Venting

I am beyond frustrated. This was supposed to be the easy part—take 5 days of Provera, get a period a few days later, then start the tough process of growing those follicles.

Instead, I am sitting here, 7 days after my last Provera pill, and no period. Oh, I got spotting earlier this week, but I haven’t had it the last several days. Of course, my two main thoughts are: What if the spotting was the closest thing I’m going to get to a period this time around? and What if I don’t even have enough estrogen in me to build up even a mediocre lining? Dr. Hot’s nurse said to give it 14 days, then to come in for an ultrasound. If I have barely any lining in my uterus, then they’ll just start me on the Femara. But I fear that will get this cycle off to a bad start. I prefer a clean break with a period.

I’ve taken Provera maybe 5 times before, and AF has always come within 4 or 5 days. I took Prometrium several months ago, and it took about 10 days for AF to come—but I didn’t have the on-again, off-again spotting. What gives? (And no, I’m not pregnant; in fact, my temp this morning was consistent with my pre-ovulation temps.)

I would appreciate some feedback. Have any of you ever taken Provera, gotten some spotting, and then several days of nothing before finally getting your period? On top of all this crap, my severe allergies have kicked in, so I’m exhausted, and I’ve been seeing a chiropractor for severe upper back problems for the past week and a half. Grr.

AF, where are you?

For the love of God--just get here already! I am so, so ready to start this next cycle, and all I get is this damned spotting. I am sick of living on pins and needles! AARRGGHH!

False hope

I called the RE’s office yesterday (I’ll christen him Dr. Hot—because he is. Very.) and asked for his blessing to start Provera to induce my period and begin my first Femara cycle. The nurse called back and instructed me to first take a pregnancy test, and then, if I get a negative, start on the Provera. If it’s positive, well, that’s a different story.

I know I’m not pregnant. I’m 99.9% sure of it, since my temperatures indicate I didn’t even ovulate (yes, I had a false alarm a couple of weeks ago, but my temps have fallen so much that even Fertility Friend has admitted it was wrong and taken away my coverline). That’s why I want to take the Provera. I know Dr. Hot is just covering his butt, so someone can’t go back to him and say, “You prescribed Provera when you didn’t even know if the woman was pregnant?!!” Yet somehow, the fact that he even suggested a pregnancy test makes me hopeful. Like maybe it is possible to ovulate without a temperature rise (as far as I know, it’s not), or even to conceive without ovulating (not bloody likely!).

In a way, it’s like hoping you may have lost weight simply by buying a gym membership—without ever actually going to the gym to work out (yes, I know it’s a weak analogy, but it works in this case).

So, I know I will not be announcing a BFP next week. But you can bet my heart will still be pounding when I POAS tomorrow morning.

Welcome to my world

For more than half of my life now, I’ve had a strong suspicion I would be an infertile. I had good reason to believe so—at age 14, when I FINALLY got my period, she visited me for two months, then she went away. Poof. Like I had never reached womanhood at all. My worried mother took me to the OB/GYN, who promptly put me on birth control pills. Only she and my mom called them “hormone pills,” so I wouldn’t tune in to the fact that I essentially had a free pass to have as much sex as I wanted. It worked. Not that I had much of a choice—I didn’t have my first kiss until I was a freshman in college.

But I was no dummy. I knew that if one does not have a period, she does not ovulate. And if she does not ovulate, she does not conceive. As life went on, I became more and more concerned about my chances of having children. I asked new doctors, and they told me not to worry about it until I was ready to start a family. There were no tests that could determine whether I was reproductively challenged. One boyfriend even broke up with me because he wasn’t sure whether I would be able to have children, and he wanted his own biological progeny (there’s a real winner for you). After that break-up, I begged my doctors for tests and got them. They put me through the standard blood tests for PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome), which came up negative, and told me I had nothing to worry about on that front. Ha.

It wasn’t until March of 2006, one year after marrying M (a wonderful guy who knew about my situation and wasn’t opposed to adoption, if that was what it took), that I went off the Pill for good and tested my luck. A friend who was experiencing secondary infertility became my Yoda and taught me how to temp. Lo and behold, I ovulated my first cycle, which was 40 days long. Then, nothing. I went to see a new OB that summer, who diagnosed me with PCOS (who knew it was a diagnosis of exclusion?), put me on Provera, thinking my body would trick itself into cycling normally. Nothing. That November, she put me through the traditional infertile work-up (bloodwork, HSG, etc.) and finally put me on Clomid. The short story: 1st cycle, 50 mg, didn’t make me ovulate. 2nd cycle, 100 mg, did work but I didn’t get pregnant. 3rd cycle, 100 mg, again I didn’t ovulate.

The statistics say that 80 percent of PCOS women are able to ovulate on Clomid. I’m proud and honored to be one of the unlucky 20 percent. I sought information on the Internet (gotta love the Google MD), and found a score of infertility blogs. I thought to myself, “Self, you’re a writer! Hell, you write for a living! Why shouldn’t you join this community of women bonded together by a single obsession—the desire for a child?”

And so begins my experiment. We’ll see where it leads us.