Back to reality

So, today was my first day back to work after the lap. I was exhausted all day and almost immediately overwhelmed by my workload. I can't believe I was so lazy over my holidays — I should have been working! (Just kidding, of course I shouldn't have been working...) I applied for a new job yesterday. I really hope I get an interview.

Sadly, I'm not going to have anything TTC related to talk about here for a few weeks. Sometime this week the nurse from Dr. L's office is going to call to check up on me and schedule my follow-up appointment. In the meantime, I really am going to try to focus on eating well and losing weight. Would you believe I actually gained a pound last week? Ridiculous.

Recovering

We went outside for a little walk yesterday — just across the street to Shoppers Drug Mart and Blockbuster — and I discovered that feeling okay while walking around the apartment does not necessarily mean I will feel okay walking around outside. I suppose I was trying to take longer or quicker strides. Whatever, it caused painful stretching of my abdomen, and I ended up sort of hobbling and slightly hunched over, and I had renewed vaginal bleeding when I got home. It's all good, though. My instructions were to gradually resume normal activities, doing a little more each day, so that's what I'm trying to do.

K, my darling, has been wonderful. He made me Rice Krispie squares and has been fetching me drinks (even tea, which he usually refuses to do, claiming ignorance of the intricacies of the steeping process) and setting up DVDs. I've watched so many episodes of Gilmore Girls. :)

I'm dreading my return to work on Monday. I can't wait to have this conversation over and over: "Yes, I did enjoy my holidays ... No, we didn't go anywhere ... No, we mostly just hung out at home ... Yes, it was a bit boring ... Well, I guess we're just boring people." LOL

Lap Continued

Yes, I have still more thoughts to share about it, but yesterday's post was quite long enough!

I want to say, as a follow-up to my anxiety post a couple of days ago, that the hospital was not intimidating, and the staff were all very nice and sweet and made jokes to get me to relax.

And here's the best part: When Dr. L spoke to K right after the surgery, he said our chances have been improved by 18 percent. That sounds like a completely random number to me, but I'll take it! I'm afraid my optimism is going to be out of control next cycle.

Since I'm not taking metformin this cycle, I figure I'm not likely to get AF before my follow-up appointment next month. Dr. L will have to give me provera to bring on a bleed and we should get IUI cycle #3 going by late May. Come on, baby!

My Lap Experience

Yesterday I was mostly okay. Hungry on and off, but nothing I couldn't handle. This morning I was miserable. For some unfathomable reason we had to be at the hospital two hours before surgery. Shortly after I got there they dressed me in the hospital gown, robe, and slippers, took my blood pressure, asked a few questions, gave me a blanket, and sent me back to the waiting room to wait for almost two more hours. I had a headache that was bordering on a migraine and I had to rush to the bathroom to throw up bile three or four times. And I was freezing but having occasional hot flashes. I put my head on K's shoulder and tried to sleep. I think I managed to doze for a while.

Finally they came and got me and I couldn't wait for them to knock me out. I remember the IV going in, then looking around waiting to feel groggy or something, and then I was gone. When I woke up I was incredibly thirsty and shivering hard under a heated blanket. Once the shivering was over and I was a little more awake, I actually felt okay — definitely better than I had pre-op.

They moved me to recovery, gave me water, and K came to see me. He told me the results: apparently they removed some endo. Just a bit from two spots. I was not expecting that! I thought there would be some scar tissue, and we actually got conflicting reports on that. Dr. L told K there was no scar tissue, but when his assistant stopped by to go over the results with me she said they removed a small band of scar tissue. She also said they were expecting to see a polyp and there wasn't one. Um, I didn't know we suspected polyps. Weird. I'm supposed to go for a follow-up with Dr. L in about four weeks.

Anyway, they told me to sleep, and K went away, but I couldn't sleep. It was loud in there and I had to pee. Finally I got a nurse's attention and she took me to the bathroom. One of my fears going in was that I wouldn't be able to pee afterwards (there'd been a couple of recent posts about that on the Nest), but I had no problem. The nurse even seemed impressed by how much I went. LOL Also, there was a lot of blood from, the nurse said, moving my uterus around. Ew.

By the time K came back I still hadn't slept, so they discharged me and we took a cab home. We were at the hospital from 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., and poor K was there the whole time, bless his bored little heart, mostly doing Sudoku puzzles on the Nintendo DS. I ate some toast when we got home (which made me very full) and had a nap from 6:30 to 8:00. I have some tenderness in my abdomen and pain at my incision sites, a sore throat (probably from a breathing tube, although I have no memory or knowledge of one), and a bit of shoulder pain from the carbon dioxide they used to expand my abdomen during the surgery. So far I've taken one Tylenol 3. Overall, I'm feeling surprisingly okay.

Well! That account turned out to be way more detailed than I was expecting. I highlighted the results in blue in case anyone got bored and just wanted to get to the meat of the matter. :)

Eek!

It's finally here! Today is bowel prep day, and tomorrow is my laparoscopy (and dye injection, hysteroscopy, and D&C).

I was allowed to have a light breakfast before 8:00 a.m., and now I can have only clear fluids until 6:30 a.m. tomorrow, after which time I can have "nothing by mouth." (The surgery's at 10:30 a.m.) We just came back from buying supplies at the grocery store. Today's menu for me: water, apple juice, Popsicles, Jell-o, and clear tea. At noon I have to start drinking a bottle of Citromag, and I'm supposed to make it last two hours. Mmmm. Delicious and fun.

I'm feeling nervous right now. I find hospitals and hospital staff to be very intimidating. My own infertility doc is performing the surgery, which is somewhat reassuring. I've heard from another patient who's had a couple of laps, one with him and one with another doc, that he's very good at it (as he should be; it's listed as one of his specialties on his business card).

I know that this is a common procedure for those dealing with infertility, but at times like this it feels just a bit surreal — going to such lengths to try to get pregnant. I'm having surgery tomorrow. I'm having surgery when there might not be anything wrong. I know it's important to know for sure, but there is definitely a little part of my brain saying, "This is crazy!"

Am I the only one who feels this way?

Reprieve!

My "holidays" have become holidays! Yeah, I still have to fast on Tuesday and spend all day Wednesday at the hospital, but I'm not going to do anything work related for a whole week. I spoke to my supervisor about my workload issues and he said we could give the book I was going to spend my holidays working on to the intern. I was so relieved I almost cried, if that makes any sense. I honestly didn't imagine the solution would be that easy.

I hate to realize that I brought so much stress on myself just because I didn't want to admit that I was so far behind, and I didn't want to cause problems for my supervisor, who has enough stress of his own. I kept thinking I can handle this, I should be able to handle this, and blaming myself for not working fast enough, for being too distracted in the office, etc.

But I realized that this week needs to be about me. I'm going to get a haircut and I'm going to watch movies and Gilmore Girls episodes. And I'm not going to worry about work one little bit! It'll be fabulous.

"Holidays"; Or, Why I Need a New Job

I just can't handle the workload anymore. I routinely give up weekends and evenings to try to keep up, and frankly I resent it. I know it's at least partly because I'm not as productive as I should be at the office these days, but that can't possibly account for all of it.

Here's the deal: I copyedit books. And once again, my entire schedule for a book has blown by without me having had any time to actually work on that book. This particular book would normally be a three-week project. I had already agreed to do it in two weeks. Now I will be attempting to do it in one week — my "holidays." My "holidays" during which I will also be having my laparoscopy.

I'm not happy about this. It seems wrong. But there's no easy way to deal with it, and I just really just want to run away and maybe hibernate for a few months. Here's a picture:

Monday, Monday

I'm in a pretty foul mood today. Work sucks. I should have spent most of the weekend working on the two projects I brought home (uncompensated overtime, by the way), but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Which means I'm woefully behind this week, with my "holidays" looming on the horizon.

I'm quietly freaking out, as you'd already know if you were my friend on Facebook (lol). One of the projects must be done by the end of this week, and the other — well, I guess I'll work on the other while I'm recovering from my laparoscopy next week. It'll be a welcome diversion from all the daytime television I might otherwise be tempted to watch. Yeah.

I'm already mourning my lost holidays. I feel like I desperately need some time off, because work has been insanely busy for months on end now, and the Christmas break was a long time ago. But this is not how I want to spend it — working, a day of fasting and bowel prep followed by a day at the hospital, and then couch time with more working.

Oh, yes, I'm sure I'll return to the office feeling fully refreshed.

My Infertility Journey So Far...

Quick intro: I stopped taking BCP in November 2006, had AF in December but then nothing for months (as I expected), and was referred to an IF specialist in April 2007. Specialist tentatively diagnosed me with PCOS. K's first SA showed a slightly low count and low motility. His repeat SA showed numbers on the low side of average. And so we begin.

I always knew I would have trouble conceiving, since I would only get AF once or twice a year when not on BCP, but I really had no idea what "having trouble" would mean. I kind of thought I would just take a pill for a few months and that would do it! Well, that is in fact very often the first step in IF treatment. And that's how it started for me. The pill is called Clomid, and it is effective in inducing ovulation in about 80 percent of women. I'm in the other 20 percent.

After four cycles of increasing dosages of Clomid, which did absolutely nothing except give me hot flashes, I reluctantly conceded that it was time to move on to the next step: injectable FSH with IUI. At this point we did some more testing, a pelvic ultrasound and a sonohysterogram (SHG), to make sure my uterus was in good shape and my tubes were clear. They were.

In October 2007 I injected myself in the belly with Gonal-f for 12 days. And so, one year after I stopped taking BCP, and six months after I started seeing the IF specialist, I finally ovulated one precious follicle and had my first IUI. I got my first BFN just in time to celebrate that anniversary along with my 30th birthday. (A little advice here: don't start TTC on your birthday, and especially not on your 29th birthday!)

In January 2008 we did our second Gonal-f + IUI cycle. This time we switched up the dosages and I ended up with four follicles! My LH surged on its own, and so we did back-to-back IUIs at 12 and 36 hours after trigger. My doctor said we couldn't ask for a better cycle... but BFN #2.

Next step, laparoscopy on April 9.

To be continued...