Before I had a baby, I had thought I wanted my kids about three years apart, but once I had C, I quickly changed my mind. Our lives changed so much. We had very little free time, we were constantly busy and limited in what we could do. We discussed it and decided we don't want to be in lock down baby mode for very many years, so we decided to have our two children close together to just get the hard part over with. Yes, it will be hard with two little ones in the beginning, but then they will both go through stages together (roughly) and our years of parenting small children will be fewer/less spread out. Don't get me wrong, I love C more than anything and she is the biggest blessing I will ever have, but it's also hard work.
They will be able to play together and be interested in similar activities at the same time. This will make vacations and even daily life easier. Example: taking an 8 and a 4 year old to an amusement park would be much more difficult than a not quite 6 and a 4 year old because they can ride the same rides, do the same things etc.. We also didn't want to be paying for daycare FOREVER. This eats our money and I want to be paying for this as few years as possible and then BE DONE.
So, anyway, we decided the earliest we would start trying is when C was 9 months old. We wanted them close but thought any closer than 18 months might be near impossible for us to manage.
I had quit taking my metformin in January because of the nasty GI side effects and it wasn't making me ovulate any more regular than I normally would without it (I ovulated once in early November after I quit breastfeeding C and then still hadn't again by late January). In March, I ovulated on my own and we contemplated trying, but it was a little on the early side of the plan and a December baby sounded like no fun. Don't get me wrong, if I had been trying for a long time, I wouldn't care what the month was, but since we weren't really trying yet, we decided to skip it.
Then I ovulated AGAIN in late April (crazy) and we went for it. I kinda freaked that I wasn't on metformin, so I started taking it again to help normalize my hormones (it's theorized that it can prevent miscarriage in women with PCOS). But, two weeks later, my test was negative :-(
So, I quit taking the metformin again because it was making me sooo sick, which is weird because it didn't do that with C??
I consulted with my doc and she said she's not so much a believer in metformin anymore anyway and she didn't think it was necessary or helpful for me to take it. YAY.
Miraculously I ovulated AGAIN in early June. Freaking amazing. We of course tried, and got really excited, but two weeks later the test was again negative :-(
I got really bummed about this because with C my problem was just a lack of opportunities to try, and I was simply waiting for ovulation, but once it came, I was pregnant.
I had not experienced having multiple ovulations and still not getting pregnant. What was this about? How could I NOT be pregnant? It seemed impossible. The amount of sperm after trying four days in a row leading up to, during and after ovulation should be plenty, right? Can not once of you little swimmers find your way? Losers.
So, I worried something else was wrong. I was ovulating fairly regularly, but my doc had said that sometimes with PCOS, your eggs aren't quite mature enough at the time of ovulation. Explanation: my estrogen levels are always at a higher level than a normal person. What makes you ovulate is a drastic change/rise in estrogen which then tells your body to produce the LH hormone which pops out the egg. Normally, after a womans period, her estrogen is really low and slowly begins to climb. As it's climbing, the FSH hormone starts maturing the eggs and getting them ready to come out. But because my estrogen is always a little on the high side, I don't have this gradual climb. This is why I don't ovulate often and because my climb is smaller and last minute, my egg pops out before it's really ready to be fertilized. Example: normal persons estrogen will go from 5 to 50 in 14 days time (arbitrary numbers) whereas mine will sit at 35 for 30 days and then jump to 50 in 5 days time.
So, my doc gave me femara. This is an ovulation induction drug like clomid but works a little different. Clomid binds to your estrogen receptor sites and tricks your body into thinking the estrogen is low. Estrogen and ovulation feed on eachother.... estrogen makes you ovulate, but also ovultion makes you have estrogen. So in response to clomid, your body panics and sends out FSH, LH to make you ovulate in order to bring your estrogen back up.
Femara is similar but different. It actully prevents your body from converting androgens into estrogen, so your estrogen is actually low. This drug has a lower risk of twins (2-3%) as compared to clomid (10%). Normal risk of twins for everyone is 1.5%. I think this is because with clomid, your estrogen isn't ACTUALLY low, your brain just thinks it is, so the estrogen that's already there once the clomid wears off might make you hyperovulate on top of the drug reaction making you ovulate?? Just a guess.
I REALLY didn't want twins. Oh lord no. So, I was willing to try this drug. I took it late June and waited and waited to ovulate and finally on day 35 of my cycle, I ovulated (July 25, the day after C's first birthday party). I had also put E on a multivitamin and limited his caffeine intake because I heard these things helped sperm quality and count. I think it also helped that he did not ride his bike to work the week leading up to ovulation. This wasn't planned, but worked out. I can't remember why, but something got in the way that week and he couldn't ride his bike. He's been riding his bike to and from work all summer to get his cholesterol down, but it's been like 105 all summer and I was a little worried about the heat killing those little guys.
I began taking my temp occasionally after ovulation to see what the trend was. My temp rose on day 12 post ovulation with C and that's how I knew I was preg with her because it always starts to fall at that time and I start spotting.
On day 9 this time, my temp went down just a little. I started to think I wasn't pregnant, but tried not to analyze just one temp because you're supposed to look at a trend. On day 10 it fell a little more. I was starting to get really bummed. I just knew I wasn't pregnant AGAIN. But all day at work I had mild cramps and had been having them for a couple days. I had these early on with C (implantation cramps?). So I didn't know what to think. I asked E to pick up a box of tests on his way home so I could take one friday morning. Well, I got home from work that thursday night August 4th and saw the tests sitting on the table and couldn't resist the temptation to take one a little early. I had taken one Tuesday evening (day 8) as well because I had heard some people say they got positives that early. It was negative, which kind of bummed me out, but I knew it was REALLY early, and then I was mad at myself for wasting a test. So, I kinda knew I shouldn't take a test in the evening of day 10 either and I didn't even have to pee, but I just couldn't resist. Curiosity was killing me. I literally squeezed drops of pee out to take that test.
I sat there and watched the pee go across the stick. First the control line showed up, which started to bum me out because with C, the positive result line showed up first. I waited and watched for about 30 seconds more and slowly a faint positive result line started to show up!!!! YAY, I was pregnant!!!!! I get to have ANOTHER baby, how fortunate I am!
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