Saturday, February 26, 2005

Photo Gallery

Due to the nature of my job, I was unable to travel much. Prior to my current job, I was travelling more often. Here's the link to a photo gallery of mine. Click on this link: http://janicetraveltales.blogspot.com . Enjoy!

This is mini me. Look that that chubby legs! Fortunately my legs are no longer like this!

Day Seven after Jab

It has been seven days. Nothing is happening. It is ABNORMAL!!! By now, I should have gotten my menses!!!! but it is not happening. I wonder why?

I called the doctor to check. I will have to see him next week. Could it be due to all these stress? I don't know. I wish I knew.

Anyways, last week I went to the temple to pray. I picked out the one of the pink packets, that was supposed to tell you about the new year. Well, I got "qian2 cheng2 guang1 ming2" meaning a bright future. I hope that it refers to my health!

An Abrupt end to the Baby Trail

I arrived at the clinic by myself. Jet had a meeting to attend. I waited patiently for my turn. Finally, I saw the gynae and explained my situation to him. He even gave a hopeful comment saying that I could be pregnant already. Impossible, I told him as I had already done a pregnancy test a few days ago. I asked for a sonogram as I wanted to make sure that everything was fine inside.

Cautiously I climbed onto the retractable bed that all gynaes use. The doctor spreaded some transparent gel on my tummy and started peering into my inner world. It was an undecipherable image made up of black and white patches. After examining the image for a while, the doctor said that you have an ovarian cyst here, then his cursor hovered over this dark blotch. My world crumbled. How could it be? I did not suffer from any pain or whatsoever. I asked him to check again. He even measured it this time. It was a good 6.5cm by 5.5 cm about the size of a mandarin orange! How can I get pregnant with this orange sitting on my ovary or even blocking my fallopian tube. What if my ovarian and tubes had already withered away with this thing crushing on them and cutting away oxygen supply?

Tears was stinging at the back of my eyes, as I tried to keep my composure. I could see my baby dreams dashed. I tried to ask a few rational questions like what's in the cyst and what I needed to do next. I even forgot to ask which ovary was it. Apparently the cyst was filled with fluid as it was a dark patch, unlike the solid or flesh which is shown as white in the sonogram. He predicted that it could be due to my body's reaction to the clomid. Probably my egg was not expelled out of the follicle properly and had continued to grow into a cyst. All we could do is monitor the size of it again after my menstruation. He gave me a jab of progesterone which left my butt and leg aching for the rest of the day.

If it was not due to clomid, it could have been there for sometime. I recalled the dull aching pain I get sometimes just before my menstruation. This cycle, I experienced sharp pain once or twice a day during the third and fourth week up to now. The night before I had the pain 3 times in the night. It lasted for about 7 seconds each time. That's when I felt something could be wrong.

After I left the clinic, I called my husband who was in a meeting. We did not talk much. Then I called my buddy, Claren and told her about the cyst. This time I could no long hold back my tears and tears rolled freely down my cheeks, oblivious to the curious stares of passer-bys. They must be thinking,"bad breakup" or "mayber someone just passed away".... they would never expect that I have a mandarin orange inside me. I felt miserable. She comforted me and told me that it was very common among women of my age to have cyst. It was in fact a blessing for me to discover now when it is still early. I felt slightly better after talking to her and I called my mum to inform her that her 'grandchild dream' for this year is dashed.

When my husband found out, he was very concerned and we did some research on the Internet about cysts. There are actually many different type of cysts. One of the useful sites was: http://womenshealth.about.com/cs/ovariancysts/a/ovariancysts.htm . I really hope that mine is a functional cyst and it will be gone soon. Doctor said that I may need to go for laparascopy if the cyst remains big or grows after my menses. I am keeping my fingers crossed.




Baby Trail....Hopeful....

I had just finished reading "Baby Trail" by Sinead Moriarty. It is an entertaining book for those who could empathise with baby trailers, but for those outside this circle, perhaps, you will find it rather silly. I enjoyed it. For that, I have to thank my friend, Claren for lending it to me.

Like the main character in the story, I had began charting my basal temperature relentlessly for about 3 months. Basal temperature is the temperature of our body at rest and it can only be measured accurately after 7/8 hour of sleep. Well, that was not too difficult, just sticking a $20 thermometer into your mouth when you are half awake and wait until it beeps. Then read the temperature and go back to sleep again. hmm... not too difficult, except for forgetting to record it afterwards, or even totally forgetting the temperature after the 2nd round of sound sleeping.

So I charted patiently... as expected, it was an ultra long cycle for me cos I am totally abnormal when it comes to this monthly menstruation! Mine is never regular. It stretches from 35 days to 100 over days. Well that's good when you are not trying to make babies, but it is bad news when you are trying to make one. When is the egg ready to be fertilised? Thinking that tracking my basal temperature will be a perfect solution for me, which requires no medication, I started the daily routine in December 05.


After 45 days, I tried to make sense of my temperature chart. It was a series of peaks and troughs except for an increase towards then end of the cycle. Well, I showed it to a chinese physician that I was consulting, we could only guess the exact ovulation day. We suspected that I might not be ovulating at all!

I made an appointment with a doctor in a women's hospital and poured out my problems to him. He prescribed me Clomiphene, as the drug was supposed to help me ovulate. I anxiously waited for my next menstruation so that I could pop the pills into my mouth.

Days passed, my temperature chart was not showing any signs of ovulation. Day 28 passed by, and I still have not gotten my menstruation. Patiently I waited, until Day 43. I felt that I really needed to do something about it. I picked out a women's clinic from the Ministry of Health website and made an appointment.