Post Op

It went really well. I got to see pictures and everything looked normal. It was amazing. My left tube wasn't dilated at all, and he showed me a picture of the dye spilling. He said it spilled really easily from my right tube. I had a corpus luteum cyst on my right ovary which showed I had either recently ovulated or was about to ovulate. I'm hoping I had recently done so since my period showed only 9 days after surgery. That would be a pretty short luteal phase...

He says I look great and that 20-30% of women get pregnant within 2 months of having their tubes cleared. I hope I'm one of them! The endo wasn't too bad, he showed me some pictures of the spots I had. He said that my particular case shouldn't effect my fertility, but he wanted to remove it since it can cause pain. So it's gone, at least for now. :)

We have to do a repeat semen analysis. Hazen's wasn't great in July, so we're doing it when (if) I get my next period. Depending on the results, we may go to Missoula for the strict test. We will see what happens!

The Endo Diet

So, I've come across "The Endo Diet". I don't know if I can do it.

There are a lot of good tips that we do anyway--don't eat processed foods, avoid red meat, lots of fruits and veggies, lots of water, Omega 3s, organic as much as possible (honestly, if we can't get organic from Costco we don't get it at all these days--the budget doesn't stretch that far...we are expecting to go back to grocery shopping at Real Foods once Hazen starts working again, though!). The tricky parts for me will be getting whole grains WITHOUT wheat or rye (sigh) and avoiding most dairy. Yogurt is good, but I guess dairy wreaks havoc on the endo ridden body. I suppose a calcium supplement will be in order?

I will talk to my doctor next week to see if he thinks a change in diet could be beneficial to me. I'm glad that most of the recommendations are things we follow anyway, but if I have to give up ice-cream, I will not be a happy girl!

Annoyed and Confused

I'm not sure if I should call my doctor. I'm thinking I probably should, but I just don't know. I may have started my period, but the bleeding from the surgery has been off and on since I had it done. I was told the bleeding would be like a period and last up to a week. It has been 10 days since surgery...

My bleeding pattern (TMI to follow...):
Friday, Saturday, Sunday--light to medium bleeding
Monday--spotting for half the day, nothing afterwards
Tuesday and Wednesday--Nothing
Thursday--spotting for half the day again
Friday and Saturday--nothing, but some spotting after sex
Sunday and Monday--light bleeding

I'm confused...I never thought I would need help determining if I was on my period or not. It's one of those things that is supposed to be obvious. Ugh.

*Edit--I am counting yesterday as the first day of my period. Today's bleeding has gotten heavier and I am now cramping, so I'm thinking that is what this is. My only hesitation at this point is that my BBT is still really high, but that has been caused by surgery not ovulation, so I imagine my temperature will drop a little differently than usual. I hope I'm right about this and that Cycle 1 of we-have-a-chance baby-making can begin!

Feeling ugh-ish

I feel pretty good overall. I read recently that the cramping gets worse in days 3-5. I'm on day 4, and the cramping is definitely pretty annoying today. I am going to take some Tylenol when I get home. I still have lots of pain meds, but they make me feel weird and I can't drive on them...I don't imagine working with numbers would be a good idea on them either. Hopefully the Tylenol will help.

I'm just so anxious to move onto my next cycle and get going with the baby making! Trying not to get myself too excited, but it's hard. Our odds are (about) as good as anybody's right now, so I'd really like to see what that's like, LOL. :)

Good day

I feel really good today. The nausea is gone, the gas pains in my shoulders are gone, and I can walk almost normally. I'm still pretty sore, but I feel 10x better than yesterday!

Today I'm supposed to take off my bandages and take a shower...I really don't want to see what's underneath. I've been procrastinating for about 2 hours now. I'll get there eventually. :p

I feel vindicated

I have suspected for a long time that there has been something wrong with me reproductively. My periods have been VERY painful in the past (less so since having Ian), they're irregular, they vary in length. Even the scar tissue around my colon is something that is normal with endometriosis. Whenever I get asked "do you have regular periods" at the doctor, I say "no" and they leave it at that. I've had appointments where I've thought they were going to look further into it, and it doesn't happen. I'm in and out in five minutes.

Having my doctor now, I feel listened to. He gets that things have NOT been normal for me, that I'm having a hard time, and that something was wrong. He was the FIRST to ever mention the possibility of endometriosis. Now that I've looked up more on endo, it seems so obvious that that is what I've had going on for a LONG TIME. I'm annoyed that it has taken this long to get someone to take me seriously, but I'm also really happy that I was finally taken seriously and that I was right to think there was something wrong--it hasn't all been in my head. Everytime I've been blown off by doctors and nurses, I've been right. It's nice.



And of course I am totally thrilled that he was able to get it taken care of in the surgery and that I *should* be able to get pregnant really soon. I've read that the preference is within 6 months of a surgical removal of endo since it can come back. I'm just excited. Very sore, but excited!!

GREAT NEWS!!

I STILL HAVE BOTH TUBES!!!! Dr. said that 90% of pictures that look like mine are, in fact, a hydrosalpinx. Mine was a VERY small one, no where near what it looked like in the HSG, and he was able to unblock it with dye that he injected during the surgery. So I now have two perfect, healthy tubes. He said the reason mine looked so bad in the HSG is that I have some scaring around my colon and I guess that was pressing up on stuff? I probably have this all screwy, I was still pretty out there when he was explaining stuff.

I do have endometriosis, but he was able to cauterize all that he could see in the surgery. So the hope is that I will be a Fertile Myrtle for the next couple of months. I'm going to probably request Clomid for the two months before Hazen goes to the academy just to try and get a couple good o's in. Since I didn't o until day 30 last cycle and I seem to have not o'd yet this cycle, I'd like to know I will fairly early in the months before he goes. The doctor said all I have to do now is make a baby...but not today. :lol: We are allowed to try in 3-4 days...we'll see how I feel.

Recovery wise I feel pretty good. I'm pretty crampy and I just feel weird. The anesthesia made me throw up a couple of times (once in the car...my poor husband) and the gas they injected has my shoulders hurting pretty badly. But overall, I really can't complain.

I never in a million years would have thought I'd be leaving with TWO healthy tubes!!

Surgery day...

I am nervous. Very nervous. But I know it will be fine and that in a few months I'll FINALLY have good news to share here. So it will be worth it. ;)

Check in is in 30 minutes (6:30) and surgery is an hour later. They will start by going through my cervix and a tiny hole in my belly button to make absolute sure that the tube is hydrosalpinx (doc said with my HSG pictures, he is 90% sure that's what it is). He will also check the right tube and check for any endometriosis (he doesn't expect to find that, but figures he'll make sure while he's in there!). Then I get two more holes on my abdomen, the tube comes out, the right tube gets some dye shot through to make sure it's healthy, and I'm done. He said 15-20 minutes tops.

I will update when I'm "low" enough to do so...LOL.

Interesting tidbit

The "surgeon" is actually my doctor. I should have known that since I know he's done some procedures on some other people, but for some reason it didn't even occur to me that he might do mine, too! I feel much more comfortable now. I trust my doctor and he knows which tube is bad...I've had this horrible vision of waking up and finding out they removed the wrong tube!

Surgery Date Set

I called on Wednesday to try and talk to my doctor or nurse about setting up my salpingectomy (tube removal). I hadn't heard back, but this morning I got a call from the nurse. The surgeon who performs it has openings every Friday this month. So, on the 11th (next week) I will go in and have my tube removed. I am very nervous, but also super excited at the realization that after this, we *should* be able to have a baby. Of course, there are no guarantees, but at least the odds will be much more in our favor!

I don't know how long I'll have to wait afterwards to ttc again. We have a pre-op meeting next week, so I imagine I'll find out then.

I'm so nervous...the only surgery I've ever had is having my wisdom teeth removed.

Insurance Vent

I've been trying to figure out what kind of coverage we will have for infertility once Hazen officially joins the Bozeman police department. The apparent answer is: Not Much. I found a document that says "the plan" (this is confusing because there is a Plan A and a Plan B...doesn't specify if it's one or the other or both) doesn't cover fertility enhancing procedures. It will, however, cover one in-vitro fertilization attempt...what??? They will seriously cover a $12,000+ procedure rather than one that is less than half of that and will solve our issue? Makes no sense to me. The real irony is that most doctor's won't even let someone with hydrosalpinx attempt IVF until they have the hydro removed, due to the fact that IVF success is halved when a hyrdo is in place. But okay, let's waste 12 grand.

So, I'm working on scheduling the surgery while I still have my insurance which thankfully covers infertility. I have a call into my doctor for a referral, and hopefully I'll hear back from him soon.

Then, to top it off, the state is changing prescription drug plans. They gave us this big hoo-ra presentation on it last week, explained the classes (A, B, C, D, F and "specialty), and explained how our out-of-pocket costs would relate to that. A, B, and C are the classes you want, D and F are best to avoid, and specialty is expensive, but covered. Clomid, and it's generic counterparts, is NC: Not Covered. Not once in their schpiel did they mention that some meds would not be covered. So yeah, I am not pleased. I wrote an email asking for an explanation. My biggest issue with it is that I had no reason to believe it wouldn't be covered. I expected a "specialty" rating or something, but NC was kind of shocking.

The life of an infertile is never boring. ;)

14 days in, and this cycle is already odd

Over the weekend, I had some serious fertile signs. My CM and CP were both fertile, and my skin broke out pretty badly. I didn't think it was possible I was going to ovulate because I don't ovulate that early...ever. My earliest natural ovulation was day 18. Last cycle it was day 30. It's just not possible for me to ovulate on day 11.

Well, according to my chart, it is. And my CM and CP are both supporting it, too. I'm tempted to call my dr's office and ask for a progesterone check to see if it really happened...that might be kind of weird though. It's very bizarre.

www.fertilityfriend.com/home/b7dd7