Jumping back in?

Hello readers (if I still have any). 

Awhile I ago I made the decision to stop TTC due to the progression of my heart condition. I have been on Mirena IUD, quite happily, and just had my Mirena re-inserted at 5 year mark in Sept 2019.

Mirena IUD from mirena-us.com

However, since then, I have had my long-awaited pulmonary heart valve replacement. The wonders of modern medicine still amaze me. When I had my first valve inserted when I was just 8 yo, I had to have open heart surgery and 17 days in hospital, due to complications.

THIS time...with the Edwards-Sapien valve, they were able to insert via catheter. I had ONE night in hospital and two weeks recovery. I am currently on two meds to prevent clots, a baby aspirin and Plavix (lisinopril). Luckily, I will be off the lisinopril in April 2020, after I see my Cardiologist for my follow-up appointment.

Heart Health from heartfoundation.org.au

I have had such massive improvement of heart symptoms since the surgery. At least 95% reduction in chest pain and heart palpitations (my estimate). My experience was having chest pain and/or heart palpitations at least once daily prior to valve replacement, and now I have nearly none!

Since I've been feeling so well, my DH asked me one day what I thought about TTC again.

thebrianahansen.com

I had happily accepted our childless state. I really enjoy not having periods due to being on Mirena. I do have some serious concerns about how my mental health will fare with the physical and other demands of pregnancy and early motherhood.

I do still regret not making him a father. Because he will be such a great one. I told him all of this and stated that I would not be willing to go forward unless

A) We wait to start TTC after talking to my Cardiologist at my follow-up in April.
B) He must, must, must help with newborn care. I mean, equal share, because I know when I'm sleep-deprived my heart, behavioral and all other health suffers and I genuinely am concerned that it will make me a terrible mother to boot.

He agreed. Now I'm in research mode, trying to find out what other monitors, herbal remedies, and overall tools for TTC are available now that weren't 5 years back when I stopped trying.

Wish me luck, readers! If you want to see what supplements, monitors and other tools I'm stocking up on for TTC, check out my Getting Ready to TTC 2.0 list on Amazon.

Update on the move

Well folks, if you're still hanging around and checking for updates, I thank you. I may have not posted here about this, but in April DH and I finally started moving forward with plans to move back to TX. Unfortunately, our apt lease was until OCT, so we agreed at the time that he would go down at that time to start his business, and I would join him later. Sooner if I could find a job. It's been a tough few months and eventually with my parents help, we started moving forward with getting me and our stuff down there.

So, the last two weeks I have been packing with a great deal of help from family and friends. Without them, I may not have made it on time as I had a brief hospital stay after going to the ER with some concerning symptoms.  The doctors cleared me of anything life threatening and I really think it's mostly due to extreme stress, anxiety and fatigue.

Hopefully as far as TTC is concerned this will put an end to our enforced WTTC and put us on a track to start actively TTC. I do have to have an initial appt with my  cardiologist in August to look forward to.

I'm fairly certain this cycle is dead in the water. I haven't seemed to O yet according to my chart, but last cycle it didn't confirm until 5DPO. But I also wouldn't be surprised if due to the extreme stress I've been under gearing up for the move that O has been set back a bit. It may be too much to hope that O will happen after July 1st when I fly to TX, so I'll settle for another month of NTNP or so while we get settled back in the house, etc. It may not be until August that I get a chance to start back on my CBEFM (Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor) to start tracking O more precisely.

And once I move I'll pick a specific wake-up time to temp by. My current wake time is 7:10AM, but the last few weeks I tend to be awake anywhere from 5AM-6:30AM  to pee, so I end up taking it early. I may have to pick an earlier time, maybe 6AM. This chart looks ok, but majority of the temps have been adjusted. I know I shouldn't change them all, but I worry what it would look like without them around the same time. I may experiment and see what it would look like to change all the temps to the times/temps they were actually taken. Maybe my O would have been seen by now!

Time will tell. For now, here is a video of my last packing prep before the movers came

Riding the Big Red Wave today...

So, Saturday the spotting turned into full flow. I'm so tired of maxi pads, etc. Plus they are bad for the environment. I had previously looked into cloth pads, but the idea of washing them so often wasn't appealing.

I checked out a thread on TMP that gave a lot of good examples to durable alternatives to disposable pads/tampons. After looking at all the options, I decided to order The Keeper (I actually ordered the Moon Cup made of medical grade silicone). This is a menstrual cup made of either natural gum rubber (latex)--The Keeper or medical grade silicone--The Moon Cup.

The way this works is that the cup is inserted in the vagina to catch the menstrual flow. I'm excited for it to come in for the next cycle.

However, I do have a cardiac MRI on Feb 3. My doctor is going to analyze it to see if there is any real difference and decide what to do. If there is a decrease in function as one of the ECHO's showed, he will call me in for an appt. Otherwise I'll see him in September!

I'm really hoping that I'll be able to actively TTC this cycle! I'm even going to break out my monitor to see if I can start tracking my cycle again. I wasn't before because the test sticks are so expensive, but it is quite accurate.
 
That's the plan for now. Fingers crossed I'll be given the go ahead to TTC!

Update Endoscopy/Colonoscopy

So, I got there this afternoon and they stated they would be doing BOTH procedures today (Endoscopy & Colonoscopy = E/C).  I was so relieved because hopefully for TTC this means that after the Cardiac MRI the first week of February I should be good to go for TTC! I hope.

The reason I need ANOTHER Cardiac MRI is because the last ECHO they took was too unclear....they couldn't be sure if there were any changes or not. SO, now I get to endure another horribly uncomfortable test so they can get a look at it.

Hopefully whatever they find just means a change in meds and not a halt on TTC, but before I saw my cardiologist in Jan he seemed to indicate that a break wasn't needed.

The E/C wasn't TOO horrible. I had to gargle the numbing agent and swallow. The endo only took 10 minutes. The colonoscopy was ok at first, but then started to feel like the start of bad cramps...not actually the worst ever, but like the beginning of it.

But then it got better and I opened my eyes and saw that I got to see what the camera saw! I know that might gross many of you out, but I was fascinated. I'm usually fascinated by my own injuries/body stuff (except blood, watching it get drawn makes me faint).  So it was very cool.

She took a few biopsies and will know more after that, but overall they think everything looks good and not sure exactly what could be causing my GI issues. Which is relieving but frustrating.  All signs seem to point toward IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome)....so I guess I'll find out what treatment if any there is for that.

I also think I really have to look at my diet. I have been needing to go back to a healthier diet for a long time, but now I have a motivation to make sure I stick to a healthier diet.

Plus, I don't know if it was having all liquid diet for one day plus all of the laxatives, but I felt like I lost ALL of the bloat in my stomach. I couldn't find my measuring tape to know for sure, but I just felt slimmer. Now I see why people do those 48 hour juice fasts.

More motivation to get fit in 2011!

This time REALLY early O! (WTH!)

So, if you saw my last post it commented on some strangely high pre-O temps and the possibility of having O'd (already!). Well, today's temp after genuine 7 hours sleep, no waking before temping was at 98.3. Apparently this was high enough for FF to select O at CD9. CD9!!!!!! That's a full 10 days before I expected to usually O and at least 4 days before my last O.

I guess it doesn't really make a difference. I should be glad I'm ovulating, y'know? I guess my problem is that I want to know "Why?". I think I sought to start charting for control of my cycles. Now I realize that was a myth. Charting is useful, but it still can't help me change when and how I ovulate. I can look at patterns and take some vitamins that may address a certain deficiency, but real change isn't possible. It's take what you get and hope you can read the signs well enough for your goal.

I have to say this is especially frustrating as I am trying to avoid (barely) until after my ECHO, possibly until January.  I'm not so practiced at preventing. I thought I was okay because I never thought I'd have O on CD9!!

But, although we did BD on CD5 I think the state of my CM around then was too pitiful to allow the sperm to survive 4 days to wait for the egg. I know it can happen, but I don't have confidence that it will. Plus I haven't had my ECHO yet (tomorrow!) so I only hope that the results aren't bad...for various reasons, but also because I'd like to start trying again.

I guess we shall see....

Now it's bronchitis

So, I tried to go back to work this week. I thought I was getting better. Then today my chest seemed to be exploding in pain. So I left work early and DH took me to the ER. Diagnosis: Bronchitis. I've got some meds and now I'm definitely staying home until I feel tip-top.

On the flipside, since we're Waiting to Try to Conceive (WTTC) I don't have to worry so much about ovulating. I am still charting to keep up with how often I O and stuff. I don't want to waste the test sticks on CBEFM so I've stopped using that.

But I did notice some pink tinged CM today. Maybe I'm ovulating today or tomorrow. Maybe I should review the section in TCOYF about pregnancy prevention. We'll see.