Baseline u/s and blood work

Tuesday, April 16th.

AF showed up late night on the 13th. So I count CD1 on the 14th.
Called Dr's office, booked baseline u/s for CD3 so for April 16th.

Woke up at 4am to be standing in the clinic for 7:20am. (It's a little over 2 hour drive for us).
Good thing we did because we were #6!! The picture below was the sunrise at around 5:30am on our way up to Edmonton.



Once you get there, you need to take a number and sit down. Then you have to wait till 7:45 when the secretary opens up her office, then one by one starting with #1 and so on line up to ''sign in'' and receive their stickers with their names. We need to hold on to those and hand them to the nurse when they call us up. Then you have to wait again till your name gets called up (6th). Note to self, bring a book next time, will help pass the time and calm the nerves.

Nurse then calls you in, brings you to a small room where you undress from the waste down and wrap yourself in what is literally a sheet. You wait there a while till a u/s room is available. (usually takes around 10-15 minutes). Nurse then directs you to the u/s room and you wait for Dr to come in. Then Dr asked a couple questions as he's prepping the u/s wand then you lay down and they insert it inside you. Dr was pretty good at locating my ovaries nice and quick (so awkward) He measures them, quickly explains that yes in deed, I have many small cyst in my ovaries and how he could quickly tell I had pcos / cah. Then that part was over and he prescribed the injections for me to take.

Haha, this is the hubby after our appointment was done. I couldn't resist taking this picture. I love walking down this hall!! It's like a baby hall of fame/ SUCCESS stories hihi :) Hope to post my little bundle of joy up there soon!!! (fingers crossed!!) Hubby was holding the empty carrying case the nurse gave us to keep the injections in and all that fun jazz that comes with injections. Now we are off to the pharmacy to BUY the $$ injections. So grateful we BOTH have good insurances so the injections ended up being a reasonable price for us, if it wasn't for our insurances though this would be a whole different experience! I'll add the cost in a later post.

The Ovidrel injection is what they call ''The Trigger Shot''. That's what's going to release my eggs. When doc gives me the 'GO', I inject it at a very specific time of day because the IUI would be performed precisely 36 hours later so it's all timed perfectly.

Gonal-F 75 iu to be injected in the abdomen area once daily between the hours of 6-8pm for 5 consecutive days. I was instructed to book with the nurse my fallow up apt for 5 days later. So that brings us to April 21st. (Sunday). I was instructed to go get my blood work done prior to the apt, I would have to go to the hospital lab since it's a Sunday and the clinic blood lab would be closed then rush to the clinic to try and get ahead in line.

The Infertile Mrs. White

Fallowup appointment to get our GAME PLAN!!!

Monday, April 8th.

I had my fallow up apt with the Fertility Dr. April 8th to get our game plan.

 About 20 minutes from the Hospital...

 At the clinic.. Waiting to be called. Our appointment was for 11am so we both had to cancel our full day of work since it's a 4 hour drive there and back plus the time we spend at the clinic.

This is us.. happy to finally be at this point!!! Really looking forward to hearing what our GAME PLAN will be going forward. Nervous and excited all at once. :-)

Dr. C. gave us all our blood work results along with our urine sample results and hubby's 2nd sperm test. He went over every single result and explained to us what they meant. Turns out I do not have protein C deficiency and Dr doesn't understand how my family Dr came to that conclusion, either way I was relieved to hear this. What I do have though.. is extremly high cholesterol :( I automatically panicked inside when I heard this. In the Dr's words ''Your not going to die in the next 20 minutes but ya, you should talk to your family Dr and see a nutritionist to help'' AHH!! Really really not what I expected to hear. My brain went all fuzzy and I don't remember much of what was said afterwards.. I was so focused on his saying I was going to die soon if I didn't get cholesterol under control. To be honest, off the bat I wasn't even sure in details what that meant.. usually you always associate bad cholesterol with consuming too much salt products but apparently it also has alot to do with high percentage of fat foods. To be honest I had no idea I was eating food that was that horrible. Past couple months I've been making more easy to make meals since I work such weird hours at work and I always try and bring lunches with me. I thought I was doing good since I was making all my meals and not eating out as much. I always had a salad and fruits and veggies in my lunches so it kinda came as a shock to me... till the fallowing week when I started REALLY paying attention to all the labels before buying something and before cooking items I had in my cubboards. I love pad thai where all you have to do is cook noodles, add sauce and pre-cooked chicken.. wowser I had never noticed how much sodium there was in that! Also I really like Cambells Soups, the butternut squash, I always thought I was buying the best of the soups out there with less sodium, turns out there's still too much sodium. Absolutely everything seems to have a really high percentage of sodium and somehow I never paid attention to this  before till now. To keep going.. Dr noticed there were some blood work that he never got the results from. I assured him I had given the nurse all my requisitions. So he filled me out a new requisition and advised me to go to the lab right away after our apt and get the blood work done so he could have the results as soon as possible, and so we did just that.

Anyways.. the Dr. kept going on about our results when he was done he told us we had 4 options. 1. Try clomid again with a higher dose and monitor to see if 1. I ovulate. 2. IUI on our own 3. IUI with injections. 4.IVF. Dr. quickly ruled out option 1 since we have already done 5 cycles of clomid and he figured why waste our time. He asked if I knew if I had ovulated on clomid, I advised that I checked with the opk's and it did indicate that I ovulated but never got a BFP. The fact that I possibly ovulated on clomid seemed to have reassured him. He ruled out option 2 since I do not ovulate on my own why would we waste our time. We ruled out option 4 since we don't have the funds right now and we don't feel like we tried everything yet. So that left us with option 3. Dr jumped on the IUI with injections wagon right away.

The Game Plan!!!
- Wait till AF shows up, since I was already on day 8 of my progesterone pills, we knew AF was around the corner. (usually between 12th and 14th).
- Call Dr office the minute AF shows up to book my baseline u/s between CD2 - CD3.
- Need to show up between 7:45 and 9am. It is on first come first serve basis so it was suggested we show up really early as there would be many woman in line already by 7:45.

Things are looking up!!! :D

The Infertile Mrs. White

The game plan

I've been crazy busy since my fallow up apt with Dr.C. Haven't had the time to post all the exciting things that have been going on and will be happening.. Turns out we are on full mode IUI!!!! I just had to wait for my period to show up and on day 3 started my injections!! It was my birthday yesterday and my friend flew down from Ontario on the 17th at 9:30am to spend 6 days with me. Haven't seen her in over a year so we have alot of catching up to do and so I haven't been on here to blog and report the lastest news. The next couple of days are packed filled with sight seeing and driving around for hours to go see a bunch of fun museums and attractions so I will try and post when I can and elaborate more about my journey and experience threw IUI and injectables. Here's 2 little pictures to show just how much fun we're having haha!

The hopeful infertile Mrs.White (keeping fingers crossed)

 In Banff... We took the Gondola to the top of  Mount Sulphur.. 

Amazing!!!!

Hoping..

I am hoping for some good positive news on my fallow up appointment with fertility Dr on the 8th of April. (in 12 days) He is supposed to give us his game plan according to all our blood work results, health issues results and so on. Keeping fingers crossed it's something that works and doesn't put my body threw too much pain again. Regardless what it is, we're all in this. We're gonna give it 100% so bring it on!! I need a game plan, I need to feel like I'm working towards a goal that's achievable. Even if we don't get pregnant right away at least knowing we have support by a specialist behind us, will  make us feel alot better knowing what went wrong, what we can do better next time and so on. I'm ready! .. we are ready.. Mentally, physically and emotionally ready for this chapter of our infertility journey. I hope to prove wrong and turn this into a fertility journey. Maybe one day :) 

Oh and for the record, I ended up having my period a day after I posted about it being really late. It ended up lasting 6ish days and was extremely light threw out the 6 days. Definitively lighter then my usual period. 

The. Infertile. Mrs. White.

Gyno appointment = big fail.

On the 25th, I went to my gyno appointment that was scheduled for 10:20am. Ended up having to wait 45 minutes.. ugh hate waiting. Anyways, after that wait, I waited another 10 minutes in this room.. staring at cute happy babies.. success stories I guess..  

Turns out my appointment was very pointless one and the Dr even seemed a little annoyed that I wasted his time. He was like well if your seeing a fertility specialist why are you here typa thing.. I felt really stupid. I told him that I got both places who gave me appointments around the same time after having waited almost a year for a single appointment and so explained that I kept this appointment in case the other fell threw and that I thought he would be able to help me take control of my pcos and explained that my ovaries always seem to hurt and ache and that I don't know why.. well that I know their enlarged and full of cyst but that why the past couple months I seem to always be able to feel my ovaries they actually ache and feel irritated. He kept going back to "why are you here if your seeing a specialist who knows more then me". He also had a apprentice with him so it was double awkward. He kept saying he's sorry to have wasted my time witch made me even more uncomfortable because that's a way of saying I wasted his time. Ugh. I told him that since the specialist was in Edmonton I was hoping we could work together so I wouldn't have to drive all the way there every time I need a fallow up. He didn't really answer my question. He said he would write a letter to my family Dr who referred me to see him and appolagise for the misunderstanding. Like really!? He seemed like a really down to earth nice guy, but just seemed to make it really awkward. I get it he could be mad to have wasted a slot someone really ill would have needed so I overall felt really stupid. If I would have known I would have totally canceled it. I just didn't want to get in shit later on down the road by my Family Dr or specialist saying why didn't you keep the gyno. It happened all too weirdly for me. So I guess now I'm back to not having a gyno.. at least I have the specialist tho!! Sooo thankful for that and he's a real nice Dr too :) 

Overall, this appointment was a total bust and started my day off on the wrong foot.

The Infertile Mrs.White 

Fertile - Infertile

I REALLY really can't wait to get this ball rolling. It's been about a year and a half since we started ''trying''. I've never once gotten a positive test nor have I gotten close to having one. Am I possibly fertile with the help of medication (other then clomid) or am I simply infertile for reasons deeper then I'm yet to know?! 18 days and counting until my fallow up appointment with the Fertility Doctor. Really looking forward to his game plan. Very nervous but so impatient now, I've wanted this for soooo long and now that it's finally almost here weeks seem like months. I want every month from here on out to be real ''trying to conceive'' months. I don't want anymore wasted months... I know I don't ovulate on my own so bring on the medications.. bring on the needles whatever it takes I'll do it. (coming from a girl who absolutely hates needles). I want to be a mom, I want to be part of my own little family and have our family traditions and make memories and grow together. I feel like every month I'm not pregnant is a month less I'll get to spend with my child. 

Many close friends and cousins are pregnant around me. It hurts like hell to sit by and watch as their stomach get bigger and bigger and see their ultrasound pictures... It's funny to say but very often I get dreams that I'm pregnant and wake up and have to check if it's real. I want it so bad that my dreams become so vivid and I wake up feeling even more empty and sad inside... really feeling the void. 

AF where are you?!!

VERY Impatient..

I don't understand.. every month when I take progesterone days 1 to 10.. I usually get my period around the 12th-13th.. usually latest 14th. Well today we are March 17th and I've yet gotten them. I haven't charted this month so I have no idea IF or when I ovulated.. I'm not pregnant.. I took a test the other day just because I thought it was so unusual to not have gotten them yet. Def not pregnant.. just saying that because I know it's close to impossible (or sure feels like it) to grow a baby inside me..

A side note.. I take progesterone every 1st of the month for 10 days to help regulate my periods and to actually give me one. If I did not take progesterone then I would go months and months without a cycle... also the progesterone is supposed to help a bit with my pcos but I was given a low dosage and I have never been checked couple months later to make sure it was the right dosage for me (witch I'm not convinced it is). Usually they say that birth control pills help with pcos symptoms (don't ask me how) but I am not allowed to take birth control pills as I have a very high chance of getting blood clots (I'm Protein C deficient) and doctors didn't want to risk the chance. I was on Micronore for a couple months when I was younger.. they call it the ''mini pill'' lol. Long time ago I had told the Doctor that there wasn't any point in me taking it because it wasn't 100% nor not close to what the usual birth control rate is at. That's when Dr decided to give me progesterone.. mainly for the soul purpose of helping me get my periods back on track and regular. In the past I have taken two different kinds of birth control.. One was 'Yasmine' and I forget the other...  (before I knew I could't). When I decided to get off of 'Yasmine' I ended up getting my period for a Month straight! Not even kidding. After 2 weeks of period, I kept telling myself it will stop tomorrow.. It will stop tomorrow and it never did for 32 days. RIDICILOUS!! When I went to see my Dr (when my period was finally over) she didn't have a reason for it, just said it can happen when we stop taking them. To me that made no sense because my body didn't know I was stopping taking them since during the ''sugar pill week'' I got my usual period so it was really really weird. Never happened since tho fiouf! I used to be very low in iron when I was younger and so that month was really tuff on my body. 

All this to say.. Progesterone is supposed to work.. it's always worked for me so far.. Not getting my period during the time period I usually get it in makes me very anxious and nervous. I'm trying so hard to try and stay on track and take my progesterone everyday (10 days) at the same time and so on. Usually this would't bother me as much as it does now.. only because I finally have a Fertility Expert working with me (or about to..) and I really really want to be regular in my cycles so I and he knows what to expect and when my cycles are. Now I feel like I'm all thrown out of wack. My periods usually last around 5 days.. so technically right now I should done my period.

After this cycle I wanted to chart my ovulation.. I wanted to try using the program on the computer where it makes a graphic for you.. I've always just used OPK's but I was curious to give the program a try and I was looking forward to starting that asap.. so I guess that's what's making me so anxious.

C'mon red river!!! I've never wanted you to show up so bad before..
(and I know I'm not pregnant so why aren't you showing up already!!)

Irritated Infertile Mrs.White