Posts from — June 2008

An ovary full of growing follicles is a sight to behold. Check out the ultrasound image of my precious left ovary and follicles:

[Read more →]

I googled blogs with Follistim as the search word to see what other women were writing about it. I discovered www.soulcysters.com - a PCOS message board.

Anyhow, things I learned while hanging out there for a few hours: [Read more →]

More bloating, more burning eyes and more sleepiness. Typical symptoms to hormonal stimulation, I guess.

I feel a little soreness or pain on my left pelvis. My body feels like it just wants to sit down or lie down.

I feel like I’m always full up to the neck. I have been burping the whole day. And sometimes, some stomach liquids come up with the burp. I know it sounds yucky but that’s what’s happening…

I had a 75 Follistim today as well. Then I go for a response monitor tomorrow. So check with me again tomorrow and I’ll have the ultrasound images posted.

Today, Follistim dosage remains to be 75.

Today, I am one grouchy woman with a bloating belly, a sleepy head and burning eyes. What a way to spend the Anniversary weekend get-away… It’s a good thing, I have warned my husband to expect moodiness.

June 7 is our 5th Anniversary and we are out of town - enjoying the sights and staying in a Bed and Breakfast inn!

I was about to give myself a 150 Follistim when Al remembered that he got an earlier call that I should reduce the dosage to 75, 75, 75 Follistim instead. Well, talk about timing. Almost had the double of that.

Since I was not able to talk to whoever called that in, not sure what triggered the Follistim dosage decrease. I suspect that the estradiol results had something to do with it. [Read more →]

From St Davids Main, we drove to the Texas Fertility Center for an ultrasound monitor. I’m dreading it a bit since it will not be Dr Hansard who will be in. Instead, one of the male doctors, Dr Silverberg, will be the one on call/duty. I’m not really a fan of male doctors in obstetrics, gynecology or reproductive endocrinology but in this case, I have no choice, don’t I?

Guess who is in the clinic? [Read more →]

It’s a Saturday and the only lab open is St Davids Main at 32nd St, downtown Austin. That’s about 25 miles from home and we almost did not make it to the 8:00 am cut-off for the Estradiol blood draw. I was trying not to be affected despite the note that “failure to go to the correct lab could result in the cancellation of your cycle due to the delay in obtaining your results”. I pushed away thoughts such as - what if we were really late for the lab? that’s another month to wait again…that’s more than a $1000 wasted. [Read more →]

As of today, I am in the middle of my first injectable cycle with my new doctor. (This is actually by third injectable cycle, all in all, considering the 2 cycles with my previous doctor.) So, I am unsure where and how to begin this infertility blog.

I’m thinking about first backtracking as early as the first infertility diagnosis procedures with my new doctor so that this blog makes chronological sense. That means, I will be posting recent history first before current events. I wonder though if and when I will ever get current? (Why didn’t I start blogging about our infertility journey earlier??? Good question I ask myself a couple of times already.)

I’m thinking also of just starting with current events right now and then just intersperse the recent history as I have time to do that in retrospect. It will feel like a bad movie with a lot of flashbacks… but it will be easier for me.

Decisions, decisions…

Aha!!! I thought of something that will have the best of both worlds - starting current while having recent history still posted chronologically.
- I will be starting with current events (using current date as the publishing/posting date).
- I will post recent history, as I am able to write (using previous dates as the publishing/posting date)

As for my pre-new doctor saga, I will just create a separate page in this infertility blog in addition to this Home page (tabs on the top) to capture it. I will be revising them as I feel inspired.

BTW, I know I will have to eventually quit calling her my “new” doctor. For now though, let’s call her that - my new doctor.

I was thinking about what the blog title of my infertility journey was going to be instead of what I’ve thought through earlier. A verse in the bible entered my mind - something about God telling Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply”.

I opened www.biblegateway.com and used “multiply” as the search word. The search results showed verses starting with Genesis 9 which was already about Noah. I thought, hmmm, all this time did I mistakenly attribute this phrase as being spoken to Adam and Eve?

So I did another search and used “be fruitful” as the search phrase. And lo and behold, God indeed spoke this to Adam and Eve in Genesis 1!

I meant the blog title to reflect God’s direction to be physiologically fruitful (have children) as in the context of Genesis 1:8 and Genesis 9:1. However as I was thinking more about it, I realized that being fruitful is more than just trying to conceive, getting pregnant and bearing children.

Even in the midst of the infertility journey, surely there is fruitfulness for a woman. So although, the emphasis of this blog is on being fruitful - the baby kind - I would be writing about fruitfulness of a different kind from time to time.

Originally, I wanted to call this blog “ancient and trying” but after bouncing off the idea with my husband, he cringed a bit. Not sure if it was the idea that his wife (moi!) was already 40 and no longer the “young” woman she married… or maybe he thought that “ancient and trying” is not a very graceful blog title. Whatever…

So we brainstormed a bit and got to “40 and trying” which sounded good at that time. It would capture my current situation. . However, now that I’m ready to start the blog, I realized that it was not necessarily representative of what I’d like to write about.

So here I am with this new blog - “The Saga of Becoming Fruitful” - our journey through infertility.

I would be very delighted if you leave me a comment so I’ll know what you thinking, too!

Thanks for visiting!