An all time low

So I have been on this high this month knowing I had would be going to my doctor's appointment and finally get things moving again.  Well that all just came to a halt.  I just got a phone call a few mins ago from the doctors office to cancel my appointment.  The next date the had open was October 22nd.  I was in shock that yet again my doctor appointment is being canceled.  I somehow found it in me to speak up and ask if there were any sooner dates than that.  She then asked what it was again that I was needing to see the doctor.  My mind raced and I tried not to scream at her.  I told her I have a septum in my uterus and that my doctor on base has referred me out months ago.  I then said please we have been trying for 3 years to start a family I don't want to wait any longer.  The next available date is October 17th.

So now I am here writing this post and bawling my eyes out trying to figure out why do these things keep happing to me.  I am mentally at the point where I can't handle this any more.  I don't understand what I did to deserve this.  I can't handle this any more.  Why am I driving myself crazy about starting a family that I have no idea if I can even have one.  But it's the one thing I've always wanted.  I feel dead inside when people talk about the love that they have for their children.  Its just so empty knowing I don't or will never have that feeling.  Well I need to go get ready for work and put on a fake smile.

-Kate

Happy 3 years!

Well our journey has now officially entered into our 3rd year.  I was never the girl who imagined that we would become pregnant right after our wedding.  I thought maybe halfway through our 1st year or later we would announce our 1st child would be born with some really cute way hence my Pinterest page has a spot dedicated to cute and fun baby announcements.  If I had things going my way we would be trying for our 2nd child by now.  

I haven't written much lately because there is nothing really to report.  I am finally seeing my new doctor next week.  I again don't have high hopes on the visit.  I do however want him to do an ultra sound to make my anxiety go away.  Every time I have the slightest cramp I start to freak out and think I have a cyst again.  Just because Dr. Ta removed the last two and I was on birth control for the last 3 months doesn't mean I don't have them growing again.   We all know that the last time we tried to control the cysts the birth control didn't stop them from growing.  Also with all this time between drs I have been reading online about how women who have endometriosis have changed their diet to gluten free or vegan to help with endo. I am going to ask my dr about this and see if their is any truth to a change of diet.  If so I am going to be changing my diet drastically.  I will go vegan so I am able to have children!!

If things do really workout with this new dr here are how I see things playing out:
-September 19th consultation and possible ultrasound
-October ultrasound and testing for septum in the uterus
-Late October or November surgery for septum
-January get the green light to start trying again

-OR- 

We find out that the septum isn't really bad and we can go ahead and start trying again.Wouldn't that be nice?  I would probably be mad if we found out that this entire time we could of been trying.  Our plan once we are given the green light is to try a few months naturally before I start adding fertility drugs again.  I want to see if I can do it on my own after the modifications my body had have done to it.

Well that is all for now.  I will write another post once I have any new information.

-Kate

Don't give up

So I have a few blue days here lately.  I still haven't heard back from the doctor we saw almost two weeks ago.  I am currently waiting on my referral to go through for this doctor I found online who is within our network.  He is everything we need right now.  What caught my attention about him was he specializes in uterine surgery.  But on top of that he is an OBGYN, reproductive endocrinologist, and fertility specialist.  I just hope we can get into see him soon!

My thoughts have been wondering to the thought of giving up.  I just so badly want to be done with this journey.  People ask me do you think you will have children and depending on my mood it will be a half hearted sure or an "eh".  I am a pessimist at heart.  It drives Preston nuts that I have that outlook on life.  If you can't tell he is an optimist and always has hope for the best.  I would rather think the worst and be surprised in the end if something actually went right.  So my honest answer to "do you think you will have children" is no.  I would love to be wrong and have two or three little ones running around when I read this post years from now but the simple fact is it's easier to think no then to daydream about our future children.


Hopefully the next post I will have a doctors appointment with our potential new doctor.

-Kate

Yet another wasted visit

Well I thought I would have something positive to write after my visit but sadly I do not.  I really had high hopes for this visit because I did some research about the office and my doctor and felt really good about it.

After waiting in lobby with kids running everywhere for 45 mins we were called back to our room.  The nurse practitioner came in and explained to me that the doctor would not be seeing me today (which I already knew).  She wanted to ask a few questions about my history.  She then started calling medical files a novel.  I think she honestly thought that we haven't been dealing with our issues for very long.  It wasn't until she started going through my "novel" that she realized that we have been going to the doctor since 2011 for everything.

The one part of the the visit that drove Preston nuts was the fact that she kept focusing my endometriosis and not my uterus.  On our car ride home he told me that he was frustrated that he had to say "but we are here about her uterus not just the endometriosis" to get her to refocus about the uterus.

After maybe 20 mins of her asking a few questions and writing some notes she informed us that she will give the doctor my file and her notes from todays visit.  She does not know if the doctor will be setting up another appointment with us or not.  If she does she only sees patients on Wednesdays.  The nurse also mentioned the doctor might refer me to specialist also.

All in all we feel like I need to go the base hospital and talk to someone about what we should really do next.  My doctor had told me in the past that he would be able to do surgery on my uterus but did not want to because he didn't want to do something that San Diego would not like.  Well San Diego is not seeing dependents at this time and this place in Fresno has no idea when they can schedule me again.  We really don't feel like having another place dragging their feet.  To doctors they may think they are going as fast as they can.  And to outsiders I may seem that I am being whiny and super annoying about all this.  But in all reality all we want is a healthy baby of our own! 

-Kate

update

It has been awhile since I have written a post so I thought I would give a mini update before my doctor's appointment this morning.

The proper name for what is going on with my uterus is called a septum uterus. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uterine_septum) My doctor here on base seems to think that I will need to have surgery to shave down the septum in order for me to have enough room for a fetus/baby grow.  I have been reading about the surgery online and found that women have been able to become pregnant very easily after they are given the green light to go ahead and start trying.  Now I have not tried to google women who have level 3 endometriosis and septum uterus pregnancy success.  I am pretty sure google will give me links that will not be helpful if I looked that up.

I have also been on birth control for the past month in hopes that it slows the endometriosis down.  I would love if I end up having surgery for them to check out everything and see if the endometriosis came back yet or not.  The ultimate goal would be that I could have this surgery by next month and then wait 3 months to heal.  Then I would love to try to conceive naturally instead of doing the IUI right away.  For some reason I have a feeling that the endometriosis and the septum uterus were the true reason why we could not become pregnant for all these yrs.

So today I am seeing a new doctor in Fresno.  I was actually supposed to have my appointment last week but on Tuesday evening I received a phone call stating that the doctor would not be at the practice that day. So I was very frustrated with the news and was even more frustrated when I found out that today's appointment would not be with the doctor but with her nurse.  I really hope I don't have to go to 3 more appointments in order to get a game plan started.

I had to fill out this new patient packet for the doctor's office and wow it was really long.  I felt like they wanted the okay for the rights of my 1st born!  I honestly had to keep calling my mom about family history that they needed to know.  "Do you have at least two family members with such and such cancer?"  "Have you had chicken pox? If so what was the date?"  "What was the date of your first period?"  Ahhh I don't know all these answers!!!

I will do a post later today or tomorrow about how my appointment went and what the game plan will be from here on out.


-Kate

Yet another roadblock

Hopefully this post will not be on the rambling end this time.

This surgery wasn't too bad pain wise.  I was pleasantly pleased that I was able to go to work without too much pain.  I guess anything after my last knee surgery seems so easy.

Okay fast forward to this week for my post op appointment.  I should of known that I wasn't going to just walk in there and get to see the pictures from the surgery and get a shot and go on my merry way.  Nothing has been that easy with trying to become pregnant.

Here is a summary of how things went:

-The cyst on my right ovary was the size of an orange and the one on my left side was just a simple cyst and he drained it for me.  

-I have level 3 endometriosis out of 4 levels. Level 4 is when you need a hysterectomy because it has overtaken your reproductive system.  I also have gun powder endometriosis.  I know it sounds crazy right?

-During surgery they discovered that I have a split uterus which means I have another surgery before we even attempt to become pregnant.

-When I do get that shot it won't be 3 months of the menopause but any where from 3 to 6 months long.

-I am getting referred to a doctor in San Diego.

Although I will be seeing a doctor who is specialized in infertility I am not looking forward the 10 hr drive to San Diego and back.  I just want a doctor to tell us that everything looks great and we can finally move on.  I should be hearing back sometime next week when we will start seeing our new doctor.

Until then I think I will be purchasing some mederma to help get these scars to disappear.

-Kate    

Post Surgery Day 1

Well yesterday was a very long and frustrating day.  I was scheduled to be at the hospital at 7AM Monday morning.  I knew I was in for an interesting day when I walked up to check in at the front desk and I was greeted by irritated hospital staff.  Last time I had surgery my experience was wonderful minus the pain I was in after surgery.  Everyone was amazing and super helpful.  I had the polar opposite yesterday.

My first issue was when my one of my corpsman was unable to get my temp via ear thermometer  My ear holes are smaller than I suppose a regular person.  So he decided instead of pushing it in at an angle he would get the thermometer that you scan across the patients forehead.  I have no issue with that thermometer at all but I do have a problem when you don't use it correctly lol!  He just placed it on my head.  So who knows if he got a proper reading or not.

My second issue was corpsman number 2.  He was in charge of taking blood samples from me.  He seemed very nervous so Preston asked him how long he has been in and told us 3yrs.  This made me feel better because I had a horrible experience in Pensacola when a corpsman in training did blood work on me and used the wrong size needle and I shot blood across the room.  So getting blood work done freaks me out at times.  Okay back on track....so he does the tourniquet on my left arm and struggles to tie it and once he does my arm is filled with a ton of pressure and my arm is turning purple.  So first try he said my vein rolled so no luck there.  I started giving Preston the look like im going to freak out.  2nd try he does the same thing struggles to tie a tourniquet and my arm is throbbing again and then he misses my vein completely.  At this point I lost it and started crying.  Preston got up to comfort me because this was the last thing I wanted before surgery.  At this point the nurse steps up and goes to my left arm and finds a vein and successfully gets the needle in but then was ready and had the corpsman hand her the viles one at a time.  While she is getting my blood work the ER nurse comes in to see what is taking so long because they were expecting met to be in the waiting area by 8 AM. Then my nurse notices that the corpsman labeled my viles wrong so they had to fix them.

After I was taken out of my room and taken back to the waiting area things were much better and I had amazing staff who were joking with me about silly things on Facebook.  Once I was transfered to the OR I was asked what music I would like to listen to which I laughed and told them it didn't matter because I would be out.  They found out that I was from Ohio so they choose Country music! :)

After a few hrs after surgery Dr. Ta came and talked to Preston and I about the surgery and everything that he discovered.  He was able to take out both cysts one on the right and one on the left.  I was informed that I have level 3 endometriosis which he thinks may be the reason why we have been so unsuccessful with trying to become pregnant.  So the next step will start next week.  My Dr. will give me an injection (don't remember the name of it) that will chemically induce menopause for 3 months.  The point of that is to try to stop and or shrink the endometriosis.  Supposedly women who have done this have had this treatment were able to become pregnant.  We will still do the IUI instead of trying naturally and taking the risk of giving the endometriosis a chance to grow back.

So today I am feeling groggy and sore.  I did not sleep too well last night not because I was in horrible pain but I was just uncomfortable all night.  I think I catch people off guard when I talk to them on the phone because I had a breathing tube in my throat yesterday.  Also sorry if I am rambling on in this post because I am on pain meds.

Tomorrow I will go back to work so we will see how that goes.  I cannot lift anything heavier than 20 pounds for at least two weeks.  Hopefully my managers will help me out at the front counter the rest of this week until the 3:30 shift comes in.  I forgot to mention why yesterday was a long day besides the obvious.  I was at the hospital from 7-4:30.  I didn't think we would be there all day.

I will continue to update our blog next week once I have my post op appointment.

-Kate