Its been a long time (warning - long post, but worth the read)
I am going to apologize in advance if some of this is too much information for any of you, but I just wanted to share every little detail with everyone.
The first day of my cycle was Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008. I called my fertility doctor’s office and told them I was ready for another IUI cycle. The nurse put in a prescription for 250mg clomid per day for cycle days 3-7 and 150iu of repronex per day for cycle day 9-12. I was a little concerned because the last time I had an IUI done, I was pretty much on the same protocol and didn’t respond as well as I wanted to, but the nurse said that as long as I had at least 2 follicles last time, they were going to do the same this time around. I let it go because they are the experts, and not me.
I took my clomid as prescribed and thought I was going to have horrible moodiness because that is what clomid does to me, but the only thing I really experienced were hot flashes. At least nobody told me I was being any more moody than I am normally. Robert was a trooper and was able to give me my repronex shot each night.
On Tues., Nov. 11th, I went in to have an ultrasound done to check and see how my follicles were responding. I was really hoping for a lot of stimulation, but as it was last cycle, I only had two follicles worth measuring, one at 14mm and the other at 16mm. The doctors like to see your follicels over 18 or 20mm before they have the IUI done. Supposedly your follicles are supposed to grow around 2mm per day, so the doc told me to have Robert give me my hcg shot (triggers ovulation) Wed. night between 6 and 9pm and then to go in Friday morning (the 14th) for my IUI.
So now it is Friday morning and Robert has to go off to a private room to do his thing and I am waiting patiently in the waiting room. After we have breakfast in the hospital cafeteria, we go wait patiently in the waiting room to be called back for the IUI. Once we get called back, I get settled on the table and wait patiently for the doctor to come in. This time around, my doctor arrives and a resident. The resident was to perform my IUI. I was a little nervous about that, but what the heck right? We were told what Robert’s count and motility was. The count wasn’t as high as I wanted, but all the swimmers were 100% motile, so they were all active which is a good thing.
So, now comes the uncomfortable part of this whole process. The resident struggles to get my cervix open. She just couldn’t position the instrument just right. It took her at least three tries to get it done. Once she was set, she put Robert’s swimmers in there and then things were better. My doctor told me to lay on the table and incubate. So we are left alone for 30 minutes. I just wanted to listen to my ipod and stare at the ceiling, but Robert wanted to make conversation (if you know my husband, he is a talker).
We spent the rest of the day running around and doing errands and that night we went to a football game. Strangely enough, I did not feel any discomfort from the IUI. Past cycles, I felt insane cramps and I could hardly move. This time around, nothing. The only pain I felt, I chalked up to being ovulation pains. I just knew this cycle was going to work because things were different already.
A week after the IUI, I had my progesterone level checked. Progesterone is used to determine if you ovulated or not, and my number was not very high. I believe it was 6.4 or something like that. They say anything above 3 means you ovulated, but it just seemed low to me. So another thing for me to worry about. Not like I have anything else to worry about.
My plan was to not take any home pregnancy tests (hpt) because I did not want to be disappointed, but who was I kidding. On the morning of Wednesday, Nov. 26 I found a leftover pregnancy test from the last cycle I did. Well, I caved in and took the test. I wasn’t thinking much of it. After I took the test, I brushed my teeth and washed my face. I finally take a look at the test strip and see that there is a faint second line. I wake up Robert and asked him if he saw a second line there as well. He said he did but did not seem as excited as I was. He actually told me not to get my hopes up because it could have been too early to get a true positive result.
Well, I wasn’t going to let this test get the best of me so while I was out and about that day, I went to Dollar Tree and bought 4 hpts. The look on the cashier’s face was priceless. She actually asked me if I was sure I wanted that many. I guess she didn’t realize how obsessive one can get when trying to conceive (ttc). I went home at about 5:30pm and the first thing I did was take a test. I saw another faint second line, but didn’t believe my eyes. I had Robert look at it and he said there was a second line. I didn’t believe him and asked Kiera if she saw it also. She did. I was in shock. I had Robert call our friend Pam to come over and she came over and saw it as well. Once Kacie got home, I had her look as well. Everyone said they saw a second line. I was excited and shocked all at once. I didn’t know what to believe.
I wasn’t going to believe that I was pregnant until I had my blood drawn and a test done from that. Unfortunately, the next day was Thanksgiving and the doctor’s office was going to be closed, so I was going to have to wait until Friday. Do you know how hard that was for me? It, however, did not stop me from taking two more tests on Thursday and one Friday morning. All with the same result…a faint second line.
I went in Friday morning to have my blood drawn and then the wait for the phone call started. I met friends for lunch and couldn’t help but tell them why I seemed so distracted. Robert tried calling the doctor’s office to see if they had any news, but they were all at lunch. Finally we get a call back around 3pm and it was confirmed, I was pregnant. The worrying didn’t stop there though. The nurse said that my number wasn’t as high as they would have liked to see (it was 71 and they wanted it over 100), so she had me scheduled for another test on Monday morning to see if the numbers doubled.
From that point on, I was elated. Still a little cautious because of my hcg number, but nonetheless, still pregnant. We told everyone and anyone who would listen to us. I think Robert had his cell phone glued to his ear so that he could talk to everyone he knew. Even some people we hadn’t talked to in a long time. Monday came around and after a torturous day of waiting, I finally get the results at 4:30 and they told me my numbers were beautiful. It was 283…it quadrupled! My ultrasound to check for viability is on Dec. 19th and it is taking forever to get here. I’m not sure how I am going to keep myself busy until the.
