please hold

Hurry up and wait is the order of the hour. It's a good news/weird news week.

For starters, my OB (the bitch with a capital C) is leaving the medical group I go to so she can be a full time mommy. How nice for her. That sentence wasn't dripping with acidic sarcasm. In opposite land.

Anyway, it's fine, because as I say, she's a total cuntwozzle and I am just gonna pick a different OB in the same practice. Probably.

Probably, because yesterday my husband's old company acquired his new company, and our insurance is going to change. Things can only get better in that department -- nothing can be worse than "We're sorry your vagina doesn't work, now here is zero dollars to help with that."

So in anticipation of better coverage, I canceled a physical I'd scheduled at the fertility clinic on Tuesday, along with a round of blood tests that would have cost a couple grand. I'm OK with waiting another month or so.

In other fertility clinic news, they keep having this ignoramous call me and tell me things, when she clearly has no idea what she's talking about. It's becoming grating. She called Monday to tell me one of the doctors says two miscarriages in a row does not equal "a pattern of miscarriages." In their world, perhaps. Anyway, because of that, they do not feel any additional testing is warranted. I didn't argue with her because as I said, she knows nothing. I'd planned to attack the NP doing my physical for information yesterday, but that'll have to wait.

Finally, I pored over Making Babies and upped my vitamin intake to the level the book recommends. I will probably ovulate this cycle, despite the miscarriage, if the CM I'm seeing is any indication. I'm seeing more than normal, and I can only attribute this to the vitamins. I'm taking a lot more folic acid, and I've added vitamin C, NAC, and coQ10 to the mix.

The ignoramous on the phone says they don't generally recommend trying to conceive again directly following a miscarriage blah blah I've heard it all before. I wonder if three miscarriages equals a pattern? Hm. I'm not interested in finding out but I also wonder if it's possible two miscarriages in a row really isn't a pattern and there's maybe nothing wrong with me. I can clearly get pregnant; staying pregnant is the trick. I'm still losing tiny bits of weight at a time and am down about ten pounds, so hopefully that helps whatever might be jacking me up.

In any case, that's what's up right now. There probably won't be much to report until we get the insurance thing worked out. Til then!

Anovulation

Through a series of observations, like:

1. Ovulation tests
2. Monitoring of cervical mucus
3. Observance of non-pregnant status

... I have determined I am not ovulating.

I've also diagnosed myself with Lotsa Fatitude with Extreme Estrogen, which I believe is causing my anovulation. Making Babies says fat releases lots of estrogen. If there's too much fat on your body, you might as well be taking a birth control pill.

I've given myself til July to rectify the issue. If it's not solved by then, I'll be seeing a doctor again.

Plans are:

1. Walking 5 miles a day
2. Drinking buttloads of raspberry leaf tea
3. Taking buttloads of B vitamins, among other supplements
4. Abdominal massage, as recommended by Making Babies
5. Dust off The Machine (my very fancy ovulation predictor)
6. Track basal temps

I've quit coffee and am slowly cutting out "acidic" foods. I've removed gluten, sugar (although I've flubbed here and there) and most starches from my diet. Next up is dairy, then alcohol (*sob*).

So, two months. We'll see what happens. It's frustrating, and I'm getting anxious, and I don't want to be anxious.

A two-month trial

Firstly, a public service announcement: If you guys are into fertility stuff and aren't watching Giuliana & Bill on the E! network, you should be. It's nice to see someone who has genuinely struggled to conceive go through the same things us "normal" folks go through, ie. when everyone you know is pregnant/has children. But more importantly I saw a preview for an upcoming episode in which she mentions the very book that Libby, Christina and I are following in an attempt to conceive naturally -- Making Babies. I am really curious to see what she thinks of the book and if she applies its principles in her life. If she wants my unsolicited advice, she probably needs to gain just a little bit of weight.

Anyway! You might recall that last week my doctor told my husband and I that everything is normal so far. Further tests on me might reveal the very issues that have been preventing me from conceiving, and my doctor's recommended that I go see a specialist if I don't get pregnant this cycle. 

I, however, have thought about it and decided that I am going to wait until October to submit to further testing. It's only a couple months away and gives me a chance to try to establish some really healthy habits and truly employ the Making Babies recommendations. I chose October because that's my birthday month. I'll be 33, and will probably be more than ready to have more blood drawn, etc., if I haven't managed to conceive naturally by then.

Meanwhile, my cycles have thrown me a couple of curve balls, just when I thought I had them figured out. The last one was longer than expected, and this time I think my cycle has even confused The Machine (my way-too-expensive Clearblue fertility monitor). For a few months I reached peak fertility on Day 17, and ovulated on Day 18 or 19. I assumed this cycle would be exactly the same, believing I'd achieved an actual regular cycle, which was more than welcome after a year of playing Who knows when I might ovulate?! Not to mention: Who knows when I might start my period?!

So The Machine was telling me what it always does on Days 10-13: Low fertility. My toilet paper was telling me a different story  -- a lovely tale of fertile cervical mucus. Which was confusing, but had happened before. I expected a reading of perhaps elevated fertility on Day 14, but instead The Machine suddenly bounded straight to the top of the chart and said I had reached my peak fertile day. *ALERT! ALERT!* That's what it always feels like when I see that I've reached my peak fertile day --- drop everything, including your drawers! Get busy!

In any case, I was a bit concerned. How did I not have the estrogen surge that would indicate high fertility before reaching my peak fertile day? And why was my peak fertile day three days before it has been for the last few months? I turned to The Machine's instruction booklet. Which, by the way, was written by idiots. I won't mince words. The Machine is very easy to use, but in reading the instruction booklet you'd think you were being trained to detonate a nuclear missile.

Lo and behold, in the FAQ section, I found this question:

My monitor changed straight from Low to Peak Fertility this cycle. What does this mean? 

The booklet (un)helpfully answers:

This may happen occasionally, for example when a rise in estrogen is detected on the same day as your LH surge or if the Monitor does not detect a change in your estrogen before you LG surge. This can happen if you miss a test, or perform a test incorrectly, or if you have a very short cycle following longer cycles.

I did not miss any tests, or perform any tests incorrectly, nor did I have a very short cycle following longer cycles. I guess I just have to be satisfied with the blanket answer that the rise in estrogen was simply not detected until the LH (lutenizing hormone) surge. Which pisses me off because I want to know WHY. Is it possible there is an underlying issue that would cause something like that?

I guess these are the kinds of things that good little girls who let doctors poke and prod them get to find out. So I guess I'll be finding out sometime around October. 

Let's talk about cervical mucus

I find myself talking an awful lot about my cervical mucus these days. Even with friends who don't have kids and are only minimally interested in doing so. When I'm talking with friends who are having fertility issues about cervical mucus? Oh, we could go on for half an hour.

About a mucus. That comes out of our vaginas.

Because let me tell you something about my cervical mucus. It went on a hiatus or something. Pre-birth control, I had plenty. Too much, even. And I'm talking about the "fertile" stuff -- the egg white stuff. Before I knew what this stuff was, I had a kind of "What in holy hell is this crap?" attitude about the sticky goo that presented itself for a few days every month and then just as mysteriously disappeared.

Post birth control, I was seeing a tiny teensy weensy bit maybe one day out of the month, and not for the whole day. I'm not blaming birth control. I have no idea why this happened. I am older and fatter, which probably doesn't help.

But!

Since I started taking the many, many supplements I take every day, as recommended by Making Babies? I'm seeing more fertile cervical mucus. Not like it used to be, yet, but definitely more. I like that. I like that I can see a direct positive result coming from all this crazy junk I do every day to help improve my fertility.

And actually, that's not the only positive result. My skin seems clearer, my hair and nails are growing very fast, and I have more energy. Also, my last period was less painful than usual.

If you're curious what exactly I'm taking every day, here's what I do: Three times a day I take a New Chapter Organics prenatal pill. Twice a day I take a New Chapter B-complex pill. Twice a day I drink 8 ounces of water with 18 drops of chlorophyll in it. Three times a day I take two flax oil capsules. Once a day I take a baby aspirin. Once a day I drink a mug of green tea, and once a day I drink a mug of red raspberry leaf tea. When I ovulate, I'll begin taking chaste tree berry.

I have a couple of friends who suggested I post about how much money I've spent on my home fertility treatments so far. So I gathered all my stuff and put it on the kitchen counter and took this picture. This photo doesn't include a few books I've downloaded and read on my Kindle. A ballpark estimate of all this stuff is probably somewhere around $500. It's a little cuckoo. And I'm done buying new stuff, unless it's refills for the supplements that I think are actually helping me. Or if I determine that acupuncture would help. So basically I'm gonna keep spending money.

Now. To segue to The Machine. The update on The Machine is that it's Day 14 and it's telling me I haven't reached peak fertility yet. Which I would not have anticipated. This means I might reach peak fertility tomorrow, putting ovulation on Day 16 or 17, which is a bit later than I thought it was happening. So, I may have been wrong about The Machine. Maybe The Machine knows what it's talking about. Also - there's a possibility I'm not going to ovulate this month. Supposedly The Machine will not indicate a peak fertile day if you don't ovulate. Which would be helpful information to have. More info to follow next week...