Showing posts with label follicle size. Show all posts
Showing posts with label follicle size. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

My Ute's Naughty Or Nice List

Pssssst.... Anyone there? Thank you if you've been checking in on me even though I've been such a terrible blogger!

I'm sorry for being gone for so long. It's been one and a half months since my last post and I can't say that I have any good news to share at all. Infact, I've been feeling so down in the dumps for the way things are going with my cycles that I've been too frustrated to dedicate any more time thinking or blogging about it. But here I am anyway, still confused as ever, feeling completed dejected, and trying to pick up the pieces and move on.

Anyway, if you ask if my uterus has been naughty or nice this year, especially of late, well, let's put it this way-I don't think she's gonna get anything from Santa for Christmas! She hasn't behaved in anyway that is good or acceptable. So here's her naughty list:

1) Following my Halloween 6DPO bleeding nightmare, the spotting continued for another 4 days before the floodgates broke opened. That either meant that I had a short luteal phase of about 10 days (UGH!) , or if I had a normal 14 day luteal phase, then I may have ovulated a few days earlier than we thought, on CD 17 instead of CD 20.  Dr.NeverGiveUp prefers to be optimistic and think that I am ovulating earlier and earlier each cycle. It's still a bloody BFN whichever way you look at it!
VERDICT: Naughty

2) In the pain department, I had my usual cramps for about 2 days when AF broke through, and my ovaries started to ache early on in the cycle, particularly on one side, almost every day up till CD14-15.  I was freaking out thinking that my eggs must be already twitching and growing earlier than normal. It's either that, or my endo was doing something nasty to my ovaries.
VERDICT: Naughty

3) By CD8, the ultrasound scan revealed 2 small eggs in the left ovary. At least there's something there...
VERDICT: Nice

4) A week later on CD15, the ultrasound scan revealed a 14 mm follicle but it was fuzzy. This may indicate that the follicle had just ruptured and ovulation had taken place. Hot damn! Ovulation on/around CD15? That is waaaaay early and surely a record for Zengirl! But it's not really good news because the follicle was a bit immature and small at 14mm. Ideally, it should grow to about 18mm to be a good egg. And whatever happened to the other egg?
VERDICT: Naughty, Naughty, Naughty.

5) The next day after the scan on CD16, I just had to POAS to check if there was indeed an LH surge and ovulation. The stick revealed a 2nd line almost as dark as the test line. And the day after that I POAS again and the 2nd line was fainter. I figured that I was catching the tail end of the LH surge and this concurred with ovulation happening around CD15.
VERDICT: Nice

6) A week after the last scan, we took a look to see what had happened to my eggs. The ultrasound scan this time revealed that the eggs were gone. They had indeed been unleashed out into the uterine world to find Mr. Right. Plain and simple. Open and shut case right? Not. At. All. Because in the mean time, my BBT goes up and down and up and down like the world's scariest, most unpredictable roller coaster ride.
VERDICT: Naughty 

7) On 14DPO, AF had not come, but the HPT tested negative. They tell me to wait another week. They did not bother with anymore ultrasound scans since there were no more eggs to be seen.
VERDICT: Naughty

8) On 20DPO, AF still had not come. And the HPT tested negative again! My body tells me I was not pregnant. I had no symptoms at all.
VERDICT: Naughty

9) On further consultation and analysis of my BBT chart, the doctors assumed that ovulation could have taken place much, much later on CD27 instead, because it was only then that my BBT began to rise and stay up. WHAT? So what did the almost positive OPKs I peed on earlier mean? How could I have ovulated on CD27, when there were no eggs left on the last scan? They think that it's very rare, but I could have ovulated twice. It's really too bad they did not continue to monitor for eggs after the last "ovulation". Now there's no way of knowing.
VERDICT: Just. Plain. Naughty.

It is now CD40. Back to a long cycle again. UGH! This cycle's drama has been so drawn out. So, given that ovulation happened on CD 27, it is now 14DPO. And AF is still not here. My BBT remains high. Tomorrow, I will test again. Or AF should have announced its arrival by then. I have no idea what's going on in my body this time. I don't feel pregnant at all. My boobs are not sore at all. My ute feels really bloated, like the lining's all ripe to be shed.  I do feel just a little nauseous from the hike in progesterone produced by the corpus luteum, but this has happened countless times before for me to know not to be fooled by this.

This has been the worst 2WW ever! Or rather 4WW! 
WHATEVER!
BFP or BFN, I just want this waiting to be over.


Monday, June 21, 2010

Two Week Waits And Trashy Romance Novels

It's good to know that my uterus is still working- somewhat. Dr.NeverGiveUp scanned my ute on Friday (7DPO) and told me that I had ovulated and that the lining was building up very nicely at 11.9mm. Then he tells me later that my egg quality wasn't very good though for this cycle because it was quite big @25mm. He's an optimist but yes, always a realist!

Here's what I learned from him during my appointment:


  • In his experience follicles that are 18-20mm in size seem to be ideal because he has noticed that most successful pregnancies occur from follicles of that size.  
  • The ideal thickness of the uterine lining should be around 8-14mm for pregnancy to happen, but the optimal range seems to be changing with ongoing research. He says that 18mm used to be considered too thick but that is even acceptable in today's standards as stastistics have shown that women are able to get pregnant with that.
  • He has helped over 600 women conceive naturally with TCM since he started his practice 15 years ago. He has also been listed as one of the panel doctors in a hospital-the first for a TCM doctor to be recognized in a (western medicine) hospital. And also invited to lecture in universities. Several of the prominent fertility clinics in town know of him and even refer their patients to him. He was trying to reassure me that I am in very good hands. 



So, here I am now on 10DPO. I think that this cycle is pretty much a bust anyway~Only 50+ days into treatment under Dr.NeverGiveUp and bad egg which took forever to ovulate! What are the odds of a BFP with that? Though I'm sure that my lining's doing its stuff cos I've been feeling crampy. It's been a while since I've felt like this.

Being in the midst of a 2WW feels very strange to me. It feels like it has been a millenium since we've TTC. We've only skipped out on one cycle because I didn't ovulate last month, but it feels like it has been a really, really long time. So I got out my calendar and counted back to the last time I had a positive OPK and got down to some serious baby-making:


.... 99 DAYS!

Holy crap! That was like 3 months ago! We've been sitting on the side lines for so long! No wonder this 2WW felt so weird! I just turned 39 this year. Is age really getting to my eggs? Last year my cycles were averaging at 35 days, ovulating 85% of the time. Going by this track record, it looks like I'll be ovulating only 4 times a year~spring, summer, fall, winter? Eeeek!!!!

Well, bad egg or not, it's still a 2WW no less, and I finally got a chance to dig out the romance novels I bought several months ago in anticipation of the 2WWs that didn't come. During my last 2WW I started reading romance novels. At that time, I asked myself what was a good way to take my mind off to a happy place far, far away? I thought romance novels may be ideal because I'm a sucker for all that feel-good romantic stuff, though I haven't touched a single romance novel since "Sweet Valley High" days back when I was a teen! (Anyone remember those?) So I walked into a book store, clueless, and blindly picked out a few books by New York Time's Best Selling authors.

Boy! Was I wrong! Those books are not "feel-good" all the way! I cried and cried and cried! There were so many twists and tragedy in the plot that it put me on a intensely wild emotional roller-coaster ride! I read "Dear John" by Nicholas Sparks which I wanted to before I saw the movie, and "Every Breath You Take" by Judith McNaught. Yeah - So much for a happy, zen 2WW!!! And for all I know my hormones probably amplified those emotions 100 times stronger! But now I am HOOKED! Especially on McNaught's books! They're dangerous-I simply can't put them down, even to sleep! In a global recession, being whisked away to a world of glamor, money and private jet planes, without any care nor accountability for carbon footprint, is such a wonderful escape. And where the heroine gets pregnant immediately after a hot, steamy 2-night sexual affair seems so ridiculous to an infertile but absolutely consoling to see that the hero and heroine really loved and wanted their children. I've read 2 more of McNaught's books this 2WW. And no more till my next 2WW. They're just way too dangerous!