Hmmm, this is the second time I have titled a post optimistic. I don't know why but today I feel pretty optimistic. Maybe it's all the crazy talk from yesterday. I was reading a book last night called The Infertility Cure and reading stories of people with actual problems and they were getting pregnant. My only issue is a 10.1 FSH???? How can that be that bad? They are talking about people with an FSH in the 20's gettting pregnant. It just makes me think that the HSG may have done something, cleared things up. It's also making me wonder if I should do the IUI next month? I know I will but should I? I guess if I were a little more patient I might try the accupuncture a bit longer. Also as of today, no more than one cup of tea for caffeine a day. No more iced tea at lunch, just water. I would do that once I am pregnant so why not start now? I won't go crazy and give up milk though as is recommended by the accupuncturist... I can only stand so much crazy at a time. 9 more days until I know if the HSG helped :)

I remember at the end of my second cycle I bought a BBT (Basal Body Thermometer). I told Jamie I wouldn't go crazy and spend lots of money on TTC stuff so this was my compromise. $10 worth of crazy. I told him I just wanted to make sure I was ovulating. Well I was. A couple months later I sprang for the CBEFM (Clear Blue Easy Fertility Monitor) This was about $200 worth of crazy. I justified it by saying it would make me less obsessed about our timing. Also, everyone on BOTB (Babies on the Brain chat board) seemed to get pregnant the first month they used it. We would definitely get pregnant now!

So cycle 8 starts on my 34th birthday. I call an RE a few days later and book an appointment for Christmas break. My rational is that Jamie will be off work and can do any tests he needs to. If we wait the full year it will fall when he is working and he can't take any time during the week. $350 worth of crazy plus costs for tests.... about $600 total.

So here I am in cycle 10. I read online that acupuncture helps people get pregnant. Cost of crazy $150 for the first session and $85 every week thereafter.... I have no idea how much this will total to.

and it all started with $10.... and to think I thought we would save money in not buying birth control!!!!

So here is one more response I received to my high FSH question:
"I second the age/FSH connection (the younger you are, the less serious a higher FSH is). 10ish isn't too bad (it is considered "borderline high") but it does make most REs skip the "wait and see" approach and take action. I got pregnant on an injectible IUI cycle and my FSH was 11.3 at the age of 35. FYI, I have heard and read (and experienced first-hand) that Clomid does not make much of a dent in a high/borderline high FSH situation, so you may want to seriously consider going straight to injectibles."

OK, I feel a little better now. BTW, I am going to call an acupuncturist today and make an appointment!

So I posted this question on a couple of websites: "I was told yesterday that I have high FSH. It is 10.1. They want to have me do injectibles and IUI next cycle. I am ok with that but a little confused. I just did an HSG and my tubes were clear and I have confirmed ovulation. So why does it matter that the FSH is high? Would it still be possible to get pg on my own without doing the injectibles?" Here are some responses I got:
"High FSH indicates that you may have poor or "mature" egg quality. I believe the threshold for calling FSH "high" is 10."
"A high FSH number tends to indicate a diminished ovarian reserve, which means you may be harder to stimulate with fertility drugs. It is still possible to get pregnant naturally, but it may take longer. My RE usually suggests more aggressive treatments (injectables or IVF) when FSH is over 10."

So do I feel better now? I guess I feel more confident about the doctors plan of treatment but now I have to come to terms with having "mature" eggs. I'm only 34!!! WTF????

I was waiting on the bloodwork results and they just called, my FSH level was 10.1 and they like it lower than 10 so they are going to jump way ahead and have me do injectibles and IUI next cycle. I am a bit in shock. I thought I would just do clomid a couple of times first. Um, wow, don't know what to think. I am glad they are aggressive but it's a bit scary too. Since we will only try 3 times, we should be pregnant by May or.....

WOW, that was painful! But it was worth it. The HSG lasted about 5 minutes and it was excrutiating the whole time but as soon as it was over the pain ended. A friend of mine had pain for a few days so I guess I was pretty lucky. It was kind of cool to see it on the screen. The dye started in the uterus and then moved through the tubes. Everything is so small, it's amazing that anyone can get pregnant.

When I got home Jamie had the curtains drawn in the living room so I could curl up and watch TV. He had also bought stuff to make me soup, he wanted to spend the afternoon taking care of me. Ahhh, he's so sweet!

So now that I am all clear there, I am waiting for the doctor to call with the results from the blood test and the next steps.

I was looking at other blogs by people who are infertile. It is sad but it does make me feel alot better seeing that other people have it much worse. It does give you lots of hope seeing peoples stories about getting pregnant after 3 years or something. Anyways, my question ended up being, when are you considered infertile? I certainly don't think of myself as infertile but I am sure none of them did either in the first 10 months. I suppose if your tubes are ruined or something like that but what about people where everything looks normal but they just don't get pregnant? Is it after a year or 18 months? I guess I am thinking about this alot right now because I had the bloodwork done and I have the HSG tomorrow. I can't imagine anything being wrong on those. Will I feel worse if they come back and say everything looks good? THen what? Would I actually prefer them to say something is wrong with me? A little part of me says yes because then they could fix it. It just seems like a more actionable thing than nothing being wrong. Well I will find out tomorrow. Even though it is supposed to hurt like hell, I am looking forward to it. I want to know. I hate not knowing.

So it's 2007 and we just started cycle 10 yesterday. I know we WILL get pregnant this year! We have 12 months to do it and are starting fresh this month. I have bloodwork scheduled for tomorrow and an HSG (a test where they shoot dye into your tubes to see if they are blocked) on Monday. Once they have the results we can decide what to do next. Downside is they won't do anything this cycle but at least we are in the process.

On cuter news, I told Jamie that most people have names for their babies while they are pregnant. Not their real names just a name so you don't keep calling the baby "it" I've heard of bean, monkey, etc. Well I thought of something that I thought was quite clever. You will notice it is now the name of this blog! Get it... we will be expanding our family tree? Anyways, Jamie really liked it and so do I!