LUFS Has Left The Building!

I am now officially in my hair clenching, symptom-obsessed 2WW now.

I went in for my u/s scan today and Dr.NeverGiveUp confirms that the 14mm follicle is no longer visible. This is music to my ears because it means that I have.....OVULATED! Take that you Luteinized Unruptured Follicle Syndrome (LUFS)! Last cycle, my egg did not manage to release even though I had an LH surge, and Dr.NeverGiveUp had scribbled in huge letters over my chart- "LUFS"! Hah!

He tells me that ovulation happened most likely on CD20, which was consistent with the predicted maturity of my follicle based on the last scan, and also by the surge of my BBT.

It is now 4DPO (CD25) and I have another 10days more to drive myself insane wondering if I'm preggers or not. Three days ago, I had already started obsessing because my nipples started to get sore, which I don't normally experience. And I felt a wave of nausea that lasted a few seconds last night. I know it's just paranoia - I can't possibly be pregnant yet because it's too early, and implantation hasn't even happened yet. Of course I had to ask Dr.NeverGiveUp if a woman is able to feel pregnant before implantation, and of course he said no! Well, my nipples are still sore! It's probably just the naturally released progesterone talking through my nipples!

But Dr.NeverGiveUp's fertility forecast for me is positively good. He tells me that I have a good chance in getting pregnant this cycle because I ovulated as I should have, we had well timed sex, my BBT surge is looking good and my lining looks very, very fertile. His herbal medication should also help with my progesterone production.  The only concern we have is where the embryo will implant itself. If it can avoid my fibroid/adeno mass (Ms.Nasty), then it has a good chance of survival. He reassured me by telling me that 2 of his patients with the exact same fibroid location as mine managed to get pregnant successfully, as the embryo had implanted itself away from that mass.

So, keeping a positive face, I am going to assume that Mr.Dashing Sperm has met Ms.RJ2 and had a blast(ocyst)! Please be a little good blastocyst and do your thing now OK-just find a great little spot far away as possible from Ms.Nasty and stay put!  :-)

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.

There's A Pain In My Ass

Yes, literally! My rectum is painfully throbbing away today. It is all sore and tender and feels like it is a radioactive reactor pulsing away inside. 

Although the stress of having Aunt Flo around left a couple of days ago, it really sucks now to have to deal with this pain! It is Day 10 of my cycle today, and coincidentally, I have read that many women suffering from endo also seem to experience pain out of the blue on Day 10 of their cycles! I often experienced unexplained pain during mid-cycle, but never realized there was a pattern.  After reading about it, I started to chart my pain and was blown away by how "punctual" my ass throbs every cycle! I find it puzzling that for a disease that has "no cause", it causes such a distinct series of symptoms in its victims. 

Anyway, I decided to take my body temperature today, thinking that perhaps a cold condition in my body was causing blood circulation problems-hence the cramps or pain. (I am always trying to figure my body out!) It had also been raining and the weather was cooler than normal. Well, I was surprised that after having been awake and active for 3 hours, my temperature had only climbed to 97.9˚. Normal human body temperature should be 98.6˚.  Hmmm... Maybe there is a relationship there between the pain and a cold body. Or maybe I'm just a cool babe.... Or maybe like Arthritic sufferers, my talented throbbing ass can tell when the rain is coming! 

The Diagnosis

It was only about 7 years ago that I finally managed to put a name to the menace that wreaked havoc on me every month. And I regret to say that it wasn't a doctor who diagnosed my nightmare-it was a self-diagnosis. For years, doctors would brush my concerns aside and tell me that cramps and heavy bleeding were quite normal, but I knew it was not - because I remembered a previous life before pain. They investigated little beyond my annual pap smear and sent me home. For years I just lived with mild painkillers that did nothing for me. A switch to ibuprofen helped but aggravated my gastritis. I was desperate for a cure or anything that would take away the pain. But how do you look for a cure when you don't know even what you've got? Then I met someone who experienced painful periods like me and took meds that relieved her pain. That was when I first heard that E-word: En-do-me-trio-sis. Could that be me? This clue brought the Sherlock Holmes out of me, and with Google as my magnifying glass, I looked through pages and pages of information about endo. The more I researched, the more I realized what a textbook case of endometrosis I had!

• Pain before and during periods - Check!
• Pain with intercourse - Check!
• General, chronic pelvic pain throughout the month - Check!
• Low back pain - Check!
• Heavy and/or irregular periods - Check!
• Painful bowel movements, especially during menstruation - Check!
• Painful urination during menstruation - Check!
• Fatigue - Check!
• Infertility - Check!

And none of the doctors could tell me this. They didn't even bother to ask me the right questions that would have pointed them towards a diagnosis. What the hell was I paying them for? And from what I have read, I learned that there was no cure for endo, and I was devastated.

One day, I consulted a doctor about my infertility and told her that I suspected I had endometriosis. Based on my symptoms, she told me it was likely I had endometriosis - Gee Thanks! Tell me something I don't already know!! My ultrasound had also shown that I had a tipped uterus. There was a thick mass behind it, indicating that endometrial cells had been growing and forming adhesions to the back wall of my uterus, possibly pulling it backwards. Wee! Another problem to add to my infertility! The only sure-fire way to know if I had endo was to have a laparoscopy. That meant cutting me up, blowing my tummy up like a balloon, poking a camera in there to have a look, sewing me back up and then telling me - Yup! You have endometriosis. They could remove endometrial adhesions while they were in there, but they would just grow right back. So-No Thanks! It seemed pointless. Sure - it would have been nice to have visual proof, but it still wouldn't cure me of endo. The straight-from-textbook symptomatic pain in its wonderful variety and intensities was proof enough. I am one of the 80 million women worldwide suffering from endometriosis.

What's Wrong With Me?

Pain wasn't always a regular part of my life - only half my life. I remember the days in high school where I used to wonder why girls made such a big deal out of their periods. "Just shove a tampon in and you won't even know Aunt Flo is here", I used to think. A period never stopped me from doing anything. WOW! Who was that? I don't know that girl! Years passed and an occasional cramp would turn up. And then it got worse and worse, until I was popping all sorts of painkillers like they were candy, but to no effect. The pain and the volume was typically enormous. The blood would flow as if a dam had suddenly burst open. One time, the blood gushed out with such tremendous speed and volume that it overflowed past my super-duper heavy nightflow sanitary pad (which I need to wear in the daytime) and trickled down my legs, to the horror of bystanders, and me, at the mall (yes, that really happened to me). These days I can't do anything for at least 3 to 4 days of my life each cycle. I would be keeled over in pain, crying my eyes out and praying that I would just pass out from the pain. As if that wasn't fun enough, a very eager gastritis would join the party, usually on Day 2. A Double Whammy! Yippeee! With excruciating pain in both the upper and lower abdomen, and blood threatening to overflow and stain everything I lie or sit on, which I don't have the energy to clean, it was just impossible to function beyond my bedroom and toilet. Thankfully, my dear wonderful husband, who is my rock and my life support system, would feed me in between sobs, and be at my every beck and call, bringing me everything from hot water bottles to Kleenex to my cat - anything to soothe me. He was always thinking one step ahead of me, even before I knew what I needed. He's my hero! I can never make it through without him and I love him dearly for it. This is a typical scenario for me month after month. And for many years I never knew what was wrong with me.