Woohoo!

Today was my follow up appointment at the RE. I took my last dose of Clomid on Christmas night and I'm happy to say that I had no side effects. I should probably double check with my wife on that one to be sure. Haha! But really, I was just a little exhausted and that may have been Christmas exhaustion. 

I am not very good at listening (my wife will read this and nod her head in agreement), but everything she said seemed good during the ultrasound. Because I have longer cycles, they want me to come in on Monday for another round of blood work and ultrasound. My uterine lining measured 6cm and I had a follicle on the right of 14cm and one on the left that was 12cm I think? I'm interested to see how much they grow on Monday! And if I'm THAT excited about my follicles growing, I imagine I will be even more excited when there is a baby growing. 

Still on the agenda before we can TTC:

1. Scheduling an appointment with a counselor to make sure we are not insane. (I think all parents should be required to do this)

2. My wife needs to go get her blood work done. Thankfully it's not as extensive as mine because she saw me as pale as a ghost after mine and I am half Filipino! 

3. Picking a donor! This is going to be, by far, the HARDEST part of this process. We know we want an open donor and the selection is not very large. Maybe that's supposed to make it easier? 

In other news, we had to take one of our pups to the emergency vet on Christmas Eve because he tweaked his leg. Found out he has a luxating patella and will most likely need surgery. I feel so bad for him because he is a very active dog and it's clear that his leg is bothering him. Here's a picture of the little man and his sister in the back on Christmas Eve. 

It's been a long time!

Wow! It's almost Christmas. Where did the time go? We have been super busy the past few months and I have been meaning to post about it all!

Here's what has been going on:

1. We went to Disneyworld with my wife's family the first week of November. It was a blast and my wife had only been to Disneyland so she was more excited than our nephews. 

2. Our first anniversary of our New York wedding was on 11/11! 

3. My 30th birthday was on the 19th and I had a combined party with my best friend at this awesome karaoke room in Philly. My wife and her husband rented us a limo, took us to this awesome tapas place and rented a karaoke room for almost 30 of our friends. So fun!

4. My wife's birthday is 13 days after mine so I took her out to a comedy show with some coworkers and friends and she had no idea they were coming. 

5. We went back to Kentucky to visit my wife's family and have our Christmas with them. Then we got stuck there for a couple of days because of the snow. 

6. Last but not least... WE BOUGHT A HOUSE! We close next month and have been sooo crazy busy picking out decorations and paints and furniture. So exciting.

And not so exciting news... My wife sliced off her knuckle on a mandolin while trying to make pot roast. We had to take a trip to the ER when there was a state of emergency because of snow/sleet. She was a trooper though and made jokes the whole time! 

Oh, and today, I went to the RE to start my clomid challenge to see how I test for it. I got some blood drawn and an ultrasound done and was out of there in 15 minutes. I start it on Saturday and end it on Christmas. I hope I'm not a grump on Christmas! I'm nervous about these stupid side effects. Once we get this out of the way, I'm done with all of the testing! Yay!! So many people are having babies or getting pregnant and I'm so very happy for all of them. It's making my baby fever grow for sure! 

Rise and Shine!

Last weekend the wife and I joined some friends and my goddaughter in more fall adventures. We went to a farm near my mom's house that has always been a fond childhood memory of mine. I was happy to share it with Jaci too and we had a great time. We started off with a hayride around the farm. Along the way we saw aliens made out of pumpkins and Spongebob Haypants. After the hayride, we went to the 5 acre corn maze. Yes, 5 acres in the dark with our flashlights. They give you a map of the maze and there are 8 stops inside with trivia questions and a "You Are Here" dot at each stop. While it may seem like it would be easy since we had a map, it was not. We only saw 3 out of the 8 stops and spent a good half hour stuck in in the corn! It was definitely a challenging and a lot of fun. I picture us taking our child there one day and it makes me smile.

Here is the 5 acre maze. We definitely got stuck in the rooster's tail a few times. I love that they put so much effort into designing it!

On another note, I had my HSG on Wednesday. For those unfamiliar with it, HSG is short for Hysterosalpingogram. Basically a contrast is injected through your uterus to see if there are any blockages in your fallopian tubes. I was very anxious about this test because the hysteroscopy was so uncomfortable for me, but it was definitely a lot easier! Once they injected the liquid, we saw it running quickly through the fallopian tube. The doctor said it was the fastest he has ever seen it go through and that made us very happy. The next step is the Clomid Challenge. Because I am not regular at all, they want to see if Clomid will be a good option for me. I assume that won't be until December, which I am totally okay with because we are going to be very busy the next couple of months with house hunting and a trip to Disney!

Funny Story

So... funny story. Last Wednesday I left my office and started walking down the stairs into the train station. My brain and feet did not connect on the last step and down I went. I completely landed on the side of my foot and twisted my ankle. The guy in front of me heard me fall and helped me up. I could NOT stand on my left foot at all. The guy walked me to this motorized cart in the station and ran to find me crutches. He asked a cop, went to the ticket center....nothing. I said thanks to him and told him to go catch his train. Meanwhile, my coworker walks down the stairs and sees me in pain. The cop asks me if I want an ambulance and I refuse because I know it's not broken and it's not that serious and at this point it's just annoying and hurting. My coworker walks me to the train and I call my wife to let her know how clumsy I am. I jump on the train (actually I guess I hobbled) and Jaci met me at one of the closer stations and took me to urgent care. After finally getting to urgent care and taking off my boot, it was definitely swollen. A bunch of x-rays and poking and prodding occurred and it was concluded that I had a badly sprained ankle. I got a nice boot and some crutches. Needless to say, I've never been on crutches so that was fun.

   

Jaci took very good care of me and the pups. I'm now mobile and walking without the boot, thank gosh. On Saturday, we went to the local orchard with a couple of friends to pick some apples and check out some pumpkins. It's been great enjoying this fall season so far. I definitely didn't have that in San Diego! 

So I'm onto the next step with the baby making process! I have the HSG next Wednesday at the RE. Not looking forward to that since the hysteroscopy was not at all fun. I'm also really interested in going over some of the blood work to figure out my whole PCOS stuff. Not having regular cycles is really inconvenient. I just hope to get some clarification because it makes me nervous about trying next year. I am staying hopeful!

Sick Puppy

Our Labor Day weekend was filled with many emotions! Friday, we went out into the city with Jaci's coworkers to a little speakeasy from the prohibition era where you basically have to knock on the door to be let in, to an amazing cuban restaurant and ended with a rooftop bar where you could see all of the beautiful city lights! 

Saturday, we went to explore a couple of towns that we are house shopping in and came across the cutest little diner for brunch. We started thinking of how we can't wait to have our own place with our dogs and children some day. Sunday, we went to a friends house for our fantasy football draft and afterwards we played the game Loaded Questions (adult). Let me tell you, that game is HILARIOUS! I highly recommend it. 

We came home Sunday night and let the dogs out for a little and got into bed. Our girl dog, Hurley, was acting strange and wanting to go outside like every 10 minutes. It was dark so I couldn't tell at first, but she was having diarrhea. She started trembling and was just so out of it. Jaci and I decided it was best to take her to the emergency vet hospital. We put our boy dog in his crate and left for the hospital around 3am. After getting pretty lost, we finally found it. By this time, Hurley's skin was on fire. They took her back to do all of the basic tests and brought her back out to us. She was wagging her tail like crazy as they brought us to an exam room. As we waited for the doctor, Hurley started to vomit. The doc came in and she let us know about a couple of different things that could be going on. We had an option to take her home after they injected fluids under her skin, or have her stay there hooked to an IV. At this point, I have tears in my eyes at the thought of my 6.8 pound Yorkie hooked up to an IV. We opted to take her home with some anti-nausea meds. She was completely fine in the car ride home, but once we got in, the vomiting continued. We called the vet and were told not to let her have any water until noon. I had her in the bathroom with her bed in hopes she would calm down, but she wanted Jaci and Bear. I asked Jaci if she could sit in there with her to calm her down and it totally worked! Jaci is super calming. I ended up bringing a comforter and 2 pillows into the bathroom and we all slept in there for a couple hours. Needless to say, Monday was spent sleeping on and off for us and the 2 pups. It was heartbreaking to see her so sick and it was exhausting too. I guess it is semi-preparation for having a baby! (Very semi).

               Before her sickness 

              All drugged up :( 

                      Spoiled! 

         And both of the pups being lazy!

The Beginning!

The start of our journey was a very rough one indeed! On August 1st, I went in for my Day 3 blood work. 17 vials later, (on top of fasting) I am completely lightheaded and I almost passed out. I am VERY good with getting my blood taken on a normal basis and have never felt that way before. It was awful.

 I sent Jaci a text letting her know what happened and she insisted on picking me up (great wife). I was supposed to go into work that day and worked from home instead. 

Fast forward to the following week. On August 7th, I went in for my hysteroscopy. After worrying about this procedure for a couple of weeks, I found out that I had a right to worry. It was the most uncomfortable feeling ever (Sorry if I am scaring anyone!). It can definitely be different for everyone person. I was informed to take ibuprofen an hour before the procedure. I'm allergic to ibuprofen so I took a half of a pain killer. It didn't do anything for me. Just made me loopy and nauseous. Apparently my uterus isn't straight (big shock). There was also a biopsy done and that was even worse. All in all, it was like eating wasabi...the pain was there, but it didn't last long. The doctor (we will call him Dr. S) informed me that everything looked good and that my results would be back in about 5 days. 

I called the next week to find out that my blood work was all normal and so was my biopsy! (Relief) We haven't been able to go over the results with Dr. S yet but I did a lot of researching the results online. My Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH) is at 3.67. According to the million websites I looked at, that could possibly mean PCOS or that means that it is really good news? I'm stumped. Now I have to wait until my next cycle to do the  hysterosalpingogram (HSG). After the hysteroscopy, I really don't know how I feel about the HSG!