A less than perfect egg??

First, I have to apologize for this is a horribly technical post.

I can safely say that I'm very attuned to my cycles, so much so that I've recognized that they fall into one of two patterns (ovulation either on day 16 or day 20) based on my day 3 temperatures. Based on which pattern is in play, I will know  what day ovulation will happen, what day post-surge my temperature will rise, I can even somewhat predict what my BBT will be on any particular day, its that spookily accurate.

What is important for egg maturation? Well, lots and lots of estrogen. Now, in addition to charting temperatures and monitoring cervical mucous like the KGB, I also use the clear blue easy fertility monitor. Once you switch to high fertility, it means your estrogen levels have shot into the stratosphere.

So the point of this post is: I started my surge today, and based on a) cervical mucous and b) estrogen levels (from the clear blue easy fertility monitor) that this is a a cycle where I've had the least days of high fertility( ie high estrogen) ever.

If you compare this cycle to the last time I had this cycle pattern, I had 4 more days of high fertility + 2 days of peak fertility. In this one, I've gone directly to peak, and this is scaring the crap out of me.

I explained all of this to my nurse, who actually understood what I was talking about right away. So I asked to have an ultrasound tommorow to see how things look, and if that is good, ONLY then thaw the sperm. We put this plan to my RE and he agreed that it was the most sensible thing to do.

This is such a huge gamble. This has to be MY worst cycle, but if you compare it to the average woman's, its probably still decent. God only knows what determines egg quality, and how these things differ among different people.  I feel like a poker player going all in on a substandard hand, but its just too hard to wait any more.

Fear

Its such an insidious, irrational thing.  With my first try, I was afraid of nothing, I was normal.  I drank (about 10 days before insemination), I just started taking prenatals just a little before and I honestly don't think any of it made a difference. I just lived without fear, without analyzing every little action and that was invaluable.

I'm hopefully now only days away from my next insemination, and what a change there is.  I'm second guessing so many things.  Drinking is utterly out now though I don't honestly think a single drink would harm me at all.  It doesn't end there.  My friends are going to go sit in the hot tub this week; during the 2ww this is less advisable, but before?!?  Should be no issues, right?  Nonetheless, I am not going to do it just because there is the vague and ungrounded fear that it may hurt my chances in some way.  They are also going to get facials done this week.  I'm vetoing that one because I don't know what chemical gunk will be in the creams and treatments the person uses, and I'm certainly not going to make her provide a product list before. I turned down sushi because I'd be avoiding most seafood because of fears of mercury.  I'm just so sick of saying no to so many things, but cannot recapture the way I was before. If abstaining from these makes me sleep a little easier at night, then so be it.  But I'm also so annoyed with this irrationality.  Life is not meant to be lived in such a manner, and parenting is very uncomfortable if you are afraid of what might be lurking in every shadow. I wish there was something that somebody could say that could reassure me that all of these things are still ok- if you can, give it your best shot!

Versatile Blogger Award

S at Ticking Clock, Nell at Skatingontheedgeofmadness and The Baby Chase Project have kindly nominated me for the Versatile Blogger Award.

S has a super-cool profession, she is a federal agent and is a young (like moi) SMC-in-the-making who writes a funny and engaging blog that has made me laugh out loud quite a few times. Nell is a very caring person who works as a teacher. She sounds like she is great with children, she would make a wonderful mother.  'The Baby Chase project' is a recent entry into the blogsphere.  This is written by a physician who has just begun her TTC journey as well. She sounds like a sensible and brave person and I love how scientific and matter of fact she is. All of these women are remarkable. It goes without saying that you have to be an utterly brave and determined person to set out on this path, at whatever age and whatever walk of life.

This award comes with certain rules

•thank and link back to the person nice enough to give you the award
•share seven things about yourself
•pass the award along to seven other bloggers who you think are fabulous
•contact the bloggers you chose and let them know about the award

And here go 7 utterly random facts about me.

1)I was an entirely sunny, happy and perfect baby (according to mommy), except at mealtimes where I was literally the world's most reluctant eater. Horror stories abound in that department and I'm praying its not a hereditary trait!

2)I'm a bookworm. I cut my teeth on Enid Blytons (the best children's books ever) at age 5 and I've read probably well over a 1000 books between then and now. Favorite Author- Diana Gabaldon!

3)I'm horribly stubborn. My mother's affectionate nickname for me was 'katte' in Tamil, which is my native tongue. This translates to 'donkey' :)

4)One side of my body is an entire inch shorter than the other.

5)I'm horribly klutzy at most sports, but get me in the water and I'm suddenly coordinated (pic of me snorkelling in the Maldives)


6)I've got a major sweet tooth. My favorite breakfast on a lazy Sunday morning is a quart of Haagen-dazs and my coffee most closely resembles sugar syrup.

7)I'm an anglophile, especially when it come to television. I love everything ever made by Masterpiece Theater. LOVE all the Jane Austen productions and think the best television ever produced was the Pride and Prejudice version with Colin Firth in the lead *sigh*

About which blogs to nominate, its really hard to pick just 7!  Everybody setting out on the path to be a parent immediately earns your admiration and all these women have gone though so much and are so supportive- I feel like every TTC blog I've ever read should be up here. But still, here goes.
1 The Pause
2 With all my heart
3 Missconceived
4 Chasing Rainbows
5 The Baby Chase Project
6 Single Mom to be
7 Single Infertile Female

The universe has some explaining to do..

And it has a seriously messed up sense of humor. I'm going to have to move to NYC in January! My boss sprung on me last week that the move is going to happen much earlier than I expected, and asked for a decision. I frantically looked for every possible escape route- there were none, from a professional standpoint.

There are some silver linings- I get NYU subsidized housing very close to where I work, and they will pay me a 1000$ extra a month to go towards housing, so it becomes pretty affordable. Yes, I'll have to kiss my car goodbye, but I can get stuff delivered and picked up( including laundry and groceries) and I'll be using the money I save for cabs. So the wheels have been furiously turning searching for practical ways to make life easier, and there are a lot of choices.

But- if I TTC now, I'll be around 4-5 months pregnant (hopefully) when we move. Not easy. Granted, I plan to get movers to pack (and possibly unpack) everything for me- money is not an object and my boss had better cover it all. Still,even with a lot of help resulting in me having very little to unpack and set up, it is still bound to be stressful.

My family has told me I would be nuts to TTC now, to wait till I'm there and settled to try. I'm definitely not ok with waiting 5 months, but I can see where they are coming from.

So what do you guys think- cross country move possible when 4-5 months preggers? Feel free to take your gloves off when replying:)

PS : Just for a lark, I googled 'moving cross-country while pregnant'. Found this page - its kind of empowering!

I'm a gloom and doom kinda gal and....

I need a BIG rap on my knuckles for it! I've been an impatient and overanxious knucklehead. I've had my scary test results for over a week now (because I made them give it to me), but thanks to the inefficiencies in communication between my OB-GYN's office and my RE's office, have not had the official medical interpretation until today. The part that was driving me nuts was my cardiolipin antibody levels (slightly elevated, but nowhere near the big, scary danger zone) and the fact that I could not interpret my lupus anti-coagulant test results by myself, with no reference ranges. Its a complicated test, I I think even docs would have a hard time with that one. Btw- its called the 'Direct Russel Viper Venom test'- kinda cool.

Anyway, I finally got the verdict from my doctor- I don't have to worry about clotting issues!!! They will retest if I make them (and I will) but right now its nothing to worry about. Most people trust what their doctors say implicitly but with my training and my neither-here-nor-there knowledge of medicine and science, cannot help second guessing them, which can be both a good and a very bad thing.

I still have the anti-thyroid autoantibodies and I start synthyroid before pregnancy to see how I respond. Its quite amazing how we adjust to new realities. When I first found out about this, I was a mess (with guilt and fear) but now I'm shrugging it off.

Finally- its CD2 of my new cycle and looking at my day 1 and day 2 temps (low, low, low) I know I'm going to ovulate early this cycle(by day 15-16) and its probably going to be a pattern similar to the one I conceived and lost in. I had sworn I would avoid such a pattern again because I thought there was something wonky with it, but now I'm not so sure it had anything to do with the egg and I'm sick of waiting. Oh for a crystal ball!

A future of being poked...

and a *probably* high risk pregnancy is headed my way. Perinatologist, here I come.

Issue # 1 : Thyroid - I have anti-thyroid antibodies- in addition, my TSH was 2.86. For the thyroid savvy, that is still in normal range, but that is a bit higher that one would want it to be during a pregnancy. I'm going to need a fair bit of thyroid hormones and a LOT of blood tests to monitor hormone levels. And thyroid insufficiency is a funny thing- I remember one glaring thing from my pregnancy- I was so cold, so often. 3 days after my IUI, I was just folding clothes, I'd been fine all day and suddenly I was chilled to the bone, a trend that continued on and off throughout that shortlived pregnancy. I'd sleep with sweaters on, something I never ever did before.

Issue # 2: Possible autoimmune clotting disorders too. I got cardiolipin and lupus anticoagulant back- I'm just straddling the far boundary of normalcy for both and the scariest thing is it is documented that it can sometimes increase during pregnancy. So I'm looking forward to very regular blood tests in that area as well and immediate treatment in case the levels increase.

I'm really getting angry with the OB who managed me. She is a lovely person with an excellent bedside manner, but her reaction to everything is, oh, lets not test, these things just happen. I want a super aggressive perinatologist to go with my super aggressive RE- UCSD is supposed to have a very good one.

I'm so utterly glad all of this is coming out now, and not after I have had another loss, which was definitely possible had I listened to everybody around me and left all of this alone. I'm also so utterly grateful I can understand and process all these tests and jargon so easily, it would be so much more scary if that was not the case. Although I now have good doctors, its so useful to understand what is happening so you are not entirely at some MD's mercy.

But it might not be so bad. Possibly I might not need more managing other than the thyroid. Lets hope it stays at that. Otherwise- bring it on, heparin, aspirin, even steroids- I'm ready.

And after that brave last statement.. I'm rethinking Lovenox(that is the heparin injection), it has to be taken 1-2 times a day in the stomach?!?!? Which sadistic SOB dreamt that one up?!?! OH praying I don't become more autoimmune with time!

Subclinical Hypothyroidism?!?!?

My thyroid hormones (TSH and T4) test results are back- all still in normal range, when I clearly have anti-thyroid antibodies! Just tells you that if I had not run this test, I would have never known. If everything else (Lupus Anti-coagulant and anti-cardiolipin autoantibodies) come back as normal, then I guess I will be put on thyroid hormones during the next pregnancy, though managing it will be tricky.

The thing that is making me very nervous is that these anti-thyroid antibodies are known to go hand in hand with T cell dysfunction and other B cell dysfunctions too, in which case you have an immune system running amuck- VERY difficult to keep it from kungpao-ing your baby :(

Praying its not this, and its just this one isolated autoimmune issue. I get hypothyroidism from both sides of my family, so its logical that I might have this problem.

Just a note for all mommies to be- if you have a family history of hypothyroidism, maybe its worth getting this test run, because as I am clearly demonstrating, this problem might not show up if you just test for thyroid hormones.