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Yup, it’s a sad fact. No matter how you count it, you only get 12 tries at the big O (that’s ovulation if you haven’t caught my drift) a year. Usually no more, and often WAY less. It really freaks me out when I think about the number 12, it seems so puny. God gave us 365 grand days a year but just 12 little measly O days…and that’s if you even O at all.
I think of how fast a dozen eggs gets used in my house, or how long a 12-pack of soda lasts (um, not long), or how short sleeping in just 12 extra minutes feels. What have I gotten right that I only had 12 tries at? I couldn’t tell you how many tries it would take me to shoot a free-throw successfully or spell the word ‘nauseau’, I mean ‘naseua’, I mean (do get my drift here?). And you’re telling me that all I get is 12 tries at pregnancy every YEAR?
And 12 is the absolute best it gets. If you have PCOS like me, you may not even O on your own at all. And you may have craaaaaaaazy long cycles that give you only SIX tries at best…or less. And if you or your hubby travel during the month, well you may be shucks-out-of-luck when you find yourself staring at a postive OPK in Cleveland while your hubby is off at a conference in Witchita. I can’t even imagine all you military families dealing with IF…you may only get a few chances at all during the year. Or if you’re doing IVF, that’s a several month build-up process. And people wonder why we stress! Do you think they understand the number 12?
If you’ve been following my blog, you may know that I’m close to hitting the one year mark for TTC #2. That’s with using treatment, since it took us over 3 1/2 years to conceive my son. Since March last year, I’ve had my fair share of “NO-GO” months, or at least close calls. Sort of makes me think that there’s some cosmic force just waiting to position a new roadblock each month on my way to a BFP. Sort of like that ‘Press Your Luck Show’ where the Whammies are always popping in with their cartoon dynamites or jackhammers or whatever trying to foil the plans of some get-rich-quick game show contestant. I’ve got TTC Whammies. I guess all of us with IF do.
The first of my official NO-GOs was in August 2008. After several cycles of Femara, Metformin and the HCG trigger shot, Novarel, my pharmacy said (after MANY delays, and the day I was supposed to use it, by the way) that they couldn’t order my Novarel shot anymore. No Whammies, NO Whammies, NO Whamies, STOP! Uh-oh, you landed on the Pharmacy Totally Screwing with Your Meds Whammy. So that meant August was a NO-GO, not that we didn’t give it the ol’ college try anyway. Wink, wink. I’m not sure why, without my trigger shot, I have as much chance of Oing as my husband does.
Next Whammified cycle was September, we’d done 5 med + trigger cycles with a big NEGATORY ending, so my reg OBgyn (whom I started seeing at first to ’save money’…which in hindsight wasn’t so brilliant) says he thinks we can get preggo with an IUI. Yay! The coveted IUI, the door into ‘real’ infertility treatments and the gateway to my BFP! I really should’ve known something was up when I found myself telling my doctor how big my follies should be before I trigger. If we rewound a few months before that, I should’ve known to jump ship with my doc when I had to remind him that Metformin XR comes in 500mg doses, not 50 mg doses. If we rewound a few years before that, I should’ve known when he looked blankly at my carefully, filled-out BBT charts and basically shrugged his shoulders. OK, he’s a great OB, not a great fertility specialist.
So I get the big IUI. Lay down on that cold table for a good 30 minutes after (ok, maybe less, but time goes VERY slow when all you have is your fashion-forward paper dress and the slimmest shred of dignity left) to really let those suckers to do their job. And you know what? No Whammies, NO Whammies, NO Whamies, STOP! Uh-oh, the dreaded ‘uterine infection’ fairy has come to visit you and totally ruined your chances for a successful IUI. NO-GO month #2: September 2008.
So, October was a bit of a ’self-imposed’ NO-GO. It finally dawned on me (ha! after 7 months!) that maybe I needed to go visit my old friend, Dr. RE, you know, the one who actually helped me get pregnant the first time? So that meant I had to wait a whole month to get in. Honestly, I was lucky, since I was already an ‘established’ patient, I didn’t have the regular 2 month NO-GO that you primary IFers deal with.
NO-GO #4: November 2008…My RE wanted to re-test all of the exciting and fun tests that he ran 4-5 years ago when I came in the first time. That meant, that not only did I get to have my FOURTH HSG (oh yes, let’s count them…one, two, three, FOUR), but I got to waste another month. Yippee. The only redeeming factor of using this month as a NO-GO was that we actually got to go on vacation. This served two purposes: 1) we got to go on vacation, and 2) I got to yell at anyone who told me to go on vacation that I in fact DID and we still weren’t pregnant.
Onto December 2008. This is a big month for me. My first cycle with the RE and getting it with follicle-monitoring (that means they make you come in more than you need, because they love them greenbacks) to visit the ‘magic wand’ (as my IF sisters call it) to poke and punch around at your swollen and sore ovaries to see how well you’re going to handle the pain of childbirth. OK, it’s actually to check for follicles, the little cyst-thingys that can catch an egg (kind of like a a baseball glove). Anyway, I’m super pumped for this. So, I go to my follie check appointment…NO Whammies…Stop! And they tell me I only have one ‘decent’ follicle, apparently the other follicles were in various states of undress or something. And then, this is the kicker….NO Whammies…No Whammies….STOP! My follie is only a 17 (mm that is), which means it can’t ‘officially’ be considered decent, which means I need to come in the next day to see if it grows…which, incidentally, is a Saturday when they’re only open until 10 AM and I work until noon. So I say, can’t we just assume it’s going to be an 18 (mm) by tomorrow? That’s when the nurse gets all evil on me and starts telling me all kinds of medical rules and ten commandments she’d be breaking if we just assumed. So she tells me that this cycle is cancelled, no more blood-work, no trigger shot, no more monitoring….ALL BECAUSE THEY’RE STINKIN’ OFFICE ISN’T OPEN LATER?
So this is where any sliver of pride that was left on the table after my IUI, gets tossed out the window. I start crying uncontrollably (which isn’t pretty, really) and begin to rant about how there’s only 12 months in a year, so every month really counts, and I’ve already been out of the loop for the past several months, and you’ve got to be kidding me that we’re really going to ditch this cycle after I’ve suffered through these hotflashes?!? And then they send in the old, nicer nurse to make me stop crying and freaking out the rest of their patients.
I leave in this huge huff and don’t care one flip about how that looks to the waiting room full of fingers-crossed couples. Then I call my hubby, who I’m sure thought I’d just been in some horrific accident by the sense of calm and level-headedness I was portraying. He’s his caring and understanding self and just tells me to cancel work if I need, that this is more important. So I get home, and I’m realizing there’s NO WAY that I want to waste this cycle, so I proceed to call back the office that I just threw a hissy-fit in an hour ago and ask them to ‘work me into’ their Saturday schedule and give some halfish apology how they shouldn’t mess with women on Clomid (maybe that was more of threat?). TOTALLY HUMILIATE YOURSELF IN FRONT OF THE RE STAFF: December 2008.
Which leaves us to January 2009. No Whammies….Stop! First baseline u/s on January 2nd: You know it’s not good when the tech just starts making those annoying ‘hmmmm’ sound with a lot of clicking on their impossible to see from the stirrup-table screen. Then, because she was probably warned that I was ‘unbalanced’ she told me the nurse would talk with me about the results. So, of course, they sent in the nice one to announce that I had ‘cysts that look they’re already starting to break up so please don’t freak out in this office again’. One stinkin’ month on Clomid, and I’ve got cysts! Whammified again. NO-GO month #5: January 2009.
So here I am, waiting to visit the magic wand tommorow (that’s today for all you Monday readers) and see if I can get myself at least out of the starting gates. I’m not having much luck it seems…11 months I’ve been doing this and 5 of them I’ve been on the DL (that’s disabled list for all you non-ESPN watchers). They only give you, what, like 3 Whammy chances on ‘Press Your Luck’ right? I’d be leaving with some dumb ‘Leggs Hosery’ departing gift by now, not a free trip to Cancun and $10,000! I need some free spins or something.
Wish me luck tomorrow girls…NO Whammies…NO Whammies….NO Whammies….Stop!
