Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Just a regular Wednesday

Same old same old here. I'm entering my 2ww. My ovulation has been kind of weird lately. My bbts are rising gradually and sometimes I can't figure out my cm situation. Like this morning I had some fertile cm even though my bbt had gone way up. But it was just in the morning, so maybe it was leftover? I don't know. I feel like when I first started this whole ttc thing I could read my signs better than I can now. I mean, I suppose things could have changed a bit, but I thought individuals were more consistent than that. I don't really know.

I have a lot of stuff coming up to fill up my 2ww. First it's the holiday weekend. Then I got to Baltimore for work on the 6th and 7th. It's back to work on the 8th, but I'm leaving early to go to a concert with T. And then we leave for Oregon early on the 9th. I'm still trying to decide whether to bring a pg test to Oregon. We'll be staying with T's mom, so I feel kind of weird about it. But it's not like she doesn't know what's going on with us. I could wait til we get back and it would be about 16dpo, so that could work okay. And if AF arrives, then I'll know my answer anyway. I just decided last cycle to POAS on day 14 every month now, and this is a deviation from that, but I probably can live with it. I guess I can decide based on my symptoms. And I could always bring it and not use it. We'll see.

Friday's our appt with the RE, and we'll work on insurance stuff at that point. Time keeps marching on. It's almost September.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

HSG is done

I had my HSG today. The actual test kind of sucked. It's never great to have people shoving stuff all up in my business, and when they inserted the contrast medium a huge air bubble formed which made the doctor shift the catheter thingy around. That hurt like hell, but I didn't really cramp much afterward. The good news is that my RE said that everything looked normal. That's what we expected since I have been able to get pregnant before, so it wasn't like this was a big relief, but it was good to get confirmation that everything looks okay. He didn't have the results of my FSH or T's SA yet, but we have an appointment next week to go over everything and start the insurance process, so we'll learn all about it soon. It's better to get those answers when it all can be explained anyway.

Tonight T and I brought a letter of recommendation to a former co-worker of his. They were grilling in the yard and spontaneously invited us in for some wine and to share their dinner with him. After much hesitation, we finally agreed and had a wonderful time. We had fun talking and T and J did much gossiping and reminiscing about people at T's place of work. We had so much fun. They live in this cute little house in this cute little suburban neighborhood across the street from a park with a pond. It was so quiet -- so different from where T and I live. It was really nice. We need to make sure to invite them over. These are people we could be friendly with. We need more friends.

On Saturday E&R are coming over our house with baby S. This will be their first attempt to have the baby for an extended period at someone else's house. As E said, if there's anybody for them to try this out with, it's us. I think it should go well. R's still having a bit of trouble adjusting to life with baby. I hope he finds whatever it is he needs to adjust soon.

I hope this HSG isn't too close to my fertile time. Today is cd10. I just saw the start of sticky cm before my appointment. I don't know if the hostile environment of the iodine and contrast medium will delay ovulation a bit, or if things will continue as normal. If things do continue as normal, is it too close to ovulation time and has made my uterus not a nice place to live? I didn't ask the RE that question. I did ask the question about improving our chances of getting pregnant within the next few months after the HSG. He said that older literature said that this was true, but he's not sure about more current literature. But he did say, "It definitely can't hurt." So that's what I'm living with.

I'm ready for this to happen.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Sunday night

There's not much going on here at Henry Street this week. I made a yummy dinner -- we bought fresh fusilli from the pasta place down the street and I made some wonderful meat sauce to go with it. Our neighbor gave us some tomatoes from her garden and I put them in there. I have to say it was quite delicious. I also made some chocolate/peanut butter/oat cookies which were super yummy, and we drank some Chianti, so it was a lovely dinner. I haven't spent the day making things in the kitchen for a long time. I found it relaxing and enjoyable.

Yesterday we went to our favorite fireworks festival. In the morning we went to a local 'maple barn' for brunch. I had some delicious blueberry pancakes. They served the maple syrup warm, and it was quite lovely. We even got a maple shake to go as we walked around and checked out the sugar shack. The fireworks were incredible, as usual. This year it was a little more mellow than before, and they had a piece with bits of recorded material from people whose husbands or fathers were in the Army in Iraq. I have to say that made me quite sad, and I imagined that many people at the festival had relatives in Iraq, and I can't imagine enjoying the fireworks as much as they might have had they been not reminded of the danger their loved ones faced. I don't know anybody in Iraq personally, but that piece made me cry, and with all of the slow songs afterward, it made the fireworks a little bit difficult to appreciate in the ecstatic way that I usually do with fireworks, but I enjoyed it just the same. The fireworks at this event are the most wonderful fireworks I've ever seen in my life, though. They are so well choreographed and focused on color, and we are able to sit right underneath them. They had these huge fireballs where you could feel the heat when they went off. It was amazing. We read about a week long fireworks festival in Spain that we would love to go to someday. We never went on a honeymoon, so we are considering trying to go to that sometime. It would be incredible. I adore fireworks.

T did his semen analysis last week, and he said it was awful. My blood draw wasn't too bad. She had to poke me twice, though, probably because I drank the night before and had coffee that morning. Dehydration doesn't do good things for the veins. My HSG or whatever it is that I'm having is on Thursday and our doctor's appointment with the RE is September 1st. I expect that my fertile time will be this coming weekend (right after the test) and we will ttc as usual. Hopefully this test will do good things for us, but we'll see. I'm feeling pretty skeptical right now, but I'm sure I will convince myself I'm pregnant again, as I always do.

Our roof is all finished, and the squirrel seems to be gone. It looks really good. The leak in the attic is no longer there. We should have a new fridge by next week (we will call on Friday), so things seem to be moving forward in all sorts of ways. It's weird how that despite all of that, I still feel kind of stuck.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Trying to move forward

I've been wallowing for the past few days. I don't know how people try every month for an entire year with no results. It's excruciating. This cycle will be our 8th cycle with 2 pregnancies and 2 detectable losses. My pregnancies feel like they were so long ago. I was always sad when I miscarried, especially with the second one, (devistated, really) but I felt like I was able to move on. I'm finding myself thinking about how the due dates of my miscarriages are coming up and it makes me feel so empty. I was IMing with E this morning, and just thinking about her home with baby S made me sad. I just feel like I don't know what we're going to do, and that it can take so many years to have a baby happen and I just don't have that much time.

So, between talking to our therapist and needing to do something, I've set up appointments. T has his semen analysis on Thursday, which is the same day I will have my day 3 blood tests. On the 24th I am having some sort of uterine cavity x-ray with contrast dye. I don't know the name of this test, but I was told to take 3 ibuprophen 1 hour before the test, so I don't much like the way that sounds. If anybody knows anything about this, please let me know. ME, is this the "blow the cobwebs out" test you mentioned to me the other day?

Anyway, we then have a follow up appointment with our RE on September 1 to set up a protocol and start fighting with the insurance company. I know it will take some time and effort, but we should be able to eventually get some coverage. I think by the time we get through all of this and get to approval it will be time for us to try the IVF with PGD. So I guess we've taken our first solid steps toward that goal. In the meantime we can keep ttc, and if we get and remain pg between now and then, bonus for us. If not, we have our first attempt all set up.

I'm feeling okay about all of this for the most part. I guess I was convinced that it would be easy for us to get pg again, but that doesn't seem the case unless I'm having a m/c before a pg is even detectable. I know, I'm a crazy woman for thinking this, but I just can't help it. We got pg two times in a row the first two times we tried, and now -- nothing. But I suppose that's all irrelavent. I simply want to have a healthy pg as soon as possible.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Nope

BFN. My bbt dropped for the last two days, so I wasn't expecting anything else. Sigh.

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

I'm obsessed with my chest

Do you know what it's like to be obsessed with your own b00bs? I'm sure many of you do out there, but let me tell you, it's ridiculous. I think about my b00bs all day. This morning my bbt dipped, so I was sad all morning. I thought my b00bs stopped hurting, so I was even more sad. I touch them every time I pee. I think about them when I'm walking. I contemplate them when I'm sitting. But right now, I can honestly say they hurt. We'll see what my temp looks like in the morning. Tomorrow is 10dpo. I will not POAS before Sunday. I won't.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Still sore

Three quick things. 1) I think my b00bs are more sore than they were last two cycles. 2) My temp went up again, so I have a triphasic cycle so far. We'll see what happens tomorrow. 3) I feel like I shouldn't get hopeful or excited or anything about all of this, but I can't help it. I do it every time with every cycle. Good thing we're going to our therapist tomorrow.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

Mid 2ww

I ovulated on August 1, so if you want to count along on our 2ww, just check the date. If I feel the need, I can POAS one week from today (next Sunday). I, of course, think I'm a bit symptomatic with sore bre@sts, but I have also convinced myself that all this is meaningless and I always think I'm symptomatic so I can't put any faith in what I think I'm feeling. I think I project symptoms onto myself in hopes that this thing will work out for itself. In somewhat related news, my referral went through for the IVF place, but we still haven't managed to call to schedule T's SA or my FSH. It's really difficult to schedule these things when one is busy at work all day and when one cannot shut the door to get some privacy. But we're working on it.

The weather this weekend has been amazing! Yesterday we worked on the yard and bought a bunch of groceries. It's so nice to be outside when it is nice outside. Last night we went to E&R's house to see them and the baby. We were their first houseguests for dinner, and though we brought the majority of the food, I think it was good for them to realize it's possible to have guests over even with the baby. R is having some stress troubles with the new arrival. It's hard on him to give up his independence, I guess. E seems to be doing well. Baby S is adorable, and such a good baby too. I haven't seen him scream once, though I'm sure he does it from time to time. He's gaining weight nicely, and tracking with his eyes, and his neck muscles are strengthening nicely too. He's over a month at this point already! I only had one moment of sadness while there. We were just chatting, and we were discussing how messy things are in our houses -- E&R made a mad rush to clean of the dining room table so we had a place to eat. I mentioned how we just have a hard time keeping things neat in general, and R said, "Wait 'til you have a kid!" and it just stabbed me. I don't know why that stung so much, but I could feel it inside my chest. It managed to subside pretty quickly, but I can still remember the feeling.

Today I weeded the garden and we went to the store. I'm off to go back outside to put all the weeds into lawn bags.

I guess we all just have to keep our chins up. Good luck, folks. I'm wishing all of you the best.