January 30, 2013 – Femara

So far Femara has been a lot better than Clomid.  The only real side effect I had was exhaustion.  I would take it at 10 and by 1 it was hard to talk my brain would be so shut down.  On the first day I laid down for a nap and Doc woke me up several hours later asking if I wanted dinner.  Not safe to drive on pill days, for sure. 

Femara is labeled as a drug to treat women with breast cancer (which is really sensitive to estrogen production).  Fertility treatments are an ‘off label’ use for it.  Lots of drugs have off label uses.  For example, Benadryl can also treat nausea. Regardless, we are hopeful that Femara will be more successful than the Clomid was.  We will know in aproximately 22 days.    

  

At the moment we are staying with the clinic here in town, but we have started to look for another place to do the IUI.  I am just not impressed with our current clinic.  This month when I called to ask for the Femara prescription the nurse argued with me that I was already on it and just needed to call the pharmacy for a refill.  I had a hard time convincing her that I have never taken Femara and didn’t have a prescription available for it.  I finally convinced her by asking her which pharmacy they sent the prescription to, for which she didn’t have an answer because they had never sent one in for me before.  I prefer my health care professionals competent or at least capable of reading a chart.  I also have to go back in for the Day 15 sonogram this month if I haven’t had my LH surge because it is a new drug.  I plan on not listening to the tech this time when she tries to convince me to get the IUI early.  Overall, I just feel angry when I have to deal with these people.  I don’t feel like they care and they are really in it for the money, which doesn’t make me feel good at all.  Unfortunately the other clinic is an hour and half away and out of network for our insurance, so it is really hard for me to switch.  Although we may do that if we aren’t pregnant in a couple of months. 

I really miss my regular doctors.  I always knew they were taking excellent care of me, but this experience has reminded me how special it is to find people you really trust to take care of you.  I don’t question their directives because I know they care about the outcome.  With this clinic I feel like I need to do my own research and manage my own care.  Very stressful!  Sadly, they are the only fertility specialists around here.  I know some amazing doctors, but this is just not their specialty.  Hopefully we will only have to work with them for a short time before we go back to the loving care of my amazing doctors. 

January 18, 2013 – On the road again

I will show my age and reference Johnny Carson here.  “The answer to your question is no.” Or I could be a magic eight ball, “Outlook not good.”  Regardless of how I say it, it doesn’t look like we were successful this month.  So, it was another month on the crazy hormone roller coaster and we still have nothing to show for it. 

I am not at my best today.  I am finding it hard to be positive or perky and really finding it hard to want to keep doing this to myself.  I keep trying to tell myself that we are done with Clomid and the doctor said the new med would be better, but I just don’t know that I believe it. 

It doesn’t help that the day after our insemination I slipped on a patch of ice and injured myself.  I couldn’t seek treatment because I didn’t want to get imaging done of my pelvis while trying to get pregnant.  I fractured my hip in the 4^th grade and the pain I feel is reminiscent of that.  So dealing with 2 weeks of pain only to find out it wouldn’t have mattered if I had gotten it looked at right away isn’t helping my mood.  After my period starts and it is official that we are not expecting I will get my pelvis looked at.  Monday will start a new cycle and hopefully it will be better than this one. 

January 08, 2013 – Timing Is Everything

I survived my Day 17 insemination!  It really wasn’t bad.  I had a friend who was willing to come and hold my hand during the procedure, so I wasn’t alone.  Being alone for it seemed really depressing to me, so I was very thankful that I had a friend who was willing to hold my hand and support me when Doc was stuck at work.  I absolutely have the best friends a girl could ever ask for.  I don’t know what I would do without them!  This is the second time a friend has held my hand when Doc was stuck at work.  I can’t express how much it means to me.  One of the greatest blessings to come from starting this blog and sharing this journey was that it opened me up to the support of my friends. 

I finally met my doctor’s partner, and have decided I would rather switch to his care.  He was much more personable and I just felt like he provided more compassionate care than what I had been getting.  I will ask to see him next time I have to come to the office.  The procedure took all of 5 minutes.  It wasn’t any worse than a pap smear for me, but I have heard that if the timing is off or if they have to stabilize your cervix it is a much more uncomfortable procedure.  Then I just had to lay with my pelvis tilted for 15 minutes before we could leave.  There was some mild cramping for the rest of the day and part of the next.  The doctor told me to follow up with intercourse the next day and that was all.  That was probably the most uncomfortable thing, because my cervix was a little sore the next day. 

My LH surge came on Day 18.  The LH surge comes 24-36 hours before ovulation occurs; which means I ovulated no later than the morning of Day 20.  All that means is that our timing was good.  We have ovum in the same place as sperm.  With a little luck the ovum was healthy and perfect and was met with a healthy and perfect sperm.  We should know in a couple of weeks if luck was on our side. J

January 4, 2013 – Day 15

Day 15 came and according to my new instruction sheet I was to call the office for directions.  I did and they scheduled me for an ultrasound.  No idea what for, just agreed to come in for it.  The woman I met with still didn’t explain to me what they were doing.  When I asked (while she was already looking) she said it was to look at my ovaries.  I kind of figured that out because my favorite magic wand was back! 

She showed me that on my right ovary I have 1 decent looking egg that I will ovulate this month.  I have another smaller egg that may also ovulate this month.  On my left ovary I had roughly 4 that were not going to amount to much even if they did ovulate this month (which she said they may not).  All this fun with Clomid and I have 1 egg.  I am learning a lot about acceptance this week. 

She then told me they could go ahead a schedule me for insemination the following day (Friday/Day 16).  I asked if perhaps it would be a bit early since we are only on Day 15 and my surge doesn’t usually occur until Day 18 and ovulation occurs after the surge.  She became obviously annoyed with me.  It was the “how dare you question me” scowl.  I didn’t care; what she was saying didn’t make sense to me and she didn’t seem to have an answer except to tell me if I wait I could miss it.  She kept saying my egg was 17.  I still have no clue what that means.  I told her I had to discuss it with my husband before I could schedule anything. 

As I got dressed I kept thinking about how this new office made me feel.  I feel like a piece stuck on a conveyor belt.  There is no thought to how people are different, we are all treated exactly the same.  They have a recipe that seems to work well for them, or well enough that they keep using it, but what happens if someone doesn’t fit that mold?  It really feels very impersonal and like they are in it for the money.  “Shut up and hand us your money.” 

Doc was working, so we couldn’t talk until the evening, which would make it too late to schedule for Friday anyway.  I called him and left a message explaining what had happened.  He sent me a text that he didn’t really know what to do either.  I then spent the day worrying about whether I was going to miss my time if I didn’t schedule for Friday.  In the end I decided to call the fertility doctor and ask, after all I am already paying him for his opinion.  He called me back after the office closed, which was fine because I know most clinic doctors finish patients and notes before returning messages. 

He agreed that Friday seemed a little early given that I usually ovulate on Day 18, but did tell me that numerous studies have shown no difference in pregnancy rates for insemination that happens a few days before or after the surge.  He said Saturday would work or if it made me feel more comfortable I could wait until the surge.  I still wasn’t left with the warm and fuzzies.  After Doc made it home and we had a chat we decided Saturday (Day 17) might work out best for us. 

I called this morning to schedule the procedure and Doc’s drop off of sperm.  Turns out they only take sperm in the morning on weekends and Doc would still be working at the hospital at that time.  When I let her know we wouldn’t be scheduling anything she offered to have the sperm frozen if we could get it there by 10:30 today.  Doc is switching to nights, so I called him to see if that would work.  We managed to get the sample there just before 10:30!  They waived the $50 freezing and storage fee because they are just keeping it one night, which was the nicest thing they have done so far.  Next month we will pay $50 to have sperm stored in advance just to avoid dealing with Doc’s schedule.  At 9:30 tomorrow morning I am off to see a doctor I have never met (mine’s partner) who will hopefully knock me up.  I am struggling with this decision a lot.  I dislike this process, I distrust the people I am supposed to rely on, and I just haven’t had time to sort things out for myself yet.  I understand we have maxed out the options for getting pregnant on our own, I am just unhappy about our options. 

I realize being unhappy about them won’t change the situation.  For right now I have decided to continue and go to the insemination.  I plan to continue to be polite to the people I come in contact with and give them a chance to warm up.  I will pray about each encounter and ask for guidance in my own actions.  I will be positive about my 1 egg because it only takes 1 egg and 1 sperm to make a baby.  I have to remain focused on our goal.