Medical

Yesterday I ended up getting so frustrated at my body that I called the fertility doctor. He said to call if I don’t have my period by February 1st, but it is close enough and I had to ask for my paperwork to be sent over to my new GYN anyway. Tomorrow morning I am going in for bloodwork to find out what is going on with my cycle. Hopefully it gives us a clue as to what is going on.

In other news, remember my possible jaw breaking surgery saga? Well after taking out my nightguard my teeth are moving back (my dentist says that I am the first patient he has seen have this problem- fantastic!), but progress has slowed. The opening between my front teeth and back teeth has closed somewhat, but it is still there. I was thinking that as soon as the back teeth on my left side started touching and I could chew on that side again (now I can- woo hoo!) then I would be in the clear. No surgery needed, no braces, etc. HOWEVER. My dentist is now telling me that I am still making way too much contact in the back right side of my mouth and that at some point I will probably fracture a tooth, thus needing a root canal/crown/other work done. No bueno. So we are going to re-evaluate when I go back for my next teeth cleaning to see if my teeth are still moving back. The other work would be the same/more expensive than braces, plus involve a lot of pain plus I will continue to have the problem even after I get the work done, so it looks like I will at least have to have braces. Crossing my fingers for no surgery though!!

The only good news on the medical front is that I called my doctor’s office to see if I could pay my latest fibroid surgery bill in two installments instead of the full amount. The woman on the phone said that if I could pay the entire bill off next month then she could take $300 off the bill. Ummm YES I CAN. Mental note to call hospitals more often about bills to potentially save some money!!!

Have you ever called about a hospital bill and had money taken off?

Tricked

I thought that my long wait had ended last week. When I got out of bed Thursday morning I saw what I thought was the start to my first period since early September- so I happily put a tampon in, ran into the office to tell CP, and went off to a 13+ hour day at work. However, when I went to change my tampon later that day, I realized that it was my body playing a trick on me. I waited all weekend for the real thing to come, but there has been nothing. I’m beyond frustrated.

CP and I had a talk about all of it yesterday while walking the dogs. We came to a few conclusions. First, I have to call the doctor to see if there is anything that he can do to jump start my period. Second, maybe we need to wait until I am sure that my period is back on track/that I am ovulating to have our first IUI. We only get three of them through my insurance and although I am supposedly more fertile now than ever, it would seem silly to do the IUI when my cycle could be out of whack. So this may mean delaying our first IUI until March, April, or who knows when?

I’m learning over and over that nothing is ever easy in our quest to get pregnant.

Potential for an awkward trip

This week CP and I booked a week-long trip this summer to Lake Winnipesaukee (NH). We will be sharing a house with two couples that we met while I went to law school (the husbands went to school with me). We have all managed to stay friends despite the fact that we live in CT, one couple lives in Chicago, and the other couple lives in DC.

I’m definitely looking forward to the week as we all haven’t been together since our wedding over two years ago. However….both couples have two kids. The couple that lives in DC had their first kid without trying very hard and their second was a “surprise” when they didn’t use a condom one night. One night.

The other couple tried for almost a year and were about to head in for infertility testing when they got pregnant with twins.

Of course we are super happy for both of them. But is it going to be weird spending a week with four kids if I’m not pregnant by this summer? Both women know about our fertility struggles. They know about my surgery and that we have been trying for a while. They both don’t push it in our face, but that doesn’t mean that the potential for awkwardness still may be there.

To top it off, we are not allowed to bring our dogs that week because our friend is worried about her kids and the big dogs. They used to watch Fuzzy Britches in law school so they know that she is gentle and kind, but the mother alarm has gone off in her. CP and I decided not to push the issue, but it’s rather annoying because yes, we do have big dogs but doggie gates can be used in the house and our dogs are well behaved (not to mention they would act as vacuum cleaners for anything that fell on the floor). Hopefully CP’s dad can watch the dogs that week or else our expenses go way up.

I’m just crossing my fingers that I am pregnant by then….but we all know how that venture has gone so far!

Thank you

Recently a close friend of mine suffered a pregnancy loss at 21 weeks. My heart went out to her as she sobbed on the phone to me. I wish that I lived closer so that I could have given her a hug and comforted her in person.

Over the course of our conversation she beat herself up because while devastated, she felt guilty for wondering when she could try to get pregnant again. My friend is a few years older so time is of the essence for her. Because I have started to read other infertility blogs in the past year, I was able to tell her that this was completely normal. That she should take the time to mourn her loss, but that when you are expecting to have a second child in your arms in a few short months, most people would want to know when they could start trying again.

She told me that my words were comforting at such a horrible time. I hope that they were.

The point of this story was simply that I am very grateful to this whole online community- and not just the IF community. Sharing your words helps EVERYONE because we all don’t have the same paths in life. If people didn’t open their lives and talk about their feelings on their blogs, I would have been at a loss as to what to say to my friend. Your words about depression, breakups, amazing vacations, workouts, funny stories, frustrations, etc. enrich my life. They make me a better person by seeing situations through your eyes.

THANK YOU.

ICLW week

This month is my first ICLW (learn about it here). I guess it would be fitting to introduce myself to all of the newcomers. I’m Non Sequitur Chica and I live with my husband CP and our two Bernese Mountain Dogs. We met through Match.com a few years after graduating from the same college (despite mutual friends we didn’t know each other in college). More on our story here.

We have been married a little over two years and decided to throw away my birth control pills in May 2010. CP has some male factor infertility, but most likely our biggest hurdle has been my baseball-sized fibroid and endometriosis that I had surgically removed in November. Currently I am waiting for my period to appear after a three-month Lupron shot that shut down my ovaries back in late August. I’m getting a little worried that it is taking so long. Once it does, we plan on an IUI with Clomid.

Other than that, I graduated from law school, but don’t use my degree and hate my job. CP loves to cook and is really good at it. I’m a huge Eagles fan so the fact that the Giants are in the Superbowl again really burns my britches (CP is a Patriots fan so at least he was happy yesterday). We enjoy a lot of outdoor sports- hiking, skiing, kayaking and I’m a fan of running most of the time.

Thanks for stopping by! I look forward to reading your blogs as well!

Friday fun

I swear I'll be back next week with a real post (I have worked A LOT this week in addition to 5am wakeups for boot camp!)...but in the meantime this was too funny not to share.

I give you, the literal interpretation of "Party Rock Anthem."

HERE because Blogger is pissing me off and not embedding the video.

My favorite shot is of the guy shuffling the cards while the days of the week flash by, Grandparents Day, Arbor Day, etc. ("every day I'm shuffling"). Awesome.

Enjoy your weekend!

Creme de la Creme

As last year dragged on and we were stamped as “INFERTILE” in June, I started trying to read blogs about infertility. Since we weren’t sure what was going on (other than CP’s lower than normal “good” sperm), I tried to find blogs about male factor infertility. Surprise, surprise….there isn’t much out there. But as I searched further, I came upon a great infertility resource: Stirrup Queens.

Want to know more about adoption? Anovulation? Surrogacy? The various fertility treatments? The various infertility tests? Do you need a how-to video for injections? This is your site. It’s pretty amazing. Every year Mel, the woman that runs the site, asks bloggers to submit their best post from the past year for the "Creme de la Creme." She writes a little blurb about what the post is about and puts a link to every single post up on January 1st. So far there are 219 (!) entries (I’m #14. Looking back probably not a very good post, but oh well).

The Creme is not just about infertility issues though. It's about pregnancy losses (those posts will BREAK YOUR HEART), adoption, having to leave Facebook, and everything inbetween.

I obviously don’t have the time to go through ALL of the entries, but what struck me (and saddened me) about every single post that I did read was that when I looked at more recent blog entries, the blogger was STILL not pregnant. This happened in every single entry except for TWO. Disappointing. Disheartening. So many other words come to mind- but certainly none of them are particularly hopeful.

So as I continue to wait for my period to return, thinking ahead to our first IUI, I’m not very hopeful that it is going to work. *sigh*

Exhausted

Turns out getting up at 5am to workout every day this week makes this girl VERY TIRED.

I have been trying to make sure that I get in bed before 10pm but the past two nights have been hard. CP went to a concert Tuesday night as a fill-in for his friend’s sick wife. He didn’t get home until 11pm as I was drifting off to sleep. I was rudely awaken by the dogs who heard him come through the side door downstairs. They immediately barked (something that I’m okay with because a very loud and deep bark hopefully will scare off any would-be intruders) and ran downstairs. A sudden noise like that will send anyone’s heart racing!

Then last night I snuck out of a girl’s night event at 10:30pm so that I could head to bed. Because I was gone for the night, CP headed over to a friend’s house. When he got back at 11:30 he once again woke up the dogs with the same result of my heart racing again.

The result? Today I am EXHAUSTED. I had planned to run today after work but honestly? I just want to take a NAP. A bunch of my friends have come down with bugs this week so maybe I need to take tonight to rest so that I don't get sick? Maybe a run will have to wait until Saturday morning….

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So this morning I weighed myself prior to jumping in the shower. The first number I got was really high. I got off the scale, let it reset and got on again. Now I was 5.5 pounds lighter than the first number. Ummmm WHAT? I mean, I would LOVE to know how I lost 5.5 pounds in the span of 30 seconds. I’d like to do that more often!!

Maybe my scale needs new batteries??

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Sadly, this is my post for the day. My brain is not functioning on a high level right now and I can’t wait to leave work!!

Retirement

Friday night CP and I went to the MOST elaborate retirement party I have ever seen. It was similar to a wedding. Held in a hotel conference room there were centerpieces at each table, a color scheme (purple), a huge cake (shaped like a purse), passed appetizers, dinner buffet, a slideshow of pictures of the retiree and friends/family/coworkers, favors (mini bottles of Cooks champagne), speeches, a dance floor, DJ, and two hours of open bar. It was ridiculous.

Then again, the retiree is the coworker in my division that had been with the company for over 31 years. That is a LONG TIME to be at one place. People flew in from a couple different states to celebrate her working career. She has never been married and therefore has never had the pleasure (ha ha) of planning a wedding, so her retirement party WAS her wedding.

I am happy that she has retired because I am busier at work. I’m still not doing stuff that I LOVE but this will be my job for the foreseeable future so I just have to live with it. Having said that, my company just lost a great employee. While at times she was passive aggressive and rude, she did some great work and a wealth of knowledge just walked out the door.

I just hope that I can step into the big shoes she left behind. It doesn’t come with a pay raise or a promotion…but hopefully more personal satisfaction?

Have you ever attended an over-the-top party?

Weight loss challenge/ Boot camp

I joined the 10-pound Challenge hosted by Newlyweds on a Budget. Lose 10 pounds in 12 weeks, win $$$. Are you in?

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Two months ago a Groupon popped up for a boot camp class in my town. I convinced my friends to grab it and we decided to do the class together. They patiently waited while I recovered from surgery and we made a plan to start the class in January.

Well, our first class was yesterday and we have 30 days to get us whipped into shape (before the Groupon runs out). The workouts are based on Marine Corps workouts and remind me a bit of a Cross Fit workout. Today there were 6 different stations (burpees, medicine ball mountain climbers, moving planks, kettleball thrusts, large rope undulation, and TRX-assisted pikes) that we did for 30 seconds each before moving to the next station and getting ready for the next move within 15 seconds. After we did the circuit 4 (5? Ha! I don’t even remember!) times, we did burpees. LOTS of burpees. Sets and sets of burpees. Today was seriously the first time EVER I had the feeling that I might throw up during a workout (for the record I didn’t.)

I have no problems with the workout. It’s HARD and I am seriously out of shape (especially in my core because of the surgery). Most of the exercises seem to be for shoulders, core, or arms where most women (including me) have a lot of difficulty with strength. I wouldn’t mind more squats, lunges, etc. but I’m sure we will get to those. Plus I guess not doing as much lower body work is good if I am going to continue to try to run throughout the week (including today when I get home from work!).

But the trainers so far have yet to yell something at me that motivates me. For some reason I just want to tell them to SHUT UP. I would never think of talking back to Jillian Michaels like that while doing the 30 Day Shred. Maybe I like getting yelled at by a woman rather than a man? Maybe I just like more positive yelling?

Either way, I have 18 workouts left so I’m going to make the best of it and try to jump start getting back into shape. My friends both have kids so we are going to the 5:45am class which is SUPER EARLY for me. With my short commute these days I’m generally getting up around 6:30am. However for this class the 5am alarm is KILLER. But it is really nice to be done with my workout before heading into work. I wonder if I can continue to do that after the boot camp is over?

Do you exercise in the morning?

Waiting waiting waiting

When trying to conceive, EVERYTHING is a waiting game. Waiting for your period to end. Waiting for ovulation. Waiting to see if you get your period.

These past few months have been nothing but a big long waiting game- except it has been much longer than the usual “two week wait.” Once I found out that I had to have surgery, it was then waiting to get the Lupron shot that would shut down my ovaries. From there it was waiting to get a surgery date. Now it’s waiting to see when I will get my period again. In addition, it is waiting until February to start trying again.

By the time next month rolls around, we will have lost HALF A YEAR of trying to conceive because of the fibroid. The waiting has been especially frustrating because we aren’t getting any younger.

But it is really going to be odd when we start trying again because it will have been so long. I feel so removed when I read other bloggers in the midst of charting and patiently (or not so patiently) waiting the requisite two weeks. Do I feel removed because I am not charting? Because I haven’t had my period since the beginning of September? Is it because we have been so busy with Buster it has taken my mind off getting pregnant?

Knowing that we had to wait this long has resulted in less stress. I’m not stressed about wondering if I am pregnant or not. I don’t have to worry about whether I am in the mood at the right time of the month or not. With not trying there is no Googling of possible pregnancy symptoms. There is no check the underwear every time you pee drill. There is no question of whether I should or should not drink alcohol, dye my hair, eat sushi, etc.

But I would rather be back in the game, stressed or not. Crazy behaviors and all.

The waiting continues….

Running recap of 2011

Total miles run
2009- 117 miles

2010- 108 miles
2011- 256.55 miles

Miles per week

2009- 3 miles per week

2010- 3 miles per week
2011- 9 miles per week (despite taking Sept, Oct and Dec off)

Average Pace

2009- 13:03/mile (running/walking)

2010- 13:12/mile (running/walking)
2011- 11:53/mile

Calories burned

2009- 13,934

2010- 16,058
2011- 39,543

In 2010 my best month was November when I ran 21 miles.
In 2011 my best month was April when I ran 65.7 miles. That’s of course when I was training for the half marathon, so no surprise there.

Weight by month
March- 206
April- Not sure. One day I weighed 201, the next 207. I’m still confused about that one!
May- 202.5
June- 199
July- 198
August- 203
Sept- 205
Oct- 205
Nov- Forgot to do a post!
Dec- 211

I’m starting off 2012 with a weight of 209. Looking at the numbers above, it shows me just how important RUNNING is to losing weight. There is an OBVIOUS correlation in weight and the number of miles I put in running.

I MUST REMEMBER THIS while I am still trying to lose weight.

That being said, I’m pretty impressed with myself. Running 256 miles and burning almost 40,000 calories is awesome. While I may not get back into half marathon shape, I plan on being more consistent this year (PLANTAR FASCIITIS BE DAMNED!). I don’t want to call it a resolution, but…..