Trigger

My trigger shot is tonight. At my ultrasound I had two mature follicles, one at 22 mm and one at 21 mm. This is the first time I've ever felt good about an ultrasound. I was hoping for two follicles, but sort of expecting only one. Two is good. I'm happy with two.

The IUI is Friday. Both T and I are taking the day off.

If this doesn't work, we are going to switch donors, so we have to go back to the drawing board with finding someone we both think is good. We will first go over some of the choices we made last time.

If this doesn't work, we will also try to do injectibles next month, as it is the last time for a while that they might be covered by insurance. Our RE thinks this is reasonable.

Tonight we will be handing out candy. I just finished the jack-o-lantern. I want to go pick out a costume to wear, but I don't know if I'll actually do that. T is feeling down. He's already sad about the cute kids that will come to our door. Also, there is a baby shower for his boss at work tomorrow. He's hoping he can make himself scarce at that time. I hope he can too.

I also hope we give away all the candy we bought because if we don't, I'll just eat it all. And no one needs that.

and more time passes

I didn't carve, but I did make applesauce. Monitoring is Wednesday. I half expect to trigger that night and have the IUI on Friday. We shall see.

Went for a walk with E&R and toddler S. It was a little sad. R completely does not understand the infertility crap. He even forgot that if I have fertile time that T's presence doesn't necessarily solve things. T was really down afterward. He just looks so much like R that it hurts T just to see that. I wish I could do something to help him at these times, but I know there isn't.

I have a pinched nerve in my neck and I went to the chiropractor for the first time today. What an experience! Two ENORMOUS cracks. Wow. I just hope my symptoms alleviate. I'm going back a few times a week for a while.

The Sox won the series. I'm glad. I'm happy about it, but it just doesn't have the elation that 2004 had. It's nice when they don't lose, but I guess I just have other things on my mind.

Keeping on

I have nothing much to say, these days. I've started the Cl0mid. I have my first monitoring next week. I had an in person interview with that good job that I still don't want. It's becoming slightly harder to resist, but they definitely work 50 hours a week, and I'm not sure I can handle that. But it has some really good earning potential.

We're psyched about the Red Sox, but I get so tired I fall asleep around the 4th or 5th inning. The games start so late. Looking forward to a nice, fall weekend. I think I'll carve a pumpkin.

dIUI #4

I will be doing a monitored Cl0mid cycle for dIUI #4. My first monitoring will be on Halloween, which also happens to be my brother's birthday. I got approved by insurance. I should have a trigger shot and everything.

This may be our last cycle before our insurance runs out.

Since it is our last vial from this donor, we may decide to choose a new donor before proceeding. Though, we may not. We may decide to try on our own if this fourth IUI doesn't work. We may not. We may decide to just do a few more IUIs with the reduced insurance coverage. I'm not sure if monitoring is part of the new plan. But, we may not.

I feel the future is very uncertain right now. But this 4th dIUI will be monitored and maybe that will just help with the timing a little bit.

Over

I got my period last night. I called to cancel my blood draw tomorrow, but the doctor wants the negative on file.

Can anyone say mojito?

Just sad

I have been miserable all day. My temperature went down today. I don't think I'm going to test tomorrow. I will, however, test Saturday. I'm having a non-blogger infertile girls' night out, and I want to DRINK, so I'll test Saturday just to make sure. I'll temp tomorrow to see if it was a fluke dip or if it's really over. Needless to say, I'm not feeling very hopeful.

I had a phone interview yesterday. This job is perfect for me in many ways. It involves training and data management. It's with a cool and growing company, and there is room for advancement. It's really near my house. The people that work there are diverse, smart, and they work hard. There is opportunity to occasionally travel to cool places including Prague and Geneva.

I don't want this job. I don't want to work 45 or 50 hours a week. I don't want to travel sometimes. What if I have to miss fertile time? I don't want to have to be responsible for anything. I like my 30 hour a week with no responsibilities. I feel like my job is to get pregnant. That's a huge enough stress and responsibility by itself. I've had it for 2 years. I know it well by now.

I feel horrible for not wanting this job. I should want this job. I am a very smart person. I have a graduate degree. I am a good, critical thinker and I am an excellent teacher. I am capable of so much. I feel guilty not using my brain. I'm doing the work that someone with a GED could do. And yet, I still don't want this job. I have an interview set up for next week, and I will go and be enthusiastic. But I'm terrified. And I don't want the job.

I've been pretty much at my wit's end today. I saw no less than 3 pregnant women today not including the one at work. Babies made me cry again. That hasn't happened in a while. We have one vial of sperm left. I'm going to try to do monitoring and a trigger shot next month. That leaves one month before our insurance changes. Don't know what we're going to do then. But I'm entertaining fantasies of trying on our own again in January until I find a job with insurance coverage. You never know, right? And T's sperm seems to be the only sperm that wants to make me pregnant. We may have to choose a different donor too. And then there's the donor embryo route.

Right now, I just can't imagine a world where everything works out.

White

White, white, white
And yet, I will test again.
Friday. Can I hope?

Nervous

I've decided to POAS in the morning. I am nervous. Every time I think about it I get butterflies. I'm trying to deep breathe, and it does help, but then I just get nervous again.

I still have some breast soreness, and I have had some very slight cramping, so I can't help but feel hopeful. Still, I'm trying to prepare for a negative. I don't want to get too hopeful. I remain quite skeptical that I might be pregnant. Still, that damn hope is always there.

I suppose I will know tomorrow. It will be 10dpIUI tomorrow. It could be too early, I guess, but somehow I don't think so.

I feel like I need to hold my breath until then.

Conflicted

I can't decide when to POAS. The earliest I would do it is Wednesday morning. That would be 10dpo or 11dpIUI. Though, supposedly I did ovulate on the IUI day. It's just my temp didn't go up until the next day.

As far as symptoms go, I know I can convince myself I have pregnancy symptoms no matter what, so I just can't go on symptoms. I had an 'implantation dip' on 6dpo, but last cycle I had a perfect triphasic chart and I wasn't pregnant, so that doesn't mean anything either. My b00bs are a tiny bit sore, but that is a side effect of the cl0mid, so that doesn't mean anything either. I'm half hopeful and half convinced I won't be pregnant again. I just have no idea.

Of the three times I was pregnant, once I had no clue or symptoms what-so-ever and two times I had a pretty good idea. So I can't really go by that either. That and the fact that those pregnancies didn't last, anyway.

So, I have to decide if I want to know for sure or if I want to be in I don't know land. I do want to know before the beta. I will definitely POAS on Saturday if I don't during the week. I'm so afraid of disappointment.

I keep visualizing what I would do if I got a positive pregnancy test. I just can't imagine it actually happening. I think I might scream or cry if I were to get a positive, but I just don't know. I'm still remaining somewhat calm, but this is the point where every twinge in my body has some sort of meaning. I hate it. But would I rather stop analyzing because I have a negative? I don't know.

I do know that if I ever do get that elusive positive, I am going to be very, very paranoid about diminishing symptoms. That happened to me during pregnancy #2. I had strong symptoms, and I remember my breast soreness going away. I remember thinking I was paranoid about losing symptoms and that I was just crazy, but of course later that day I started spotting. And that was it.

I wish I had some faith in this process. I don't. But I do still have a tiny bit of damn hope.

Why is it always so hard, or, the happiness quest day 6

I went out to dinner with some people from my last job. Though I didn't like the job, the people are very nice. So, we decided to get together for dinner and hang out. The group has disintegrated even more since I left. I'm two for two on that front. My job before my last job has also disintegrated. At least that means it makes sense that I left both of them. Anyway, I mentioned another former co-worker, the one who is adopted and moved to CA with her husband. The news? You guessed it. Oops! She's pregnant. They had planned to wait a year to start trying, but she wasn't on birth control.

It's amazing how that kind of news never loses its sting. My co-workers know that I've had some trouble getting pregnant and some of them know I've had a miscarriage or two (they don't know about the third), but I don't talk about it much with them, and I'm sure they don't know that news like that can make my ears ring leaving me unable to concentrate for several minutes. They don't know that this news is like a punch to my stomach. They don't know that this can make me want to start crying immediately as a release for the anger and frustration that someone's easy first and viable pregnancy creates in me.

I didn't cry. I kept chanting to myself, "I am not being depressed anymore. It's okay. Forget about it. I am not being depressed anymore." But I have to say, this news has definitely set me back a little. I have been doing very well not obsessing and not feeling bad for myself lately. I've been able to push the sadness and the anger and even much of the jealousy away. The ready-to-pop woman at work is hardly bothering me these days. But this blow was just a little more than I could handle.

It's amazing how bitter and jealous one person can be. I get so angry when people have so easily what I have tried to achieve endlessly and tirelessly for two years. I just feel like my losses are incomprehensible to these people and I just don't understand why poor T and I have got such a short end of the stick.

But I am doing a little bit better today. I'm trying not to think about it too much. It is sort of working, I think. I want to get back on my happiness track. It was feeling pretty good.

I have a phone screen on Monday, an interview on Tuesday and a Red Sox ALCS game tonight. My b00bs and nipp1es are a bit tender, but I'm absolutely certain it's Cl0mid side effects. I'm trying to decide how early I want to poas.

Some bad news

T's company was purchased recently. In January, his health plan changes. The plan for the new company doesn't have good infertility coverage. The IUIs will still be partially covered, though we will pay more than we do now as a copay. And I'm pretty sure that any injectable medications wouldn't be covered. But they will not cover IVF. Not at all. So, the magic of living in Massachusetts may be short lived.

Needless to say, I think I am going to try harder to find a full time job so that I can have health insurance through my work. That way, if we need IVF, we can have coverage.

A bump in the road, but just a bump. We can get through it.

Needless to say, if I'm pregnant (and stay that way), this is something we will not have to worry about for a couple of years. We have until New Years. I'm having a hard time hoping I might be pregnant, but of course being pregnant would solve this issue, at least for a while. And there is no pre-existing condition policy for the new health plan, so the entire pregnancy would be covered without a problem. Oy. No pressure.

Trying to be happy

I have decided that I need to try to be happy. Yesterday, it worked. I came home from work and did laundry, emptied the dishwasher, washed dishes and made a wonderful chicken stew. It was delicious. I loved it. This is what I wanted to do when I started working part time. I wanted to come home and do stuff around the house and cook more. And that's what it did. It felt really good. I felt almost content. I'm trying really, really hard not to think about the IUI and what may or may not happen. I just want to be in a good place.

Today I did some errands after work. Tomorrow I'm meeting a friend who had her last IVF transfer on Sunday. We're going to knit. Oh, and I made a couple of more beautiful hats. Don't have pics yet, but I'll post them if I do.

The only problem is my upper back and neck seem to have seized up. I'm kind of in major pain. The right side was a problem last week, and it kept getting better, and then this morning the left side seized. I'm trying to sit with the heating pad a lot, but it's pretty painful. I'm worried that it may be the keyboard at work. It's pretty high. But, we'll see. I suppose I could ask for a sliding keyboard tray. That might help. It's just that I'm only a temp, and I don't know if they'd rather get a new person than a keyboard tray. But I guess it doesn't hurt to ask.

And T isn't doing this happiness thing quite the way I am. He's been feeling pretty down lately. I wish there were something I could do to make him feel better, but it seems I can't. And it's so difficult to force yourself to be happy when you see your beloved husband so down. I want to help him. I'm so ready for all of this to be over.

Done

We did the IUI this morning. I tried to take it easy today, though I made spicy wings and apple crisp, plus did a little laundry. We watched a lot of sports today. Between baseball playoffs and football, the day was full. I think I felt ovulation pain around 2:20 this afternoon. The IUI was at about 9:30. That should be good timing, if that's what it was.

T wants me to blog about my good deed for the day. As we were waiting for the IUI, we saw two families with kids go straight to the family waiting room. We were pleased as we had previously complained about the number of children in the regular waiting room. A third family came in with two young girls and sat in the main waiting room. T saw a woman move away from them. I got pissed and complained to the woman at the front desk, asking of she would direct them to the family room. She told me that they all had been told to go to the family waiting room and looked annoyed to see the family there. I went back to sit down, and after a few minutes we noticed that the woman at the front desk had asked them to go to the family waiting room. Of course, at that time the mom came out from her blood draw or wherever she went, and they proceeded to leave. But I felt good about talking to the woman at the front desk. There was marked improvement since the last time we were there.

I forget if I mentioned how a three year old fell on top of my while we were waiting for our last IUI. Even if I did, I think it's worth mentioning again. One day, while waiting for a donor IUI at an infertility clinic, a toddler was climbing the furniture and fell on top of me. Do people not think?

Anyway, I've been trying to laugh and smile today. I'm trying to be relaxed and visualize positive things. I am convinced that the timing of this IUI could not have been better. I am trying to believe that it could work. I will not go eat my delicious apple crisp with some vanilla ice cream and hope that the Yankees lose.

Peeing, peeing and more peeing

I finally got the huge surge I was looking for. This morning the two lines looked the same. This afternoon, the LH line showed up before the control line. The IUI is definitely tomorrow.

Of course, I called my RE's office to schedule and they don't have a record of me starting my cycle. I was apparently supposed to call someone on CD1 to tell them we were having a cycle. The fact that I spoke to the doctor on CD3 didn't clue them in to the fact that we were doing a cycle. I have no idea. I got pretty upset with the nurse on the phone. Happily, she finally allowed me to schedule the IUI and said we can deal with the paperwork issues later. Argh! This is so frustrating. I honestly did not know I had to call on CD1. But I guess I know now. And we're scheduled for the morning, so that will be fine.

We did a little retail therapy today. I bought two pairs of shoes and a new cat tree for the kitties. T also tried on a jacket and boots that we're going to get for him. Maybe we'll get him some work shirts too. Retail therapy helps a little sometimes.

So, dIUI #3 is on. 2ww # twentysomething is on. Maybe it will work? I'm trying very, very hard to relax. That seems like an oxymoron, but I'm trying none-the-less. T says I'm clearly making the effort to be relaxed. He thinks it's working a little. I let things roll off my back slightly more than I have previously. On the other hand, he says, I still find things to worry about. I guess it's a slight improvement.

I have to go clean the kitchen. Our house is a mess. I find it very difficult to motivate to clean anything these days.

Weekend and stick peeing

I peed on an OPK today. I did it at work so it wouldn't be so early in the morning. It wasn't that clear. I think it was negative, but I wasn't 100% sure. I think this is the difference between first morning urine and not first morning urine. I was going to pee on another one, but I decided to just do first morning urine tomorrow. And if I have a temp spike tomorrow morning, I can just have my IUI tomorrow, no big deal. The timing would still be fine. I have the sperm in the garage, so we are all set.

So, T and I have decided we have begun to utter sentences we never imagined we would utter. "I have the sperm in the garage," is definitely one of those sentences. How many people have said this? "Rachel has to go pick up our sperm tomorrow," is something else T has said -- and then thought about it, and then is amazed at the things that come out of his mouth. It's so weird. We imagine that we are the first people in all of human history to say these things. If you don't laugh, you'll end up crying.

I'm hopeful the IUI will happen this weekend. If not, it should be by early next week. I hope it's the weekend, though. Then I won't have to take time off work. But there's nothing I can do about it. It happens when it happens.

I keep trying to imagine a scenario where this IUI works and I get pregnant. I know I hope and I pray and I freak out about being pregnant, but I am at this point where I can't imagine that it might be so. How could this possibly work? I can only think about what will be next. Will we do another Cl0mid round? When we run out of vials from this donor, will we try to find a new one? Will I start monitoring? It doesn't even occur to me that we may not have to do this again. I mean, I want it to work. I hope it works. I pray it works. I do not want to do this again. But I can't imagine that it will work and we won't have to make another decison.

Sad today

The other receptionist had to cover for someone on a different floor, so I had to sit at the front desk with the pregnant woman all day. She's due in exactly one month from today, so there is a ton of baby talk with her. It's all people talk to her about. It wasn't bad for most of the day, but I find myself feeling sad. She keeps saying how she's ready and how she wishes the baby would come soon. From that, I can totally tell she's a non IF-er. An IF-er would be paranoid about giving birth before 37 weeks, and would want to keep the baby in for as long as possible to decrease risks. She's ready now, at barely 36. From what I can tell, she's been married for less time than T and I have been. She keeps talking about how much the baby is moving and how he's pressing on her ribs. It's just hard to listen to over and over.

And yesterday T got a picture of the boss's new baby. And the boss responded to T's well wishes, referring to him as 'Uncle T,' which is nice, but poor T's response to me was, "I'm tired of always being Uncle T.' It makes me so sad.

I'm picking up our vial of sperm on Friday. If things are fast, we'll have an IUI on Sunday, but I bet ovulation will be delayed again. Not a huge deal, I just like when it falls on a weekend and we don't have to interfere with work. But it is what it is. Nothing I can do about it.

I feel like I have been more relaxed lately, but I also wonder if it's just that I've become so numb that it feels like I'm relaxed. Our house is a complete disaster, and I just don't have the energy to clean up. I can barely get any chores around the house done at all. I can simply go to work and knit.

Speaking of knitting, no one has signed up for my knitting class so far, so there is a chance that it might be canceled after all of that. I was looking forward to teaching a little again, so that is a disappointment as well. Though, I always knew there was a chance that it would be canceled. It's just that I turned down jobs to keep those afternoons free, and it may have been for naught.

Tonight the Red Sox have their first playoff game. We will watch, but I'm honestly not that excited about the playoffs. I feel like that's another sign of my numbness. I'm a pretty huge Sox fan ordinarily. Of course, maybe it's because they've played like crap lately. Who knows.

I'm trying to hold my chin up (I hate that phrase) and I just can't tell if I am or not. I'm probably not, but I'm crazy enough to convince myself that I'm doing better. Maybe I should stop thinking about it and just clean the fucking kitchen.

Busier is better

My temp job is going pretty well. It's not glamorous. It's very simple and straightforward, and I'm not using my Master's Degree, but it keeps me busy, it brings in some money, and I don't really have to think about much while I'm there. I like it. It's working for me right now. Don't know how long that will last, but for now it's pretty good.

Of course, there's a very pregnant woman in the office. She's due in 4 weeks. It's her first. They talk about it in the office all of the time. I was shocked at how okay I have been with it. I don't see her and get upset or angry. Seeing her, I was taken aback a bit, but it didn't trigger tears or any huge, sad feeling. I even talked to her about it a bit.

There was one time when the baby was pressing against her ribs and they were talking about it that I really, really wanted her to go away, but aside from that I've been remarkably okay. I'm not sure where that's coming from.

There was one time when she was sitting out with me, and I asked her a few questions to try and make myself feel better. I didn't get how long they've been married, but they bought their house more recently than we did. And she's only known her husband a 'few years' she said, so it's not like they've been together forever. So I couldn't feel any better about the status of things that way. If they had been together a lot longer, I could feel a little bit better about the situation. But no, it seems she's a regular fertile who probably got pregnant through sex within 6 months of trying and never thought about it again. Sigh. But still, I'm not feeling awful about it.

The Cl0mid is having fewer side effects this time around. I think I've only had one hot flash. I don't feel my ovaries. I'm not sure if it has any meaning. Tonight is my last dose. The IUI will probably be in about a week. I'm not thinking about it much this time around.

My interview went well, but I really don't think I want the job. T thinks I should consider it more than I am. I dunno. I guess I'll see if they want me. But I just don't feel like taking a real job right now. Though, it would be a bunch more money. I just want to work this job for a couple of months and just calm down before taking anything, though.

I'm yearning for calm.