Tuesday, January 25, 2011

On the Road to Baby

Well to start, this is going to be my TTC blog, hopefully someday soon turning into a baby blog. Just a place to write down my experiences, feelings, and what I've learned as part of the process.

A little background info... I am Nikki and I'm 27. DH, we'll refer to him as J in this blog, is 28. We've been married 2 1/2 years. I work for my parents trucking company in the office, and J is a plumber for a national company. We own a home in RI and have 2 German Shepherds who we love to pieces.

Well, for as long as I can remember I've wanted kids. Even as a kid, I just loved babies. I'm the weirdo who's making faces at your toddler trying to get a smile. Shortly before we were married, we said we would probably wait a year or so before we start TTC. Well, when the economy tanked, we decided to push TTC back a little. So in April we started talking about it again, and in May I ditched BCPs.

A little background, I first got my  period when I was 13, and ever since then my cycle has been irregular. Sometimes It'd go 30 days, 65 days, 25 days, 40 days...etc. Screwed up. An OB/GYN a while back casually mentioned "Maybe you've got PCOS. You might have trouble getting pregnant someday" Yep. Thats just what an 18 year old needs to hear. Since then, I've struggled with my weight. I've tried Weight Watchers, cutting carbs, and just plain reduced calorie diets...no luck. My  weight would budge about 5-8 lbs, and that was it. Ever since I graduated high school I've gained almost 10 lbs a year. Yuck. And I'm constantly tired. So finally, after years of telling me my thyroid was "sub clinical", it now is just about there, hypothyroid. Just got my antibodies tested, which came out at some crazy number 1998.4. Nice. On the fertility front, my current  OB/GYN referred me to an RE (reproductive endocrinologist) at Woman & Infants Reproductive Center after I told him about my irregular cycles, trying for 7 months and only having 4 periods, and the thyroid issue.

Had my first appointment there on 1/13. It was a long one, almost 2 hours. I was a mess, J wasn't able to come, so my mom came with me. I ended up crying after I got in the office, but shortly after I calmed down. I only waited a little while and they called me in. Sat me down outside the office, did the usual blood pressure, weight, and height check. Then I went in to sit down with one of the nurses to go over all my medical history. I had sent in the paperwork before my appointment and they just went over everything to make sure it was all there. After that I went in and met the doctor, Dr Frishman. He's really nice, I felt very comfortable talking with him, and he made sure I understood everything he was telling me. He took me in an exam room where I got a pelvic exam. He said my uterus and cervix felt normal. After that I went in his office to discuss our game plan. He told me he thinks I'm just anovulatory. Plan and simple. He said he needed more blood work on the thyroid to see if it is hypothyroidism or not. (I hadn't had the antibodies test done yet, I'll bring it with me to the next appointment.) He gave me a slip for blood work to test a whole bunch of things, including Prolactin. We discussed that if all the blood work comes back normal, he will most likely have me start Clomid after the next appointment. He wanted me to wait a few weeks because I was just starting on a new antidepressant, and he wanted to make sure I was all set on that before adding a new drug.

So thats it so far, our next appointment is Valentine's Day, I know we'll go over the blood work results from the ones he ordered, and also the ones on my thyroid, and hopefully we can see what the next step will be from there! Once AF comes (its been 65 freakin days right now) I'm finally going to start temping. So thats pretty much all for now! :)