Getting Pregnant - Part 2

If at first you don't succeed, try (and try, and try...) again

About a week after our ultrasound at Salem Hospital I got a call from OHSU informing me that I had a dermoid cyst in my right ovary that needed to be removed.  To give you an idea of how big it was, ovaries are supposed to be about the size of a walnut.  The cyst inside my ovary was the size of an orange.  Not good.  I found out that I might lose my ovary.  The good new is that this type of cyst is almost always benign.  It is made up of skin and different kinds of cells (pretty nasty things, I think) but is something that was present in me at birth and didn't grow or become a problem until this point. 

Finding out I had to have surgery and that we would have to take a few months off trying to get pregnant was very upsetting to me.  I am very lucky in many ways, but medically I wasn't dealt the best deck of cards.  This would be my 9th surgery.  I was born with hydrocephalus (something I will have to occasionally have surgery for for the rest of my life) and back pain with an unknown cause.  In December I was diagnosed with PCOS, and while this is something that can be treated with drugs, dealing with it and the fertility issues that come along with it, well, sucks.  And then in January, I find out I have to have surgery AGAIN for another stupid thing I was born with.  Mmk, I'll admit it.  I'm bitter at times.  I try not to think about it too much and concentrate on all the positive things in my life, all the things that make me incredibly lucky. 

You'd think that after having surgery so many times I'd be used to it.  I've never had any complications with surgery.  Dealing with the pain afterward sucks, but I've come to realize what really scares me is being put under general anesthetic.  I hate it.  I hate saying goodbye to my parents, or this time my husband, as they wheel me out of the prep room and I'm waiting to fall asleep.  The scariest thing in the world to me is that I may not wake up.  I may never get to see the people I love so much again. 

Of course, I did wake up, just like I always have.  Tim took a really embarrassing picture of me giving a thumbs up when they wheeled me back into the recovery room and sent it to my parents to let them know I was awake.  I told him it was rude to take advantage of me when I didn't even know what was happening and was so NOT photogenic...  The surgery went well and they were able to save most of my ovary.  Woo-hoo!  I spent the next couple weeks drugged up recovering.  The only thing on my mind was healing up so we could start trying to make a baby again!

A couple months later we were given the ok to start fertility drugs again. The first 5 cycles were unsuccessful in producing a quality follicle, so I wasn't even ovulating.  My doctor took us up to 150mg of Clomid before deciding to try Letrozole.  I've heard of some people taking higher doses of Clomid, but my doctor didn't think it was going to work for me.  The fourth round ultrasound showed one follicle that was still too small.  We hoped that it would continue to grow and that I would ovulate.  I even had a positive ovulation test for the first time, so my body was at least trying.  The ovulation predictor tests measure a hormone that is released before ovulation.  It doesn't tell you if you have ovulated, it tells you that in the next couple days, you should ovulate (which is much more useful when trying to get pregnant).  By tracking my temperature I was able to see that there was no rise, so I knew that I hadn't ovulated.  I had a blood test to confirm and then started the 5th round of drugs.

1st round: 12/6/12, 50mg Clomid (before surgery)
2nd round: 3/1/13, 50mg Clomid
3rd round: 4/3/13, 100mg Clomid
4th round: 4/26/13, 150mg Clomid
5th round: 5/31/13, 5mg Letrozole

Before starting the 6th round of drugs I asked to be put on Metformin, which is something my doctor and I had discussed previously.  Metformin is a drug that is used to treat diabetes, but can also be helpful in controlling PCOS.  I had a glucose test done when I started going to OHSU since many people with PCOS also have diabetes, but, thankfully, my blood sugar was normal.  Since Metformin can help treat PCOS, some women have luck taking it while trying to get pregnant.  Sometimes taking Metformin for several months by itself can be enough to get things working.  Other times adding fertility drugs after several months of taking Metformin is successful.  I decided I wanted to start taking it because I wanted to start the waiting period.  My doctor prescribed it to me that day and I also started taking our 6th and final round of fertility drugs.  7.5mg of Letrozole was as high as my doctor wanted to go.  If it didn't work, our options were to see if Metformin had any effect over time, try the hormone shots, or in vitro.

On June 20th, we went in for our mid cycle ultrasound and saw not one, but TWO mature follicles.  The drugs had worked, and we were ecstatic!  There's no way to tell if the Metformin had an impact and was the reason that the fertility drugs finally started working.  We were told it would take a few months for it to really work, but I had read stories of other people who had the same results adding Metformin.  I definitely didn't regret starting it.  This was our first real chance to get pregnant! 

Our doctor informed us that since there were two follicles, we had about a 10% chance of having twins.  He asked us if that was ok with us and if we wanted to continue.  Of course, we said yes.  He asked us if we wanted to do artificial insemination, which would boost our chances of getting pregnant, but his recommendation was to skip it for now.  There was no reason to believe it wouldn't work without, so we decided to skip it and see what happens.  He prescribed a shot to take at home a few days later which would ensure that the follicles were released.

At home I got as much rest as possible.  I got a positive ovulation test and the next morning, Tim gave me the shot.  And now it was our first chance to try to make a baby...

After we had done our part, the waiting game began.  I read that eating pineapple core can help the implantation process (when a fertilized egg burrows into the uterus), so we got a pineapple and I ate one slice each day.  I got lots of rest and we did our best to keep our house a calm and relaxing place.  Implantation usually occurs 7-10 days after ovulation.  Your body will not start producing pregnancy hormones until this occurs.  So if implantation occurs 10 days after ovulation, the pregnancy hormones will start being produced.  Each day the level of hormones is your system will increase, which is why pregnancy tests are most accurate if you wait until you are expecting your next period, however it is possible to get a positive as early as 10 days after ovulation if implantation has already occurred and your body has produced enough hormones.  The shot I took would produce a false positive pregnancy test, and I was instructed to wait at least 10 days after taking it before taking a pregnancy test or I would likely get a false positive. 

I waited 10 days.

~Kaylee