Rough week

On Saturday, I went out to lunch with a friend. Had a great lunch! We ate at this cool Crepe place which was really tasty. BUT as we wrapped up our lunch, I got a text from my husband saying he needed to go to the ER, so I rushed home, and took him to the hospital with chest pains, shortness of breath & fever/chills. They thought he was having a heart attack, so they did all sorts of testing, admitted him, did an angiogram, etc. It was NOT a heart attack, so they kept him in the hospital until today (Wednesday) poking and prodding him to try and figure out what's wrong. He had a bad EKG which made them think something was wrong with his heart.

I live in the midwest, and we've only been here a couple years. I don't make close friends quickly. It's also never my first instinct to ask for help. Ever. Stupid independent streak! On Saturday, I sat in the waiting room for the cath lab, waiting to find out if my husband had a heart attack. This was after watching them do emergency EKGs and chest Xrays in the ER while putting nitroglycering under his tongue. I felt stoic, even strong... but at the same time really worried. And really alone. There weren't even any other people in the waiting room. Just me.

I should have called my mom. Or my sister. Or my close friends who live in other cities. Or even one of the friends we've made here so far. I do have friends here, it just takes me a really long time to feel close to people. And I have trouble even asking family and super close friends for help - so for newer friends, forget it.

Instead of calling someone, I read about the health care bill in Time magazine until the doctor came in. When he told me my husband's heart was fine - clean and clear arteries, good blood flow - I let out the breath I didn't even know I'd been holding. OK, what's next?

They admitted him, scheduled him for more tests on Sunday, and then I watched as he suffered, laying flat on his back, in severe pain, for about 10 hours. You see, they put a stent in his leg for the angiogram. And until they took it out he had to lie flat. As it turns out, the two things wrong with him (which we found out over the next few days) cause chest pain that is much worse when you lay down flat.

The nurses kept telling me they ordered pain meds, but it took 3 or 4 hours before any arrived. And then they didn't help. Not until he got Vicaden at around hour 7 did the pain subside even a tiny bit. And of course, because it was just THAT kind of day, his blood pressure dropped ... and they couldn't take out the stent until it came back up. Fabulous.

At 11pm, I walked to the nurses station, and begged them to take the stent out though a choked up voice and leaking eyes. That finally got them to take the damn thing out. His blood pressure had been back to normal for 2 hours by that time.

I did eventually call my husband's mom and my parents to let them know what was going on. And on Sunday, it occurred to me that I should email my church prayer group to ask them to send a few prayers up to the big guy... and as a result, one of my church Friends came over to take me to dinner. And she came back the next day to take me to lunch. It was nice to have someone here to lean on a little. She even got me to realize that getting a private room is as easy as asking for one (well, that and being willing to pay a little extra). And I must say, the private room is well worth the $25 extra bucks per night they charged us.

The first night we had a double room, and I slept on three stiff chairs lined up in a row. They weren't even supposed to let me stay, but I wasn't going to leave until I knew he was doing better. I finally did leave at 3am to run home for a couple hours and to pick up a few thing for Mr. Vitamin C (henceforth, VC, my hubby).

The next night they had a pull-out chair in the private room, which felt like heaven.

Until I started spotting again.
And then bleeding a real flow.

On Monday, between the bleeding and the unknown surrounding VC's health I thought I would split in two. While he was out for various test, I curled up on the pull out chair and cried. And cried. And cried. I was pretty sure the pregnancy was over, but I didn't know how to process those feelings along with the feelings about the unknown surrounding VC's health. I lost all patience. I even snapped at VC a few times. What a nice wife, right? Poor thing is in the hospital and his wife becomes an emotional freak.

By Monday night we had the official diagnosis of esophogitis/GERD to answer part of the mystery, but that didn't explain his too fast heart rate and the elevated ST levels on his EKG. Our hope was that we'd find out an answer from the echocardiograph... which eventually did solve the mystery. Pericarditis - inflamation of the sack around his heart, caused by some sort of mysterious infection we never noticed. And do you know what the treatment is? Advil. A lot of Advil, but just Advil.

Today VC was finally discharged at 1:00pm. At 1:45 we walked into the fertility clinic for an ultrasound... and found out that my uterus is now, indeed, empty.

Goodbye little cashew.

Roller Coaster continues

Thank you for the congratulations - we are SO excited. :) That excitement was tempered yesterday, though, with spotting. So frustrating!

I finally allowed myself to get excited on Monday, called my family, shared the news - and got on quite the high. Then, yesterday, red spotting. Aaargggghhhhh! By last night the spotting had subsided mostly, with only a few brownish leftover spots. And so far, this morning I'm still at light brown spotting only. I think that's good, but am not sure any more.

Then, I took a pregnancy test this morning, and while it was positive, the line was a little lighter than last time. What the heck does that mean? Maybe nothing. Maybe something. That seems to be the answer I get for everything these days. Even from the RE - when I called yesterday they said, "It could be normal. Don't worry until it turns into a full period flow or until you have cramping that gets increasingly worse and painful."

So, I'm left with praying. God and I are getting pretty tight. Me and Mary too. We talk quite often these days as I plead and hope for this to be real and sticky. And if it's not, for strength to keep on chugging along.

I'd also like to do a quick introduction. Meet my husband: Crazy Pills for Her, Vitamin C for Me He started a blog about a month ago, talking about his perspective on this crazy infertility thing.

179!!!

Will post more later, but... HCG is up to 179! :) Which means... it doubled 3.5 times since Thursday. Woohoo! :)

I think I'm officially pregnant.

Her name is Trixie

Who, you may be asking, is Trixie? She's my lovely Aunt Flo.

I'm not sure what to think anymore, so I'm giving up all control, and just going with the flow. Hehe.. flow. Like Aunt Flow. But I digress.

So, IUI #2 was supposed to start Thursday, but I read the instructions on the Clomid and started second guessing myself about my short period. "Do not take this medicine if you could be pregnant," it said. Hmmm... I wonder... I should double check, just to be sure.

As a result, on Thursday morning, I pee on a stick. And lo and behold... a VERY faint line. Now I'm totally confused. What the heck is this all about? Could the meds still be in my system after 17 days? It had been almost 24 hours since I spoke to my RE's office, and I'm sure they miss talking to me, so I call again. I knew they probably would think I was insane... but I wanted to be sure.

So, I leave a message. And I drive to work.

It's 9:00am. As I wheel my red laptop bag through the maze of cars on my way into my office, my phone rings. I explain, "I was supposed to start my clomid today, but I took a pregnancy test this AM to verify it was OK to start and there was a faint line - what do I do?" "Well," she says, "maybe it would be a good idea for you to come in for a blood test." We set up an appointment for 10:00am. My RE office is 30 minutes away, so I rush inside, posptone my 10:00 meeting, let another person know I will not attend their meeting, and rush back out the door by 9:35. As I sprint through the parking lot with my keys, I think how crazy this all is.

I make it by 10:02. Not too bad. The blood draw takes all of 2 minutes. It is obvious that they do a LOT of these. There is a little bench built directly into the wall with shelves on either side loaded with needles and swabs and tubes. I sit down, roll up my sleeve, turn my head away, close my eyes, and it's over. "If they don't call you by 4pm, call the office for your results." "OK," I say, and jump back in my car for the 30 minute drive north.

Luckily, I have lunch with a friend scheduled and a busy afternoon of back to back meetings, which helps keep my mind off the test. At 3:30, during a meeting with my Associate Director (of course), my phone rings. It's my RE's office. I excuse myself (not too gracefully I might add, thanking God the area of the building I happen to be in has cell phone service at that particular moment), and step into the hall, talking in hushed tones in the far fetched hope to keep this call private.

The nurse tells me the test came back positive (holy crap!?!?), but that my HCG level is really low (only a 13), so not to get my hopes up. "Chances are it's a chemical pregnancy" she says, "but it's a good thing you called us this morning before starting your clomid."

She reiterates multiple times not to get my hopes up, and tells me to wait for the real bleed to start before starting round 2. "Point taken," I think, "but the egg fertilized!!" The sperm got in there on it's own! This particular point is a BIG DEAL! Even if this ends as a chemical pregnancy, I feel better knowing fertilization can happen for us.

I step back into my meeting in an excellent mood, waiting on pins and needles to call Mr. Peapod. I finally get to break away, find a semi-quiet corner near the lobby and share the news with him. Trying to find privacy in our open office environment is kind of a rediculous task due to two factors: open cubes, and spotty cell service. But it was as private as it was going to get, and I didn't want to wait.

He had been so down in the dumps about my period coming, and I knew he was feeling like it was all his sperm's fault. I hadn't seen him happy in days... but when I shared the news with him, I heard his face light up! And my heart smiled. I know this will likely NOT end in a baby this time... but it's progress. It's getting to the next step. And it lets me see my husband feel good again. That's pretty darn good in my book.

Now, it's Saturday. Every time I go to the bathroom, I expect to see blood. Every time there is no blood, my hopes rise just a bit. Mr. P and I have started saying "no whammies!no whammies! no whammies!" each time I go, which I then confirm with another "no whammies!" when I have a successful non-blood pee.

Both our hopes keep going up. But we're trying to temper them and keep the hope reigned in. I go back on Monday morning for another blood test. We'll see what those HCG numbers do then.

Dusting myself off for Round 2

I have come to the conclusion that fertility medicines are the devil. They tempt, they confuse, they throw corkscrews at me daily. I will keep this in mind EVERY DAY next round. And I will not trust any feeling I have. My gut is broken.

My last few days were filled with wackiness.

Saturday: Brown spotting. Never seen this before. Is this that mystical implantation bleeding everyone speaks so much about?

Sunday: More brown spotting. Feeling good.

Monday: Wake up at 4am for my flight home, brown is becoming reddish. Shit. But it's still light. Flight lands and I stand up - whoosh! Double shit. Feels like a flow. Yep, getting redder. It's only day 12 past IUI. They said Aunt Flo wouldn't come until day 14. Confused, call doc's office. They ask, "is it bright red like your normal flow?" "No, but it's getting more red than brown now." "Call us back if your real flow starts." "OK" I say, while wondering what the hell a "real flow" looks like in this new world. By evening - totally bright red. This cycle's cooked.

Tuesday: Seem to have a normal period flow. Call doc's office, tell them my flow is real & ask what's up with this day 12 bleeding crap. Shouldn't it be 14 days past IUI? "It's not uncommon," they say. That would have been nice to know. Set up next cycle's ultrasound for April 30. Start to accept and move on - stop for Chic-fil-a ice cream with blueberry topping and chicken nuggets on the way home to soften the impact.

Wednesday: Wake up - period's gone. WTF? Was that really my period? Could I be pregnant? That didn't seem long enough to be considered real. It has been almost 24 hours since I talked to the doc's office, I guess we're supposed to chat every day this week. "Clomid can shorten your flow," they say. Fabulous.

So, on my way home I stopped by the pharmacy. I'm all stocked up with Clomid and my Ovidrel injection is patiently waiting in my fridge. Tomorrow, round 2 begins.

This weekend, I'm going to lose myself in yard work. We're working to set up two 6x4 square foot gardens in our back yard. I'm kind of excited about it. I grew tomatoes last year, and they turned out awesome. But this year, we're expanding to all sorts of different veggies. As a bonus, maybe it will help me work off that Chic-fil-a. :)

Stupid F*ing Hormones!

I'm not feeling very chatty. Just pissed.

I felt everything that pointed to pregnancy. EVERYTHING! Even the freakin' brown implantation bleeding which I've never seen before, ever.

And now my stupid period appears to be here.

I was so hopeful. There were 35 million sperm! 35 million! 3x better than we've ever had.

I don't want to go back to cynical. I want to be able to stay hopeful. But right now I'm just really sad. Sad for me, and sad for Mr. P. He puts this all on himself, and I just hate that. I just hate this whole damn thing.

Boobs & twinges

I've gained 5 pounds in the past two weeks, and I think 90% of it went to my boobs! My nipples hurt, but not enough to distract during normal daily activities. Not like these mounds spilling out of my bra. It's crazy. Mr. Peapod thinks this development is a happy little side affect of HCG. :)

My body is warmer. I don't feel warmer. But my body feels warmer to the touch. My hands are usually cold. Since IUI, every time Mr. P grabs my hand he mentions how much warmer it feels. He cuddles up to me at night and calls me his little heater.

I notice every twinge. Every pang. Every grumble of my tummy wondering... hoping...

This morning I found female reproductive diagrams online, attempting to identify whether the twinges and pangs could possible be located inside my uterus. Because where, exactly, is my uterus? How wide is it? If I feel something in my lower right abdomen, is that it? I think that's too low. But then again, can I really pinpoint exactly where the pain in coming from?

I just started day 7 past IUI. I feel pregnant. At least what I think pregnant would feel like. But I know it's the HCG. At least I'm pretty sure. Right?