Baby Smith 2.0 update

I said I would update on our progress or lack there of. I don't get into too much nitty gritty but there is a potential for TMI here so don't keep reading if you don't want to know. Here we go. We met with our Reproductive Endocrinologist last Wednesday. I came loaded with a ton of questions from my pain with the previous 3 cycles, to my weight gain and hair loss (both symptoms of PCOS), to a game plan for the next cycle should this one not work out for us. I need direction and a plan and she has my answers. Her and God. We talked for a long time and got some great answers. Our doctor is fantastic. She is kind and gentle and empathetic. She knows my pain and has a heart to help me success. She got to play with Henry during the appointment, the product of her work with us and she knows how much joy he has brought us. She is in our corner and as a medical professional I have never seen better care from a physician in my life. She even held my hand when they put me under for my surgery she did in Jan 2013 so I wouldn't be scared and wispered that she would take good care of me. Tears were a flowin'! Honestly we had a great appointment but the answers she had were not all the ones we necessarily wanted to hear but here is the bullet pointed game plan now.

• My weight gain and hair loss and massive sweet tooth are symptoms of PCOS and she said a great way to treat these symptoms and resolve them is to be on a low carb/ no sugar diet to help my body burn fat instead of sugar. It will also help to maintain my glucose levels instead of big time peaks and valleys. PCOS affects your glycemic index and your insulin resistance so you almost have to act like a diabetic. (I am terrified I will end up diabetic because I'm at higher risk due to the PCOS and because of my massive sweet tooth). So I decided then and there to drop carbs massively, eat healthy fats and protein and veggies and kick my sugar to curb completely. I have been 5 days clean and sober so far. hehe. It's hard as hell. I'm having the withdrawls she warned me of including horrid headaches, fatigue, shaky occasionally and horrid sugar cravings but I will do ANYTHING to get this baby (and lose weight and keep my hair thank you very much).P.S. She had me do a 2 hour glucose tolerance test and it was perfect so yay for that. Now just to stick with this. Please message me if you want more information about this. I have done hours of homework on it since she suggested it and the success rates I have found show that within 2 months most PCOS patients see better results with cycles symptoms and half of the women put on this diet will see a pregnancy within a relatively close timeline to that as well. Praise Jesus. Halleluah!
• The pain I have been having has not been caused by ovarian cysts, thank god. She assured me the follicles we see on ultrasound each month (that can look alot like cysts) have not been cysts and that my pain the past few months has been due to having two decent size follicles, one on each ovary, that ovulate with my trigger shot which leads to pain. My body does better with one follicle and the cycles I have had only one follicle (this one and Henry's cycle) I haven't had pain. I'm hoping this a good sign for this month. 
• She said that my medication dosages, uterine lining, lab work, follicle growth rate and sizes, etc have all been textbook perfect each cycle and she doesn't have an answer as to why we aren't pregnant yet, but she is very hopeful for this month since we only had one follicle and my body is responding well to it thus far. She wants us to continue the meds we are on right now (which cost about $210/ month) but add in IUI which stands for intrauterine insemination. This helps bypass any barriers between egg and sperm and can double your chances for pregnancy. Only problem is it's $450 in addition to the meds and to add that amount of money on to each cycle makes a negative pregnancy test hurt that much more. We did IUI the cycle before we got pregnant with Henry and obviously it didn't work. It made me phsyically ill that we "wasted" all that money for nothing. I don't feel good about escalating our care to that point when I remind myself we got pregnant with Henry the very next month without it. But the idea of doubling our chances is oh so enticing to me. She offered this for a few more tries but would like to escalate care after that if we aren't successful.
• The other option she presented is to start doing daily inject-able hormones to stimulate follicle growth in addition to the medication I am on. These shots are done everyday and can cost anywhere from $250-$1000/month depending on the doseage you need to respond well. She also warned us there is a greater risk for multiples (twins we would gladly take but not triplets or higher) and if you have too many follicles growing you have to cancel the cycle and can't try that month and then you've wasted all that money and didn't even get to try. She would like to pair IUI with this as well. So we are talking a potentially $1500 cycle EVERY. MONTH. Not excited about this news.

I would be lying if I said I didn't walk out of there terrified. We aren't made of money, we don't have thousands to waste on failed cycles, but we want to give ourselves the best chance of success. I want a baby now, but I am not quite ready to give up on what we are doing now. I can't help but hold on to the fact that it's what worked to get us pregnant with Henry. I am trying to understand that my body is different now too though, I had a baby, I am 2 years older, my hormones are all over the place, etc. I'm at a crossroads. I'm so hopeful and prayerful that we won't even have to think about this and that this month will be a success but if it's not we will have to make a decision quick as to what to do for the next month.

So that's the main jist for now. Still working on it all and so is the big man upstairs. As Morgan Freeman once said when he played the role of God. Something along the lines of " If you pray for patience and strength for example, God doesn't just get out his magic wand and say Here you go, here is patience and a dash of strength. He gives you opportunities in your life to learn to be patient and opportunities in your life to show strength. I feel like I've had plenty of months to learn those lessons by now and I would like my baby now please and thank you. But no, I am not patient, I am not strong a lot of days. He is still working on me and I will keep trying to learn.