A New Start

With the end of one journey upon us and a new one beginning, I felt it was time for a bit of a blog overhaul. A new look, a new name, and a new URL. I hope the URL change doesn't mess things up too bad. If you have any links to the old site you need to replace, the new one is http://frozenoj.blogspot.com/.

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.

Cycle 12 CD32 - Life! Don't talk to me about life.

If you've visited my blog recently you may have noticed a malware warning. As far as I know I was never infected so if you've visited you should be fine. However one of the blogs in my blogroll has been infected. When the favicon was loaded in the blogroll, it triggered the warning. I've removed the infected blog so you should no longer get the warning. 

source

 Several days ago I took the plunge and started Provera. I thought about it for a couple of days and in the end decided against waiting it out. I am officiating a wedding the first week of April so it's important AF is not visiting then. By taking Provera I can sort of plan her visit around that.

 Having an anovulatory cycle is pretty depressing. Over the past week I've tried to remain positive and think of reasons why this isn't such a bad thing. I've only come up with three.

1. I have and will only use one HPT, to confirm not pregnant before starting Provera. This means I have more to use for other cycles, or hopefully progression. 
2. Like I mentioned earlier, I can sort of plan AF's visit. It's not likely I would ovulate at the right time for her to show during the wedding, but you just never know. Anovulatory cycles are unpredictable so I could also start bleeding at any time even if I don't ovulate. But this way I know I will start before that would be a problem. 
3. Given DH's bad SA, we likely would have had a BFN anyway. At least this way I get a calm TWW and don't have to anxiously scrutinize tests for super faint lines. 

 What I wasn't counting on was endo getting in the way of my calm TWW. Last Monday night I started having pelvic pain, which lasted until Thursday morning. This sucked because I hurt on my birthday, but also because I was babysitting last week. I'm a SAHW not by choice but because endo keeps me from working. Usually the pain is only bad during AF and a couple days sporadically mid-cycle, so I thought I could manage 5 days around O time. But nope, had to cancel Tuesday because of the pain. Thankfully I was already not working Wednesday due to it being my birthday. I hate feeling unreliable. I was fine Thursday and most of Friday but the pain came back Friday night, and hasn't left since. This is the longest I've hurt during non-AF days in a long time. It really scares me. Usually when this happens I have to go on BC pills for three months, and it would stop during that time. Last time that didn't work and I had pelvic pain for seven months until I finally had my lap. There's a chance this is just some weird episode and it will stop soon, but it's definitely scary. I will probably call to make an appointment to talk about next steps on Friday after DH's urology appointment, unless it stops before then.

Speaking of DH's urology appointment, he went and got his blood work done yesterday. Thankfully he gets off easier than I do and they only had to stick him once. We've abstained the correct number of days. Now if only Friday would get here! Since they didn't give us any instructions for the meantime DH has been taking my gummy pre-natals. I figure a multi-vitamin isn't going to hurt anything and it has a lot of the stuff supplements like Fertility Blend include. It probably won't make a substantial difference in sperm quantity/quality but I feel better doing something.

It was nice to babysit though, despite feeling like a worthless human being after having to cancel one of the days. People always say that babysitting a toddler helps calm the baby bug. Once you've dealt with tantrums and potty training having a baby doesn't sound quite so good, right? Well, it didn't work for me. Sure there were times it was frustrating, but it was also rewarding. The first day the mom said she might cry for a bit after the mom leaves, but I distracted her while the mom slipped out the door. She was upset when she noticed her mom was gone but it wasn't too bad. She asked where her mom was and when she was coming back several times. But by the end of the week she was practically pushing her mom out of the door! It felt great knowing that in such a short time this 3 year old child with Asperger's felt so comfortable with me it was no big deal to see Mommy leave. It made me feel like I was doing something right. I think I would be a good mom.

It also made me miss my baby. I made the mistake of looking up how far along I would be right now. 25 weeks. Over halfway to meeting our child. We would know the gender. We would have accomplished viability. Baby would be the size of an eggplant, with eyelashes and pink skin. I would know what it felt like for a little person to kick me from the inside. Instead I just feel pain where my baby should be, both physically and emotionally.

Just an FYI, I've added CommentLuv and smileys to the comments section! I completely forgot you can do that until the other day. 

Save Google Reader!

Google announced today that it plans to shut down Reader on July 1st. I don't know about you guys, but that's what I use to keep up with all your posts. I love the way it is integrated with Google Friend Connect (my widget of choice for subscribing to blogs) and also G+ so I can effortlessly share the posts I love. I also adore the browser extension that shows me if there is any new posts and if so, how many. I would appreciate it if you would take the time to sign the petition, tweet using the hastag #savegooglereader, share on Facebook, post on G+ also using #savegooglereader, and/or make a blog post such as this one.

These stats are a bit off, I've clicked a bunch of times.

Endo Awareness Week

Cycle 12 CD25 - It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

You would cry too, if it happened to you!

I used to love Lesley Gore as a child. My mother had a record of hers and I'd play it over, and over. I liked It's My Party and You Don't Own Me, but my absolute favorite was Judy's Turn To Cry. What does this have to do with anything? Well today's my birthday, and we aren't having much of a party but I do kinda feel like crying. 

I didn't ovulate, I think that's pretty clear now. I never got any more fertile CM or a +OPK so it doesn't look like I'm going to. Honestly I'm having flashbacks to this time last year when something similar happened. I ovulated for the very first time in February and didn't again until August. I feel like the same thing has happened now as happened then. I ovulated the first cycle I was on Clomid and the first cycle I was on Femara but then didn't afterwards even though I should have. Those 6 months were terrible, I don't want to go through that again. 

At least then I was able to increase my Clomid dose and hope eventually it would work. Well I spoke to the nurse today and we aren't increasing the Femara. I am to test just in case and start provera tomorrow, then I'll be back on 5mg again. I know I've heard of people being on 7mg so I don't know why they won't increase it. Not much I can do about it though. I should go see an RE and see about next steps, injectibles or  something, but we can't afford that. 

I feel like I've put my body through all this for nothing. I kind of regret going down this road at all and wish I would have just had my hysterectomy in September 2011. At least then I might be able to work or finish school and we'd be more than a year closer to being able to adopt than we are now. 

Sorry if my blog has turned into a giant pity party but I'm having a hard time seeing any positives right now. Happy Birthday to me.