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.