Almost another 2ww

I should ovulate soon, so it's almost time for another 2ww. I don't think I could be more ambivelent. Of course, I didn't sleep well last night, though I'm unsure why. T and I went up to New Hampshire on Lake Winnipesaukee with my family this weekend. It was my Dad's birthday, and we sat by the lake on the beach, relaxed, ate dinner and relaxed some more. It was really, really nice to get away. It make T and I realize how much we need to go away for an extended period of time. We're going to go to Oregon to see his mom and go to the retirement party for someone T used to work with, which will be nice, but staying at his Mom's house isn't quite as relaxing as renting a little cottage for a week would be. But we gotta do what we gotta do. We just put a down payment on getting a new roof for the house which will fix the leak and hopefully take care of the evil squirrels, so funds are limited.

I did manage to call the IVF place to try and get our initial testing set up. I have new insurance since taking my new job and I need a new referral so that the tests can be covered. I will call the IVF place back on Wednesday if I don't hear from them, and then we will set up T's semen analysis and my FSH or whatever. I guess if I suspect I might be pregnant then we'll just have to postpone my part of the testing for a bit. But that's at least 2 weeks away, right?

I have decided that if I suspect I'm pregnant that I will pee on a stick this time. I was afraid to before, but this time I want some confirmation of my suspicions, or else something to tell me that I'm completely insane. But I'll know definitively one way or another.

Our fridge still hasn't been fixed. In 9 days from now, we are going to demand a brand new fridge immediately. Our lives feel so ridiculous sometimes.

Hump Day?

Not literally, though. ;)

Things are still crazy here on Henry Street. The fridge is still broken, but we have the backup so we're eating in. I got my hair cut today. It felt good. T is out with his co-workers seeing Superman and going out to dinner. I am home fighting with squirrels and writing this. We bought some pepper oil infused stuff that's supposed to keep the squirrels away. I threw it down the walls yesterday, and the squirrel was very unhappy. I was banging and making lots of noise to scare it away first, but it just stared at me. I found that incredibly terrifying. Then I just threw the pepper stuff right at it and it ran out. T saw him on the top of the roof itching and rubbing. Today I threw some down there and all I could here was a deep growl sort of noise when I threw it down there. I don't know what that means. We want the squirrel to leave. We're going to get a new roof on our house, and we're hoping the roofers can get rid of the squirrels. T is confident, but I feel king of skeptical about it. I truly hope it works, but I think squirrels are pesky. The cats have been useless in scaring them away. Stupid cats.

I have a conference on Thursday and Friday, so I sort of will have a little time off. I'm looking forward to it. I will probably get out early on Friday, so maybe T and I will go see a movie. Saturday morning we're leaving to go to NH to a house my brother and sister-in-law rented. It's my Dad's birthday, so we're going to go for 2 days and one night. I have to make rice krispy squares.

I didn't get home til late and didn't make dinner, so I'm waiting for T to bring me home leftovers.

Thanks to those who sent encouraging words about our battles to come. My fertile time is going to arrive again reasonably soon, so we'll see what happens this month. We still need to call the IVF place. T is taking Friday off, so maybe he'll call. He still needs a SA and I still need that day three HSG or whatever that test is. I refuse to stop ttc while all of this is happening, though. Will that affect the test if AF is actually a very early miscarriage? I'm certain that's what happened last month.

I hope everybody is doing okay. I'm not being good about keeping up with blogs lately.

Still going

Our fridge is still on the fritz, so we have been calling to get it repaired instead of calling about the insurance and IVF stuff. Happily, my brother and sister-in-law recently redid their kitchen and they had an extra fridge sitting in their yard. They have a brand new mini-van as well, so they brought it over this morning. I couple hours of cleaning later (good bye mildew) we have a working fridge in the basement!! Yay!! We bought some food and we grilled for dinner! It was the greatest. Hopefully our actual fridge will be fixed soon.

We've been feeling up and down lately. We're so busy, though, we don't really have time to be sad. I want things to slow down. I'm enjoying my new job, but I feel like I don't have time to relax. We are in need of a vacation, but it's difficult to imagine when I will be able to take one. It was a huge mistake on my part to not take a vacation before starting my new job, but I felt such pressure to start. We really need to get away. T has over 100 hours of vacation saved up. He's stressed out to the max. I'm stressed out to the max. We have to make ourselves take some time off, but I don't have any. T's going to take at least one day of this week, though. I think that's good.

I haven't talked to E since she's been home by herself. I should give her a call. I hung out with my friend S, and she's having some trouble with R. I'm kind of worried about them as a couple. I'm really wishing the best for them. It makes me sad to think that they're having trouble together.

I have to do some work. I'm giving a powerpoint presentation on Tuesday at work, and I don't have time at work to work on it, so I brought it home. Nothing like 9:00 on a Sunday to do some work. Though T is sitting in the living room doing work, so what the hell.

We really need a vacation.

The catharsis of blogging (and therapy)

So we had a hell of a therapy session this morning. I cried through 3/4 of it, I think. We were talking about IVF. We were talking about how it might be time to get the ball rolling with the IVF thing. Part of what we talked about was getting the money for IVF from my parents. It could be a gift from them. It could be a loan from them. I'm very, very, very hesitant to take the money from my parents. They have offered us the money, and they could afford to give it to us, but it doesn't feel right to me. So instead, we are going to have to get the insurance companies to pay for it. They're certainly not going to volunteer for it, as so many of you know. But we have the advantage of living in Massachusetts where fertility coverage is generous. And T and I think with a bit of work on our side, we could get the coverage. So while we keep trying, we're going to work on getting coverage.

I guess I still haven't come to terms (is that an inappropriate pun?) with IVF. I read so many of your blogs out there, and see all of you be strong and go through it. I even see you getting excited to start your injections. And then there are the truly lucky ones for whom IVF has created a viable pregnancy and a baby. It happens. But I can't seem to deal with the idea of IVF. I know I need to get over myself and make it happen. But I'm terrified of it. I have been told that I will get used to it, and that it becomes sort of like a second job. I'm not terribly scared of needles or medical procedures in general. But I just can't make IVF feel right. Regardless, I'm still willing to go through with it. I will certainly give it a try. But I can't say that I'm looking forward to it. I'm not excited about the fight with the insurance companies. I'm not excited about the huge shipment of meds or the side effects of the medication or the egg extraction or even the implantation. I just feel like none of the embryos will make it far along enough. Or that one or two might, and it just won't work.

Maybe I'm mostly afraid of 'wasting' the money. I'm generally quite a frugal person. I research and find the best deal. Sometimes I'm willing to spend more to get a quality product. But because there is no guarantee with this IVF it doesn't sit well. $15,000 is a lot of money without a guaranteed product.

So I'm mulling all of this around in my head. I'm wondering how we're going to make all of the necessary phone calls when T has a cubicle and I share my office with another person who has recently made a completely insensitive comment about IVF right in front of me, even after I told her about our issues. She's not the smartest person in the world, though, so maybe she didn't put two and two together. That wouldn't surprise me. I don't know how we're going to get this all done, but I guess we're going to have to.

The wait is over

AF has arrived and I'm no longer obsessing about my bbt. It dropped this morning to below my cover line, and I knew my wait was over. In my estimation I'm 2 days late. I didn't confirm a pg, so I don't know if this counts as a m/c. I'm not sure it matters, except for trying to get insurance coverage. I'm pretty disappointed, but there's nothing I can do about it now. I found out through E that our friend A who had been having trouble is at 10 weeks now. I hope things continue to go well for her, but I can't say I'm not jealous.

So I'm kind of just sad now.

Still waiting

Still no signs of AF yet, but my bbt dipped slightly again. So it's been steadily down for the last three days. I realize this most likely means things will be over soon. I didn't POAS because I wasn't sure what point there would be in it. I still feel like I have some pg signs. I figured if I POAS I'd probably get a BFP only to bleed in a few days, so I'm still sitting here in limbo, waiting. I figured if AF doesn't show up I can always POAS tomorrow.

I'm really anal about my temperatures, and this morning I took a bbt when I first woke up (really early -- about 5:20) and it was low. I peed (but not on a stick) and then went back to sleep. I slept for about an hour and a half and decided to take my temp again (told ya I'm anal) and it was high. I know this isn't an accurate bbt, but it leaves me wondering a little.

I should probably POAS and just get this all over with, but I really think I'm just going to start AF really soon and we'll just have to try again this month.

This is so agonizing, and after seeing E&R's baby yesterday and about to be on our way to see the high school man's 2 children, I'm feeling a bit down. So much for a relaxing weekend.

We have to go out to eat again because our fridge still doesn't work. And with eating out so much, T & I have gained at least 5 lbs each.

Haven't POAS yet

No AF as of yet, and I still have sore b**bs and I can feel some weird stuff in the uterus, but my bbt has dropped the last two days. It hasn't droped a ton like last month, but I'm kind of skeptical. We'll see what happens tomorrow. If it drops more, I'm considering this month a lost cause. If it goes up, I'm going to POAS. I am so ambivalent about this process. If I get a BFP, I don't really know what that means. Should I stop taking my bbt? I obsess about every little dip. But I will obsess about every twinge, every bit of soreness and any other possible sign there is. I wish there were a way to sort of ignore all of this, but there isn't. I don't know what to do or how to handle this.

And of course this is a weekend full of kids. We haven't seen E&R&babyS since the hospital, so we're going to drop by for a visit. Then a friend (ex-boyfriend, actually) from high school is in town and T & I are going to go see him, his wife and his two kids. I think he has daughters. One's maybe 3ish and one is just 1, I think. So no getting away from the idea of kids this weekend.

We saw R&J, good friends of T last night. I wasn't drinking, and J asked why. I explained, and talked about T's bt. It's funny how much easier that has become over time. I can talk about it in a mostly matter of fact way. I can list my miscarriages and the percentages without even coming close to shedding a tear. Yes, as I chart my bbt every morning, my heart rises and sinks with every .1 degree increase or decrease. This is a difficult thing.

If it's not one thing, it's another

Our fridge died. It's less than a year old, and let me tell you I am pissed! The food is just starting to go bad. I took the 'valuable' food and put in some ice in a cooler, and now all our refrigerated food is in a cooler on the kitchen floor. We woke up yesterday morning and there was an error on the display. We called the customer service number, and they referred us to repair people in RI. We told them it was too far away, but they insisted. I called RI and they said they won't come up to our part of MA. So I had to call customer service again and get a new repair service. Luckily this fridge is still on warranty. Someone's coming on Wednesdsay to fix it. In the meantime, we may go buy a mini-fridge and keep it in the garage. We had talked about doing that anyway. Actually, we were more interested in getting a chest freezer, but necessity dictates. Whatever. I'm angry about it.

T has to work today, so I'm at home alone. I had such plans to do all sorts of housework, but now I'm obsessing about the fridge and getting a lot less done than I had anticipated. After I blog this out of my system, though, I'm going to get started.

Things are going okay. I'm doing okay. The visit to the hospital went pretty well. I get a little sad now and again. Trying to talk to E is difficult, though, since a billion people are calling her and she's busy with the baby. The baby is S, but a different S than I had originally thought. It's a nice name. He now has a name, and it suits him. I gave the presents. I held him. He was so little. Now that the baby is here I feel a little like I'm losing my friends, but I'm going to work like hell to make sure that doesn't happen.

Meanwhile, I'm almost done with week 1 of my 2ww. My boobs are a little sore which is potentially a positive sign. But I've been having morning insomnia lately, so my bbts aren't that high. I mean, they're not so low it's worrysome, but it's not exactly steadily climbing the way it had during my previous BFPs. But, in reality they're really not different than any cycle at this point. 6 dpo, the bbts all look the same, generally. So I'm just still waiting. Sometimes I feel excited or hopeful, but I'm trying to keep myself in check. I just don't want to moon over a BFP. I want to remain indifferent. It's just very difficult. I feel like a BFP is basically meaningless, but there's always that, "You never know," aspect to the whole thing. It's frustrating. And sad.

So, I think I'm going to cook some eggs since I'm hungry and they didn't fit into the cooler. They'll go bad if they don't get eaten, so I might as well use some of them up. I was going to put some cheese in them, but I don't think I'm going to dig in the cooler for it. Plain eggs for me. Maybe I'll fry them or something.

The baby is here

We got a call at 8:45 yesterday morning and the baby has arrived. He's a boy. He doesn't have a name yet. T and I are going to go to the hospital later this morning and see E & R and their new arrival. I'm feeling mostly okay about all of this, though it is terribly surreal. I mean, I just can't believe that they're parents and they have a kid now. They're the first people in my close group of friends to have a baby, and I have to admit that it is freaking me out just a little. T is a bit more saddened than me about the whole thing, I think. But we'll go to the hospital and visit, and then we'll go to the fireworks by ourselves.

E's labor was quick and easy, as far as labor goes. She had no pain meds and things went quite smoothly. She woke up in the middle of the night and her water broke, and by the time she got to the hospital she was 4 1/2 cm dilated. The baby was born at about 7:45, He was a week 'early' but he weighed almost 8 lbs and was 20+ inches, so he's a big boy.

That's the big news for this holiday weekend. I hope we see some good fireworks.

Long weekend

Yesterday we bought food because we hadn't gone food shopping in two weeks. T has a membership to C*stco, so we buy stuff there all the time. T is obsessed with having 12 weeks of food in the house in case of a bird flu epidemic. It's making me slightly crazy. We bought 8 cans of baked beans yesterday. We were going to have a can with the hotdogs we grilled for dinner last night (yum!) but we forgot. We have to put up more shelves in the basement to fit all the food T insists in keeping in the house.

I don't have to work until Monday. I'm very excited about this fact, but it seems that the weekend is going by quite quickly. We bought me some new clothes for my new job. I think T is the only person who I can go clothes shopping with because he has a pretty good eye and he doesn't make me linger in the store when I'm ready to leave. I really don't like clothes shopping. Except shoes. I love shoe shopping.

We have tentative plans to see fireworks in a nearby town (not the huge Boston celebration which is overly crowded) with E & R. We're going to a place near to where E is giving birth in case the fireworks induce labor. She told me that she's having contractions a lot -- like every 4 to 6 minutes, but that they're not strong, and she wasn't really dilated at her last Doctor appointment. She has another one Monday, and the fireworks are Tuesday, so we'll know more then. I'm a little impressed that she's going out so much despite her readiness. I'm assuming theyll bring a chair for her to sit in because there's no way she's sitting on the ground. I've stiched in my personal labels on the sweater and the blanket I made for the baby and they're all wrapped up and ready to be given. I'm still not feeling sad, and I'm even feeling a little excited. But I'm also feeling a little jealous. And that makes me a little sad. But in general T & I are doing okay, I think.

I should have ovulated by today, but my bbt isn't as high as I would like it to be. So I'm not sure what's going on. I've usually had 3+ fertile days, but it seems like my fertile time was 4+
days this cycle. I hope we had good timing this month. I suppose I'm into another 2ww starting now.

T and I are ready for coffee and breakfast.