Halfway through! 20 Weeks . . .

Today I'm officially at 20 weeks, which I suppose means I'm at Hump Day :)

Unfortunately it hasn't been the best 24 hours. For the past two days I've had gas pains, but as I went to go to bed, I just couldn't get comfortable. I told M. I needed to go to the toilet, where I started vomiting. So for the first time this pregnancy, I was horribly ill every 30 to 60 minutes until 4.30am. Along with the vomiting, I had an intense pain in my lower tummy (higher than the round ligament issues I've been having) which was making it very uncomfortable to sit down, lay down or even walk around.

M. rang through to the hospital, where a lovely person had a quick chat with me, reassured me it was probably just bad gas, and suggested panadol and heat, plus to come into emergency if it got worse. Well, the Panadol came back up again pretty quick, but the heat allowed me to at least lay down on the couch for the night, letting M. get some rest (though he woke up every time I made another toilet trip)

 This morning, I took the day off work, before managing to finish and keep down a cup off tea without milk and a bun. Then after some sleep, I went off to the doctor (who was on time for the first time ever!) He found the gas in my stomach pretty quickly - my upper stomach echoed - and then proceeded to put me on a strict, bland diet.

For at least the next week, I need to cut out fatty, fried and dairy foods, along with nuts, chocolate, caffeine (nooooooooooooooo!) and fizzy drinks, plus I need to look at 6 small meals a day. I'm drumming for a second breakfast, like a hobbit :) Hopefully this will do the job and cut out the painful part. Tomorrow I have my 20 week appointment, plus my Physio class, so it should be a full and fun day :)

Words I hate seeing

Whenever I've started a new drug during this cycle, I've done a bit of research of the side effects. Something that really irritates me is the number of time side effect information is proceeded with 'Most women experience no side effects'

Obviously, I'm in the minority because I've experienced a multitude of side effects with each of the drugs!

Synarel - tiredness, achiness, forgetfulness, mood swings (all to extreme levels)
Gonal-f - hyperstimulation, bloating, tiredness, cramping
Crinone - tiredness (yes, I've just been tired for the last 6 weeks!), sore breasts, depression

I realize they put the 'most women' in the information to calm worried women who are about to put all these hormones into their bodies, but when you're already the minority (infertile), the last thing you need is to know you're even more of a freak because you have side effects to everything!

(This post totally brought to you by a person trying to distract herself through the two week wait)

Another type of hormone: the wonders of crinone

So, soon after the egg pick up (still want to say harvest), the doctor put me on crinone, a vaginal gel that contains progesterone. (if that's tmi, you may not want to read anymore.) basically it prepares the uterus for pregnancy and then acts as a support.

The application of it is easy, but not necessarily pretty (unlike the shots and the nasal spray, I can't do this one in the car). The side effects, though, are the real killers. Someone described it to me early as having all the symptoms of pregnancy and all pre menstrual symptoms at the same time. The leaflet that comes with the pack, though, warns of:

"Very common side effects"

Including

"cramps, abdominal pain, head ache, breast enlargement (here's hoping) or pain, feelings of severe sadness and unworthiness, decreased sexual drive, sleepiness, feeling emotional, constipation, nausea"

That's just the very common side effects. The common side effects also include my old favourite, bloating, vomiting and painful joints.

So basically I'm going to be a bloated, depressive, big breasted walking ball of pain.

In reality, I seem to have relatively mild side effects, though the depression is one to watch. I have a history of anxiety and depression, but at least this time I know it's a possibility and can take measures to curtail it. Like looking a photos of grumpy baby meerkats (photo to come)

Squeezing in an update

So, I said I saw an end to the Synarel, didn't I. What a fool am I.

We went to the doctor early on Tuesday morning for a scan and to set up the injections. Unfortunately there was a big follicle (28 mm) still lurking in my left ovary, which would completely confuse the matter if we started injections. Doctor's advice? Just stay on the Synarel for another week and we'll look again.

Since then, the side effects seem to have become worse - strong hot flashes (I was sweating last night, but M said it was pleasantly cool), desperate thirst, headaches - hopefully all launching me into faux menopause and getting rid of the follicle.

Next appointment is Monday. Cross everything for me that we have a good result then

Things I hate about Synarel

This is how I feel most of the time . . .

I've been on Synarel for 13 days now, which, in my mind at least, makes me perfectly qualified to talk about why it sucks (of course, this is the same mind that forgot how to do subtraction and needed help from a very kind 12 year old)

1. The taste. A friend asked me what it tasted like. I'm leaning between pesticide, an ashtray or the garbage bin after a week in the sun.

2. The fact the taste doesn't appear until about 15 minutes after the spray. So you're there thinking, that wasn't so bad. Then 'bang', aforementioned taste

3. The stupid song that is the alarm on my phone every 12 hours. (I know I can change it, but this is my stupid list.)

4. The fact I now seem to forget everything. Everything. Like simple words. And how to do subtraction. Today I brought a coffee with me into my study. Without any water or milk in it (but the teaspoon was still there)

5. The acne. Which turned out to really be my imminent period, but I'm blaming synarel

6. How hard it is to spell synarel

7. The mood swings. I feel like I'm harbouring seven dwarfs of moods in me at the moment - so far this last week I've had visits from Sleepy, Grumpy, Weepy, Snappy and Happy.

8. People who tell me that I shouldn't complain about synarel

9. Feeling like I'm not me anymore.

10. Insecurity over whether I'm doing it right or not. This morning, I pressed on the spray and got nothing - no sound, no spray, no liquid. So I did a check in the sink and repeated the dose successfully. But now I'm worried that maybe the first one did work and the second one is an overdose and I'm probably going to die . . .

11. The looks on people's faces every morning at work. The 'oh shit, what horror is she going to inflict on us today look'

The good thing about Synarel?

My period came on Thursday, so there now is an end in sight for the synarel

Image from Flickr

Facing a new set of facts (Or the sucky post of suckitude)

This is going to be a very difficult blog post to write.

Before yesterday's meeting, we had a fair amount of hope that we knew what was wrong and it was quite easily fixable. Seems it was a case of counting the chickens before we'd seen the eggs.

My thyroid count wasn't as high as we thought it might be. The tablets are working as they have been, and my levels are only just above the preferred level. Because the Stupid Doctor had said all was well, the Fertility Doctor wanted to do another blood test to see if the result would be the same. However, he's pretty certain that the thyroid problem is not what's preventing us getting pregnant.

The only other issue was slightly lowered morphology in M.'s sperm test. This could be due to slightly too much caffeine or alcohol about three months before the test, and is so slight, that again, with all the time we've been trying, it can't be counted as what is preventing us getting pregnant.

So, our official diagnosis is unexplained fertility.

I believe that there are a couple of further tests available - increasingly invasive and/or embarrassing tests. I believe they probably won't tell us what we don't already know - my reproductive system is essentially healthy, M. is essentially healthy - but they will take a financial, and more importantly at the moment, an emotional toll that I don't think we can really deal with at the moment.

Which leads us to, what next. Essentially we're looking at IUI or IVF.

And that's a whole new world to get my head around. The doctor was great yesterday, gave us all the information and answered all my many, many questions, but I must admit there was an overwhelming feeling of having lost something yesterday. A feeling that persisted through the afternoon and resulted in quite a lot of tears last night.

We've talked about it, a little. We've read up on it a little. We think we've made our decision. But we're not going to make anything final until tomorrow. Then we'll get the ball rolling on a whole new approach to getting pregnant.

Photo from flickr