Birthcontrol

I was reading something where women were giving other women encouraging words about how to deal with the infertility. I never even made it through all the encouraging words because, frankly, I have heard them all before. Plus, I am not really at a low point right now in this whole journey so I don't need much encouragement. Someone did bring up the fact that most people going through infertility spent/wasted a lot of time and energy and money on birth control when all this time, we probably never needed it. So, about that...

I recall as a teenager standing in another room of the house and hearing my parents argue about some boy I was seeing. I can't remember any of the conversation except for my mom saying the words "until she ends up with a baby in her arms". The gist of the conversation was something about how I was probably going to end up pregnant. Back then I was horrified. Mainly couldn't believe my parents were discussing my (non-existent) sex life with each other. Also, I wouldn't end up pregnant. Getting pregnant from sex was really the last thing I thought about. It was probably just some sort of naive teenager thing going on in my brain and not that I innately knew back then that I was infertile. It was getting some sort of disease that scared me. STDs seemed like something far worse than getting pregnant, even as a teenager. In the end, I broke up with the loser guy they thought would put a baby in my arms and ended up dating a really great guy who my parents actually liked by the time I was eighteen. Then it was off to the ob/gyn to get on birth control.

I had one pregnancy "scare" in high school and another in college. Looking back now I think this is hilarious. My period was about a week late both times. (Turned out once was because I wasn't eating right and the second time because I had totally screwed up taking my pill on time.) I took pregnancy tests and everything. (Had the most humiliating time buying the pregnancy test when I was in high school but that is another story.) Those were about the only two weeks of my entire life that I thought I might be pregnant. To think I even bothered to worry about getting knocked up while I was using birth control. Ha!

In the long run, I suppose I am glad I didn't know then what I know now about my body. I was irresponsible enough back in college that I don't think it would have been a good idea to erase the fear of getting pregnant from my brain.

DH's family is super religious and pretty much cut him off when they found out that we were going to be cohabitating for a few months before we got married. I am sure that really contributed to the fact that even though he knew I was on birth control, he was certain to always bring the condoms each time we knocked boots before we got married. Certainly he would have been disowned had his parents known we were getting busy prior to being hitched. We had made big plans to shed the condom wearing once we were married. The week before we got married I got a UTI and had to go on antibiotics. I debated whether or not I should mention to DH that antibiotics could interfere with my birth control. I figured I better start my marriage off by being honest. I went to him crying and told him that he probably would want to wear a condom on our honeymoon (at least during sex on our honeymoon, wasn't going to make him wear one the ENTIRE honeymoon :) ) so I wouldn't get pregnant. LOL!! What an idiot I am.

I was on birth control for the first 10 months of our marriage. Went off two months before our first anniversary so we could officially start trying at that point. Spent 11 months off of birth control, 9 of which I was trying to get pregnant. Then I got diagnosed with a UU. I went back on birth control at that point so my ob/gyn could run some tests to get a better idea what was going on in there without the chance that I would get pregnant before I was fully diagnosed. We decided the day that I was diagnosed that we were going to adopt for sure, since that was something we had wanted to do down the line anyway. I stayed on birth control for 2 years while we adopted our two boys just in case there was some sort of tiny minor chance I could get pregnant since adopting while pregnant was definitely not something we wanted to risk. A month after DS2 came home, I ran out of birth control and haven't been back on it since. Two and a half years later, still no baby in my arms.

Five Years

This weekend DH and I celebrated our 6 year anniversary. Or should I say, we "celebrated", since all we did was trade cards, look at our wedding photos, and take a roll in the hay. Somehow that all seemed perfectly fine for us. We still love each other. We are still in love. I would still choose to marry him again.

This weekend also marked our 5 year anniversary for trying to "make" a baby. If someone would have told me 5 years ago how many crazy turns my life would be now, I wouldn't have believed them. Not that my life is crazy, but just not what I would have expected.

For our 1 year anniversary, DH and I took a cruise to celebrate. I had gone off birth control in February and started charting. We decided to start trying at our one year anniversary. I was secretly hoping that I would end up pregnant during those two months from when I went of birth control and our official start trying month. Obviously didn't happen. I went on that cruise armed with my thermometer and a OPK. We had sex every other day. (I only know this now because yesterday I went back and looked at my chart from that month.) I ovulated 3 days after our anniversary. All the stars were aligning. Just before we left, my cousin made a comment that everyone she knows that went on a cruise came back pregnant.

We all know how this story went. I didn't end up pregnant. We went on trying. I was disappointed. It was the first time in my life that I tried really hard at something and came out failing miserably. Then I proceeded to continue failing month after month. I was at such a low point when I was diagnosed with my UU that I was almost relieved. Shocked, absolutely, but also relieved to know that there had been nothing I could have done differently.

More to say on all this, but that post on this but as my crazy life is, I have two little boys that I must tend to now...

Counting Down?

Thinking I should probably start counting down to my next cycle when the plan is to do another round of injectables and IUI. Just wish it was more of a science so I would know what number of days I should be starting with. I'm going to go with 19 more days. That gives me 5 days until I ovulate (if I happen to ovulate on CD17 which is somewhat common, although not last month) and my LP is 14 days (but sometimes 13).

Don't really know how I feel about this upcoming cycle. You would think after all this time "off" that I would be really excited. There are things I am certainly not looking forward to. Mostly I am not looking forward to all the appointments, the early mornings running to the city, the being stabbed for blood work all the time, the stabbing myself with needles, and the waiting to see if any of it was worth it. Add in the fear of me actually getting pregnant and having to worry every single day whether or not my uterus is going to be a hospitable place to grow a baby, and I start to wonder why I even want to do this.

In the end, the answer is still the same: I want to know what it is like to be pregnant and give birth and raise a baby from a newborn. I want a third child, sooner rather than later would be nice. Adoption is not calling me right now at all. I go through moments thinking that we will have a third child some time, be it through me getting pregnant or adoption. Other times I think that this just has to work because despite having two incredibly positive adoption experiences, I am not up for trying it a third time.

All in all, I am glad I have this feeling right now of almost indifference over whether it works or not. Don't get me wrong, I WANT it to work. I want to get pregnant and have a full term (or near full term) baby. The past few months though, after my whole pregnancy in the rudimentary horn ordeal, I was feeling so desperate like it HAD to happen or I just wouldn't be complete. That is not something I enjoyed feeling. I am reaching for something that I have no idea if it will work and the thought that I would be destroyed if it didn't... yeah, just a bad thought to have. These days I am happy with my boys. Happy with life. Happy about the things that I have the opportunity to do in the next couple years if there is no third child. If this all does work, what a fantastic bonus that will be!

Couple other thoughts. Yesterday I got another bill in the mail for the surgery to remove my rudimentary horn. Seriously, they couldn't have figured out sooner that I still owed $300? Just when you think all of this is behind you and a thing of the past, in the mail comes a bill from the hospital just screaming out to remind you of what horrible luck you have had.

Still can't say I am completely recovered from the surgery. Life has gone on as normal. I do everything I did before. Then I cough or sneeze or breathe in too deep and I get some stabbing soreness in my side where the larger of the incisions was. Just enough to remind me of what I have been through.

DS1 has a spring school program coming up next week. I remembered today that months ago at his winter/Christmas one, I was feeling like crap. I had a headache and was hormonal and just dragging. I had just found out that I was pregnant. It was my last "good" day of being pregnant since the day after that program I found out that instead of expecting a baby, I should be expecting to have near emergency surgery. I ran into a girl at the program that I knew in college. She was pregnant and if I recall she said she was due in March. I really wanted to say something about how I was pregnant too just so I could be in that "club" for once, but knew better than to bring it up so early on. I'll probably see this girl again next week at the spring school program. In her arms will be her new little baby. As for me, I'll be even farther away from having a baby than I was four months ago.

One Down, One to Go

After a slightly longer than usual cycle, AF showed up yesterday. Finally got done with that stupid cycle I had to skip from the cysts on my ovaries. Since I'll be out of town next weekend, we figured we better just skip this cycle instead of risk screwing things up since I wouldn't be able to be monitored for three days in a row. Guess I'll give it about two weeks and then order all my meds again so we can start this insanity over again.

Still Waiting

No AF yet. FF took the liberty to changing my ovulation day from CD12 to CD 21. Talk about indecision! I am undecided on whether I ovulated on CD17 or CD21. Either way, I don't care. Maybe next month when I am waiting for my cycle to start so we can start trying again, each and every day that I have to wait I will care about. Now I am just tired of wearing a pantyliner just in case.

Poor DH hasn't gotten lucky for a little while now. I just have had no desire to have sex. I have had a sore throat and life in general has just been so hectic. All I want to do at the end of the day is sit on the couch. I decided last night that I would put out. Then my computer went crazy so I made DH fix it instead of get some. Poor guy.

I'm Late... But Not Really

According to FF, AF is late. AF is never late. However, FF has been known to be wrong too. At first I was buying it, completely on board with when FF claimed I ovulated. Even though I knew the chances of me actually getting pregnant from some old fashioned sex was nearly impossible, it was looking like we had perfectly timed intercourse. FF says I ovulated on CD12 and today is 15dpo. I never ovulate that early. Plus I was sick around that time which probably elevated my temps. AF always shows up the afternoon of 13dpo.

Turns out I am smarter than online charting software. Looks to me like I actually ovulated on CD17, which is pretty typical. Guess I still have a couple days to wait for AF, which will certainly show up since there was no sex anywhere near CD17.

If I did actually ovulate on CD12, that would have made it possible for us to do another round of injectables/IUI this month. I was somewhat fretting over what to do, whether we should give it a go and risk not being in town when I needed to go for my IUI. Oddly, I am relieved that it looks like there is not a chance of trying this month. It takes a load off of stressing about it.

Wow, that was a lot of rambling.