Small Good Things (New Year's Eve Edition)

1. LG's fondness for Burger King, which is (a) closer to our house than McDonald's, (b) significantly quieter than McDonald's, and (c) has free WiFi. While I am not ordinarily the go-to-a-playland type of parent, it's a good thing when one HAS to get a letter of rec sent off and home internet is too slow to convert the file to PDF.
2. Making snowflakes out of construction paper with LG. They are now hanging in our front window prettily.
3. Coffee. With caffeine. Even if it is from the Burger King.
4. Snow. And more snow. I really can't get enough of it.
5. A short Prometrium period. After the past two months of blood and more blood and more blood, I'll gladly take a 4-day light period.

Free Meditation CD!

On the one hand, I'm feeling all charitable as I'm going through my clutter and finding things to donate. On the other hand, this CD made me *cry* so perhaps it's an act of sadism that I'm trying to pawn it off on one of you. Nevertheless, if anyone wants an almost-brand-new copy of "Meditations for a Fertile Soul," it is yours. Just send me your actual name and address at gwinne [at] yahoo [dot] com and I will happily put it in the mail for you.

Random Bullets of Winter Break

• Lesson learned: I would make a horrible SAHM. After two days I made a schedule for LG and I to follow, including designated leave-the-house time. Basically, we're running errands in the morning and she's choosing something fun to do in the afternoon, after quiet time (which isn't exactly quiet when one is playing a xylophone, but I digress).
• Much watching of TV/movies for both LG and myself. We actually went to the theater and saw Alvin and the Chipmunks on Christmas Day. She didn't cry or need to sit in my lap, so that was a major accomplishment (usually we only make it 20 minutes into a film and need to leave because it's too loud or scary or...). I've been working my way through The Closer on DVD, which was a fairly arbitrary choice, but I'm enjoying it.
• Much game playing. Connect 4 is the current game of choice, followed by Bejeweled (on the computer), and Uno. She could play Connect 4 for hours, which is one of the major reasons I instituted the schedule, which also includes designated game time.
• Much decorating and eating of sugar cookies. We managed to eat about two dozen in a couple days. Now we're working on chocolate chip. Needless to say, I will be back on the diet come New Year's.
• Much reading. LG is working her way through the Magic Tree House series, among other things. I reread The Secret History for probably the 10th time. I also read Rapt, which is a nonfiction piece on attention, which I will probably write more about in a post soon. I'm going back to Ian McEwan until next week, at which point I need to read actual things to prep for my introductory lecture in my senior seminar.
• Minimal housework and taking care of random odds and ends that I have basically ignored for too long, like buying shoe laces so I can wear my brown boots and hanging a hook for LG's backpack in the entryway. Still need to replace smoke detector batteries, do major decluttering and such. That will happen when the girl is back in school, next week.
• I'd like to say I've completely forgotten about ttc, but I've ordered refills on drugs (Lovenox, Estrace, Femara, Ovidrel), purchased an OPK, and done the math to figure out I'll need to put myself on the pill if I want to cycle in early March, due to a badly timed professional conference. The LAST specimens of the other half of LG's DNA will be purchased this week. Then I'm done, done, done.
• Other activities include: trips to the library, ice skating, sledding, and the purchasing of a new fish, a Hanukkah present, aptly named Dreidel. He's a blue betta, and I hope he fares better than his predecessors.

Quiet time is over. Must put on new boots and shovel. More later.

Vodka Night

Dear Readers,

You are cordially invited to join me for the final Vodka Night of 2009. Self-destructive festivities will begin at approximately 7:30 pm. Share a virtual or actual drink. Here's to the end of a super shitty year!

Cheers,
g.

Silver Linings

A list, made mostly in jest, of the reasons it's better that I don't get pregnant this cycle. Because, let's get real, there is no silver lining to infertility.

• I can buy another bottle of vodka and get really drunk on New Year's Eve, or any other occasion in which it seems appropriate, until I cycle again in March
• I can blow off my diet any which way I want
• I can suck it up and get some new bras in the appropriate current size
• I could go ahead and get the black interview/conference suit I never replaced after pg #1
• I can do various home repairs like painting my bedroom (assuming I find the time!)
• I can get a whole lot of work done because I'm not driving to the fertility clinic (I suppose this has less to do with not being pregnant than it does with TAKING TIME OFF)
• It would suck to be hugely pregnant in the summer in an un-airconditioned house
• It's better from the whole tenure angle not to be on leave next fall
• If I get tenure, I could potentially have maternity leave and then sabbatical back-to-back, which would be fantastic (this, of course, assumes I manage to get pregnant at some point)
• I'll feel better about the plan to seduce my ex-something-or-other at an upcoming conference
• I haven't built up quite enough scar tissue in my veins, or my lower abdomen
• I have leftover Menopur, Follistim, Gonal-F, and Ganirelix--why should I let those good drugs go to someone else?
• Maybe Dr. Gorgeous has a not-pregnant-after-one-year consolation prize, along the lines of her IVF goody bag

In case you're wondering, yes, I have First Response evidence of a negative. Beta on Sat. Please, spare me the it-could-still-happen comments. I know it could. But I'm 90% sure it won't.

In the Box

LG was doing a project this morning that involved beads. It occurred to me that I used to have a bunch of fancy beads (in grad school, when I made earrings and such). I knew where the beads would be, if I still had them: in this fabric-covered box that has jewelry (I don't wear) and various odds and ends. Apparently I haven't really looked through the box in quite some time, like probably since around the time we moved (four and a half years ago!). What I found (in addition to the beads):

• unworn jewelry from pretty much every stage of my life (childhood stuff, the first grown-up stuff I received as Bat Mitzvah gifts, horrid dangly necklaces from high school, dangly earrings from college and grad school); most of it was thrown together in a plastic baggie probably two moves ago
• a pair of earrings that have been missing since 2001 that I still really like (I thought I only had one; the other one was in a different plastic bag of small odds and ends)
• a box of colored stones, including a worry stone I held compulsively my sophomore year in college
• some little worry dolls (is that what they are called?), I think from Mexico, given to me as a gift from an equally neurotic high school friend
• a little yellow rubbery alien, from The X-Files phase
• an envelope with clippings from LG's first haircut (2o mo)
• the hospital bracelet LG wore on her teeny-tiny wrist at birth
• the home pregnancy test I took at 12dpo with LG (they didn't turn all gross and yellowy back then)

I think I need to go through my bedroom closet more thoroughly. Who knows what else I'll find.

Don't Ask

(Which might alternatively be titled "On Hiatus, or, The Last TTC Post for a Good Long While.")

Yes, today was the big day. My debriefing/what to do next chat with Dr. Gorgeous, an uncanny exactly-one-year later. Even more uncanny, she was wearing exactly the same clothes. I remember this not because I pay too much attention to what my doctors wear (though perhaps this is true) but because it was unusually festive, involving a red plaid skirt (with ruffles!) instead of the usual black and gray ensemble. (Crazy Nurse was festive, too; they must be having a holiday party or something.) Oh, you want to hear about my uterus and not Dr. Gorgeous's wardrobe?

The lesson for the day is don't ask questions if you really don't want the answer. In this case the question was: so what was up with that freaky bleeding episode? The answer: well, this isn't going to make you feel any better but, probably, a really early loss. Me: there's no other reason? Dr. G: well, I mean, I can't say with 100% certainty, but, yeah, there's no other reason I can think of that anyone would start bleeding on that much progesterone without an implantation and then the hcg signal being lost. Me: I think I'm going to ignore that.

And that's when she started going through my chart to make sure that we have indeed done a RPL workup. (Yes, been there, done that, taking my Lovenox in an hour.)

Since I am going to ignore the reality/possibility of loss #3 (heck, that's what it felt like regardless of what she calls it anyway), I will turn instead to the more positive let's-get-pregnant part of the conversation. That began with her saying you've done the whole spectrum, tell me what you want to do. (Can I just say, once again, I'm so glad I ditched Dr. Evil this time last year?) I told her that the only thing off the table at this point is IVF. I told her that I'm torn: that on the one hand I want to be aggressive and on the other hand I feel like aggressive is not good for my body. In the absence of Volume 1 of my chart, I gave her the greatist hits of how I finally got knocked up with LG (3 natural cycles, 3 Clomid, 1 miscarriage; 2 Repronex, 1 Clomid, 1 natural). We talked about my stamina. We talked about what I'm going to do during January and February (she wasn't impressed with my work answer as a mode of stress reduction). She said I'm doing everything right and we haven't overlooked anything (but, really, I need to relax.)

We finally settled on going back to Luteal Estrace + Femara, which we really only tried twice (and one cycle did result in a pregnancy). I'm okay with that (though I have several months to change my mind), as I respond pretty well to it, and it's less intensive from the monitoring angle. She said, acknowledging that her tendency is to be aggressive, that we just have a bit of patience. Give it two cycles. Then add in low-dose injectables.

And hopefully, knock wood, fingers crossed, this is a plan that will never be set in motion. Crazy Nurse thinks I'll be back for an OB ultrasound in about three weeks. Dr. Gorgeous said, once again, perhaps I'll spend January and February gestating. There are, I suppose, crazier ideas than that.

Students, oh the students

Let me preface this post by saying loud and clear I like teaching. It's probably the main reason I'm in a university and not working some 9-5 job and writing at night. But, as it's exam week, let's talk about some of the ridiculousness, shall we? Some scenarios from the week:

• Multiple students emailing me questions about how to organize their final projects. The guidelines that are important are clearly spelled out on the assignment sheet (how many copies, what order, etc). They had multiple opportunities--as in, every class period since midterm--to ask me any other question they had. So what is up with the last minute email panic?
• On that note, one of my best students--I like this guy a lot--emailed to ask me if I'd send him another copy of the assignment sheet because, get this, he gave his to a classmate who hasn't shown up in, like, two months!
• A student who put her name on every page of her blue book exam, which sort of defeats the purpose of a blue book, which is anonymity!
• A student I'm writing a letter of recommendation for gave me his materials after one of his deadlines already passed. And I'm supposed to say how responsible and mature he is? WTF?

I think those are the prize-winners for the week. I am done grading the exams for one class. I have written one of three letters of rec. I still need to write two more letters, calculate grades for class #1 (yes, I'm an idiot who uses a paper gradebook), and do the grading for class #2 when it all rolls in tomorrow. In the middle, there's the Dr. Gorgeous Debriefing this afternoon...

Small Good Things

1. Hot chocolate. Now, the problem with hot chocolate, of course, is it requires milk. And milk and my intestines do not get along so well. But after much experimentation, I have figured out that if I use good cocoa mix (like Ghirardelli), a cup full of water, and the splash of creamer I'd stick in coffee, it has the right creamy consistency without the consequences. That makes me happy.
2. Latkes. LG and I made two different versions this weekend, one that is mostly vegetables (zuchini, carrots) and one tradtional potato-and-egg variety. Yum!
3. Exam week! I have more than enough to keep myself busy (three letters of rec for students applying to grad school, 40 exams and 26 portfolios [with a minimum of 4 essays in each] to grade and my own deadlines) but not having to go to campus and deal with people all day is just nice.
4. Prometrium. While I do prefer the estrogeny, energetic part of my cycle, this sleepy progesterone fog feels quite nice, given how cold it is outside. I just want to stay in bed and drink hot chocolate and read. At least, for right now, my progesterone level is where it needs to be.
5. An opening at the dentist's office. Now, really, I shouldn't be happy about this. LG and I went to the dentist yesterday and, in addition to getting chastized for not wearing my bite plate [I HATE THAT THING], an old "filling" popped off my front tooth when the hygenist was scraping at it. What's funny is that I spent many years being worried that that exact thing would happen at the dentist's office. It never did. The first filling lasted 20 years (I broke my tooth at age 8 and it didn't need to be replaced until after I'd gotten my PhD!) and the second another 9. Now I must get myself to the dentist so I can drink my coffee :)
6. Acupuncture this afternoon.

In Answer to the Question: What do you want?

Other than a baby and a book contract, that is...

At the top of my list would be students who are independent thinkers who can follow directions well enough that they don't need to ask, "what do you want?" because really, it's not about what I want. It's about doing good work. And taking responsibility for it. End rant.

I Do Not Have Seasonal Affective Disorder

Theoretically, I love this time of year. I love the cold and the snow and drinking hot chocolate and making cookies and snuggling up with a loved one to watch a DVD when it's too wintery to do anything else. I moved back from a southern state partially so LG could grow up with winter.

But for the past seven years this time of year has been marked by The Baby That Wasn't. If I largely chose to ignore that anniversary once LG was born, now that I'm back in the ttc trenches, it's there with me, all the time, but especially now. December 19 marks the anniversary of the D&C that officially ended the pregnancy. I'd known it wasn't viable at 6.5 weeks, finally had the D&C at 11.5, and I have no doubt that if I hadn't, I could have carried that pregnancy for many more weeks to come. My body was that tenacious; my RE said I was showing no signs of impending loss. So here I am, back at the anniversary of the bad time.

Last week it was easy to get caught up in the flurry of this IUI--it came on so fast (I don't expect anyone to do the math but it is only *3 weeks today* from IUI #8). But on Saturday when Crazy Nurse started talking how long did it take you to conceive LG? that was unmedicated, too? the andrologist really thinks THIS IS THE ONE, well, I just lost it, burst into tears with my feet in the stirrups, and I haven't quite come back. So this morning, a morning I really should take advantage of, as it's a designated writing morning, and the onslaught of grading can't begin until 5:00 tonight, I find myself with very little to say, other than I'm sad.

Back in May, even though I knew intellectually pregnancy #3 likely wouldn't make it, I imagined myself hugely pregnant now, wrapping up the semester. I have a good friend who is due two weeks before I would have been; every time I see her, it's a reminder. I'm so happy for her and can't wait to meet this little boy in a few weeks. And yet...why not me too? I think about the end of January coming, the possibility of me not only not having a newborn but also not being pregnant, and I'm just devastated.

Dr. Gorgeous, make sure the consult room has a new box of tissues on Thursday. I think I'm going to need them.

Signs

On my way to the clinic this morning, following the detour off the highway, which was closed due to the storm, I wondered if the universe was telling me this cycle wasn't meant to be (you know, because I didn't manage to read the more subtle signs of two cysts, a wonky lining, an elevated E2 level, and an early surge).

Then I wondered if the fact that I managed to get to the clinic, despite the detour, to learn that I do indeed have a mature follicle to go along with the two blue lines on the pee stick, meant that the universe is telling me I need to listen to my body, after all.

Then I got to hold one of Best Professor Friend's newborn twins. I rubbed her fuzzy brown hair for good luck. That has to mean something, right?

IUI #9, tomorrow at 1:00. Happy Hanukkah.

Anti-Procrastination Thursday

Things accomplished today:

1. Wrote some sentences.
2. Finished reorganizing book manuscript #1.
3. Read a large chunk of book manuscript #1 aloud, until the crying ensued.
4. Wrote cover letter for book manuscript #1.
5. Emailed revised book manuscript #1 to editor.
6. Emailed editor to inquire about the status of a manuscript accepted in June.
7. Emailed different editor to inquire about the status of a manuscript accepted in July.
8. Took an OPK. (Note to self: this is the problem with unmedicated cycles.)
9. Called a friend to deliberate what to do about the nearly-positive OPK.
10. Called Crazy Nurse to switch monitoring appointment.
11. Emailed former student about statement of purpose.
12. Emailed current student about appointment.
13. Revised cover letter for book manuscript #2.
14. Went to post office to mail book manuscript #2.
15. Called friend to see if she's up for company following monitoring tomorrow.

The kitchen is a mess. My desk is a mess. I can't quite sit still, but I'm not sure what to do.

A purely rhetorical question: why can't my body do ANYTHING according to plan?!

The Hole

There is a baby shaped hole in my life.

I tried to fill it today with a chai latte and marshmallow square. You can guess how well that worked.

I need to pick up my Ovidrel and Folgard from campus pharmacy today. I need to call the cryobank today. Usually these little tasks make me feel like at least I'm doing something about the baby shaped hole. Today--not so much. I haven't yet bothered to do either one. Instead, I'm sitting in my office, awaiting my final class of the semester, in which I will once again discuss a birth scene with my students.

This time seven years ago, I sat in my office day after day and cried and then went off to teach. I was in the middle of what felt like the longest miscarriage in history. Five weeks from start to finish, and then there was the mandatory three months of uterine and mental health rest. Loss was all consuming.

It still is. I suppose it doesn't help that I'm dealing with it as an intellectual project as well, as I get these two manuscripts, both of which deal with fertility and pregnancy loss, off to publishers.

I never imagined I'd be celebrating my one year anniversary with Dr. Gorgeous talking to Dr. Gorgeous. Can I just say I hate the third fucking Thursday in December? It's also the anniversary of my D&C.

I think it's fair to say that every month since May I've dug myself deeper into this hole. I don't know how much deeper I can go without ever coming back out.

Small Good Things (Last Week of the Semester Edition)

1. Tomorrow is my last teaching day for the semester! Woo-hoo! Now I will say that I will miss one of these classes quite a bit. But, still, my mind has been elsewhere this semester and it's good to be wrapping up and starting something new.
2. I emailed a big-wig in my field today, who once gave me permission to use his name in my query letters. I just wanted to make sure that's still okay (it's been a while), and he was so quick and generous in his reply. Manuscript #2 will be back out in the mail in a few days, with his blessing.
3. My right ovary woke up. I still wouldn't be surprised to find, well, anything when I go in for monitoring on Saturday, but I'm hopeful that there's a follicle on the right. And I conceived LG on the right (my miscarriages have both been lefties). Yes, I am a superstious freak.
4. After spending way too much time at Target this afternoon, I found a computer game that LG has been begging me for (she played it at school). That's her one real Hanukkah present, as mostly she's getting things I need to buy her anyway, or ridiculous little trinkets (barrettes and the like).
5. Oh, the bleeding, which Dr. Gorgeous decided is a product of my insanely elevated estrogen level from Follistim, has finally tapered to something less than changing a pad every hour. In all seriousness, I haven't bled this much since my D&C seven years ago. Pretty freaky, and I'm glad it seems to be wrapping up. I only hope that's the last of the blood I see for a good long while.

Random Thoughts

On the question of the December unmedicated IUI, of course.

1. I can't get pregnant if I don't try.
2. I did conceive LG on an unmedicated cycle (after trying injectables, I might add).
3. Injectables seem to have pretty nasty side effects (cysts, lining problems, E2 problems).
4. It will cost a lot of money and has a low chance of success.
5. A low chance of success is still better than no chance of success.
6. A December cycle works better with timing the rest of my life than January.
7. I'd get to cycle--and take a pregnancy test, and, if it works, have an ultrasound--before the dread due date.
8. I could distract myself from the significance of December 19 with positive, sticky embryo thoughts, instead of morose dead baby thoughts.
9. My lining might not be in optimum shape, all things considered.
10. My body probably isn't in optimum shape, all things considered.
11. If Dr. Gorgeous only cites cost as a factor for not doing it, then it's probably not medically unadvised.
12. If I were not using donor sperm but had a male partner, I could very well get pregnant just by having sex on my cycles "off."
13. I won't get pregnant if I don't try.
14. I might get pregnant if I do.
15. What, in the whole scheme of things, is another $1,000?

I think I've made my decision. I'm not all gung-ho about it. I wouldn't be surprised if I go in for monitoring and there's no follicle, or my lining is still messed up and I can't cycle. But it seems stupid not to try. Care to weigh in?

Question for the Night

Would I be completely crazy to try an unmedicated IUI this month?

The cycle I conceived LG I was benched due to a cyst/elevated E2 level. I asked my RE if I could just try a monitored/unmedicated cycle and she said, well, you know, that could work.

She was right.

Small Good Things

1. Not so small: I am a sane, responsible, high-functioning, professionally accomplished adult. This is a good thing to remind oneself when one's sister is back in the psych ward and unable to care for herself, let alone a child and a home.
2. Good cheap red wine from a local winery and dark chocolate.
3. A clean bathtub (yeah, I'm the one who had to clean it, but now it's clean and I plan to actually bathe in it, with some lavender bubble bath).
4. A Bug's Life, which LG watched this afternoon while I did laundry and the bathroom.
5. The new Star Trek movie, which was exactly the kind of mindless entertainment I required last night (though I could have done without the sobbing [mine] during the early childbirth scene).

I have a feeling you're going to be getting a lot of small good things posts in the upcoming weeks. They're what I'm holding on to...

The Morning After

First, a thank you for all the recent comments and support. I really appreciate it, as I'm working all this stuff through and trying to figure out where to go from here. This is sort of rambly, but I'd appreciate any observations you have.

Well, the reprieve from the bleeding did not last. After about fifteen hours of *nothing*, it started up again, with a vengeance. I think, N and Sprogblogger, that's a good thing. I really didn't need the mindfuck of my period coming 5-6 days early and then stopping altogether, making me question whether or not it's actually my period. As far as I'm concerned, the only good that can come of this at this point is clearing my body of hormones for a couple weeks and hopefully a quick resolution to the E2/lining/cyst problems.


I need time off from this project. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have attempted that November cycle, with the huge lining problem kicking it off, but I needed to cycle again before I turned 37. I don't regret doing it, but clearly it wasn't right from beginning to end. So here I am, taking a cycle "off." Originally, I was planning on taking Dec-Feb off anyway. Now, I think I'll try for Jan, if Dr. Gorgeous is okay with it, still take Feb off, and then go for March. I'm not sure about this, but my gut reaction to being told I can't do something is to find something new that I can do. Giving birth in late September/early Oct (I hope!) would close out two years of ttc from beginning to end. That's pretty much exactly what I had with LG, as well.

When I look over my timeline, it's becoming increasingly apparent that I can only cycle every other month. I'm not sure what that's about, but perhaps instead of getting mad every time it happens, I should just accept it for what it is and only plan on cycling every other month. And if for some reason my body is ready sooner, so be it.

A month ago, I was so gung-ho about this follistim plan. Now I don't know. Maybe Femara (with pre-cycle Estrace) really is the way to go (I did conceive, and that was a picture perfect cycle from beginning to end). But I keep thinking about what my first RE said, after I got pregnant and miscarried on a clomid cycle. She wanted me to do injectables, I wanted to go back to clomid. What she told me was if you'd gotten pregnant and STAYED pregnant then we'd say Clomid worked. What if there's something to that? What it's not just a coincidence but I don't make good embryos with Femara?

On the one hand, I feel beaten by this process, absolutely astonished that it's taking this long. That I will most likely be going into a fourth semester at school still doing cycles. That's incredibly stressful in itself. I feel like I've "wasted" so many months of work, focusing on this stuff, at the moment I need to be focusing on work as I'm coming up for tenure. I'm not saying I regret any of this, it just seems like a lot of energy expended on a project that is going nowhere.


But then there's the other part of me, the part that remembers it took **10 cycles** to conceive LG (and I started at 29!). When you count the IUIs I've actually done, I've only done 8, plus that IVF. Perhaps this January cycle, if I do it, will be lucky number 10 again.

Then I'm worried about what Dr. Gorgeous might say at our consult, that she'll say no to January, or no to Follistim, and want to get even more aggressive (though I can't imagine what that might look like). This is the first time she's "summoned" me to see her; usually I just make an appointment when I have a question or issue that can't easily be worked through with the nurses. I'm scared, mostly, that she'll say she thinks this is the end of the road for me. And what if it is?

I Do Not Fucking Believe This

I stopped bleeding.

The Evidence

Before

Right ovary: quiet
Left ovary: 2 large cysts
Endometrium: 13 mm

Still bleeding. Heavy period bleeding. (Where is all that blood coming from if there's that much left?)

Other blood spinning in the lab. I have no idea what this all means, but it is evidence of something.

After

E2: 144
P4: 8
bHCG: <2

Dr. Gorgeous has absolutely no explanation for why I'd start bleeding so early. She wants me to come in for a chat before I cycle again. Not sure when that will be.

December 19 is the anniversary of my D&C for pregnancy #1. Pregnancy #3 would be due in January.

I'm just... crushed.

Small Good Things Before the Appointment of Doom

(One would think that I would be massively freaked out or depressed about all these major life goings-on. Oddly, I'm not. Perhaps it's denial. Perhaps I'm whacked out on hormones. Anyway...)

1. Snow! Our first (albeit pathetically minimal) snowfall of the season. I live in a place that historically has snow as early as October. This year? The evening of Dec. 3. Despite the minimal amount (like, not even covering the ground), LG, who rarely wears a coat, decided she required snow pants, boots, the whole get up, and almost missed her bus.
2. Leftover pizza for breakfast. Yes, it's making me feel pukey (one of two things that makes me think Crazy Nurse might be right). And yes, I will pay for it later (headache, digestive problems), but it was definitely necessary to order a pizza last night (after LG went to sleep) and devour it and eat it again this morning.
3. A cc'd email from my chair, requesting that a new colleague talk to ME about a particular project he wants to undertake. Too often in this big place I feel quite small and powerless. Nice to be acknowledged for what I do (even if it potentially means more work!).
4. Organic sanitary pads. Yeah, given how much I'm bleeding, I'm glad these things exist. I used to use the regular ones and then about four years ago my body completely rebelled against them. As in, insane allergic reaction. I should tell Dr. Gorgeous to keep some in those pretty baskets in her bathroom.
5. One more week of classes, plus exams. I have never needed winter break as much as I need this one (please don't remind me that it's a week shorter this year!).

And now I am off to have my uterus examined...

Update from the Land of Sanitary Pads

Yeah, I'm bleeding. A lot. Like, I wonder if I actually will end up in the ER.

LG is having one of those crappy days when I tuck her into bed as soon as she gets home from school and has a meltdown. Which is making it somewhat difficult for me to, you know, stay in bed, like a good fertility patient.

There's also some unexpected drama with my sister, which makes all of this blood sort of pale in comparison, which I suppose is a good thing.

The nurse I talked to today thinks I'm pregnant (oh-kay) and can't come up with any real explanation for why I'd start bleeding at 9dpo (on gobs of progesterone, that is).

Tomorrow, I might be starting Follistim for an unexpected December cycle, or I might be panicking over another likely-to-fail pregnancy. Think good thoughts for me around 10:00 am (though at this point, I'm not sure what a good thought would be).

I sure hope 2010 gets better...

In Bed

At the moment, I'm in bed, with my laptop, a sleeping cat, a cup of decaf, and the phone. It has occurred to me more than once, as it did after transfer, that my house is less than ideal for bed rest. It has one bathroom (upstairs). The kitchen is downstairs. Then there's LG, who requires me to go up and down stairs quite a bit, even if I am prepared enough to hole up in the bed.

I'm not sure why I'm doing this, other than I can (except for a meeting in a few hours), and take it easy and put your feet up sounds like code for bed rest. Or perhaps couch rest. Still, it seems useless, especially since I bled more last night lying in bed than I did all day yesterday. I'd be stunned if I turn out to be pregnant. On top of the bleeding and the cramping, there's the negative HPT (early, yes) and the follicular activity. I fully expect that I could do a baseline monitoring appointment on Saturday, after a negative beta tomorrow. Ordinarily, I wouldn't start bleeding until Monday or Tuesday. Damn. Why is it I'm constantly getting hit with the thing I never saw coming?

Deja Vu

Still bleeding. Bright red. It stopped for the bulk of the day, but after I was doing my typical hop-around-the-classroom-Oprah-style afternoon it started up again. Heavier. Dr. Gorgeous, via the nurse, said to take it easy, put my feet up, drink a lot of water, wait it out until my pregnancy test. But if it gets significantly heavier or painful to head to the ER. Great.

This is all eerily familiar. My first pregnancy announced itself not with two lines on the stick but with the same kind of bleeding. Three days later, it was a full on, scary, blood all over the sheets and bathroom floor bleed (that was 15dpo). After they ruled out an ectopic, my doctor gave me a bunch of progesterone samples and told to take it easy, put my feet up, drink a lot of water. Ultimately, that turned out to be a "blighted ovum" that ended in a D&C at 11.5 weeks. A tenacious little fucker, despite the bleeding.

I spotted with LG, too, but later, around 5 weeks, and it wasn't quite as dramatic.

It's 9dpo. And either this is just a problem, or a pregnancy with a problem. Either way, I'm not liking it. Not sure when I'm going to test. Beta on Friday or Saturday...

Spotting

Shit.

Thought #1: Lovenox.
Thought #2: I never spot on heparin. (Hell, I'm not even bruising from it this time). I have historically spotted from baby aspirin. No more.
Thought #3: Implantation spotting. Which I have NEVER had.
Thought #4: Progesterone problem. I'm on supplements (400 mg/day), but it was on the low side (23) on Mon.
Thought #5: I guess this is when I call Dr. Gorgeous.

Grrr.

All the Rest

A disclaimer, before I get going: I am still quite grateful for my list of 37 and the many other big and small good things in my life (mostly, health, LG, family, friends, having a job). That doesn't mean I can't get pissy about things sometimes, and that's how I'm feeling right now. Some things that are going on that make me crabby:

• Students plagiarizing papers. I made a huge speech in my class yesterday, a class with a clump of suspected plagiarists, clarifying the academic integrity policy of the class and asking people to come forward if they had violated the policy. The result was a good THIRD of the class emailing to ask me if I suspected her/him of plagiarizing. SO NOT THE POINT.
• This damn cold. I think the old one was almost gone and a new one came to take its place, but snot is running down my throat, and that's just nasty.
• A colleague in another unit (whom I've never even met) taking advantage of my generosity in doing her a favor and asking me to do it again.
• I forgot to renew my car's registration (which expired on my birthday), which means spending time at a government branch office to write them a check, now with a ten dollar late fee. Dumb dumb dumb.
• Too much email from students (see #1).
• Apparently LG has a field trip today. I would have liked to have been notified before yesterday of this event, even if it is free. Perhaps I would have liked to accompany her?
• I'm just feeling OFF. Not pregnant. Just OFF. I fully expect a negative beta on Friday or Saturday, whenever I choose to get my blood drawn.

What I Got For My Birthday

• An interesting black hat (faux fur, with flaps!), gloves, and scarf from LG. My mom, who took her shopping, told me just to be glad she didn't purchase the leopard print. Oh, yeah.
• Money, from mom, that will go toward acupunture and random kitchen toys.
• Something pretty and something practical from my darling L (the practical gift works great! thanks!!).
• Dinner with LG and friends.
  
• An email (on my actual birthday!) from the publisher who earlier expressed interest in my book. Still interested--as in, hypothetically talking about publication for next year. But she wants me to reorganize before she'll give me a definite yes. Sigh.

37 is off to a good start. I'd really hate to wreck it with a negative pregnancy test in a few days...

Gratitude

In lieu of my small good things, I give you a list of things big and small that I am grateful for. It is my thaksgiven list (courtesy of LG).

1. I am grateful to live in a time and place that allows for reproductive choice;
2. I am grateful for the donor who gave his time and bodily fluids so someone like me could have a kid;
3. I am grateful to the pair of smart, sassy, beautiful doctors who have worked with me and knocked me up three times;
4. I am grateful for autoimmune testing and heparin shots and a healthy full-term birth of my daughter;
5. I am grateful that LG is the smart, sassy girl that she is, even if she makes me insane sometimes;
6. for my mother, who gave me the example of what a single mother could be, and who helps me be a better one;
7. for my grandparents, who did not live to meet LG, but who provided the monetary support long ago that ultimately made her conception possible;
8. for my sister and brother, who, despite their quirks and mine, love me and LG;
9. for my dearest, wisest friend L, who has been with me for more than half our lives--I'm glad we missed our bus stop that day sophomore year;
10. for my other friends, including A and M, who have made this year easier in more ways than I can count;
11. for this blog and the ALI community who understand what most people "IRL" do not;
12. for a stable job, knock wood, that gives me enough money and benefits to live comfortably;
13. for a job that allows me to do two of the things I most love in this world, read and write;
14. for the students who make the other part of my job a joy;
15. for a job that affords me a certain amount of flexibility in scheduling;
16. the recliner in my mother's family room, where I have been grading for the past three hours;
17. I am grateful for Passion tea, orange tea, green tea, chai tea;
18. Whole Foods and the co-op, so I can feed my allergic kid,
19. and the amino-acid based formula that got us through her first 23 months.
20. I am even more grateful that she outgrew the need for the amino-acid based formula.
21. I am grateful for House and The Good Wife and Bones, which currently provide moments of escape;
22. I am grateful for the lip balm and body wash in the clinic's IVF goody bag, as they provide daily reminders to be gentle to myself;
23. I am grateful for acupuncture;
24. for yoga and moments of quiet;
25. I am grateful for my house, with its sun porch, where I spent much of the summer trying to be zen;
26. I am grateful to be in the early part of the 2ww, when anything is still possible;
27. I am so glad I was able to cycle in November;
28. I am so glad this November isn't like the one, seven (!) years ago, when I didn't think life could possibly get any worse;
29. I am grateful for the strength, wherever it comes from, to keep going on this journey;
30. I'm grateful for my health and for feeling generally well
31. and I'm grateful for migraine meds and other remedies when I am not;
32. I am grateful for organic cotton socks;
33. I am grateful for organic cotton tampons and sanitary pads (too much blood this year!);
34. I am grateful for warm blankets and coats and heat;
35. for a cat who likes to pretend she's a scarf, or a lap warmer;
36. I am grateful for a new year;
37. I am grateful for the 36 years I've spent on this earth and the doctors who, in 1972, made sure a 33-week preemie started breathing on her own. I know my mother is, too. Two days until 37.

For the Record

Lovenox needles are just as crappy as Fragmin ones.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Small Good Things, Pre-Thanksgiving

1. A chiropractor appointment, with 15 minutes in the massage chair. That's the closest my insurance company comes to paying for alternative therapies, and I'll take it. She also managed to work out the Spot of Evil, which has made its reappearance.
2. At 1dpo, it's too early in my cycle to doubt whether it worked, or to look for symptoms. This boy and I make beautiful embryos (one of whom became a beautiful child), and for right now, I have no reason not to believe that there's some wonderful cell division going on.
3. LG and I both slept last night, with only one interruption. We needed that.
4. Work by way of procrastination. The stack of papers that came in last Wed? I can't stand to look at them anymore (note to self: this is the problem with grading the good ones first), so I switched to the batch from the second class, which is much more pleasant reading.
5. Tomorrow night, I will be at my mama's house, sitting in her comfiest recliner, drinking tea and being loved. And you know, I could really use that right now.

Small Good Things, IUI #8 Edition

(For the record, this is the last thing I should be doing, as I have class in 50 minutes and an afternoon that will be a bit, err, crazy. I used to think I was nuts for scheduling *local* doctor's appointments between my classes. Let's just add a 45-50 minute drive each way, shall we?)

1. After keeping us both awake from 10-12, LG finally fell asleep. And I have managed to get her a ped appointment tomorrow afternoon, which means I need to cancel nothing, and she gets to go on a morning field trip beforehand. All good. Please, dear doctor, up the girl's dose of Singulair?
2. The Ovidrel-induced nausea is gone. My ovaries are chatty again (I thought they'd forgotten what they are supposed to be doing!). I think it's a good day for an IUI.
3. Cookie bits for breakfast. I'm not sure if it was a result of the oat flour, an inappropriate spatula, or what, but the cookies are less than pretty. They taste fabulous but many fell apart in the process of transfering from the sheet to the rack to the storage container. Oh well.
4. Three shot free days before Lovenox. May Lovenox be less painful than Fragmin. I don't care about the bruising, just a needle that actually goes in to my skin on the first try.
   
5. [Updated at 2:35] Dear Readers, please make note of the time. I am having a charmed day, which more than makes up for the terrible-horrible yesterday. I arrived at Dr. Gorgeous's office at 12:50 and was back on the road by 1:25. (Kind of makes me wonder why they didn't think a 1:00 IUI was a good idea; there was no one else in the waiting room. But I digress.) And the specimen? The combined count (2 ART vials) is better than the single IUI specimen from the last time I got pregnant. Cute Andrologist was way pleased. Let's just hope all these facts, combined with my superstitious weirdness (have I told you I get pregnant when I give nurses gifts?) pays off in 11 days (yes, wicked early beta!).
   

The Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day

So one of my favorite children's books is Judith Viorst's Alexander and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day. LG and I read it when we are having, as we put it, "a terrible horrible" (no noun necessary). I do have a list of small good things, but I'll save them for tomorrow. Right now, I'm mostly feeling the horrible. I suppose this is a continuation of the morning's list.

It's just one of those days when you crack an egg and spill egg guts all over the counter, and the peas explode in the microwave, and pot roast juice spills on the floor, and the kid gets puke all over the bathroom rug. You know how it goes. No major life altering horribles today (thank goodness!), just run of the mill, post-Ovidrel, pre-IUI, currently-ill crabbies. I can't tell if this overwhelming exhaustion is the Ovidrel or the oncoming cold or both (probably both). But it's the kind of day that I just want to crawl back in bed and forget about life for a while. Instead, we spent four hours outside at two different parks and then baked cookies (some for LG, some for the nurses, some for me because I'm desperate for wheat-free treats) and, finally, she watched half of The Sound of Music while I collapsed and folded some clothes.

It's not yet 7:30. I have done nothing of the Sunday rituals, nothing I really need to do to prep for my classes tomorrow. But I'd like to take a shower and go to bed. Good night, y'all.

Random Complaints on a Sunday Morning

• The Ovidrel-induced fake pregnancy. I ended up taking a most of an extra Ovidrel shot last night, due to the perils of multitasking while giving injections and realizing that I'd squirted some of the medication into the bathroom sink. So I have at least 1.25-1.5 shots in me, probably more. Can I go throw up now?
• LG's allergies. She's been coughing, and puking. And this morning the coughing woke me at 6:40 again. Then she decided to take the opportunity to sing in her bed once I'd give her cough syrup. Heed the warning, kid: There shall be no singing, or anything else remotely fun, before 7:00 am!
• On top of the fake pregnancy, I seem to have another cold/sinus thing going on. Can I get a break, please?
• I'm starting to question why it is we're going home for Thanksgiving. My brother's wife's entire family will be there. And it's quite an understatement to say they are a strange clan with absolutely no social skills. My brother started dating his wife before I was pregnant with LG, and I swear she has never, not once, initiated a conversation with me, or even asked me a basic question about anything. I've also gotten it in my head that she's pregnant and will do something horrifying like make a public announcement at the dinner table. Maybe I'll get really really sick from the aforementioned cold and decide I can't possibly make the drive...because, you know, I will not be drinking on Thanksgiving.
• Because of the IUI tomorrow, I'll need to do all the random last minute prep for my afternoon class today. (Umm, when exactly? Might this need to become "pajama and movie day," when I sit LG in front of the TV with a bowl of popcorn and a DVD?) It's kind of irritating, because the novel we're doing is one of my all time faves, and I've been just a bit off, having taught all of it on days with clinic drives. That said, I am quite ready for this semester to be done.

Monday, Bloody Monday

RO: 18mm
LO: 15 mm
Endo: 12mm

The question is, will Dr. Gorgeous have me trigger tonight or tomorrow night, seeing as I'm on Ganirelix. I have to say, Tuesday would be really good for an IUI, even if that's freakishly late (cd 17?!).

I await my instructions.

*

Okay then. Once again I will be making The Drive between my two classes on Monday. Dr. Gorgeous thinks if we wait, I'll ovulate on my own (umm, isn't the Ganirelix supposed to prevent that?). Unlike my former RE, Dr. G does trigger on the early side of things. And once upon a time, anyway, I predictably had an LH surge once I had a follicle at 18.5.

So Ovidrel tonight, IUI #8 Monday at 1:00.

It's actually happening. For once, I'm getting to cycle in November. Just under the wire, before the big 37.

Small Good Things (Cycle Day 13 Edition)

1. For once, my ovaries did exactly what was desired. One follicle at 16.5, one at 13.5. I'm waiting to hear back, but the tentative plan is another monitoring appointment tomorrow (ugh!), Ovidrel tomorrow night, and IUI on Mon (don't even ask how I'll pull that one off).
2. I'm still all shimmery with estrogen. Seriously, I don't remember feeling like this in months. Say, around the time I last conceived. I'm feeling so good I actually bought a 3-pack of HPTs.
3. A rare glimpse of Dr. Gorgeous herself, in the office, on a Friday. That has to be a good thing.
4. "Coffee" date with a friend I haven't seen in a long time this afternoon. That might be worth actual caffeine.
5. No Ganirelix headache last night! Thank you, estrogen!

Update: E2 at 533. I'm wondering if there's any possibility of a Tuesday IUI, which would be so much easier. My fortune from the Chinese take-out last night was "You will have good luck in your personal affairs this month."

Small Good Things

1. My official work week is done. That's not to say I'm done working--especially considering the stack of papers I need to grade by Monday--but this is one of those weeks I feel particularly grateful to have a Mon/Wed teaching schedule. Because yesterday? Just freaking brutal (take my Monday schedule and then add a campus event until 8:30 at night).
2. I'm done with the ridiculously early morning drive to Dr. Gorgeous's office, at least for a month; for now let's at least pretend that this cycle will work and I'll be done with THAT drive for good. I'll gladly take a lazy non-teaching afternoon drive for an OB ultrasound with her.
3. Ganirelix. Headache? Yeah, that sucks. But a drug that will prevent me from needing an IUI on a day that the office is closed? Thanking my lucky stars.
4. The campus event last night--one that I was "in charge" of--went off without a hitch. I will happily organize a similar event in the future.
5. Snuggling with LG in the morning. When she was little, like 2, she called it "cuggling," which I just adored. She still likes to curl up in bed with me, and her real kitty cat, and her stuffed dog. It's really hard to kick her out so she can get dressed, and we missed our time two days this week, as I was already up and dressed before I woke her.
6. [Who says I need to stop at 5?] My belated state tax refund, which will cover the extra, uhh, expenses for this cycle. Ditto the fact that I no longer pay roughly $800/month for daycare (hooray for public schools!). It's nice to be able to pay large bills without taking money out of my rapidly dwindling savings account.
7. The day of Injectable Drugs! 30 prefilled syringes for Lovenox and 4 more Follistim cartridges. I am set, people. And frankly I could open a small pharmacy out of my living room, or supply all the drug users in town with clean needles. If I were a less ethical person, of course. If only I had an appropriate sharps container for these goodies.
8. The best student paper I have read all semester. It's from a smart student who clearly did not live up to her full potential on the first paper. Oh my goodness. Made my afternoon.
9. Estrogen. Not the little blue pill kind, just the natural kind pumped out by my waking-up-ovaries. Makes me all shimmery and light (not to mention that I'd like to hunt down my ex for an afternoon rendezvous!) Ahem.
10. Coffee shop grading. Makes me miss grad school. And my first job, when I graded papers at a Borders halfway between my apartment and the fertility clinic (1.5 hrs away). I need to remember that as solitary and introverted as I am, sometimes it's nice just to have a little noise, the buzz of caffeine (other people drinking it, not me!), and the slow shared hum of brains at work.

Quick Ovarian Update

Before I dash to class: the ovaries would seem to be cooperating. Very slo-o-o-wly. After 8, yes 8, days of stims, I have one at 10mm and one at 12mm. Which would really suck for IVF. But this is an IUI, which I'm guessing will take place next Monday. And two that close in size? I can't really ask for much more. (Well, maybe a third, but then I have to have the major multiples panic.)

And my lining is officially re-thickening and "not gunky" according to the tech.

Not looking forward to the return of the Ganirelix headache, though...

Update: My E2 level is 266. Which frankly doesn't mean much to me (as the only thing I can compare it to is my IVF numbers). Ultrasound tech said the doctor isn't worried about the follicles stopping/slowing their growth, which is why she's only increasing my Follistim dose by 25 IU. She agreed that we're looking, hopefully, at a lead follicle of 16mm by Friday, trigger Saturday for Monday IUI. What do you think about all this, blog friends?

Checklist, Cycle Day 10

Sperm delivered to Dr. Gorgeous's office, courtesy of FedEx. Check.

Consent form faxed to Dr. Gorgeous's office, to transport specimen from Office 2 to Office 1. Check.

Sperm delivered to Dr. Gorgeous's office, courtesy of Dr. Gorgeous or her staff. Later today.

Phone calls made to the nurses, about using Lovenox and Zyrtec. Check.

Prescription for Lovenox faxed to Campus Pharmacy. Hopefully today.

Ovaries doing something interesting? I'll let you know tomorrow.

The Day in Review

6:20 wake up from some bizarro dream
6:40 drag myself out of bed, get dressed, etc.
7:00 wake up LG, give her rice milk, get her dressed, teeth and hair brushed
7:20 load backpacks and lunch boxes and water bottles in the car, leave for daycare
7:30 drive to monitoring appointment, doing something resembling class prep in my head
8:20 arrive for monitoring appointment, read for class
9:00 finally manage to have an ultrasound, thirty minutes late
9:15 back on the road, now contemplating the likelihood of another should-be Sunday IUI
10:00 drop my books in my office, go to the bathroom, glance at email, head to class
10:20 class #1
12:10 back from class, microwave lunch, comment on a couple blogs, print handouts for afternoon class, read important email thread that has developed without my input
12:40 deal with student crises (papers due Wed), remember I need to do Flex Spending stuff, thanks to an email from HR
2:00 have five minute conversation with andrologist about the sperm! which will be transported tomorrow, provided I manage to fax a waiver
2:05 back to the student appointments
2:40 shoot off a couple quick emails
2:50 leave for class
3:00 class #2
4:30 back from class, grab books and lunch box
4:45 pick up LG
5:15 home from daycare (you'll notice it takes longer to get her to leave daycare than to drop her off), change into pajamas, fix dinner while she watches TV
5:35 eat, argue about dessert, do her reading homework
6:30 talk to the ultrasound tech, finally, about Dr. Gorgeous' plan for my lazy ovaries
6:35 corral LG and get her upstairs for bed
7:15 leave LG's room
7:20 check email, check blogs, pretend I'm not completely overwhelmed
7:38 deal with LG, who is not yet asleep. ugh.

Things To Whine About (Sunday Night Edition)

(Sorry, no small good things tonight.)

1. The Headache. It has taken up residence over my right eye and along the right side of my skull. I can feel my pulse over my ear, and I'm nauseous as all get out. I think it's probably food related, as LG and I ate some strange cafeteria concoctions at a university function this afternoon. I've already taken one dose of everything I'm allowed to take, and it's not making a dent in it.
2. I do not want to go to my monitoring appointment tomorrow. This whole dropping LG off at daycare at 7:30 so I can get to an 8:30 appointment and back for a 10:20 class...it's just insane. I've already made all the lunches and breakfasts and put the coffee on and put LG's homework away so basically I need to get myself dressed and get her dressed and go. Still. I beg the Universe: can this please be the last month that I need to go for monitoring appointments before class?!
3. I still have student papers to comment on and three handouts to make and an essay to read sometime before I go to bed. Which really should be in about thirty seconds, given #1.
4. Email. I have a policy that I do not respond to student email over the weekend. Frankly, I should stop checking work email over the weekend. But it's there, building up, and I won't be able to get to it until lunch time tomorrow, due to #2. With every email, there's a request to do more work. And you know, I have enough on my plate right now.
5. There is no caffeine in the house. No coffee, no black teas, no cans of cola. You know, because I'm being good. I'm taking all my freaking supplements, not eating wheat or soy and only minimal amounts of dairy (as in, a splash of cream in my decaf). I could really really really use a can of Coke right now. Or a live in acupuncturist/massage therapist. That would be nice, too.

Small Good Things

1. My ovaries are chatty. Now I do realize that how much I feel my ovaries has little bearing on how much they are producing; however, I am glad that they are at least doing something in response to stims. I'm hoping something is at least 2 at 10-12mm by Mon.
2. Coconut-milk chocolate ice cream. It is DIVINE. Frankly, it's better than any milk-based chocolate ice cream I've ever had. Makes staying on my diet tolerable. (And I am starving, which is what usually happens when my weight drops below baseline. Must go eat more!)
3. The neighbors took LG with them to the park this afternoon, leaving me with an unexpected 1.5 hrs in which I cleaned, cooked, and read for class.
4. LG and I went to one of those paint-your-own-pottery studios today for our annual gift making afternoon. She made a picture frame for her Gram. I made a piggy bank for her. I think one of her other Hanukkah presents will be a "gift certificate" to go back and make some small trinket for herself. The girl likes knick-knacks.
5. The Headache, knock wood, is gone for the time being.

Now it is time to do a couple loads of laundry, read for class (does it never end?), and relax.

The Inevitable Funk

Here's what's getting to me: the realization that one bad ultrasound, one bad blood test, has the capacity to knock me out of an otherwise perfectly good mood. I hate that how my days go has everything to do with the state of my ovaries.

I happened to mention to my mother recently that everytime I see Dr. Gorgeous I end up in tears. She said something like, I'm sure she understands you're on a lot of hormones. Umm, yeah, Mom, she does, given that she's the person who prescribes the hormones. But that's not really the point, is it? It's not my hormones that make me cry; it's the situation that necessitates hormone treatment in the first place. I'm infertile. Or sub-fertile. Or something. I'm on the verge of turning 37 which, Dr. Gorgeous has explained time and again, is somewhat akin to Cinderella getting home from the ball before her coach turns back into a pumpkin and her pretty gown dissolves into rags.

I'm tired of everyone telling me that 37 isn't so old, that plenty of people older than me get pregnant and have babies. As Dr. Gorgeous keeps saying, significantly diminished ovarian reserve shouldn't be the case for a woman my age, but IT IS. Welcome back to the reality of infertility treatment.

Please, let all that ovarian fullness mean something good on Monday. I'd really hate to leave LG at daycare at 7:30 in the morning just to be told this cycle is going nowhere. This year has been hard on both of us.

So Much for Optimism

I felt a lot like my cat this week, when she's all puffed up and confident. Now I feel like my cat when she slinks under the bed to hide.

All that certainty and bravado about how well this Follistim thing was going to go? Gone. After three days of stims, absolutely nothing in terms of follicular development. In a way, I'm not surprised: I had 2 weeks of luteal phase (with estrace), 1 week of BCP, 1 week of Ganirelix. Shut me down that long, and my ovaries just don't restart. Not surprisingly, this looks a lot like IVF Take 1.

Granted, if I get the 2 follicles I ended up with on that cycle, I'd be in a pretty good place for an IUI. Someone tell me not to take my leftover Femara to ramp things up...

Small Good Things

1. Finally spoke with the andrologist. She suggested having 4 ART specimens on hand, and we'll hopefully use only 2-3. She's checking with Dr. Gorgeous to see if back-to-back IUIs would be a better plan. This is going to be one expensive IUI, with the specimens, the bloodwork (insurance doesn't pay for monitoring, just diagnostic bloodwork), and the possibility of 2 IUIs. But this is my last shot with LG's donor, and assuming I have 2+ follicles, I'm willing to invest in it.
2. I went to a poetry reading last night. Let me just say WOW. The best reading I've attended in, like, 2 years, hands down. Just left me all shimmery inside, even with The Headache. Must go to the library and fetch more books!
3. Drugs. I'd like to live in a body that could be healed by natural methods alone. But when it comes to The Headache, drugs are a very good thing. Bless you Amerge, bless you Anaprox, bless you Fioricet. Without you, I couldn't have slept last night. Without you, I couldn't get out of bed today and do my work.
4. Good working morning. ~1000 words already, and I have a sense of how this larger piece might be structured (most of it is written already).
5. The best decaf coffee ever, complete with cream and sugar. I've decided I'm not giving up decaf this cycle, as it hasn't done me a damn bit of good, and I like my coffee. I am, however, eating walnuts daily. I'm getting my good fatty acids in, as I'm being paranoid about natural killer cells and they are on my list of good foods, from both Dr. G and the acupuncturist.

I'm in a good place. LG's in a good place. And that's just nice.

Small Good Things

1. Letting my morning class go 10 minutes early. They get to recharge their batteries; I get a whole hour to spend eating, thinking, and reading before a dread meeting.
2. Follistimming!!!! I felt my ovaries turn on last night, after a couple weeks of complete BCP/Ganirelix shut down. I have to keep reminding myself that the goal here is NOT the 6-8 follicles I was shooting for last time. A modest 2-3 is the goal. I don't want to have the talk about what to do with 4.
3. Reading one of those absolutely perfect inspiring pieces that makes me want to sit down at my computer and write.
4. Staying up late to read last night. It's not one of those luxuries I indulge in often, as I have enough trouble sleeping when I go to bed at the right time. But that was an hour well spent.
5. Planning to have coffee with a friend next week.
   

Random Bullets on Cycle #11

• Endometrium? Lovely and thin. Finally. I should be able to start Follistim tonight, unless my E2 level is still wonky, which would really shock me given the week on Ganirelix.
• I have a list of five questions I need to ask Dr. Gorgeous. These include whether or not to restart Ganirelix to prevent premature ovulation, whether I can switch from Fragmin (ugh) to Lovenox, and whether Zyrtec is the best allergy medicine for me to take during the 2ww/early pregnancy. I plan on spacing them out over the course of the week, in the hope that nothing gets lost in translation with the nurses.
• 7 days on Ganirelix? Headache.
• Still haven't dealt with the sperm issue. Andrologist is out sick. After talking to the cryobank, I'm planning on going with my plan, which is combining ART specimens to get them up to IUI numbers.
• I'm hesitant to write it. It's too early to write it. But I'm very optimistic about this cycle. And gosh, wouldn't it be nice to have a six week OB ultrasound exactly one year after my consult with Dr. Gorgeous? 16 months, 11 attempted cycles, 8 IUIs, 1 IVF, 1 m/c. Haven't I paid my dues?

Small Good Things

1. Showing a film in one of my classes. It gives the students a reading break, allowing them to write better papers, while still giving them another text to write about for their exam. It gives me a chance to read something co-curricular. (In this case, the new Atwood as well as some shorter pieces I might teach next semester.)
2. The last of the Ganirelix (knock wood) before I start Follistim tomorrow! Please, let me start Follistim tomorrow!
3. Due to #1 and a relatively slow day for student meetings (only 3 dropped in for office hrs), I found a spare fifteen minutes, in which I managed to produce a bit of writing. Not much, but enough to keep the good energy going.
4. Leftover Chinese food. Gosh it's nice to come home and not have to cook, beyond putting things in the microwave.
5. LG is writing. I don't quite understand why she knows how to write but she can't read (PJ, any thoughts?) but I'm loving the little notes she writes. Today she wrote up a menu of food she would like in her lunch box tomorrow, including ROST BEF SANWIG, APPOLSOS, and SALTENS.

Inspiration, Hope

Once or twice a semester there's a visiting writer on campus, and it generally falls on me and Crazy Senior Colleague (perhaps I've given her a different nickname?) to shepherd said writer around for a day or two, bringing her/him to lunch and dinner, escorting him/her around campus, to and from the airport, and so on. Usually these writers are older and/or male and, while often charming, they do things like forget my name (I have a signed copy of a book that's not addressed to me!). Anyway, yesterday was Visiting Writer Day. This particular visiting writer was younger and closer in professional status to me, and we just hit it off great. I came away from the day with a plan, an actual plan, about what shorter writing projects to prioritize and finish up. It's going to take work, the kind of reshaping, rethinking work that I don't particularly like. (I'm very good at the beginnings and endings of projects...it's the messy middle that I struggle with.) I think it's realistic that one of these three projects could be finished and sent somewhere for review by the end of the semester, and that another could be ready to go by the time spring semester hits.

I haven't felt this good about work in a long time. And it's suprising, because usually visiting writers make me feel even smaller and less accomplished than I am. Thank you, Visiting Writer, for your kind words and thoughtfulnes. I hope we keep in touch.

*

Generally, I'm feeling pretty good. I suppose that's not suprising, because even if I'm in a major year long funk, I can't sustain negative energy for very long. That pissy, hating-infertility-and- the-world place I was in last week is largely spent. So many people, from my acupuncturist to Visiting Writer to my students, have commented on how calm and calming I am. I don't often feel that way, but it's nice to know that others get good energy from me. I'm feeling hopeful about my appointment on Tuesday, and kicking off this IUI cycle, two weeks late. I'm thinking about what Dr. Gorgeous said, when I told her I wasn't going to cycle in January and February, that hopefully I'll be gestating then. This week, I'm feeling like anything could happen.

Small Good Things

1. The roughly 50% chance that this manuscript will be accepted, knowing that right now the publisher has whittled the list down to about twice the number of manuscripts usually published in a given year. Those aren't bad odds, even for a glass half-empty kind of gal.
2. Chai latte. What's a little milk when you already have a Ganirelix headache?
3. The new Margaret Atwood book, which I have the luxury of reading because one of my classes is watching a film next week.
4. Free fertility drugs. My insurance coverage for fertility treatment is generally crap, but drug coverage is not bad. And I maxed out my out-of-pocket drug expenses for the year after IVF Take 1. If I'm not pregnant after this cycle, I'm refilling everything I can before the first of the year. If I am pregnant, I'll be donating a ton of meds to Dr. Gorgeous's office or my blog friends.
5. Bright red blood and cramps. Looks like I've got my Ganirelix withdrawal bleed, right on schedule, after two shots. Halle-fucking-lujah.
   

RE: Your submission

It's so nice when you expect that you've received yet another rejection letter but in actuality are being told that your manuscript has made the final cut for a press's annual list and they just want to know if it's being considered elsewhere.

I know better than to get my hopes up. This is a manuscript that has garnered attention at multiple presses (it won second place in a national contest for goodness sake!) but has not yet received a contract for publication.

Still: you know what a nice birthday I'll have if I wind up getting pregnant *and* getting a book contract? Hell, one of the two would make my year.

To Whom It May Concern

Dear Nurse Who Needs a Nickname: when you ask a patient about her insurance coverage and she tells you that you need to call the Specialty Pharmacy from Hell, you call them. Promptly. You don't forget to call and leave your colleague to handle the mess the next morning.

Dear Specialty Pharmacy from Hell: when you send a patient a confirmation email about the prescription received from her doctor's office, that usually means that you have actually received the prescription. You shouldn't need to keep the patient on hold for fifteen minutes while you look for a fax that never existed because the prescription was phoned in. It might also help if your customer service representatives actually talked to each other, so two of them aren't calling the same doctor's office repeatedly.

Dear Nurse Who is Somewhat on the Ball: thanks for giving me two syringes full of Ganirelix, even if I needed to take 2 hours I didn't have to come fetch them and phone the Pharmacy from Hell.

*

I have a headache. Sheesh.

Plan P

Otherwise known as: the plan pregnant with possibility. Or, the rabbit Dr. Gorgeous pulls out of her magic hat when she finds out that drug cost is not a factor for me until Jan 1. (Free fertility drugs! Yahoo!) She was at her aggressive but touchy-feely best today (it was a three-hug day).

I'm stopping the pill. Going back on Ganirelix for 7 days. Ultrasound and bloodwork next Tuesday and *hopefully* I start Follistim. If that happens (please!), I'll have an IUI before Thanksgiving and, more importantly from my perspective, before I turn 37.

We did begin the rather unpleasant conversation involving the "what if" this doesn't work out. You know, diminished ovarian reserve. Poor egg quality. Blah blah. I told her I wasn't ready to talk about it. If this Follistim thing doesn't work out? Then I'll be ready. But now I'm really banking on the fact that the problem with stims for IVF wasn't with me but with her protocol. I guess we'll see.

What a difference a week makes.

Update: Well, I took my Ganirelix tonight, the one syringe that was leftover from the IVF. And when I called the special order pharmacy from hell to set up my delivery for the other 6 syringes, I was informed that they never received my prescription which makes it impossible for them to, you know, OVERNIGHT mail it to me so I could have it for tomorrow. So unless the campus pharmacy has it (which they never do; they always order it for me), I'm pretty much screwed. Or driving back to Dr. G's office between my classes, if they happen to have a dose laying around. Can I just have one thing go right?

The Weight of Infertility

Consider this post a slight confessional detour from the usual topics of this blog.

I've been weighing myself daily lately. It started when I was tracking my weight for IVF purposes. My weight started at my non-pregnant baseline and went up. And up. And up.

And now it's down. 99.5 lbs on my scale, which is the lowest my weight has been since LG was a baby and I went into some crazy breastfeeding hyper-metabolic state. When LG and I went shopping the other day, I needed to go down a size in pants.

There was a time--high school, early college--I would have loved that fact. (I never had an eating disorder in any clinical sense of things, but did struggle with anorexic tendencies from age 14-18 or so.) Now? It just feels like something else that's been done to my body because of fertility treatment.

I know that probably makes no logical sense. Weight gain would be more logical. But I just don't recognize my body anymore. My menstrual cycle. My blood pressure. My weight. I'm living in another woman's body.

I want my own body back. The version of my body that gets pregnant and stays pregnant and packs on 37 lbs in 37 weeks and relishes every minute of it.

I guess I'll go eat that giant Snickers bar.

Small Good Things

1. It's the beginning of a new month. Anything could happen. I'm choosing to read that positively.
2. Retail therapy: for a grand total of $40, I bought a pair of jeans and two long sleeved t-shirts for me and 6 pairs of socks for LG. The jeans were very necessary--my favorite (only) pair that fits recently developed a hole in the knees--even if I only hope to wear them for a few months at most.
3. The upside of having a milk allergic kid? Halloween goodies for Mom. There's a WHOLE Snickers bar in her stash!
4. LG and I slept late this morning, which means she'll be able to go to bed "on time," despite the time change.
5. The bruises on my abdomen are fading. The bulls' eyes on my rear end are fading. The bleeding is slowing. The Headache is gone, for the time being. It's a good time for a chat with Dr. Gorgeous.

Small Good Things

1. Restorative yoga class. I so needed that this morning. My body has been brutalized over the past few months. I'm bruised from the heparin, still bleeding from the wacked out hormone levels, and exhausted from IVF+H1N1 (assuming that's what last week's illness was). My body needed an hour and a half of gentleness. Namaste.
2. LG's preschool/daycare, which once again accommodated her on a day off from kindergarten so her mother could get some work done.
3. Organic cotton socks, in a range of colors. Slowly, I'm replacing hole-y socks with comfy new ones. Today, I wore the tie-dyed ones to yoga, and a wine colored pair for the rest of the day.
4. A whole day to myself (see #2) to get caught up on work. Meetings and emails in regard to student organization; the last letter of rec for a while; handouts for next week's classes. There's much more to do, but I'm in a good place going into next week.
5. Cheap Spanish wine. Now this might seem counterintuitive, since sulfites trigger The Headache, but I figure I'm already messed up from the pill (how I loathe the pill!) so I might as well indulge myself. It's nice to be just a bit tipsy on a Friday night, with the girl asleep and the cat asleep, before settling down to read Margaret Atwood (Note to self: it is really not fun teaching The Handmaid's Tale when you are desperately trying to get pregnant. This was true last year, and it's still true. Do not assign any books with references to pregnancy or childbirth next semester.)

Biography of my Endometrium

I gave birth to my endometrium last night. While I didn't relish the pain that went along with that task, I'm glad to have had the experience. It means things are moving in the right direction and, I'm hoping, won't take the full pill cycle to resolve. I've learned a new term: endometrial hyperplasia. Apparently if unresolved it can become cancerous. Apparently there might be a D&C in my future if it doesn't resolve on its own.

Now, this might seem strange, since I wasn't actually, you know, pregnant. But I did have a couple embryos in my body for a short time at least, and this feels a whole lot like my first miscarriage (I suppose intense uterine contractions and a lot of blood loss, coupled with grief and anger, will do that). The timing is absolutely uncanny. I found out I was pregnant October 26, 2002. I was spotting. October 29, before I'd even learned my first beta, I woke up bleeding heavily. That wasn't the end of my pregnancy; my beta levels rose normally for weeks. But there was never any fetal pole, and I finally had a D&C on December 19, after my body refused to miscarry on its own, after a shot of methotrexate failed.

I didn't look at the clock, but I'm sure when I woke up last night, laboring, it was already October 29.

I'm not sure what the universe is trying to tell me, but all three years of my ttc history I have never been able to cycle in November. November is the month of miscarriage and aborted plans. It is also my birth month.

Welcome to the Bad Place

That whole thing about how I can choose to face the reality of my infertility with grace and calm?

Fuck that.

Welcome to my world. It is an angry, unhappy place.

But at least I get to go to acupuncture today.

Plan N

If Dr. Gorgeous puts me on the pill for two weeks, would that resolve this estrogen problem?

Because I'm not losing another month to IV-fucking-F and its aftermath.

Why the fuck did I listen to anyone who said that IVF would get me pregnant faster?

Fuck.


Update, a day later: Three weeks on the pill, and I should expect to bleed the entire fucking time. At the earliest, I'm looking at an IUI the first week in December. So much for getting pregnant before my birthday. Are we up to Plan O now?

Cycle Day ?????

So I started spotting on Thursday. I started bleeding more heavily by Saturday evening, enough that I'd call it "day 1"--bright red, with clots, cramping, etc. Then it basically stopped. And then it started again. Today at my monitoring appointment, my lining was insanely thick (I don't remember the exact measurement, but it was well over 2 cm). What the fuck?

As the sonogram tech said, it should be interesting when my blood work comes back.

I'm thinking ectopic pregnancy. Anyone else want to play?


Update: The only piece of useful information I've garnered is my estrogen level is over 400. I'm going back in on Wednesday. I think.

Small Good Things

1. A good night's sleep. LG was out for 13 hours. It took me a while to fall asleep (well, until I took one of the painkillers left over from the retrieval to counteract the decongestant!) but then I slept like the proverbial dead.
2. A nice breakfast with LG this morning. We went out, which we rarely do, and she scarfed down eggs, bacon, and two pieces of toast (with 3 kinds of jelly). I drank actual coffee. Now I'm back on the no-wheat, no-soy, no-dairy, no-caffeine, no-alcohol diet.
3. Raking leaves with my girl.
4. Putting the IVF drug box away (well, except for all the Follistim supplies). No more Menopur! No more PIO! No more microdose lupron! Ever again! (How warped is it that with my scaled down "next to natural" approach, I'm still on prescription level folic acid, heparin, baby aspirin, Follistim, Ovidrel, Prometrium, Estrace, and possibly Ganirelix?)
5. LG is in her bedroom. Not whining. Not crying. Not arguing. Just resting. It's been a long six days since they kicked her out of school.
6. Completely unsolicited, LG wrote me the following note this afternoon: "DER MOM I AM SREY I YALD AT YOW."
7. A long night to myself (thanks, LG!), during which I will take a shower and shave my legs (it's life back in the stirrups in 13 hours), make both of our lunches, set up the coffee maker for the morning (decaf, people!), comment on ~20 pieces of student writing, read another 50 pages in the novel I'm teaching this week, straighten up around the house, and hopefully crash by 10:00. [added at 6:50 pm]

Vodka-less Vodka Night

Well, as many of you long time readers will no doubt recall, I have a tradition of drinking vodka with cranberry and orange juice in moments of vaguely self-destructive wallowing. There will be no vodka tonight, but I am marking yet another negative pregnancy test with a decongestant, chased with Spanish wine. (At this rate, which is a mere half glass in an hour, I expect to be quite happily drunk by the time LG falls asleep)

I've run the gamut of emotions today. I honestly thought it wouldn't hurt to hear the "not good news" from the nurse; after all, I've known (you might not have believed, but I've known) for a good week that this didn't work, confirmed by not one but three HPTs. Over the course of the week, my breasts went from swollen and sore to pleasantly full back to their small, quiet life in 32B. And my ovaries have been working on pumping out follicles; they spark, they ache, they groan. Despite that, I have to say my immediate reaction, upon hearing the news, in the lobby of the library while LG was in story hour, was anger. Not anger at the negative, but anger that it became time to scramble together a plan because no one, not even my doctor, was willing to listen to me two days ago that the damn IVF just didn't work. None of that was surprising. I gave up on the cycle the minute she told me she only got 4 eggs; sure, I had a momentary glimpse of hope in looking at those embryos, but I knew their quality probably sucked.

What I know is this: the only time I've gotten pregnant and carried to term was on an unmedicated cycle (if you can call hcg, progesterone, and heparin unmedicated!). I thought that was a fluke for a long time. More recently, in the aftermath of the aborted IVF, I've come to realize that my body responds better to less "manipulation," as Dr. G puts it. While I'm not willing to go back to unmedicated cycles--the chances of success are simply too low--I'm really banking on low dose Follistim being the magic bullet, telling my body to do just a little bit more (two or three follicles please) than what it knows how to do on its own, without throwing my entire endocrine system out of whack. I'm not sure what Dr. Gorgeous thinks, but she's game.

This is my last shot before I turn 37. This is my last shot with LG's donor. This is a completely new protocol for me. But, oddly, today holds more hope than I've had in a long time.

Small Good Things (Illness Edition)

1. LG is at her old preschool for the day. She will play, she will be stimulated by adults who care for her, she will be away from her sick mother and the television. That is well worth $46.
2. LG's illness, whatever it ultimately was, seems to be short lived. (I'm terrified that she'll pick up something new at preschool today, but my short term need to have her out of the house won out.)
3. Grading midterms in bed, with the cat, while it rains outside.

Well, I think that's all. Pretty pathetic.

Thwarted

1. Dr. Gorgeous wasn't ready to talk details; she said it's too early to know from HPT. Umm, okay, I guess that means she'd rather deal with this on the weekend, because that's when my blood test is scheduled. Whatever. I'm sort of hoping I wake to a ton of bleeding, enough to call it cycle day 1, and just schedule monitoring for the same time as the beta on Sat. That would save me a whole heck of a lot of trouble. I have enough meds (regardless of what she puts me on) to get me through several days, so I suppose there's not an urgent need to have a plan, other than my own desire.

2. Andrologist wasn't keen on combining specimens; she said that the motility for ART specimens tends to be lower, not just the count. This certainly wasn't a problem when she added an ART specimen to my low-count IUI specimen back in June, however. I think I'll call the cryobank, as I'm really not ready to throw away the specimen that I already have and completely give up on LG's donor. I'd like one more shot.

*

In the meantime, I am SICK and desperately hoping LG's old preschool/daycare will take her tomorrow, so I can get work done and/or sleep. Today was not fun for anybody.

Question about PIO

For those of you who have used PIO, how long after stopping it did you start to bleed? I'm trying to figure out how timing IUI #8 is going to go.

Sick Day!

Did I tell you that before the IVF, I kept instructing LG (who has a perpetual cold, it seems): no one is getting sick until after October 14! Well, she listened.

Sick Girl and I are home for the day. She's watching TV. I'm trying to decide if I can do something resembling work. Now, most of the work that needs to be done is on my desk or computer at school, which is unfortunate. I'm hoping tomorrow she's back at school, as I have a stack of midterms to grade and multiple letters of rec to write.

The admin assistant in my department? It pays to be on her good side. My classes, they are covered. So the two days I thought I would miss due to IVF? I guess I'm taking them this week. Ugh.



Update: Why is it that sick kids have more energy than sick adults? Over the course of the day LG went from lazing around watching TV to inventing a game called "hop and flop," which involved belly flopping on her bed. There was another game that involved throwing her (foam) chair (she said she was "rolling the dice"). Meanwhile, I have completely crashed and will probably go to bed in about 30 seconds (it's now 7:30). All my plans for sending her to school were for naught: they've actually CLOSED her school until Monday, in order to contain the spread of "flu like illnesses." She also has two half days next week. And I'm looking at heading back to the clinic for monitoring. When exactly am I supposed to do my job?

I am not liking today

So today didn't start off so great, what with the negative and all. But I came up with my plan, I sent off a manuscript, I wrote my daily minimum requirement (sort of like taking vitamin C). I raked leaves and ate some lunch and headed to campus to write an exam. Things looking better.

I managed to do the exam and make several photocopies in about an hour and a half, at which point I decided to buy some tea from Starbucks and grade for a while. I hadn't even taken one sip when my phone rang. The caller came up "unavailable," but something told me to answer. Yes, that would be LG's teacher, calling to tell me she had a fever of 102 and needed to be picked up. I called the acupuncturist to cancel and picked up my girl, who did have a fever but it turned out to be a mere 99.6. Whatever.

She's home tomorrow. I'm scrambling to figure out what to do with my classes. And whatever illness she gets--it's looking like H1N1--usually hits me 12-24 hrs later. Indeed: my eyes feel funny, my throat hurts, and I've got a headache (not to be confused with my friend The Headache). Oh yeah, tomorrow is going to be great fun.

The New Plan

It's now 9dp3dt (which I keep converting in my head to IUI-time of 12dpo). Negative test again this morning. Cycle done, moving on. I'll retest on Thurs, and then I'll call the nurses to go through the new plan, as Dr. Gorgeous is booked until next week. In the meantime, I'll let you in on it. You are welcome to talk about it, advise me about it, tell me I'm being insane for proposing it, but you are not allowed to tell me not to give up on the cycle. It's a done deal, folks. I need a plan. I think we're up to about Plan M by now. If Plan A had worked I would have given birth already.

First, a recap: I've done clomid (miscarriage), Femara (miscarriage), unmedicated cycles (many months of nothing, but ultimately LG), late cycle low-dose Repronex cycles (never again), the god-awful Menopur/Follistim combo (only in the context of IVF). Dr. Gorgeous likes what she calls a "hybrid protocol," which is 5 days of Femara followed by injectables (usually Menopur). I suspect that's what she sees in my future. Me? I want to do something completely different. I want to do the thing that I ruled out because of the insane risk of multiple births: straight Follistim or Gonal-F (both of which are currently in my refrigerator). Given my history, what's the likelihood of me conceiving at all, much less conceiving twins or triplets? All Dr. Gorgeous needs to do is figure out the dose, and monitor me early. What I see, thanks to Dr. Google and a lot of reading about IVF and egg/embryo quality, is that products designed to boost LH are not my friend. Give me straight FSH, and let's see what happens.

The other glitch here is that I'm out of IUI specimens. There are still a few more ART vials of LG's donor, and I'd like to combine 2 of them (or maybe even 3?) to get the numbers equivalent to IUI specimens. I'm not willing to sit a cycle out for non-medical reasons, but I'm not ready to do the whole donor search thing again, particularly because I think I'd switch banks. That's a conversation I'd need to have with the andrologist who, as I've said, is simply fabulous. I think this will make Dr. Gorgeous anxious. It will also cost a ton more. But for one cycle? I think it's worth trying.

I hate that I'm at this place. I hate that it's been a fucking year, ten cycles (7 IUIs, 1 IVF, 2 cancelled), and (another) miscarriage since I started this process. LG wants a baby sister or brother. I want to give that to her. Stupidly, naively, I thought ttc would be easier this time around. I suppose it was, for about the first six months. Now? I really don't know how much stamina I have left. And I really hate thinking that maybe, if I'd started this process a year earlier than I did (at a moment I wasn't even close to emotionally ready) that maybe it would have worked...

Whining at 8dp3dt

• I have that tickle in the back of my throat that usually precedes a cold. LG reports that only 6 of 14 children were present today (while I do question her math skills, I did receive an email from the principal regarding the high number of recent absences, possibly due to H1N1). Let me say it loudly, in case the universe is listening: I do not want swine flu in my house!
• The headache? It is back. While I might hope that this is the headache that comes with early pregnancy, I am afraid it's the headache that comes with a rapid drop of progesterone and the onset of a new cycle.
• What is up with the random email requests from students I don't know who want to interview me (good lord) in regard to subjects I know nothing about but fall somewhere under the vague heading of my larger discipline?
• Why are my own students all freaking out and anxious? I mean, I understand they have a midterm and all, but they generated their own essay topics in class!
• I lost two hours of much-needed progesterone sleep last night because LG woke me up with some weird moaning noise. And the light was on. And her pacifier was missing. And once I'm out of bed dealing with kid stuff, I'm done sleeping.

Now I am going to watch TV on one of the two channels that actually comes in, drink some hot tea, and wallow. Care to join me?

7dp3dt, or, Facing Reality

Well, I tested. Negative.

Before anyone tells me that they tested negative at 10dpo and went on to have a healthy baby about nine months later, please stop. It's not that I've discounted the possibility entirely, but I'm being realistic here and I know a happy ending is extremely unlikely.

Here are some facts: my first two pregnancies I didn't test before 12dpo, but I'm assuming I would have tested positive earlier (14dpo beta at 80 and 170+ respectively). After all, even the disaster of pregnancy #3 managed to turn a stick positive at 12dpo with a barely there beta of 17. So here's the math I'm doing: if there's any hcg in my system, which there should be if something implanted at a GOOD time (because the later the implantation, the greater likelihood of miscarriage), it would have shown up on a stick this morning (first morning urine and all). Like I said, I know it's possible, but not likely to result in a pregnancy that would have the kind of numbers I would want. Because I can't relive May 2009.

In the meantime, I've got the sore breasts, and the exhaustion, and the nausea, all of which can be chalked up to way too much supplementary progesterone and estrogen. I'm trying to decide if I should try to get an appointment with Dr. Gorgeous this week to talk about my plan, or just ask the nurses to run it by her.

Well, before I go, let me amend my earlier plea: if anyone has tested negative at 10dpo (on a GOOD peestick, like First Response) and ended up with a beta of >100 at 14dpo or equivalent, maybe I do want to hear it...

I'm not liking my reality these days, at least when it comes to human reproduction.

Shopping Trip at 6dp3dt

LG and I went shopping this afternoon. We came home with the following:

• One cheap plastic tiara, to be used for Halloween, which she is currently examining, along with the plastic clip-on jewel earrings.
• A bag of milk-free Halloween candy, both to distribute to neighborhood children and for LG to exchange her M&Ms and other chocolate-based goodies (which her mother will happily eat).
• A dress up hat, which LG chose as a birthday present for a classmate.
• A modeling clay kit, which I chose for a birthday present for neighbor child #1.
• Little People in a tube, for a birthday present for neighbor child #2.
• LG's allergy medicine.
• A package of candy corn, because I couldn't resist.
• A two-pack of HPTs, to supplement the lone First Response in the linen closet, because I couldn't resist.

Tomorrow should be, er, interesting, what with the two birthday parties and all...

Why does this bug me?

Sometime over the past week LG has started calling me "Mother." Not Mom-Mom, not Mama, not Mommy, not Mom, or even my first name (which is not actually Gwinne, by the way), but MOTHER. I have no idea why. She's not even saying it with that tone of exasperation I could imagine in an older child. But it's making me nuts.

Right now she's off chanting "My mother's name is Mommy," trying to retrain herself. That's sort of hilarious.

Note to Self at 5dp3dt

Dear Gwinne,

As you spend your evening contemplating your pregnancy symptoms--or lack thereof--I'd like to take the opportunity to remind you that not once in the three times that you have been pregnant did you suspect that you really might be. Oh, sure, you hoped you were. You paid attention to vague twinges in your ovaries, dull cramping in the uterus. But you didn't really feel pregnant. You were convinced, in fact, that those cycles hadn't worked. It was only in retrospect that you realized, oh, that's why things taste really weird, like that bagel that seemed to be coated with soap. Don't fret; there's plenty of time for things to start tasting horrible.

Stop taking your temperature. Stop pressing the sides of your breasts (of course they're going to hurt!). Go indulge the progesterone-induced hunger since, miraculously, all the IVF bloat has disappeared. Watch the last of the remaining transfer DVDs, since it needs to go back to the library tomorrow. Stop obsessing about the state of your uterus.

The fact that you're sure this didn't work? You're either right, or you're not. You'll know for sure in 8 days max.

fondly,
Your Rational Alter Ego

Random Bullets at 4dp3dt

• I'm back on the little blue pill. I guess that means Dr. Gorgeous agrees that there may very well be a November cycle in my future. I'm also assuming that I'm only on half the dose I used to take because she doesn't want me to have a stroke, considering my already high estrogen level (but, hey, I'm on heparin and baby aspirin, so it's all good).
• As a result of the little blue pill (a.k.a. Estrace) my breasts hurt. Between the PIO, the Prometrium, and the estrogen, all bets on pregnancy symptoms are off. That's probably a good thing.
• I didn't accomplish much today, but I'm trying not to beat myself up about it. What I did do: write (even if it was complete crap not related to any real project), read in three genres (criticism, fiction, nonfiction), make a handout for one of my classes, deal with email, and put an actual manuscript in the mail. I also managed to do some very basic household tasks, like empty the dishwasher, and run a couple errands.
• Oh, I'm getting that squinchy feeling over my right eye that usually precedes The Headache (is that the estrogen, or the chai latte?). Damn. I can't take real migraine meds.
• One of those two embryos better be working on implantation. One. One. One.
• LG's bus is due in 15 minutes. I think I'll go deal with the disaster in the kitchen, before I have to start cooking dinner. I'm eating curry. Will she? Or will this be another LG-eats-a-sunbutter-sandwich-in-bed night?

More bullets:

• LG was a delight this evening. (Thank you!) She's been having trouble remembering to DRINK at kindergarten, and the result is the complete and total evening meltdown. Today I put a picture of her Sigg Bottle in her lunchbox, and she drank (why the picture worked, when the actual bottle didn't, is beyond me, but I'll take what I can get).
• LG typed a two-sentence story on the computer tonight. Apparently she has "writer's workshop" every day--this just came out tonight--and she writes stories phonetically and keeps them in a special folder at school. Very cool.
• A confession: one of the things I was most worried about, in terms of the IVF details, was PIO injections. Back when I was trying for LG, I seriously hurt myself trying to do IM injections in my rear end (I think I was doing them in the wrong place), so I switched to the thigh, and that left me limping for days. So I was dreading PIO. But, honestly, it hasn't been bad. The nurse made a literal target with a sharpie, so I know my aim is right. And I'm flexible enough that I can make it to my left side without too much trouble. The best part is I only need to do PIO every other day (alternating with 600 mg Prometrium). Dr. Gorgeous says she's almost ready to let her patients only do Prometrium/Endometrin, but she's not quite there yet...
• Yoga tomorrow, which should mellow me out before lunch with Bitter Senior Colleague. I have lunch with BSC once or twice a semester to stay in her good graces. It's the same conversation over and over. BSC knows I'm ttc--she asked me point blank about a year ago if I was planning on having another kid post-tenure and I was so caught off guard that I just came out and told her--and I wonder if I'll end up telling her about the IVF. I mean, I'm not volunteering the information, but I'm a terrible liar.
• I think that's all. I'm in a much better mood. Perhaps I can thank my little blue pill for that. Can I just get knocked up and get past the first trimester and then have only my naturally crazy hormones to deal with? Please?