A Year Later!

Wow, I can’t believe it’s been a year since I overcame vaginismus!  What a year it’s been.  I officially become a woman and learned how to use tampons.  I have been missing out!  We went to a concert recently while AF was visiting and had I not been using tampons I would have been miserable.  I am able to have exams every year with no issues. In fact I had my yearly exam this past week and got a fist bump from my gyno because I have been doing so well.  A lot has gone on over the past year, too much to formulate into thoughts to put into a blog!  We started working on our baby making process and that has been an interesting journey.  I don’t want to go into details because not a lot of people know the specifics and I want to keep it that way J  We FINALLY got an offer on our house a couple weeks ago!  Of course we had not been looking at houses because we thought our house would never sell, so we had to scramble to go out looking.  We found a house we like, put an offer in and now we’re just waiting on our buyer to get back to us on our proposal for repairs she wanted done.  Hopefully the whole shebang doesn’t fall through!

Recently I had an email from a woman who stumbled onto my blog when she google’d vaginismus.  How honored was I that she sent an email asking for advice and suggestions for her!  THAT was why I did this blog in the first place- to reach out to women out there that are too embarrassed to talk about this with a doctor they hardly know.  It gave me a chance to contact my PT to ask her for some recommendations in Indiana for this woman; it was nice to talk to her and catch up a little bit on how I’m doing since my treatment. 

I have had over 1200 visitors to my blog since I started.  Of course I helped that a long a little bit by posting my blog submissions to stumbleupon.com, so some of those people didn’t have a choice but to see my blog, but that’s ok!

I have also been asked to write a post about vaginismus and the effects it has on a woman’s sex life for glitterhood.com.  I am so happy to have my story out there for women who have been embarrassed and scared about their vaginismus. 

That’s about all I can think to blog right now.  My mind is a flutter of thoughts with everything going on with us.  

Eating, Pooping, Crying, Sleeping

A baby.  An eating, pooping, crying, sleeping baby.  Are we ready for this?  Is anyone ever really ready for a baby?  We are as ready as we’ll ever be.  Every time we are around the baby of a friend of ours, we get that fever once more and know that when it happens, our lives will be changed forever for the good.  

Why do I think we're ready?  Because a baby is more than an eating, pooping, sleeping, crying being.  It’s a cuddly, cooing, loving, smiling, giggling being that brings more joy into your life than you ever thought possible.  

Are we ready for this?  You bet your ass we are.  BRING IT ON.  Oh, but we either need to sell our house and buy a bigger one or have the money to add on.  Just FYI to whatever gods are reading my blog. 

Turkey Basters & Boy Juice

The Turkey Baster Method.  My wife hates that phrase, but that is what everybody thinks of (and says) when lesbians talk about having a baby.   In truth, I personally would not want a turkey baster shoved up my hoohah.  So, we’ll use a medical syringe.  That’s more my speed, especially with all my vagina issues.  There is another method that is highly recommended because you don’t have to lie with your hips in the air so the boy juice (thanks to a good friend of ours for that phrase that we love!) doesn’t all leak out – but this method is not something I think I would be able to do.  The picture below shows one example of the apparatus you must use in this method. 

I will not be using the Diva Cup or anything of that nature.  Imagine a little cup full of baby batter (as my wife likes to call it) that you have to maneuver up your hoohah to snuggle it up against your cervix. Easy peasy, right?  Sure.  Let’s say I did in fact manage to maneuver it up my hoohah with no problems, I can just imagine me being the one person in the world with an abnormally large cervix opening and I lose that damn thing somewhere up my body and I have to have emergency surgery to get the damn thing out.  My wife keeps telling me that just cannot happen, but YOU NEVER KNOW!  :oD      

      

So no, we will not be using the ‘cup’ of boy juice.  We will be using a medical syringe that we’ll suck the boy juice up with and then plunge it into my happy place hoping one of our donor’s little swimmers makes it to my egg.   Take 1 syringe of baby batter, add one egg and cook for 40 weeks.  

Baby Daddy

Baby Daddy.   Sperm Donor.  A means to an end.  Trying to get pregnant is going to be interesting.  We had our first ‘interview’ with a potential sperm donor last night.  Needless to say, we are meeting with our lawyer next week to educate ourselves on this process.  There are so many things we have to do in order to protect ourselves that we were a little out of our league when we met with him and had some concerns come up.  So, we will educate ourselves and meet back up with him in a couple of weeks after we all have taken some time to think about things.  Maybe he is the one, maybe he isn’t. 

In other news, at least my vagina is ready.  I am still doing my maintenance with my dilator every couple of weeks or so to keep my muscles used to insertion.  I am not sure any of that will prepare my vagina for pushing a baby out of it, but I guess it will help.  I don't think they make a dilator that big to prepare for that. 

Stay tuned for more baby daddy updates. :)

The In Between

I am now about 6 weeks post physical therapy for vaginismus.   Today I used a tampon and this time I had the damn thing in right!  I’m slowly getting used to them! 

So what is next for us?  Well, first we are heading on vacation in August.  Yes, that is a whole 4 months away, but because I only get 1 week a year of vacation they are kind of a big deal in our house.   We are driving to Yellowstone this year and hopefully we both come back alive.   I previously stated in a blog that we don’t work well together and honestly, we don’t do well on long car rides together either.  It was my idea to drive, because I have never really gotten to see much of the U.S.  28 hours in the car (each way).  56 total hours of Dawn singing every word to every song that plays through the car stereo, either by iPod or radio.   If I am not tempted to jump off a cliff in Yellowstone, I might just ask Dawn to leave me there to walk home.  Then again, she might be inclined to push me off a cliff after 28 hours in the car with me. 

Let’s assume we both make it back from Yellowstone alive.  Then what?  Well, September’s ovulation time will bring us to inseminating.  Right now we are looking at donor options and trying to figure out the best choice for us.  Do we travel to Canada as much as we can for our top pick donor?  Do we pick someone closer to home so that we don’t have to actually take off work to meet with a donor?  Decisions decisions.   It’s not like we can just stop the birth control and have a bunch of sex and hopefully get pregnant.  We have to plan this really hard. 

I’m trying to stay positive about our quest to get pregnant, but honestly, it’s tough to keep a positive mindset.  For us, things have to be timed so specifically that I worry we’ll miss it each month and not have success.  But I also know that things happen for a reason and if it’s meant to be, it will happen.  Hard to digest that it might NOT be meant to be for me to get pregnant, but that’s not up to me.  

Feet in the stirrups, please

I am alive.  I have survived.  I know, you are glad, aren’t you?

I had my first pelvic exam in many years with NO PAIN!!!  My last exam was probably 8 or 9 years ago and I was crying on the table while the doctor tried the exam (she even tried numbing gel, however I couldn't even handle her touching me downthere).  After recently overcoming vaginimus, I was still a little nervous about this exam on Friday.    Dr. R is a really amazing doctor (in spite of the bow ties) so I felt ok going to him.  He must have been delivering babies the night before or doing surgery that morning.  He was wearing scrubs with his doctor’s coat over them, no socks and black dress shoes.   He came in and asked me how I was.  My reply, “I’m here”.   He put his hand on my shoulder and told me it would all be ok.   I told him that I had done 6 weeks of physical therapy and our conversation went a little like this:

Angie: “I did really well in physical therapy; I was able to overcome my vaginismus in 6 weeks.”
Dr. R: “That’s great, how did you like physical therapy?”
Angie: “I loved it! Wait, that sounds a little weird.  It wasn’t as horrible as I thought it would be.”
Dr. R: “Well! I get an ‘I’m here’ response about you seeing me, but you LOVED physical therapy.  Way to give a guy a complex.”

This exchange made me laugh, and I felt even more comfortable with him.  If you can make me laugh, my nerves get a lot calmer.   He got me into position (feet in stirrups, ass nearly hanging off the table) and then pushed a button on his phone.  A minute later his nurse comes in and asks him what he needs.  He just needed her in there with him.  This is a little odd, considering he normally doesn’t have his nurse in the room when he sees Dawn, but I think he was just making sure he had a bodyguard in case it hurt and I kicked him.   Dawn sat up by my head holding my hand during the exam (awwww).  Everything went FINE!!!  He used a smaller speculum and went slow with everything he did, letting me know what he was going to do before he did it.  This is key in vaginismus recovery.  I am in charge of everything that happens to my body.  If I needed him to stop, I just tell him to stop.  And I was 100% sure that he would stop if I asked him to. 

Once he was done, he gave me his hand to help me sit up and bowed, saying “you are my hero”.  He was proud of me! 

I told ya me and my vagina are awesome  :)

Vagina Advocate

As my physical therapy comes to an end, what’s next for me?  I have a passion now to become an advocate for women.  I want to see women get the help they deserve to live a life free of pain when having sex, to be able to use tampons, etc.   So, I started looking online to see what I can find to get involved in. 

Through my physical therapist’s website I ended up on the International Pelvic Pain Society’s website.  On the front page was an article written by Amy Stein, a leader in physical therapy for chronic pelvic pain sufferers and author of Heal Pelvic Pain, regarding a Dr. Oz show that was done in 2010 on vaginismus.  Amy  is the founder and a practitioner of Beyond Basics Physical Therapy in NYC, specializing in pelvic floor dysfunction, pelvic pain, women's health, and manual therapy for men, women, and children while taking a holistic approach to each patient's entire well-being.  Long story short, they consulted with her about physical therapy treatments for vaginismus, but never talked about it on the show as a treatment option.  I watched a video clip of the show and was sorely disappointed in Dr. Oz (not that I ever really watched his show, he kinda creeps me out anyways).  I sent Amy an email telling her I agreed with her article about how Dr. Oz missed the mark on this one.  I also asked her how I can get involved in helping women.   She gave me some suggestions and asked me to read her book and do some online reviews.  I also wrote the Dr. Oz show telling them I was disappointed; however I am not getting my hopes up about getting a response from them.  One thing she recommended has really gotten me excited.   She told me to reach out to Elisabeth Oas who does a weekly podcast on chronic pelvic pain, The Pelvic Messenger.  What a woman!  I was able to connect with her on the phone one day and immediately loved her!  She has been through so much with her health and I commend her for becoming an advocate and a voice for women everywhere who suffer from chronic pelvic pain.  She suggested a few things locally that I can do to raise awareness.  I am considering contacting a local news station to see if they would be willing to do a story about pelvic pain and all the women who suffer from it.  Also, I will be doing a short video answering questions about my vaginismus to be used in a trailer for an upcoming documentary she is producing for PBS on chronic pelvic pain.  AND, there is the possibility that I will be a guest on her podcast this summer to talk about my experience with vaginismus and overcoming it!  

I have also been able to up my blog exposure a little bit with some help from friends so I’m hoping to reach women through my blog too.  I also may be helping start a support group in the area with some women who are on the vaginismus forum that I go to occasionally.   So many things on the horizon!

If you are a woman who has pain with sexual intercourse, or you are unable to insert anything in your vagina without pain, please talk to your doctor.  If you are uncomfortable with that (or if your doctor tells you it’s all in your head), send me an email and I will talk you through finding someone who can help you.  You deserve to be free of this!   Today, for the first time in my life, I used a tampon.  Granted, it wasn’t in exactly far enough I don’t think so it wasn’t the most comfortable thing, but I HAD ONE IN!  I was giddy.  I was dancing down our hallway.  I have also been able to add in a little something extra into my sex life because of overcoming vaginismus.   I say all of this to say – YOU CAN OVERCOME THIS TOO!