Testing him

I was going to try to wait to talk with B about the semen analysis until next cycle. “Try” being the key word. Instead I opted to hand him the sheet the doctor gave me describing the analysis in detail during the commercial break of a football game. I admit, poor planning on my part. Bless his heart, my poor husband’s face was hysterical as he read through everything. He looked up at me with horror in his eyes and said “so they want me to jerk off at the doctors office?!” Crude, but hysterical.

I am not sure what exactly he thought his testing would consist of, but apparently the true meaning never crossed his mind. Since I should ovulate this weekend, he either needs to get tested early this week or sometime next week. I tried to explain this to him, but he still couldn’t get over what they were actually asking him to do!

FYI – for those of you that asked about combining the semen analysis and IUI: it turns out that my RE wants me to have at least one medicated cycle with B here before trying an IUI. Even though we have had 6 medicated cycles, this will be the first with the RE. Thanks for the suggestion though! It was something I hadn’t even considered.

I pray that his test results come back okay. I don’t know how he will react if he finds out that something is wrong with him.

Open Enrollment

It’s that time of year again – open benefits enrollment at work. I am not worried about the actual benefits part as I use my husband’s military insurance for everything except dental. Instead I am trying to figure out how much money to put into my flexible spending account – i.e. how much do I think our IF treatments will cost this year. Crap! I am frustrated that I even have to budget for this.

I really think this might be our cycle. The Femara worked great last cycle making me ovulate earlier than ever before. B is finally back and excited to get moving on the baby making. Plus this is when we got pregnant last year. I found out right before Thanksgiving that I was pregnant. It shocks me to realize that it has almost been a whole year since our loss. I was so sure I would get pregnant before my EDD of the first pregnancy. When that date passed in late July, I was positive I would get pregnant by the time the one year anniversary of our loss passed. You think I wouldn’t be so sure that this is our cycle with all of that weighing on my shoulders, but somehow I still am.

Which leads me to my current predicament – how should I budget for next year. I know I can use the money in a flexible spending account on a lot of different things so it’s not like it would be wasted if I put too much in for IF treatments. The uncertainty just bugs the crap out of me which really isn’t too surprising since I am a financial analyst. I have until November 9th to decide – unfortunately I won’t know if this cycle works by then. Oh well, this builds character – right?

Gassy anyone?

Today is CD 6, day 4 of Femara. So far I think B agrees that the side effects of Femara are much less severe than Clomid. I am not sure if it is the Femara, but dang am I gassy. Thank goodness we have dogs that I can blame it on! Especially since one of them has horrendous gas normally.

I haven’t decided when or how I am going to approach the whole semen analysis issue. He has never voiced resistance but I know he isn’t exactly overjoyed with the idea. I think I might wait to see how this cycle turns out before I start bugging him about setting up an appointment. It’s funny how I am so optimistic that this cycle will work. I am not sure why – I think in the back of my mind I’ve decided that something in Afghanistan gave B super sperm!

Back to reality

We had a wonderful time in the Smoky Mountains! The weather was beautiful and perfect for hiking. It was so nice to be able to spend time together again. We did occasionally bicker, but I had to stop myself from getting too upset about it. How many times does a normal couple bicker over the course of 4 months? Our conversations during his deployment were condensed to 10-15 minutes every week or two. Thankfully we didn’t argue during that time. We decided that if you add up all the times we could have argued, but didn’t – we are doing damn good!

Here is a picture:


After his last deployment we had to deal with the transition of him coming back home. The military calls it reintegration. We received a lot of information about it before his first deployment. I didn’t think we would need it because we were newlyweds – he left 5 weeks after we got married. Boy was I wrong! It started about a week after he came home, after the newness had worn off, and lasted about a week. I had to make myself not yell at him over the smallest things like if he put away the groceries wrong or didn’t empty the dishwasher correctly.

He has now been home a week and damn if I am not fighting the same feelings of trying not to kill the poor man! I know it will get better in the next few days, but it just makes me feel terrible. The military stresses that you need to take thing slowly because like deployment, reunion is a process, not an event. Easy to say but not so easy to tell the ‘ol hormones to calm the hell down!

And now for the good news – no UTI!! Yay! I was so happy…and so was he! Thanks again for the advice about the prophylactic antibiotics.

Let the games begin!

My husband is finally home from his deployment!!

I am in a funk. My husband still isn’t home. He never actually gave me a date when he would be home - I just thought he would be here by now. Then I had a horrible experience at the salon last night which still has me angry. Combine the two and you have one pissed off, slightly hormonal basket case with a cute new haircut

The girl who cuts my hair knows about our situation – Clomid made my super straight hair curly and now Letrozole is making my stupid hair fall out. She was convinced I was pregnant when my hair started getting curly which is when I made the fatal mistake of telling her. I didn’t realize how fatal it was until last night.

Within the first 5 minutes of my haircut one of the other stylists joked that my stylist was pregnant – I missed why this was funny, but everyone laughed. She is 31 and just had her third child about a year ago. Apparently she thought it would be hilarious to say that she would sell her baby if she ever got pregnant again. Then when she realized what she said, or maybe saw the expression on my face, decided it was best to tell me everything bad about pregnancy – saggy boobs, losing hair, hot flashes, no sleep, etc. I told her I had 3 out of the 4 symptoms with just my fertility meds.

She also told me that I really hadn’t tried very long so I shouldn’t be discouraged because it took her a “long time” to get pregnant with her third. A “long time” to her meant 6 months of “kind of” trying. I didn’t feel the need to go back through the 18 months of trying including one miscarriage and 6 rounds of fertility meds. I realize that when someone is trying even 2 months seems like a long wait, but knowing my circumstances I figured she would be more sensitive.

I am losing my patience fast! Please husband, come home SOON … before I start getting violent!

My RE called on Friday afternoon to make sure he understood my request for the prophylactic antibiotic. Apparently the actual message got lost in translation from the nurse because he thought I already had a bladder infection that I wanted treated before my husband returned home. Once the story got straightened out he was glad to write me the prescription – with 5 refills!

He also told me that my ultrasound showed a cyst on my right ovary. He thinks this is the pain that I’ve been feeling over the past few months. I am relieved because I thought it might by my endometriosis coming back. The cyst doesn’t look bad so they are just going to monitor it for now.

Still not sure when my husband is coming home. He did ask me to reactivate his cell phone and car insurance by the end of the week. I rented us a beautiful cabin in the Smoky Mountains for the 18th-21st, so he best be home by then!

I spent the majority of this weekend cleaning like a mad-woman. I am so excited for B to come home that I decided everything had to look perfect. Not really a good idea for the ‘ol sanity. Especially considering it is forecasted to rain tomorrow. We really need the rain, but my freaking white kitchen floor has no chance of staying spotless with two dogs in the rain! Plus Count must be blowing his coat because my floors seem to be covered in his hair! We did buy the FURminator a few months ago – I can’t imagine how much hair would be on my floors if we didn’t have it. If you click the link you will see pictures of dogs with piles of hair surrounding them. We thought that was just a marketing ploy until we saw the amount of hair we got off our cattle dog. It really was amazing. But to be honest, right now I just wish we could bald the dog and be done with it!

Open and ready for business!

I just got a call from my RE nurse – my tubes are both open and my uterus looks great! She said it was the only normal test result from that day. Although I didn't think anything was wrong (after the preliminary results of the HSG), I was very relieved to actually hear it.

And more good news: a positive OPK!


I've never received a positive result before. And I got it on day 15, which also has never happened before! Now if only my husband would get his behind home, we could get this show on the road.

The side effects from Letrozole have been less severe and not as long lasting as Clomid. Does anyone know if unusual hunger is a side effect?! I sure hope it is because I have been so hungry the past few weeks. I mean to the point of waking up in the middle of the night to my stomach growling. I am going to pretend it’s a side effect either way.


Thanks to Katie and Kristin for recommending prophylactic antibiotics in an effort not to get a UTI the day after he gets home. I didn’t realize that there was such a thing. My RE nurse is going to ask the doctor about it and get back to me today. I would like to get it today in case he surprises me and comes home early!

October

It is finally October! This is the month that B is coming home. I can’t wait! He can’t tell me the date, but I think it will be in the next two weeks. We are planning to rent a cabin in Tennessee for a long weekend to just relax and hike with the dogs.

Last year when he got back from deployment we had a huge ski trip planned and it became way too stressful. He ended up getting delayed first in Afghanistan and then in Germany. He didn’t make it home until the day before we were supposed to leave. We also learned during that vacation that it can be very overwhelming to go from not seeing each other at all for several months to being around each other constantly in a small ski lodge.

The theme for this homecoming is stress-free – other than the obvious fertility stress.

I am on day 14 of my cycle. I have two concerns that I know I have no control over, but still can’t help thinking about.

1.) My period might come on or right before he gets home. I know this isn’t a big deal, but I got my period the day before he left and it sucked. It would be nice to be able to properly welcome him home! :) My cycles are so unpredictable and seem to be getting longer – the last one was 50 days. Not sure how Letrozole will impact everything. It would be wonderful if I was ovulating when B came home, but doubtful.

2.) I will get a bladder infection when he comes home. This happened last time and it also sucked. Bless his heart, he got to do it twice before I had to cut him off for a week – this happened on our fateful ski trip noted above. I wish there was a way to prevent the dreaded UTI, but I do everything I am supposed to (pee before, pee after) and nothing seems to help. I hope that the recent violations - the ultrasound and HSG – might at least help get me ready for when he comes home. Yes, that is sad but true.