Stop Hounding Me!

Wake Me When We're in the Double Digits

It’s amazing how the two week wait messes with your head.  It all feels like an elaborate dance.

 

This is so not going to work.  And I’m okay with that.

But you weren’t nauseous after your last IUI—maybe it’s A Sign.

You’re not nauseous this morning, though.  It was probably nothing.

But that doesn’t mean you won’t be nauseous later.

Stop contemplating when you can test.  You’re waiting until the blood test.

But 12 DPO is May third and you know how you love threes…

NO.  YOU ARE WAITING FOR THE DAMN BLOOD TEST.

You're super grouchy this morning.  Maybe it’s A Sign.

You sure are tired this morning.  Maybe it’s A Sign.

You sure slept like crap last night.  Maybe it’s A Sign.

Wait.  Maybe you’re tired because you slept like crap.  Not a sign.  This totally didn’t work.

 

This is my brain on sperm, folks.  Who needs drugs when you can sit through a TWW?

Speaking of drugs, Catch asked me the other day if I feel like this cycle will be unsuccessful because we didn’t do the drugs.  I had to think about it for a minute, but honestly, that’s really not it.  I was upset about the cyst and the lack of clomid initially because I really didn’t think I’d ovulate without it.  In all these months of testing, it has NEVER happened apart from the clomid cycles and one cycle following clomid.  But I DID ovulate.  All on my own.  So that’s not it. 

It could be my thing about threes.  Next cycle would be our third IUI cycle.  Although technically, Tuesday was our third IUI.  (That’s crazy to me—in 14 months, we’ve managed THREE freaking IUIs? That’s it?)  I don’t really think that’s it, either.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am hopeful.  So hopeful.  I want to be wrong so badly.  I want this to be the last stop.  On my way to work, I put one hand on my belly and wished and wished until I got distracted by some asshole who cut me off. 

Anyway, it’s only day 2.  We have a long stretch of progesterone suppository-filled days ahead of us.  I wish my brain had an off switch.

Confessions

 

1. I woke up this morning with a calm and overwhelming sense that this cycle just isn't it. I told Catch in the car on our way to IUI #2 this morning, and she said I have to think positive. I'm afraid to think positive, though. I mean, I hope I'm wrong, but if I'm not, it feels like it'll be easier to handle this way. I don't know what the right answer is.
   
2. Even though I should be eating especially healthy, I have consumed more chocolate cake in the past 48 hours than I have in the last 6 months combined. I finally asked Catch to throw the damn cake away this afternoon. Hopefully I can get back in track now.
3. I am excited to start the progesterone tomorrow morning. Yes. Excited for suppositories. What's wrong with me? I guess it's just different. A new adventure. Something we haven't tried yet. Still. What?
4. While our sperm was thawed and prepped, we sat in the waiting room. There was a woman sitting there who kept staring at me. Even as she was called and started walking back with the nurse, she was staring at me. It was totally disconcerting, and I can't figure it out. Perhaps it was the bright green t-shirt with the giant lucky shamrock that I was wearing? I mean come on, it's a fertility clinic. Surely she wouldn't be surprised to see some symbols of luck in the waiting room, right?
5. My RE is on vacation this week (figures) so the physician's assistant handled our two inseminations. She was kinda hot. We both noticed.
6. Yesterday, the syringe of sperm was tinged pink. Today, it was not. This is bothering me for some reason, and yet I never asked why.
7. Our sperm count for yesterday's ui was over 17 million. No one offered a count today and I forgot to ask. This is also bothering me.
8. I couldn't sleep last night... Probably mostly because Catch waited on me hand I and foot all day and I have not been so inactive in months. She won't even let me bend over. Anyway, I was trying to occupy myself by having a conversation with the hopeful combination of sperm & egg in my reproductive system. I tried a dozen times, but never got past "hello" before my mind wandered to something else. Then I'd berate myself for not being able to focus on the most important thing in our lives at the moment. It was an interesting night.
9. I feel so strong today. Like this TWW isn't going to crack me. But I know it will. It's inevitable. I wish I could go to sleep tonight and wake up in 2 weeks. That'd be fantastic.
10. Even though I understand that it won't happen and why, I am still paranoid about losing precious sperm every time I have to pee. It's ridiculous.

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Here we go again

I had an 8 am appointment scheduled with the RE this morning for a follow up to see whether we had any follicle growth that could result in ovulation this week.

Yesterday, I did my OPK test in the morning like usual, and the test was significantly lighter than the day before. I was kind of bummed, and warned Catch that it just might not happen this cycle. That despite the major lifestyle changes, I might just not ovulate.

After that, I wasn't very hopeful for this morning's test. I did my thing and set it on the cabinet in the bathroom. After a minute or two, I noted that one line was significantly lighter than the other one and carried on getting ready for my appointment.

A few minutes later, Catch was brushing her hair while I was brushing my teeth and she said, "That line looks pretty dark, no?" I looked and did a double take. The test line was significantly darker than the control line.

Holy shit. A positive OPK and I did it all on my own with no drugs. I feel like I passed some kind of test!

So, off we went to our appointment. An ultrasound was performed. It showed that the cyst has grown from 18mm to 26mm on the left side, and the follicle on the right side was nowhere to be found, indicating that I had probably just ovulated.

Conversations were had, phone calls were made, and it was decided that they were going to thaw our sperm and do an IUI in an hour. They sent us off to have breakfast while they did what they needed to do.

We ended up walking a block down the boulevard to an IHOP. There were several classier options, but I told Catch a comfy booth, a cup of chamomile and a couple of pancakes sounded perfect. We sat there giddy and excited while we waited. Me, making arrangements for my two assistants to cover me at work, and her issuing instructions that I relax and do nothing for the next few days.

At 9:30, we headed back to the clinic for the first IUI of round 2. Prayers were prayed and wishes were wished. We do another IUI tomorrow morning, and then we wait. And wait and wait and wait.

I start progesterone suppositories on Wednesday. Then we have a progesterone test next Monday, and our official test date is Cinco de Mayo. If all goes well, we'll have reason to celebrate. If it doesn't, I'll have the perfect excuse for margaritas.

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Spring Break – Dildocam Edition!

Catch’s spring break started today.  She was going to meet me for lunch—we had plans to go for a walk around the park by my office and then enjoy a little picnic.  I’ve been looking forward to it all week.  This week has been such a strain, and it was nice to have something to look forward to in the middle of the work day.

We’re trudging onward with the hope of inseminating this cycle, so I was happy to note this morning that there were some changes in my cervical fluid.  Suddenly, it’s watery and a bit slippery.  I tested with an OPK, and it was about half as dark as the control line.  Not positive, but possibly on its way to positive.

Since our RE had said to call if we started seeing signs of a surge, I decided to call.   I told them on the phone that it’s not positive yet, but that I was concerned about the weekend coming up and I’d really just like to know if anything is happening in there.  They asked if I could come in immediately.  Lunch date cancelled.

I left work, fought my way through mid-day traffic, and stripped from the waist down. 

The ultrasound was inconclusive.  (Story of my life, right?)

There’s an 18mm follicle on one side, but she’s pretty sure it’s that cyst she saw last time.  Not positive, though.  It’s 50/50.  If it IS a real follicle, it's pretty much ready to go.

On the other side, there’s a little 11mm follicle.  If that’s going to be “the one” this cycle, it still has 4-5 days of growing to do. 

They’re running some blood work—testing my LH and my estrogen.  I’ll find out the results sometime later this afternoon and then we’ll decide where to go from there.  Maybe insemination tomorrow, or maybe a follow up ultrasound on Monday and an insemination sometime after that.  Or maybe my body is just playing tricks on me and is going to yell, “psych” any second.

It took me 3 phone calls to get our sperm situation taken care of yesterday, but it’s done.  The RE will have our two horribly expensive vials of IUI spermsicles sometime today. 

Can I just mention how bizarre it was to be on the phone with a man while scheduling our spermsicle shipment?  It was a bit jarring to have that deep male voice confirming, “And your donor is 6 ft 2 in tall with red hair, blue eyes, and blood type A+?”  I don’t think I’ve dealt with a single man so far in this process until him.  Every other nurse, doctor, or random person on the phone has been female.

Weight

Not that kind of weight, though.  Being 38 pounds smaller is nothing to complain about.

I mean the kind of weight that comes with stress.  And life.  And the combination of stress and life. 

Things have been rough at work.  I can’t say much more than that.  There is a knot of stress and anxiety permanently residing somewhere between my stomach and my temples.  The worst part is having no control over any of it.  The issues are not mine to resolve, and yet they are mine to deal with. 

Add TTC to the professional stress, and I feel like I have anvils hanging from my eyelids. 

It all feels so heavy.  I am so tired.  I had an hour to kill last night between work and a hair appointment and I got about as far as my couch before I collapsed onto a throw pillow and begged the dogs to let me close my eyes for a few minutes.  They obliged, and I was awakened 45 minutes later by Catch’s key in the door—and I still felt like crap. 

I went for a walk at lunch today hoping the fresh air and exercise would clear my head and perk me up a bit.  It did the opposite.  I can barely keep my eyes open.

I can already imagine how my legs will feel on the treadmill tonight.  It’s not going to be pretty.

Today is CD 12.  I should have ordered sperm by now, but I haven’t.  There was a problem with the shipping address and I haven’t bothered calling them to resolve it.  It could be too late, now.  I have no idea.  Frankly, I’m too exhausted to care all that much—except that I also care a great deal.  I don’t know how that’s even possible. 

As I was writing this, Catch texted me to tell me that her librarian at work is pregnant with twins.  She said she wants to cry.  As a result, in the past 10 minutes, I’ve ordered the vials, called both CA Cryo and the fertility clinic and am hopefully en route to getting those puppies shipped to where they need to be.  Sometimes I just need a kick in the pants.  One more phone call should seal the deal, but I’m going to wait until faxes have had time to be sent and received.

I really need a vacation.  HR told me this week that I have 262 hours of vacation time right now.  That’s what?  6-ish weeks?  I think it would do me significantly more good if I put it to use somewhere with poolside waiters than it is sitting there accruing on a spreadsheet.

Recovery

It’s taken me some time to (semi)recover from Monday. 

The other day, I emailed my mom to see whether she’d like to have dinner with me tonight while Catch is chaperoning a dance.  I almost didn’t send the email because I knew if she wrote back to tell me that she already had plans, I was going to cry.

I’m just a bit sensitive.

And bitter.  Every bit of broccoli I eat, I think it may as well be a fucking cupcake for all the good it’s doing me.  Every step I take on the treadmill, I find myself thinking I might as well just throw in the towel and turn on the TV.

It’s a battle.  Though I have yet to eat any cupcakes or throw in any towels this week, so I guess I’m winning.  For now. 

While I was running Wednesday night, I had a talk with myself.  I told myself I need to switch gears and stop getting healthy for the sake of getting pregnant and start doing it just for me.  I don’t know how possible that’s going to be considering that all I’ve had in my head since November is Diet + Exercise = Baby, but I’m going to try because clearly Diet + Exercise ≠ Baby.

Aside from throwing a wet blanket on our baby making fire, the RE confirmed on Monday a bunch of things I already knew.  I’m CMV-, my blood sugar is good, my thyroid is normal, and everything else looks fine.  I just can’t ovulate like a normal human female.  Leading cause of infertility and all that jazz.

She did tell us that we can inseminate despite the lack of drugs this cycle if I manage to have a “normal” cycle and ovulate on my own.  I don’t have much (any) hope of that happening since the only “normal” cycles I’ve had in the past 14 months have been while I’m on clomid or in the couple of months following a dose of clomid. 

Once again, we are at the mercy of things beyond our control, and I have no choice but to suck it up and carry on.  I feel like a broken record. 

Cancelled

Picture this:

You've had a long, intense, crazy day at work. You leave the office early when you should be staying late just so you can make it to your appointment with the dildo cam and score some clomid.

It's the hottest day of the year so far. The car tells you it's 91 degrees. You're wearing a suit.

You are on the worst day of your period. The cramps are awful and the bleeding is... Enthusiastic. Between that and the heat, you feel like a cooked ham.

You arrive at the fertility clinic to find that their air conditioning is out. It's stifling. No air whatsoever.

You are asked to ditch the tampon and disrobe from the waist down.

You sit on a thin sheet of paper covering a vinyl table and wait. And sweat. And bleed. And wait. And wait sweat bleed.

You are miserable. And stuck to that fucking sheet of paper.

The doctor finally arrives and proceeds with the ultrasound. Left ovary, check. Right ovary? Cyst. 18mm fucking cyst.

No clomid for you. Cycle cancelled. You're back to waiting another month(ish?) until your ovaries are (hopefully) cyst free.

And you got to pay $270 for the pleasure of this fantastic experience.

CD 1 - Let's Just Pretend this Never Happened

I started spotting yesterday afternoon.  It was the middle of the work day, and I was so excited that I practically skipped back to my office after it started. 

I immediately emailed the nurse at the fertility clinic to let her know.  I figured it’s Friday afternoon—better just get the ball rolling. 

She emailed me back to say great, we’ll get you scheduled for the HSG dye test next week.  That was all.

Umm… ok, I said.  What about clomid, though?  Don’t I need to start clomid on CD 3?

Her response?  We’ll start clomid next cycle.  You need the dye test first.

Cue hysterics from me.

First off, we had a lengthy conversation with the RE in our consult about my iodine allergy, and the RE specifically said let’s not do the HSG for now.  If the two IUI cycles fail, THEN we’ll do the HSG.  Catch and I both recall this conversation clear as day.

Second, the consult was in January.  It’s now April.  We TOLD the RE that we wanted to start the IUI cycles in March (my cycles were off though, so here we are in April).  They’ve had MONTHS to make an issue out of this dye test, and they chose not to bring it up until last week.  Then when I told them that the specialist they referred me to was on vacation, they said, OK.  No indication that they wouldn’t allow us to proceed with the IUIs without the fucking HSG.

By this point, it’s about 4:30 in the afternoon and I’m home from work discussing everything with Catch. 

I broke down.  Majorly.  I sobbed.  Ugly sobbing.  The kind that causes my sweet little Twix to crawl on top of me and try to give me kisses until I feel better. 

I finally gathered my heartbroken and pissed off wits about me and emailed them back to say the following:

I am not waiting another month.  Dr. (RE) very clearly told both me and my wife that we shouldn’t do the dye test because of my allergy.  I don’t understand why she suddenly changed her mind.  Otherwise, I would have done it months ago.  If this cycle is off, I will find a new doctor.

And just like that, I suddenly had appointment times for a Monday ultrasound in my inbox.

I’m not thrilled with the communication thus far, but unless we want to sit out another cycle and start over with another damn doctor, we’re pretty stuck.  I’m rolling with it, but I’m still pretty angry and upset that it came to this point.  I was SO HAPPY AND EXCITED that we FINALLY made it to this point.  I feel like we’ve been waiting forever.  I’ve been working my ass off!  I was SO READY for this cycle.  Now, I feel pretty deflated about it, and I hate going into this feeling that way.  Today, I feel like saying FUCK YOU, Dr. RE—and your little nurse, too.

Hopefully, my head will be in a better place come Monday.

TTC + Autocorrect

I was texting with my mom yesterday.  We were talking about the whole OK Cupid/Mozilla CEO thing. 

This afternoon, when I saw that the CEO had stepped down, I took a quick screenshot from Facebook and texted it to my mom. 

On a scale of 1-10, how bad is it that my iPhone corrects OK to opk?

Mindfulness

As we prepare for another cycle of watching and waiting and spending money like it’s going out of style, I feel like I need to have a little chat with myself.

Getting pregnant has always seemed so romantic to me.  You’re in a relationship with someone you love so much, and you decide together that you want to grow the love exponentially by starting a family.  It’s fraught with passion, excitement, commitment, love, and respect.

Let’s face it, though—there’s nothing intimate about fertility clinics and sperm banks.  It’s frozen vials and plastic tubes. It’s spreading your legs for perfect strangers on a regular basis.  It’s fluorescent light, cold ultrasound wands and, “Ok, you can put your pants back on now.”

Still though, the sentiment is there.  Somewhere.  Buried beneath frustration and anxiety, fear, and guilt there is still the love—the excitement—the passion.  It’s just so easy to overlook it in the midst of the heartbreak that comes with 50 day cycles, 30 days of bleeding, negative HPTs and OPKs, and needle pricks.

Last Fall, I was a disaster.  I picked fights with Catch constantly.  She kept herself guarded (partly because my moods were so volatile).  I felt isolated because she was so guarded.  I cried, I yelled, and I went through emotions faster than a dealer shuffles cards.  There was so much distress and so little happiness.

I’m not doing that to myself or Catch again.  Taking a few months off—and getting all of that clomid out of my system—has left me to remember how it feels to not be a crazy bitch.  Or at least no more of a crazy bitch than usual. 

Trying to get pregnant is exciting—despite the tubes and vials and fluorescent lights.  All of the things from paragraph 2 still apply now.  I will not let these fertility issues take that away from me. 

This time will be different.  I will check my hormones at the door.  I will make an effort to communicate more effectively with my wife and not expect her to be psychic.  No doubt I will feel all of the feels that come along with this magic carpet ride, but I will not allow myself to dwell.  I will distract myself with the people and things that I love.  Workouts will ease frustration.  Dogs will be walked in the sunshine.  Books will be listened to in traffic.  Pictures will be taken.  Words will be written. 

Most importantly, I will channel all of the passion, excitement, commitment, love and respect that I share with my wife.  One way or another, sometime between now and whenever it happens, we will start our family.  It will be the most romantic thing we’ve ever done together.

Cheers!