Am I crazy or what?

Ok....so here is the part that I hate! The whole am I or am not, could I be...no there is no way that I could be pregnant. So in my last post I told you all that I had a light, small period about the time that I should have been ovulating. That was about two weeks ago. yeah.....do the math on that one...I would be showing signs now if I were pregnant.

so there's the rub! The logical part of my brain says, "Come on Gretchen, you know that you are not pregnant, all signs point to no." Then that other side says, "Maybe you should take a test just in case. maybe the bleeding was from ovulating or something. maybe you are pregnant." this of course means that I have to check for breast tenderness....ever realize that the more you press on them to check for tenderness the more tender they get....funny how that works huh? When I was trying the first time my friend and I would laugh about that. We would stand there pressing our breasts to check for tenderness and say, "well yeah a little tender." And then we finally realized that doing that for a few days every month led to some tenderness. :) Of course then we got pregnant and learned what tenderness was. Feels more like they may just fall off the front of your chest and there are days where you wish that they would. Anyway...yeah stop pushing on your boobs for crying out loud.

And then cataloging the rest of the questions....hungrier? tired? nauseous? bloating? slight cramping? Yeah...I am crazy. See part of why I wanted to do this blog about secondary infertility is to verify that the craziness happens no matter if it is primary or secondary. Wanting to get pregnant and trying like hell to get there is a tough road no matter if you have been there or not. I know how I felt when I was pregnant with my daughter. I know the symptoms I had. I know when they started, not this early by the way, and yet I still question every month or so if maybe I might be pregnant.

EVERYTHING make me think that I may be. I am so tired, maybe I am pregnant. Well, let's look at that one. I had pneumonia just 2 months ago. Everyone I talk to says it can take a few months to recover and the number one symptom that hung in there was fatigue. ok. Chasing a two, almost two, year old around every day....yeah could be that too. Tired today...well I did not get to bed until about 11:30, moved to the couch about 1:30, daughter woke up calling out for mommy at about 4:30, got her back to sleep then woke up an hour later to the cat beating on the door to be fed. Realized that my husband was up for some reason and talked to him briefly then went back to couch. Got up at about 7 to get his coffee made, he went fishing this morning, laid trying to sleep until about 8:30. Add that up and I really only got about 2-3 hours of sleep at a time. Hmmm...Gee that may cause you to be tired huh?

See what I mean? I won't even bore you with the rest of the symptoms I can list. It is insanity! And it drives me nuts. I hate this part of things. I also hate the fact that I do this to deter myself from the pain of knowing that I am not pregnant. And that as easy as I want it to be it is not going to be that easy. We have not been using any form of birth control since my daughter was born almost two years ago....well nothing besides just having a child. :)

I think that part of me, no I know that a large part of me, was so hoping that I would be able to get pregnant in the first month or so. When my husband and I talked about children in our pre-marital classes the number that was agreed on was four. That was after talking my husband down from 6! One child with a hope for number two was not our plan at all. I don't know that I can go into how all that impacts me right now, that will probably be another blog entry.

I know that we can adopt and I have been even thinking about foster care lately. We will be talking about our options again in a few months. Until then I will play the "Am I or Am I Not" game, I will alternate between gratitude for the daughter I have and a deep yearning for the second one I want. I will try my best not to think too much about it and will throw myself into helping others in one way or another. I will do what I can to distract myself from one of the most painful, not the only, just one of the most painful facts of my existence. I cannot easily give my husband a child, and I often feel that my body has betrayed me. But I will also remind myself of the things that I Have to be grateful about and the fact that although I have an ovarian disease I am not dying and it is not life threatening. I am a very lucky person. I can feel that way too if I choose. It just depends on how I want to feel when I Get up tomorrow....right now I just hope that I won't "want" to feel pregnant!

Bittersweet...

Well first of all let me say that I have a new nephew! He is totally adorable. I just loved holding him and getting that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you hold a little bitty baby. He was just precious. All the baby noises and smells and looks. It is so bittersweet. To be able to participate in the lives of others while wanting so badly that which they have...it is so bittersweet.

Well...right now we are on a mini-break from the whole conception thing. We are not, which we never, using birth control but also not using any meds either. Right after Thanksgiving I started taking a fertility drug to get back on the wagon again. Took the meds, then started using Ovulation Predictor Kits to "time things" accurately. I never got a positive OPK, not a big surprise, and then got a period two weeks after the last period I had. Ummm, yeah not gonna pop out an egg while bleeding huh?

Apparently I did not ovulate with that cycle. They cut back on my dosage because I did over stim when I was taking them the last time. Apparently that will have to change back to the higher dosage and I suppose they will just have to monitor me closely to make sure I don't rupture a cyst again. We will see. I am planning on calling them sometime next week to get things going again. I thought that it was not all bad to stop over the holidays. Just enjoy what I have now and not worry about the whole roller coaster.

I did get another cholesterol and blood glucose check. I have PCOS, have I mentioned?, and both of those were high last time they checked them. But I have lost 30 pounds since then so I am hoping that both of those numbers went down. We will see. I have not heard yet.

Anyway...I am honestly hoping that next Christmas there is a new little one in our house but we will see. I know in my heart of hearts that it is all up to my higher power....I am not the one in control here. I will take the steps needed to by pass the ovary problems I have and then the rest is up to Him. Hard to do that sometimes....well actually all the time! I am not obsessing about it...yet....but I know that that battle is long and hard and I am hoping that blogging here and writing my thoughts will help to keep me from going too crazy...we will see.

Good night all....I hope you are all happy and healthy.

What can you say?

I am pretty tired and so will probably be keeping this short tonight. I just had a few thoughts that I wanted to get off my chest.

One of the main complaints I hear, and say myself, is that no one says the right thing to us when we are going through infertility. I believe this to be true but also think that this is because no one really knows what to say. Unfortunately in that situation we should just keep our mouths shut right? But no. People say "Get a puppy.", or "Take a vacation." or any of the other absurd and ridiculous things that come out of peoples mouths.

Recently I had a friend who suffered a miscarriage. It was an early miscarriage and blessedly did not need any procedures. Basically the body took care of itself and when she had an ultrasound found that nothing more needed to be done. When my friend called to tell me she was spotting and she feared what was happening I found myself being placed in that position of not knowing what to say. I have had a miscarriage. I was about as far along as she was too. And I know without a doubt that there was nothing that anyone could have said to make that any easier. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I felt empty and sad and angry and frustrated and irritated about being another statistic and there was nothing anyone could have said to change that. and really.....what can you say?

I listened when she called to tell me about it. I cried with her and shared some of my experience while being careful not to take away from her own. I told her that I was there for her whenever she needed and told her not to be surprised if she got blindsided in a day, week or even a month and overwhelmed with sadness again. I told her to be gentle with herself. When we got off the phone I decided that I would make her a package of some chocolate, won't solve anything but still tastes good!, and leave it for her. I did just that. Bought some Hershey Hugs and Kisses and other goodies, placed them in a gift bag and then just left the package on her doorstep with a card. Since I was unable to find a card that said "Sometimes life just sucks!" I settled for a similar sentiment stating something like, you and I both know that sometimes things just happen for no good reason. The card ended with the exclamation that I was there for her. She called later to thank me.

She is doing well this week and seems to be alright. I continue to remind her gently though that she may again get sad and to expect that this may happen. There is not a July that goes by since my miscarriage that I don't think about that baby and my excitement then sadness, and not an April either because that is when that baby would have been due. Ironically our little gift from God was conceived around the time the lost baby would have been born so I have that to remember also. I continue to tell her to be gentle with herself.

I think that tonight I will close with that. To all of you who are on that journey to find the rest of your family. To all of you mourning a loss. To all of you who just got blood results back stating that this months cycle did not work, or even those whose cycles did and you are now carrying your miracle. To those of you who have decided to make a child yours in heart and love if not through biology. And to all of you are childless and coming to terms with that and deciding that just may be for you.....BE GENTLE WITH YOURSELVES. I think that is the best thing we can do for ourselves. and be gentle with each other too.

and now some more of the story...

My husband and I were married in May of 2000. He is about 10 years older than me, I am 31 soon to be 32, you can do the math. :) He was ready to get started with a family right away. I on the other hand wanted to wait. I of course assumed that I would stop taking the pill and would get pregnant right away. Who knew this would come back to bite me in the butt later?

I stopped taking the pill in January of 2002. Technically the plan was to use "other" methods of birth control until May when we were officially married for two years but as I remember we weren't real consistent with that. I saw my ob/gyn in January and we were on our way.

Now to be totally honest things get a little fuzzy for me as to the exact order of things but I know that between March of 2002 and March of 2003 I had an HSG done, things were all clear. Then I started with Clomid. I was on that for about 5 cycles with ovulation only occurring two of those cycles. I went to the "fertility specialist" in my city, part of my ob office in January or February of 2003. She is top of my list of most disliked people. My husband came with me that morning because we finally had an idea that things were not right. We went to her and she wanted to do an exam, she was very rough and did not tell me before she did things. I don't know about you but I like a little warning before the metal shoe horn(speculum) gets shoved in. Not from her. Then she, while looking in between my legs, tells me that I was too fat and I would not get pregnant unless I lost weight. Now I will be the first one to tell you that I was about 15 pounds heavier than I should have been but I know that heavier people have gotten pregnant. I was appalled at her attitude. We had been trying for about a year at this point, six months of which we were on Clomid and we had not been vaguely successful....I wanted to slap her! She said that we would do another round of Clomid and I would come in for an ultrasound and a trigger shot when the time was right. I left her office crying so frustrated and upset at her treatment of me.

In the mean time I was talking with my general doctor and he suggested that I go to the local University hospital to their reproductive endocrine office.

That is the next chapter....more on that later.

hello world

OK...this is a blog to chronicle my experiences with trying for another baby. We have been blessed with one, more on that story, and are trying for number two. I need to share with others and also just find somewhere that I can vent and not worry about what people will or will not say....you know no one says the right thing. I have plenty of support which I am grateful for but still feel a need for an outlet. I also hope that someone else may see this and know that they are not alone.

I will also keep up to date on the happenings of the foundation I am a part of....more on that later too. Affording Hope Infertility Foundation.

OK....this is just to get started. I will write more later.