On-wards and Upwards

It's been awhile since I last updated, so I apologize. Life has been a little crazy lately. As an educator, those that are fellow educators know that this time of year can be, well, NUTS! In addition, I recently went back to graduate school for a second round, so that's added some additional craziness to my plate. But enough of that... It's time for a much needed update on my infertile life :)

As a quick recap, we decided to take a little hiatus from medical fertility treatments for a couple of months - for various reasons. During this break I've been working hard to really focus on some more natural approaches to helping increase fertility... such as exercise (pilates and yoga for fertility), self-fertility massage, and eating as clean and as healthy as I can. After a couple of months, while I can't say that I'm pregnant just yet, I can however say that I do believe these things have definitely helped and increased my fertility, in various ways... and have made me much healthier (and more aware of what I'm putting into my body) in the process!

I've worked hard to cut most processed foods, white refined sugars, caffeine, and other toxins (by eating about 80-90% organic) out of my diet and rid my body of the negative effects they all have, not only on my health, but more specifically on my fertility.

So where do things go from here, you ask?

Well, we're actually ready to go back to fertility treatments (that is of course, unless this month happens to be 'the month' - I will never loose hope!) and we're gearing up for our next step of the plan, which consists of drum-roll please:...NEEDLES! Yup, for this next cycle we (I, really) will be taking daily gonadotropin injections and then we'll have IUI number 3 scheduled.

Yesterday, we actually had our appointment with one of the nurses at Dr. M's office to have our 2-hour "training session" to go over all that basics and nitty gritty of doing the self-injections.

Looks like I have TONS of fun ahead of me here in the near future.

But really though, in a weird way I'm actually kind of excited to start this next phase. I mean, I'm not necessarily jumping out of my chair to start injecting myself (or have the hubs do so) on a daily basis, but I'm definitely looking forward to the hopeful possibility that this next phase represents. I'm so happy that we took a couple of months to just breathe and re-set ourselves, as well as focus on getting even healthier... and now I'm ready to go back in for round whatever we're technically on (three, four?).

So that's that really... Still loving my green smoothies and juice. Still pilat-ing and massaging my way to a baby. And oddly enough, looking forward to apparently beginning to stick needles into myself on a regular basis. Life's awesome! Really, it is!... That wasn't sarcastic!! :)

Hiatus Ended - Sort Of

Well I'm back from that little hiatus I took. Still not preggers, but so enjoyed that much needed "break" I went on from my crazy infertility ride (see this post for details). It was nice to not have to be so consumed with the daily reminders of my infertility for awhile... doctor's office visits, ultrasounds, medication, blood work, etc. But now it's time to come back to my reality... well sort of.

After 2 failed IUIs (and one non-response to Clomid cycle), I found myself needing to stop for a moment and hit the reset button... before continuing with the next scheduled part of the plan. According to my doctor, after my surgery (see Part 1 and Part 2 for a recap), the plan was 2-3 medicated cycles on Clomid with IUIs... and then if that didn't work, 2-3 more medicated cycles on injectables with IUIs. As of last month, I found myself on the cusp of moving on to that next phase of the plan - injectables, Now I'm not one who's afraid of needles by any means. So the thought of having to give myself (or have my husband give me) daily injections wasn't that hard to swallow. But what did make me hesitate for a moment before jumping into this next phase was the realization of how much more "close monitoring" I would need throughout this process. I guess call me spoiled, but the 1-2 times a week I was already spending at appointments while on Clomid, was stressful enough. So facing the fact that I would now be in the office every 2-3 days seemed more than I was ready for.

Therefore, while taking this past month off, I spent some time reflecting on what would be the next best step for us. Not just medically speaking, but emotionally, psychologically, and logistically. Yes, I want a baby - badly. There's no doubt about that. But my fear of judgement for our decision making was something I had to take a moment to get over. Judgement, you ask? Who's judging me? Well, in reality, honestly probably no one. But in my head, there's still some guilt that if I wanted a baby badly enough, I would be moving forward with whatever the next part of the medical plan would be and not be "needing to take a break"... So the thought that others may think this when they heard we were taking a month off from treatment, was something (albeit silly) that I need to work through.

After much deliberation, thoughtful reflection, and countless conversations with my hubs (he's seriously so awesome and SO supportive), we've decided to take this next month "off" from medical treatment as well. The battle I've struggled with over the past couple of months is wondering if my surgery in late October has in essence "reset my time clock." What I mean is, the fact that it's considered normal for it to take up to a year for healthy (fertile) couples to conceive. Therefore, since my surgery technically corrected the main issue that was causing our infertility, part of me wonders if that's kind of like re-starting my clock... meaning it could be normal for it to now take up to a year for us to conceive naturally - if that's even possible. The jury's still out apparently. However, then the realistic side of me reminds myself that "technically" we probably are no longer classified as that normal, healthy couple (even though I had corrective surgery). And, time is of the essence, at least selfishly. Regardless, I'm still in this teeter-totter of a thought process and not 100% confident of being fully ready to proceed to the next medical phase.

As with last month, we still obviously will "try" this month, but I like to think of it more as "trying the all natural route." This means that I will be embarking even further down the holistic, all natural route. Oh such exciting things I have planned for myself ahead. Fertility pilates and yoga, fertility massage, juicing, fertility smoothies (There's such a thing? Yup!) organic and super-food eating, etc... So I'm about to either 1) get pregnant the all-natural way - come on, fingers crossed... or 2) take a long ride on the crazy-train.

This should be interesting.

Today ---> Day 1 = Juicing with some super-food greens and fertility pilates. Juice was actually pretty good and pilates (plus my 2 mile hike with the hubs and "our boys") definitely helped relieve some stress.

We shall see how this goes and where it takes me... and really, how long it lasts, ha...

Either way, I'll at least be healthier in the end if I'm not pregnant, right?!?