Angry South Pole Elf

I was an angry angry south pole elf today. I don't know what crawled up my yoohoo and died but I was in a pissy ass mood today and nobody was going to say anything that was going to make me feel better...

Test day is still three days away. Haven't had any real noticeable symptoms that might give a clue as to what's going on. Had some cramps last week... a few this week (but that's been done before); and other than this moodiness today I feel fine.

Thankfully I felt better as soon as I got home from work. I think work is starting to stress me - I find that I have a shorter temper with the idiotic things that my coworkers sometimes do and then I have to go and fix it. The problem is that I don't express my frustration with them to them directly... I bottle it all up and then rant and rave in the privacy of my office. *sigh* I need to find a healthier outlet.

And It Gets Better!

My sister-in-law is pregnant... of course she is... why not right?

Another Rant About How Completely Unfair and BS this whole TTC thing is

Its been said time and time again on any infertility blog and I know I've said it many times on mine - This is not fair!

On Sunday we found out a friend of my husband's and his wife are pregnant... 7 weeks in fact... I'm happy for them, that's great news, but here's the kicker... They went off the pill in JANUARY.

*Silence*

Yup January... WTF??? And not only that she's a little off her rocker (actually diagnosed as off her rocker and has to take meds and that's not fun but I think that stuff messes with your fertility (in theory))... has done drugs... and they were going to split up like four or five months ago.

On Saturday my very well intentioned MIL said something about trusting in God... blah blah blah... I stopped listening right around that time and everything happens for a reason. Which, as a sidebar, I couldn't believe I was hearing from her because she experienced infertility and miscarriages herself.

Well with the news on Sunday I just don't know about this whole "Everything happens for a reason, trust in God" theory. It is a little shaky. I would like somebody to tell me what the reason is that after a year and 1/2 of trying we got pregnant but had a miscarriage. What is that supposed to teach me? What is another 9 months of TTC unsuccessfully supposed to to teach me? What is the reason for this? When there's a crackhead somewhere who is pregnant, continues to do drugs and is probably going to lose her kid to social services because her drug use and that kid is going to have probably a sucky ass life in the foster care system.

It makes me sad and pissed off.

On related news we have five more sleeps until official test day. I'm really proud of myself - I have not bought any poas tests and really haven't had a urge to buy... probably because I really can't handle that kind of disappointment in the middle of the week. If things don't work out, let me just say that this weekend is going to be ugly. I've already warned dh to have ice cream on hand and that I won't be presentable in public.

In Today's News

This was the article that I read in today's news:

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/02/19/20090219embryomixup19-ON.html

I'm going to go out on a limb here and express my opinion. If you don't agree with me, I respect that, but this is my feeling on the topic.

First of all, it is horrible that a fertility clinic screwed up their procedures and the woman was implanted with the wrong fertilized egg. Horrible. To me that's pretty much just as bad as sending the wrong baby home with the wrong family after its born.

HOWEVER

I completely disagree with her choice to abort the pregnancy. Are you kidding me??? I don't think I would be able to do that. Granted you never know how you'll react once you're in the situation. My initial, knee-jerk reaction was how could you abort a pregnancy that you worked so hard to get? Just knowing all the frustration and grief and heartache that comes with infertility and "fertility" treatments I don't know if I would be able to do what she did. I think I would definitely be pissed about the mistake that was made but I would continue the pregnancy.

Of course what the article doesn't say was how far into her pregnancy she was. For all we know she could have been only 6 weeks in. I guess maybe then I can lean more towards that way. Who knows...

I had to say something about this - it just blew my mind.

And So We Wait... Again...

The weekend was relatively uneventful given that we did our insemination Saturday morning. We are really limiting in telling people about what's going on. Of course I can't control who reads the blog... but as long as nobody gets in my face about "did it work did it not?" in two weeks from now I'm ok with people knowing.

Now we're in the two week wait... I'm feeling positive about what we did this weekend. I'm hoping that by feeling this way I'm not jinxing myself.

So Easy!

Trigger shot was no big deal. Dh did an awesome job - it didn't hurt at all! Its a little red in the spot where he did the injection but there's no welt, no pain, and no bruise! He did better than the nurses at my last appointment!

Just wanted to let ya'll know I survived (in case you were wondering). It was a complete non-event and the only after effects was due to having to do the shot at midnight and I had to wake up at 5:30 this morning.

Sitting and Waiting

Because I'm bored and I am trying to find things to do to keep me occupied for the next two hours, I thought I'd post. Trigger countdown time is on - we are T-minus 2 hours and 4 minutes at this moment. Dh has promised to leave work early so he can be home before midnight. I would much prefer for him to give me this shot rather than do it myself, but at the very least I want him here for moral support. Thankfully, bless his heart, when I asked him to be home tonight he said of course and that he wants to be here and be a part of doing this.

I am ready for ovulation to happen - I'm definitely not comfortable and haven't been for most of the evening.

I'm a little bit hopeful

I'm feeling a little bit hopeful, a few parts numb, and largely very nervous. As you know (if you are a loyal reader) today was midcycle ultrasound day. Whooo! Another visit with the vag cam. Good times right?

I've been feeling a little uncomfortable for the last day or so in the lower abdominal region and I personally think more puffy than usual. Today's scan definitely confirmed why I feel that way. Picture this - laying on the table, I've got two nurses egg hunting in my insides. I'm getting pretty good at understanding what they're seeing on the ultrasound. Big black blobs = follicle = good! So first glance at the right side there's three... oh wait... there's four... um... five, six??? I'm getting a little nervous at this point because I know there's a point where they cut off and will cancel a cycle. And the sizes all sortof look the same (16-18mm). Then they shifted to the left side and found two more over there!

So I'm a little excited at this point, good excited because I definitely responded to the clomid (guess it needed to build up in my system??) but bad excited because I'm a little scared of what this could all mean.

Thankfully we are not cancelling the cycle. Once they were all done Easter Egg hunting in my ovaries they calculated out the current size and what they will go to if we trigger tomorrow. It looks like we will have six (gulp!) mature follicles to work with. I'm triggering tomorrow at midnight (bleh!) and then we're scheduled for the FSP (IUI) on Saturday morning.

I know this still doesn't mean that anything will work at all, but I will admit I am very very nervous about the possibilities (the multiples part, not that we could get pregnant part - that is the goal after all!). I think that we will get lucky if we have one out of this pile just because there doesn't seem to be a real strong magnet between my eggs and dh's swimmers up to this point.

Provided I don't surge tomorrow it looks like we'll have a pretty well timed FSP happening.

Like I said - I'm feeling a little mixed - excited but kindof scared at the same time. Is that normal/ok?

This Should Not Be THAT Difficult!

I know what you're thinking - this is going to be another whinefest, feel sorry for myself post. I would like to change it up a bit and say no. It is still a bit of a whinefest but not about infertility.

Today's whinefest is about technology and the internet. For the last three weeks dh and I have been experiencing extreme technical difficulties at home. Our computer completely froze out and then we found out that the hard drive had basically melted down on itself... so we had to send it back in to get a new hard drive (thank god we bought the warranty!). So dh is freaking out because he has an online class that he's doing for his bachelor's degree.

I mean, seriously, get a grip right? I have MUCH MUCH bigger problems here! In lacking a computer I can't get on the internet.

HUGE PROBLEM! If I can't get on the internet I can't check the blogs I follow and I can't google what the heck does every twinge or bubble mean! Ack! I sit in front of a computer for the majority of my day but I do like to exercise a little restraint in googling stuff at work... at least when it comes to infertility stuff... big brother is always watching ya know?

Well we finally got the computer back but now the stupid internet isn't working. Umm... ok what gives? Of course dh is looking at me to fix it because he's dreamed up some idea that he thinks I'm a computer expert because I'm able to hide things on the computer and track his activities on the web (I don't really care anymore but there was a time when I did). So... I am not a computer expert, I just know how to work Windows fairly well.

I just want the internet to work. We have a wireless router that allows us to use our laptop anywhere in the house. Ever since we got our computer back I've been getting errors that there's no internet. Power is on... hellloOOO??

Anyways had to vent because I was ready to throw the computer into the wall until I decided to try and connect to the internet The Old Way. Using a LAN cable... yeah I know it was genius! So now I have the internet but I'm chained to the desk. Ugh - I don't have the energy for this tonight. I'll have to leave this to tackle for the weekend.

Getting back on topic of this blog - cd12 is tomorrow and I convinced the nurses to let me come in for my mid-cycle ultrasound on cd12 since I've been getting positive opk's. Wish us luck! (I am predicting follicles in my left ovary - it has been quite uncomfortable for the last two days... I do the guessing to amuse myself and see if I can guess what's going on in there).

10 fertility rules every woman needs to know

This is one of the sub-tag lines on the front of this week's OK Weekly. Yes occasionally I puruse the trashy gossip mags. Generally speaking I quickly leaf through and look at pictures while waiting for the incredibly slow people in front of me to get finished checking out. But this weekend, that title called to me. Of course the main page is that Angelina Jolie has fertility fears and has a new baby diet so she can have a 7th child... ugh... don't get me started...

So I bought the mag since I had to see if there were any new secrets to fertility that I hadn't yet uncovered. So here it is:

1. Take prenatal vitamins, including folic acid. Check! Been doing this for the last three years (started them before I went off the pill since doc said its possible to get pregnant right away and you want to have folic acid in your system right away). Its not helping me get pregnant, but my nails and hair have been great!

2. Eat iron-rich food, like spinach. Well... I've been a little remiss in this category. Adding spinach to grocery list (and finding out what other iron-rich food is out there so I don't have to eat it).

3. Drink no more than one glass of alcohol per day. Say what??? I am a super overachiever here. I barely have two glasses of alcohol per month at this point. Maybe that's the problem, I'm not getting a daily buzz... this warrants looking into.

4. Limit your caffeine intake to one cup of coffee per day. Again, overachieving in this category too. I've switched to drinking Fresca and Sprite to cut down on my caffeine. I don't drink coffee at all, but do indulge in the occasionally Mountain Dew. I guess I don't have to feel guilty about that anymore.

5. Avoid refined carbs if you're at risk for getting diabetes in pregnancy. I have no idea if I'm at risk so I'm going to avoid even trying to figure out what refined carbs are.

6. Nosh on green, leafy vegetables, rich in folic acid and vitamins. So because I have been taking prenatals for forever - do I have to?

7. Consume full-fat dairy foods. No problem here - I love my milk, cheese and all other dairy products!

8. Don't eat too much seafood because of mercury concerns. Salmon, however, is rich in omega-3s and is known to have lower mercury levels than most fish. Being that the majority of my diet consists of yogurt in AM, frozen meal at lunch, and cereal at night (I'm home alone so I don't like to cook); I don't think I have to really worry about this.

9. Don't follow fad diets. No problemo!

10. Your partner should limit his alcohol intake, as it can lower a man's sperm count. Ahhh, thank you for that final word of wisdom. Unfortunately in my case the sperm count is not the issue - we have some morphology problems - any fixes for that??

So there you have it - OK Weekly's 10 fertility tips... I am a little underwhelmed. I guess it was a little too much to expect something earth shattering from a gossip mag.

Wants

I don't want to do this anymore

I don't want to be hypersensitive to every single sensation that happens in my abdominal area

I don't want to be able to say off the top of my head exactly where I am in my cycle

I don't want to have to chart out my next two months to try and estimate what my cycle MIGHT look like so I can travel for some career development opportunities

I don't want to have be in limbo with my life anymore

I want to be able to have a beer at happy hour and not worry if I'm screwing something up

I don't want to do acupuncture anymore. The novelty is gone and now its just yet another medical appointment to go to.

I don't want people's pity anymore

I don't want for others to think I'm a hormonal mess

I don't want to spend loads of money that we don't have on cycles that only have a 15% chance of working. I can't let go of the fact that 15% chance of working means that there is a whopping 85% chance of it not working. If this were Vegas, I wouldn't be playing $500 hands for each round of play.

BUT....

I don't want it to be just me and my husband for the rest of our lives. I want to enjoy all the things that come with raising children.


So what the heck am I supposed to do?