For some reason this blog will only let me hyperlinks pictures now and not let me upload them so I can’t post the picture of her but I am sure you have all seen it.
Pregnant at 48 and beautiful and glowing! I am so happy for her. And somewhat hopeful for me. The journey is long and hard for so many of us but there is victory at the end for many of us too. We just never know when it is. I am sure she didn’t know that this is how things would turn out for her looking at the long term picture long ago…but here she is. Happy and about to bring her baby into the world. I can’t say again how wonderful it is.
I do wish it were me. I am feeling more energetic now that I am past ovulation I assume. I think I ovulated the day before but it is hard to say because charts are difficult to make much of when you triggered ovulation yourself. I’ll say yesterday because that would be 36 hours after my trigger and move from there and say today I am 1DPO.
I can still feel the hcg in my system as my nipples and the sides of my breasts hurt. Knowing that that is something I feel with hcg in my system I will keep that in mind as a possible pregnancy symptom for the future. I won’t get my hopes up too much but I will be realistic about the possibility. I am hoping that it worked.
We did SMEP again but we again had to resort to the Diva Cup insemination move the last two days. That is becoming a pattern and I wonder if it is a lot of pressure on my husband. I try to be sensitive about it because TTC is hard on both of us but I also did feel impatient the first day it happened because I don’t like having to give myself shots etc so I just want this to work and don’t want any hiccups. But I have to say we both did our best. That’s all we can really give is our best. So hopefully our best paid off.
I’m going to try to only blog during this Two Week Wait when I am having bad feelings I need to get out. Usually that is at the 7DPO mark and onward that I struggle the most.
I am hoping we caught you this cycle Baby Mayr. And that is we caught you you will stay with us and join us in the physical realm. We love you already.
I’m on the Clomid again and boy does the Clomid suck. My husband and I are getting along better but not by as much as I would like. Our time in marriage counseling though I think helped some things along for us and I am hoping that with all the challenges ahead we are not going to fold like an umbrella to the pressures of the world. My husband is a good but flawed person. Honestly if he would only get his act together with money then I could probably endure the rest as he is a really good partner otherwise except for a short temper and his believe that people are out to get him even when they wish him well.
But who among the trying to conceive is perfect? I have been a crying and anxious mess on Clomid and I can barely stand myself. Luckily my husband works a lot but unfortunately for me there is no vacation from the madness and many of my coping mechanisms are out the window.
Still jobless I can no longer afford Fit Body Boot Camp and this week thanks to Clomid (which I am gonna call CloMAD from now on because I hate it that much) I haven’t even gone the last few days I could go. I just couldn’t make myself leave the house. The disappointment of all the rejection emails from trying to get a job just has me in a place where I don’t want to be bothered. But the reality is I NEED to be bothered. Being alone all the time with everything I am dealing with just isn’t good for me.
And for a while I was doing well. I was even cooking again and pretty active about taking care of myself but with CloMAD the good days come and go just like the bad ones. I am trying very hard to be patient and positive with myself even though it feels like every little thing in my life is going wrong.
I have had some wild dreams on CloMAD and I dreamed the other day of breastfeeding a beautiful baby girl. I want children so very badly and as the time and the medications tick on I am starting to lose hope. I even had a bracelet that said hope on it that I lost just this week. So that bummed me out even more.
I just want a baby and I’m tired of all the hard work in life with no rewards. Filling out job applications and constantly being rejected. Struggling with weight loss. The Golden State Warriors struggling after the All Star Break (ok that is not that important but today it feels important) and my husband and I humping our lives away and dealing with my mood swings on medications and having no baby to show for it. All of it is just beyond overwhelming at this point.
Where is our win? And when is it coming?
Tomorrow I have my ultrasound appointment and I hope I have some follicles that are close to mature. I hope I have 60 of them. I don’t care if they say there are too many we will still have sex and try to get pregnant. I just don’t care anymore. It doesn’t seem to matter even when we do have them we do not get pregnant. I hope this time is different but it’s hard to have faith when you keep getting the same negative results as time goes on.
I also have a step 3 hearing for my case of wrongful termination at work tomorrow. I don’t expect it to be overturned or anything but it’s another step in the direction of getting me my job back and that matters a great deal to me that I may finally have my name cleared of this wrongful termination that has haunted me.
I don’t know where our win is coming from. But I am ready for it. That much I do know. And for the Warriors to start winning again.
We are still doing Sperm Meets Egg like previously explained so wish us the best. No baby dust. That shit does not work.
Posted at 2:33 am by amayr1984, on February 13, 2019
I came home from working out and I set two of the closest to expiration date pregnancy tests in the top drawer and closed it up.
I have studied my basal body temperature chart religiously for the past few hours and already I have felt some twinges in my stomach that have made me feel that Aunt Flo is on her way. There were brown specs when I wiped which I don’t know what that means but I assure you when you have tried as long as I have everything in these last few days seems like a bad omen.
Glow says my next period is scheduled to begin in 3 days and Ava says in 5. I think it is actually somewhere in between based on my chart (the spotting I used for the days I got the brown specs):
As you can see I got my dip a day after Glow claims I should have ovulated so I think that dip is the actual spot so about a day off I would say. This means I miscalculated and I can test on Valentine’s Day which would be so wonderful to get a big fat positive then. I always want to be wrong as I start to have those fears that this is again not my month.
And I have so many other fears to consider at this point as well with my impending job loss on Friday. I had great insurance and benefits so I am losing my greatest weapon in this TTC journey in that alone. My husband will move me to his insurance but I will have to come up with the money to pay for the medications myself somehow and they only get more expensive from here and my income is going to evaporate until I secure another job. I have an interview on Thursday as well as some pre interview stuff tomorrow so I am moving in the direction to make sure I won’t have a gap in wages but time is not on my side as a 34 year old trying to conceive and neither is money or my luck as it has been. I continue to have hope even in these strenuous times. I continue to work out and to meditate and to take my medications. I better go pick up all the refills I can before Friday (note to self).
I do not feel as devoid of hope as before because of course now there are other trials in my life that have overshadowed this journey so it is odd to have something else to worry about and does remove the focus off the thing that was the center of my life for quite some time now. It would honestly mean everything for me to find out I was pregnant coming up as so many new beginnings are on my horizon. I will try to stay positive because so much negative is going on in my life. I suppose no matter what that test says on Thursday there has to continue to be hope for us. I have to believe I will be a mother.
I only have to wonder what more it will cost me emotionally and now financially based on where I am at. But I should try my best not to count myself out of this thing before it’s even over.
Let’s wait for the empty window or the angry blood before we give up but let’s hope for 2 pink lines and 9 months of pregnancy instead.
Posted at 11:40 pm by amayr1984, on February 9, 2019
I am losing my job next Friday and it is one of the most heartbreaking and devastating experiences of mourning that I have gone through in some time. I absolutely love my job and everything that came with it except management. And so naturally, through some inaccuracies and misconceptions management is giving me the boot and I am entering the scariest part of my adult life.
I never thought I would be fired and it has thrown a wrench into my trying to conceive journey as well. Suddenly I couldn’t afford to go to acupuncture on Friday so that was gone. I was a wreck the first day after I found out and my doctor and my husband told me I had to not stress because I’m in the Two Week Wait and it is bad for me but who can be stress free when a whole paycheck has just evaporated into thin air the way mine is about to? I cannot be stress free. I cannot imagine how anyone can ask that of me. I need to do what I need to do and so I mourned hardcore the first two days trapped in a daze of disbelief. Cried to my mother and my husband and laid in bed watching Dynasty reruns skipping to the ones I could stomach because I am in season 7 now and it aint all good anymore.
Mostly I feel hurt to lose an amazing community of co workers and I truly enjoyed patient care. The benefits were also great. WageWorks and Priority Health are leaving me. I’m going to be entering a new territory with new struggles piled on my old struggles. And for what reason I cannot fathom. It doesn’t seem much of anything is going my way right now when I need it to most.
To make matters extra dramatic the day I test is the day I get to go in and officially get fired. So if I have a BFN of course that is really going to add to the depression of the day.
And if I have a BFP I will have some uncertainty but at the very least at least I will have some hope. More than any other month I hope I finally get my BFP. That something finally goes my way.
I have not ridden the emotional rollercoaster about my body as much this go round because I have other bigger things to worry about and endless jobs to apply for. I have so much other stuff on my mind that it hasn’t been at the forefront of my mind that I could finally become a mom or get two slaps in the face on the same day. My number one focus is applying for any and every job under the sun I can get my hands on.
I know and believe I will be vindicated in the long run and my name will be cleared. I believe that. I just don’t know what to make of the times ahead.
The new medications they expect me to take sound crappy if I am not pregnant this go round. Clomid and Ovidrel and Prometrium and there was a complicated schedule and calendar to it all…it’s only gonna get more twisted from here and we aren’t even talking IUI at this point. No we are talking about a whole bunch of shots just to do timed intercourse yet again. I don’t want that for myself. At age 34 the idea of stacking on more and more and more is just taxing.
Talking to my husband’s sister in law last night she said she and her husband plan to start trying in April. I hope their journey is much speedier than ours but I won’t lie that I would likely be jealous if they have the first child after we have been struggling along for such a while. I’ll be happy for them but disappointed of us.
But I am hopeful I am wrong this go round and that things are certainly going to work out in our favor. As I move forward with trying to piece my life back together I am going to try to seek more positive energy because I have seen some of the most negative things between the death of my father a couple years ago, my fertility struggles and the sudden loss of my job. I haven’t led a bad life and have usually gotten what I wanted so these last few years have truly been shockers. I can only hope for the best that they will get better and that happiness is around the corner and not more sadness.
I do not even know where we are in the race this time because I’m so focused on so many other things. But we will see what happens. Soon enough
Posted at 6:10 am by amayr1984, on February 5, 2019
If you have read any of my previous posts from the cycles before you will realize that one of my great struggles with infertility (besides of course the whole not getting pregnant thing) is wrestling with the dreaded Two Week Wait.
The Two Week Wait is a time of such anxiety for many women who are trying to get pregnant so this isn’t something unique to me and for most of it, typically I am fine. The last week of it I become a monster of mood swings and anxiety before crying my eyes out because of my negative test or getting my period and then quiet acceptance of the fact that I live to try to get pregnant another month.
I make it through though it is an annoying and hellacious rollercoaster ride. In talking with my husband tonight I realized that some of the worst feelings during this time is the anxiety of did we really do everything we possibly could to get pregnant?
And there really isn’t a hell of a lot you can do except try to have sex on the right days and take your prenatal and not smoke or drink too much and hope for the best. There is so little control in all of this that the lack of control itself can become a source of anxiety because we know we can’t do much about it but we know it just happens to so many people do why isn’t it just happening to us?
Often times my husband and I struggle to get to or stick to a plan that is consistent with Trying to Conceive because it is work. The sex isn’t extremely romantic and sometimes you really don’t feel like having sex at all. It’s a grind at 15 months and we have tweaked and then not gone through with the tweaking because someone didn’t want to do it that much or couldn’t or whatever.
And then when you are in the Two Week Wait you just sit there and you think bitterly “well what if we had done it that one more day!” Those nagging doubts sit on your mind as you wait. You look at your calendar repeatedly and gauge your chances, check your basal body temperature chart and obsess over your Ava data all that week hanging on to hope while sanity slips away.
And this is where Sperm Meets Egg came in and has been a centering force for me. Having a plan, and sticking to the plan and executing it makes you feel like no matter what we gave it our best shot. And knowing that provides some kind of peace because as I said you can’t control much of anything about getting pregnant anyway. But the sex schedule, well that you can control. And Sperm Meets Egg makes a LOT of sense.
The basic break down of the plan is that you start having sex every other day from Cycle Day 8 on. You take ovulation predictor kits and when you get a positive you have sex those next three days in a row, skip a day and have sex one more time. This, to me is great because it allows you to cover a wide span of your calendar without making your partner stay on top of you every other day all cycle as some other plans suggest. Perhaps for those in their 20s that is sustainable but I am 34 and my husband is 40 and we just don’t have the stamina for that much robotic sex. That also leaves us some time at the end of the month to have actual lust based sex which I think makes my husband happy.
Today we completed the Sperm Meets Egg plan. I am pretty sure I ovulated two days ago but we had sex on that day and yesterday was our break and today was our last day. As I spoke with my husband I realized that I was at peace because I know we researched a plan (ok I researched it) we executed it and now we gave the best shot we could towards pregnancy. The rest is up to nature, my body and whatever magic the universe has that is involved with this. But I did my part. There are no regrets on my end and no doubts.
And losing that anxiety means the world. Have you tried this plan? Do you have another plan? Feel free to talk to me!
Posted at 5:32 am by amayr1984, on February 3, 2019
Well according to Glow my Two Week Wait started yesterday…BUT since Ava was more accurate last cycle I used Ava as my guide for when the Two Week Wait starts
Today. So today the rollercoaster begins. And as the hearts indicate my husband and I gave it a pretty good go. Waiting for my temperature to spike to confirm ovulation which I hope happens tonight going into tomorrow. I am very excited and hopeful right now…but I remain realistic. This is my third round of Letrozole and we did have some decent follicles showing so I am just allowing myself the space to accept that we gave it our best shot and what will be will be. We really couldn’t have done much different. The past two days my husband had some difficulty because his stomach was bothering him so we used a menstrual cup as a way to sort of inseminate and I put my legs in the air while I did my meditation. I am hopeful that will be good enough for those days but we have had quite a bit of sex and have stayed hydrated and so I am not sure what more we could have done at all.
This is the tricky part. You can do everything right and still come up short. So you have to try to focus and stay positive because honestly there is no way to predict success with this.
You just have to…wait. For Two Weeks. So I will check in periodically and blog about my emotions like I normally do. I will be testing this cycle on the 15th with first morning urine. And I will go in hopeful that I won’t become a complete emotional wreck like I usually do. And that my husband and I don’t get into any fights and that we remain peaceful. That’s what I want is lots and lots of peace.
I cooked today which was huge for me and I talked to my brother on FaceTime which was very necessary because the Polar Vortex had me going stir crazy. I may make my way to the gym tomorrow. The weather has broken and it is much warmer. I am ready to get out of the house for a bit. It will do wonders for my depression. That much I know.
Anyone else going through the Two Week Wait with my I wish you lots of peace and lots of luck. I hope this is our time.
Posted at 5:11 am by amayr1984, on January 24, 2019
I love Acupuncture. I complain about how expensive it is often but I absolutely love how I feel in those moments when those needles are in. I feel like I drift away into this trance of sleep where I can hear my thoughts and my feelings more clearly. It is hard to describe but I imagine a lot of people feel this way when they get it done.
I have been going once a week now since last August. I was hopeful that this would help with my infertility and while I feel like it may have improved some things, of course I am still not pregnant and that is concerning for me monetarily so I am wondering if I will continue going at the same frequency if we don’t get any results.
I would miss it though. I love being that in tune with my body and my emotions and it is about the best sleep I ever get is when those needles are in. Afterward I usually want to go home and just lay day and take a nice nap. And most days I do.
When they put those needles in one thing I find kind of cool is sometimes one side of my body is more sensitive than the other. People will say acupuncture doesn’t hurt but sometimes a certain part of your body or side in my case most times can be super sensitive and you can feel the pressure big time. Today my left side was super sensitive and I almost wanted to yell out when she was putting the needles into my ears and legs. My stomach though I didn’t feel much. Once the needles were in I drifted away and I remember feeling so relaxed and at peace.
When she came back in she did some work with a laser on my abdomen and on my back that was supposed to help with infertility. I absolutely hate she had to wake me up from my amazing time traveling sleep for this but I dozed off again while she was doing that. Honestly I didn’t even want to leave I just wanted to lay on that bed and sleep all day. Something about acupuncture just puts you in the perfect mindset and space for sleeping. I know one day they left me back there and I was knocked out for an hour. And as I said usually I want to go straight home for a good old fashioned nap.
Today I am proud of myself because I resisted that desire and actually stayed out and got some errands done. Got all my medications for this great fertility journey picked up and I worked out at the earlier class tonight just in case the late class got canceled again. I actually felt mostly good working out today and less gassed. Not much less but I’ll take any improvement I can. Tomorrow is yoga thankfully so I should be worked out but not out of breath.
I am looking forward to a job interview in the morning for working at an elementary school. I hope I get it. I love kids and I think being around them right now might also be really uplifting for my spirits. So wish me the best of luck on that.
Lastly I hope my husband and I can get back to a good place emotionally. We will still try but we have a lot of issues to work on and things that I want addressed with money so we can move on. We deserve better from each other and it has just been such a long grinding road trying to have this baby and keep a healthy marriage. I hope some good news and a break is coming our way soon.
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.
Posted at 2:09 am by amayr1984, on January 11, 2019
Last night was absolutely treacherous for me. I stayed up all night being sick. I threw up this morning and it was painful. I don’t know if I have a stomach bug or what is going on. As with anything in the Two Week Wait the fear at that point becomes “am I jeopardizing my potential for conception?” You know that is the drag of the Two Week Wait. You think everything is going to cause you to not become pregnant, however there is nothing you can really do even if you know that is the fact. I can’t not have a stomach bug.
The worst however was losing my appetite. I have struggled with that in the past with my depression, most significantly when my father passed. Today being sick and throwing up made me not anxious to eat, however I got some chicken noodle soup at Chic Fil A before our couple’s counseling session.
That only went OK today. I thought we were going in on really good terms but I took a ton of offense when my husband said he was worried about me and my sleeping so much and struggling to have a good appetite. I felt attacked because I really feel like I put a great effort into TRYING to be ok even when all of this is very overwhelming. I exercise. I eat healthy when I do eat and I do not sleep well when I sleep. Part of why I have been sleeping so much lately is that my luteal phase causes me to be very restless when I sleep. The hormone shifts keep me awake at night. I am sure my husband meant well but hearing things like that make me feel hopeless because I feel like I am carrying a lot of weight trying to achieve this pregnancy. I am taking a ton of medications it seems like and that Metformin just really makes me feel awful but I know it is helping me ovulate so I soldier on. Maybe I need to get on a more regular schedule and start taking it closer to the same time but I always take it with my first meal and that all depends on when I get up and when I feel like eating.
I wish I felt like my husband trusts that I am going to take care of myself during this pregnancy. What he was saying today made me feel inadequate in a time where I feel like I am giving everything I can.
Here is the thing: I do enjoy sleeping and I want to do that without setting off alarm bells that I am in some kind of crisis with my husband. My depression largely manifests as loss of appetite and sleeping so I get why he is alarmed but I am not in a bad place right now in my opinion and the hardest part of dealing with depression is having people watching you waiting for you slip back. You want them to enjoy you while you’re well and just be supportive when you’re not. My doctor took me off my medications for this attempt at pregnancy so I am giving it all my best and taking medication that regulates your blood sugar and has the side effect of suppressing your appetite is not going to make you extremely energetic either.
The best support a person can give someone who is trying to conceive is to listen, and don’t judge. I am sure my husband has very reasonable concerns and I need to listen to them too. And try not to be so sensitive about them but it is hard not to be sensitive when you are giving your all to something. I hope in time we can gain understanding. I know I am going to be a great and healthy mother and I know I am going to take care of our baby when we are pregnant.
As of right now though I am not sure of how I feel. If I think I am pregnant or not. Time passes when I am sure I am going to have twins for some reason I can’t explain then at other times that dread washes over me that I will get another negative test on Monday and be gearing up to chase Baby Mayr all over again for the 15th time. I asked my husband how he will feel if we’re not pregnant. He said “I’m reserving my feelings for my own blog.”
At least I can laugh during the two week wait. And having a sparkling water since I drink til it is pink.