Everything since Christmas

1. Before I start with my updates, I'd like to say thank you so much to all of you who prayed for those of us still waiting during Advent as part of the spiritual bouquet. (Yes, that was a month ago.) It's so easy to feel forgotten by those who have moved on into the world of motherhood and whose IF blogs have become mommy blogs. Your prayers and sacrifices were so touching and very much appreciated.

2. After some tough few weeks of Advent, I ended up having a fairly joyful Christmas (as much as possible anyway, considering the circumstances). It was nice to spend time with my grandma. She made way too much food as usual and wouldn't accept anyone's help as usual. :) None of the relatives asked us about having kids, which was nice. I wonder if they think we're not going to have kids given that we've been married for so long. One of my cousins got married last summer, and I admit I was quite relieved (maybe too relieved) to see his wife with an alcoholic drink in her hand. Family gatherings are usually my "IF safe space"--there are no babies and no pregnant women. The only children are school-aged, and my only married cousin announced they were "done" as soon as she was pregnant with their second child, who is now six years old.

3. New Year's Eve was not an IF safe space. We went to a party with friends. There were babies being passed around and multiple pregnant ladies. I had a pleasant (to the outside observer) conversation with a very visibly pregnant friend about maternity dresses and how well they fit. I felt so fake asking questions and pretending to be interested so she'd never know it was killing me inside. I really just wanted to run to the bathroom and cry. Oh, I forgot to mention AF arrived 10 minutes before we left for the party. I was in an unhappy mood (to put it mildly) most of the night, especially since I had gotten my hopes up more than usual because my post-peak phase was a day and a half longer than normal. So I was mad at myself for hoping and mad at AF for appearing when she did. Thankfully DH understood when I wanted to leave five minutes after midnight.

4. A curious thing happened on my chart this cycle, and I'm wondering what might have caused it. I had significantly less TEBB. Usually when I have it, it's present all day long and in large amounts (ewwww), but this cycle it was just a little bit once or twice each day and much lighter in color. Technically I only had two days of TEBB this cycle, compared to seven days last cycle. I did have two other days mid-cycle with a single occurrence of brown, but they were not directly after AF.

There were several things different that may have caused this change. I spent the last two weeks of the previous cycle visiting family for Christmas and New Year's, in a different part of the country from where we live. I think I ate more healthy foods while traveling--and more food in general--but I also completely overdosed on sugar. "Overdosed" is not an exaggeration. My family made multiple batches of cookies and other addictive tasty desserts just for me (with all my diet restrictions). There was a container labeled "polkadot's treats" (actually two containers) and a separate one with "treats for everyone else." I had not yet gone sugar free as Dr. K recommended--I was planning to do so after all the New Year's festivities. In my attempt to offset all the sugar, I took a probiotic twice a day without fail. (Normally at home I'm lucky if I remember to take a probiotic at all because I keep it in the fridge, so it's not in my pill box.) The probiotic is my best guess at what would have deceased my TEBB. I really haven't been diligent about taking it regularly since I had the IV antibiotics last summer when my TEBB disappeared for one cycle.

5. Another thing different about last cycle was that it was the first cycle at a slightly increased dose of Clomid (went from 25mg to 50mg on CD3-5). I had the best mucus I've ever seen. (My mucus cycle score, a way to rate the mucus quality, was the highest it's ever been. I looked through all my old charts to confirm this.) I took very little Mucinex or B6 that cycle...so much for Clomid drying up mucus! I also had breast tenderness from P+2 on which was quite a bit more painful than usual. I guessed that my body was responding well to the higher Clomid dose. My P+7 blood draw was not shipped to PPVI like normal because I was traveling, so it can't truly be compared to the PPVI values from previous cycles...however my progesterone was 43 and my estrogen was 32. Both were twice as high as the previous cycle. My body likes more Clomid. :) This cycle the breast tenderness is really mild, so I think I might be back to my "normal" hormone levels.

6. Back in December I had received an e-mail from the surgery scheduler at PPVI saying that she would be contacting me in January about picking a date for my laparoscopy with Dr. K. When I received a phone call to schedule my surgery, I was quite surprised that it was from Dr. E's office, the NaPro surgeon who is a few hours from here. It turns out that she had openings in her schedule much sooner than originally expected. When I had my appointment with her in November, she had estimated February or March, but when I later spoke with the scheduler, it was going to be a longer wait. Upon learning that, Dr. K at PPVI offered to do the surgery, so DH and I agreed because we didn't want to wait. But now since Dr. E had openings in February, we're going with her. Interestingly, Dr. K's scheduler called the day after Dr. E's scheduler called. Dr. K's scheduler was aware of the situation and was very happy to hear that Dr. E could do the surgery because she knew we much preferred to have it done closer to home.

So my surgery is Friday, February 8th with Dr. E. That's next week!!! I am excited that is it so soon and that we can drive there. I have a pre-op appointment and blood work the day before, so we'll stay overnight that night. My surgery is at noon. Dr. E will start with a regular laparoscopy, and if there's endo in hard-to-reach places or a lot of it, she'll switch to a robotic laparoscopy. If she switches to robotic, I'll spend that night in the hospital and have a two week recovery. If she stays with the regular laparoscopy, I'll spend that night in the hotel with DH and have only a few days of recovery. After my surgery two years ago it took a full week to get back to feeling close to normal, but Dr. E thinks a lot of that had to do with my uterine septum reduction. (I am very curious to learn how things look inside my uterus now...) She said a weekend would probably be enough recovery time for a typical laparoscopy. Without going into details of why I was having surgery, I explained the situation to my boss that I might be out for up to two weeks or it could be less. (I didn't say that I might be back the Monday after surgery though...) He was really understanding and said to take whatever time off I need.

7. Besides the laparoscopy, Dr. E is going to do the following: biopsies and cultures of the endometrium and cervix, selective hysterosalpingogram (she'll also clean out the fallopian tubes if they're blocked), and hysteroscopy.

8. I've started making a list of things to take along on the trip for after the surgery since we won't be home until the following day. Normally I'd be packing a lot of food for an overnight road trip, but if it's anything like last surgery, I was too nauseous to eat much for about a day. And I'm on a liquid-only diet the day before surgery, so that limits my options. I'm trying to remember what I used last time or had just in case...so far I have a pillow for the car, heating pad, sweat pants, etc. If I would be spending the night in the hospital, any advice for what I might want to have with me?

9. I'm glad I wasn't given that much advance notice of my surgery date because it's less time to be worried about what the surgeon might possibly find. I have this fear in the back of my head that the inside of my uterus is all scarred up from the septum removal, and Dr. E will say our TTC days are over. Irrational, yes, but isn't most fear like that? ;) I'm also a bit scared that she'll find absolutely nothing wrong--no endo, etc. That I think is less likely because my ultrasound series from last year showed a shadowy area on my left ovary suspicious for endo. I guess I want to know whatever it looks like inside. Any info will be helpful going forward.

March for Life

It was incredible.  The size of the crowd.  All the enthusiastic young people.  Priests, bishops, seminarians, and nuns everywhere.  500,000 or more pro-life people all in the same place.  You'd never know by looking at their faces that it was 25 degrees and snowing.

Well, okay, maybe these people look a bit cold.

Wall-to-wall people as far as you could see.

Note to self:  If carrying a sign in the future, make it double-sided.

The only people not happy were the police.  They seemed very stern, almost angry.  Maybe they were intimidated by the large crowd?  It was the nicest, friendliest crowd I've ever been a part of...  One policeman yelled at DH (to get off the ledge) while he was taking this picture.  It was my fault--I asked him to stand up there.  :)  I figured it would be okay because others were sitting on the ledge...

Beforehand I wondered how I'd react during the March in light of our infertility.  I thought I might be extra sensitive or emotional, but I wasn't**.  I actually managed to forget that I was infertile most of the day and just focused on what was going on around me.  It probably didn't hurt that I was at one of my more stable parts of the cycle (early/mid-post peak).  ;)

**The one exception, which I don't think had anything to do with IF, was when I started sobbing while walking by a display set up on the sidewalk showing pictures of unborn babies, both living and dead.  It was the only time and place during the March where I saw them.  (Everywhere else the pictures were of cute living babies.)  I've seen pictures of aborted babies before; years ago as part of training to volunteer at a crisis pregnancy center, they had us watch a few videos with them.  I think I cried back then during those videos also.  I understand the arguments both for and against showing graphic images in public, and normally I might lean toward not showing them, but in that moment on Friday, I was glad that I saw them.  Not that I had been complacent about abortion, but it just convicted me deeply that this is what we want to end.  It took me a minute to compose myself though; I really didn't want to spend the rest of the March crying.

The most moving part of the March for me was just after we turned the corner of the last block before the Supreme Court, where the March ended.  There was a line of people standing along the sidewalk from Silent No More holding signs like, "I regret my abortion" or "I regret lost fatherhood."  I really admired their courage.  Some of them also spoke to the crowd in front of the Supreme Court and gave their testimony of how they had been hurt by abortion.

I didn't have very many expectations ahead of time, but I did assume there would be counter-protesters.  I remember in previous media coverage of the March, they liked to show pictures of the counter-protestors, often more than the marchers themselves, so I half-expected there to be a lot of them lined up on the sidewalks yelling at the pro-lifers.  I was (pleasantly) shocked and relieved that I counted three pro-abortion signs in total (and no one else next to them without signs), and they were only in front of the Supreme Court.  Believe me, I was scouring the signs people were holding on the sidewalks as the rest of us walked by to see what their position was.

The March seemed to be over so quickly, but I guess it doesn't take that long to walk a mile, even in a huge crowd.  (If you stood in one place and watched everyone walk by, it would have been at least an hour and a half, maybe more than two hours.)  My fingers were starting to get cold at the end, otherwise I probably would have dragged DH back to the beginning and walked the route again.  :)

I definitely hope to attend the March for Life in the future, but I will keep praying that one day they won't have to hold it anymore.

Novena for the unborn

I'm a little late in posting this, but I wanted to share this novena that goes from January 14 to January 22, the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.  I think as IFers our prayers and sufferings offered for the unborn and for an end to abortion are especially powerful.  I sometimes think of the experience of IF as (unchosen) fasting for those who choose abortion.

Prayer for Life by Fr. Frank Pavone

God and Father of Life, You have created every human person and have opened the way for each to have eternal life. We live in the shadow of death.  Tens of millions of your children have been killed because of the Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion.  Father, have mercy on us.  Heal our land and accept our offering of prayer and penance.  In your love for us, turn back the scourge of abortion.  May each of us exult in hearts full of hope and hands full of mercy and work together to build a culture of life.  We pray through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

I'm looking forward to attending the March for Life this year in DC.  I've wanted to go for a long time, and logistics finally worked out, so this will be my first time (DH's too).