The Power of Information

Yesterday, I wanted to see what I could find out about the DaVinci surgery. You might know what it is if you watch Grey's Anatomy. In the 2009 season finale, the Chief bought one of these robotic surgery machines and it was a huge deal.

Now, I am not in the habit of researching the latest medical trends, but lately when I have been on hold for my doctor, I kept hearing one of their ads that 2 doctors in her practice now perform the DaVinci surgery. I then found that it can be used to remove big fibroids.

In fact, recovery is 4 weeks for the Da Vinci surgery versus 6 weeks for the open, c-section surgery. I asked my doctor about it. She and the fertility doctor that she has been consulting with are determining if it would work for me. That's why I needed an MRI.

Knowing that it could be an option, I did a search for fibroids and DaVinci surgery. I found a great website with hundreds of testimonials. I found it so incredibly helpful. You can also YouTube a video and watch a surgery being performed. Don't know why you would want to, but if you wanted to, you could.

This really got me thinking about how much my fertility process has been influenced with the Internet.

I started reading online months before TTC what I needed to do. When I started trying, I googled pregnancy symptoms, I joined babycenter.com and learned more than I ever thought existed about pregnancy, until I was fluent in the language (DH, DD, TTC, TWW, BFN, BFP). I learned about the Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor and read tons of reviews before I bought it. I then learned how to decipher it with a chat group. I charted my fertility with fertilityfriend.com. I researched people who had bleeding during miscarriages, miscarriages, trying to conceive after a miscarriage.

What I learned was many people, including myself, were just looking for hope. Someone who had their symptoms and turned out to be pregnant or someone who lost a baby but went on to have 3 healthy kids. Now I am looking for success stories of people who had their fibroids out after having miscarriages and went on to uneventful pregnancies.

It is funny how we learn to trust strangers in similar circumstances more than we sometimes trust our friends and doctors. I also wonder if I would even know how to get pregnant without the Internet. I have to be honest, I didn't remember much from Human Growth and Development in fifth grade and I think they were trying to teach us how to avoid, rather than achieve pregnancy.

I feel like this information I have garnered on the Internet has given me the power to make better decisions.

How to Chart Temperatures

Just yesterday I was talking with a friend who is about to start trying to conceive. She had heard about temping but didn't know how it works or why it works.


Here is what you need to get started:

• a Basal Digital Thermometer (which is different than a normal thermometer because it goes to a tenth of a degree, so instead of 98.6 it would show 98.67, which believe it or not, makes a difference)
  
• a note pad and pen by your bedside to record temperatures or I keep my iPhone by my bed and record it directly on www.fertiltyfriend.com


• I highly recommend a membership to http://www.fertilityfriend.com/ and if you send me an email, and I refer you, we both get 30 free days. They offer a free service and a premium service. I did the premium service from the get go because you get more features plus charting can get confusing and the premium members can post their charts and experts answer your questions. I have used their help about 3 times, so it has come in handy.

What does temping show?

Your body's temperature changes throughout your cycle. When you first start your period it might be higher and a little more erratic. A couple days in you will see it is pretty low (my is typically between 96.8 - 97.3 degrees). All of these temps for the most part should be in the same ballpark. Once you ovulate, a hormone, progesterone is released. This is a heat-inducing hormone, meaning it causes your body temperature to rise. You will start to notice that your temperatures go up sharply and stay up, which is called a sustained thermal shift.

There are some signs that might indicate you are pregnant based on the temperature shift such as an implantation dip. Sometimes between 7-12 days past ovulation (dpo), you have a sharp drop and then the next day it goes back up, it might mean the egg implanted and your temp briefly dropped. There is also a triphasic chart where around day 9-11 you have a second thermal shift upwards (you are getting even warmer) which might indicate that even more progesterone is coursing through you and you are pregnant. Big warning, I once had a triphasic chart and I was late by 5 days, and not pregnant. But someone with a triphasic chart is more often than not pregnant.

The other important thing to gain from temping is understand how your specific body works. I quickly learned that the day before I ovulate my temperature drops quite noticeably. This is great because it let me know I am super fertile that day. Additionally, on http://www.fertilityfriend.com/ you need to track other secondary signs, such as cervical mucus. Sounds disgusting but you get used to it. There are a bunch of different types but when the consistency is that of egg whites, stretchy and clear, ovulation is approaching. Some people feel ovulation pain or get headaches. You chart all this and over time you might identify patterns.

How Do You Chart

• Set a consistent wake time: you need to take your temp at the exact same time every morning. You have to do it first thing without moving around and don't stand up. Even 20 minutes might make a difference for you, it did for me. I made mine 5:30am because I needed to insure my husband wasn't up earlier, snoozing and waking me up. Keep in mind you need to do this on the weekends too. I would set my iPhone for 5:30 to do my temp and then my alarm clock for 6:20am to get up for work.


• Take your temp using a Basal Digital Thermometer with as little movement as possible. I have read only take one reading, because you will confuse yourself, but I did three because I found them to be inconsistent. At one point I bought a second thermometer and it was completely different from the other. So use just one thermometer but try multiple readings. I have included a link on the lower right hand side of this page for a basal thermometer at Amazon.com.


• Jot down your temperature or load directly into fertilityfriend.com on your phone or laptop.


• After you go the bathroom, check for cervical mucus (cm) and classify it. Then load it in www.fertilityfriend.com, along with your temp if you haven't done so already


• 3 days after ovulation (showing you have a sustained thermal shift) you will get crosshairs on www.fertilityfriend.com. Basically a red X and Y axis are draw and your ovulation date is pinpointed. I included an image of a chart for you to see what I mean. The vertical, Y axis is the date of ovulation. The horizontal, or X axis is the coverline. Seemingly, all temps (except maybe a few at the start of your cycle) should be below the coverline and temps after ovulation should be above the coverline.



• At this point, if you have the premium membership, you will get a pregnancy signs tracker that rates your symptoms.


• If the end of your cycle comes (typically 14dpo) one of two things happen, you will see a precipitous drop in temperature, this means your period is on its way and you should get it that day or the next OR your temps stay elevated which is a good indication you might be pregnant. But keep in mind so people have longer luteal phases and some have fluke cycles. By 14dpo, if you have held out this long, take a pregnancy test.

Some other points Fertiltyfriend.com

• you can track exercise. I love this feature now that I exercise a lot, but wasn't a fan when I wasn't exercising that much and saw other people who seemed to live for marking it on their chart. It does look good to look back and see how much you did


• You can take notes about anything like, "did 60 minutes on the elliptical" to "felt dizzy and had no appetite."


• You can mark a million ailments, like tender breasts, tired, increased appetite, all the little symptoms your might obsess over and convince yourself mean your are pregnant


• You can track doctor appointments


• You can look at other peoples charts in a chart gallery and search for people with similar patterns (which is helpful for the neurotic conceiver like myself). This might be a premium only feature, I am not sure.


• You can input test data, such as ovulation tests, pregnancy tests, and there is even a box for the Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor which you can select low, high, or peak. This helps your correlate all the data, such as knowing you get a peak generally 1 day before you ovulate, not the exact day of ovulation.

Charting helps you learn your body and to be more aware of primary and secondary fertility signs. If you are having trouble getting pregnant, I would definitely try this for a couple months before putting yourself through expensive and sometimes painful testing.

Drug Addicts and Newlyweds

There is a secret rage that simmers in almost everyone who is have fertility problems. Some people shoot daggers at the back of the heads of the pregnant friends and co-workers. Others have visions of sticking a voodoo doll with pins each time someone innocently asks when they are going to have kids.

I have previously have been irked by those married 5 minutes and then announce their pregnancies. I have matured since then. I save my fertility angst for drug addicts and people who are clearly horrible parents.

You might be asking yourself what kind of crowd do I hang with. My crowd is comprised of all upstanding citizens. So where do I find these derelicts? TV of course.

My husband is obsessed with the TV show Intervention on A&E. If you haven't seen the show, it is a documentary (new one each week) of a person with an addiction (from eating disorders, heroin, to sniff paint cans). I get infuriated when I see people doing meth and are pregnant or already have kids. This is a common occurance on the show. It makes my blood boil and I just want to have an "it's not fair" tantrum.

Then there is the local news. This past week in Chicago, a story came out about a woman who abandon her baby with the umbilical cord still attached. I understand some people are in bad situations, but it just the cruelest irony that it was horribly easy for the abandoner to get pregnant and they don't even want that gift, and it is horribly difficult for me to have a baby and I want it more than anything.

Feel free to rant with me. What type of pregnant people or parents irk you most?

I'm Down with HSG- Yeah You Know Me

Yesterday was the big day I have been building to for 1.5 months - the HSG.

I worked from home in the morning and then when I went to leave to pick my husband up, I couldn't find my keys. I looked around like a crazy person, called my husband accusing him of taking my keys, and then looked through the garbage. Turns out they were under a magazine on the kitchen counter. Point being, I was so nervous after what I had heard and read.

I might have mentioned it in a previous post but my friend at work told me to "bring a towel or stuffed animal to bite into (for the pain)" and that she screamed "get it out" during the procedure. And she is not a girly girl. She likes hiking and things don't seem to phase her much.

Okay, so we get to the hospital and my husband seems more concerned with getting something to eat than my apprehension. I told him to grab food and meet be back in the waiting room.

So the test is in the radiology department, not the OB department. They give you a pager, like you are at the Cheesecake Factory. Greg came back carrying a tray with tortellini and was lamenting that they advertised a taco salad but they ran out (his biggest concern of the day) and before I could get pissy, my pager went off.

Next I am escorted into a dingy locker room. They gave me a hospital gown to put on and sock booties. It was weird, because you put this stuff on and instantly feel like there is something wrong with you. After changing, you are ushered into the ladies locker room waiting area. I was there for about twenty minutes and they called me. BTW, at no point did I have the option of bringing in my husband- maybe because of the radiation.

As the escorting nurse led me through the hall, I looked like a scared sheep. She said, "you look nervous". I said, "I heard this is excruciating". She said, "I am not going to lie, it hurts, but you'll be okay." Unconvinced, I shuffled on in my hospital booties.

Once inside the room, my regular Ob was there, clad in a radiation vest you wear at the dentist.

You climb up on a stool and onto an x-ray table. They essentially put your butt on what looks like a puppy pad. The doctor told me the results would need to be discussed with a radiologist.

Getting back to the pain, the doctor said this will give me a glimpse into childbirth without an epidural and the nurse said if I have to practice my opera singing (meaning screaming), go ahead.

I asked the doctor if it would hurt the whole time or just when the fluid went in and she said the whole time but different types of pain.

That was then I started practicing the Lamaze breathing you see on TV. I had flashbacks to the Cosby Show episode when Alvin, Theo and Cliff were pregnant. You might recall one gave birth to a boat and one a sub-sandwich.

I have to say, given how this was built up, it wasn't that bad. It hurt but I kept breathing deeply. And before I knew it, it was over. I think it took 8 minutes.

Results: My fibroid is huge and covering a tube and part of my uterus. Since it is impinging on my uterus it has to come out via surgery.

Next steps: My doctor is going to consult with a fertility doctor (I haven't met with a fertility doctor yet, but my doctor will make the contact)this week and get back to me by end of week to tell me what their consensus is (type of surgery).

Afterwards, I felt crampy. But not horrible at all.

Bottom line was, it really isn't that bad. Take 2 Advil before you go in and try to relax during the procedure. I wouldn't rush to do it again, but if a friend had to have it, I would say, it isn't so bad, it will hurt for a couple minutes, but nothing you can't handle.

If you have questions I didn't address, drop a comment and I will get back to you.