CD10 - Bought Our First Round Of Swimmers!

Thought I'd put up a cute pic of the two of us from a First Friday event we attended over the summer. :)
Kaitlin and I have both been feeling really sick the past several days. I spent the entire weekend in bed and on the couch, then only went to work yesterday for a couple hours before coming home. Kaitlin’s home sick from work today. I’d be with her, except that I have three staff members out on vacation, so I have to be at work in order to have adequate coverage. But, my brain really isn’t firing correctly and I have the feeling today’s going to be a really, really long day.I’ll admit that it’s times like these when I worry about becoming a mom. Right now I just feel so tired… I try to imagine what we’d be doing today if we had a baby to care for, and I start feeling stressed. Though I’m sure we’d handle it one way or another. These things have a way of working themselves out because there’s really no other option. But as much as I’m hoping to get pregnant in 2014, I’ll admit that I’m going to allow myself to enjoy the fact that we’re childless this week. On the other hand, we are now the proud owners of 4 vials of swimmers from Northwest Cryobank. The bank is having an end-of-the-year sale, where all of their vials are priced at $250. The usual vial price is $300, and after January 1 the costs are going up to $325 each. I called Kaitlin to talk about what we wanted to do, and we decided to buy four vials in anticipation of our first IUI cycle in January.I debated a lot about how many to buy, because the sale is saving us $75 per vial – that’s $300 on the four I bought. We’ll also have to pay $40/month for each month that we have unused vials in storage, but it’s still less expensive to do that than it would be to buy the vials full price. I thought about buying 8, but if we DID get lucky and get pregnant early on, we would only be able to recover 50% of the vial price by selling them back to the bank. Since we’re going with doctor-assisted IUI, we’ll only be using one vial per cycle, most likely, unlike my prior attempts where we used 2 and 3 vials per cycle. So 4 ($1000 worth) seemed like the most reasonable compromise. We went with Donor 6497. His record shows no confirmed pregnancies yet, though his writing sample mentions that he has a daughter, so he had to have been fertile at some point. :P Kaitlin got the primary decision-making clout in choosing a donor, since we’re using my egg and uterus. This donor appears to have similar coloring to her (wavy dark brown hair, blue-green eyes, ambidextrous) and similar academic interests (art, graphic design.) We purchased his extended profile, and if we’re successful in getting pregnant we’ll buy his baby photos as well in case kiddo wants them later on. If we use all four vials with no luck, then we might talk about switching donors to see if a different one will bring more luck.I’m both nervous and excited for our appointment on Friday. I should be ovulating in the next couple of days, so we definitely won’t get to make a TTC attempt until my next cycle. My temps have been all over the place this month because I’ve been sick, so I don’t know how reliable this month’s chart is going to be. Most of all, though, I’m antsy about starting up this process again… The waiting is truly the hardest part about TTC. You have to wait for AF, then wait for an insem, then go through the TWW, and each cycle is expensive and exciting and anxious all at the same time. Kaitlin wants to go to a friend’s house tonight to ring in the New Year. I’m thinking we should stay home together, because we’re both sick and probably shouldn’t be spreading germs to all our friends… but I guess we’ll see how she’s feeling tonight. Our two-year anniversary was yesterday, but we’re planning to celebrate on Wednesday since we both have the day off… And then Friday is the RE!

CD6 - Post-Christmas

Well, Christmas is done – my proposal on Christmas Eve went just as I’d hoped. Kaitlin opened the gift, had a great time trying to figure out the puzzle box (it only took her a few minutes) and was truly surprised and excited to see the ring. YAY!! She keeps staring at it and squeeing over how sparkly it is. ^~ Then we had a houseful of people on Christmas Day – my parents and brothers, my brothers’ girlfriends—one of whom brought her son—and Kaitlin’s dad. The food turned out all right, and we had a good time opening stockings and gifts. Kaitlin got me a gorgeous leather messenger bag for work. I haven’t transferred my purse stuff over to it yet, since I had to go right back to work the day after Christmas, but I’m going to do it this weekend. I love how professional and nice it looks, and it's the perfect size for my ipad or even a laptop.
Kaitlin’s coming down with a cold, though, so she’s coughing and miserable the last couple days. :( So next up: going to a friend’s birthday party this weekend, then our second anniversary is on Monday—but we’re going to wait until New Year’s Day to celebrate since we both have the day off. There’s a party at a friends’ house on New Year’s Eve. And next Friday is our first RE appointment!!! I’m really, really excited. I keep trying to make lists of all the questions I want to ask. I read on a forum somewhere that an R.E. usually makes you sit out the first cycle so they can do tests. I really hope she doesn’t do that, because today is CD6, and I’m likely to ovulate just before the initial appointment. Waiting another entire cycle before we can make an attempt would be SO hard. I do want to ask her what her IUI process is like. Does it include medications? Does it include ultrasounds? Do I call in when I get my first OPK smiley in order to schedule the IUI? I want to show her my charts and ask if she thinks I am ovulating the same day as a smiley, or if she thinks the charts are wrong. I would really like to do ultrasounds in order to be able to tell if that’s the case. Will she do tests on the swimmer sample before the procedure, to verify quality? Should I have the swimmers delivered to my house as usual, or to her office? What kind of tests does she recommend beforehand? While my head is busy swarming with all of that stuff, I am trying to focus on just making it through one day at a time. Today I have some errands to run on my lunch break, including picking up a fresh kit of OPK sticks since the ones I have are all expired. Since Kaitlin’s not feeling very well, I’m planning on spending the weekend resting as much as possible (and doing some post-Christmas cleaning.) You know, I’m really feeling good about the possibilities of next year. I kind of can’t wait for 2014 to get here... :)

Christmas Eve Eve

AF finally, FINALLY showed up yesterday, making my last cycle officially the longest one I've ever recorded, at 29 days. So I'm back to temping daily now, and all set to visit the R.E. next Friday. Our first IUI can't come soon enough for me. If my cycle will go back to its usual 24 days, I should start our first TTC cycle somewhere around January 15th, putting O and an IUI somewhere around January 25th (and due date, if successful, around October 18th.) Kaitlin and I also talked about skipping any cycles that would give us a December due date. Since Kaitlin's birthday, Christmas AND our anniversary all occur in December, I'd really prefer not to make our child share their birthday with all that other stuff. Kaitlin feels pretty strongly about it too, because she grew up with a December birthday and always feels a little bit like her birthday gets overshadowed by the holiday.
What that does mean, though, is that we'll get to try a January and a February cycle, but will likely have to skip March and possibly also April. Maybe we'll get super lucky and it will work on the first try. :P Anyway, today I want to go buy a Christmasy-looking shirt to wear on Christmas day, since I don't actually own anything red, green, OR Christmasy; and also pick up some more OPK tests. Back to the joys of peeing on a stick obsessively, LOL. In the meantime, as Kaitlin pointed out to me this morning, it's Christmas Eve Eve. :P I spent the weekend getting more presents wrapped, figuring out our menu for Christmas dinner, and going grocery shopping - I also made one of the desserts. I work today and a half-day tomorrow, then will spend the second half of the day cleaning the house. Kaitlin's puzzle box did arrive in time - yay!! I spent some time this weekend arranging the ring inside it, locking it up, and wrapping it. Kaitlin's already asked if she can open one present on Christmas Eve. ;) I knew she'd do that... and this year I'm ready for her. I think she'll be really excited. She's actually done a really great job of not mentioning how much she wishes for a ring herself. She made just one little comment, when I was gushing over how pretty my new ring is, that maybe someday she'd get to have one too. :P It's been really hard to play it off and act noncommittal, but I hope I'm pulling it off successfully so that Christmas Eve will be a real surprise. Keeping fingers crossed that it goes smoothly, and she's happy, and I make it the memorable proposal moment that she's always wanted.

CD 28, No AF yet

I did get my ring on Wednesday and have been staring at it nonstop since. It's sooooo pretty. Even my staff at work noticed and asked me about it. I'm going in this afternoon to pick up Kaitlin's ring, which should be out of the jeweler's shop and ready to go... and hopefully the puzzle box will arrive in the mail today so I can get the Christmas Eve plans all wrapped up and ready.
In the meantime, I've hit CD28 with no AF. Grr. If she doesn't show up today, this will officially be the longest cycle I've recorded thus far. It figures, seeing as how this is the first time in two years since I've resumed tracking, that my body would make me wait a little longer to be able to get started. But I guess I should be grateful, and hope that this won't happen during an actual TTC cycle -- because to be three or four days past my usual AF-due-date, thinking that meant I was pregnant, only to have AF show up after all -- would be so frustrating. :P So I will be patient and keep waiting, and hope that AF will behave herself once we're trying in earnest. Is it sad that even though Christmas and our anniversary are coming up, the thing I'm looking forward to most is the RE appointment? Just for fun, I checked a Chinese gender predictor calculator, and learned that if I were to get pregnant in January, baby is predicted to be a boy. Hee~* And baby's birthday would likely be somewhere around October 16th. I'm trying not to get my hopes up too high that we'll have success on our first try. I was getting really discouraged after four BFNs last time - patience is definitely not my strong suit. But who knows... maybe we'll get lucky? :)

An Engagement Story

Well I’ve been waiting around for AF to show up, but thus far we’re on CD26 with no sign of her. *sigh* Ah well.
Christmas is coming up, and it’s going to be pretty darned momentous. See, Kaitlin had proposed to me last June, on my birthday. One of the things we’d talked about a while back was that both of us kind of wanted to be proposed to, and I’d told her that each of us should choose a moment to propose to the other, so that we both got the proposal experience. Well, she beat me to it. At dinner on my birthday she had me unwrap my birthday gift, which turned out to be a singing Belle doll from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (this has a backstory – Belle is my favorite Disney character, and a few months after we started dating I’d accompanied Kaitlin on her family’s trip to Disneyland. While we were at the park she commissioned an artist to draw Belle for me. She used the drawing to say “I love you” to me for the first time. We now have it framed on our wall at home…) She had picked out a princess-cut yellow sapphire solitaire, and had it fastened to the doll’s hand. I happened to unwrap the doll’s hand first, so without even opening the entire present I had already noticed the ring. At first I thought it was one of those kid’s toys, you know, the doll that comes with jewelry the child can wear too... but the ring looked pretty darned fancy. Before I could even finish unwrapping the rest I realized Kaitlin was on one knee, asking me to marry her. I was so surprised that I think I actually asked her if she was serious. But I said yes, of course. :) Later on we went back to the Shane Company together so she could show me rings that she liked. Unbeknownst to her, I had actually already special-ordered a ring that I thought was what she wanted – a band she’d pointed out months ago, and I was going to have them add a stone mount and a purple pear-shaped sapphire. She’d always said she didn’t like diamonds, but as we were walking around the store she suddenly said that she really wanted a diamond engagement ring. So after she showed me what she liked (she and I have really opposite taste in jewelry) I went back to the store to cancel my special order and instead put in an order for the one she’d picked out.
This is the design she picked out, though she wants a different band However, as we were walking around, I also asked her a little timidly if she’d mind if I exchanged the ring she’d proposed with and got a diamond ring myself. She let me pick out a design that I really liked, and put it on layaway. I didn’t tell her that I had hers on layaway too, but I did tell her that she’d probably have to wait a bit for her proposal since I’d need to save up for her ring. Well… it has been about six months. She took me back to Shane Company last weekend so that she could make the last payment on my new ring, and I picked out a diamond. I’m going back this afternoon to pick the new ring up – and she doesn’t know this, but I’m also making the last payment on HER ring while I’m there, which means in a few more days I’ll be able to go pick her ring up and give it to her.
This one's mine. It combines the look of an e-ring and a wedding band and I <3 data-blogger-escaped-font="" data-blogger-escaped-it.=""> It’s her turn for a proposal, so here’s the plan: Kaitlin loves puzzles. She also loves presents, and has a really hard time being patient for things like Christmas and her birthday… she’s always asking if she can open presents early. And, she was pretty adamant that she wanted me to have my new ring before Christmas so my family could see it. So I have decided to propose on Christmas Eve, so that she will also have her ring in time for our big Christmas get-together. And, clever person that I am, I’m going to give it to her as a Christmas present that I will oh-so-generously allow her to open on Christmas Eve. To add a little more fun, I bought a handcrafted puzzle box off of Ebay. Once it gets here, I’m going to wrap the ring, put it in the puzzle box, then wrap the puzzle box. When she opens it I’ll tell her she has to figure out how to open the box, and have fun watching her try to get it open (it has a hidden compartment with a key, and a hidden keyhole.) After she gets it open she’ll have to unwrap the present inside… and by the time she gets to the ring box, I’ll do the whole one-knee-pop-the-question thing. Assuming everything goes smoothly, it should be a ton of fun, and I hope she’ll find it romantic!! I’m just waiting for the puzzle box to arrive in the mail. Really, really hoping it gets here on time. I paid extra for shipping to try and make sure, but I’ll be biting my nails until it actually gets here. So, lots of things to keep me distracted while I wait for AF to show up… Really excited for next week!!

Getting Started

I'm Meg (on the right in the picture above). My partner Kaitlin and I have been planning for a while now that we would start our TTC journey this month. I attempted TTC a couple of years ago, and did four cycles of at-home ICI with donor sperm, but no luck... and then circumstances in my life changed and I had to take a two-year break from TTC. During that time, I met Kaitlin and we started a life together. We got engaged in June of 2013, and we plan to get a civil union in our home state of Colorado as well as getting legally married in a state that permits it (right now we're thinking New York.) But, we've both known since the start of our relationship that we wanted to be moms, and that I would be the gestational carrier. Because I'm now 34 years old, it's important to both of us that we start our TTC journey sooner rather than later, and that we are as aggressive about it as we can afford to be.
Basic Stats:
Me: 34, social worker and romance novelist
Kaitlin: 36, 3D animator and college professor
Our pets: Three cats (Motome, Brienna, Orion), one min pin (Cricket - featured in the pic above)My cycle: 24 days with ovulation around day 11, and a 12 - 14 day LP
Our Sperm Bank: Northwest Cryobank, and we are leaning toward Donor #6497
Our RE: Dr. Susan Trout, Colorado Reproductive Endocrinology

A Little History:
Having done this TTC thing a while back - and having obsessively temped, charted, OPK'd, taken vitamins/pineapple core/royal jelly/anything else that I read on the internet would help, done daily fertility yoga, etc. - I'm pretty familiar with how this all works. I haven't done temping or charting since October 2011, so I'm going to get back into the game with my next cycle (which should start on or about December 17th). While we do plan to be aggressive about our attempts at TTC, I'm going about it in a different way this time and getting medical assistance. My biggest hangup is the correct timing. My charts consistently show that I ovulate on the same day as a positive OPK. Since most women ovulate 24 hours or so *after* an OPK+, this is a little unusual. The four cycles that I attempted went like this:TTC #1, June 2011: 2 vials, 6 and 12 hours post OPK+; BFN
     (Timing based on charting)
TTC #2, July 2011: 2 vials, 3 and 14 hours post OPK+; BFN
     (Timing based on charting)
TTC #3, August 2011: 3 vials, approximately 12 and 6 hours *before* OPK+, and 12 hours post; BFN
     (Tried something different this time, and insemmed when my CM and cervical position seemed most fertile.)
TTC #4, September 2011: 2 vials, approximately 0 and 12 hours post OPK+; BFN
     (Tried to balance CM/cervical position with charting)Though the timing of the insems may seem early, I really felt like they were timed well, because my body was showing all the signs of maximum fertility (high, soft, open cervix, lots of EWCM) and by the time we did the last insems the fertile signs were disappearing. However, I didn't have any luck getting pregnant... which could mean the timing wasn't right, or it could just mean that the dice hadn't rolled my way yet. Not including the cost of OPKs, pregnancy tests, vitamins, the fertility yoga program, etc... I spent about $3000 in those four months alone.

This Time Around:
At least for the first few cycles, Kaitlin and I are going to try Dr-assisted IUI. We figure that way the doctor can give us some additional insight into the timing and make sure that we're on the right track; and also we can check to be sure that there aren't any other fertility issues we should be addressing, so that we don't waste a ton of money and cycles just to find out that there was some issue getting in the way all along.So here's the game plan so far. I'm reaching the tail end of my current cycle (on CD21 today) so I've resumed taking prenatals and charting cervical position/CM. When my next cycle starts, which will probably be next week, I'll resume BBT temping every morning. Unless the RE recommends it, I don't think I'm going to resume all of the obsessive things I was doing last time - the yoga, the mucinex, the baby aspirin, the pineapple core, the grapefruit juice, switching to decaf, and so on. I think I was probably putting too much pressure and stress on myself and probably hindering conception more than helping it. This time I'm going to take a more relaxed approach, and be aggressive via modern medicine instead. We'll see how that works out...I called and made our first RE appointment yesterday, so we'll be meeting with the RE for the first time on January 3rd, after the holidays. Kaitlin and I are both taking time off work that day so we can go together. The initial consultation is going to cost us somewhere from $193 - $400. I've already completed all the paperwork the RE office requested and faxed it over. Today, I need to call my insurance's infertility hotline and get "signed up" to see if I will qualify for any coverage of these appointments. Honestly, I'm not holding my breath. I don't think my insurance covers infertility, and even if it did, from what I've read on Aetna's website there's a minimum number of cycles of donor sperm that have to fail before anything at all would be covered. Still, it's worth trying, because this is going to get really expensive, really fast.My hope is that after we meet with Dr. Trout we can set an appointment for the IUI procedure. Since we're ordering IUI-washed sperm, the cost of the procedure is $293. I'm going to ask her about the possibility of Clomid or other ovulatory med, and/or a trigger shot - if we're going to do this we really want to just GO FOR IT. I also need to ask her if she's going to want us to order one vial of sperm, or more than one - the cost of vials has increased since I last ordered them. One vial is $469, after shipping, while two is $769. It's a really expensive venture, but I'm willing to go for the two vials if the doctor thinks it will increase our chances. All in all, then, our first TTC cycle will likely cost at least $955, and that doesn't include the cost of OPKs, pregnancy tests, any other meds or tests the doctor might want to do, and so on. *sigh*I did talk to Kaitlin about whether she wanted to buy a "practice vial" for my next cycle, while we're waiting to see the doctor, just to see if we might not get lucky. But because it's so expensive, we agreed that we'd wait and save the $469 to go toward a full-on doctor assisted cycle instead.

Our Dream:
So the last time I tried this, my partner at the time was really, really hoping for a daughter. Honestly, I've never really had a preference one way or the other. I spent my high school and college years working at a daycare center, and can say with certainty that I'd enjoy a child of any gender. Luckily, Kaitlin feels the same way. We do have a boy-name and a girl-name picked out... It's important to Kaitlin that we give the child a name with strong Irish Gaelic influence, so whichever gender we are blessed with, kiddo's going to have a funky-spelled, highly unusual, but nonetheless awesome name. I'm actually particularly attached to the boy-name, so I have to admit I'd be excited to get the chance to use it. I've even had dreams lately that we had son with the name. ;)Kaitlin really wants more than one child. I really want a singleton. Since I'm the one who will be carrying, I kind of have a bit of an (unfair?) advantage in the argument. I suppose it's possible my opinion might change once I already have one, though right now I strongly doubt it. :P I really think the only way we'll end up with more than one is if I get pregnant with multiples. (ACK.) I'm really hoping NOT to have multiples... at the same time, I've always believed that things that are meant to happen will happen. So if I do end up with twins or more I am just going to have to take it as the universe's sign that we were intended to parent more than one.

Other Stuff Going On:
We have a lot of stuff going on in our lives right now that will also have an effect, in some way, on our TTC journey and raising a child together. Marriage and wedding plans, of course, are a big one. Also, I plan to change my legal name (currently I still have my ex's last name) prior to the baby being born and prior to getting married, so that Kaitlin can take my new name and we can pass it to our child. I'm in the process of finishing up the invisalign braces I've been wearing for the past... oh, two and a half years... and I'm really looking forward to getting the little hooks taken off of my teeth and having my pretty, straight smile all finished. Kaitlin's currently working at a (rather high-profile) temp job, and just last week she found out that her master's degree thesis has been approved, so once she recieves her diploma her goal is to start looking for a more permanent position that includes benefits (and hopefully paid time off). I'm really hoping she'll be able to find something that will allow her maternity leave. We are also on the edge of getting some bills paid off that will hopefully allow us to put a new floor into our basement - we have a ton of home improvement plans that hinge on getting that new floor put in, but finances thus far haven't allowed it. So 2014 is shaping up to be a big year for us. Keeping fingers crossed that by 2015, we'll be moms!