Happy Tuesday

Hi world.

I miss you.

I haven't been writing in a long time, primarily because there's not much to say.

 I still work full-time at a job I love, I am still married to my best friend, and I am still totally inexplicably infertile.

It could be easy to be down on myself during such a seemingly stagnant period of my life, and while I do have my days where I feel utter frustration at my lack of progression, I'm also totally loving the peace I have recently been able to reach. 

Don't get me wrong--I still want a family. 

I still want to be a mother with every crumb of my soul. 

But I'm on the cusp of turning 26 years old, and while I've been told (for years) to just "enjoy" this time alone with my husband, I feel like I'm just now finally starting to do that. 

Maybe it's the financial (semi)stability. 

Maybe it's the sense of permanence I feel with my husband or my friends or my family. 

Or maybe this peace simply comes from within, from letting go of all of the things I can't control. 

Maybe it's an internal thing that just happens when you're staring your late twenties in the face.

 I don't know, guys. 

This is my first try at life. 

But whatever the reason, I'm so so glad that this peace is here with me.

I love this unpredictable boy and the joy he brings me every single day.

 

I love my imperfectly perfect body.

I love this crazy, chaotic life.

Maybe one day I'll have a baby.

Maybe one day I'll adopt one.

Maybe I won't.

The funny thing about life is that you never really know what's going to happen next, so you really have no other choice but to embrace the now and hope for the best. 

And isn't that all that anyone really needs? Right now?

Happy Tuesday, my friends.

XOXO,

Bryn

Reclaiming My Life from Infertility

Another month has come and gone and I am still not pregnant. I'm still daydreaming about names and wondering what my little babes will one day look like, but my body is not cooperating, and I'm sure frustrated about it. I do have some news, though, and I believe I'm getting closer to having answers.

Infertility was never something I thought I would struggle with. I always knew it was a possibility, but I never really thought it would be such an ordeal. I was always told that trying to get pregnant would be the "fun" part, but trying so hard, month after month, isn't really that fun at all. It's so much more than just intimate time with my husband. It's tracking my temperature every single morning to chart my basal body temperature. It's peeing on a stick every morning to figure out if my body even ovulates at all. It's taking thyroid medication every single morning in hopes that my thyroid is my body's only problem. It's taking prenatal vitamins even though I doubt it will matter that I remembered them at all. It's timing everything and hoping and praying that one of these months I'll be pleasantly surprised with a miracle. So far that has not been my experience. I had a friend crassly comment on one of my blog entries that my writing should be more about the trying portion of getting pregnant. Um, hello. This is what my entire life is, right now. This is how I try. If you want to read about the physiological process of conception, there are plenty of websites that are all about it. I try to keep this page pretty PG. We're all adults here, and we know how this stuff works. So... yeah. (PS- telling me to "just relax" is belittling and won't fix anything. For the first year that Joshua and I tried to conceive, I was very easygoing about the entire thing. I only started getting so anal about tracking when I knew there was a problem, over a year into trying. Tracking everything makes my doctor's appointments go easier and helps them and me see patterns and identify what's really happening with my body.)

Whew. Sorry about that tangent.

I had a couple of blood tests done last week, and I was pleasantly surprised with how awesome my phlebotomist was. She got the angle just right on my vein and my blood flowed right out! I had very minimal bruising, and my blood came out much faster than at my other blood draws. I was really stoked about it and haven't stopped gushing about her. My thyroid levels were checked to figure out if my medication was working, and my progesterone levels were checked too. Then I had the unpleasant task of waiting for my results...

It's funny, because I'd been waiting for weeks for Josh's results of his semen analysis, and then I started getting all of my (and his) results all at once. Of course, Josh's results weren't interpreted for us, so I had to Google all of his numbers, but they all looked to be within the normal range. That was a little frustrating because now I know for sure that the problem is something with my body, but it could still be basically anything. So annoying.

The next day, I received my thyroid results, which were back to normal! Woohoo! I don't know if that will get me pregnant, but it will have me feeling better. In fact, I haven't noticed a huge change with my energy levels, but I am in a much better mood most of the time. Before going on Levothyroxine Sodium, I was very moody most of the time (hehe). I picked fights with my husband often and often felt and acted irrationally angry over small things. I don't know why I did those things. I don't feel so angry anymore, and I'm ashamed that I was upset as often as I was. I really don't understand hormones sometimes. Other than that, I don't feel much different with my medication. I do have an easier time waking up in the morning, so that's something. Other than that, I feel mostly the same as I did before.

After getting my thyroid results back, I was hopeful that everything was under control. Soon after, however, I received news that my progesterone levels weren't doing so hot. I really hadn't done a ton of research about low progesterone levels, so I began educating myself. The funny thing is that so many of the symptoms are things I've been experiencing. I hadn't even connected that my symptoms were linked to low progesterone levels. I'm not going to get into all of the symptoms (they are all over online), but as of right now I'm kind of at a loss as far as where to go from here. I wasn't expecting low progesterone. I was kind of just hoping that my thyroid was my only issue. At least we're figuring this out though, right?

My suspicion is that my body ovulates every month but that, after ovulation, it doesn't produce the amount of progesterone that it should. Because of tracking my temperature each day, I can see that my temperature dips and then rises, indicative of ovulation, but it doesn't stay as high as it should. This results in too thin of a lining of my uterus, making implantation impossible. So even if I am ovulating and Josh's sperm reaches my egg and fertilizes it, my body has nowhere to put it and discards it. If this is the case, hormone therapy might be my answer. I'll have to up my intake of progesterone after ovulation each month and hope that it's enough to sustain life. Then I will likely have to continue taking progesterone at least until the first trimester is over (because at that point the placenta creates progesterone of its own and won't need any outside help). I have read about people combining this type of hormone therapy with Clomid, but I'm not sure why, since Clomid can have side effects (such as thinning the lining of the uterus) that are the opposite of what I need. I wrote my doctor a message tonight, asking him where we go from here, and I'm looking forward to hearing back from him. I really don't know what to do at this point. I hope that progesterone medication will help me. If I can get pregnant that way, we'll have solved the puzzle of my infertility.

Either way, I'm done sitting around. I'm back to working out and eating healthier and not giving up on me. I've been too depressed for too long about this, putting my life on hold, waiting for the ever-evasive motherhoood to creep up on me, and I'm ready to take control of my life again. If I end up getting pregnant, that would be great. If I end up adopting, that would be wonderful. And if neither of those things end up happening? Well, I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. In the meantime, I'm ready to reclaim my life back from infertility. I'm taking control and waking up from this dazed state. And it feels good.

Surprise Doctor's Appointment: Already Finding Answers

Today was a crazy day. I thought that Josh had a doctor's appointment this morning to figure out if his swimmers were swimming straight, so we were up and out the door by 8:00 AM (which is a pretty big deal when you're not used to getting up until around 9). Even though the appointment was supposed to be brief and just for Josh, I made sure I went with him for support. When I showed up, we checked in and sat in the waiting room. We were at a reproductive health clinic, and the news playing on the television was of a baby who had survived being flushed down the toilet in China... I definitely felt like they should have had some other news on, just because I felt so much anger and sadness over the story. (I mean, come on! If you don't want your perfectly healthy baby, just give him to me, how about?!) Anyway, we were called back quickly, and I was glad to get away from that sad story.

Then came the funny part. I learned that this appointment was actually for me. I thought we were just meeting for a quick appointment for Josh, and I didn't even have time to get nervous or anything. Josh and I answered lots of health questions, and I really liked the nurse who helped us. She was young and very friendly, and I felt comfortable with her right away. When the doctor arrived, we answered some more questions and found out that today was the perfect day of my cycle to have an ultrasound and see if I had any cysts. That was actually really exciting for me. I've never had an ultrasound before, and I was hoping that a glance at my insides would give me some answers and hope.

It's funny--even though I knew with complete certainty that I was not pregnant, I still hoped to see a little something swimming around in my uterus. Sadly (but obviously), that wasn't the case. We were able to see that my uterus is retroflexed (which I already knew from previous pap smears) and that I have a uterus and two ovaries. We looked at my ovaries to see how big they were and were able to count lots of healthy-looking eggs in both of them. That was seriously the coolest thing ever. I have been failing to get pregnant for such a long time (about 26 months) that it was good to see and know that I do have healthy body parts that are capable of working together to build my family. It gave me so much hope, just seeing my eggs and thinking that one day one of those little things is going to be my baby. I almost cried, but then I felt dumb and didn't. I mean, I'm not even pregnant. I felt like it would be silly to cry about seeing the earliest photos of my zygotes that may, one day, turn into my children. It's just .... weird.

After my emotional ultrasound, I got dressed again, and the doctor gave me some interesting news. Apparently one of my tests from last week was abnormal. My doctor from last week had promised she'd call and tell me herself if any of my blood tests weren't normal, but she hadn't. So I found out today instead. That kind of threw me for a loop. Apparently my thyroid levels were abnormal. The doctor explained that it's an autoimmune disorder and that my body is attacking my thyroid, causing it to be in the early stages of shutting down. I won't lie--I was a little freaked out about that, but suddenly it all made sense: the endless exhaustion, the ongoing depression, the weight gain, and maybe the infertility? Suddenly, instead of feeling bummed out about my failing thyroid, I felt empowered and validated that there was proof of why I've been feeling crappy for such a long time. There was a physical reason that we could pinpoint explaining why I feel the way I do. That was kind of awesome.

After the appointment, I made another appointment for next week to have a sonohysterogram, to check my fallopian tubes and make sure my eggs are getting from point A to point B. I'm a little nervous about that, but mostly because Josh won't be able to come to that one with me. We also scheduled a time for Josh to really go in and get a reading on his sperm count. The hospital we go to is actually funding a study right now, so his testing will be totally free. Josh is hoping that we'll find his testosterone levels are low so that he'll be able to go on a prescribed hormone stimulator. He had blood tests today to figure that out, so we should know soon if that's a factor.

Anyway, sorry if this is a boring post. I feel like today was really exciting because we are finally getting some answers. I'm starting on a high dosage of Levothyroxine Sodium tomorrow morning, and I should start feeling much better in a few weeks. I'm really hoping that adjusting my hormone levels will get me pregnant quickly, but even if I just stop feeling exhausted and depressed, that would be a great start for me. This was only my second doctor's appointment for fertility, and I'm already feeling more peace of mind than I've felt in the last two years. We are finally doing something about our infertility, and it feels so so good.