My god going back into a fertility clinic sucks.

I'm doing day 3 & 10 blood testing and an HSG again.  Hurray. (NOT)

One week

One week today will be the night before we leave to drive to Oregon. I'm very excited and somehow a little nervous. I'm afraid of ending up sleeping in the car or something. We really have no plans what-so-ever. I'm not a very spontaneous person so this is difficult for me, but I can't really plan for this so spontaneous I will be.

I did end up peeing on a stick because I had a dentist appointment today and I knew they would want x-rays and even though I knew I wasn't pregnant I wanted the test to really make it certain so that I could get the x-rays without worrying. So, I wasn't pregnant and I got the x-rays. Sometimes I think I'm so stupid to think this way, but I can't help it. So with the definitive one-line I got some goat cheese and am thinking about drinking and having real coffee in the morning. :)

Nothing much is going on. Work has been going well lately. I get to retake the test I failed last month. Cross your fingers for me. I think I'm more ready now. I really hope I pass as I don't think I have ever failed anything more than once. I barely remember ever failing anything. Except maybe a swim test. I'm a really poor swimmer.

Today is an incredibly beautiful day and I think I'm going to go change and work in the yard for a bit.

Update:
I just changed my clothes and I've gained so much weight from last summer that the shorts I bought last year because I had no shorts that fit me are now barely fitting me. I feel so incredibly fat. I have not been this heavy in a long, long time. I want to lose weight, but I just can't restrict my eating these days. I really don't know what to do about it. I don't know how to regulate my eating. I eat to comfort myself so much. I do exercise regularly, but it doesn't seem to be helping. I feel like crap about this.

pregnancy jokes

So at work there were some more jokes about me being pregnant. I spilled a cup of water all over the floor and was frustrated and said so, and my neighbor says, "Your water broke?" And then another (a woman with a 1-year-old) said, "Maybe Rachel *is* pregnant!" and I got really annoyed and said quite loudly, "That really isn't funny." I got a little upset and I let them know. The co-worker got a little pouty afterward and I said to him, "Sometimes there are upsetting things in this world and you just have to learn to deal with it."

So, I'm hoping that *this* time is really the end of it. I mean jeez. I'm not even giving subtle clues anymore. These are flat-out 'I don't want to talk about this please' comments. What more can I do? I'm just so annoyed.

As far as waiting goes, I'm waiting for AF. I'm not even going to pee on a stick, which as you know is something I pretty much do no matter what. Even I can't convince myself I might be pregnant. T and I will be on the road during the next ovulation time. Maybe driving across the country will give us some help. It's the whole, "Take a vacation and you'll get pregnant!" thing. I'm sure after two and a half years and four miscarriages that driving across country will do the trick!

T hasn't made much more progress on his bio yet, so I keep nudging. I have to finish the financial part of the application, too. Ugh.

It's hot. Really, really hot. The thermometer on my car read 126 degrees this evening. No, it's not really 126, but it is really hot. I'm going into the air conditioning now.

Things get better (not)

On Friday, which was 4dpo I went to have a blood test to check my luteal progesterone level. I called on Monday to find out the results. The Midwives place called me back but didn't give a result -- only a phone number to call back. I didn't call for a couple of days, but I called again today to get the result. I asked that they leave the actual results and whether it was normal or not as the message.

After a frustrating day at work where I had a very animated discussion with my carpoolers about politics and taking a test at work that I felt like I didn't do very well on, they left the message.

Apparently, my progesterone level is low and I should be taking supplements. My level on 4 dpo was 9.5. Does anybody know anything about this? I don't normally have a short luteal phase.

I have some progesterone from my cycles, which though it is starting to get old still has not expired. And I can get a new prescription from them. But starting on 9dpo with the progesterone is just too late. It should be earlier.

How did we not test this until now? We have been having fertility problems for two and a half years, people. I have had FOUR miscarriages including one with non-genetically problematic sperm. Why did we not know this? To say that I am incredibly frustrated by this is an understatement.

You know how some things just make you want to lie down and just completely give up? That is how I'm feeling today. I'm just so exhausted by all of this stuff. Could this be the straw that breaks the camel's back? We still have 2 more vials of donor sperm and we still will use them up. And next time I will start the progesterone immediately. I will pee on a stick on Friday. But what the hell. Sometimes I just feel like we cannot get a break of any kind.

More tests

I had my SIS today. My uterus looks normal. The doc also looked at my ovaries and I had like 15 or 18 antral follicles, which means my fertility is fine. He has no idea why I don't respond to medication. He says that he has had other patients who seem to have normal fertility and do not respond to gonadotropins, but it is pretty rare.

I also had a butt-load of blood taken. They're doing the clotting panels and an insulin thingy, and a bunch of other things that I don't know what they are. It takes a couple of weeks for the results to come back, so I'll have a phone call with the good doctor on Feb 20 to discuss all of the results.

The test wasn't too bad except how weird it felt for the saline to slowly drip out of my uterus. That was a really weird sensation.

In other news, I'm on penicillin because I think I have strep. I went to my PCP today and the NP looked at my throat and was horrified. She swabbed me and gave me a prescription. My throat, meanwhile, feels like knives cutting my throat every time I swallow. I feel like hell in general, but sleeping is difficult with the swallowing problem. Hopefully the penicillin will work quickly.

I'm also just so ready for my job to start.

Back

I'm back from Vegas. It was so nice to get away, and I enjoyed that city more than I thought that I would. I even gambled a little. So did T. Of course we lost, but not too much, so we can just write off the loss as 'entertainment.' We saw two shows, Le Reve and David Copperfield. The former was just incredible -- it's amazing what humans can do with their bodies, and the latter was impressive, if not what I was expecting. David Copperfield was geeky and self-deprecating where I expected him to be over-serious and egotistic. It's like he was aware of his reputation as taking himself too seriously and decided to make fun of himself. He reminded us of Bob Saget (but less dirty -- which if you didn't know he was dirty you should check out his HBO special or The Aristocrats). We had a really great time and it felt so good to just get away and relax and not think about things. Oh, and the two best things were the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay and the Star Trek Experience at the Hilton. I am such a geek!

I bled pretty much the whole time, but the worst of it was over before I left. I was supposed to have a blood test this morning, but it snowed while we were away and we had to dig out the driveway this morning and I didn't make it, so I'll have to go tomorrow. I spoke to my RE while I was away, and we both agreed that we need to do extensive testing to make sure there are no female factor issues. We know my chromosomes are okay, but we haven't done a blood clotting test and he wants to do a hysterosonogram (the thing with the saline and the ultrasound) which is apparently more detailed than the HSG I've already had. He also wants to take other bloods for other tests that I don't remember because he wants to be exhaustive. So, I will have additional testing done once my pregnancy test comes back negative. And I will start the pill right away once I get the negative test, too.

I was only really sad once during the trip. T's boss, the former owner of the company (which basically means he's loaded) talked about how he had won a goodly amount of money gambling and since his wife was home with their baby that he felt obligated to go buy them presents. Then I went to find T to hear that he just lost a bunch of money at the blackjack table. This just made me feel so completely unlucky that I couldn't take it any more. I hid among the slot machines and just lost it. I tried to make myself feel better by thinking how lucky I am to have a wonderful husband such as T and that he could lose a little bit of money at the blackjack table and that it wouldn't affect us adversely, but it just didn't work. I just felt robbed of any sort of luck when the boss (and the other trillion people in the office who are pregnant or just had babies) had what they had. But we went off to a little party and I eventually felt a little better. Plus I bought some funny colored M&Ms.

The bleeding has really slowed, so I'm hopeful that the blood test tomorrow will come back negative. It's impossible to know, though. It may take another week or so, and I am prepared for that. I am sorry to return to some really sad news in the blog world. I am thinking off all of you in these difficult times.

Oh, and what's up with Las Vegas being a family destination? I saw so many babies and toddlers while we were there. I just don't understand! What are these people exposing these children to? I'll tell you what -- porn, gambling and excessive drinking. Oh, and cigarette smoke. No one under age 21 should even be allowed to go near the strip. Not in my world anyway.