Always Remember...

Today is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. So for Busted and her Doodles, and for Baby Jack, for my friend Tara's babies, and for all of the other babies who have gone on to Heaven and left their mommies and daddies to miss them here on Earth, we remember. Clicking on the above picture will take you to www.october15th.com, a website about National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. Join us all in lighting a candle at 7 pm in your time zone to remember the babies who have gone before us.

Because one more baby is one too many.

No news is... well, news.

Still waiting for AF to show so that I can have CD3 bloodwork. 3 more weeks until I call the RE's office to see what the next step is, but nothing in sight as we speak.

On a more important note, please visit this blog and leave Stacy your best wishes. She and her husband Spencer knew that their time with their son Isaac would be limited due to several birth anomalies. Isaac was born today, and spent 16 minutes with his mother and father before passing away. Those 16 minutes were an amazing gift, because the amount of time that Isaac would survive was uncertain. Please keep their family in your thoughts and prayers.

Fun for a cause.

Burgh Baby is holding a contest to encourage visitors to visit her site. This link will take you straight to the 9/11 post, which is what created the contest -- BB will be taking the ad revenue generated by each visit to her site and donating it to the Flight 93 Memorial Fund. This will ensure that none of the heroes on board Flight 93, which was headed for the White House but brought down by American citizens in a field in Shanksville, PA instead, will ever be forgotten.

The link above will take you to the amazing 9/11 post, complete with pictures from the 9/11 crash site. If you're not sure that you can handle that particular post, the post for the contest can be found here.

Mixed Bag...

I'm back from my RE appointment. She's concerned about the fact that my periods are all out of sorts, after never having been before. So, we're going to do more CD3 bloodwork, a 24 hour urine collection to rule out Cushing's Syndrome, an ultrasound to check my uterine lining and ovaries, and go from there. According to the lab work from my 3 hour OGTT, I don't have impaired glucose tolerance, so again, she's saying no to Metformin, which is frequently used to treat PCOS. I'm SERIOUSLY frustrated by that at this stage, because I don't know what else to do. Her answer is to change my diet again. She wants to cut my intake back to 1400 calories... which I'm fine with, but I still feel like we're not addressing any of the other problems, like the darkening of my skin, the hair loss, the other annoyingly classic PCOS symptoms.

Long term, she's suggested having my Mirena taken out early next year to have an HSG to check my tubes since I have a history of blockage, then going on OCP to see if my cycles are regulated. Once we stop the BCP, it's 3 months of trying on our own before she declares us officially infertile and suggests help, since we have known fertility issues (my tubes and PCOS). What a freaking mess. On the way out, someone handed me a pamphlet on financing assisted reproductive technology. I suppose that's a sign.

Baby Shower... bleah.

I have a baby shower to go to tomorrow. I'm considering telling anyone who asks when I'm going to have a baby that I'll have one as soon as they pony up the $15,000 that it'll likely take to create my child.

Is that wrong?

Not much to say.

It's been a week since I've blogged. I suppose I'm being a slacker. We had E. this weekend for what should've been a normal weekend, but there was a death in his mother's family, so we kept him for an extra 2 days. Now that he's gone, the house is too damn still.

RE appointment in 15 days. J. can't come because he's got to work... he asked for the day off, and they couldn't give it to him. So, I get to go alone and see what they have to say. It's strange, but I like the RE's office better than the gyne. I love my gyne, and think he's awesome, but in his office, I'm always surrounded by obviously pregnant women. At the RE, it's people like me. I don't envy them, either, for having to be there. But there's a silent sisterhood in simply being there that I appreciate.

First day of school... and I flunked.

E. starts back to school today. We've e-mailed the teacher to introduce ourselves, since we don't get to his school much. It's on the other side of the city, unfortunately a little far for just a hop-skip-and-jump visit. I can't wait to hear how his first day of second grade went!

I had a test of my own today, as well. Those of you who read the whopping three posts at my other site will remember that today was my OGTT. I'm pretty sure that I can say I failed. According to my glucometer, which I smartly took with me, my fasting blood sugar was 110. That's already one strike. My 1 hour sample, again, according to my meter, was 211! The rest were normal, but it doesn't matter. The first two were enough to win me a diagnosis of impaired glucose tolerance, or... wait for it... insulin resistance.

I guess that RE that told me that she didn't think I was insulin resistant was mistaken, huh?

Summer's OVER?!

Have a safe and happy Labor Day, everyone. We'll be heading to a parade, then E. will be going home early to get ready for his first day of second grade.

Ergh.

First off, I have to say... and this is not in any way, shape, or form meant to be disrespectful to Tea Leoni, but seriously, I would not mind David Duchovny taking out his sex addiction on me for a little bit.

Now that I'm done acting like a 2 year old, let's talk.

So, E. is here today, and he's raising holy heck because we expect him to stay until Monday since it's the holiday. We were planning on going to the Labor Day parade and whatever else it is you do on Labor Day, and then sending him home early. Sounded good to me, right? Apparently not to him, so he threw a temper tantrum in the middle of Wal-Mart. Our response was to put his Star Wars poster back, finish our shopping, and come home. I'm not sure why he hates being here so much, but apparently he does, and I'm starting to get a complex about it.

I feel really whiny lately. I apologize to the at least one person that I know is reading my blog. I don't mean to whine. I don't know if AF is planning on making an appearance -- now, wouldn't that be a small miracle! -- or if I'm over tired or what my issue is. But I thank you for reading and for being out there in cyberspace for me.

Exhausted

Taking total care of sick children all day is exhausting. Luckily, tonight is not a night that I have to do it and come home and be a mother. Tomorrow night will be. So for tonight, I will blog, watch the X-Files, and be exhausted. Tomorrow, I will come home, love on my stepson like it's going out of style and, at the same time, be unbearably sad and frustrated that the doctors feel we're going to have so many fertility problems. Reproductive Endocrinologists don't really just *have* openings. Mine rearranged her schedule so that she would be able to see me at the end of next month after my OGTT. I suppose I should be happy. Instead, I'm frustrated. I'm sad. I'm concerned. I don't know what else to be. I guess this could all be anticipatory worry... but somehow, I doubt it.

First Post

I don't know what pushed me to feel the need to start my own blog. Maybe it's because I read so many infertility blogs and I know that we're probably about to head down the same road. Maybe it's because there's something anonymous about blogging that makes me feel like it's okay, that this way no one knows it's me saying the things I'm saying, which means I don't need validation. I just need to write, and get it all off of my chest.

So, a little about me. I'm married, and have been for almost a year. I'm 28, with a wonderful stepson with an attitude that swings harder than I-don't-know-what. It all depends on how long he's been with which parent, quite frankly. He's a lot like the nursery rhyme... when he's good, he's very good. But when he's bad, he's awful.

Right now, we're in the process of letting my poor pelvic organs rest for another 6 months or so with my Mirena IUD in place. However, we're also in the process of having me re-checked for PCOS. My previous RE insisted that I didn't have it because I wasn't insulin resistant... well, guess what I am now! I'm heading for an OGTT on the 2nd that I don't have a good feeling about, then it's back to the RE to see what they have to say. If she tells me that I don't have PCOS solely based on the fact that I'm not insulin resistant (if I'm still not), then it's time to look elsewhere. I've got all of the other, more obnoxious symptoms, and I'd really like to get on this before we're just starting treatment when it's time to TTC. However, we already know that we've got a strike against us because of my previously blocked, now unblocked-but-damaged tubes, thanks to endometriosis.

Well, the shower calls. If anyone's actually reading this, thanks. It's nice to know that someone might be interested.