Baby Steps

Once I’ve made my mind up about something, I tend to want it NOW…or like YESTERDAY! After our first appointment at the new Fertility center, and meeting the Dr that was potentially going to help us become parents, I was excited and anxious to get the ball rolling! The first step, and of course the most agonizing yet common step in fertility treatments was…to WAIT. We had to wait until I started my next cycle before we could be prescribed the medications for our first round of IUI. This meant that we had one more cycle to get pregnant on our own. In the meantime, I had countless forms to fill out and an online portal to input all of my 34 years of medical history. This process kept my mind busy for a small amount of time, but I also had plenty of thoughts swirling in my head

Now, this is going to come as no surprise to you, but this month was my month of the biggest, highest hopes that Aunt Flow just wouldn’t show up, and I would get a positive pregnancy test on our LAST month of trying to conceive naturally. I even laughed to myself when I thought about the possibility that I could tell this new Dr that he helped us get pregnant by just talking to us. 

SHOCKER, this did not happen. I started my cycle and called the Fertility center to let them know. This is going to sound weird, but you ladies will be able to relate…I had a lot of anxiety about what “The first day of full flow” actually meant. If you’re a woman, you’ll understand that sometimes isn’t clear cut…sometimes you think it’s full on started, but then you spot for a whole day….The nurses stressed to me that I needed to call on the first full flow day so they could get my prescriptions going. I was to start taking Clomid on my CD 3 (third day of my cycle). So when I called in and mumbled around to tell the nurse that I think I started my period, she sounded kind of confused and possibly a little annoyed. I envisioned her thinking “no wonder this chick can’t get pregnant! She doesn’t even know if she’s started her period or not!” But she clarified what I was saying and she went ahead and called for my Rx’s to be filled and sent me a flow chart of my protocol for the cycle. OUR FIRST IUI cycle was in MOTION!

I was excited/nervous/excited/scared/all the emotions at once. I wasn’t sure what side effects, if any, that I would have from the meds, and we were creeping in to the holidays, which bring their own stressors. I had read that these meds can have side effects such as nausea, headaches, mood swings, hot flashes, bloating, possible weight gain/loss (no way in hell I was lucky enough to have weight loss from this stuff!!) I suddenly realize how unfair this all seems to be. Why do the side effects of fertility drugs have to be things like hair loss, weight gain, nausea, bloating, and becoming a fire breathing dragon or a weeping weirdo within 38 seconds of each other? Why can’t the side effects be glowing skin, six pack abs, and an increased IQ?? I mean, I AM trying to make a baby, not detour any and all humans from wanting to be around me. 

The first day that I had to take my medication, I was going to be on a work trip out of town. I had some fears as to how I was going to feel, so I strategically planned the timing of my first pill……I am supposed to take this pill every day at the EXACT same time. I remember popping my first pill right before I took a 4 hour journey home. It was go time! I was ready for this to all begin, but those looming feelings of the side effects were right there in the back of my mind. 

I tried to shove all of those thoughts to the back of my mind, and I decided that I would not end up being one of those stereotypical, hormonal women. I would suck it up, tough it out, and I would ROCK this whole process without skipping a beat in life! Well, you know they say that when you make plans, sometimes God laughs?? Well, the good Lord laughed when I made my vow to be the strongest woman on the planet and have zero side effects at all from these meds. Within a few days of beginning my meds I ….how do you say….lost my shit. (Excuse my French, but if you had been there, you’d understand). I found myself being completely enraged by the dumbest things…EXAMPLE: I cried because my seatbelt locked up when I was trying to reach down on my floorboard for a pen. As soon as the first tear fell, I began laughing like a psycho clown just at the thought of how dumb I was being.

I felt out of control. For a complete control freak, this is worst case scenario. This is Defcon 1. This is NOT a drill. This is going to be harder than I thought. So, I handled this the way any well-adjusted adult would. I shoved it all down, and attempted to hide my feelings the best that I could. This was like trying to hide the Grand Canyon!  My family and closest friends all understood what was going on with me, and everyone treated me as well as they could all handle. The further in to the cycle we got, the more I began to stress about the ovulation test. I was supposed to start testing for ovulation on CD 11. Around CD 8 I started to feel some of my tell tail signs of ovulation. I usually get a deep sharp cramp on my right side and it lasts for about 12 hrs…there’s other symptoms, but I’ll keep those to myelf…lets just say I can tell OK?  The morning of CD 9, I decided to go ahead and just take an ovulation test. Sure as shineola, that thing was POSITIVE! Mind you, this was the morning of a random Wednesday. My husband and I both had work appointments that day, so I called the fertility center to see what we were supposed to do. 

When I called in and explained to a nurse that I “think” I got a positive ovulation test, I was met with the same tone of voice as when I wasn’t sure about my period starting. I explained that it was super early in my cycle and that I wasn’t even supposed to test for two more days, but that I could just tell it was happening. She said, “Ok, can you come in to the office now?” I explained that we are an hr and 15 mins away, but that I would be there as soon as I could. This is how fertility treatments go…you sit around and wait and then it’s GO! Your body doesn’t care that you have a meeting at 11am and another at 1pm! You’re ovulating and you’ve gotta go NOW!

I got off the phone and explained to my husband that we needed to go down their now, and that it could be GAME TIME!!!!! This was IT! Holy Crap! I called my customers that I had appointments with that morning and explained that I had something come up and we’d have to reschedule. My husband did the same, and we got ready as fast as we could. I loaded up my “Trigger shot” in my little lunch box, like the precious cargo that it was, and we headed out. If everything was all looking good, I would be given the Trigger shot, which would cause me to ovulate within 36 hrs. We would then schedule to go back in the next morning for our IUI. 

Driving down to the fertility center, I could feel the fullness in my belly. My ovaries were definitely noticeably bigger/fuller. It was pretty uncomfortable, but not unbearable especially because I knew that this was a good sign. I told my husband that I was nervous, but of course he was as cool as a cucumber. When we reached the fertility center, we checked in and paid….our insurance doesn’t cover any of our treatments, so every visit is a big chunk of change and a bit nauseating. I remember the moment that we got called back by the nurse. I took a deep breath and said a little prayer to myself. We went in to the room and I was told to “Undress from the waist down, and put the paper over my lap”. The doctor came in, and we discussed that things had progressed more quickly than what he had thought. He made sure to ask if I had actually seen a positive ovulation test. I said yes, and that I definitely felt like I was going to ovulate as well. I even mentioned to him that I can tell which side I’d be ovulating from. We went over what exactly we would be looking for: uterine lining (endometrial thickness) of at least 8 mm, and at least one mature follicle of 20 mm or more.

He began the ultrasound and went directly to check the Uterine lining…which only measured about 4 mm (half of what we needed to see). He moved on to the follicles. I had two matured follicles on my RIGHT side around 20 mm and one on my left of the same size. This was great news because it meant that the meds worked! He finished up the ultrasound and we went over what all of this meant. He explained that because my uterine lining was so thin, if an egg actually fertilized in the IUI, it would have nothing to implant in to. It would likely try, but just sluff off and end up being flushed out at the end of my cycle. I felt a huge lump in my throat. What did this mean? Did this mean that this whole cycle of trying to keep my hormonal mess of a self at bae was a waste? He tried to reassure us that this was good. We had gotten more information about how my body will react to meds, and that we can just switch things up to help improve that lining for next time. I looked down at my little lunch box containing my Trigger shot. I’m frustrated. I feel defeated…also should I mention that this was a couple of days before Christmas? We had had high hopes of this being our little Christmas miracle, but instead it was like a scientific experiment gone wrong. We were sent home to celebrate the holidays with our little ol Trigger shot in tow. 

How did I not realize that this would require so much trial and error? Well, that was never discussed before we started. I never thought that this could potentially be months of playing with meds before we could actually get to an IUI. The Dr and Nurses did tell us to go ahead and try naturally this month. Who knows? Maybe it would happen naturally for us, and we wouldn’t have to go through this again. We didn’t have super high hopes, but we treated the rest of this cycle as if it was possible. I went home and I celebrated Christmas that week in stretchy pants. My belly was so big and bloated and painful on Christmas Eve, that I actually took Tylenol…which I NEVER do. I also made sure not to consume alcohol or do anything crazy as far as workouts or riding my horses for the remainder of the cycle.  We were now 23 months in to our “Trying to Conceive” journey, and all we had to show was some blood test results and a Trigger shot in the fridge. 

It was a slap in the face on top of the money spent, the mood swings, the crushed hope of a Christmas baby, and the thoughts of doing it all over again next month. But this wasn’t going to stop us. We were going to pick ourselves back up, look at this as a learning experience and move on to the next step. This was our first BABY STEP of many in this journey. Happy New Year here we come???