Possible Infertility Q&A and Updates

So, I have already posted this on facebook but I would like to put it here too.  I know I am putting myself out there a little on this one and I hope it doesn't come back to bite me later. I think I have a few new readers on my blog and some that may be infertiles themselves. In saying this, alot of people don't understand about infertility, I think I am going to do a Q&A session on my blog this week if we get enough people interested (this includes fertiles and infertiles). In saying this, if you have any questions regarding infertility, process, testing, emotions, anything, ask me and we will answer it on the blog this week.  Just leave us a comment and let us know what your question is.  Also, I am the voice behind the blog but I add Trent's feelings too as we feel the same on most everything however, we will be doing a special Q&A with Trent.  We saw on another infertiles blog where her husband answered several questions and I think that was a great way to get his voice heard and his opinion on everything.  In saying this, if anyone has any questions from the males stand point, (emotions, thoughts, etc) let us know and Trent will answer that for you.  All we ask in this is that people are considerate in the questions that are asked.  Our goal in all of this is to help everyone including fertiles to understand the infertile world and for those infertiles or newly infertiles, maybe we can help give a little insight into it all.

 

With all of that being said, I have felt like lately I need to blog about our feelings on sharing our story.  As a new infertile, you might ask yourself, do I share my infertility with everyone or do I keep between me and my spouse.  Do we regret sharing our story with everyone from the beginning?  NO, absolutely not!  Do I think it set us up for a little extra heart ache?  Absolutely.  When you share your whole story with the world, everyone knows what you are going through but will NEVER understand what you are going through.  You will hear some of the absolute most ridiculous comments from the people you thought would support you the most and then you will have people that you never in a million years expected to support you and to be there for you more than anyone.  It absolutely amazes me some of the people who have been so supportive and gave us such encouraging words.  If I had it to do all over again, I would still share our story.  I would however give the advice to a new infertile wondering if they should share their story that you should think long and hard before making the decision to share it.  I think sharing it was great for us however, I don't think sharing it is something that just anyone would want to do.  You should really think fully about the decision as I said because it opens up anyone and everyone to make any comment they want.  Once you share your story, you can't take it back.  You will hear people trying to top your story, you will hear fertiles try to compare and top your stories even though it doesn't compare at all.  You will get totally senseless comments without a thought at all going into what someone says.  The majority of the time when someone says something hurtful to you, you will realize it wasn't meant to be hurtful however, that comment will stick with you forever and it may be something that you will never forget and you will always harbour thoughts on it.  Again, on the same hand, you will get so much love and encouragement when you never expect it.  We have at times received such wonderful words and thoughts from people and it always seems to be just at the right times just when you needed it the most.  It will brighten your day even when you thought there was no way your day could get better.  As I was having a conversation with family about infertility this weekend, one of them said, "I don't think they know just how bad you do hurt".  I share my story partially because I want to help other infertiles through this horrible journey that we have been placed down.  On another hand, I share it to try to help other realize how difficult this journey is however, I realize more and more, I can talk until I am blue in the face about the emotions, hurt and difficulties of infertility but those fertiles will still never in a million years understand it.  I don't expect a fertile to understand what a infertile goes through however, I wish there was some way possible the fertile world could just get a glimpse of what an infertile suffers with. 

 

In saying all of the previous, I want to leave everyone with something that I read on another infertiles blog.  I think the girl who posted this is a WONDERFUL person as all she has done through her journey is struggled as any infertile would but she has also praised God through her journey.  I have no clue who this person is but I just found her searching through infertility blogs one day.  I now follow her and her journey and she is now expecting her first child.  In this specific blog she says.

 

I've had time today to read through some of my old post, some I've forgotten I've even written. So if you read my blog for years the following may look familiar...but given that we are so close to our sweet miracle bean, I don't ever want to forget what we have been through; I want to praise God in these moments; He took us through these paths for a reason...and for that I'm so thankful.

 

Infertility is, indeed, a very painful struggle.  The pain is similar to the grief over losing a loved one, but it is unique because it is a recurring grief.  When a loved one dies, he isn't coming back.  There is no hope that he will come back from the dead.  You must work through the stages of grief, accept that you will never see this person again, and move on with your life.  The grief of infertility is not so cut and dry.  Infertile people grieve the loss of the baby that they may never know.  They grieve the loss of that baby who would have had mommy's nose and daddy's eyes.  But, each month, there is the hope that maybe that baby will be conceived after all.  No matter how hard they try to prepare themselves for bad news, they still hope that this month will be different.  Then, the bad news comes again, and the grief washes over the infertile couple anew.  This process happens month after month, year after year.  It is like having a deep cut that keeps getting opened right when it starts to heal.

 

I just think this girl is such an inspiration and I really wanted to share what she had to say about infertility and the pains of it. 

 

As far as how I am coming along with all of my sickness and such since my doctors appointment with Dr. Hill on Thursday, I am feeling better.  I have not yet had another horrible night like Wednesday night.  Thank God because that night was absolutely unbearable.  I have still had some pains in my shoulders, elbows, and right knee however, they are in no way comparable to Wednesday night.  Today is the first day that I have not had hives.  Knock on wood.  I woke up yesterday without them too but ended up getting them throughout the day.  Hopefully the hives are working their way out of my system.  I still have the head cold but I am dealing with that.  My family doctors office called me yesterday and said that they still believe even though my fertility doctor says it's not the shots, they still believe it is.  The are now agreeing with me that the pain is from the hives but they believe the hives IS from the shots.  Honestly, my feelings on that, it could be.  We will most likely never know unless this month fails and we have to do another month of shots.  If I end up with hives again after taking the shots again then, yes, I am sure it was the shots.  If I don't have to do another round of shots then who knows.  I have mixed thoughts on it as I have had hives before and we never could figure out what they were from and I was NOT on the fertility shots back then.  I have only ever done the 1 cycle of shots which was this month.  There is a couple of things I am thinking could have caused them.  1 being the shots. 2 being using a new towel without it being washed and 3 is wearing/trying on new cloths without washing them.  Any of the previous could cause hives and that is the only thing different lately that I have done.  They did say if the pain did not go away, I could go into the office and they could do some lab work on me to try and figure it all out.  Again, the pain is much better than what it was.  I will probably give it about another week and if it is gone, I won't worry about it.  If it is not, I will probably go and get it checked out.  The only thing is again, there is really not much we can do about it unless there is something serious going on with me. 

 

I know I mentioned in the previous blog about Dr. Hill switching my Progesterone supplements from taking a 2nd Ovidrel shot to trick my body to now actually taking Progesterone supplement which is Prometrium due to him wanting to be cautious about not overstimulating me.  When he prescribed them he said take them before bed.  You can take them during the day but they will make you sleepy so I always tell my patients just to take them before bed.  The first night on the Prometrium was pretty funny.  The pharmacy didn't give me a side effects sheet so I looked up side effects online and then I also read some forums of infertile people taking Prometrium to see how it affected them.  I read some that said the Prometrium made them feel drunk and I thought surely not.  Haha well was I wrong.  Thursday was my first night taking it.  I took it while I was still up playing around on the computer.  The longer I sat here, the sleepier I got.  I then got so sleepy, I had water running from my eyes.  I then told Trent I had to get up and go to bed.  I worked myself up from the recliner, staggered to the bedroom, barely crawled in the bed from Trent's side and rolled to my side of the bed, then crashed.  Or so that's the way I remembered it.  As I was telling Trent that's what I remembered, he laughed and filled me in on the rest of what I done.  After he told me, I remembered it happening but I had to be reminded because I was OUT of it.  Apparently after I rolled to my side of the bed, I then started dishing out orders. 

Me:  My knee hurts, Get my body pillow and prop my knees up.

Trent:  Do you want me to get a regular pillow

Me:  That is a pillow.  Just use it.  My shoulder and elbow hurts.  Get me another pillow and put it under my arm.

Trent:  Does as I ask but gets a pillow I don't like

Me:  No not that one, get me another one.  Get my heating pad and put it on my shoulder and get my heated blanket and put it on my knee

Trent:  Gets another pillow then goes to the living room and gets my heating pad and blanket and brings it back to the bedroom.

Me:  You will have to get an extension cord.

Trent:  Proceeds to get everything I ask and comes back to the bedroom and plugs it all in.  Puts the heating pad on my arm and then starts to wrap my knee in the blanket

Me:  Fold the blanket in half and then wrap it.

Trent:  Proceeds to do exactly as told and then comes around to his side of the bed and laid down.

Me:  CRASHED AND TOTALLY OUT OF IT.

Now is the time to say just how much I love and admire my poor sweet hubby for having to put up with my craziness through infertility and all these meds I have had to take.  I LOVES YOU BABE!  Thank you for being YOU!  YOU are amazing and the absolute best man I have every known in all my life.

 

I have now learned that I have to take the medicine and go STRAIGHT to bed as if I don't, it does make me feel drunk and I apparently act crazy.  Trent got a good laugh at me at least.  I have taken it 2 other nights other than the first night and I have done good but again, took it and went to bed.  Last night, I took it and Trent called a little bit after I took it and I was half asleep but I talked to him for a bit and he let me go because he could tell I was very sleepy.  He had told me a story during that conversation that I had forgotten about until he reminded me of it today.  I must also remind everyone though that I am still taking a Benedryl at bedtime too because of the hives so the Benedryl and the Prometrium together, that totally knocks me out of it. 

 

Normally, we would have tested on the 11th but they delayed it until the 17th due to me supposed to be taking the 2nd Ovidrel shot.  Now that I am doing Prometrium instead of the Ovidrel shot, the doctor told us that we could test on the 14th.  I guess he was just extending it a few days.  Not sure why but since we could have normally tested on the 11th, we have decided we will test on the 13th because that is only 1 day before when the doctor told us to test and we both have to work on the day Dr. Hill said to test and we want to be off work so our plans is the 13th which is 2 days later than we would have normally tested.  I think that is a pretty good happy medium to when everyone says to test and our normal routine.  YAH!!!  This means that we only have 1 more week to wait to test.  This past week has went by very quickly and I can't believe it has already been a week since our last IUI.  We just pray that this is the time that God plans to bless us with a child.  We can't imagine our fears going into the next IUI if this one doesn't work.  There is NO ifs ands or buts about it.  We only have 1 vial left which means there is only 1 try left.  It is so scary knowing we are at the end of this journey and we may never have that baby that has "mommy's nose and daddy's eyes".  We may never be able to read our child it's bedtime story that we wrote.  I know it sounds ridiculous as I have mentioned in the past but I grieve the fact that I may never be able to read our child such a very special story of the way he or she came about into this world.  As the girl said in the blog that I quoted.  God has brought us down this path for a reason and as I have said in the past myself ultimately, his plan is going to work out and I know he has a very special plan for us.  This is just a very scary and trying time to wait and see what his plans are for us. 

 

I will end this blog with all of that but I pray that God continues to bless us on this journey and gives us the ultimate gift of parenting. 

 

Don't forget if you would like any questions answered, feel free to ask away and we will be happy to try and answer any question you may have.