Articles worth sharing...

I feel very strongly about this topic, as I've shown throughout my blog. I think it's time we stand together as women, and talk about these things. Change and challenge the societal "norms" and remove the taboo.

Enjoy!

http://www.refinery29.com/trying-to-get-pregnant

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Another incredibly interesting article, is a new law passed in the UK that allows for 3 person babies. Basically for mothers with egg quality issues!!! Amazing!!!

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-31069173

Symptoms Shmymptoms

So as you probably saw in my last very brief post, my husband lost his job.
Our lives quickly got turned upside down from planning on starting IVF, to ensuring basic survival. After all, our lease was up for renewal (current lease is done Feb 28 and the signed paperwork is still sitting on our counter) and we didn't even know if we were going to be staying in New York!!! Still really don't I guess...

I promptly started applying for jobs. Of course, I can't work in the states unless I'm sponsored by a company, which is near impossible... so I was applying back in Canada as well as oversees (UK and Australia, both of which have agreements with Canada).

Homme InFertile on the other hand has not been looking for jobs, but people have been contacting him. Man, jealous! ...wouldn't that be nice... So he's got options. I can't go into any details, but many POTENTIAL opportunities here in NY, we'll see if any pan out. But then our question is are they lucrative enough to make sense for the high cost of living without me being able to work, and our plans to raise a family.

So we play a waiting game. He's off at an interview right now. Additional ones this week. And of course AF arrived for me today so I'm wallowing on the couch. Ok, let's stop and talk about THAT for a second. This month I actually believed I was pregnant. Yes. Me! Really! What the heck, I thought I was over and done with this madness of getting my hopes naively up. I'm not sad, there's no tears. I've been at this long enough that I've become immune to the disappointment. I know better. But it still sucks. Basically here's why I believed I was, and why you really don't have a f'ing clue until AF shows, or a test turns positive (and I refused to test until AF was at least 4 days to a week late, and we were only 1-2 days late yesterday).

Okay so breakdown of NON-pregnancy symptoms that had me convinced by rough DPO:

0 DPO - timing etc was all perfect.
5/6 DPO - weird spotting, like little light pink fleshy discharge. In 5 years of TTC never once have I had this. (I now attribute it maybe to the recent biopsy but still have no real clue).
6-8 DPO - cold, woke up every morning really stuffy, immune system just felt down
8-10 DPO - nausea in spells, but at same time really hungry (I do get this sometimes before AF)
10-13 DPO - very mild cramping, but different, like in ovaries, and pulling, and then not very bloated, and not much of a breakout... more lack of symptoms here had me confused.
12 DPO - napped in afternoon. Exhausted. Very very thirsty. Like drinking so so much water. Never had this issue before. This continued on into AF. Could be due to new pills?
13 DPO - napped mid-day. Exhausted. Darker/larger areolas with little bumps- weird !!? never noticed, but now curious if I always get this before AF. I'm going to start watching.... Could be stress related, or due to me having played volleyball for 4 hours straight yesterday, or all the new vitamins and acupuncture. Still never noticed this before so it was odd!!! LP for me is usually 12 days on the dot. I think FF miscalculated my O, but still after adjusting that makes a 13 LP this month (or 14 if no adjustment). I attribute this change to starting accupuncture again maybe.
spotting (I get this every month so not a sign but wanted to include)

So I've not a huge symptom spotter but the big things that were so different and noticed were:
1) weird discharge I thought was IB/IS at 5DPO
2) non-symptoms -ie. no breakout, no normal cramps, no bloat
3) darker/larger areolas
4) longer LP (even by a day was odd)
5) extreme thirst

So I'm now going to continue to watch and see if maybe acupuncture is to thank for a longer LP and lesser symptoms. FX that I can hope for this kind of cycle every cycle to be honest. Maybe LP will even stretch to 14... that'd be good!

This is as a warning to not count your chickens before they hatch. Even as a TTC veteran I was tricked by my body. I forgot that when you start doing things differently, and you're already so in tune with your body, you're bound to notice even some subtle differences and hope the changes you made mean a BFP.

So onwards and upwards I suppose. Since hubs numbers came back so good, and since I'm doing acupuncture and on my diet, I all of a sudden believe it's possible (although perhaps less likely) to get a bfp naturally. I'm planning on ordering pre-seed so we can continue to try until we figure out insurance and our plans to continue with IVF. The logical part of me knows we should sort our life out first, but the infertile me knows that you cannot time or plan these things, and it'll happen when it happens ready or not. So I'm not stopping just because of a bump in the road.

Forge onwards!

What goes up, must come down.

From a high to a low. 
My husband lost his job.
IVF was covered by insurance. 
Now we're on the street. 
Everything is up in the air.
Crap.

Cold & Flu Season

Ugh. WHyyyy!? All of a sudden temperatures in New York took a nose dive and it's frackin' freezing out. Don't let the beautiful sun and blue skies deceive you...

Anyway. I don't solely place blame on the weather. In reality, I know the reason why I'm down with a bad cold at the moment is due to being overworked during New York Fashion Week. Luckily for me, the three shows I was working on are done, and I can now rest up. I went to acupuncture on Friday hoping she could boost my immune system, but I think at this point my body needed to flush it out and regenerate after. In fact, the two points she did on my chest to help, one of them bruised, and the other spot a bump popped up (kind of like a little allergic reaction type bump). That tells me those points were definitely weaker than normal. So I'm trying to not be too pouty about the fact that I have a leaky faucet for a nose, and just trust that my body knows what it needs to do and rest and get lots of liquids.

Homme Infertile is doing a nice job of taking care of me even though he's been super stressed about his follow up appointment this afternoon. On that note... all good! Yay. My gut, intuition, whatever you wanna call it, had me feeling like he'd be fine, but I'm still glad to have it confirmed! Obviously we already know he has varicocele, but his sperm analysis and culture came back with fantastic results. In fact his morphology went up!!! How amazing is that!? So this appointment honestly could not have gone remotely better. Gives us a nice little positivity boost going into our cycle for sure!

Then, we went for bloodwork. They took 10, I repeat a whopping 10 vials of blood from me!!!
No lie. Here's proof!!! 

That whole basket of vials I had to fill. Needless to say I was a little lightheaded afterwards.

So now we wait on those results, but we're pretty certain that they will all be fine and dandy.
The other thing I have to do is a pap smear. Really? We couldn't have just gotten that over and done with during my uterine biopsy!? Seems completely redundant and frustrating to me, but such is life.
So I'll plan to get that done this week and then we can get a move on. Likely cycling in March. 

You know you're infertile when...

You know you're infertile when your text conversations with your hubby consist of medical lingo... Or lack there of. 

Biopsy Results

They're in, and they're less than ideal....

ENDOMETRIOSIS

It was definitely something we've been concerned about, but the firm diagnosis makes me sad.

I don't have much to say at this point in time other than we're not doing a laparoscopy at this time. Diet seems to minimize symptoms and no firm proof that surgery improves fertility rates. In fact, the risks seem too high for the potential reward.

Hubby has sperm analysis and culture today, so we'll see those results and have a better picture after his urology follow up.

Head is spinning. Need time to process.
On top of it, work is insane (I'm doing casting for fashion week) so I have a lot distracting me at the moment. Too much going on all at once.

In positive news, I splurged on a new purse to lift my spirits. I give you, the consolation prize:

I'm sure I'll be back soon with more to talk about... but for now... just keep swimming... just keep swimming... 

Bad things come in 3s...

Wow... well the last 48 hours have been a little emotional to say the least. 3... I repeat, 3 friends had their babies. 3! In 48 hours. Well, that's not accurate. 3 friends ANNOUNCED their babies' arrivals in the last 48 hrs. Same difference to me though.

That's hard. I knew it was coming. I knew late January to early February was going to be full of new babies... and it sure was. Some of the others weren't as painful, since they weren't as close of friends, but these ones hurt. Maybe because 2 of them are those people's 2nd child, and they tried conceiving their first around the same time we started trying or after even. So it stings. To think we could have a 4 year old running around, and a second newborn....ugh. Could is misleading, because I can't, clearly.

This isn't meant to be a woah is me post, but I sure do feel a little bit that way today. It's hard. I'm emotional.

Not helping is the fact that I still don't have results from the lab for my biopsy. I try and convince myself that no results are good... that if something really bad came up, they'd have contacted me much faster. But the truth is you never know. Maybe they're double checking their findings before telling me I have cancer. Maybe something came up abnormal and they had to run additional tests. Who the hell knows!? (if you do, feel free to speak up haha).

My husband and I always say, we are grateful for the life we have led up until this point. As much as my heart aches for a child, I'm happy at the direction we're being taken in, and had we gotten pregnant right away, that wouldn't have been the case. I know that. I believe that in my heart. So it gives me strength. And maybe in 2 more years, I'll look back on this time and feel the same way. But right now? While I'm in it? I certainly don't. I just want to know that all will turn out well. I want to be reassured that I too will have my happily ever after. But if I knew, where would the lessons be learned?

I have to trust. It's just hard today.