Well, this is my first experiement with a blog. If you're reading this, you're probably part of the family and you'll forgive me if I spell something wrong or do something against blogg etiquette.

So, I little bit of history first. First, I've been married to a wonderful guy, Kevin, for hrmmm... well, since May. I was going to say 3 years, because we've been living together that long, but we weren't married the whole time, though it seems like it. =)

Now that we're married and moving into a great big new 5-bedroom house, we've decided to fill up those five bedrooms with babies! And, as you probably know, the cheapest way to acquire a baby is to make one yourself.

For the past year or so, I've been getting ready for momhood. I've been trying to lose weight, going to the dentist, blah blah blah. Around the same time, I went to the OBGYN to get on birth control pills for the next year or so (since I have more weight to lose, I thought it would be a good idea). I ended up going to Planned Parenthood to get the pills because no one could get me an appointment fast enough, and I wanted to have the pills by the time we went on our honeymoon. =P

During the appointment, the doctor was digging around, and she says to me, "Hmmm... your cervix is very firm. I can feel lots of pressure. I think maybe you have a fibroid." I was horrified. What is that? I remember my mom had a fibroid, and she had to have a hysterectomy. So then she finished things up, and said, "Okay let me think about this fibroid thing a minute" and left me to get dressed.

While getting dressed, my heart was beating like it was going to explode out of my chest. I wished Kevin was with me. Yet, I was remarkably optimistic. It's kind of like when you get run over by a car, and you have the adrelaline rush enough to lift the car off yourself. She didn't seem that concerned. If it was sooo serious, she would have blurted it out so casually. Err, wouldn't she?

After 456 days waiting in the office and biting off almost all of my nails, the doctor comes back. "Well," she says, "I think you just have a retrograde uterus. If you had a fibroid, you'd have more painful periods, and extra bleeding. As it is, you say your periods are fine. So, I think the firmness I'm feeling is just because your uterus is tilted."

Well there you have it. A tilted uterus. When asked about the affect on fertility, my doctor said, "If the sperm get in there, they will find their way to the tubes regardless of the angle!" When I got home that night, I did lots of research on the internet. Some Web sites say that a titled uterus can affect fertility. Other Web sites say the first set of Web sites are liars. Whatever, I just know that if I'm different, that's not ideal.

Anyway, I decided to have a second opinion. Mostly because the Planned Parenthood doctor was so wishy-washy about the whole thing. It was like she pratically tossed a coin to decide what was up with my uterus.

So after our honeymoon, I found an OBGYN at the nicest hospital in the area. During her appointment, she immediately said I had a fibroid as soon as she started feeling around. "Yep," she said. "I can feel it right there." This time I wasn't so sad. I guess because I'd done some research on fibroids by this point. Most women have them, and most time they're not dangerous. But still, an abnormality. =(

But when I went home and told Kevin, I was sad all over again. The problem is that if I had a fibroid so large it caused doctors to think I had a retrograde uterus simply because this giant watermelon was pushing my uterus forward, that's not a good thing. If the fibroid is too big, it can interfere with fertility. And the fibroids actually grow during pregnancy (they thrive on estrogen) so they can become problematic. Also, if the fibroid is big enough AND inside the uterus (most fibroids grow on the muscle layers on the outside of the uterus), it can actually block the birth canal. I'm sure you can imagine the trouble with that.

If the fibroid is large, they will need to operate before I can get pregnant. The problem is, sometimes during this operation, there is scar tissue that damages the uterus so much that you can't have children. So in order to have children, I have to have an operation that could leave me barren.

Next step, an ultrasound to find out how big these suckers are. How sad that my first ultrasound is not during my 15th week of pregnancy. =( The nurse who does the ultrasound won't tell me any results, either good or bad, so I was rather miffed. Since I wanted to get the results right away, I immediately requested personal copies of the ultrasound photos for myself. They have to give them to you, ya know. So a few hours after my ultrasound, I get my copies. Kevin and I tear them open in the parking lot outside the hospital. Even without the years of medical training that is normally required to make any sense of ultrasound photos, Kevin and I can immediately discern... pretty much nothing. We can tell there are some globs inside of me, but who knows what they are. They could be pelvic bones, for all we know. I already knew that I had pelvic bones.

So again, I get on the internet to do some research. Amazingly, I was able to find a site which had an ultrasound of a fibroid displayed on it. That was helpful, so I could compare my ultrasound to that one. What helped most of all, however, was that I figured that in the ultrasound itself, the nurse had made little tickmarks to measure items in the view. One item measured 15cm. That's like the size of a grapefruit. That's bad. =( But, I notice another item that's also measured and it appears to be a long tube. Hmm! So, maybe my internal organs, like tubes and uterus, are some of the items being measured! Ah! That made me feel better.

Alas, I was right. My uterus was 15cm, which is actually enlarged (the size of a 12-week pregancy). My largest fibroid (I have several) is 2.7 cm. Like the size of a marble. Not big enough to operate on. Hooray!

Now, the interesting part of this whole thing is that our whole attitude toward pregnacy changed when faced with the possibility that I might not be able to have children. The fact is that having children is one of the most important things you can do in your life, and Kevin and I both felt that we wanted to make sure this happened - and happened SOONER rather than LATER. You see, I've been waiting many years for the perfect situation to arise in which to have a baby. I wanted the perfect man (I admit that's an important factor =P), the perfect house, the perfect income, the perfect body. But the fact is, my life is NEVER going to be perfect. While waiting for all of those things, I developed fibroids. If I wait another year, who knows what could happen during that time? Both Kevin and I came to the same decision independantly - we no longer wanted to wait.

So, when my doctor was telling me that my fibroids were not big enough to operate on, I immediately told her that we wanted to go ahead and have a baby as soon as possible. We set a time for a pre-conception appointment.

During the visit I got a diet plan, a perscription for prenatal vitamins, and some bad news - she wanted another test before we actually tried to concieve. I had to have a HSG - I won't try to spell it. =P Basically, they stick a tiny tube in your who-who which goes deep into your uterus. Then they inject some liquid through it and watch the liquid on an xray. The liquid flows through your uterus and fallopian tubes. It really hurt. =( It felt like the worst period cramps I'd ever had. Like someone was standing on my uterus. One of the assistants noticed I was wincing, and she asked me if I was OK. I said I was very uncomfortable, but I wasn't about to scream and cry or anything. Then I asked, "So, how long does this pain last?" "Hmm, just 48 hours or so," she said. Wow, THAT sucks. I certainly wasn't going back to work! Luckily, after I went to the bathroom and walked around a little, things felt much better.

The radiologist at this procedure was very nice, and she actually told me that my xrays so far looked pretty good, she didn't see any blockages or abnormalities. I asked her if she saw any submucosal fibroids (the kind that are inside the uterus and interfere with pregancies) and she said no, but she would have to look more closely during her official study of the xrays. She did add though, that if they were a big problem, she probably would have seen them by now. So I left the hospital pretty upbeat about the whole thing.

Even though I had gotten good news, I broke down outside of the hospital while waiting for Kevin and started to cry. I'm not sure why. It wasn't like a happy crying either. I just felt uncomfortable, irritated and dirty (it wasn't a clean procedure, let's just leave it at that). I wanted to go home BADLY, and Kevin was taking his own sweet time to come pick me up (OK, it took like 6 minutes, but it was 6 minutes too long!). Kevin was, of course, happy to hear my uterus got good reviews from the radiologist.

The HSG was done on Wednesday, and by that weekend I felt like I was about to ovulate (based on temperature and other signs). So, if we didn't want to miss this cycle, we would have to get busy pretty soon. My doctor was out sick, so again I requested copies of my xrays. This time I lucked out and got my radiologist report too! Here is what it said:

"The uterus is normal in morphology and is anteverted in positioning. No abnormal filling defects or adhesions are seen. There is filling of both fallopian tubes which are normal in caliber. There is free spillage of contract material from both fallopian tubes into peritoneal cavity."

And also:

"IMPRESSIONS: Normal hysterosalpingogram with free spillage of contrast into peritoneal cavity. The fallopian tubes are uterus are normal in morphology."

Before you get a dictionary, "morophology" is basically the shape of things. "Anteverted in positioning" means NOT retrograde (so, my uterus is tilted normally). "No abnormal filling defects or adhesions are seen" is probably the best part - no fibroids inside the uterus! "Filling of both fallopian tubes" means that I don't have a defect or problem that fuses the tubes together, making it impossible for an egg to travel into that side, or for a fertilized egg to travel to the uterus. "Free spillage of contract material from both fallopian tubes into peritoneal cavity" - honestly, I'm not sure about this one. The Peritoneal cavity is basically your body cavity... it seems I wouldn't want anything spilling from my fallopian tubes into my body cavity! But, I gather that this is a normal thing.

So, after reading the report, Kevin and I are so happy that we go ahead and do the deed. Note that this is the 13th day of my cycle. Right on time!

The doctor called me the next morning and said that everything was great and we had the green light to go ahead and try to get pregnant. Little did she know that I had stolen the test results and we had already ummm... gone through the intersection, so to speak. =)

Now the waiting begins...

So, the day after our first attempt at getting pregnant, I was tired! That's a good sign, right? I also felt a pang of sensation in the spot where my right ovary would be. Most women that say they can feel their ovulation say it feels like a quick stab of light pain. I've never thought I could feel myself ovulating before, but now I was paying REAL close attention. Or, perhaps it was just a normal feeling that just happens for no reason now and then, and I was assigning it extra value because I WANTED it to be ovulation.

The whole day, I felt like a sensation in my reproductive organs area. It reminded me of the feeling I have when I'm about to start my period. Like very, very slight cramping. That day I came home from work and went to sleep right away because I was so tired.

So far, all good signs I think!

But the last two days, I've really felt nothing. No twings or pangs or sensations, and honestly I'm not that tired. I HAVE been going to the bathroom a lot... but I've been drinking a lot too! Is thirst a symptom of pregnancy?

Oh, well, I will keep you updated on all my little theories for the next week or so until my period is due, and we get the REAL story. Am I pregnant or not? =)