The Eternal Guest Room

Infertility kinda sucks.

what would life be like?

4 Comments »

I often wonder: What would life be like?

If things had gone according to plan. If we had conceived when we expected to. If we had had a child when we intended to.

We would have a 2 1/2 year old. We would probably be working on #2. We would have never known this struggle. We would have been blissfully ignorant. We would have thought that life went like it was supposed to, like it was intended to. We would have followed the path of “how things are supposed to be.”

Would we be stressed out? Would we think that a child was a burden? Would we realize how blessed we were? Would we take it all for granted?

Would we be as close as we are now? Would we have known each other as well as we do? Would we appreciate any future children as much as we will after all of this?

I can’t picture the “other.” I look around our house and try to imagine a child here. I can’t do it. I look in the guest room and try to visualize a crib. I can’t. It’s just an extra room full of junk. We recently discovered a cat threw up in there, and it went under the radar for days, because we never go in that room (boo for cats sometimes, really…gross…please don’t think less of me).

What would life be like? Would it be full of joy? Would our house be full of laughter? Would we cherish every moment? Would we be truly happy?

Would it be full of stress? Would it be full of whining about how hard it is to be parents? Would there be regret? Would we have wish we had waited?

What would it be like if there were 3 of us? How would the days go? How would life play out?

I have no idea. I really don’t. If there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that we can never predict the future. We never know how we would act in a particular situation. We can never say for sure what we will do, how we will feel. There is dreaming, there is wondering, there is planning…and then there is the now, the here, the real.

The “now” for us is that we continue to wait, continue to wonder, continue to hope, continue to fear. We don’t know how it will end. But the sun comes out every morning, even if it’s hidden behind the clouds, and we get up and go on with our lives.

The future will always be the future.

The challenge, right now, is living in the now.

it just keeps getting worse

12 Comments »

I never say that things can’t get worse – because I know that no matter how bad things are, they can always, always get worse.

Friday afternoon the nurse called me back to tell me that the RE wants us to skip a month. The clomid made my lining too thin so they want to give it an extra month to get back to normal. As if that weren’t upsetting enough, the following month we’ll be out of town during the entire week that everything would need to happen. So our next chance won’t be until the end of June.

The end of June is forever away. I can’t believe it. I feel like this will never end.

I know that 2 months seems like nothing. And really, I know it is. But it doesn’t feel like it, at all. It feels like ages and ages away. It feels like the unattainable future. It feels like forever.

I believe that miracles happen. But not for me.

another fail

16 Comments »

It’s official.

Negative.

Another $900 down the drain, for nothing.

We had been really hopeful for this one. Really, really hopeful. It would have been so nice to have some good news. It would have been so wonderful to be done with this. It would have been such a relief to not have to endure another gut-wrenching mother’s day.

I’m having a hard time finding words. My mind is just sort of empty. Everything feels sort of  surreal. I know these fail all the time, I know the first one doesn’t usually work, I know we have another chance…but none of that really matters at the moment.

I got the official call with the test results a few minutes ago, but I’ve known since yesterday morning. I’m mostly feeling pretty numb. I think I just can’t take the pain anymore. I’m giving myself the weekend to grieve, and then it’s time to start the process all over again.

happy ICLW!

14 Comments »

This is my first time to participate and I’ve been looking forward to it! Here’s a quick rundown of our history.

We’ve been married for nearly 8 years, and  TTC for a little over 3 years with a diagnosis of MFI. We thought our problems were solved with varicocele repair surgery only to find out over a year (and a wasted IUI) later that I had a huge polyp. We kicked off 2010 with a hysteroscopy to get that removed, then we were put on a 3 month probation waiting period. We’re currently in the 2ww after our long-awaited IUI and are not feeling particularly hopeful.

Thanks for stopping by – it helps so much to know we’re not alone in this.

time passing

7 Comments »

These days are passing slowly. For some reason I’m not feeling very hopeful, just discouraged. I don’t really know why.

I guess, at this point, it’s just hard to ever really see it happening. In the beginning I could picture us with a couple of kids, hanging out as a family. Over time the images were only of one young kid, not any older than 2 or 3. Then I could only picture us with a very small baby. Eventually I could only picture myself pregnant, nothing beyond that. But now I can barely even imagine that. It all seems so improbable.

People say “yeah, but look at what’s happened over the years, you’ve gotten over all the obstacles and now you finally have a real chance,” but that doesn’t make the last 3 years seem any less real or painful.

The truth is that lots of people go through a ton of stuff – surgeries, medications, procedures, a bunch of stuff that is supposed to absolutely work – and then end up with “unexplained infertility” and no baby in the end. And that could very well be what happens to us. It’s just a realistic outcome that we have to keep in mind.

And maybe I’m just protecting myself, preparing myself for disappointment. Because hoping is one thing, but believing is something else, and finding out that something you’d believed in isn’t real is pretty upsetting.

The Numbers

4 Comments »

4 8 15 16 23 42.

Ok.  That’s out of my system.

Stacie’s not the only one with ability to share TMI.  This post is all about my stats (I’m talking about semen… you know that’s required to make a baby, right? Don’t let it scare you.  Let it free you.).

From the chart below, you can tell we’ve been at this for a long time.  On May 22, 2008, I went to see a urologist specializing in male infertility.  He knew immediately that I had a bilateral varicocele (Which basically means varicose veins of the balls2) . He had me do two semen analysisesesS’s two months apart. Count was ok, but morphology (shape) was horrible. Not a normal looking one in the bunch, plus they were a little slow (motility) based on that first analysis.

SURGERY.

In September 2008, my doctor performed a bilateral varicocele repair. It was a success. Though my count has been fairly wonky (that is the scientific term) since, my morphology has greatly improved.  So really, I should be good to go.  What’s the hold up?

SAchart

the day

9 Comments »

If I could assign just one adjective to describe an IUI, it would probably be “surreal.”

It’s truly bizarre.

This is the TMI post. Consider yourselves warned.

First the “sample” is delivered to the special office behind the main office, where they “wash” the little guys to weed out the bad ones. You don’t want to put the abnormally shaped and slow ones in there, so they only use the good ones. Then we go back about an hour later to do the procedure.

Going to the RE’s office on Saturday was really weird. We were the only ones there. Between that and being so familiar with the place, I actually threw my sweater across the waiting room to Darek while I was heading off to the bathroom.We didn’t even have to wait; they were ready for us. The office isn’t actually open on Saturdays, but if that’s the day your IUI or sonogram falls on, that’s the day they do it.

They brought us back to a room, where I got ready. The doctor came in to go over the numbers with us, which were pretty good – and definitely much better than last time (yay!!). The IUI itself takes just a couple of minutes. They put the spermies in a catheter and inject them directly into the uterus.

Imagine yourself in a room with a doctor, nurse, and your husband – and this is happening.

Bizarre-o, right?

We feel pretty hopeful. Not counting on this one working, but hoping it does. The doctor said we can do one more round, and if both fail, we move onto something else. Not sure what that is, and hopefully we won’t have to find out.

Now we just wait.

the final follie check

9 Comments »

OH. MY. GOSH. I have spent the last 48 hours in a state of severe panic, anxiety, and distress. I had myself completely convinced last night that we had missed it. I had no doubt in my mind that we’d have to wait another month. I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but I spent pretty much the entire evening crying (I’m going to blame it on all the crazy hormones that were injected & pilled into my body).

This morning was totally stressful.

It’s not often that you get to go to a doctor’s appointment that includes peeing in a cup, getting a shot, having blood drawn, AND having an internal sonogram. Ugh.

The sonogram revealed that my uterine lining was a little thin – 5.5mm when it should be at least 7-9mm. I started to re-panic that it would be canceled.

It also showed my follicles – I had 3 on the right side that were 27, 16, and 14.5mm, and one on the left that was 14mm. They count anything at 15mm or above to be a potential egg-releaser. If you have more than 4 mature follicles, they’ll cancel the IUI because of the high risk of multiples. So those numbers were good. The 27mm one is super mature.

Then they made us wait in a room for over 10 minutes while the nurses decided our fate. I’m so glad Darek came with me – in the past I’ve gone to most of these appointments alone, and it adds to the stress and isolation. Not many guys go to these; last time I brought him along the nurses completely ignored him. Today they actually addressed him though. It’s so nice to have him there. Also, he helps me remember things.

Then we finally got the verdict: It’s happening!!

They have us scheduled for 9:45am tomorrow morning. Apparently things are moving along so quickly that they’re doing it asap. (So, I wasn’t completely crazy last night.) I’m incredibly relieved that it’s happening first thing in the morning; I may not make it through the day otherwise.

The nurse gave me the trigger shot and sent us on our way with all the necessary information and a “good luck!”

We’re so excited. This is our first real shot at this.

follicles

2 Comments »

At 7:45 tomorrow morning, I go in to get my follicles looked at. They do a sonogram to see how many there are and what their sizes are. If there are the right amount and they’re the right size, they give you a HCG trigger shot to make you ovulate. If they’re not quite ready, the trigger is taken later. The IUI is usually scheduled about 36 hours after the trigger shot.

If there are too many mature follicles, they will cancel the cycle, because you don’t want to have 6 babies at once.

The goal of an IUI is to time things perfectly – to try to get the little guys right where they need to be as soon as the egg is released. It’s a matter of making sure everything happens when it’s supposed to happen, so that everything lines up and gives you the best possible chance.

Sometimes the timing is off, and it gets canceled. This has been worrying me for the past 2 days.

I have a bad feeling.

I hope I’m wrong.

worried

4 Comments »

We’re halfway though the shots: 2 down, 2 to go. I’m supposed to have the next one tomorrow and the last one on Friday. I’m a little worried though that Friday might be too late. I’m going to call the RE the minute they open in the morning to voice my concerns. I know their clock is 2 minutes ahead of my phone’s clock.

Yup, I go there a lot.

The shots really aren’t that bad. Still, I always get extremely nervous starting about 30 minutes before each one. I hate needles. I always freak out the person with the needle because they think I’m about to pass out, and then I have to explain that I’m just a big baby, please just get it over with. I hate needles.

It kind of weirds me out that this is in our house:

needle2

At the moment, I’m driving myself insane. I just might give myself a heart attack. I’m terrified that something’s going to happen to cancel the IUI.

We’ve waited so long for this.