Diagnosis: Hmmmm

Sorry about the bummer post from the other day. I've noticed that pain tends to make me all emo-tastic in my writing. I'm really not sure if anyone is still reading this, but I will go ahead and update whoever on the doctors appointment. If nothing else, it gives me a record of what happened.

I tend to make less of my symptoms when talking to medical professionals. I try not to show any pain I am feeling and try to be happy and pleasant. You can imagine the confused looks I have gotten when describing my pain levels and symptoms while smiling like nothing is wrong. Because of that, I was determined to not sugar-coat this appointment. I didn't make more of it than it was, but based on the nurse's reactions she could tell I was in pain. Um...good? I've decided that doctors are like hairdressers. If you are always complaining about how you can never find one who does what you ask, you have to look at the common denominator: you. During my appointment I asked all the questions I could think of, made it clear that the pain was interfering with my daily activities and work, and repeatedly told the doctor that having kids was so far on the back burner right now that we shouldn't be talking about it.

After all these cold and lonely months apart, my sweet ultrasound probe and I were reunited. The ultrasound showed no progression of the endo (which it wouldn't because endo doesn't show up on ultrasound) and no cysts. What it did reveal was a "moderate" amount of pelvic fluid. The doctor was certain it was from ruptured cysts and would clear up on its own. Here's the weird thing though, I have had the same thing happen at least 3 other times (no cysts, just fluid). Nearly every ultrasound I've had over the last 2 years has shown fluid. I brought this up and he seemed puzzled, but not overly concerned. I for one am proud of my cysts who would rather destroy themselves than show up on that black and white screen of justice. Has anyone out there had this happen?

He wrote me a prescription for some pain meds to get me through the rough patch and sent me on my way. I thought it would be no problem to get it filled. Funny, I thought all my naievete was gone by now. When I handed the scrip to the pharmacist she frowned and said there was a mistake and she didn't have this dosage. After a minute she said the 5 was supposed to be a 3 and that she couldn't fill it. I assured her that he certainly meant to write a 3, but I was told that, sorry, she can't fill it. Can I call the doctor and have him talk to her? No. They would need a re-written scrip in order to fill my pain meds. Typically this would be merely annoying, but the doctor's office is roughly a half hour drive one way from the pharmacist and driving is particularly painful right now. I walked out in a huff (I know it wasn't her fault, but it also wasn't mine and I was now going to be driving for another hour in severe pain because of one freaking number) and called the office. I managed to get there about 10 minutes before they were closing and got the new fancy piece of paper, drove back, proceeded to wait 15 minutes, then finally got home and took a pill. Only an hour and a half extra spent driving and waiting. Sheesh! I guess my bad luck with the pharmacy continues.

That night, when the pills had kicked in and were making me dizzy and loopy, I had to sing a duet in church with The Boy. Do you know how hard it is to sing Oh Holy Night when all you can picture is the Southpark where Cartman is singing it? YouTube it if you've never seen it. The last 15 seconds are magical. It probably goes without saying that my giggles beforehand were louder than I thought they were, and my singing was not so hot.

So, I guess it's good to have gotten a bit of a reason for the pain increase lately. It's great to have some strong meds (though they made me pretty nauseated last night). Apparently, my body just decided to have it's own holiday celebration, causing my ovaries to explode with delight! It's a Thanksgiving/Christmas miracle!!

What is there to say, really?

I'm afraid that the upcoming holiday has sent me into a rather annoying depression. Not to worry, the razor blades are still kept out of reach, I'm just having a really hard time this week.

While talking to my Dad this weekend he said, "So this Mothers Day should be easier for you than last years, right?" Not so much. Last year, we had been trying unsuccessfully to get me knocked up for only 5 or so months. Long-ish for impatient people like myself, but not an alarmingly huge wait. This year? Well allow me to be all Type A for a moment about this year.

Pros:
-We have a plan and know we are adopting through China

Cons:
-Unless China decides to read this blog, get all swollen-hearted a la The Grinch, and change it's age requirements and/or wait time, we have another 5 years until we have a child in our house.
-This year we know that my getting pregnant just isn't going to happen.
-My sister is due to pop at any given moment and her husband is sure to make some huge deal about it since his sperm apparently can cure cancer or something.
-People just don't know how to react to adoption news. When someone is visibly pregnant, it's easy for people to coo over it and ask a ton of questions about the mom-to-be. With adoption, unless you are going to pick up the kid, people are just kind of "Meh" about it. I'm sure it's mostly just from a lack of knowledge about the process, but it still sucks to feel excited about something that no one you care about asks anything about.
-Mandarin is hard. I know, alert the media. I have good days and bad, but I think China needs to settle down a bit and use less words. Seriously.*
-Horrible death pains are still here. Side affects are still here (and they brought hot flashes with them, YAY!). New pains have decided to come join the party. My abdomen is like a constant game of Crossfire, complete with red lights and fog machine.
-Did I mention my sister is about to have a kid? A newborn...Mothers Day...me rather empty-handed...I think you see where I'm going with this.

I know, I know. An infertile's blog about how Mothers Day sucks? How totally unique! Here's the thing. I don't begrudge the mothers around me their joy in the magical little insta-bake oven that is their uterus (mostly...some of them could get a raging case of scabies and I wouldn't care so much). I am, in fact, excited about adopting, as well as not having to deal with crappy pregnancy things. The fact is that Mothers Day is hard for us barren girls, much like Valentines Day sucks for the single. The adoption factor only makes me feel like more of an outcast. The breeders don't understand why I am excited about something that is so far off. The infertiles think that since I will someday have a child in my house that I no longer am allowed to be depressed by Mothers Day. Boo hoo...no one wants to let me play in their fort anymore.

If I had announced my pregnancy, then this would be a year of tiny, cute gifts that would help me see that they realized what a huge thing this was. Since I am "just adopting" and not for a while yet, I will inevitably be put on a back shelf while everyone acts like my sister is Eve reborn. I will be asked nothing about our adoption and will sit in silence knowing that I will have two more progressively hard Mothers Days to go before we even start the adoption process. Should be a fun time.


*On a side note, anytime I am trying to describe the meaning of something to The Boy, I immediately think of Arrested Development and Buster saying, "It means laundry, but like a child's laundry. We don't actually have a word for it here."

Putting on my big girl panties

Only to take then right the hell back off. Make any sense? No? Ok.

So I went in to my RE last Monday for an endometriosis consultation. Yup, my RE's clinic also specializes in endo. Here's the thing, though. As I have written before, I suck at standing up for myself. I was really nervous about getting talked into doing another IUI, continuing into IVF, sending money to the deposed prince of Nigeria, who knows what could happen. I psyched myself up and practiced what I would say if he brought up these options (no, no, and so I only have to send a check for $300 and I will get $2000?). I was ready.

After waiting the typical 30 minutes in the exam room (and rifling through what papers I could see...always entertaining), Dr. Awesome came in. He asked what was going on and I said, "I am here to address the endometriosis. I am in nearly constant pain, and my husband and I have decided to stop infertility treatment and get the endo under control. We feel good about our decision and want to know what you recommend." Yeah, apparently I grew a pair. He asked if I was aware that pregnancy and endo treatment are mutually exclusive. I said I was, and we are not interested in pursuing pregnancy at this time. At this point I was waiting for him to lecture me on how the longer you wait the less chances there are and blah, blah, blah. Shockingly, he nodded, said he understood and started talking about my options. Oh wait, there was one more thing to be done.

See, it had been several days since I had been romanced by a wand, so an ultrasound was in order. Thank goodness! As usual, my uterus was relaxing all tipped back style. Fortunately, he found no pooling of blood in my ovaries (only real treatment for that is surgery), so I was a good candidate for hormone therapy. He prescribed norethindrone, which shuts down the ovaries without affecting bone density. The side affects warned about are nausea, mood swings, hot flashes, headaches, and a couple more basic things. Ha!

Here is my list of side affects:

-NAUSEA
-heartburn
-Oh sweet mercy my head is being crushed in a vice!!!
-NAUSEA
-Stabby death pains brought some friends over for a party!
-NAUSEA
-How can my uterus get a charlie horse??
-Sweet mercy, stop breathing like that, you're moving the couch and I'm gonna puke!

What a fun sexy time for me!

Feeling a bit better

Thank you for the kind words and empathy. As I've said, infertility can feel like such a lonely place, it's nice to be reminded that my perceptions are not the reality. I'm still a bit bummed, but feeling better than the other day. I know it's not the end of the world. I know there are so many women out there going through far worse than I am. Mostly, it's hard being reminded how strong you aren't. I promise, I'll have funnies tomorrow. Perhaps I will even share my most hilarious story...if you all really want.

Funny thing is that this is the third time in a span of 4 months or so where a family member has announced a pregnancy right before or after I have found out that another try didn't work. I joked with The Boy today that every time I get my period, someone gets knocked up. I am the bell to their angel wings.

So we've decided to do one more round of IUI and then take a break. The clomid makes the endo pain much more severe (as in, pop an 800 mg ibuprofen every 4 hours just to be able to take the edge off) and it's just too much to keep going through at this time. I guess this is last call for my ovaries. Come on ladies...step up for once!

So here's the plan: 100 mg Clomid days 3-7, ultrasound on day 12 (Dr Awesome isn't working on day 13), IUI day after positive OPK. I don't anticipate it being successful, but see it as something I need to do to reassure myself that I gave this whole getting pregnant thing all I could. I feel good about it. Frankly, I just want to produce more than one follicle. The Boy's SA shows no real problems. Sure, there are some morphology issues, but the high concentration makes up for it. Not looking forward to the whole process again, but it will help me sleep easier in the coming months.

I've been asked if we are going to try IVF. The answer at this point is no. There are amazingly strong couples who go through it. Some are even successful. I don't know quite how to explain it, but it's not for us. We've both agreed very strongly that the toll it takes financially, physically, and emotionally is just not something we chose to take on. I may change my mind on that in the coming months, but I doubt it. We've been walking this trail for a while now and I think we are both ready to sit down and enjoy the view for a while.

My stupid insides

I just got a call from the RE office and we are definitely on for ultrasound Friday. W00t!
OPK's are still showing nothing, which isn't surprising since it is only day 11. My only request of my innards is to not have a positive test tomorrow, since that would make it rather impossible to do the IUI.

So, I don't think I've talked (whined) about my endometriosis* (aka horrible death pains).

The pain is typically localized on my right side. The laparoscopy in 2007 showed that it had wrapped itself around my right ovary, so it makes sense. The surgery was supposed to treat the endo (can't cure it) and give me a better chance of getting pregnant. Well my body, useful little engine that it is, took it as a personal challenge and brought the pain back after about a month. Taking into account my 2 1/2 weeks of recovery time I really didn't take full advantage of that week of no pain.

My Dr at the time, Dr Moron, had me come in a few times for ultrasounds (waiting in the room for an hour as the nurses cooed over a new baby right outside the door...gah!) and suggested that my pain may be caused by a condition called endometriosis. Uh...pretty sure you are the one who cut me open and made my insides your own game of lazor tag, but I'm no doctor. Idiot. He wanted to put me on Lupron, but I decided I had enough of medical procedures, so I opted to try a restrictive diet. It helped until I went off the bcp (birth control pills), but I've been sticking to it for a little over a year. It's nice to feel like you have some control over your body, however fleeting.

So fast forward to about now when my RE, Dr Awesome, is talking to me about the endo. He actually takes my pain levels seriously, and suggests we do an internal ultrasound to see how everything else is looking. I am long-time friends with the wand (aka dildo cam), so no big deal. As Dr Awesome is explaining things to us, the resident, Sparky, has put some more jelly into the wand, but apparently isn't pleased with it's distribution. He proceeds to jerk it around trying to get the jelly to spread evenly. Basically, he looks like a 13 year old boy trying to get his atari joystick to work cause there is just one more dot for pacman to eat dammit! While supressing my giggles I remind myself that this is why I am too immature to be trying to get pregnant.

Ultrasound showed that my uterus really is lazy. It's tilted back, taking a nap or something, probably snoring and covered in Cheeto powder. Also, the endo has spread to my left ovary and is starting to show up in ultrasounds (not the norm. It's usually cells that are not thick enough to show up). Hey, guess what insides, .!.. ..!. right in your face.

Dr A is not too concerned, but informs me that endo and IF are kind of an either/or problem. You can treat one or the other, but not really both. We've opted for trying to have a kid, but we'll see how long I can hold to that resolve.

Here's the thing that sucks about this, aside from the obvious. Infertility is hard enough to deal with. Add the physical pain to that and the pressure that it's only going to become less likely each month, and you have a delicious cocktail that I'd rather not be drinking. I know that everyone's IF journey is filled with unique challenges, and I wouldn't want to go through what many people have already gone through. I feel like if this were just a waiting game, I could manage. It would suck, but I could get through it. A month is a long time, but when you add pain to the equation, it's a really effing long time! As it is, I have forgotten what it's like to not be in daily pain, and we're dealing with a "when" not "if" of a hysterectomy. The question is whether I can squeeze a kid out before having the place demolished and made into a parking lot.
In the words of Arrested Development, what a fun sexy time for me!

Enough bitter whining, I promise there will be more funny tomorrow.

*Hey, spellcheckers...it's a word and I promise I'm spelling it right! Nothing makes you feel more like a medical freak than having the diagnosis questioned by a piece of software.