Chasing Baby Mayr

Tag: Motherhood

• Praise The Black Fertility Goddesses: Cycle 15 Day 1 is HERE!

  Posted at 10:05 pm by amayr1984, on January 18, 2019

  

  I am so happy to have my period.

  It is painful, and exhausting and as much as I wanted to workout today the Midol is not taking the edge off enough for me to hope to make it to boot camp so it is a wrap on that. I will be staying home with heat on my stomach and hydrating my life away.

  And making plans for this next cycle. The next race is upon me and my energy is back mentally. The rollercoaster is all set up again for the ups and downs to come.

  I called my reproductive endocrinologist nurse’s desk today and I have to get scheduled for an Ultrasound on Monday to make sure my follicles retreated since I had some really big ones (though of course the big ones didn’t yield me the baby I want). before I can start my Letrozole again at 7.5 MG. Because of this I will be starting it later than Cycle Day 3 so this may mess up my timing on predicting my ovulation. I am not sure. I just hope it isn’t a cyst on my ovaries which is a possibility the nurse wanted to check for. I don’t need any extra hurtles on this journey.

  On the supplement forefront I have added iron in to my list of supplements to try to help me get pregnant. I also ordered some Evening Prim Rose Oil to take the first half of the cycle up to ovulation to help with my cervical mucus since I did not notice much last cycle. I will also take Mucinex the week we are trying as well. One of my theories is perhaps my cervical mucus is a little hostile to my husband’s sperm and that is causing some issues. I am hoping by creating a more lubricated environment it will help the sperm get to where they need to get. I also added Flax Seed Oil because I just can’t stand the gummy fish oil. They are very gross and I have not taken them for a long while. So my current supplement list and medication list this cycle will be (bold were my RE’s additions. Not bold were my own):

  Letrozole 7.5 MG (3 tablets a day for 5 days)
  Iron
  Flaxseed Oil
  Evening Prim Rose Oil ( week before and of ovulation ONLY)
  Folic Acid 1Mg
  Levothyroxcine
  Metformin
  CoQ10
  Mucinex (fertile week only)
  Sugar Bear Hair Vitamins (First Two Weeks Only)
  One A Day Prenatal (Last Two Weeks)
  PreMama Drink Mix (Last Week of Two Week Wait until test or period)

  I have also encouraged my husband to drink more water so that we can make sure his semen also can further support the sperm motility. He had a great semen analysis and I have had 2-4 dominant follicles every time I go to get the ultra sound down on Letrozole so we have the ingredients certainly but we seem to not be able to get the sperm where it needs to go. My uterine lining is always good and thick and last cycle my progesterone is good. Of course even in optimal conditions there is only a 25% chance but the best thing we can do is try to have 4 or 5 months where we are getting the whole 25 percent. Ovulation was our initial hurtle and now I think if we can keep everything else right (good cervical mucus, good semen, timed intercourse and decent diet) we can at least optimize our chances.

  I am considering going to IUI route once I get back to work and can borrow a little change from my 401K if we don’t get pregnant in the next cycle. I am willing to wait another cycle if necessary but I really am hopeful we can make this happen before I return to work and both or our schedules become busy again.

  Another thing I am going to incorporate this go round is the meditation feature on the Glow App for Premium users. I paid for the premium membership on the app because they had a sale for New Years and I do use it primarily.

  

  And I am committed to attending yoga on Thursdays. I was supposed to go yesterday but went to a social gathering that ran long so I missed it. And the food was nasty at the gathering however I think for my mental health talking to others I had not seen in forever was extremely good for me.

  The main goal of this cycle for me is I want to come back and read this post when I am in the two week wait and center myself some more.

  It is important for me to remember that I am not a failure. This is a process. It is not the race I envision. Baby Mayr is not always at the end of the finish line. Sometimes the race has no winner and I will never know which race is the one that does. I just have to keep running. It is ok to want to be a mother. It is ok to spend the time and money and effort and energy on this journey and even if I do not get pregnant, I can know I did my best and just keep trying to focus on getting there.

  I am healthy. I just need some help getting pregnant. And it may take time. My husband and I deserve this though and eventually we will be rewarded. In the mean time I am going to continue to work on my mood, my finances and getting my home the way I want it so that when the time comes I can welcome my pregnancy and eventually my baby in the most peaceful environment possible.

  I am worthy.

  I will be a mother.

  | 0 Comments Tagged Acceptance, Black, Cycle Day One, Femara, Glow, Growth, Infertility, Letrozole, Motherhood, Mucinex, New Chance, Pregnancy

• Cycle Day 28: Good Bye Failed Cycle. Hello New Race

  Posted at 2:11 am by amayr1984, on January 16, 2019

  

  And now the acceptance stage rolls around the day before my period right on time.

  I accept I am not pregnant. I have talked to a couple friends on the phone. I have purchased iron to add to my daily supplement and medications for Fertility arsenal. I made it to boot camp today again and I checked off most of the goals that I had for myself though Lord knows I have not tackled the upstairs and cleaned it like I keep lying and saying I will. (I will).

  I know that all there is to do is to try again. Most of the time I am very sane and realistic about this journey. I just started blogging in the bad spot but I am sure I will be back in that bad spot pretty soon. That’s what the picture is for. When I saw it in a Trying to Conceive group I was like “O MY GOD! That’s it!”

  That is the rollercoaster ride I am on when I am in that last week of the two week wait. Up and down. Down and up. Hopeful then pessimistic. And it’s not something I really see changing any time soon. Maybe if this takes a whole lot longer it will change or become a straight line. I would love for it to change but the past 14 months have shown me that change will not come easily.

  So as my cycle ends I consider my goals for next cycle:

  Workout 5 days a week

  Continue to eat well. Incorporate more fruit.

  Find more time to clean and organize as this is therapeutic for me and I want to get my house a certain way before I head back to work.

  Talk to your friends more. Call them. FaceTime them. Go see them.

  Ask husband to drink more water closer to Trying to Conceive time

  Try Mucinex because I didn’t seem to have a lot of cervical mucus

  We’ll see about that Diva Cup thing again. I found it weird and after one round of it not working I wouldn’t miss giving it up.

  Most importantly though: Be Kind to Yourself

  This is the lesson I will have the hardest time with as beating myself up is a reflex that I need to eliminate from my psyche period. It’s not your fault you are not getting pregnant. You are trying your best. One day it will work out.

  You are going to be an amazing mother one day. And I know you won’t be comforted in the last week of the two week wait next month reading this…but just know at the end of the rollercoaster there is peace.

  There is still hope.

  Get on your mark. Ready. Set. Go.

  Baby Mayr, I’m coming for you.

  | 0 Comments Tagged Big Fat Negative, Confidence, Journey, Menses, Motherhood, Period, Trying To Conceive, Two Week Wait, Words of Inspiration

• CD 27: The Big Fat Negative Wins Again And The Race Resets

  Posted at 9:25 pm by amayr1984, on January 14, 2019

  

  I actually didn’t cry so very much this time. The saddest part is you get used to the pain. A callous forms and you can still feel it but less and less as time goes on. Over a year and you cannot help but harden to the constant disappointment. You cannot help but have the most agonizing negative thoughts after you have faced your dragon and been burned yet again. You cannot help but resent you body, and the people who get pregnant without trying and brag about it, and the people who will inevitably get pregnant before you do in the journey moving forward. Mostly you will resent those who will try in futility to comfort you when they know all you want is a baby, your own baby and not their meaningless words of “rah rah rah! You’ll get em next time Tiger!” Say do you know how many next times I have been through? Even the words lose their impact as the pain creates the callous. They hit the same hard spot and bounce right back off.

  So no I didn’t cry so much this time. I woke up at 4:30 am after having gotten a fairly decent night’s sleep (which should have also been a warning sign because I sleep terribly during the Two Week Wait when my temperatures are up). I checked my Ava against my better judgment and there was another temperature drop. It was still above the cover line but low enough that I knew that it wasn’t a promising sign. I lay there wondering should I just take the test now or would I even be able to fall back asleep with that looming over my head. After a while of laying there I decided to get it out of the way.

  On the long, but actually ridiculously short walk to the master bathroom I lived a thousand different moments of pregnancy test anxiety and reflection. I thought about all the times I had come to this same bathroom to get my heartbroken repeatedly this entire year and a couple of months now. I thought about the one chemical I had and how it had later been undone in that same bathroom hours later. I still hoped, because you always hope.

  When you grasp that package of First Response Early Response and you begin unwrapping it you can’t help but to hope. You want someone, anyone, or in this case anything to tell you that what you have already told yourself will be is wrong. You deserve that. I mean haven’t you suffered enough? You pull the stick out and pop the pink plastic top off and you think for a moment that there are so many people in the world who don’t even WANT those two pink lines who are going to get them this morning. There are so many people who are in the middle about what they want who will get them. Then there are those who absolutely are dying to get them like you this morning. Who have put on hold drinking, and coffee, and trips to Zika islands and have taken pills and vitamins and their entire sex lives have become timed intercourse…the fertility soldiers. We have put in work for it. And you pee on the stick and you dream that no matter what your temperature and your body is telling you…this time you are going to get what you deserve.

  This time you will get those two pink lines. You recap the test.

  You watch it develop. You watch as the moisture slides into the window and across that oval and you wait for that second line to fill in. You wait and you think of the look on your partner’s face when you tell him or her. You think of the joy you will feel and the time you will spend decorating the nursery as the moisture reaches the end of the window. You think of the baby shower and the surprised looks from friends and family when you tell them. And you think of the Facebook announcement and how you will recount your success, finally, to all the people in all those trying to conceive groups and message boards you are on. You remind yourself you will be sensitive that other people are trying so you will never start out bragging about how simple it was or it only happened in one cycle! Not you. You will remember that you were once them and you will write the most thoughtful recap of how YOU got YOUR very own…

  Big Fat Negative.

  

  And excuse me because I don’t know how to flip it around. That second line never colored. The last line, it always does. So you stare at it some more and you think maybe you see something. You trick yourself that those moments are still so very possible.

  You don’t see anything. Because there is nothing to see. There is nothing in your uterus. There will be nothing in your nursery. There will be no Facebook announcement.

  You hold the test up to the light to make sure you don’t see anything.

  Then you throw it in the trash because you want to get far away from it. Months previous you might have dug it out to just make sure there was nothing on it. But YOU, you are a veteran of infertility now. You know looking 6 more times won’t change anything. Besides you have to wash the deep conditioner out of your head that you wore over night so you can get back to your bed and have the good cry that is always in order and terrorize yourself with anger, self doubt and resentment.

  I texted my husband soon after. He called me from work and he is sick. I feel bad for him because I know he cannot help me and yet he wants to help me. I know he doesn’t even think about how not being pregnant is effecting him at all. But I wish he would. I wish he would say he is so disappointed too and thought we really did everything right and he will just be miserable if we don’t get pregnant some time soon as well. He doesn’t. He feels he has to be strong for me and listen to my feelings. But my feelings about my infertility have eaten our relationship whole. I don’t even know that he really likes me anymore because I am just so miserable all the time, who could? But that’s just me taking this out on myself isn’t it?

  It’s not my fault I am not pregnant. Logically I know this. I lay in the bed for a couple of hours after talking to my husband and I just go over in my mind all the what ifs and scenarios that would somehow make me even more miserable. If his brother and sister in law got pregnant before us after being married for a much shorter time. If we don’t get pregnant in the next 6 months. If we never get pregnant.

  What if I never get to be a mother? Why I won’t be happy. I won’t. I don’t know if I will never be happy because I can’t be if I do not become a mother or if I won’t allow that for myself because I keep repurposing this struggle into a personal failure?

  When I do finally wake up again it is 1:33pm and I cannot believe I slept so late. I had nightmares I can’t recall but none of them are as scary as the reality I face. Another month ahead.

  Another race. Will I ever catch Baby Mayr? Will it ever not hurt to get a negative pregnancy test.

  Will I ever smile and think…”well we got this next month!”

  I don’t know. I just know I don’t like riding this ride or running this race much at all. I don’t like knowing the hurt over and over and over again. I want to know victory.

  And why for me, potential victory means so much suffering.

  | 0 Comments Tagged Ava, Baby, Black motherhood, Depression, Fear, Hope, Hurt, Infertility, Motherhood, Pain, Sperm, Trying To Conceive, Trying To Get Pregnant

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