Liebster Award

I've been awarded!  This is my first blog award so please bear with me if I'm not accepting it properly :)  Thank you to M at Miracle In The Works who awarded me with the Liebster award.  Liebster is a German word meaning dearest, and the award is given to up-and-coming bloggers with less than 200 followers.

Here are the rules:
1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
2. Reveal your top five picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.
4. Hope that the people you’ve sent the award to forward it to their five favorite bloggers and keep it going!
These are five bloggers who I'm passing this along to:

1. JM at Meier Madness - wishing her lots of luck in her first IVF cycle!
2. Emily at A Peek Into Our Journey - wishing her a healthy pregnancy with their triplets!
3. Tara at Sunflower Living - after 3 years of struggling to conceive their second child, they are finally expecting again!
4. M at Growth and Joy - she's also had 2 m/c and I can relate all too well to a lot of things she talks about in her blog.
5. Cass at One Day: I'll Have My Baby Bump - fingers crossed for a positive test this week!

Buckling Up and Holding on Tight

Guess what?  AF (aunt flo, aka: my period) arrived on Saturday!  I've never been so excited for AF to show up.  I'm not only excited for the fact that this means we can start trying again, but it also means my body really did cooperate and ovulated all on it's own.  Maybe I do need to try and have a little more faith in my body afterall? 

So....that means that today is CD3 and I'll be starting Clomid.  I never dreamed that when I miscarried in October that we would be able to start trying again in November already.  I feel really good about this.  I'm hopeful that I will get pregnant again and will actually stay pregnant this time.  Then again, maybe I'm just being stupidly optimistic and will get my heart broken again.  But, you can't win if you don't play though, so let the rollercoaster ride begin!

RPL Bloodwork Results

I came home last night to a letter from Dr. C (finally).  She said all of my bloodwork for autoimmune and blood clotting disorders came back normal.  So that's good news!  When I told Jeff he didn't seem as excited as I was.  When I asked him why he said he was a little frustrated that there's no explanation for our losses.  I told him I completely understand where he's coming from - sometimes not knowing a reason why something has happened is harder than knowing why.  But, I reminded him that this is just one less thing we have to worry about now and we can move forward. 

Speaking of that, I "think" I may have ovulated all on my own.  My temperatures show I'm about 8-11 dpo (Fertility Friend, the online program I use, is a little confused on the exact date) but I definitely have that thermal shift that indicates ovulation.  This happening just 5 weeks after my miscarriage, and without medication completely shocks, and excites, me.  I whole-heartedly believe it has to do with the low-carb diet I have been following since the miscarriage.  So, now I'm just waiting (impatiently) for this cycle to be over so that we can start trying again.

The Half Truth

I feel deceitful. 

We came out to more friends of ours this weekend about our losses.  This couple lives out of town and it's been a year since we've seen them (crazy how time flies).  They came tailgating with us.  When the morning started off I wasn't sure if I was going to share our losses with them or not.  It wasn't like I was trying to hide it from them, I just wasn't sure if tailgating was the proper time to discuss such a huge topic.  I figured if it came up, it came up, and if not, fine.

I will make a confession here:  This couple already has a 2 1/2 year old daughter.  So I was bracing myself for another pregnancy announcement.  As she stepped out of their car, I held my breath, preparing to see a bump.  I didn't see one and let out a huge sigh of relief.  Then I found out she was drinking a cup of coffee with Bailey's in it.  Another even bigger sigh of relief escaped me.  Phew, I dodged another pregnancy announcement bullet.

Over the course of the morning the subject of our nieces and nephews came up.  For some reason the time just felt right to me, and I basically blurted out to her "I've had two miscarriage this year."  She looked at me with tears in her eyes and said "I've had one too."  So, we talked (and cried) about our losses, and our husbands even joined in on the conversation.  It felt so freeing to just let it all out and be open and honest about what is such a taboo subject. 

One thing I have found is when the subject of miscarriages come up, the conversation inevitably leads to infertility.  About how there are other couples we know that can't even get pregnant.  There are other men out there who have to stick shots in their wives' butts in order to have a chance at getting pregnant.  There are other couples we know that may never have kids at all because they've been doing treatments for a long time and they aren't working. 

This is how the conversation turned this weekend and I didn't say anything.  I stayed silent.  I didn't speak up about our own infertility.  I never do.  Why?  I'm not sure.  I told Jeff later that I feel so guilty for only telling people the half-truth.  I have no problem being 100% open about our losses, but for some reason I'm so scared to admit we are dealing with infertility also.  Both miscarriage and infertility are taboo topics in our society, but why is one more easier to admit to than the other?  I am a "face of infertility" and should be representing this community, but I don't. 

I simply remain silent.

New and Improved Plan

I had my follow up appointment with my OB and here is our plan moving forward:

- I started on Metformin ER (extended release) 500mg, and will continue to take that through the 1st trimester when I get pregnant again.

- I had 11 vials of blood drawn yesterday for my RPL testing, results pending.

- Once my period decides to make it's grand entrance, I will take Clomid again since it seems to work for me.  If my period doesn't start by the first part of December I am to call for Provera to induce one.

- When I get pregnant again I will be on progesterone suppositories through the 1st trimester.

I'm so happy with this plan.  It's everything I was hoping for going into this appointment.  What's great is my OB suggested most of these things so I didn't even have to push her to do any of it.  I've had this inner struggle for a long time as to whether or not I should be moving on to an RE.  However, I feel so comfortable with my OB and feel like she's doing all the right things at this point that I'm glad I decided to stick it out with her.  Obviously if I don't get pregnant again with a few more cycles of Clomid, it might then be time to re-evaluate things.  But for now, I couldn't be more excited about our plan and the possibilities of what the future holds!