Dr. Mo's Good News

My one spot of bright and shiney news out of the last week of madness...

Dr. Mo says it is totally realistic to think that JC's hormone levels could normalize on their own with weight loss. :::insert happy dance here:::

So now maybe fate will line everything up just right. I'll have radiation iodine treatment. JC will drop like 100lbs. and then we'll have babies the old fashioned way.

Maybe?

Stalking

I've started stalking the Urologist's office. We should find out today or tomorrow (cross your fingers for today) if JC's testosterone numbers have gone up since being on Clomid and Arimidex. We talked about it last night before going to be for like 5 minutes and I ended up in tears again. (duh- should have expected that) I can't help it- the anxiety builds up for me and I automatically assume the worst. We've had so much bad news this summer. I can't help but think that it will continue.

One call in to the doctor so far. I'm totally calling again after lunch.

The Nerves Return

JC goes for blood work tomorrow to see if the cocktail of drugs he's on is working to help his testosterone levels. Every step throws me back onto pins and needles. No idea what happens if this cocktail isn't working. But please throw out some good positive blood work thoughts for me, blog readers. I need all I can get.

Sike.

New Superman/Urologist is still my hero! So he called JC this morning to tell him that the numbers from his blood work *ARE* what he expected them to be and he should start taking the drugs ASAP and repeat blood work in 4 weeks. YEAH YEAH YEAH!

So this is good news. The best part is that hopefully JC will feel better. My hope is back.

Can I keep this up?

I've been waiting (impatiently, of course) to get the results of JC's blood work back from the new Hero/Urologist. I left his office last week feeling hopeful that we had at least found an explanation for the MFI and potential treatment for JC. I was hopeful that he could start taking these drugs and that regardless of having to wait for however long- that he would start feeling better. I left that office with hope.

JC's blood work shows that he's normal. Other than the Low T, everything else is normal. So Hero/Urologist theory = FAIL. Hope = FAIL.

How do I keep this up? I mean holy shiz- how many times can this happen? Get hope, get crushed. I'm ready to be done with this.

Hurry up and.........Wait.

I was so nervous about going to this doctor. I had already gone to the place in my head where he told me that we'd never have children. JC calls that "snowballing". I do it quite often.

So Dr. Ratner (my new hero and new Urologist) reviewed all our records, gave JC a quick once over, and asked some questions. And then he explained what he is 98% certain is the reason behind our problems. An enzyme called Aromatase. Dr. Ratner explained that men produce both testosterone and estrogen. They are usually in a ratio where the T is much higher than the E. In men that are overweight (like my JC) there is an over abundance of this enzyme called Aromatase that changes T into E and shrinks the ratio. Best thing is that there is a drug that can block the production of this enzyme and return the ratio to normal. The.Best.News.Ever. In combination with that- JC is going on Clomid to stimulate the production of FSH. This will help get his testicles working overdrive to make up for lost time (kinda...).

So we test drive this cocktail for a month and then repeat blood work. If the T #'s are up significantly- then we do another 3 months and repeat the SA to see if the increased T has helped our SA numbers.

Good Things About This Plan:
1. These drugs will help JC feel better without impacting our TTC plans. Yeah!
2. Worst case scenario- we know we can have IVF with ICSI.
3. This plan *could* increase his count enough for us to try IUI! HOLY CRAPOLA!
4. The test drive period lets us get everything with the house squared away and the last of our bills paid off in the mean time.

So if you've made it this far- you deserve a cookie.

Needless to say- great appointment for strange reasons. Now I hurry up and wait.

Break Down or Break Through?

What a busy weekend. Lots of time spent getting the house ready to sell. Painting and organizing. We're having a big yard sale this coming weekend so hopefully it will make us some cash in the process.

So Friday was supposed to be JC's 2nd SA. Except it wasn't. Apparently the clinical environment of the clinic didn't so much lead to the romantic setting needed to get the job done. He called me at work and yelled at me about how he couldn't do it. I was upset because he yelled at me. He was upset about the whole thing. We went to dinner that night and barely spoke to each other. He finally broke the silence and I told him that if I yelled at him every time I was pissed off about something that he wouldn't like it either. This isn't my fault and we need to learn how to deal with things like this in a better way. We spent dinner talking about how he is really feeling physically bad lately. Mood swings, fatigue- his weight is becoming more of an issue which is making his heartburn worse and more frequent. All things that I'm really concerned about (back to the chicken and egg post...).

Saturday night we went out with some friend and he had a few drinks (maybe more than a few). We got home and he let it all out- he's so sad about all of this. He feels broken. He feels like he has let me down. It was heart breaking to hear him talk about it. But at least he talked about it. I wish he would talk about it more. Maybe it might be easier for him.

I feel like I can't wait until January. I can't wait and just let him keep feeling worse and worse. It's not fair. So I'm going to ask my mom for help. Even just with the OOP meds and diagnostics. If she can loan us the money for that, then maybe we can start earlier and hopefully get my old husband back.

Chicken or the Egg?

I might be puking blog entries all over the place. Now that I've started updating, I feel like there is so much to say.

JC is making me nuts. I'm running into a "What came first- chicken or egg?" scenario with him. So we found out about the Low T. Check. Then we found out that he is having liver issues- Fatty Liver Disease- to be specific. He is gaining weight. He's tired all the time. And now is blaming it all on the Low T. Except he told me today that he had Popeye's for lunch. So what causes what? Low T causes all of this mess or being overweight is causing Low T, Fatty Liver, etc.? Chicken or Egg?

I know all his stuff is connected. The weight, the fatigue, the hormones...but at the same time- Popeye's isn't gonna help. SO frustrating for me because I know that if all of this is connected- then he's not doing all he can to change or fix the problem.

I have told him that I'm upset about this, but I can't nag him into submission. I can't force a 34 year old man to eat salads. He has to be in charge of what he puts in his mouth. (Ew. Gross. Sorry.) I can't be his mommy. I need a doctor to lay the hammer down on him. I'm really hoping that the urologist can enlighten us (with me asking all the proper leading questions, clearly).

Overdue Update

I knew I would be a blogging fail! I swear I'm going to try to keep up. It just means that my life is nuts-o right now.

So there is a lot to say at this point. Stay with me.

So we went to see the RE. SUPER nice doctor- Dr. Kahn. A lovely, good looking Indian man who was very attentive and explained everything very well. As I suspected, he told us that our only option would be IVF with ICSI. I am a total Google whore so I kind of knew that already. He explained everything to JC in non-medical IVF language which was also good. He never once said that he thinks it will be hard for us or there's a chance it won't work. He did say that it could take more than one cycle, but he was very hopeful. And I kind of loved that about him.

One of my big concerns about this whole thing is that JC's Low T is causing (or is a result of?) all kinds of other issues for him- fatigue, weight issues, etc. And because his count is so low- we can't treat the Low T without potentially crushing our hopes of using ICSI. This is really an issue because I also discovered at the RE that I have a 10 month waiting period on my insurance for any type of fertility coverage. Which means that none of the diagnostic testing or anything would be covered until the end of January of 2011. We can't treat the Low T until we can start IVF treatments. Best case- this puts us at March/April 2011. That's a long time for JC to go unchecked. So the RE is sending us to see a new uro that specializes in MFI. I'm super mega hoping that he can somehow help the Low T stuff without hurting our chances at ICSI any further. Fingers crossed for that.

So now we wait. JC gets all his stuff done in the meantime and we wait.

Blogging- Day 1

I've been inspired to blog. Lots of girls on TTGP have blogs and I love reading them. So I'm inspired. I hope I can maintain!

A little about me....
I'm Kathy (32) and my husband is Enrique (34) (*the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Really that means I'm not yet ok with putting all this out into the universe just yet). Enrique and I have been together for almost two and a half years now. We did everything fast- got engaged quickly, got married quickly, and now are trying to have our first baby. Except that isn't happening as quickly as I'd like it to. So this is about that journey.

Where are we so far? Lots of factors involved in our baby making efforts.
Just a few....
1. I have Rheumatoid Arthritis. I was told by my Rheumatologist that I could stay on my arthritis meds and be safe. I was told by my OB/GYN that I should be 100% off them. So I decided to lean toward the conservative side and I stopped all arthritis medication at the end of February. Yikes! The sore joints and mild pain is now setting in. The Rheumatologist just tells me that it's just about me balancing how much I can tolerate against how long it takes me to get pregnant. From what I've read- a majority of women go into remission while pregnant so that shouldn't be an issue. Right now- it's just a wait and see how I feel kind of a situation. It's definitely slowed me down and stopped me from doing some things I probably would have been doing if I was still being medicated. But it's tolerable. Crossing my fingers that it stays that way.

2. As part of a routine physical- I discovered that my thyroid is under active. Normal ranges for TSH are 0.4-4.5. Mine is around 4.6. Ideal levels for women who are TTC are lower than 2. So I'm currently taking Synthroid and treating that. Hopefully it will come down and won't turn into an issue.

3. Also as a part of a routine physical- Enrique discovered that he has low testosterone levels. I guess normal levels are around 750 and his is below 250. Bad news bears. His GP doctor immediately wanted to put him on supplements, but I quickly put the kabosh on that. I have SO many unanswered questions about this problem and it's impact to our TTC efforts. Enrique thinks it's best to go see a urologist about this so hopefully that will happen in the next week or so.

So as you see- lots of things to juggle at this point. The good news in all of this is that my body is working like it should be. I ovulate (based on my charts...) and am pretty regular so that hurdle is taken care of. Now just need to line up all the other ducks. I never expected this process to be as emotionally consuming as it has turned out to be. I'm in the middle of Cycle #4 and each time I get a negative test, it gets a bit harder to take. Enrique is even beginning to get visibly upset which is terrible to see. So hopefully things work out for us.