Everyone with fertility challenges, and frankly all women who are beyond the three month mark in trying to get pregnant, knows that there is a lot of hurry-up-and-wait. Whether you are trying naturally (or with assistance) and waiting until you can test, or whether you are waiting for a treatment cycle to begin, you are looking for coping strategies to get you through. Here are my top 3, tried and true, after two years of serious trying:
1. Work. If you can work in an environment with other people around so you don't find yourself drifting over to googling anything fertility, all the better. No one I worked with knew what I was going through, so reading anything pregnancy was off-limits at work. Having my assistant come and work IN MY OFFICE right next to me really kept me focused on actual work. Working at home, by myself, is more challenging and requires a lot of self-discipline. My self-discipline tends to be strong in the morning, but deteriorates in the afternoon. Non-work projects can also be good distractions, but they tend to be short-lived. One lady was shopping for a new car - it only occupied a couple of weeks in researching and then test-driving. Then she had her new car and was back to thinking about the baby she hoped to put in it. I'm shopping for a new car, but it only took me a day to do the research, and every day after that the information online is the same, so it isn't enough distraction for me. But I suppose any project you do with others that prevents you from discussing your fertility challenges will keep your mind off it and help pass the time.
2. Movies. You might be able to lose yourself in a good book, and often times I can too, but I found reading never quieted the voices in my head, the ones that spoke fertility non-stop, as well as movies or television. There were things I couldn't watch - every show this spring seemed to be full of unplanned pregnancies, kudos to Grey's Anatomy for at least balancing that one out with an unrealistically quick diagnosis of sorry, no more babies for you. I watched endless pregnancy shows when I was pregnant, but when you're dealing with infertility you want to get as far away from that as possible, so be careful in your selections and keep the tissues nearby incase you're caught off-guard.
3. Exercise. This works in several ways. First, there is the general stress-relief and mood-enhancing benefits of exercise. Second, my hormone levels were all in a better place after a few months of regular exercise. Third, it gives you a project with a longer-term goal. Fourth, when I'm at the gym I like to watch a video, which is a good mental distraction for me, but if all I have available is my iPod and a run outdoors, the music can clear my mind too. I'm not one to sing while running, but I found singing in the car very beneficial, so if you're confident, go ahead and sing while you work out!
Monday, 14 July 2014
Sunday, 13 July 2014
How to keep your sanity during fertility treatment
The chaos of moving house kept me pretty distracted these past couple of months, but then out of the blue, I'll just have a very bad day.
In the more than two years now of actively trying to conceive, waiting, diagnostic testing, more waiting, treatments, and more waiting, I know how trying and stressful this process is. I know that when you are in a cycle, or approaching a cycle, time seems to stand still.
But I can also promise you that distraction makes the down time, the long waits, pass - with less agony.
Yes, every celebrity baby post will eat away at your heart, and real friends with real babies will hurt even more, but it gets easier. I'm now enough cycles out from my last failed transfer to stop counting, and didn't even visit my fertility board for two or three weeks. Yes, I'm out of touch with how my ladies are doing, but I've also kept my mind occupied with other things and poof, time flies! It felt like forever when I made the decision to wait six months to try my frozen transfer, but now I'm half-way there! I have reached out to a new clinic, making inquiries about shipping my embryo, and I could drive myself nuts waiting for a reply, and waiting for an appointment, while checking expedia for airfares back to my old clinic and guestimating how long I would have to stay, and then start stressing about the physical stress of travel... it's a vicious cycle you see. So instead, I am better off keeping my mind busy with work (now that I work at home though, much more opportunity for mind-wandering) or online browsing for new dining chairs. Or figuring out how to reset the clock on my oven...
The hardest part about the move was giving away baby things. Each time was like ripping off a band-aid and often involved tears. Giving to someone in need made it easier - at least I knew it was going to get used. Some things were sold. Some things were put out at the curb but never by me as that is not something I could do. Somethings were smuggled aside, sorted later in private, and a few things even smuggled into my suitcase and into the back of the closet with the "out of season" clothes so my partner doesn't know I kept them. The brusk efficient manner of the movers made me think some days I could have smuggled a little more, a few more baby clothes or maternity clothes, but it's done, it's gone - a basement full of things for baby number two, never to be used again by me anyway. And it made me very sad at the time, but I try not to think about it. Back to new dining chairs and resetting the oven clock. Before I know it, I'll be popping estrace pills in preparation for my frozen transfer.
In the more than two years now of actively trying to conceive, waiting, diagnostic testing, more waiting, treatments, and more waiting, I know how trying and stressful this process is. I know that when you are in a cycle, or approaching a cycle, time seems to stand still.
But I can also promise you that distraction makes the down time, the long waits, pass - with less agony.
Yes, every celebrity baby post will eat away at your heart, and real friends with real babies will hurt even more, but it gets easier. I'm now enough cycles out from my last failed transfer to stop counting, and didn't even visit my fertility board for two or three weeks. Yes, I'm out of touch with how my ladies are doing, but I've also kept my mind occupied with other things and poof, time flies! It felt like forever when I made the decision to wait six months to try my frozen transfer, but now I'm half-way there! I have reached out to a new clinic, making inquiries about shipping my embryo, and I could drive myself nuts waiting for a reply, and waiting for an appointment, while checking expedia for airfares back to my old clinic and guestimating how long I would have to stay, and then start stressing about the physical stress of travel... it's a vicious cycle you see. So instead, I am better off keeping my mind busy with work (now that I work at home though, much more opportunity for mind-wandering) or online browsing for new dining chairs. Or figuring out how to reset the clock on my oven...
The hardest part about the move was giving away baby things. Each time was like ripping off a band-aid and often involved tears. Giving to someone in need made it easier - at least I knew it was going to get used. Some things were sold. Some things were put out at the curb but never by me as that is not something I could do. Somethings were smuggled aside, sorted later in private, and a few things even smuggled into my suitcase and into the back of the closet with the "out of season" clothes so my partner doesn't know I kept them. The brusk efficient manner of the movers made me think some days I could have smuggled a little more, a few more baby clothes or maternity clothes, but it's done, it's gone - a basement full of things for baby number two, never to be used again by me anyway. And it made me very sad at the time, but I try not to think about it. Back to new dining chairs and resetting the oven clock. Before I know it, I'll be popping estrace pills in preparation for my frozen transfer.
Wednesday, 18 June 2014
On ovulation spotting...
I haven't posted in a while because it's "break time" but something strange happened, and I felt the need to get an answer and share what I learned...
For the second month in a row I had "ovulation spotting" - mid-cycle bleeding to some of you. In the general sequence of cycle events, it was exactly the same both months, but after two years of steady charting, it came as a surprise. I know about the prevailing theory circulating online that it comes from the actual follicle rupture - but that theory just wasn't working for me because of the timing and because of my gummed up tubes. How would such a tiny amount of blood manage to get out through my cervix if larger quantities of fluids under pressure can't get in or out (sperm, imaging fluid from diagnostic tests, the much larger amount of blood that was found in my abdomen when my cyst ruptured two years ago). So I turned to my friend Pubmed and, eventually, found my answer:
259 women contributed data from 470 cycles to this study of menstrual bleeding patterns, and very few experienced mid-cycle bleeding. It was actually only 12 women, and for 11 of them it only happened on one of the two cycles recorded. So the chance of it happening twice in a row is roughly 0.4%. Lucky me, but still way more likely than winning the lotto.
They also took regular hormone levels from the women, and compared the hormone profiles of the spotters and non-spotters. I love numbers, so this was like candy to me, and I know it's hard to make a good prediction on the basis of only 12 women. But the data suggests that mid-cycle bleeding, what we call "ovulation spotting", coincides with higher estradiol levels, higher lutenizing hormone spikes, and higher progesterone levels. They aren't big differences though, and looking at the levels, it's nothing compared to the levels reached during ovarian hyper stimulation (40x higher). Just a subtle increase. But it also supports the lesser discussed theory I found during my googling, that it's a bit of leakage from a slightly enhanced uterine lining when the cervix opens up in the days leading up to ovulation. Some have taken this to mean "stronger ovulation" - I'm not sure that is completely accurate, or at the very least meaningful. Heightened estradiol may or may not reflect egg quality, and I don't know that a higher lutenizing hormone spike makes a difference, it's a threshold thing, and the increased progesterone doesn't look high enough to suggest multiple follicles or anything helpful.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3299419
Unfortunately I can't link directly to the figures, but click on the link, go to figure 3, and you'll see.
So that basically brings me back where so many websites started me off - it happens, but it may not mean anything when and if it does. But it's nice to know.
Happy ovulating ladies!
For the second month in a row I had "ovulation spotting" - mid-cycle bleeding to some of you. In the general sequence of cycle events, it was exactly the same both months, but after two years of steady charting, it came as a surprise. I know about the prevailing theory circulating online that it comes from the actual follicle rupture - but that theory just wasn't working for me because of the timing and because of my gummed up tubes. How would such a tiny amount of blood manage to get out through my cervix if larger quantities of fluids under pressure can't get in or out (sperm, imaging fluid from diagnostic tests, the much larger amount of blood that was found in my abdomen when my cyst ruptured two years ago). So I turned to my friend Pubmed and, eventually, found my answer:
259 women contributed data from 470 cycles to this study of menstrual bleeding patterns, and very few experienced mid-cycle bleeding. It was actually only 12 women, and for 11 of them it only happened on one of the two cycles recorded. So the chance of it happening twice in a row is roughly 0.4%. Lucky me, but still way more likely than winning the lotto.
They also took regular hormone levels from the women, and compared the hormone profiles of the spotters and non-spotters. I love numbers, so this was like candy to me, and I know it's hard to make a good prediction on the basis of only 12 women. But the data suggests that mid-cycle bleeding, what we call "ovulation spotting", coincides with higher estradiol levels, higher lutenizing hormone spikes, and higher progesterone levels. They aren't big differences though, and looking at the levels, it's nothing compared to the levels reached during ovarian hyper stimulation (40x higher). Just a subtle increase. But it also supports the lesser discussed theory I found during my googling, that it's a bit of leakage from a slightly enhanced uterine lining when the cervix opens up in the days leading up to ovulation. Some have taken this to mean "stronger ovulation" - I'm not sure that is completely accurate, or at the very least meaningful. Heightened estradiol may or may not reflect egg quality, and I don't know that a higher lutenizing hormone spike makes a difference, it's a threshold thing, and the increased progesterone doesn't look high enough to suggest multiple follicles or anything helpful.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3299419
Unfortunately I can't link directly to the figures, but click on the link, go to figure 3, and you'll see.
So that basically brings me back where so many websites started me off - it happens, but it may not mean anything when and if it does. But it's nice to know.
Happy ovulating ladies!
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