My Life on Clomid - Month 1

So, I finished my first week on Clomid and I thought I would record my experience. I heard a lot of horror stories about the drug, everyone seems to have different side effects and was anxious to see what my week would bring. Basically, I can sum it up by saying, I pretty much felt like I was hopped up on diet pills. The first day, I felt shaky and jittery and not hungry. That night Scout woke me up at like 4 o'clock for something and when I got back in bed and closed my eyes, I couldn't stop picturing a little man in my head endlessly flipping. He was like doing ferris wheel summersalts the rest of the night. The next day, and the proceeding days, it was just diet pills or caffine pills like and the dizziness quieted some. I have no appetite and totally forget to eat, I feel hungry once in a while, but eat very little when I do. I also have like a brain fog thing where I have trouble concentrating (ie-math in my head- not doing that so well). Basically, I kind have gone stupid. Eh, I imagine it will go away, but I have been off it for 2 days now and still feel the same. Last night I ate an apple right before bed and felt really sick, I totally thought I was going to barf. I was like, ok, since when do apples make you sick??? It only lasted about 20 minutes, I just snapped out of it and was perfectly fine, and even hunted down some m&m's. Kind of like when you are pregnant. Anyway, that was my only stomach complaint, thankfully. Except that I was never hungry, but I'm not going to complain about that.
So, that was month one. All in all, much better then I thought it would be. By the way, I wouldn't complain if it ends up being my only month.

My Broken Fallopian Tubes: part deux

Got a call from Winky today. In a conference with the fertility specialists he consults with, he laid out to them my entire medical (pregnancy) history. They do not like to go the surgical route, as it can often lead to more problems. Big sigh of relief from Rob and I, as I missed the first call from Winky today and in his message he stated that he got the results of my test back and we needed to talk about the "action we need to take based on my results". Rob and I figured that meant I would need to have surgery, and neither were enthused with the idea. Anyway, that is not what the fertility specialists suggested. Winky said that it is not a given that your ovaries take turns ovulating month to month. I could easily ovulate on just one side (perhaps the bad side) which would explain my no babies for a year and a half. So, apparently by taking Clomid, I can force both Ovaries to ovulate at the same time. He warned me of the risk of twins with this drug, but also said that the fact that one tube is blocked, will bring the chance down some. So anyway, I am going to start Clomid next cycle and try that for 3 to 6 months. I have heard Clomid can be no picnic, but I far prefer taking a pill to having surgery any day. So that is that. As for twins? What ever, bring them on! If I had twins, I could have three kids and be done with it. I'm not getting any younger you know.

My broken Fallopian Tubes?

I heard back from my dr today, and we are going to proceed with the next step in my battles. This will entail having a procedure done at the hospital that is some catheter/xray thing. His next idea is that something is wrong with my fallopian tubes. We know that they were in proper working order at one time, so possibly something happened with my d/c or the molar pregnancy itself did something. He wants to put a catheter up there and inject dye into them to see if there is blockage or sealage. He said that if there is some mung up there (my word, not his), this injection could flush it out. He is considering the possibility that some debris or mucus could have gotten up there and mucked them up. I am going along with it because it will be good to know. But it feels like a long shot to me. The problem is, after this procedure (and if it comes out that my tubes are normal) he has pretty much run out of ideas. That means he would have to hand me over to a fertility specialist. I think he can do the next step, we talked about some lapriscopic surgery on my uterus, to look for damage to my uterus or endometriosis but I don't have any symptoms of that, but who knows. Anyway, those two things sound really expensive and stuff and so if this next step turns out fine, we are not sure where we shall go from there. If we take another step, it isn't going to be soon.
You know, this whole thing just still kind of shocks me. I never considered this as a possibility (infertility), but well here it is, something I am dealing with. Life sure throws weird things at you sometimes. I had my last real emotional breakdown about this about a year ago. Since then I have had a sense of peace about it. I've had an attitude that this is all meant to be and I am not the one controlling it, the one who is in charge knows more then I do. I am not saying I haven't had any sad or why me moments since, but they have been fleeting and my general feeling is one of peace. I so want at least one brother or sister for Scout. I want that for her so much. She even makes up a brother sometimes, and that just puts a little hole in my soul (I think it is the Charlie and Lola influence on her which is the only thing she has wanted to watch for like 3 months. She usually just makes me Charlie and is happy with that.) I am trying to accept everything with faith which can be really hard sometimes! I have had times in my life where with hindsight, I've said, wow! Now I know what that was all about and why that all happened. But while it is going on, particularly something like this, it is hard to understand. But I guess that is the definition of faith.
Allright, thanks for listening. I needed to get that off my chest a little. My doctor is trying to schedule the procedure for either tomorrow or Monday (short notice! Particularly if it's tomorrow) and we will have the results right away (be able to see the dye flow or not), so the next installment of Emily's broken ovaries will be soon. Wish me luck, I'm nervous....

**Update**

I just got back from the hospital, yeah they booked me with an hours notice and had to coordinate Rob getting Scout to preschool and then meeting me at the hospital. It was hectic but worked out well that Scout was in school for the procedure, so Rob could be there with me. Well, we found something out. I have one totally blocked fallopian tube. The other one is fine and my uterus looked good. I am currently waiting a call from my doctor explaining how this will effect me, the doc that did it, didn't explain that part, except that pregnancy should be possible, just harder. From what information I know off hand, ovaries take turns every month releasing eggs, so when it is the munged tubes turn the egg has no chance. But if they do rotate, I should be able to get pregnant when it is clear tube's turn. I don't know what to think that I have given this over a year and a half and still nothing, but we will see what the doctor says. The technician told Rob that there is a surgery that can unblock a tube, but didn't know much about it, or didn't want to say too much, we just need to see what Winky has to say.
I am a touch cheered in a way, as we now have a actual reason behind all this, and I am cheered at one good tube. Yay one good tube! I expect that both ovaries are releasing eggs, as my electronic moniter gives me a little pic of an egg every month, but what do I know?
More in the continuing saga later.......

Update on the continuing saga of my broken ovaries

I did go to the docs in June, and from what he could tell I checked out fine. He suggested it may be Rob, but Rob checked out too, so now it's back to me. I had a blood test that told us that I am ovulating without a doubt. That is good, but now we have no idea what the problem is. I just thought I would update anyone who was wondering. I need to call my doctor and we will start exploring other culprits. I am still trying to hold out hope that it is going to be an easy fix, some pill or something, although, I'm not sure you could call anything from here "easy".
Maybe though!

A Breakthrough for me

So, I finally took a big step. I called my dr for an exam on why getting Scout a sibling to boss around is proving so elusive.
*BIG SIGH*
I have come up with a lot of excuses these past 8 months or so on why I haven't been more proactive, but if I am to be honest, when it comes right down to it, I think I am simply terrified to hear bad news.
It is hard to get over walking into your drs office expecting to see your 19 week old twins on the sonogram and instead, pretty much hearing the worst news you could hear and then some. This is especially hard to get over when you are a borderline hypochondriac *pointing a finger at myself*, so it's been more or less terrifying to go back there thinking more bad news could be lurking.
I suppose I shall give the nutshell version if there is anyone reading this that doesn't know the story:
I had a molar pregnancy about a year and a half ago. If you read that link, you will have read, "in extremely rare cases, an apparent twin pregnancy is found to be one complete mole and one normal, healthy placenta and fetus" yeah, that was lucky lucky me. You may also have read that it can lead to cancer of the mother. The stats for cancer developing with a complete molar with twin is around 70%. I had to go have blood tests every week for months to screen for this cancer, and this time I really did get lucky and blew all my doctors away (and I in Boston that is "the lead researcher of molar pregancies" - he was told of my case because of my rapid improvement that defied the odds) -my hcg level at the time of "termination" was over 1.5 million, if you've ever been pregnant, that is 8 times the hormone dose at it's highest level-. So my rapid hormone decrease was nothing short of miraculous (basically, my doctors pretty much figured the cancer had invaded all over my body). I am pretty proud of myself, as I have cruised the internet looking through stories of women with molars and out of hundreds, only found one woman with a level higher then mine, and even only 3 other women with a complete with twin (all of those women got cancer). The good news is that this type of cancer is almost 100% curable with chemo. Boy, I thought I cruised through that experience with flying colors. But now, it is a year and a half later and I am proving myself to now be infertile. There is no support out there that says that this condition messes with your fertility, so I don't know what's going on. I had no trouble prior to this incident, so can only blame it on the molar pregnancy. I had huge cysts on my ovaries because of the large hormone doses, but none of the drs I saw were concerned, as they go away when the levels go down. My secret fear is that those things broke my ovaries. Rationally, the problem is a hormone thing, and I didn't regulate properly after the havoc and a simple pill will do it. Irrationally, oh many things swim around my head.
So basically, I just wanted to say that I fell very proud of myself that I finally called the dr and got an appointment (June 19th). Let's face it, I'm not getting any younger and either is Scout, and I want her to have a few brothers and sisters. If my body is now figuratively running away screaming from another pregnancy, I guess, we need to start looking into the adoption route. Rob and I have always liked the idea of having a racially diverse family, maybe that is what we were meant to do. Who knows. I have one thing to be grateful for, and that is Scout. She is our sunshine, and I can't tell you how grateful I am to have had her through all this. There is nothing that can beat having a little one to hold when you have lost some little ones.

Problem Solved

So if I end up not being able to have any more children, it won't be so tragic. I'll just have these two.