Hope Springs Eternal

Making Milk

2012-01-14T14:58:00.000-08:00

So - yesterday was my appointment with the Lactation Consultant, and it went pretty darn well, she was pleased that we had a lot of time to work with - and careful to warn me that it's a lot of effort if the adoption doesn't go through. She has her own modified version of the Newman-Goldfarb protocol, which is the protocol I'll be following. I thought I'd share it here. A - because it's important info to have out there, and B - so I don't forget it either.

I will be using domperidone (she prefers not to use Reglan, and it's contraindicated for me anyway) because I'm okay with ordering it online, and not freaked out by the slightly behind the government's back way of doing things. She does say that the dom should be actually approved sometime next year.

So - Here's the plan:

When we are about 12-13 weeks out from the due date, I start taking Yaz continuously.
At 2-3 weeks before the due date, I start adding the dom.

Starting dosage for the dom is 2 tablets three times a day - continue at that dose for 5-7 days
Continuing dosage of the dom is 3 tablets 3 times a day (can go slightly higher - max is 4 tabs 3 times a day)

When we go to the higher dose of dom, we stop the Yaz, and start pumping and hand expression 8 times a day (and one of those will be in the middle of the night, if not 2).

I apparently respond much better to hand expression than I do to the pump. With hand expression I can get drips right now, but the pump did nothing for me. I know that the drips aren't usual for most people, but I've been a bit of a drip for like 8 years, so I guess I'm used to it. I can hand express as I feel like it between now and when pumping begins.

The reason that it's not a firm timeline is that some of it will depend on if it looks like she'd going to be here a bit early. The lactation consultant also said that I should be prepared for the consultants at the other hospital - where she will be born - to be less than helpful. She would like the birthmom to express colostrum to be spoonfed for the first couple of feedings - and for me to suckle as well. I know that after that she plans to pump for a little while to give us some breast milk.

Finally - she very much says that I need to rent a hospital grade pump, so I'm going to have to figure out which one that needs to be. The Symphony one from the Hospital is $80 a month, and insurance won't help out until after the baby is here, there's another one I was looking at that is $45 for the first month, and then $25 a month after that, but she wanted to make sure that it was one she felt would work well. I'll probably hear from her next week sometime.

In a bit of awesome news - my authorization letter for the Lactation consultant arrived in the mail last night - I'm approved for 15 visits in the next year, so we shouldn't have a problem on that end. I'll likely be able to go right away after she comes home.

That's the plan.

Enter the whirlwind

2012-01-11T19:44:00.000-08:00

Sometimes life just goes crazy on you, and the whirlwind comes and picks you up and takes you off to Oz. That's about how I'm feeling right now. The possible adoption that I mentioned before our IVF in the fall - they approached us again - We thought it had been taken off the table, and they thought we had decided not to. Turns out we were both wrong. So now I'm inhabiting the crazy world of trying to get the lawyer/home-study and everything else done. Right now. Why? because I'm a little bit paranoid about forgetting things, and because we're now expecting a little girl in May.

Is this the appropriate moment to say "Holy Sh*t!"?

In any case. We all have an appointment with the Lawyer next Thursday, and I have an appointment with the Lactation Consultant this Friday. We got most of our home-study packet last night, and I, at least, have started working on it. To be fair, Jakobe was busy after it got here last night, and then he was at work today, so I can't expect him to have done all that much :)

I'm excited, and nervous, and scared. I made my best friend go looking at BRU last night to burn off nervous energy. No. I did not buy anything. I keep thinking off all the million things that we have to do, and worrying that we're not going to be good enough for the social worker, and we won't have a clean enough house (I'm thinking about enlisting M-I-L to that end.)

As a side note, it was amazing how un-monumental our appointment with the RE on Monday felt. Basically, he didn't tell us anything we didn't expect to hear. We're a little bit screwed on that front. Oh well. He still couldn't burst my bubble.

Anyway - anyone with experience with adoptive breastfeeding. Let me know how your experience went. I'm curious, and that's my plan.

Also - the expectant parents are wonderful and generous beyond words, and I can't express how much what they are doing means to us, and how sad I am for them at the same time. I can't imagine.

Depression: or the State of my Kitchen

2011-12-13T18:22:00.000-08:00

This could also be titled the State of My Marriage. Jakobe and I are both depressed, and if you know anyone who likes to clean when they're depressed, the certainly don't live in our house. Jakobe and I may deal with depression in different ways, but neither one of us has learned to channel it into housework. He plays video games, avoids me, and sinks ever deeper into his world of Role Playing games.

I - I get irritable, I want Jakobe to spend more time with me - distracting me from the fact that I feel like shit about the universe, and I read (mostly extremely crappy romance novels - a large number of which are available for free on the kindle at the moment.)

Neither of us cleans. this means that until today - our kitchen was approaching the definition of national disaster zone, and in fact, while trying to unload the dishwasher, I brushed a box of random crap, that was stacked on top of an empty box, that was in turn stacked on top of a chair. Yep - all over the floor. That that sent me into a cupboard door slamming, cleaning, swearing, completely unreasonable rage. Thankfully - I get home about an hour before he does, and although he may not realize it, the worst of the rage had passed well before he got home.

Unfortunately, I feel a little bit like our marriage is in the same state that the kitchen was in - sadly in need of basic maintenance and care. We've been trying, both of us, but it's like we just can't quite bridge the gap. We've had some really good moments, but they're much farther apart than is good for us, and the rest of the time is like right now - he's hiding in the bedroom, and I'm letting him. Also - going into a crazy rage is certainly not going to fix whatever apathy and depression has done to our relationship, it's just going to make it even worse.

Plus - we have this conversation hanging over our heads. A conversation about IVF and our next attempt. I'm trying not to assume I know what Jakobe is going to have to say, but I have this feeling in my gut that it's going to be the same song and dance all over again. Mostly, that feeling cones from how he told me we needed to talk, but that he didn't want to do it right now. Since I'm coping with this failure better than he is (and I'm not doing that great) I don't think that he wants to try again any time soon. I don't want to wait too long. I'm also falling out of love with our RE - but since he's the only option within 300 miles, and we paid to try three times with him, we're just going to have to keep with the plan. Yay.

I'm still putting off the conversation. I don't think we're ready yet. and I certainly can do without the crying that will almost certainly result. It never gets easier. It never gets better. It just keeps going on, hurting like hell and finding new ways to make us unhappy.

This is us - warts and all. And I may have cleaned the kitchen in a fit today - but there's still the whole rest of the house looming.

Cars

2011-12-11T11:38:00.001-08:00

I have the absolute worst luck with cars. I can buy a car and have it go screaming in the void of Murphy's law within hours.

In 1998, my parents bought me a 1990 Ford Escort as a graduation present. 6 hours later, the timing belt broke on the freeway. I fixed it, and nursed it through a couple of years until I broke my ankle while I was living in Seattle and having to drive a manual in rush hour traffic was not working out for me.

2001 - the Kia. Great little car. I once hit a pothole. That bent the suspension and frame. Oops. It got totalled while I was underwater, and I had to refinance my house in 2004 to pay it off.

2004 - Borrowed a Jeep Cherokee. I drove it for a year. It's still in my front yard, as the owners moved to Germany (and then England) and the power of attorney ran out. The water pump died, and the shop said that if I fixed it, it would probably only run for another six months anyway.

2005 - Bought a Chevy Corsica for $950. The radiator cracked on my drive home. There was a hole in the dash where the radio was supposed to be, and when winter hit, I discovered that the previous owner had bypassed the heater core instead of fixing it - so I had no heat. I fixed the heater, and the radiator (Both, by myself, in my driveway.) But, when the power steering fluid began to leak, I didn't bother to fix it. I discovered that it was drive-able without the fluid, and well, when it leaked, the smoke gave be blood pressure problems and probably wasn't good for me.

I bought my last car in May of 2008, it was a 2000 Subaru Outback Limited, and it was beautiful. Before the summer was over, I had not only jumped through a bunch of hoops to get it to pass emissions, but I had also replaced the head gasket. I reasoned that this was not totally unexpected for a car with 140 thousand miles on it, and that If I just did the repairs, then I would have a reliable car. I loved the car. I loved everything about it. Except for the fact that it had to go into the shop, over and over again, and every time It went in it cost me more than $2000 to have it fixed. Plus the whole not having a car for a week at a time while they fixed it. Or getting stranded on thanksgiving weekend in the middle of nowhere Washington with no heat in the car while it was 9 degrees outside (the second time the head gasket went).

Yesterday we took the Subaru to the shop to get looked at. Diagnosis: The head gasket, again. The Catalytic Converter. The water pump and timing belt, again. The estimated bill: $2800, and only because the parts from the last head gasket were still under warranty.

I couldn't do it anymore. I had no faith that at the end of the day we were't going to be sitting at the mechanic again, sometime next year, with a car that wasn't worth as much as the repairs it needed - after the repairs were done. So - we sold the Subaru to the mechanic.

Yesterday, we bought a certified 2009 Prius. And then we decided that given my history, the extra money to extend the bumper-to-bumper warranty to 125,000 miles was definitely worth it.

So - Now we have a car payment. And given that I have to start paying my student loans in January as well, we're going to have some adjusting to do. But I just keep reminding myself that really the difference between car payments and repair bills is that car payments are predictable. We're probably spending close to the same amount of money either way.

Photos - F*cking Eclipse!!!

2011-12-10T07:43:00.001-08:00

*Type Here*

Sweeping up - trying to move forward.

2011-12-07T20:19:00.001-08:00

I think that it's safe to say that everyone in our little house is a bit broken right now. I've reached the point where I need to just pick up the pieces and try and figure out how to put things back together. In some ways it's easier this time, because I've been in this ugly dank slime filled hole, and I can see the hand and footholds I made to climb back out last time. I can do it, and I will do it.

I tell myself it could have been worse, but in a way, the negative beta feels like a loss - a different loss than not being able to have a transfer. Embry was alive when they put her back into my uterus, and I failed her. I failed to keep her alive - to be the fertile soil that she needed to grow. The nine days of wishing, and hoping, and acting pregnant are a cruel joke in the face of a negative beta.

But, we pick up, and we march on, and we look to the future. I can't hope yet. I don't feel it. What I feel right now is stubbornness and determination. Unfortunately mixed in with that is a fair bit of sadness and self loathing.

Even given all of that, I may be doing better than Jakobe. He let himself hope a lot more than I did, and so fell farther. We're struggling, and it doesn't help that the ways that we cope and need support are diametrically opposed. He needs to pull away, to hide, and to nurse his wounds in solitude. I - I need to be held, and to be assured that I'm not alone. We're making it work, but it's hard.

I want to be able to close this on a happy note, but I'm not sure where to find it. I"m making it work, but only by letting things slip through my fingers that should probably be important. At least I'm able to put a good face on it every day and get my shit done.

We have our WTF appointment on January 9th.

Beta

2011-11-25T09:29:00.001-08:00

Negative.

Schrödinger's cat

2011-11-25T07:37:00.001-08:00

We did it. We went in for our beta. This means that in a few short hours I won't be able to pretend that I'm pregnant anymore. I'm terrified. I cried on the way home. Jakobe is telling me only positive things. But, I'm trying to be prepared for the worst, to expect the worst. I'm afraid that I manufactured all of my symptoms like a crazy woman grasping at straws.

The box is open, we just haven't looked yet.

6dp5dt - I can still find my marbles

2011-11-22T07:55:00.001-08:00

If I look hard enough anyway. I'm trying to stay positive, but you know how it goes, sometimes you just have those moments of doubt. Those moments where you're sure that like everything else before now you're going to get dumped flat on my face. In any case, I've been keeping busy, and trying not to get too worked up. I've done a lot of reading, and playing of video games. Last night I took my best friend out to dinner and shopping for chocolate and kitchen implements (I'm now the proud owner of an 11" tart pan with a removable bottom.

Symptoms (that may or may not be all in my head):

Cramping - Not in my head, I've been cramping since Thursday.
Sore boobs (over the weekend.) Then they got better :(
Jakobe said that my boobs were bigger, but I couldn't see/feel a difference.
Tired - But that was just yesterday and might be meaningless, I was falling asleep at dinner at about 7:30 last night.
Increased Heart rate: 90bpm while lying in bed, 103 BPM while sitting at my desk (and I know that's really high even for my sedentary fat ass.)

I feel like I'm just picking up on little things that don't have any meaning, and I'm worried becasue my breasts stopped being sore, Like maybe embry started and then couldn't keep going.

I could POAS today, or tomorrow or even Thursday, but I don't want to know. Okay I do want to know, but If it's negative I would like to go on thinking I'm pregnant for as long as possible. I did have my progesterone test done yesterday, and it came back just fine at 21.7.

In the meanwhile we have a plan for my not drinking on Thanksgiving. I'm buying myself some sparkling cider, and Jakobe is going to drink. I'm the Designated Driver this time. Honestly - I don't think it's going to work. But it's a plan anyway. I just don't think I want to be talking about it with all the aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, Etc.

I just have to make it until Friday.

And Murphy strikes again.

2011-11-17T18:32:00.001-08:00

We have nothing to freeze, according to our nurse, all 5 arrested overnight.

I'm trying not to get too upset or emotional, wouldn't want to fuck up the broken basket that's carrying our only egg.

Support group meeting should start anytime. Probably a good thing. I'm going to eat blueberry cream cheese tart and try not to cry.

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PUPO

2011-11-16T22:36:00.001-08:00

Here's Embry. We were told that it was an excellent looking embryo, so we have that going for us. I have spent all day on the couch, but I guess that's okay. I should remember my vitimins before I pass out.

The details on the others are, as of this morning:

2 early blasts

2 morulas

1 delayed

I'm hoping there's at least one to freeze in the morning. I'd prefer two.

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Go Embry! Go!

2011-11-16T09:47:00.001-08:00

None of our fresh embryos were ready for transfer this morning. (The clinic only transfers expanded blasts). So we are thawing Embry and proceeding with transfer. They weren't able to give me details on the other embryos, but they should ba able to when we get there at 11 for our 11:30 transfer.

For now, Jakobe and I are heading out so he can eat, and there will be more details to follow.

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Impatience

2011-11-16T07:13:00.001-08:00

I am lying in bed this morning, waiting for the clinic to call and give me today's instructions. Waiting to find out how our embryos are doing. My mind is racing and I can't doze anymore.

Jakobe has gone to work, he had to go in very early today and basically get some favors so that he could leave the office early enough to go with me for the transfer, whenever it will be. He has to work until 8:45, and then he has the rest of the day. I am very grateful to the people who helped him out, and very irritated by how inflexible his work is being in general. It's not like he's been asking for loads of time off, and he worked all day Friday, when I had my retrieval. Grr. I had to pick, and I picked that I wanted him with me today. But, they couldn't get it worked out until yesterday, so we've been a little stressed by that.

Anyway, the clinic didn't call last time until after eight, so I need to be a bit more patient. Maybe get up and eat breakfast? Or listen to the C+B Transfer track? I'm so trying to not go a little crazy over the next hour. Then it'll just be a bit of boredom while I fumble through self-imposed bed rest today and tomorrow.

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Day three Reporting

2011-11-14T20:17:00.001-08:00

Well, I am feeling better. Still a bit of odd sensations in the pelvic region, but basically okay. I haven't quite figured out how I feel about how things are going this time. I'm certainly not despondent and full of fear, which is pretty much how I was feeling about this point int he process last time. Instead I'm just trying not to have too much in the way of expectations either way.

Jakobe is in some ways my rock. He's really good at being optimistic and being sure that this are going to work out in our favor. At the same time, He has crawled into his very safe and secure bubble - other wise known as near constant video games. It's how he deals with things, but I still kind of miss him when he does.

So far the PIO injections are going very well. I kick him off of the TV for about forty five minuted so that I can watch some tv with a heating pad on my bum. I'm doing the injections in my right hip, and he's taking care of the ones in my left hip. He thinks it's a fair division of labor - I can't bring myself to tell him that it's only fair if half the injections are in *HIS* bum. oh well, not exactly going to work out that way.

On Saturday I headed over to the local coffee shop for a support group meeting, but it turned out I was the only one who could make it. We have two groups right now - One for people who are experiencing infertility at any stage of their journey, and one for those who are trying to conceive or parent their first. It was the second group that was pretty empty this weekend, and not for a bad reason. We have finally had several people who have moved on. They finally have their BFP, and they are now taking new steps. It's been a long time coming, because the group had about a two year drought. Now - We've got three pregnant women.

I hope I get to be number four. It'll play hell on the meetings, but for good reasons.

I guess it's time to share this morning's details.

We have four 8-cell embryos, and one that's at less than 5 cells. I don't expect that last one to make it. SO I'm thinking that we have four that were right on schedule this morning. We won't know any more until Wednesday morning, when they will tell us if any of them are ready to transfer. Even if they're not, we're going to have a transfer, we'll just thaw and use Embry (or: the little embryo who could). Here's to being almost PUPO.

Fert Report

2011-11-12T08:45:00.001-08:00

I got the call this morning while I was driving to our support group meeting (Jakobe was still home sleeping). I think that this is good news, and we won't hear any more until Monday.

14 Retrieved

9 Mature

7 fertilized

Now they just have to grow.

Yesterday wasn't bad, I hurt more than last time, but overall I was okay and took it easy. I had one bout, late in the evening where I got flushed and the hot/cold prickles and thought I was going to throw up. I didn't and I am very glad. I'm feeling okay today, still a little sore, but not bad. Getting ready to wait.

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Fourteen!!!

2011-11-11T14:17:00.001-08:00

We got 14 eggs! We'll know about fertilization tomorrow. I am experiencing more discomfort than last time, but that was to be expected. Sitting around the house, trying to get comfortable and watching movies.

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on waiting rooms

2011-11-11T07:25:00.001-08:00

I think I would lose my head if it wasn't attached. Here we are, sitting in the waiting room, and Jakobe had already been called in to do his part and I have a sudden realization. Our consent forms? They're at home in *my* car, and unsigned. Oops. Thankfully, I caught Jakobe, and we got them signed. Part of him wanted to read them again, and he asked: "What happens If I refuse to sign now?"

My response (laughing):"I beat you to death with this clipboard."

Anyway, we're here waiting and my retrieval is at 8 am, so we shouldn't have to wait too long. Plus Heather brought me a package of dark chocolate lacey cookies from Trader Joe's. She's awesome, and I am lucky to have her.

I'll keep you in the loop, and let you know about everything.

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Trigger Time

2011-11-09T21:37:00.000-08:00

You heard that right, it's trigger time. This time it's at 10:00 pm instead of 1 am, so I don't have to either get up at an ungodly hour, or stay up really late and miss out on my sleep. 5000 IUs this time, I think becaue there's so much more going on down there.

I have the worst gas, and it's adding to the puffy bloated feeling. I am now regretting the Fiber One bars that I ate earlier today. Tasty, but I think that they made the gas worse.

Jakobe's employer is being a total ass about the whole thing, and he will be working friday during retrieval, Not such a big deal - but they also wont let him have any time on Wednesday for transfer. Completely not cool. He has sick time, but they won't let him use it.

I spent the time this evening trying to stay awake by watching TV instead of doing any of the other things that should have been on the priority list - Like putting the dishes away, laundry, or even NaNoWriMo. I am falling way behind, and I really should do something about it, but I'm just exhausted. I get home, and I mostly want to sleep. I don't cause then I'll wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to go back to sleep - but it's hard to focus when you'd rather be sleeping.

Theoretically - we're supposed to have sex tonight. and If I didn't feel like an overblown balloon I might actually feel like having sex tonight. But - I am veeling very baloon like, and the closest thing to a penis that my vagina has seen in days is an ultrasound wand - and it just hurt, It doesn't make me want to put anything else in their either. and all of that is discounting the requirement that we use a condom. I hate them, Jakobe hates them, and they are not the best option when performance is proscribed and might be an issue. Why - cause he's not really in the mood tonight eeither.

He's not getting too much sympathy from me on that front. If the most unpleasant thing (besides helping me with my injections) that he has to do is masturbate - I think he'll survive it. Somehow it's not air that most of the suckiness falls to the women in most cases - he doesn't even have to get up at o'dark thirty to go to the RE's office, and some morning's it's hard to refrain from really waking him up instead of kissing him on the head while He dozes and I walk out the door.

I just realized that he once (possibly jokingly) threatened to boycot the process if they had to "go to the source" in his words, and that basically, they have to "go to the source" on my side every tim. and my source, is a lot less accesible than his.

OKay - I think I might be getting a bit bitchy. I'm gonna blame it on tired and hormonal. That and headaches everyday that I don't get to take anything for.

On that note - I'll say goodnight.

***Quick Morning update***

Here are the actual stats:

e2: 4540
Progesterone: 1.8
Follicles : Now he's only counting the largest ones to get a general feeling - 13

Right: 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 19, 17
Left: 20, 20, 20, 19, 19, 17

Endometrial Thickness: 9mm

Day 10 - Are we there yet?

2011-11-08T21:08:00.000-08:00

Say hello to the Stay Puft Marshmallow man. Or at least, that's how I feel. Tonight is not trigger time, and I get to go back in in the morning. Dr says that He wanted to let me go one more day. I mind, and I don't - they counted 16 follies this morning. Some still to small, and some the right size.

Mostly I'm starting to feel like I might explode. My Nurse coordinator still has to be prodded every day to give me numbers - she just want to tell me what my instructions are and leave it at that. It irritates me a little bit - and I think that my asking irritates her a little bit too, but I'd rather be informed than just in the dark and guessing.

Stats:

E2: 3189
Progesterone: 1.8
Follicles: 16, ranging from 13-20ish mm

Right: 13, 17, 18, 19, 19, 20
Left: 13,13, 5x<15, 19, 19, 19

We're almost there. Jakobe's work is giving him a bit of trouble, not wanting to let him have time off for retrieval, or time off for transfer. I know that I don't technically need him then, but dammit I want him to be there. We're making it work. If everything works out how we are currently;y expecting, then retrieval is going to be at about the same time that the furnace guy is coming to fix the heat in our house, so Jakobe will probably be home waiting for said furnace guy, and Heather will be with me giving me a ride, etc. Then if the furnace still isn't fixed I'll be at home, and Jakobe is headed back to work - they're short staffed for closers on Friday. I'll let you know what we do tomorrow.

Tonight I'm going to try to go to bed early again and hopefully I can fall asleep. I find myself very tired, but last night I laid in bed for a long time just trying to fall asleep. I must also remember to take my vitimins and drink some water before I zonk out. Every day it seems to be getting harder to draw my blood for labs. Thankfully even if it's been getting harder, the lady I've worked with most days has been awesome, and I've been getting away with only about 1 stick for day. In My book, That's a miracle.

I managed to make it to the clinic early enough that I was on time for work this morning, but each day is kind of it's own crapshoot, so I'll have to try and repeat myself tomorrow - before I really irritate my boss.

The post I owed you yesterday...

2011-11-07T20:19:00.000-08:00

...but I skipped because I wasn't doing anything. It was my birthday, and my prerogative. I had a very lazy day. Especially if you don't count getting up at the crack of dawn to go to the RE's office and have an ultrasound wand shoved up my hoo-ha and my arms poked with needles to remove my lifeblood. But all in all it wasn't bad.

It was pretty good, and I had good News from the doctors office - all is proceeding according to plan. I'm getting a little nervous, because now I only have about two and a half Gonal-F pens left. and I'm pretty sure I'm right on the edge because if the timing matches last time, then I'll be triggering tomorrow night, and I won't need the extra, but If I follow the calendar I'm short. I need to remember to talk to them about it tomorrow.,

Does anyone else suddenly feel even more bloated right after they do their injections? It's like I know that I'm not actually any more uncomfortable than I was two minutes before, but suddenly it's like I can feel my ovaries expanding, yet again. Plus - I feel like I have to fart - all the time, and I just can't (well not much, I *am* farting as much as possible because I feel like it's giving me a little release.)

...and now that I have crossed the TMI line all over again, we can return to our regular programming.

My birthday was great. Jakobe and Heather bought me a ticket to a wine tasting and benefit, and we had a wonderful time. We all went out for sushi beforehand. Heather and I enjoyed it immensely, while Jakobe explored all of the non sushi items on the conveyor belt. At the benefit I bought 3 small bottles of a port that I like, Even though I already have a bottle here at home, because it was available at a discount. Now I don't have to worry about opening up a bottle - because I still have a couple more. Anyway, that was the night before, on my birthday itself, with the exception of the part mentioned above, we hung around the house, watched TV and movies, ignored our chores, and went to Red Lobster for Endless Shrimp.

Details from the Doctor's office:

E2 - 1657
Progesterone - 1.19
Follicles - they still counted 11, 5 on the left, 6 on the right. Almost all of them were 15mm, one measured 16, and there was one - (I'm not sure if it was part of the count) - at 12mm.

I'm off to the RE again in the morning, and I half expect to be telling you all that trigger is tomorrow night. Either way, I'll be owing you a post tomorrow. Until then.

(Oh, and for those who might be counting, this was my 200th post. It should be more significant, but Hey, I'm gonna let it slide for now.)

SO - the doctor says...

2011-11-04T22:00:00.000-07:00

Or more accurately the nurse called me to say:

11 follicles sized 12 mm and 10 mm.
Estrogen of about 583 (I wrote it down at work and forgot to bring it home with me)
Progesterone of 0.8
and we're not doing LH anymore - the Lupron plays hell and it's meaningless.

Today is technically Cycle Day 6, and day 4 or stims. I looked back, and on this day last time what we had was:

3 follicles - 13, 12, and 11
Estrogen of 113
Progesterone of 1.3

It seems to me - and our Nurse coordinator - that it's going much better this time. In any case I'm starting to feel better.

I did have friends over tonight, and had a bit to drink, but I didn't go crazy overboard, and at least my right breast hurts less. I guess I forgot to tell you - there's something going on with it, I went to the regular doctor this afternoon, and they think it's just inflammation or a clogged duct. Moist heat, don't get a fever, and hope it gets better this week. They don't think it's cancer. Yay!

The plan for tomorrow -

Try and get some more writing done: I've completed 6,985 words in the challenge so far (not counting blog posts) or approximately 14%. So far I'm on track. It's probably not any good, but since the point is a rough draft, and you're not supposed to edit, just get words on paper, I'm doing okay. I keep trying to get a little bit ahead, but so far it isn't happening.
Go and get massages. We're both scheduled for 2 hour massages tomorrow, and I can't wait.
Go along with whatever Jakobe's plan is. I don't know what it is - but he's been conspiring with my best friend, so I'm excited to find out.

day 4:long lines

2011-11-04T07:33:00.001-07:00

I think that today is technically day 4 of stims. I'm sitting here waiting with about 30 other women to be churned through the ultrasound machine that is a.m. labs.

Mostly I'm just really really hoping that it's working right now. I'm so afraid that it's going to be terrible like last time and that I'm not actually stimming, even given the high doses of drugs I am on.

I'm also hoping that I'm going to able to talk to somone about this terrible pain in my right breast. If I bump it wrong it takes me almost a minute to recover, because it's like being stabbed. It sucks, and I keep bothering it while I'm trying to sleep. I guess I want to know if I should wait and see if it stops when stims do, or if I should have it checked out.

Nothing like random boob pain to take you mind off of nearly everything else.

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I cannot be trusted...

2011-11-03T17:17:00.000-07:00

...with microdose Lupron, which must be kept refrigerated. I have had two incidents in the last two days.

Incident one - I left it out, on the counter for three hours, while I went to dinner, and only thought about it after I crawled into bed. Had to get back up again - put it in the fridge, have a freakout, and call the pharmacist in the morning.

Incident two - While trying to avoid a repeat of incident one, I asked Jakobe to "put it away" after I was done drawing up the Lupron injection. I was sitting on the couch and trying to manage all three injections at once. Unfortunately he heard "throw it away". Oops. There's an upside to this one. Today is garbage day, so he took the garbage out last night. And - it's November, so it cold outside. A garbage can is like a fridge, right? (I've been keeping it in the outer container, and miraculously, nothing got dirty...)

I cannot screw this up again, I may be out of free passes.

On a final note - I owe my nurse coordinator a bit of an apology. I'm still irritated that it takes forever to hear back from her, but it was mostly the pharmacy's screw up. They hadn't checked their voice-mail in hours when I got there. She still called it in to the wrong pharmacy, but she did call it in to the right chain. All is better now, and Jakobe started his antibiotics all over again last night.

Antibiotics are Evil

2011-11-01T17:42:00.000-07:00

At least Docycycline is when prescribed to my Husband. It makes his blood sugar go completely out of control, and high blood sugar makes him cranky (which is a bit of an understatement, when his blood sugar is high, his fuse is so short it might as well not exist.)

So, because he doesn't physically have enough insulin to keep up with the doxy, I called our nurse coordinator to see if we can get a scrip for something else. It only took her a couple (three and a half) hours to call me back. Then she was very rushed, and hurried me off the phone while I was trying to be sure that she had the right pharmacy to call the scrip in to.

Fast forward to my drive home from work, when I stop off at the pharmacy to pick up the scrip. No Scrip, and none at any of the other pharmacies in the chain. We don't have a scrip. So - Here I am waiting, again, for her to call me back, and hoping that it'll be today, because Jakobe is *not* taking any more doxycycline. It's just not okay.

Lupron and Television

2011-10-31T21:16:00.000-07:00

Sometimes what I watch on TV seems to fit right in with my life, and sometimes it doesn't. Anyone following the story-line on Private Practice? I just finished last week's episode, and all I can say is Yes, you've gotta have hope. But lady - Hope kills.

And so do crazy hormonal women. I'm having a rough enough time already, I don't really want to experience the full blown IVF hormonacoaster. Plus - as much as I love Jakobe, he gets a perverse joy out of making sure I know exactly how crazy and bitchy I am. Which is totally not fair, especially when he's being just as moody, if more predictable.

In any case, my first Lupron injection was tonight, and then as I was sitting there, feeling kind-of yucky and crampy i discovered that joy of joys now I'm spotting (or more, it *is* red) too. and I can't figure out which day I'm supposed to be on for my damned fertility meditations.... I think I'll do day 1 tonight, and then day 3 tomorrow - I've gotta shortchange one or two of them, since I have about 10 days, to fit in twelve days of meditations. I suppose I could meditate more than once a day... a thought.

Here's to all of us surviving the next few days. Me, Jakobe and Sasha.

I got smart - tonight I picked out tomorrow's clothes so that I don't have to figure it out in the morning, just find socks. Speaking of socks - anyone know where I can find some awesome ones before Friday? I'm just not ready for Christmas socks, and those were the only ones I found today.

Waiting in Line: We're up next

2011-10-30T21:27:00.000-07:00

So, here we go again with IVF 2.0. Tomorrow is my the day that I begin Lupron, and Gonal-F the day after that. It's good to have changed things a little bit, but at the same time, the whole thing is just scary. Unfortunately it's not the "embarking on a new adventure" scary, but the "I didn't really like this ride the first time" scary. It's kind of like my sister, who is terrified of heights, who keeps riding the Panic Plunge, even though she knows that the second that she starts to go up, she's going to start crying, change her mind, and ask them to stop the ride and let her off. (they never do, they might do that for a little kid, but not an adult woman.) I know what I'm getting myself into, and I'm still getting on.

Right now, I'm sitting at my computer, freshly showered (Ultrasound at o'dark-thirty anyone?) and trying to drink enough water so that I can actually not spend 20 minutes trying to get my blood drawn in the morning, while not drinking enough water to keep me awake all night getting up to pee. It's a fine line.

Jakobe and I have been doing a lot of talking this week, from what we thought we should do about the adoption situation, to what we're going to do with Embry (his name for our frostie) if stims are totally crappy this time around too. The current plan is that if we get to transfer day, and we have nothing to transfer, then we're going to go ahead and put Embry back and cross our fingers. We'd never really planned for a single embryo transfer, but at this point, if things go badly again, I think we'll take what we can get.

Important Dates in IVF 2.0:

October 31 - First Lupron Injection
November 1 - Start Gonal-F
November 6 - My 32nd Birthday
November 12 - Tentative retrieval day (and the 4th anniversary of our first kiss)
November 17 - Tentative Transfer Day
November 24 - Thanksgiving
November 26 - My best guess for Beta day...

Things I plan to do differently this time:

NaNoWriMo - only possible because it's November, but I thought it best to give myself something else to concentrate on, like - did I write my 1,667 words today? I may end up breaking a lit of the rules, but I need some therapy, and it's really cheap, right?

When we get to transfer, I plan to take two days off of work, and just rest. I'm self prescribing bed rest, because I want to be sure I did my damnedest . This is different, because we didn't even make it to transfer last time.

Not try and do too much. NaNoWriMo isn't physically demanding, and if it gets to be too much, then I can just stop. There is no one and nothing holding my feet to the fire.

Try and make sure that I'm supporting Jakobe, and also that I'm doing a better job of communicating what I need from him. I pretty much suck at asking for what I need. (Somehow I expect him to be psychic, and then I get mad at him when he doesn't just know. Totally unfair and bitchy of me - So I'm going to try and do better.)

Fire and ice: the gap between

2011-10-24T19:49:00.000-07:00

I know that there's a lot that's happened over here that I don't think that Ive shared with all ofr you yet, so here goes.

The Facts:
I had CD3 blood work done as part of the lead-up to IVF 2.0. The results weren't great, and weren't terrible.

E2: 27.3
FSH: 9.0
LH: 4.3

Also, This summer I had my AMH tested, all for myself, so that I could see another metric of what was going on. Our WTF appointment with the RE in August wasn't very hopeful, and he said that because of my poor response last time, that I probably had diminished reserve, and bad eggs. Yeah, no fun. Really kind-of pissed me off because it was the opposite of what he had told me during our cycle, when he said it was probably a fluke. Queue major irritation. Anyway, My AMH came back at 0.93 - or Low normal. So he's not wrong, and not right, and we're just going to have to try and figure things out from here. We did get him to try a different protocol this time. Micro-flare with max stims. Not too worried about OHSS this time anyway. I have a calendar, and my suppression check labs are this Thursday, with my first dose of Lupron to start on Halloween. This seems like the perfect opportunity to turn into a monster!

Charts of my hormones & stuff - Because I can!

The wobbly, wishy-washy, completely emotional junk:
I realized today while I was sitting in the exam room in my stylish backless gown, and my totally awesome fuzzy socks that I really didn't want to be there. I didn't want to have top do this again. I am afraid of the heartbreak, and I am afraid that this will all turn out to be a waste of time. t the same time, I keep catching myself thinking about what I'm going to do when this works, when I'm pregnant, when we're expecting one baby or two. It's like there are two parts of my heart, and they're totally not on the same page.
If that wasn't enough, my emotional state is complicated by having been asked to consider adopting a baby. Not a maybe someday baby, but a baby that would be born before one we would conceive during this cycle. The situation is incredibly complicated, and most of it is not my story to tell - so I'm trying valiantly to keep my trap shut. I talked to my mom, and laid everything out, but we're still in a feedback loop, where we can't think straight, or about anything else, and I bounce back and forth like there's no tomorrow between good idea and bad idea.
I feel like we need to make some sort of decision before we know how the IVF turns out. I don't want this to be a second-best situation. I only want to go ahead and say yes if:

We're sure that we want the baby - regardless of if we have a biological child or not
We're sure that it's the best choice for everyone involved

But - I don't even know which parts of the considerations have a part in our decision-making process, and which ones might be overstepping our bounds. I wish that there was someone I could talk to who could help us find the best path. Jakobe has already stated that he thinks we need an impartial third party, to facilitate he and I talking together, and also to facilitate some hard discussions with the expectant parents. Sometimes the safest choice isn't the best choice, and sometimes it is, but I don't know how to tell which route is best. I do know that we currently intend to go through all three tries in the three cycle option IVF that we started in April.

Testing the Waters

2011-10-16T13:18:00.000-07:00

I'm back - at least a little bit back. I don't know how to explain what happened, just that I needed a great big break. No saving money, no blogging, and no reading blogs. I just had to get away. other than the occasional doctor's appointment, the only things infertility related that I have been doing is attending out local support group meetings.

I have a hard time admitting - even too myself, how hurt I was after our IVF attempt in April. I just shut down. I took a couple of months before I even really had a prayer of keeping up on housework. I was broken. I took on too much, and when it was finally all over, when I no longer had to hold myself together so that IU could just graduate, all the cracks started showing plain as day. so - I've been mending them, one at a time, and my heart has a crazed appearance like crackle finish paint, but it's mostly whole again.

This is a good thing, especially since we're on the roller coaster again. I started the BCPs this week for our next try. I start stims the first of November.

I am terrified.

Nothing that happened this summer has really done much to make me feel better about or failure. The doctor has decided that I have diminished ovarian reserve to go along with Jakobe's bunk sperm, and my endometriosis. I'm not sure I believe him because my labs don't seem to agree with him, but he could be right. Maybe we just thought we had the shit end of the stick to begin with, but we're really starting to small what we got ourselves into now. We'll see. This time it's a micro-flare protocol, with Lupron and the highest dosage of stims we can, from the get go. We'll see how it turns out.

MIA

2011-05-14T15:24:00.000-07:00

I know I'm MIA over here. Although I'm not thinking about infertility much at the moment, I'm struggling with the after effects of our failed cycle. So - for now I'm taking it easy, and just trying to make it through this last quarter at school.

I wrote this poem a couple of weeks ago, and I've had more days like it that I care to think about. I'm going to find my way back out, but I'm not there yet.

Today I sit at the edge of Tears

their salty ocean before me

behind me

and within me

A salty drop waits to join them

but is held here

unshed

waiting

Today I sit at the edge of tears.

And the winner is...

2011-04-27T21:32:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I don't know how anyone else has done this in the past, but I typed everyone's name (in reverse date order) into an excel spreadsheet, and then used random.org to pick a number between 1 and 178. I was shocked to discover that I had received 178 comments from all of you amazing, supportive, wonderful people during our IVF cycle. I don't know if you realize how much caring I felt from each and every one of you, not only along the way, but also tonight, while doing the work for the giveaway. Everyone of you is awesome!

What's that? you want to know who the winner was?

#52 - Or Foxy from Someday. I kind-of think it's fitting, because not only did she give me the idea, but she is a champion commenter.

But - Before I go, I want to say thank you to each and every one of you. You made a crazy, stressful, and difficult time easier. I wish I had something for each and every one of you. So thank you to:

P.S. Maintenance started yesterday, and we talked to the clinic. We're going to take the summer off, and then we'll take a stab at IVF #2 in the fall, specifically November. Now We just need to make ourselves a WTF appointment, and see where we go from here.

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Taking Time

2011-04-25T20:53:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to let you all know that I'm still here. I'm very very behind on the reading of all of my blog buddies, and I expect to stay that way for a while. I'll be working on a post this week for the Bust a Myth campaign, but other than that I'm still just here. Taking it a day at a time. I've become very adept at pretending everything is fine, but I'm half-assing my schoolwork, and spending a lot of time reading fiction that takes me away from here.

I started spotting today, so I suspect that maintenance isn't too far away, which means that making a decision about a frozen cycle in June, or July isn't very far away either.

I love you all, and I'll be announcing the giveaway winner from my cycle later this week as well. ( As soon as I figure out how to do the random choosing.)

Dollars and $ense of family building

2011-04-24T18:15:00.000-07:00

Click on the picture to see the
other responses

This was started over at Write Mind Open Heart, and it's a conversation that we all need to be aware of. The added costs of family building when it comes to Infertility and Adoption are not a laughing manner, and neither is how we will explain these things to our children and how they will feel about them.Some of these questions I have to answer from a hypothetical perspective, because I don't know all of my answers or my journey yet. I thought that this would be an appropriate opening post for my National Infertility Awareness Week Blogging.

Consider your now or future children as adults, and consider the fact that you had to spend money to either conceive them or make them part of your family. What effect do you think the latter will have on the former one day? What, do you think, your grown children might feel about the funds it took to create your family?

I hope that they're not bothered by it, and I hope to instill the belief that we loved them and wanted them so much that we went all out in the attempt to be their parents.

How did/would you handle it if your child asks you, “Mom, how much did I cost?” How would you answer at age 7? At age 18?

I would be honest, but try to couch it in terms that make sense to them given their age. And try to remind them that we didn't go out to the store and buy them, we went to the doctor and paid him to help us. So, to a 7 year old, it might be along the lines of an awful lot, and maybe a dollar figure, but something to make it real and to a child on the cusp of adulthood - I'd probably compare it to the amount it costs to buy a new car.

When calculating the costs of your family building, what do you include? The direct costs are easy (such as RE fees for a cycle or homestudy fees), but what about fees that didn’t directly lead to your child’s existence in your life, such as cycles that didn’t work, adoption outreach avenues that didn’t work, failed adoptions, avenues that were explored (and that cost something) but not pursued, etc.?

So far I'm including all of the costs. Medications, supplements, testing, marital counseling, cycles that didn't work, everything. Why, because that is the cost of us building our family. It's not just the cost of a single cycle, because we should learn from the failed ones and hopefully make the next try better. On the other hand - I'm not counting the costs of snacks at support group meetings, or the cost f gas to drive around.... or - even - the cost of ice cream.

If two children in a family “cost” different amounts, should that have any significance?

No. Because it's not a measure of a child, it's the measure of the amount of help that we needed to bring that child into our family.

To what extent have finances determined the family-building decisions you have made? How have you able to balance financial considerations against other factors such as medical, ethical, emotional…?

Finances have played a big role. We really didn't want to go deeper into debt to start our family. So we spent a year of instituting austerity measures at home to help us pay more out of pocket for our treatments. We chose to participate in a type of shared risk plan because we knew that we couldn't afford to try again if the first attempt failed, at least not soon after, and we wanted to make sure that we would have a good chance at a family. In many cases, We put some of our emotional heath on the back burner to our financial health, waiting put strains on our marriage, and strains on our emotions that we weren't really prepared for. Mostly because although I'm the one who wanted to save first, I'm also the one who was impatient.

Has institutional and governmental support for certain family-building paths impacted your choices? For example, ART being covered by insurance, tax deductions for adoption expenses, etc.

No treatments were covered by our insurance, and there is nothing in our state that required that they do so. The only way that the outside entities affected our decisions is that they made family building harder for us.

Have you considered having ART treatments abroad, either due to lower cost or due to certain methods being unavailable or illegal in your own country? In your decision-making, how did you balance the financial savings against issues like the unknowns of the country, perhaps not speaking the language, and medical practices that may differ from those of your home country? If you did travel abroad for treatments, what was your experience? Would you do it again?

Right now, I'm not comfortable with it. Probably because I haven't traveled that much myself, and because I couldn't conceive of a way for us to go out of country for ART and keep our jobs. Will I consider it in the future - I hope I don't have to, and I think that it's farther than Jakobe is willing to go.

Freezing conditions

2011-04-21T16:29:00.000-07:00


I know - vitrifying avoids crystals

We have one that we get to freeze, and the other one appears to have quit. So - I guess we're left with The Little Embie Who Could. In any case, the nurse told me that the embryologist was surprised by how excellent it looked. Now we just wait for my period to start again, and then we're on the roller coaster. Apparently the clinic wants to do the FET before we try another fresh cycle, so I don't know whether to hope it works, or hope that it doesn't and we get some sort of a chance at additional embryos.

The weather here cooperated with the Freezing theme of the day, and it snowed fairly heavily this morning (although it didn't stick much, or for long). I have to say that the crazy weather is starting to get on my nerves, sunny and warm, blowing and snowing... just pick a season...preferably late spring.

The snow was tapering off when I took this picture.

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Pushing Through

2011-04-20T16:17:00.000-07:00

This morning sucked. I managed to write my short post, and to write out a quick post to Facebook, because my extended family know just about everything, and it's easier than having to tell people. Then Jakobe and I went to a little diner we like and I drank 3 cups of coffee and ate way too much breakfast! We stopped by to see my mom and sister, who both work in the same place. My sister had called me all excited and hopeful for me this morning, and she was going to call me back about lunch time... it was easier to tell her face to face. They cried for us - and I cried a little bit more.

After that we came home, and I was very glad to have something to do to occupy myself (besides my homework, which I also got done and e-mailed to the Prof. because I don't feel like going to class tonight.) and that was to put together the patio set my mother-in-law bought us me for my graduation present. It was kind of fun, and definitely good for me to have something to do with my hands.

Besides, you can see my pot of rhubarb behind the chair. It seems to be dealing well with being dug up and put in a pot, and I've got strawberries on the way!

I've seen that there are a lot of questions about if we can transfer tomorrow - the Dr.'s office has stopped doing day 6 transfers because they have found that they have a higher success rate with vitrifying the embryos on day 6 and putting them back on Day 5 of a different cycle. Something about that being when the endometrium is best prepared for them. I know that they've got very very exacting rules, and that some of these are new policies there. I'm hoping it's because they've learned what works the best in their clinic. As it is, I know that in many other clinics we would have had a transfer today.

Right now - I'm at home. My tummy is a bit upset (probably from the coffee, which I don't usually drink anyway, but had this morning because I could) I've written this post. I'll probably eat some ice cream. I may also try to read some of your blogs.

I am so glad that there's a support group meeting tomorrow. Maybe I can get the last of my crying done there.

**Note: I think that tomorrow will be the last day of my giveaway, seeing as that will be the last post in this IVF cycle.**

.

No go.

2011-04-20T08:28:00.001-07:00

There will be no transfer today. We had one early blast, and one not quite blast, so they'll lt them go until tomorrow and freeze what they can.

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My Petty Rebellion

2011-04-19T22:14:00.000-07:00

Screenshot from www.starbucks.com

I had Starbucks Hot chocolate this morning. And - When I looked it up then, it said that it had 25 mg of caffeine. But, I drank it anyway.

Other than that, today was just a day - if you count the morning routine of getting up right before Jakobe leaves for work so that he can give my my PIO shot, and then waiting for 20 minutes in bed dozing, and then putting heat on it for another 20 minutes, and then finally getting up to face my day.

I have a secret for you - tonight I'm terrified. I have hope tonight. and I'm afraid that tomorrow morning will take it all away. As much as I want the morning phone call, I don't want it. I want to spend some more time in this happy limbo, where I just think that it might happen. It's all too fast.

Anyway - that was me - checking in. I'll let you know tomorrow's news when I know it.

It’s about time…

2011-04-18T13:05:00.000-07:00

…for us to get a bit of good news for a change. And what do you know, it happened.

My nurse called this morning, and was very solicitous. She asked a couple of times how I was doing, and it made me very nervous, because it made me expect more bad news. But – That wasn’t the case. She was actually calling to tell me that we had 2 embryos at the 8 cell stage. Yeah, Two!

I was perplexed, because on Saturday morning we were told that only one had fertilized, and I didn’t know how one could turn into two at this point, so I was shocked. I asked her, and she said that one had fertilized late, but had caught up.

Being flustered - and crying with relief (I had let myself believe that today was going to be more bad news) I didn’t ask for any more information. I don’t know that she would have had more to give me, although if she had been able to tell me if there were fragmentation, or the grades of our little 8 celled embies, I would have latched on to that. As it is, she said that there were both on track right now, and looking good.

So I guess right now our cast of characters is:

The Little Embie that Could

And

The Late Bloomer

***Update***: my clinic only does 5 day transfers, and then only if you have expanded blasts.

Killing time - and Procrastination

2011-04-17T17:50:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to be doing homework today. Instead, I haven't gotten out of my PJs, and I have been doing stuff around the House.

I made Belgian Waffles for Jakobe - cause that's what he wanted for breakfast.
I spent hours and hours retouching the photo's I too of my little sister in her prom dress yesterday.
We rigged a new center support system for our bad - it's awesome. I don't think that bed was meant for a a memory foam mattress, and it needed more support.
We re-arranged the bedroom
I cleaned (and really cleaned, the bedroom we re-arranged, and went through all of my dresser drawers. They were a really big mess.)
I did some laundry.
I made a loaf of banana bread.
I'm writing a blog entry.

You see where I'm going with this. Not that most of this stuff didn't need to get done. But - None of it was my homework. I have senioritis, combined with being in a mentally fucked up bad place right now. It sucks.

And then - there was a question on a blog about what your husband shouldn't day to an infertile wife. We today mine asked me if I was nesting! grr.

Anyway. I am going to share a couple of pics of my sister. Because she was absolutely beautiful, and looked like a princess. Even if she did have a couple of promzilla moments! You can click on the thumbnails to see larger pictures.

Retrieval - the whole story, and my Fert Report

2011-04-16T09:44:00.000-07:00

I'm typing this up early in the day, while I'm waiting for my fertilization report, and because Jakobe is still sleeping.

**Update: Fert report is at the bottom, if you want to skip ahead**

So - yesterday's whole story:

I woke up, a bit earlier than we needed to, and then at 7 I started poking Jakobe, because he needed to get up and take a pill before we went. Besides, he has a morning routine, and He mostly has to make it through the entire routine before we can leave... even if it means leaving later than we should. So we get up, and get dressed. We decided Thursday night not to shower until after Jakobe's first trip in the the clinic (it's only about 15 minutes away from our house, so we didn't have to stay there all day.) and we would instead come home and shower in between.

When we got out of the house, and started driving in the car, I was checking my e-mail on my phone, and Jakobe looks at me sideways "you're not blogging right now are you? I don't want you to be typing '7:30: we're driving to the clinic for Jakobe to deliver his sample.' Anyway, I said no, I wasn't blogging (because I wasn't yet - I waited until I was alone in the waiting room and bored!) But every time I started typing on the phone, he gave me a funny look. Maybe I should respect his wishes more - but this is my thing... and I need it.

In any case, I got a text from work - one of the server's was down, and since the other server guy is on a medical Leave, I was their only contact. Thankfully, it wasn't bad, and all they needed was a password for that server. I ended up talking to work twice yesterday, because then they needed to find a file, and I was the one who knew where it was. It kind-of feels nice to be needed.

After finishing up at the clinic, we stopped at Jack in the Box for Jakobe's Breakfast (which he then had me carry on my lap - the whole drive home. Soooo not fair.) It smelled so good, and I was hungry, so hungry that after we got home, and he ate, I was still having tummy growling moments while we were in the shower! Once we finished killing more time at home, we drove out to my best friend's house to pick her up. As she came out the door - the following conversation ensued:

ME: I assume you showered this morning.
HER: Of course.
ME: and put on deodorant?
HER: Yeah
ME: Um, could you go wash it off?
HER: ...
ME: The doctor doesn't want us to have any scents on our skin, he says it's bad for the eggs/embryos.
HER: Oh, Okay, be- right back.
(wait a couple of minutes)
HER: Alcohol on your underarms is *cold* in the morning!

Then we were off. I forgot to bring our consent forms (which we still hadn't signed) and so we grabbed them at the front test and started waiting. The TV was on, and while it was The Price is Right, we were all okay, but then The Young and the Restless came on, and we had to change the channel - Jakobe grabbed the remote and switched it to supernatural - which I wasn't in the mood for, and besides, he just found a show he wanted to watch, and wasn't thinking about either of us... I stole the remote from him, and we ended up with Fraggle Rock!

Then we got called into the back for Prep. And you all saw the picture of me in my awesome gown. That was before they tried to put in the IV. Thankfully it only took about 20 minutes, and two pokes. I ended up with the IV in the crook of my elbow. More bruises! Yay! Talked for a bit, got post retrieval instructions, and then the anesthesiologist got me and brought me back.

I don't remember much of that part, just getting into position, him warning me that the drugs were coming, the oxygen in the mask starting to small funny, my face tingling, and waking up in recovery - where my feet we cold. Actually, all of me was cold, and I was having chills, but that's a pretty normal response, and I wasn't worried. We talked, waited, I ate crackers and drank juice so I could take my Tylenol #3, and the nurses came by to check my vitals several times. The first one said that they got 3 and all were mature (which sounded off to me, I don't think that they could have known that yet? Could they?) and my regular nurse said that they got 3 and that we'd get more information today. In any case, after another stop by Jack in the Box - this time for Everyone, and where I ordered more food than I needed, because I was still hungry, we headed home.

I spent the rest of the day in bed, watching TV shows on my Laptop, and feeling uncomfortable. It wasn't so much that I hurt from the retrieval, although there was a bit of pain from that, but it was mostly that this whole process has made me very gassy, and yesterday I couldn't pass gas. THAT HURTS! Thankfully, everything has resolved itself this morning, and I'm feeling pretty good - Physically anyway.

Got my Fert report while writing that last line: Not great. Of the 3 retrieved, only 2 were mature, and of those 2, only one fertilized. We've got one. And gods damn it, I hope it grows, and divides, and makes it - cause we've got only one egg in our basket. I think we'll probably be doing this again in a couple of months. Maybe we'll get a better result. A girl can hope. She can also cry.

all done.

2011-04-15T13:12:00.001-07:00

Not feeling too bad. Feeling a little cold, but mostly just fine. Including the pic I forgot to attach earlier. Oh, and we got 3. We'll know tomorrow about maturity and fertilization. Stopping at Jack in the Box at the way home.

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Waiting...

2011-04-15T11:13:00.001-07:00

In my uber sexy getup. Not much else to say right now. Best friend is here keeping us entertained.

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R-Day

2011-04-15T07:50:00.001-07:00

It's here. Today is the first day of truth, when we start getting a bit in the way of hard numbers, and we're really on the way. Since Leigh (I promise to link later, she's hornmonacoaster.blogspot.com, IIRC and I had the same blog title by chance last night, and because all day updates may keep me from feeling as hungry, I'm following her lead and I'll be updating all day.

0645 - Wake up, stare at clock, try to go back to sleep for a bit. Poke Jakobe to start him waking up.

0745 - At the clinic, it's waaay emptier than usual, just the tail end of morning clinic. Nothing for me to do, just wait. After this we're headed back home to shower and make sure that we have no scents on us (It's a no deodorant day, yikes). I know I haven't mentioned this much lately, but I'm wondering if they ever decide not to do ICSI on the day of? Food for thought.

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'twas the night before retrieval...

2011-04-14T20:17:00.000-07:00

And all through the house, every creature was hoping, even the mouse.
(okay, there better not be mice in my house... the cat's supposed to take care of that - but what else easily rhymes with house?)

Today the Dr said it looks like I may have a couple on the left that make it. In any case, here we are - the night before, and I'm excited, and nervous, and not absolutely sure what tomorrow has in store for us.

The trigger last night was not bad at all - it didn't sting like the lo-dose at all. I woke Jakobe up to do his part - and well, he chickened out. So once I was done, and I told him that I hardly even felt it, it didn't hurt, a completely incredulous look cam over his face and he told me " what are you talking about - it hurt me, and I'mm across the room holding onto the cat!"

Today went well. I guess I should say that even with not responding that well, I can sooo feel my right ovary (it aches), and the ultrasound this morning graduated past minor discomfort into hurt territory, but not a lot.

First trip to the RE in the morning is at 7:45, then home for showers, and then pick up my best friend (Jakobe want's moral support while he's waiting, and then he wants to go have lunch with *his* best friend) and back to the clinic at 11 for the retrieval at noon.

In completely unrelated news - My uncle showed up to visit this weekend without warning, so now we've got a family potluck Saturday afternoon - as well the fact that I promised to take the individual and couple pictures for my youngest sister and her friends for their Prom!

Updated labs from Yesterday:

Estrogen: 891
Progesterone: 1.4
LH: 5.3

And today:

Follies: Left 14, 13, 13, ??? I think Right 3x >20 and a couple of small ones...
Estrogen: 1150
Beta: 69 (to make sure that I did the trigger right... Guess I did.)
Lining: 9.5

Rolling the dice

2011-04-13T20:02:00.000-07:00

Saw the RE this morning - again I forgot to get all the details I wanted, but here's what I've got:

Lining: 7.5 (I must have been wrong Monday, or maybe he measured in a different place today.
Follicles: Right - 21,20,20,?? Left - 13,12,12,10,??

In any case, we're set to trigger tonight at 1 AM, as seeing as I only got about 3 and a half hours of sleep last night, I'm headed back to bed to put my head down, and read, and hopefully get sleepy and pass out for a bit. I'd better remember to set an alarm.

Retrieval is at noon on Friday. Wish us luck, and here we go!

(oh yeah, somehow we're supposed to get our freak on tonight...)

Day 9: letting go, and trusting

2011-04-12T20:47:00.000-07:00

Jakobe and I talked for about an hour last night while we were lying in bed and holding on to one another. It was good for us. We talked about our options, and what we thought that we wanted to do...

When we started talking I was leaning pretty strongly toward converting to an IUI. Jakobe thought we should either cancel outright, or we should go ahead. At the end of our discussion, he felt like we should just keep going.... this isn't our last chance, and it might work. We should take the risk, because IVF with a few eggs is probably still a better chance than we're going to have with IUI, and certainly a better chance than we've got on our own.... and another IVF is something we can do in a little while if it doesn't work.

Right now, I think, that I'm going to trust his judgement. I know that I've done a fair amount of pushing him around during this whole process. This one is his - I just can't make the choice in a rational manner without tearing my heart to bits. He say's that it's his job to lighten my load, to make it easier, and I know that we need to carry it together. I need to let him.

Once I started thinking this way, I was overcome with a feeling of peace. I'm not happy with our circumstances, but at the same time, I'm in good hands.

Symptom wise - I stayed home from school today - too much emotion, and my tummy is starting to develop sharp pains. That and I feel like a balloon. I'm fat, bloated, and gassy. If this doesn't work, I desperately need to make myself lose some weight, because I've almost gained back everything I lost after the wedding.

Today's Drug details (unchanged)

150 IU Follistim in the AM
225 IU Follistim in the PM + 20 units Lo-dose HCG

Today's Second Update

2011-04-11T18:34:00.000-07:00

Talked to my nurse - the medication orders are the same as yesterday, and we talked a little bit about my options. She suggested that we wait and see what's going on on Wednesday before we make a decision. She also said that maybe next time I would respond to the stims an entirely different way.

It's hard to know exactly what I want to do. I feel better after talking to the financial coordinator - if we cancel, it doesn't count as one of the tries on our 3 times plan, and we don't suddenly incur the responsibility for the monitoring that we've already done during this cycle, they'll call it a wash. If we decide to convert to IUI, then everything after we decide to convert is our responsibility. It's still quite the outlay for medications if we're not going the IVF route, but it's not quite as bad as I feared.

I'm still not sure which way I'm leaning...But I'm pretty sure that we'll be waiting until Wednesday to make a decision.

I'm not sure that I'm going to school this week. Tonight I'm supposed to be doing homework, but between the headache from stims, the headache from emotional upheaval, and the upheaval itself, I don't know how much I'll get done.

I've also got lab values for both Saturday and Today. At least I can see what's ~~not~~ going on?

Saturday (day 6, day 4 of stims):

Lining: 5mm
Estrogen: 113
Progesterone 1.3
LH: 3.0
Follicles: 13,12,11, rest too small to measure (at least 9)

Today (day 8, day 6 of stims):

Lining: 10-11mm
Estrogen: 360
Progesterone: 1.3
LH: 3.5
Follicles: 15,15,13, rest too small to measure ( more than 7)

What now?

2011-04-11T08:15:00.000-07:00

My appointment this morning did not go as hoped, in fact, it went way worse than I had hoped. The RE has given us the option to cancel this cycle. His phrasing was that if this was the only time we were going to do/attempt this, then he would probably cancel. but if we were going to/willing to try again, then he's probably go ahead. To me it sounds like he doesn't have a lot of faith that it'll work this time. We're looking at only retrieving 3, which seems like a dismal number to me.

So now We have to figure out what we want to do. Do we:

Keep going - hope that it works, and accept that if it does, we're pretty unlikely to be able to have any more children. Also accept that it's probably not going to work, and that we're going to haev to do this again all too soon.
Cancel, and accept that this time wasn't meant to be.
See if we can convert to IUI - we've never done one, and I don't know what the implications would be if it worked - especially having pre-paid for the IVF.

I'm tired, and I have a headache, and my heart hurts, and I don't know what to do or which decision is the right one.

Why me? Why Us? This is not fair, and I don't like our choices. I want a do-over.

Weekend's Over

2011-04-10T20:53:00.001-07:00

And it wasn't long enough. I'm struggling to find the time and motivation to keep up with things, specifically my homework. Everything else is going okay, and I started the prep work for our patio renovation, so the weekend wasn't a waste, and I did get outside in the sunshine, yay!

On the IVF front, just waiting to see what the ultrasound and bloodwork tomorrow show. I'm a bit anxious, and entirely too tightly wound. I want so badly for this to work, but I just keep waiting for another shoe to drop.

On a final note, I probably need to stop blogging in bed, but it seems to be something I'm remembering to do right at the end of my day. In any case, time to say goodnight.

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day 6

2011-04-09T23:17:00.001-07:00

Today was a busy day, and it started with an early trip to the RE, followed by support group, and then a massage. The massage was really helpful when it comes to the darned headache I've has all week.

Anyway, I was in the massage when the nurse called, so I got instructions but no lab values. Up my Follistim to 375 tonight, and then split it up to 150 at 7 am ans 225 at 7 pm. I guess I won't be slleping in anymore. At the ultrasound he saw 8 small follicles on the left, and then when we got to the right, it looked like it had gone to the races, ther were 3 small ones over there, and also 3 larger ones, measuring 13, 12, and 11. Now I guess we hope that the rest of them start to catch up? Also, my lining was apparenly good... 5mm type 1? I haven't taken the time to google the heck out of everything yet, so...

Other than that, Jakobe and I grabbed lunch, and then started (just barely) to tackle our patio project, I did a bit of laundry, and I re-read Clan Of The Cave Bear. I can't wait to finish re-reading the rest of them so I can justify buying the new one, but tomorrow, I'd better do homework, or I'm screwed.

Good Night Everyone!

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Unreality

2011-04-08T06:54:00.000-07:00

I can’t tell you why, but right now, none of this, the fertility treatments, the thought that in less than a month I could actually be pregnant seems real to me. It feels more like a story that I’m telling myself. It feels like I’m going to get to the end of the story and it’s just going to be over. While I know what the actual goal of going through all of this is, I just can’t seem to wrap my head around the idea of it working, or of it being real.

I feel like I’m being positive, I’m planning for a positive outcome, and hoping for it – but I just can’t seem to really believe it. And then I worry – that if don’t really believe, then it won’t happen.

With every step forward, I keep waiting for it to seem real now, and at each junction, I still feel like I’m going through the motions. Would it be more real if some of the steps were harder to take? If I were afraid of needles? If my girly bits hadn’t always been on display to every passing doctor and nurse? Will it get more real when my ovaries are swollen and uncomfortable? When I have the retrieval? At Transfer? Beta?

I don’t know what to think. I know that at the beginning of the week my eyebrow started twitching. Whether or not I believe it, my body is feeling the stress.

Last night and today's Medication regimen was unchanged:

225 IU Follistim
20 units Low Dose HCG

Even I have something to say about PETA

2011-04-07T12:45:00.000-07:00

Ms. Newkirk,

I am an animal lover. I don’t always agree with the extremes of PETA’s positions on animals, but I definitely support the spaying and neutering of companion animals. We all have a responsibility to reduce feral populations, and the number of pets that aren’t really loved and cared for. Rith now it seems that PETA takes joy in choosing extreme positions in order to raise awareness, and to cause controversy and conversation. This latest stunt/campaign that includes the giveaway of a vasectomy in honor of National Infertility Awareness Week is repulsive and insulting. I am aware that I am participating in the conversation that you wanted to spark, and honestly – I have no problem with the win a vasectomy campaign in and of itself – if you want to make a statement about human overpopulation, that’s your right. BUT, and this is a big but, claiming that the giveaway is in honor of National Infertility Awareness Week is wrong.

Infertility is something that affects a large part of the human race, and interferes with one of our most basic biological drives. I can remember, not too long ago, sitting through a college course on the history and future of the human race, and hearing over and over again, that as an organism we are only successful if we procreate, and our children survive to procreate as well. This is a large part of how nature designed us. It is not wrong to want to have a child, or children. It is wrong to try and make your point at the expense of a class of people who are hurting, and doubly wrong to do it at a time that they are trying to raise awareness for themselves.

Your organization is not the first to make the claim that we have a moral imperative to not increase the human population of the earth. It is also not the first to place the responsibility for that squarely at the feet of those who have had much of that choice taken away from them. Infertile couples will not be participating in your contest – they don’t need the prize. Choosing to refrain from having children because of moral or social beliefs is not the responsibility of the infertile community – infertiles who made that choice probably don’t know or care that they are infertile, so it doesn’t bother them. The majority of infertile couples choose (or are able to) have only one or two children, a birth rate that favors population reduction, as that rate does not tend to replace themselves into the next generation. As for the rest of us – I ask this question: Did your members refrain from having children; did they spay or neuter themselves? Or do the majority of them have children and families of their own, and are instead trying to push their social responsibilities off on those who just want something that they themselves take for granted?

Senja C. Yakovleff

And so it begins

2011-04-06T16:36:00.000-07:00

With me setting aside my clothes before I went to bed, because I was sure I was going to forget stuff in the morning.

With getting up very early, and not eating breakfast, and just trying to get out the door, but making sure that I downloaded Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations to Jakobe's kindle so that I could read my homework in the RE's waiting room.

With getting my blood drawn, not where I requested, but it worked, so I don't have to care.

With the absolute fastest ultrasound examination I have ever had in my life! I described it to Jakobe as getting Wham-bam-dildo-cam'd and he asked me not to post that here (a request that I am blatantly ignoring - although I do love you honey) because it gave him a crude mental image. I was surprised by how fast it was, but also because trying to see my right ovary hurt. I shouldn't have been surprised, that's where I always hurt.... but I was anyway.

With good Labs: Estrogen already coming up at 61.5, Progesterone staying where it should at 1.1, and my LH still coming in at a happy number of 4.4.

Relevant info from the Ultrasound (going off of what I heard the Dr. say): Lining looks good, about where it should be 3x3? 5 follies on the left ovary, and 6 on the right. I guess I can stop worrying about not having had regular flow... It's probably not going to happen at this point. Hopefully the stims will stop the spotting so that I can get back to enjoying Jakobe while we still have the chance.

Medication Instructions:

225 IU of Follistim
20 Unit of LoDose HCG

And Pooey - No migraine medication. I'm allowed Tylenol, and only Tylenol.

Giveaway and Anxiety

2011-04-05T22:24:00.000-07:00

So - I would have to rate my stress levels as through the roof. I haven't been able to concentrate on school, I've had this damn headache, and my eyebrow/eyelid is twitching... Grr. Oh, and AF - still MIA. I'm beginning to think that I'm going to skip that part entirely... and I'm not sure that's a good thing. In any case, I have to get up and out of here by 6:15 tomorrow morning, so I'm going to keep it short. I'll update all of you tomorrow when I get my actual instructions and I know what my stims are supposed to be. Tonight I'm just going to try and sleep.

I didn't forget my giveaway, entries start tomorrow. It's easy, just leave a comment for me any time from tomorrow through my beta(s) it will be one entry. I'll choose a winner at random, and you will get the pile of loot pictured here: (It's an apple cinnamon reed difuser, ceramic measuring cups shaped like vegetables and a orange chocolate bar of soap - it's random, but it's cute and things that make me feel good, so I thought I'd share...)

PS. If I were feeling better I'd be doing my happy dance because my copy of Adobe CS5 design standard arrived today. I am so Excited!

The technical beginning

2011-04-04T21:29:00.001-07:00

According to my RE's reckoning, today was CD1. So I guess we have begun. AF on the other hand, hasn't begun, just more of the infernal spotting. I am going to bed early, having failed to write 2 of the three papers I needed to write tonight due to a terrible headache and a house full of people. Now, I'm just hanging out in my bed with my cat.

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The Fish and the Egg

2011-04-03T22:24:00.000-07:00

I went out to my sister's house today, because we were going to look at and possibly buy a recliner for my dad that I found on craigslist in her town. He has really needed one, and the furniture in his apartment is undersized for him, uncomfortable, and just not right. Turns out that the recliner we found for him was just perfect, so we bought it, and then took it to his house as an early birthday present. And then - we couldn't get in because my sister didn't have her key, and he was gone to Montana for the day to go on a date (Go Dad!!!) Sis called him up when he got home and they brought it up for him. He loves it.

Also - today I got to explain IVF to my nephew - after my sister told me "He knows about the egg and the fish." Mostly because this was the second time in the past couple of weeks that he asked me if I wanted a baby. I said yes, and then he asked how people get babies. So the discussion involved how people only usually have one egg at a time, but I was going to the doctor so that I could make lots of eggs (Nephew: "there was this dog, and it had lots of babies, so it had lots off eggs." Me: "Kinda like that, but I'm not going to have lots of babies, only one or two.") And then how the doctor was going to take all the eggs out of my tummy with a needle, and then put Jakobe's fish in the egg with another smaller needle, and then watch to see which ones grow the best, and then put only two of them back. I don't know that he'll remember the conversation, but it was interesting to try and explain. And I can just imagine the mental imagery.

{Begin bitch session}

My cousin is pregnant again. The one who has 3 girls, and whose husband didn't want any more kids because they're walking a financial tightrope as it is. The one who just has to look at him funny and gets knocked up. The one who told my sister she should just have another one now so that they could be pregnant together. Yeah. It makes me so angry, and sad, and jealous. I am not rational about this. But even my sister, her best friend, thinks that this was not probably the best move she could have made - and she did it on purpose.

Enough whining and bitching on my part. I think.

Anyway - still waiting for maintenance to start, ~~still spotting, still cramping, and still not getting to have sex with Jakobe. Grr.~~ (Shit, I forgot I was done whining.) So there's no further movement on the IVF front. Just more hurry-up-and-wait. My new schedule at work starts tomorrow, so I don't have to be there until 8:30. It's going to be a bit strange going to work that late, but it's better than using up more of my non-existant sick time (I've been sick a lot this year).

Excitement all around!

2011-04-01T21:28:00.000-07:00

First bit of news. Foxy got her BFP! I am so excited her her and her husband, and I just couldn't help but share. Go say hi, and congratulations - She adores comments. In the meanwhile, I'm having a little party right here on my blog for her. (See - it even has balloons!)

As for me - I had my blood work this morning (and our injection class, Where Jakobe made fun of my binder and told the nurse " you should have seen the one from the wedding!" anyway. Got the call this afternoon, and with an estrogen of less than 20 and a progesterone of 1.1, I am officially suppressed, and so I am good to go. Last birth control pill tonight. Maintenance (AF) sometime this weekend (Thank the gods, I think that if I had to deal with spotting any longer, ~~I'd start to go crazy.~~ I'd pull my hair out.). So I guess this means that we're starting.

I am taking page out of Foxy's book, and I will be doing a cycle giveaway. I haven't quite decided on what it will be, but I have an idea - besides, I've never done a giveaway so I think that it's about time. If I find the perfect thing this weekend, then we're in luck. I'm gong to start counting comments as entries on Wed, when I start stims.

The Night Before

2011-03-31T21:39:00.000-07:00

I always have trouble sleeping the night before I take on a project, or do something brand new, or when I'm anticipating something. Tonight is going to be one of those nights - tomorrow is my first appointment in our IVF cycle, so tonight - I'm going to sleep poorly.

I had a lot of comments about our meds and supplements. Very little of what we're taking was doctor recommended, the prescription drugs, and the niacin (to help with poor cholesterol ratios...) Other than that - it's all me - trying to control the uncontrollable.

I've been trying for an earlier bedtime, so now I'm going to go take my pile of pills, listen to my Circle+Bloom, and try to sleep. Wish me luck, and I'll let you know what I know when I know it.
.

Wordless Wednesday: Nightly Ritual

2011-03-30T06:30:00.000-07:00

First Class, First Day, Last Quarter!

2011-03-29T17:32:00.000-07:00

Today is the first day of the first class of my last quarter. All I have to do is make it through this quarter and I'm done, I will officially have my degree in MIS, and have yet another piece in the puzzle when it comes to finding a newer, better paying job. one where I can hopefully expand my horizons, or at least come closer to be able to live out my non-work dreams.

Now all I have to do is find the time to pull my professors aside and explain that I am undergoing medical treatments this quarter that may interfere with my attendance. Timing isn't perfect for IVF, but I just couldn't make myself wait, I was slowly losing my mind.

Beads and Bitchiness

2011-03-28T21:15:00.000-07:00

I think Jakobe deserves a medal, not just for putting up with me right now, but for the fact that somehow he managed to fall in love with me while I was on the pill. I think that the only thing take saved me was the whole new love thing - which makes everyone happy and sappy, because let me tell you, the pill makes me the most crazy bitch on the planet. I'm all over the place, and I have almost no control.

It's like without the pill, sometimes I get a fairly mild bout of PMS - with the pill, I get full on, holy shit, did you see her head turn around, and there goes the split pea soup PMS.

We're in the middle of it right now, and it's longer and more drawn out, because my body has been trying to have a period since Friday, and so I've been a nut-job since before then. It's not even like we get much of a break, because Aunt Flo is going to keep yelling through the chain on the door until I'm allowed to let her in this weekend, and then - I only have a couple of days until I start stims. May the gods help us.

As a result, we spent most of the weekend apart doing our own separate things, somehow I can manage to be civil with other people, but Jakobe gets the brunt of the abuse. So I went to my sister's on Saturday, and took my nephew out to be spoiled (ice cream). I also told her that we would be finding out if the IVF worked right at the beginning of May, and that if it did, she's probably be hearing from me, and if it didn't I'd probably rather she didn't call to ask. Seems kind of blunt, but I think I needed to be specific.

Sunday morning I want to a class on beginning lampwork bead-making. I had an absolute blast, and I made several cool beads. I thought I'd share them with you all. I'm pretty damn sure that I'm hooked, and that I'm going to have to buy myself some supplies so that I can work on more beads. This was an SCA based class, so I also reinforced some good info about which beads and types of beads would have been appropriate to my persona. Now all I have to do is find out what's appropriate for Jakobe, oh, and buy some tools.

All of the beads that I made while in class

My one and only barrel bead, and with layered dots even!

Practicing dots more, I wish that I had made more
beads in this green color, I really really like it.

Photo Friday: The Money Shot!

2011-03-25T21:47:00.000-07:00

Yep - Here is where all of our money went. Okay, a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of the doctor's office, but still quite a bit of money. I'm happy because the pharmacy initially told me that they ordered 9 cartridges of Follistim - and it looked like a 7 on the form from the RE's office to me, and when the meds actually arrived, there were only 7 - so that lowered the cost by quite a bit. Only $2,200.12.

Anyway, here's the picture of everything unpacked from the box.

And the picture of everything that didn't need to go in the fridge with Jakobe's insulin all packed up into a shoe box so that I could put it in the closet.

So anyway, there you go. The only other thing I have to complain about is that apparently my body isn't cooperating. It's grumpy with me right now and has gone all spotty and crampy. Now though, I need to get to bed, so that I can get up earlyish to shower and shave before my massage tomorrow. Yay! massage - any excuse for a massage is a good excuse.

Changing plans

2011-03-24T21:27:00.000-07:00

Okay - not big changes, but little ones. Mostly because the doctor's office called today, and they had to cancel the injection class tomorrow - the person who is supposed to teach it is sick. So, now it's scheduled for next Tuesday, but I'm trying to move it to next Friday, because Jakobe said he would cancel his trip to go blow things up for the day so that he could go with me. Isn't he sweet?

Other than that, things are pretty much proceeding according to schedule, which means that not much is going on around here, just waiting. Meds arrive tomorrow - Coincidentally, so does new internet! Yay! We're looking forward to a much faster connection.

I went to our local support group meeting tonight, and it was good for me again, but at the same time, it was a little bit hard. It was good for me in all the ways that it's usually good for me - no one else really gets it, and it's good to talk to people who do. And - I was able to ask some questions and see what other opinions were. Hard because right now I'm feeling hopeful, and trying to be hopeful, and there's not a lot of hope floating around the group right now. At the same time, it is the place to go when your scared, frustrated, bitter, burnt out, and all of those other things that I think we all experience. A group of infertile women is the right place to find hope beyond all reason, but it's also tempered with regret and disappointment.

Finally, I have to share something I've been playing with: Turning a photograph of myself into a line drawing, and then coloring it in. I really think I like it - other than my double chin, which I suppose I could have faked my way out of, as it's a whole lot more pronounced in the line drawing than it was in the photograph, but I have to be honest, this is me, and I'm *not* thin, and I *do* have a bit of a double chin. I had a lot of fun, but at the same time, without the full version of Photoshop, some of the tasks that should have been pretty easy, we're very difficult, and didn't turn out as nice as they could have. So now I have to decide - Try Elements+, or just wait and fork out for the whole thing? Right now I can buy it at the student price... and that's probably worth it.
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Not at all Wordless Wednesday: Random Bits and Yellow Chicken Curry

2011-03-23T06:56:00.001-07:00

Warning: this post contains some political commentary and opinions. They're mine, and I feel the need to share.

While I'm waiting for my injection class and for my meds to arrive there are a couple of things that I feel like I should touch on:

The one year anniversary of the Affordable Healthcare Act. I know that because of my endometriosis I have been extremely careful for my entire adult life to never go without insurance so that I didn't run afoul of the pre-existing conditions clause. This sometimes meant paying premiums that I couldn't afford, and that made it so that I couldn't afford to actually see the doctor when I needed to - because it had spent all of that money maintaining my insurance coverage. Also - Check out Foxy's very eloquent post on the same subject.
I found an excellent IVF resource for people who actually love to geek out on technical details: http://www.ivf-worldwide.com/ check out the education center, and all of the information and surveys that they have done - I'm still wandering around the site after the better part of a week.
The new law in South Dakota requiring women who want an abortion to wait 3 days, and to visit a "crisis pregnancy center" for a counseling session. I'll be honest, I don't much like the idea of abortion, and I would like to see it "Safe, Legal, and Rare" but at the same time, I don't think that forcing women to go for a counseling session where the whole point is to pressure them into changing their minds is a good idea. And I'm bothered by the idea that not only is there a desire to reduce access to contraception, thereby making abortions more likely, or at least condemning some women to a life of poverty, but there is also a desire to berate them after the fact, and reduce their choices then as well. It's a slippery slope, and many of the same voices who appose abortion and contraception also oppose ART. Where do they stop?

And on a final note, is the Yellow Chicken Curry - this is a fast and easy recipe, that can be made quickly on a weeknight, adn very easily falls into the comfort food category. Maybe not your typical comfort food, but how do you go wrong with a thick creamy sauce and saffron rice?

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Yellow Chicken Curry:

Ingredients:

4 chicken thighs (or breasts - but I'm cheap)

Curry powder

1 onion

1/4 - 1/2 cup Golden raisins

Salt and Pepper to Taste

Mushrooms (optional)

Olive Oil

Sour Cream (16 oz)

Directions:

I sauteed the onions with a bit of olive oil and curry powder, and set them aside Add salt to taste. Jakobe doesn't like them, and I thought they'd make an attractive garnish.

Chop and add the onion to your pan with a generous sprinkling of curry powder, and cook until soft, translucent, and an even yellow color. Add raisins, and sautee just a bit longer. Remove to a seperate dish.

Repeat the process with the chicken - you can slice it thinly, like I did here, cut it into chunks, or leave it whole, just remember to salt, pepper, and sprinkle generously with curry powder. If you're using thighs, you can completely omit the olive oil for this step. Cook the chicken until it's just done. (This time will vary depending on how large your pieces are.)

Add back the onions and raisins, and then add the sour cream. Stir together and simmer on low until ready to serve.

Server with regular or Saffron Rice.

Super Simple Saffron Rice:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups brown rice

2 tablespoons olive or canola oil

2 cups chicken broth

a healthy pinch (or two) of saffron

2 cups hot water

Directions:

Add rice and oil to the pot and put on the burner on medium high. Stirring occasionally, toast the rice until some of the grains are browned, and you get that toasty aroma from the pan. Meanwhile combine the hot water and saffron and let them sit. When the rice is toasted add the saffron water and broth, bring it to a boil, cover and reduce the heat to medium low. Cook until the water is completely absorbed - about 45 minutes.

Insurance Sucks!

2011-03-21T06:55:00.000-07:00

And Yeah, we knew that already.

Today has been spent fighting my way through prescription coverage hoops to try and get them to pay for anything - starting with my second pack of BCPs.

Last month, when I first filled my order for BCPs, they had a problem filling it, an told me that they thought that I might have difficulty when it came to filling the second one - because they're continuous and skipping the sugar pills. So, last month, I called my insurance and was assured that there would be no problems, all the pharmacy had to do was call the phone number that popped up on their screen, and it would be approved. Fast forward to yesterday, when it was denied for being refilled too soon. I just paid cash, and said I'd deal with it today.

This morning - I called my insurance, and had them figure out what the problem was, called the pharmacy and had them call the insurance, and finally got it all worked out - I can go pick up a refund on my way home tonight.

Then the Walgreen's specialty pharmacy called - Their system showed that my coverage was cancelled last month - and that I no longer had prescription coverage. So again with the back and forth and calling the insurance (and Yes, I know that I don't have any coverage for fertility meds - but the pharmacy still wanted to try...) who said that I showed up that way because I didn't have fertility coverage - Not sure why they just didn't deny it. Which in the end is what happened about half an hour later.

So now - I'm waiting to see if I can get a paper scrip for my antibiotics (because if I take it to a local pharmacy, it should get covered) and my injectable meds have been ordered and should be delivered Friday.

Finally: Welcome to everyone visiting from ICLW. I'm happy to have you, and I'm looking forward to a great week. As you can tell Jakobe and I are very very close to embarking on our first (and hopefully successful) IVF cycle. We're excited, scared and all of those other emotions you care to imagine all rolled up into one. This week will also include our injections class, and the delivery of our meds. So look forward to the "Money Shot" on Friday or Saturday.

I have a Calendar!!!

2011-03-19T21:12:00.000-07:00

That means that I can now post the tentative schedule for all of you. I can also post the complete list of meds that I expect to be taking.

So, the schedule:

Friday, 1 April - Labs - Last BCP

Note: Expect Period

Wednesday, 6 April - Ultrasound and Labs - Jakobe start Doxycycline
Saturday, 9 April - Ultrasound and Labs
Monday, 11 April - Ultrasound and Labs (am I sensing a pattern here????)
Wednesday, 13 April - Ultrasound and Labs (maybe I am)
Friday, 15 April - Ultrasound and Labs - Possible Trigger.

Note: have intercourse with condom. If I remember correctly a condom isn't very fun to have sex with - it's all wrinkly and squishy, and wet, and floppy - can I have intercourse with Jakobe instead?
2nd Note: This day is an estimate, based on response it may be a day earlier or later.

Saturday, 16 April - Ultrasound and Labs

Note: No Medications

Sunday 17 April - Possible Retrieval Day

Note: Start PIO and Medrol

Friday, 22 April - Possible day 5 Transfer

Note: continue PIO until instructed to stop

Saturday, 23 April - If no Day 5 Transfer - FREEZE ALL

Note: If freeze all, stop all medications. Call with period

Wednesday, 27 April - Labs

Note: Checking Estrogen and Progesterone levels

Sunday, 1 May - Labs

Note: PREGNANCY TEST!
2nd Note: If positive, repeat in 2 days. Order progesterone refill.

General Notes:

Remember that this calendar may change depending on your stimulation progress
If you haven't been called with medications instructions by 6pm, call the office

And now for the Medication List:

I don't have any amounts yet, just a list of which medications I will be taking.

Ganirelix 3 pre-filled syringes (1 refill)
Follistim Cartridges (7 with 1 refill and a pen)
HCG 10,000 IU Vial - IM
Low dose HCG 10iu/.1cc 1 (1 refill)
Medrol
Progesterone in Oil 50mg/ml (2 vials)

Total cost for Medications is currently estimated to be around $2,660.

News!

2011-03-17T20:37:00.000-07:00

I actually have News.... It's amazing. My nurse, Debbie, called me this afternoon because she noticed that we hadn't talked to the doctor since our appointment in June. Apparently, a lot of changes happened around that time and she wanted to be sure that we understood what those changes meant.

The gist:

The doctor now only does Day 5 transfers.

If nothing makes it to Day 5 - no transfer.
IF the blasts haven't expanded on day 5 and he wants to wait until day 6 - No transfer
I asked about what percentage of patients got to have a transfer on Day 5 - About 50%

They're now using vitrification. This I knew, but it was nice to hear.

Also, things I learned. I will be on an antagonist protocol with Follistim and Ganirelix. This is the time when I want to jump up and down and say "Yay, no Lupron!!!" Lupron and I have a storied past, and I still deal with a couple of side effects from when I was on it 10 years ago. The pharmacy should be calling me within a couple of days to arrange to send me my drugs. (She also made sure to remind me that they cost a couple of thousand dollars so I probably don't want them sitting on my porch in 31 degree weather)

She'll be mailing me my calendar either today or tomorrow so that I can have it before the injection class, and because I think she can tell that I'm one hell of an impatient ~~bitch~~ woman. In any case. Baby steps closer, but still closer. I know when my first couple of appointments are going to be.

1 April - first blood draw and Ultrasound, also the day I should be stopping BCPs (this can't come soon enough, especially for Jakobe)
6 April - first check, this should also be the day that I start stims, assuming everything else goes according to plan.

It's good to have an idea where I'm headed. I suppose now I have to talk to work again (I'm thinking next week) because I still don't know if they're going to be doing something with my schedule or not. Good going work.

I tried to tell Jakobe what was going on, and to get him to evidence at least some of the excitement that I feel (and that he so easily expresses about star wars books, and WoW, and just about anything that doesn't involve me - sorry, crabby bitchy moment there - I'm irritated because he told me he was too tired to process what I was trying to tell him, but at the same time, he's now totally involved and gung ho about playing WoW with his friends. Cue approach of hormonal tears, that will not be shed.)

In any case. I'm excited to be moving forward. I just wish that I felt like Jakobe cared.

Quick Notes: Today was the last day of the quarter, so now I'm officially on spring break. This is an awesome thing, and may actually mean that I get to spend more time at the gym - which we have actually been going to.

I'll post the calendar when it comes in (I may even scan it in to share).

Mommy-in-waiting and Definitely-TTC got their BFP! I am so excited and happy for them, and I have to say that her positivity these past couple of months has really been an inspiration.

Facelift

2011-03-13T13:54:00.000-07:00

Not for me - but for my blog, I've been working on images for a couple of days, and I have to admit - I think I like how it turned out. But one of my best discoveries: the Tornado shape in Photoshop Elements looks a lot like sperm when you stretch it out.

Other than that - not much going on here. Getting ready to finish off the programming project for this quarter, looking forward to spring break, and oh so happy that I have only two classes (one quarter) left until I actually DONE with school.

Something I had to share:

One blog post I read this week that made total sense to me, and was so spot on - it perfectly encapsulates how I feel about it, and does it in a very respectful way. one thing she says is "...that adoption is not "second best," but it is linked to grief - and that is ok." So, if you've never read anything by Hillary at Making Me Mom, I suggest that you at least pop over and read this.

14 Days until class

2011-03-11T23:00:00.000-08:00

Not too much going on here. I'm waiting to receive my calendar and prescriptions in the mail - and they haven't come yet. The only step I've taking in the IVF process so far is that We've scheduled our Injection Class - it seems that they want the class as close as possible to when injections start so that there aren't any questions...So, Our class in on Friday the 25th. Getting closer every day.

BCPs and life are still making me tired, hormonal and cranky. I feel for Jakobe, but at the same time, I can't seem to help myself, So it is what it is.

On a fun note, one of my best friends came over tonight and we planned a renovation for my patio. Believe me, if you could see it right now, it's gross - and not only because it's yucky end of winter, the snow just melted again for a day or two and there's dog poop everywhere... it's yuckier than that.

So without further Ado... Here's the new patio plan:

The two hashed areas are where we will be digging out awful weed-beds and replacing them with poured concrete - to give us a better seating area, and to make it more inviting and less awkward. Now we'll just see if I actually get it done - If I do - I'll be sure to post before and after pictures...

Time for a change?

2011-03-08T22:04:00.000-08:00

Just wondering - Is it time for me to consider a blog redesign/overhaul. I've tried changing things up in my life recently - I dyed my hair. Okay - I admit to being risk averse, and only using semi-permanent dye, but still..I did something.

What? I should have tried dying my hair green? It *is* my favorite color.

Anyway - A blog overhaul would be a great opportunity for me to play in Photoshop for a bit, and I certainly enjoy that. Besides, for the next couple of weeks, I have some time. I took my first final of the quarter tonight, and then I have only one next week, and then it's spring break! Yay - more time to get totally crazy and maybe go to bed at ~~11:30~~ 9:15.

Jakobe would probably like it too, since according to him I'm unpredictable and hormonal.

Sisters

2011-03-07T06:53:00.001-08:00

Note: I have 3 sisters, but one of them is significantly younger. This post doesn't deal with her - and may read like there are only the three of us older girls. This is more because the relationships between us older girls are very different that the relationship that any of us have with the youngest than because I was deliberately trying to leave her out.

Last night was a family birthday party, and it started off great...mostly. But my sister's have a bit of a problem - they can only talk about serious emotional stuff when they're kind of drunk. As there have been a lot of things recently that are very very emotionally difficult - so, that's what happened after pretty much everyone went home.

Is it appropriate for me to say that I hate it when that happens. For whatever reason, although I can be reluctant to talk about stuff (we're all much more likely to shove it down and deal with the fallout later - or just not talk about it) I can talk about it, and trying to have a serious emotional conversation with someone who is drunk is very very difficult - and they don't listen - so in the long run, I'm not sure that it helps them. It does help us to realize how much help they need. It was uncomfortable and unhappy and I found myself yelling at one of my sisters, just trying to be heard - because she was blaming herself for things that she could not have predicted, and/or had no control over.

On a related subject- beyond that, we're all basically infertile. The difference is that one of my sisters (Nicole) has a child - and he wasn't intended. Until the other two of us started trying to have kids, she was happy with her one son - and really still is. She would like to have another one, around the same age as our kids, if we have kids. To that end - she apparently stopped preventing pregnancy a year ago. (She and her husband never prevented before my nephew was born, and he's almost 7, but those five years it was pretty much because she was a dumb teenager, not because she was trying.) I don't know why she stopped preventing when we found out that we couldn't - Maybe because my other sister (Meg) was still trying.

part of me gets stuck there. What if she had gotten pregnant in this last year? What if while the other two of us were struggling with our private griefs she had gotten pregnant. We obviously would have been very happy for her, but at the same time, I think part of me would have been devastated. I have been very lucky throughout our infertility. Most of our friends are past the having children part of their lives, and most of my family hasn't started yet - and we had a grace period (it's just now ending).

In any case, both because Nicole has a child, and because it doesn't seem like she cares that much if she has another one, it seems like she doesn't really understand. I know that I can't understand exactly what Meg and her husband have gone through - recurrent loss is different that being unable to get pregnant at all, but I think I'm closer to understanding than Nicole is.

So, after all of the other emotional crap of the evening, Nicole started giving Meg advice, how if money is an issue, they should just pursue foster-adopt. I jumped in there a little bit, because I know that my biggest problem with foster-adopt isn't that it's a bad idea - just that I don't think I could handle having a child placed with me, and then losing that child. That foster-adopt carries really big emotional risks. And when I told Nicole that - she just said to Meg, you could handle it, if you really want kids.

Dammit - the question isn't whether you *can* handle something. It's whether you choose to put yourself in that situation to get that hurt. It's whether you should *have* to.

Nicole also won't accept that either Meg or I may choose to not have kids. Yes, it's what we want, but at some point, I think, the pain of trying outweighs the joy of possibilities. She specifically said that she was worrying about us not "following-through" and in my case she didn't mean not doing IVF - because she knows we're going ahead with that, but more that we might not keep trying until it works if it doesn't work. I don't all that not following through, I call that knowing my limits, and accepting that something wasn't meant to be. I call that knowing that I can't tolerate trying for 10 more years, using all of our savings trying, not having a life, and still failing, over and over again. At some point, if it doesn't work - I have to let go.

I don't think that she sees that at some point not trying anymore is better and healthier that beating our heads against a brick wall. Just don't tell me I'm not following through - there are no guarantees, and I not going to make myself keep trying long after I feel like it just hurts to damn much. I don't know where that line is - but I'm pretty sure that it's out there somewhere.

Out of place

2011-03-06T11:31:00.000-08:00

This may sound strange, but I'm worried and feeling out of place with my support group. The group here, has 2 meetings a month - one for those trying for their first, and one for after infertility/Secondary infertility/general infertility. I try to go to both meetings every month because I've found that they really help me.

Here's my dilemma: I feel a little bit strange about the primary infertility group right now. Mostly because it seems like everyone else is in a holding pattern. Admittedly - I was in a holding pattern too for the last several months - but now I'm actively doing something. I want the support while I'm going through the process (especially because I'm vacillating between hope and cynicism.) but at the same time, I don't want them to feel worse because I'm actually doing something right now. I'm not sure that even makes sense... Anyway, I care about all of those women, and I don't want to make anything harder for them. at the same time, I really want to share - because I know that others are looking at going through something similar.

How do I walk along the fine line of getting enough support for myself, while making sure that I'm supporting and not hurting the other members of the group? This month isn't so bad... it's still all anticipation - the only thing I will have to show for myself is the birth control pill. Next month tho: the primary meeting will be in the middle of stims - or right about retrieval, and the other meeting during the 2WW.

Thinking about it - that's probably the best setup. But it also means that the first meeting after my beta will be with the primary infertility group.

In other news: Still tired. Waiting impatiently for my calendar and prescriptions so that I can get all of that taken care of. Been to the gym both days this weekend... and trying to eat better. (eating better is being sabotaged by my love affair with hollandaise sauce - it's definitely food of the gods, and having learned to make it from scratch, it's even better) but I'll be leaving you with a picture of yumminess that isn't the evil sauce.

Strawberries tossed with a touch of agave nectar.

Dragging

2011-03-03T20:25:00.001-08:00

Foxy isn't the only one to be experiencing some fatigue. I don't know whether it's the BCP or if it's weaning myself off of my "Happy Pills" but I'm so tired. So tired that it makes me afraid of what might happen to my energy level throughout the rest of this process. I admit that part of it probably has to do with just getting over being sick... but still. Where did my energy and enthusiasm go?

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Wordless Wednesday: Moustache March

2011-03-02T06:12:00.000-08:00

Some of the guys at work dubbed this Moustache March. I may not be able to grow one - but I can certainly Photoshop one.

News I forgot to mention

2011-03-01T20:09:00.000-08:00

Jakobe's Karyotyping came back normal - so that is not a discussion we needed to have in an emergency manner this week. I'm so glad, because that really could have changed his willingness to do IVF. He didn't want to pass on anything to our children.

Catch-up

2011-03-01T06:46:00.000-08:00

I finally got caught up on blog things that I wanted to take care of.

I updated the Money page, it now reflects our current spending, including the payment we made on Monday, and the new prices at the RE.

I caught up on all of my RSS feeds in Google Reader - I was seriously behind again. So if I'm a follower of yours, I've read your posts, even if I didn't comment. Somehow I seem to get to where I have about 200 posts to read, and then finding the time to read all of them gets a bit difficult, especially with me being sick, and trying something new for ICLW.

Speaking of - I'm actually did well with ICLW this month - I tried something new...I'm reading every blog in order, from the beginning, and commenting on them. I'm not going to make it to the end, in fact, I will probably obnly make it to 70 or 80 different blogs this month, but it's way better than I have in the past. In addition, I'm commenting on all of them. Exercising my comment muscle. Of course - I did neglect my homework.

I'm trying to write more posts, and I know that it'll work well for a while, especially because I'm feeling obsessive at the moment, and I need a place to let it all out. That, and I apparently have a lot to say while I'm hopped up on pain meds.

IVF 1: Beginnings

2011-02-28T20:38:00.000-08:00

I paid the clinic and started BCP tonight. We're on our way.

urgent care

2011-02-28T11:16:00.000-08:00

On Sunday morning Jakobe woke up with this terrible rash on his arm. It didn't hurt, but it was swollen, and I hadn't really ever seen anything like it... It looked kind of like rug-burn, or something, but we couldn't tell what had caused it. Anyway, since we didn't like the look of it, we decided that our best course of action was to make our way down to the urgent care center to have it looked at.

There are some things about urgent care on Sunday morning you should be aware of:

it's really busy
for some reason, Jakobe's insurance thinks that they need a $75 co-pay
almost everyone waiting to be seen is a small child, under the age of 4
you have to wait forever to be seen
there are babies everywhere, or cute toddlers with gorgeous ringlets
so, not really the place for an infertile couple...

But anyway, we get there about 9 am, and then we wait for a long time to be seen, and because I'm just getting over the plague (fever, coughing, sore throat, utter yuckiness) and I'm still coughing, and slightly contagious, I get to wear the oh, so sexy, yellow face mask. (did I mention that I have this little claustrophobia problem, that I absolutely hate having anything over my nose and mouth, and that I have to move the blankets on our bed or when we cuddling so that there is absolutely nothing covering my nose and mouth? Well, I do.) In any case, when we finally get back to see a doctor I have come up with a laundry list of things that Jakobe should have checked out, or at least discuss, since we're already there. Like his arm, his cough, his sore throat, his stuffy ears, and oh yeah - his frequent vomiting.

So - His arm turns out to be petechiae (broken blood vessels in the skin) and he somehow scraped himself or did something else like that to his arm while he was sleeping. Unless it shows up somewhere else on his body, the verdict is that he somehow did it to himself in his sleep, and that it's nothing to worry about.

His cough - well his lungs sounded fine, so they didn't worry about it at all. His sore throat - got a strep culture - negative. His stuffy ears - he's got fluid behind his eardrums, and one of them looks a little pink. Normally, they wouldn't do much of anything for something that mild, but at one point, Jakobe had the both of his inner ears completely rebuilt surgically, and since there aren't bones in there anymore (just shaped pieces of cartilage) he has to be really careful to not get a bad ear infection, or he could maybe go deaf again. So he gets to go on kick-ass antibiotics.

The vomiting - I finally got some backup on the fact that he really really needs to go to the doctor on this one. It wasn't until I had bugged him about going several times that he explained that he was vomiting up black stuff when he get's these attacks, stuff that maybe looks like coffee grounds. The Urgent Care doc didn't do anything about it today, but really stressed that Jakobe needs to have it checked out and make sure that something serious isn't going on - because he could be vomiting blood. Now maybe he'll actually make an appointment.

The pool is closed for Maintenance

2011-02-27T19:16:00.000-08:00

That's Jakobe and my code for AF, usually shortened to "maintenance". I'm not sure how to express what I'm feeling today. It is with great fanfare that I wish to announce - today is CD1 - and I'm not sad, upset, disappointed, or any of the normal emotional baggage that goes along with this day in my usual routine...

I suppose that there is a small part of me that refuses to accept the obvious, some part of me that continues to hope, month after month, that we were wrong. That continues to hope that this month - we'll get our surprise pregnancy. But this month - my little hopeful voice has been completely drowned out by my BIG HOPEFUL VOICE.

My Uterus on BCPs

The big voice is telling me that my period is a good thing, that it means that I'm one step closer to our IVF cycle. It tells me that I get to start taking the birth control pill (I think that might be defined as ironic, taking the pill so that I can get pregnant). The big voice is so loud, that all the little voice got in edgewise was a little comment about how I wasn't pregnant again this month - and it got stomped down with the whole "of course not, we know that doesn't work - but it doesn't matter, we get to try something that might work - so shut the f*ck up!"

It's a joy to get my period without the sadness that has accompanied it for the last two years, to get it with only a feeling of anticipation (and endo pain, but hell - it could be worse, I've still got Vicodin rolling around here, and so it's bearable - except for the dry mouth... that sucks!).

I called and left a message for Debbie - our nurse coordinator. She's not my favorite so far (it doesn't feel like we've been that high on her priority list, so I don't feel like phone calls have been returned that promptly) but hey, so far we've just been a couple that had some plans to participate at a later date... now we've actually got something going on. I hope to hear back from her tomorrow, and I'm wondering if we can get my insurance to pay for the BCPs... that might be nice. In any case, this should get the ball rolling. I know that we need to attend one of the IVF classes (gods I hope that they're not during the day - how much time do I really have to take off of work?? Really?) get our calendar, find out what kind of protocol we'll be on, find out if they want a frozen sample from Jakobe as a backup, find out which drugs we need to order, and so on and so forth.

BTW: thank you all for your comments and advice about our medications, it's been very helpful, and I am very grateful. You all rock, each and every one of you!

Comparison Shopping

2011-02-25T22:09:00.000-08:00

When it came to which RE I was going to see, I wasn’t able to do much in the way of comparison shopping. There is exactly one in the city where I live, and traveling 300 miles to see, or even try to see a different one wasn’t really in the cards for us. That’s a lot of time off of work that we couldn’t afford in addition to the costs of IVF itself.

Now though, I’m wondering if I should do some comparison shopping when it comes to a pharmacy. How do you pick which pharmacy to order your IVF drugs from? Does the RE just tell you which one to use, or do you decide yourself? Most of them don’t seem to have a price list that allows you to see how they stack up against the rest, and they all claim to have the best prices. Obviously that can’t be 100% true.

What have you done? How did you choose a pharmacy? Any recommendations, or words of warning. I'm a fertility drug newbie since we didn't end up doing any IUIs or stimulated cycles of any kind, just jumped right into the big guns.

Almost there

2011-02-24T21:05:00.000-08:00

Today we got the loan check from my mom, which means that we have the money to pay for our IVF, as soon as he check completely clears. Like Monday. We made it! I've never written a check that big in my life (and still won't, we're using a cashier's check) so it's going to be awfully strange. Scary too. We're so close.

Anyway, I'll be posting again next week when I actually pay Dr. R's office. and then we'll really be on our way. BCP should start next week, if I ovulated when I think I did (and I've gotten awfully good at knowing, strange, huh?) Since I'm expecting AF around this weekend. I've spent the last few days not working because I was very very sick - fever over 100.5, coughing, sore throat, headache, fatigue, the whole works. I thought that it might make it a good time for me to do a lot of commenting for ICLW, and I've certainly done way more than usual, but not as much as I hoped.

**FOUL LANGUAGE WARNING**

My final bit of news is that the god-damned motherfucking douche-bag asshole pled "not guilty" today and his trial is currently set for May. They expect it to take a week. Time to ask for some vacation. The prosecutor's office assures us that it will get continued, but I guess I have to be prepared anyway.

Time to scan in more receipts, I'm tracking all medical expenses this year for an income deduction...

Wordless Wednesday: buttons

2011-02-23T23:54:00.000-08:00

These are the buttons I made for our costumes. Yeah, I know, more pictures, but it is Wednesday.

Radcon - or how I get my geek on

2011-02-22T23:38:00.000-08:00

I mentioned in passing that we attended a convention last weekend. It was a science fiction and fantasy convention where I got to attend a couple of really interesting panels, one on the Kensington Runestone, and another on Victorian Medicine (we wrote down the time for the Neuroscience panel wrong, so I missed that one.)

More than a opportunity to attend panels, was the opportunity to come out of my mundane shell and get my geek on for a little while. The theme was steam-punk, and I got to make a costume, mostly out of things I had around the house, but also some things I fabricated from scratch. Radcon was our last hurrah, our time to be crazy before our IVF cycle, a mini-vacation that we sorely needed. I drank too much, didn't get enough sleep, attempted to semi-supervise 5 teenagers, and had a blast.

I also got to take some pictures (it's more of an addiction) so, now I'm going to share them with you.

Jakobe and I in our costumes

Jakobe looking handsome

My baby sister in her costume

My friend made a Jetpack!

And Fire Dancers! The name of the troupe is IGNITION. I *sooo* want to do this...

Yay - dancing with flaming swords.

Gratitude & Secrets

2011-02-21T16:30:00.000-08:00

Right now I am overwhelmed with gratitude, so much that it was impossible to find the words to properly express it. It starts with me accidentally outing myself in facebook (not this blog, but our infertility) and the responses were overwhelmingly positive. Everyone said the right things.

After I outed myself on Tuesday one of my very good friends who doesn't live nearby anymore called me. She wanted to cover our shortfall becasue of the change in price, as a gift. But, she also wanted to be sure that the gift was welcome and it wouldn't make either of us uncomfortable. I was floored/ flabbergasted/ completely astonished. It never occurred to me that someone would do something like that for us, it certainly wasn't why I post on facebook. I was just being emotional, and frustrated, and venting. Wow.

I went home and discussed it with Jakobe, but he wasn't comfortable with it. It wasn't someone that he knew as well, and he just wouldn't feel right about it. As part of that conversation he told me it would be different if it had been one of my best friends that he knows well and that we spend a lot of time with.

Which leads into the next thing. While we were out at the convention this weekend, one of our close friends pulled me aside and handed me an envelope with $1000 in it, because they wanted to help. Again, floored/flabbergasted/astonished/ in tears. None of our close friends here at home have enough money to make a gift like that something easy for them to do. I know how hard a decision like that would have been, and I couldn't push it back and say, no thank you, we don't really need it, because we do, and because they know it. Their one stipulation was that I not tell Jakobe. They felt that he would feel obligated, and that he wouldn't be able to accept it. Since this was almost exactly what Jakobe told me, I knew they were right, but Yikes! I am not good with secrets (at least keeping them from Jakobe), and I'm guaranteed to do something to sabotage my secret keeping.

It ate me alive all weekend. I couldn't figure out how to explain the extra money, and I couldn't figure out how to tell him about it. At one point I came up with a hare-brained scheme to be able to hide it from him, but I was also aware that it would mean that I would have to keep the secret forever. That sounded really hard, so after I had lunch with my sisters, I spent my whole drive home in the car trying to think of how I could keep my promise not to tell him, and how I could tell him about the money and not have to hide it from him. In the end I decided I would ask him to not try and figure out who it was from.

Turns out, I had already sabotaged myself. I left the envelope of money on the table in the front room, and he was supposed to be picking up around the house while I was at lunch. He found the money. Unfortunately, I think that part of him believes that I was never going to tell him. He's wrong, it was so hard to keep that secret for a few days, I don't know how I could have done it for any length of time. The only secrets I successfully keep are what his birthday and Christmas presents are going to be, and those are surprises (and good ones) and not really secrets..

I want to say thank you, and thank you isn't enough, I want to say that the giving of this gift has changed my life, not because I couldn't have found a way without it, but because it makes me look at the world in a different way, because it makes me realize that people are even better than I gave them credit for. Thank you for making me feel like I am one of the luckiest people in the world, and one of the richest, with a wealth beyond words or explanation. Thank you.

Straight up Potholes

2011-02-08T15:38:00.000-08:00

For those of you who live in places where there is a regular freeze/thaw cycle all winter, you will be familiar with the bane of winter driving otherwise known as the pothole. The city I live in is notorious for its absolutely horrendous pothole problem, and right now it’s at its worst. To help you understand exactly how bad our pothole problem can be, several years ago on my way to work, I hit a pothole. It bent the suspension and frame of my car (I can’t say that the car was all that rugged either…) Why am I telling you all about potholes? Because my unexpected bumps in the road from the other day weren’t just bumps… they were the cracked pavement right before a giant pothole appears in the street. On Saturday, we had our pothole.

Turns out, my car overheated because the cylinder gasket was failing. Apparently the clue was that it looked like someone had vacuumed out the air/water in the upper radiator hose. I took a picture of it, because I thought it could help them diagnose it. I was right. This is not a good thing; in fact, I think you can find it in: The Book Of Bad: Car Edition on page 1 or 2. Without the gasket, your car doesn’t work. It overheats, and dumps exhaust into your cooling system. Plus – the gasket is in the middle of your engine, so you have to take the engine half apart to fix it. And, if that wasn’t enough, there’s the possibility that you’ve warped your cylinder heads and that they have to be machined.

Needless to say, fixing this problem isn’t cheap. We had $12,500 in our IVF fund, and were expecting about $3,000 more this week, bringing us very close to the $16,300 that we needed to be able to pay up front for IVF. But – fixing the car will be about $2,000, which is a lot more than we had hoped. I have been trying all this time to be able to pay for the majority of our treatment with cash and reimbursements, and now that’s a little bit out of reach. Especially since the amount I’ve quoted above doesn’t include any of the medications, or the anesthesia… it’s just IVF and ICSI. We have enough available credit to forge ahead anyway (mostly because the total balance on our credit cards is less than $300), but it wasn’t really what I wanted to do. It sucks.

I had a really hard time Saturday afternoon; because after the mechanic called Jakobe said that we needed to talk and that we shouldn’t make any decisions right away. I thought he was talking about postponing IVF, and I had a mini freak-out in my head. Turns out that what he meant was that we had to decide how we were going to pay for it: with cash or with credit… I think we should pay with my new rewards card, and then we should pay off the rewards card with our cash. Keeps us out of the hole, and gets us frequent flyer miles.

One of the things I said to Jakobe while we were talking is that now that we’ve started the ball rolling, I don’t think I can stop. Postponing things again would be extremely hard for me. In response he said that even while we were on hold, I couldn’t let go. So we aren’t changing our plan to go ahead with the April IVF cycle, just having to re-think how we’re paying for it.

Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

Ripple Effect

2011-02-07T06:11:00.000-08:00

This post may be a little disturbing, and will certainly not be a happy one, because it’s about rape. If you want to skip it, please do. I won’t be bothered.

I mentioned last month, that someone close to us had been violently raped. I still don’t intend to tell her story; it’s hers, and not mine to tell. At the same time, I feel like I have to tell our part of the story because her assault has had a ripple effect on my (and our) life. In order to help you understand this effect, I’m going to share a few details. Her attacker was not a stranger, to her, or to us. He was someone that we had shared meals with – sometimes on holidays, someone who was friends with several other people we know. Someone that none of us would have ever expected to do something like that. He was someone who had apparently been watching this woman with inappropriate thoughts for years, since her early teens, and he is in his mid-forties. While he wasn't a friend of ours, I have been in his home, and have dropped children off there so that his sister could watch them. How could I have been so blind?

After it happened, she came to stay with us for a few days, and one of the things that she needed to do was to talk about what happened, in detail. It hurt to hear it. It hurt to know that it was something that I couldn't undo, or fix.

Since then, I have been having nightmares. Dreams where people I know and trust do terrible things, and I have to smile and put on a nice face and just go about my day. I have dreamed that he invaded my home, and that no one would let me force him out, that I just had to put up with it. In one dream, I wanted nothing more than to kill him, but I knew that I had already sent all of my guns away. He was in my home, and eventually I broke my way through all of the people who were in my way, knocked him down and tried to strangle him… only to discover that I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Part of me feels like I shouldn’t be feeling this way. This wasn’t something that happened to me. But it did happen to someone I care about, and feel some level of protectiveness toward. And, right now, it’s got me a little screwed up.

Then there’s another ripple effect. It comes in two parts. Jakobe and I have always struggled with a difference in our libidos. And this has had an effect on both of us. For weeks, the idea of having sex was something I couldn’t wrap my head around. In addition, Jakobe has always been a little bit paranoid about rape. Even after we were married, he wouldn’t have sex with me if I had been drinking, because I might change my mind. We were slowly working through that (because a little bit of alcohol makes me frisky!) but this situation has brought a lot of that back to the forefront. So, once I was ready again, he really wasn’t. As a result – we have had very little sex, and that’s not good for us either.

I find myself wondering if this man has any idea the amount of damage that he has caused. Not only to the woman that he raped, but also to her friends and family; the damage that he caused to the couple that were his first friends in our social circle, who introduced him to the rest of us. Every one of these people trusted him to some extent, even if it was just the trust that someone you know could never do anything like that. Every one of us has been betrayed.

There are things about this that aren’t quite as bad. The criminal justice system seems to be working. He was arrested less than two weeks after it happened, and has been in jail ever since. He can’t make bond, and the courts won’t reduce it. He has confessed to two of the three ways that he can be found guilty of rape, he just claims that he didn’t use violence, so I expect that there will be either a plea deal that will have him serving prison time, or that it could go to trial – at which point he would most likely be convicted. She seems to be holding up well – she’s strong, and she’s dealing.

Photo Friday: Peanut Butter

2011-02-04T06:54:00.000-08:00

Just had to share, because this was fun and adorable.

Getting started: Baby steps

2011-02-01T21:03:00.000-08:00

Today was the first day where I could feel how close we are getting to actually doing this. I've been diligently working toward it for months, and making money choices didn't really make it real. Today though... I started of my day at the RE, where it was morning monitoring. I was about the 4th woman there. And I feel so bad for everyone who arrived after I did, because it was a really bad day to follow me. It took 5 different needle sticks to be able to draw blood for my CD3 labs - we were going to try and do the rest of my labs at the same time, but no such luck... And it too easily 20 minutes to do the one blood draw... Meaning that by the time I got out of the phlebotomist's area.... there was standing room only in the waiting room. Everyone was waiting for me to finish. I'm So Sorry.

Before the start of a triathlon - Kind of how I feel today.

Then at work today, I had a meeting with HR to explain what was going on and to find out what my options were. Unfortunately, they really wanted me to work things out with my boss' supervisor. She Really, really doesn't like me. I've yet to figure out why, but she feels like she has to watch my every move, and she has to pay extra special attention to me, and it's all negative. No one but her has a problem with how I do my job, but she seems to have it out for me. Plus - she's given my boss a very hard time for having been very ill this fall. I didn't want to talk to her about it. I couldn't see how it was going to end well.

I was VERY pleasantly surprised.

She seemed very supportive, and even came up with the idea of changing my scheduled shift while I'm doing IVF so that morning monitoring will hopefully not interfere. No decisions were made today, but I feel much better about it now. Maybe this will all work out.

Here's the current plan:

Jakobe and I still have some blood tests to do. We'll just go to the lab and have them done - Maybe Saturday morning.
We have to pay them for the cycle and ICSI by February 28th. I didn't quite make my goal of being able to pay for everything with cash, but we're not to far off. We've got just shy of $12,500 in savings, and just over $3000 coming in a couple of weeks with our tax return. That's all but $800 of the up-front cash for the clinic, and then it's mostly Meds and incidentals... and some of it will be reimbursed. We'll be picking up a bit of debt, but not more than we can handle.
I start BCPs with my next cycle.
IVF in April!

Finally - to finish off today's post, here are the lab results from today, not to shabby, I don't think.

FSH: 3.3
LH: 8.2
Estradiol: 36.3

unexpected bumps in the road

2011-01-31T17:19:00.001-08:00

This morning, after I dropped Jakobe off at work because his car was in the shop, I went on my merry way to work myself. Except, halfway there, my car overheated again and ran itself out of coolant.

There I was, mostly in the middle of nowhere, so I decided to drive just far enough to stop at a coffee shop. (I've already spent 5 hours once this year waiting for a tow in a car with no heat while the temperatue is in the teens or below.) I was a good thing, because it was 2 hours before my tow got there. A coworker came and picked me up, so that I could make it to the rest of my work day, and I waited to hear how expensive it was going to be to fix *this time*.

Apparently, not expensive. They didn't find anything mechanically wrong. So, just more of my bad car luck.

Tonight, I'm riding the bus home from work... a two hour trek filled with people who won't stop talking to me even though my body language clearly says "Leave me alone, I'm busy reading on my phone."

Admittedly, I used to ride the bus quited a bit, it used to be a cheap and fairly convenient way to get from place to place. Now, the routes have been cut so far back that only people who absolutely have to are riding the bus. And even for me it would only work to get me home, as it doesn't run early enough to get me to work on time.

I'm glad that my car will be available tomorrow, especially since I have to stop by Dr. R's office for CD3 bloodwork so that we can proceed with IVF in March/April. Tomorrow will be my first experience with the craziness that is morning clinic hours at the RE. Only 28 days until we give them all our money. Less than one month (or thereabouts) befored I start BCPs. It's sneaking up on me fast.

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Photo Friday - a little Belated: Fun With Flowers

2011-01-28T06:41:00.000-08:00

I told this to publish Friday morning... but apparently, it didn't!

These are some old but good ones that I got to look at after I finally got my new workstation/desk all set up upstairs this week. I'm actually using the computer a lot more with a place that's all my own and not down in the "man cave" where I felt like I was intruding.

My Better Judgement

2011-01-27T21:35:00.000-08:00

It's been one of those weeks. And I have to admit that I did it to myself, because, you see, I was a week late. I haven't been temping becasue we're not exactly trying while we wait to do IVF, just having sex whaen we feel like it, and I didn't need the added stress. What I seem to forget is that even though I can guess when I ovulate pretty accurately (I weven told Jakobe that I didn't think that I'd be startign my period until the end of this week) that doesn't mean that some part of me isn't thinking: I'm a week late. What if I was wrong, and those weren't ovulation painns I was feeling. What if I get to have one of those miracle pregnancies that happen to peopel when they're "Not trying." What if I take a pregnancy test. I've got about a million of them, just sitting in the closet, collecting dust. That wouldn't hurt, would it. I mean I could be pregnant, right? It's not completely impossible...

Except it is practically impossible, and it wasn't going to happen. So, I thought about writing a blog post, asking if I should just take a pregnancy test, and get it out of my mind. But then it felt like admitting that maybe, just maybe I could be pregnant, and if I said it aloud (or typed it) I'd be jinxing it, and then AF would come and I'd just have write again about how mistaken my hopes were. Because, of course. AF is on it's way. I'm cramping, and spotting, and really starting to hurt.

And I hurt emotionally too. I feel like I am so far away from children actually being real. I'm so scared of spending all of our money and ending up destitute (and childless to boot).

So - I expect that I'll get up in the morning, and I'll take some pain medicine, and I'll head off to work, and I won't admit amy more than I've done right here, that yet again, I let myself hope, against my better judgement, and my better judgement knew what it was talking about.

Wordless Wednesday: New Camera Lens!

2011-01-26T06:55:00.000-08:00

My Facebook FAIL.

2011-01-24T19:55:00.000-08:00

I should really know better. I brought this pain upon myself. I posted this picture of Jakobe to Facebook with the caption "Guess who's having a food baby..."

And this is what I got myself. Oops.

Anniversary

2011-01-17T17:20:00.000-08:00

And a good one at that - two years ago today I got to marry the most wonderful man ever. I may bitch and complain about him from time to time, but I wouldn't trade him for anything in the world. He is my one and only.

To celebrate - I'll share a couple of pictures of us from that day.

Uncertainty

2011-01-16T16:07:00.000-08:00

It's hard to know exactly how I'm feeling right now. Jakobe was really upset earlier today. he is worried about the amount of money we are going to be spending on IVF and I can't say that I blame him. At the same time, I am very irritated with him for a couple of reasons. One, that he didn't bring up his money concerns until now. I feel a little bit blindsided. And two, that he has left all the money matter in what he calls my capable hands, but he doesn't trust me to do it right and keep us from gettting into trouble. It is a lot of money,and we are behond where I hoped to be at this point, ut at the same time I don't think that it is way beyond our means or that we'll be making a big mistake.

I just don't know. I don't think I can wait much longer than we had planned and keep my sanity. Infertility is already costing us so much on an emotional level that i don't want those costs to continue to add up and then pile the costs of actually trying on top of them. Instead of feeling like this obstacle is bringing us closer together, I feel like it'S turning into a wedge. I find myself thinking that Jakobe doesn't want to have sex anymore because it won't have a chance of resulting in pregnancy... or that he's thinking that he's lucked out and found a way to give me the kids I want without having to have sex. And I know these thing are not true... but I think them sometimes anyway.

I want to be past this, I want to know if it worked or if it didn't, I want to leave all of this uncertainty and longing and fear behind, I want to go back to a world where we don't have to fight so hard for each scrap of happiness.

Trusting in Justice and other news

2011-01-13T20:23:00.000-08:00

First - the sad news: it doesn't look like the adoption thing is going to work out for my sister. A friend of her husband's family had become unintentionally pregnant and was planning to give the baby up for adoption, and her aunt suggested my sister and her husband. Unfortunately, there's been no follow-up, so it's looking a lot less likely.

Second - a short version of why becoming insta-parents of a teenager would be the best way to solve a situation: My youngest sister is 17, and her living situation right now is not the best. Not terrible, but not good either. Since my parent's separation and divorce 3 years ago, she's been shuffling around to friends houses, and is now currently living with her boyfriend. I blame this mostly on my parents. My mom - who left in such a way that my sister hardly spoke to her for almost a year, and my dad - who fell into such a deep depression that he lost his house, struggled to find work, and ended up living in the basement of one of my other sisters for 2 years. In any case - she's not going to school regularly, and living with her boyfriend and his parents isn't the best solution. We would love for her to live with us, but she doesn't want to move and leave her friends. So - not happening, yet at least.

Finally - to come back to the title of this post. On New Year's Day, a young woman I'm very close to was violently raped. For a while we weren't sure if the authorities would be able to do anything, even though she knew her attacker, and went to the hospital almost right away. Turns out - he was arrested on Tuesday, and bail was set at $75,000 yesterday. It's nice to see that the justice system is working. Now I just have to trust that it keeps working.

Happy Holidays

2010-12-24T21:56:00.001-08:00

So I know I've been pretty absent around here, and I would promise to change my ways, but I don't want to make a liar out of myself.

The holidays can be difficult. They really haven't been bad for me in the past, but the extended family christmas to night was great, and it sucked. Why does everyone have to ask you when you're going to have kids.. or why you dont.

My cousin, who I haven't seen since Jakobe and I started dating was the one with the questions, plus, she's a holistic health professional, who felt like she could tell me that she could fix everything and make it all right infour months. Doesn't she know, hope kills. I can hardly deal with the amount of hope that IVF is giving us at the moment, and to go haring of on another goose chase is most likely not in our best interests. I'm just copming back to myself again, and it's hard.

Back to the problems with the party. There's a great big group of everyone else's kids running around underfoot, which is how it's shupposed to be. But - all my cousins are younger than I am because I'm basically the oldest of my generation. And my uncle was showing off his new baby over skype... I'm jealous, and I feel like crap about it. And my sister has this great opportunity to adopt a baby, and I'm so happy for her if it's what she wants, because I want her to be happy, but at the same time, I'm a little sad for me, and I feel like a bad person, like a bad sister.

Anyway, that's my holiday bitching. There's lots of other crap going on, and If things work out for the best, wde might become insta-parents of a teenager, but it's all craziness that I can get into later. Let me leave you all with these thoghts. Happy Holidays, merry Christams. Good Jul, and may some of our wishes find a way to become realities.

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Money Matters

2010-11-13T08:00:00.000-08:00

I have a hard time believing how successful we've been in saving a lot of money in a relatively short period of time. I instituted what I lovingly call the "Downright Evil" Budget, and sometimes we almost actually stick to it... Jakobe has a way of encouraging me to spend money anyway - but we're still doing a lot better than we were before.

As of right now, we have saved approximately $9,000 of the $12-14,000 in cash we'll need to be able to pay in February for the March IVF cycle. The rest of it will be reimbursed buy 2 different Health savings accounts I have and what I hope will be a sizable tax return. So we'll have a bunch of cash to pay - and a couple of nearly maxed out credit cards for a month or two while waiting for reimbursements. I'm proud of us.

Also - in the next couple of weeks the refinance of our house should go through - meaning that we'll have no house payment in December (more savings) and lower house payments in the future. Yay!

I'm starting to think that IVF in march isn't quite as much of a pipe dream as I thought. We can do it.

Something new

2010-11-11T16:30:00.000-08:00

This is my first attempt at something like this, so let me know if you like it, and if you'd like to see more of them.

Blogoversary

2010-11-08T17:41:00.000-08:00

A year ago today I wrote my first blog post here. I thought that this space was going to be something I could use to share my recipes, and post photographs, and try and find my creative side again.

A year ago today, I was not so happily dealing with the fact that I still wasn't pregnant, and feeling like a failure because what I wanted was a baby, it just wasn't something I seemed to be able to do.

A year ago today, I didn't really have any idea of what the next year had in store for me.

Today, this blog has become a touchstone for me, and is very different than what I pictured. There have been recipes, and photographs, and occasionally some writing that I'm really proud of. There have also been tears, and fear, and facing some of the biggest dragons of my life - and because of this blog, and the people who are out there reading it, I wasn't alone.

Today I look back at the me of a year ago, and I wish I could tell her:

You are strong enough for what life has handed you. It's okay to be afraid and disappointed, because that's certainly going to happen. and it's okay to feel let down, and to shake your fist at the gods and ask "Why me?"

As alone as you may feel, you're not, because Jakobe is there - trying to hold you up and you will return the favor, because you can always lean on the people in your life, and because the travelers on this road with you know how bumpy and rutted the path is - they've skinned their knees as they've fallen - but together dust yourselves off and take the next steps.

Today, I'm trying to find my way out of the depression that has stolen much of my energy over the last couple of months. I can look back at my blogging and see where I started to spiral away from myself. Coming back here to write is maybe one of the first signs that the medication is starting to work, and that I am returning to myself again. I won't lie, this has been hard, and I'm not always good at it, but I am a better, richer, more loved, and more aware person than I was, a year ago today.

Not such a great idea

2010-10-12T13:26:00.000-07:00

I'm not absolutely sure how I should present this here - but I told Jakobe I was going to share it, becasue something this outrageous cannot go without being shared.

He has had a brilliant idea on how to make me feel better.

Are you ready?

Cause it's a little bit out there...

Does this help?

Or maybe this?

Still a bit stumped? - or too chicken to guess?...

His suggestion: We should shove a fertilized egg up my (*&^% so that I can lay an egg, hatch a chick, and get to experience motherhood in some form...

yep - He really said that.

To give him credit - He was trying to make me smile, and he certainly got a reaction.