Feeling Better

Today is the first day I have not coughed up nastiness or felt extremely tired. Whoohooo for that! Of course, the Augmentin has wrecked havoc on my stomach and given me a yeast infection, but I'll take that over coughing up blood ;) My doctor told me to take a probiotic three times a day and wrote me a prescription for Diflucan, so hopefully things will clear up soon.

I am a bit annoyed with the yeast infection because it means no sex during my fertile time, so we will just have to cross our fingers and hope the IUI does the trick. I go in for my CD 14 ultrasound tomorrow!

Sick Day!

I started to feel worse yesterday - I was coughing up nasty gunk all day, and I started to feel very tired around two o'clock. I could barely keep my eyes open when I left work at 4:30. So, I decided to take today off so I could sleep in, have a restful day, and do my albuterol and vest multiple times. I hope I start feeling these antibiotics working soon!

Two Weeks of Augmentin

That's what my CF doctor wants me to do. He didn't want to see me, I guess because, whether it's a sinus or lung infection, it's most likely the same bug I always culture (Staph). I haven't been feeling too bad. Today I was very tired, but I felt great yesterday. The night sweats have stopped, which I am so grateful for because I hate them! I am, however, still coughing up some nasty stuff (including what looks like old blood), so I am thankful to be on antibiotics. Thank you for all of the well wishes!

In TTC news, I've decided to take a break from temping for the first week of my cycle, considering I can always see my thermal shift from the temps the few days before O. I've also decided to start drinking wheatgrass, and I'm going to eat pineapple core after O (wheatgrass has been shown to increase fertility, and pineapple core may help with implantation).

Nine more days until my ultrasound. Ahhh...the joys of living life in two week increments!

I Coughed Up Blood Today :(

It happened as I was about to leave work. I felt like I had a little bit of gunk in my chest and I tried coughing it up. Once it came up, I saw it was bright red blood. Not much blood, but it still freaked me out. It was already after five o’clock, so I had to have the on-call doctor paged.

The on-call doctor was not my usual CF doctor and was not familiar with my usual bugs, so he said I should just keep an eye on things and call him back if it gets worse this weekend. He told me I probably have a lung exacerbation and to call my regular CF doctor on Monday so I can be prescribed the correct antibiotics. In the meantime, I'm supposed to stop inhaling albuterol and hypertonic saline for one day, but continue inhaling Colistin.

The crazy thing is that I feel FINE. And, I haven’t been coughing more than usual. I'm tired, but I only slept five hours the other night and haven't caught up on sleep yet. And, I've had night sweats the last two nights, but I get those all the time.

The only other time in my life I've coughed up blood was during a rough bought of bronchitis 10 years ago. I am praying that this is just some freak occurrence and doesn't mean I have some nasty infection brewing.

Onto IUI #2

AF arrived last night. I am not too sad about it because I was expecting her and I had several days for it to sink in. I am just trying to look at the odds - only a 20% chance of success with each cycle. Hopefully it will happen within one of the next few rounds!

So now we are onto our second IUI. This round will be the same as the first - ultrasound at CD14, trigger, and IUI 24-36 hours later.

And now I am going to take some Tylenol!

Another Temp Drop This Morning

Now I am below the coverline, so I expect AF today. She's not here yet, but I will be shocked if I don't see her before I go to bed.

I also want to say thank you so much for the well wishes and support! It really means a lot to me and brightens my day every time I come on here and see them :D

I Tested Again This Morning

15dpo and BFN. My temperature also dropped. I think we are out. I just wish AF would just show up so we could move onto the next cycle.

The Most Torturous 2WW Ever!

I have no idea what is going on. A few days ago, I was positive we were out, (to the point I was almost crying), because my temperature went down. Now it's going back up! However, this happened one other cycle, so I am not getting my hopes up.

I've been taking PG tests daily since 10 dpo, and they have all been BFNs. However, I did get what looked like very, very, very faint lines on three Dollar Tree tests - something that has never happened to me before, (when I followed up the tests with First Response tests, I got very obvious BFNs). I think the lines are evaporation lines, but they are giving me and Greg a little bit of that damn thing called Hope.

I am currently 14 dpo. Because my luteal phase has varied from 9-16 days in the past 10 months, I won't really know if I am late until 18 dpo. However, I have always been spotting or gotten AF by now, and I am not spotting yet. But I have zero symptoms - no sore boobs, no cramping, no bloating, etc. The only things that might be construed as symptoms are the nasty pukey burps I had yesterday (which are most likely due to missing a dose of Prilosec) and having to pee in the middle of the night for the past three nights.

So, the only thing we can do is wait. My RE just asked me to call when I get either a positive PG test or AF - no beta is scheduled. Ahhhh, the torture!

Trigger is Out

I tested this morning at 8.5 days past trigger and got a BFN. Now I will know it's for real if I test again in a few days and see those elusive two lines!

My Boss Started Asking Questions

My boss keeps asking me if I am okay. In the past two months, I had to leave work for seven different doctor's appointments: Allergist, OB/GYN, ENT, RE, CF clinic, HSG, and IUI. So I can understand why he is concerned. I don't think I've ever gone to the doctor that much in such a short period of time.

For a while, when he asked, "Is everything okay?" I would tell him, "yes, I just have a slew of check-ups, it should be over soon" (He knows I have CF). Besides, half of those appointments really were just check-ups and not TTC-related.

But now that we are doing IUI, I decided I should probably tell him more information because it's likely going to continue. After my HSG, when he asked (again) "is everything okay?” I replied "yes....well....I'll have to talk to you about it later (we were in my cube and I didn't want anyone to overhear)...I was hoping I wouldn't be missing this much work."

Then I whimped out. The next day, I was in his office and he said, "How are you doing?" I said, "Fine," and then there was an awkward silence and I could tell he was waiting for me to fess up. Instead I said, "and how are you doing?" and then changed the subject. I really didn't feel like talking to my boss about my sex life/female issues! Plus the walls in his office are really thin and the guy next door loves to eavesdrop - Thank God I didn't fess up at that time because he chimed in "I'm doing fine too!"

Finally, on the day of my IUI I called him and told him I would be late to work for another doctor's appointment. And then I told him "I'm sure you are wondering what is going on. I have a non-threatening medical condition that requires some testing. It's really not a big deal and nothing to worry about." He replied, "Thank you for telling me. I really appreciate it."

I'm so glad he was satisfied with that vague answer!

First IUI Completed!

The IUI went very well! Greg's sperm had great numbers - his motility wasn't reduced at all, as it was in the SA. The procedure went well and was fast. It started just like a pap smear, with the speculum and everything, and then he inserted a catheter into my uterus and injected the sperm. I even asked, "You are already done?" when my RE had finished. Afterward, he had me lay on the table for 10 minutes "just to be safe."

The only problem we had was it hurt like A LOT when my RE put the catheter in - so much that I yelled out in pain twice and was squeezing the crap out of Greg's hand. My RE was a little concerned and said it was not normal, but he didn't say anything else, so I'm not worried about it. When we left the clinic, I told Greg, "Thanks for the great sexy times ;)" to which he replied, "That was some rough and painful sexy time!"

The RE did make a comment about my CM. He said, "You have a lot of cervical mucus. This is good because it means your estrogen is rising." I asked him if it looked thick compared to a "normal" woman. He said it looked "a little thicker than normal" but that it was hard to say how much it affects my fertility. I have been taking Mucinex, (maximum strength, 12-hour extended release), this cycle, (but I've been bad and only been taking it once a day instead of twice a day), so that may have made my CM a little thinner than it is naturally.

Now it's on to the 2WW!

HCG Trigger

Greg administered the trigger shot (Ovidrel) for me at 11:00 last night. It was less freaky to have him give it me, although I still had to do some deep breathing while he did it! It was not bad at all. He just pinched some fat on my stomach and gave me the shot - I barely felt it and it took about 10 seconds. And, I’m glad we did it that way because it helps us feel like we are going through this processes together.

Greg cracked me up afterward - he had been falling asleep prior to giving me the shot, but after, he was so pumped and kept saying, "That was so easy! It was just like putting a needle in a septum in the lab!" So I had to stay up and watch TV with him for another hour :)

I was very curious if I would feel any side effects - so much that I kept waking up last night and analyzing my body. No side effects yet, other than being tired!

Oh, and, of course, I took a pregnancy test the second I woke up, just so I could prove to myself the shot was actually in my system. (And I thought to myself "Ahhhh, so that's what a positive pregnancy test looks like!") I will probably keep testing each morning just to see how long it takes for the shot to get out of my system.

And now we just have to do the IUI tomorrow morning!