TWW Musings

So you want to start a family, huh? You've been married a hot minute and it's time. Ok. Throw out all methods of birth control, and go at it like monkeys.

And nothing happens.


Welcome to world of TTC. A land where people speak in abbreviations, regularly pee on stick, wake up at ungodly hours of the morning to take their temperature. Where women log every single little physical reaction, feeling or impulse on either paper, or in a fancy iPhone app.

Where you window shop for baby things, and secretly cry when your friends announce that they're expecting. When every time your period arrives, you want to crawl in a hole and die.

The good news is, no matter how alone you feel, you aren't. I feel like I am on a teeny tiny blow up donut float out in the middle of the great big bad ocean with nothing but my little feet and hands to paddle me around. A long way from home, and all alone.


Let's start with the basics.

The Lingo. If you cruise the TTC boards at places like BabyCenter or theBump, you will see what looks like women speaking back and forth to each other in some kind of strange code. Let me break it down for you.

TTC - This one is simple. "Trying to Conceive."
BFN - Sadly, this is the "Big Fat Negative." We've ALL had (usually) more than one of these.
BFP - This one is a little happier. "Big Fat Positive." We ALL want one of these.
TWW - The dreaded "Two Week Wait." That space between ovulation and pregnancy or your period.
AF - Code for "Aunt Flow." That's code for your "period."
O - Ovulate/Ovulated/Ovulation.
OPK - Ovulation Predictor Kit, you will become very familiar with these lovely little things.
BBT - Stands for Basal Body Temperature, which is your body's temperature after 4 hours of sleep, it's basically your "core" temp, and when it spikes after being low for a certain amount of time, it usually means you have "O'd." If it stays up your BFP is usually right around the corner. Or you have the flu. In either case, calling a doctor is wise.
HPT - Home Pregnancy Test. The little pieces of plastic that we spend our life savings on every month only to have them keep coming up negative and therefore we chuck them out with the trash.
hCG- Basically this is that every illusive pregnancy hormone.
Clomid -  a drug that will cause you to lose your mind and make you ovulate all at the same time. 
DPO - "Days Past Ovulation."

Here's what a PCOS positive active TTCer's day looks like.

6am - wake up to the shrieking sounds of your alarm clock. But don't move. Slowly reach your hand over to your nightstand, find your thermometer and pop it in your mouth. Don't even blink. Seriously, you can't move before you take your BBT. Ok. So it's 97.6 this morning. Write it down or log it into your app. (I use OVIA fertility, fyi.)  Now, either go back to sleep, or get up.

Whilst eating breakfast you take your Metformin. And your Clomid. Lose your appetite. Spend the next 40 minutes in the bathroom losing 3 pounds. :) keeping.it.real.

Ok. Shower, please. Get dressed, go on with your day. Somewhere in the middle of the day, you need to take your OPK. Find a cup. (The little disposable paper cups are great for this, btw.) Pee in said cup. Dip your little paper stick down into it for 3 seconds and then pull it out. Wait. Do this every day until you get a positive. Positive OPK's are funny things. With an OPK the test line has to be as dark or darker than the control line for them to be positive. Once you get your positive, get your man home. PRONTO.

After that.... you wait. For two agonizing weeks, you wait. You read into every little symptom that you have, and even a few you don't have. "Oh my goodness, I have a headache." "Ooh, I tooted while I was grocery shopping before I could even stop it." "I feel a bit bloated." "Is that breast tenderness I have?" "Am I unusually tired, or is this regular tired?" Sometimes you flat out invent symptoms. They're not there, but your head says you are feeling them.

You will spend your days a nights combing through message boards online, reading posts where women who have gotten their "BFP's" give you a blow by blow of the whole two weeks. I'm guilty of this. A post I read had a woman listing a migraine at 4dpo, to which i exclaimed "SO DID I!!" It means nothing. It is coincidence. "At 7dpo, we got a positive test!" Said one woman. I jumped up and ran to the bathroom and used a Wondfo pregnancy test, which, of course, came out negative. Down in the dumps I go.


The deal is that TTC and Pregnancy are a very individual thing to the person. A little nausea may be all you have. My mother lost 17 pounds during her pregnancy with me because she was so sick. I wish I had photos to show you, it's OBVIOUS she was a sick sick lady. But just because she was so sick, doesn't mean I will be.

Who here is guilty of watching the tv show "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant!"? It's ok, you can admit it, this is a judgment free zone. I watched 3 episodes this morning.  And we sit there and think "how can these women not know they're pregnant?" But from all the sources I've been hip deep in lately, not having many, or any, symptoms can happen. I've known women that only discovered they were pregnant because they missed their period. They never had a pain, never had had morning sickness, everything was a breeze. Some women only start experiencing symptoms after they find out they're pregnant.



It's hard to be hopeful. Hard to read all these websites where people are experiencing the same things you are and are turning up pregnant, and then here I am, twiddling my thumbs, waiting. Am I or aren't I? That's the question. It's the TWW and it's driving me crazy.


I had my annual with my OB/GYN today. She's wonderful. She came in and was anxious to hear about what had happened. After telling her about our super positive OPK, she got very excited with me. It's hard when your doctor gets so excited. I know there is basically a 50/50 shot that it worked and I got pregnant. I have a 50% reason to get excited and a 50% reason to be very realistic. But it is SO HARD not to look at nursery ideas online, or check out the baby shoes while you're cruising through the consignment store. I had to move my laptop out of the spare room to write this, because being in that room (which will be baby's room at some point) was too hard for me.  It was so hard for me to be in town today and literally see bellies everywhere I went. Naturally the doctors waiting room was filled with them, but then I went shopping, and out to eat, and they were there too. It's just plain hard.


 
So, the wait continues. I'm feeling pretty lousy after today, emotionally and physically. THOSE exams are evasive and never fun, not even when your doctor offers you super cute, pink and flowery gowns to wear. Wear isn't the right word. Cover yourself with. Cause we know how it goes, all modesty goes out the door during your annual with you OB/GYN. This is a sheet with a hole in the top for your head to go through. I'm tired, a bit cranky, and just anxious for this weekend to pass and my life to move on one way or another.

So many prayers, and so much effort has been put into this battle, I can only hope that our victory is just around the corner. Not a moment of these 34 months has been easy. I've probably reached the limit on the tears I am allowed to shed and am in debt to the tear bank for the rest of eternity. I've questioned all the reasons, I've questioned God - which my Daddy always told me never to do. But it's hard, I tell you. You have so much love to give, and such a good life to bring a child into, and no baby, month after month after month...

I've been praying lately for the Lord to help me endure whatever is to come. Help me to deal with and accept a negative result, or to take on the added responsibility of a pregnancy and child and all that goes along with it, should my result be positive. I'm longing for the day when I can tell you we're expecting, but, it's not today, for sure. :(


PLEASE remember me, and my Aaron, in your prayers as we wait on the Lord. We know all of this is in HIS hands. We just have to hold on. I keep remembering what Aaron's Mamaw told us. "Kids, hold on. It's coming. I believe it. Hold on." My knuckles are bloody and raw Mamaw, but I'm holding on.

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.