21WK3D - Long time no blog

Life is slowly settling down after a whirlwind of drama - car problems, money problems, family health problems, elopement planning, a dear friend passing away :( and issues at work that have been hitting one after the other. Unfortunately that means I've missed quite a few milestone posts! But, we did manage to take a 21-week belly pic on Thanksgiving:

We're past the halfway mark now! So here's a summary of some of the main goings-on:

In terms of pregnancy symptoms I'm still tired and fatigued, with minor backache and increasing need to pee. When I'm not super tired, though, my energy levels are pretty good. I'm still experiencing a higher tendency toward anxiety than usual, though now that life-things are settling a bit it's getting better. Baby is kicking a little harder now, and I feel wiggling about 3 - 4 times a day - usually on my morning and afternoon commutes, around lunchtime, and just before bed. Sometimes baby wakes me up with wiggling in the middle of the night, too.

I had a four day weekend for the Thanksgiving holiday - we went to my mom's house on Thanksgiving, and got to see my still-pregnant SIL (at 38 weeks, she's getting very close to her due date!) and parents.

Unfortunately, Kaitlin's dad's health is not doing so well at all, and we're expecting that he may pass away in the next couple weeks. Her sister, Beth, flew in from Idaho to spend some time with him, and she's staying at our house. She arrived on Friday, and will be leaving next Wednesday - which is the day before the day that Kaitlin and I leave for Vegas to get hitched. So this coming weekend's going to be busy, with packing, and hopefully decorating the house for Christmas, and also having a house guest.

Kaitlin's birthday is on Thursday. We celebrate her birthday in the summer, because her actual birthday so often gets lost in holidays and the cold of winter, but we're still going to make her favorite cherry-chip cupcakes and go out to dinner.

Next ultrasound is Friday, at 22 weeks. It's the big one, the full anatomy scan, and if I heard our doc correctly they're actually going to do it in 3-D. Depending on how it goes we may or may not decide to have another 3-D scan done in a month or so at the private ultrasound place. Looking forward to seeing little baby's growth - here's hoping everything's doing what it's supposed to be doing at this stage!

We have pretty much everything figured out for the elopement now - finally got confirmation for our reservation from the little chapel. Kaitlin's mom is driving to Vegas because she wants to be there, so she'll be a witness and we'll all go out for dinner afterward. Now it's just a matter of making a complete packing list so we don't forget any of the elements we're planning to wear! Kaitlin's also getting her hair and makeup done just beforehand, and I'm excited to see how it's going to turn out. The wedding will be Friday the 11th, so our "new" anniversary date is moving from 12/31 to 12/11. Shouldn't be too hard to remember. :P Oh, and we picked out our 4-year anniversary gifts for each other (year 4 is aquamarine) and got them ordered on a great Black Friday deal, so that's something fun to look forward to.

I have most Christmas presents purchased, just a few more things that I need to square away (and then wait for loads of packages to arrive so I can wrap them.) Christmas will be next on the to-do list once we get back from Vegas.

And of course, somewhere in there we have to make some progress on the nursery. I ordered a ceiling fan/light but have to do a craigslist post to find an electrician to install the power box in the ceiling. We have the general layout of the mural decided, and Kaitlin's started on the digital artwork, but there's still a lot to do before it will be ready to project on the wall, outline, and paint. And I'm currently stalking Craigslist for the perfect nursery furniture set. But for now, Kaitlin's sister is staying on the spare bed in the nursery, so we won't really be doing much physical work until after we get back from Vegas.

As far as work goes, things blew up, then simmered, then blew up, then simmered again. Right now we're in a simmering phase, and in fact I am more caught up than I have been in months, so that's something to be grateful for. I just have to stay on my toes, and keep my staff on their toes, going into the new year. Oh, and start making real plans for maternity leave coverage, which is a whole other monster. I still need to sit down with HR and go over the options, get the FMLA packet, and so on.

So right now, just taking everything one day at a time until we get through the chaos. Thankfully baby's been charging through it all like a champ - no bleeding or spotting or cramping or anything scary, and plenty of reassuring wiggles. As long as we have that, we can get through all the rest. :)

4WK5D - Second Beta, Symptoms, the Second TWW

So first off, here's the results of our second beta, which I got Monday afternoon:

569! Which is nearly double, at exactly 48 hours after the first one. So far, so good, yeah?

I got hit with a heavy dose of moodiness yesterday - moodiness to the point where I was so generally angry and disenchanted with my life that even the knowledge that I'm pregnant didn't make me feel better. :/ I just kept telling myself it was the hormones, and I know that's true - it also possibly comes from the fact that I've spent nearly every waking moment for the past year and a half focused on getting pregnant. Every penny I've earned, every meal I ate, every activity I did (or didn't do), it was all centered around how I felt about our TTC journey at that moment.

So now we have a second pink line, and positive betas, and a second TWW until we get an ultrasound and find out anything more... and other than taking my meds on time, there's sort of a sense of "Now what?" Not that I haven't LONGED to be able to move on to the now-what that comes after getting pregnant... it's just that I guess, in a sense, I am tired. Really tired. And while I want to launch into allllll the stuff that's been postponed - like our elopement, and starting on the nursery, and maybe even rejoining the "real" world by showing up to social things a wee bit more often - I'm currently kind of feeling stubbornly lazy. I kind of just want to curl up around this tiny flame I've at last managed to get started, and nap with it until it gets bigger, and not bother about any of the rest of it.

Of course, that's not entirely possible because I still have to do grown up things like go to work, and feed the dog, and put the dishes in the dishwasher, and fold laundry.  It's also starting to get a wee bit intimidating to think about how I'm going to manage to fit the care of a baby in with all of that. I know it will pretty much work itself out - necessity is the mother of invention, yeah? But as I was sitting on my couch for a few minutes this morning, waiting for my little dog to wake up in her crate and sort of waiting for myself to wake up a bit too before making my (decaf) morning coffee, I was thinking about how, once there's a baby in the house, I will probably not have minutes of silence in the morning to just sit and stare off blankly. And once said baby is a toddler - I'll probably not have minutes of silence EVER. :P

In addition to all of that, because of January's miscarriage I am far too aware of the fact that we are still a long way from the finish line. Just getting a positive beta doesn't mean I'm going to walk away with a baby in nine months. Up until I'd miscarried, I guess I kind of took for granted that two pink lines  =  baby. Miscarriage was something that happened to other people, unfortunate people. Well, I'm an other, unfortunate people now. And I will tell you, I have a whole new respect for the level of anger, sadness, frustration and jealousy that comes to folks who didn't get to walk away with their baby after that first positive test. I have to be careful, too, because I find myself wearing that disappointment like a badge of honor, like "oh, you were lucky enough to get to keep your baby on the first try? How nice for you. But since you didn't have to suffer like I did, you can't possibly love your child as much as I'm going to love mine." Which is, of course, horribly arrogant and assholey of me, and I have to keep checking my attitude. I wouldn't actually wish what I've been through on anybody. And just because we had to fight so hard doesn't in any way make our love for our kiddo superior to anybody else's love for theirs.

At the same time, I do think it makes it special, and unique. Our kiddo's going to know, from the time that they're itty bitty, just how much they were loved and wanted, and just how far we went (literally) in order to be able to have them in our family. That doesn't make their story any better or worse than anybody else's, but I hope it gives them a sense of self-worth and confidence.

Anyway, aside from the kind of extreme moodiness of yesterday, I had some nausea this morning (I'd say about a 4-5 on the scale of 1-10) while I was driving to work. Wasn't fun, but wasn't bad enough that I'd have had to pull over, either. It was mostly gone by the time I got here. I've since put some food in my stomach and I think that's going to help. But I am going to need to stash a thing of Saltines in my car, I think, for future morning commutes.

Friday will mark five weeks. It was also exactly at five weeks that I started bleeding last time, so I'm kind of anxious for Friday to get here so that I can prove to myself it's not going to happen this time. This weekend is Kaitlin's un-birthday (her real birthday is in December and gets lost between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so we celebrate on August 8th instead.) I know she wants to go to the Melting Pot for dinner, but we don't have solid plans for the day - we're really low on money and I can't go anywhere that there's a lot of walking, trying to keep that to small short bursts throughout the day until we see a heartbeat. So I'm not sure what we'll end up doing.

Right now, though, I really would like to just go home and nap and cuddle my puppy and watch Korean drama and surf the internet.

Instead, I will be a grownup and get through these files on my desk. :P

I Would Die For That

Someone posted this song on the NorthWest Andrology forums and I basically had to close my office door and take a moment to bawl my eyes out. This is basically my heart song at the moment.

So not a whole lot of exciting updates right now. We were supposed to go hiking for my birthday, but after driving the three hours into the mountains it turned out that the trail was flooded due to all the rain and they wouldn't let us up. So we kept going into Glenwood Springs instead, and went to the Glenwood Cavern Adventure Park. It cost a lot more than what I was planning to spend on my birthday, but we did have a good time - took a cave tour, and rode a couple of the rides, and generally just acted goofy.

Since the hiking trail we planned for today was closed, we're on a team headed for Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park instead. Kaitlin is very excited.

A photo posted by Meg (@meghannmccall) on Jun 14, 2015 at 11:12am PDT

Also confirmed that we start Lupron on the 21st, which is this coming Sunday. Pride is this weekend, and I'll be there at a booth with my books and some of the other authors from my publishing house. It should be a good time, even if I do have to start getting shots again. I got my updated social security card, and went to the DMV last week, but haven't gotten my new driver's license in the mail yet - once that comes in I can actually start changing my name on everything, especially at work. Since work is where I spend the vast majority of my life, I think it will feel a lot more like a "real" change once I'm able to use my name there...

Anyway, we're doing okay in terms of savings for our third round. Trying to think positive... the odds are that it should really, really work this time. But it's also hard to think about what we'll do next if it doesn't. Since thinking about getting pregnant is way more fun, I'm trying to focus on dreaming about that instead. But dreaming is dangerous. *Sigh* Still, I only have two choices: spend the next few weeks anxious, or spend them excited. Neither one will have any effect on the outcome, most likely, but they'll have a big effect on our quality of life.

So, excited it is. :P

I have a baby shower to attend for a friend next weekend. I'm halfway SUPER excited, and halfway nervous. On the one hand, I get to hold a tiny baby (SQUEE) and see my friends and congratulate them. On the other (insert major selfishness) they have a baby and I don't, and I am jealous. I have a big mouth, and it's going to be really hard to not blurt out to everybody that we're trying to have a baby too and it's been so hard and expensive and taken so much time and wah, wah, wah, me, me, me when it's THEIR party for their new little family. So I'm doing my best to focus on being happy for THEM (because I am!) without making it about myself.

So yeah... that's where we're at right now. Lupron, then the start of my next AF, then another $500 ultrasound / bloodwork, then weeks more of Lupron while we wait for Embio to tell us when we should plan to be there and when the transfer date will be... waiting and waiting and more waiting...

IVF Barbie, Not Giving Up And Other Fun

Found this post today that made me laugh: IVF Barbie

I definitely remember being Newbie Barbie, and Joiner Barbie too. And I am reminded, as I stare down my 36th birthday this month, my pregnant friends and family, friends with newborns, and pictures of babies all over my facebook feed, that technically I haven't actually reached full on Veteran Barbie status yet. I've gained weight from all the meds - about 15 pounds - and I do have some gray hair (which I keep colored.) My poor tummy has had its moments of bruises and puncture marks so bad that it looks diseased. But in the grand scheme of things, I've got time. So many folks on various boards are 38, 40, 42 and are still trying. Even if I decided to try up until my 40th birthday I'd still have four more years of attempts left. So far I've done 4 ICIs, 3 Clomid IUIs, 3 injectable IUIs, transferred five donor embryos, made two trips to Greece, and endured one six week miscarriage. That's actually only twelve cycles, total, even if they were spread out over the course of five years. Pretty sure there are an awful lot of veteran ladies who would shake their heads at all my angst and think "Girl, you ain't seen nothing yet."

And though I eye my bank account, our budgets, and the HELOC slapped against my house, the truth is that four years is a good long time. I could pay the entire HELOC off almost twice over in that time. So if a July attempt doesn't work and we have to take a 7-8 month break, is it really that big of a deal?

The same blogger has another post that really hit home: When Is It Time To Stop Trying?

I will admit, I've had moments of "Why am I even doing this? Maybe all this failure is a sign from the universe that I am not meant to be a mom. Should I be investing this energy into acceptance of a childfree life?"

And then I feel guilty. If I'm considering giving up, then I must not want it badly enough. Quitters are just people who aren't adequately motivated, aren't they? It's hard not to believe, in my weakest and most discouraged moments, that there really is some entity outside myself - the universe, fate, God - that is actively denying me a baby. The really ironic thing is that no one's actually SAID that to me, but I have this overwhelming suspicion that if the rest of the world knew everything we'd done up to this point to try and get pregnant, they'd all be thinking it... "Sheesh, obviously you're not meant to be a mom, get over it." I am projecting my own mean little inner voice onto my friends and family, the assumption that they would all dismiss my repeated failures as God's plan for my life.

And I know that this comes from my childhood, the way that I was raised in an ultra-religious bubble and taught to be judgy and condescending and superior when others were going through crises. Must be God's plan for your life, dear, be content with it...

It's those naysaying thoughts... the idea that a higher power wants to prevent me from being a mom, combined with the guilt that entertaining that thought means I don't want this badly enough, that are probably the most powerful depressants in this whole infertility war. And they battle it out with the  surviving vestiges of my NewbieBarbie self, who is still stubbornly popping up in the corner (albeit her glitter makeup is starting to look a little worse for wear) and cheerily shouting "Baby dust! Power of positive thinking! If I can do it so can you! Success stories! Pregnancy magic! Still plenty of time and money, where there's a will there's a way! Winners never quit!"

I wish there was a way I could live as NewbieBarbie. Literally choose not to acknowledge failure, to keep my eye on the prize with confidence every second of the day, spread nothing but encouragement and positivity, and live my life in between cycles with joy and carefreeness and the certainty that my baby's coming eventually. There are a few people in this world who are able to live that way. My inner judgy self usually decides they're ditzes. So unconnected with reality, maddeningly lost in fantasy, irresponsible, taking each day as it comes and never concerning themselves with how it will affect tomorrow. Romantical and ridiculous. Today I envy them. Today I think there's something I could probably learn from that kind of attitude.

In other news, my new name is now on file with the DMV. Waiting to get my social security and DMV cards in the mail, and then I can change my name here at work and on all my other stuff...

Oh, and I still haven't heard back from the Greek clinic to confirm when I'm supposed to start Lupron injections. Finally just went ahead and emailed the doctor today. Hopefully that will get me an answer...

My Favorite Month of the Year

Ever since I was a kid, June has always been my favorite month of the year. Probably because it's the month of my birthday... but also because it's the start of summer, my favorite season; it always meant the end of school; the weather is finally warm and sunny again; and for me it always feels like a new beginning. A New Year's, of sorts, even if it's six months later than everybody else celebrates it.

So I guess it's apropos that AF started yesterday, on June 1st, and my Lupron shipment arrived at the same time. That means we should be starting Lupron around the 21st or so of this month, and CD1 of our next cycle attempt will be around the 24th.

My birthday is next week. I love birthdays, though neither of us has money for much of anything this year. I think we'll go out to dinner, maybe go see a movie. Usually I like to do something kind of big on my birthday, a staycation or some activity I've always wanted to try, but I would gladly trade that for a successful cycle in July. I'm not going to take the day off work. Kind of a shame,  because my birthday's a Friday this year and it will be seven years before it's on Friday again, but I'm conserving vacation days for our next upcoming attempt and, with any luck, maternity leave.

I could sit around and feel sorry for myself, but I'd rather look at it as a trade... that my birthday present this year will be a sticky BFP in August. That's all I really want, anyway. Nothing, no other gift could compare, and I would trade every other present I ever have or will receive if I could just have that.

Still, I'm doing my best not to think too much about it this time. The roller coaster of longing, fear, anxiety and doubt is too exhausting. I end up worrying myself into a little knot of unfulfilled hope, where every breath I take is accompanied by a will-it-work-this-time thought, and I'm sure it's not doing anything but possibly making my body less hospitable for implantation. It certainly isn't *helping.*  I'm really not looking forward to resuming medication - the hot flashes on Lupron, the uncontrollable mood swings and congestion of estrogen, the constant peeing and meaningless pregnancy-symptoms of progesterone. Not really excited about the jet lag and the looooooong flight either.

But, I am excited by the idea of being in Athens in July. It will be hot, which maybe means a hotel with a pool, maybe even a trip to the beach. I haven't been to a beach in five years. But I am sitting on my butt with my legs up for TWO WHOLE DAYS after the transfer, this time. Period. There's so little that I can do to actually help make this work, and that's a simple one.

In the meantime, trying to distract myself. I'm selling what I can on Ebay, and helping Kaitlin do the same. She sold her living room set, the one that's been living in our garage for three years, so she can finally park her car in the garage again and she was able to put a little extra into savings so that she can come to Greece this time. I'm spending way more time than I should window-shopping online for cute, feminine, pink-and-lacy clothes (I wonder if all this estrogen I've been pumping myself with for the last eighteen months has fired up my girly-girl side?). I'm sewing cute little doll clothes, even put a set on Etsy to see if anybody would like it. I'm watching 24 with Kaitlin, and a new Korean drama series by myself. I'm putting together cute summery outfits to wear to work, and playing with my dog. I'm trying to keep the house clean, and planning spring-cleaning type projects. We even trimmed back our big lilac trees in the backyard over the weekend, and now there is a pile of branches hanging out back there that we'll have to spend this coming weekend breaking down into sacks for the trash people.

Just staying busy, trying not to think too much, and trying to pick positive thoughts when the thinking is inevitable. Trying to keep myself from feeling like this is our "last chance". Trying to remind myself that this won't be over until I say it is.

And trying to stay focused on how wonderful it is that it's finally June.

IUI#4 CD11 Triggering tonight

I've been taking Follistim shots every night for the last... oh... eight nights. After the first three 150IU doses, I had some bloodwork and an ultrasound and they lowered my dose to 75IU. More bloodwork and an ultrasound on Sunday, which showed two follies - one at 15 mm and one at 13 mm. Another round of bloodwork and ultrasound yesterday morning (Tuesday), which showed three follies - 21mm, 17mm and 16mm. The bloodwork shows my estrogen levels are continuously rising, though I'm not sure what that means; I get the impression that it's what the doc uses to determine my dosages. Anyway, the nurse called me yesterday afternoon and lowered my dose to 50IU for last night. Tonight we do the Ovidrel trigger, and IUI number four is scheduled for Friday morning.

I am so tired of getting poked with needles!! Seriously. Kaitlin's mom was visiting us over the weekend and we had to do a couple of the injections while she was there, which was a bit off-putting for me since I usually freak out before the needle goes in, and I felt really self-conscious about freaking out so ridiculously in front of someone else. :P But we made it through this round, and now I only have one more injection to deal with until we're back in the TWW again.

I don't think I've ever had a follie get larger than 20mm, so I'm excited about that. I don't know if the other two will ovulate also, but three big ones doesn't seem bad - and, my lining is thicker and nicer than I've ever seen it before, since the Clomid wasn't involved this time, so hoping against hope that this will be our cycle. We're on our last vial of swimmers, so if this round doesn't work we'll have to order a couple more vials - about $870 - in addition to reordering the Follistim and Ovidrel for another round.

Seven months we've been at this, with no luck yet. I know there are plenty of ladies who have waited a lot longer than that to get pregnant, but it is starting to be a little exhausting. Both Kaitlin and I are feeling like our entire future, all the plans for moving our life forward, hinge on when we are successful in getting pregnant - because getting pregnant takes so much money, we have no money to plan a wedding or do home improvements or any of the other things we want to do until we get those two pink lines. If I wasn't already so infertile we'd be working on several of those other things first (like getting married) but there's no time. If I'm going to be able to get pregnant, it has to be very, very soon, or it may never be able to happen at all. I know this is especially frustrating for Kaitlin... I know it is... but there's not really a way around it unless we want to give up on the idea of being moms altogether.

So anyway, that's where we're at. I'm tired of working long hours to make up for the time I've been out of work, so this TWW might actually feel like a reprieve - no more injections or doctor appointments for a while. Hoping to use it as a chance to recharge a little, because I've been feeling a bit hectic the last couple of weeks, like I don't have work and housekeeping and writing and all the other little elements of life as under control as I would like.

Kaitlin's unbirthday is coming up in August, though, and I already have a day full of fun stuff planned for her - I hope she enjoys it! Since her actual birthday is in December, she never really feels like she gets to celebrate since her day gets sort of lumped in with Christmas stuff. So we have decided to celebrate her birthday in August instead - an unbirthday - when it's warm and sunny and we can actually go do something fun. Which reminds me, I need to go to Kohls today and buy her birthday present before my $10 in Kohls cash expires. I got to take the day off of work too, which means a 3 day weekend for me - and it's sorely needed right now.

Did I mention that a couple weekends ago we went shopping and got Kaitlin some nice work clothes? And found her an absolutely beautiful fancy dress, that I'm going to have her wear to my brother's wedding in September. Now I need something pretty to wear too... I'm a little envious. :P

If this cycle IS the one that works, our due date will be April 10 - sounds like a great birthday to me. Fingers crossed, fingers crossed....