Uterus Repairs Completed

11/4/13.  I am currently on CD5 and awaiting for ovulation aka my fertile window to arrive. I have started temping again this cycle and will be using OPK's so I can have the best knowledge available to me of when ovulation will be occurring, so we can have sex at the best possible time so we can hopefully get ktfu again. 

I'm really excited to be able to try and get pregnant again. I'm not scared of getting pregnant or worried about getting pregnant because I KNOW we will get pregnant. I am scared of staying pregnant. Staying pregnant is the goal but I am terrified that I will never stay pregnant. It is a chance I'm willing to take at this point in time.

At my last appointment with my RE I told him I have hope but absolutely no confidence. RE thought I described this perfectly and at this point in my journey was to be expected. I do have confidence that RE knows what he's doing and is great at his job, but I really have no confidence that I will ever achieve a pregnancy resulting in a live baby. Hope yes. Confidence none. 

I know how awful and sad I must sound. This is one of the things that multiple pregnancy loss does to you. It strips you of your confidence and takes away all naivety. I know I will never have a normal pregnancy, I will always worry that something is going to go wrong. It's not fair that I live in such fear and have began to expect failure. It is what it is at this point and I hope to be proven wrong about failure. A girl can dream, right?

First Period And Hysteroscopy After Septum Surgery

After finishing the estrogen and progesterone last month, I was to contact my RE when my period(AF: aunt flow) started so I could get a follow-up hysteroscopy scheduled. My period showed up in a timely manner and I got the hysteroscopy scheduled on 10/18/13 (CD12).

My first AF after the septum surgery was longer and a lot heavier than my normal pre-surgery periods. This was to be expected since the purpose of the estrogen was to build my uterine lining to flood the surgical site to help prevent & minimize scarring.  On my chart below, it shows AF was mostly moderate to heavy flow and lasted 8 days. My normal periods are 4-5 days and mostly light to moderate flow.

On 10/18/13 I had my follow up hysteroscopy. This was an office-hysteroscopy, meaning no surgery prep and if anything leftover, scarring, whatever else to be found would be found, nothing would be done about it at this time. Thankfully, everything looked great on the hysteroscopy and both fallopian tube entrances (Ostia) could be visualized. No scarring was seen and the surgical site looked great. Things looked so good RE gave me clearance to try to conceive this cycle. The original instructions said to wait 8 weeks before getting pregnant & I was only at 6 weeks post surgery. I let RE know that if ovulation occurred in it's typical pattern I would only be about 7 weeks out from surgery. He still decided this was fine but mentioned he didn't think I would get pregnant this cycle due to all of the hormones I had taken during my surgery cycle.

After the hysteroscopy, everything was great until a few hours later. I started having intense cramping, this happened to me the last time I had this procedure also so I wasn't really surprised. What did surprise me was I had some continued cramping the next couple of days after. Looking at my chart below you'll see (on a scale of 1-5) I gave cramping a 5 the day of my hysteroscopy, a 3 the day after and a 1 two days after. This is where things get a little crazy & my mind (also crazy) takes over and gets the best of me.

I had egg-white cervical mucus (EWCM) the day after my hysteroscopy CD13. This is usually a great sign of being fertile. At first I attributed the EWCM to the hysteroscopy and assumed it was just cm that had been stirred up since my cervix & uterus had been messed with the day before. My thoughts started taking over when the cramping continued -- as I didn't recall having any extended cramping after my first hysteroscopy. I had 3 different brands waaaayyy expired OPK's so I tried them out in the morning on CD14. The first one was ALMOST positive, the second one was a definite negative, and the digital was a definite negative. After work that evening I bought new opk's and tested them to which both brands were negative. I continued to do daily OPK's and each day the test line got lighter until it was almost nonexistent. I wasn't really sure if I was going to have a wacky cycle and ovulate really late or if I wasn't going to ovulate. Since I wasn't temping I had no idea WTF was going on.

To my surprise, my period showed up on Halloween. The only sign of AF showing was crying. I cry about everything for a week before AF shows. So when AF actually did show up I was pleasantly surprised. What's strange about this though is that my cycles are typically 30-35days long, so 24days is UNHEARD of for me. If I really did ovulate, it would've most likely been on cd12-cd14 which is also UNHEARD of for me --- I typically ovulate on CD17-CD22 (see my chart below the line that says stats with the green boxes, those are my predicted ovulation days based on my normal ovulation pattern).



Post Surgery: Final Days

When I left off in my last post I was 7days post surgery and on CD13 on 9/11/13.  The chart below is my completed chart from my surgery cycle and shows everything that went on. I'll explain it briefly after the following highlights:

• My CM (cervical mucus) continued to be pretty amazing. Just a reminder that the ****'s noted represent light bleeding/spotting along with my CM. Anywhere you see the asterisks I needed a pad--it was that heavy. 

• On CD22 9/22/13 the balloon catheter (aka Ballooterus) was removed & I started progesterone.

• There are a lot of days with cramps marked on them. If the cramps aren't noted with a numerical value, it was really just a dull ache that I noticed off and on throughout the day. Only cramps with numerical values were when I needed a pain reliever (like ibuprofen).

 

The last 4 days before ballooterus was removed I had some intense cramping off and on, so I was extremely ready for the removal. Two days before the removal I was pretty uncomfortable and was having a weird sensation, so I started "feeling" around--mainly just touching my labia, when I felt something hard & plastic coming out of my vagina. I made DH take a peek & a picture, all he could see was a tiny little white plastic tip of some sort. I did some pelvic thrusts and started feeling a little more comfortable & could no longer feel the plastic catheter tip. The balloon catheter removal was 2 weeks after the surgery. The removal itself was really quick and there was brief pain during the removal. I had taken 800mg ibuprofen before the removal and was glad that I did. After the removal I went to work and my day was normal, no unusual cramping.

After ballooterus was removed I started progesterone(Provera) along with my estrogen(Premarin). When I was on the estrogen only I did have quite a few days of hot flashes. When I started the progesterone I felt fine at first, but as time went on I became pretty crazy--hormonal/emotional. As you can see above my mood was all over the place. I was bad enough that I knew I was crazy. I had been advised that Provera can cause fatigue & I concur with that - as I had quite a few days of feeling tired while I was on it.

My period returned 4 days after finishing the estrogen & progesterone. I called my RE's office and scheduled my follow-up hysteroscopy.

Post Surgery Experience Continued

9/8 /13- 9/13/13

Not much to really report in these days. All has been going pretty well. I finally went back to work and I've been pleasantly surprised as I really thought the balloon-catheter was going to be extremely uncomfortable. 

I have had some extreme cervical mucus (CM) and every once in a while I get the sensation of something being there. So see my note at the bottom of the page about this in more detail.

9/8/13 3Days After Surgery: I felt pretty good all day. My bm's have gone back to "my normal." We went to my parent's house for a BBQ. By the time we left I was having a little bit of cramping, so when I got home I took ibuprofen for pain relief. I still had some discomfort when I went to bed so I took Demerol.

9/9/13 4Days After Surgery: My final day off from work. I cleaned the house and got everything in order for the week. Overall feeling extremely well. I took one dose of ibuprofen in the afternoon - no pain/cramping but I figured it couldn't hurt and could help with the inflammation going on in my uterus.

9/10/13 5Days After Surgery: I went back to work at 2:30PM for a half-day. I was nervous because I'm up walking around on my feet all day long at work. Everything went smooth.

9/11/13 6Days After Surgery: This morning was my last dose of doxycycline (antibiotic), and I was glad to be done with it as doxy upsets my stomach. I worked all day today. Had some slight cramping in the late afternoon so I took ibuprofen. When I got home from work my belly was upset. I tried to go to bed but I was up off and on for 2 hours with some episodes of diarrhea. I was finally able to go to sleep and slept through the night.

9/12/13 7Days After Surgery: When I woke up my belly was still upset, some more loose-stools, some minor cramping this morning. Even with the cramps, I felt better than I did the night before. Again, working all day. My belly pain and cramping went away by mid-morning. All was well while at work. When I was driving home from work I started to get emotional/teary-eyed and overall just in a bad mood - no known reason.

9/13/13 8Days After Surgery: When I woke up today I was still emotional and very teary-eyed on my drive to work. Again at work all day and everything was good at work. Overall mood-wise I was back to myself by the end of the day. When I got home, I had cramping at bedtime. I couldn't find a comfortable position so I ended up taking some Demerol. This is the first time I've had anything stronger than ibuprofen in 4 days.


Other:
Most of the time I don't notice the balloon-catheter at all. There are some times when I notice it. It's hard to describe the feeling as it's not painful and not really uncomfortable, just there. It's kind of like feeling something is stuck at the back of the vagina (obviously right? ha) or like pressure at the urethra (pee hole), feeling like I need to pee - although I don't. It's really more of a nuisance. Typically I can do some pelvic thrusting or pelvic lifts to get this "kink" worked out. Sometimes if I go pee or even if I don't pee but wipe, the feeling dissipates.

Cervical Mucus
The first couple of days after surgery I noticed my pads and when I wiped the tp would be pretty moist/wet. I'm fairly certain that this really was the fluid they used during the surgery draining, especially since I was having the mini-queef feeling when I would pee.  However this only lasted a couple of days. After that stopped, I started to notice that my pads and tp were still moist but looked more like a creamy/lotion type of fluid that lasted for 3 days (9/7 - 9/9). I realized this was actually CM on 9/10/13 as I had EWCM (egg-white cervical mucus). My CM has been on overdrive and I attribute this to the Premarin (estrogen) that I've been taking. See my chart pic below to see my CM notes. I also have ****'s under menses starting the day of my surgery @ CD7. The ****'s represent bleeding. It has not been anything more than what I consider Light flow.

Post Surgery Experience

9/5 /13- 9/7/13
A balloon catheter was placed in my uterus during the surgery and will be removed in two weeks. I was prescribed Demerol, Toradol and Ibuprofen for pain. Toradol and Ibuprofen aren't supposed to be taken together, so when I switch to Ibuprofen I have to wean myself off of Toradol. I also am taking Doxycycline (antibiotic) twice a day and Premarin (estrogen) daily for 1month.

9/5/13 Surgery Day:
I had a little bit of pressure in my vag/uterine area that I can only describe as a pressure similar to when you're a kid riding a bicycle and you hit your vag on the top bar of the bike. It's like that type of throbbing/pulsating once the initial shock wears off. I don't know if this pressure was pain or just the area really kind of throbbing or if it was the cervical block wearing off. It only lasted the day of the surgery and wasn't really painful at all. Just noticeable. I did however continue to take Demerol every 4-6hours.

Peeing was strange at first. Everything was fine until the end of the pee. Then it was like some excess air/fluid being released. I describe this as a mini-queef-like experience. This happened every time I peed.

I didn't sleep very well the night of my surgery. All of the pain meds caused me to feel nauseous (despite taking nausea meds), so I woke up and dry heaved a bit. I did have some cramping, nothing too bad. Honestly, I think the cramping might have been enhanced by my bowels. I'm a normal two-a-dayer and the anesthesia + narcs can cause some slowing of the bowels and constipation, so I know I was probably a little "backed up" for me.

9/6/13 1Day After Surgery:
After dry heaving (above) I went back to sleep for a bit. I woke up again around 4:30AM from cramps (which I was laying on my stomach when I woke up) so I got up and took some more Demerol. I went back to sleep and woke up around 9AM. I felt fine most of the morning, but started to notice a little pressure so I took some Toradol around 12:30PM. I fell asleep and woke back up in the middle of the afternoon (I think I was just tired from not sleeping well during the night). I felt great the rest of the day. Peeing I still had that same mini-queef experience I describe above. At one point I described it to DH as feeling like having "trapped air" in there, to which I ended up laughing hysterically at because I do, in fact, have trapped air up there :D !!! I ended up taking Demerol before bedtime and slept all through the night. Still no BM today, so I'm still attributing some of the cramping to my bowels.

9/7/13 2Days After Surgery:
I woke up at 8AM and finally a bm! I was nervous at first about this, so I tried my best not to "push". I felt so great today that I didn't even take any pain meds. Around noon I did take some more Toradol as I was feeling a little bit of pressure and I wanted to see if the Toradol was what made me sleepy yesterday or not. No afternoon nap so I'm saying Toradol does not cause drowsiness. Peeing is better today, no more of that mini-queef feeling. I will say that most of the day I have been able to tell that something is off down there. It's like a dull feeling...kind of like the dull pressure a uti causes you to feel. Kind of like you have to pee, but you don't really have to pee.  No cramping today so far and again another bm at 3PM.

Operative Hysteroscopy: Surgery Day!

Thursday 9/5/13: Surgery Day!
I woke up around 5:45AM, quickly showered and then took my pre-op meds. I got dressed and then woke DH up. Last time I had a procedure done we were almost late because the meds knocked me out and DH didn't wake up to his alarm! We left the house at 7AM.

I arrived at my RE's office a little before my arrival time of 7:45AM and was taken back to the recovery room. First they had me give a urine sample so a hpt could be done. Considering I was at cd7 this is ludicrous, but I understand they have to do it for their own liability. I didn't think I was going to be able to pee, but finally I was able to get a little bit out. 

Next I changed into a hospital gown, socks and a hat. Then I was hooked up to some monitors. The nurse verified what meds I had taken that morning and then gave me a shot of toradol. She then started an IV and we waited for RE to arrive. The nurse walked me to the operating room and got me situated onto the table. I remember RE coming in and getting stuff set up as well as administering a cervical block. I don't remember much after this as whatever meds they pushed pretty well knocked me out. I do remember coming to a little bit and they were discussing my bladder being in the way. I remember the nurse laughing a little bit and saying "she only gave me a little sample for the hcg test." I guess from there they drained my bladder for me. My bladder apologizes for being shy earlier, sorry staff as that's one more thing you had to encounter! Next thing I remember is being woke up and I moved over to the transport bed and was wheeled back to the recovery room I originally started in.

DH said I was only in the procedure room for 45minutes tops. I think they kept me in recovery for about an hour afterwards. As I finally started to really wake up, the nurse came in and asked if I wanted anything. I asked for water. I drank a little bit of it and then continued to rest. Finally the nurse came back in and said I could get dressed and would be able to leave. She told me that I might have to pee a lot as she had administered Lasix (water retention relief med). Apparently this is to help expel excess fluids that they use during the procedure. I managed to get dressed on my own and dh & I headed home.

I called both of my parents on my way home and let them know that all had went well and I was headed home. I don't remember much from the rest of the day as I was pretty drowsy and the pain meds had me pretty sedated.

My 2wk follow-up apt is scheduled for 9/20/13.

3. Saline-Sonogram Comparison

My Saline-Sonogram Pictures: My uterus is clearly separated into two areas. There should not be two separate black areas.

 

Normal Saline Sonogram picture. The uterus visualized below is one solid black area, no separation.

 

 

 

 

 

2. Hysteroscopy Comparison

This is what my uterus looks like on a hysteroscopy exam.

The next two pics are what a normal uterus looks like:

 

 

 

 

 

 

My uterus zoomed in on the hysteroscopy:

 

 Normal septum appearance on a hysteroscopy:

 

 

 

 

 

1. Uterine Anomalies for Reference

Pictures of common types of uterine anomalies/malformations.

 

My saline-sonogram and hysteroscopy both say I have what's considered a Subseptate Uterus (#3). I had a MRI done, no septum was visualized but it did say I had a slight Arcuate (#2) uterus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to the saline-sonogram & hysteroscopy I'm categorized into V Septate (b) Partial.

The MRI categorizes me into VI Arcuate.

 

From my hysteroscopy pictures, we know that my "septum" is not visualized as a normal septum, so we still aren't entirely sure what we're dealing with (it could be some sort of scar tissue), but we're terming it a septum.

This picture is how I visualize my WTF septum. This is an asymmetrical uterine septum. It's very rare and there isn't a whole lot of information about it on the internet. I'm pretty sure mine isn't exactly like an asymmetrical septum -- if you do google it I don't have any of the symptoms it lists for this. But I obviously have some strange tissue/septum thingy in the way as my right fallopian tube entrance can not be visualized on the hysteroscopy.

 

 

 

Sorry for the bad paintshop, I'm limited on a laptop with my art skillz!

Uterus Pics

There's really no point to this post. I'm just adding some pics so I can find them easily if need be.

Hysteroscopy Pictures

 

It's hard to see, but I can see a little round spot in my uterus that I have no idea what it is.
At the very bottom of this post is this picture enlarged for clarification.

S1P9

 

 

 

 

  

The next four pics I have no idea what I'm looking at, I'm curious about these pics so that's why I have added these to this post. 

 S11P14

 

 S11P15

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 S12P14

 

 S12P15

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The next four pics, I can see what I think is a thin piece of tissue in my uterus. This may be nothing, especially since my MRI report says nothing about this, only noting a couple of images that is suggestive of an arcuate uterus (these pics aren't uploaded here btw).

 S15P14

 

 S15P15

 

 S15P16

 

 S15P17

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The next pics are of my saline-sonohysterogram

 BEFORE SALINE

 BEFORE SALINE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 SALINE

 SALINE

SALINE

 

 S1P9-MRI
Placed this picture again, blown up to help see what I'm talking about.
It's hard to see, but I can see a little round spot in my uterus that I have no idea what it is.



Happy F'ing Anniversary

6/14/13. Our 5th wedding anniversary. 

My husband's work schedule had changed so that he would now be off on Fridays. For our 2nd US we had the choice of Friday 6/14 or Monday 6/17.  By this point we were feeling fairly confident and decided to do the 2nd US on our anniversary, so he didn't have to take off work (he doesn't get PTO, so time missed = no $$).  I wasn't really worried about it being on our anniversary, as I'm not really a dates person.

He ended up having to work half a day on 6/14. But our plan was to go to our afternoon appointment, maybe grab something small to eat, then go see a movie. We never in a million years really expected to find out we were having a miscarriage again.

I went into the US, she started doing some measurements, then softly told us she couldn't find a heartbeat. I, of course was immediately heartbroken. She asked if I wanted to see the screen, I did. She turned it to me and let me look. I then asked her what the baby was measuring. She measured it right in front of me, and it said 6wks5days. I asked the measurements because if it would have been anywhere remotely close to 8-9wks, I would have waited one week, did another US just to be sure and then go from there.  However, knowing that no heartbeat was found and that in 2wks the baby had only grown 3 days max, it was over.

A nurse came in, discussed my options. I chose to have a d&c.  My d&c is scheduled for tomorrow, 6/19/13 at 7:45AM. 

As I'm typing this today, I'm still coming to terms with my most recent loss and am extremely disappointed and heartbroken. However, I am glad that my baby grew this time, as there will be tissue to test for chromosome abnormalities.

I had a pretty good day, considering what I'm preparing to do tomorrow. I had a pre-op appointment, did some signatures, had some labs drawn, picked up my medications. Visited my cousin who's in the hospital with metastatic cancer -- spread to her cervical spine, causing so much pain so that she can't really move her head in any direction. I also contacted one of my coworkers, met up with her and let her know what's going on with me (on Sat. I called in to work for the entire week, it's a small office so they've all been really worried about me). She's the only person I've told anything to, other than our parents, my boss, and all the amazing ladies on an internet support forum that are going through similar experiences.

Goodbye my sweet baby You'll always be a part of me and I'll never forget you.  Even though I found out you were gone on our wedding anniversary, 3 days later wouldn't have really been much of a difference. If anything, you'll never be forgotten by our parents either and it warms my heart a little knowing that they'll recognize our losses and remember you specifically.

3rd Time's a Charm!

From my last post, you learned that my April cycle = success and we found out we were pregnant again!

May 9, 2013, 12dpo (days post ovulation -- I used ovulation predictor kits [opk] and did basal body temperatures [bbt] to predict ovulation and know when my most opportune fertile window would be) I took a home pregnancy test (hpt) and it was positive!

I had a cold when I found out the fantastic news, and even though I figured it was viral I saw my PCP the next day to be precautionary. My PCP agreed she thought it was viral but placed me on pregnancy-safe antibiotics anyways.  She also knows of my fertility history and wanted to be precautionary this time around as well.

Monday finally rolled around, so I called the RE's office to let them know I was pregnant. They had me come to the lab to have betas checked.

May 13, 2013 @ 16dpo my first beta result was 737.
May 15, 2013 @ 18dpo my second beta result was 1474.

May 30, 2013 by LMP(last menstrual period) I was 7weeks exactly. We found out it was a viable pregnancy, there was a baby growing measuring 6wks2days and it had an amazing heartbeat of 171! I expected the baby to be less than 7wks as I know ovulation probably occurred on day17 instead of the "normal" day 14, and you can never know when exactly implantation occurred.

After leaving the US we went to our parent's houses and let them know the awesome news. They were beyond happy for us and were actually outwardly more excited than I was.  Experiencing loss, it makes it very very very hard to let your guard down and be openly excited about being pregnancy. Don't get me wrong, I was screaming excitement on the inside, but other than being open to my husband, it's difficult to express the excitement and fear to anybody else.  My mother in law actually asked my husband (when I wasn't with him) how come I didn't seem to be excited. He tried to somewhat explain, but it's not an easy thing to explain.

My next appointment was 2 weeks, on 6/14/13 -- our 5th wedding anniversary.

January - April 2013

After seeing the RE (reproductive endocrinologist) in December, it was decided that I was to contact his office in January to set up an appointment to remove the thin piece of tissue that was found on my testing.  However, I had a coworker who got married and was off most of January, so there was no way I could rearrange my schedule around my menstrual cycle to have this done.  In the mean time my husband and I had some serious discussions regarding having this minor surgery done. 

My RE wasn't really concerned about the thin tissue -- meaning that he didn't believe it had anything to do with any of our losses, and it wasn't big enough to hinder any future pregnancies, but he wanted to remove it, just to be preventative.

After realizing I wasn't going to be able to have this done in January, and many discussions with my husband, we decided against having the tissue removed, and would continue trying to get pregnant again.

I'm a bad patient and didn't contact my RE's office to let them know I wasn't going through with the tissue removal. I did know that when I got pregnant again I was to contact their office right away.

February was the first month since our 2nd loss that we started actively trying to conceive again. It was very tough and very scary to start trying again.  My February cycle was a bust.  March, also a bust. April = SUCCESS. We are officially pregnant again!

2012: Ending the year with a fertility specialist

The first appointment with the Reproductive Endocrinologist was mostly an informative type of visit. We discussed the common reasons of infertility and how each was treated. We also discussed the testing that would be done to confirm or rule out potential fertility problems.

1)Bloodwork. I had at least 12 vials of blood drawn that day.

2)Hysteroscopy. This has be done at a specific point in your cycle, so I had to wait a few weeks before this was done.  That was ok and worked out perfectly as some of the bloodwork would take that long to come back.

3)After these two things are done, the next course of action depends on the results of #s 1&2.

 October 30th I had the hysteroscopy done. This is a simple in-office outpatient test done to look at the inside of the uterus. My uterine walls and cavity looked great, but my right fallopian tube appeared to be blocked. It looked like a thin opaque tissue was covering my right fallopian tube. RE was baffled. He thought it was either a blocked tube or a possible septum of sorts.

In both pics on the right side you can see the black hole, this is where my LEFT fallopian  tube connects to my uterus.  As you can tell the RIGHT fallopian tube entrance is not visualized (as there should be a matching black hole on the left of the pics). 

 

 

 

After the hysteroscopy we went into his office and discussed the next testing and my bloodwork. My labs looked pretty good. There was only a couple of things with the labs. The first, my thyroid. My thyroid level was normal, directly in the middle of where it should be. RE told me that when getting pregnant, there's a higher success rate of pregnancy when the thyroid level is on the lower end of normal. We discussed thyroid medication but he didn't have me start taking anything.  I did have one genetic mutation. It's called the MTHFR gene. I have the heterozygous A1298C mutation. Apparently this is very common and my mutation is the least worrisome of all the MTHFR mutations possible. For this I was told to take a baby aspirin.

The next thing discussed was what we had just saw on the hysteroscopy. He ordered a MRI so the blockage/possible septum we saw on screen could be evaluated.  I had the MRI two days later. I went back to the RE a couple of weeks later to discuss the MRI results. Oddly enough, NORMAL. No septum, no blockage, everything looked perfect. No abnormalities what so ever. My fallopian tube is definitely not blocked and there's no mention of any tissue or septum in the way.  RE is still baffled.

On November 29th I had my next test: a SHG/SIS (sonohysterogram or saline-infused-sonogram). Again, an easy outpatient test with immediate live-time results. FINALLY, some confirmation that we weren't crazy. There really is a very thin piece of tissue near my right fallopian tube. It doesn't block it and RE doesn't think it would be anything to worry about when conceiving. Just to be safe, he wanted to remove the piece of tissue. Again this is all done at a specific point in my cycle, so I was to wait for my period in January and call the office to get this minor surgery scheduled.

So long 2012!

 

2012: The second act

In the last post I left off in March, post miscarriage with Dr.'s orders to wait 3 cycles before we were to try and get pregnant again. There's nothing significant that comes to mind for those three months, although I'm sure a lot of incredible stuff probably occurred. For your sake and mine I'll fast forward to June.  This way I don't have to ramble on about some extremely important, possibly fake stories to pass the time. Wait, I did get chickens somewhere in those 3 months. I'll save that for a farm animal story :-)

June 2012. June marked an exciting month - 3 cycles had passed! Finally, we could get back to baby-making. The middle of he tmonth we hosted a BBQ at our house so our families could visit and see our new home. This BBQ happened to take place on our 4th anniversary, so even after a long, exhausting day, rollin' in the hay definitely happened. I'm sure this also happened a few days before our anniversary and possibly a couple after.  How else does/should a couple who's been having protected sex for 3 months celebrate their anniversary?

June 30th. We went with Mr W's family to a professional baseball game. I had been having some pregnancy symptoms (mostly sore boobs) so I was pretty confident I was pregnant again. When we got home from the baseball game that night, we took a HPT.   POSITIVE!  Did we read it correctly? Yep, a second one = POSITIVE!  Again, we were so incredibly happy and couldn't believe how lucky we were to get pregnant on our first month of trying.

July passed without any complications. I had every pregnancy symptom possible, except for morning sickness. I never had any morning sickness with my first pregnancy either, I figured I was a lucky one. I was also in the middle of changing insurance at work, so I wanted to wait until my insurance change was finalized to schedule an OB appt.

My OB appt was on August 7th. I felt confident going in this time and my OB confirmed everything seemed to be right on track. He tried to find a heartbeat. Heartbeat couldn't be found, but he reassured me it was sometimes hard to find a hb early on. Nonetheless he ordered an US to help relieve my fears. I was feeling lucky that US was able to get me in 1hr later, because by this point I was really needing some reassurance, nothing like being pregnant after a loss!

I get changed and enter the US room. The US tech was a sweetie and I really liked her. I was so excited to see my baby for the first time. The screen comes on and it begins. She looked at my ovaries first, then to the baby. I see the sac, it's visible and no denying there's a large gestational sac on the screen. It got real silent, which by that point I already knew. My mind is trying to comprehend this is really happening again. She gently tells me she can't find anything in the sac. I confirm with her I didn't see anything either. She goes and grabs a doctor to officially tell me the news. I cleaned up and got dressed while I waited on the doctor. I'm sitting in that room, alone, fighting tears when the doc finally made it in. He tells me the sac measures along with where I should be at in my pregnancy but there's nothing in it. This is termed a blighted ovum. He discussed with me that I could wait and see if a natural miscarriage would occur or I could go ahead and schedule a d&c. I opted for the d&c.

August 9th was the date of my d&c. The doctor that spoke to me in the US room was also who performed the d&c. I had a follow up appointment with him two weeks later. This appointment was when he discussed seeing a Reproductive Endocrinologist. Having two losses in 6months was concerning to him. I was also concerned and thought seeing the RE was a good idea. My RE appt was scheduled sometime 4-6weeks later.

So much for all the luck I felt with this pregnancy.  I've been using the word lucky/luck with a negative connotation, but looking back I really did have some good luck on my side. I was lucky the d&c was able to be done 2 days later.  I was also lucky I didn't have to "out" myself to my coworkers as I had already requested off in advance for 4.5days as Mr W & I were supposed to go on a family camping trip that weekend. I only had to rearrange one work day on a short notice. I was lucky the doctor I met with worked closely with the RE. Most of the time you have to have three losses before a referral to a fertility specialist is warranted.

I really can't say if luck has anything to do with all of this. What I can say is there's almost always some good with the bad. Even if it's not exactly the good I want, there's still something to be positive about. SEE! Deep down I really am a half glass full type of girl!!

2012: What, am I expecting!?

The beginning of 2012 was incredible. We had moved into our new home and had began settling in. Life was on a high and I finally felt that everything was falling into place as we had been dreaming about for the past four years.  Our next decision was one that we knew would impact our lives, but it didn't impact us exactly how we had imagined.

Mr. W had tried to convince me to have children since day 1.   I always had excuses (most of them valid IMO) as to why we should wait. We were young, I wanted to find a better job, I wanted to find a job with different hours, I would have to wait until insurance kicked in, I wanted to agree on names, etc.  Every excuse I had eventually happened, but I still wasn't quite ready. The one excuse that I argued every time was our forever home. I really didn't know if we had kids if we'd be able to get the loan we would need.

Backing up a couple of months, October 2011. We knew we were going to get the house and were just waiting on our lenders to coordinate and set a closing date. During this time, I finally felt like I was OK with trying to get pregnant. I was ready as a wife to do this for my husband. That last statement sounds like I'm the obedient type, but I'm not. I didn't have baby fever and I still questioned if I was really ready, but it was something I wanted to do out of love and respect for my husband. After 10years on the pill, I stopped BCP's to see if my cycles would regulate. We agreed to wait a couple of months before we would seriously start trying.

November & December I had a period. January - nothing. I took a couple of HPTs and they were negative. Beginning of February I started having early pregnancy symptoms, fatigue, heightened sense of smell and extremely sore boobs. I took a HPT on February 10, 2012 and it was POSITIVE! We were so excited to be expecting. The next few weeks were wonderful, we both had baby-brain and could hardly contain our excitement. The pregnancy was so early I wasn't comfortable telling anybody and finally agreed we would announce on Easter, still sooner than I wanted it to be.

I had my first OB appt and during that week I began to have light brownish spotting. The OB said it was probably fine as half of all pregnant women have spotting. I still wasn't relieved, so betas were drawn and an US was ordered (also for dating purposes since I didn't have a period in Jan) that same day. The US revealed nothing. No sac, nothing. I was pretty certain I should be about 5.5-6wks along. The US tech tried to reassure me that without a period in Jan. I didn't know when I had ovulated, so I probably wasn't as far along as I thought I was. My second beta draw the #s increased but I still just felt something was wrong.

March 3, 2012.  Just a few days after my OB visit. I was working and I felt a slip, more like a small rush/leak. I went to the bathroom and bright red blood. I was mortified and terrified. I knew at this point, but I was still in some denial. I also was extremely busy at work that day and had left my cell at home, so I was unable to contact any of my other coworkers to see if they could come in for me. I also knew that if I wasn't bleeding through at least 2 pads an hour, it wasn't considered urgent and didn't warrant an emergency visit. Somehow I held it together, only once did anybody notice anything. My boss, who's also a doctor, thought I was crying (I had been) but I blamed it on an eyelash -- which was in my eye from crying and drying my eyes! 3 hours later, it finally slowed down at work and I cornered my doc to let him know what was going on and that I was starting to get some cramping. He sent me to the ER without any hesitation. A pit stop in our office to contact my mom, so she could track down Mr. W (who was working and his cell doesn't get service at his work) and to the ER I went. My mom and my husband met me there about 20minutes later.

I ended up miscarrying naturally and most of the heavy bleeding happened while I was at the ER. Betas were checked, they had dropped. Another US was done, I don't know if they saw anything or not, I can't honestly remember if anything was said about it. I was supposed to follow up weekly to have my betas checked, but I ended up seeing my PCP as I knew I would get results from her a lot faster than the hospital. I had moderate-light bleeding for about 2 weeks after. My betas were also at zero 2 weeks after.  My PCP recommended waiting 3 cycles before we tried again. 

Homeowners: 2011 in a nutshell

DH (dear husband) & I had purchased a home in 2007, about a year before we were married. It was a nice modular double-wide on 10acres located just a couple of miles from his family farm.

This house was always intended to be temporary. There was a farm just around the corner that DH had his sights set on. This farm was on a piece of land that would connect his family's pieces of land. I knew this property would be no easy feat and would come with a big price tag. We did our best keeping our finances/goals/dreams in check so we'd be able to buy the place when it came up for sale.

I admit I had my doubts and figured we'd be stuck in our first house for a very long time. It wasn't that I didn't like the house, I actually miss some parts of it now, but it wasn't the type of home I thought I would be living in for the rest of my life. Little did I know, DH's dreams would come true sooner than either of us expected.

May 2011. This is when it all started. Our guy was ready to sell! Thankfully, he was a very nice and patient man because we didn't close on the house until the very first week of December. The loan process was one that I plan on never doing again. NEVER. We went through the USDA-FSA (U.S. Dept of Agriculture-Farm Service Agency). This loan was an enormous pain in the ass, but it was worth it in the end, I had to remind myself daily of this.  It's called a 5/45/50 loan. You put down 5%, the USDA loans 45% and the other 50% is from a bank. 

Why was this loan such a pain in the ass you might ask? The truth is that it's a government loan and all the paperwork and bullshit that goes along with it is ridiculous. I swear, every week they were needing some sort of new document filled out. The shittiest part of it all was that the documents are only valid for 3 months, then they expire and you have to fill them out again.  Doesn't sound like a big deal, right? It wouldn't be, but you have to wait until their funding comes in (it's distributed yearly to the FSA's across the US in the fall) and the funding is given to applicants on a first come first serve basis until the FSA has no more $$$ to loan out. It's entirely possible (depending on where you're at on the list) the local FSA could loan out their annual allotment by the time your name comes up, so then you have to wait for the next years funding. Also, if you don't redo the forms every 3 months while you're waiting and get them turned in by specific dates, you're put on the end of the list. By the time our local FSA got their funding and a date was set to close, we had to fill out every. fucking. document three times. THREE!!!

Now you must really want to know why I tortured myself with this. Why I reminded myself daily it would be worth it in the end. Why on earth would anybody be persistent enough to deal with all of that!?!?  This is why: the 45% they loan was a 20yr fixed interest rate of 1.5%!!

Finally, the first week of December we closed on the house and it was all ours! It was a great ending to 2011.

The front of the house

 

The back of the house

 

The south end of the house

 

Looking at our property from inside the barn

 

 

 

KMW08's 60acres from Google Earth View.

It's approx. 1/8th of a mile wide and 3/4ths of a mile long.

The arrows point to the barn, house, pond and a creek that runs through the property.

 

FAQ IT!

I could write a few paragraphs describing myself, instead I'm choosing to do a FAQ style page. You will learn more about me in my future posts.  So for now, here's the basics.


Hi! I'm Kristen. 

I was born in the later half of 1984.

I married my husband in 2008.

We bought our forever home in 2011.

I work in the medical field & my husband works in a rock quarry.

I was raised in a small town, population close to but less than 1,000.

I'm an only child. I gained a brother-in-law when I got married.

I'm a cat person.  I don't dislike dogs, I just favor cats.

I like couponing, I consider it a hobby.

My husband and I went to the same high school, but I didn't know who he was until after I graduated.

I'm almost a year older than my husband.

I play the piano; I took a 4 year hiatus and now when I play I get easily frustrated that I'm not as good as I was. I'm working on getting back into playing at least 30minutes daily.

I live on a farm and it's a brand new learning experience.