6dp5/6dt - Spotting and Cramping

Today, on my way home from acupuncture, I started to experience some mild cramping. It isn't awful but it is more cramping than I've had this whole cycle. I was hoping it was just uterine growing pains until I got home, peed, and noticed pink spotting.

I freaked out, wiped again, and to my great dismay, there was more. I know spotting is extremely common, some crazy high number like 90% of women on vaginal progesterone experience spotting, but that doesn't make it less scary. My only consolation is that the spotting was definitely pink, which is most often implantation spotting or cervical bleeding, usually due to irritation from the Endometrin. Brown spotting is old blood, not worrying, and red blood is obviously concerning since it's usually a period, miscarriage or sub-chronic hematoma.

As long as the bleeding doesn't turn red, I think we're still in the game. My beta isn't until the end of the week and it's only Monday, my nerves might not last until then if this keeps up. I'm hoping with everything that this is implantation bleeding and cramping from our embryo getting good and cozy and not my period trying to break through.

Please, please stick baby. Please, please, please! I'm back in bed drinking tons of water per my acupuncturist and am going to have to take it easy for the rest of the week. Come on baby, you have to stick!

(Non)Pregnancy Symptoms

I have no idea what it feels like to be pregnant since I've never experienced it first hand, but I can definitely say with confidence that I'm not a fan of the symptoms of being not pregnant. The periods coming off a medicated cycle suck in so many ways, and I feel horrible on this birth control.

I was on birth control for almost 10 years and had a really good fit hormonally. It was a pretty low dose pill, somewhat obscure, and I could take it without side effects and feel good. What I somehow managed to forget was the initial first year of trying to find the right fit. Different pills, different doses, different hormones, months and months of feeling crappy. It wasn't my idea of fun.

Each clinic has prescription agreements with different companies. Kaiser used mostly Ferring, for Menopur, Endometrin, Ovidrel and the current bane of my existence, Sprintec. I asked my nurse about taking my original birth control but she said no, Kaiser only uses Sprintec birth control pills for infertility cycles, which contain a different form of estrogen than my old pills. I am not a fan. I don't know what USC Fertility uses, but thus far Dr. K has kept me on the Sprintec.

Thus far, mixing birth control with coming off a medicated cycle has got me:

• Cramps, cramps and more cramps. These come for free, without the birth control. 
• Insomnia, it's taking me at least 1-2 hours to get to sleep every night. 
• Exhaustion. I feel like I need a nap every day or like I can't wake up in the afternoons, even though I'm still getting a good amount of sleep despite the insomnia.
• Bloating, because it's impossible to escape from. It's a side effect of everything.
• Stomach pain, because I can't escape from that either. Definitely from the birth control now. 

Underneath the annoyance, I'm somewhat amused that I would have more uncomfortable side effects from a comparatively low dose oral hormone medication than from several daily injections containing enough hormones to make an elephant ovulate. I guess it makes sense since we know I'm estrogen deficient and sensitive to synthetic estrogen whereas I seem to respond only grudgingly to mass quantities of FSH and LH. Still, you've got to appreciate the irony.

We're about a week away from my next ultrasound now, so I'm wishing and hoping with everything I've got that the cysts are gone and there are tons of antral follies.

Blah

Today was much more of a blah day then yesterday.

I woke up to what definitely looked like a light period, complete with miserable cramps and since E and I are dog/house sitting, I had no pads and there is apparently not one single Advil or Tylenol in the house. Today makes day 11 of this month's "period," which sucks no matter how you look at it. It started as soon as I stopped the progesterone like it should have, but then I started the birth control on CD 2. I bled through CD 4, spotted through CD 7, and then thought it was done until I stopped the birth control. I was being too optimistic since it started right back up and I've been spotting CD 14 - today, CD 17. I feel like I should be looking this up or asking other people following an IVF-ish protocol if they've experienced the same thing, but biologically it makes sense. Stupid period, why don't you go disappear for 9 months -_-

After determining that I would need to go buy some supplies, I felt rushed through this mornings shot. I was running late to meet up with our old vet to pick up our animal's charts and had tried to stick myself three times before realizing that the needle must be a dud. It acted just fine when I primed the injection, but must have been dull or slightly bent since it absolutely refused to go in. Ouch. I'm now one needle short, since I had an exact amount, and am going to have to buy more next time I'm at Kaiser.

Won't you throw my ball for me? See how cute I am in this tiny bed?

Revisiting the topic of side effects, I can't tell if I didn't get enough sleep or if the Menopur is making me crazy tired. I feel drowsy, like I can't fully wake up, and I can't seem to shake it off. I tried napping, was unsuccessful, and have felt "ugh" and "blah" all day. I would try to put it more eloquently, but I can't summon the energy required to do so. Blah it is. Poor Milou seems to be feeding off my energy,  she's been laying around looking at me all mopey and sad, even though she had her favorite class, Agility, today.  Now I just feel guilty that I'm bumming out my puppy, completing the circle of "blah".

Blah puppy. Sorry Milou

Update: I just administered my evening injection and was greeted with the unwelcome sight of little round bruises :( I was really lucky with my first cycle and managed to not get a single bruise on my belly. This time I have one on each side to go with the little red pin marks from the blunt needle and my previous injections. I really hope they don't linger, the designated injection area is so small that I'm going to have to inject on top of bruises if they don't fade quickly.   

Holy Cramps Batman!

Yesterday I was concerned about not having enough of a flow to go in for my baseline ultrasound. When I told the nurse I was only spotting, she said I might need to cancel my appointment since they couldn't count it as day 1 unless I was really bleeding (and miserable). I shouldn't have wasted a second fretting about it.

Today I was popping Advil like tic-tacs. I usually only need two to control cramps for about 8 hours, but these seemed to break through after only 2 hours. As long as I was consistent they weren't too bad, so I took another two before I went to bed at 2:30am and figured they'd be enough. BIG HUGE MISTAKE.

At 6:45am I woke up to absolutely horrible, body twisting cramps. I haven't had cramps like this since High School and back then they used to keep me home, in bed, in a ball. It took another bunch of Advil over 3-4 hours and a heating pad on high to get them down to a manageable level, and I may have told E mid cramp that I would not be having his babies naturally after all. He laughed at me and said Duh so we'll see how that goes when (not if!) we get there.  I'm pretty sure I have the progesterone to thank for these wonderful cramps, I'm definitely not looking forward to it this month.

Once the afternoon rolled around, it was time for my appointment! I went nice and early but ended up losing my advantage to the 30 minutes it took to find parking -_- There was street cleaning today so half the parking was unavailable and I had to park 4 blocks away. No fun when you have to run back and feed the meter.

Since today was just a baseline ultrasound, my appointment was with Nurse C instead of Dr. K. I had been looking forward to chatting with Dr. K, since she had forgotten our previous meeting, and I had practically cried over having to go through the whole thought process again. Luckily, she ended up leaving detailed instructions for my cycle that matched our previous plan so all was well. We saw at least 6 little antral follicles and I would love to see those turn into 6 mature eggs. The new plan is:

CD 2 - CD 11 - Birth Control Pills
CD 12 - CD 14 -  No Meds
CD 15 - CD 18 - 8 vials Menopur, divided into 2 doses daily, E2 Ultrasound
CD 19 - CD ? - More Menopur
CD ? - Trigger
CD ? - IUI or Egg Harvesting, probably IUI

We're hoping that suppression with birth control first will help my eggs develop at a similar rate. Usually, your body selects 1 egg as the dominant follicle each month, but we'd like to get many more than that. The birth control should stop that one egg from getting a head start so hopefully the smaller ones we saw last cycle will be able to catch up and mature too.  Then we're going all out with the max dose of Menopur to see if we can wake these lazy ovaries up. 

TWW: Owie

Over the past couple days I've been carefully avoiding thinking about anything TTW related. E had a rare day off, which we enjoyed doing a whole lot of nothing, and I've been keeping busy with work. Aside from the endometrin twice a day, and drinking my acupuncture herbs three times a day,  my plan not to think about it (much) was going pretty well. Until about 3am this morning.

E and I had gone to bed early, around 12:30 and I was sound asleep and dreaming until my dream suddenly turned very painful. I don't remember exactly what I was dreaming about, but I do remember dreaming that I was tossing and turning because my abdomen hurt. Then, to no one's surprise, I woke up tossing and turning because my abdomen hurt. I'm no sissy when it comes to pain, I usually have a pretty high pain threshold, but whatever was going on in there hurt and didn't seem inclined to stop.  Half asleep I got up and went pee, thinking maybe my bladder was just full, but the walk to the bathroom was enough to wake me up and realize that something was definitely going on.

(Source)

It definitely wasn't cramps, it was higher than my uterus, and felt higher than my appendix too. Once I got past the overwhelming feeling of "pain" it seemed to be worse on my right side, so I wondered if it could be my gallbladder or kidney stones, though I've never had any problems with either before, or if it could be an ectopic pregnancy or a ruptured cyst. It seems too coincidental that it should happen now when we're in the middle of fertility treatments and it didn't feel like an upset stomach either.

Finally, after tossing and turning and clutching my abdomen for some time, I decided that if the pain didn't subside within the next 5-10 minutes, I was going to wake up E and we were going to the ER. He was already somewhat awake, since I felt help patting me in his sleep, but I didn't have any bleeding and it didn't seem life threatening.  I gave my body a stern talking too, sipped some bubbly water, and finally feel asleep just a few minutes before my self imposed deadline. Thank goodness.

This morning I woke up and felt fine. No pain, no soreness, it's like it never happened. I'm definitely going to bring it up at my next appointment, but I don't think it warrants a separate visit. E was trying to think positive and told me it might just be really strong implantation cramps and I didn't have the heart to tell him my uterus doesn't hang out with my gallbladder. Fingers crossed for super strong implantation cramps!