Looking For a Sign...

The transition from 2010 to 2011 was not a fun one in our household. DH and I are trying to car shop and yesterday we went to the dealership to test drive a new vehicle.  We got a late start and were feeling flustered.  Once at the dealership, we argued over everything from outside color to features and everything in between.  It felt pointless and a waste of time.  I could feel my emotions getting the best of me. This Femara has me very up and down in the mood department.

When we got home, we fought. It was awful. I couldn't stop crying and DH just piled on one hurtful comment on top of the other. He doesn't understand why I just can't be happy here and be settled. He said he's sick of living his life trying to keep me from crying. He said he hated the way "those pills" were making me act and he said he wished I'd stop taking them.  He stormed out. I'd never felt so crushed and defeated.

Part of me knows that there is much truth in what he had to say. I'm a grown woman who's really never kept her emotions under control. When I'm angry, you know. When I'm sad, you know. When I'm happy, you know.  My heart is on my sleeve. Ever since we knew that ttc was not going our way, I have been very emotional. Each busted cycle grinds me deeper into the ground and knocks the wind out of my spirit. I live 1000 miles away from my family and my friends. My whole support system is 18 hours away and DH has shouldered the brunt of my anger, sadness, frustration.  I know he feels like he has failed in making me happy since we moved here. I know I've done a bad job of telling him that it's not him, it's THIS: Everything is hard. Nothing has gone smoothly. The last six months have felt like one slap in the face after another. I'm tired. I want peace. I want results.

When he returned, he apologized for the things he had said out of anger. We didn't talk much the rest of the night. When midnight came, he was in bed and I was reading on the couch.  It was a horrible New Year's Eve. The Femara is a lot to blame. My crying and feeling super insecure all the time. I read online that many women were extremely emotional and weepy on their Femara cycles. This made me feel a little better. I still was left questioning if we are doing the right thing, though. Will I ever get a positive hpt? Am I blindly groping after something that is never going to happen? I went to bed asking for a sign, anything to give me the push to keep going on this course. Something that says, "Don't throw in the towel. Not yet."

I know it's a silly thing to ask for: a sign. What would it be? Would I even recognize it if I got one?  Would it ever come?  Then, at about 5:00 this afternoon I got my sign -

Can you believe it?! A hot air balloon in my own backyard! It was so bizarre, but I knew it was my sign!  I grabbed DH and we ran to check it out. I wanted to cry (again, the Femara) because the first thing that popped in my head as a possible meaning for this balloon to land in our backyard on the first day of the first month of 2011 was this:

Expect the unexpected!  There are more surprises in store this year!

Yeah, I Got Them All Covered

By "them" I'm speaking of the side effects from the Femara.  Let me preface this post by saying that I'm pretty sensitive to medications. I rarely take anything and even have to be urged to take Tylenol and Advil when I have a bad headache or cramps.  So, yeah, medicine doesn't agree with me. Yay.

So, I took my first Femara two nights ago and had a fitful night's sleep. I woke up at five with a migraine.  I went back to sleep around 6:30 and then woke up at 8 only to experience the worst hot flash I have ever had, followed by a full day of feeling shaky and queasy.  I started to feel better around evening time, when it was time to........take my next pill. :/

My good friend was on her first day of Femara yesterday, so I was sure to let her know all the side effects I was experiencing. She told me that she wasn't having any, but would let me know when/if she did.  A few hours later, she informed me that she felt the hormonal rage starting to brew inside her and my first thought was, "Well, I can handle the physical side effects, but don't make me hormonal and moody on top of it all."

Fast forward to 11o'clock last night when I was lying on the couch surrounded by tissues watching The Nanny and bawling. At The Nanny.

DH - "Will you please come to bed?"

Me - "No! I hate everything!"

DH - "I'm not going to leave you out here watching Fran Drescher and crying like a loon."

Me - "Go away! I wouldn't expect you to understand!" (Collapses in heap amongst snotty Kleenex).

So, yeah. I got all those side effects listed on the bottle covered. At least it's "better" than Clomid, right?
Right?

A Sprinke of Hope....A Dash of Defeat

Yesterday I went for my u/s and walked out with a prescription for Femara (Letrozole) 2.5 mg.  The u/s went great, everything looked good. No cysts on the ovaries, uterine lining thin. I'll be taking my first pill sometime this evening and working on containing my hope.  At least, that's what my RE's nurse thinks I should do.

I told her that I would like to take a peek at everything next week around ovulation time to see how I responded to the medicine. In my mind, I'd hate to go through this cycle thinking that I was taking some magic pill only to find out that nothing happened. I told her that I'd rather know every step of the way because I had a lot of hope for this cycle to be "the one." That's when she brought me back down to the world of uncertainty and self-loathing.  "Don't get your hopes up too much. Your chances are about the same as anyone who's body is functioning normally. 20%."

Uhh....but my body hasn't been functioning normally.  So 20% IS an improvement. Right? Am I right?  Thanks for pissing in my cheerios, chica. When does my doctor get back, by the way?  Why is there always that rogue wave knocking you down?  I know I shouldn't invest too much stock into what she says, but she's an RE's nurse. She sees people get their hopes up and dashed every month - month after month. I guess I should be thankful for her dose of reality. This may not be the month.

But I hope it is.

Please, Save Me from Becoming my......Mother

My 57-year-old post-menopausal mother is seeing an RE.  As ridiculous as that sounds, it's true. Let me back up.  When we moved to Oklahoma over four months ago, my mom broke out in hives. I joked that she was having a reaction to me being so far away and this was funny for a week or so. Several dermatologist appointments, a battery of tests, and even $5000 worth of blood work ordered up by one very thorough allergist (thank God for health insurance) later has turned up nothing and the poor woman is still covered in hives.  The only thing they discovered is that her thyroid is nonexistent and this fact has led her to be referred to an endocrinologist. Easier said than done. The ONLY guy in town couldn't see her until April. She probably would have killed herself by then as I can only imagine what being covered in hives for 4+ months would drive me to.  On a whim, she called an RE's office and was happy to hear that he could get her in and would take her case.  So, my 57-year-old post-menopausal mother is seeing an RE.  Believe me, the irony is not lost on this girl one bit.

She just had her appointment last week (approximately one week after my first appointment with my new RE) and I can imagine she felt a little out of place. I can see pushing 60 and sitting in an exam room with a wall covered in baby pictures (mostly twins, she recalled) would make you say some pretty dumb things.  What did my mom choose to say to find some common footing with her doc? I'll give you one guess. She talked about ...me.  "My daughter is living in OKC and she and he husband aren't getting pregnant and she just went to an RE last week.  Her doctor wants to put her on Femara to make her ovulate and I'm just scared to death she's going to be the Octomom all by herself and so far away from her Mama."  Thanks. For. That. Mom.  I thought my ears were tingling on Wednesday afternoon.  I shall fast forward to her phone call to me after the appointment.

Me- "You called me the Octomom?! Well, if it made you feel better about being around all those baby pictures, then I suppose it's okay to discuss my personal business with a complete stranger (mind you I was kidding)."

Her- "He wanted me to tell you to tell your doctor to test you for Diminished Ovarian Reserve."

Me- "Okay, what?! Why would he even say that? He doesn't know me or anything about my case."

Her- "He said that after he looked at my chart."

And there you have it. No matter what we tell ourselves when we are teenagers about being NOTHING like our moms when we grow up, it is inevitably our fate. She went on to tell me that he believes she should have never gone through menopause so soon and it could very well mean that she "ran out of eggs."  It doesn't seem all that far-fetched that the same thing could be happening to me. I'll probably mention it to my doc when I see him on CD 3 for my u/s.  I just think it's hilarious that my mother and her doctor are discussing and mock-diagnosing me from five states away. And I suppose it's funny that I'm becoming her a little more every day. Minus the hives, though. :)