No Wheat, No Dairy, Yea Right

In our quest to try naturally for a while, I have decided to attempt to follow eastern medicine and the recommended dietary changes. The one resounding diet change I keep finding in regards to my endometriosis and eastern perspective is to eliminate wheat and dairy. Now let’s keep in mind I was raised in the upper Midwest with a father who grew up on a farm. Wheat, dairy, and red meat made up 99% of my diet. It’s what I know, it’s what I love. Really really love. Now I find myself picking up items at the grocery store I can’t even pronounce. Good luck finding items without refined sugar or wheat. I’m currently living in a smaller city and the grocery stores here are pretty pathetic. I perused the one shelf of gluten free items earlier tonight and the first three loaves of bread I picked up all had mold growing on them…ew. They do have a somewhat decent selection of organic bulk items of various rice, quinoa, and seeds. I picked up a few things and will try them over the next few weeks.

One change I’ve made is no longer drinking milk and attempting to make sure most of my beverages are room temperature or warm. Basically I drink a lot of water. I recently gave up OJ and lemonade… too much sugar. I even started drinking the recommended red raspberry leaf tea. Don’t make the same mistake I did…I fully anticipated a delightful fruity tea. It’s actually a pungent black tea and I wasn’t even able to finish the first cup I brewed. I make myself drink a cup each day and it’s getting a tiny bit better. I think tea is like beer, it’s an acquired taste, or at least that’s what I’m hoping.

These changes are going to be hard. I looked through a lot of my favorite recipes and so many of them I can’t eat anymore. It doesn’t help that my husband is extremely reluctant to get on board with the whole diet change. He was also raised in the upper Midwest. Casserole with noodles, ground beef, and cheese anyone? I decided tonight when I was at the store I am going to love all the crap I picked up. I may not like it the first or even by the eighth time, but I will learn to like it. At the very least, even if I don’t get pregnant, I will be eating a lot healthier. It’s actually disgusting just how much junk is in food these days. And don’t even get me started on all the chemicals.

Some of the other recommended dietary changes I made a long time ago. We no longer have chips or pretzels or any other overly processed junk foods in our home.  I gave up caffeine over three years ago and haven’t missed it (once the initial three months of withdrawals were over). (And yes, I was one of those, ‘I could never give up caffeine, I NEED it’. Trust me, you don’t) Over a year ago, I gave up soda entirely. Once in great while, about every 6 months, I will have a small soda and it always reminds me why I don’t drink it. The caffeine gives me a headache and the massive amount of sugar makes it so sweet it doesn’t even taste good to me anymore. And all this coming from a girl who once lived on 4-5 Dr. Peppers a day.

One thing that will be hard to give up is alcohol. Not that I’m a huge drinker, but we live in a community that is big on drinking. And I love a good glass of wine or a nice cold beer once or twice a week. And of course when you’re not drinking, people start talking. In the past during treatments when I was out and not drinking it was easy enough to use the excuse of not being able to drink alcohol because I was taking pain meds for my endometriosis. But still, I hate the funny looks and questions.

I know I want to make these changes, it just feels a bit overwhelming. And I don’t have any clue where to even start. I’m not a good cook by any means. My husband and I have been on opposite schedules for so long we only get around to cooking once or twice a week. But that is going to have to change. I’ve been trying to find recipes and will start experimenting. My goal is to find foods that are healthy for us, and still taste delicious. At the very least, this new adventure in food should be a good distraction for me.

What Happens Next

There are so many decisions to make regarding infertility: when to seek to treatment, where to seek treatment, what kinds of treatment to try, and ultimately, when to stop treatments. I feel over many months now I’ve been moving closer to the choice of stopping treatments. Granted, we’ve been stuck not being able to do anything for over a year now, but the thought of going through it all again, is very unappealing to me.

My current thought is I’m done with infertility treatments for good. My decision is based upon many factors. Financially we wouldn’t be able to even think about doing treatments until my husband finishes his training next year and finally starts his career.  At one point I scoured the internet for grants and discounts, only to find for most of them I’m almost immediately disqualified due to my FSH. Yep, having infertility is not enough; you even get discriminated in the infertility community. I find it ironic, a big reason for us needing IVF is the same reason we won’t get help for it… There’s so much about infertility I will never understand.

Another driving factor in my decision is my health. After my second surgery for endometriosis in February, I was horrified looking at the pictures afterwards and seeing just how much damage was done to my body in a little over three years. And I’m convinced our seven rounds of fertility drugs played a huge role in the damage. In less than 1 ½ years my left tube was left completely blocked by endometriosis when prior to starting treatments both tubes were wide open. Again, I note the irony in how the same treatments meant to help us get pregnant are the same ones that have made me even more infertile.

My age is also bothering me. Big time. I’m not worried about being older; I embrace the person I’ve become. I just always thought I would be done having children before I hit my 30’s, not still sitting here with empty arms. Now I know 31 is not old by any means, but let’s just say I changed my mind and wanted to try treatments again, and they were successful. I would be 33 at the earliest and If I had the three kids I always wanted (greedy at this point, I know) I would be 37+ when we finished. Again, that’s not old, but it’s just beyond the point I wanted to be starting a family.

Our lives have been put on hold for many years now because of my husband’s career. I’ve had to put my career on hold and we’ve put many other things on hold as well. It’s hard seeing so many of our friends settled down and buying houses (and some are done having children already…) when we are still a ways from all of that. Once my husband is done next year, we plan on moving again to a place where I can finally start my career. Hopefully. I have an education degree and thanks to infertility, I’ve been having serious doubts about continuing on that path. But I’m ready to move on with our lives. Settle down. Buy a house. Pursue my career. And travel. We love traveling.

So I’m done. I’m done waiting and wondering and torturing my body. I’ve already decided I won’t ever have another maintenance surgery for endometriosis. Next time my pain starts impacting my daily life I will have one last surgery to remove the endo along with my ovaries so I hopefully won’t ever have to deal with it again. IVF for us has maybe a 20% chance of working. Those odds are not worth destroying my body more than we already have.

Our plan for now is to let nature take its course. Either we’ll have a miracle pregnancy (less than 2% chance), or my endo will eventually get bad enough to require the final surgery. We’re leaving that open for now. I’m done with hormones suppressing my endo since I just felt awful all the time. Do I have any hopes a natural conception will occur? Of course not. And yes, that annoying little voice in the background keeps saying, what if? What if, indeed.

Have I Had Enough?

I have spent a lot of time in the past few months asking myself:

Have I had enough of this infertility?

Have I had enough procedures?

Have I had enough stress?

Have I had enough Doctor visits?

Have I had enough treatments?

Have I had enough medications?

Have I had enough of what western medicine has to offer?

Have I had enough pain from endometriosis?

Have I had enough strain on my marriage?

Have I had enough holidays ruined by our inability to have children?

Have I had enough delays in starting my career?

Have I had enough of putting the rest of my life on hold?

How do you really know when you have had enough?

I’m pretty sure I’m at that point. I’m done.

I don’t want to think or deal with infertility anymore.

Admitting that hurts more than infertility and endometriosis combined.

Yet Another Holiday with Empty Arms

Father’s Day is once again fast approaching.

For me, I hate it even more than Mother’s Day.

My crappy body is the reason we aren’t pregnant and may never be. The enormity of my guilt whenever I think of my husband never experiencing fatherhood is overwhelming. He would be an amazing father.

I know how much he wants to be a father.

And it’s the one thing I can’t give him.

  

Today Is A Hard Day

If only…

If only Petri had hung on…

Today would have been my due date…

Tomorrow is surgery day…

I need to be strong going forward…

But for today…

Today I will let the tears fall…

Don't Get Your Hopes Up

You think I would have learned by now.

Good news in regards to my fertility is always too good to be true.

Our plan moving forward with surgery was to go on hormones afterwards to suppress ovulation for a month or two and give us and my body a much needed break from trying to conceive. But since I can never leave well enough alone I asked for a repeat ultrasound during my pre-op appointments yesterday to reassure myself I do in fact have normal ovaries. Dr. Endo also said it would be helpful to repeat the FSH and E2 levels just to see how they correspond to what the ultrasound showed.

Ultrasound showed 7 antral follicles on the right and 5 on the left. 12 follicles are lower in the range of normal, but still a respectable amount. Today Dr. Endo’s nurse called with my lab results.

I’ve spent the last hour sobbing uncontrollably.

FSH 18.1 E2 30

Once again, our hearts are breaking.

I know this doesn’t mean we’re completely done. Yet.

But it does make everything so much harder. We will have a very hard time recruiting eggs and making embryos, which I know is something we’ve already struggled with. I guess we’re back to researching clinics; if we can even find a clinic that will touch me with an FSH that high. I know it’s hard to stimulate me, but seeing the numbers just crushes my spirit. I had hope, but I’ve lost it once again.

Oh yea, and we just found out my Husband’s sister is pregnant. Again. This is baby number three and due exactly one year after she had the last one. It’s so hard to see since she barely takes care of the two she already has. And my MIL can’t even fathom why it upsets us?!!

The Plan Moving Forward

We have a plan to move forward.

I’m not sure if I’m ready for what is to come.

But I need to be. And soon.

After consulting with Dr. Endo for a total of three hours between two visits we came up with a game plan. It is reasonable and somewhat conservative. She feels it would be in my best interest to do surgery again for my endometriosis. After my last surgery I absolutely decided to never again do surgery.

My last surgery for endo was horrific. We didn’t yet know I had endo going into surgery. I had been having severe pain the previous week and had landed in the emergency room. I was worked up for kidney stones and ovarian torsion, but they really didn’t know what was going on. If my Gyno had any clue, he didn’t tell me. The pain at the time was so awful and unrelenting I was puking up jello. I lost over 10lbs in a week and I didn’t exactly have much to lose in the first place. Even after surgery I went on to lose another 10lbs.

The surgery itself was not fun. I remember everything that happened just before surgery and from when they woke me up in the operating room. Normally people don’t remember those things, but I sure did. I remember being intubated. That’s something that should never happen, but in hindsight and what we’ve learned since, I wasn’t given enough medication for my body’s metabolism. I also remember waking up in the OR in so much pain and having the pain continue in the recovery room. The nurse I had was a bitch and didn’t believe I had so much pain and therefore, didn’t give me enough pain meds.

I never really felt much relief from my surgery afterwards. I should have felt better, but still had a lot of pain every day. Then we tried Lupron and that didn’t do much for me either. So I feel it’s reasonable to see why I was not ready to even contemplate having surgery again. Before Dr. Endo could say the word I was already shaking my head and saying no.

But….

Dr. Endo went on to explain why she knew she could do better for me. I didn’t want to hear it, but my Husband insisted I at least hear her out.  She described how the technique she used would cut away all of the endo. My old gyno used electricity to cauterize my endo. And according to the surgical reports, there were spots he didn’t ablate because he would have damaged good tissue, including my left ureter. Which would explain why I didn’t get a lot of relief, he never got it all. She also said that with cauterizing it doesn’t get all the deeply imbedded layers. Dr. Endo uses lasers. She can even find endo that is hidden from the previous cauterizing and scrape out all of those cells. She can even take care of the spots on my ureter and other delicate areas. Recovery should be quicker. I should in theory be pain free shortly after.

And where do we go after surgery?

Her recommendation for post-surgery caught me completely off guard.

She recommends going back to doing IUIs for at least 6 months.

Say What?!

Her reasoning is that with my normal looking ovaries and my good response to letrozole we have a reasonable chance of success. She also quoted a study done for people with stage 1 or 2 endo. Everyone in the study had a laparoscopy but only the ones in the test group had their endo removed. Neither group was told if their endo was removed. The test group went on to have a 30% higher pregnancy rate in the six months following surgery. And those were all natural pregnancies. The theory is that by removing the harmful tissue you make a better environment for your eggs. It’s certainly not a guarantee it will work, but she thinks there has been enough evidence shown to make it worth a try. And IUI cycles here would be around $400-500. Financially doable.

So I scheduled surgery.

It’s in three weeks.

And then we’ll jump into IUIs shortly thereafter.

I guess we’ll see what happens….