Cycle 9 CD10 - Unhappy Anniversary

Creeper face!

The week since my loss has been.... long. I've had some bad days, some okay days, and some days where I swing from bad to okay and back again. I haven't had any good days yet but I'm sure they will come. I have tried to stay busy and that has worked decently. Friday we went to a homecoming festival thing for the school DH goes to/works at and I carved a Minecraft themed pumpkin and won $20 at trivia. Saturday we went out of town to see some friends from highschool and I had a really fun time playing Apples to Apples with them. Sunday we were going to go on a picnic with my older sister but there was a cold front due to the hurricane so we cancelled. She and her DH drove into town anyway and we went out to dinner which was nice. I finished my book, The Haunting of Hill House, and I thought it was pretty good but didn't care for the ending.

The 24th also marked our one year TTC anniversary. On one hand it was hard to deal with the loss and this milestone at the same time, but on the other it's nice to get it over with while I'm already in a sucky mood. Definitely had a little pity party for myself that despite being on fertility medications we have still made it to this point. Even if we didn't have documented issues we would be considered infertile now.

A few days ago I started to have some fertile CM which was pretty weird, being so early. I had pains on my left side similar to what I know now were O pains last cycle but were less intense. My temp even went up yesterday which made me think I had O'd already, on CD8! Remember that the last two cycles I didn't ovulate till CD20 and that was with the help of Clomid. My temp is back down this morning though so I guess it was a false alarm. I was going to get some progesterone to use just in case that was an issue with my pregnancy but I'm glad I decided to wait until I had crosshairs. If I had started it yesterday it could have screwed up this cycle even more. I am just taking it one day at a time and from now on will try not to analyze so much unless I actually do get crosshairs. Obviously that is easier said than done.

Cycle 9 CD4 - Best and Worst Day of My Life

I didn't blog last week because I was really ill, and being in the middle of the TWW there wasn't much to say anyway.

This week though I have some bad news.

Thursday morning (10DPO) I tested and got a really super faint line. I kept testing all weekend and got some BFNs and some BFMs (Big Fat Maybe). Finally on Sunday morning I got what I have been waiting so long for - a clear BFP with a faint but definitely pink second line. I was so over joyed. I had some very definite pregnancy symptoms along with the same TWW symptoms from last time. Starting on Friday I developed an aversion to meat. I knew food aversions were typical but I didn't know meat specifically was common. It made deciding on dinner quite difficult but it was worth it. Sunday morning I developed a strong sense of smell. I did not expect this as I never heard of that being a symptom before. I never actually vomited but I was nauseous and did dry heave a few times. Yay the joys of morning sickness! I was too happy to complain about any of this stuff.

Unfortunately Sunday afternoon I started bleeding. It was heartbreaking seeing that first streak of blood. I started crying and told my husband who urged me to call my doctor. Since she is also a family friend I have her cell phone number so I was able to call her directly despite it being Sunday. She said some bleeding in early pregnancy can be normal but I could also be miscarrying. I was to go to the office in the morning and get betas done to check my numbers. The bleeding continued throughout the night and cramping would come and go as well.

Monday was so nerve wracking. I got my betas done about 11:30am and was told if the numbers were fine I would not get a call and I was to get more done on Wednesday. If it was bad news I would receive a call by the end of business day. In case of a threatened miscarriage I just sat in the recliner with my feet up and hung out with my mom and little sister for support.

My doctor called at about 4pm to break the news.

My mother knew what it meant if I received a call so as I was talking to Dr. E she let DH know so he could come home from work. He is taking it badly but at the same time trying to be strong for me. I didn't have the heart to tell anymore else. Thankfully my mother took it upon herself to notify my older sister and a few other people without me even asking her. I am very thankful for that.

She took us out to eat at a Mongolian Barbecue place that was very good. I had a mini break down at the table though because my symptoms had started to fade. I was eating meat. My aversion had gone away.

Today I am still devastated and heart broken. I feel like a piece of me has been ripped out. I know it was only with us a short time and the heart hadn't even started beating yet but it was still my child. My child that was taken from me too soon and that I will never meet. Even if I get pregnant again nothing could replace this child.

DH and I talked about it and we will be NTNP (not trying, not preventing) this cycle. I am  not allowed to take Clomid again until my first AF after the loss and that is perfectly fine by me. I would take this cycle off completely but DH wants to get back on the horse. Even though it is hard for me to consider right now I know he is right and this is what I would have wanted to do in hindsight after my grief starts to fade. So he is saving me from that regret. I am still going to temp so I will know if I ovulated or not but I won't be using OPKs or anything like that.

Cycle 8 CD22 (2DPO) - Deja Vu

So I did end up jixing myself and having some awful side effects after my last post. The nausea and hot flashes were terrible! The combination of the two kept me up several nights. Thankfully the mood swings weren't so bad. When I did have them they were more mild than last cycle. I did end up crying a few times because of the lack of positive OPKs and got a bit angrier than usual at DH but nothing worse than what I hear PMS is like for some. I was on estrogen CD9-13 which I think is what helped decrease them at first. I was taking it to try and help improve my lining but that's a pretty nice result as well!

I did finally get a +OPK on CD18. It was pretty late at night so it might as well have been CD19. I didn't take this into account at first so became quite frustrated when I was still having fertile signs the morning of CD20 and my temp was also still down. I expected to ovulate the day after the +OPK. Now when I think back, I kinda did O the day after when you consider how late on CD18 I got the +OPK. If I lived just an hour and a half east of here it would have been CD19 already. I did O later in the day of CD20 and my temp was up on CD21.

This really annoys me that even being on the higher dose of Clomid I still did not O before CD20. That's the same day I O'd last cycle! The whole reason I went up to 200mg was so I would O earlier. =[ So I basically went through a week of more intense nausea and hot flashes for nothing. It makes me wonder, why? Why wasn't it earlier? Would I have ovulated even later or not at all if I had stayed on 150? I ovulated once on 50mg but then the next month that dose was no longer sufficient.

I still haven't called the doctor to let them know I've O'd. I wanted to make sure that the higher temp wasn't a fluke. I will try to call tomorrow. I am wondering if they will want me to go up to 250mg. That's the highest I can go up if I remember correctly. The whole point of going to 200 was to make it earlier, so since that didn't work it makes sense to try 250 right? Just because this didn't work doesn't mean going up again won't.  I'm scared to do that though because if the side effects were this bad on 200, what will they be like on 250? If I don't try 250 am I going to stay on 200 or go back down to 150 since they had similar results? Hopefully I will get a BFP in a week and a half so I don't have to worry about it.

My chart overlay looks really interesting so far. You can definitely see the same pattern pre-O, and my post O temps are exactly the same! I imagine this is just a coincidence and will change in the next few days but I still think it's really neat. This is the first time I've been able to compare two ovulatory charts of mine.

Cycle 8 CD14 - Movin' On Up

I was recently made co-host of the TTC with PCOS board on JustMommies! /dance Our other co-host has been MIA lately as she's due in December so I decided to step up and try to get the board moving again. It's really nice for me to have a place to discuss PCOS and it's effects on my life so I want to provide that for others. Also, hosts of TTC boards have been known to get their BFP shortly after becoming host and I could use a little of that luck. Of course I'm sure that's all a coincidence but I'll take what I can get!

As far as my cycle goes, I'm still waiting on a +OPK. I was hoping to O at a normal time (CD13-15), but it looks like my O will still be on the late side. So far all my OPKs have been about the same. Last cycle they went from being this dark to positive pretty quickly so I guess I'm going to start testing multiple times a day. Here is the latest one.

The Clomid actually hasn't been too bad this month. Had a few hot flashes at night, but only one day of mood swings so far. I think it's been better this cycle than last believe it or not. I was expecting the side effects to be worse on the higher dose. And of course as I write this I start sweating haha! Hopefully I didn't just jinx myself and my moods continue to be stable (or as stable as any woman's can be expected to be =P).