STILL swimming up hill...and now against the current.

This was found by a lady on a forum i am on...
its so well fitted.
So we got the results back for Aaron's last Sperm analysis.
Grim.
I/we got excited to see that the numbers had gone up (tripled to be exact)...this was the first line on the test result paper...
then reading more into it, it seems the increase means nothing, and if anything, if you add the numbers, the percentages and compare the last and this recent one it looks worse then it did.
Me being me, doing my thing with numbers, worked out, that out of 31 million counted, only approx 2.7 million were actually viable to be used for anything, or to be able to do the job themselves.
Now for those of you who have no knowledge of numbers. This is poor, poor number, and will most likey require some sort of assistance in fertilisation now.
...Some have it worse.
I have said this over and over in my head a million times now. And yes, that is certainly a true statement. But shit.
It doesnt take away the fact that it is still a kick in the ass for us both. I mean we have my messed up body with PCOS and whatever the hell wants to be wrong with it on any given day you want to examine it...and now, this.
We dont wish it to be any worse, but couldnt it have just been a little better??
Anyway, we will work through this. It will just take more time, more planning...more money than we first expected.
Hopefully this is the last knock down we will have.
We are now on par.lol. funny enough.
We can do this though. Two bits of broken can still be formed to make one whole.
We will do this.

In other news. We are almost at the end of this 2ww (2 week wait, between ovulation and testing for pregnancy).
So far things look good.My temperature has stayed up nicely,its been wonderfully triphasic and looks promising. Although for those who know about charting your BBT(basal body temperature) ugh, trying to remember to make sense of the abbreviations i'm so used to is going to be tough...and annoying :P , anyway, with charting, one day can make all the difference, a temp of the high 36's can drop overnight and you can wake up being back just about 36 and expecting the witch/af (period) to arrive any second of the day.
Ive been keeping it quiet this time around.Trying to stay optimistic about it all. Its so hard to hear of other success while your quietly failing though.
I have not said alot to Aaron about how things look and feel.I'm hoping for a nice surprise...if only it would show.

Please show...

Hitting 1st Base

Well we have officially started fertility treaments this month.
And when i say treatments, i mean ones actually prescribed by a Dr.haha.
Since some of you may know, ive done it all natural up until this point...the herbs, and oils and...menopause tablets...yeh...that was an interesting try thats for sure.lol!
From various checks over the last few months from blood tests and ultrasounds my dr and a have come to the conclusion that i DO infact ovulate on my own when my body is ok with it...but it is far to late for it to matter when it does.
A normal womens cycle is 28 or 35 days,and ovulation occurs around day 14. Mine are going 60+ and i have averaged ovulation on the days of the 40's, with the last one being day 49.
Which basically means on top of everything else, there is only 1/2 the a chance of this working throughout a year, or 6 times a year as opposed ot the normal woman having 12 chances.Thats even if my body decides to do it!
This is no good, as alot of fertilisation depends on egg quality, but it isnt entirey bad, we just need to get me ovulating regularly.
And so i have been prescribed the fertility pill "Clomid" (which is designed to make you ovulate) and i took that this month...and what do you know... it worked! day 19 this body of mine decided to act like a normal person and now we just sit.....and.....wait.....
My mum went on the fertility pill to have me and got lucky the first month in. I dont think that will be the case for us, but we can only hope i guess.
The pill is evil.haha.
Its like going through early menopause or something.
Here is a list of side effects...

ovarian enlargement presenting as abdominal or pelvic pain, tenderness, pressure, or swelling
hot flushes
nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea
breast tenderness or discomfort
blurred vision or other visual disturbances
headache
abnormal uterine bleedingovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) has been reported to occur in patients receiving clomiphene. Symptoms of OHSS include swelling of the hands or legs, abdominal pain and swelling, shortness of breath, weight gain, and nausea or vomiting. OHSS can be fatal.

...and of course, me being me. i copped it all.(with the exception of OHSS) it was terrible week while taking it. i suffered the worst case of vertigo all day and night, while standing or laying down, the hot flushes were ridiculous and the constant headache drove me mad.
So much so that i was actually booked in to have a head CT scan done because of how bad it all got, only to find out i ovulated the day before and therefore didnt want to take the risk of damaging the little egg.

All in all it felt like, what i imagine going through menopause feels like x10.
If it had not have worked, i wasnt going to do it again...

lucky it did.
So the plan my Dr and i have is, with the exception of this next sperm analysis coming back poor. This is the plan for the next 3 months, then if no luck, i am going into hospital to have a laparoscopy to check me for endometriosis as this is a great concern to both me and my Dr due to previous operations and scar tissue already being there.
again...i hope we dont get that far.

Swimming up-hill

We had hoped that we were going to be able to focus everything we could on me during this, after all, its my body thats messed up, but one simple test changed everything...
We now are dealing with "Male Factor" as well. Yeh, his guys arent the next Ian Thorpe thats for sure. This was always a concern, because as far as i have researched up to 40% of males suffer from it in some form or another.
We found this out in early February of this year, and we now have to have a follow up every 3 months to check how its going. As you can imagine Aaron hates this, but he understands that its a very important factor.
We arent completely out of this though, there ARE some guys there, not enough for anyone to be too happy with, but they arent the best quality.On top of the low count itself,(under 9 million) motility is very concerning, as 40% of the entire collection was NON-motile.
So this basically means, there are little sperm there, and of the ones that are there only 34% are formed correctly (have tails etc), however only 55% of those can even swim, but they dont have the strength to get to where they need to go,(sluggish) and the other part of them arent formed at all, and would probably be too busy doing doughnuts on the spot instead of realising they have a job to do.
So it looks and sounds pretty grin atm. But we have just had a follow up done this week and are hoping that things have improved.
Aaron can no longer enjoy a daily cup of coffee and hasnt for quite some time now, for both of us, who are ex caffine addicts, something like coffee is a treat now haha.
After we receive the results, my Dr will go over them and decide on the next plan of action. It will be one of two things...
IUI (Intrauterine insemination / artificial insemination) or if it comes back worse off...
IVF (In vitro fertilization).
We are really hoping we dont need either.

Where do babies come from?

"infertility"
the state of being unable to produce offspring; in a woman it is an inability to conceive; in a man it is an inability to impregnate.

There are alot of factors that make every bit of this journey a hard one, alot harder than most people would know, understand, or even imagine.Some of you know about our infertility issues and some dont. For those that have some understanding i hope you can read along and keep up, and those that dont i hope that i can make myself make enough sense that you can at least grasp a little of the bigger picture and roll with it as best you can.

People fall in love, get married and have babies. Thats the way its meant to go isnt it?
Well its 2008 now and the way that things were "meant to go", doesnt turn out to be the way people live thier lives anymore. "Accidents" happen, weddings have runaway brides, the love of your life turns out to have a husband,wife, or both for that matter, you finally realise that, that dream home you had planned is never going to be an option, and some of us even more unfortunate ones, have a little thing called "infertilty", and it seems, funny enough, that this "little" thing, is much more of a big thing than you can even begin to imagine.

For those of you who never have to go through this, you will never understand the heartache and stress that comes with it, and for those of you who have gone through it, whether it be due to PCOS or another form of infertility, i feel your every desire to rid yourself of the hurdles and struggles that we go through everyday of our lives.

For those not up to speed, i have a "syndrome" called PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome). I found out i had this at the age of 13 (which is VERY early to be diagnosed, most women who suffer from this dont know they have it until they are trying to concieve and have been unsuccessful) my ob/gyn discovered this while performing a couple of operations for something else. Up until the last few years i havent paid all that much attention to it, the not having your period for 6 month to a year never really fazed me because i,like most other girls and women would if you didnt think it was wrong, thought it was a blessing most of the time.I have never suffered from weight gain, and have always been very lean. I have battled eating disorders since as far back as i can remember and never managed to let myself put any more than i thought "looked ok" , so i was never concerned with that side of it either.What did i need to care about if i ovulated or not? What did i need to care about Diabetes for if i wasnt overweight?

Now its one of the main focus points in my life.Its not a pretty thing to have and its something that is incurable, and sadly i will battle with it for life.I could be here all day to talk about it but i wont, i will just hope that the link will give you enough information and anything else you need, Google is just one click away.