Pregnant Art – Symptoms of (In)Fertility

Alright, enough of these discussions whether people had the right to judge my blog or not. Let’s move on! I am happy many of you became my virtual friends, and let’s let all the others be.

Today, I wanna share another spread from my pregnancy artbook. This one I painted while still going through the fertility clinic treatments, pondering all the pains women go through – whether fertile or not.

As always, the image is clickable to see more (and read… some texts get too small to be read when image is compressed to fit the blog size)

On the left, it says: Pregnancy is not a disease, but it has symptoms. Infertility is a disease and it has symptoms, too. It’s ugly.

On the right, the female figures are marked with symptoms they’re experiencing, starting from top left, going clockwise: Widening hips, Swollen feet, Elephant feet, Growing breasts, Excessive hair, Belly kicks and hiccups, Nausea and vomiting, (moving to centre) Back pains, Mood swings, Crazy cravings, Feet up.

Oh, how I dreamed to experience the right-side symptoms! Today, I would’ve added bloating and round ligament pains. But I didn’t know about these symptoms back in May…

Why Am I Being Ridiculous?

So I was thinking to myself, why am I being so ridiculous? Yes, I am pregnant. Like millions, billions of women were before me. And those women went on with hard manual labour, carrying heavy stuff (their older kids, for example!), some even working in inhuman conditions.

For centuries, there was no distilled water. Water was mostly contaminated and drinking beers and wines was much safer than just water. So alcohol consumption was really big.

And they all did it!

So why do I feel the way I do? Overly anxious and worried and uncertain?

Today, it hit me.

I know lots of people who just got pregnant. Pretty much like “you wanna have a baby? let me see… oh, I am ovulating tomorrow, let’s get on with it” – and then BAM! – they report they’re pregnant 2 weeks later. I am serious, this is a real story.

And then I have a few friends that are fighting infertility, multiple miscarriages, unsuccessful IVFs, stillbirths and so on.

I DON’T KNOW ANYONE WITH AN INFERTILITY PROBLEM WHO GAVE BIRTH!

So all I know from my immediate surrounding is that either you’re perfectly healthy and get pregnant fast and easy on your own, or you do have a problem and all you see is follicles not growing, body not responding, ovulation not happening, chemical pregnancies, miscarriages, disappearing heartbeats… And no success stories. For years and years.

I really want to be the one to break through this IF muck – and hopefully start the lucky strike for my friends.

But right now these stats are taking their toll on me. I’m afraid it will be like them. Something going wrong as opposed to me greeting a perfectly healthy baby in early February next year…

OH… MY… GOD!!!

i called the clinic… they said: Congratulations, you’re pregnant!

WHAT?!

I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t process the news. My eyes filled up with tears, I started laughing uncontrollably. She was saying something, asking something – I could take in a single word.

Oh. The progesterone. I have only 5 pills left.

She told me to take only one in the evenings instead of two and come back on Monday for more progesterone – and for the blood test.

I called my hubby, sobbing and laughing, telling him the news. His only response was neurotic uncontrollable laughter for a few minutes. Then we hectically talked about. Discussed who we’re gonna tell right away.

We both cannot process what just happened. We do not understand.

And now I am scared as hell – there are still so many things that can go wrong – the ectopics, the miscarriages, the disappearing heartbeats…

And I spent an hour today cleaning the bathrooms, enhaling the chemicals. Surely this is NOT good for the baby? And I was running up and down, tugging boxes with winter shoes and clothes to the closets upstairs, dragging summer shoes downstairs. Surely all that heavy lifting is NOT good for the baby (I have over a dozen of summer shoes)?

I am scared.

Baby… really? REALLY? a baby???? Pinch me… Tell me everything’ll be all right…

From Ejaculation to Fertilization – How Long?

I watched this awesome documentary from discovery channel – The Great Sperm Race (eighteenyears, thank you for the reco!)

It’s not your typical youtube video – it’s much longer, with commercial breaks – but so worth watching!

But – I have a question now. In this video, the fertilization happened 36 hours after the ejaculation. THIRTY SIX HOURS!

So now I am absolutely confused: how long does it actually take for the sperm to reach the egg?

I’ll explain my concern.

In the last cycle, I was given an ovulation trigger and got the ovulation confirmed 48 hours later. So it’s safe to assume it happened withing those 48 hours (they say it usually happens within 24-40 hours from the trigger).

Last cycle, I was told to have sex the same day as the trigger – and the following day. Hmmm, if it takes 36 hours for the sperm to reach the egg – then they all missed the ovulation?

Now, even more mysterious. This cycle, the doc said to have sex on the day FOLLOWING the trigger day and the one after that. In plain English – he suggested we have sex 48 hours after the injection. Which, as we know from the previous cycle, is waaay past the ovulation time. WTF? Especially if it takes that long for the sperm to reach the fertilization zone?

I am glad we had sex the night before the trigger. I am banking on those swimmers.

But seriously – how long from ejaculation to fertilization?

The Sad Stats, the Hopeful Brown, and Some Sex Ed

A friend of mine gave me a book on conception, pregnancy, and… probably, giving birth. I can’t recall. Most of it is all old news to me. But there are some new, interesting facts

Sad stats: while I thought that it’s about 25% chance of getting pregnant each month, it’s much less. The 25% number is for those in their early 20s – and healthy! I am in my early 30s. Which already puts me at 10-15% chance each cycle. And then add PCOS into the cocktail… Sigh. I hope that adding FS as a savoury part of this cocktail brings the chances right back to at least those 10-15%. Or 7-10 months to get pregnant. Argh.

Hopeful Brown: Yesterday and today my toilet paper has been showing very light, almost-not-there shade of brown. And boom! – if before now I was sort of relaxed and laid-back about this cycle results, now my hopes are getting high. Because I keep thinking this is it, the implantation bleeding! I am on 8dpo, if my calculations are correct. And my luteal phase is loooong.

Sex Ed. Now, here’s something I didn’t know about how sperm reaches the egg. So, imagine this: it’s ovulation time. Your cervix is all slippery with sperm-friendly egg-white substance. The battalion of sperm runs for the os (the gates of cervix), most of them heroically die on the road, but some of them make it in there. Typically, the fastest ones. No news here, right? Well, wait for this: only a small portion of sperm head straight towards the fallopian tube and reach the DWA (designated waiting area) within an hour from ejaculation.

What do the rest do? Some stop at the tube entrance. Some stick around in cervix caves and pockets. And they head towards that DWA later, in groups. Over a period of 5 days!!!

This ensures that there’s always some sperm around when the egg comes in, all glamorous and shining (it’s unlikely that it actually is shining, but you get my point).

Now how amazing is that? I had no idea that sperm behaves in such well organized strategic fashion, leaving someone on-call at all times!

Pee Sticks

How many pee-sticks have you bought? Ever?

I have PCOS, so being late is the story of my life. I’ve been peeing on those pregnancy sticks for more than a decade now, long before I started TTC.

And I would really love to know: WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THE PEE STICK MANUFACTURERS?!?!?!

I mean, I remember the first stick I peed on. It was just that – a stick. A thick paper strip. You grab one end of it, dip the other in urine, and then wait. A bit gross but boy were they cheap!

And now? They are packed in all this plastic (talk about green house gas and environment protection), they have digital screens, some of them even tell you how far along you are. Next thing you know they’ll be making coffee while you wait for the results to develop.

It’s about $15 for each test. And one test is often not enough. And one cycle is almost never enough. I mean, seriously – can we go back to pee sticks that are just that – sticks?

It Felt So Real…

I had a dream today that felt so eternally real.

I had a baby. She was 2 days old. My heart was swelling with love every time I looked at her. My house was full of people who came to meet her.

I went to check on her sleep, and found her looking at me. I smiled at her “Now look who’s just woke up!”

I picked her up, brought her to meet the guests. She was so warm, her hair smelled so nice. Love was radiating from her.

I let one of the guests hold her – the next moment I caught him feeding her… rice. With a fork. I snatched her, made her spit what was still in her mouth. I was extremely concerned – what happens when a newborn is given real food?

Then I went upstairs and got ready to breastfeed her, arranging her on a pillow, making myself comfortable on a bunch of pillows in my bed.

And that’s when I woke up. At 6:55 am on a Saturday. And couldn’t go back to sleep. I didn’t even try. Ididn’t want to lose the memory of this dream.

Oh how I want a baby…

Not pregnant.

Just got my results from the clinic. Not pregnant.

Well, it would have been too good to be true if they got me pregnant on the very first treatment cycle. But I hoped they would.

Now I have to give them a call when AF starts. And then it all begins all over again.

Sigh.

Day X

Today is CD28. I couldn’t fall asleep for a very long time last night, the way I used to before tests, exams,  or first days at school or work. This time it was also because of a test – the pregnancy test.

Waking up was insanely hard.

The reception nurse wished me luck. My doctor walked into the blood-drawing room and asked me how I felt – exhausted? Sore breasts? Both doctor and the blood nurse beamed excitedly at me. Then another nurse passed by, too – smiling and wishing me luck.

I don’t know. I am always tired and my nipples have been sore for 2 weeks, this isn’t something recent. And I feel mild cramps. But my vagina also feels sore and tender (my friend told me this was one of the signs with her 3 pregnancies).  We shall wait and see.

I am excited, I am scared, I am hopeful.

I will find out in 4 hours…

98.42 ºF

Okay, I have never charted my basal temperature. My cycles have always been so outrageously irregular that I never saw the point.

As I am waiting for my pregnancy test to be taken tomorrow, I listen intently to every sound and movement in my body (I’m currently unemployed, you know, so too much time for navel-gazing and such).

And today I decided to take my temperature. I read once that putting a thermometer under your tongue is just as good as shoving it up your @ss, so I put it under my tongue. I’m CD27 and I my temperature is quite higher than the normal 36.6 C – it’s 36.9 C (which equals 98.42 F).

Excessive googling didn’t provide me with any definitive answer. It looks like usually basal temperature rises after the ovulation and remains elevated until just before the menses. The unanswered question is: how close to the menses it actually drops? Should it have dropped by CD27 if I ovulated on CD15?

I know, I know = tomorrow am I’ll do the test, tomorrow pm I’ll know the results. But I can’t just sit and wait. And somehow I cannot bring myself to do the home pregnancy test.

I keep looking hopefully at all the vague sign, clinging to my hopes.