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Thursday, August 27, 2009

Murphy's Law and FlyLady

Ok, so I got hit by a total case of Murphy's law yesterday/today. Anything that can go wrong, will. Joy. Yesterday my Dr. called to tell me that my insurance would not pay for my MRI/renal U/S (both of which were scheduled today) until my Primary Care Manager (family physician) submitted another referral with a different diagnosis. My first referral put the "diagnosis" as unexplained infertility. Well...now we have an actual diagnosis, the "Congenital Malformation of the Uterus" which is what the inurance company wanted in order to approve the MRI. Confused yet? It took me a minute too. Fun stuff. So, as of yesterday at about 10am, my RE was cancelling my MRI until we could get that approval. Sometime after 12PM the imaging center left a message on my answering machine (Energy Drink and I were out having a day together since he just got home from a 25 day training at NTC...the National Training Center in California) saying that I had an appointment for my MRI at 9:30am today...my Dr had told me 9am, so I assumed that the 9am had been cancelled, then my referral approved, and they rescheduled me for 9:30am. OK, still fun, still confusing, but fine.
Fast forward to this morning. I get up, exhausted (I have a little insomnia and sleeping patterns are hard...I'm working on changing that) and get to the imaging center, where I am told that I don't have an appointment. I explain to the lady what was going on with the referral, cancellation, etc, and that I got a call after I was supposed to be cancelled telling me that I had an appointment. She calls the scheduler, who confirms that my appt. had been cancelled. Fine. It's a 30 minute drive from my house, but, sure. I then get home, it's now 11:15AM here, and I get a call from my PCM telling me that my referral with the new diagnosis has been approved. Ugh.
Now I just got off the phone with my RE's office and we're going to reschedule the MRI and renal U/S. I'm tired of referrals/insurance etc. While I usually don't have an issue with TriCare once things are approved, getting to that point is proving to be less than pleasant. I've never (well, at least since I got married) gone to off-post Dr.'s, never had to deal with proof of insurance or referrals, so this is a new ballgame to me. Luckily for me, my mother taught me how to deal with beaurocracy in a fashion which allows you to pretty much get whatever you want LOL!
On a better note, I'm on day 5 of the FlyLady program, and I'm loving it! I'm more motivated, I get more accomplished and my sink looks great! If you haven't heard of it, go to www.flylady.net and check it out...it's especially helpful if you have too much time on your hands so things get put off or if you hardly have any time so you can't get to it!
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Friday, August 21, 2009

MRI here we come.

Oh joy. MRI...I love the question "are you claustrophobic?" because even if your not it's a little freaky that any test you have done would necessitate the asking of that question. My RE thinks he's pinpointed the cause not only of my M/C but also of my infertility, and it comes in a lovely little 3-part package.

Part 1-Ovulation Disorder
Upon looking at my dominant follicle on my Right Ovary (the one that's not connected to my uterus in any way, shape, or form...great) we noticed that it's oblong, not circular like it's supposed to be. From what he's seen, this means poor egg quality. Poor egg quality = poor embryo quality=M/C. My left ovary (the only one that I can get pregnant from) probably does the same thing. The interesting part: this occurrence has coincided with headache susceptibility in the women who have it. I have headache susceptibility, and this is linked to a magnesium deficiency. Wonderful.

Part 2-MTHFR
This lovely gene mutation also causes M/C...great, grand, WONDERFUL!!!!

Part 3-Unicornuate Uterus
I can only get pg off of my left ovary, and my uterus is half the size of a normal one...so keeping a pregnancy is difficult

Basically, parts 1 and 2 are why I'm not getting pg (or I am but it's not keeping it b/c of issues with egg quality/low folic acid etc) and my uterus is why I don't stay pg. The good news is that parts 1 and 2 are both treatable with meds, and part 3...well, women with UU have babies all the time, it just means a lot of extra special care and precautions.

So, off to my pelvic MRI and renal ultrasound next week...gotta make sure we know what's going on with my kidneys too!
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Thursday, August 20, 2009

Ah, anxiety. You suck.

2 hours of sleep. And about 45 minutes of dozing. This does not bode well for anyone I come into contact today. I told Ben I was going to do some shopping today due to the fact that I need some retail therapy. My RE also wants me to pickup a specific type of OPK, so I have to go 15 minutes out of my way because the only place that carries them is the hospital pharmacy. Great. I also have $10 off at Maurices and possibly Buckle. Not that I always find something at Buckle, but hey, they do have some cute wallets/purses etc. I'm also most definitely not a teenager anymore, but both Buckle and Maurice's has things that fit me way better than anything I can find at Macy's or Dillards and I'm not nearly old enough to wear half of the stuff in Macy's or Dillards anyway.

I hate where I'm at for clothing. At 25 years old, shopping in the Jr's section is just wishful thinking, but the styling in the women's section (for casual clothes at least) isn't really age-appropriate either. I don't need to be dressing like my mother, at least not yet. (Although my mom has started dressing less like the stereotypical mommy and more like the fabulous "29" year old she is). Maybe a trip to Ann Taylor Loft is also in order. Although, at this point, when (if I do get pg) I won't be getting a job, there isn't anything at Ann Taylor Loft that's really appropriate for lounging around the house. ATL is my go to place for work clothes. The more teenage-y stores are my comfy clothes places.

Ok, back on topic. I haven't really had anxiety (not like this, at least) since I was 18 years old, off at college, and having separation anxiety. During that bout with my lovely life-disrupting friend I was either in class, trying to get motivated to finish homework, or sleeping. This go round is much, much uglier. I have no motivation to do anything, although there is plenty of stuff to do around the house. I don't have class or anywhere to be besides Dr's appointments once or twice a week. I'm bored...and tired...but I cannot, for the life of me, sleep. Benedryl doesn't help, a glass of wine doesn't help, reading until my eyes can't stay open doesn't help. The second I snuggle down, I'm awake. How bizarre is that?

Maybe if I go shopping/run errands, then go to the gym, then spend the better part of the afternoon/evening weeding the flower beds I just might be able to sleep longer than 2 hours. Maybe. I'll let you know how far I get. I'm betting some shopping and then couch time, but hopefully I can prove myself wrong.
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Wednesday, August 19, 2009

The Revelation

I may not be able to ever have a child of my own. Wow. Never thought I would say that. I have been pregnant twice, no children. It's so funny how you spend your entire young life trying NOT to get knocked up, and then, when what you want more than anything in the world is to be pregnant, it doesn't happen. I haven't really slept in 2 days.

On Monday I learned that I have the MTHFR gene mutation. As another blogger put it, does whoever came up with that abbreviation realized that it looks like Motherf***er, just shortened? It's appropriate to what it does to women trying to get pregnant, but still, a little odd. OK, that's treatable with supplements. No biggie. But I still had my HSG scheduled for Tuesday morning. Ever since my miscarriage in June of 2008 I had a feeling something was off. After all, I had never had a problem getting pregnant in the past...I got knocked up after one encounter during my freshman year of college, and when my husband and I decided to have a baby it only took us 3 cycles to get pregnant.

After a few months of TTC with no success, I knew there was something wrong. But my Dr's told me to wait until a year after my M/C. Well, we're a military family, and at a year after my M/C we were preparing to move for the second time in 6 months. Oh joy. The damn movers lost some of our stuff...well, my stuff. Ben doesn't really give a crap where mixing bowls or the change bowl for the laundry room went.

So, after much begging and fighting with our insurance (I love Tricare, the coverage is great, but getting referrals is more of a chore than is really necessary) I got to see my RE, who is wonderfule, and he agreed that an HSG was the way to go. I just knew the HSG would show the source of our problems. And boy, was I right!

It appears as though I have the uterine anomaly known as an unicornuate uterus. AKA hemi-uterus. AKA I ONLY HAVE HALF OF A FREAKING UTERUS. Not good for conception or carrying a baby to term. The worst part of it was that  Ben  was (and still is) in the field, so I went to/from the appointment in a cab, saw this, and have spent the last 2 days dealing with it alone. I haven't talked to  Ben  in 2 weeks, and he won't be home until sometime between the 25th and the 28th. Gotta love military trainings. He was able to call tonight and has just now learned about it. Where to go from here is a matter of debate. He says he'll do anything I want, including staying active duty as a career, to get us our children, since we can't really afford IVF any other way.

Our plan at the moment is to do 2 rounds (hopefully) of IUI before he deploys for a second tour in Iraq. If that doesn't take, everything gets put on hold until he gets back. Fun. Then we do the IVF vs. adoption debate. Adoption is a little more costly, but you're pretty much guaranteed a baby. IVF is a little less, but no real guarantee. Ugh. If I do get pg it pretty much means I can't work, which kills me, because there is a VERY HIGH likelyhood that I will have to go on bed rest for about 5 months or so, depending on how things progress. Not to mention a high chance of preterm delivery, and almost certainly a C-section.

We're going for it. Oh yeah, and did I mention that there is a possibility that along with this lovely birth defect, there is a chance that I only have one kidney? Fun stuff.  Ben 's more worried about my health than anything...what a great husband! I just want a child of my own. I was thinking big before, wanting 2 biological and 1 adopted child. Now I'll be more than ecstatic if I can even have one of my own. We'll see what the Dr. says on Friday.

Waiting kills me. Time for another attempt at sleep and some retail therapy tomorrow.
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