Today is another big day, but before I start that discussion let me update you all.
Tuesday the 10th, we had an appointment scheduled in order to have a semen analysis done. We traveled to REACH, checked in, and was immediately able to go to the lab. Here, we were taken to a small area off the sitting room to sign some documents, where my husband had to initial his labels for the sample to be collected. These labels were applied to our forms and also to our cup. We were then able to pick a room and get started. This was the most awkward moment I have had in my entire life! How are you suppose to feel while trying to get your husband off in a very tiny, small room with 1980's pornos and Playboy magazines that absolutely suck?! The atmosphere did not exactly put either of us in the mood so we had to tough it out. Pretending this task was one of our dying wishes or fantasies was the only way to trudge through this debacle. So instead of going to medical school for the PA program, I instantly became a sexy MD and worked as a "doctor" for a day! : ) Knowing the importance of the sample urged us forward too. Hmmm, I am wondering could this already be counted as a sacrifice for our children? Ha ha ha! This experience was very interesting and one that I will never forget!
Yesterday around 4 pm, I received a call from REACH about our results. One of our nurses, Mary, wanted to schedule us an appointment for this Friday to talk about the results. Once again my heart stopped and I could not breathe. I hate receiving calls like this and getting no hint or indications on whether the discussion will be good or bad. Her tone conveyed that perhaps the news will be bad news. Since we are going on our cruise, we had to schedule the appointment on the 31st, which is a whole 19 days away!! Ah the anticipation is going to kill me. I will worry, worry, and worry some more on our vacation. I almost wish I had not answered that call. I wish I had ignored it, but I know that would not have gotten us anywhere. It is so ironic that I can be a warrior at one moment and a scared little girl the next. I guess it is true, I am a jelly bean just like my husband likes to call me. I am hard on the outside, but once my shell is penetrated I am so soft on the inside. Yes, we will have to wait unfortunately to get the results, but when we do receive them, I will make sure I share!
Anyways, on a more exciting note, this day is one among many! A very special day where new adventures begin. Today we will head to Miami, FL for our cruise that sails on Saturday the 14th (our 2 year wedding anniversary yay!). I can not tell you all how excited, happy, joyous, anxious that I am. Though I love to travel, it seems like I rarely take vacations, so I am looking forward to this much needed retreat full of relaxation. I can not wait to see the ocean. I love the ocean and water in general. I am your average swimmer, but I love the sights of huge bodies of water. They seem edgeless, limitless, are mysterious, and full of wonder. I could not imagine myself going deep into the ocean because of the heavy, deep darkness, but I love seeing the images of deep sea diving. I also look forward to exploring Miami and seeing what all this city has to offer. On the cruise ship, I look forward to the food the most. I love to eat!! I can not wait to play bingo and explore Ocho Rios, Jamaica and the Grand Cayman Islands with my family. Overall, I know this trip and these days will be one among many joyous days. Surrounding yourself with love, family, and good times helps you to keep going. I plan to do that and much more!
~Until next time
Showing posts with label Cruise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cruise. Show all posts
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Monday, December 9, 2013
Prepare, prepare, prepare
Prepare, prepare, prepare! It seems like all I have been doing lately is preparing.
I am struggling so very hard to prepare for my finals at school. I attend York Tech here in Rock Hill, SC. I am taking one of the last few classes needed as prerequisites for my admission into the Physician Assistant program at MUSC in Charleston, SC. I hope that by the next application cycle (Early Oct. 2014) I will be fully ready! Currently, I am also seeking a shadowing or volunteering position to observe a PA working. In other words, I am extremely busy preparing for my future career!
In five days, our two year wedding anniversary will be here! I am so excited! We are finally taking a much needed trip that could be technically considered our honeymoon. Hmmm so could I call this vacation our anni-moon? Anyways, the trip we are taking is a cruise! Thursday night we will be leaving to travel to Miami, Fl. We will spend a day in Miami and then on Saturday the 14th (exactly our two year wedding anniversary), we will set sail on the Carnival Victory for five days. Our cruise destinations are Ocho Rios, Jamaica and the Grand Cayman Islands. I can not express how excited I feel, yet I can express how saddened I feel.
I can not help but feel saddened. With the dawning of our two year anniversary, it also almost marks the two year anniversary of us deciding to try to conceive. It feels like so much longer, but we are only two years into our dreadful infertility war. Who knows maybe history might be repeated and this will turn into a seven year or ten year war, except exchanging the bloodshed and bodies for tears and failed attempts. Indeed I have been preparing. I have been preparing for yet another disappointment in our infertility journey. I am waiting, waiting, and impatiently waiting some more for the unwanted, bad results we are bound to receive.
After our first, initial doctor's appointment, I received a call on Friday, December 6th. Since I was at work, the call went to my voicemail. It was a call from one of the nurses on our infertility team at REACH. She wanted to discuss some results from my blood test. OMG! Terror had gripped my insides and for a moment I could not breathe. My body stopped functioning and I panicked! I had never received a call pertaining to results from a blood test. I always received my other blood results in the mail, so I thought the worse. I feared that this was it, I would find the answer to our infertility problems: my malfunctioning body. I debated forever whether I would return the call. My husband, Willie, urged me to call, but I did not want to know especially if the results would be devastating. Once home, I returned the call and left a voicemail for my infertility team. Then I was off to shop with my favorite Canadian, Samantha, for a formal dress for the captain's dinner to be held on our cruise. While I was trying to unsuccessfully squeeze into a small, one shoulder white dress with gold designs trailing the arm, I received the return call. There in the dressing room, with my head halfway through the dress, my breasts smashed flat, and my arm dangling through the top of the dress, I received the results with bated breath. My nurse was relaying the results from the AMH (Anti-Mullerian Hormone) test. For those of you who are new to the world of infertility and its jargon (like me) the site, createhealth.org, describes AMH as the following:
Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH) is a protein hormone produced by granulosa cells (cells lining the egg sacs or follicles) within the ovary. AMH can be measured in the blood at any time in the menstrual cycle as it is stable throughout the cycle. It is a marker for ovarian (egg) reserve.
Ovarian reserve testing, as defined by the American Society of Reproductive Society is:
Ovarian Reserve Testing: When attempting to test for a woman’s ovarian reserve, the clinician is trying to predict whether she can produce an egg or eggs of good quality and how well her ovaries are responding to the hormonal signals from her brain.
Another take on these two topics from thebump.com is:
AMH, or by its full name, Anti-Mullerian Hormone, is a hormone that’s produced by small follicles in the ovaries. It’s not something you’d tend to spend a lot of time thinking about, unless you’re debating trying IVF, in which case AMH’s importance goes up substantially. Fertility doctors use a blood test to measure your levels of AMH as a way to help determine your ovarian reserve -- or approximately how many eggs you have to work with. The higher your AMH level, the more follicles you have, and therefore the higher your potential remaining egg supply. And an AMH test is an indicator of the quantity of your eggs, not the quality.
The foreign results, a number given to me and coined "very good", was either a 42 or 43 (at the moment I can not remember). I was ecstatic that this was good results even if I did not understand what it truly meant. At the conclusion of my shopping trip, I researched the results and createhealth.org provided this:
Interpretation of AMH results (As per TDL Laboratories, London)
This description of the AMH results does indeed show that my score of either 42 or 43 is "very good" or featured in the "optimal fertility" category. This newfound information was a huge relief for me. It helped to clarify my results and put me at ease, if only for a little while.
Lately I have prepared, prepared, and prepared, but I realize that some things in my life I can not prepare for. I knew that these results would be horrible, yet was pleasantly surprised. I guess you can not foresee the small blessings in life. Many times I am so optimistic, while other times I am surely counting down for the dawning of judgment day and the end of my world. From now on though, I think I will prepare myself for brighter outcomes because sometimes you have to have a little faith.
~Until next time....
I am struggling so very hard to prepare for my finals at school. I attend York Tech here in Rock Hill, SC. I am taking one of the last few classes needed as prerequisites for my admission into the Physician Assistant program at MUSC in Charleston, SC. I hope that by the next application cycle (Early Oct. 2014) I will be fully ready! Currently, I am also seeking a shadowing or volunteering position to observe a PA working. In other words, I am extremely busy preparing for my future career!
In five days, our two year wedding anniversary will be here! I am so excited! We are finally taking a much needed trip that could be technically considered our honeymoon. Hmmm so could I call this vacation our anni-moon? Anyways, the trip we are taking is a cruise! Thursday night we will be leaving to travel to Miami, Fl. We will spend a day in Miami and then on Saturday the 14th (exactly our two year wedding anniversary), we will set sail on the Carnival Victory for five days. Our cruise destinations are Ocho Rios, Jamaica and the Grand Cayman Islands. I can not express how excited I feel, yet I can express how saddened I feel.
I can not help but feel saddened. With the dawning of our two year anniversary, it also almost marks the two year anniversary of us deciding to try to conceive. It feels like so much longer, but we are only two years into our dreadful infertility war. Who knows maybe history might be repeated and this will turn into a seven year or ten year war, except exchanging the bloodshed and bodies for tears and failed attempts. Indeed I have been preparing. I have been preparing for yet another disappointment in our infertility journey. I am waiting, waiting, and impatiently waiting some more for the unwanted, bad results we are bound to receive.
After our first, initial doctor's appointment, I received a call on Friday, December 6th. Since I was at work, the call went to my voicemail. It was a call from one of the nurses on our infertility team at REACH. She wanted to discuss some results from my blood test. OMG! Terror had gripped my insides and for a moment I could not breathe. My body stopped functioning and I panicked! I had never received a call pertaining to results from a blood test. I always received my other blood results in the mail, so I thought the worse. I feared that this was it, I would find the answer to our infertility problems: my malfunctioning body. I debated forever whether I would return the call. My husband, Willie, urged me to call, but I did not want to know especially if the results would be devastating. Once home, I returned the call and left a voicemail for my infertility team. Then I was off to shop with my favorite Canadian, Samantha, for a formal dress for the captain's dinner to be held on our cruise. While I was trying to unsuccessfully squeeze into a small, one shoulder white dress with gold designs trailing the arm, I received the return call. There in the dressing room, with my head halfway through the dress, my breasts smashed flat, and my arm dangling through the top of the dress, I received the results with bated breath. My nurse was relaying the results from the AMH (Anti-Mullerian Hormone) test. For those of you who are new to the world of infertility and its jargon (like me) the site, createhealth.org, describes AMH as the following:
Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH) is a protein hormone produced by granulosa cells (cells lining the egg sacs or follicles) within the ovary. AMH can be measured in the blood at any time in the menstrual cycle as it is stable throughout the cycle. It is a marker for ovarian (egg) reserve.
Ovarian reserve testing, as defined by the American Society of Reproductive Society is:
Ovarian Reserve Testing: When attempting to test for a woman’s ovarian reserve, the clinician is trying to predict whether she can produce an egg or eggs of good quality and how well her ovaries are responding to the hormonal signals from her brain.
Another take on these two topics from thebump.com is:
AMH, or by its full name, Anti-Mullerian Hormone, is a hormone that’s produced by small follicles in the ovaries. It’s not something you’d tend to spend a lot of time thinking about, unless you’re debating trying IVF, in which case AMH’s importance goes up substantially. Fertility doctors use a blood test to measure your levels of AMH as a way to help determine your ovarian reserve -- or approximately how many eggs you have to work with. The higher your AMH level, the more follicles you have, and therefore the higher your potential remaining egg supply. And an AMH test is an indicator of the quantity of your eggs, not the quality.
The foreign results, a number given to me and coined "very good", was either a 42 or 43 (at the moment I can not remember). I was ecstatic that this was good results even if I did not understand what it truly meant. At the conclusion of my shopping trip, I researched the results and createhealth.org provided this:
Interpretation of AMH results (As per TDL Laboratories, London)
| Ovarian fertility potential | Values per 2nd generation assay (TDL) |
| Optimal fertility | 40.04-67.9pmol/l |
| Satisfactory fertility | 21.98-40.03pmol/l |
| Low fertility | 3.08-21.97pmol/l |
| Very low/undetectable | 0.0-3.07pmol/l |
This description of the AMH results does indeed show that my score of either 42 or 43 is "very good" or featured in the "optimal fertility" category. This newfound information was a huge relief for me. It helped to clarify my results and put me at ease, if only for a little while.
Lately I have prepared, prepared, and prepared, but I realize that some things in my life I can not prepare for. I knew that these results would be horrible, yet was pleasantly surprised. I guess you can not foresee the small blessings in life. Many times I am so optimistic, while other times I am surely counting down for the dawning of judgment day and the end of my world. From now on though, I think I will prepare myself for brighter outcomes because sometimes you have to have a little faith.
~Until next time....
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