I'm Cycling Next Month!!!!

I'm so fucking excited!!!  I spoke to my nurse at the RE's today and she told me that we will most likely start cycling before my next period!  That's one month sooner than I thought we would be cycling and puts me in a perfect spot for where I want to be birth month-wise (so psyched it just happened to work out that way).  I'm praying that this will all work out and that it will give me a take home baby.  We are so ready (well, as ready as we'll ever be; is anyone ever really truly ready?) to be parents.  

My meds are worked out for now.  One good thing that came out of that horrible experience two weeks ago (see my last post) is that I was able to cut my Ativan dose in half since I had already gone through all the withdrawals.  I will have to cut it out completely before I start cycling but that shouldn't be too hard since it is only half a miligram at this point.  I will cut it in half next week and then cut it out altogether.  I am taking ten miligrams of Lexapro and will continue on with that permanently.  I am going to see my psychiatrist next week to get clearance from her for my RE.  They want a letter stating what my treatment will be during my pregnancy.  I will keep close contact with her so that if my dosage needs to be upped at all we can do that.  I hope the appointment goes well; I think it should.

Next Friday I am getting a saline sonogram as well as all the results from our genetic counselor.  We will also have all of our other test results back by then.  So far, I think we are looking at slight MFI (low morph) but considering that they have said people can often get pregnant naturally with that I am feeling a diagnosis of "unexplained infertility" in our future.  But I guess we will see and know by next Friday!!!!  Then we will also get to determine whether we are going to go with IUI or IVF.  Honestly, I'm hoping for IVF.  I want the embryos for the future so that we don't have to go through this shit again when we want to try for a second child, especially considering my age.  

This is all very exciting.  I think, for the first time in two years, things are finally starting to look up for us, at least a little bit.  I don't want to jinx anything, and I'm sure it won't be the last time we experience hard times, but I have to say that these past two years very nearly broke us (as people, not our marriage--that's now stronger than ever).  I feel like if I can live through all of that then I can live through anything.

The RE

Well, we saw the RE last Friday.  First of all I will say that I absolutely LOVE our doctor!  He was really kind and enthusiastic and very clear about all our treatment options.  He pretty much laid it all out on the table.  He said that he saw a very slightly low morph in the sperm count but that it was very common and we could very likely conceive on our own with it the way it is (though he did order a recheck).  So far that's all we have as far as possible issues.  We also did a lot more bloodwork as well as genetic testing.  But the doctor basically said we just need to decide if we're going to do IUI or go straight to IVF.  What?!  I was a little shocked; I don't know why, I mean after all we were at a fertility clinic.  I guess I just hadn't fully accepted the fact of us being "infertile" yet.

But we are.  So we are waiting on test results to decide what we are going to do.  Honestly, at first I was wanting to do 1-2 rounds of IUI but now I'm kind of leaning towards going straight to IVF.  I feel like because I am 35 and at this point will not be giving birth until I am 36 I would like to have frozen embryos so that I don't have to worry about when to try for #2.  But we have to see what insurance says too.  The good news is that whatever treatment we choose is all covered!  Depending on the test results though, they may make us do IUI before IVF since it is so much cheaper.  So we will see.  We also still have this month and next month to try on our own too, since I am in the 2WW right now and next month I will be doing cycle day bloods and all that fun stuff.  So I think I will feel a little better about moving forward with everything at that point if I am still not pregnant after that.

I am honestly thrilled about this though.  No matter what at this point, I now know that I will be having a baby at some point next year, whether we manage to get it done ourselves or if we need a little help from the doctors.  We will soon have a plan in place, have an amazing team with crazy high success rates and a really great doctor who makes us both feel very comfortable and who is available to us anytime we need to ask questions.  Awesome!

We're Going to the RE!

Well I finally decided that it was better to make an appointment while I am not in school yet just in case I have to do a lot of running around.  I want to take as little time off as possible in order to make sure that any sick time I have goes to future maternity leave if needed.  I figured it has certainly been plenty of time--that's 6 months with charting and temping and 10 months of unprotected sex.  I'm 35 now so the 6 months is enough.  I was going to wait until October to make the appointment but at this point I'm done.  I just want to see what they have to say.  MH was fighting me on it a little bit but my feeling is if they say they see nothing then I suppose we'll keep trying for another couple of months before we move on to treatment.  But what if they do find something?  At this point we don't have time to waste anymore.  My age is a huge factor and I DON'T want to just wait around without any knowledge anymore.  So we're going on Friday.  We have viewed the videos on their website and sent them all our medical history and filled out all the paperwork.  We're fucking going.  And I'm very excited!  I'm nervous--but excited.  I just want to have a plan at this point.

I am doing a little better health wise, but I'm having some trouble adjusting to my meds.  I was fine at 5 and 10 mgs but when I went up to 15 and now 20.....I'm having a hard time.  I am not sleeping--like, waking up every half hour not sleeping.  And also some other stuff.  I'm hoping it will pass, but I may have to scale back.  I'm going to contact my doctor.  I will of course share all of this with the RE and I realize that it's not ideal for me to be going through this while trying to get pregnant but I don't even care.  I know it will all get worked out soon.  I've felt worse than this and I've been through worse!  Again; no time to fucking waste anymore.  Time to get this show on the road!  MH starts his new job on August 25th, I go back to work September 2nd.  I'd like to have an idea of where I stand with meds and TTC by then.