Cycle 2, here we go!!

I've been a bit MIA, no real reason, just didn't feel like blogging.

There have been 5 pregnancy announcements amongst my real-life acquaintances since I last blogged. 

I also encountered a mother-to-be (probably around 7-8 months along) smoking a cigarette outside of her place of employment (not to be rude, but it was a gas station, so go figure).  If there would not have been someone behind me in line, I think I would have ripped her a new one, but I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, I wouldn't stop.  And really, what she chooses to do and how she chooses to abuse her unborn child is her own business.  I just wish that selfish people like that would think about how much others would KILL to be in their shoes and that they would realize that children are PRECIOUS.  But they don't, so I don't know why I get myself all worked up about it.

I was on 100mg of Clomid this cycle, and I could definitely tell the difference between that and the 50mg.  I had hot flashes, headaches, and just felt yucky overall.  It was worth it, though, because at my monitoring ultrasound this morning, I had a 19mm follie on the right and a 21mm follie on the left.  My lining was about 7mm, but he showed me the "three lines" on the screen that shows that it's still nice and fluffy, albeit thinner than last time.  I got my trigger shot, and we're ready to rock!

Grouper's been taking his antibiotics faithfully, and tomorrow morning we're doing the full IUI, regardless of if there are an abnormal number of white blood cells (they'll just put me on an antibiotic if there's an issue).  I'm a bit nervous that it's going to be a lot more uncomfortable than the high cervical insemination, but I think I can handle it.


I'm hoping that Sloper's successful IUI is a sign that mine will be, too.....it definitely gives me hope!

Bust.

It didn't work.

And the worst part of it is, I got results from the nurse on Grouper's cultures for the "infection" he supposedly had.  There, of course, was no infection, so we did the half-assed procedure FOR.NO.REASON. 

That just makes me wonder, what if?

I have been a mess for the past couple days.  Even though I thought I didn't have high hopes, it's hard not to when the hcg and Clomid cause symptoms that I never had, even in the short time I was pregnant.

I couldn't help but get my hopes up, and so I was wayyy devastated when my temperature tanked.

I really don't know how long I can emotionally go through this.  It's just so exhausting.

I'm calling the doctor first thing tomorrow to get Cycle #2 started.

Yippee.

8dpiui

It's been 8 days now.  I'm not sure how I feel, really.  I think that the hcg has definitely caused some symptoms for me, because I've been tired, had headaches, and I have the sorest nips in the world!  That's never happened before, but I'm not too hopeful about it, because it's still too early to tell, in my opinion.  I want to get my hopes up so badly, but I know that if I do, it'll just be harder if we get another BFN.

I've been writing in my little IF journal a lot, and I've been knitting a lot (mostly for my girl Tarah, whose due date is quickly approaching!), and I had my massage on Monday, so that was nice.  I have also been having some girl time with friends, which has been great, although one of my friends basically told me the other day that she thought I needed to find something else to occupy my time because I sit around and think too much.  As much as I don't want to admit it, I think she's right.  The day after that, my substitute teaching paperwork finally came through, and I have my first assignment tomorrow, so that's exciting.  I am nervous, though!  It's been over three years since I've been in a classroom, and I'm a bit intimidated.  It'll be fine, I hear it's just like riding a bike, but right now there's definitely some anxiety!

The other day, I found someone I know IRL who has gone through IF and is now deciding to adopt.  Even though this is premature, I decided to reach out to her and let her know that I understand how difficult infertility is and that I'm so happy that she and her husband are finally going to be parents.  I also asked her what processes they've gone through in order to make the adoption happen, just in case it gets to that point for us.  Grouper thinks that I'm jumping the gun, but I like to know exactly what I'm getting into before it happens.  I want to be prepared for every scenario. 

Based on that discussion, we had another big discussion.  We were saying how crazy it is that the amount of money we've spent on this "basic" cycle is so much more than we were initially told, and how much more expensive IVF will be, and whether it's really worth it if it doesn't work.  So I asked him about adoption and what he thought.  He said that it's a lot of paperwork and there will be a lot of stuff to do and it'll be very stressful.....and then he said, "We have a good life, we're happy...would it really be the end of the world if we never have kids?"   I was floored.  The more we talked about it, the more I figured out that he only said that because he doesn't want to put any more pressure on me than there already is, it's not because he doesn't want children - he wants them just as badly as I do, maybe even more so.  We came to the conclusion that we're going to do IUI for at least one or two cycles after this (you know, since we didn't do the full procedure this month), and then we'll have some serious soul searching to do.

I guess, that once again, the only thing we can do is wait.  Man, that gets old.

Day 2

We repeated the procedure this morning.  That was the original plan, even before there was a risk of infection.  I apparently ovulated at around 12AM today, so yesterday was to try to get to the sperm there before ovulation, today was to try to squeak some more in there before it's too late.  Even though the preliminary culture results came back today showing no signs of infection, the culture has to "grow" for a whole week, so they could not risk doing a full IUI in case there still could be an infection.  I got to look at the sample under the microscope again, and there were not near as many white blood cells in it today and those little swimmers were swimming away!  The nurse asked me if Grouper ate his Wheaties this morning, because todays numbers were off the charts in comparison to yesterday - 29.2 million sperm AFTER the wash (yesterday's was only 6.1).  I think that the myth that abstinence builds more sperm has been debunked for us.  We had 2.5 days of abstinence going into yesterday, and yet only 24 hours later, we get 5 times the amount.....hmmm.  The nurse said that she targeted the sample really well today, so I'm hoping that it works.  I'm not super super hopeful, but I guess there's nothing I can do now but wait.  They're giving me the option of testing at home using an HPT (which I won't do because I had an HCG shot, which could potentially give a false positive), waiting,for AF to show up, or coming into the office on the 18th for a blood draw.  I'm not sure what I want to do yet....I guess I'll just see how I feel as the days go on.  I'm going to try to relax and distract myself as much as possible.  Last night I went out for dinner and shopping with friends, which was fun, and my substitute teaching paperwork is due to come through and be finalized by the end of the week, so hopefully I can start WORKING soon!  I'm not going to go full time or anything crazy like that (haha), but it will be nice to feel like I'm contributing to society again.  Grouper got me a 60 minute deluxe massage for my birthday (complete with hot rocks, yippee!), so I think I'll try to schedule that appointment for late this week or sometime next week, too. 

I got myself a new journal that I'm going to use to write down all of this gobbledy gook pertaining to fertility that tends to cloud my head in times like these. Yes, blogging helps, too, but I find handwriting it to be more therapeutic for some reason, and I've really let my journaling slide in the past couple years.  I'm going to try to get back into it, because once I do finally get pregnant, I want to start writing a journal of letters to my child, starting in utero and continuing throughout his or her life until adulthood.  It's kinda corny, but I think it has the potential to be special and could be a valuable keepsake when I'm gone. 

Well, I'd better get busy......it may be a little quiet around here for the next couple of weeks, but then again, it may not, it depends on how delusional I become during this two week wait.  :)

IUI #1 (sorta)

Grouper dropped his sample off and I went in an hour later.  When I went in, the lab tech took me straight back to the lab and let me look under the microscope at all the little swimmers that were doing the backstroke all over the slide!  :)  She said the sample was good - 6.1 million after the wash, and that the motility was good.  Then she said, "BUT....." and I freaked out.  Apparently the sample had a very high number of white blood cells, which is not necessarily a good sign.  The lab tech said that it could be a sign of an infection of some sort, like a UTI or something, and because of that, the doctor said that it probably would not be a good idea to do a full IUI for risk of passing on the potential infection to me.  She did say that the "white blood cells" could actually be immature sperm, but that without sending the cultures to another lab, it would be impossible to tell.

The alternative, which is what ended up happening, was a high-cervical insemination.  The sperm was inserted right at the tip of the cervix, so the nurse who did the procedure said that it's a little more targeted than the natural way, but that the chances aren't quite as high as they would be if we did an IUI.  We're doing it again tomorrow because I've already taken the Clomid and the wash has got to help a bit.......but I must admit that I'm really bummed out because I just once again feel like there's always a catch - nothing can just be easy, there's always got to be a problem. 

I'm trying to stay positive, but I guess everything's out of my hands now.  I talked to Grouper and he said he doesn't really understand, because he thought that if he has an infection, he'd know it, and he doesn't feel like it.  Who knows.  Ugh.

It has begun.....

I was feeling kinda crampy last night and decided to take an OPK just to see what was going on.  I got a positive last night and again this morning, and I called the doc right away last night and left a message - they called me this morning and I went in at 11:45 for my ultrasound.

The doctor said my lining looked good (9.1mm), and I had one follie on my left side that was 24mm, which he says is good.  I got my hcG shot, which didn't hurt at the time, but hurts now....my hip is sore!  Grouper will drop off his "contribution" at 7:30am, I'll go in at 8:30 for my IUI.  The doc recommended that we do 2 IUIs this cycle, so we'll repeat the process on Wednesday.  I'm excited, but I probably shouldn't be as excited as I am. 

The doc also said that if this cycle doesn't work, we may need to consider doing an SA to test for DNA fragmentation issues with Grouper's sperm.  The test is somewhat expensive and the doc said that there's no point in doing it this month, but if our IUIs don't work, we should consider it.  I'm not going to worry about that until we have to, hopefully it's not even an issue.

Wish us luck......

Update

It seems like the past two weeks have flown by - between Grouper working on our floors like crazy and having the house torn up, having to travel to Indiana for Christmas and hanging around there for my birthday, and then coming back and hosting a New Year's Eve party, we've been busy. 

Tomorrow it's back to real life - back to work for Grouper (major bummer) and back to normal for me.  I am going to start trying a little harder to get all of my substitute teaching stuff in order (I've been trying, but I've kinda enjoyed my time off, too), and I'm going to start working on getting the house back in order and starting up some new knitting projects (I have seven pregnant people whose babies I want to knit for that will be here between now and July). 

I started Clo.mid on Christmas Eve and now I've been doing OPKs and just waiting for my LH surge to show up.  It's day 13, and so far, nothing.  I started on 50mg, and I've noticed a couple "side effects" - I get cramping every now and then, but nothing I can't manage, and I've noticed that I have more CM and that it's more watery than normal (TMI, I know, but it is what it is).  I am expecting to get my positive OPK tomorrow or Tuesday (hopefully) and from there I'll call the RE and we'll set up my ultrasound.  Getting my hCG shots through the mail was kind of a pain, but it's here now, and I'm still not sure when I'm supposed to take it and I'm a bit uneasy about the thought of Grouper stabbing me with a needle, but we'll do what we have to do. 

It seems like there is pregnancy in the air all around me - even our priest's sermon today centered on a parishoners's new pregnancy and the idea of love vs. fear and how faith plays such a role in all of that.  It's the first time in a long time that a sermon has actually made me stop in my tracks and really pay attention.  As a matter of fact, I started to tear up a little.  We're trying our best to be positive and enjoy our time as a couple until our wishes come true. 

I hope all of you get what you wish for in 2011 as well.....Happy New Year!