months it took to get pg the first time- 6
months pregnant before miscarried- 3
months since miscarriage- 7
days of menses this month- 13
days in this month's cycle- 57
number of negative tests this cycle- 6
glasses of wine related to all of the above- >900
what does all that equal? i should probably get my liver checked. but also, it means i'm a little bit broken and it's time to get fixed.
well, i mean not fixed like as in fixed, but you know, treated.
so i went to my wonderful Ob/Gyn (whom i love more and more all the time- he was incredibly compassionate through my ordeal in the hospital and has always been very thorough and kind and quick to fit me in, anxious to work together on finding solutions, and though he doesn't come to my hospital, i hear tell he is really good in the OR, so should i ever need a c-section or other gyn surgery, he's the man for the job there, too ) who recommended that i get my period started again with a push from progesterone and then guarantee that my ovaries start shaking some eggs out by taking clomid.
it was hard for me to accept that i need medications to make me work right. after all, last summer i worked right enough to get knocked up. and i have been pretty darn sure since the miscarriage that i would just get back in the saddle, so to speak. i only just started watching my daily temps and cervical mucous 3 months ago, so confident was i before then that things would just go smoothly this time.
i am angry, i realize. i have no idea what makes me think that i deserve children at all, or that i deserve pregnancy smoothly and quickly, but i feel like an impatient child who thinks she isn't getting a toy she should have. i find myself angry that i had to go through that traumatic miscarriage in the first place, and i am now utterly irate that whatever cosmic misfortune led me to miscarry is not feeling bad enough about it just to let me get pregnant again easily. i have thoughts akin to "it's the least you can do!!" which is insane. and i recognize that, but, well....here we are.
another way that i might be classified as insane right now is that i'm freaking out about taking hormones. the time in the hospital in august after my zombie bite (how i'm referring to the mystery virus that tried to kill me and ate my baby) and subsequent miscarriage is very foggy to me. i know that i had fevers up to 106 F and that when i started to get better for a day or two, they would come back up. one time my temp came back up after a dose of misoprostol (cytotec), which is a prostaglandin used to cause uterine contractions to complete a miscarriage when there's not enough tissue left to warrant a D & C (dilatation and curettage- surgically removing the remaining fetal tissue).
i know all that and i can make clinical sense out of it.
but when my MD told me he wanted to put me on progesterone, somehow i confused the whole thing and was convinced that it was progesterone that had almost killed me in the hospital and that maybe by taking it i was inviting all that sickness back on and we never found out what it was in the first place and maybe i'm reacting to pregnancy hormones and what if and how now brown cow and oh my word i must be losing my mind and....i had a small panic attack. it brought back terrors i experienced when sick (from that bastard zombie).
it was a rather dark moment for me.
but then i vented to robb and my infertility group and my work friends and later i sat down and did a little reading and reviewing and realized that these are safe drugs totally unrelated to my experience with being sick and miscarrying and that i will be fine taking them. they are not without side effects (especially clomid- mood swings, nausea, hot flashes, dizziness, taste changes, etc) but they will get me back on track and predictable and, hopefully, will lead to a successful pregnancy.
whenever you intervene in fertility, there is always an increased rate of multiple births- i've seen anywhere from 3-10% rate of twins on clomid. we haven't really planned for increasing our family from 2 to 4, but we are fine with the possibility, even if it does mean one child might be bunking with the dog for a while.
here's a good chart that shows the hormones as they change through a cycle. i'll be taking 10 days of progesterone (basically creating the luteal phase) and will bleed on the 10th day, which will be Day 1 of my next cycle. then i will take 5 days of clomid, which will boost my FSH and LH levels and cause ovulation on or around day 14. and the total length of the cycle should be more like 28 days (which is a relief after the never ending cycle i'm on now).
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