Absence

A lot has happened since I last posted. I bought myself some ultra sensitive (10mui) pregnancy tests and started testing from 5 days after I thought I’d ovulated (5DPO) and I kept testing each morning, squeezing out every drop of potentially hormone-filled urine and then waiting the maximum time to read the test before finding just the right light to maybe-just-maybe see a line. But, there was never anything there and on day 11 I started bleeding… right on time after my normal 10 day luteal phase.

It wasn’t to be, but I was all geared up with the hope that my body might actually be working. That maybe after 2 perfect length, but anovulatory, cycles post-Provera and a third perfect length, and ovulatory cycle, that a fourth perfect length and ovulatory cycle would occur. That also wasn’t to be.

My Dad was taken in for removal of a cancerous kidney at the beginning of December and the operation went a little bit wrong. They still got the kidney but couldn’t do it via keyhole and had to open him right up. They also found that the tumour had grown and from where it was and assessed him as having Stage 3 and Grade 3 kidney cancer.

I think the stress got to me and my 4th perfect cycle didn’t happen. In fact it didn’t happen until my Dad had a follow up appointment in February where he was told that his recovery is good, that they’ll keep a close eye on him and that if the cancer springs up anywhere else it’ll be the bladder so they’ll keep watching that. It wasn’t the all-clear result that I wanted, but it was a huge weight off my mind that the medical professionals seem to know what they’re doing.

Well within days of that news I seemed to enter a fertile stage and ovulated again (around 87-90DPO). This time I didn’t test like a maniac, I just quietly hoped and as I passed the 11DPO point my hubby began to let himself be excited. But I just wasn’t sure…. there seemed to be a plateau in my chart that FertilityFriend.com was interpreting as post-ovulation temperature rise and I was wondering if it was a stepped rise around the time of ovulation. See what you think….

I saw the secondary temperature rise and wondered if this was post-implantation. But, I calmed myself by reading research that not all pregnancy charts see this additional rise and some non-pregnant charts do see the rise.

Oh and I was inflicted with a horrible norovirus type thing around the time I was imagining that I would be implanting.

I tried to keep myself calm and restrained and manage to only test twice (both negative) whilst telling myself that if I made it past 13DPO then I’d be past 11DPO if the automated ovulation detection was 2 days early. Unfortunately menses found me on that 13th day.

So here I am again… pondering my way forward.

Playing the counting game

I’m at CD24 and I believe that I’m currently 4DPO (to use the days past ovulation jargon).

I’m currently going crazy waiting to test to see if I am indeed knocked up. I never thought (and always hoped) that I’d never become the kind of woman that obsessed over peeing on little sticks to see if I’m pregnant (I always thought I’d just know) but it appears that I am that woman!

My normal luteal phase is 10 days so it’s not as if I have to wait particularly long to find out if my period is late or not!

So in order to stay sane whilst waiting to test I have ordered some cheap-y ebay dip tests that are sensitive to 10miu of HcG and I’ve been pointed at the wonderful website that is peeonastick.com which has been keeping me amused.

Aside from the waiting I’m also coping with horrible cramps, slight nausea, tender boobs and an aversion to chocolate. But that could be due to anything.
For instance,

• the last two cycles were anovulatory and for the last 2 weeks of each I had constant cramps
• my boobs get sore as a standard PMT symptom
• there are various tummy/sickness bugs doing the rounds at work and any bug would upset my stomach and put me off eating chocolate

So readers, bear with me whilst I wait for my dip sticks to arrive and desperately try to hold out until 10DPO to test.

Egg white spotted on CD18 and CD19

Has the soy worked?

I took a 100mg soy isoflavone tablet per day from CD2 to CD6 with the hope that it might trigger me to ovulate and thereby help my body regulate its hormones even if pregnancy does not occur.

And, what do you know…. yesterday was CD18 and around mid-day I discovered the fabled egg white consistency mucus (EWCM) with full on stretchiness (hope that’s not too graphic for you). This is something that I have not seen since my 2 initial (and “normal”) cycles after stopping Cerazette at the end of 2007.

I almost felt like saying “welcome back old friend, where have you been”.

So I told hubby and asked him how he felt about the possibility of getting pregnant this cycle (not that I’m counting on it). Turns out that he was very keen on the idea and some very pleasant sex was had last night.

This was followed up today by the discover of yet more EWCM which is stretchier than yesterday… sorry, going to be graphic again…. stretched between thumb and forfinger (on the same hand) as far apart as I could stretch them.

So many questions….
Am I fertile?
Has soy actually triggered ovulation is this large lass with PCOS?
Is this a delayed reaction from the course of Provera?
Am I hallucinating?
Is there going to be EWCM but no ovulation and therefore no period or anything else?
Is this because I’ve managed to maintain a weight under 19 stone? Or because I’ve managed to drop a couple more pounds and am creeping closer to 18.5 stone?

I don’t know, but I’ll keep you updated.

Another anovulatory cycle

Since finishing my 3 month course of Provera I have had two natural withdrawal bleeds. The first one on CD31 and the second one (yesterday) on CD35. Unfortunately both cycles were anovulatory and both bleeds were incredibly light and short-lived unlike the level of bleeding I’m used to with a period.

Due to the very very light bleeding I started wondering whether it was ovulation bleeding or implantation bleeding. Basically my mind ran away with me and so the 35 days running up to the latest bleed have been particularly fraught. Of course the nasty cold I got around CD14 didn’t help as I thought that was a temperature rise post pregnancy.

So on the upside the course of Provera might have actually helped and on the downside it might not have helped enough.

Last week I went to the doctors with excruitiating stomach cramps the like of which I would normally except the day or two before AF arrives. However these had been going on for two weeks. The doctors opinion was that for a few months following a course of Provera I could find that all my hormones are so out of whack that the symptoms I know and “love” could appear in any order and for any length of time. So there goes any form of predictability (not that there was much to begin with).

So this cycle I will actually be trying to soy isoflavone route I mentioned in an earlier entry to see if it triggers ovulation in me.
I’ll start the tablets tomorrow and let you guys know how it goes.

Still here…

It’s been a tad quiet as I’ve been trying not to jinx things (being the superstitious animal that I am).

Since my last post my hubby was offered:

1. a fixed term contract for 3 weeks after the end of his current contract (meaning he has work up until the last week of October)
2. a real live job offer for a position starting 1st November and with a small pay rise on his current salary, of course there are a couple of pre-conditions

And, on top of that, our mortgage providers are being lovely and letting us off of November’s mortgage payment which will be split across the rest of the term of the mortgage. This means we don’t have to panic about finding a grand to survive November and instead pay an extra fiver a month on the mortgage from December… which is a far nicer thing than financial destitution.

So as the weather turns horrible and drab and grey, I find that the doom and gloom on my life is actually starting to lift a little *fingers crossed*.

In diet news, I’ve managed to lose a couple of pounds more.
In fitness news, I’ve been had a couple of 90% walk / 10% run outings.
In ttc news, I now have some soy isoflavones and am waiting for an opportunity to use them… or thinking about just going for five days now and seeing if it kicks anything off

To get pregnant or not to get pregnant.

Well my hubby is still facing unemployment as of the end of this month and so things are looking all doom and gloom. Of course the activity of trying to get pregnant has ceased, not that we’re taking any precautions against a pregnancy occurring (if Sod’s Law takes effect that is).

So with unemployment looming we looked up what benefits we’re entitled to and it seems that I work too many hours and earn too much money (not that it would support us) to be entitled to anything. Oh, and neither of us are disabled or have children.

So the idea of pregnancy seems to be a case of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”. In which case we’re now thinking about actively trying again. Whilst thinking about things I wandered by 2 of a kind and noticed a link to an article for How to get pregnant using Soy Isoflavones.

So, has anyone out there done this successfully?

At present I’m on CD 20 without any signs of ovulation and this is my first time back on a natural cycle after 3 months of Provera. So, it’s a bit late for me to try the isoflavones this cycle, but I could try next. Based on the amount I’m craving chocolate and the horniness levels I’m assuming that PMT and AF are not far away.

And the stress evaporates…

It’s been a month since my last post and the world of software testing has been a stressed, fraught and angry place. Then at the end of last week the testing was over and the software was labelled and released.

Now what to do? The past three months have been so full of work stress that I could barely think straight, and now it’s evaporated.

I’ve also finished the last of my three month course of Provera, so the fortnight of PMT-beast per month is now done… for the moment.

Of course, there’s still the stress of hubby being jobless in a month (still no positive news on new jobs) and me looking for a better paying job (fruitless as my current employer have not allowed me to specialise).

I’ve not managed to lose any more weight, but I’ve also managed not to put on any stress-blubber either; which is good.

I have another PCOS clinic appointment at the end of September and I need to have lost more weight by then (or risk being told off). I’m also nowhere near the rate of weight loss that the fertility clinic wanted me to achieve… but then with joblessness and stress it’s not like the practicalities allow for a baby at present

Bad news for TTC

After getting the news about hubby’s super-sperm we thought all was go for me simply (according to the fertility doc) losing weight and getting knocked up.

The only problem is that hubby only has two months left at his job and I have zero chance of any pay rise to cover him (and minimal chance of even being given my well deserved performance-not-profit based bonus). So we couldn’t afford to get pregnant now, even if it was easy to do so.

Wah!

So now I’m job hunting in earnest. If I can’t get appropriate remuneration for what I do for my firm then I need to go to a firm that are willing to pay. Hopefully I’ll find something. To other firm’s it’s not like giving me a payrise, it’s just paying expected market rates rather than 50% of them.

The irony is that I was staying with my company until hubby finished his contract and had a permanent job so that we had some security. That was a bad choice!

Wish me luck readers

P.S. Does this mean sod’s law comes into effect and I now get pregnant naturally?

Super Sperm

It appears that the problem is definitely with me as hubby’s results indicate that he has super sperm. In his words he’d “better start wearing sunglasses because he could be getting women pregnant just by looking at them”.

For posterity I wanted to record his results somewhere, and here seemed as good a place as any:

—

Sample volume – 3.5ml

pH – 8.0

Sperm concentration – 134 million per ml

Motility:
A (progressive) – 48%
B (sluggish) – 17%
C (non progressive) – 4%
D (non motile) – 31%

Morphology – 13%

Overall result – Normal sample (Normozoospermic)

—

So once again we just have to concentrate on losing weight (hoping that counteracts the PCOS) and seeing if the course of Provera “reboots” my body and starts me ovulating again.

When good news is also bad news

Hubby rang the doctors today to get the results of his sperm analysis. He was told that his swimmers are fine and that all is good with him. A full analysis is waiting in an envelope at the docs for us to pick up.

So…. good news that his swimmers are healthy and should happily impregnate me. The bad news is that he couldn’t help the joy in his voice when he found out that he has no problems. It’s depressing to know that although we’re a partnership, the lack of conception is all my fault and none of his.

It’s wrong to indulge in comfort eating, but I’m off for a chocolate bar now.