Morning Sickness....it's a LIE!

I'm trying really hard to promise myself I won't complain. I wanted to be pregnant so badly that I was ready for anything..........or so I thought. I was prepared for morning sickness...as in the literal definition, in the morning. I was NOT prepared to feel like vomiting 90% of most days and some of them vomiting just about everything I've eaten. So far I've tried almost all the tricks that everyone recommends: crackers, ginger ale, eating small meals, attempting to eat protein. None of it has done me any good. I feel nauseous most of the day and I have absolutely no appetite. This is another frustration. I've never ever been a picky eater and now here I am wanting absolutely nothing to eat. I can't even find a source of protein that I can stomach and them smell or thought of them makes me gag. I spend feel like I spend half the day gagging or dry heaving and some days actually vomiting in the AM, noontime, the PM, pretty much any old time. The worst part is that N thinks this is hilarious. I don't know why he thinks it's so funny but apparently according to him he thinks it's funny because it means my body is doing what it should be doing. While intellectually I know that it's normal and means my hormones are doing what they are supposed to be doing, I'm actually getting ready to have a countdown to the end of the first trimester and praying that I'm not one of those people that feels sick through her entire pregnancy. N even commented to me the other day "so three kids is what you want", I told him yes, I'd go through this suffering for two more kids because I know the reward will be huge. I'm sorry if all this seems a little whiny because I know I should be all giddy and happy that I'm actually finally pregnant, but you try feeling like you're going to vomit and can't find any foods that agree with you for weeks on end and tell me how fun that is for you! I suppose if this keeps up as bad as it has been I will be talking to my doctor for recommendations of getting the nutrition we need.

End of Study

I am officially done with the study! I am now officially six weeks pregnant and had my first ultrasound today. It was pretty amazing how small our little monkey is right now and how fast the little heartbeat seems. I almost cried when I saw the little tiny fluttering and N had a huge smile on his face. It's still really early so it's all still pretty top secret with only our parents knowing and a few close friends that we can lean on if something were to happen. I am remaining positive that everything will go very smoothly and there will be no more speed bumps as the weeks go on. I've had a lot of "morning" sickness that pretty much amounts to me feeling like I'm going to vomit 90% of the day but I look at is as a good sign that my hormones are doing the normal things. I try and stay as upbeat as I possibly can because that's gotten me through up to this point. I have faith (if you want to call it that) that things will go smoothly as long as a rest and keep trying to eat when I'm hungry.

Holy Crap!!!!

Two days ago (it will be longer than that by the time you read this because I'm waiting to post about this) I hit magical cycle day 40. I call the people from the study and went in for a blood test because I was too much of a wuss to do a UPT (and they would have had to do one anyways). N and I went out to try and lower our mortgage payments and while we were in a meeting my phone rings. I stepped out to take it and got the best news ever, I'M PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!! I was practically crying when I got back in the room. I was just stunned and shaking and it too about 2 hours to stop shaking. My beta HCG test (the blood pregnancy test) was at over 5000 on Monday. I went back today for another blood test and the beta HCG doubled to about 10000, this is good and exactly what it's supposed to do. I am still off the wall excited and I'm not ready to be completely public with this since we're only at about 5 weeks. I go next week for my ultrasound and N and I are excited and hope that we'll be able to hear a heartbeat (if I'm around six weeks at that time we should be able to). I'm still in utter shock that I'm actually finally pregnant. And yesterday the fun exciting queasiness decided to start, and this AM I was definitely not feeling well. I guess I better stock up on ginger ale with real ginger and crackers.

Heartbreak Hotel

Today I had my last "ovulation check" appointment where they determine if I ovulated this past month and whether or not I am pregnant yet. I did once again ovulate but as of my pregnancy test today I am not pregnant. The study coordinator told me that more than likely that would be the definitive answer unless for some reason I ovulated just yesterday or the day before but that the blood test would be able to tell me a very early positive test. I held it together in the office fairly well, although I couldn't really look them in the eye and when I got to my car I got pretty upset, but I was able to hold most of my tears in since I had to be at work and needed my "game face" on. This was the last month of study medications so that means that unless some sort of miracle happens I did not get pregnant on the study. This is disappointing for me and the coordinator and even the sonographer (the same woman who did my ultrasound every month) because they were all rooting for me a lot since I was very compliant towards the study.

I'm hugely disappointed because I really want to be pregnant now and I'm working really hard to not get too impatient. Right now it's just a waiting game until either my period comes or I magically get a positive test. After that I'll do an end of study visit and then make an appointment with the infertility specialist (who also happens to be in charge of the study). I'm not sure what the next steps will be but I have a couple of ideas. Either I'll end up trying Clomid (since I think I was on the other medication for the study, although this has not been confirmed) or I'll move on to IUI. At first I was scared of the cost of IUI because I was under the impression that it cost the same as IVF (IUI= intrauterine infertiliztion and IVF= in-vitro fertilization) and I wasn't sure if N and I would be able to afford either option. IUI looks like it may end up being our next step and it turns out that it's only between $250-500 which is far more affordable than IVF ($10,000 a pop). I'm really hoping that if we do have to go the IUI route that it proves successful.

As for now I get to play the waiting game and work on staying positive because otherwise I'll never get anywhere.

Last Round of Study Meds

As suspected my pregnacy test last week was negative. Last night I finished the last pill in the last round of taking the study medications. The study only lasts for five months so I'm hoping for the sake of me and the study that this month will be my lucky month. If not at least I've learned through doing the study that medication does indeed help solve the problem of me ovulating which so far is the only problem that we have found in our infertility workups. I'm hoping that if I don't become pregnant this round that I will be able to continue to use medication rather than having to go to other (and far more costly) routes. I'm almost positive that the next step would be IUI since we just have the ovulation problem but I would hope that since medication has proven to be effective that we can stuck with that route since my insurance covers Clomid (although I have a feeling that I'm on the other med through the study, there's no way to know since it is a double-blind study) and although my insurance covers the workups for infertility it does not cover any other treatment beyond Clomid. N and I were talking about this since we plan on making an appointment right off with Dr Casson if I'm not pregnant after this round of the study, and N said that perhaps if Clomid isn't the medication that I'm on and I end up going that route that perhaps it would work better. Only time will tell and I'm really hoping that it happens for us this time around. I'm also keeping in mind that normal women who are fertile and ovulate on their own take up to five months to get pregnant since there's only really a a 20% chance of getting pregnant every month so maybe this will happen. For now I'm going to try and remain relaxed and stress free as the weeks go by.

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

As I'm sure can be gleaned from the title of the post, I got my period today. This week I've been having spotting when I wipe but there wasn't anything worth using a tampon for since it never even stained my underwear. I was so hopeful that this was just some sort of weird early pregnancy spotting type thing since I made it all the way to cycle day 35 this time around, but alas today it got all crazy and bam, not pregnant (unless I'm going to one of those fake period during pregnancy people). While my body was betraying me it started turning into the day of hell at work (12 calls in 2 hours and for those that read this that know me personally that's an insane 2 hours). Then just as things at work are calming down and the cramps that were making me feel like I was going to vomit, a coworker came in and told me that I had a flat tire. I'm not going to go into detail about the disagreement this caused between N and I since this is not a blog about what kind of stress related fights we get into (beyond the sex life stuff). So to sum up my horrible day: period=not pregnant (unless the blood test tells me different), ridiculously busy few hours at work, follow it all up with a flat tire causing a disagreement between N and I. Like I said to begin with a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day (anyone remember the book from childhood?)

Seeing What the Week Brings

Once again the tests show I have ovulated this month. I had a feeling that the tests would show this because I definitely felt the ovulation once again. This month was a little tough because I kept getting some really nasty headaches. I told them about this at my appointment and got a prescription for some meds to try and help with them since a lot of the time they are like borderline migraines. My appointment this month was still fairly early in the cycle (day 22) so the blood test showed negative for pregnancy. Of course it's early in the cycle so it could have been too early to show pregnancy. Now I'm in the waiting game of the phase. I feel like I've been less stressed about this whole process this month so I'm hoping that continues for the next 10 days of the waiting game and also hoping it helped in our quest. If my period does in fact come this month I only have one more month on the study and then if it still doesn't happen I'll be finished with the study and moving on to meeting with the infertility specialist and seeing what happens next and what steps we're going to need to take.

For now though....fingers crossed.