Fertility Update

I don't like to bore everyone with my fertility updates, but I figured I just HAD to write this update so that I can keep record of it for myself at least. 

Last time I wrote I said that I was taking 10-days worth of pills of Provera (a progesterone supplement). The Provera was supposed to induce a period so that I could essentially flush myself out to start over. I went into the fertility clinic on cycle day 4 so they could check to make sure things were good to go before I started taking Clomid to help me ovulate. I don't EVEN want to write about the hassles it took just to make that damn appointment. The office pretty much pissed me off from the get-go even after I followed THEIR instructions.

Anyway, I have my appointment and of course they need to do an ultrasound of my ovaries to make sure we can still do the Clomid. The nurse practitioner (not the Dr. mind you), tells me that I have one rather large cyst on my right ovary. Her face is somber and very serious. I ask her if this cyst is different from my other polycystic cysts and she said yes. She tells me that she wants to find out if the cyst is "functioning" or not. If it functioning - meaning it's releasing hormones - then she wants to put me on birth control pills in order to stabilize the hormones and hopefully shrink the cyst. If it's not functioning, then we can proceed with the Clomid as planned.

I get my blood drawn and I leave the place feeling kind of defeated because I don't know what to expect. I wait anxiously the entire day (the day before Thanksgiving) for her to call me back with the results. 

She calls and starts off by saying she likes to see estrogen levels under 75 before starting Clomid. My levels were at a 217! I kind of freaked out. I didn't know what to think. She tells me I need to take the birth control pills and see her in 3 weeks to check again.

Thank goodness I'm part of a special online message board dedicated to PCOS. I posted my story up in the Trying to Conceive section and immediately some of the girls through up some red flags. They tell me my "cyst" may indeed be just a follicle getting ready to release the egg! They tell me the size of the follicle - 2cm - is perfect size and that my estrogen levels - 217- were also perfect for impending ovulation!! 

After doing much research with Ramin and discussion with the ladies online, I made the decision to NOT take the birth control pills and just see what would happen. Obviously ovulating on my own is the better option than forcing it to happen another way. 

Friday morning comes and I take an ovulation predictor test (OPK) and it comes out positive for the first time! I have a Clear Blue Digital kit and it makes it very easy to interpret the results. I have not yet seen a positive smiley face yet. The test indicates that I could potentially ovulate within the next 24-36 hours. Of course, there are still other signs to watch out for - signs that I am very comfortable with monitoring for myself.

Most of you won't understand this chart...but I'm posting it anyway because it will serve as my personal reminder of this entire cycle. 

It shows me taking the Provera, my temps spiking because of it and then leveling out again. I decided not to include the time I was bleeding from the Provera withdrawal because it wanted to start a whole new chart. I consider this to be one huge cycle at this point.

There's way too much information to post on here about the other "signs" of impending ovulation but I know what this chart means....and that temperature spike this morning is all the proof I need at this point to tell me that I did indeed ovulate on my own yesterday at some point. I'm hoping and praying it's not a false high temp and that it stays high for the next 2 weeks at least.

I will wait until 12 DPO (days past ovulation) before I take a pregnancy test. That puts me at December 8th before I will test. I hope I can hold out that long!!

Birthday Weekend 2012

This year for my birthday, all I told Ramin was that I wanted him to make it special for me. It's funny because somehow that translated to "We need to go away somewhere" in his mind.....so we planned a short weekend trip to St. George/Vegas/Zion National Park.  It kind of sounds like a lot to do in one weekend, but really it was fun. Ramin and I LOVE road trips and up until this year, we'd never really taken them together just the two of us. Back in May, during the annular eclipse, was when we took our first mini-road trip together and I realized it was tons of fun having him to myself.

My original plan was to leave Friday afternoon after work and drive to St. George and stay somewhere down there and then visit with our friends/Ramin's co-workers on Saturday (the boss' kid was having a 5th year birthday party)...but...Ramin likes to play football on Saturday mornings and he opted to leave around noon on Saturday so he could play ball...having us arrive in St. George around 4pm...which is about when we got there, an hour or so into the party time. We did arrive in time for food, cake and presents though.

During the week I'd been talking with my cousin Maria from New York via email and realized that she was going to be in Vegas the SAME weekend we had planned this mini-spontaneous trip! So I arranged with her via email to meet up on Saturday night after we got done with the party.

So we left the party around 6:45pm - a bit later than I'd planned, but we were able to make it to Vegas by 8:30....we met up with Maria and headed for an easy dinner together. It was great catching up with her....but I'm waiting for her to email some of the pictures we took. Once I get those I'll upload them here! The next morning we also had breakfast with her at Denny's (Ramin's favorite place). By 8:30am we were ready to head out and make our way to Zion National Park.

I think we made it to Zion's around 10:30 or so - I can't completely recall. Ultimately, we were both there to visit the park for the first time AND to climb Angel's Landing! Ramin had heard about this hike and has been wanting to do it for a while....he told me some scary stories that it's really scary and hard to do and people have died. My friend Jenn told me she'd done it and was super scared (came to find out AFTER the fact that she didn't actually climb the entire thing....part of my motivation for going all the way was knowing she'd done it too - even though she actually didn't! Hahaha). Ramin told me the hike took 4-5 hours so we knew we had to get going by 11am if we wanted to have enough light left in the park to drive around a bit. Oh BTW, we chose this weekend not only because it was my birthday, but also because the National Parks had free entry because of Veteran's Day...at Zion's, the fee is $25!!! Most of the other parks we've been to are only $12.

Anyway, on to the pics!! Most of the pics are of us hiking Angel's Landing but near the end we have some other shots of the park....here we go!

Here is the lovely sign you get to see at the start of the trail head - nice inspiration people!

This picture was taken at the bottom, near the road...and we are gonna climb THAT huge mountain!?!?! Ummm....I was thinking "are you serious?!?!" when I saw this.

This hike really kicked my butt....but I only stopped for 30 second - 1 minute breaks. I only stopped long enough to slow my heart rate a bit. There are TONS of switch back in order to climb this thing....you can see where we started at the road below and then the trail snaking it's way.

Time for another break....at this point I'd say we were almost to half-way up the mountain...maybe not quite that much. 

These switchbacks were the worst...Ramin went up them no problem....you can see me waaaaaay down below...Ramin went up faster than me and took this picture.

Done with the last set of switchback! Now - time for the hard stuff!

We need to climb ALL of this...plus the stuff behind it to the far left! If you make this picture larger, you can see the tiny people scaling the side of this thing!

Same shot, only with me in it! It has a better perspective of the ridge we'll be climbing....all of the stuff directly behind me.

This is looking down from where we were onto "The Organ"

This was some sort of resting spot....this is after a bit of the hard stuff but not quite to the REALLY intense stuff.... Essentially, we had to go down a bit from where Ramin is...and then climb up again along that ridge behind him.

Now we're into the intense stuff.  The ridge is basically a bunch of this stuff, pulling yourself up with chains and trying to not fall off the cliff!

We made it to the top!!! You get a 360 degree view of the park and it's amazing canyons and just the overall massive-ness of it! We made it to the top in about 2 hours - even with my breaks!!

You can see the road down below - where we started. 

  

This is a GREAT shot of the ridge itself...cliff on either side of us! Don't make a wrong step!

Here I am holding on to the chain for DEAR LIFE!! 

Ramin found a nice little cubby hole to enjoy the view from!

 

This is a pretty typical shot of what the ridge hike looked like!

Some of THE best pictures of the ridge itself...the very top of that was where we were!

 

This is the same resting place we were at before, only this time we'd made it to and back...we had a newfound appreciation for that ridge!

My favorite shot of myself!

Coming down the switchbacks we noticed a cool cave! On the way up I barely paid attention to anything but the ground and going up! Coming down is so much more relaxing - it was all worth it!

Ramin found himself a cave too!

Half-way down the mountain! Gorgeous!

 

A couple in front of us spotted this male deer eating. By the time we came down from the hike TONS of deer were out eating in the twilight.  This guy was literally 20 feet away from us and could really care less.

After the hike we drove through the park. There was an AWESOME tunnel built in the 1930s that had little windows out into the park...here's one of the views from the tunnel.

And finally, our entrance shot! We loved this park so much - if we move to St. George we will definitely be visiting more often!

 

 

Mesa Verda & Moab 2012

So back near the end of October Ramin and I took a very fun road-trip to southern Utah and Colorado!  We drove through Moab and into Mesa Verde National Park where we visited some pretty amazing sites! We spent 1-day exploring that park....then on Sunday we drove back to Moab and spent a few hours hiking to the Delicate Arch - only we took an atypical route and ended up with an entirely different view than most people get.  After the hike we headed home back to Salt Lake....it was an AWESOME trip and I'm so glad we got to go!

On our first night (Friday) we got into Moab rather late but we hoped to go to Canyonlands National Park just to check it out. We got there a little after the visitor's center closed, but we still enjoyed some amazing sunset shots AND nobody was around - it was fun!

Canyonlands is all about - canyons!! Most of our shots in this park are ones of us basically standing on the edge of a cliff - Ramin and I are both NOT afraid of heights - so we weren't freaked out at all.

We found a cool hole in the rock so I told Ramin to stick his head in!

Near the visitor's center at Canyonlands. Straight drop off over that edge.

Aren't the colors amazing with the sunset in the background?!?!

The next morning, Saturday, we spent the entire day in Mesa Verde. In fact, we actually stayed at the lodge inside of the park for easier access :) It was awesome. If you haven't heard of Mesa Verde before, perhaps you've heard of the "cliff dwellers" and the pueblo Anassazi indians?!? If not, you may recognize some of the photos below.

This is Cliff Palace, the first tour we did in the morning. It was a pretty steep hike up and down, but it was a VERY short hike and not hard. This place was awesome!

 

 

 

 

After Cliff Palace, we drove a bit in the park and reached the trailhead for Balcony House. This place was pretty cool and a bit different from Cliff Palace. For one, the hike was a tiny bit more intense and definitely longer. We also had to climb a few ladders, including a 30-foot one! Ramin did a great job of capturing me climbing up the multiple ladders :P

Here I am waiting for the tour to begin. Basically, we had to hike down behind where I was sitting.

The 30-foot ladder - piece of cake!

Cool shot of a little window inside the structure. BTW, I failed to mention that all of these ruins were built around 1200 A.D.

Climbing up a shorter ladder.

Here's Ramin just hiking up the side of a cliff - there's a fence there for a reason and the "steps" are just carved into the rock face.

The final ladder! It's a long way down.

The next stop was Spruce Tree House.   This hike wasn't too bad although it was our longest hike of the day. We had to hike down from the top of the mesa to a cool cliff dwelling at the base. This place didn't include a guided tour, so it was the dwelling we were able to "explore" a bit more freely. Obviously, there were lots more people around too.

 

 This is the view of Spruce Tree House from the top of the trailhead. We took these pictures AFTER we made the hike back up.

 

There were a few other dwellings you could see just from driving around the park and stopping at various overlooks. I don't recall all of the names but here they are. I think the one directly below is "Tower House" or something because of the tower - maybe it was "Square Tower".

This is a far away view of Cliff Palace I think.

 

The next step was "Coyote Village". Ramin and I both loved this super easy walk to find this village because there were absolutely NO people around but us! It's funny how people always stick to the major "touristy" spots.

One thing to note about the pueblo indians, they always built "kivas" which are the round hole structures built into the ground. They were used for ceremonial purposes as well as for shelter in the winter. This village contains a lot of them and Ramin was able to get in a few for pictures.

The next stop was "The Mansion" - this was one of the largest structures we found. 

Some more walking/driving led us to "Megalithic House" - Ramin took a shot of how Chris would look if he were with us :) Megalithic House was really just a kiva covered with a building. Nothing too spectacular - we felt it didn't really live up to it's name.

Back in our hotel room at the lodge we saw a lovely blue pinyon jay - we even saw a flock of these cute little blue birds earlier in the morning. They're blue because they eat the juniper berries!

We took our obligatory entrance picture at the end of the night on our way to dinner.
 

Next up - MOAB!  The obligatory entrance shot! Thanks to the ladies for taking our pic (we would have just used the tri-pod but these ladies were taking forever to get out of the way :P)

So Ramin and I have both hiked to the Delicate Arch a few times. Most people do the typical hike where you can go to the "bowl" below the arch and even walk up to it...well last time Ramin was there with his brother he noticed a guy across the canyon standing on a cliff...Ramin wanted to go there so they all found there way. For this trip Ramin wanted me to go there as well. He knew the hike would be tough for me (and it was) but he was unsure if I'd be able to do the last little part necessary to get to the top of the ledge....needless to say - I DID IT and I made it to the most extraordinary view EVER!

This is the final pic of our hike before we did the hardest part...this is where I took a rest and where Ramin wasn't sure if I could finish the rest.

Well....I made it!
We set up the camera on top of a rock - it was WAY too windy up there to use the tripod.

Can you believe how lucky we were with the beautiful sky?!?!

In pictures it's so hard to tell...but those horizontal lines below the arch basically indicate a flat wall cliff! We are super high up and there is a HUGE canyon in between where Ramin and I are and the arch itself. Pretty scary but amazing.

 

This picture kind of gives you a bit more perspective of the magnitude of where we were.

Some fun with perspective!

 

AMAZING!

 

 

The hike itself only took us about 2 hours. We drove through the rest of Arches National Park and saw some more sights but we didn't stay too long because we wanted to hit up Canyonlands more since we'd never explored that park and we'd been to Arches numerous times.

Final stop of the trip - Canyonlands National Park!

There were a few very short hikes in this park that we did on Sunday. Nothing major at all...we found these scraggly trees that I thought were cool.

This was our first destination - called Mesa Arch!

Here's Ramin sitting on top of Mesa Arch. He didn't really pay attention to his surroundings very much but after he climbed down he realized there was a vertical drop below him AND in front of him!!

 

This was the backside of Mesa Arch!

 

And this was the front of it! A nice little gap in between the top of the arch and the actual cliff!

THIS is what Canyonlands is famous for of course!

 

 

 

 

 

The very final hike of the weekend was called Upheaval Dome. It's called that because it's basically an inverted dome with some "upheaved" salt....we hiked to the top and were able to look down into it!

 

 So that was our trip to Mesa Verde and Moab. By far one of my favorite trips we've done. Actually, all of our trips are fun but this one was really great because it was spontaneous and packed with tons to do!