Surgery

Well I had my follow up appointment to check on the cysts.  I think the appointment was sometime last week.  Not good news though.  I will be having surgery next Monday on the 3rd of June.

It won't be a major surgery unless there are some complications while he is doing the surgery.  I will be having a laparoscopic surgery.  So at the most I will have two or three tiny holes in my abdomen.  I know who will be near my belly button.  The type of cysts that I have are called Chocolate cysts.  Here is a link that explains what exactly a Chocolate cyst is:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate_cyst  (WARNING there is a graphic pic of what a chocolate cyst looks like)

I will be taking Monday and Tuesday off from work and hopefully I will return back to work on Wednesday with weight limitations.

So as if I didn't have enough on my plate at the moment my tooth decided that Friday was a great day to go bad.  I was in horrible pain and I ended up going into urgent care on Friday night because I was taking only Tylenol for the pain because I was two weeks out from surgery.  And needless to say the Tylenol was doing nothing for me.  I was given the green light that I could take some pain meds and I was prescribed some antibiotics to help with the infection.  So most of this weekend I spent sleeping from the pain meds.

I am looking forward to my appointment with the dentist tomorrow and then my surgery on the 3rd of June.  I hope that after this surgery I can start getting good news from the doctors office.

-Kate

Just what I expected...

Well there is no good news to even report.  First of all my doctor had no idea why I was there today until  I reminded him that I had cysts the last visit.  I wish I was there for an IUI visit.  After sitting in the room for what seemed like 30 mins (mind you I felt like crud this morning) he finally came back with the ultrasound machine.  Yup, no good news came from this ultrasound.  My cysts have grown instead of disolved or shrank.  I now have a 3 1/2 cm and 3 cm cysts on my right ovary.

I need to stay on birth control for another month and see if it helps at all.  If they have not shrank or dissolved I will be having surgery in either May or June.  I then of course discussed cancer with him.  I asked do you screen for it when you take off the cysts.  He told me yes but I am too young to even have to worry about that.  My next question was well if for some reason it is cancer what will you do?  His response I take everything out and we do further testing.  Then I asked well if you are taking everything out can we save any of my eggs and the answer was no.

I am feeling beyond defeated.  I have been on the verge of tears all day but haven't broken down yet.  I am just at a loss and pretty numb because every visit I get worse and worse news.  I don't know what to think or do any more.


-Kate

Hoping for some good news!

Well it's that time again when I get to go back to the doctor's office.  I will be going in on Wednesday for another ultrasound.  Unfortunately Preston cannot go to this visit either.  Last week he had Lasik eye surgery and has is 1 week follow up appointment at Camp Pendleton (which is 5 hrs away).  I am trying not to be a pessimistic but I am assuming that they cysts have not magically dissolved after one month back on the pill.  I hope to hear at least that they are smaller and no new ones have developed.

Since I last posted we have done the following to make sure we are prepared and ready to go when we get the green light for the IUI process.  I have gotten all of the injections that I will be needing in the next few months.  When I say gotten I mean I picked them up from the pharmacy's not had any injections done.  I am so thankful that I will have LT. McKenna doing my injections for me though when I am ready.

Preston contacted the sperm bank in Fresno to schedule an appointment.  My doctor sort of freaked out when I told him last visit that we had not done that yet.  Come to find out that no appointment is really needed.  He can call up that day and and go in.  Preston also contacted the company we need to order the IUI catheter from.   Again we can't order that right now because it has to be used in a certain amount of days or it will be deemed unusable.

I am ready to be done with the pill.  I have forgotten how much it stunk to remember to take it every day at the same time.  I have also forgotten how much it sucks when you first get on it too!!  Ouch I am always tender!!

Either Wednesday or Thursday I will blog again about what our next step will be.  Keep your fingers crossed that we can finally move on and really try!

-Kate

1 Step forward 30 steps backwards

Well as much as I would like to tell you all that everything went great today with my ultrasound I would be lying.  The visit started off on a bad note.  Our doctor failed to tell us that we needed to contact the hospital in Fresno prior to todays visit.  The hospital in Fresno is where Preston needs to go to make his donation and it gets cleaned and possibly frozen.  So even if my visit went well today we wouldn't be able to do IUI this month.

During my ultrasound my doctor found two cysts on my right ovary.  One is 4 cm and the other is 2 cm.  Side note he hasn't done an ultrasound on me in over a year.  I knew that when I was on Clomid a few months ago it was important for your OB to check and make sure you aren't developing cysts and well that wasn't done.

So what happens now? I will be on birth control for two months and fingers crossed that my cysts shrink and go away.  If they aren't gone in about 6-8 weeks this girl will be having another surgery.

With all of that I can say that I am not having a good day.  So I will probably blog about my physical therapy on my knee because that isn't going well either.  Hopefully I will have some better news to blog about next time.

-Kate

The Run Down

Okay I figured it would probably be helpful if I explained how this month will be like for us.  Here are the steps we will be taking on our lovely IUI jouney:

1) Day 1 of my cycle I need to call my doctor and make an appointment for a baseline ultrasound exam within the first 3 days of my cycle

2) From Day 5 to Day 9 I will take 100 mg of Clomid a day for 5 days

3) On Day 10, I will be given a gonadotropin injections, Gonal-F subcutaneously.  This injection can also be given at home by myself or Preston gets to give it to me.  It has to be done at the same time every day in order for it to work correctly.  So more than likely I will be giving them to myself during my breaks at work.

4) On Day 12, I will go back to the doctors office and get an ultrasound exam to evaluate follicular growth.  I may have to keep coming back for a few days for additional ultrasounds or injections until my ovarian follicles reach appropriate size.

5) When everything looks good I will be instructed to take 10,000IU of hCG injection.  This basically forces me to ovulate.  During this time Preston and I will go to Fresno and he will have to make a "donation" and the clinic will clean it up and then give it back to us to take back to the hospital on base.  Either that day or the next day we will do the IUI treatment at the hospital.

6) Plan on taking a urine pregnancy test 2 weeks after IUI

So basically I am going to be pretty busy.  I am trying to keep my thoughts positive and I am also trying not to stress out.

So this might be too much information but the day I am suposed to start my next cycle is on my birthday.  So as I told Preston I will either have a really good birthday or a crappy one.  I am also throwing a baby shower that weekend with another friend and I am sort of thinking maybe I should change the baby shower to the next weekend.  Or I should just put my big girl pants on and deal with it.

That is all for now!  As always I will continue to blog about our experiences.

-Kate

Finally Getting somewhere!!

Sorry I haven't written anything in quite some time but there really wasn't anything to blog about!!

So after three weeks of physical therapy Preston and I started having conversations as to what we were going to accept from my upcoming Dr. visit from the Ortho which was today.  We decided enough is enough.  I have been dealing with this knee since June and have been doing physical therapy on base for 5 months now.  If I am going to need surgery lets just do it or give me something that is actually going to work.  Well at my appointment I voiced my opinion and told the Dr. that I don't want to any quick fix things that I will have to keep coming back again and again.  I told him that we have been trying to get pregnant for 2 yrs now and we really want to do the IUI next month.  I think he finally understood my urgency this time because he gave me a new knee brace and told me to come back in one week to see if the brace, pt, and patches were working.

Regardless its finally official we are doing the IUI next month and right now I am feeling excited about it!  I am sure the day before I go in for my 1st visit I will have sleepless night and google everything I can think of.  I am really trying not to be such a pessimistic person when thinking and talking about the IUI.  I really want to believe that it will work and we will be writing happy posts on here about our growing family.

So fingers crossed the next blog I write will be about the IUI process.

-Kate

Yet another set back

So for those of you who don't know I had surgery on my knee back in September.  After 4 long months of physical therapy I was told to see my orthopedic surgen because I am still having issues with my knee.  I surprisingly was able to get an appointment to see my Dr this morning (I called Friday afternoon for the appointment).  Normally it takes a good week to 2 weeks to be able to get in and see him because that clinic is always busy.

After examining, poking, and prodding my knee he comes to a consensus about what is going on with it. He believes the reason I am having pain in the soft tissue area of my knee is because my fat pad (yes you read correctly) is being pinched and that is what is causing the pain in my knee.  Also since my knee is still registering pain it has caused my quad to not fully fire back up after surgery. You can look at my legs and see that one is smaller than the other.  Typically when you have a meniscus surgery they trim up and smooth out everything they see that looks rough.  So the Dr did trim my fat pad but apparently it wasn't enough.  So I have 3 options in order to make things possibly better.

1) Continue PT through the gym program (different from what I did the last 4 months) 2 days a week, 3 days a week with a steroid pad after therapy and one day on my own since PT is only 2 days a week, naproxen 2x a day, ice massage my knee 15 mins twice a day, and wear a patellar band on my knee.

2) Everything from number one above plus a cortisone shot in my knee to see if the inflammation will go down which hopefully triggers my quad to re-fire back up.

3) SURGERY. :( Going back in and trimming down the fat pad some more.  Hoping that we don't have to get to this point.

After hearing all these lovely options and being told that I need to come back in 3 weeks for a follow up I threw out the "were having fertility issues" statement.  All I could think about when he was telling me all these options is great yet another set back!  Basically my Dr. suggested without coming out and saying it is to wait on the IUI treatment.

Preston and I agree with that decision.  I don't want to get pregnant while we are trying to fix my knee issues.  Literally when I go for a walk with Preston and Peytin my knee gives way at least 4-5 times in a 10 min walk.  It is painful to go up and downstairs, kneel on the ground, or to squat.  I can't even imagine trying to do any of that with pregnancy weight.  My fear is that my knee will give way while I am pregnant and I will fall and either hurt myself or the baby.  I also don't want to wait till after we have a baby (if we do get pregnant) to finish PT or even surgery.  I don't want to be down for the count at that point.

So our IUI treatment is on hold for the moment.

-Kate