No Period = ACNE!!!!!! GRRRR!!!!!!!

Well, since my wonderful Clomid has finally worn off, I can say goodbye to my period and hello to the PCOS symptoms. In talking with other women, their symptoms show up in different ways. Unfortunately mine show up with bad acne and hair. If I didn't pluck my chin every gosh darn day I'd have a beard....no joke. Not something I readily admit to people, but it is the truth. Once I have my IVF babies I WILL get laser hair removal.

I hate acne. I'm 26 in one month, 27, and I should be done with this crap! GRRR!!!!

No Period, but not Pregnant

Overall, I have been super positive and had an awesome week! I really don't have to whine too much today! I exercised 4 days this week, which is excellent, and lost 3 pounds! For once I have lost weight by not "dieting," but from doing what I should be doing which is eating healthfully 80% of the time and exercising at least 30 minutes a day - I did 6 hours of working out this week and so I met my requirement plus some!

I thought I'd get my blood tests back from earlier this week, since I now know who my nurse is and she is pretty much on top of things. Maybe on Monday. I'm interested to see how much my change in lifestyle will affect my liver numbers. Once I get the blood tests back I'm supposed to be going on Metformin. I'll just add it to my pill buffet of vitamins!

I should've gotten my period on Monday, and now it is Saturday with no signs or symptoms of it coming. I expected this because I didn't really ovulate to my knowledge, so no egg = no period for me. Well, just in case, I took a pregnancy test...I haven't taken one in awhile so that excitement and feeling of possibility was there, but was quickly gone when it came out negative. I didn't really think it would be positive, but it would've been fantastic if it was! Hopefully this metformin will get some of my insulin resistance in order to make my body start functioning a little more normal, and will make me ovulate. And maybe the hubs one lucky swimmer will make it! That would just be all the answers to our many many prayers!

Have a great weekend! I'm off to the gym for a couple of hours so when I go eat at Mexican tonight with our friends I can be okay with eating what I'm going to eat!

Test Results: Better than Before

I was getting curious so I called up the good old fertility peeps and asked about my test results. Turns out they have been trying to get ahold of me, but had the wrong phone number. Overall, I am feeling pretty positive today. So here are our current stats.

KS:
No thyroid issues.
High liver numbers...whatever that means. I have to get some more blood taken tomorrow.
Some insuin resistance, expected since I'm a PCOS person.
High testosterone, again, expected since I'm a PCOS chick.
No glucose issues...THANK GOD. I do NOT want to have to drink that orange mess again until I'm officially pregnant.

The nurse said the only issue was the liver numbers...I'm not really suprised since I've had high liver numbers before. Not sure what that exactly means, but my liver is wacked I guess. I think this is slightly funny my liver has issues since I RARELY have a drink of alcohol. I maybe get sloshed once or twice a year, and only drink with company. I will be taking in a couple bottles of wine in a few weeks when I go visit my best friend. We drink wine, cry, laugh, eat desert...really it is quite a nice weekend away!

Okay, back to test results.

The hubs' dudes:
He had 3 million more swimmers than last time! YAHOO!!!! Except that 3 million, is still way below normal. I guess 40 million is normal....Hubs has 8...BOO to that!
Nurse said they are still looking funny. 4% is normal, hubs has 2.
Good news is she said they are swimming better!! So maybe we'll have that one super swimmer meet up with one of my **hopefully** ovulated eggs. Which who knows if that will happen. Don't think it will be this month since I didn't ovulate last month.

Then, being the curious planner person I am, asked the nurse with our numbers what is the chance of this IVF being successful within the first couple tries? Her response was that because we are so young, and I have PCOS (which means I'll produce lots of eggs - get it, poly+cystic= more eggs than a normal chick), we should have excellent success. She said their success rates with people our age and with our issues tend to be the most successful with IVF. She also informed me that with my egg situation I will most likely need lower dosage of drugs which also means less MONEY!!!! That is super exciting to me! Less money is good. So we are looking at the $2,000 to $3,500 range vs. the $3,000 to $5,000 range. **SIGH of some relief.

So there it is folks...I'll be off for some blood tomorrow along with the hubs. YIPEE!!!

Now to hit up the gym for some cardio and yoga!

Waiting is the Hardest Part

Why is it that when you want something so badly, everyone else seems to have it? I'm just about ready to get rid of my facebook account, because I struggle seeing all these happy "we're having a baby!" announcements. I'm happy for all of those announcements, because I hope to make one about my hubs and I someday, too. It just hurts everytime I see one. I wish I knew what it was like to say, "Hey, let's try having a kid." Two months later, BAM! There is a bun in the oven!

I hope that when my husband gets his semen analysis back from the doctor soon, it miraculously comes back with super normal results. That way I can hope that our 1% chance of conceiving comes up to like 10%. I could pee on a stick and get a positive result and all of that money we've been hoarding can be used to buy a super fancy mom-mobile!

The waiting is the hardest part. I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around waiting to do this IVF for another year or two. To help speed up the savings I'm considering getting another job in addition to teaching. I don't make very much since I'm on a first year teacher salary, plus furlough days. I'll be finishing up my masters this spring, so I'll be able to pick up a second job this summer. The paychecks for this second job will be going in to savings and won't be touched in addition to my increase in pay for my masters. Just a plan I made up in my head...now I just have to think about where I'd want to spend my summer days and after school in the fall.

Until this IVF thing happens, I'm focusing on getting this body in shape in the off-chance I get pregnant on my own. The hubs and I have been gym rats the last few weeks and it has felt amazing. I really work out all of my emotions and frustrations at the gym and feel pretty good until the weekend where I have time to think. I have a ton of weddings this summer so at least I'll be looking awesome in all of my bridesmaid dresses!!

The Start of This Journey

Today is the day I am beginning to write our story.

A little background:

My husband and I have been together for nine and a half years and have been married for what will be four years in June. We've been through it all - long distance, unemployments, and now infertility. We've been trying to have a child for a year and a half now. We are lucky that we haven't been trying for longer before we figured out what was up with our reproductive abilities. Some people try for years and years. I have PCOS so I knew I would need some help in the ovulation department, however I never dreamed that the hubs would have issues as well. He has low sperm concentration, motility, and morphology. In normal people terms he has a smaller amount of dudes compared to "normal" men, and his dudes are lazy and funny looking. Our chances of conceiving naturally are very slim so we have to endure the messy process of Invitro Fertilization aka IVF with a special procedure called Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI). ICSI is where the doc will take one dude and inject it into my egg.

There are four fertility clinics in our area so we went to information sessions for each clinic and tried to pick the clinic that we though would be the best fit for us. We are not very far into this fertility process, just a few blood tests and another semen analysis for the husband. He'll need to go see a urologist and I will have to do more blood tests most likely.

My husband and I frequently discuss this process and how it is going to be, and what it comes down to is money. We will be paying for this whole process out of pocket. I have a timeline in my head and I would like to go through this process in May or June of 2012, because I would be at the end of my year as a school teacher with the summer ahead of me and time to relax and prepare for a baby. However, if we are looking at this in a practical way, we financially can’t afford to go through with this process this spring. We need to have the money saved up for IVF, in addition to an emergency fund in case something catastrophic happens. That would be ideal. My husband thinks logically. I think emotionally. I can’t help it. My husband has this "number" in his head to have in our savings account before we go through with this and it is a big number, and a number that we wouldn’t be able to have in our savings account for more than a couple of years. I know it is the responsible thing to do. I want to be responsible, but I want a baby more. I want a child with every ounce of my being.  Trying to plan for this IVF and the financial burden it presents has reminded me of how unfair life can be sometimes. It kills me that money determines when we can have a child. Money.  Stupid, stupid money. I pray that a miracle happens and that the 1% chance of the hubs and me having a child naturally happens sometime soon!

That is it in a nutshell for the time being. I would love and encourage any comments, thoughts, support from anyone who reads. I'm blogging because I'm afraid that I'm getting annoying to the people who are aware of our situation. Thoughts of babies and IVF are consumming me and it is all I want to talk about, but no one in my life can understand since they haven't been through it.