This is how crazy I am

So Prince William & Princess Kate are pregnant.  I'm curious and my attention directly gets sucked into any news about their condition... and I should be happy for them like the rest of the world, but I'm not.

I always kind of felt like my life mirrored Prince William's.  My parents got married the same year as Charles & Diana, and I'm only about 9 months older than the first-born prince.  I got married about 10 months before the current Duke & Duchess of Cambridge, and I just hoped in my silly-little fantasy mind of mine that we'd get pregnant around the same time as the royal couple.

I don't wish the heartache of infertility on anyone, but part of me takes comfort when celebrities share their stories of infertility tragedy & triumph.  I'm glad the princess is NOT suffering from infertility, but if she was, like me, it would bring a lot more awareness to a growing problem in modern society.

If infertility wasn't such a stigma, and more people talked openly about it, and more became aware of it, maybe someday ART could be covered by health insurance and our pocketbooks wouldn't determine our eligibility to conceive and give birth.

Like I said yesterday, B & I need to move to a European country where this stuff is covered so I can stop projecting my own angst onto every celebrity, acquaintance, friend, and relative who gets pregnant.

Seriously, I'm upset about Princess Kate being pregnant (and announcing it at 8 weeks, that just seems cocky!)?  As the title of this post says, it just goes to show you how cray cray I'm really becoming.  Glad I can say these things here so I don't have to say them out loud!  Maybe there is something to that Dutch study about involuntarily childless couples having a higher risk of psychiatric illness... ;)

Meredith is Pregnant, Are You Happy for Her?

I've blogged about infertility themes on Grey's Anatomy before, in fact, I started watching the show again earlier this year (all 8 seasons, from beginning to end) just because I heard they were struggling with infertility.  I also learned about Derek's ex wife, Addison's infertility troubles on Private Practice at around the same time.

I loved the adoption episode, when Meredith says that they tell you when you're going through the adoption process that, "The baby you have is the baby you were destined to have.  It was meant to be."

To learn more about what Meredith & Derek's infertility diagnosis is, follow this link: http://www.wetpaint.com/greys-anatomy/articles/behind-the-medical-jargon-what-is-a-hostile-uterus.

Anyway, if I'm being honest, I have to admit that the recent turn of events, in which Meredith tells Derek she's 3 weeks pregnant really disappointed me.  I should be happy for her.  I should be rooting for a formal infertile sister who finally gets what we all want so badly.  But I can't.

I can't because it's not real anyway.  She is a fictitious character.  Although it comforted me that in her storyline the writers had her sharing similar experiences as me, and brought awareness to the struggle so many of us face, I feel that having her just get miraculously pregnant without going round after round of ART just isn't fair.

It's like they are just validating the bane of every infertile woman's existence, the comment,"if you just relax and stop trying so hard, it will just happen."

In fact, I'm so mad about this, I can barely get into it.

I see in the most recent episode Meredith needs to schedule her 8 week ultrasound.  I know how horrible this sounds, but I was hoping they'd have her miscarry again, but it's starting to look like they might go through with this and give them a baby.  If she miscarried again though, it would bring more awareness to what so many women go through in their quest to become mothers.  Getting our hopes built up so high just to have them all dashed without a moment's notice.

Yes, Mer miscarried once, but it was before she was even trying.  Then she tried for a few months, and they gave up and adopted Zola.  Now, they are magically back together, their house (which took them 8 seasons to slowly build and they got nowhere with it), is all the sudden finished and they are living in it with their happy little baby Zola.  And now they are surprised with an unexpected pregnancy.

This is not real.  And it's not fair to all of us who are not going to get this fairytale ending.  Have them go through a few rounds of IVF.  Show the details.  Show the heartache.  Show what it does to a relationship.  Then let something happen whatever way you want it to, writers!  But don't give this to them so easily.  It's a disservice to the beautiful work you started out to do in highlighting this plight that effects so many.

The previews for the winter-season finale lef us with a bit of a cliff-hanger, having Mer express her fear that she'll miscarry again and Derek giving her a concerned look.  So we'll see I guess.  I know I'll be tuned it to see this thing play out either way.

Childless Couples Don't Live As Long As Those With Kids?

On Rock Center with Brian Williams on Thursday night, there was a quick report about a Dutch study that was recently published in the December issue of Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, which finds that childless couples don't live as long as those with kids.

Being the good librarian that I am, I did some research and found the original article, which turns out to be much more interesting than these popular media sources are letting on.

The study finds that childless women's risk of premature death (such as cancer, circulatory disease, and accidents) is four times higher than those who gave birth to their own children, and twice as high as women who adopt a child.

It also finds that men who don't become fathers are twice as likely to suffer from premature (or crude as the study refers to it) death than men who either have biological children or adopt (it's apparently all the same to the guys I guess).

The really interesting part that you have to dig into the original study itself to really find, is that this study also differentiates between voluntary and involuntary childlessness.

The nature of the study is inherently causes the researchers to look at this from the perception of the involuntary childless.... because their entire pool of subjects are couples undergoing IVF treatments!

The news media sources don't highlight this, but the other major finding of this article is not only that the involuntary childless don't just have a higher mortality rate, we have a higher risk of psychiatric illness too.  I can 100% believe this.

Interesting tidbit I learned from the article: In Denmark, couples must attempt IVF before they can adopt, and the government provides 3 free cycles of IVF!

B & I really need to move to Europe, A) so we can do IVF and  finally have a baby, and B) so we can apparently live longer and not go crazy :)

Can Ibuprofen Sabotage Conception?

So right after returning from India, I got super sick.  I mean like crazy, literally sleeping all day & all night for four days in a row, barely eating, cold/flu-like symtoms sick.

Don't worry, it wasn't anything I caught from travelling to India... more likely it was from travelling in general, after being stuck on planes for 20 hours in that dry non-circulating air, I was bound to come down with something.

As soon as I started to recover from that, I got my period (see yesterday's post).  So there went nearly another week.

After being down for the count for two weeks, I haven't been feeling too hot... just kind of tired and achy.  I've probably just been sitting at my desk for too long trying to get caught up on work.

Ok, so my purpose for sharing all this, is to illustrate why I've been taking a lot of over-the-counter medications lately.  Specifically ibuprofen.

This has been my go-to-drug since I hit puberty in my pre-teens.  During the week of my period, I'll often take three 200-mg pills every three hours for the first three days!  Later, in my mid-twenties when I unknowingly suffered from a herniated disk causing me chronic pain and sciatic nerve damage for three years, I self-medicated nearly daily with ibuprofen.

Since having back-surgery in 2008, I feel like I've become more of a normal person again with my ibuprofen intake, though it's still my preferred drug of choice whenever I get period cramps, headaches, or other random pains.

Anywhoo, like I said above, I've been feeling pretty crummy for the past (nearly) three weeks or so, and B noticed me taking a lot of ibuprofen just to get through the days.  

So he became concerned and started doing some simple googling and showed me this: http://www.conceiveonline.com/articles/which-medicines-could-affect-your-chances-getting-pregnant.

In this article, it states the following about ibuprofen:

"Common pain relievers such as the NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, which include Advil, Motrin, and Aleve) can sabotage conception, particularly if taken regularly. They may block production of prostaglandins, hormone-like chemicals that regulate inflammation and temperature. But they may also throw off the release of an egg each month. If you’re trying to get pregnant, stop taking ibuprofen from right before ovulation. 'But it’s perfectly alright to take it for menstrual cramps,' says Dr. Carson. Or try acetaminophen (Tylenol) instead."

So this was on Monday night... and of course after some additional quick googling on my part (I even found this one now while searching for an image for this post: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/sep/06/ibuprofen-warning-to-pregnant-women), I found enough chatter on this subject (none of it disproving it, though nothing very scholarly either), that I quit taking ibuprofen cold-turkey.

It's now Friday and I feel like I'm dying!  So many aches & pains and I have to feel them all :(

But I'm in the midst of my fertile period, and of course, if I'm not taking ibuprofen right now and this happens to be the one and only time we've ever gotten pregnant, I'm going to have to blame everything on the loads of Advil I've been taking, lol!

When my period comes in a few weeks I'll load up again.  This will just be something I cut out for a while during the rest of my non-menstruating days of the cycle... just in case.

Like Clockwork

After all the half-hearted India baby hopes last month, I thought I should throw out a quick update.

We can all be relieved to know that my period came like clockwork the day I expected it, and ended exactly when it was supposed to.

There was some concern that the travel/time changes would throw my cycle off like it may have earlier this fall after a trip to Finland & Russia, but fortunately my first cycle upon returning from India was right on track (as was the previously cycle which I had while I was there too).

So, while it's as sad as it always is when I get my period month after month and always find out I'm yet again not pregnant, at least my cycle isn't messed up.

The bright side (or exhausting & futile side) is that it means we get another chance to start trying all over again this month.... yay.... [insert sarcastic tone of voice and eye roll here].

Seriously though, I'm not bummed about it.  Relieved there's nothing new to worry about like there was in September/October.

What happened two months ago

Ok, I've alluded to this a few times now, so I'm finally taking the time to open up and share what happened in September.

My first cycle after my trip to Finland & Russia in August was totally normal.  Before that, in Finland, I was about 12 hours or so late, but that's actually about right because it was a 9 hour time difference.  My period also lasted a day or two longer, but that's pretty normal too since I'd been travelling.

Anyway, the next cycle all seemed normal through the rest of August and into September... except my period didn't come when it was supposed to in September.  When I was just a day or two late, I didn't think much of it since I had been travelling during the previous month and that might have messed up my internal clock a little.

When I was 3 days late I took an early pregnancy test, just to see if I should be going to the beer garden that night after work or not.  It was negative, but was started raining later that afternoon so I didn't go out anyway.  Probably for the best I figured, just in case.

Two days later I was five days late and was really starting to wonder.  I tested again and was still negative, so I started googling about when those tests were supposed to be most accurate.  Everything said that while they can detect on the first day of your missed period, they are more accurate about a week later.

So I decided to make an appointment with my gyno for a blood test.  The next morning, day 6 of being late, I went in for a blood draw.  B & I were both so convinced at this point that this must finally be "our time" that I didn't even bother calling the RE doctors.  I didn't want to go in to work that day after the appointment, as I wanted to be home where I had cell reception when I got the call with the news.

When they called late that afternoon, I was shocked to hear the test was negative.  They had done a quantitative test, not qualitative like I'd asked for though, so I was frustrated and asked for some answers.  The nurse who'd called me said that sometimes women can just have an "off" cycle.  That's when I thought I should schedule a check up with the gyno since it had been a couple years.  Time to make sure nothing has changed on my end of things while we've been working on B this whole time.  She couldn't fit me in for weeks though, which is why I didn't go until the morning I flew out for India.

I was still pretty frustrated though, and called Robbie to get a blood draw from them too.  He agreed that we should do a qualitative one to see if we could get any answers.  The next day, day 7 of being late, I went in.  Later that day, those results came back as 0, completely negative.  I was not pregnant.

I wanted to make an appointment to have another consultation with Robbie and start completely over on all my testing, in case something had happened in the last two years since I'd first had all my stuff done.  Maybe I've developed PCOS, maybe I have endo now, maybe I'm not ovulating anymore & need clomid, maybe my tube is blocked again and they needed to open it up again.  SOMETHING!

He couldn't get me in for a week, but I was going to be out of town presenting at a conference, so I had to schedule the appointment for two weeks out.  This was so ridiculous, how could they learn anything about what was going on with my body that would cause me to be a week late if they didn't look at me for two weeks?!?!? I was beyond frustrated.  I was devastated and crushed and angry.  I wanted some answers about what was going on.

I didn't believe it could be true that I was not pregnant and nothing abnormal was going on with me.  I did a ton of googling.  There are women who don't produce the HSG hormone & never get a positive pregnancy test result.  Also, if it was a chemical pregnancy, that might not produce the hormone either but would cause me to be late.  Also, if I was pregnant but about to miscarry, it's possible that I hadn't been far enough along to detect the hormone and then lost it before I could get the positive result.  Clearly, I was in denial and couldn't believe that I wasn't pregnant.  I was grasping for anything to hold on to that could help me make sense of everything going on around me.

But honestly, I've never been anything but like clockwork.  I always get my period right on target, maybe a day or two off, but never a week!  I always ovulated between days 14-16, like clockwork!  I'm so regular it's almost laughable in the face of our infertility, and here I was A WEEK LATE and the doctors were all just trying to tell me that sometimes women have an "off month" and I shouldn't be concerned unless this becomes a pattern?!?!?!?  I was so mad!  I want to be on the fast track to fertility, so if something major like this occurs, I want my team of doctors to start running tests and getting to the bottom of what caused this change!  Grrrrrr.....

The next day I started spotting and then got my period.  I fell into such dispair.  I finally started believing that it was true that I was either never pregnant at all, or had been and was miscarrying, or had had a chemical pregnancy.  Either way, it felt like a huge loss.  

Do you see the hidden baby in this image?
This was totally B & I making plans for our future with our baby when we thought we were pregnant.

Even B seemed to be affected by it.  We'd started making plans, even discussing whether I should cancel this trip to India that was coming up, and debating whether we'd be trying to do his big 4-0 birthday trip next summer, since I'd probably be on maternity leave.  We were making plans about decorating the spare bedrooms in our new house and buying a bigger car when we could afford it.  We were blissfully happy hoping that our time had finally come, and we'd gotten there naturally, without having to spend $20k + to get there.

Then on Day 8 I got my period and it all came crashing down around us.  B was sensitive the first day and then seemed to move on.  Not me.  I was sad and angry.  I tried to focus on figuring out what had happened.  I wanted answers.  Oh, and get this, my period only lasted 2 days!  WTF?!?

When I finally got to go in to see Robbie, he seemed to think that trying on our own is futile now and we should move on to IUI's. I told him that we want to skip that or maybe just do one, before moving on to IVF in early 2014.  He seemed to kind of write me off then.  If I wasn't going to do ART now, he didn't seem interested in exploring other less invasive ways to help us in the meantime.  He told me work on losing weight, and if my next few cycles were like this, then maybe we could talk about clomid, but if I get right back on track again, then he said no way to the clomid.

Then we argued about math which really pissed me off.  I came home and told B about how Robbie was trying to tell me that each IUI has a cumulative effect, which is such bullsh*t.  Dr. J had previously explained it to us the exact opposite way.  Yeah sure, each IUI has a 20% chance of working, but that doesn't add up to getting 100% odds after five IUI's.  No, the fifth one still just has a 20% chance of working, just like the first one!  

God Robbie pissed me off!  He tried to make the analogy that if I flipped a coin twenty times, my odds of getting heads at least once would be much higher than if I just flipped it once.  Yes, fine.  But I'm not doing 20 IUI's!  And besides, every individual time you flip that coin, it's always going to have a 50/50 chance of being heads.  

Gawwwwwwd he pissed me off!  And flipping a coing doesn't cost you $1300 out of pocket each time like an IUI does.  We'd rather put that toward the $13-20K + that we'll need for IVF soon anyway.  Which by the way, only has a 50% percent chance of working.  Geesh, with Robbie's reasoning, we should just spend all our money playing the lottery, and then then when we win after playing for a while (which according to him we'd have good chances of doing after playing more often), we could just pay for IVF right away!

Seriously, what kind of a doctor argues this way?  This is why I talked afterward with my gyno about how I don't "click" with Robbie.  I'm so glad she encouraged me to feel comfortable switching to Dr. Strawn.  I really feel like that guy respects me as an individual, not just another patient with the same old textbook problems & routine solutions.  Strawn's the one who said B & I have been infertile for over 4 years, since we went off contraception, not just the 2.5 years that we think we've been "actively trying."  I really respect this guy & feel validated by him, not belittled.

So that's the story.  For the first time in my life I actually felt the thrill that I always imagined I would once I finally got pregnant.  And then it was ripped away.  I'm kind of in the place where I was after we decided not to do the IVF in January 2012 again.  It's not a good place and I'm just trying to process everything.

Blogging is helping of couse.  Sometimes blogging too much kind of keeps me stuck in this world where it's all I think about so I stop for a while for my mental well being & balance.  Then something happens and it helps me to process it by writing it down again, and if I get positive feedback from those who love me or have been there too then it helps me a little more.  And if I can help someone else going through this too, then that helps even more still.

Travelling has been helping as well.  It keeps me busy so I don't have time to think about our struggle so much.  And it puts things in perspective by reminding me of all the wonderful opportunities that I'm able to take advantage of right now, which I probably couldn't do if I was pregnant or had kids.  India in particular has also reminded me that things could be a lot worse for us.  Many other people in the world don't have clean drinking water, a sanitary place to go to the bathroom, or have access to proper food or shelter.

On the other hand, travelling also gives me something positive to focus on like having new experiences and making new memories, especially as a couple with B this time!  Of course, like I've said in the last several posts, it's always in the back of my mind and I have guilty-little-pleasure thoughts about making a baby with B in India and naming it Asha or Indie or something.  But seriously, without some kind of hope, where would we all be?

I was watching a movie on the way to India and one quote really stood out to me. In the movie, the character was explaining that they have a quote here in India that goes something like this, 

"Everything works out in the end, and if it's not working out, then it must not be the end."

I love this.  Whenever I start to get sad about our baby woes, I need to remember this quote.  It really gives me renewed hope for our future and this crazy journey we are on.  It also stands as a testament to my stubborn personality and perseverance.   I will never give up on the dream of my child.  I just can't do it.  Motherhood is something I was born for.  It's all I've ever envisioned for myself.  It's all I've every truly wanted.  

And B is going to make such a good daddy.  His capacity for love, nurturing, and protection has always been one of my favorite traits of his.  He's going to be an amazing father and I just want to finally give him the opportunity to realize that potential.  I just want to have that man's babies.

Well anyway, he's joining me here in India for some touring after I finished my work here, so either way we'll have some amazing experiences and take with us some amazing memories to share for a lifetime together!

So you're saying there's a chance...

I'm sitting in the Hyderabad Airport, reading yet another book on infertility. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother anymore. I've read so many books by so many different kinds of authors (doctors, patients, nutritionists, homeopathic experts, former infertiles, etc), that by this point, I feel like I've heard it all and there is nothing new for me to learn. Yet each new book does present information in a new way and every now and then I do get inspired by new ideas.

The book I'm reading now on my iPad has a few words on varicoceles. As we know, B had varicocele repair surgery back in April. He had very large varicoceles on one side, and fairly large on the other. Dr. J had said that with most patients, a significant number see improvement in sperm counts and achieve pregnancy after 3 months post-surgery. Then another large percentage will see improvement and pregnancy success after 6 months. A few more after a year.

This book claims that men with large varicoceles may see improvement within 6-12 months after the repair.



This gives me some renewed hope because we are exactly at the 6 month mark as of RIGHT NOW!

I'd actually already given up faith in us seeing any improvement from the surgery, and just figured we were going to have to wait more than a year until we could afford IVF. But if the stats in this book are accurate, then we may now just be entering into our prime time for TTC!

Best part of all, after my ordeal two months ago, I was relieved to get my period on time (like clockwork) while I was here in India. It did last an extra day or two longer than normal, but that is common when traveling, especially with a nearly 12 hour time change, so I'm not worried about that at all. Anyway, my point is, I'll be in my fertile period next week and should ovulate once B joins me for our vacation in Northern India! Maybe the stars will finally align for us and we'll be able to make our own little Indian baby here together ;)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad