Caffeine Withdrawal and other random things

I read somewhere that caffeine can inhibit the grown of follicles so I decided to cut all caffeine and am now paying the price for that...I have had the worse caffeine withdrawal headache yesterday and today.  Like working in my office in the dark because the light hurts my eyes bad.  I am not sure if that is actually true but I figured if by some miracle this cycle actually works and we get pregnant I’d have to give up caffeine anyways so why not do it now. 

I will admit once I found out that Caribou can make my northern lite turtle mocha with decaf that’s what sealed the deal!  I just wasn’t sure I could live without my coffee (although for the sake of my waistline and wallet, I probably should).  I know there is a trace amount of caffeine but hopefully it really is just a minute amount. 

Tomorrow is my brother’s dye test on his lymph nodes to see if the cancer has spread and then Friday is surgery.  I am going to go to my parents on Saturday morning for a quick visit – he is staying with them for a few days.  I am hoping and praying all goes well and that it hasn’t spread.  I am going nuts with the waiting, I can’t even imagine how he’s feeling.  St. Peregrine pray for him. 

My novena to St. Rita is going ok.  I am trying to pray it at the same time every day but today it was a few hours later.  Not sure if that matters.  And day number two I got interrupted and never finished it until the next day so not sure if that matters or not either but I am trying!

I have an u/s on Monday morning to see what size my follies are!  Praying for decent sized ones!!!  Praying this is THE cycle.  I am unusually upbeat about it and extremely optimistic…which is odd for me.  I usually don’t let myself go there but this time I just can’t see to help myself.  I have ben able to keep myself from obessing about it though – which is good.  A thought will pop into my mind and I won’t shoo it away but I won’t dwell on it. 

WW is not going very well this week…last night I had dinner with a former coworker who was in town from Malaysia and I was bad and ordered the bedda chedda burger when I should have gone for a salad or at least got veggies instead of waffle fries.  Then this afternoon we had an impromptu birthday lunch for my brother-in-law (sans gf and her brood of kids- thankfully!) at a mexican restaurant and I got the pollo fundido – all that fried goodness and cream cheese topping couldn’t have been low in points.  Tonight I am meeting one of my besties for supper at California Pizza Kitchen.  Eek! But at least last night when Walleye cracked open the sherbet I refused because even thought it sounded good I wasn’t hungry.  (Gotta find a positive somewhere, right). 

I am looking forward to seeing my parents and brother this weekend.  I am also going to be able to see my neice and nephew…it’s been only 4 weeks since I saw them last but I am going through the worst withdrawals of those two munchkins. I just adore them and I can’t wait to see them!  And their Mom too.  And I get to help paint!  I love to paint at their farm.  Oh do I love to paint!  I just hope my hand is up for it.  Speaking of my hand I go in for my 6 week post op with the surgeon next Tuesday!  I can’t believe it has been almost 6 weeks!  I also can’t believe how easy it’s been…I know it wasn’t major surgery but for someone who’s ony other surgery has been wisdom teeth it was kind of a big deal.   

Cake for Breakfast diet and Weightloss

Oh the emotions Femara brings on!  I am normally rather emotional, however, Femara usually ups it a bit…well this month is no exception!  In fact it’s worse!  I am pretty positive it is due to the fact that I am taking twice the Femara I have in the past.  I have has some mood swings and a few funks but the most noticble thing has been the crying.  For no reason. 

Yesterday as I was driving to meet a dear friend of mine and her two sweet little boys I just randomly started crying.  I have no idea why.  When I would tell myself to stop crying and that I was crying for no reason my mind would wander to the fight Walleye and I had the night before or to my brother or that there was traffic on the interstate or to the fact that our friends S & M had their baby the day before.  My mind was bringing up anything remotely rational to cry about whenever I’d try to get it under control.  Seriously, that’s gotta be the Femara!!!  Has to be!  All day long the dumbest things would make me cry. 

I will say I held it together really well when we went to visit S & M and their teeny-tiny baby at the hospital.  I just could not get enough of him.  I held him for most of the hour we were there.  I did get Walleye to hold him – generally Walleye doesn’t hold tiny babies.  I think I got him to finally hold my nephew when he was 13 months old!  I guess he did hold Baby D (the baby of one of Walleye’s good friends) when he was about 4 months.  It was so cute to see him holding baby T.  Visiting really wasn’t so bad…on Saturday I was glad that Walleye was fishing (It was Fishing Opener here in MN this weekend so he was out on the lake with a line down at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday with a few buddies) so I had an excuse not to go visit S & M in the hospital and was completely surprised when Walleye suggested on Sunday that we visit them later that afternoon.  I was prepared for it to be hard but it really wasn’t.  And surprisingly I didn’t cry!  I didn’t even tear up…you mean to tell me I cried over a little traffic on I94 but not that…

After visiting them Walleye and I went out on a mini-date night (out for supper at a sit-down restaurant).  I did get a little sad there – I kept thinking about my brother and what this week means for him and then I’d think about how important this coming cycle is and how badly I want it to be a successful cycle.  Then I’d feel guilty for even thinking that my cycle mattered when my brother could be up for the fight of his life.  Oh the joys of Femara.

On the bright side I am down 3 lbs since last Monday.  God only knows how I did it since I was on the “Graduation Cake for Breakfast every day last week” diet.  I thought for sure when I got on the scale this morning that I would have gained but I surprising lost.  And I had a ton of Caribou coffees (granted they were the Northern Lite Turle Mochas and not the full fat, full sugar version) last week – and even had cake for lunch dessert a few days too.  I am pretty sure the fact that I was very active last week and not sitting my butt on the couch every night and all weekend was the key factor…and unfortunately not the cake.  (Oh how heavenly it would be if cake really worked!)  So now I am down 24 lbs since September – almost back down to what I was in February before the ice fishing and BockFest weekends completely derailed my WW.  Maybe this will be the little nudge I need to start following WW more religiously. 

Novena

As I was stalking through blogs yesterday (yes, I still consider myself a stalker since I don't comment near as much as I want to...still a little shy to), I came across a post about a novena to St. Rita, and I am feeling compelled to pray this novena.  I have been praying to St. Rita ever since I came across this blog a few months ago and then my Mom happened to email me one day about a month or two ago asking if I knew of St. Rita and figured that was yet another sign I should pray to her.  Well when I came across the post yesterday about the novena to her and it ending on her feast day I figured might as well try.  Then when I noticed that her feast day is the day before my first monitoring ultra sound for this next cycle I felt even more compelled to pray it. 

We still haven't made a  final decision about the Dr situation because I've decided to throw another Dr into the mix of contenders...another fellow blogger mentioned she really liked her Dr in the area so am contemplating adding that one into the mix as well.  Oh the decisions! 

I think it has hit me a bit more today that my brother has cancer.  I think I was in shock yesterday.  I worry about him (well I worry about everything but this even more so) and I pray it hasn't spread to his organs.  He's a fighter though.  He fought cancer (Hodgkins, I believe - but I can never remember if it was Hodgkins or non-Hodgkins Lymphoma as I was pretty young at the time) about 25 years ago.  He is just so special to me, I don't know what I would do with out him.  I hate living 2 hours away from him (I know it could be worse).  Even though there are 10 years between us we are still pretty close.  We are so similar in a lot of ways.  We really "get" each other.  I just feel so bad for him that he now has to go through this.  He's had a rough couple of years - long story short his long-time, live-in girlfriend cheated on him and it was a messy break up and really hit him hard.  He finally seems to be coming around from it and bam, cancer...again.  I guess all I can do is pray for him, let him know I'm here for whatever he needs and just try not to worry so much, especially not until we know how bad it is.

Emotional Day

The meeting with the Dr went ok.  Well I guess actually better than ok.  He seemed very genuine with his apology for the lack of communication for the last cycle.  We talked through a plan for this cycle.  He upped my femara to two 2.5 pills per day.  My progesterone was at 11 - he said that's a little low as he would like to see it in the 15 area but it's not horrible and that upping the femara should help.  i go in for my first u/s on 5.23 then depending up where my follie are at go for more or do the trigger and the TIC one we do the trigger shot.  Then a progesterone test about a week after the trigger. He also referred us to a Dr about an hour away.  Reason being is we are still contemplating the IUI but he won't have any kits until September and IF we do it we don't want to wait that long.  Only thing is now we aren't sure if we should go to that Dr or the Dr one of my coworkers goes to - both are in the same town so about the same distance away.  I just don't know if which one to choose.  Part of me says go with the one Dr E referred us to because he knows him and has  aworking relationship with him but then part of me is drawn to the Dr my coworker uses.  I just feel she has had to successes with him and both times have been relatively "easy" (if you can anything about IF and IF treatments is easy).  But we need to make a decision tonight as I want to get hte ball rolling with the new Dr now so we don 't miss next cycle (IF this cycle doesn't work). 
It's been an emotional day...on top of the whole IF Dr visit I found out today that my brother has melanoma.  They don't know yet if it has spread but he is about in the middle for seriousness - they said a 2.  He has surgery a week from Friday to remove the cancer, biopsy his lymph nodes and take any out that they may need to.  I talked to him tonight and he seems to be doing pretty good, attitude wise.  He said he knows he can't obsess about all the "what ifs" right now until he has more information and answers as it will just drive him crazy.  Please God, let him be ok.  Please don't let it have spread into his body.  Please continue to give him strength. 

Are we seeing the right Dr?

Tomorrow we are meeting with the new Dr (Dr. E) again.  This will be our first meeting since the lack-of-communication-cycle known as April 2011.  I am hoping that I can speak my mind but if not Walleye will be there to speak up.  I am so not confrontational - I'd rather just sweep things under the rug and move forward but I think this is one of those times when that's not the best option. I am also an extremely emotional person so I just know if I bring it up I will start to cry - then I get frustrated that I am crying and I cry even harder and the cycle goes on and one and the more I try not to cry the more I cry.  Walleye isn't as much of an emotional person and can handle things like that better, thankfully he will be coming to the appointment with me.

A few months back I was working closely with one of our designers at work on a project and we got to talking about babies and what not and turns out we both suffered from IF, PCOS specifically.  She shared her story with me and that she had been going to the same Dr I had been but was so unimpressed and frustrated with them that she finally asked for a referral to a new Dr.  They gave her one and her first month with that Dr she got pregnant.  She highly recommended that Dr and Walleye and I were going to move there once our new insurance kicked in but my new regular physician wanted me to try Dr E first. She said if after one cycle I didn't like Dr E she'd write me a referral to anywhere I wanted - even my coworkers Dr.  Well my coworker called me today to tell me she was pregnant with baby #2.  (We work in completely different buildings so it's not as easy to just walk to one another's desks) She was so nice and sweet about it - she said having been there she wanted to tell me before I heard it from someone else or saw that she was starting to show.  (I actually had seen her last week at the coffee shop on campus and thought she might be pregnant again but didn't say anything).  I am beyone thrilled for her!  She also wanted to let me know how wonderful her Dr is and if we hadn't found a new one that we should really consider going there.  She didn't give me specifics but she led me to believe that it didn't take many cycles for her to get pregnant again.  Now I am wondering if we should even continue with Dr E.  I suppose we might as well for this cycle since it's right on the doorstep and that I could get things started with the other Dr in the meantime so if this cycle doesn't work next cycle doesn't get lost in transistion from Dr to Dr. I just have so much hope with the other Dr.  Knowing that my coworker has had luck rather quickly twice with him, that we have similar problems and that she was older than me both times (in her 40s!).  Oh how I wish we would have just gone there in the first place...

CD1

Today is CD1.  I am more thankful than upset by this.  You see, she came without the assistance of Provera and to me that's a great thing.  I had an idea she'd come as my ta-tas were sore, I was emotional, I was hungry and eating everything in site and today I had a headache. 

We have a meeting with the Dr on Wednesday so I should find out my progesterone levels from the test last week and we should set the plan for this cycle. I just hope i can stick to my guns and actually tell the Dr how I feel about his office's lack of communication and what not.  I'm sort of a big talker when it comes to confrontation so hopefully Walleye will be able to come with as he is not afraid of confrontation! 

This and That

Not much new...just waiting for the next cycle.  I went in on Monday to have my progesterone levels checked but haven't heard anything back so I am assuming my Dr is waiting to review them with us on our 05.11.11 appointment.  Either that he hasn't taken the time to review them yet...which wouldn't entirely surprise me either. 
I finally didn't gain anything last week but unfortunately I didn't lose any weight either.  I am having the hardest time getting back on WW.  I keep telling myself I'll start tomorrow or next Monday or after lunch but then that deadline comes and I find a new one.  I wish I had better will power!
Starting last Friday I noticed my ta-tas are getting sore again.  Hoping that means I will get AF without drugs this month!  I also must be getting a little emotional, which is par for the course for me, as we watched Toy Story 3 on Sunday and I bawled and bawled at the end! Walleye couldn't help but laugh at me!
I had a physical therapy appointment on Monday and not only did I meet all my goals but I exceeded two!  I am recovering so well that they don't need to see me back there unless it starts getting painful or I start to lose mobility.  I have to massage vitamin E oil into my scar three times a day and need to keep watch on the swelling.  Then on 5.23 I start another batch of exercises.  I also see the surgeon one last time on 5.24.  I really can't believe how easy this surgery/recovery has been!
I thought I would be dreading Mother's Day this year as I was so hoping to have a baby or be pregnant but luckily I have to work that day.  It is commencement at the University and I am in charge of one of the receptions so it will be a busy day.  I am a little sad I won't be able to see my Mom but we will do a combined Mother's and Father's Day in June.