Hysteroscopy

*Warning: Lots of attempted-baby-making details in this post, read at your own risk!*

No luck on the baby-making front for us, but perhaps some progress into figuring out why we haven't had any luck these past 11 months. For the last 2 months we have been seeing a reproductive specialist, Dr. Schmidt, in Columbus. We absolutely love working with him! Unfortunately the first month I went to see him I had already taken Clomid, a drug Dr. Schmidt is absolutely not a fan of, but he said we would try to make the best of it so they did an ultrasound to look for mature eggs, found them, and gave me an injection that would make me ovulate 36 hours later. Then 36 hours later we returned to his office where they did IUI (intrauterine insemination) to place Chad's sperm directly into my uterus - in case my cervix was the trouble maker in these past months. I've been ovulating very well on Clomid, but Clomid also destroys your cervical mucus and mimics menopause - lots of negatives that all add up to the likelihood that if you don't get pregnant on Clomid in the first few months, you probably won't.

When they did my ultrasound that first month, Dr. Schmidt noted that the center of my uterus was more echogenic (white) on ultrasound than it should be, but he didn't say too much about it at that time. I did ask what the differentials for that would be, and he said it could be lots of things such as a polyp, fibroid, or even just the lining of my uterus 'fluffing up' because I was getting ready to ovulate.

Well, no luck with the IUI and I decided that I just needed a month off of all crazy drugs - I wasn't 100% convinced that they were the only reason I was ovulating anyway, and I wanted to give my body a chance to do its' own thing. I'm glad I did, because sure enough I ovulated on my own this month! I went up to Dr. Schmidt's for another ultrasound, thinking we would do IUI again if we managed to time it right, but I ovulated a few days before my appointment (I could tell because I have crazy ovulation cramping ever since I finally started ovulating again - exactly one year after Haley was born! And Dr. Schmidt could tell on the ultrasound too.) But since I had already ovulated, this allowed him to more clearly see that echogenicity in my uterus which he now believes is a polyp. There's a small chance it could be a fibroid, but he feels confident that it's a polyp (which would be better & easier to remove.) It's about 1" in diameter which fills up the entire volume of the non-gravid uterus.

A POLYP!! A REASON for why we're not getting pregnant! It basically acts as a giant blocker to keep out any sperm invaders! I mean, I know I shouldn't be happy to have a polyp, but I'm just happy to have a possibility of a reason for our infertility. There's nothing more frustrating to me than 'unexplained infertility', maybe it's the doctor in me that needs a reason? Regardless, now that we have found a trouble maker we are going to take it out! There is a small possibility that we could get pregnant even with this intruder hanging around, so we have to wait for my period to start (& end) before they can remove it. For now the hysteroscopy is tentatively scheduled for February 7th - it will be done up at Riverside hospital in Columbus, and they just take a scope in through your cervix so there will be no incision. They will mask me down with gas anesthesia, but I won't have to be intubated (hopefully), and the procedure should just take about 15 minutes.

Here's hoping we get that bad polyp out of there and then get back to our fertile turtle selves! I'm not too optimistic for next month - I'm sure that's a pretty traumatic procedure for your uterus and I doubt it can recoup in time for ovulation - but we'll keep our fingers crossed for the month after and a December baby! I would dearly love to squeak a cutie-pie baby-roo in in 2011, 2009 to 2012 just seems too long... (Though I know for many people that's a drop in the bucket compared to how long they've tried.) We will be saying lots of prayers that we have finally figured this puzzle out and that we can now fix our problem and experience the wonder of a sweet bundle of joy again soon.

A wintry walk, 2010

Nobody's as cute bundled up against the cold as my Cricket! What I wouldn't give to be back there right now...

A winter walk with the dogs

One lovely, wintry, snowy day this January we had so much snow that all the schools were closed, along with many businesses (unfortunately not OU, so off to Athens trundled Chadmo who luckily has mad Wisconsin driving skillz.) On these types of days the clinic is notoriously slow - people either don't want to drag their kids along or they just don't want to venture out in the wintry weather, so we closed up shop for the day and had a snow day ourselves! The dogs & I decided this would be a fine opportunity to go for a hike in the woods behind our house, through freshly fallen snow that did not yet have a single track through it. It was beautiful and made me think of "The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe" when Lucy goes through the Wardrobe into the snow-covered land of Narnia for the first time.

My wonderful girls, Ruby & Bianca, coming around the gatepost. (Too bad it's not a lamp post, maybe we could make friends with a faun, some beavers, and a lion...) It's hard to believe that Ruby will be 8 this February and Bianca will be 6 in May.

Tucker has a bit of a hard time in the deep, unbroken snow - it likes to clump up on his fur and he turns into one giant snowball who has to be melted in warm water in the bathtub when we get home! But he's a trooper and isn't about to be left behind. Isn't he just the cutest little poodle in the whole entire world??

This is what happens when you try to get three dogs to take a group picture: they all work their hardest to not cooperate!

Are either of these paths 'less traveled'? I'm not sure, but regardless the dogs choose 'to the right!' Some days I wish I was one of my dogs... :)

Me, all bundled up for our snowy hike! Good practice in getting dressed for our Boulder ski trip!

A Back-log of Blogs

(I have been very remiss in my blogging recently, so to catch up I'm going to try to do a bunch of little blogs instead of one giant one.)

This past Wednesday, I returned from a ski vacation in Boulder, Colorado with Chadmo - we had a marvelous time! He is still out there with his brother, brother-in-law, and friend and they're all skiing at Winter Park (no fair!) - he'll be back on Sunday. Neither of us had ever been to Colorado before and we both LOVED it. I'd never even seen the Rockies and they are just awe inspiring, they look like something from the Lord of the Rings movies.

Our apartment in Boulder - just 2 blocks from the Pearl Street Mall! We had the top half of the house, and it was a beautiful apartment. I kept trying to convince Chad we should move there!

The view from our living room windows - incredible! :)

Eldora ski resort, about 35 minutes outside of Boulder, where Chad took ski lessons & we skied together one day (not that we skied any of those black diamonds in the picture below! ;)) Unfortunately I hurt my knee that day and Chadmo was so sore from his first 2 days of skiing ever that we ended up taking the last day off. But all in all we had a wonderful time.

Me, beside a cool teepee alongside one of the ski trails.

Chadmo at our favorite restaurant in all of Boulder - Mountain Sun Cafe - modeling the Annapurna & Blackberry Wheat beers! Mountain Sun had the best beer I've ever had in my life, I'm pretty sure I'll be dreaming about it!

Next vacation scheduled on the books: Paris in the spring time! Chad and I are heading to gay Paris in April - we are so excited! I love the idea of going somewhere Chad knows so well (after living there for a year) and having him show me around and doing more 'local' things instead of just all tourist-y things - though we'll do lots of those too.

We had not been on a vacation just the two of us since our honeymoon 4.5 years ago, so we're making up for lost time!

'Tis the Season

"Only 12 more days till Christmas, my book-hat is extra appropriate this time of year! Everyone should have one!"

Haley's Christmas tree - in the cemetery. We had a bit of a snafu with the headstone, so we are in the process of ordering a new one from a different company. In the meantime, the foundation makes a good spot for her Christmas tree! After Christmas we'll plant this little blue spruce by our house, and think of Haley-Bug every time we look at it.

Just sitting in the Kroger parking lot, guarding Dad's deer head

So since I've been such a negligent blogger, I'm just going to do a quick recap of recent events to catch myself up!

September 10th, 2010 - Haley Bug's 1st birthday and her 1st birthday cake! I know I blogged on her birthday, but I wanted to put up a picture of her pretty pink cake which was most delicious. I can't honestly say that I can imagine Haley 'digging in' to the cake and making a huge mess, she was a pretty neat baby and not overly fond of her two or three ventures into cereal land. But probably she would've changed a lot in the intervening 6.5 months and would've been up for cake smeared all over her face! Regardless, it would've been adorable and I can't imagine anyone not liking frosting! (Especially pink frosting!)
November 6th, 2010 - Poppy shot a big buck (with his new crossbow) after only 1.5 hours in the woods! He's a 10 point buck with 2 stickers (or a 12 point atypical buck) and really he's a beauty. He's off at the butcher's now, and our freezer is anxiously awaiting venison roasts and tenderloin. Which brings us to the title of my blog post today: After dropping the deer off at the butcher's (you have to bring the body to the butchers with the head attached so they know you're not poaching), Dad had the deer head and thus attached rack in the back of his truck. We had to swing by Kroger's to pick up lunch meat and Dad wanted me to stay in the truck so nobody would steal the rack out of the back. So while I'm sitting in the car I decided to call Chad, who asked me what I was doing, to which I replied "Oh, just sitting in the Kroger parking lot, guarding Dad's deer head." Chad thought this was hilarious, and I guess in retrospect it isn't a typical lunchtime activity.
Another buck picture, but with the proud hunter this time.
November 6th, 2010 - Mom's birthday was this Monday (November 8th) but we celebrated on Saturday when Kelly, Jesse, and Grandma McMillan could all come down. I made a carrot cake at Mom's request (there are pecans in the frosting, it is not frosted with mashed red skin potatoes like it looks like in the picture!), and it was quite tasty if I do say so myself. We also had BBQ ribs, mashed red skin potatoes, green beans, asparagus, and Grands biscuits for birthday dinner. All in all it was a really fun and relaxing weekend. Hopefully Mom thought so too!
The birthday girl with her pile of presents! Happy Birthday Mom (& Grandma!)

First Annual Congenital Heart Walk

Team Haley's Comets after the 5k walk this past Sunday, October 24, 2010!

Pictured above from left to right: Front row: Emrie Dickerson, Tobie, Christopher, and Jonathon Wolfe, Me, Jess Steinbrink. Back row: Greg, Heather, and Henry Dickerson, Beth Picklesimer, Cindy Musser, Katy Klingelhafer, Greg Gallenstein, Sydney Waugh, Chadmo, and Tom Steinbrink. (Missing from the picture because they were straggling behind socializing ;) - Mom & Poppy and Miss Libby Carstensen.)

There were over 600 walkers at the first CHD walk and there were over $40,000 raised for CHD research! More than $2,000 were raised by our team - go Haley's Comets! The temperature on Sunday was great for walking, though it was a little over cast but at least it didn't rain. We are so appreciative of all our friends and family who came out and walked with us and who made donations to our team from afar, it really means a lot to us that everyone still loves our Haley-Bug so much that they support this cause in her honor. Thank you all!