I almost wish I would have tested

Does IF ever make you feel like you want to crawl in bed, bury your head under your pillow, and not come out?  That's kind of how I've been feeling lately, hence the lack of posting around here.  Maybe it's an introvert thing or an attempt to hide from my problems.

DH had ample opportunity to think
this while I was PMSing...

A few weeks ago I wrote about the previous cycle where I experienced some unique symptoms in the 2WW which had me convinced I was pregnant when in fact I was not.   So I vowed the next cycle I would try to ignore everything in the 2WW until I hit P+17, the day I could theoretically take a pregnancy test (via blood test).  When that next 2WW arrived, my plan was going well because I didn't have anything that mimicked pregnancy symptoms.  Great.  :)  I did however have some of the worst PMS DH has ever seen, the kind which includes the Mrs. Hyde-esque if-you-disagree-with-polkadot-you're-wrong-so-prepare-to-face-her-hormonal-wrath" attitude. Why?  I only had enough HCG for one day's shot, which I took on P+4. I tried to order my refill three weeks before I needed it, but the pharmacy said it was on back order. They didn't call me to say they had a new supply in until P+13, but by then it was too late. I survived (and so did DH) but it wasn't pretty.

So there were no fake pregnancy symptoms.  Then I had brown spotting on P+12, and it lasted five days.  That was new for me.  I have never ever had that many days of spotting before AF, and I have only had a 16-day post-peak phase twice since starting TTC five years ago.  So where does my mind go?  That I must be pregnant. Or (far more likely) my progesterone is close to zero since I didn't take all my HCG.  I tried really hard to assume it was low progesterone.  As it turns out, it was neither, but that's a story for another paragraph.

Since my doctor was not going to be available on P+17, I thought I should ask for the necessary blood draw requisition form ahead of time.  I had the e-mail to Dr. K's nurse all typed up right before bedtime on P+15 (figuring they would send it on P+16 so I'd have it ready for P+17).  I hovered my mouse over the "send" button, but didn't click.  I had this feeling like it was a waste.  I didn't want to be the girl who cried wolf and got their hopes up.  I closed the e-mail and left it in my drafts folder.  (It has since been deleted.)

On what would have been P+17, AF showed up for real.  It was definitely AF because it was moderate flow. The next two days I had light flow, and it tapered off from there.  I've never ever had that light of a period before. Usually I have at least two moderate or heavy days, not one.  I thought it was strange but was just planning to move on until I was doing a little light Fac.ebook reading.   One girl commented that her NaPro doctor considered early miscarriage to be a possibility whenever AF is unusual in any way for a couple TTC.  She also mentioned having a post-peak phase even just one day longer than usual adds to the suspicion.

Both of those were true for me...

I lost it. The tears were instantaneous.  The thought that I had possibly conceived and miscarried was totally overwhelming.  In the moment, I prayed something like, "Baby, if you exist in heaven, pray for me."  Of course it can never be proven one way or another so I won't know this side of heaven.  At that moment I started wishing I had taken a home pregnancy test.   I admit, the thought did cross my mind by the fourth day of spotting (P+15).  I figured that the HCG from P+4 would have been out of my system by then, so it actually may have been accurate (and not a false positive caused by the HCG injection).  If I'm being honest though, I'm not sure I would have truly believed whatever the result of the home pregnancy test would have been (either way), so maybe it's better that I didn't test.  Until proven otherwise, I go forward assuming that I have never conceived.

I thought Dr. K's cycle review might shed some light on things. It was definitely not what I expected.  My P+7 estradiol and progesterone values were above normal like they've been since eliminating the TEBB months ago.  In fact, my estradiol was higher than last cycle when I took all of my HCG on schedule.  I was scratching my head because I only took one dose of HCG this cycle and I had five days of premenstrual spotting.  But there was no way my progesterone could have gone from above 50 (normal P+7 is >13) to under 10 in just a few days (to cause the premenstrual spotting).  Dr. K's thought was that the premenstrual spotting was due to inflammation and is having me increase the turmeric from 2 times a day to 3 times a day.  I have never heard that premenstrual spotting could be caused by inflammation, but I guess you learn something new everyday in the NaPro world.

Dr. K also wants to repeat a semen analysis with culture.  That came as a shock and a disappointment.  I guess it has been 14 months since we did the culture that identified the bug we've been fighting since then.  I wonder if she thinks we have a new bug?  DH's sperm counts have always been normal.  I knew DH would not be thrilled to hear this, and he wasn't.  Last year's drama requiring two attempts just to get the culture done was no fun.  I decided to let his reaction guide what we would do next.  If he was not willing to repeat the test, we wouldn't do it, and I wouldn't ask again.  He was upset when I told him about it, but he didn't refuse it outright.  Perhaps part of that reason is that there is no lab within 60 minutes from here that is capable of doing a semen culture (and I don't even know if the nearest big city an hour away has a lab that could do it); the lab that successfully did the culture last year is in the city where my parents live, a plane ride away.  We're not visiting them again until Christmas, so that is the earliest we could do the test, giving DH some time to consider it.  He seems willing, which surprises me a bit, since we'd have to do the collection at my parents' house again.  We'll see how he feels as Christmas gets closer.

Given what happened this new cycle, I think the culture could prove to be very informative.  My TEBB returned.  Four days of it.  :(  (Dr. K doesn't know this yet.)  In the cycle review about a month ago, I had asked if we could take a break from the antibiotics that DH and I have been on the first 10 days of each cycle to see if it was the turmeric (and lemon water) that was responsible for eliminating the TEBB.  Dr. K was out of the office, so one of the fellows responded and said it was fine to skip a month.  Because I don't get the results of the cycle review until after CD1, I couldn't implement this until a month later (this cycle).  So we didn't take the antibiotics this cycle, and the TEBB returned.

I'm wondering if this is some sort of coincidence that the lack of antibiotics has nothing to do with TEBB's reappearance.  The first month we took the antibiotics:  no TEBB.  The second and subsequent months:  TEBB increased little by little.  When we added the turmeric (and lemon water and bromocriptine, if I'm listing everything) to the antibiotics:  no TEBB for five cycles.  Now turmeric et al. without antibiotics:  TEBB in full force.  The math just doesn't make sense, so I wonder if the TEBB was going to return this cycle regardless of antibiotic use...OR there's some synergistic effect going on that the antibiotics work together with turmeric et al. to prevent TEBB.  I'm really curious what is going to happen next cycle (and clearly there will be a "next cycle" because I have some raging infection/inflammation going on) when we add back the antibiotics.

There's never a dull day around here.  :P