And the winner is...

Actually a blend of two options I listed last week. Mr b^3 results came in on Tuesday, (yes I know I should have informed the world immediatly, but I had an essay to write) and to quote the Dr, it's "not quite what they should be for someone his age." i.e. we have male factor infertility. One of my goals for the year has been to get an answer for why we haven't got a baby yet. Now we have and answer and its only March. One of my biggest fears going into all this testing was that we would come back with unexplained infertility. The idea of not knowing the answer was something my little investigative, scientist heart quailed at.
So, what we do now is, I still get to have the laproscopy and then we'll go for a couple of rounds of IUI which should bring our per cycle chances of conceiving up a fair way from where they are now. We don't have the actual numbers yet for most of the tests but I'll get them off the Dr when I see her next week. We want them to do a bit of our own lit. review to get a feel for what we're doing and where we're going. I have access to an academic medical library and I'm not afraid to use it!
Actually reviewing journal papers at uni for infertility stuff has proved a bit productive. For one of my courses I have to pick a scientific paper that uses computer modeling in it and then try to replicate the computer model myself. I found a great paper describing in exact detail how some scientists modeled womens fertility rates as they aged that will be perfect.
I think that is it, talk to you next week.

We went to see the OB

Sorry for not posting earlier, I was still feeling sick all week.
We went and had our next appointment with the OB on Tuesday, and the result is that I'm hormonally fine, I "ovulate beautifully" I think was the term she used. This rules out a pet theory of mine that the reason I wasn't getting pregnant was that I am conceiving, but miscarring due to not enough progestorone, hence explaining why I get sick. It seems that I actually have plenty of progestorone to go round and it might be this abundance of it that makes me sick. I was activly retching everday from Monday last week to yesterday, which was really weird, seeing how my cycle ended on Friday, cramps and nausea are not a lot of fun. My FSH was 8, a bit on the high side of very good, but at least I'm not exactly headed into early menopause. Mr b^3's results hadn't come in yet because we didn't realise that it would take two weeks to get them and had scheduled his test four days before the appointment.

So, where does all that leave us? If Mr b^3 passes his test and is all fine, then we are left with thus far unexplained infertility and I get to have a laproscopy to take a look at the cyst on my left ovary and check for endometriosis and my tubal patency while we're at it. The Dr doesn't think that the cyst is impairing our fertility at all, but it's a bit of a puzzle and won't fit into any nice catagory. Course of action after that might be a couple of rounds of IUI, but given the cost and the likly success rate for unexplained infertility, I think I might prefer to go spend the money on a hundred OPK's and give it another go ourselves for a bit. If mr b^3 fails the test and is producing zip, then it's game over and we go spend money on counciling and traveling the world. If the results of the test arn't good (i.e. a count below about 5 million) then we go straight to IVF and I get to skip the laproscopy, as the condition of my fallopian tubes isn't important for IVF. The Dr is going to call sometime in the next week to tell us where we're at and what we need to do next.
I not feeling sick this morning, thank God, but now I have a lecture to go to.

Pass the bucket.

Just a short post to note that I feel incredibly nauseous again today. I have no hope that I might be pregnant and fully expect to be writhing in the agony of period pain by the end of the week. I've never been pregnant when this has happened before, why should it be this time? Pre-menstral nausea just sucks. I was feeling just a bit queasy yesterday and so missed church. This morning I was fine until I got to the bus stop, where I started to dry heave and Mr b^3 sent me home. A sit down, glass of water and some scotch finger biscuits courtsy of Betsy (aka my sister, who lives with us), and I was pretty right to go in an hour later. Now it is almost 1pm and I almost threw-up in the computer lab, not the nicest way to be. Sometimes I regret that I have a strong stomach, I haven't actually thrown-up since I was about 12 but it would sound better to say that I threw-up when calling in sick, rather than I almost threw-up.

Spreading the word

You know how I said, Wednesday's will be for blogging? Forget it. I now have a solid block of classes in the morning before running off to work for the rest of the day. I may fit in a regular block on Fridays to attend to the blog, which will explain perfectly why I'm writing this on a Thursday.

This morning I got out my knitting on the bus because I couldn't sit next to Mr B^3 and I'd forgotten to refill my shuffle. The woman I was sitting next seemed to be taking great interest in the tiny sock I was working on (with my new Addi turbos!). She couldn't knit but had seen her mother-in-law from Croatia knit socks and had always wanted to learn. I didn't exactly have the time to teach her on the bus, but I did get to tell her about all of the knitting resources on the internet, in particular knitting about.com which I don't tend to visit very much anymore but it has lots of instructions with pictures and free patterns. I found it a useful site when I was first getting back into knitting 5 years ago.


Did I mention my new addi turbos? They are so worth the lightsabre noise that Brenda at cast on uses. I even managed to buy them from an Australian store. Two circ sock knitting is so much easier with these things. Well worth three weeks pocket money. (Yes, I get pocket money to spend on knitting things. Mr b^3 gets pocket money to, to spend on the computer and me. Yes, I think this is totaly fair.)

Lookit, lookit, almost a whole post about knitting with nary a word said about the state of my uterus. Don't hold your breath though, I'll get back to that later.

Wednesday is for blogging, really

I was going to try to write every week on Wednesday, but it just escaped me this week, so you get the in depth of my life on a Friday for a change.

I've had a bit of a crisis of faith this week. One of the blogs I used to read a lot was Arwen/Elizabeth . I stopped reading her blog about a month ago because I found her frustraiting. I have a lot in common with her. We're both christian, young, married and trying to get pregnant without any success. I found it so difficult to read her blog after a while because she wouldn't seek a diagnosis for what ever it was that was making it difficult to concieve. She just kept praying, crying and trusting in God. A couple of days ago I wandered past her blog, and oh my goodness, she's pregnant. Which is really, really wonderful news for having tried for so long.

My crisis of faith was this. Am I doing something wrong to just be rushing into the arms of ART to get pregnant? Have I trusted God enough to lead my life? How can I, as a bible study leader, or even as a Christian, be telling people to trust in God, when I clearly haven't in this part of my life? Should we just keep waiting? Can you be trusting in God and use ART?
The questions go on in endless permutations, but you probably get my point.
It's one area where I'm finding it interesting to balance my one side as a scientist (I want to know everything in as minute detail as possible) and the other side as a commited christian (who belives in miracles and has faith in God to direct my life).
The conclusion I've come to is that I forgot God. I got so wrapped up in the idea of having kids that I forgot to include God in this part of my life. At the first it was so easy, stop the pill, get pregnant, have baby, we can do it on our own. Then as things have gotten harder, but only in gradual steps, I kept forgetting God, we can do it on our own, we'll just take tests, do IVF and science will win the day. It took Arwens example to wake me up to what had happened. I don't want to pray "I want a baby", I want to pray for guidence, for it to be alright, what ever happens.
This isn't to say that I'm canceling my OB's appointments and we're going to give up on ART, not at all. Rather, I've realised that whether or not we have children will be entirely up to God, by what ever method they come about and that I want to include Him in the process.
I'm sure I'll have more to write on this in coming months.

In knitting news, I've finished my candy stripped socks! They ended up being pretty much fraternal, but if you squint hard they look almost the same. I'm posting from uni, so I don't have pictures. I'm currently working on a pair of small socks from the leftovers, 36 stitch socks go fast, I'm almost done.
The sideways spencer is yet again, almost done. I'm almost finished the seaming, then it's only about 100 rows of ribbing to go. I might yet get it done this week, I'm begining to want it in the mornings.
And thats about it for today.