Oh no, I'm in pain :(

I have a feeling that thanks to Gonal-F I cysts. With Serophine (Clomid) I got cysts. I have read online that cysts are very common with Gonal-F, so I'm sure I have some. I don't remember ever being in this much pain with them before, so now I'm worried. I'll find out on my cycle day 3 ultrasound what's going on. If the pain gets worse I will call the nurse. 

Cycle Monitoring Update

I went in this morning for my CD12 ultrasound, and I was actually surprised. My 3 little follicles from yesterday grew into mature ones. I also have 2 little ones. The 3 mature ones grew 3 mm in one day. Today they were 19, 17, 16. The two smaller ones were 13 and 12. Even though I'm happy about my 3 mature follicles, I am still wondering if I didn't respond as well as I should have to the Gonal-F. When I told my doctor I didn't think the Gonal-F was working he asked me if I wanted dynamite lol. He also asked me what I thought about having twins. I never thought I would hear him say the word twins.  All I want is one healthy baby. I will be going in tomorrow to check on my follicles again. My RE said that I should be ready to trigger tomorrow, and then have my IUI's on Monday and Tuesday. I hope all 3 mature follicles will still be there. I hopefully took my last shot of Gonal-F tonight. I'm sick of needles in my stomach. My husband gives them to me every night. He's the best!

Scared and Confused :( Gonal-F

I think that I will start to blog more often. I like to get things off of my mind, and writing is very therapeutic. Trying to have a baby has become very depressing and hard for me. I am SHOCKED that I haven't gotten pregnant yet. I thought for sure that it would have happened by now. Almost everyone I know in real life seems to have no problems conceiving. Over a year ago at my wedding there were 4 women who after we got married got pregnant and now all babies. Why couldn't that be us? I was convinced that I would be pregnant before our wedding in March 2011, but boy was I wrong. When my period returned to normal after I came off of birth control, I thought bam I would be pregnant just like that. Just like a family friend I know. The month she came off of birth control she got pregnant, but I have been off of birth control for over 2 years now, so why hasn't it happened yet? Oh, this is also the same person who threw her pregnancy in my face. She knew we were trying, but would do and say mean things to me. That's a whole other story. People in the world can be cruel.

Why am I scared? I am afraid that I will never be a mother and my husband will never be a father and that we will never have a family :( Is asking for a child too much to ask for? I mean I already have so much in my life right now that I thought I would never have. I never thought in a million years I would meet a man who I would love so much and marry. There are a lot of women out there who are single and would die for the love that my husband and I have for each other. I'm afraid that my body is wrecked and I will never be able to get pregnant. I don't respond well to fertility medications, so I am afraid that we will need IVF and the drugs they will give me won't give me enough eggs for it to work. The thought of never having children scares the hell out of me. It's a weird feeling because 5 years ago I didn't think I would ever have kids. I didn't think I would marry my husband and I never thought I would financially be able afford children.

Why am I confused? GONAL-F IS WHY!!!! I am not producing as many follicles as I thought I would be. I see women on low doses of Clomid produce more follicles than I am while I'm taking Gonal-F which I thought was supposed to be a better medication. It sure as hell costs way more. $1297 for Gonal-F so far this cycle!!!! And, who knows if we will have to buy more.  I am on cycle day 11 today and only have 3 small follicles measuring 16, 14, 13 mm. I was expecting to see way more at this point, and I was also expecting to see bigger ones. The doctor today at Isis (my fertility clinic) didn't seem to be concerned. He did say that they were growing slowly, but he said that everyone is different and that's just how my body is. He said it is like how some people are short and some people are tall, blah blah blah. I have to point out that he's not my regular RE, but he's the doctor of the day. At our clinic they have a bunch of doctors who take turns everyday seeing patients, but everyone is assigned to one doctor. When I have my IUI's and am monitored I see the doctor of the day. This is the only thing that I don't like about my clinic because it seems like the only doctor who knows anything about me is mine. The other doctors only look at what was done that day and not your whole history. It also seems like every doctor has a different opinion about things. For an example, one doctor told me that I don't need progesterone, but my own doctor said that I do. One doctor said that he likes to see FSH under 14, but another one said they like to see it under 11. I consider myself to be very lucky that I have the doctor that I have. If I had someone else, there's no way they would do the things that Dr. Ewok does for me like check progesterone levels and stuff. Back to Gonal-F. I don't understand why I'm not making that many follicles. I will be lucky and excited if I have 2 at the time of trigger which is sad because I thought that I would have had a lot more. I see women online get like 4-6 with smaller doses of Gonal-F than I am on. I have seen a few women get 9 mature follicles. Where are their follicles coming from, and why don't I have as many as them? I know I shouldn't compare myself with others, but it's very hard not to when I seem to be abnormal compared to everyone. My hope is that all 3 of the follicles I have will grow and mature for the trigger shot. I could have sworn when the doctor was showing me my follicle sizes that there were a few at 11mm, but he said I had 3. The goal is to get all three of these suckers to mature. I just feel like I have a better shot at getting pregnant with more follicles. More targets for DH's little swimmers to get to. When I saw my RE earlier this week he said he would be working all weekend, so that's very exciting for me. I'm looking forward to seeing Dr. Ewok tomorrow to see what he thinks of these little tiny follicles and to ask him why they aren't growing as fast as they did while I was on Clomid.

WOW, that was long and all over the place, but writing really helps with TTC insanity.

Oh, and if anyone is wondering why my font is so huge, it's because my vision is horrible and I like the font big lol.

My First IUI Failed :(

I don't know why, but half way through my luteal phase I had a very strong feeling that my very first ever IUI didn't work. Sure enough, I was right! AF came 2 days ago. I don't understand why it didn't work. I have been trying to figure out why every day. I can't get it out of my head. I keep obsessing. I just don't understand why a perfectly timed IUI didn't work. DH said we just weren't lucky this time. I hope he's right and we get lucky soon. 


Last month I was on 5mg of Femara for 5 days. I had an HCG trigger shot and of course progesterone suppositories. This month I will be starting Gonal-F injections for the very first time. I am quite nervous about the injections. Not because of the needle, but because of the side effects. Clomid gave me cysts, and I am afraid that Gonal-F will give me even more cysts. I have read of women having kidney failure from this stuff. Being the hypochondriac that I am, that scares the living hell out of me. The doctor prescribed me a 900IU pen that we will pick up tomorrow. We didn't pick it up today because they wanted to make sure my blood work came back normal from today. 


I had a cycle day 2 baseline ultrasound today. For the first time in a long time I have no cysts. I guess the Clomid is completely out of my body. My AFC last cycle was so low which had me very worried. It was only 6 between both ovaries. The doctor didn't seem concerned about it, but I was. Anyway, I was happy that this cycle it was 12. That's the highest AFC I have ever had. Hopefully, the Gonal-F will mature some of them. I would love to see more than one mature follicle for once. I would feel like there was a better chance if I had more than one mature follicle. Clomid or Femara didn't work, so hopefully this stuff will. The clinic never called me back today, so I will have to wait until Monday to find out what my E2 and FSH was today.


I am hoping that this cycle is the one and we get our BFP and a healthy baby! I need to keep writing because I'm going insane and need to do something about it. Journaling is therapeutic. 

I Think Progesterone is Working.

I'm 10dpo and I usually never make it past now. (I know, I am probably speaking too soon.) I made it to 11dpo once. Yesterday I thought for sure AF was going to come because I had a temperature dip, but today when I woke up my temperature spiked. If I get two more temperatures as high as today then my chart will be triphasic. I know that I'm not pregnant and triphasic charts are quite common when a woman is on Progesterone, but I will be so happy if I can for once have a normal luteal phase. I was so worried that the Progesterone wouldn't work, but now I'm confident that it will. I will stop taking the progesterone on December 26, 13dpo. That would be so awesome if I could have a 27 day cycle with a 14 day luteal phase. I think I will probably be just as excited to see a normal luteal phase as I would a positive HPT.

First Round of Treatment

On December 1 AF came. I called the fertility clinic and made appointments for cycle monitoring.  First I had to take 50mg of Clomid for five days from cycle day 3-7. The only side effect I noticed was bloating and abdominal discomfort. I could never get comfortable. I'm not sure if the Clomid worked or not. I know that it did give me more follicles and my mature follicle grew faster in a day than it did last month.
CD10 14mm and 4 smaller ones
CD11 15mm and 3 smaller ones
CD12 18mm and 14mm
CD13 19mm and 15mm


On cycle day 13 my doctor told me that my follicle was mature enough for ovulation, so he gave me an HCG trigger shot to speed up ovulation, and WOW did it ever speed things up. Usually I ovulate on or around cycle day 17, but this month I ovulated on the same day I had the HCG injection, cycle day 13. I read online that follicles aren't mature until they reach 20mm which confuses me. Why would my doctor tell me 18mm and why would he force my body to ovulate if my follicle wasn't mature enough at 19mm??? This is one of the many reasons why I need to stop going on TTC forums. There's so much misleading information.


I was also prescribed progesterone suppositories to start taking after ovulation, and oh how fun. They are little white waxy bullets that you have to shove up your miffy 2 times a day. Taking the dose at bedtime isn't bad, but in the morning it's awful. I have to wear a pad every day because I leak out white thick creamy progesterone. It also makes my pee white and bubbly LOL.


I also have some bad news. They aren't working!!! I thought they were supposed to increase my progesterone making my luteal phase longer, but I'm 9dpo and I had a temp dip today like I do every month at 9dpo. I suspect AF will show up tomorrow or the next day. Hell, I might even start spotting tonight. My temperatures were also very low and slow rising in my luteal phase meaning that my progesterone is probably still low. This sucks!!!! I think next month we will increase the progesterone from 400mg to 600mg. A doctor I saw during my monitoring told me that we would be also increasing the clomid from 50mg to 100mg.


I'm pms'ing, so I'm feeling very depressed. If the progesterone didn't work, will anything work? If the second half of my cycle isn't long enough and nothing lengthens it, will this make me completely infertile? I doubt procedures like IVF would even work because the embryo wouldn't be able to implant. I guess that means we would have to move on to a surrogate which I believe are illegal in Canada. You would have to get someone you know verses paying someone, and there is not one person in this whole entire world who would do that for me, not one!!! Maybe I will pay someone secretly and pretend to know them if it comes down to it. This is the only option I could see that would actually work. FML!!!!

Low Progesterone

I had my second fertility specialist appointment this morning. He explained everything to me. During cycle monitoring my follicle didn't grow in a day and I was quite worried about it. He said that it happened because it was too early in my cycle for the follicle to grow. It was 15mm on cycle day 10 and stayed the same on cycle day 11. On cycle day 13 it went to 18mm and by cycle day 14 (when I had an LH surge), it was 20mm. When I went back in on cycle day 17 it was gone which meant I ovulated. The doctor I saw on cycle day 17 said I ovulated on cycle day 16. It turns out my follicle grew just fine. All of my tests before yesterday came back normal, although the doctor did say my testosterone levels were elevated, but he didn't seem concerned.


Yesterday I went in for my 7dpo progesterone test. My doctor said that it was 5 times lower than what it should be. He said it was 2.2 and the normal was 10+ He prescribed me two different drugs that he said will help me. Serophene (the same thing as Clomid, but made by a different company) and Progesterone suppositories which I will have to take twice a day for 12 days after I ovulate.


I have to call them on cycle day one to book blood tests and ultrasounds to monitor ovulation. I'm very excited that something is being done! I hope this works. If I ovulate early this cycle, I will be testing on Christmas day! If I ovulate on CD14, I'll be 10dpo by Christmas. I know it's a little early, but I like to plan ahead. If I don't test on Christmas it will be on New Years.