Cycle Day 1

Today is cycle day 1. AF took her sweet ass time showing up, 6 days! I missed talking to the nurse today when she called me back but she said she would call me Monday. I'm going to write it down somewhere I can remember to ask if that is normal that it takes 5-6 days for the progesterone to clear my system and AF to show up. So today is CD1.

Since I had to get a CD1 I'm happy it was today. For multiple reasons: 1) I can relax today rather than having to go to work feeling all crampy and stuff and 2) that means cd14 is on a Friday and most likely we can schedule to do our IUI on Saturday or Sunday of Valentine's weekend. I was having a little anxiety about what the heck I was going to tell my boss and co-workers on why I needed to miss another day of work.

The only downside to this is that my mother will be in town that weekend for my future sister-in-law's bridal shower (on the Sunday). So that throws everything out the window about not telling our family anything about timing. Hopefully I can feed her some kind of story about it'll take three weeks before we know, or maybe I should just be honest and tell her that I appreciate her caring and checking in with me but I would rather her not do it and just assume that no news means no news and I'll get with her when I'm ready to talk about it... It will be a delicate conversation that's for sure!

On another note, today I went and visited my friend, who just had her first baby, in the hospital. I am very happy to report that even though I was a little nervous about how I would feel being there I had no twinges of sadness, envy, or any need to have a pity party. I was just simply happy for them and enjoyed holding their daughter, visiting with my friends, and watching them interact with her. If anything it just reaffirmed that this will be all worth it when we finally have success.

I Am OK, I Promise!

So if you could hear the the two phone calls and subsequent voice messages I received from my sister-in-law and my mother-in-law this evening, you would swear that I had another miscarriage. I love them both dearly but I knew they would be calling and sound like this. You know how it goes... I'm so sorry, I don't know how you must be feeling right now, I know this is so hard... etc. I am not making light of this. I know they truly. I didn't answer because I was quite happy enjoying a nice relaxing bubble bath with a new book and I didn't feel like trying to convince yet another person that I AM OK. I'm not going to hurl myself off a cliff, I'm not sobbing in bed with the covers pulled over my head, I am not devastated.

I appreciate all of the kind words and the empathetic responses over the last day or so. I know that I have family and friends who really care about me. But sometimes its frustrating when I tell them I'm ok that I get the look of I don't really believe you.

I think that for the people who have not seen me in the last month it is harder for them to understand. Since the miscarriage in August I have been a mess. I am willing to bet that I was battling some depression. The holidays were rough on me. But over the last month something has changed. I don't know if it is the acupuncture or if it is just time passing, but I can think about the miscarriage and not get angry or sad about where I should be in a pregnancy that I didn't get to have; I can enjoy talking to my friends who are pregnant and hear about what they are going through without starting to think of what I didn't get to have and feel all sad and sorry for myself. I don't feel like I'm getting left behind. I have faith that this will happen for us.

So now that I've gotten all "zen" on you, you have to promise not to roll your eyes at me or think I've lost my mind if I go wonky in a week or so.

Totally Re-Thinking This Sharing Thing

So today has me really re-thinking this whole sharing with the family what's going on. This cycle was the first one that the parents and SIL knew the timing of things and when we would find out. I know they care, but I just hated having to have those conversations and hear how sorry everybody is and how they thought for sure it would work. Yeah me too. I'm kind of over dwelling on it and I'm working really hard on not having a pity party about it. Actually even contemplating telling the fam that we are going to take the next month or so off so that way we're off the hook for giving status updates. For some reason I don't mind telling my friends, maybe its the fact that I can deliver the message through here or via text messages and emails. I don't have to hear the sad disappointed tone in their voices or the attempt at sympathy. Or maybe its the fact that they give me a little space and they wait for me to come to them rather than call me for the update.

Yes it sucks. Yes I agree, its hard to believe that it didn't work. Yes we're going to keep trying (seriously that was a question). Can I please move on with my life now?

I guess I'm just annoyed at the situation - I was super disappointed to get a negative, but when I get a phone call about it I have to relieve the disappointment and discuss how much it sucks over and over again. Its enough to drive a girl crazy! Just get me my clomid and let's move on already!

January results

Big huge fat colossal negative. Guess the boobs hurting like they've never hurt before didn't mean anything, guess the fact that I've been super tired all week didn't mean anything, and I guess the fact that I couldn't stomach the idea of eating hamburgers didn't mean anything either.

I am ok. Part of me suspected this was going to happen, and I think when we do eventually get a big fat positive I will be genuinely shocked.

So I am going to start running again and I'm going to drink myself silly at the Super Bowl party on Sunday. Go Cards!

And now we wait for Aunt Flo to rear her ugly head and make that cd1 call - will it please hurry up!?

Apparently It Was Just My Eyes

So my post last week about seeing lines... apparently it was just my eyes. I used the last of my "+/-" tests on Saturday morning (which I still thought I could see a very very faint blue line, btw). So during our errands dh and I were out and about and stopped at Walgreens, we purchased the digital "word" tests, same brand (Clearblue) as the "+/-" since they were on sale. The digital package of 3 was actually cheaper than the nondigital pac of 3. Bizarre right? Well I've confirmed why I had the digital tests. Even though its very clear on what the result is, its so damn clear it sucks. Tested Sunday morning and got a Big Fat Not Pregnant. Booo, hiss... I don't like that answer. Dh had to talk me down off the ledge and tell me let's not get too worked up until Tuesday. There's a reason the RE's office says test on 14dpiui and not 11, 12, or 13 dp.

I am praying that there is still a chance that I'm a late bloomer and implantation just happened at the end of the week. But I can't quite get that nagging little voice in the back of my head to shut up. It keeps saying "just move on, give up on it already, if it was negative on Sunday, its going negative on Tuesday". Arrrggghhh! I'm trying so hard to stay positive but I'm starting to believe that it didn't work. Unfortunately because of the progesterone that I'm on AF won't show up until I stop it. Part of me wishes I could just have a "normal" cycle of clomid and IUI without the progesterone screwing with things. At least then I'd know if these "symptoms" I keep getting are due to progesterone or actually maybe being pregnant.

Speaking of these so called symptoms - my boobs have been hurting like they've never hurt before. I apologize for sharing too much info, but OMG they have never hurt like this for this long before. I take my bra off at night and it feels like I have 500lbs hanging from them and they're super super sensitive too. Then on Saturday I went to lunch and ordered a cheeseburger with avocado on it. Normally this is my favorite indulgence food but this time I took one bite and immediately felt nauseated and could eat any more of it. Just the thought of it made me quesy. But yet I was able to eat my fries - no ketchup tho, that wasn't tasting too hot either. So to me this says that just maybe things could have worked. I had my hopes up on Saturday but like I said earlier Sunday's test results said BFN.

I am very proud to say that I have one test left and I didn't use it this morning. I am waiting until tomorrow morning, or maybe even Wednesday (yeah I'm tempted to push this party out a little bit longer than 14 days). Part of me just wants to delay the inevitable BFN and subsequent depressive crash and having to tell people that its a no go again, and part of me is being hopeful that if I give it a little more time there'll be a better chance that there'll be more hcg in the system for a positive. I gotta say though, if it is negative I'm going to be pissed, especially since the last couple of days I have been miserable due to above mentioned symptoms.

Testing... Testing... Is that a line or is it my eyes?

So I've broken down and I only made it until this morning. Yup, I tested. I'm not going to share results just yet, mostly because I'm not really positive exactly what the result was. I switched to one of the "+/-" tests. You know the ones where you strain your eyes until they tear up just to see if a vertical line appeared? Normally I use what one of my friends calls the "word ones". The last two cycles I did that's what I used since those were what gave me a "Pregnant" result back in August. I've decided that 1) those are a little more expensive, not ridiculously, but hey if I'm buying quantity I want to get more for my $$, and 2) those tests are just not that fun to take. Its so absolute. So NOT PREGNANT, and there's no hope of even trying to pretend like it could be a yes.

So back to my experiences with "+/-" testing. I decided very early this morning at 5:30am** (yes I know that is an obscene hour to be awake at) that somebody needs to come up with a new type of test. I would like to put a request into anybody who reads this who works for a drug or lab company or know somebody who does. I think there needs to be a home-blood test. You know, kindof like the diabetes test that people prick their finger to get their sugar levels. I don't see why this wouldn't work for testing for hcg. I just would so love to know is there absolutely any hcg in my system?? I guess if I knew the levels were over 5 but might just be under 25 (cause most tests don't pick up less than that) that there is hope.

I don't want to pee on sticks anymore, I want somebody to take my blood and give me a definitive answer. Even though interpreting lines is sooo much fun, I would much prefer a quantitative answer that I understand.




**Ok I just had to share this because I hope somebody out there will sympathize or at least get a kick out of it - I actually considered waking my husband up to tell me what he thought if there was a line or not. Then I realized that if I did that it would be a moot point since he would probably strangle me for waking him up at 5:30am when he got home from work at 2am. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow morning when I can wake him up and survive it so I can get a second opinion.

What does it mean?

Ok - I can do this, I just need to make it until Sunday, maybe Saturday, no wait... Sunday. I have never been so hyper aware of the twinges and aches that happen in my body. I have no idea if these are normal for me (I never used to pay attention like this) or if they're a side effect of the drugs or if it might just mean that I could finally get what I've been wanting.


Its now been 7 days since we did our little procedure. The last few days I've been getting twinges that sometimes feel kindof like ovulation pains and then other times they're a little more centrally located and I have a passing hope that it means implantation! Or maybe I just have gas... (sorry, that was without warning)

I've had similar symptoms the last few months so I'm inclined to believe that these have been happening all the time, I just haven't been paying attention or that its just due to the drugs. Sucky!


Anybody having the same kind of things happen? I don't want to get my hopes up too high, but let's be honest here, my hopes are waaaay up high right now.

I am so ready for this (not that I wasn't ready before), I've had the worst case of "nesting" the last two weekends. I have been methodically working through the various parts of our house dragging everything out of closets and deciding what needs to get donated, thrown out, or reorganized. The closet of our office, which is the chosen room if and when we have a child would be the bedroom, has been completely cleaned out. I am organized and I am ready.

One Down, One To Go

Well as of today Week One of the TWW is ending. Tomorrow starts Week Two and in my opinion the hardest of the two weeks. I am absolutely the worst at waiting until my "real" test date. The last two cycles I've tested early. The upside is that from one cycle to the next I've used less hpt's, much to my husband's relief, since those suckers are expensive. My goal this time is to wait as long as possible and not waste any by doing a test at night or something silly like that. As long as possible means Saturday morning. Which in reality is the soonest that the hpt's say you can test. (My official test date is next Tuesday, 1/27). If I could just hold out to Sunday though I might only have to buy one package of tests!

Does anybody else have this issue of not being able to wait the whole time? I have a friend who is so disciplined. I think my problem is that I see posts from people where they've gotten their positives at 10dpo and there are websites that say even as early as 8dpo there could be detectable levels. I know its a waste of money but its so hard to wait!

Random Miscellaneous Thoughts of the Day

My mind was all over the board today. Pretty much every where other than focused on work. But I am very proud to say that I did get a few things done!

So here's how the day went:

Logged on - nothing of interest in work email so onto personal email and the blogs!

Googled FSP and tried to determine associated success rates. Apparently this is a "type" of IUI - stands for Fallopian Tube Sperm Perfusion (they forgot the T apparently, or maybe infertility acronyms are limited to only three letters, who knows!). Here's a link: http://www.reproductivehealthctr.com/treatments_for_women_fsp.htm. Being that I did this in the reverse order - had the procedure and then did the research - I'm pretty pleased with what I found out.

Tried to figure out where my flex spending account money is - they say they reimbursed me for the clomid and the acupuncture sessions, but I'm not seeing my money in my account.

Determined that I have enough air miles to fly me and DH to Aruba -FOR FREE. And the best part is we can leave next Friday and come back on the following Thursday. Sign me up! Sent a text to DH proposing this wonderful idea... he laughed at me and said I was silly... whatever...

Did a little more work and a little more checking of blogs.

Now I'm home, watching a completely inane show called Superstars of Dance... I don't think they're very super... maybe I should stop recording this show... yup I'm done with it... moving onto American Idol, maybe that will be more satisfying to watch.

But here's a random thought that popped into my head on the way home from work today. Online it says that women get pregnant from IUI, but in blogger land I don't think I've found a single person who has yet.... Can anybody out there tell me that it is possible and that I'm not destined to move onto IVF in the future??

So that's all I've got for today. I'm not quite sure what to do with myself at the moment - I normally go to the gym for at least an hour after work... but today and tomorrow I have to kill about 5 hours each night between getting home and actually going to bed. Ugh... I guess I could reorganize the closet again....

IUI today

Officially the two week wait is on. Went in this morning for the IUI procedure. Poor dh had a rough time of it - he said that the selection of materials for inspiration were about three decades old and it was hard to focus because of all the activity walking back and forth outside the door. I feel for him and all the guys out there who have to give samples/deposits. Once he was done we waited for it to be my turn. It was relatively simple, and painless. Dh got 52 million motile sperm so he did a good job there, the downside is that if his morphology holds true only 9% of those are actually decent which takes us down to under 5 million of good sperm. Overall though I know to be happy with those kind of numbers. I'm hoping that with that in combination that we have three (albeit moving) targets that hopefully the troops can come up with one good connection and implantation.

Essentially what the nurses did (since I didn't need to see a doc, and haven't in three months) was insert a catheter into my uterus and then slowly inject the swimmers into my uterus. The objective was to overfill my uterus so that way the swimmers were pushed into my tubes and therefore enhancing the chances of connecting with an egg.

I took the day off of work since the process took essentially all morning - we showed up at 8:30ish and didn't get out of there until about 11:30ish. So I'm enjoying yet another day on the couch. Dh is super sweet and stayed home from work with me too.

Keeping fingers crossed. On the other hand if this does not work, I know I'll be upset, but now we know the protocol that my ovaries respond to so we could hopefully get another optimal cycle right away.

Jackpot!

Well sortof. I had to post again today - my cd14 appointment got turned into cd13 since I got a positive opk this morning. It was a questionable positive but I decided that it was close enough - I didn't want to accidentally miss it and then not be able to do the iui. So left the nurses a message and they had me come in this afternoon at 3pm. Once they found my ovaries (the first nurse was a little challenged) they determined that I have THREE mature follicles! I don't think I can describe how super excited I am right now! So psyched!

I know this doesn't mean that we will get pregnant, blah blah blah... but I'm going to enjoy being excited for the possibilities.

We're scheduled for the iui tomorrow morning at 10:30am. I'm a little intimidated of the possibilities, but who knows what will happen. Right now though I feel as if somebody gave me the numbers to win the lottery but now I just have to figure out what order they go in order to win.

And I would just like to say pfffttt to the docs/nurses... apparently 100mg of clomid is not necessarily optimal for everybody, sometimes 150mg works better (and so far seems to have less side effects, what's up with that?). So glad I pushed back on that and got them to up the dosage.

So Two Week Wait here we come!

Still Alive

I thought I would post an update on what's going on since I've realized that I've been a sucky blogger over the last two weeks. I don't know if its because of where we are in the cycle - there's not much new to get all angst about - or if its because we are now two years and three months into this and I'm done with being all angst about things.

Or it could be the acupuncture...

Yep - my sister-in-law gave me acupuncture sessions for a christmas gift. It was very thoughtful of her as I had been talking about maybe looking into it. So I've gone three times now for the last two weeks. Maybe that has something to do with being super mellowed out. Or maybe it was because I had two weeks off of work over the holidays.

I am uber-duber relaxed is all I can say. All last week this is what my days consisted of: go to work, go to gym, work out with trainer, go home, eat dinner, take a warm bath for an hour while reading my book, continue to read book in bed until fall asleep. Granted absolutely nothing got done around the house last week, but I really didn't care. I thoroughly enjoyed all the quiet time I had. I'm hoping that will help things this week.

Tomorrow I'm scheduled to go in for my cycle day 14 ultrasound. I have mixed feelings about this visit. Part of me really hopes that the upped levels of clomid got me to respond with more follicles (even one more, is that too much to ask?), but the other part of me realizes that probably didn't happen and we'll have just one follicle. Regardless we'll be doing IUI. My week is somewhat in flux because I don't know exactly what day this is going to happen on. Last cycle I had a positive opk on cd14 so if that happens again we'll be doing the IUI on Wednesday, if not it'll be Thursday.

So keep your fingers crossed that the extra clomid made some extra follicles grow and I'll post an update tomorrow - I promise I won't wait until next Monday!

Baby Making on the Brain!

I don't know if its the clomid or what's the deal but all I have had on my mind this morning is babies. And its in a positive way too. I visited a friend yesterday who is due in the next week or so and I was really excited to hear about all the stuff she's doing and see the nursery. And feeling generally happy for people who are pregnant and not feeling sorry for myself because I'm not. Its a good feeling. Hopefully it lasts for a little while. But anyways... like I said - total baby brain and that leads me to the new things I'm wondering about. I've got new things to google this month since we're gonna do an IUI instead of just the good ol'fashioned try.

I don't think I could be a nurse at an RE's office. I have only called the Nurseline (which is just a voicemail and then they call you back) for my cycle day 1 calls and to find out test results. Generally speaking I reserve my questions for my fellow infertiles since they have first hand experience. But today I called - of course I checked with a few others first - but I decided it wouldn't hurt.

My big concern this morning is that my mid-cycle ultrasound is scheduled for cd14. Over the weekend a fellow infertile said that she thought that would be way too late, especially for an insemination, and she usually goes in on cd11 and gets her trigger shot the next day. With my last cycle I had a positive opk on cd14 and both cycles I've gotten my trigger shot right there at the appointment. So I went home and re-read the instructions (even though I have them practically memorized at this point) just to make sure. And it definitely says cd14 regardless of insemination or intercourse. But of course - I'm not reassured... so I called and left a message...

And of course once I talked to the nurse I felt better and more understanding that it is ok to get a positive opk b/c if I got one earlier than cd14 they would have me come in that afternoon and schedule me for the trigger shot and all that.

So long story short - I try not to call the nurses all the time to ask my questions - goodness knows that they would definitely know who I was if I did call them every time I had a question. I try to use my other resources. So I think I'm pretty low key in terms of harassing them... but it makes me wonder about what other women are like. I'm sure there's some ttc'ers who have no other resources and call the nurses at every chance. I know that's what they're there for but I don't think I could handle crazy hormonal women all the time!

Didn't Like the Doc's Initial Plan for Jan

Today is cycle day 5. When I called the RE's office I waited until cycle day 3 for them to call me back before I called them back again to find out what was the plan. When I finally did get a chance to talk to a nurse she told me that the "plan" was the same thing as the last two cycles. I paused and thought, I don't think so. And then started to push back on doing the same thing again. I mean really - I didn't respond whatsoever to the clomid, only got one egg each time, and then I also talked to her about the whole issue that clomid causes with cm (cervical mucus) and that when that gets dried up things are not going to work anyways. My guess is that is what went wrong the last two cycles. We timed everything fantastically but to no avail. So I told her that we wanted to move onto IUI. I guess I was just a little flabbergasted that I had to push back so much on just doing the same old thing. I think I was pretty polite about it and I didn't get mad. Just told her that - if it had only been one year and two months at this point I would probably be ok with doing another round of the same thing, but it isn't... its been two years and two months. I'm tired of playing this game and I want a result!

So she said she would talk to the doc and call me back. They've decided to up my clomid dosage from 100mg to 150mg (oh goody, not only were the side effects increased in the last cycle, but not I get to put more of this hellish drug into my system!) and doing the IUI is my call. She said basically just tell the nurse when you go in for cd14 ultrasound that we want to do an IUI and they'll schedule it then since its timed off of when I get my trigger shot and all that. So I got kindof what I wanted - they upped the drugs (even though I did ask about injectibles and they nixed that) and I can do the IUI. But the response to the IUI just felt a little offhanded. The way she said that the doc said it was my call if I wanted to do the IUI or timed intercourse was like - well if that's what you really want to do go ahead and do it, I don't care... maybe I'm just being silly, but it just sort of felt that way.

I personally don't think we're crazy for wanting to get more aggressive - but my normal MO with docs is to follow what they want to do rather than push back on them. But I guess it needs to get done sometime right?