There is a reason doctors should do one thing at a time, not go in with guns blazing and attack every possible angle. All it takes is for one thing to be wrong and upset the whole apple cart. Correct that one thing and you should have the winning formula.
Its been a while since my last blog about this because nothing has happened. We went to Zimbabwe, and my stress levels were through the roof, we came back from Zimbabwe, I left the missions organisation and life returned to a beautiful synchronised dance. A Ballet I would say, something with uplifting music like the Nut Cracker. Calm and peaceful and right and optimistic. I feel like I have never been this content. This change we made has worked for me.
After an extraordinarily long cycle, we finally reached day 12 of the next one and went off to the clinic to see the good doctor V. The internal scans showed a beautiful 9.6 mm thick lining, (the pre L'scope lining was 5.7 mm) a large helathy follicle developed on the left side also bigger than the one I saw previously. The doctor asked us to come back the nexday for the Poist Coital test, a day earlier than anticipated but Dr felt that things were progressing a bit faster than I had expected. I left feeling wildly optimistic. Like this was the best news ever.
The next day was a Saturday, and we found ourselves in the waiting room at 7:30 am, just as the doctor was going off to do 5 aspirations and embryo transplantations (IVF Lingo for remove eggs, and put fertilised eggs back). So we took ourselves for breakfast at the Mugg & Bean down the road wildly expectant and hopeful.
Back in the consulting rooms after breakfast, and we are seeing one of the other partners who is on duty the weekend. He took the smear and checked in the microscope. Hubby and I gingerly swapping from one leg to another, waiting for comment. It seemed to take ages before he said "It looks to me like a sperm graveyard" my heart sank, "but, there are some who have survived, and are well formed and those Mcguivers can get you pregant". I had a look in the microscope... many many dead... but I see 3 alive and swimming in my view.
So... the mucous is no longer hostile. I feel giddy with excitement. It only takes one of those active swimmers to get you pregnant and they have bee swimming around in the mucous for 2 hours - if it was still hostile they wouldn't be as active.
Why are there so many dead? A good question. Usually less than 10% of sperm are "normal" in form and will survive past 2 hours anyway. As Hubby's sperm count is so good, I am optimistic that that means that there will be lots of lovely normal swimming sperm to fertilise the big fat egg.
I've had a progesterone test today to make sure it was a good quality ovulation. Then we call our doctor tomorrow and he will advise us, based on the outcome of the last 4 days testing, on whether or not we need to have more tests this week or wait it out.
The wait it out option means that we dont see him again for 3 months - we try to get this right naturally. If not, back we go for the next steps, whatever that may be. Personally I am hoping for the wait it out option. There is one other challenge to overcome, but it may not be necessay.
I am feeling so optimistic and hopeful. Its amazing how just the Laparoscopy has changed so much, not just physically, but the results of getting one thing right means that this seemingly impossible task of getting pregant may be now so easily within our reach. Our levels of hope and faith have really improved, and we are feeling like this could be the month.
Stand with us in prayer as we believe for total healing in all the areas of our fertility challenges.
Monday, 25 July 2011
Tuesday, 14 June 2011
And thus ends a brief chapter
We went back to see Dr V last week to have the stitches out and look at the pictures taken by the camera during the op. Stage 2 Endometriosis is the diagnosis - the laparoscopy was the cure, and cutting down on my stress significantly is the prescribed treatment to keep it away.
What is stressfull in my life... Ive been working 2 jobs, one of which I am not being paid for which makes affording all of this fertility treatment near impossible. The worry that we will have to dig into precious savings to afford the next steps whatever they may be.
My biggest source of stress is financial, if I have to sum it up in a word.
So we have eliminated the source of the stress - I have resigned from the missions organisation that I was working with, my last day being the 30 June. No more the missionary, back to to my old company, who kept me on part time after I resigned, hat in hand to ask for my full time position back.
No questions asked, and after a little negotiation, they accepted me back. Praise the Lord for these two men, who allowed me the opportunity to try something out, and are allowing me the to come back to full time employment.
My heart is sad that I wont be a part of the mission organisations next set of adventures. I want to say that I feel like I have let them down, but I don't think I am. I had a word, that this would be for a season - boy was it a short one. If all I achieved was giving the Directors the freedom to go overseas and do what needed doing then I am glad that I could add that value. I was perfectly positioned, in a job that would give me the freedom and the flexibility to take a 5 month gap, with the space in my home to house the office, with the managerial skills and the wherewithal to do what needed doing at the time. God used me in it. I dont know that I would have been open to being used in this way had I known the specifics up front.
I just hope He was finished with what he was doing and I am not bailing on an unfinished work...
What is stressfull in my life... Ive been working 2 jobs, one of which I am not being paid for which makes affording all of this fertility treatment near impossible. The worry that we will have to dig into precious savings to afford the next steps whatever they may be.
My biggest source of stress is financial, if I have to sum it up in a word.
So we have eliminated the source of the stress - I have resigned from the missions organisation that I was working with, my last day being the 30 June. No more the missionary, back to to my old company, who kept me on part time after I resigned, hat in hand to ask for my full time position back.
No questions asked, and after a little negotiation, they accepted me back. Praise the Lord for these two men, who allowed me the opportunity to try something out, and are allowing me the to come back to full time employment.
My heart is sad that I wont be a part of the mission organisations next set of adventures. I want to say that I feel like I have let them down, but I don't think I am. I had a word, that this would be for a season - boy was it a short one. If all I achieved was giving the Directors the freedom to go overseas and do what needed doing then I am glad that I could add that value. I was perfectly positioned, in a job that would give me the freedom and the flexibility to take a 5 month gap, with the space in my home to house the office, with the managerial skills and the wherewithal to do what needed doing at the time. God used me in it. I dont know that I would have been open to being used in this way had I known the specifics up front.
I just hope He was finished with what he was doing and I am not bailing on an unfinished work...
Thursday, 2 June 2011
Our God Is In Control
Today I had the Laparoscopy that confirmed Stage 2 Endometriosis, but also zapped the Endometriosis.
Ordinarily the next step would for me to go back the Doctor for a day 12 scan and a day 14 scan and PC test again to see if the mucus is friendly to the swimmers.
If my cycle is to be relied upon this month, Day 12 falls on the Friday 17 June - the day after we have left for Zimbabwe and are in the throws of training 60 Entrepreneurs in Beitbridge, and Day 14 will be the Sunday we travel back... So no scans and tests for us this month (I can hear the bank balance breathe an audible sigh of relief).
Some of me wants to bargain with God and say "See Lord? I am putting myself in this situation that I find increadably stressfull (I hate the Beitbridge border post) I will be running the team, and we are going to do your work - So you best honour that Lord!" I can be such a bossy boots. But this is not in my control. And God certainly has not answered me on that one.
I am listening to a CD by Stephen Curtis Chapman, entitled Beauty Will Rise, at the moment, that has been so real for me. He wrote the music in the two years after his 5 year old daughter was killed - a freak accident where his teenage son rode over her as he was pulling into in the driveway. This family had some serious healing to do!
The theme of the songs are about just relying on Gods Faithfulness, still bringing him Glory in the midst of trials, realising that sometimes all we can do is wait. One of the songs, called Holy, has really ministered straight to my heart...
"This is not how is could be, this is not how it should be, but this is how it is, Our God is in control, and I sing Holy Holy Holy is the Lord"
Y
Ordinarily the next step would for me to go back the Doctor for a day 12 scan and a day 14 scan and PC test again to see if the mucus is friendly to the swimmers.
If my cycle is to be relied upon this month, Day 12 falls on the Friday 17 June - the day after we have left for Zimbabwe and are in the throws of training 60 Entrepreneurs in Beitbridge, and Day 14 will be the Sunday we travel back... So no scans and tests for us this month (I can hear the bank balance breathe an audible sigh of relief).
Some of me wants to bargain with God and say "See Lord? I am putting myself in this situation that I find increadably stressfull (I hate the Beitbridge border post) I will be running the team, and we are going to do your work - So you best honour that Lord!" I can be such a bossy boots. But this is not in my control. And God certainly has not answered me on that one.
I am listening to a CD by Stephen Curtis Chapman, entitled Beauty Will Rise, at the moment, that has been so real for me. He wrote the music in the two years after his 5 year old daughter was killed - a freak accident where his teenage son rode over her as he was pulling into in the driveway. This family had some serious healing to do!
The theme of the songs are about just relying on Gods Faithfulness, still bringing him Glory in the midst of trials, realising that sometimes all we can do is wait. One of the songs, called Holy, has really ministered straight to my heart...
"This is not how is could be, this is not how it should be, but this is how it is, Our God is in control, and I sing Holy Holy Holy is the Lord"
Y
Sunday, 22 May 2011
Inch by Inch Life's a Cynch
I must say that ,medically, this has been a busy week, an expensive week.
We saw a fertility specialist, lets call him Dr V, at a fertility clinic in Sandton, 3 times this week. Turns out that the timing was perfect. We first saw him on Monday, day 8 of my cycle for out initial "how can I help you" consultation. He did an internal scan (my first ever - I wasnt expecting it so I didnt have time to mentally freak myself out before it - a good thing), and measured the length and width of the one follicle developing in my left ovary. No activity in my right. (I will not be having fraternal twins). He measured the width of the cross section of my Uterus and was not too pleased with the thickness. It measured 5.7 millimeters, and should have measured 7 mm by that stage of the cycle.
Scan over, he took a good, thourough look at the test results that I brought with from my previous gynie and suggested more tests for hubby and that I come back in 4 days, on day 12 to have a day 12 scan, to re-check the follicle position and Uterus lining. This is done to predict the ovulation date.
Back early (06:30) on Friday morning for the 12 day scan. Hubby's results are absolutely fine. My left ovary was right on schedule (as expected, its the right one that keeps its own time table). But my Uterus is still not as thick as he would like.
The scan showed that Sunday will be day 14 and Ovulation Day. So on Sunday to the doctor we went - for our Post Coital test - basically we do our thing ("Babydancing" is the fertility community jargon for this) really early so that by the time we get to the doctors office at 8am the swimmers have had ample opportunity to get as far as they can.
The Post Coital (PC) test revealed that, plainly put, I kill sperm. Shame. The 'lil swimmers didnt stand a chance. It was quite cool - the doctor showed us the preparation under the mcroscope, I witnessed the mass murder first hand.
Next steps... a Laparoscopy to elimintae the Endometriosis that is causing the mucus to be so hostile - the doctor had a suspicion from the first appointment on Monday that this would be the case. The thickness of the uterus, the acne around my jaw line, and now the hostile mucus - all tell-tale signs of Endometriosis.
While he is in there, he is gonna check the tubes out for any blockages aswell as any other abnormalities. So the 2nd of June will be the day for this. On the bright side I am looking forward to clearer skin!
It can take a few months for the mucus to normalise after the Laparoscopy, so we will need to go back for the same Day 12 scan Day 14 PC tests once the Lap'scope is done until I stop killing the swimmers.
We have friends that have been this route and have had eventual success falling preganant naturally. I am encouraged that we are on the right path. The doctor we are seeing, is the scientific expert in this field, and while being expensive, he is the best we could have hoped for. He has a very gentle bedside manner and explains every detail patiently and in laymans terms and actually asks us if we have any questions before we leave the consulting room. (amazing!!!)
This has really provided some much needed answers for me, I feel much more more at peace, and more in control (even though I know deep down inside, and am prepared to admit even deeper down, I really am not). Just knowning what's actually going on has really calmed me.
I still wonder why all this is necessary for us, but God has a plan, we just have to walk the road. We have to trust him and remember that he is faithful.
We saw a fertility specialist, lets call him Dr V, at a fertility clinic in Sandton, 3 times this week. Turns out that the timing was perfect. We first saw him on Monday, day 8 of my cycle for out initial "how can I help you" consultation. He did an internal scan (my first ever - I wasnt expecting it so I didnt have time to mentally freak myself out before it - a good thing), and measured the length and width of the one follicle developing in my left ovary. No activity in my right. (I will not be having fraternal twins). He measured the width of the cross section of my Uterus and was not too pleased with the thickness. It measured 5.7 millimeters, and should have measured 7 mm by that stage of the cycle.
Scan over, he took a good, thourough look at the test results that I brought with from my previous gynie and suggested more tests for hubby and that I come back in 4 days, on day 12 to have a day 12 scan, to re-check the follicle position and Uterus lining. This is done to predict the ovulation date.
Back early (06:30) on Friday morning for the 12 day scan. Hubby's results are absolutely fine. My left ovary was right on schedule (as expected, its the right one that keeps its own time table). But my Uterus is still not as thick as he would like.
The scan showed that Sunday will be day 14 and Ovulation Day. So on Sunday to the doctor we went - for our Post Coital test - basically we do our thing ("Babydancing" is the fertility community jargon for this) really early so that by the time we get to the doctors office at 8am the swimmers have had ample opportunity to get as far as they can.
The Post Coital (PC) test revealed that, plainly put, I kill sperm. Shame. The 'lil swimmers didnt stand a chance. It was quite cool - the doctor showed us the preparation under the mcroscope, I witnessed the mass murder first hand.
Next steps... a Laparoscopy to elimintae the Endometriosis that is causing the mucus to be so hostile - the doctor had a suspicion from the first appointment on Monday that this would be the case. The thickness of the uterus, the acne around my jaw line, and now the hostile mucus - all tell-tale signs of Endometriosis.
While he is in there, he is gonna check the tubes out for any blockages aswell as any other abnormalities. So the 2nd of June will be the day for this. On the bright side I am looking forward to clearer skin!
It can take a few months for the mucus to normalise after the Laparoscopy, so we will need to go back for the same Day 12 scan Day 14 PC tests once the Lap'scope is done until I stop killing the swimmers.
We have friends that have been this route and have had eventual success falling preganant naturally. I am encouraged that we are on the right path. The doctor we are seeing, is the scientific expert in this field, and while being expensive, he is the best we could have hoped for. He has a very gentle bedside manner and explains every detail patiently and in laymans terms and actually asks us if we have any questions before we leave the consulting room. (amazing!!!)
This has really provided some much needed answers for me, I feel much more more at peace, and more in control (even though I know deep down inside, and am prepared to admit even deeper down, I really am not). Just knowning what's actually going on has really calmed me.
I still wonder why all this is necessary for us, but God has a plan, we just have to walk the road. We have to trust him and remember that he is faithful.
Thursday, 19 May 2011
Freedom to Hope
A friend who lived in a far away dictator-run country visited for a few days. The picture she described of a community of people, displaced from thier counrty, but illegally in the one they live in. Unable to go home for fear of thier lives. Much like our African neighbor and the refugees flooding our borders.
Looking at the similarites, and although the two countries are worlds apart, the heart of the problem is the same. HOPE.
Some have it - a hope for the future - expecatiations that in thier future there is something good waiting for them, be it tomorrow or in a week or two. Others dont, expecting nothing good, or different from day to day. Stuck in a whirlpool of displacement with no way back.
Some have hope for the future here on earth, and thats where it stops. Others have a hope beyond here. Beyond tomorrow's experience.
An anticipation for something beyond the job they have, the car they drive, the house they live in, the pets they keep, the DVD collection on the shelf, the concerts they attend, the clothes they afford, bla bla bla.
Hope is the freedom to place trust in something bigger, something unseen, someone real, and to really believe with all your heart that prayers are heard, miracles happen and that there is A Divine Plan. To some the idea of this is silly, childish, for the weak.
Put yourself in the shoes of the (pick a counrty with dictatorship)-ean refugee who has had to flee for thier lives, and cant go home because of the risk of being imprissoned, not being legal in the county they happen to find themsleves in. Without a home, without a job or a way to make life work. What can you offer them?
Now Hope doesnt seem childish or immature or weak does it? Infact it seems inhumane not to offer them something that lasts longer than a buck or two. Hope for the hopeless.
It's this displaced refugee that needs the freedom to believe thier prayers are heard, that there will be a miracle in thier life and that there is A Divine Plan.
We all get displaced from time to time. Life throwas the preverbial curve ball. The job gets tough, a relationship doesn't pan out be what you thought, or bad news derails our well and carefully laid plans.
We all need hope. To be free from worry of what people will think of us when we decide to hope. After all, not to be allowed hope is inhumane.
Hope deffered makes the heart sick - We could heal a whole lotta hearts if we encouraged Hope.
Looking at the similarites, and although the two countries are worlds apart, the heart of the problem is the same. HOPE.
Some have it - a hope for the future - expecatiations that in thier future there is something good waiting for them, be it tomorrow or in a week or two. Others dont, expecting nothing good, or different from day to day. Stuck in a whirlpool of displacement with no way back.
Some have hope for the future here on earth, and thats where it stops. Others have a hope beyond here. Beyond tomorrow's experience.
An anticipation for something beyond the job they have, the car they drive, the house they live in, the pets they keep, the DVD collection on the shelf, the concerts they attend, the clothes they afford, bla bla bla.
Hope is the freedom to place trust in something bigger, something unseen, someone real, and to really believe with all your heart that prayers are heard, miracles happen and that there is A Divine Plan. To some the idea of this is silly, childish, for the weak.
Put yourself in the shoes of the (pick a counrty with dictatorship)-ean refugee who has had to flee for thier lives, and cant go home because of the risk of being imprissoned, not being legal in the county they happen to find themsleves in. Without a home, without a job or a way to make life work. What can you offer them?
Now Hope doesnt seem childish or immature or weak does it? Infact it seems inhumane not to offer them something that lasts longer than a buck or two. Hope for the hopeless.
It's this displaced refugee that needs the freedom to believe thier prayers are heard, that there will be a miracle in thier life and that there is A Divine Plan.
We all get displaced from time to time. Life throwas the preverbial curve ball. The job gets tough, a relationship doesn't pan out be what you thought, or bad news derails our well and carefully laid plans.
We all need hope. To be free from worry of what people will think of us when we decide to hope. After all, not to be allowed hope is inhumane.
Hope deffered makes the heart sick - We could heal a whole lotta hearts if we encouraged Hope.
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