more about babies...duh :)

Whilst at the doc's office on Monday in came a new mom with her baby boy that was probably 6 weeks old maximum.  This baby was delicious.  So teeny weeny in his little socks and pants.  He also had the hiccups.  It was kind of the most precious thing I've ever seen.  I wanted to eat him.  As I was staring at him (for far too long, might I add...I was like that creepy guy that stares at a hot chick a little too long) I had this realization that holy crap we could have one of those.  I know that sounds so weird...like, what the hell do you think you've been working toward, crazy lady, but I've been so in the world of "getting pregnant" that I almost forgot what the end prize was.  My life right now is about living in 2 week increments, science (I knew I should have paid better attention to science class) and statistics.  2 weeks from the start of your cycle to the day you ovulate then two weeks from the day you ovulate to the day you find out yes or no. Not to mention all the signs you pay attention to in those two week increments.  Oh, that was a weird cramp, or a flutter! Omg what does this mean?!?!?! Oh, it means nothing?  Rad!  Then, Ok let's talk about my anatomy to make sure all is working right. Poke, prod, etc. Then the statistics and odds that actually aren't in your favor.  There's only a 20% chance of getting pregnant each cycle (shout out to teen mom and 16 and pregnant...) that's not a lot in case anyone was wondering ;) So with all that that's been going on I kind of forgot what we get in the end.  A little baby with hiccups and a fierce jew fro :)

done and dusted

All testing is now complete.  Today I had my "procedure" and it was not an enjoyable experience. :) Much as I had heard and read that it would not be.  Especially since they had to do it TWICE.  I have "pesky tubes" per my doc.  Of course I do...why would I not??  But even though it was quite painful it's over now.  (TMI alert) So, insert speculum, insert catheter, remove speculum, insert vaginal ultrasound probe, blow bubbles into my cervix, watch bubbles fly through my fallopian tubes noting that they are open and ready for eggs!  That's how it was supposed to go.  Here's how it actually went: get in the stirrups, Dr. M comes in and high fives Josh because his results came back great (HELL YES SOME GOOD NEWS!) do a little sperm dance to myself, hear "ok, we will start now," have anxiety attack, insert speculum, insert catheter, squeeze Josh's hand so hard I white knuckle, remove speculum, insert ultrasound probe, feel pain and pressure, start to cry, blow bubbles, more pressure, still crying, hear "they're not moving," hear "we need to start over," cry some more, remove probe, remove catheter, ask "Jill, are you ok?"  Oh sure, why wouldn't I be?  This is so much fun! So let's start over...and they did.  I will say second time around it was much less uncomfortable, but I continued to cry because turns out I'm a huge vagina when it comes to my vagina. Once the bubbles were "blown in there" they just hung around for a while.  Not moving.  He turned the ultrasound to us (keeping in mind Josh can read ultrasound probably better than the ultrasound tech so he's completely enthralled by this and I kind of wanted to punch him in the face and tell him to wipe my tears instead of staring, gaping mouthed, at the ultrasound screen...I digress) so we could see what he was telling us.  There they were...little bubbles just sitting in my uterus.  Again, not moving.  So Dr. M put in some sort of balloon attachment thing to apply pressure to them to get them moving.  Apparently that worked because then we could see them moving through my right tube!  Yippee! The left tube had no movement, but apparently that's ok because we only need one to make babies.  So...long story short...it's possible both my tubes were blocked and he just blasted out the right one.  Awesome!  And SO comfortable!! I'm not about to lie about it, I continued to cry while I was getting cleaned up because once I start, there's no stopping this train.  Oops :) I probably scared all the women sitting outside the ultrasound room when I walked out, snot-nosed and bright purple.  Sorry chicas! Heh.  Then we met in Dr. M's office to discuss where to go from here.  Everything else has come back completely normal.  All the blood work they ran on me 2 weeks ago came back great,  with Josh's strong boys (again, insert sperm dance!) and now that I have a tube for said sperm to travel through we just need an egg. Well, I don't ovulate on my own (regularly)  so.........that means........crazy pills!  I'm kind of stoked about it now, which is funny because about a month ago I was adamant about NEVER taking them again, but now that I know that everything else is good I want to take clomid because I KNOW it works.  There's another option we could try (a different drug) but I don't know that it will work, and since we know clomid works we are going to use it. I'm just unwilling to try something else.  I'm pretty much done waiting :)  I said, "I'm willing to take clomid again, but Josh might divorce me." and Dr. M says "No, he knows what he's got.  You don't drive a Hyundai when you've got a Mercedes sitting in the garage." Have I ever mentioned how much I love him??  He gets that I'm crazy, but then he boosts my self esteem at every turn ;)  Fact: 80% of women who take clomid (and have open tubes and everything else is normal) get pregnant within 3 months.  Those are odds I like :)  Let's do this thing! But for now, my lady bits hurt, so today I'm going to lay on the couch, not go to the gym, and eat far too many carbs. 

the best show on TV

Is Breaking Bad.  Holy crap is this show amazing.  Josh and I started watching about 2 months ago (per the recommendation of my lovely sister and future bro-in-law) and we are completely caught up.  In case you were wondering, that's 58 hours of TV in 2 months...that's both embarrassing and awesome.  Jesse Pinkman is my favorite character EVER, Bitch!  Here's a few reasons why Jesse Rules

back to zero

WHEW!  This whole process is such a whilrwind to say the least.  Didn't update about my 3rd month on the crazy pills.  So here goes...they took my prescription down to 75mg from the 100mg that almost hyperstimulated my ovaries.  I did ovulate on the 75mg but still didn't get pregnant.  It's just a bummer.  The hormonal/emotional roller coaster was getting to be a bit much for me so I opted to take a month off from the crazy pills.  For 2 reasons: 1 - to let my hormones regulate and 2 - to let the lining of my uterus build back up (and maybe 3 - to try to lose the 6 lbs I had gained from the crazy pills...yay hormones)  Fact: one of the side effects of clomid is the possibility of the lining of your uterus thinning.  Which could potentially prevent pregnancy in and of itself because if there is thin lining and an embryo is created it has nothing to attach itself to.  Fun, right?! So the month I didn't take the pills was glorious :) I in fact DID ovulate on my own (which I had read could happen because the drug is technically still in your system) however Josh was out of town on business during "O" time.  Salt. In. The. Wound.  Anyway, that month was a wash, but obviously I knew I wouldn't be pregnant so when the bitch arrived that month it was nothing out of the ordinary.  So...here we are.  I called my OB to discuss possible alternatives to clomid/where to go from here and he suggested I come in and talk.  I'm glad I did that because we came up with a good gameplan.  Basically he wants to start over.  Pretend as if I've never been pregnant (as relates to my body) and do all appropriate testing to make sure Josh and I are both fertile and "ok." He said he's not giving me any more drugs until he knows we are both "normal."  So he took some (ok a LOT) of blood and ran all sorts of tests on me.  I had already had the procedure done to check for polyps/fibroids in my uterus and have had other blood work done throughout the last year so that leaves 2 things.  Josh has to get tested and I have to do an HSG/FemVue where they insert a catheter and blow bubbles into my cervix and watch them go through my fallopian tubes to make sure they're open.  Um, ouch.  I have a friend who had this done and she almost passed out and I've googled (again, my best friend, google) and everyone talks about how painful it is.  I'm wondering if I should take a Xanax, overdose on Advil or potentially both ;)  then once Josh gets tested, and I have my FemVue (which is happening on monday...took the day off work...joy :)) we will have covered all of our basis and we can then decide what the next course of action is.  He asked how I feel about this plan and I was very honest and told him I'm SO glad we are checking everything.  If for nothing else, to put my mind at ease.  I can live with "it just hasn't happened (again) yet" but I can't continue to wonder if everything is ok.  Now we will know.  I told him I'm completely neurotic and just knowing will relax me and maybe things can happen naturally? Ha!  We shall see.

I started laughing the other day because I was thinking about all of the precautions that I used to take to NOT get pregnant and the normal every day precautions people take...had I known it would be such a pain in the ass maybe I wouldn't have worried so much ;)

Anyway...onto the next.  We are very ready to take the next step, no matter what it is.  I've done a lot of reading about people's marriages falling apart because of infertility issues.  That was a legitimate fear of mine for a while because there's NO doubt about it, it is incredibly stressful. Then I took a step back and looked at our marriage and saw that we are actually stronger now than we ever have been.  Going through something TOGETHER is bringing us closer and the fact that we both have the same goal in mind and are not willing to accept failure is actually pretty awesome.  The other day Josh said to me, "I hope it is me." I asked why and he said, "Because then it's not you."  That right there is why we work.  Nobody is blaming the other person.  This is nobody's fault.  It is what it is and we will figure it out together :)