A Few Words

I don't feel much like talking. Life is keeping me busy right now. I've had a few job interviews last week, and I'm having a bunch more coming up. I'm really hoping to find a better place than the one where I'm working now. I blogged about whether or not to take this new job. In some ways I'm glad I took it -- I haven't been bored. But in others, I wish I hadn't. The culture at my new office is just not a good fit. For example, I was talking to the Executive Director on Thursday about getting my wisdom teeth out. He said to me (not knowing about T and my reproductive situation), "It could be worse. You could be having a baby. Hahaha." I just looked at him and said, "Having a baby isn't bad." His response? "Well, in terms of pain it is." I just didn't say anything else. Of course, the day before was the due date of our second pregnancy. So, I just need to get the hell out of that place. I need to be somewhere where people have an iota of sensitivity and common sense. I hate where I work.

I had my wisdom teeth out on Friday. I'm doing pretty well, but I'm not my regular self quite yet. I'm starting to eat more solid food now, which is good. We have an injection lesson on Friday when I guess I will learn my protocol. I don't know when the probe will be ready for the PGD, so we won't start injecting until then. I assume I'll learn about how to go about getting the medications and whatnot on that day as well.

In one week from now we're having a large part of our upstairs stripped of wallpaper and repainted. Maybe we can be more organized after this. We will finally be able to put things away. My brother and sister-in-law gave us their old kitchen table, which is nice. It looks good in our kitchen. I'm pleased.

So I'm keeping very busy. I hope you all are doing okay as well.

Falling back

I didn't have my job interviews on Thursday. Both interviewers called on the same day saying that they needed to postpone. Luckily, I was able to postpone to Monday for both, and on Thursday another potential job called me and I also have a phone interview on Monday. So I have an informational interview, a phone interview and an actual interview on Monday. No going to work. Then, on Friday, I have my teeth out. I am very nervous about the teeth, but I have pain, so I'm also anxious to have them out. Actually, only one hurts, but all four will come out anyway.

We had an estimate done for our two rooms plus a huge hall closet that we haven't done over since we bought the house. By done over, I mean have the horrible '70s wall paper removed, and have them painted a 'normal' color. We are also having the trim in the hallway done. Happily, they're going to put on some gel stain over the paint and make it look dark, like the stain in the hallway. I didn't think it would be possible to make it dark. I thought we would have to strip all the paint off the door jams and whatnot, which would be incredibly time-consuming (meaning expensive, since we're paying someone else to do it). Happily, during the estimate, the painter told us otherwise. Woo hoo! I'm so excited to get this done. We moved in over a year ago, and we still have boxes of crap lying around these two rooms. It will make me so happy to get this done. I am trying to relieve myself of stress, and I think this will help.

And how's this for typical. I'm beginning to worry about the stress I'm going to feel during the upcoming IVF. I think I have to stop reading blogs for a while. It totally works me up, and I get so worked up so easily that I think I just need to distance myself. I need things from another place and time that are not about getting pregnant or babies. I'm going to stick with my SF and fantasy novels for a bit, I think. I'm knitting like a madwoman and generally trying to keep myself busy, but not too busy. Hopefully I can find an interesting yet flexible job.

I really need the new job to be flexible because of all of the doctors appointments I will have coming up. I told my current boss that I might be undergoing IVF just after I accepted. In retrospect, I sort of regret that decision. Not because I don't want work to know, but because I really don't like my boss and don't like that she has this bit of private information of mine. I feel like it's none of her business. However, I want my lovely co-worker J to be updated with what is going on. Her, I like and trust. The boss-lady, not so much.

It's windy out and I made a lovely sausage-vegie soup for dinner. T is playing his video game as I'm typing this. I'm still just so excited to get these rooms done. I can't wait, I can't wait, I can't wait!

Very Busy

I feel busy. There's so much stuff going on. I almost feel like I can't breathe. I took today off to make up for some of the extra time I spent on my horrible trip last weekend. It was nice to not go to work today. Tomorrow we're going to a friend's wedding. Sunday is my nephew's 10th birthday party.

I have two interviews next week. One is an informational interview at one of the universities around here. The other is an actual job interview at one of the huge hospitals in the area. I'm very excited at the prospect of getting away from my job. It is definitely a huge source of stress for me. We were assured by the insurance coordinator at the IVF place that if we switched to T being the 'owner' of our insurance, we would not lose out approval since T's company uses the same insurance company. In fact, as I type this I am recalling that I was going to call up the insurance company to make sure this is accurate. I guess I forgot. Too late now. I don't really have enough privacy at work to make those sorts of phone calls. But anyway, I'm excited that I have the ball rolling for a new job.

Next, I'm going to have all four of my wisdom teeth out on November 3rd. Oy. But I need to get this done. I still have jaw pain, and I need to finish this before I start the IVF process. This is good timing as I'm certain I'm not pregnant due to being on the pill. I'm a little nervous about it, but relieved that I will be under general anesthesia.

Lastly, we have an injection lesson scheduled for November 10th. This is when I learn how to stick myself with needles. Soon after this, the whole process will start. We had both of our bloods sent off so that the biotech people can create the probe. We have four huge consent forms to sign in order to get all of this done. I'm also inquiring about doing acupuncture along with the IVF. I need something to help reduce my stress.

So, there's lots of stuff going on. I think working full time is plenty enough. I really need to find a way to calm myself down. It's so cyclical. Thinking about the fact that I'm stressed stresses me out. I just need to breathe away my stress.

Starting anew

I have started birth control pills. I know that's weird for someone who is trying to get pregnant, but as most of you know, that is the first step before starting an IVF cycle. We went to see our RE last week, and since I had af at the time of my visit, he suggested I start bcps in order to stop the creation of the FSH that he wants to control with injections in the near future. So, we're on our way to our first IVF cycle. We need to get all the financial stuff set with the PGD people, and we need to send our blood off to them so they can create the probe in order to test the biopsied cell from our future embryos. (Isn't making babies romantic?)

Anyway, the thing is, we're starting the process. So, no ttc this month for us. Since I'm supposed to have at least one of my wisdom teeth out soon, it's good that I won't be pregnant for it. So I have to make sure to get that done soon. Hurray.

Meanwhile, I had a fiasco of a business trip to Albuquerque, NM this weekend. It was kind of an 'anything that can go wrong, will go wrong' scenario. The most obvious of which was, when I got to my hotel, they didn't have a reservation for me until the next day. It was midnight local time (which was 2 am Boston time). I had to sleep on a cot in the room of a woman I had never met before. Yay. I could go on, but I'm not going to. Suffice it to say, it sucked. I have two comp days coming to me. I think I might take one on Friday, and the other when I get my teeth out.

I can't believe I'm taking birth control pills.

Doubtful

This morning I woke up and my b00bs weren't sore, so I'm pretty convinced that I'm not pg. As the day went on they became a little bit sore, but I still think that I'm not pg. I think T wants me to POAS anyway, so I think I might. If for some odd reason it is +, I'm certain it wouldn't last. But I think it will be a -.

We are both getting really down about this situation. I know we have all of this hope in front of us with the IVF coming up and all. But I don't understand why we haven't got pg again. We've been trying for 7 months since my last m/c and nothing. I got pg two months in a row without trying very hard. We've been trying a lot for the last 7 and nothing. I just don't get it. It's making both of us sad.

We saw E & R and baby S this morning. He's getting so big and he's smiling and holding his head up on his own. It's cute. But I feel a distance between us. When there is a baby, everything is centered around the baby, and I just can't deal with it that much right now. I mean, when I'm with him I play with him and talk to him and all that, but as soon as they're gone I get so sad. I just feel like it's awkward between us and I don't really like that. Poor E is working from 6 to 4 four times a week without complaint. I think that's pretty impressive. I don't think I could do that without complaining. She's a real trooper. Maybe she's just trying hard not to complain because she has a baby. I don't know.

We had such a nice day today. We went to an arts festival up almost in NH. T bought me a necklace from a local jewelry artist. I was knitting the second sock with the yarn I bought in Portland while T was driving around. Then we had some fabulous barbecue. The we went to LL Bean and I bought some winter boots. My feet are small, so I'm lucky enough to fit in kids boots. They're way better and way cheaper. So we had this lovely day together. But then we get home and we both feel a little sad. I'm so, so tired of feeling sad. And I worry because things aren't that bad for us. Does that mean we will always be a little sad, no matter what?

We are so happy together as a couple. We both know we were meant to be together. T is so sweet and he tells me this all of the time. But because of this balanced translocation, there is some piece of us that will always feel lost. When I ask T what's wrong when he is feeling sad, he'll sometimes say to me, "I am broken on a fundamental level." It makes me feel so awful when he says this. I want to say something or do something to make him feel better, but I can't. I just tell him that it isn't his fault. He didn't do anything bad to make this happen, and it has nothing to do with him personally. But this doesn't really help him.

So are we doomed to be sad forever? I know I shouldn't be thinking this way, but what if the IVF with PGD doesn't work out? There will always be a little part of him that will keep this feeling and there is nothing I can do about it. I just don't know how to cope with this.

It's true that we only feel this way some of the time. We still laugh, have fun and go about our lives. But in the end, this feeling always comes back. How do we make this go away forever?

Dental News

So, I was nervous all day waiting for the dentist. I hadn't been there before, and I had to fill out a big history sheet. On it it asked if I was pregnant. I answered possibly.

I told him about my pain, and that I thought the broken tooth was my wisdom tooth. All he did was stick a mirror in there to look at it and said, "Yup. It's your wisdom tooth. You need to get that extracted."

And I said, "I'm going to have to do that with general anesthesia." The thought of someone pulling out my tooth with just novocaine makes me have panic attacks.

So he said, "Well, if they're going to put you out anyway, you should get all four of them out. The same thing that's happening with this one will probably happen to the others."

Oy. So I got a referral to some oral surgeons, and I'm going to make an appointment. When I find out whether I'm pg or not, I'll figure something out. Well, if I'm not pg, I gotta get that shit pulled. But if I am, I have to figure out whether or not I can get it done. The dentist said I should be able to get it done, and that it's better to have it pulled while pregnant than have it get infected while pregnant. But we'll have to see.

In 2ww news, my b00bs are finally starting to get sore. It's day 8. That's when they got sore both times I was pg. But we'll see. I'm thinking of PingOAS on Sunday morning. It's really difficult to wait. That would be 12dpo. That's long enough, right? Especially if I do it first thing in the morning. Right?

Dentist

Bad teeth run in my family. My Nana had bad teeth, my Dad has bad teeth, and I have bad teeth. Unlike my Nana and my Dad, however, I have a rabid fear of the dentist. I practically cry just thinking about the fact that I have to go to the dentist. I already have 3 crowns, and I currently have a broken tooth that is sometimes quite painful. After putting off making a dentist appointment for the last 3 or 4 months, I finally have one next week. But, as we are ttc, I'm afraid of what the dentist will have to do with me. I cannot tolerate any procedure without being thoroughly numbed. I cannot have x-rays done until I'm certain I am not pg (I should be able to test on Oct 10). I just don't know what he's going to say or do or what. It's making me crazy. I think it's my wisdom tooth that's broken, though. So, hopefully I can just have it pulled and that should be the end of it. But, in order to have a tooth pulled, I need general anesthesia. I will not endure a tooth pull locally. I will freak out. But if I'm pg, I can't get general anesthesia. So this is my new obsession-- what will happen with the dentist. Sigh.

I'm on cd 5. No sore b00bs, but I feel like I've got extra cm going on down there. But not much to report on the 2ww front. Just more waiting.

Keep your chins up, everybody.

Longer than I thought

I spoke with the PGD embryologist today. In order for the big biotech to be able to do the PGD, we have to fill out the financial packet and send in payment. Then we can have our blood drawn so they can make the 'pattern' in order to perform the PGD. It takes 6-12 weeks from the time they recieve the blood to be ready to perform our specific PGD, so I definitely won't be starting fertility meds soon. It's going to be at least two months.

So, this isn't my last 2ww. If we're not pregnant, we'll have next month to try again.

It's so weird. The NP told me I should be able to start right away, and knew we had to do PGD. I was feeling time pressure because I didn't want to put it off if I didn't have to. I have all these appointments bunched up so I could fit them in before af was due. The NP even told me the people I needed to call. It came as such a shock that it would be so long. If they had just said it can take 2 -3 months until we would be ready for the PGD then I wouldn't feel disappointed, but now I sort of do. It's only a slight sense of disappointment, though, because I felt like things were happening so quickly and I didn't understand anything that was going on. Now I feel like I understand what is going on better. But, I'm still a little disappointed that I was lead to believe this was going to start happening right away.

Still, all and all things are going as well as they can in the trying to make a baby department.

My friend E is returning to work already. Baby S is going to be 3 months. Time goes by so quickly.

The beginning of the beginning

We had an RE appointment in the middle of the day Friday. T had to leave work and drive there, but it's close enough to my work that I can walk. I was planning to be gone about an hour. We hoped the dear doctor wasn't running too far behind. There was one other couple in the waiting room when we got there. It was five minutes before our appointment time when we arrived. Reasonably quickly the other couple was called in, and we were left to ourselves in the waiting room. People started coming in and leaving as we were waiting. About a half an hour after our appointment was supposed to occur, someone comes in to tell us our RE had to be called into the ER and perform emergency surgery, and that we wouldn't be able to see him. After silently wondering what type of surgeries REs perform, we were informed we would be able to see the NP so that our time wouldn't be wasted. We waited about 20 more minutes before we were able to see her.

The NP seemed nice and very capable. She, of course, knew nothing of us personally, but she took some notes to give to the doctor so he can create a protocol for us, and told us who to call and which appointments to make so that we could get all set up and not waste time. I was on day 12, and she didn't see why, if everything went smoothly, I wouldn't be able to start my BCPs on day 1 of my next cycle.

Since I was on cd 12, we asked if we should try this one last time before starting IVF. I was thinking in my head that we should. T agreed with me on that one. Even if we end up miscarrying, I want to know we tried as best we could to conceive the old fashioned way. The NP also said that IVF is such a huge deal, and if there's any way to have a successful pregnancy without it, you should. So, we're going to ttc one last time before starting this journey. Worst case scenario, we have another miscarriage and put off the IVF for three (or so) months. Best case scenario we have a healthy baby in 9 months. Middle scenario, we start IVF next month.

So I guess we'll have one more 2ww. We're beginning our long road, but so far, I feel like things are going our way.

The strangest thing

We're back. It was nice to get away. Portland, OR is such a lovely city. We also took an overnight trip to Bend, OR and toured around central OR. So cool. We drove through Bakeoven, which is one of the smallest towns I've ever seen. We stayed at the Old St. Francis School, which I recommend. McMenamins has a bunch of restaurant/hotel/movie theater places created from former public buildings. They buy them cheap, fix them up, and post information about the history of the place. What a great idea! The food is good and if you stay, you can see movies for free! We saw Cars. It was cute.

So, alas I did not even have to POAS. AF started one day before I expected. That means that I'm convinced I've had at least one chemical pregnancy between now and then. I've been getting so down about this. It's 6 months since the last time we were officially pregnant. I know that's not long in the IF world, but it's coming on the time I would have been due, and it's getting more difficult to remain optimistic. So I've been feeling sad lately.

My cell phone rang at work. It was about 4:45. It was the insurance coordinator at my RE's office. She said, "You've been approved for your IVF cycle." I couldn't believe it! This wasn't even an appeal. This was a first try. We're not supposed to get coverage. So I yelled, "No way!" She insisted that yes, we've been approved. I asked, "For just one cycle?" Those I know in MA with a balanced translocation were covered for only one cycle. Her answer? "For three cycles." My head spins. Three cycles?!?! With no appeal?!?!?

I can't believe it. We're approved for three IVF cycles. Three.

I can't believe it.

I can't believe it.

Gone for a while

I'm leaving tomorrow on business, so I'm not going to be posting for a while. My 2ww will be over by the time I post again. I'm not sure how to read my body. I have sore b00bs, which seems to be the norm at this point. My bbts are not very high, which I think isn't a particularly good sign. But, this time I feel like I've been having some uterine twitches -- menstrual-like cramps, but it's way too early for that. I'm trying like H-E double hockey sticks to not read too much into that, but failing. However, given my low bbts, I feel like I shouldn't keep my hopes up. I'll probably bring a pee stick along with me to the Pacific Northwest. But tomorrow it's just to Baltimore.

I hope everybody has a nice couple of weeks!

Food

Last night we had dinner with my parents, my brother and sister-in-law and my two nieces, and some friends of the family. It was so lovely. We had steak, fresh corn on the cob, and I made a fresh blueberry pie with in-season wild blueberries, and it was super delicious. It was a little bit runny, but I'm told that's how fresh blueberry pies are. It didn't look too pretty, but it was so super yummy. I love blueberries. These were tiny, but so flavorful. Yum.

Today we are going food shopping so that I can have the ingredients I need to feed 6 people on Monday night. I'm going to make homemade mac&cheese with this eggplant/tomato hors d'oeuvre yummy thing and a salad, with peach/mixed berry crisp for dessert. Should be super yummers. I love cooking for people. I don't do it often enough. I've felt to busy lately, anyway. Although, I did cook for E&R recently. Was that last week?

Looking for pg signs, but finding none. It's early yet, but I just can't help myself. For some reason I'm not feeling particularly hopeful right now. But as we all know, I'm a big exaggerator, creator of symptoms, and making nothing into something. I just can't help myself.

We went to see the RE yesterday. T's semen analysis was excellent. I asked about Human Sperm Karotyping, and he didn't know anything about it. T and I are curious about seeing what percentage of sperm carry an unbalanced number of chromosomes and what number are normal. If, say, 95% of his sperm are unbalanced, the chances of us carrying to term is extremely low. But it doesn't seem like this test is well known or performed often, so I don't think it's going to happen.

With our current insurance, our initial appeal will be flat-out rejected. Our second appeal may get us one IVF cycle only. I am feeling saddened and frustrated by this. We have to be unable to conceive for a calendar year in order to get IVF coverage. Right now that means we would have to not be able to get pg until February or March or something. I'm getting discouraged about things these days, so it doesn't seem impossible that this will be true. But I feel so impatient about this. It's taking way too long. I will be 35 in May. Ugh. Just writing that down is freaking me out. If we don't have a baby until I'm like 36, how are we ever going to be able to have a second one? I'm feeling pretty negative right now. I'm afraid that we will get one IVF cycle and we'll get a BFN or there will be no 'normal' (for lack of a better work) embryos. I'm afraid of passing this bt on to my children and them having to go though this. I'm afraid of getting pregnant and miscarrying again, which will put off having additional insurance. I'm also afraid of not ttc anymore because there are people with bt who have healthy babies through persistence. This whole thing sucks, and it's rearing its ugly head in our lives again.

Good thing out next two weeks are totally chaotic.

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.

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 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.

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.

Nope

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

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.

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.

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.