Tag: Ovulation prediction

O-Day

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Chris and I shower together – we have a bath that has two shower heads at either end, so we share.  It’s impossible to switch either one off, so we have to shower together to save on the water!!!  It was a bit weird at first, but we have discovered this is the one time of day that we can have a conversation without interruptions.  Today, as we were getting in the shower together Chris asked me

“when will it be baby making time?”.

I knew it was today.  Today is ovulation day.  I don’t need an ovulation predictor kit to tell me this.  I am just so experienced at it, I just know when it’s going to happen.  All the signs and symptoms are here.  O-Day.

I turned to Chris and said that I am not sure I want to try this month.  (For some quite selfish reasons I’ll go into a minute.)  He said “Maybe if we are not trying our hardest, we are not ready to become parents”.  I told him that is a perception not a fact….  I was pretty mad at him for saying that.

….And then I just burst into tears.

I can tell you that being in the shower whilst crying is a great place to be.  You can cry your hardest and it just doesn’t matter where the tears and snot roll down you face.

Let me tell you why I cried.  I cried because I do feel selfish.  I thought about not trying this month because my period is due on my Birthday, a few days after Christmas.  Between O-day and then (the dreaded two week wait) I would feel guilty for every sip of alcohol I drink. Which will mean I will not want to drink.  But I LOVE Christmas drinks – mulled wine, bubbly, mimosas, red wine, hod toddies, baileys coffee, port. I’m not an alcoholic BTW!! Last year, I had a couple of Christmas drinks knowing there was a chance I could be pregnant.

I am also going to be in the 2 week wait worry – and I am out of practice of this.  The last time I was in the 2WW worry I remember feeling incredibly emotional.  I have just got over being sad about the way things worked out after IVF 1.  I want to be emotionally sound going into IVF 2.  If I get a negative test (which will happen to be on my Birthday by the way) I get yet another punch in the stomach that I can’t get pregnant on my own.  To which I already know this.  Why do I want to mess with my sanity when I am in a good place right now?  I would love to not go through another round of IVF.  Seriously, it would be the best thing in the world.

Unexplained infertility leaves you with feelings of ‘There is nothing stopping you get pregnant’.  Maybe we could get pregnant without medical intervention.  So I then have a huge rack of guilt.  Surely if I want a baby then these things all shouldn’t matter – I should just suck it up.

Chris says he understands.  But honestly, I don’t think he understands how I truly feel, it is difficult to understand unless you have felt it.  Yes, he feels the pain of this too.  But it’s not his body that wakes up everyday in the two week wait, hoping – losing hope with every twinge your body makes.  It turns your inside out, it makes you feel sick, it makes you well up on the verge of tears, it eats you alive.  Infertility does this.  It puts you in position of feeling guilty for not trying your hardest.  But sometimes you want to screw up that infertility and throw it in the “just fuck-it bucket”.

I haven’t decided yet.  My feelings are mixed and confused right now.

Last chance saloon…well kind of

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Last chance for natural conception

Today it dawned on me that as a result of my last cycle being shorter than expected, I am probably going to be away for a work conference right at peak ovulation time. DOH.  This is going to be our last chance to conceive naturally before we start IVF. (Yes I still have hope that we can beat the odds!)  Soooo, what’s a girl to do? I’m thinking an ice box and turkey baster will be required.  Wait.  That’s NOT natural!

I can just hope that I ovulate later than expected or have another short cycle!

OR Chis will just have to drive 4 hrs to DC and stay with me for one night and then get up super early and drive 4 hrs back before work. Ummmm, do you think I will be able to convince him to do it?? I’m pretty sure he will be not be down for that.

Love you honey!!!

Love you honey!!!

Oh well. It will be what it will be.  Nature is unpredictable anyway.

Lost blood work frustrations

When I first had all my infertility testing back in December last year, my doctor gave me TWO orders for blood work.  The first order was to test my cycle day 3 hormone, FSH LH etc.  The second order was to test for baddies that can affect the health of a pregnancy, such as HIV, Hep B & C, syphilis, in addition to having an immunity to Rubella and Chicken Pox (I’ve had these jabs, so I hope I have immunity!!) which are all a legal pre-screening requirement for IVF.  I received my results for Day 3 tests, but never saw my results for HIV etc.  I just assumed all was good, and never thought anything more of it until…..I met my IVF nurse the other month.

After much hunting, it turns out they never drew blood for my second order.  I KNOW I gave them that second order, so I am really annoyed.  It was only last month I received the bill for this blood work back in December, so I had no clue they never did the tests.  The bill I received for $500 I thought would have covered all these tests.  But it turns out it costs over $1000 for both orders of blood work!! So, frustratingly, the nurse had to send me a new order which took almost a week to get to me in the post (I forget how snail snail mail is here, I should have just picked it up from the office).

This time I went directly to the lab who does the analysis rather than to hospital to have my blood drawn.

Now, you would have thought that going straight to the specialists who take blood day in day out would be good at it.  But oh no.  Not this one.  After one vial of blood was collected with the needle still in my army, the nurse was like… “Come on….where did it go?  Why is nothing coming out? Hmmm…” as he wiggled the needle and I tried very hard not to shout out ‘OWWWWWWW THAT FRICKING HURTS!!’ Thankfully after what seemed like forever “Oh!! There’s the vein!”.  But I won’t be totally mean about this nurse.  He was entertaining, and did immediately recognise my accent and asked where in the UK I was from.  I congratulated him on his talent for recognising a British accent and we talked about how surprising it is how many people have no clue where I am from.  He even understood what I meant when I said “Cheers” as I left.  So I’ll let him off the hook.

So after all that, let’s hope I do have immunity to rubella, otherwise I am going to have to wait ANOTHER cycle to start IVF.  Now that will make me pretty mad 😐

Don’t panic Mr Mainwaring!

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You know how I said third time round means I must be expert on IUI and I felt at ease with this round of treatment?  Well today is Cycle Day 11, everything had been going to plan so far…..But this morning I had my CD11 Ultrasound to check how my follicles are doing.  (By the way, you know you are in serious business when they send my actual doctor to do the ultrasound – they were obviously sending in the big guns for round 3!  It was good to see her.)  Back to my follicles, they are looking good.  I have two maturing, one in the left ovary and other in the right.  Both are 22mm – perfectly sized!  My doctor commented on how good my uterine lining was – 7mm.  She pondered on why the eggs hadn’t wanted to make a home in this nice uterus already!  She knows all the right things to say 🙂 I told her that I thought I was about to ovulate in the next 24hrs because this morning I had a 0.53 degree drop in my body basal temperature and my Ovulation Predictor Kit came up with an almost positive line.  She thinks I will probably surge on my own, but I should take the Ovidrel shot, just in case.  But this would mean I would have to take the shot now for an IUI procedure tomorrow pm (Weds).  OK….sounded good! Just one problem – I’ve got to go home, get the shot out of the fridge to bring back to room temperature – and I’m going to have to do this thing alone! Oh and I’m supposed to be back at work too. Cue panic attack.

I furiously attempt to call Chris to see if he can come home to give the shot, because I really don’t want to have to give myself a shot for the first time under pressure.  Chris must be busy. So here I am, sat here with my Ovidrel shot warming up next to me, whilst I wait for Chris to call me back. I’m freaking now because it’s either do it myself or nothing. And nothing is not a valid option.  You’d have thought stabbing myself with a needle is a very small price to pay to have this chance of having a baby and my logic would take over my fear.  But no logic does not dictate in this case.  Come on Chris!  Call me back!!!!!

For those of you who have not heard of the ‘saying/quote’ “Don’t Panic Mr Mainwaring”, here is a little video excerpt….

IUI #2 off to a better start than #1

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Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) round 2 is off to a better start than the first one – we think anyway.

A matter of timing

The first round of IUI was, of course, all new to us.  I had taken an ultrasound on the Friday (Cycle Day 11), took an Ovidrel Shot to stimulate ovulation on Saturday evening, and had IUI on Monday (CD 14).  At the time we wondered whether the IUI procedure too late because my clinic are not open on Sundays we could not do IUI that day, the Doctor had indicated that I needed the IUI procedure early on Monday, rather than later as my follicles were rather large.  I had a positive result from my ovulation predictor kit on the Sunday morning, the day BEFORE the IUI.  I simply thought that this was the Ovidrel in action, and the doctor had everything timed well.  But now we are suspicious that all this meant is that the IUI was too late….

THIS time around for cycle 2 it was a slightly different story.  I had my ultrasound on the Thursday (Cycle Day 11) and I had slightly smaller follicles, but big enough to go ahead with the IUI.  I took the Ovidrel shot on the Thursday evening, and had IUI on Saturday (CD 13).  This time, I got a positive result from my ovulation predictor kit on the morning of the IUI, Saturday morning.  This makes me believe that we were too late last time around as it seems that the Ovidrel doesn’t interfere with ovulation predictor kits.  This cycle I decided to monitor my Basal Body Temperature (BBT) for the first time ever.  Today, Sunday (CD 14) I got a spike in my temperature confirming my suspicions that I most likely ovulated yesterday.  Woohooooo!  This cycle, it feels that the IUI procedure was better timed.  I was also having horrible ovulation pains on the way to the clinic and all day yesterday.  A good sign?

The sperm stats low down

Another excellent sperm sample Mr C!

  • semen volume: 1.2mL
  • Sperm Concentration: 129 million per mL
  • Percent motile: 51.9%
  • Number of motile sperm: 80.3 million
  • After washing (centrifugation)
  • Number of motile sperm in vial: 72.5 million
  • Motility:  86.8%
  • volume of vial: 5mL
  • recovery rate for processes sample: 90.2%

The IUI procedure

As we were a bit more knowledgeable about the whole procedure this time around so the whole appointment took about 20 minutes, of which 15 minutes I was laying down on my back resting whilst the sperm figure out which direction they need to swim in. Chris joked we knew that about 15% of the sperm were just swimming around in circles, confused, not knowing what to do with themselves.

The doctor was a new one for me – a sweet lady who seemed very happy for an early Saturday morning!  I asked Chris later if I had just been treated for the first time by someone younger than me.  Eeeek we are getting old! But he believed she was actually in her mid thirties, so not much older than us.  The doctor was very kind and kept apologizing for any pain she might cause.  She told me she would use the smallest speculum and the smallest catheter possible so it wouldn’t hurt.  This made me wonder whether all this time other doctors purposefully use big speculums and catheters out of choice!  She was good at explaining everything she was doing.  She put the (smallest!) speculum into my vagina (No lubricant because this kills sperm).  She told me she was going to open the speculum up and I might feel some pressure.  Which I did, but it did not hurt.  After this she inserted the catheter into my uterus via the cervix and the sperm was injected via the catheter directly into my uterus. I barely felt a thing and it was over with in less than 2 minutes.  I had no cramping until later in the day.

Here is a short 2 minute 3D animation of how IUI works.

The nurse set a 15 minute timer and I lay down on the bed feeling a bit surreal. This time the 15 minutes went much quicker than last time because we spent it talking about our next holiday – a road trip to the West (Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Santa Fe etc).  We have been planning on going in October, but have been waiting for the last 4 months to see if we were pregnant before we book anything.  This will be the last cycle we wait before we book it.  No more holding off!

Naughty Gift – no not that kind of naughty

The morning of the IUI I decided to give Chris a gift I bought him a few weeks ago.  I have declared before that I believe it is unlucky to buy baby name books, pregnancy books, baby clothes etc before actually conceiving.  But seeing as we have been unlucky so far I thought we cant possibly have any more bad luck so what the hell, I bought a pregnancy book for men.  It’s a slightly funny book with interesting facts about pregnancy.  I couldn’t resist!  But I won’t buy anything else.  I just wanted to get him something we can share together along this journey.

My naughty gift to Chris

My naughty gift to Chris

2 Week Wait and greasy progesterone suppositories here we come!

Do I spend more $$ when I am my most “fertile”?

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Do I spend more money when I am my most “fertile’? Probably seems a bit of a strange question coming from someone who has been diagnosed with ‘unexplained infertility’.  But never the less, assuming my most fertile period is when I ovulate (give or take a few days either side), do I spend more on ‘discretionary’ items?

Yesterday I heard on the radio that a Texas university discovered that ladies buy more things when they are in their fertile period of their cycle.  Well this caught my attention considering not long ago I wrote a post on the weird science of ovulation.  So yesterday I started to look at my own spending habits, and of course I have my credit card data, and my ovulation data from the 15 months, what do they look like together overlayed?  Is there any possible correlation?  I plotted ‘discretionary’ spending, which is basically any type of spending where I had a choice (I excluded groceries, bills, fuel and work expenses), against ‘peak ovulation’ days.  Ovulation day is the highest orange peak, with 2 days either side of ovulation day.  Here’s what my chart looked like….

SpendvOv

Nope…doesn’t look like much of a correlation!  But it was interesting to see my ‘waves’ of spending habits!  This analysis is really rudimentary.  What was the radio show really talking about?  There must be some particular way I need to look at spending v ovulation or perhaps I don’t fit the profile because I am actually infertile?? Haha. OK, I’m being mean to myself here.

So this evening I hunted down the source of the research…Asst. Professor Kristina Durante from University of Texas.  Here is her webpage, it has a link to all her research papers on it.  She has done a lot of interesting social science research on ovulation and social effects.  She has even given a TED Talk – Fertile, Flirty & Feisty (I love TED  Talks by the way!) her approach is all related to evolutionary theory.

It turns out her research is in fact far more in depth than the radio makes it out to be…Chinese Whispers etc.  Indeed, the paper merely discussed that ovulation affects women’s preferences, which might contribute to spending on positional goods such as cars and jewellery.  Well the majority of my ‘discretionary’ spending included decaf skinny vanilla lattes and cookies so I think we can safely say my chart is null and void.  But it was interesting anyway whilst it lasted 😎  One way to keep me busy in the 2 week wait and distract from horrible cramps and leaky vaginas – geek out!

Abstract from: Money, Status and the Ovulatory Cycle*

Each month, millions of women experience an ovulatory cycle that regulates fertility. Previous consumer research has found that this cycle influences women’s clothing and food preferences. The authors propose that the ovulatory cycle actually has a much broader effect on women’s economic behavior. Drawing on theory in evolutionary psychology, the authors hypothesize that the week-long period near ovulation should boost women’s desire for relative status, which should alter their economic decisions. Findings from three studies show that women near ovulation seek positional goods to improve their social standing.  Additional findings reveal that ovulation leads women to pursue positional goods when doing so improves relative standing compared with other women but not compared with men. When playing the dictator game, for example, ovulating women gave smaller offers to a female partner but not to a male partner. Overall, women’s monthly hormonal fluctuations seem to have a substantial effect on consumer behavior by systematically altering their positional concerns, a finding that has important implications for marketers, consumers, and researchers.

* Durante, K.M, Griskevicius, V., Cantu, S.M. & Simpson, J.A. Journal for Marketing Research, 2014

Letrozole all gone – waiting for the Ultrasound CD11

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I took my last two Letrozole tablets today.  I haven’t had tiredness today like I had last week, but I do have some abdominal pains so I am sat here with a hot water bottle.  Maybe its a psychological thing, but I think the hot water bottle helps.  I don’t really know if it is my Irritable Bowel Syndrome or a side effect of the Letrozole that is causing it.  Either way, it sucks and wish it would go away.

The abdominal pains started today after lunch, just as I was about to lead a workshop for the afternoon.  I thought about all the possible excuses I could come up with as people arrived.  I looked around the room filled with men all over the age of forty five I decided that I would only end up embarrassing one of them with the truth.  So I stuck it out.  But as soon as I got into the workshop I forgot about the pain.  It was only when I stopped thinking and took a breather for a minute that I realised the pain was still there.

I’ll start my ovulation predictor tests tomorrow, a couple of days sooner than when the nurse suggested.  But I have paranoia that I will have a short cycle this month and miss out on IUI!  I’m not sure the nurse was aware that I sometimes have short cycles of 22 days.  It was only after I got home and read the information pack I thought perhaps I should start the tests a bit sooner.  Yey! Holding my pee in the mornings to pee in a cup time.  Trying to do it in the dark can be fun when I don’t want to wake Chris up too early.

Chris took this photo yesterday - It says so much more about him than a blog post possibly could

Chris took this photo yesterday – It says so much more about him than a blog post possibly could

I asked Chris to guest blog for me this week.  He wants to, he is just not sure what to write.  He is a good writer.  He has a published book already and has been writing a novel in his spare time over the last few years, so he knows how to write well.  Unlike me!  He has some ideas what to write about, but is nervous sharing his thoughts.  I said he should read some of the blogs from other men, perhaps it will help him see from a different perspective how blogging can be a bit of therapy for the mind.  I hope he does write something, but I am not going to pressure him or make him feel bad.  Blogging is not everyone’s cup of tea and I am certainly still learning – so far it tastes pretty good and I can see it fitting into my daily routine.  Let’s see how addictive it can get 🙂