Infertility Blues

I've been busy lately...March of Dimes follow-up...some new charity projects...new (busy) job...getting my house organized...friends and family visiting...focusing on my health...all amongst dealing with the infertility road all over again.

I know I haven't updated on this front in awhile...and I want my blog to be well rounded...about dealing with my grief...about our infertility road...and about the adoption journey.  I haven't talked much about the last two much lately.  Honestly, it's because nothing on the adoption journey has been happening (separate post on that at some point...).

But the fertility stuff...yeah...that.  This gets into the girlie crap, so if you're not interested, or a guy, you probably want to skip this post.  I was surprised to get my period 7 weeks after I stopped pumping for Sammy...right about the time that all the information I had told me I should.  As if that were not surprise enough, I got it again on my own nearly right on schedule the next month.

For anyone that has PCOS, is anovulatory, or irregular, you know this is exciting.  To top it off, I had been getting regular cycles and we were given the all clear to try to conceive by our high risk OB.  So we've been trying.  I've been taking my basal body temperature (BBT) and between that and ovulation predictor kits (OPKs), I have detected ovulation for a number of the past few months!  My cycles have been long, but ovulation was happening.  Good news!

Bad news is that we appear to have conceived a couple of those times and had "chemical" pregnancies...or a miscarriage before the embryo ever fully implanted in my uterus.  And then, this past cycle, I haven't detected ovulation...and it's day 31 of my cycle.  Really bad news.  It isn't uncommon for women with PCOS to have this happen for a few months after a pregnancy and it's pretty exciting...and why a lot of PCOS girls have a surprise pregnancy after a birth.  I wasn't that lucky, apparently.

So that leads to our next reproductive endocrinologist (RE) appointment.  I love my RE.  I love the nurses in my program.  I just wish I didn't love them because I have spent the past FOUR YEARS working with them.  I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say about my charting.  And I'm looking forward to next steps.  From our last appointment (see the previous blog post on this from December 2012), I know he pretty much told me to see him when we were ready for IVF.

I'm not ready for IVF...YET...but I'm ready to start getting READY for it.  I have a busy few months and I told myself I wanted to get through the boys birthday.  IVF was not a great experience for me last time other than the outcome of getting pregnant, so the idea of going through it again is scary and nerve-wracking.  I also know myself and I know that I'm not ready for the emotions.  It worked the first time last time, but who's to say that will happen this time?  And then to be pregnant...I'm TERRIFIED of being pregnant again.

Plus...I wanted to surprise our family and friends...and if we're doing IVF again...there's no element of surprise...it's hard to hide from your coworkers, friends, and family that you're going to the doctor a lot to have your ovaries monitored...and it's just not how I ever pictured it...I'm still coping with that a lot.  Maybe this time there won't be complications...maybe I can keep it a secret so that we can surprise our families and friends...either way, I don't plan on any big announcements anywhere but here...and I plan on saving that for second trimester...though I will probably secretly keep a post about that 14 weeks so that I can post it after an announcement. 

So I guess after I see that I've typed that, I realize that though I'm not ready for it...and though I'm scared...I'm still excited about the possibility.  The possibility that it could be a better experience this time around.  The possibility that maybe I can keep it a secret so that we can surprise our family and friends.  And the possibility that maybe, just maybe, this time will bring us a rainbow.