Catching up

It's been a very eventful couple of weeks around here! We experienced "Snowmageddon" here in Western Washington, something the weather people warned about but I think most of us sort of half-ignored, since they're usually so, so wrong with snow predictions. Ahem. Truthfully, we ended up with more than expected, followed by a day of freezing rain, which led to 4+ days (6+ for some folks) of no power and lots o' stir-craziness. Thankfully, we have no large trees around the house (my logger hubby would never allow it!), so weren't subjected to things insurance will need to help with. Our big fir in the pasture lost most of its branches down one side and made a huge mess, and our four (super ugly, much hated, soon to be destroyed) scrubby pine trees all had significant damage (gee, oh darn!). We'll be having a massive bonfire once we have the time to clean up. (Yeah, the air quality around here right now pretty much sucks...everyone rural is burning stuff.)

The snow, however deep it was (deep enough to shut down my state government agency for two full days and most of a third!), didn't prevent us from getting to Dr. M's office in Olympia on Wednesday afternoon for our scheduled IUI (oh, yeah, I got a positive OPK on CD16...so technically I did actually ovulate two days later than I would have expected, so Dr. M. was right on that front). Paul's count was 10-15 million, which is his normal. All was well on that front. As of today, I'm at 8 days post IUI (8dpiui) with only the normal symptoms, which I'd attribute to the progesterone suppositories. My basal body temperature chart is looking mighty fine, but that could be due to my massive head/chest cold elevating my temperature. Only time will tell. I'm scheduled to have a beta blood pregnancy test on February 2nd, unless my period starts before then.

Not so great news, though, was hearing my actual AMH level. It turns out it's actually 0.28, not 2.8. That's a monumental difference, one that lands me in "poor prognosis through ovarian stimulation" land. Dr. M. plans a much more aggressive stim cycle in March, but also said if I'm not pregnant again in 3-6 months, we need to seriously consider donor eggs.

Bite me!!!!

Anyway, he also put me on 75mg of DHEA daily, which is a testosterone derivative that has some crazy side effect of boosting estrogen in women, and can also cause a) moodiness, b) chest and facial hair growth and c) acne. Awesome. I did a little online research and have decided I'm going to put myself on Royal Jelly with Bee Pollen, a natural combination of bee-produced goodness that also tends to boost things in the realm of the ovaries and testes. I read many good reviews of infertile women having success using both the RJ/BP and DHEA in combination, sometimes even conceiving naturally. The DHEA will help increase my AMH level (0.4 is the cut-off just before poor prognosis, so we're not aiming high here!), and the RJ/BP will help with that, too.

There's some other (good) stuff going on related to my recent hypnotherapy appointment, but I'll save that for another post on another day. I'll tease you by saying I feel more hopeful that I'll be pregnant and have a living baby again the past two weeks than I have, um, ever. I've got a little soul guiding me in my heart...and it's someone I've "seen" before, twice. I'll catch you up on that later. :)