I’m in a weird mood. It’s CD5, and I feel like I’m just waiting around. It’s not a good feeling, although the 2ww is worse. I know I’m in a bad mood b/c I got annoyed at BF for no good reason. Poor guy.
Tomorrow morning, the fertility monitor very likely will have a blinking symbol, indicating I’m suppposed to POAS for the next 10 days. I’m going on a business trip, so the timing is a bit tricky. I’ll have my IUI right before I go on the trip, and then will still be traveling here and there when AF is due. Should be interesting to see if the travel throws off my cycle at all.
I decided to do a bunch of fertility stuff today. I went online and bought more of the Clearblue Easy fertility monitor test strips (a lot cheaper online than at the local drugstore). While I was at it, I got some OPK sticks and HPT sticks. Wow – also way way way cheaper than buying at the local Rite Aid in a packaged box. I hope these things are as “good” / accurate as the ones in the store. I guess I won’t really know. They say they are identical. But that’s no good if they are identical to crappy ones! Ha! Anyway, I bought from some pregnancy test supply place that sells stuff in bulk. I can see how this would be heaven for women who are POAS addicts. You can get all the test strips you want – the kind you dip or the midstream kind – and then test all day and night. I hope I don’t get to be that way.
I also finally got off the fence and filled my Femara prescription today. 5 little pills – they’re only 2.5mg each, and I’m supposed to take them Day 3-7 (1 a day) at the same time each day. A little nervous as the side effects are nausea, dizziness, etc. The guy who filled my prescription was a young guy with long hair. And then the woman who read me the instructions was young. And I was thinking – yes, this is breast cancer medication used for enhancing fertility :S The time to be sensitive to what other people think is over. It’s just about me and BF and TTC! I’ll start taking them on cycle #4.
So now, I am surfing to see if Femara is supposed to change my cycle length or have any other side effects. I have read online that people’s cycle length generally gets shorter or stays the same. The average length of a cycle on Femara is 27 days: http://www.soft-infertility.com/docs/PILetrosol.pdf but I don’t know what that means for me. I hope it doesn’t drastically change anything – or make my cycle inconsistent from one to the next. I’ve been 25-26 days for the last, gosh, 8+ years so having it change would be a little disconcerting. I’m finding that routine is a comfort to me during this process.
Been really good about taking my vitamins – including the Omega-3 fish oil ones. I gotta say that the woman at Whole Foods was right about those Nordic Natural pills not giving fish burps. But that said, I got more of the coromega, simply because it tastes better (chocolate orange) and I fell for the marketing about higher absorption. It’s also a novel way to take vitamins (basically sucking vitamins from a ketchup packet). It’s not as weird as it sounds. Really.
Hello!
I found your blog from MyBlogLog, saw something about Femara and decided to stop by.
Reading through your posts makes me hurt for you. I’ve done the exact same thing for over 7 years, I know what hell it can be.
I wanted to reply because I used Femara. I gave up on clomid because it was not working, no matter what i tried (including Fonal-F shots)
I used femara for my last 2 babies. The first time, I used 2.5mg cd3-7, then an HCG trigger shot, AND PreSeed while BD’ing. We got pregnant on the 3rd month (after 3 1/2 years of trying with the last one). The only reason we missed the first two months was because of poor monitoring from my RE.
With our 4th, we did the same thing, and conceived the first month.
So I highly recommend the Femara. It works much better than clomid on a much smaller dose, plus it doesn’t turn you into the Incredible Hulk like Clomid does. I had a bit of an upset tummy when I first started using it, but it went away after I stopped the pills (unlike with Clomid, I felt like crud for weeks afterwards!)
Using PreSeed also helps because women with infertility issues often have something called hostile CM (where your “body” basically kills off the spermies before they can even get to where they need to be. PreSeed helps with this immensly.
Hope this helps, I’ll be checking back to see how you are!
Pamela
http://www.pcosinfo.com
Hi Pamela – Thanks for your comment. I have been on a few discussion boards, but for some reason can’t find too much info on Femara. Most of the women are using Clomid. I sort of see two results – women either get PG relatively quickly using Femara – or don’t get PG using anything! I hope I am the former!
I am heartened and optimistic when I hear about success stories like yours. We will probably go for a few cycles with Femara and if that doesn’t work, then use it with the HCG trigger shot. The BF is feeling “responsible” for these treatments because of his male factor infertility, but I know that it could just as well be me – so I don’t hold him responsible. I have told him that we should just go for it – including the trigger shot. We’re already in the process, so what’s one more thing?
I don’t feel we really have the luxury of time so I just want to do it!
I JUST bought PreSeed a few days ago, so we will be using that too. Whatever it takes! I was feeling a bit intimidated by the thought of taking Femara but it sounds a lot better than Clomid (from an emotional and success perspective). Thanks for your kind words!
We’ve been TTC for 13 months and did Femara this cycle, days 3-8. I had headaches every day and a little lower digestive abnormality but nothing severe. My doc skipped any clomid and went straight to the Femara because it was clear that I wasn’t ovulating every month. Maybe every-other month, but not all the time.
We used the Clear Blue Easy OPK and got our happy face last Tuesday. Now the waiting begins. If this month is a wash, we’ll add the HCG shot next month and do that again in November. If all that fails, we’ll move to IUI in December.
I found you via a blog search looking for other folks that have used femara. They’re hard to find!!
Good luck!
Hi Living With Wellness – What a relief to find people using Femara! I know my fertility clinic must be recommending it to their other patients, but since I don’t know the other patients, I haven’t had an outlet to discuss it. I think I ovulate every month, but my FSH is slightly elevated – so that’s why the RE suggested Femara.
We have been TTC for the last year and this will be our last natural (unmedicated) IUI. If it doesn’t work, then we’ll do Femara. And then if that doesn’t work – same as you – we’ll do Femara + HCG.
G/L with the 2 week wait!!!