It's Official

Can't find the original source, sorry.

It feels weird not titling my Wednesday post with Cycle 13 CD5. That's something I've been doing since I started this blog 7 months and 6 cycles ago. I guess now that we aren't TTC anymore it doesn't matter how many cycles ago we started. I guess I can get rid of my desktop ticker as well. In the last year and 5 months we've gone from having no hope at all, to ovulating finally and having a little hope, to YES! being pregnant, to having our souls crushed, to being absolutely certain we'd be pregnant again soon, back to no hope at all. The last year and a half has certainly been interesting. Now it's all over.

AF arrived on Saturday. I'm so thankful to Dr. E for letting me text her on weekends to get more tramadol. If I thought I was in pain before, that was nothing compared to the cramps that showed up with AF. I'm glad that's over as of last night and I'm back down to my regular amount of pain for the most part. Of course I'd rather just not hurt at all.

Speaking of Dr. E, I had an appointment with her today to talk about my pain. Internal ultrasound didn't show any cysts so she's pretty sure my endo has grown back. She put me on something called Aygestin which should help. She said it works for 80-90% of endo cases, but then again so does birth control which didn't help me long term. It works by reducing estrogen which keeps my uterine lining from thickening. It also stops the production of FSH and LH so my body won't even attempt to ovulate. While I'm on it I shouldn't have any bleeding at all! So that should eliminate the pain from AF and stop the lining from accidentally getting outside my uterus. It also causes whatever lining I have now both inside and outside my uterus to atrophy which should eliminate the pain I'm feeling now. Obviously this means no more TTC.

I started on 5mg today and if I have any bleeding within the next few weeks I'm supposed to call and get my dose increased. Once we get to a level where there's no bleeding I'll just stay on it either until we decide to use donor sperm or for the next 20 years ish. Unfortunately one of the possible side effects is bone thinning so they don't want you to stay on it past your 40's. It must be similar to the depo shot in some way because my mom ended up getting her hysterectomy because she wasn't allowed to get that anymore for the same reason. I've been taking a calcium supplement for a while because of it's positive effects while TTC so I guess I'll just keep taking it.

The good thing is if this does work then I should be able to go back to school and/or find a job. Once that happens we can begin really saving for adoption, or even IVF since I'll still have my uterus. I'm trying not to get too hopeful though.

As far as my mental state regarding stopping TTC and most likely never having bio kids, I'm not really sure how I'm doing. It's hard to tell if what I'm feeling is from depression or just the drugs. I always feel kind of tired and listless after I've been on pain medication this many days straight. I did almost break out in tears in the waiting room from having to see so many smiling pregnant women. I guess that is to be expected when you go see an OB/GYN.

The End: Part II

UP: The most touching 9 minute love story ever.

Well it's Wednesday. Let's see if I can get through this without crying. I apologize in advance if this gets a bit rambly.

On Friday we had DH's urologist appointment. We brought in a sample with us that the doctor was going to look at before coming to see us, so we waited probably about half an hour. This whole time I was in a lot of pain. I had taken a tramadol before we left but it wasn't doing me any good. Many times I thought oh I should have just stayed home, but I'm glad I went. He comes in and says well, your semen is definitely... abnormal (read: terrible). We didn't get the exact numbers but I'm guessing they weren't any better than the last time, if anything they were worse. Apparently DH has incredibly low testosterone. Men his age should have ~827 ng/dL, men 80-100 years old should have ~241 ng/dL, he has a whopping 155 ng/dL. So yeah, that's a problem.

source

Doctor referred us to an endocrinologist and says treatment will make him sterile. After the appointment I did a bit of research and there seems there are treatments for low T that are TTC friendly, specifically Clomid and HCG. I don't know why the urologist didn't think these would be an option for us. He obviously knows we are there for infertility so less sperm isn't really what we're going for. As far as I can tell there are two reasons for low T, primary and secondary. Primary means there is a problem in the testes, whereas secondary means the problem is in the brain. Clomid and HCG may work for secondary but not for primary. See there is this loop where the pituitary gland releases LH which tells the testes to produce testosterone. A small percentage of this testosterone is converted into estrogen which signals the brain to stop producing LH. Clomid works by blocking this signal, causing more LH to be produced whereas HCG acts like extra LH. DH's LH, FSH, and estradiol are all within normal ranges. This leads me to believe that something is going on and he's not producing the right amount of testosterone for the amount of LH being released by his brain. So I don't know if extra LH would help all that much. This may be why the doctor didn't suggest trying these. We have an appointment on the 4th so I will ask more about those options then.

Anyway, with the way DH's sperm are looking he suggested we go see a fertility specialist a state over and do IVF, probably with ICSI. He didn't call it by name but he mentioned a procedure where they inject his sperm into my eggs, so I'm pretty sure that's what he was talking about. He did not see any point in trying IUI. After looking at the success rate I can understand why. IVF only costs slightly more than three IUI cycles and has a better chance than all three put together. If we had the option I know I'd rather try IVF than IUI. Unfortunately, we aren't in the financial place to do either. Once he goes on TRT doing it the old fashion way ceases to be an option and if we want biological kids he has to freeze some sperm first to later be used in IUI or IVF. There is a chance we could skimp and save over the next several months to do one IUI cycle, but it just doesn't seem worth it. I don't know if I want to put my body through even more intense drugs, more stress, more heartache, for such a small chance. For all I know I won't even respond.There is also the fact that we don't even have an RE here. There is one about 2 1/2 hours away that makes occasional visits here but trying to time a cycle around that seems like a nightmare.

So with this news and my continuing pain it looks like TTC has come to a halt. Even if we found out DH had super sperm we'd most likely be going on a break for at least three months, possibly stopping altogether because of my issues. I have an appointment on Wednesday to talk about that. For now I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that my pregnancy in October was our one, short lived miracle. I'm fairly certain at this point I qualify as being depressed. Not eating well, sleeping too much, no longer interested in my hobbies, here it is Wednesday and I haven't even watched last week's Walking Dead yet. I am considering finding some sort of therapist or other qualified person to talk things through with. Plus I took my last provera on Friday and AF still hasn't shown yet so I don't know what that's about. At least if AF never shows we don't have to decide whether to go through with one last cycle or not.

Source: my mom on Facebook.

Babies Everywhere

DH and I watch a lot of stuff on Hulu. Right now he is watching the History Channel series Vikings. I swear ever since we came home from his urology appointment there have been more commercials featuring babies or pregnancy than ever before. While we were TTC I was sensitive to these things so it's not like I am just now noticing them. I want to ask him to please click the "not relevant" button, but the words won't come out my mouth.

The End

Well it looks like our journey to a living biological child is over. Any chance I had of experiencing pregnancy for more than a week is basically gone. I know that one day we will adopt or foster or... something, but not for a while yet. Went to the urologist today and was told our only viable chance is IVF (probably with ICSI) which we just can't do financially. We could pursue other options but it would most likely be a waste of time and money. This coupled with my increased amount of pain recently has cemented the fact that it's not worth it. I have an appointment the 27th to see what we need to do now for my health. I will explain better what happened in my regular post on Wednesday, I just can't right now.

When selecting the labels for this post I realized I have no idea what to call this time in my life. We're no longer TTC, we're not actively working towards adoption, but we haven't resolved our infertility either. I need some kind of label for this process of transitioning from actively seeking a child to temporarily no longer being able to do so but I don't know what it is.