NEWS Part 2

So here is the fertility part in a nutshell. My blog is a great story of "our life". Some people enjoy reading, some may not, but it is for us, our family, to always have when I have the blog made into a scrapbook. I just love to read and see what was happening in our lives. This part of my life I "drafted" several times to truly get all the details in. I couldn't just type it overnight or in 30 minutes, but maybe someone else going through it will read it and realize it all turns out ok,

I started seeing my fertility doctor when we first moved to Birmingham 2 years ago. She lives here in Homewood, her students go to my school, and I just wanted to really get to know her first thing. I loved her and from day 1, she thought I would be an "easy fix". Haha... I wasn't the most difficult probably to me, but it was difficult enough. About a year ago, we immediately started off on fertility meds, same meds I did with Charlee Kate. However, we started off on the highest dose, which is what I had with Charlee Kate the last time. After a couple of months... nothing! No response. So... I did the meds again with ultrasound monitoring, meaning, we would check for follicle/egg growth. FYI... they have to be mature and a certain size before they are "released". Mine looked great, but still no response. After 4 months of meds, 2 months of constant monitoring and a shot to MAKE me ovulate at a certain time when the eggs were mature.... nothing. So... I needed a month off. That's a lot for the body (so I thought then... I didn't know what was yet to come). Now in between all this is constant bloodwork, timing of the ultrasounds, certain days, etc.. And... the absolute worst part for me was my hormones would shoot up, then go rock bottom. Chemically that makes you feel horrible.

October we started shots. Boy this was a big shock in a lot of ways. The shots aren't cheap to say the least, but they have to be given at the same time each night for 5 days starting on a certain day. So Jeremy started giving these each night in my stomach. Then you begin going in for bloodwork and ultrasounds every day to measure eggs. Mine weren't growing as fast, so she increased the shots to 2 a night. After several more days of ultrasounds and bloodwork, I=it worked... mature follicles, which meant I could get the HCG (ovulation shot), but.... on Halloween day, we figured out it didn't work. TIMING became a very big stressor! Of course... my husband travels so there is a little obstacle, and then the timing of ultrasounds and bloodwork, which means, leaving school at certain times of the day, right at break b/c it had to be in the morning and there was no way to take 5-6 days of school off every month, so the whole timing thing would stress me out!

November... we had to break. The shots really hyperstimulate your ovaries and put hormones into OVERLOAD so everything has to settle down. I decided for December to just do "oral meds" and then Artifical Insemination (IUI) with the meds, along with monitoring and bloodwork of course. That was my first IUI. That was another whole new experience where TIMING was another major factor again. Well obvioulsy... didn't work. Now with IUI you know to the day if it worked or not. So that makes for the longest 2 weeks! Very mentally draining.

January... last minute we decided to do shots again. The whole process repeated itself, 5 days of shots... this time we started with 2 shots a day, then the ultrasounds, bloodwork, and shots would continue every day or every other day. This time my body just shot up and responded immediately. It was still long with shots, but even better response than last time. We decided to do artificial insemination with the shots. All in all, it was a great month for the fertility process. Keeping in mind, when I do ultrasounds, I watch them measure every egg every day so I am LITERALLY watching the process unfold before my eyes. Well again... obvioulsy 2 weeks later... didn't work. Another very long 2 weeks.

Mentally, I was just hitting the bottom thinking about this because as you can see about everyday out of the month something is involved with the process so it is NON-STOP mentally, physically, financially, chemically, and luckily spiritually... because that is what kept me going. My doctor and I decided I would do 5 weeks of birth control to keep hormones level and to try and "time" the next process for the Spring Break time period to take a LITTLE stress off because of the whole TIMING thing again. It was nice for 5 weeks to think about a pill a day and that was it. I didn't have to worry about tests, bloodwork, ultrasounds, negative results, nothing. It was nice, not to say I didn't think about it but I didn't really worry as much.

More to come.....