The support group

Well, I go to make my post today and there on my Dashboard are pictures of three newborn babies, the newest part of the blogger family and all the "buzz" at Blogger. Yay.

It used to be that pictures of newborns made me want to cry. Now seeing pictures like that just makes me roll my eyes. Is that progress? I'm not so sure.

There was only one other couple at the support group plus a social worker / adoptive mom. I guess I really need to bitch about all of this stuff because I definitely felt a little better afterward. We will definitely drag our butts all the way out there again for another one of those. We just discussed all of the issues and got to complain about how much everything sucks and we asked questions of the adoptive mom/social worker.

My new mantra from the support group meeting? "Glue it down and move on."

This is what the woman in the couple told herself after freaking out about which pictures to put in the picture book thingy. I have to take this attitude. I have to have this attitude for both the birthmother letter and the book. I just need to be truthful and choose what I choose and put it down and move on. Glue it down and move on.

I still haven't written any more. But I'm going to. And I think I can look at this with fresh eyes, so the support group was good.

In other news AF is here again. I think about going on the pill again just so I don't have false hope any more. My hope is much smaller than it used to be, and it's not like we're really trying or anything. But I can't help but hope a little. I wonder if that's bad. I wonder if I should just go on the pill so I have no hope at all. Any thoughts on this?

Vacation != miracle

So, having the good vacation s.ex didn't make us a baby. AF is here and how.

Not that I expected it to. I didn't. I'm still not tracking my cycles, though the EWCM is always obvious. And I know that the right things happened at around the right time. But apparently being in a good mood and feeling relaxed doesn't actually help. People just say it does.

And despite my past few PMS-y and sad posts, I've been doing quite well. Turns out that caffeine agrees with me. (Yay coffee!) And generally speaking I've been in a pretty good mood.

But despite the old bitch's arrival, I'm still feeling pretty okay. We've decided (well, mostly I've decided and T has agreed) that we're not going to be doing a dIUI next cycle either. I've been too happy to put myself through another cycle. I need to just let go and relax as I've been. We still have the 2 more vials, but we still have another year of storage. We have a year to make a full decision.

Our S.ex Offender Registry info came back to us. Happily, neither of us is a s.ex offender. Yay!

Have a wedding to go to tomorrow. I'm not a big fan of weddings, but it is what it is. I'll know a bunch of people there, so it shouldn't be too bad. The weather is okay today and I think T and I are going to go eat tips and drink beer and watch the Sox game.

Things are okay.

Well

Possible TMI to follow.

I suppose AF is here, though it's not usually like this for me. I had a full 24 hours of light spotting followed by a light flow. However, this light flow is extremely brown indicating what we like to call "old blood." We'll see how things proceed today. I expect to keep bleeding, but what does it mean that this cycle has been so weird.

I know it's paranoid and this has only happened once to me, but because I'm such a poor responder to injectables, I'm paranoid about early menopause. Could I be peri-menopausal? I realize that it's doubtful (and it probably doesn't matter since we're moving on to adoption) but I guess that after all that has happened I'm always expecting the worst.

Again, I know this is just paranoia on my part. I just can't help being paranoid. But AF is here, even if it's in an odd sort of way, and we are going to start thinking about dIUI #7 with only one more to go.

I put together my job history for the adoption application. Now I need to get T to do his biography and for me to finish mine. We're going to do this by the end of June. It will be done then. I demand this of ourselves.

Our friends (and T's colleagues) M&M are getting married in July. They've been engaged forever. I know they're going to start trying to have kids immediately after they get married. I've been adamant that we will have kids before they do, but I'm starting to get scared that this won't happen.

Why does infertility have to make everything so damn hard?

Still nothing

Ok, so I still have no AF. I'm usually pretty regular. I know when I ovulated. At least, I think I do. I had an LH surge on Sunday the 27 of April. I had an IUI on Monday the 28th. I ovulated on that Monday or possibly on Tuesday the 29th. Today is 14 or 15dpo. Nothing doing. I did POAS yesterday afternoon and it was totally and completely negative. As someone who can see a second line when there isn't one, I can promise you that test didn't show a hint of hcg. I have absolutely no symptoms what-so-ever. I am clearly not pregnant.

And yet still no AF.

I'm going to pee on another internet cheapie in the morning. I really don't think I'm pregnant, but where the hell is AF? I haven't taken any progesterone for 2 days. Should I start up again? I think I'll use some tonight. I know it's fooling myself, but I don't know what to do. I'm so freaking confused. I wish I would just bleed and be over with this already!

she's here

AF has arrived already. Very early. But I think last cycle she came early, so it's no big deal. I think when there is no transfer, it is expected that your period will come within a week to ten days. I made it in 5, so whatever. I will start the pill tonight.

We don't have our follow up visit until May 30. Then we will discuss the drug plan (micro-dose Lu*pron) for the next cycle. I will also be asking tons of questions about what we will do if we decide to go the donor route. I want to know if he thinks we should do medicated (I think probably yes, but am not certain) and whether he would be willing to accept donor sperm and sign a waver and hand it off to us for us to do it on our own if we so chose (which I don't think we will, but I want to know).

MIL leaves tomorrow morning, very early. It has been a nice visit, but it will be nice to have the house to ourselves again. There exists a chance in our future that she will have to live with us. It's vaguely frightening, but we're trying not to worry about that quite yet. It makes T kind of sad to think about his mom's future, so he generally avoids it. But we know it's there and we think of it when she's around. For now, she goes back to Oregon.

Today we took her to the coolest place. The Harvard Museum of Natural History has an exhibit with glass flowers. They are just amazing. They are so real looking. They are so delicate and accurate, and there are enlargements of cross cuts and other plant parts. Very cool. I hadn't been there since I was a little girl, and I really enjoyed it. If you live in Boston, or come here to visit, I recommend it highly.

she's here

Well, af has arrived.

I want to thank everyone for their supportive comments. I appreciate it.

We are doing okay. I won't say good, but we are living our daily lives. We are both sad, especially T, but I have mostly been pissed. I'm pissed because I feel like this cycle was a waste. We have three precious tries to have a biological child, and one of them was wasted. My estrogen level at my first blood test was somewhat low. I knew the whole time that it wasn't going to be a successful cycle. Why didn't they up my meds? I know OHSS is a real risk, and they gave me the dose they did to avoid it, but it clearly wasn't happening for me. What would have been the hurt in upping my dose just a little? I was being monitored every 48 hours. My RE always talks about the next time, about how we have plenty of time, etc. To him this was a "learning" cycle, I think. But to us, it's one less try. He thinks we'll do more tries after these three. Well, I know of 2 people with balanced translocations in my state who were not awarded coverage by their insurance recently (even though coverage is mandated in my state) and we will not apply for more tries -- at least not right away. We will pursue another route first. So one of our precious tries is gone, and I'm kind of angry about it.

So we're supposed to have a follow up appointment with the RE post-failure. Of course he's away until April 18, so we have an appointment with the nurse practitioner. I will demand a follow up phone conversation with the RE himself. Since I started spotting today, I called my PGD coordinator, as I am supposed to. There is exactly ZERO information about my next cycle in my chart! Hurray! She doesn't even really know if I'm supposed to even start the pill for my next cycle. The RE said I should start at my next period after the egg retrieval (since we knew it would fail even then), so I feel confident it is part of my protocol. But since the good doctor (ha) is away, we may be delayed a week or so until I have an actual protocol in my chart. Since we know my protocol will be different, we have no choice but to wait for Dr. Genius's guidance.

Yes, you do note a hint of sarcasm. It's just annoying that our own instincts about our bodies do not trump the "facts" of medicine. Modern medicine is great, but it does have its limitations. My mother asked if we should go see a different doctor -- but that would entail getting a new PGD probe made and getting a new referral -- there is no way this is happening. My only question is if both of these cycles fail (note I did say if) then do we go to him for the donor iuis or do we go somewhere else. But we'll cross that bridge if and when we get there.

So we're surviving. My job has been crappy lately, and that isn't helping much. T's work has been insanely busy, so that's not too great either. We both need a nice vacation -- our last one was related to his work and I miscarried while we were away -- so it wasn't the most relaxing vacation ever. But it's just not happening at this time.

So thanks for your supportive comments. I'm still not feeling super positive (I'm sure you got that idea) but I'm going to work and things are moving forward. AF is here --early, I know, but my PGD coordinator says that can happen when you suddenly stop all meds. I will start the pill tomorrow.

Surprise

Without expectation, af arrived today. I was quite taken aback. I expected to have to wait another week. I talked it out with T, and we did determine that today was 28 days from the first spotting from the miscarriage. So, despite my continuing high hCg levels, I must have ovulated when I think I did, and I had a nice, short cycle this time around. Weird. You never know.

So, I'm off to the pharmacy to get bcps and I am starting today. That means that in approximately three weeks, I'm going to start injections.

It's been so long since my injection lesson, it makes me a little nervous. But I feel like I remember enough, and I also know there's a tutorial online from the RE's office. The only thing I remember about the medication, though, is that I'm starting with Lu*pron.

I guess I have to call my PGD coordinator tomorrow.