The Latest - Infertility & TTC

Infertility is a rough thing. If you are going through it, I don't have to tell you. It plays all sorts of tricks with your mind. It makes you feel like you aren't even human.

Since my last post here on The Impossible Dream, I've dove head first into treatment, and today I would like to update you all, give you the latest, on what has been happening.


My 5 day round of Provera worked as expected. And just as my doctor had told me it would, my period was very, very light. So light that I really didn't even acknowledge it was even happening except when I was in the ladies room. I'm not gonna lie, as someone who's period's are usually heavy and angry, it was like a vacation, but at the same time it had me scared to death. I remember legit thinking "how could a period this light possibly work?" But, whatever.

During this time I was also, and still am, taking 1500mg of Metformin. I've talked with several people that have had a hard enough time taking it that they've had to stop. But I pushed through, and it hasn't been easy. My first week on it, I couldn't get out of bed. I was drained to the point of not even being able to roll over. One day I woke up at 9am, and didn't even roll over until 1pm, I just stared at the ceiling. Aside from that, I dealt with headaches and some major, I'm talking major, gastrointestinal issues. I've spent most of my time recently staying very close to the bathroom. Car trips longer than 30 minutes have to be scrapped because I just can't do it. And if I eat, I need to stay close to a bathroom. Everything runs straight through me. Also, it's sort of acted like an appetite suppressant for me, I'm not hungry hardly ever at all these days. And what I do eat, like I mentioned, it's on the express lane out as quickly as it went in. Emotions were at a peak a few weeks ago as well, thanks to Metformin. I have anxiety problems already, and I just knew that Metformin would increase those. Whenever I was awake, or not growing to the toilet seat (just keeping it real here, people) I was a bit more sensitive. The came to a head one night after Aaron and I had been out to eat. When we came home, I walked into my kitchen, started crying, fell onto the floor and ugly cried for a solid 45 minutes without stopping.

My doctor had mentioned to me that Metformin had proven to be effective with some women in helping them lose some weight. PCOS makes it so difficult to lose weight because your body is starved for certain nutrients and feeds on fats and so forth, so it causes a whole host of issues and losing the weight is nearly impossible. When I was a teenager I thought I was the fattest thing in the world at 150 pounds. (And you know I love you, cause I said a number....) And it is probably still a bit chunky for my height, but I was a size 10 and I was happy with that. In college I gained the Freshman 15, but I still liked how I looked and I didn't feel any different, except when I had to plunk down money for a bigger size pair of jeans at Maurices. (<--that is the only place this girl can find jeans) And I stayed at that weight until after Aaron and I were married. And then, all of a sudden I gained 35 pounds. Boom. There it was. Just overnight, I woke up and my size 12 jeans didn't fit anymore. Neither did my size 14s. I finally had to give in and buy a size 18 jeans because a size 16 was too constricting and hurt my stomach. I finally stopped wearing jeans and stuck with leggings and sweats. Defeat? A little, yes. I was over 200 pounds and not even knowing how, when or why it had happened. After my PCOS diagnosis in 2013, it all made sense, and so I started trying to diet, to watch my portion size and to work out, but my weight didn't fall by even an ounce. When I went on Metformin, I wasn't even thinking about weight loss. Not at all. I was just focusing on "this is step one in my three step program to ovulation and pregnancy."

My Mom and I were headed into town one day to do a little bit of shopping, so I went by her house to pick her up. When I walked in the door, her first question was "how much weight have you lost?" To which I replied, "probably none." But after she shoved me on the scale, we discovered I'd lost 7 pounds. At this point, I'm down 12 pounds. I don't feel any different and I don't think I look any different, but the weight loss has me hopeful that maybe we will be successful this go around. My doctor had told me a few stories of patients that had lost 10 pounds and got pregnant. I'm down 12, let's hope there's some truth behind that theory for me too! :)

I started my 4 day round of Clomid on my Cycle Day (CD) 5. I wasn't sure what to expect emotion wise with Clomid, but I'd heard it could be brutal, so I braced myself. But I really didn't notice anything too crazy. I was still super tired and super drained from the Metformin, and if there was any added emotions, I didn't notice them.


And then we waited. And we waited. And we waited. And we waited a little bit more. I just knew that the Clomid hadn't worked, and that I wasn't going to ovulate. OPK (Ovulation test) after OPK came up negative. I mean, glaringly negative. With an OPK you have to have two lines of the same opacity (or have one darker than the other) for it to be positive. And a lot of times my second line (which is the line to the left) would barely be visible. And that had proved to be normal in the past. I had had a positive OPK maybe once before in our marriage. And a lot of the time women tend to get a progression with their OPKs. Very faint, pale, light, light/medium, medium, medium/dark, POSITIVE.

Forgive the lighting situation in this picture. This is in our pretty pink bathroom, and these are my test strips.

I use the WONDFO brand test strips. I get them off of Amazon for super cheap. You can see that the bottom strip is super light, not a lot happening there, the next strip is a little darker, and the top strip is even darker still. ALMOST positive. And when you get the almost positives is when you should start taking action, I'm told. 

Now, this is the test result we got the very next day.

This, my friends, is a positive OPK. And it's the first one I've seen for myself in many many moons. Many. This test was so glaringly, in your face positive that the second line was dark the INSTANT I took the test. I mean, BAM, dark line! I'm not even going to pretend here, I cried. I hadn't seen a positive OPK in so long that I seriously wondered if it would ever happen to me again. Well, there it is. I texted my best friend, who's response was "why are you talking to me? Call your husband." 

So now, we are in the dreaded TWW, the Two Week Wait. After 10 days past ovulation (dpo) lots of women start testing, but I've made up my mind not to. I have an appointment with my doctor on October 1st for a regular check up and update on how things are going. My period wouldn't be due until the next week. Either she will tell me then, or I'll found out one way or another the next week. And after that.... I haven't thought that far ahead yet. Infertility makes you afraid of thinking and hoping for the future. A little glimmer of hope scares you to death. My BFP (Big Fat Positive) OPK was a huge boost in my hope supply, but it was also a kick in the seat. Don't get too excited, it might not happen this time. With your luck it didn't happen. Getting pregnant will take a miracle. That's all I hear in my head these days. 

Like I mentioned in my introductory post, my husband and I are very religious people. Our faith in the center of our universe. We believe in God, we believe that God sends his children signs and speaks to us in ways we can't understand. The Sunday before last we had a visiting preacher at our church who talked about his and his wife's 17 year battle with infertility and how the Lord had given them a miracle baby in the form of their healthy now 7 year old daughter sitting next to her mother, how all the doctors had said it was impossible, but that they kept praying and it just happened. It was very encouraging for me, and I know that many people sitting in the congregation that day were praying for our miracle.  3 years isn't 17 years. It isn't 13 years and it isn't the 10 years it took my parents to finally have me, but it is our battle that consumes pretty much every waking moment for us.

So we are here, waiting. Pacing, trying not to think about it. Waiting until something happens, or doesn't happen. In the meantime, the laundry needs to be done, my car needs to be worked on, the house needs cleaning and I just realized that I've gone half a day without a bite of food in my stomach. Time marches on ("and eventually you realize that it's marching across your face...." -Steel Magnolias) and so must we.