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.

CD3 – Another BFN, Another Delay

I’ve been feeling so down this past week I haven’t even bothered to blog. But here’s the scoop: Kaitlin got laid off on Thursday. On Monday, I got my period – even though I was on progesterone, which has never happened to me before. So, BFN. Then this morning, I went into the doctor for my CD3 ultrasound, and wouldn’t you know it, I have leftover follicles again. So three weeks of birth control now, before we can tackle our final injectables cycle.

I guess the delay is okay seeing as how Kaitlin’s laid off anyway and it gives me the chance to do a little catchup on the debt from last month’s $3000ish cycle. And it means we don’t have to figure out how to juggle injections and ultrasounds during Battlemoor (a big SCA camping event) this weekend.

But frankly, I am just so tired and sad. There’s drama going on at work, too, with members of my staff going through their own family emergencies and two staff whose roles I’m revising and training and my staff having basically sabotaged all of our managers’ efforts to get us another pair of hands to help us out next year… and I am just done, today. Just done. I don’t want to do anything except go home and bury myself in Korean drama, puppy cuddles, and absolute laziness.

But there’s another day of work to get through, and then two days at least of Battlemoor. I do want to see my Laurel and apprentice family, but honestly they’re the only reasons I’m going. And I’m probably going to mostly just lurk and do nothing for most of the time. I feel crappy and sad and tired. I’m not in an SCA-ing mood. And I’m always so exhausted after them. Even though we’re leaving on Sunday (and thank God I have Monday off for the holiday) I’m still really just going to get a one-day weekend before heading back to work again next week.

My boss also asked me this morning if everything was okay, since I’d had so many doctor appointments this year. So I just told her that we were TTC, and all the trouble we’d been having, and gave her a basic idea of our future plans: this next attempt is our last one, and then we take a few months off to recover financially and we’re going to Greece for a donor egg cycle.  She was supportive, which was really great, and it sounds like she had to conceive at least one of her kids via IVF so she knows what it’s like.

That’s good, I guess.

Kaitlin’s heading to Battlemoor this afternoon, so I’ll be alone tonight. I’m kind of looking forward to it, because I can go to bed as early as I want, I can watch K-drama all night if I want, I can eat whatever I want and be as miserable as I want without making her miserable too.

I just have to make it through the rest of this work day…

CD23 - Still waiting

I haven't updated in a while because I've just been biding my time this month, taking birth control. Went in for an ultrasound on Tuesday last week, but the leftover follicle still wasn't gone. The doctor had me take a trigger shot, and I'm taking more birth control this week. I should run out around Thursday or so, which means AF should show up again a couple days later, and I have another ultrasound appointment on July 7th. If we're lucky, the follicle thing will be gone (finally) and we can start an injectable cycle.

In the meantime, Kaitlin and I went to Denver Pride and spent the weekend at my publisher's book booth - I sold out of my stash of both of my books, met some really sweet readers, and got inspired all over again to get back into the swing of writing. Kaitlin went off to a fencing event this past weekend, so I spent the weekend cleaning the house and got about half of the first chapter of the next Ithyria book written. I forgot how much time writing takes... If I could write one chapter per week - which is about 10 hours of work or so - I'd have the book finished in about 6 months. Though I don't know that I could keep that pace up... whew. Still, I'd like to be able to get the next installment finished without making readers wait another 8 years for the next book. :P

Anyway - financially we're going to be OK for this injectable round. If it's another BFN, though, we're going to start building credit card debt pretty fast in August - I have to order two more vials of swimmers, which is going to be about $1000.00, and then with the $800/month price tag of the injectable meds, plus the trigger shot and IUI costs, it's going to be expensive. SIGH.

Maybe we'll finally get lucky this round and all of that won't be necessary? Kaitlin is pretty fired up about planning a wedding for next year, but I want to wait until after the baby is born and I've had at least six months to drop the baby weight - I really don't want to be chubby in my wedding photos. :P

CD3 – Another Roadblock

So AF showed up on Sunday, and I went into the doctor’s office for my ultrasound and bloodwork today to gear up for an injectable cycle.

Only we never got around to the bloodwork, because the ultrasound showed that once again I have three leftover corpus luteum follicle things stuck in my left ovary. Which means… you guessed it… more birth control. I’m about ready to cry, I’m so frustrated. I have another ultrasound appointment for the 23^rd to see if the invaders are gone after a couple weeks of birth control, but I don’t have much hope that they will be; last time it took four weeks of birth control and a trigger shot to get rid of them. Which means we don’t get another TTC attempt until July.

So yeah, that gives me an extra month to save up for the Follistim medication. But I don’t get a BFP or even a TTC attempt for my birthday. I’m turning 35 this week, and I never imagined that I’d hit that milestone without being a mom yet. So I’m feeling a bit sorry for myself today, and really discouraged. In the last six months we have been able to TTC just three times, and our chances don’t look good anyway. I am sorely tempted to just say forget the whole thing, let’s go to Greece NOW and do the donor egg.

Just… very sad. I will go to the drugstore tonight and pick up the birth control – at least it’s free – and I guess I’ll just keep moving forward since there’s really no other option right now. But I may take myself out for a consolation lunch today, since I won’t be buying the injectables this month...

CD24 – Life Isn’t Always Fair

Oh my gosh, the last few days at work have been awful. I’ve had to be 100% on top of my game, and it’s been so much work that I haven’t had much time at all to think about our TTC problems.

Anyway, the doctor’s office tried calling on Thursday, but I couldn’t get to my phone all day. Then they tried again on Friday, but it was another day where I had not a moment to breathe (or even eat) so I missed them again. Saturday I left them a voice mail, but they were closed. So Monday I finally forced a moment into the end of my day so I could touch base with them.  All the while, I kept taking the same birth control.

So they said they wanted me to do another trigger shot, in the hopes that it would clear out the huge follicle-remnant that is preventing us from being able to proceed with TTC. The good news: they found a pharmacy that charged $80 for the shot, as opposed to the $168 I paid  last time. The bad news: It’s an hour and a half drive from my work, and they close at 5:30.

So I came into work yesterday early so I could leave at 4. Drove to the pharmacy (which is downtown, so parking’s a pain) and picked up the shot – the lady there was SO NICE and put it in an ice pack for me – and then drove all the way back across town to Golden to pick Kaitlin up from her car repair place. Was so tired and hungry by then that we stopped at an Indian restaurant for dinner.  Then I went home, Kaitlin gave me the shot, and I pretty much just crashed.

Now I’m to continue to take the birth control for the next two weeks, and have another ultrasound appointment on April 8^th.  Really, really hoping we can move forward with another TTC cycle by then. God, I thought the TWW was hard. This has been a two MONTH wait. So agonizing I’ve actually HAD to stop thinking about it, because it was just becoming intolerable to be so frustrated all the time.

Basically, it has been a really stressful week. Some of that stress, I know I’m creating for myself. We had a whole leadership team meeting at work this morning that talked a lot about stress and dealing with it productively and not making it worse than it is. One of the handouts pointed out that stress comes from a DIRE need for success and/or others’ approval. I started thinking about that and realized: what I have a “dire” need for is a sense of safety. That’s really the most driving force in my life – I feel like I can’t even dare to have dreams if the plans I make to achieve them are constantly pulled out from under me.  But, I strongly connect safety with others thinking well of me. The more influence another person has on a key area of my life (like my job…), the more important it is that they don’t think poorly of me, and the more endangered I feel if it seems like they might. And THAT, in turn, leads me to hate making mistakes so much that I end up responding emotionally and overreacting to correct them – either by withdrawing and trying to pretend the problem doesn’t exist, or coming up with some massive detailed time-sucking project to ensure that mistake never happens again.

I also realize this annoys my boss, a lot. She wants me to let go of mistakes easier (but that doesn’t mean she’s able to not-call-me-out on them when I make them.) And, I think she feels like I need a lot of reassurance all the time. I don’t WANT to be the kind of person who needs a lot of reassurance, but again that’s mostly because I don’t want others to feel burdened by me (and therefore think poorly of me) because that threatens my sense of safety…. See what a conundrum it is?

Also, if I’m being honest– most of this stuff is really only important to me because it’s important to my boss, who is directly in charge of evaluating my performance and providing my ongoing employment. If my boss didn’t care about mistakes I wouldn’t either. If my boss didn’t care whether our clients were happy I wouldn’t either. If my boss didn’t push for improvement and growth and change, I wouldn’t either. Because I am, at heart, a very selfish person. I don’t really care about doing a good job. All I really want is to know that *I’m* safe. If safety is contingent on doing a good job, then I have to care about it and I will. But it really isn’t work quality that motivates me, it’s the risk that poor quality work places to my job security and therefore my financial security. And of course, to complete the paradox, being honest about having these values only serves to make one’s employer more concerned/disapproving, thereby increasing the security risk. And, comfortably accepting this about myself prevents me from demonstrating growth and improvement, which also increases the risk–especially when your employer has the expectation that good will never be satisfactory if better is possible.

I’ll never actually solve this problem. I think my entire life/career will be spent constantly struggling to find a balance between avoiding mistakes and shrugging them off. The primary motivation for finding that balance is, again, a sense of security… because ultimately either extreme puts me at risk. And occasional failure is inevitable, and that’s a really frustrating reality to accept. In life, things will go wrong. Shit will happen no matter how well you prepare or how well you minimize the risks. What all of this amounts to is a complicated complaint that I can’t be both safe and comfortable; or: Life Isn’t Always Fair. It’s sucky, but wallowing in the suckiness only makes it suckier. So put on your Big Girl Panties and deal with it, I guess, yeah?

This is probably way too much thinking for a Wednesday morning. :P  

Going tonight to pick up a birth control refill. In the meantime, going to try and clear some of this work off of my desk… It’s one thing I CAN do to actively start reducing at least a portion of this stress.

Isn’t being a grownup fun?!~

CD17 – Still No Progress :(

Had another ultrasound this morning – and more disappointment. After two weeks of birth control the dratted follicle remnant is BIGGER, not smaller. UGH. So I’m staying on the birth control for now. They took more blood, and after they get the results back this afternoon they’ll call to tell me how long to stay on the birth control for and whether they’re going to change my birth control brand to something else.

Not only was this disappointing news, but the poor bloodwork tech had to stick me twice in order to get the blood she needed… and the first time she was digging around in my arm with the needle for a while before conceding defeat and going after the other arm instead. So not a very happy way to start the morning. Kind of depressing, actually.

I just keep reminding myself that this means no Christmastime baby. I did the math and would have to wait until April 10^th to conceive in order to have an EDD of January 1^st or later. So I’m trying to see that as a bright side, but it’s really hard. The last two weeks of birth control have felt longer than any TWW thus far… and now I’m going to have more to look forward to, before we get to try again. At least we’re not wasting expensive swimmers. But I am increasingly bummed that we missed February’s ovulation. We’re sitting out two months now. So frustrated.

In the meantime, the SCA event over the weekend was very successful. My apprentice sister Liepa was in charge of preparing the feast, which was – and I am not kidding – a work of ART. Seriously. The platters of food just kept going out – fish and turkey and chicken and rabbit, sausage and lamb and beef (and beef heart) – and all of them with an appropriate side dish of some sort. It was unbelievable. I got to help serve the food, which I haven’t ever done before, and actually had a really good time with it. I also got to wear my new wool dress, which my Laurel approved of (YAY!) and wear my goofy fur bonnet and dressed my dog in a little copy of my dress. Kaitlin ran the fencing tournament and provided dramatic announcements throughout the feast to explain to folks what they were eating… overall a great event, though I was exhausted by the end ( I can’t even IMAGINE how tired Liepa must have been, sheesh!!)

As soon as we left the event we stopped at my mom’s house and dropped Cricket off. She had to stay with my mom for two days, so that my mom could take her to the spay clinic on Monday. On Sunday my mom texted me the funniest sad picture of her, with her huge ears all folded back mournfully, hanging out in her little kennel and refusing to come out. :P The surgery went well on Monday, and they were able to pull her baby teeth too. She got a little tattoo of an “S” to mark her as spayed, and they gave her pain meds and antibiotics. They also said she had pyometria when they went in there – that’s a potentially very dangerous infection of the uterus. I guess it’s unusual in dogs her age, and the procedure cost an extra $20 as a result, but I was really thankful we were able to do her spay NOW so that she didn’t get really sick later.  I guess that’s another silver lining to all our TTC problems – the only reason I could spay her this month was because we weren’t paying for TTC.

Anyway, I fretted about her all throughout work on Monday, left work as early as possible and drove down to my mom’s to get her. Poor little thing was exhausted, but so so happy to see me, and as soon as I got her home she completely zonked out while cuddling me. She’s having to spend the days in her cage at home to be sure she doesn’t pull her stitches out by jumping on things while we’re not home… which I know must be very boring. Hopefully she’ll nap through most of it and heal quickly.

So anyway, that’s where we’re at now. Waiting to see what the doctor wants to do about the birth control, waiting for Cricket to heal up, and planning for yet another SCA event this weekend – it’s my favorite one of the year, so I’m looking forward to it.

Here’s hoping this round of birth control gets this stupid whatever-it-is under control finally. SIGH.

CD13 – Four more days of birth control left

I’ve been quiet on the blog this week because there hasn’t really been much to report on the TTC front. I’ve taken my birth control *grumble* faithfully, and there are four more days left now… my next ultrasound appointment is on Wednesday. I am PRAYING that it turns out well, that they tell me I can stop taking the birth control, and that AF returns right away. But somehow I suspect I’ll be waiting out a luteal phase before AF comes back. I’m really not thinking we’ll be able to make an attempt until April.

If we hadn’t had to do the birth control, we would have been able to do an IUI yesterday/today-ish. SIGH.

In the meantime, I finished my dress for the SCA event this weekend, and even had enough time to make a matching dress for my tiny dog. (Yes, I am that much of a dork. In my defense, though, she gets cold very easily because she has no fur, and this event is going to be COLD – it’s in a barn, and the temperature’s not supposed to even break 50 degrees. She’ll need a nice warm wool dress…) This week has been filled with preparations for the event – trips to the thrift stores near my house in search of decent feast gear, trips to the grocery store for snacks and lunch foods Kaitlin will eat (she’s picky), last-minute sewing bits, laundering and ironing my smock, making packing lists, and because my dog’s spay surgery is on Monday, making preparations to drop her off at my mom’s house down in Pueblo right after the event.

I’ll be without my little Cricket all day Sunday and Monday. I’m leaving work early on Monday, in fact, in order to drive back down to Pueblo and bring her home. I will seriously miss her, even for just a couple days. Since we don't have a baby to focus on right now, she gets all of my cute-little-creature attention. ;)

So that’s the exciting stuff going on in our lives lately. That, and waiting for the ultrasound next week. And researching bobbin lacemaking, which may be another little hobby I’ll pick up, as it looks like a fun, portable, useful little craft project…

CD5 – Oh, Birth Control

So I am dutifully taking my birth control every day, though a part of me grumbles every time I swallow one. Though I know it’s supposed to help me get pregnant in the long run, it feels so darned counter-productive to be taking birth control when what I want is to get pregnant. Pfffffft. At least the b/c pills were free!

Two weeks seems like an eternity away. Gah.

In the meantime, we have a friend who wants to go out dancing tonight. I’m torn on that. While it sounds like it could be fun, I am also tired. Guess I really am a grown up now, when a night spent at home sounds more appealing than a night out dancing. :P Guess we’ll see how we feel when we get home from work. On the plus side, I’m working a 7-4 shift today, and I actually have already completed all of the work on today’s task list, so I get to go home in about 45 minutes AND get to spend that time working on a wish-list project instead of a must-do project. Feels like a gift. ;) 

CD3 - Disappointed again

Got the call from the doctor. Since I’m not pregnant (no surprise there) they are starting me on birth control for two weeks. I go back in for an ultrasound on the 19^th to see if the follicles have shrunk.

Here’s where things get confusing. She said I might start bleeding as soon as I stop the birth control. If so, they’ll count that as the start of a new cycle and begin the whole Clomid/trigger/IUI process again. If not, it sounds like I have to wait for AF to show up again before we get to TTC.  And, if the ultrasound shows that the follicles are still too big, I have to stay on the birth control for another week and check again with another ultrasound before we can proceed.

What all of this amounts to is that it’s likely to be at least four more weeks before we get to do another IUI. Meaning that there will definitely be no 2014 baby :(  January 2015 is the earliest due date we can hope for.

Trying not to be too disappointed. After all, last month’s missed cycle meant I got new tires on my car, and this month’s missed/delayed cycle will mean a non-December birthdate (and possibly some money for savings if we don’t have TTC costs until April.) Originally Kaitlin and I had even talked about skipping this cycle on purpose so as not to inflict a December birthday on our kiddo. So this may just be the universe’s way of giving us the child we’re meant to have… But even staring hard at the silver lining can’t quite take away the gloom of the cloud at this particular moment. SIGH. I am SO not a patient person, and more waiting is just so frustrating.

I will try to just be grateful that my medical insurance is covering the cost of the ultrasounds. If I were paying for those out of pocket they’d be $250ish each. And at least we’re not blindly wasting vials of swimmers, since the RE is able to do the ultrasounds and see what’s really going on in there.

I’ll go by the pharmacy tonight and pick up the birth control pills, and I guess we’ll see what happens from there…

CD2, Part Deux

Just got the call from my RE’s office. My estrogen is elevated. Apparently this means I do have leftover follicles from last cycle, which is not good, so the doc has to put me on birth control for a while. I am hoping it doesn’t mean we can’t TTC this cycle – I will cry. ;.;

But I won’t have more details until tomorrow, because apparently they have to do a pregnancy test first. The nurse was trying, bless her heart, to be optimistic about the possibility of pregnancy, but we didn’t do an insemination last cycle AND I am currently on my second day of a very normal-looking period… so no. Still, she said they had to rule it out before they could prescribe the birth control, so I’m waiting for a call back tomorrow with further instructions. Looks like I may not be taking the Clomid at all this round.

Sigh.

Who would have thought that getting pregnant would be so complicated? I’m particularly frustrated because we’re into our third month now and we’ve only gotten to TTC once.

I know a lot of couples have had to try much, much longer, so it’s probably selfish of me to complain this early in :P but still. Sheesh.

Working late tonight to make up the time I missed for my appointment this morning. I think I need a little extra chocolate this afternoon…

CD2 - More Tests

I picked up a Clomid refill last night in preparation for this cycle, and then went in to the RE’s office this morning for an ultrasound. They found what looks like maybe some larger follicles on my left ovary, so they also took some blood to check my estrogen level. The doctor is going to review my chart and the bloodwork, and call this afternoon to let me know whether I should proceed with the Clomid tomorrow.  Fingers crossed that everything looks good – I’ll be sooooo frustrated if they ask me to sit out another cycle!!

Anyway, I also have an appointment for my tiny dog to get spayed and have some stubborn baby teeth pulled since they haven’t fallen out yet. This little adventure will be happening on St. Patrick’s Day, and I’m using a clinic down in Pueblo where my mom lives because they are SO much less expensive (like, $300 less) than any of the vets I can find up here. There’s an SCA event on the 15^th that’s down by my mom’s house anyway, so I’m taking my baby down there for the event, dropping her off with my mom, and will be without her for two days. My mom will take her in for me on Monday, and go pick her up, and then I’ll leave work early Monday to go get her. Poor little thing. She’ll be miserable for a while, and it’s so hard because you can’t exactly explain to her that I’m doing this for her benefit – all she knows is that her mama dropped her off at grandma’s and left – then grandma took her to a scary place where she got drugged and came out with painful stitches in her tummy. :( But it must be done. I guess it’s good practice for being a parent someday, LOL.

I’m trying to see if I can finish making a new wool dress for the SCA event. I have the bodice and lace-on sleeves done, but need to sew the skirt together, finish the seams, attach the skirt to the bodice, add skirt guards (decorative banding) and then make a couple dozen eyelets along the back by hand. All between now and the 15^th. Not sure whether I’ll make it or not… And there’s a whole overgown I’d love to do that I know I won’t complete in time.  Here's a little graphic of the under and over dresses that I'm planning:

But, the dress will be wool, and therefore warm, and the event is always freezing cold because it’s in a barn. If I have time, Kaitlin also wants me to make her a hat, and I’d like to make a warm wool cape or something for my little dog so she can stay warm too. ;)

So lots of things to keep me busy in the next couple weeks, thank goodness. I’m just hoping that the TWW will be equally full of distractions!

CD1 – Back In The Saddle Again

AF showed up bright and early this morning, hooray! So I called my RE – they want me to come in for an office visit tomorrow morning to do an ultrasound and be sure I don’t have leftover follicles from last cycle. (I doubt it – the only ones they found last month were tiny, thanks to that darned early ovulation…) Tonight I go pick up a Clomid refill from the pharmacy, which I’ll start taking on CD3 – Wednesday.

And I have another ultrasound appointment next week on Tuesday to see what follicles result. They wanted me in on CD11, but I have work meetings all day, so CD10 it is. I’m actually glad it’s on the earlier day... I’ll be so, SO disappointed if we miss ovulation again. I know I ovulated on CD7 last cycle, probably because my AF was screwed up and I was so sick – so I’m really hoping that this time we’re back to a nice healthy cycle where everything happens the way it’s supposed to.

Anyway, if this were to be the successful cycle our due date would be in December – which is probably our least desired kiddo birthday time. Murphy’s law, then, says that this attempt is likely to work. :P Oh, and the due date would be just a couple days after Kaitlin’s birthday – so then we’ll have to have unbirthday celebrations for both Kaitlin and kiddo on very separate days so that each of them gets their own day to be celebrated. :P

Gosh, even though we only skipped one cycle it feels like FOREVER since we last got to make a TTC attempt. :P

In the meantime, we picked up our engagement photos last weekend, so I thought I’d share them here. They turned out so cute! I love Kaitlin’s shiny ringlets… it took me like two hours to curl her hair up like that, LOL. It looks so pretty though!

(This one's my favorite)

CD14 – Disappointing News

I went in for my ultrasound on Saturday to see how many nice follies I’d have after this cycle’s round of Clomid… And there were only two or three very small ones, plus a gigantic, mysterious dark thing. They drew blood to try and figure out what was going on, and I left worried that I had some sort of a cyst that we’d have to deal with.  Got the call later on that afternoon – I don’t have a cyst (good news) but apparently I had already ovulated. And the RE said, based on the level of progesterone in my blood she’s pretty sure that I ovulated more than one egg. So the good news is, I’m responding strongly to the Clomid. The bad news is that we don’t get to do an IUI this cycle because the egg(s) are already gone.

So disappointed, sigh… I am going to take it as a sign from the universe that I am meant to put new tires on my car, since they’re almost entirely smooth and we still have the heavy March and April snows coming. Replacing my tires will be around $250 and I wouldn’t have had the money if I paid for an IUI this cycle. So as disappointed as I am that I have to wait another month before we can do attempt #2 – I should probably be focused on being grateful instead.

I’m not really surprised. My flow was so bizarre this cycle and then I got sick and had crazy high temperatures for a couple days… I have to wonder if my body got confused and decided to release eggs early as a result. Based on my temperature chart, I’m guessing I ovulated sometime around CD7, but it could have been even earlier than that. *sigh* So I knew this cycle was going to be weird – I was even worried based just on the unusual AF that I’d have to sit this one out. Now my body has decided for me, I guess.

So babymaking is on hold until my next AF begins – I’m just supposed to call the RE on the first day of AF so we can do another round of Clomid. Not sure when to predict AF will arrive. If I go 14DPO, it would be March 3^rd. If I go my usual 24 day cycle, it would be around March 7^th. I guess if it comes nearer the 3^rd I’ll have a better idea of when I ovulated, yeah?

In the meantime we spent the weekend cleaning the house, going grocery shopping, and I spent some time with my mom yesterday since she came up to show me how to use the embroidery machine she gave me. I also painted my nails (though it came out goopy and I’ll probably redo them) after a couple weeks of being too busy to tend to them. I’m looking forward to next weekend, since that’s when we get to go look at our engagement photos and see how they turned out. :) And this afternoon on my lunch break I’m going over to Walmart to look into replacing my tires. I have to admit, I will feel a lot safer once I have the new tires on – and a lot less apprehensive about the coming spring snows. 

I kind of hope AF shows up as soon as possible so we can get another crack at this…

CD9 – Attack of Life

I haven’t updated in a long while because the last week or so has been completely overwhelming… I was very sick over Valentine’s Day, had to finish an embroidery project, and things got chaotic at work. But here’s where we’re at now:

On Valentine’s Day I talked to the RE and let her know that my spotting had pretty much stopped. She also confirmed that the blood pregnancy test had come back negative. This is one of the oddest periods I’ve ever had… a much lighter flow than usual (it barely even became more than spotting) and such a dark color. Anyway, the RE said we would use Tuesday the 11^th, when the spotting started, as CD1. She put me back on the 100mg/day dose of Clomid for five days, starting on CD4 (Valentine’s.) Though I was sick and miserable, I still went faithfully to the drugstore, picked up my prescription, and took it daily. Yesterday was my last dose. I got a few spots in my vision this morning, but otherwise I feel like I’ve had a lot fewer symptoms from the Clomid this cycle than last time. I’m hoping that doesn’t mean my body’s being less responsive to it…

I have an appointment for an ultrasound on Saturday at 8 AM. I’m going to be using OPKs between now and then just to be sure I don’t get a smiley first – the RE didn’t tell me to do this, but I really don’t want to miss this cycle by not paying attention.  Also, I really, really think that the reason my last period was so odd was because I didn’t have a very good uterine lining last cycle… from what I understand, Clomid does that sometimes. The blood was old and there wasn’t much of it, which makes me think my lining wasn’t thick enough for implantation and it died long before my body was ready to shed it. So I did a little online research and until I go in for the ultrasound I’m going to take a Vitamin E supplement and a baby aspirin every day in addition to my prenatal, to see if this will help thicken my lining up.

I am also going to ask the doctor pretty earnestly for progesterone this time around. I really think my lining died off early and my poor little egg(s) – if fertilized – didn’t have a chance as a result.

I’ve actually had so much other stuff on my plate the last week or so that I haven’t had much time to think about TTC. I’ve been temping in the mornings but my chart is wayyyy messed up because of the fever I had while I was sick. Also, Kaitlin’s dad went into the hospital on Monday after a heart attack, and he’s currently not in great shape, plus things are very stressful for her at work right now, so she’s under a lot of pressure too and hasn’t been having a very good week so far…

On the sunshiny side, though, we did go in to do our vintage-style engagement photos on Monday night. And that was actually a LOT of fun. It took me about an hour and a half to curl Kaitlin’s hair into a ton of doll-like ringlets, and we did our makeup and put on false lashes and I wore a pair of my PinkyParadise contacts for good measure. Then we got to the photo studio, signed in and got to change into shabby-chic lace dresses and 1930’s-style hats and pearls, and go pose for the photographer.

We’re going back on March 3^rd to pick up our large photo (the one that comes with the package we bought) and probably buy the CD of images too so that we can print others out as we wish. I’m really excited to see how they turned out. Kaitlin looked really pretty and I felt super cute (I had this little hat that looked AWESOME with my short hair) so it’s something to look forward to in the midst of all this craziness.