Rotten Eggs and Itches

I haven't got anything to report but bad news.

First up, Ms.RJ1 has been nothing but a bad, stubborn egg. Four days after my last scan, my next scan on the following Monday showed that it had grown to about 17mm-Prime for ovulation! In the scan, Ms.RJ1 looked a little blurry, which indicated that it may just be ovulating or was about to. So it was sex, sex, sex after that.

On Tuesday, I decided to POAS and the OPK showed that it was almost positive, with the second line almost as dark as the control line. On Wednesday, I peed on another OPK, and the second line had gone lighter. Cool, I thought. It meant that I probably did ovulate on Monday, and my OPKs were showing that my LH surge had peaked and was already declining. So far so good.

Four days later on Friday, MsRJ1 was STILL there!

WTF! @£$*&%!!! She had swelled to about 25mm! And she had refused to leave the nest! My temperature had not risen either. After discussing it with Dr.NeverGiveUp, his conclusions were:

• My LH surge is still not strong enough to trigger the ovulation (bad news)
• I am at least producing eggs much earlier now (good news)
• If my follicle isn't released, it might turn into a cyst (bad news)
• I had only been on Royal Jelly 1 month (with a week's break in Borobudur) , which wasn't long enough to be significantly effective. He tells me that many of his patients fall pregnant on the 2nd month after starting Royal Jelly
• Ms.RJ1 was not a very good quality egg overall (bad news)

He said that since the follicle was still there, it might still ovulate, and we could still continue to try. Problem was, I had developed an effing yeast infection by then and there was no way we could try!

THIS WHOLE CYCLE IS A BUST!

So now I'm miserable about Ms.RJ1, and about that Itch Bitch! I'm attacking Itch Bitch with the Canesten 1-day pessary, and it's making me bleed a little again. I know this happens to other women, and this is the second time for me even with a 14 month-span in between attacks. This cannot be a coincidence! I am pissed that they still haven't inserted that as a side-effect on it's packaging.

I am going back this Friday for another scan. We will know what's happened to stubborn Ms.RJ1 by then. It feels really weird not being able to "try"this cycle. It feels even weirder not having the chance to mope and torture myself over the 2WW symptoms!

I think I'll go abuse my body with some caffeine and evil non-fertility friendly food now.... :-(
At least that might cheer me up a bit...

PS- Dr.NeverGiveUp had a breakthrough patient last week. A 45 year old patient had just conceived naturally under his TCM programme. She had been infertile for 12 years and had 2 failed IVFs prior to that. She's the oldest patient he ever had. I am 39 now. I still have hope!  I might look like my child's grandmother by the time I have him/her, but hey, who cares!!!

WTF Period On 11DPO

I'm so sad.

I knew this cycle was a bust for me. I just knew I wouldn't get pregnant given the condition I'm in. And I was so sure that I wouldn't feel upset because I was already expecting a BFN.

But what do you do when AF arrives 4 days early? Today would have been 11DPO, but I've started bleeding already. This means that I had an incredibly short luteal phase at only 10 days. Which is just Plain. Bad. News.

And I am just wondering whether the love-making we had last night brought on the period. In fact, I told hubs that it may cause it to come early, though deep down I felt it was quite unlikely given that my period was still quite a few days away. So I was really shocked to wake up and find spotting on my underwear. And bright red on the TP wipe. And it's been building up. My BBT has plunged too. I'm pretty sure this is it (AF).

It's happened to me before but usually just the day or 2 before my expected AF. But never this early. Has anyone had their periods induced by sex before? If it has happened to you before, can you please let me know because I feel like such a freak right now?

If this is a normal occurrence, then, is this why they tell you not to have sex during your 2WW if you're trying to conceive? I've heard about not exercising or having sex during the 2WW and I used to stick to it religiously, but I was beginning to think that it was all bullshit when I never got pregnant anyway. Dr.NeverGiveUp told me not to exercise in the last 3 days before AF but he never mentioned anything about sex.

So now I'm upset and confused.

I already have a long list of infertility challenges - endometriosis, adenomyosis, fibroid, hormonal imbalance, irregular ovulation and bad eggs. And I really don't want to add "luteal phase defect" to it.

I've been holding up quite well the whole day, but I think I'm beginning to crack.

I'm such a walking disaster.  Sniff!

Thankful

I need to shout a big "THANK YOU" to all the wonderful girls who have been giving me their love, support and encouragement here over the last few days. The gift of your words have consoled me immensely! I never imagined that I would ever find such warmth and support here in blogoland, but I have and it's made my journey through IF a little more bearable. So thank you all from the bottom of my heart!


I am also thankful that today has not turned out to be disasterous, and that I have been able to deal with things a lot better. It must be all the positive energy you've been sending me! Despite having only 2 hours of sleep last night (I have major sleep issues) and seeing the Big Extremely FAT Negative on my Clear Blue HPT (it's got the fattest NEGATIVE line on any pee stick I've ever seen-They know how to rub it in!), and then discovering quite a bit of blood just hours later (Yup-another 25 bucks wasted again!), I have not broken down nor shed a single tear today.   


I am a bit confused though about the bleeding... I am not exactly sure if AF has arrived because it's only 12DPO and that's unusual for me. I needed to use something more protective than a pantyliner and the color was rather shocking. The yeast infection pessary (Canesten) has dissolved and it has mixed with blood into a bright milky red. Just imagine bright red tomato soup that has some cream stirred in. That's exactly what it looks like! (Ooops! Sorry if you're eating right now!) I know that Canesten can make you bleed a little, but If that's bleeding from the Canesten, the amount is quite startling. If it's AF-she's early (maybe someone granted my wish. Hmmm...be careful what you wish for). But the good news is I haven't felt any pain -only a slight pressure for several seconds. I will wait and see. If AF gets fierce, then I'll mark today as CD1.


So why did I POAS on 12DPO? I was pretty sure I wasn't pregnant this cycle but I peed on the stick anyway because I wanted confirmation--Confirmation that I didn't need to eat well for a baby and that I could give myself a break AND be as sinful as I liked with food tonight. We had another round of family celebrations for my husband who turned 41 a few days ago, and believe me, I SINNED! Mmmmm...it was so yummy! 


There will be no more crying for me now. I am tired of being sad and tired of being tired! I am so done with this past cycle! The last few weeks have felt like the safety harness on my roller coaster had snapped open and I had been flung out into the arms of death. But I survived and I am back on that roller coaster again! I expect AF (in cahoots with Aunt Endo) might be planning to scare me with some jolts of pain. But I am ready to face it!


(OK-I lied-only sort of! I'm never ready for pain)


I'm eager to put all this crap behind me and look forward to a brand new cycle and another shot at baby. I am gonna enjoy the rest of my weekend and on Monday, I'm gonna charge into my TCM clinic with new vigor! Along the way, I will be sure to make my TCM doc feel a bit guilty too for taking so long to give me my baby! LOL!! Get with the program doc! Haven't you seen my wish list? I want a baby for Christmas!

Please Somebody Give Me A Break!

Hey Gals, for anyone who's been hoping to get pregnant, have you been checking yourself against this list of pregnancy symptoms?

• Breast swelling and tenderness
• Fatigue, lack of energy
• Mood swings
• Decreased alertness, inability to concentrate
• Food cravings
• Nausea
• Dizziness
• Constipation
• Diarrhea
• Headaches

Guess what? These are all PMS symptoms, TOO! 


WTF?


Imagine having to suffer the same symptoms of early pregnancy, and not even have a baby at the end of this?

WTFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!


I guess since yesterday's post, it is apparent that I am still torturing myself with Mad IF Disease! Yes, I am still milling around the "what early symptoms do pregnant women get" section of the interwebs.

Why Oh Why Oh Why do I torture myself like this? (Hey, that sounds kinda familiar...)

Not like I have any of these symptoms -- I just like tormenting myself. It's the effing disease.

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Well, I didn't find "irrational" or "crying fit" on either of the lists which is what I had today, so I would boil it down to Mad IF Disease again! 


You've heard me sing the same tiresome song all month now about how much bad luck I've been having, and poor you--you're about to hear it again! 

Today has just been another horrible day. Things have just not gone my way. I've been in a very irritable mood and every thing from my husband to the choice of restaurant irritated me. And thoughts of another failed cycle overwhelmed me and got the tearducts flowing a bit. Then I gave up the choice of going to the movies so I could go home and boil my herbal medicine. Guess what? I burned the whole freakin' pot of medicine! My husband who was in the kitchen sitting just 5 feet away from the burning pot didn't even check or smell the burning. Now there's a 1-inch thick carbon slab stuck to the bottom of my pot. My husband consoled me and rubbed my shoulders, saying that he could pour some more water in and boil it again. Yeah! Right! And make cancer soup??!

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And I wish I could tell you that the pink spotting I had today was from implantation, but it's bleeding from anti-yeast medication that I carefully navigated up the vahjayjay. After some advice from a friend not to mess with garlic or yogurt, I went and got the Canesten 1-Day pessary. There's tonnes of conflicting data about its safety for women in the first trimester, but after deciding that I must certainly not be pregnant, I went ahead with it. And exactly like it happened last time I used it, I bled. There are so many reports about women having this bleeding after using the Canesten pessary, Canesten still does not want to acknowledge it as a side-effect. 

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So I've had a good cry and I feel better now. Maybe it's the hormones, but this overwhelming sadness of how my life's played out recently have not left me. I'm still waiting for the universe to give me a break. Please somebody, drag me out of this darkness! 

I feel like I need to leave this post on a more positive note. So I want to end this with an image that I made many years ago that says exactly what's in my heart. 

All I need is just a tiny ray of hope.

Shit Happens!

Here I go again! Accident-proned me has managed to land myself in the ER for gashing my hand open in two places today.

Be Warned: This post is not for the faint of heart! Stay away if you can't deal with descriptions or photos that contain blood!

I was washing my pyrex pot (the one I was going to boil my herbs in) when it slipped onto the granite edge of the sink and cracked open, cutting my right hand open instantly. Before I felt any pain, blood was gushing out from my palm. There was a cut 1 inch long and it looked like a quarter inch deep. Then I saw a second bleed 2 inches below my wrist. The wound looked odd - it was then that I realized a piece of my skin was hanging by a thread and the gash was also bleeding profusely. That was when a little panic started to set in.

Luckily my husband was nearby and rushed for the first aid kit. (No soy sauce this time-for those who knew what happened last time!) Having lived in earthquake country (California) before, his First Aid kit was well equipped with sterile gauze, bandages and useful stuff for klutzes like me! He bandaged me up and we headed to the Emergency Room at the hospital near my home.

The ER was full of people, but the doctor managed to see me within 20 minutes. He checked for my motor function-I was able to move my fingers. Thank god no tendon was cut - that would require more complicated surgery to reconnect it. Only a little of the muscle and capillary vessels were cut.

As for my skin - he gave me 2 choices:

1) Reattach it - if the blood vessels are not able to nourish and heal the wound, it has a chance of dying and turning black, which would then lead to a big scar

2) Plastic surgery where they would graft skin from somewhere on my body to replace the dead skin, if I am worried about scarring

Cut my skin from some beautiful virgin part of my body? No thanks! I am not that vain! So I went for option 1 and hope for the best!

To help with the pain, he gave me local anesthetic, which HURT LIKE HELL! Although my cuts were quite bad, I hadn't felt much pain, which was rather surprising- until he jabbed EIGHT times around my wounds with the syringe! I was grimacing in so much pain! DH who saw everything said my hand was swelling up like a balloon where he was pumping the anesthesia! Within seconds, the numbness kicked in and he proceeded to wash my wound with savlon antiseptic, hydrogen peroxide and then saline solution. Well, thank god for the anesthetic because I don't think I could have handled the stitching and stretching very well. According to DH the doctor managed to stretch the loose skin and sew it into a nice fit back to where it should've been. It was shrunken and curled before. Eewww! Gross right? He gave me a tetanus shot plus anti-biotics and pain killers. I will have to go back every second day to check on the skin and to re-dress the wound. Stitches should be out in a week's time.

Here are the gory pictures. Sorry they're not very good quality. They were taken with a cellphone camera.

Here are my raw wounds after the home bandages were removed, before being treated:

Here's the doctor stitching my palm:

.......And here's the doctor stitching my flappy skin back:

As the local anesthetic is beginning to wear out now, I am starting to feel the pain. I've been told not to use my wounded hand nor get it wet for now. So I am currently living the life of a one-armed lefty - a precarious task for a righty! I am wondering how I'm gonna get through everyday stuff like having a shower or wiping my ass!!!! I am having great difficulty typing all this with one hand, but I seem to be managing - one letter slowly at a time!

As if this wasn't enough of a set back, my endo ass has begun to throb a bit - just when I thought I was getting better! My TCM doc asked "What happened" when he saw my heat level had dropped. Perhaps I had enough heat to fight off ass-throb day on CD10, but I didn't have enough heat reserves to last me through CD11, which had been a cool overcast and rainy day. Either that or ass-throb day was late by a day! Either way, I think my heat is all spent!

Despite all this crap that has happened to me, I still feel blessed and lucky - that I had not done even more major damage to my hand and that it was only one hand, and that the glass had not slashed the main artery on my wrist (it was so close) which could have led to death. Sure my hand will not look pretty anymore, and my life will be very inconvenient for a while, but all things considered, I think I was quite lucky today!

I Wore Black Today

The possibility of losing my "baby" hit me really hard today. This is the closest I've been to getting pregnant in the last 6 months since my miscarriage, and to see it slip away again has been devastating.

I woke up today, 11 DPO, to discover that the brown discharge I had since yesterday (10DPO) had not ceased nor lightened. I was really hoping for it to be a sign of implantation bleeding - short and light, since it started within the expected period of implantation bleeding which is 6-10 days past ovulation. But since it's still going strong on the second day, followed by slight cramping that came and went last night, it's looking bad. Plus, all my breast tenderness over the past week has disappeared completely - which doesn't augur well for pregnancy. It seems like my little bean may not be able to hang on. And this tore me up. I think the dreaded Aunt Flo is coming. I never thought I would ever cry over a pregnancy that hasn't even materialized yet. But it's like seeing a dream being destroyed in slow motion. Each day has been a long and turbulent struggle emotionally.

It didn't help when my TCM doc had nothing positive to say today. He still couldn't find a pregnancy pulse. After hearing about my spotting and symptoms, and not being able to read a positive from my pulse, he told me that my chances of being pregnant now was even lower today. I could really see it in his face that he was very disappointed too, even though he has really been trying to help me. I brought up a 2nd scenario where I assumed that a conception never happened - and asked him why I was spotting on 10DPO, despite the intensive treatments this cycle. I never spotted that early in my past year of charting. That only reaffirmed his conviction that it was implantation bleeding and that my little bean has been fighting hard to stay alive. Despite the emotional turmoil, my acupuncture session today felt really good. I felt it calming my uterus down. It felt restful and good. But as soon as I left his clinic I bawled my eyes out.

So is all this implantation drama for real? It seems very highly possible, but things are not looking good now. Black felt like an appropriate color to wear today. My soul found solace in its quite darkness.

Yet, implantation bleeding has been known to last 3 days. I still have hope, despite the odds. But my heart can't really take this torture anymore. I think I am far on enough in my cycle to take an early pregnancy test now. I have decided to do it tomorrow morning and end this torment. I am hoping for the best, but I am prepared for the worst. God help me through the days to come!