Shifting thoughts

I’ve been finding myself in a very different place the last few weeks with my thoughts directed towards desires and dreams other than conception.  Our engagement has made me want other things in my life – most notably to be physically happy with myself for our engagement party and in a wedding dress.  I want to be able to look back at photos and be happy with the person I see in them.  Right now, I wouldn’t be able to do that.  And I know it will take more than a month or three or five of consistent effort in order to achieve that goal.

I am grateful that this has motivated me to begin to lose some weight and to follow some of the fertility eating I have learnt about, but I worry that, as an over 40 mum to be, I simply don’t have time to lose the focus towards having a baby.  Yet, it could also be that very shift away from the journey, along with fertility eating, that helps us to become pregnant!

I don’t know.  I guess I just need to keep living my life and take each day as it comes.  Just being together is the important thing.  As well as doing what is right for us.

What is right for us is to be happy together and to not feel any pressing time-line on our lives.  There are people wanting us to throw an engagement party right away, there are people shocked that we aren’t setting a date and putting wedding plans into full swing.  There is the over 40 body clock saying I don’t have any time to wait to have a baby.  There is my strong need to look better for photos and a wedding dress and to feel happy with myself.

There are the what if’s.  What if I get pregnant soon?  What will happen to the wedding, my goals to look better, the honeymoon?!  What if I don’t get pregnant soon?  Will I get too old?  Will we not ever have children?  What if I can’t lose weight?  How will that affect things?

What if?  What if?  What if?  

I have moments of living in the moment and not worrying, of being content with the way things are, with doing things the way we want to and when we are ready to, of simply taking one step at a time toward my own personal goal.  But I have equal moments with all these thoughts pounding around in my head.

Today, because I am home sick, and not eating particularly well as a result,  I am in a darker place than I wish to be.  I just want to cocoon myself with some food and a movie and wallow in this illness.

I know I will shift out of this place when the momentum of a week of good food, exercise and a smaller waist, will help me feel like I am moving forward towards my goals.  And I know that getting pregnant isn’t going to stop me continuing to move towards a healthier me.  And I know that becoming healthier could mean a more fertile me.  And I know that it doesn’t matter how long we take to do the engagement party and wedding thing.  But I just SO need to look better for that, not for D although that would be nice, but for me, for my own happiness and joy in the celebration.  Oh, it’s all just twisting round and round in my head!  LET IT GO!

LET IT GO!

In my rational mind, I know that the only thing I can do is to stay focused on eating well, exercising, remaining stress-free, and living in the joy of being so happy with D.  Everything else will simply take it’s course.

Thoughts, support, friendship and advice are all welcome!  :):)

Fun and laughter!

Thank you to everyone who was so supportive of my post yesterday.  It was so appreciated and I am so grateful to you for being there in the blogging world and sharing our journeys together.  It meant a lot and was SO helpful to receive wonderful words of wisdom, advice and support.  Thank you!

I am feeling a lot better today.  I had a good cry, a couple of drinks and a fantastic evening with D!!  It is not often we get to have a couple of drinks together these days and we really enjoyed ourselves, talking together over the dinner table, playing around with the camera, playing with the animals, and in reminiscence of our early dating days, sitting in the lounge with the lights off, listening to all sorts of music, talking, laughing and looking at the amazing visual effects of D’s fantastic screensaver.

Check out some of the fun…!

D will kill me for putting this one up, but it so depicts our fun filled, silly evening!  I stuck smiley faces on our faces in order to pick up our spirits!

R and I had a play fight.  Check out the claws!!  When he plays, he REALLY plays!!!  Ya gotta watch out!

 

K was being her usual gorgeous self watching the goings ons.

 

M and D had their usual boy fun together.  But M got the better of D and grossed him out with his licking!! (goodness knows why I am still writing with initials, when I am putting up photos!!  Oh well!)


And lastly, D gotta the better of me and caught me on the throne!  Oh dear!  Naughty man!  But hilarious laughter was the result of this bit of trickery!

 

So, it was a much needed, joyful, fun-filled, silly and loving evening of togetherdom.  And the result is that today I feel much better.  I love that we have so much fun together.

Cycle 10

I got my period this morning and, all of a sudden,  I am deep down in the dumps.  I need to get through it so I can find the positive once more.  It is there, I already know what the positive is, I just have to wade through this deep sadness in order to find it on the other side.  It’s there waiting for me, I can see it.

In the meantime, I have to get to work and get through the day. 

I see King Acupunc today, so that will be good I suppose.  He will needle me so that I have a thorough cleansing of my uterus, so that we can start again all clean and refreshed.

Another positive is that it is good that there is a cleansing after my HSG scan.   I am grateful for that.  Ah there you go, a little bit better.  Wait…, no…, not just yet.

The strong positive that I can see, is that this week D and I together made a commitment to eating 100% healthily for 12 weeks.  I put together a list of foods based on a combination of Sandy Robertsons’ book, advice from King Acupunc and a little bit of Weight Watchers knowledge thrown in.  Essentially, it is a focus on fruit and veg and what and how much of it we need to eat every day.  So, any meal planning is based around fruit and veg.

This difference for me, is that we are doing this together.  I feel so good about that.  And it has made it so much easier.  Thank you, D.

We are both already feeling a lot better after just three days.  I know this will help in our goal towards conception.  And it is important to me, to try and shift some weight, so I can better deal with the demands of pregnancy.  So, that is a big positive in getting another period.

But right now, I need to feel this sadness, I suppose.  I certainly don’t want to, but it is there and needs to be felt in order to pass.

I apologise for not keeping up with my blogging these last few days.  There simply has been no time to do anything else but work orientated jobs.  I look forward to catching up with everyone over the next few days.

Love and Light,

The rest of the results

The rest of my test results arrived from the fertility clinic.  Well, almost the rest.  Missing, were the results of my pelvic scan.  But I think I will let that go.  The most important ones to come in were my progesterone tests and D’s sperm analysis.

And now I am smiling big!  Because I was right about the progesterone tests.  The two that were missing DID show I was ovulating!!  Woohooo!!  A 43 on Day 23 and a 40 on Day 26!!  Yea!

I went prancing around the house dancing and laughing - “My ovaries are working, little eggs are coming down!”.  D just watched me and laughed at my silliness!!  :)

It was such a relief after being so worried for so many months about whether I was ovulating or not!!  Big smiles all around.

I am yet to research up on D’s results but will at some stage just for my own understanding of it all.  However, upon mentioning the morphology to King Acupunc, he said “no worries, I have just the thing!”.  Well, of course he does.  They both always have a herbal solution to every problem.  We have seen the results of it time and time again!  Ya just gotta love natural medicine!  Brilliant!

There was one little hiccup with things yesterday.

My mum came around to spend some time together and help out with a few things.  She brought the mail in.  Yes, the fertility clinic letter!  Woopsiee.  It didn’t say fertility clinic, just the hospital and O and G department.  I mean I could be G’ing, but not O’ing!! 

I wasn’t sure if she saw it, because it was mixed up with the junk mail.  But later she was sitting down quietly and gently asked me why I had given up alcohol.  Keep in mind, I gave up about 9 months ago, and up until now, she has been perfectly happy with the fact that it was just to cut back!

In a matter of a split second, I debated telling her or not.  But I really don’t want to yet.  So, I came out with “I haven’t given up completely”.  And left it at that.  Which is true, because every time I get a period, I still enjoy a glass or two of my favourite red wine.  I didn’t actually answer her question.  Later, on our way back from Curves, she mentioned my niece and her fiance discussing having children and I wondered again, if she had seen anything.

I think she is a bit confused about us.  I think she is very disappointed that we are not rushing on into our engagement party and wedding.  I wonder if I should sit her down and talk to her about what we are doing.  D has suggested that it may be a good idea.  I don’t know. 

I still don’t want the questions every time I see her – are we pregnant yet, how is it going.  I don’t know how she would feel about us trying to have a baby before we are married.  Mostly, I just want to be able to turn up and tell them both that we are pregnant.  That’s the dream I have in my head.

I guess I will just have to think on it some more.

A new beginning

I don’t know what it is about today, but it feels like the start of a new day!  I feel good, I feel at ease and I’ve put my first smiley face on the calendar.  Thanks Anita!

I feel unconcerned about the usual problems that hammer away at my head and soul.  They feel inconsequential.  I feel light.

So why I am writing about this in my conception blog?  It seems more appropriate to be writing it in my creating peaceful thoughts blog.

Because I think it is all because of my large progesterone number.  I think that seeing actual prove of my P4 going from 2.2 to 45 in just 6 days, gave me confidence and belief in the fact that I am ovulating.

The night before, I was going through all the tests results from the fertility clinic and saying to D that it didn’t make any sense.  There was nothing in there to indicate ovulation.  I had one P4 that was at 26, but that is just scraping in at the barrel.  I was annoyed, I was angry at the OB diagnosis that I was ovulating.  “Where is the indication of it?” I was saying. 

I looked back over my posts to match up dates with what I written about the appointments.  After my first appointment, she had me take 3 P4 tests at two day intervals.  It was from these that she first said I was ovulating.  There was only one result from those tests in the file and it was only a 13.  What was going on?

I realised that this one was probably the last of the 3 tests and perhaps the others were of a higher level.  “I must get the other results to see”  I thought.  “Surely they will make sense of this.”

I was disappointed with my OB.  She had done nothing for us, no help, no meds, nothing.  I was very grateful for the results of my HSG scan and D’s sperm analysis. I was very grateful at how completely willing she was, with no hesitation, giving me copies of all the results.  I didn’t even have to sign anything.  That was terrific.  I was also very grateful for the clear and more in depth explanations she gave us of her findings.  But no assistance.

Yet, on second thinking, it is probably a good thing.  The drugs that I would have been pumped with would have caused so many side affects and go so against our belief in staying away from artificial things.  We may yet have to go down that path, but for now I am happy to be still be trying naturally.  Especially now that we now know we are basically ok.

On insisting I have a second P4 test on Tuesday, so past the usual date for doing these things, our OB resurrected herself in my eyes!  Such wonderful instincts!  For that, I am SO SO SO SO SO SO grateful.  Ecstatic!!  Thank you, thank you!

Because now, as a result, I feel terrific.  I feel renewed.  I feel happy.  I feel clean.  I feel light.  I feel bright eyed.  I feel more confident.  Within my underlying self, I feel better than I have in many months!  Thank you 45.  My new favourite number!  Thank you OB and the fertility clinic.

Yeeaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!

Do you think something good has happened???!!  Yea, you maybe right!  :) 

I rang up the clinic today for the results of the Day 29 progesterone test I did yesterday.  The OB’s instincts were right!  This is going to be a longer cycle.   I have ovulated sometime over the last week.  The result was 45!  Biggest number I have ever had!  Last week on my Day 23 test, it was only 2.2.

As we thought we were past the ovulation phase and that my period was due on the weekend, we haven’t been tracking our bedroom activity.  So, I quickly thought back over the last week.  Gosh, I can’t remember.  I’ve just been enjoying, not tracking!!  LOL.  (oh, and if our child-to-be is reading this years from now and going “ooo yuck, Mum!”, just remember that you wouldn’t have got here without your Dad and I having a great time and loving each other!  It’s a happy, celebratory thing!)

I think we should be good.  D certainly thinks so!  Sooooo, we are back to the two week wait all over again!

I’m a little concerned that my cycle has suddenly become long again.  Perhaps it has something to do with the HSG scan.  I don’t know.  It certainly is possible.  That kind of treatment has to have an affect somehow.  But I am excited at such a high progesterone level!  Woohooo!

Whatever the reason, the missing test results are going to mailed to us, I have made an appointment with Queen Naturo and will get all sorted out once again.  QN is just so good though, that it was 4 weeks before I could get in!  Usually it is about two weeks, she is just super busy right now!  However, I am on the cancellation list and I know that she will call me if she can get me in earlier.  I don’t feel there is any hurry.  I’m feeling pretty good about things right now.

I found some interesting (at least to me!) info on progesterone and it’s role in the fertility cycle.  I’m going post on that tomorrow.


Photo:  I just can’t seem to resist putting up photos of our engagement day.  I will run out pretty soon, don’t worry!  :)  I’m just feeling so happy right now about us (A big smiley face, Anita!!)  and this photo really reflects that.  Shame about the sunnies, but a nice, happy photo just the same!

Today’s Results!

I’m back from the fertility clinic.  D was able to come which was great.  I really wasn’t expecting him to be able to make it.  It is vintage here in the Australian wine industry so it can get busy and demanding for him.  I’m grateful that today was a light day.

The doctor was a lot more explanatory about things this appointment and talked about previous results with more detail than before.  It could have been because it was like an overall summary of everything that can and has been done before the IVF decision is needed.  Or it could have been because she had a medical student sitting in on the appointment.  If this was the case then I am very grateful!  It meant we got a clearer picture on things than we have in the past.

HSG SCAN

The HSG scan showed that my tubes are all clear – no blockages!  Good news.  The pain that I had was probably from muscle spasms.  The results said that my “…tubes were slow to opacify [which can be caused by spasming, so that makes sense] but with time, contrast was seen to enter the peritoneal cavity via both tubes...”  Contrast being the iodine and opacifying meaning that the tubes and uterine cavity looked white on the image from the flow of the dye.  In summary, both tubes were clear and the dye spilled right on through!

I asked her if the scan showed anything else and she said no.  Some research I came across said that scan can be used to show fibroids and endometriosis.  I did ask if it showed cysts or anything else and she simply referred back to my pelvic scan.

 

SPERM ANALYSIS

When she first got the results of D’s sperm analysis, she simply told me everything was fine.  Today, however, was more detailed.  Whether the fact that D was there this time made a difference as well, I don’t know.  However, she said that his sperm count and motility was good, but his morphology (sperm shape) was lower than average at 25% instead of the average 30%.  While she said that this is fine under normal circumstance, it could make a difference if we choose to do IVF.   

Her concern in regards to this, was combining it with the fact that I’m over 40.  Sigh.

PELVIC SCAN

She also gave me more information in regard to my pelvic scan from several months ago.  There was a follicle that shouldn’t have been there at that stage in my cycle.  She was unsure what it was about but believes that now that my cycle seems to have settled down and regulated a lot more, it is something we no longer need to worry about.

Of course, what was never mentioned was why my cycle has settled down over the last 6 months.  She is not even questioning it or wondering, which considering she hasn’t given me any medication, you would think she would be wanting to know why.  I wonder if in her head, she is even thinking about the fact that I am seeing Queen Naturo and it is her treatment that is working!!

 

OVULATION

My progesterone test from this cycle only 2.2, indicating that I haven’t ovulated this cycle.  This is a figure more likely seen in the follicular phase of the cycle, so she got me to take another P4 blood test for today.  She wants to determine whether I haven’t ovulated or whether I have ovulated late and may just end up having a long cycle this time around.

I’m due for my period on the weekend, so the results of the test will let us know what to do if my period hasn’t come by Monday.  Ovulated – wait another week to see.  Not ovulated – wait another week to see.  Oh yea, the same action either way!!  :)

All in all, she believes that I am ovulating enough to not warrant taking clomid - that it is normal for a woman my age to not ovulate every cycle.  She believes that the affects of clomid could actually disadvantage us at this stage.  I can’t remember everything she said, but something to do with clomid possibly causing problems with implantation.

NOW WHAT?

This clinic doesn’t do IUI, so if we wanted to go down that path, we would have to go somewhere else.  She has given us information about IVF and sent us off to read it over and discuss what we want to do.

However, we are already decided.  We are going to continue with the natural path for the rest of the year.  Queen Naturo is ready to do the saliva tests again to see how much improvement there has been since she started treating me and to see where to go next with natural therapy.  I have a copy of most of the results from the clinic which I will take to QN for her to look at.

We both believe that by following this path, we will conceive.  So much has improved over the last few months with my statistics.  If by the end of the year we aren’t pregnant, we will look at it again.  Also by then, our years waiting period with our health fund will be over and we will be able to go into the private stream, with our choice of doctors and clinics.  And that’

s really important to us as well.

We know we don’t have a lot of time on our hands and the doctor was most encouraging that we start sooner than later.   But I really don’t want to go down the IVF path.  We truly believe in natural therapy and the 100% success rate from the natural therapy clinic.

CONCLUSION

We have achieved what we set out to do by going to the fertility clinic.  We know that we are basically okay and fertile.  There are no blockages, no abnormalities.  There is some concern over the regularity of my ovulation but she believes that I am ovulating.  D’s sperm morphology is slightly lower than the norm but also fine.  We are functioning!

Now we do all that we can in the natural medicine realm for the next few months. 

 

Results Day!

I get my results today. 1.30 pm.  Unless of course I have to wait an hour like we did the first time!

D may come or not, depending on his work load today.  I told him it would be nice to have him there, but it isn’t important.  I can give him all the info when I get home and I know his thoughts on how we should or shouldn’t proceed from here.  I definitely wanted him with me for the HSG scan, but he doesn’t need to attend this appointment.

I’m finding myself a bit nervous about it.  What is wrong with me????!! 

But I’m still in a place of knowing that things happen for a reason and everything in it’s own time and place.

Okay, that thought has made me excited about finding out the results.

What a mixture of emotions this journey can bring.

I must go and get ready for work.  I’m dragging my feet again this morning.  I just want to be doing other things!

Go on, A, get moving…  into the shower!

Photo:  Engagement Day.  Over on the island.  We caught the horse drawn train on the way back.  Beautiful creatures they are, the draught horse.