Monthly Archives: June 2012

May 12, 2013.

Posted by

10

Update: It is officially CD 1 of my 14th Cycle. I’m aiming for a due date of April 7, 2013. My period started this morning with some serious cramping.  My RE squeezed me in for a 2 pm appointment, and I will be cleared for Clomid for days 5-9, which is after our vacation.  Praise Jesus.  

Based upon consistent ovulation patterns, that is soonest I can expect to have a baby.

I called my RE’s office this morning to discuss the Clomid prescription. When I first had the initial consult with this RE, my third RE in 12 months, he explained the different protocols for medicated cycles. His explanation of the Clomid cycle was simply timed intercourse using OPK’s. On one hand I was a bit taken aback. I wondered what kind of chop shop wouldn’t do an initial ultrasound at the beginning of the cycle to clear me to use the medication. On the other hand I was relieved that I wouldn’t have to rack up hundreds of dollars in ultrasound expenses. This RE is almost 100% more expensive than RE#2 at a whopping $200 an ultrasound. So, for that I was thankful.

Turns out I misunderstood him. Well, to be clear I didn’t misunderstand him, he failed to mention that he does indeed do an initial ultrasound to clear patients for the meds. So when I asked him twice about the ultrasounds during a Clomid cycle, he was assuming I was discussing ultrasounds to monitor my follicles. Not the case, but I digress.

Today I am 12 DPO. I had some light, light spotting on Monday and earlier today, but I think I’m going to have a long and healthy 14 day luteal phase. Cycle day one will be on Saturday. We are flying out on Sunday and returning Thursday evening at 6 pm, which will be CD 5. In short, there won’t be an appointment for an ultrasound. He won’t do it until CD 1, and it has to be done before CD 5.

Now, I will be running my ass off today, slathering myself with essential oil emmenagogues, drinking ginger beer, and taking an herbal tincture to try to get this show started by tomorrow morning. If that is the case, I can get in for an ultrasound some time tomorrow.  doesn’t work on Fridays.

If it works I will be super excited, but I don’t think it will. So, despite last night’s post about taking Clomid during our vacation, I will probably not be taking the medication.  It is not even an option. We will of course try next month during Cycle 14. We did manage to get pregnant the first time on a natural cycle but that took ten tries, and it didn’t turn out well. I won’t be holding my breath.

That brings us to August and Cycle #15.  Based on past ovulation patterns I can expect to ovulate around August 19, if taking Clomid, with a due date of May 12, 2013. If we are lucky.

It isn’t October and it isn’t January.

It is so far away.

Wallowing in Self-Pity.

Posted by

15

That’s what I’m doing tonight.

Ten to 14 days past ovulation is always an emotionally wearing time. Probably because I’ve already tested, and I know I’m not pregnant.  This cycle isn’t any different. It burns every fucking time, and we weren’t even “trying” this cycle.  It still fucking burns. I guess I was hoping for a miracle or a lucky break.  That’s a laughable notion.

I was going to take another cycle off, and by off I mean try without meds, but I don’t want to wait.  I don’t want to delay.  I wanted to be pregnant and due in October.  I wanted to be pregnant and due in January.  Now I just want to be pregnant again.  No more delays.  No more miscarriages. So, I will take 100 mg of Clomid on cycle days 3-7 while I’m in Nebraska visiting family over the Fourth of July.  I will try not to snap at small children and elderly adults, alike.  I will try not to abuse alcohol and wallow in an  enormous pool of Clomid-induced depression and despair. I will try not to revert to my immature and narcissistic teenage self. I will try to smile and put on a brave face while confronting the fecundity of middle America and fielding intrusive and insensitive questions.  I will try.

It is probably going to be a disaster.

But tonight I’m busy wallowing in self-pity that a cycle that I wasn’t even trying for is bust.  Another fucking 36 days down the drain.  Awesome.

Still no baby.  Still no job.

Here’s what I’m up to:

Fried chicken, raspberry brown ale, & twizzlers.

Today is a wash. I’ll try to do better tomorrow.

Couch to 5K Complete!

Posted by

17

I officially completed the Couch to 5K last Friday.  Done and done. I didn’t do it in the nine weeks, as prescribed by the guide. I would say that it was 13 or 14 weeks. I repeated a couple of weeks because they were either super, duper hard, or I was lazy and didn’t get all three runs in. I also redid a week that happened during miscarriage #2. I found that keeping my heart rate below 150 meant that I needed to run 13 minute miles. Too slow for me! So, I redid ‘em. Ultimately, with the warm-up and cool down my final run of the program was 3.95 miles! (I was running for time, not distance.)

I’m now moving on to my own created version of a 10K pre-train schedule. Twice now I’ve had terrible tendinitis in my feet from either increasing my mileage too quickly and/or not buying new running shoes, when necessary. Turns out that cocktails and friends are more important than running shoes when in graduate school. I stand by my decisions. With that said, my research reveals that one should increase mileage by about 10% every week. Additionally, the Cool Running Beginner 10K program lays out a running schedule that one should be able to do for four to five weeks without issue before beginning the program. The numbers you see below are distances in miles. I’m going to repeat it for six weeks and then move forward.

Week 10 Week 11 Week 12 Week 13 Week 14 Week 15 Week 16 Week 17 Week 18 Week 19 Week 20 Week 21 Week 22
3.33 3.66 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
3.33 3.66 2 3 3.5 3.25 3 3 3 3 3 3 3
3.33 3.66 3 3 3.5 3.5 3.5 4 4 4 4 4 4
3 3 3.5 3.25 3.5 4 4 4 4 4 4
2 3.5 4 4 4 4 4 4

As for the weight training program I’m on, well I’m getting bored.  I may have to jump ship and try out another program. Big Guy thinks that repitition is good, but weeks on end of the exact same thing is nothing but drudgery.  Boredom is the bane of my excercising existence.  As soon as I’m bored, I’m more likely to just quit.  So, I want to stave off the boredom and keep on keeping on.

What are people’s opinions concerning running and infertility treatments? I know that many individuals have had recommendations to either not exercise or lay off the exercise, but for PCOS it seems as if it is the single most effective thing at keeping this beast at bay.  So, what say you? How much exercise is okay during infertility treatments?

Backne.

Posted by

14

I’ve known I had PCOS for a very long time. Thirteen years, now. I was diagnosed when I was 19. I decided to stop taking the birth control because it made me angry, and I was also had reservations about the long-term impact of synthetic hormones. After nine months and no period, I went to an OBGYN who diagnosed me with PCOS. I promptly jumped back on the birth control band wagon and didn’t look back for five years.

When I was 24 I finished my Master’s degree and relocated from Austin to Denver. My father was terminally ill, and sex and boyfriends weren’t on my radar, so I stopped taking the pill. I will never take birth control for, well, birth control ever again. Can anyone say IUD? Copper, mind you, the copper IUD.

With the transition from graduate student to working professional, I also graduated to a healthier lifestyle. I was more active and I was eating the right foods. Unwittingly, I was even following a pretty good diet for a PCOSer, despite my ignorance. From the age of 24 to 31 I’ve weathered the storm of PCOS, and I have a pretty good idea of how it affects my body. What I take away from all of it is that I’m pretty lucky. The evil PCOS side effects trifecta includes hirsutism, weight, and acne, but I’m only plagued by one.

Hirsutism: Oh, the dreaded hair growth. Bloggers could write for days about hair sprouting in inappropriate places. I’m not one of them. I think my genes are on my side here. My dad was not a hairy man and nor is my brother. I’m blond and fair, and I just don’t have a lot of hair. Period. I do have a pretty large forehead and every once and a while I panic thinking that the testosterone is resulting in male pattern hair loss. I think I may be a bit reactionary on this, but it is a trifle frightening. However, I have no doubts that I will be a bald old lady. No doubt in my mind.

Weight: Looks like I’ve been let off easy here, too. I’ve never been the smallest person in town, and my childhood nickname was Chunk. From the Goonies. (Funny, Big Brother, funny.) But in reality I’m 5’7″ and I currently weigh 140 pounds. I have been heavier, but only by 5-8 pounds, which is about one step up in clothing size. Also, I gain my weight in my hips, not my stomach like many of my compatriots.

Acne: By the title of this post, you have probably surmised that the PCOS side effect that plagues me daily is acne. To be specific, acne on my back. Back + Acne = Backne. I hate the backne. It isn’t just the average pimple, but large cystic sores that are more likely to be filled with blood, as opposed to water or pus. Ew. Gross. I know. They last for weeks, if not months, and they inevitably leave scars. I didn’t have backne until I stopped taking birth control in my 20′s, and then it reared its ugly, ugly head. All puns are intentional here. I suppose that genetics are not on my side in this situation. Both my brother and my sister had terrible backne when they were teenagers. In order to get rid of it they both took high doses of accutane. In case your wondering, my sister is incredibly fertile with normal ovaries.

I’ve tried a myriad of methods to curtail the backne because it’s gross, and I hate it. These included topical solutions as well as naturopathic solutions. The only method that has been effective, thus far, is the drug spironolactone. Spironolactone is a diuretic that acts upon the liver. It also is known to suppress androgens. Spironolactone is the reason I was able to wear a beautiful strapless dress for my wedding without applying makeup to my back. I started the medicine as soon as we were engaged in order to clear things up.

No backne here!

Spironolactone is not safe to take while trying to conceive. If you were to conceive a baby boy it would affect the development of his testes, it also results in endocrine problems for fetuses of both genders. So, over the past 18 months I’ve just dealt with the backne. Like I said earlier, it is impervious to topical solutions, both medicated and naturopathic, as well as internally ingested herbs and such. It has not improved with the metformin or my more stringent PCOS diet despite the reduced levels of testosterone and my regular cycle.

That was until the past couple of weeks. Ladies, there is progress. You know how they say the best thing for PCOS is diet and excercise? Well, I’ve had the diet under control for years, but while working on my dissertation I ignored the whole excercising bit. I’ve been excercising three to six times a week including yoga, pilates, running and weight lifting, without fail, since miscarriage #1 in March, and my backne is getting better. It feels like nothing short of a miracle.

What I’m really excited about is that this may also be a measure of improvements in the ovarian environment resulting in happier eggs. Maybe if I have happier eggs I can stop miscarrying and have a baby, already. For this reason, I will not, under any circumstances, stop this workout regimen. I’m in it to win it.

Get Your Motors Running.

Posted by

10

As a young lass I watched a lot of inappropriate, adult, day-time dramas.  My mum was partial to CBS soaps, so we watched As The World Turns, Bold and the Beautiful, and Young and the Restless.  My favorite was Bold and the Beautiful.  I loved the story between Brooke, the working-class girl from The Valley (reminiscent of my Sweet Valley High twins) and Ridge, the heir apparent to the Forrester fashion dynasty. Their love was taboo, but it prevailed (and failed to prevail) time and again, despite the evil machinations of Stephanie Forrester, the family matriarch.

All the right ingredients were there: beautiful people, skyscrapers, beaches, palm trees, sports cars, jewels, fashion, fame, intrigue, suspense, and drama,  What little kid wasn’t simultaneously shocked and thrilled by the boob shot in the opening credits of the soap opera?

When things became to hot in LA, Brooke and Ridge would often escape to the mountains and the Forrester home in Big Bear, CA. Replete with a rustic log cabin, roaring flames in a vast fireplace, and a bearskin rug, the setting was ripe for many a romantic tryst as well as shoot-em down suspenseful plot lines.  Really, with guns and such.  Not matter the time of year, and it was most likely 100 degrees and humid as hell in Nebraska, the snow would be swirling from the skies in Big Bear, CA

What a place, my child’s brain thought.  It snows year round.  Amazing.

Well, things have become too hot in Palm Springs.  We’re off to Big Bear for the weekend.  We hope to drink good coffee, eat a delicious meal or two, take a hike in the mountains, and hang out in a hot tub. (Maybe.  In a former life Big Guy was a hot tube repairman and he knows when a hot tub is sanitary and when it is not.  He is particular as to when we should get in one.)

If life lessons from Bold and the Beautiful ring true, we will have to dodge and duck various marauding thieves and villains. I think we are up to the challenge, and we are doing it on our motorcycle.   It should make for some good swerving for Big Guy and some groping of my hunky husband for me. You know, as I hang on  on the back while we are dodging the bullets and escape with our lives.  After that we will return to our $65 hotel room that is sure to have a flaming fire and a bearskin rug.  We will then have mad, passionate, sex on said rug in front of said fire.  I love Big Bear!

Taking about “cruising” on our motorcycle makes me feel like I’m 60. Sometimes I feel as if I’ve had enough life for a 60 year old.  I am not exaggerating when I say I am looking forward to menopause.  Be gone, cycstic ovaries, be gone!

My dream is to get an amazing cruiser that has a heated recliner in the back with a helmet connected by radio to Big Guy’s helmet so we can talk.  I will throw in some arm rests and massage points for good measure.  Perhaps I would also add another saddlebag so I can bring more clothes.  I’m a terrible packer.  Big Guy would prefer that I learn to ride my own motorcycle, but I prefer to laze on the back of his bike.

Ladies, get your motors running.  Wink, wink.

Get your motors running!