Surgery details.

I know I'm slow with updating this thing. This week did not start off well, with my car being a piece of junk and all. We're in the market for a new car (well not really, but we need one at this point) because hubby needs mine for work. So, we're car shopping. Yuck. Part of it is exciting; picturing myself driving a new vehicle with new buttons, no problems, and that "new car" smell. The other part is not so exciting; not knowing whether I'll be approved for a loan or not, the hike in insurance, the registration process, and oh yeah...the car payments. It has to be done though.

**Update: my dad just told me my radiator is done for. Mind you, this is a radiator I JUST replaced in December 2008. Not even two years old!! So, now I need to figure out how I'm going to pay for a new radiator and how I'm getting to work for the rest of the week. Awesomeness.


Anyways, onto the surgery details. Well, there isn't much to tell at this point but I will tell you what I know as of right now. I was expecting him to say he didn't find anything abnormal. Why would I think that though? Obviously something is "abnormal" or I would have kids already. I was too groggy to understand him when he was explaining it to me while I was still trying to wake the hell up from the anesthesia, but he told my mom too so she explained it the next day.

She said he found a mild case of endometriosis but he removed it. He said I also had a few small cysts on my left ovary, but he removed those as well and didn't think there would be any long term effects from them. He said my HSG was ok and my tubes are clear. That's pretty much all he found. It was certainly a different diagnosis then I had expected. I expected he would at least go back to his original thought of mild PCOS. I certainly didn't think he would say endometriosis, that's for sure.

They did a biopsy to make sure and a few days later, the nurse called to confirm that it was endometriosis. He was quite confident that it was only a mild case, however. I did some research and most websites say the next 6-9 months after a laparascopy is the most fertile time and that something like 80% of women with no other issues got pregnant. Who's to say I don't have other issues, though? I have a follow up appointment on Aug. 24th, so I guess we'll find out then.

So, that's about it. My incisions are pretty much all healed, although I'm still wearing a bandaid on the one at my waistline so my pants don't irritate it. AF was around for like 6 days, but it's gone now and I feel back to my regular old self....mostly.


I will leave you with something funny, yet stupid that I did yesterday. Trust me, if I weren't so furious with my car and my shit luck yesterday, I would never have done this. I may be a natural blonde, but I'm not (usually) a ditz.

Yesterday was when my car first starting giving me problems. I left for work but I could hear my car making a weird noise. There wasn't much I could do though; I had to go to work. I didn't get all of 10 minutes from my house and my tempreture gauge started going over the half point. Not a good sign. I called my dad, who in turn called my husband because my dad had to open the shop he works at and wouldn't be able to come help me.

I had stopped at a gas station before the highway because I needed gas anyway. I turned the car off and it started billowing smoke. Of course, I already knew something was wrong but a couple of dumbass landscapers decided they would point at the smoke as if I couldn't see it with my own two eyes. Morons. Anyway, after I pumped gas, I pulled my car towards the back of the gas station and waited for my husband to get there. While I was waiting, I got out and opened the hood to let the coolant tank ~cool~ down. While I was at it, I remembered my washer fluid was low and every time I got in the car and started it up, it would beep twice at me. Two looooooong, annoying beeps. I remembered I had some washer fluid in my back seat so I grabbed the bottle, opened the washer fluid tank, and poured in the liquid. I filled it all the way up and when I got in and turned the car on later, the annoying beeping had stopped.

On my way home from work yesterday, I pulled the washer fluid lever to clean my windsheild. It was pretty hot yesterday, so immediately the windsheild started to streak. They were pretty nasty streaks though and they wouldn't go away. I vowed right then that I would never by THAT brand again.

Fast forward to a few hours ago. My dad and my husband are outside trying to figure out what's wrong with my friggin car. I was telling them how my car started to smoke again this morning when I stopped for a coffee. Here is how the conversation went between my husband and I about it (for typing sake, "D" is my husband.):

Me -- "I stopped for a coffee, turned the car off, and it started smoking again. I didn't even care, even though people were staring yet again."
D -- "Is that why your windsheild is so streaky?"
Me -- "What? No. It's just really shitty windsheild washer fluid."
D -- "I think that's antifreeze."
Me -- "It's NOT antifreeze. It's leaking, it's not spraying all over the windsheild, hun."
D -- "What washer fluid did you use?"
Me -- "The one in the back seat."
********Husband opens door and grabs the bottle full of blue liquid*******
D -- "You mean this bottle?"
Me -- "Ugh, yeah, it's washer fluid."
D -- "No it's not. It's car wash."


Yep. I put frikken car wash in my washer fluid tank. Brilliant. So, on top of having to buy a new radiator, I now also have to flush the washer fluid tank out....and before anyone else realizes what a dumbass move I pulled. On a brighter note, I don't think my dad, my husband, or I have ever laughed so hard in our lives. Feel free to laugh too...it IS pretty funny, after all. :)

Sorry.

I've been so busy lately, I haven't even turned my computer on at all. As a matter of fact, my desk is just a "thing" collector right now since I come home from work, do some schoolwork and go to bed. Bleh...how boring.

Anyway, I haven't had the surgery yet but it's set for July 14th. I went for my blood-work on Thursday morning and they tested thyroids, CBCs, and I took a urine pregnancy test. Negative. Heh, big surprise.

As a side note, I had been praying that it would come out positive so that I didn't have to have the surgery. I'm not worried about the surgery itself, I'm more worried about the bill I'm going to receive afterward. I'm afraid it's going to be more money down the drain so that they can say "We're not sure what's wrong but we think you're not ovulating". Yeah, great, I already knew that geniuses.

They didn't call me with any bad results on the bloodwork and since I've taken my own tests and they've been negative, I assume theirs was too. So I'm set for surgery at 8am on the 14th. I have to be there about an hour and a half before and I'll be there for about 3-4 hours total. Then I can go home and sleep and have the next two days off work (thanks to vacation time). So, I have a five day weekend in about 10 days and surprise!...the 18th is my 26th birthday. Great birthday present, don't you think? I mean, it totally beats getting a positive pregnancy test, right?

Ugh.

Depending on what they discover from the surgery, I'm thinking we won't go the IUI route. In my heart, I know the problem is that I don't ovulate. If he is only giving me Clo.mid to ovulate and it doesn't work, what is the point of an IUI? You have to have an egg to inseminate and if there is no egg, then it's just wasted money. I'm not going directly to IVF, I know that for sure. I think I'll either try a few rounds of Clo.mid or go to injectables, which was also an option. I don't know, but the more and more I think about it, the more I realize that IUIs may be kind of useless, especially since the issue is with not ovulating; not on DH's side.

My aunt told me today that I'm going to have a girl. I wanted to laugh because I wanted to say "How will I have a girl if they can't even figure out what's wrong in the past 6 years?". It's almost humorous at this point. I know by body better than anyone and I just don't think I'm ever going to be a mom. It breaks my heart, but what can I do? There is only so much that I can afford and I'm not going to make us go bankrupt for something that may never happen. I have and will sacrifice a lot of things...but shelter, food, and the health of DH and I? Never.

Speaking of the health of DH, he broke his collarbone two Thursdays ago playing soccer. He collided with another player and the guy must have had his elbow out and hit DH just right. DH kept playing through the entire game but was hurting pretty badly afterward. He waited and waited thinking he just bruised the muscle, which I must admit, I thought that too. Well, finally I made him go to the ER yesterday morning and the results weren't great.

They took him for an x-ray and then returned him to the room. He sat there, still in pain, and said he didn't think it was fractured. He was trying to convince himself that it was just a bruised muscle. That is until the doctor came in. The doctor took one look at him and said "Well...you broke your clavicle. And pretty badly at that." I just shook my head. I had a feeling it was going to be worse than we originally thought. The doctor said it's already started healing and that he can't play sports for 6 weeks. I told him soccer is done for quite a while. About a month prior to this, he hurt his knee and had to miss two games. I told him it's time to face it; he's not as young as he used to be and he needs to take it easy. I know it's something he loves to do, but at almost 32, playing soccer twice a week takes a toll on your body. Hell, it can take a lot out of a 12 year old! I don't think that 32 is old at all, but he needs to start playing in leagues with people his own age. The kids he plays with are younger than him and play rougher and he doesn't play like he used to be able to play in college.

So, he has to use a sling on and off throughout the day and has pain meds to take if he needs them. Sleeping is the toughest on him right now but I think it's getting better. We'll see.

Oh, and I saw my first Red Sox game at Fenway last night. About a month and a half ago, we had a contest at work to take the best department group picture. Well my manager, knowing I'm a photographer, asked if I would take the picture. So I did and uploaded it onto my computer. I realized that there was a trashcan in the way and a piece of hair was going over one of the girls faces and made her look like she was making a weird face. For the next 3 hours, I worked pretty intently on removing the trashcan from the picture and fixing the girls face. Well, the picture came out pretty good if I do say so myself and apparently my manager entered it into the contest. At first I didn't think we won, but earlier this week, she told us we had won 14 tickets to the Red Sox game so she was going to give 7 people two tickets each. We would have to tell her who wanted to go to the game and then we'd put our names in a hat and she'd pick 7 of us. I was kind of pissed at this because I took the damn picture, broke my tripod that day, and worked my ass off to make that picture better. In my opinion, I should have gotten two tickets just for doing that but I entered my name anyway. Well, it turned out that my name was picked second so I got two tickets. DH and I drove to Boston and watched the Red Sox mop the floor with the Orioles. It was a good time and an experience I didn't think would be quite as awesome as it actually was. The seats are tough on your back because they're wooden but damn...it was good times. I have plenty of pictures and will post some soon.

Phew, ok, I'll shut up now. Nancy, thank you for reminding me to make a new post and I'm sorry it took a month! LOL I'll try to post more often and I will most definitely keep you updated on the surgery and what comes next for us in this unbelievably long TTC battle.

Night ya'll! <3

Help? Please?

I know a few of you who are reading (I'm pretty sure there are only a few TOTAL that even read, LOL) have had IUIs. After the laparoscopy, given nothing goes wrong or needs fixing, we have the choice of Clo.mid or Clo.mid and IUI. What can I expect as far as the procedure for the IUI? How about costs out of pocket? Anything else I should expect?

My surgery is gonna be pretty pricey. Not so much for me (well, yeah, a little) but for the insurance company. The doctor alone charges a total of $2350 just to do the surgery and that doesn't include hospital fees, anethesia fees, and related bloodwork. Hopefully though, I only have to pay my deductible which is $750 and they can bill me for that. It's another Dr's bill I do not want but hopefully it's for a good cause. The best part? My insurance covers up to $10,000 for infertility which includes IUIs and IVF. Wow.

So, any ideas? Suggestions? Advice? Thank you in advance. :)

You learn something new every day.

So, it turns out I'm allergic to cherries. Awesome.

For about the last year or so, every time I would eat cherries, my throat, mouth, ears, and glands would itch like a bastard. I thought it was possibly just pesticides or something, so I just laid off how many I ate. It didn't stop. Same thing would happen when I ate peaches, but never when I ate apples, grapes, bananas or any other fruit.

Tonight, my aunt brought over cherries soaked in vodka. She left about 6 of them on the table and no one was eating them so I decided to give them a whirl.

Bad idea.

Almost instantly, my throat and ears and neck started to itch badly. Since this was probably about the fifth time it happened and I figured the vodka would probably kill any pesticides on the fruit, I decided to goo.gle allergies to cherries. Although I am not severely allergic to them to the point of vomiting and not being able to breathe, I do have what is called OAS or Oral Allergy Syndrome. It says if you're allergic to cherries, you may also be allergic to peaches and/or birch. Yeah, I'm not sure who is going around eating birch, but I don't think I have to worry about that one.

It listed the same symptoms I get exactly so it's kind of hard to deny. I guess I'll just stay away from cherries for a long time. Damn. :(

* * * * * *

I got my paperwork in the mail for the surgery today. My appointment is July 14th at 8am. I'm having a pelvic laparoscopy with an HSG again. Fabulous. Of course, I'm not worried about surgery. What I'm really worried about is having to pay anything out of pocket for this. I really hope my insurance covers it because I can't afford to take on another huge doctor's bill. My insurance covered the other surgery I had a few years ago and I have the same insurance now so I'm guessing they will at least cover most of it. I'm going to call them just to be sure though.

I'll be out of work for 1-2 days which means if I'm not totally healed by that Friday, I'll have a 5 day weekend. A 5 day *birthday* weekend that is, so that totally sucks. I really hope this does something or at least gives us answers because 6 fucking years of this shit is more than enough. I'm well past being sick of it; I'm completely fed up. If he doesn't find anything wrong and gives me the option of Clo.mid or Clo.mid and IUI, I'll most likely do the C and IUI but since I don't think insurance will cover most or all of it, I will only be able to do so many rounds. After that, I'll just take it as a sign that it wasn't meant to be. I can't afford IVF and if I can't afford IVF, I can't afford adoption. I don't want to go either of those routes anyway but it pretty much stops at IUIs.

I feel like a dying dog on his last leg and hoping that a cat will saunter by and give me one of it's nine lives. I'm hoping for a chance in hell.

Do you like getting presents early?

Yeah me too...usually. I do not however, want the present I'm going to get in the beginning of July; a few weeks before my birthday. Wanna know what it is?

Laparoscopy.


Yep. Surgery that will leave me with 3 or 4 holes in my tummy and doesn't get me a step closer to conceiving, only one step closer to figuring out what the fuck is wrong with my body. After that, he suggests more Clo.mid but if I want to, we can do Clo.mid with IUI. Ugh. I always hoped I wouldn't have to get this far. I never wanted to hear the words IUI and the fact of the matter is, it's so close I can taste it. Nevermind that he put me on Pro.vera today so my 15 day long period can stop...and then start again. Fun. Stupid body.

Oh and what else did I do today? Yep, got a tooth filled. About 2 hours after my appointment at the doctor's, which I forgot to mention was just lovely. The nurse asked me if I was spotting or had a normal flow and I said "light". She said "Oh, well he can still do the pap smear then". Fan-frikkin-tastic. It was gross as hell and I was so afraid I would be a nasty mess for my dentist appointment. Luckily, it seemed to be ok but I was NOT looking forward to getting a tooth filled.

It took two shots of novacaine and another shot of a novacaine mixture. Whatever was in the third mix really kicked my ass...and is still kicking my ass. It made me incredibly tired and I literally could have fallen asleep during the drilling. Who can do that? I was about two seconds away from doing it, that's all I know. As soon as it started, it was over. That was the quickest tooth filling I've ever had and it's no surprise because feeling the tooth now, it doesn't even feel like he filled the entire tooth.

Whatever, I'm too tired mentally and physically to give a crap. I'm so tired, I'm not even thinking twice about wearing my hair curly tomorrow. Frig straightening my hair...it's over-rated anyways.

It's official.

I'm going to write a book. Do you know what you need to write a book? Yep. A topic. No I do not know how I'm going to write a book without a topic but not because I don't have one. I have too many. I mean, I could write about photography, infertility, being from the smallest town in the smallest state in the US, aspirations of being a ridiculously successful fashion photographer (heh), and many, many other things. Or all of those things rolled into one.

Like I said to my husband last night though; who the hell is going to want to read MY book? I bought Tori Spelling's book "sTori Telling" and I know what you're thinking..."Oh yeah, that sounds reallllll interesting" but seriously, it's a really good read. I've been watching her show for a little while now and I have genuinely fallen in love with her family. She seems so down to earth and able to laugh at herself and unlike so many Hollywood parents, actually seems to have a real interest and hand in her children's upbringing. She has seriously inspired me to just go for it and write a book already since I've talked about it for years, but never really put more thought into it. Unlike her though, I'm not famous and my name isn't already out there. So, what do I do?

Any suggestions?

I may have jumped the gun a bit

So, I woke up crabby yesterday as you can tell because my allergies were just about killing me, I thought AF was here (more on that in a minute), and I kept reading everyone's posts on Face.Book about Mother's Day. As the day went on though, I realized that things really weren't that bad.

I completely thought AF started. I have been spotting since Friday and I'm still spotting today but less than before. Not dark red, although sometimes pink. No cramps but I do have sore boobies. I'm not sure what my body is doing right now but I'm not thinking too much into it. Whatever it decides to do is fine by me. I'm not even going to worry about it. I have an appointment on the 25th with my OB and I'm going to ask him what the next steps are. Do I take more Clo.mid? Do I start IUIs? Do I have to go more drastic? Whatever it takes, I'm going to do. Enough is enough. I'm going to be proactive. If I'm not going to go get what I want, then I shouldn't be sitting around whining about it either. So instead, I'm going to go get what I want.

Back to yesterday...I got up at about 9 because DH didn't wake me up in time to go to breakfast before his soccer game. So, we got dressed and headed to soccer. Thankfully it was playoffs so we were only there for 30 minutes because they lost. Stinks for them, but good for me. We stopped and bought my mom some gorgeous purple hanging flowers and stopped to get strawberries and chocolate chips. I went home and made a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and...*drumroll please*...chocolate covered strawberries on top. Yummmm! My aunt, sister, and her boyfriend came over and the cake was literally devoured in 10 minutes. I knew I should have taken a picture of it before we ravaged it. It was pretty though and damn good, too. My mom had a great day and we all spent time together. Ultimately, it turned out to be a really nice day especially since it's the first really sunny day we've had in a week.

My husband got the mail that we had gotten on Saturday, but forgot to take out of the mailbox. My cousin in At.lant.a sent me a Mother's Day card. She's always been more like a sister than a cousin to me and knows what DH and I have been going through. She doesn't know it yet, but we've always said that if we are ever blessed with a child, we're going to ask her to be our first born's godmother. What she wrote in the card just validates why we want her to be the godmother:

"Even though you haven't yet been blessed with a child of your own, doesn't mean your day won't come. You will make an amazing mother someday and when you do, your child will be so lucky. And just because you don't yet see A (stepson) like you should, doesn't make you any less of a mother. You have so much love to give to a baby and I can't wait for your day to come. I hope you enjoy Mother's Day because this day is as much for you as it is for any other mom out there. I miss you and I'll see you soon."

I can't even type that without blinking through tears. When I opened the card and read that yesterday, I had to stop because I was literally sobbing. It was so heartfelt and touching and there was just no way I could have a bad day after reading that. I'm really glad I'm related to her because she's not only my cousin, she's my sister and one of my best friends. She's coming up here on the 22nd and I can't wait! I think we'll take her to lunch. :)

Needless to say, it was a really good day and a really good weekend. I dyed my hair again last night, LOL. Turns out deep burgundy *IS* darker than regular burgundy. So, it looks like I have the darkest color brownish red you can get before black...and I kinda like it. I swear I heard "I really like your hair that color" about 20 times today at work. I guess that's a good thing. Pictures to come soon, I promise.

Anyway, to make up for yesterday's "poor me" post...I just wanted to say a belated Happy Mother's Day to all the mom's who read here. Your children are so incredibly lucky to have you as their moms and I'm so incredibly lucky to call you friends. Your words, thoughts, and friendship mean more to me than you'll ever know or I'll ever be able to express. You all have a special place in my heart.

<3