12.20.2012

It's Back (TEBB) and an ap for charting! *UPDATED

Welcome back to my ramblings, if anyone is still listening :) As much as I love Christmas, this blog doesn't have much to do at all with the season this Advent. It continues to be a resource for those going through Napro (what I have learned to make things easier), a journey of success to bring individuals to Napro, and a general documentation of all things fertility/infertility for myself and my blog besties. Of course all from a Catholic perspective. So sorry, no Advent activities for children here (though I like reading other's blogs on those things). I limit myself to mostly things that are too much information for the general population :) I love supporting and helping anyone with questions, and I appreciate the support you all provide me. You get it like no one else! So, Merry Christmas to you all. I am forever grateful for your friendship!!!  On with the show...

His will. Not mine. His plan. Not mine. Help me to desire it (what prayer does that line come from? It was beautiful!) Well, I know I'd like to think it would be smooth sailing this time, but I know better. I am a good mix of hopeful and cautious, I think. At least I try to be. I didn't realize I was assuming I would get pregnant, its the stay pregnant part I was more worried about. All this waiting to get the green light was hard, but I try to look at the bright side and make the most of it. Like whiten my teeth. Cause, yeah, that's the counterweight to being pregnant. Okay, clearly not really. But I do try to distract myself with such things (drinks out, coffee, cookie dough...). And it worked alright. So this was my green light cycle. I dreamed of a Christmas conception. Wouldn't that be nice? Except, "what to my wondering eyes should appear" (yes, if I was more cleaver I could have rhymed the whole post, but I lucky to get any thoughts down on "paper" at all these days, so you have to take what I can give), but tail end brown bleeding.

Grrrrr!  I was in shock. You see, despite us being very very cautious about infection now that we know what we know, I have not had TEBB since our first 21 day dose of Biaxin. Yes, we were extremely fortunate we were not traveling to NY for a $20k treatment. And ever since then bright red blood during my cycles that I never knew could exist. Even on VL days it was pink! Never brown. It was that way to conceive Charlie. It was that way to conceive AJ. And then I had TEBB post surgery (on the cycle we conceived Gianna, whom we lost). We were told it was the surgery, it was common. But how would I know if surgery spread the infection? We had our loss. It could have been that. Could have been no cycle day 1-10 antibiotics. Could have been other meds missing. Could have been all of it. Regardless, I was quite shocked to see TEBB while on Biaxin. Two days, one observation each day. Ugh.

I am waiting to hear from Dr. H. I called Dr. Hilger's office the day before yesterday and the nurse called back today. We will see what he recommends. It sounded like maybe another 21 days. I figured we would have to avoid during, but the nurse said maybe not. it's a class B drug. I don't know how I feel about that. Don't want to wait, but would much rather wait if there is a risk and let there be more of it in our systems. My greatest fear is to reduce the infection but not kill it off so that it multiplies while I am pregnant and takes the baby later on. My heart can't take another loss, certainly not a late loss where you have hope and then...As the infection gets worse the babies pass earlier. This is what Dr. Toth told me and why we lost our Michael post heart beat (10 to 11 weeks) whereas Gabby's hcg never really doubled right.  The infection worsened because we weren't treating. We didn't know then what we know now. I trust Dr. Hilgers.  We will see what he says.  For now, we avoid very carefully as I already took Clomid.

FYI, please pray for my neighbor. God continues to surround my folks experiencing IF. My next door neighbor was fairly fertile before. However, with each child her cycle bleeding got worse to the point she now bleeds heavily her entire cycle. They have tried pills and stronger pills, doing nothing, and now likely a D&C is in her future. They have ruled out serious causes (not Catholic, no Napro going on here) and it has been a whole 2 1/2 years of this (since her daughter, who is her 2nd, was born). I feel for her. I understand her heart aching at the fact that there is no baby in her crib for the first time in over 5 years and no baby in her belly either. She is a very faithful woman and carries this cross gracefully. Please pray 2013 brings healing for her (and for me) as I will for all of you that wait. St. Raphael, pray for us!

Oh, and a little Christmas present for all of us. While Dr. Hilgers still doesn't (appear at least) to have moved forward on the ap for Creighton model charting, a friend of mine and FertilityCare practitioner clued me in this week to an ap on her iphone that was close enough to Creighton to work. Best yet, it emails the chart to your doc (something I do monthly via excel anyway). It's called MyFertilityMD. I know it costs about $5, totally worth it. I didn't see it in the Android Google Play Store, but I imagine it will be coming. Hopeful anyway. Merry Christmas, everyone, if I don't talk to you before!

***UPDATE***
Sorry for the delay in updating, but I am sure with Christmas you had more important things on your mind :) Dr. Hilgers nurse scripted 14 days of Cipro for dh and I (since we haven't done the 21 day treatment in awhile that was the first step; they just ended up doing a variation of that with another drug to be extra safe it wasn't a resistance or something, I think). We have never done this antibiotic. Surprisingly, she said we could ttc this cycle on it (its a class B drug), even though I would only be four or five days in or so by that point. I told myself I would trust what they said, they have all the facts and I don't, so another leap of faith now ttc and not avoiding this month. I don't know how long I will have until my tubes block again so here we go...Andrea, I am not opposed to NY (do you recall we haven't ever been treated there with washes and such?) and believe ideally we should do this. However, where I think dh may have done it back in 2006, with two beautiful blessings I could see him calling it good and being done. In all fairness, I didn't ask because that wasn't what was recommended to us and I trust Dr. Hilgers immensely. The first time he told us about Dr. Toth, he said either do 21 days of antibiotics or go to NY. We called Toth/NY and he agreed with Dr. Hilgers so I feel Dr. Hilgers will tell us to do NY if that's what he thought was best. Again, its all an act of trust. Trying to balance advocating for myself and facilitating communication between the doctors without telling them what to do...hard for me. :)

4 comments:

stacym88 said...

You are in my prayers. It is this statement that summed it up for me and made me realize once again that I have much work to do in trusting God and His plan, "I didn't realize I was assuming I would get pregnant, its the stay pregnant part I was more worried about." I'm right there with you on this one. This month has been a total bust and I was already planning my due date...hah, God showed me who's in charge...definitely NOT me!

Anonymous said...

Hi there,
I am so sorry to hear about your TEBB. Let me know what Dr. H says. I am wondering if it would be a good idea for you to go to NYC for a couple of washes?
Andrea Starosciak

E said...

I hate TEBB. Yuck. Abx are good, hopefully that's all you need!
I went back this summer for 5 washes and IV, no brown bleeding and I'm feeling good. We'll see about the conception...

Anonymous said...

Hi there,
I think your plan is perfect. Dr. Hilgers knows your situation better than anyone and I would trust him 100%. I hope you are doing well on the Cipro!
In Christ,
Andrea