and noticed that my face has thinned out (after only 31 years!) and that lines now bracket my mouth and eyes. My hips have widened and my hands are care-worn and strong. I decided that I like it. I finally look like a woman instead of a young girl and I like it. I can actually carry off more mature (ok, I really mean sexy) outfits now. Take that Hollywood! Some of us aren't so desperate to look like pouty lipped little ingenues! Now if only that "womanly" look didn't morph so rapidly into "elderly woman." I hope I have quite a few years to enjoy this phase.

I'm writing all this to say that at no other time in my life have I ever felt more ready to have children. I am very emotionally pleased and settled with me and with my place in my loved ones' lives. What a shame that it's so much easier to get knocked up as a teenager - the time when you couldn't be more confused about your identity.

A lot of words without saying too much

I wish I had something witty or awesome to say. It's unusual, but I'm not really in a writing mood. "It's hot outside," is such a lame description of the sauna that is Florida in July and August. Adding insult to injury; I work outside for long hours and everyone is cranky, and the a/c has been broken in my car for over a year.

Yesterday Hub and I went to our community pool, then treated ourselves to some ice cream. I'm obsessed with pools at the moment. I'm also dying to get to the beach. We'll get there soon hopefully. It's a bit of a drive, and we're trying to wait until we're desperate to go so that we can save on gas. I'm also obsessed with the idea of getting "Sing Star" for Playstation. I'm hoping to find it used at one of the "play & trade" sorta game stores.

I think that tomorrow I will head over to the blood letting office and sacrifice a vein. That way I can have it to my endocrinologist in the hopes that I can get in earlier. I'm tired of drumming my fingers.

Edited to Add: Jen reminded me with her post that I did forget to mention that we saw Wall-E. She was disappointed. I thoroughly loved it. The visuals were stunningly beautiful. I thought the nuance of emotion and story were amazing throughout. I loved that there was little dialogue, but lots of expression - making it easy for little kids to understand and for adults to check in with emotionally. For proof of that, my stern mother cried, and my 3 year old nephew sat through the whole thing without fidgeting. He only got up once to go to the bathroom. I also loved the message (no surprise) and all the little pop culture references. Furthermore, I loved the continuing story in the credits. You have to watch to the sides as the credits roll. And lastly, I have to get the soundtrack. Peter Gabriel does the credit roll song, and his voice has always moved me. The song's message is also beautiful. Phew. I guess I did have something to say after all.

Speaking of books...

Found in a fortune cookie from a recent Chinese take-out meal:

You are a lover of words, someday you will write a book.

Wow. For once part of it is right. Let's hope the second part comes true someday.

Another Sort of Meme

Summer Reading List

Taken from The Road Less Traveled.

Here's how it works:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline (or mark in a different color) the books you LOVE [I took this from We Are What We Repeatedly Do, so the ones that are underlined AND in a different color, we agreed on. :) ]
4) Reprint this list in your blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 and force books upon them.

The premise of this little exercise is that the National Endowment for the Arts apparently believes that the average American has only read 6 books from the list below.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible (not all of it)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (I have not read ALL, but I have read lots, so
I'm bolding this. ;)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (I may have read this in school, but don't remember)
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

That will teach ME to not overshare.

It was not a good day. I had to be around a certain someone today who I have not seen in quite a while. This someone seemed to serve as a catalyst for bringing back all my negative thoughts and feelings about IF in one huge flood. What a way to realize that you've just been repressing everything! If I ever thought I was "getting over it," I've been disabused of that notion rather harshly. As I said, it was not a good day.

Because of those feelings, I got into my, "I must make a decision this minute and move forward!" mode. The decision I made (with the help of Hub) was that I would call my endocrinologist and try to move my appointment with her up so that I could ask her what she thought of herbs versus trying Metformin again. Maybe Metformin actually helped me ovulate for those 3 cycles, and it was some other wacky reason that I stopped ovulating on femara and gonal-f. Who knows. We never gave it a shot on its own since every time I asked my RE, he was all, "Nooooooo! Full steam ahead! Changing TSH and going on Met won't make that much difference!" sigh.

So I called my endo to see what could be done. What happened next shouldn't even affect me anymore, but it still makes me feel like poking pencils into my eardrums.

First of all, I asked if we could move my appointment up, could I leave a message for my doctor, etc etc. Then the fun part...

Me: I know it seems silly to want to move up an appointment that's only a month away, but when I let it go on too long, my period is really hard to handle when it finally comes.

Receptionist: Mm Hmm.

Me: [ blabbering as usual] I also get a little impatient after 2 and a half years of trying to conceive.

R: Oooh, I know how that is. Believe me.

Me: [eying pencil holder warily]

R: Yeah, wouldn't you know though...

Me: [deadly serious] No. Don't say it!

R: [giggling a bit] ...when I stopped trying is when I got pregnant!

Me: [sharpening pencils] Seriously. Don't even tell me that.

R: Sometimes you just need to take a break and relax!

Me: I've taken many breaks and relaxed plenty, thank you. I'm still not pregnant.

R: AND... when I got pregnant, it was even when I went...

Me: OK, that's enough.

R: [ignoring me] ... on a cruise!! [insert giggles] I had to go on a cruise to get pregnant!

Me: [ruefully eying the pencils that were too late] Yeah, cause that works. Don't even tell me that. A cruise does not cure PCOS.

R: We've told you before that you don't even seem to have the full syndrome.

Me: OK, that's enough. Thank you for your time [click]

Seriously. That is really how the conversation went. I'm sure I got a few of the exact words wrong, but that's exactly what she said to me, and that's how I responded. What kind of numbskull does not understand the tone (in addition to the words) of "I have had enough thank you! I do not appreciate your assvice!" This is after a whole conversation of how I don't know if I've ovulated or not, even though I'm on CD42, things are fine blah blah blah. Buttmunch.

An Addendum to the Conundrum

Wow. I've already gotten several amazing responses. Keep them coming if you feel you have something to say! I tend to have "conversations" within the comments, so check back if you wanted me to answer something that I missed.

I just wanted to tack on some notes to the below novel. I really wouldn't mind at least talking to another RE, but I've already been to the 2 that are accessible to me. If you live in Florida and have an RE you absolutely love, feel free to leave his or her name in the comments. You can put it in anonymously if you don't want anyone to know where you are. The only thing I'm concerned about with that is that I've been through a family doctor, a previous obgyn, 2 more obgyns here, 2 RE's and an endocrinologist. They all seem really eager to help me, but then once they see my blood levels and such, they get really confused as to why I have such reproductive problems and either give up on me or push IVF. Some of them never give up, but just keep parroting that I am "really healthy and there's no reason you won't get pregnant soon!" Obviously that's a load of pucky. My endo is still working with me, but her next plan is metformin (glucophage), and I'm very leery of that considering the only time I went on it, I stopped ovulating even on meds.

The reason I think TCM may actually help me is that my cycles seem to go wacky at any change. For example, I've recently fallen off my healthy eating bandwagon and along with the traveling and my getting sick, that coincides with my cycles getting all wonky again. I chart, and during all that time, my temps are all over the place. However, now that I've settled back down again and started to try to eat healthier, they're stabilizing. BUT - they're stabilizing at really really low temps, which usually means nothing good for my body. That's what I like about charting. I do see some evidence of what's going on in there after doing it so long and evidence of what looks like normal for me.
So if little things like that can affect my cycle so crazily... perhaps herbs will too. Vitamins and supplements seem to help me a lot too, so why not herbs? At least herbs in the hands of a very skilled practitioner, and I do believe Dr. L is. The only other woman I know who went to her had no pregnancy after years of trying with western medicine. She gave up on it because it was too expensive and she was tired, and just kept on with some herbs. Months later, she was pregnant. The problem with that is that it could be purely coincidental but oh well.

I'm also really beginning to think that that one wacky cycle I had before I stopped ovulating again recently might have been a chemical pregnancy. My luteal phase was overly long, and I had every symptom I had with my last chemical pregnancy... including the really really awful period following. If it was, I'm obviously still messed up even though I ovulated on my own. I'm also starting to wonder if it's possible that I'm IR since you can't find that on regular tests. There's SOMETHING else wrong with me. I suspect it's hormonal, but how to know?

So there's more info for ya. Have a field day. :)

A Conundrum - Your two cents

When I first began fertility treatments, I was intrigued by Chinese medicine - mostly because I hated the emotional and physical pain and the frustration surrounding Western treatments. Through RE#1, I was introduced to my TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) practitioner. She was kind, helpful and thorough. She cared about my whole body health. I counted myself lucky when any of my Western doctors managed to get even one of those right. However, I didn't have the money to continue with the program, and I was also getting very impatient. Lots of things happened between changing RE's and the mixing of Eastern and Western medicine that caused me to give up TCM at the time.

When she sensed she was losing me, Dr. L. started to get very worried. She felt I was very out of balance and that Western medicine alone would not do the trick. She stated the belief that it was unlikely I would conceive, but that if I did, it probably would not be viable for long. Here I am, a year later, lots of dollars more broke, emotionally exhausted, and that's exactly what happened. Last cycle, it's doubtful that I ovulated, but at least AF came at a normal time. I am currently on cycle day 41 with no ovulation or AF in sight, my anxiety is getting worse again, and I feel "out of balance" like I did before. My Western medicine doctors (including my wonderful endo) are all at a loss. Every one of them had previously stated that I should be pregnant (successfully) in no time and that I was in prime health other than my few "small" problems. My Hashimoto's wasn't terrible they said, and my PCOS was mild if even a full syndrome. At some point though, when nothing works, almost every doctor seems to lose faith in their ability to "fix" my problems and gives up on me. The next logical move to them is IVF. But why would that be any different when they are all continually confounded by this seemingly "mostly healthy" specimen's inability to even ovulate correctly? I'm glad I went to Western medicine long enough to get my diagnoses and treatment for hypothyroid. But why is there suddenly another brick wall in my way? The answer seems simple to me. They're missing something. Is this a something that TCM could help?

So now we come to my conundrum and your part in it. I have lost that dreamy, happy, "free of treatments" dreamworld. I relaxed. I found myself again. Now I'm ready to give it another go. Hubs and I had some serious talks about what we want. I think he's ready for adoption only if I'm ready for it. And we both concluded that I am not ready yet. I need to see this through. I desperately want to grow a child in my womb, and I'm pretty sure DH really wants to be a part of that process as well. Therefore, we must make a decision. Do we go back to Western medicine or Eastern?

DH's parents may help us with costs, but even with help, we probably only have one shot at a Western medicine assisted IUI at a time with long breaks in between to build up our financial stores. Furthermore , my last (supremely unsuccessful) IUI was done with Femara, gonal-f and ovidrel. I'm pretty sure RE is going to just want to jump right in where he left off with pushing much more injectibles without finding out why I stopped ovulating on meds and probably strongly arguing the case for IVF. IVF is just not an option for us. It's not. I don't know if I could handle it anyway, but the point is moot since it's so financially out of reach, he may as well try to get us to force flying primates out of our nether regions (to nicely quote a favorite SNL skit).

But - there is the fact that with Western medicine, you know exactly where you stand without the guesswork. And if there is a problem with me killing off all of DH's sperm, as I suspect there is due to the fact that I have such a short period of good, fertile CM, then an IUI takes care of that.

On the flip side, with TCM, I will feel comfortable again. No more miserable side effects. No more needles - not even acupuncture because we could only afford herbs. Maybe Dr. L could figure out why I'm still all "unbalanced" and work to fix it. Maybe I would see some results and a healthier me. Maybe I could get this crap under control and actually get pregnant. Also, the herbs are affordable enough that if she does get me ovulating again, we have multiple cracks at conceiving rather than just one every 5 or 6 months.

The drawback to the TCM is that I have to be patient, and I am really miserable at that. Can I wait it out long enough to even see if it makes a difference to me? I'm also on the fence as to how effective I really believe it is. Sometimes I'm very optimistic about it. Sometimes I believe it's just wishful thinking. And if I spend months and months trying to make it work, that's months more than I've lost. But on the flip side, we're kinda stuck right now anyway due to hitting our insurance limit (oooh 3 IUI's. Thank you ever so much generous corporate entity), and having no cash.

It's obvious that I'm leaning toward the TCM. But every other hour, I second guess my decision and fret about it all over again. Can you weigh in with what you think about my situation? Feel free to deal out the assvice in spades here. Just don't tell me to fix something that I can't, or suggest that maybe God "has a plan for me" ok? Tell me your experiences. Relate that article that you read. Tell me how you think I'll feel. I just need some help here. And believe me, you won't even offend me if you've never even experienced infertility. I'm looking for advice from all corners. (H - I'm thinkin' of you here! Would love input from that big brain of yours!)

Signing off and looking forward to your responses and our ttc journey starting up again.

Home Sweet Home

This will always be my true home. Isn't it beautiful?

Fun with Words at Wordle

Found this through We Are what we Repeatedly Do, and Relaxing Doesn't Make Babies.
Love it. Thanks girls.

Recap

I'm still recovering. I am breathing much easier, but I still have an earache and a pressurized noggin. Hubbs has been sweet as always. I think tomorrow will be a somewhat normal day, thank God.

Grandfather's ceremony was the perfect tribute to such a wonderful man. It was also the perfect closure for me at least. It involved a little chapel, a moving ceremony, a horse drawn caisson complete with brass band leading, a rifle salute and taps played by a military trumpeter. It was all a little surreal to me until I saw his photo. That photo jerked me back into the reality that this was for my Grandfather. I think I sometimes still expect to see him in his favorite chair when I visit.

It was really nice to see my Dad's side of the family again as well. It was particularly nice to get all the first cousins together. It's been a long time since that has happened. As I thought, it was a little difficult to field a few wonderings as to why his first grandchild had not yet produced a great grandchild. Mostly though, it was just difficult inside myself. I very much mourn the lost opportunity to share that with my Grandfather and with my future child. I know they would love each other on sight. And now, the 2 remaining grandparents between Hubbs and I are in their 80's. Not only that, but many of my great aunts and uncles are passing away and are older as well. I know we can't look to the past all the time, but it's just difficult.

On the other end of my visit, I got to see much of my Mother's family. It was hard the first time I walked into Aunt's house expecting to see her in the living room. It was hard for Uncle too. He had to choke back tears a few times. But Pennsylvania was beautiful as it always is in the summer, and we had a lot of fun visiting. Most of the fun involved playing with my Nephew and his little dog. What a sweet duo they make. I know I'm biased, but believe me when I say that my nephew is the smartest, sweetest little boy around. ;) I had a hard time holding back tears when we left. I know a lot of that was tied up in not having a child of my own to return to as well.

All in all, it was a good trip, but left me feeling a bit unsettled. I think Hubbs and I need to sit down and make a very concrete plan for the next step now, complete with dates. My happiness with inertia is coming to an end. And please forgive me if my writing is a bit muddled. I'm finding that my brain still isn't firing quite right because of all the gook that's clogging it.

By Head Hurds

I'm back from my visit home and my Grandfather's Arlington ceremony. I go back to work tomorrow and had these grand plans of releasing all the pent up thoughts I've had for the past week or so. However, I came back carrying my first cold bug in years. Damn it. My ears ring, my head pounds, my eyes water, and I speak like a toddler who can't pronounce the letter "M." I'm at that very unpretty stage. You know it. It's the one where you're forced to shove tissues up your nostrils in a vain attempt at a moment's relief. Like I said: unpretty.

I hope this eases soon. In the meantime, I am going to attempt to catch up on everything I've missed while I was gone.

Holiday Wishes

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY to the UNITED STATES!

HAPPY CANADA DAY to the CANADIANS I missed on JULY 1st!

Nature fun from our wanderings this week

A gorgeous rattlesnake by the side of the road in one of our favorite Florida State Parks


Marsh rabbits have got to be some of the cutest rabbits there are.

Whirlwind

This coming week I head up to see my Grandfather's burial in Arlington National Cemetery. I'm sure it will be emotional enough that it will prompt some deep posts. Either that, or I'll find it too overwhelming to post anything. We shall see.

I hope there aren't too many questions about why we don't have babies. Many of the people who will be there know the story, so maybe that won't be the case. All attention should be on recent additions to the family anyway. Hubs and I are moving closer to some ideas on what we're trying next. I think we've both agreed that there will be more trying. This current cycle doesn't seem to be the best either, so that's dimming our hope of my cycles fixing themselves and us having a wonderful "surprise." When will we ever learn eh?

Our dear friends have made it safely back across the ocean. We miss them, and they're already planning to come back when it's not so hot. (Hot in Florida? Never. ;) They are such knowledgeable and interesting people. It's so nice to discuss life with them. They have faced some of what we have with concern over possible inability to have biological children. They really do get it. It's always somewhat healing to talk to another woman about that subject and see in her eyes that she's felt the same pain you have. It's a bonding experience I wish we never shared, but it does bring you closer.

I've been popping in here and there to check in on you all. It's hard to keep up right now. Bear with me. I even have other ideas for posts, but they swirl around in my head and don't get written because of the whirlwind that is my current existence.