Ultrasound update

My first u/s was today and I measured 6 weeks 4 days. Heartbeat was 113. It seemed a little low but my doctor wasn't concerned at all and said she wanted it to be over 100. I have one more u/s next monday and then I will graduate to an actual OB. Yay! Little guy is making mommy very sick. I can't eat much except for fruits and veggies. Even my normal cravings sound gross. I LOVE eggs with syrup on them. Yesterday I had some and I don't think I will ever have eggs with syrup again. Yuck! Oh and I don't think cake sounds good at all. Yes Megan Norman turned down cake. Jared is wonderful cause he is making supper every night since my stomach turns every time I smell food. No throwing up yet though. I do enjoy being sick since it gives me that reassurance that the baby is okay. Last week I was having crazy cravings and couldn't eat enough and I was worried because I'm not nauseous. This week I'm nauseous and I miss my cravings. I should probably just learn to enjoy the off days instead of worry about something being wrong when I have them.

And the Verdict Is.....

I'm sooo PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow. Who would have thought this would have actually worked?!? I sure didn't. My mind was already in the in vitro cycle and I didn't even realize that I should be testing. Okay so this is what happened.
I was 9 days past my hcg trigger shot and I decided to pick up a few dollar tree tests so I could see what a positive test actually looks like since the hcg shot makes me have false positives until the shot is all out of my system. So I take the test and it was negative?!?! WTH! I was so upset that my only chance to see a positive test was over cause the shot was already out of my system. The next day I took one and there was a LIGHT line. I thought it was the shot and was excited that I actually was able to see some of the shot lingering. 2 days later (I tested everyday) I took another test and it was even darker!! The trigger shot doesn't make tests get darker, they are supposed to get lighter. I started feeling optimistic so the next day I took a more expensive First Response test you can see the result above, its the top test. So I freaked out and called Jared and yelled "We're pregnant". He kinda already knew though but was excited. I took another test the next morning and it was much lighter. I was kinda nervous about that so I just took a digital just to make sure. It came up PREGNANT in no time at all. This was at about 6:00 am and I went and jumped on Jared and showed him the test. He didn't mind though. lol. So I called my doctor and told her I wanted a blood test. At the time I was 2 days too early for a blood test but my doctor agreed to do one anyway. I asked what number she would like to see me at and she said anywhere between 25 and 50 is great. Anything over that is doing really good. I got a call that afternoon saying that my blood test was 85!!! I had to come back in 2 days later to make sure it had doubled since that will tell them that I have a healthy pregnancy so far. My next blood test number was 211. So healthy baby so far. All last week I was sick and couldn't sleep but I'm starting to think it was nerves cause now that I got my 2nd blood test back I'm feeling a lot better. Feeling better did make me freak out a little though so I took another pregnancy test. This was at 15 days past my IUI

HA HA HA. Look at that pitiful control line! My test line dominated. Take that evil control!!!! So far I have taken 16 pregnancy tests this week. Dave Ramsey would be ashamed of my blown budget but I really don't even care right now. :)
I'm still very very nervous and I'm over analysing ever little ache and pain. I hate it when I wake up feeling good cause I want to know that my little guy is okay. And I'm cramping a LOT which apparently is a good sign, but it still makes me nervous. I would be even more nervous if I stopped cramping though. I am 4 weeks and 2 days along and I'm only sick occationally. Its ONLY when I smell stuff. I lit my favorite candle yesterday and had to blow it out and hold my nose as I stuffed it in the laundry room cause the smell was overwhelming and making me so sick. Today I have something in the crock pot and I gag everytime I go into the kitchen cause the onion soup packet is just way to powerful a smell. I think I will be able to relax a little once I get my u/s June 6th at 10 am.
This was the first cycle that I was administered to right after my treatment and I believe God blessed me when I finally just turned it all over to him. I should have done that all along. I'm cautiously optimistic that we will have a baby in January. My unofficial due date is January 27, 2012 although I'm hoping for January 30, 2012 for Grandma's birthday. :) That's all for now, I'll update more later.

Lots of HCG, no baby

So as I said in my last post, I got a shot of hcg on Thursday and let me tell you, it's just great being infertile with a ton on pregnancy hormone in my body. The infertility gives me a lot to be upset about and the pregnancy hormone makes me emotional so poor Jared has been so confused lately. lol. It's been almost 7 days since the shot so it should be out of my system by Friday. I can't test for pregnancy for awhile though cause the hormone will give me a false positive. We have kinda decided that October is when we will try to get in vitro if we aren't pregnant by then. It really is perfect timing. Jared will be starting school in August so if I get pregnant during my october cycle I can take off work for the summer and Jared will be able to work. During the summer we do well financially cause Jared gets income from SMMC, but he doesn't work there during the summer so he has income from a full time second job as well so I will be able to take off for maternity leave and not worry about the loss of my income. Also, We might be moving for Jareds school and if we do move I won't be pregnant during the move and I can just quit my job once the baby comes and then I won't be pregnant and trying to find a new job. We can't do in vitro any sooner cause we have to come up with money so October is really the soonest and the latest we can do it. So happy birthday to me!!! :) I'm trying to think of fundraising ideas so we won't go into extreme debt over this. The debt will be completely worth it, but I still would like to be living in a house once we have a baby and not a cardboard box. lol. I never thought it would come down to in vitro. I always suspected, but I just thought it was me being paranoid and pessimistic. Here are the odds I've beaten so far,

15% of couples are infertile most of those couples are over the age of 30
10% of infertiles have unexplained infertility
5% if infertiles will need in vitro

The odds were definatly in my favor, but I just HAD to prove everyone wrong and be that one that couldn't get pregnant with anything but in vitro.
I could be speaking too soon, maybe I'm pregnant right now and all of this will be void. Hopefully that's the case.

3 simple words, one BIG bill

In Vitro Fertilization.
That is what its gonna take to get me pregnant. I went to the doctor today and she said that she feels like we should start preparing ourselves for IVF. I did a u/s today and saw that I had 3 beautiful eggs ready to pop. I did a hcg trigger shot which makes me ovulate and I will get an IUI tomorrow. This will be our final IUI. We are on the road to IVF and we plan on doing it in the fall. We have to figure out how to save up some money and then find a bank that will give us a loan since IVF will be $12,000. Can't put a price on family though. IVF has a 70% success rate. My doctor did say that because of my age, we have a 40% chance of twins. That makes me nervous because twins make pregnancy higher risk but to only transfer 1 embryo would decrease my success rate and 2 is better then none at all. So that's where we are at. If this cycle is a bust we will be on the road to IVF!!!!!!!! I'm sooo nervous about spending that kind of money but I think this will work. We will be pregnant this year! :)

Update

I'm on cd 13 and I should have gotten a positive lh test by now but I haven't gotten even a slight positive. So I am suspicious that the Clomid did the opposite of what it was meant to do and it halted ovulation this month. I am slightly relieved because I don't want to do anymore unmonitored IUI's. They aren't working. I am working on paperwork to go to Reproductive Resource Center so I can get a second opinion from one of the most recognized RE in the area. I went to an infertility conference Saturday and I asked him about unmonitored IUI's. He asked me my age and then said that most doctors will put me on the slow route because they think I have plenty of time to figure out what is wrong. Well he said that yes age is on my side, but the fact that I'm so young is also a big concern because I should have been pregnant 2 years 7 months ago and the fact that I'm not tells him that something is seriously wrong and needs to be taken very seriously. That's what I've been thinking this whole time. I SHOULD be very fertile because of my age and the fact that I can't get pregnant is a big concern to me. We are looking into getting a loan and possibly doing 2 cycles of injectibles and then we will talk to the doctor about in vitro. I can't put up with the disappointment and is worth the peace of mind. I still need to talk to a doctor about what I want to do, but I have a feeling the doctors and I will both be on the same page, 3 years of infertility is a very long time. So this month is my break cycle. I might still be on a break next month as well to save up money because I think doing IUI's without having a ultrasound first is throwing away money. We have started talking about adoption but I think we are too young to be considered. We are still going to look into it though. Anyway thats my update. If I don't ovulate I will call my doctor and tell her I want to reevauate my treatment plan because I'm not happy.

I am 99% sure...

I'm out. I stopped progesterone Monday, but I am still on this cycle. If I don't get to Cycle day 1 again by tomorrow I will call my doctor cause I was supposed to be on Cycle day 1 Monday. I'm doing 1 more round of treatment with 50 mg of clomid this time and then I'm taking a break. I bought a puppy (it was supposed to be a 3 year old dog) and I have my hands full with him. We went to the pound and found this adorable chihuahua/ pomeranian mix. They told us he was 3 and potty trained. Well when I took him to the vet yesterday I found out he is not even a year old and he is very much NOT potty trained. He also developed a nice case of kennel cough last night so this is how my night went:
11:00 pm- went to bed
12:00 am- up with playful puppy
1:30- playful puppy strikes again
2:45- My two "children" get into a fight and puppy is scared
3:45- Puppy is now sick with kennel cough and has to go potty
4:10- Puppy is awake due to kennel cough
5:00- Puppy starts coughing again and is scared
6:30- Puppy is still sick and I am up anyway so I start my day.
Thats right folks, I don't even have a baby yet and I'm up all night. But the puppy (Bruiser) is a very nice distraction from infertility. I kinda feel like I want to just raise my dogs for awhile and enjoy life without kids cause I've been stressed out for so long about not being able to get pregnant that I haven't been able to really stop and think about the good parts of not having kids. So I'm taking a break after this next IUI and I'm going to regroup my scattered thoughts before I charge ahead. IUI's are pretty pointless for me anyway. I don't want to waste the money when I know I need surgery and IVF.


Oh and I have very EXCITING news!!! I got a letter from insurance today and (drumroll please) The hospital OWES ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Insurance covered EVERYTHING! We paid for a doctors visit already and the letter said that they sent out a payment for the same visit. So I no longer have to be afraid of the evil mailbox that always gives me bills cause I'm not gonna be getting any!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lost a furbaby and other updates

Well first of all I haven't been on to update much because I haven't had a lot of updates. I'm in the two week wait again and now that I'm on progesterone I can't tell what my body is doing. I've been having mood swings, I'm tired all the time, and I can't stop eating. It's great that I get an increased appetite right before swimsuit season. But all those things can be due to all the meds that I'm on. The only thing that is making me slightly excited is that my bbt (basal body temp) rose 3 days ago to become a triphasic chart. A study was done and 20% of pregnant women gets triphasic charts, and only 5% of non pregnant women get them. The other 75% don't see them at all. A chart become triphasic when there is a 3rd temp spike 6-10 days after ovulation and is usually due to the pregnancy hormone raising the temperature. Now don't get all excited and think that this is it for me. Progesterone causes temps to rise and since I'm on progesterone supps my amazing temps could be due to the extra progesterone that I'm on. I was slightly confused this morning when my temp rose slightly instead of fell since I'm 13 days past ovulation but I'm fully expecting it to fall tomorrow. I will get on here and let you all know what tomorrow's temperature brings.

Now about my furbaby Buddy. He is the cat you see in my blog. He was a mommy's boy and I loved him so much, but we had to get rid of him today. He peed in my closet for the last time. lol. Actually Jared hated Buddy and has been wanting to get rid of him awhile ago but I wouldn't let him. I finally realized that cleaning that litter box was probably not the best idea when we were trying to get pregnant and especially not good once we did get pregnant. I found a wonderful couple on craigslist who was looking for a long hair siamese and they fell in love with him the moment they saw him. I'm sad, but I think Cupid is happier now without buddy attacking her all the time. She actually is out with the family now instead of hiding under the bed. :) I hope he will be happy in his new home. I will miss laughing at his clumsiness though.

More updates to come soon because I have to test monday so I know if I have to continue the progesterone or stop it to allow af (aunt flo) to come and start a new month of treatment.