Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Let's Get This Show On The Road

Yesterday, I took my last birth control pill. My BFF says I should get my period in 2 or 3 days. So now the "what ifs" start...

- What if my period doesn't come?
- What if the cysts aren't gone?
- What if we my insurance won't pay for the follistim since it has not been a month since my last prescription (they gave me a super hard time trying to get the birth control since I had just gotten the crinone two weeks before)?
- What if we don't manage to fit the stims and iui in before we need to leave for vacation since it is a ridiculously short window?
- What if I really enjoyed these two weeks of not trying?

As you can see the crazies have returned in full form....

Here's hoping I get my period ( I cannot believe I am typing that!) so we can get this whole crazy show on the road again...

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Now I really am Just Cycling Along...

Meet Black Beauty:

Black Beauty. So named because she is black. I am clever like that.


A bit of background. At my latest appointment with my BFF I pushed for the hard limit of what running I can do. Due to my googling, I figured with the stims it was pretty non-existent. So, despite my manifesto from a few months ago, I quit running again. But it was driving me bonkers. By this time of year, I am usually signed up for at least one race a month, and it is what D and I refer to as my free Prozac. It keeps me calm (although, lest you think I am all sporty, I remind you (a) My dog walks faster than I run,  (b) I consider donut eating a competitive sport as well.) Anyhoo - I was right. The doctor said absolutely no running. He said the bouncing could twist my ovary and require surgery. Worst scenerio, I could lose an ovary. No thanks. I may love running, but not enough to have surgery for (and not that this having-a-baby thing is going so well that I can be caviler with my reproductive organs).

In its stead, the doc recommended the elliptical, walking and biking. D, in his need to be ever optimistic, immediately took me to the local bike shop and bought me a bike so I could get my outdoor sweat on.
Again, lest you think I am athletic...

It has been approximately 20 years since I have ridden a bike. And even then, it was done infrequently. I would bike with my sister, but that was only when you could pry my pasty, introverted self off the couch from a marathon Babysitter's Club session or the latest Sweet Valley Middle School book. Which is to say, not often. While yes, I did get past the training wheel stage, I never got to the 10 speed or mountain biking stage. The last bike I rode may or may not have involved streamers.

However, I was not to be daunted. Not even when the bike seller told me I was too tall for a girl's bike. I (wobbly) hopped aboard the proffered men's bike and peddled my way around the lot. D has shot video that he threatens to post on  youtube if I am not nice to him. Whoever coined the saying, "it's like riding a bike" obviously has never taken twenty years off. I was tempted to ask the bike seller if adult training wheels were "a thing". But eventually, I got the hang of it. And, although it came down between two, Black Beauty was the winner. On her, I felt more stable. On her, I felt less likely to meet my untimely demise.

So now, I bike. I've gone out 3 or 4 times since we bought her (due partially to desire, and partially to the guilt I have spending hundreds of dollars on a whim) and I get more confident each time. The biggest problem I am having is the abundance of wild life. Chipmunks and squirrels just don't get out of the way for a bike the way they do for a car. I thought for sure I was going to flatten one or two yesterday, but my squeals of terror must have been  enough to make them scurry out of the path of destruction. 

I am assuming, at some point, I will get past my fear of winding up like a bug on a windshield, or having visions of going over the handle bars and losing a tooth (while all those years of reading did not make me athletic, they did give me a very good visual imagination). But despite my reservations, I am enjoying it for now and it feels good to be outside. Of course, I am also hoping that this is a short lived hobby and that soon a prominent belly will get in the way of my biking.*

So how about you? Anyone else out there pick up a new hobby on the way to baby? Especially one that happens to dove-tail so nicely with your blog name?

* to clarify, I hope the belly will come from pregnancy, not the aforementioned competitive donut eating.


Monday, May 21, 2012

Uncle

CD 8 (not that it matters)

It is just one of those lives days. It seems nothing is going quite right.

I wake up to my third day in a row of nausea. I remember back when I took birth control it used to make me nauseous if I took it in the morning, so I would take it at night instead. Apparently, it now makes me nauseous if I take it at night too. Lovely. Nothing like mimicking morning sickness when there is absolutely no chance for it to be so. I barely got myself together to go to work I was feeling so low.

I get to school today to find out that no substitute actually showed up to cover my position on Friday. Everyone is pretty nice about it, but I can't help but feel guilty and bad that I (a) was not at work on Friday and (b) inconvenienced colleagues who had to swap turns covering my classes.

In preparing for a meeting with my principal tomorrow, I try to print out the transcript of my professional development for the year. No matter what I do, I cannot get the second page of the document to print. Multiple screen shots later, I have the Picasso of professional documents to bring to my meeting.

I finally get home, desperate to clean my way over due bathroom. To do so, I need to somehow keep the dog from licking up the bleach. Since Luna gets separation anxiety if outside by herself, and I cannot bear to lock her in her crate after a full school day inside of it, my only option is to gate her in the downstairs.  After 10 minutes of wrestling with the baby dog gate to keep her safely downstairs, I declare the gate the victor and give up (if you remember the Calvin and Hobbes cartoons where he used to wrestle with his bike, that is distinctly what it felt like. This will teach me to get the cheapest one available at Target). So, my bathroom will be mildew-y instead.

I guess writing it out, none of that seems terribly awful. I am just so frustrated with everything right now, and I feel like the hormones from the birth control are wreaking worse havoc than any of my other hormone supplements combined. All I want to do right now is crawl under my duvet and not re-emerge til...well, not even the next cycle. Can I just re-emerge when I am pregnant? Pretty please?




Saturday, May 19, 2012

Ch-Ch-Changes

CD6

Yesterday I had a mini consult with my BFF. After I got the news from the PA that this was going to be a "missed month" I had the knee jerk reaction of calling my Dr. and scheduling an appointment. Basically, with my vacation coming up in the middle of June, the thought of missing two months was not sitting easily with me.

However, when the time for the appointment came, I felt a little sheepish. I had mostly made my peace with having to miss this month, and my acupuncturist had gotten me jazzed about trying things naturally with herbs and vitamin supplements. I was not sure how much I needed to discuss.

So when we sat down in my BFF's office, I really did not have a lot to say.My (self-prescribed) plan was to try naturally this month, hopefully take BC while on vacation, and then either injectibles or ivf after that. All I was going to do was ask for the BC script for while we were on vacation. However, as soon as I told him we were leaving in mid June, he was off and running. So here's the new (dr. prescribed) plan:
  • Birth control for 2 weeks (12 days actually since I did not start it when I was supposed to). Take last pill on May 29
  • Period should come around June 1
  • Approximately 10 days of stims
  • IUI around June 13
  • Progesterone test around June 18
  • Vacation!
Other interesting tidbits from this appointment:
  • Apparently, last month when he dropped my dosage to 50, my estrogen also took a huge nose dive.This month he is ordering, regardless of what is happening, to keep the dosage at 75.
  • He also said he thinks I only had (maybe) one mature egg last month. He feels the other 13s were not going to be enough. Again, he thinks that by maintaining the dosage at a higher rate, we will get larger eggs. He said the risk is greater, but he thinks it is worth it.
D is overjoyed with this plan. As he says, "I am getting everything I want." I, however, have my reservations. I was going to embrace eastern medicine. I was going to relax. This new plan seems like a lot of time sensitive stuff. If it does not go exactly as planned, what happens then? Plus, what if the cysts don't go away? And even more importantly, I told my acupuncturist I was going "natural" and I feel like she is going to be disappointed (yes, sadly that is "more important"  - I am a people pleaser through and through).

But really, D is right, it is everything I wanted: minimum time lost. A chance to have a cycle that matters. So why can't I just be happy?


Thursday, May 17, 2012

Strike

CD4

I had my CD2 bloodwork and ultrasound on Tuesday, and apparently, my ovaries are on strike. They are crying uncle after working so hard and have developed cysts as a form of protest (what? 13 months without a break is totally fair labor practices). To add insult to injury, the cysts are quite large and seem to be mocking me. I imagine I can hear my right ovary saying, "oh yeah we could have made you a 25mm follie, but you work us to hard. No good eggs 'til better working conditions."

So, like many big conglomerants before me, I must bow down before their united front and, according to my Dr., have to take this month off from trying. 

And so, I am sad. Sad for the February baby I won't even have a chance to conceive. Doubly sad when I think about the fact that we are going on vacation next month and, due to this setback, I am pretty sure that month will have to be a break as well. Triply sad when I think about the fact that this means I won't really be trying again until July, when two good (presumably fertile) friends will be trying for their first and second child (although D feels the need to point out this is not a race...I'd still feel better if I these two months as a head start).

Yet, at the same time, I feel... relieved. After my initial sadness, other thoughts started creeping in. Like, not monitoring my body 24/7. And not getting up in the wee hours of the morning to make it to the clinic before 7 every other day. And not sticking needles into my stomach and peeing on tiny little sticks. And maybe even having sex just because I feel like it with my husband. It has been 13 months of non-stop trying and I am exhausted.  I think I could use a break and I know I would never, ever have had the will power to take one on my own.  Maybe this is a good thing?

And whether it is spin or the truth, I think I am doing mostly okay. It sucks to wait, but it's not like my trying was so successful anyway. Hopefully, once my ovaries have a chance to recoup and get some better treatment, they will get more serious on the job of making this baby.

 

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

A Family Affair


A.K.A - signs you may be talking about your fertility struggles a tad too much...

The scene: my sister's college graduation, this past Sunday.

Per family tradition, whenever someone graduates, we go to hibachi. I have a huge, tight-knit immediate family, and we usually fill two tables. Since we are so spread apart, we rotate around throughout the meal to be able to talk with everyone. At one point, I wound up next to my brother-in-law. I love him very much, but we have the relationship equivalent of two teenage boys... basically meaning our conversations revolve around making fun of each other, versus intimately sharing our feelings. However, we were chatting together about babies (he and my lovely sister are expecting their third child in October) and he turned to me and said, " you should be finding out about yourself this weekend, right?" I paused for a second not understanding exactly what he meant and then it dawned on me. He meant I should be getting my period (or not) this weekend. Yikes!  When your brother-in-law knows (and cares) about the in and outs of your menstrual cycle, perhaps you've let your fertility problems extend too far into the family circle.

*****

Not to be outdone, my grandmother got in on the game as well. At a completely separate hibachi table, I wandered over to wish her a Happy Mother's Day. No sooner had I sat down and she starts, "Did your mother tell you what Dr. Oz said? He says take cough medicine every night. And a bowl of full fat ice cream...three scoops...none of the diet junk...every night." Only after I assured her D and I would stop at Target on the way home to stock up on both did she let me move to my next spot around the table.  Her parting words to me as I got up, "if prayers made babies, you'd have a dozen by now. I am praying so hard for you...after all, I wont live forever."

*****

So yes, apparently I am a tad of an over-sharer.  My entire family knows about our struggles and (apparently) can even set their calendars by it. However, while both encounters had me cringing at their awkwardness (because, c'mon, when's the last time you discussed the best way to get fertile cervical mucus with your grandma), they also touched me to the core. D and I are so lucky to have a family that is willing to support us through this. And if that means an awkward family dinner every now and then,  I will take it (although, if my mom starts telling me about the position she was in for my conception, I reserve the right to revise my stance).
 

Sunday, May 13, 2012

The Lovely Blog Award


Thanks to Tami @ Submerged for nominating me for the One Lovely Blog Award.



Here is how it works:
  • Share who gave you the award with a link back to their blog
  • Write down 7 random facts about yourself
  • Give the award to 15 other bloggers.
  • Let them know they’ve won & pop the award up on your blog.
So here are my 7 random facts:

1. Until I was 27, I lived in the same county my entire life. Yes, not country, county. Even once I graduated high school,  our state university happened to be within that same county as well (I still insisted in living on campus). Only at 27 when D and I moved in together did I finally "get out". However, if you literally crossed the street, you would be back in my original one. Eventually we  moved again and are a whopping 15 minutes away. I used to abhor this fact, but now I enjoy that my family, friends (from both high school and college) and everything else I love are so close to me. It just makes vacations all the more important...

2.  I listen to books on CD everyday on my commute.  It is an hour each way and I find it the only way to pass the time without going crazy. However, it is always a little embarrassing pulling up to a stop light with my windows open only to be blaring Jennifer Weiner's latest book.

3.  I love to read (not just listen) and my favorite book ever is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I read it for the first time the summer before high school and it was the first time I ever completely and utterly related to a book. At this point, I have large passages memorized from rereading it so much.

4. My dog's name is Luna and she is named after the character Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter series (D and I went to see Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on our first date, and all the subsequent movies on our anniversary, or whenever they came out).

5. Cheese is my absolutely positively favorite food. I love everything from as low brow as American single slices to as fancy as super stinky cheese that you have to scoop out with a spoon. I have yet to meet a cheese I have not liked.

6. When I read Trisha's  list it reminded me of this. As a kid I was something of a hypochondriac. I would hear about a disease and instantly be sure I would get it.  I remember learning about Rabies and, once I had diagnosed myself, thinking that the most awful thing would be having to get six shots in your stomach. I thought there could not be anything more painful or scary. I thought about this the other day and scoffed. I could totally handle six shots in the belly now (But, er...I will still pass on the rabies).

7. If anyone is a fan of 30 Rock my husband swears I am Liz Lemon. I am not entirely sure that is a compliment (in fact, I am almost positive it is not), but I do cringe at the similarity sometimes...

As for nominating others, I am not sure who else reads my blog. So instead,  here is a list of blogs that make me go Squeee when I see they are new in my Google Reader...

 Submerged

Just Stop Trying and it will Happen

Waiting for Little Feet

Baby Making Merry Go Round

This Bumpy Ride of Mine

Womb for Improvement

The Elusive Second Line





Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Holy Side Effects Batman

10 dpIUI

So not to be melodramatic or anything (who me?), but the side effects from the progesterone are killing me. Usually I bemoan my symptomless state, wanting something to distract me and give me hope, but this is making me rethink my previous stance. I just can't beat the effect these supplements are having on me. Some of the joy I have experienced in this past week:

1. Joint aches....specifically, knee aches. On Monday night I felt as if I had run a marathon. Since I have most definitely done nothing aerobics in weeks, I realized that I was sore...from standing and teaching all day? Yeah, pathetic but true. I felt as agile and nimble as an arthritic grandmother.

2. Not technically a side effect, but I am a leaky faucet of wonderfulness. Enough said.

3. Bloat. My pants feel unpleasantly tight (and yes, I am choosing to believe this is caused by bloat, not actual weight gain from oh...eating a whole package of cheese like I am doing as I type this) and I find myself debating if sweatpants are work appropriate (unfortunately not. But as someone who spends most of her day working on the floor with people half her height,  I think they definitely should be).

4. The hormones. Oh the hormones. All week I've felt like a walking Nirvana song, all maudlin and full of angst, but today I reached a new low. At lunch a coworker snapped at me for no reason. Did I brush her off, or laugh about it, or even channel my inner bitch and retaliate? No, I  burst into tears. At work. In front of coworkers. Lovely.

And I can't even symptom spot these things because (a) progesterone gives you these symptoms and, more importantly, (b) I took a test today and it was a bfn (erhm...twice).

So what's a girl to do? Well this girl plans to drown her sorrows in a bowl of ice cream on the couch, with one button of her jeans undone, and indulge in a good cry. Because at this point, if If I can't beat it, I am just going to have to embrace it.

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Sweet Nothings

CD 21 / 7 dpIUI

The scene:
Last Monday night, our living room. D and I were about to sit down to dinner at the coffee table (oh, don't judge - everyone knows dinner tastes better in front of the television) and watch How I Met Your Mother. Due to the Wawa sandwiches in our hands (Ok, that you can judge a little...in my next life, I will cook mid-week meals. In the meantime, with each of us having hour commutes, take-in it is), neither of us could grab the remote to fast forward through the commercials. The first commercial that came on was for the movie version of What to Expect While Expecting. This was not the first time I had seen this commercial, and I groan inwardly every time I do. It's like my worst nightmare - dozens of adorable pregnant people extolling the pains and pleasures of pregnancy for 2 solid hours. Surely, there is a circle in the Inferno devoted to this just for infertiles. However, D turned to me, eyes bright and, without a hint of irony or anything but enthusiasm, said, "Hey that could be perfect timing for us!".

I love that D is so optimistic and my doom and gloom has still not brought him down. I love even more that the same man who has made me sit through Hildalgo, National Treasure and all three of the Lord of the Rings movies is thinking a romantic comedy about babies will be a perfect movie for us. His hope can make me believe, if only for a little while, that this month could be different. And this, in part, is where I get the strength to keep on trying.

But I still don't want to see the movie.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Failure

CD 6

No - not me. My progesterone. It bombed yesterday's test. So last night, I started the Crinone.

I know this does not mean it can't be a successful cycle, and I am lucky that they test for it early so I can go on meds right away, but I'm starting to lose some of my optimism for this cycle.

No, that's a lie. To lose some, I would have had to have some to start with. And I have been a grade A Debbie Downer lately.

I hope, like Tami says, that this bleak hormonal time can be blamed on the hormones coursing through me. I'm not usually prone to crying, but I have had some doozies lately. D is treating me with kid gloves. In fact, due to yesterday's crying jag about being fat-out-of-shape-none-of-my-clothes-fit-I'm-going-to-be-late-to-work-oh-yeah-and-I-am-infertile, he has offered to go to the mall with me today. This from the man who thinks he can buy his work wardrobe at DICKs sporting goods and doesn't understand why I can't do the same.

Geez, he must be scared...