IVF#2 CD14 - Name Change and Other Developments

I was supposed to get an email from my new IVF coordinator today with instructions about Estrogen (and hopefully some idea of the dates I have to be in Greece) but didn't hear anything. Sent an email, but won't get a reply until probably early tomorrow morning because of the time difference. Here's hoping she gets in touch and we don't have another stressful period of silence...

I went to the bank today and finalized the transfer of 4800 Euro to the Greek clinic. Also hoping everything goes smoothly and that the 4800 is accepted, since that's what they originally quoted me.

I finally, finally got my IRS background check back for my name change. You know, the paperwork I started right after I got my BFP in December. So I took a long lunch yesterday and went to the county courthouse, about 20 minutes and 20 miles from work, to file the paperwork. Got it filed and paid my $120, only to be told that the judges were on lunch and if I wanted to wait, I could get it signed. I couldn't wait, because I had a meeting at work I had to get back to. They said okay, if I could get back by 4:30 I could get it signed then.

Drove back to work, went to the meeting. Left the meeting a little early so I'd have time to drive BACK to the courthouse, where first the lady told me the judges had closed at 4, then the other lady said she might be able to squeeze me in. Sat there for about 15 minutes and the court clerk called me upstairs - judge signed my petition. They set a review hearing for 5/22, so I have to go back then to have the final order issued.

Drove home with my paperwork, ready to send it off to the publisher in order to meet the 3-weeks-of-published-notice requirement. Realized when I got home that they gave me only one of the two documents I need. So now I have to find another day when I can either come in late or leave early so that I can go back to the courthouse, pick up the second document, and fulfill the publication requirement before I leave the country. Ugh. Really annoyed, because it means a lot of gas and time away from work, and the courthouse is only open during the times I'm supposed to be at work.

In the meantime, I got a phone call yesterday morning that my sister-in-law is pregnant. She and my brother have only been trying for about 6 months. And while I am happy for them - I truly am - and I know they're super excited and they deserve to be, I had to retreat into my own space for a while to process. Twenty five grand we've spent on this. Pills, injections, more doctors' visits than I can count, being probed and stabbed over and over again. Flights and hotel and wiring money and ordering meds overseas and traveling halfway around the world... finally, FINALLY getting pregnant only to lose the baby... and we're no closer to our baby now than we were fifteen months ago when we started all this.  Yet after six months, my brother and his wife get pregnant, easy as that.

I know the world isn't always fair. I know that just because we're struggling with infertility doesn't mean the rest of the world should have to. And I don't wish this awfulness and stress on anybody. But it does make me rage at the universe, a little. I want a baby so badly. I feel, though I know it's ridiculous and irrelevant, that surely we've "earned" pregnancy by now. Surely it should be our "turn". Surely the world should be more fair than this.

I wish I was a stronger person. I wish I was a bigger person. I wish I was graceful and kind and loving and generous and selfless. I want to be joyful and patient through all of this, to just sit back and enjoy the adventure, the mystery, the anticipation, the exotic foreign travel. Yet I'm mad, and I don't even have anyone to be mad AT.

But there is a silver lining. If this next round works my SIL and I can be pregnancy buddies... we can share our experiences throughout the stages of pregnancy, and have our babies at almost the same time, and end up with cousins super close in age. That would make for a fun time at family gatherings, since they'd have automatic playmates. I might even allow myself to believe, if this next round is successful, that that's how it was meant to be.... that maybe the REASON I miscarried, the reason we've had to wait so long, is because fate always meant for us to have babies at the same time.

It's just really hard to keep up hope right now. I'm so afraid of hoping. I'm so afraid of giving up. I'm so tired, tired, tired of the nonstop uncertainty. I'm afraid that all this fear is going to keep me from getting pregnant, in and of itself. Getting pregnant was supposed to be fun. Changing my name was supposed to be fun (it's high time I got rid of my ex's last name and moved on with my life.) Having my next book published was supposed to be fun, but somehow I think my skin has gotten thinner, because every negative comment is getting to me and they never used to before.  Not good. You can't be any sort of creative professional and be that sensitive.

My self-confidence is taking such a beating these last few days, and I just want to curl up and hide until it's over. I need something good to happen. I need some success to come at me and reassure me that I don't suck as a human being. Of course, I'd be more than content to continue to let the world keep beating me up in exchange for a sticky BFP this time.  I could take anything the world throws at me with a happy heart, if only I could just get pregnant again and get to keep it.

If I hadn't lost my baby, I'd be at nineteen weeks or so right now. Almost halfway there. It's hard to imagine. Is it normal that the more time goes by, the MORE you miss a baby that you were barely even pregnant with?

Anyway, I can't think about that for too long or I start crying again. Forward. Have to think forward. I will be in Greece in a week and a half or so. I'll have days to myself to loaf around a hotel, hopefully swim in a pool, read books, write, surf the internet, SLEEP - whatever I want. We have another chance, when I didn't think that we would for a long time. And nothing I do can change fate. I follow my med protocol, I get my butt to Greece, I show up to get my embryos, I stay healthy and hydrated and nutriented and restful. That's all I can do. The rest is just a roll of the dice and a prayer.

IVF#2 - Still waiting for AF

I am expecting AF today, but so far she hasn't showed. We've been doing Lupron shots for a week now, and we're opening up our second bottle of meds, and the bottle I ordered on 3/5 still hasn't arrived yet even though the USPS tracking says it was in Chicago on 3/16. Starting to get a little nervous. I have enough meds for two more weeks. SURELY the new bottle will arrive by then...??

Once AF shows I have to call my RE's office for an ultrasound and bloodwork. I'm not looking forward to explaining to them that I miscarried in January. I'm hoping, though, that AF is going to come today, because then I can get an appointment for Friday. If it doesn't come today I'll need a weekend appointment, and that's only going to make my already-somewhat-unfriendly RE even unfriendlier.

I am a blur of emotions right now (part of the reason I know AF is coming, LOL). I am excited and hopeful... even have moments where I'm absolutely certain that this is going to be it for us, that I'm going to have a few relaxing days in Greece, come home and get another string of positive pregnancy tests a couple weeks later, but this time NO BLEEDING, NO CRAMPING, NO SCARIES. Just two weeks, BFP, a couple positive betas, four weeks of excited bliss, a first ultrasound showing a perfectly normal developing sac (or two), and on to morning sickness, more ultrasounds, and relatively smooth sailing for the next nine months.

 But I am also still angry, maybe even a little in disbelief over January's loss. It still feels incomprehensible that I'm not pregnant anymore. I should have a baby the size of an avocado right now. I should be wearing maternity clothes, decorating a nursery, and heck... I might know the baby's gender by now. I should be posting weekly bump photos to Facebook and keeping a pregnancy journal and just... celebrating life.

Instead I'm planning another trip to Greece. Quietly, trying to keep it as short and low-key as possible. I'm trying to think of it as a nice little mini-vacation, a chance to read, work on my next book, rest - and not think of it as a long, exhausting, lonely, somewhat scary trip to a foreign country all alone where I don't speak the language and have to figure out how to call taxis by myself and whether it's safe to walk a few blocks from my hotel at night to eat dinner alone.  And in that sense I feel sad, and scared, and maybe a little depressed. While I do have moments where I'm certain it's going to work, there are just as many moments when the fatalist in me is equally sure that I'm going to go, force myself to stab my own stomach with a needle, go through the pinchy-pressure of the transfer all alone, fly for hours and hours and hours and hours, only to get a BFN two weeks later and be no closer to having a baby than I am right now and completely broke, with months and months and months to go before I can try for a third and final time. Or worse, I get pregnant and miscarry again. I keep thinking about that bitter Italian lady that I got stuck next to during the two hour recovery time at the clinic - how it was her second attempt and she spent most of the time talking about how she was sure it wasn't going to work. I hear a lot of her in my own thoughts right now and I don't like it. One resolution - I am for SURE not going to allow myself to burst the bubble of anybody else while I'm there. I may not be able to keep the negativity out of my own head, but I am sure as heck not going to plant it in anybody else's. That's just mean.

I want to cry. I also desperately want to hope, but only if this time is actually going to result in a baby. I'd rather not have any hope at all than go through that disappointment again. But it's not like I can really complain, since I'm the one who's choosing to stay in this game. That means I'm choosing to risk more disappointment, which is still more appealing right now than the thought of giving up. So I may be feeling bitter and disgusted with the universe, but I guess I still must have hope in there somewhere. As much as I'd like to throw my hands in the air and exclaim theatrically that I'm DONE, as much as I hate hate hate the idea of false hope, I must not have really given up yet... because I'm going back. That has to count for something, right?

The excitement of my new book launch has mostly worn off. In a sense it feels a little anticlimactic, actually, because it doesn't feel like I've gotten as much feedback as I guess I was expecting. I've been filling the time in the past few days with designing Disney-princess-themed work outfits on Polyvore and trying not to think too much. I'm taking my prenatal faithfully, along with a slew of other vitamins. I filled my mini-fridge at work with salad stuff. I'm trying to drink water, though I'm not very good at it. I'm trying to stay focused at work, though I'm not doing a good job of that this week either.

I'm tired today, and highly emotional, and also restless. So basically, PMSy. The one thing that I do know is that while right now the moment of truth feels so far away - end of April/beginning of May, probably, before I'll know if this round works - it will eventually get here. Time keeps marching on. Not as fast as I want it to, I'm still really wishing for that fast-forward button - but it will eventually get here, and I'll have my answer for better or worse.

If it works, the due date would be early January next year.

I just have to keep my eye on next month's calendar, and keep making it through the days. Someday when I'm old and gray I'll probably look back at this time and wish that I'd spent more time enjoying the days I did have instead of wishing they'd hurry by. Perspective is such a tricky thing.

In The Clear And Moving On

Well, it’s been a pretty much nonexistent last few weeks on the TTC front, just waiting for AF to arrive again.

Which she did today. So that’s good, because it means the miscarriage is really over and cleared out, and we can move on now. We’re sitting out this cycle while I wait to get my tax refund, and to allow my body to hopefully reset itself. But I sent an email to the Greek clinic today, because the hope is that we will get to go back in March. I asked for another Lupron prescription, so that if I need to order more I can get a head start on it and hopefully not have to pay the $100 for expedited shipping.  And I don’t think I’ll need any more scans or bloodwork until my March cycle starts… but I guess we’ll see.

If a March cycle worked (AF would be due around 3/2, putting our transfer date at approximately 3/16) then the baby’s due date would be around December 7^th – just a few days shy of Kaitlin’s birthday. Funny how, when we started this whole thing, I was really concerned with even skipping cycles to make sure that our baby didn’t have a December birthday, and now that doesn’t seem important anymore… the only thing that’s important now is actually getting pregnant and being able to keep that pregnancy all the way through to a baby.

Anyway,  it’s looking like I’ll be getting about $5700 back in tax refunds this year, thanks to all the out of pocket medical expenses from last year. The Greek clinic’s going to charge 4800 Euro for a second try, which right now is about equivalent to $5433 USD – the dollar is on a strong curve right now and I’m really hoping that holds for the next two months. Between my tax refund, the airline miles I have on the AMEX card I got for the last trip, and hopefully being able to save a little more from last month’s paycheck and February’s,  I should be able to pull this off.

It remains to be seen whether Kaitlin will be able to afford a plane ticket, or even be able to get the time off of work to come. In the last week she’s had several promising job opportunities come up – she’s now set up to do substitute teaching, and she’s actually out subbing today. She also just got hired at a local community college to teach some classes – those don’t start until August, though. And she has a second interview at Apple where she’s hoping to get hired on full time as a support tech.  Here’s hoping that all this means that she won’t be unemployed for much longer…

In the meantime, I finally managed to work through all that post-miscarriage depression by developing some uber-crafty projects to promote my upcoming book release. Having a new creative craft to focus attention on, something I can get excited about, has been just the thing I needed to feel like there’s a reason to get up in the morning again. I bought a little button/badge maker machine that I’ve been eyeing for a year,  and started working on making little plush dolls for my book characters and a ton of mini-books with my book covers on them, which make the cutest little charms for jewelry, zipper pulls, bookmarks and so on. Also got back into the 3D rendering stuff and creating character images for my website.

Keeping myself absorbed in crafty stuff is helping, though I still feel a little queasy when I’m walking past the baby sections in Walmart, and I’m still having a really hard time being around all of the babies and young parents at work. One step at a time, though, I guess. And at least, with AF showing up today, it’s starting to feel like we’re moving toward something again.

Only other update is kind of an annoyance –  the ER finally sent me the bill for that trip we made out there when the bleeding started. You know, the one where they put in an unnecessary IV and spent an hour doing an ultrasound and did some blood and urine work, then sent me home with a “not much we can do” letter. .. anyway, they sent the bill for THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS. I just about had a heart attack, and  the next day at work I got in contact with our insurance assistant-y person and faxed her a copy of the bill, praying that it was wrong. She looked into it for me, and sure enough – I only owe my $150 ER copay, NOT that ridiculous bill. Apparently the provider tried to tell Aetna that they had done some sort of experimental procedure??? And Aetna informed them they couldn’t bill me for it, so they have to send me a corrected bill for my copay instead. I don’t know if that means Aetna will pay for the procedure  themselves, but I’m more curious to know what POSSIBLE “experimental” procedure they could have done with an ultrasound, blood test, and urine test?? How bizarre.

When the lady emailed me back to say she’d gotten the bill sorted out I could have just kissed her. That bill might have meant the difference between being able to try again or not this year.

So now we play the waiting game for the rest of this month, and I try to eat right and exercise and keep up with my vitamins and all that other good stuff until it’s time for doctor appointments and injections and all of that again… oh boy!

Whole Lotta Nothing Going On

Got a call from the OB GYN today. My blood test results from last Thursday showed HcG of 42. She doesn't think it's necessary to keep testing, she's pretty sure it's going to zero by itself, especially since the bleeding's stopped. In the meantime, my face has broken out, I've been irritable and bloated, and today I had a huge amount of EWCM - like, enough to almost be similar to a blood clot during AF. Yuck.

So basically it looks like my body is headed back to business as usual, and I'm probably ovulating-ish at the moment, and AF should show up in another couple of weeks.

In the meantime I just feel down. Not super depressed and sad anymore, just... down. Facebook is LOADED with pictures of pregnant friends, friends with babies, friends with their kids. Even an article going around about miscarriage... joy. It's a double-edged sword, too, because while seeing all the babies is painful and makes me shamefully jealous and irrationally angry, it also reminds me that I can't give up yet, damn it. I can't give up on this. We got so far... I won't be able to forgive myself if I give up now.

Trying to focus on exercise, and sleep, and work, and my book. But mostly my brain wants to disappear into fantasyland and sit out the wait. I should try to use that, I guess, to work on my next book, so that it doesn't take me seven years to get it finished this time. But I feel uninspired and lazy, and a little stuck in trying to get the story off the ground. So I'm just sort of twiddling my thumbs in limbo, waiting for the weeks to pass so that I can put together travel money and get my body back into a workable cycle again.

Kinda boring, right?

Killing time

Today feels like the most normal day I've had in a long time. Bleeding's gone. Itching is getting better. Back to only peeing a couple times a day. Work is back into its regular swing of being utterly overwhelming and trying to focus on accomplishing one thing at a time, one meeting at a time, one email at a time. Last night was a typical work night - come home, eat some food, watch some TV, go to bed, feel like I didn't have nearly enough time to unwind.

As if I never was pregnant at all. As if none of this ever happened.

Which, right now, feels better than grief -- even if it's not happiness.

I think one of the things that's so frustrating about TTC is that there's so little I can do on a daily basis to bring myself closer to the goal, other than taking a prenatal vitamin, trying to remain in good health, trying to forgo buying anything I don't absolutely need and... well, that's it. Wait for AF. The bleeding only just stopped, and it will be weeks before it comes again, and even when it comes, it won't mean anything. We won't be doing anything with it, just letting it pass by and waiting for it to come a second time. My hope, though, is that when it comes that second time we can start our meds again, make travel plans, get ultrasounds and gear up for our next try.

So I'm trying to think of things I could or ought to do in the meantime. One of them is physical exercise. I've done pretty much nothing except the occasional week or two of walking on my lunch break. And even that dropped off pretty quickly. I need to make exercise a regular part of my day, I do, and now that I'm not pregnant and have to wait a while before I can try again now would be the time to do it. So I'm going to start today, by going for a walk around the building on lunch. (I can walk indoors at work by making a bunch of rounds through the courthouse; up the stairs, walk to one end, down the stairs, walk to the other end, back up again, etc.) It will feel a little like I'm at least doing *something*. Plus, this last year of TTC has done a number on my body, and I'm so out of shape it makes me cringe.

What I need, though, is to see if I can get the book we're supposed to be reading for my work's leadership book club in audio form. Then I can walk and listen to it at the same time, thereby being efficient. :P

The other things I really need to do include getting my house clean - all our Christmas stuff packed up - and getting our garage cleaned out. My poor little car could also really use a good cleaning. And, I'd like to revisit all the stuff I had planned for my upcoming book release. I really shouldn't let it sit by the wayside, no matter how depressed I am. A book birthday pretty much only comes along once in a book's lifetime and it would be stupid to waste it wallowing in self-pity.

Going to try not to do too much too fast, though. One thing at a time. One day at a time. Have to try and keep the days busy so that they pass faster. So that AF comes sooner. It's my choice, really, whether these days and weeks fly by or whether they drag... and the key is to keep them full of stuff to do. So that's what I'll work on, starting today. At least it will make me feel like I'm doing something to get me closer to the goal, even if it's just waiting it out.

Maybe

My insomnia didn't take very long to come back... I didn't fall asleep at all last night. I am woozy and exhausted today. I finished my page proofs and emailed them in; also verified that my next book's cover and release date were launched on my publisher's website, so I'm finally able to announce them on my FB page. Took care of that this morning.

But I've realized that every book release I've ever had has occurred during a time of chaos in my life, a time when I didn't have the emotional energy to commit to promotion or psyching up my readers or anything else. And it's happening again this time. The book comes out in March... a while back I had made a long checklist of action items I was going to do in order to promote it - website updates, contests, surveys, some promotional giveaway items, a launch party and so on. Now I'm depressed. And I know that sounds stupid, but the joy just isn't there. I want it to be, but it feels hollow. Writing is the one dream that I have actually achieved in my life, the only one that hasn't been taken away from me. Yet I want a baby so much more that the whole book thing doesn't feel exciting, just tiresome. A big responsibility, that I had wanted to tackle with brightness and energy this time around, and instead just feels like a poor substitute for what I really wanted.

I was going to announce my pregnancy right around the book release date. March was going to be one of the most awesome months of my entire life. Now, I'll be lucky if I get to spend some of it in Greece, trying again.

I've been lying in bed for hours now, unable to sleep. Finished my page proofs super early this morning, so next on the list is house cleaning. There's tons to do. Kaitlin asked me to do one thing in particular, while she's out taking her PLACE exams today, and I can't remember what it was. And I don't want to lie in bed anymore, but I also don't feel like cleaning. I know, intrinsically, that if I force myself to do it I might feel a little better. Maybe I would feel like we were moving on. Like I'm hitting the reset button on life, getting to the acceptance phase of this whole grief process, and getting over it. It's not like there's any other choice. And that's what makes me angry, I guess, not having any other choices.

A clean house would be a start. But some part of me resents it, doesn't want to pack away Christmas and straighten the house and try to get back into life again, when it's not the life I wanted. Some part of me wants to sit and be angry. Some part of me is furious that I don't have the option to reject this, to declare it unacceptable, to wave a magic wand and be pregnant through sheer force of will. And that part of me is sitting sullenly in bed. As if, by boycotting life until it gives me what I want, I can somehow make the universe feel sorry for being so mean to me. Like some sort of whiny victim who imagines herself the Gandhi of miscarriage.

It doesn't get much more self-centered than that, does it? And if that's the attitude I'm going to have, my misery is self-inflicted and I don't have the right to complain.

Not sure which stage of grief you'd call this. Pretty sure Anger, mostly because Denial's not an option. Probably going to skip over Bargaining, because... well, I've got nothing to bargain with. And Depression's in there too. May even get worse BECAUSE I have to clean the house, and go back to work, and focus on money and my cycles and all of that again. And I have the uncomfortable feeling I'm not going to be able to achieve Acceptance until we are actually able to launch another round, and that it may be contingent on whether or not a second round is successful.

I am afraid of expecting too much from a second try. Google seems to think that a person is more fertile after miscarriage. That statistically I am unlikely to miscarry twice in a row. I find myself starting to feel pretty damn entitled - OF COURSE I will get pregnant right away on our next try, and OF COURSE I will get to keep it then, because I have most certainly earned it by now, right? I keep having to remind myself there's the chance I'll go back and not get pregnant at all. Or go back, get pregnant, and miscarry again. Not everybody gets a happy ending. And then what? How many times can I do this before the money runs out? Before I'm so deep in debt it will take me the rest of my career to pay it off? And what if I do get pregnant, after saddling us and our future child with so much debt that all the things I dreamed of being able to do with and for our child are now impossible?

I "what if" things to death. Right now March is my beacon of hope. We won't get to try in January. If I'm lucky this bleeding will stop soon and my HcG will zero out on its own. Then we have to skip February while I file my taxes and wait for an AF to come and go. And then, maybe, if those things will happen quickly enough, maybe we can take our next try in March. And maybe, if that goes right this time, I will still have a baby by Christmas. Maybe.

Or maybe I will be deleting this blog and giving up.

IVF#1 11DP5DT - Merry Christmas Eve Eve!!

So this morning I took another test.




Darker positive second line, which is a good sign, but at the same time I'm spotting today. While our IVF coordinator told us that could happen, and said it could be very normal, it's still a little unnerving. I don't want to be spotting, I want to be pregnant. :P Apparently the two are not mutually exclusive, but my lizard brain says they SHOULD be.

Anyway, it still looks like we are on track, and I'm holding my breath. I'm going to use the last of my pregnancy tests - a Clearblue digital - tomorrow in the morning, just before I go in for my blood draw. And by tomorrow afternoon we should have our doctor-verified pregnancy result. And then, if the universe continues to be kind, we should get a second test result on Friday that shows the numbers increasing... and we'll be on our way.

I got dizzy again today, about an hour after taking my lunchtime meds. More dizzy than I remember feeling yesterday, and it was a little worrying because I was driving my car back to work from lunch when it first hit. Thankfully I went into a meeting and focusing on work stuff sort of made it fade into the background. But it was weird. I don't notice it as much with my nightly doses, but that's probably because that's around the time I'm heading to bed anyway.

I am also still peeing like crazy - I used to have to go maybe 2 - 3 times a day, and right now it's more like 10-12. That is not EVEN an exaggeration. It's seriously annoying. And I am feeling a bit of cramping today, very low and on either side of my abdomen. And spotting, just a little bit. No nausea or ultra-fatigue yet, and I am perfectly okay with it if those would like to wait a bit before showing up, LOL... My energy level is back to normal today - I was reluctant to get out of bed this morning, and I'm not bouncing and zooming like I was yesterday. A shame, because THAT was a side effect I could definitely get happily used to. But I think I'd forgotten how much energy my work takes, and how quickly I burn down throughout the week, and though I felt good about what I got done yesterday I definitely felt the effects this morning.

I got page proofs for my next book via email this morning, so now there's another project on my plate for the next couple weeks. Excited, because if all goes well I could be announcing my pregnancy right about the same time as the book is released, and that is just DARN cool. I don't know how my poor little heart will take the overload of joy. 2015 is shaping up to be an AWESOME year - right exactly when I could really use it, since work is shaping up to be a huge challenge - and I'll take all the personal joy I can get to ensure that work stress just rolls right off in favor of the truly important things in life. <3

So this blog is over a year old now, I just realized. And here's the post from Christmas Eve Eve last year, in which I was gearing up to propose to Kaitlin. Wow. This year has been one of the most roller-coaster crazyinsane adventurous journeys I think I've ever been through. Funny, because looking back on it now I remember feeling mostly stagnant and stuck all year, with BFNs galore and delay after delay and nothing but disappointments and steadily increasing medical bills. And yet it's brought us to a (possible) BFP after all, one year later.

Unbelievable.

Now if only this will stick, and NOT turn out to be a chemical, and carry through the next nine months strong and healthy and right. 

IVF#1 CD1 - Start Your Engines!

AF came this morning. The moment we've all been waiting for!! (Erm, well, at least the moment Kaitlin and I have been waiting for...)

And this means we're well and truly ready to gear up for this sucker. I have an ultrasound/estrogen bloodwork test scheduled for tomorrow morning. Our Lupron shots continue every night. Once my estrogen level is right, the Greek clinic's going to have me start taking additional estrogen, and we should know then exactly what dates we're going to need to be in Greece.

Then I have to buy tickets and make travel arrangements, and arrange things at work for coverage and so on, and pack, and make arrangements for my mom to watch my dog... and THEN it is off to Greece for an embryo transfer (and a tour of Athens and the nearby areas.)  It's looking like the weather in Greece is going to be pretty typical of weather here - some snow and thunderstorms, high temps in the 50's. Not as much fun as being there in the summer, but I'll bring warm clothes because I'm determined we're going to have fun. Who knows, maybe we'll even be there over Christmas... that would be kind of cool.

I started writing a book for our future kiddo. Presumptuous, I know, but I'm trying to be optimistic. I want our kiddo to have a bedtime storybook that tells them how they were conceived - how badly Kaitlin and I wanted to have a baby, and all the things we went through to bring them into our family. It will talk about how we used donors to make the baby we wanted, because the doctors told us we couldn't have a baby on our own. And it means we can raise our kiddo from the very beginning with a loving account of where they came from, how much they were wanted... give them the sense that having them is our happily-ever-after, that they are the happy ending to our story. Anyway, it's ambitious, of course, because I'm assuming we're going to GET a happy ending after all of this, and that part still remains to be seen. But putting it in writing gives me a feeling, however unrealistic, that I have some sort of magic power to make it happen by writing it down.

Anyway, if we do get pregnant, I'm going to ask Kaitlin to do illustrations for the book, and we'll publish it through Snapfish or one of those other scrapbooking kinds of places, and our future kiddo will have their own book, all about them and how they "saved the day" for their moms.

This is really going to happen. We're really going out there. And I am gearing up for what is likely to be the most nervewracking TWW of my entire life...

In the meantime, I completed the edits on my third novel and submitted them. I should be working on my fourth novel coming up next... still having such a hard time getting "into" the new set of characters. This always happens. I think I was probably five or eight chapters into PotH before I really started falling in love with Kade and Erinda. Hoping that's going to happen here, once I really dig into Frost and Panna's story. I'm determined to be a good book-mommy this round, and monitor book awards and blogs and do a real, planned marketing campaign when PotH comes out. Though I realize that ultimately the very best marketing I could do for my books would be to actually just keep writing them, and not let 10 years go by in between. :P

Injections start tomorrow

Been a pretty quiet couple weeks on the TTC front. The meds are just sitting on my countertop, and I've spent the time focusing on other things. It's performance evaluation time at work, so I'm in for some loooooong days (and nights) until I can get all my staff's evals done, approved by my boss, reviewed with the staff, signed, and turned in. I've got two mostly done and three to go, but only a week and a half left to finish them in.

In the meantime, last weekend was that SCA event with the Laureling ceremony. I've never been that close to one before so it was pretty awesome to get to really see the inner workings of all the elements that go into it. My apprentice sister did SO MUCH WORK, I really have to believe she is secretly a superhero of some kind. Anyway, it was beautiful, and thankfully she liked the coat I made, and people seemed to like my dress  - though I am in desperate need of more comfortable garb. Wearing a full-on Tudor gown for 10 hours gets pretty darned painful by the end of the night. When I get my hands on a little more money I'm going to try and crank out a Norse/Viking. It will give me the chance to practice my abysmal embroidery skills too.

Now it's on to feverishly editing my book for the 12/1 due date. I've only gotten to chapter 7 so far, so I'm really going to have to pick up the pace to have it ready. This weekend, I suspect, will be spent mostly sitting under my electric blanket with my little netbook. It's been freezing cold this week and I've been miserable and cranky, as I always am when the weather turns cold. Ugh.

So this month is still tightly packed and I haven't had the time or energy to pay much attention to keeping house... when I finally do get some breathing room to do chores I fear they're going to take FOREVER to get through. SIGH.

Anyway, I emailed the Greek clinic today to confirm that I should start Lupron tomorrow. I'm guessing these injections will be even less pleasant than the Follistim, because there's no pretty injection pen, just separate little syringes that have to be filled. Uuuuuuuugh. ;.; This had just better turn into a baby that loves me forever and ever for facing one of my biggest phobias every day for the sake of bringing them into the world. :P

I am looking forward to the time off from work. Kind of worried about it too, as it always seems to be when I'm out that shit hits the fan, and I come back to a lot of trouble. Praying to every power in existence that my staff behave themselves, our clients behave themselves, and no calamities arise in the two weeks that I'm planning to be out. But that stress aside, having two whole, blissful weeks of not-being-at-work, and even better, being in Greece, and even better, the chance that I could come home pregnant... it's really a bright spot on the horizon of my life right now. 2015 could be a year that completely changes my life, if we're successful with this.

Here's hoping. Cross fingers for me tomorrow, cause these injections are not going to be fun.

Meds are here, Procedure delayed

So my meds arrived on Saturday - three boxes of Lupron, which came with syringes, conveniently, so that I don't have to go buy extras - three boxes of estrogen - one box of progesterone (because I already have some left over.)


But, because my period started way early, my procedure had to be rescheduled. I now won't start injections until the 15th of November, which pushes my transfer date back to early/mid December. Much better in terms of plane ticket prices, at least, but I'm worried. I'm now on the eighth day of this period, when they usually only last about five days. I'm finally just spotting, so I should be done today, but between that and how short this last cycle was I've got this awful feeling that maybe there's something wrong... what if we go out there, spend $13,000 on this, and still don't get pregnant?

I wasn't able to sleep last night, thinking about it. My mom reminded me a few days ago that she went through menopause at my age (35) and I'm so worried that it's happening to me now too. And I don't know whether embryo transfer works if you're menopausal??

Anyway, I'm just really nervous.

I got my dress done for the event this weekend, and got my apprentice sister's coat done. My embroidery skills are dreadful but at least from a bit of distance it will look nice... Wish I'd had a little more time, as it would have been nice to put laurels in more places, but I just couldn't squeeze in more than four. Hopefully she likes it. I am nervous about my dress, too. I finally got it altered enough to where the waistline sits in the right spot and the back doesn't scrunch. But it's made out of cheap materials and faked layers, partly for ease of dressing and to be cooler when camping, and partly because I have like NO money to buy fabric right now. I hope that it looks okay.

Since I didn't sleep at all last night I finally just got up and came in to work early. Hoping that means I will get to leave work early today, so I can go home, clean the kitchen, make dinner, get in a little editing and then get to bed. After the event this weekend I'm going to have to focus on nothing but edits... but the nice thing is, edits are due before the Greece trip, so I won't have to spend our vacation worrying about them. All in all, the delay in this treatment is for the best. I know it is, since my body is obviously resetting itself right now, and it will probably make for a less stressful last-minute thing for the donor too. Oddly, they still haven't sent me a list of their available female donors, so I have no idea if they're picking someone for me or just waiting until my cycle is ready before calling one in.

Anyway, that's what's on my mind this week. Two weeks, then, before injections start up again. I guess we're really stretching this year's OLW (CONCIEVE) into the last possible moments, aren't we? :P

Unexpected wrench in the plans

SIGH. Nothing seems to go the way we plan, does it?

So while I am waiting for my medications to arrive - having paid $99 for fast shipping in the hopes that they would get here tomorrow - lo and behold, AF shows up yesterday afternoon. *facepalm*

Seriously, this is the shortest cycle I have ever recorded - only 16 days from AF to AF. I am hoping against hope that it is because this is the first cycle I have had all year that wasn't on some sort of a medication - no birth control, no clomid, no Follistim - and maybe my body is sort of hitting its own reset button.

But my period has started, and the meds aren't here. I don't know when they're going to arrive - I got an email saying they successfully charged my credit card, but the charge isn't showing up on my card yet and the status of the order still says "received", not "shipped." I was supposed to have the meds by tomorrow, so now I just don't know. I'm supposed to do an ultrasound between days 2 and 4 of my period, so if the meds don't show today or tomorrow I can't even get an ultrasound appointment set up in time.

If they don't get here soon, I think this cycle is a bust. We'll have to sit it out, and plan our trip to Greece for end of December-ish. Not sure if that means the plane tickets will be less expensive, but thank God I hadn't bought them yet. Anyway, it will be so disappointing if we have to wait, but at the same time, I don't want to get in a hurry and end up wasting the money we're throwing at this. I want to give this the best possible chance of being successful.

So now we wait - and watch the mailbox.

In other news, Kaitlin just got a seasonal job yesterday, working for The Sharper Image at a ritzy high-end mall. It's not her dream career, but it will pay about as much as she's receiving right now from unemployment. So it's something, anyway... and buys time to keep searching for a job she really wants.

I was supposed to work on book edits the last few evenings after work, but I've just been so tired and uninspired. I need to make sure I get some work in on it tonight, though... the deadline's coming up so quickly. As for Halloween, I haven't really bothered with decorations at home or at work this year. I think we're just going to sit at home, dress my puppy up in one of her costumes, hand out candy and watch Ghostbusters. The house is such a mess, but I haven't had the time or energy to clean and probably won't for several more weeks.

At least things at work are relatively quiet for the time being. I've been able to keep up with most of what I need to, and my bosses aren't breathing down my neck right now since they have other bigger issues in other areas that are keeping them occupied. That gives me a little breathing room to just focus on getting my work done and gaining some ground with my staff before their sights get set on me again.

Oh, and I got a new fish for my office tank. He's a blue betta with some red roots to his fins - really pretty, and so very soothing to watch him fluttering around the tank. I have named him Takumi. He is the most uplifting thing I have going on in my life at the moment. Sad, I guess, but I'll take 'em where I can get 'em, yeah?

Meds ordered

So ordering meds turned out to be way, way more complicated than I'd expected. Apparently American pharmacies will not fill overseas prescriptions, and my RE's office said they could not reissue the prescription since I am "no longer their patient."  Ugh. Add to that the fact that I don't know enough about these meds to confidently be sure that I'm ordering the right thing from an online pharmacy, and that most of the online pharmacies (from Israel and other overseas places) say it will take them 2 - 4 weeks to send me the drugs, and I had a hell of a time on Friday figuring out how we were going to make this happen.

I finally found one site, IVFMeds.com, that has an "express shipping" option. Not a lot of info about how it works, other than that it supposedly ships in 3-5 business days rather than 10 - 14. Had to pay an extra $99 for that - I'm hoping it means it will ARRIVE within 3 - 5 business days and not that it will be another two weeks after shipping before I get it... but there wasn't enough info on their site and the company was closed for the weekend by the time I found them. So I just placed the order. I went with Lupron (which the Greek clinic says is an acceptable substitute for decapeptyl) and Estrace (which is the British version of progynova) and I had my Greek clinic send me an updated prescription for both, which I uploaded to the pharmacy. I did find out that apparently the Greek clinic is open on weekends, because they sent me an email both Saturday and Sunday. Haven't heard from the pharmacy site yet but I'm hoping maybe today?

I don't know if the meds are going to get here in time for Thursday, though, which is when the Greek clinic wanted me to start on them. I guess we have to wait and see. Once we know when I actually start my meds, and my period, then I think we'll find out when the transfer date is, and I can order plane tickets and the travel package and things will really be rolling.

I am so nervous that this isn't going to work - after spending all this time, money and effort - and I think I will just cry if we get home from Greece and my period shows up.

But I am really, really looking forward to taking a vacation - I haven't had one in two years so it's well overdue and will be so nice to get away from work for a while.

In the meantime, I spent all weekend sewing feverishly for the upcoming SCA event. I'm making a robe for my apprentice sister, since she's being honored at the event, and I got it cut out and assembled except for the bands of trim. She's mailing me some red silk thread to use to put a little embroidery on the trim, so I'm waiting to get that and do the designs before trimming it. Her robe was pretty simple and I finished it pretty quickly, so I spent the rest of the weekend working on a new Tudor gown for me - I've been meaning to make a "tourney" tudor, one with faked underlayers, lighter weight, out of cheap substitute fabrics that I can wear to look fancy and pretty but also take to camping events if I so desire. I really like the way it's turning out so far. The only thing that's left is to assemble and attach the remaining half of the skirt, hem it, do a couple tweaks to the forepart and add some undersleeve snaps, and I'll have it ready for the event. I should be able to finish that and Liepa's robe next weekend... and the following weekend is the event.

I am going home after work every day and working on the edits for my book. Only up to chapter three (GAH) but I spent a lot of time making the first "hot and heavy" scene a lot stronger and more emotionally charged... Once sewing and this event are done, all my other weekends will be dedicated to edits between now and December 1... Hopefully just in time to take the Greek trip.

In the meantime, one of my staff is out all week this week so I am up to my eyeballs trying to cover her phone calls and finish two months of case reviews in one week, and then next month do all of my staff's annual performance reviews before it's time to leave for Greece.

So my life is pretty much crazy hectic for the next few weeks. Which is probably good, because it keeps me from sitting around stressing while I wait to find out if this donor egg thing is going to work...

Time for an update - treatment should be starting soon

So here's what's happened in the last week:

My estrogen, STD and ultrasound results were forwarded to the Greek clinic.

The clinic sent me a prescription for the medications they want me on: decapeptyl, progynova, and utrogestan. After a lot of googling and calls to my pharmacy, turns out this is basically Lupron, estrogen and progesterone. So today, I have to call my RE's office and see if they will issue me prescriptions based on the Greek prescriptions, so that the pharmacy will honor them. I'm a little concerned about the cost of the Lupron, which looks to be about as expensive as the Follistim was. :(

I closed on my HELOC, and there is now $15,000 sitting in my bank account. But I also have $3500 sitting on my credit card. Between that and the cost of these meds, plus the $7000 procedure, $1200 for freezing leftover embryos, $2800ish for two plane tickets, and about $1800 for hotel/tours and the
like... plus what will probably be $2500 in meds, we're looking at around $18,000 in debt when it's
all said and done. Ayyy. I'm sincerely hoping I'm overestimating some of these costs. It's still probably $10K less, or more, than doing a procedure with a donor egg over here. But I will be so devastated if this doesn't work.  X.x

The clinic sent us the website of the sperm bank they work with (http://dk.cryosinternational.com) and asked us to pick a donor. Kaitlin and I fell in love with one profile in particular, a redheaded actor/comedian with such a delightful personality -- only to learn that we wouldn't be allowed to choose him because he hadn't chosen to be exclusively anonymous, and Greek law will only allow us to pick from anonymous donors. So it was back to the drawing board last night, and we spent probably three hours going over the other options. Finally settled on another red-headed guy. Kaitlin really likes the idea of giving our kiddo the chance at red hair. And the names we've picked out are strongly Irish, so it does seem like it would be apropos, somehow. I emailed the clinic again last night with our second choice, here's hoping it goes through.

I've been emailing with a Greek travel agency as well (www.fantasytravelofgreece.com). We're going to get a touring package, to make the most of the money we're already spending just to get to Athens. At first I was really hoping to do an island tour - especially Lesvos, which I've always wanted to see - but most of the islands aren't very active in the winter, and apparently traveling between them is a bit rough and expensive. So rather than spend most of our time on a ferry or waiting at airports, we're just going to do an expanded tour of Athens and the nearby area instead. The package includes a half-day tour of the Acropolis, a four-day "classical" tour of neighboring areas like Olympia, Delphi and Meteora, and a one-day island cruise between three of the smaller islands, in addition to hotel stays. I did ask them for less expensive hotels, as it's not the bed we sleep in that I want to spend my money on. So we've narrowed it down to the package and hotel bracket we want, and I just need the actual
transfer date so I can buy plane tickets and make reservations.

It's looking like the trip is going to happen end of November / beginning of December. I'm actually hoping for December, because the last week of November is Thanksgiving and the cost of plane tickets goes up several hundred dollars. Ugh. But I don't really get to dictate to my body, or the egg donors, what I want the timing to be. I guess we just see how it plays out.

The Greek clinic asked for some photos of myself, I guess so that they can narrow down their list of egg donors and send me a few options to choose from that are similar to me in appearance (and available).  I'm waiting to hear back from them on that.

Now, add to all of that the fact that I got the edits for my next book back from my publisher, and they want them returned by December 1; and there is a big SCA event in two weeks that I'm trying to make an appropriate dress for AND do some work for my apprentice-sister who's being elevated to Laurel (it's a really big deal in the group); and all my staff's annual performance evaluations have to be completed next month before I leave on a vacation; and I am feeling just a wee bit overwhelmed with trying to coordinate everything.

Still, it feels nice to think that we're taking action, above and beyond the "let's take some meds and throw some sperm in there and wait to see if it takes, knowing it's unlikely" approach that we've had all year. I am praying to every power in the universe that might be listening that this will work (and work the first time, and work with just one embryo.) Who would have ever thought that getting pregnant would be this hard??

BFN #6

AF showed up yesterday, making it BFN#6 for the year. And we've now used up all our vials of swimmers. I'm not pleased with how this last cycle went. Between my work situation being so stressful I could barely eat or sleep throughout the injections, to asking the doctor to run an ovulation test on my blood sample because I was SURE I was ovulating early (and lo and behold, I was right), to having the IUI done two days after the positive ovulation test (when I pretty much always ovulate within 12-24 hours of a smiley)... I wasn't holding out much hope for this one. And sure enough, just 9DPI, AF showed up again. Cycle's the most expensive one yet - somewhere around $4000 - and it was a complete bust.

I'm so tired of throwing money at this and ending up with no results. I'm so tired of being poked with needles, and probed with scanners, and being crazy hormonal all the time, and having cycle after cycle where we don't even get to make an attempt because my body's not cooperating. Having a baby is supposed to be a delight. It's supposed to be something that happens out of love and joy and pleasure. And this is getting ridiculous.

So that's it. I am DONE pussyfooting around. I emailed the Greek clinic today to find out how to get the process started, and I was approved by my bank for a Home Equity Line of Credit that's going to front me the money to pay for an overseas donor embryo cycle. I think the process is going to end up looking something like this:

-Greek clinic emails and requests information and doctor tests.
-I have tests done, send results and info to the clinic
-Greek clinic sends donor lists. Kaitlin and I look them over and send our choices back.
-Greek clinic contacts our chosen egg donors, and we figure out which one is available and willing.
-Egg donor begins her cycle at the Greek clinic; goes on meds.
-I have my clinic here monitor me and put me on any meds needed to sync my cycle with the donor's.
-Clinic lets us know what date we'll need to be there for a transfer; I buy plane and hotel tickets and make arrangements with work to take the time off.
-Egg donor goes in for her retrieval, while we arrive in Greece.
-We spend 9-10 days exploring Athens and nearby islands.
-We go to the clinic and have the transfer. Still debating between 1 and 2 embryos. My little voice of reason says that 1 is the wisest choice, since their success rates are 70%. But my little voice of impatience is stamping her feet in the background, so we'll see...
-I spend the next couple days on bedrest (This isn't a requirement, from what I understand, but it sure couldn't hurt.)
-We get back to the States and I return to work.
-We find out in a couple of weeks if I am pregnant. If not, we gear up for one second round, using any frozen leftover embryos from the first cycle. That one will cost us about $4000 or so, as it will be a short trip.

We'll have an adopted embryo, meaning that the baby won't have a genetic link to either of us... but on the plus side, he/she will be something of a "designer" baby since we get to pick both the donors. So we will still be creating someone utterly unique, and just for us... and I'll still get to experience pregnancy and make sure I'm giving the kiddo the healthiest possible start to life.

So that's the plan now. And my brain is rushing into full-on planning mode. While I'm really frustrated and sad that all the attempts we've made thus far haven't panned out (we could have already done a Greek cycle for the money I've paid out so far this year) it's nice to feel like maybe we have the opportunity for greater momentum than we've seen all year.

I'm not giving up on my OLW for this year - CONCIEVE. There's still some time for that, right?

In the meantime, working on my next book and waiting for the edits to come back on the second Ithyria book. Daydreaming about how nice it would be to be able to be a full-time author, and knowing I'll never pay off the debt I'm about to leap into if I did that. Pfft.

IUI#5 CD26 10DPI – Today is not my day

I feel like I’m going to cry today. Super emotional, and of course it’s impossible to tell if that’s a pregnancy symptom or a PMS symptom because they’re both so similar.

Took a pregnancy test last night, and again this morning – both negative. Found out yesterday evening that Kaitlin’s contract ended, so she lost her job – thankfully my job is doing okay for now, but with that and Battlemoor coming up (I’m trying to be excited, really I am, but I’m just not feeling it…) and my brother getting married next month (they’re planning to start trying for kids right away) I’m feeling really depressed today.

It’s still really early – only 10DPI – so it’s entirely possible I could still get a positive test over the weekend or even into next week. But I am dreading spending Battlemoor on my period, with yet another failed cycle and $2200 on my credit card and another month of injections to look forward to with less income… I just feel like I could go home and cry my eyes out, but I can’t because I need to be here at work getting things done.

This work week has been insane; I’ve been hopping all day long, every day, with barely a minute to breathe, much less eat. I am exhausted and feeling kind of hopeless, like there’s really nothing to look forward to in the foreseeable future. I don’t have any vacation coming up; this next holiday weekend gets spent sitting around outside in the sun and the rain and the bugs with pretty much nothing to do, in uncomfortable clothes, just waiting for the event to be over… my brother’s wedding – while I am so happy for him and I love Johanna, my new sister in law, and am looking forward to being there for them on their really awesome day – I can’t help being frustrated. I want to be gracious and loving and just simply happy for my brother, and instead I feel so selfish and horrible.

Maybe I don’t deserve to be a mom??

Or maybe, and more likely, fate is just indifferent altogether. Women who don’t want and shouldn’t be having children have more than they know what to do with, while I can’t get pregnant with even one, not even after spending thousands of dollars trying.

I feel heartbroken and haven’t even gotten a BFN yet this cycle.

I can barely pay attention enough to answer questions from my boss. We’re shorthanded today at work. I am so depressed I can barely stand it, yet there’s nothing to do but keep marching on through the day.

One small glimmer of happiness is that my publisher set the publication date for my next book to March 2015. That’s much sooner than November, which is what they originally told me. It means I’ll have the book out in time for next year’s Pride. So I guess I do have something to look forward to, even if it’s seven months away. I’ll just have to hang on to that for now.

IUI#4 CD6 – First Progress Ultrasound

My shipment of Follistim arrived okay yesterday – when I pulled it off my porch that evening the cold packs were still cold, so I popped it in the refrigerator until injection time. After three nights in a row of injections (and last night Kaitlin hit a blood vessel so I ended up with a little more blood than usual) I went in this morning for our first in-progress ultrasound. So far there are 5 follies, with one at 11mm and one at 13mm – it sounds good to me, but I don’t really know if that’s what they’re expecting or not. They also drew blood, so I’m expecting a call this afternoon to let me know if my doses should change. I have another ultrasound appointment on Sunday morning at 8:20 – not super thrilled about getting up that early on a weekend, but it’s still better than having to come into work late.

My boss was on vacation for this past week, which was really great. For some reason, even when she’s being relatively un-scary, I still feel so much more relaxed and de-stressed when she is out. And of course, the day she got back and I started receiving emails from her again my stress level went back up. Also, I should be getting my 6-month performance review any time now, and I fully expect to take a hit because my staff have been requesting more overtime – that’s shown up as a negative on my last several reviews, with the accompanying comment that if I was better at guiding staff to work more efficiently they would not need OT (never mind the fact that their caseloads are twice the size of what can be worked in 40-hour weeks). And, we had a big client complaint earlier this year because one of my staff dropped the ball on a case, and I expect I’ll have to take a hit over that, too. I just keep trying to remind myself that as long as my overall score is above a 3, I’m okay – no matter what things my boss asks me to improve, or even whether or not they’re achievable, as long as the review doesn’t come back that I suck at my job (like that awful, awful one in 2012) then I’m okay.

I just wish that “good” would be satisfactory. And it never will be, because the folks I work for believe in constantly pushing for “better”. It’s exhausting, and while I realize I’m supposed to find it inspirational, challenging and exciting, it really just feels stressful, discouraging and impossible. They’ll never be content or let things lie. The bar is always going to be just out of reach. The older I get, the shittier that feels. I guess the only day I’ll actually feel like I can relax, that I have “arrived”, is the day that I retire. Since that day is thirty years down the road… well, it’s a little depressing.

Okay, done bitching. Back to eating the elephant one bite at a time… someday retirement will find me. Or I’ll get really, really lucky and win the lottery, write a runaway best-seller or Kaitlin will get some ridiculously high-paying job – and I can blow this pop stand and live happily as a stay-at-home mom and work-from-home fiction writer.

A girl can dream, right?

IUI#4 CD3 – Injections Start Tonight!

The doctor called late yesterday afternoon, but they hadn't gotten my progesterone blood results so they said I couldn't start injections yet. Instead, Kaitlin and I went to a movie preview (well, we thought it would be the entire movie, but it was a bit of a tricksy marketing scheme to get people to go to their 20-minute preview, grr) and then went to dinner and wandered around a mall. Ended up driving home in a heavy thunderstorm - pretty, but not so much fun when you're driving a tiny car on a very waterlogged road!

But then, I got a call from the doctor this morning with the green light to start our injections tonight. They’re starting me off at a dose of 150IU – from what I’ve read on the internet that appears to be twice the “typical” dose of 75IU, but the nurse had told me yesterday that sometimes they even prescribe doses over 300IU so I guess I won’t complain. My biggest beef is that the meds are so darned expensive that 10 days of 150IU each will probably end up costing somewhere close to $1400 for the month – not including the trigger shot and IUI itself. GAH.

Please, universe, let this round be the one, yeah? Pretty pretty please? Then at least we don’t have to buy more swimmers – and I’d have an April due date, which would be lovely.

Also, I just hate injections so, so much. I got all tearful with irrational fear the last time Kaitlin had to give me a trigger shot – and it was the fourth one we’ve done so it’s not like I hadn’t had them before. Now I have to have shots every day. I don’t know why, but I’m more afraid, I think, of the *idea* of a needle stabbing my skin than I am of the actual experience itself. I haven’t had the Follistim shots before so I am praying that they are no more painful than the Ovidrel ones.

Anyway, it’s 150IU for the next three nights (hopefully my mail-order dose comes in tonight. If not I’m calling the doc tomorrow to be sure we have enough for Thursday…) and then I have another ultrasound on Friday morning at 9:30. Not very happy about how late the appointment is, but it was the earliest they could get me in… means I won’t get to work until 11, so I’m going to have to work several long days this week in order to make up the time. Ugh. And the long days completely sap my creative energy, so while I desperately want to write, I feel like I’m slogging through the writing and am having a hard time staying motivated. Sigh. 

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

IUI#3 CD27 16DPI - Pretty sure it's BFN#3

Haven’t had much to report in the last week. Pretty much zero symptoms, and negative pregnancy tests every day. I had blood drawn this morning, as today’s the “official” test date, so I’m expecting a call this afternoon confirming I’m not pregnant so that I can stop taking the progesterone. At this point I’m ready to call it quits with this cycle and move on to the next… I was pretty much certain, after meeting with the doctor last week, that this round wasn’t going to work either.

Luckily, the blood draw this morning was the easiest one yet… I literally didn’t feel the needle go in or come out at all! Much nicer than I was anticipating. I faxed in our “FirstSteps” enrollment form earlier this week to see if we can get some kind of discount on the injectable meds for this month. Hoping that whatever dose of Follistim we need is in the range of $750 or less. I don’t know how much faith I have that the injectables are going to work either, sigh…  The RE didn’t seem super optimistic about our chances, and injectable cycles are pretty much the last resort before donor egg IVF becomes necessary. I’m also concerned that if my egg quality is equivalent to someone in their early forties, it might also mean an equivalent risk of genetic problems for any embryo that might actually be created from my eggs.

Sigh.

On the plus side, I am feeling pretty good about my situation at work right now, and I’m looking forward to the Bold Strokes Books author table at Pride in the next couple weeks. I’ve actually spent way more on supplies for the event than I stand to make, even if I sell every one of my stash of books… but honestly, I write stories because I want to share them with other people, not to pay the bills. Writing is a passion and a hobby, and I don’t ever want it to feel like a job.

So anyway, just waiting for the doctor’s call so we can move on to the next battle in this TTC war. :P Fighting!!