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.

STILL NO IDEA WHAT CD THIS IS

So today is either CD30 of my January IUI cycle, or CD2 of a February cycle.

Yesterday afternoon I called my RE. The flow of weird-colored AF had gotten heavy enough to maybe be considered a light flow, or maybe it would still be just heavy spotting… Either way, the color remained black/brown and bizarre. The RE asked me to come in for a blood draw so they could do a pregnancy test, just to see if maybe I had been pregnant and had an early miscarriage or what. I left work early, drove downtown and did the blood draw (one of the least painful thus far). Then came home, watched a couple Netflix movies and went to bed. Kaitlin got home late from her SCA fighting practice, and when I told her about my RE adventures she just shrugged and assured me that we’re pregnant. :P Gotta love her stubborn optimism!

Now comes the really confusing part. I woke up this morning and it seemed like the spotting had stopped. The small amount that was still left is still brownish-greenish-black. I had to get up earlier than usual for an early work shift, to make up for the hours I missed yesterday. I often feel a little sick to my stomach when I have an earlier wake-up time, and I didn’t sleep that well last night, so on my commute and even now as I’m sitting at my desk I’m feeling a bit nauseous.

My temp is rising a little, and I think it’s a little higher than my usual coverline, which is somewhere between 97.3 and 97.5. Still, I find it hard to believe I could be pregnant after a temp drop like what I had the past few days. And if so, I’m worried that the low temperatures indicate not enough progesterone to sustain a pregnancy. Really trying not to get my hopes up. I haven’t taken a pregnancy test for several days now, because when the spotting started and my temperature dropped I just assumed it was a waste… But I guess there’s the chance the doc might call today and tell me I’m pregnant. Or that I WAS pregnant and now I’m not because of too little progesterone. Then again, she could also say that I was never pregnant at all, and my body is just acting up because I had all that Clomid last cycle. Of all those possibilities the latter is the most likely, of course.

But right now there’s nothing really I can do except wait for the doctor’s call to find out where we go from here. In the meantime I’m going to try and eat a little breakfast to see if I can settle my stomach. Kaitlin has a dentist appointment this morning, which is a pretty scary thing for her – she and dentists do not mesh well, but she has some pretty urgent dental issues that have to be taken care of. Hoping all goes well and she’s able to relax so that it doesn’t hurt too much. Also, need to go get her Valentine’s Day gift this afternoon...

NO IDEA WHAT CD TO CALL THIS

My temps have been nose-diving. Yesterday afternoon, around 1:30, I started spotting. But it was a strange sort of spotting – the blood was dark, lacked color, was almost black.  Yesterday evening I had a lot of cramping, like I do with a particularly bad AF. This morning the spotting continued, heavier, more like a light flow… but here we are at 1 in the afternoon and it’s still black rather than the nice bright red I’m used to.

First off, I don't usually spot. I just go from no-AF to HELLO-AF! pretty quickly. Secondly, I know enough about bodily function to know that usually when blood is dark or black, it’s because it’s old and the oxygen that makes it nice and red isn’t present. With my temperature so low, I’m not holding out any hope that I’m pregnant… but I do wonder if such an unusual AF means that I’m actually experiencing an early miscarriage… if maybe I did have some implantation a while ago, but then lost it because of the temperature drop, and wasn’t able to really start shedding the blood/lining until AF cramping started?

I don’t know. It’s really weird, though. I called my RE’s office and left a message with the receptionist, and she’s going to have the nurse call me back. I do want to figure out where we go from here – if this is AF, I’d like to be ready to go with Clomid in a more timely fashion this month, and start on CD3 if possible (which I *think* will be Friday? If today is CD1?)

So no Valentines baby for us, sigh. On to the next round!

In the meantime my tax refunds came in, so I put them on my credit card right away. Since we’ll have a round of TTC this month, my balance will be back up to around $1000 by my next paycheck, and it will take me at least until May 1^st to get it all paid off  (especially if our next couple TTC rounds aren’t successful either.) I’m debating what to do about my car, which is in desperate need of new tires. March and April are dangerously snowy months here, and I can get a new set of tires installed at Walmart for about $250. I’d really rather wait until I get my card paid off before adding to it again. But I’m not sure I’ll have a choice… right now it’s like driving a tiny hockey puck and I have such a long commute that it’s extra-dangerous not to take care of it now. I think I’ll probably end up having to get the new tires this month and it will just be that much longer before I can get myself out of debt again. (Although, if we could just get the next round of TTC to work it would be MUCH faster…)

A lot of stuff roiling at work, too, and it’s a little exhausting today because my energy levels aren’t up where they usually are. It’s one of those days where I really just want to go home, curl up in bed with my puppy and nap, and not have to think about any of the stuff here that’s demanding my attention. Of course, that will only prolong the problems, so the better tactic would be to buckle in and figure out how to solve them so they aren’t on my plate anymore, yeah?

IUI#1 CD27 12DPI - Oh, Monday...

I’m certain it’s a BFN for this cycle. *sigh* Yesterday and this morning my temp plummeted, and now I’m below coverline… AF is coming. I took several pregnancy tests over the weekend and they were all negative. I didn't even bother to test this morning after seeing how low my temp went - I’m just waiting for AF to show today. Since I will have had a mere 11 day LP, I’m going to really push my RE for progesterone next cycle.

Disappointed, of course, though I knew our chances weren't that high to begin with. Still, I had a little more hope than usual because of the two follies.  I've learned from experience, though, that the first TTC cycle is more of a roller coaster than subsequent attempts. I think the level of hope is just higher, having not yet experienced BFNs, and there's that sort of starry-eyed dream that I'll be one of the lucky ones to be successful on the very first attempt. But, combine today's disappointment with the general grumpiness of PMS and it’s the makings for a not so fun day.

Still, as soon as AF shows up I’ll call my doctor’s office to get things moving for our next attempt. My hope is that she’ll give me another round of 100mg Clomid, and that I can start taking it earlier – like, CD3 thru 7, maybe – so that we can get the IUI in a little earlier in the cycle than we did last time. Maybe a second cycle of it will also bring my FSH down further, too. And I'll be asking for progesterone this time. Three more vials of swimmers left, so three more attempts before we talk other options. 

In the meantime I got absolutely nothing accomplished over the weekend. So I’m behind in my house cleaning and embroidery project… Just generally feeling pretty cranky at life this morning. At least one of my meetings this morning was cancelled, so that I can get a little more work done today.

So glad that Monday only comes once a week…

IUI#1 CD23 8DPI - Halfway through the TWW

It took about five or six days, but now the post-IUI-cramps soreness is gone. We’re at 8DPI and I have no symptoms worth noting. On Monday I thought I might have had a wee bit of nausea while I was driving during my lunch break; on Tuesday night Kaitlin and I went to dinner at Red Robin and I had a very brief moment of nausea as I was drinking bitter tea on an empty stomach. It was literally like, a one-second wave. Nausea is rare for me, but since that was 6DPI, it seems way too early to be feeling any such thing. So I don’t want to read too much into it.

  

Yesterday my BBT took a little dip – only by about .25 of a degree, though I did get up to go to the bathroom before I took my temp, so likely the starting temp was lower than that. I got up about 15-20 minutes earlier than my usual temp time, though, and the temperature overnight was wayyy in the negatives (thank you, Colorado winter) and that could also have contributed to the lower BBT. So while it *maybe* was an implantation dip, the circumstances are just too ambiguous to have any sort of confidence.

So yeah – that’s where we’re at right now. I took a second HCG test on Tuesday night and got a squinter – a second line was there but only barely visible, so I think the trigger shot should be completely out of my system by now. I’m going to take another test tonight just to be sure. Hopefully it’s pure negative, so I can be certain that if the line comes back over the next few days it is a real positive and not just the remnants of the trigger.

I’ve decided I’ll start doing daily tests on Saturday night, which is 10DPI. Each negative means it’s very slightly less likely I’ll get a positive the next day, which lets me ease into the disappointment of a negative result before AF just shows up in all its crushing glory. But I’m not feeling particularly optimistic right now. My guess is that we’ll be doing all of this again at the end of this month… Likely around the 26^th or so.

Other than that there’s not much exciting stuff going on. The weather has been awful – temperatures below zero most of the day. I didn’t even take my coat and hat off when I got home from work last night, but sat around in them until bedtime. I did obtain a little microwave for my office, so today will be the first day I’ll warm up my lunch in my own little space. And I have all my office decorations up, so it kind of looks like Valentine’s Day exploded all over my tiny space. I love it. ;)

At least we’re into the second half stretch of the TWW. By this time next week I should have a definitive answer as to whether our IUI worked or not. Seriously, of all of the parts of TTC, the TWW is the worst for me. I am not an inherently patient person. It sort of feels like my life is on hold and can’t move forward until I know whether I’m going to have a baby or not. And since having a baby is such a big part of my dreams for the future, I’m ready to get this show on the road, LOL.

Come on,  BFP!! In the meantime, here's this week's manicure. Sadly this one's not holding up so well, and it's chipping and peeling a lot. Will try something a little different next week...

IUI#1 CD21 6DPI - Money Talk

Feeling even more certain today that I’m not pregnant. I know the chances are slight for any given cycle anyway. But I just don’t feel pregnant at all. If I did have a fertilized egg it could possibly implant today, or anytime between today and Saturday. But other than a little gassiness (which I seem to always have, LOL) there really isn’t anything at all. The soreness in my lower abdomen is just barely there today, so I guess now I know it will take my body about a week to recover from the “trauma” of an IUI.

Of course I’m still really hoping I’ll get an unexpected BFP next week – I would really like to have an October due date. Or a November one, if we TTC this month and are successful. I think we’ve decided to go ahead and try in March if we need to, even though it’s likely to mean a December due date… Because I have such a limited supply of eggs and they’re going to diminish more rapidly with the Clomid, we really shouldn’t waste a cycle.

But I guess for now I’m going to assume it didn’t work and plan for another IUI cycle this month. I got all of my tax documents in yesterday’s mail, so I filed my tax returns last night. By putting the full refund on my credit card, there will be about $446 I’ll still need to finish off. So this month’s TTC will go on the credit card, and with my end-of-February paycheck I’ll pay another chunk of the card off, and then in March I should only have to pay about $200 to get it paid off completely, and if I need to do another TTC cycle I should have enough in my account to pay for it outright without having to use the card. Hopefully I will have enough to replace the tires on my car in April, because they’re pretty much bald. X.x And I'd also like to have my tiny dog’s long-overdue spay and dental work done in April too. Which means in May I can start saving up for the basement floor and/or a FET procedure with adopted embryos – depending on whether I’m pregnant yet or not. If we have to go the FET route, I'll be $4000-$5000 in the hole again, and it will probably take me another year or two to pay that off - but hey, it will be tax deductible, yeah?

I also submitted the app to refinance Kaitlin’s motorcycle yesterday. We’re going to talk about whether it might be a good idea to do the same with her car. I’m doing some preliminary window(web) shopping for my next car, which is going to be a Toyota Prius… I adore my Yaris, and just got it paid off, but it isn’t really an appropriate family vehicle. I want to hang on to the Yaris until the last month or so of pregnancy, then sell it on Craigslist and go through USAA’s car buying service to get a good used Prius with relatively low miles. Will put the proceeds from the Yaris as a down payment on the Prius, so I should end up with a payment scarcely more than what I was paying on the Yaris. I’ll probably have to borrow one of my dad’s spare cars to drive around for a week or two in between selling and buying. I’m really excited about the Prius – I believe it will get even better gas mileage than I get now, and the Prius usually has cruise control and keyless entry – two things I really wish I had in my current car. Also, the large back seat and hatchback will make it great for hauling baby to daycare, fetching groceries and taking road trips to my mom’s.

So financial planning is working out and I’m feeling relatively confident about being able to manage money stuff for now. If only TTC could be so manageable, sigh...

IUI#1 CD20 5DPI - TWW Distractions

Well, today makes us 5DPI. And I have to admit, I still don’t feel very pregnant. If I do have a fertilized egg at this point, it’s most likely floating around in my uterus, thinking about attaching itself, and in the next week or so it would find a good spot, nestle in and implant.

But honestly, I’m not holding my breath. I just don’t feel pregnant at all. Which is not to say I don’t very much hope and wish for it… Over the weekend we had lunch at Panda Express and Kaitlin got the coolest fortune in her cookie:

So I was super excited that maybe the fates were referring to a BFP, even if I’m not really feeling anything. What I wouldn’t give for a little spotting or cramping today, something to indicate implantation. I’m going to wait until tomorrow to start testing out the trigger, since the stash of pregnancy tests I ordered won’t arrive for a little while.

In the meantime, I spent the weekend running errands with Kaitlin and getting started on the SCA embroidery project I’ve been assigned by my SCA Laurel, Duchess Berengaria. We also stopped by the Shane Company and I bought Kaitlin’s wedding band, the one that will go into her e-ring. The rings are now with the ShaneCo jewelers being sized and attached to each other. We went to the Apple store so she could have her iPad with the broken screen replaced, and got super lucky – the kind folks at the store had quoted her a price of $50, then said she actually didn’t qualify and should pay $300. But because they’d quoted her the $50, they honored it… and she was able to get her iPad replaced for a fraction of what she would have had to pay otherwise. This is great because it allows her to save more to have her teeth fixed.

And, I received the stash of little office-decorating supplies I’d ordered from Amazon. So when I got to work today, I replaced my wintery decorations with all the little dollar-store Valentine’s day things I’d picked up – heart-shaped tinsel wreath on the door, heart-shaped candy dish with V-Day chocolates, red table runner, pink rose-shaped scented soap petals, a glass rose, love-themed window clings, etc. I plan to grab a few more hanging things so I can add a couple of them hanging from the ceiling and my cabinets. Oh, and some encouragement-themed magnetic poetry for the side of my filing cabinet. In addition, while at Walmart I picked up that $50 microwave I’ve been eyeing. After work I’ll go get it out of my car and set it up under my desk… then next month, hopefully, I’ll be able to afford the $75 mini fridge and I’ll have a full on lunch station in my office – awesome.

I also repainted my nails, so I’ll put up a photo in the next day or so. This time they’re glitter red with red and white texture flakes… They’re kind of cool. While we were at Walmart, there was a photography group there offering these awesome 12x18 linen-look portraits for $20 plus a $5 sitting fee… so I signed Kaitlin and I up for an appointment at 8 PM on Monday the 17th. Basically the company dresses you up in Victorian-era pearls and lace, and you get a large sepia-colored portrait. Of course they will let you do other poses and you can buy those too, which we probably will… this is going to be our engagement photo session. I love this idea, because it lets us do something a little costumed for our engagement photos. Since our wedding is likely to be costume-esque also, it just seems really appropriate. This will give me the chance, too, to buy some makeup and hairstyling bits for both of us – I want bold eyeliner, false lashes, and to give Kaitlin lots of neat, shiny curls. I’m also going to wear my green PinkyParadise contacts, which will really bring out my eyes. Something exciting to think about while I’m waiting to find out if I’m pregnant… and if I am, it will be like a celebration, and if I’m not, the photoshoot will be somewhat consoling as we gear up for round #2.

Wow, now that I re-read this, it was actually quite an eventful weekend, even if it really felt like I wasn’t getting much done.  This time next week I will be 12DPI, and can start testing in earnest. Hope the week goes by fast!