Chart confusion

Hmmm. I'm truly baffled by my chart this time! I know I haven't ovulated yet, but there have been a few times when I've been sure I was about to ovulate. CD13 - because I had spotting and a high, soft, open cervix that day. CD15 - due to full ferning and cramping. CD17 - lots of cramping, full ferning and also because sometimes there's a temp drop before ovulation. Clearly, I was wrong about all of those days! I also thought I was possibly ovulating yesterday - not so! Now it's CD20 and I really don't know what's going on. I just hope that I will ovulate - I've been so optimistic recently and if I don't ovulate, that's going to come crashing down!

My chart looks nothing like my annovulatory cycle chart (from August 2011), so I'm hoping that everything will be OK this time. Maybe I'll ovulate today - I've had 4 consecutive days of temp drops, so I guess it's possible!  :)

The microscope is also confusing me: 7 days of partial ferning, 2 days of full ferning, 1 day of no ferning, 3 days of full ferning and 1 day of partial ferning. Huh?! I wonder if my body geared up to ovulate and didn't, so geared up again? I know that can happen with OPKs (pee sticks) but I'm not sure if the same thing can happen with the microscope. I'd hazard a guess that it probably can, though.

I've had a few weird dreams recently. I've dreamed a few times about getting my BFP, and once about having a baby boy (that wasn't really a good dream though; the baby was a preemie born at 28 weeks). I don't really buy into the whole dream interpretation thing, but it has been a while since I've had these kind of dreams. It's most likely just because of all the testing and stuff, it's obviously been on my mind a lot. I can only hope that I will get an actual, real-life BFP soon!

Back to reality!

Our little vacation was awesome. Pure bliss! It had us both saying we should have gone there for our honeymoon (we went to San Diego - it was cool but we were busy almost all the time - this was so relaxing, just what we needed!)

There was a little issue when we checked in - they didn't have the room we paid for available. We had to accept a downgrade for the first night (Saturday), and they gave us a voucher to use on food and drinks. On Sunday we got the room we were supposed to have, which was amazing! We had a king suite, close to one of the medium pools. It was just wonderful!

The resort was quite busy Saturday and Sunday, but Monday and Tuesday were nice and quiet. We were there until lunchtime yesterday, and spent the morning in and around the pool. Even when the resort was busy we still managed to get the pool to ourselves a few times. There's one big pool, 2 medium pools and a few little pools (the resort is big!). We spent most of our time in the medium and small pools because the big pool was busy and loud most of the time.

This vacation was just what we needed. We enjoyed each other without the distractions of daily life, and that's priceless. As much as we love our dogs, it was great to have a break. They all had a wonderful time, I don't think they wanted to come home! Our two went to a fun dog boarding place and played with other dogs almost all day every day, and our two fosters went to a vacation foster home. The family they stayed with really wanted to keep them, they obviously made a great impression and behaved themselves! :)

We're planning to go on another vacation in October, maybe for 4 or 5 days depending on how long my husband can get off from work in one go. We'll try one of the other resorts within easy driving distance of our house. The lack of real traveling involved was awesome - no long drives and no flights! Perfect!

Us enjoying the pool

Us

Fire pit (even though it was over 100 degrees out!)

View from the resort

Big beach ball

Pretty fountain

One of the medium pools (empty, yay!)

Got my results today...

I had my follow-up appointment with my gynecologist today. All of my test results came back great! Nothing is wrong at all, so there's no reason why I'm not getting pregnant. I was kind of surprised that my test results were so good - I really thought something would be an issue! My glucose test came back perfectly normal, as did all my hormone tests. I didn't realize they tested for cholesterol and all of that - all of those came back perfectly normal too. I thought I might be diagnosed with mild PCOS or something, but no.

Anyway, my gynecologist said that if I wanted to take Clomid she would prescribe it for me. I don't see the point in taking it when I ovulate regularly on my own - if it ain't broke, don't fix it. She agreed, but said if I get really frustrated and change my mind she'd prescribe it for 3 months. She recommended continuing to try until the end of the year and then seeing her again if nothing happens by then. She seemed hopeful that we could probably conceive in that time, so fingers crossed. She did give me a card for a reproductive endocrinologist, so I can call them and schedule an appointment with them if I want to. I'm going to hold off for a while, because I really want to see if we can just do this on our own.

I asked about getting a progesterone test done and she gave me an order for it. She said to come in on CD23 for it (hopefully I'll have ovulated by then). She said that my husband's semen analysis results look great, but that she'll ask one of her colleagues who specializes in them to take a look at his results just to be 100% sure. His count, motility and morphology were all higher than average, so she's happy with it. It'll be nice to get an 'expert' opinion though, I guess.

So that's it: there's no reason why we shouldn't be conceiving. I am happy that everything came back normal, of course, but I'm a little confused because I feel as though we should have conceived by now if everything's normal! I guess we'll just keep trying and see what happens. I'm "only" 28 so we do have time (theoretically) to pursue other options later on if we need to.

Last night I had the weirdest dream. My husband texted me to tell me I was pregnant and apparently he'd done the test with my urine sample. Weird! Then I came home and got mad at him because he'd left the pregnancy tests in the pee container and they were ruined. I got pissed because he'd used my last First Response Early Result test and we'd have to go buy more! Oh and when he told me I was pregnant, he said we'd need to decide what we were going to do about it! As if it was unplanned or something! [even if it was, he wouldn't want me to terminate anyway - I think I knew I was dreaming while I was dreaming, if you know what I mean. Other crazy pregnancy dreams I've had made me sad when I woke up, because they felt so real and I was so bummed when I woke up and wasn't pregnant. This one, I woke up smirking about how ridiculous the whole dream was!]
Like I said, very weird. 

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This afternoon we went for lunch, then did some shopping. I wanted to get a dress or 2 for our vacation. I ended up with 3 dresses and a cover-up to wear by the pool (I hate wearing a swimsuit so it'll help to hide my wobbly bits when I'm not in the pool, haha!) and then I got 2 pairs of shoes (wedge sandals). I love everything I got, and the best thing is that it was all a bargain. We went to Burlington and I got the 3 dresses and the cover-up for $60. My shoes were $35 in total (for 2 pairs) from another store. Awesome! I usually hate shopping for dresses, but the 3 I got are great . They don't cling to the wrong places; they're actually flattering and pretty! I'm so excited about them because usually when I'm clothes shopping I have a hard time finding stuff I like that actually looks good on me. I'm not super obese or anything, but I'm no supermodel either. I'm 5ft 8 and pretty well proportioned, but I hate my belly and certain styles of dresses accentuate the bits I want to hide! This is why I live in shorts and tank tops most of the year (jeans and T-shirts in the winter, LOL). It's unusual for me to find exactly what I'm looking for and have it fit well and look great. When I do find what I want and it looks good, I'm thrilled! :-)

Attack of the flying monkeys!

I don't know if anyone remembers or not, but back in April things finally came to a head with my dad. He's a textbook Narcissist, and things had been getting progressively worse with him for a long time. The straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, was when he got super pissed with me for not showing up on Skype when we hadn't arranged to talk. Yes, you read that right: no plans had been made to talk, and I didn't get on Skype. That was my 'offense'. Hmmm. He sent me a crappy email, and I responded (quickly) that I didn't think we were talking that day but would get on Skype right away. He didn't log on at all, I waited for about 20 minutes. He also didn't reply to my email. Whatever, I figured he'd get over himself. Wrong! The next morning I had a nasty email waiting for me, saying that he won't talk to me on Skype anymore and if I want to keep in touch we can just email. Then he said "I hope you have a great life with (husband). I'm going to get on with mine". This all happened April 12th - I remember the date because it just so happened to be CD1 for me (just what I needed that day, obviously!).

Fast forward to Sunday - it was Father's Day. Given that I no longer have a relationship with my dad, I didn't acknowledge the day by sending him a card or anything. I didn't email either - why would I, when he evidently doesn't care about his own daughter enough to grow up and act like a reasonable adult? I kind of expected some fall-out from that, but nothing happened. Yet I wasn't out of the danger period: today is his birthday. Again, I didn't acknowledge it. I went about my day, cleaned the bathrooms, got on Facebook for a minute and there it was: a message from my aunt (dad's sister). Now before I post it here, I just want to say that I'm not close with my aunt at all - I hardly ever hear from her, I send Christmas cards and don't get one from her, etc. Not close, and not in frequent contact. I couldn't even guess when the last contact with her was, prior to today. Here it is (I edited spelling and grammar to make it more coherent!):

Hi Emily, hope you're all well. Just letting you know it's your dads birthday today, he's broken hearted he hasn't heard from you. :(  I'm sure you forgot x speak soon love (aunt)


I have to admit, seeing this message made my heart pound and my hands shake. I don't know what it was - anger, adrenaline? I don't like the effect it had on me, though.

I wrote back:

Hi (aunt), how are you? I'm not being funny but did my dad tell you what our last communication was? He effectively told me he wants nothing to do with me anymore. That was on April 12th. That's why I didn't contact him.
Love,
Em xx


She replied:


No Emily, I haven't spoken to him about you love, was just asking about you when I wished him happy birthday. I thought you had forgot, sorry x


I didn't want her to be upset so I elaborated a little:

It's OK, not your fault. I knew he'd find a way to get to me. Why does he do this? He told me in his last email (which was really nasty, by the way) "I hope you have a great life with Shawn, I'm going to get on with mine". Sounded pretty final to me. I don't want to sound like a heartless bitch, but he hasn't exactly been there for me since I moved here and he thinks I'm supposed to bend over backwards for him on his birthday when he sent me that crap? :(


She then sent me this:

I didn't know about this, please don't say anything, he didn't know I was talking to you. Try and put the past behind you, life's too short. Look at my dad, he died at 57. Sorry I upset you love x 


I just love how I'm supposed to somehow "fix" this messed up situation, when my dad is the one who completely lost it over nothing! Yeah, I just need to go and beg his forgiveness (for what?!) and let him treat me like crap again. Because, you know, life is too short.

Yes, I decided life was indeed too short and that's why I chose to disengage from the craziness. I can't deal with my dad throwing a temper tantrum over nothing - I'm sorry, but he's not a toddler. He hasn't been in touch since he sent that horrible email, and now he's telling his sob story to anyone who will listen? Really? Isn't it funny how he didn't mention the reason why he didn't hear from me?! Yeah, he just wants to make me out to be the bad guy.

I really didn't appreciate that final little guilt trip from my aunt. I think it was a low blow, honestly. My dad obviously doesn't care about me, or how I'm doing. It's been more than 2 months since I heard from him after his hissy fit. In fact, I just checked the calendar and it's been 10 weeks. I remember when I spoke to my mom recently, and I said I thought something would happen because of Father's Day and my dad's birthday. I didn't expect it to come from my aunt, though! As I said, I never hear from her at all.

Well, I haven't replied to her last message and I don't think I will. I don't know why she's worried that I'll tell my dad what she said - if she read my first message properly she'd know there's no chance of that happening. Let her think what she wants. I was tempted to block and delete her on Facebook, but so far I've just made it so she can't see what I post from now on (statuses and photos).

It makes me wonder what my dad's been telling my grandma. I'll admit that I haven't called her since all of this happened. I've wanted to call in a way, but I also don't know what I'm going to say if she brings this situation up with me. I guess since he whined about it to his sister, he's probably told my grandma even more. He's not exactly close to his sister, he talks to my grandma more. At this point it doesn't even matter to me if they "take sides" because they've never exactly been very present in my life. If I didn't call my grandma we'd never speak. Even when I lived in the UK, she never called me. I guess what I'm saying is that it doesn't make much of a difference to me if we talk or not. I know whatever I tell my grandma would get back to my dad, though, so maybe that's a good enough reason not to call.

Why do families have to be so crappy? As if we don't already have enough issues with my in-laws! I guess we must have done something terrible in a past life or something! At this point, the only parent we have between us is my mom. My in-laws aren't good people and my dad isn't either. We'll be OK, though, because we have each other. I guess the only consolation that it's taking us so long to have a baby is that by the time it happens, all the toxic people will be long gone from our lives. At least our future children (if we have any) won't have to deal with these crazy freaks.

Trying to be positive again

Today is CD10 and my saliva microscope is still showing partial ferning. Since I've never ovulated before CD17 before, I don't really expect to ovulate for another week or so. However, other signs point to me being fertile at the moment. I guess we'll see! It would be great if it happened sooner rather than later, but as long as it does happen and we don't miss that window, it's fine.

Today's microscope photos:

Partial ferning, with the rest of the sample being 'blobs'

Partial ferning

I'm encouraged by some of the stories I've read about women conceiving soon after having the HSG. I know that it doesn't work for everyone, but it works for some. I know there's no blockage in my tubes, but I read a lot of reports of women who had no blockages getting pregnant very shortly after having a HSG. So I feel as though maybe I'll be one of the lucky ones. Of course I know that nothing is guaranteed, and I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much because it hurts so much to have them dashed, but I feel kind of optimistic for the first time in a while. I think the fact that our much-needed vacation is coming up is helping, too.

If there's anything amiss with my glucose test results, I should hear something today I think. I really hope those results are fine! I know that if they're not, there are medications I can take. I'd rather not have to, though. OK, so that was totally stating the obvious! Anyway, fingers crossed everything is good.

Today we're going to the gym after a couple of days off. We went Saturday and Sunday, and I tackled the evil elliptical trainer ;)  I might go on it again today. It's a good way to burn lots of calories, and also for me to push myself harder than I usually do. I was proud of myself for doing a whole hour on that thing on Sunday - I know it sounds pathetic, but it felt like an achievement! Since we started going to the gym (5/9) I've definitely improved my fitness level. It takes longer for my heart rate to increase and I have more endurance. I don't think I've really lost any weight (if I have it's not much) but I feel better. I also sleep better when we've been to the gym. Regardless of weight loss, it's definitely been a good lifestyle change! I wish we'd joined much sooner, but it is what it is. At least we're going now, anyway.

CD8 microscope pics

More ferning than yesterday, but still partial ferning

Becoming more fern-like!

Another pic

It looks as though I'm becoming more fertile, so hopefully I'll ovulate earlier than usual! I couldn't start using the microscope until CD12 last cycle, so I don't know what the ferning test would have shown at this point in my last cycle. It's still really interesting, though  :)

HSG...

I just got home from having my HSG, and I'm so happy to say that everything looked normal! I was almost convinced there was going to be some kind of blockage, but no, it was great. Such a relief! I spent a while chatting to the X-ray tech because I used to do her job back in England, and she was so nice. I asked her if I could take some pics of my HSG images and she made me a CD with all of them on. Awesome!

The procedure itself wasn't at all bad, just a little uncomfortable but not painful. It wasn't much worse than having a pap smear, honestly. I'm having some spotting now but other than that I feel fine. I had some mild cramping when the radiologist inserted the balloon and pushed the dye through, but it was nothing compared with the cramps I get when I have my period.

Anyway, here are some of my images (with identifying information removed, of course!)

Uterus and both fallopian tubes

View of right fallopian tube (with dye spilling out)

View of left fallopian tube (with dye spilling out)

So this is what we know so far:

• My husband's semen analysis and blood-work came back awesome
• My HSG looked great
• My blood work for estrogen and thyroid are presumably OK (I haven't been able to get a copy of those yet, but the lab tech said that I would have been contacted if there was anything wrong)
• My glucose tolerance test results should be available in a couple of days, and I'll ger a call if there's a problem.

As yet, our infertility is unexplained. Of course, there could be a reason that hasn't been discovered yet. Maybe we'll know more soon. Better yet, maybe I'll be pregnant soon. That seems like wishful thinking, and I definitely won't allow myself to get my hopes up, but maybe it will happen.

I can't wait until our little vacation. We need it so badly!