There's this thing called secondary infertility

Who knew?  I feel so naive thinking over a year ago that it would be easy to have a second child.   Update: still NOT pregnant.  I'm still charting using the Creighton Model and still love how much more it lets me know/understand my cycles.  I used Creighton for a little over 4 months before getting the ok from my teacher to see the doctor for testing.  I switched to a Catholic gyno who knows the Creighton Model.  She looked over my charts and ordered a whole slew of tests. 

Test Cycle 
Nov. 29th : Standard cycle day 3 blood test (tests levels for all the essential hormones in your cycle)
Dec. 3rd : Hysterosalpingogram, aka HSG (a series of x-rays the document how a dye runs through your uterus and out the fallopian tubes, used to check for blockage of the tubes)
Dec.7th (4 days before ovulation) : Estrogen and Progesterone blood test
Dec. 9th (2 days before ovulation) : Estrogen and Progesterone blood test
Dec. 11th (ovulation) : Estrogen and Progesterone blood test
Dec. 13th (2 days after ovulation) : Estrogen and Progesterone blood test
Dec. 14th (3 days after ovulation) : Progesterone blood test
Dec. 16th (5 days after ovulation) : Progesterone blood test
Dec. 18th (7 days after ovulation) : Progesterone blood test
Dec. 20th (9 days after ovulation) : Progesterone blood test
Dec. 22nd (11 days after ovulation) : Progesterone blood test
Sometime during this cycle: Sperm analysis for the hubby 

Dec. 28th : Test results
*  All of my pre ovulation hormones are fine (yay!)
*  The HSG showed my left fallopian tube is blocked. :(  Not quite sure how since the main causes of that are usually endometriosis (my dr. said she didn't see any evidence of endo. during my annual exam) or pelvic inflammatory disease (caused by chronic vaginal infections - which I haven't had, or by an STD - also never had).   
*  Post ovulation hormones not as good as the pre.  Diagnosis: Low progesterone.  :(
*  Hubby's SA came back with a slightly low count

Fixing us
Blocked fallopian tube: May be able to fix through sugery, though I'm a little leary of surgery, so since I still have one working tube, we're holding off on this.  Hopefully things will work out without surgery.  I have done a little research on my own and found this great fertility self massage that claims it can open a blocked tube, so I've been doing that occasionally in the evenings.
Low progesterone: I'm taking a 200mg once daily vaginal progesterone suppository.  I started this last cycle from 3 days after ovulation until the end of my cycle and had a blood test to see if it was working on 7 days after ovulation.  It worked!  So I'll keep on this same regimin for now and *when* I finally get pregnant will probably have to stay on it for some of the pregnancy.
Low sperm count: Hubby was referred to a urologist.  The urologist confirmed a double variocele (1 on each side, from what I understand it's basically varicose veins in the scrotum, but does not cause any health problems or pain, just occasionally low sperm count.  The urologist also said that hubby's sperm count was actually not too low, just slightly below average.  He did order a second SA just to make sure.  We both go back to see this doctor this week.  Aside from the low sperm count, hubby's been having some pain "down there" and the urologist diagnosed it as enlarged bladder and enlarged prostate.  Hubby is on antibiotics and anti-inflammatory meds, but the pain seems to be getting worse in his prostate.  Hoping this week's appointment can bring some more answers.
Other help: 
* My gyno also prescribed me 500mg og Vitamin B6 each day to help make my "special area" more "sperm friendly".
* A friend is letting me borrow her relic of St. Gerard and I'm in the middle of a novena to him asking for his intercession to God for help in getting pregnant.  FYI, the relic is a very tiny piece of material that St. Gerard touched at some point and is now enclosed in a little metal and glass case.  It has been in her family for a long time and everyone, except for my friend, it has been passed down to has become pregnant!  My friend however has adopted 4 lovely children over the years and has been blessed with a beautiful family!  The novena I'm saying is a 9 day prayer said to the saint asking for him to take my requests to God.  Since he's already in heaven and thus much closer to God than I am, he can more directly take my requests to God. Many women have attributed their pregnancies to the interccession of St. Gerard and I hope to be one of them soon!  St. Gerard, pray for us!

Store bought or handmade?

What type of gifts do you give for the holidays?  Do you buy all of your gifts?  Make most of them?  An equal combination of store bought and handmade?  I've always bought all of my gifts for family and friends.  It can be so hard finding something personal that way though.  This year I decided to make a lot of gifts.  Part of it is to save money.  But partially also because I never know what to get for my friends.  You know the ones that you definitely want to get gifts for but don't get to see every weekend and so you can't quite pick the perfect gift in the store?  I love sewing and baking and have just ventured into some jewelry making.  I love crafts in general and realized that I could use my craftiness to make things for my loved ones.

In need of ideas for some easy homemade gifts?
*cookie mix in a jar
*baked goods (brownies, cookies, fudge, rice krispy treats, etc)  stored in a Christmas tin
*jewelry
*personalized stationary (calligraphy or stamps)
*knitted scarves or hats
*fleece blankets
*dinner gift basket, complete with recipe and non perishable goods used in the recipe (think pasta dishes)
*coupons (free babysitting, cook dinner, girls/guys night out, coffee date w/ friend)
*mini scrapbook or just a couple scrapbook pages

After the holidays I'll share pics of what I decided to make for my friends and family!

Mini Office Assistant

She makes copies, sends faxes, and orders pizza!  Alli loves being our little office gopher.  She regularly helps us make copies and send faxes (she loves pressing the buttons!).  Today she even decided that we were going to order lunch!  She brought over a take out menu and said, Mommy I want lunch.  We asked her what she wanted.  She looked at the paper a minute and declared, "Pizza!"  Guess we should order food less often for lunch, lol.

He's actually ready this time!

Last Sunday at church I realized that my hubby is actually ready to have a baby.  Alli was a surprise and he definitely wasn't ready for her.  This time we've been trying for almost a year and he said he was ready, but I wasn't sure.  Every month when the test was negative he would shrug it off and say it's just not time.  It seemed like he didn't really care either way.  But this past Sunday at church there was a little baby a few rows in front of us.  Hubby turned to me, pointed out the baby boy and said, "look how cute that baby is! I can't help but stare at him!"  It melted and broke my heart at the same time.  It was exciting realizing he really does want another baby right now, but at the same time I was hurting because I haven't been able to give him one and I'm pretty sure it's something wrong with me.  Poop!  Hoping to be able to do something about this soon!

Renewed Hope

Can I just say that I LOVE the Creighton Model of natural family planning!  A close friend of mine knew we had been having difficulties conceiving and suggested I learn the Creighton Model.  Pretty much it's a type of charting that focuses mainly on external cervical mucus observations throughout the day as well as lengths of the different phases of your cycle (i.e. period, pre-ovulation, post-ovulation/luteal).  By taking detailed notes each day about these things the teacher I see every 2 weeks can make an educated guess at why I'm having fertility issues.  Just like other forms of NFP (natural family planning), Creighton can be used to achieve or avoid pregnancy.  Creighton is also used however to monitor a woman's health and fertility. 

So,  I started seeing my teacher mid July and have been charting for a little more than 2 cycles now.  I just feel so hopeful now.  I had kinda given up a little before because I knew a young (ages 26 & 27), fertile (hello, we had 1 kid already!) couple should be able to conceive in 4-6 months, if not less.  I also know that a regular Gyno won't start doing any fertility testing until after a whole year of trying at this age. Now if I was over 35 it'd be a different story.  So just doing something proactive gave me a little more hope.  After 2 cycles, my teacher and I noticed that my luteal phase of my cycles was varying a lot.  It should stay within pretty much the same from cycle to cycle (within about 1-2 days more or less).  Mine was 16 days one month and 11 the next!  This is my third full month charting and we're going to see how it goes, but she said if it jumps up to a higher number again (and I'm not pregnant) then it could mean something is iffy.  I did find out though that probably whatever is causing us to have trouble conceiving is easily treatable.  She said most of the time with couples who have had a child already, the problem is hormonal.  She thinks in my case it could be a lack of progesterone.  So we'll see....fingers crossed that I'm preggo this month!

Making a baby is hard!

So I just haven't been in the mood to write lately.  I guess it's hard to feel inspired to write about motherhood when I'm having such a hard time conceiving.  I know I haven't mentioned it before, but we've been trying for baby #2 for 8 months now. 

It was so easy with Alli.  Actually we weren't trying.  Technically we were trying not to, but we were also newlyweds using the sympto-thermal method of natural family planning.  If you're not familiar, basically I check different signs of fertility including my waking daily temperature in order to track my fertile and infertile times during my cycle.  When we conceived Alli we should have been abstaining for about 10 days in the middle of each cycle in order to not get pregnant.  But hey, like I said we were newlyweds and abstaining that long didn't always happen. 

This time around we've been actively trying, using those fertility signs to tell us when is the exact right time to try.  This time has not been quite as easy as I thought it would be.  Like so many other people we thought, the first baby was an "oopsy" so actually trying for this one should be easy, right?  NOT! 

What's gonna work? Teamwork!

Alli is completely obssesed with Wonder Pets, a NickJr cartoon, so when we decided it was time for her to get "big girl" furniture, I figured it was also time to redo the theme in her room from "baby princess" to Wonder Pets.  No Wonder Pets bedroom is complete without a flyboat, and Alli got hers for under $3.00.  The only part I had to buy was the red laundry basket.  The rest was created with various craft materials I had at home (mostly foam paper and a hot glue gun).  A link to directions on how to make this toy box will follow soon.