Struggling

I am hating my job right now. I'm bored out of my MIND. I hate paperwork and bureaucracy, and that's all I do. Worse, I am enforcing regulations that I think are not good policy. I don't like being part of the system.

I've stuck with this job for two years because 1) I kept thinking I'd be a SAHM by now; 2) my boss has been pretty cool with all the time I take off for If appointments, surgery, and trips to Italy; 3) the pay is pretty good; 4) I like the people I work with - most of the time, anyway; 5) I've never worked at a job longer than a year and a half and I wanted something longer-term on my resume.

But this job has no future growth for me. The promotion I have been eligible for since May is being held up due to paperwork issues, and there is no end in sight, while most of my peers have been promoted ahead of me. I've been ttc for almost TWO YEARS with no success. If IUI #4 doesn't work, we don't move onto our next IVF cycle until January/February. I will be stuck here another year at the very least.

I'm feeling down and depressed and unmotivated and hopeless.

On the other hand, I'm looking into maybe teaching English as a second language. Right now I'm looking at sitting in a cube until I retire, and I think I need something more exciting to work for. Some sort of goal that will help me figure out what I want to do with my life. Something that helps me get up each morning looking forward to the day, rather than dreading it.

I'm also giving more serious thought to adoption. I don't know if I can keep going through this shitty emotional roller coaster.

My POAS dreams have already started. I wish they'd stop. I only have eight days to go, and I need a little peace of mind.

Fuck

I am having the worst morning. Well, I'm being a bit of a baby, but here goes:

1. My doctor is letting me sleep without my knee brace. The biggest problem with this, though, is my husband. We're both tall, and we have a queen size bed. At 6:15 this morning, my husband moves or rolls and gives me a bony hard knee to the shin. OUCH! I'm wide awake, 30 minutes before my alarm. The bright side? At least I get to work on time.

2. After I get up, I feed the annoying, whiny cat (who spent a good part of the night sleeping in a spot on the bed where I didn't have room for both legs on one side of her, but couldn't seem to get one leg on the other side of her). While I'm leaning down to feed her, balanced precariously on one foot, I fall. Luckly onto my left side, not my injured knee. Thank goodness for that! I feel like a crotchety old lady.

3. I get to work and realize that in my haste to put this shitty morning behind me, I have forgotten my yogurt at home. I'm starving, and it's a long way to buy any breakfast for a person on crutches. I will have to see if a coworker will go get me something.

4. My sister called (just as I was going through my bag looking for my yogurt and realizing I didn't have it). She asked if I had looked on Fac.ebo..ok this morning (I hadn't). The wife of my lame, idiotic brother apparently announced that they are having their THIRD child (the second unplanned one). They haven't even told anyone in my family yet, but they told F.ac.eboo.k. Guess they better put off their plans to declare bankruptcy another year, so they can get the delivery costs wiped out. ARGH!

Sometimes I love how supportive my husband is, but sometimes I can't STAND his pollyanna, zen attitude. Everything is a learning experience and there is always a silver lining and getting upset never helps anything. ARGH! He doesn't understand why I should be upset that my idiot of a brother keeps having kids without even trying and we've spent two years and thousands of dollars and gone through hell and have absolutely nothing to show for it.

He says we're just at the start and there's no reason to be depressed. Just at the start! Because we're now starting IVF! He is so happy and hopeful that we're moving onto IVF, because apparently it's such a wonderful thing! Sometimes I could kick him. I guess it's good that one of us has a good attitude, but OMG seriously. It drives me crazy.

OK, off to bribe a coworker to go get me breakfast.

What to do next?

I had a pretty good weekend in Tahoe, but I can promise you, I will never go to Tahoe on the 4th of July every again! Traffic was terrible - I spent over 7 hours in my car for an overnight camping trip. It was fun hanging out with my friends and meeting new friends, but I really missed my husband and wished I was with him. I also spent a good 20 minutes in the car on the way up, bawling. I was hoping I wouldn't get pulled over and the cop would think I was crying to get out of a ticket.

I haven't had time to catch up on blogs and comments yet, but I will within a day or two.

In the meantime, reality is setting in rather slowly. It's been a good, solid year and a half of ttc, with tons of testing, a diagnosis of "unexplained", 3 IUIs, and one medicated DIY cycle. It's time to admit that we just can't do this on our own, and we need a nice friendly doctor to introduce our sperm and eggs to each other, and perhaps force them to get along.

As with all things in life, though, it's just never that simple. I have a job I don't like, and which I now know I will be at for another year at least. I have a knee that is going to need surgery sooner or later. I'm about to turn 31, which is not terribly old in terms of ttc, but it's older than I hoped to start having children in my vague life plan. I have a vacation to Alaska coming up, a triathlon to do, and a husband to send off to Germany for a conference in September. Most of all, I have a yearning in my heart to have a baby, just get on with this and get to where I want to go, to stop all this delaying and messing around and really get serious about it.

So here I am.

Plan A - go to Alaska in August, send the husband to Germany in September, have my knee surgery in October, and start IVF ASAP after that, probably end of October or first half of November. Earliest possible date of 9 months after IVF would be approximately July 2010 - one year from now. Possibly look for another job, but with surgery, IVF, and a two-week Christmas vacation in the works, who would hire me?

Plan B - still working on it. Go to Alaska in August. Send husband to Germany in September. Try to squeeze in a round of IVF between August 10 and late September (is this possible?). Forget about triathlons after July (no problem), postpone knee surgery until another year, but still plan to go to Italy for Christmas.

There are so many variables that it's impossible to figure out.

Insurance - does not cover anything IF-related, but will cover knee surgery 100% because we've met our deductable this year. If we put it off another year, we might have to pay thousands of dollars for knee surgery.

Timing - I don't know enough about IVF to know if the timing will work out this summer, between our vacation and my husband leaving for the conference. If we have to wait until after his trip, I feel like I might as well wait another month and have knee surgery. If we don't have to wait until after his trip, then I might want to just get started right away.

PIO - I'm terrified of it. Not so much that I won't do IVF, but enough to make me dread it.

My job - I hate it, but I don't think I'm going to have an option to change with all this going on in my life.

I will be reading about IVF in Navigating the Land of IF, but if anyone has any advice, as always, it will be gratefully accepted.

I did it! (13 dpo, 1 day to go)

I resisted peeing on a stick this morning! I just had to distract myself until after I peed, and then it was too late. Mostly because I had to leave for work and wanted to be with my husband when I do it, and I didn't want to wake him. I'm so thoughtful. (OK, maybe I don't want to be with him while I'm peeing, but right afterwards ... well, you know what I mean ... ).


Now I'm having a ridiculously shitty morning at work, and wishing I was still at home in bed. Meanwhile, everyone else I know has the day off and Sacramento seems to be deserted. Kind of ironic that I'm a government worker and I am at work while everyone else is on vacation. Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?

I actually feel nauseated this morning, but I think it's because of stress at work and nothing (in)fertility related. I wish I could press the fast-forward button, at least so it was 4:30 and I could get out of this office, go home, relax, and spend the evening with the best guy in the world who is at home waiting for me.

I hope you all have a fun, happy, relaxing holiday weekend. Cheers.


(P.S. I was a little surprised by the comments to my last post about how few of you are skiers - I had no idea the percentage of skiers was so small. The interesting things you learn from blogging, huh?)

(P.P.S. I learned to do ski mountaineering because my husband grew up doing it in the Alps. It's much more common in Europe than it is here, which is why even most regular downhill skiers have no idea what it is. It's also called "backcountry skiing" and "randonee", and probably has other names, too.)

Rambling and ranting

My IUI on Saturday went pretty well. I guess. The doctor had a hard time getting the catheter in, but after a few tries, I assume all was well. I always have a bit of cramping when the catheter goes in, and for a little while afterwards, but otherwise I felt totally normal.

AND I gave myself my own injection again yesterday! I'm so proud of myself. I am on yet another, different HCG (which apparently doesn't have a brand name? I'm confused about that), and the injections actually hurt. Which is why I wanted to do one myself, to see if it was my husband doing it badly, or the medicine itself. Anyway, it still hurt, so I guess it wasn't my husband. At least I haven't ended up with those awful welts I've had before.

Now I wait until ... Wednesday I think? ... to do the last injection and start the progesterone. I'm trying to decide if I should buy a bunch of dollar store tests and test out the HCG until it's out of my system, but I'm not sure I can really be bothered to do that. I'd rather just wait and try to forget about it.

I change my mind every day about whether I am optimistic or pessimistic. I am having crazy dreams about actually being pregnant, or actually getting a positive pregnancy test, or finding out about a pg test that is made especially for infertiles because ... well, I'm not sure why, or how it was supposed to be different. All I know is I was excited about it in my dream.

~

I had a group of friends over yesterday and we made and canned pickled vegetables, and then had a big delicious dinner. One of the friends is pregnant, and she and her husband were driving me NUTS.

I am not one of those people who will follow every pregnancy rule perfectly, because I think there's such a thing as being too cautious. I will not be stupid and get drunk, or eat raw fish, or go on a rollercoaster, or put anything besides my feet in a hot tub.

But I will probably have occasional sips of wine (especially a TASTE of VERY low-alcohol moscato late in my theoretical pregnancy when it wouldn't really matter), I will not have my husband test the host's meat with a meat thermometer to ENSURE that it is fully cooked while loudly announcing that his wife is pregnant, etc. I will not constantly draw attention to myself lamenting really trivial things that I shouldn't (but probably could) eat while being obviously thrilled that everyone is looking at me and my pregnant belly, all the while KNOWING that another person in the room, whose guest I am, is INFERTILE.

WHY do people behave that way? I know they're excited about having a baby, and I'm really excited for them, but the more I see them, the less I want to be around them because they seem to completely lack any sensitivity. I'm absolutely dreading their baby shower, and I'm considering not going.

The problem is, if/when I finally get pregnant, I want people to be there for me. I don't want to be the jerk who was completely unsupportive of everyone else, and then if it ever happens for me, I expect everyone to celebrate with me even though I wouldn't celebrate with them. I want my kids to grow up with my friends' kids, and turn our adult-themed evenings eventually into family gatherings.

I don't feel I've been as deeply affected by infertility as some others, although it's hard to say. But I think this experience has changed me, not necessarily for the better, and I'm worried about spending the rest of my life bitter and angry and resentful. I hope the joy of having a child, should I be so lucky, will make this whole experience worthwhile in the end.

Happy Anniversary to me!

Tomorrow is my anniversary! My husband and I got married two years ago, on a beautiful sunny day in my mother's backyard, my dream wedding. More importantly, I married the best, sweetest guy in the world and I'm so happy that we are still hopelessly in love, 5 years after we met and 2 years after we got married.

That's really the only exciting news of the day. I just finished up with Clomid yesterday, and started estrogen. I'm a little nervous about remembering to take those super-small pills twice a day ... yikes!

Today, I leave for Stanford for my husband's company's conference, where tomorrow I'll watch him speak, visit with old friends, go shopping, and then go out for our anniversary dinner. The only negative thing is having to get up early for the conference tomorrow, and then super early on Wednesday to drive back to work in Sacramento. But it'll be worth it!

Follow-up u/s on Thursday morning (by myself, boo) to see if we managed to squeeze out more than one follicle this month (the million dollar question - was I right about the Clomid dosage, or was my doctor right? - tune in Thursday to find out!). Hopefully IUI on Saturday (or Sunday).

Then (check out this optimism) negative HPT on July 4, AF should arrive around July 6-7 after I stop the progesterone, and we can plan on IVF in ... September? Probably more like October.

As an aside - I'm expecting a pregnancy result on yet ANOTHER major holiday ... it's been Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and Mother's Day so far, and all BFNs. So far the trend is NOT looking good. I feel like if we do IVF I want to time things specifically to NOT fall on a holiday, just to avoid what seems to be a huge jinx factor.

On the other hand ... I'd much rather test on a Saturday than a Sunday, which has been the due date the last few cycles. If I am supposed to test on Sunday, I waste my whole Saturday dealing with the anxiety. Or I test anyway, and then I get all anxious wondering if it could still be positive the next day. Much better to plan to test on Saturday.

A sorry start

I had my ultrasound this morning, so I slept in a bit and went for a run.

Past the local elementary school.

I saw all the kids riding their bikes to school, many of them with their parents. I saw the cars pulling up to drop off the kids, the parents talking and laughing to each other. I passed through, crossed the pedestrain bridge over the freeway, against the flow of more and more kids heading to school. Finally I arrived at the park, which was mostly empty at 8:30am. Empty except for the stay-at-home moms and dads, out for walks with their babies, taking them to the playground. I thought how maybe these people would have been my friends, in another life. In a life where I could get pregnant.

I can't seem to make friends where I live. It's a beautiful university town, a wonderful place to live. But it's not a great place for young working singles or couples without kids. It's full of young families, and college students, and older couples. I actually have made some friends - but most of them have gotten pregnant and moved on, or have job offers at other universities in other cities and have no kids to tie them down - so they're moving on, too. It seems like it's only me who is stuck here, in limbo.

The clinic was 45 minutes late, as usual. So much for my hopes of not missing TOO much work. Everything looked good. The doctor handed me my prescription ... for 100 mg of Clomid. I mentioned that I thought we were upping the dose, and she seemed to have no idea what I was talking about. She said no, we were just adding estrogen to make implantation more likely.

This is another left ovary month. Last time, I got only one follicle on the left at this dosage (followed by a big cyst). I don't have ovulatory problems, that I know of - I would likely have one egg without all these medications and ultrasounds. Why am I paying a thousand dollars for a great possibility of having one egg? After a year and a half, it's pretty clear that one egg and some sperm give us about a 0% chance of pregnancy.

I left in tears, and cried all the way to work.

But at least I pretty much know how the next year will go. We'll be on vacation in July, so we'll skip that month. At that point, I think I'll schedule my knee surgery for September/October, and we'll start IVF hopefully in October/November. Which means the earliest I can expect to possibly have a baby is summer 2010.

My life is essentially on hold for a year. What can I do in a year to move towards the life I want? Should I go back to school? My sister is starting a certificate program. Should I do that? I just feel I need to be working for something, heading my life in some direction, since the direction I chose isn't working out. I need to feel a greater purpose in my life again, something beyond spending every weekday waiting for the weekend, and every Sunday night dreading Monday morning. Life HAS to be more than that, doesn't it?

Um ...?

UPDATED: Test was negative. Of course. I feel suddenly very sad.

Original post:

AF arrived at 4am on Saturday morning, at least 2 days early. I was not expecting it and totally unprepared. I also had a lot of cramping.

This morning (Monday), I got up, prepared for a new week and to call the clinic for my baseline, and voila. No more period. Um ... a 25-day cycle with tons of mid-cycle spotting, followed by a 2-day period? And actually, my last period was only 3 days, too. WTF?

The clinic scheduled me for a baseline tomorrow, but asked me to take a HPT today. Of course, I had just peed, so now I have to wait until I need to pee again to take the test.

I hate this. I had no expectations, this month just flew by, I had a great time. I also spent the last few days eating sushi, oysters, and cheese, and drinking tons of wine. I was ready to look to another treatment cycle with a peaceful heart. I don't want to take a HPT. I especially don't want to wait a few hours to be able to take it. I don't want to have that little bit of hope show up that will make my disappointment so much greater.

OK, I'm being a little melodramatic. I'm still excited about starting a new cycle. I hope I've learned a lot about hope, expectations, disappointment, obsession, and patience from this break cycle.

And btw, I'll post a pic or two of my garden when I get home this evening =)

Insurance

Can I just say, to those of you who have infertility insurance coverage, that you are some very lucky gals?

Even though I work for the State of California, I stupidly decided to go with my husband's insurance and give up my fantastic insurance options through my job. I don't have the option to get it back until 2010 (unless I have a baby, of course). Let me just say that I have no idea what the infertility coverage through my work insurance options is, because I dropped my insurance way before I knew we were infertile. Still, I don't think it can be worse than my husband's options.

My husband is a co-owner of his business - he owns around 45%, the other major partner owns 45%, and then there is a third guy who has about 10% ownership. The reason why this matters is that any company expenses are paid halfway by us. Including the employer's share of the insurance premiums.

We're switching insurance right now. Our old insurance had a $2000 lifetime limit for infertility, and our clinic is out of network. I still haven't submitted our claims, so I don't know if it will cover anything we've done. I really need to do that soon.

Our new insurance ... sucks. If we do the HMO option, we get around a $1500 lifetime limit, BUT it doesn't cover IUI or IVF! (But it does cover GIFT?! Who makes this shit up?) Um ... really? WTF does it cover, then? Ultra-sounds and meds?

If we do either the PPO or HMO option, there is an "optional rider" my husband's company can purchase. It has a lifetime limit of around $1500 to $2000 (depending on the plan), and will cover 50% of costs for 6 unmedicated IUIs, 3 medicated IUIs, and I think one round of IVF (up to a maximum of $1500 to $2000, which is to say a fraction of what we'll have to pay). But premiums for the entire company for a year will easily cost MORE than the benefit for us. Considering that just about everyone in the company either already has kids or is a young single guy - we'd be paying the premium for everyone pretty much to cover only ourselves.

To make it worse, to get the optional rider, we'd be basically telling everyone in the company that we're infertile, AND underhandedly having the other partners pay for our (useless) infertility insurance. So it's not really an option.

So there you have it - basically, no coverage at all. Really, what's the point of even having infertility coverage in these plans? For appearances?

Does anyone know how to get involved in political reform? Isn't this kind of thing an absolute crime? Really - anyone out there in the state of California who knows how we can fix this? On the other hand, after the recent octuplet incident in our fair state, I'm guessing this would get shot down before it got off the ground.

Oh, and to add insult to injury - the insurance agent told us that our premiums were so high BECAUSE WE'RE OF CHILD-BEARING AGE. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

Onward and upward

So no break after all. I had a confusing discussion with my husband last night. Here are some of the points he made:

1. How can we, in the year 2009, be diagnosed with unexplained infertility? He can't believe that there is such a thing, with all the advanced technology there is today. Aren't there more tests we can do to discover what the problem is? How can the field of assisted reproduction be so vague and badly understood?

2. Since we have been diagnosed with unexplained fertility, what is the point of continuing to do IUIs? According to him, it's like making up a solution to a problem about which you know nothing, and then crossing your fingers and hoping it works. Are the doctors just trying to make money off of us by having us to one IUI after another?

3. What is the point of taking a break? We already know it won't get us anywhere (even if we don't know why).

4. Why do I think it's worth it to keep trying? He's ok with me saying I want to do another IUI, but he doesn't understand why I think it will work. I had told him when we first got started that typically if a treatment is going to work, it will work in the first three tries. I think since we didn't have an IUI on cycle #2, and we had a poor response (one follicle) on cycle #3, this time we might have a better chance with a higher dose of meds and an IUI.

5. What will we do if this doesn't work again?


All of this is a little ironic because he tends to not like to worry about the future until we have to. I.e., don't worry about being infertile until we know we are, then don't worry about IVF until IUI has failed, etc. No planning ahead whatsoever, but now that we're in this place, there's so much I wish we had discussed. I've taken it upon myself to research and study and read blogs and stories from other people and I feel like I understand our situation, so he relies on me to inform him, but he questions me as if I am somehow responsible for all of these ideas and treatment plans.

Can you tell I'm frustrated?

So anyway, AF arrived last night and I'm calling the RE today for a new cycle. Hopefully at the ultrasound I can ask what she recommends if this fails. Hopefully my husband will come along and ask his own questions, too.

Hopefully this works so that I'm not just postponing the inevitable until next month!

Thanks and I'm sorry

Thanks for all the comments on my last almost-post. I haven't really felt like writing anything, and although I've been reading your blogs I haven't had the time or strength to comment. I'm not sure how I feel right now. I of course told my husband about the negative tests, and he didn't say anything, and we haven't really had any time alone together, so we haven't talked about it. I'm not sure what we'll decide to do.

I know, for my part, that I could use a break of at least a month or two. I'd like to focus on eating healthier, getting in better shape, and maybe doing a triathlon in June. I'd like to spend some time with friends and maybe even some quiet time at home.

I'm not sure who I'm kidding, though. I know I will be subconsciously calculating ovulation dates, and secretly hoping for a BFP instead of AF at the end of the month. If there's one thing I've learned about myself from infertility (and there are plenty of things), it's that I can't fool myself and I can't be someone that I'm not. I'm finding that not being able to fool myself is one of the hardest things to deal with.

Yesterday was especially hard for me. I'm very grateful to Mugsy for her gift and kind card, which made my morning so much better. I actually had a good time with my mom and my sister, and I felt at peace with visiting the cemetery. A few times during wine-tasting, though, I felt like I had been kicked when the wineries made a big deal about Mother's Day - free champagne at one, free tasting for mothers only at another. Seeing my little niece and nephew, who are so cute, was bittersweet, too.

I'm sorry, this is a rambling nonsense post. I'll add more when I can straighten out my thoughts. Hope everyone is having a good Monday.

What are your plans for Sunday?

I'm curious to know what others usually do and will be doing this year for M____ Day. Besides participating in OMG You Rock! Day of course.

Here's my situation. I don't really feel like I can get out of celebrating because I still have a mother, even if I so far haven't managed to become one. My sister, mother, and I are going to the cemetery to see my dad's grave, then we're going wine-tasting (my participation will depend on my HPT that morning, of course), and then to my mom's house to make her dinner (which she won't be happy about because she prefers to be taken out to expensive dinners, but my sister can't afford it).

(Just for some background and reference, I don't get along well with my mother. She is demanding, manipulative, controlling, and insincere, and she would be incredibly offended if I didn't plan a huge day with her on Sunday, despite my current condition. She also treats my SIL terribly because she believes my brother "married below his class and status"(!) So if I sound snide when discussing her, it's usually because she deserves it.)

I don't know if my brother, his wife, and their two kids will participate in any part of the day with us or not (even though they live a few blocks away from my mom). My family is a bit disfunctional, obviously.

On Saturday morning before M_______ Day, I usually go to the Farmer's Market and buy two bouquets of flowers - one for my dad at the cemetery, and one for my mom. I honestly don't remember if I've ever gotten anything for my SIL, but I'm guessing I have. However, I'm feeling particularly bitter about it this year. Not bitter towards her personally, just bitter about the fact that they're pretty much done family-building at the tender ages of 22 and 28, and I can't seem to even get to the starting gate. I don't really see why I should have to get her flowers. But I don't want to look like a b!tch.

So my questions are - What do you do for M_________ Day? Do you celebrate with your mother (if your mother is still alive)? Do you celebrate with other women in your life (i.e. sisters and/or friends) who are mothers? If you celebrate with multiple family members, do you honor them all, or just your own mother? Or do you avoid it all entirely (and if so, does your mother understand or does she feel slighted)?

4 dpo, 10 days to go (and a frank discussion of adoption)

I HATE the 2ww.

The husband and I were planning a lovely two-day bike trip to the northern coast this weekend, but it looks like it's going to rain and be kind of cold and miserable. Since we would be carrying all of our stuff in our backpacks, it doesn't sound like the greatest weekend for this trip. Instead - we'll be going to the new Academy of Sciences in San Francisco! I hope! I've been dying to go there since about 6 months before they opened, so I am SO EXCITED. That should take my mind off the 2ww like nothing else.

Today's my last HCG booster. With luck, my last one ever, but I'm not counting on that.

I'm still maintaining my zen pretty well, but I must admit that it's tough, mostly because I don't know what will happen next if this is a BFN cycle. (I'd probably discover this on Mother's Day Sunday, btw - I've already had one on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter this past year - what luck!) My husband doesn't seem to be excited about pursuing ART any further, and he also doesn't like to talk about anything before he absolutely must. In my scenario, if we got a BFN, I would call the clinic the next day, although AF probably wouldn't arrive for a few days because of the progesterone. I would proceed with a new clomid cycle on a higher dose and add the estrogen like my RE suggested.

In my husband's world, we might at that point finally talk about what to do next. Chances are, he won't want to do another back-to-back cycle. Even more likely, he won't want to do another cycle at all. He will probably suggest we look into adoption. Because maybe it is our destiny to give some child a home. I am not at all against giving a home to a child who needs one. Although I don't believe in destiny.

There are a few reasons why this sucks. First, it sucks to not agree on something so major. Second, I've already started looking into adoption a bit, and it sounds complicated, expensive, time-consuming, and not fun. I do know that once I accept it, it will be ok. But still.

Third, in our family, my husband works (way more than full time), and he does a few chores that I ask him to do (but only when I remind him to do them). Everything else is done or planned by me (in addition to working full time) - I open the mail, pay the bills, organize our paperwork, pay our taxes, do the grocery shopping, laundry, most of the cleaning, pay the rent, and just make sure our lives can run smoothly. Car insurance and registration? That's me. His immigration paperwork (he's from Italy)? I did that. Going to the bank to get cash or deposit checks? Me. Planning vacations, buying plane tickets, arranging hotels and rental cars? Me again. Making sure the doors are locked and lights are off at night? Me. Making sure we don't run out of toilet paper/gas/wine/beer/kitty litter? Me. Cutting the grass? Me!

Oh right, he does feed the cat at night (one point for the husband!). And he occasionally takes out the trash (two points!) But he absolutely never cleans the litterbox without my asking him, even though technically it's his job now that we're really into the ttc game.

I didn't mean to turn this into a rant against my husband, who is a really great (but frustrating) guy. The point is that if we go through with adoption, the entire burden will fall to me. And to be honest, as you can tell from my post, I'm just not ready for it yet. I'm not ready to give up on my dream of being pregnant and having a child that is half him and half me. I want HIS child. I think on some level I am very hurt that he doesn't seem to care that much about having MY child, a child that is part me. I think that before I can pursue adoption, in order to be completely fair to any adopted children we could have, I have to come to terms with the idea of NEVER having a biological child, and I don't think I'm ready for that yet. I know that I will eventually get there.

My husband thinks it is terrible that I cry after every BFN, and get so depressed (he NEVER gets upset about anything, so I don't think he understands how theraputic it is for me). He thinks that adoption will solve that - no more BFNs! But I cry not just because I got a BFN on that particular cycle. I also cry because every BFN brings us one step closer to never having our baby. So him trying to move up the drop-dead date after which we no longer try - we admit that we will probably not have a biological child - well, that makes me want to cry even more.

So that is what is on my mind while I'm being positive and hoping my intuition is correct and not swayed by the negative possibilities of the future.

2 days to go

12 dpo, 2 days to go.

I'm so tempted to test tomorrow, but I swear I won't. One of the reasons I want to is that tomorrow we're going biking in wine country, and then to a friend's house for dinner, and I want to know if I can drink more than half a glass of wine for the day. Problem is, if it's negative, I know there's a chance it won't be accurate yet because it's early, so I don't think testing tomorrow will help.

(Even though I bought the super-fancy early-testing HPTs, right? I should still not test a day early, right?)

I have been feeling sick and tired from the prometrium, so I left work early yesterday, went home, and took a nap. I feel much better today, much less crampy. I don't know if that's a good thing or not.

This wait is so frustrating. I am trying very hard to not get my hopes up, because I have serious doubts that even with the medications we could get pregnant on our own. I'm trying to remember that a BFN on Sunday means a call to the RE on Monday to set up my baseline ultrasound, and that a new IUI cycle has begun. I know that my rational brain will see it this way, but my heart will still feel broken.

Trying to stay upbeat but not TOO upbeat. It's a gray morning, but the sun is supposed to make an appearance later today. I'm looking forward to an evening out with my husband, a day of biking and a dinner with friends tomorrow, and then an early Sunday morning POAS session. I'm just hoping the time passes quickly (like these next 8 hours at work - they are going to be TOUGH!).

This week is SO SLOW

10 dpo, 4 days to go.

I have nothing exciting to write about, I'm sorry.

Life is fun right now, but work is boring, and work is where I spend most of my time. It's really tough to get through each day, sitting at my desk in this cubicle surrounded by paper, the blinking message light on my phone, constant inane emails from the same people over and over who don't understand what I'm trying to tel them.

The Banff Mountain Film Festival last night was pretty good, it always helps to put things in perspective, watching films about nature and the mountains and the beauty of the outdoors. And it was nice to see a few friends, even if I was stressed out that we were late (I have to get over that).

There are so many blogs I'm reading in which the writers expect to know within the next week if their current cycle is successful. I'm happy to count myself as one of them, even though without the IUI I don't have much faith in a BFP.

I'm already picturing getting up to POAS and being able to crawl back into bed and tell my husband that it worked. It's a really, really nice fantasy that makes me really happy.

I'm trying to balance it out by picturing what I'll do if it's negative, too. But that really depresses me. I want to maintain a zen state of mind, but it's pretty hard to do.

I think I might be having some prometrium side effects - I feel slightly crampy, like I'm pre-AF, and have been feeling it for the last couple days. I also seem to be experiencing some skin issues (ugh, zits). I have no idea if either is related to the meds, though. I feel like so far I've gotten off pretty light as far as the progesterone goes.

Sunday is 14 dpo. I'm tempted to POAS on Saturday - since my last HCG shot was so much less than it was supposed to be (0.2 cc's instead of 0.5), I'm thinking that it shouldn't cause a false positive. But my goal is to hold out until Sunday. I'm going to really try.

4 days to go.

Long, whiny post - sorry

My weekends need to stop being so stressful. Seriously. I just wrote a super-long, whiny post and now I've cut it back.

After a week of beautiful weather, it got cold, rainy, and windy this weekend (of course today is bright and sunny again, go figure). I spent Saturday at home doing chores, and then we threw an impromptu dinner party which made a huge mess of our kitchen but which was a lot of fun.

Sunday though – that was the kicker. It almost killed me. I haven’t talked much about my relationship with my mother, and I don’t want to go into it much because then I start whining and I hate it when I whine. We don’t get along well – she’s a very difficult person, spoiled, demanding, controlling, manipulative, and so on. She hates my sister-in-law and makes my brother’s life miserable because of it. She also thinks that it’s the duty of her children to drive to her house (a 45-minute drive for me) whenever she wants and do anything she demands, and if anyone of use refuses (2 out of 3 isn’t enough) the ones who do come get to hear her complain about the ones who didn’t come the whole time.

I know things aren't the way she wants them - my father died quite a few years ago, and her behavior tends to drive everyone else away. And yes, I do feel bad for her and very guilty that her life has turned out this way. Unfortunately, she also feels bad for herself and wallows in her self-pity, pushing guilt trips as hard as she can to try to get people to pay attention to her. It makes any time spent with her very, very stressful.

So to try to make this long story just a bit shorter, I went over there this weekend to clean, in the hopes that she will try to sell her humongous house and move into something more reasonable. In the midst of cleaning her house while she more or less sat there and watched us, she brought up that she really wishes L and I would have a baby.

Um, SERIOUSLY?

Keep in mind that L and I took her to lunch LAST SUMMER to tell her we’d been trying for about 8 months and we were having some trouble, but we were going to start investigating and we’d tell her when we had news. (And by news I meant a pregnancy announcement – no way is she going to know every step of the process).

I’ll try to remember the gist of the conversation from that point onward:

Me: What?!
Mom: I want to know when you and L are having a baby, you ARE still planning to, right?
Me: Um, yes. We told you that.
Mom: I know, but it’s been a while. I want another grandchild.
Me: You already have two.
Mom: I know, I love A (my nephew – she never says she loves my niece – nice), but he needs someone to give him a rivalry.
Me: He has a sister you know.
Mom: She doesn’t rival him, and anyway she loves him, too. He needs a little cousin.
Me: Well, I can’t really do anything about that. You should be happy you have two grandchildren.
Mom: I want my daughter to have a child.
Me: (almost crying by this point)
Mom: I am going to say something and you’re going to get mad (yes, she really says this, all the time).
Me: Maybe you shouldn’t say it then.
Mom: (I can tell she wants to say it, acting like she didn’t hear me) What?
Me: Fine, what do you want to say?
Mom: I think that sometimes when women are really active they have trouble getting pregnant, you know, like in the Olympics (THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME SHE’S BROUGHT THIS UP)(and I’m not exactly an Olympic athlete).
Me: (Sigh). I don’t think that’s the problem – I am in decent shape but I don’t work out that much. You know what actually DOES cause infertility? STRESS. Like you calling me EVERY DAY to complain about my sister-in-law and all your other problems. (Yikes, shouldnt' have said that, probably).

Yeah, things didn’t go so well. She was upset that I blamed her for my problems (even though she had just finished blaming me), not that I completely blame her, I don’t blame anyone. I just know my life would be a lot easier without all the stress caused by her.


ANYWAY - Today is my LAST DAY of Clomid! Monitoring ultrasound on Friday, IUI early next week if all goes well!

Maybe friends aren't so bad after all

We went to dinner at a friend’s apartment on Monday night, the same friends who I’ve mentioned before in the previous post and this other post. They recently ended their first trimester and have been so excited to tell everyone about their pregnancy. They’ve also been sort of asking every couple they know if they’re considering starting a family yet. I’ve gotten the feeling that they’re hoping at least a few friends might want to have kids on the same timeline as they are.

I feel like I’ve been very understanding of their excitement and I’m honestly very happy for them. We haven’t been very open with our IF struggles, so only a few of our friends know about it, and those who do are not even close to trying to get pregnant at this point in their lives, so I’m not sure they really truly understand what we’re going through. When our newly pregnant friends asked again, with both me and L there, if we’re going to start a family soon, L said to me, “It’s not really a secret, you can tell them.”

Of course they got all excited thinking we were going to tell them we were pregnant (after I had drunk like half a bottle of wine, right), but then they felt really, really bad. I felt bad for making them feel bad, since they started to realize that they’d perhaps said a lot of things that could have been tough for me/us. But they were really nice and supportive and well … I’m nervous about what might happen next. Will they avoid us? Will they have more compassion for me and more thoughtfulness about what other people might be going through? How will it affect our friendship – in the short term, but also in the long term if we don’t get pregnant?

I would have thought the wife would have been completely aware of the impact of IF in other people’s lives, considering that she works in the health industry as an educator (and was actually a sexual health educator, although I think she dealt with college students and tried to prevent pregnancy and STDs). I guess you learn (or realize) something new every day.

So now I have to keep deciding who we tell and who we don’t tell, and eventually (hopefully, cross my fingers) if we get pregnant we’ll have to decide whether to confide that we experienced IF, or just not say anything at all (not that I would deny it if anyone asked, for sure, I just don’t know if it’s relevant for everyone to know).

In other news - only 6-7 days left until IUI cycle #2!

Crappy Weekend All Around

OK, my weekend wasn’t THAT crappy, it was just busy, and as my first weekend back after a two and a half week trip, I could have used some time to relax, clean the house, etc. Instead, my weekend consisted of a book club meeting, all day bridal shower/bachelorette party (literally from the moment I got up until I got home just before falling into bed that night), several hours of weeding, and driving an hour each way to have dinner with my mother (with whom I do not get along that well). The main positive was 30 miles of biking (split into two days).

The hardest part about the weekend was the constant talk about babies and pregnancy. At the book club meeting, the host asked who would like wine, and my pregnant friend (from this blog post) said “Well, I’d like wine” and patted her stomach. Sigh.

Then at dinner after the bridal shower, the talk turned to having babies and infertility and when people would start trying or even whether they wanted to have kids at all. I stayed out of the conversation entirely until focus turned on me completely (since I wasn’t talking) and people started asking me “What about you and L, do you guys think you’d ever want kids? Who wants them more, you or L? When do you think you’ll start trying?” I made some excuses and tried to answer as truthfully as I could (i.e., we agree about wanting to have kids, we don't really know when we'll have them). I wanted to just say “leave me alone!”

It made me realize how completely clueless I was before this happened to me, so I can’t really be upset with anyone, because that’s how I would have behaved. I'm certainly learning a LOT about compassion.

Anyway, that’s behind me now. Only one week (and a bit more maybe?) to go before we start IUI cycle #2!

Half-life of fertility

As I mentioned in my last post, I had a sort of "pregnancy scare" when I was 17. I actually first got my period when I was 11 or 12, which is an amazing 18-19 years ago. Just to round things out, let’s say I was mature enough to have a baby when I was 15 years old – FIFTEEN YEARS AGO.

I am constantly reminded by people of how “young” I am. I know I look young for my age, and my husband looks young for his age (especially when he bothers to shave). I know a lot of infertiles are in their upper 30s or 40s. I know PLENTY of (fertile) people wait until their 30s to have children, and that in this day and age it is considered quite young to have a baby in your early 20s. When I twist my way of thinking back to the way it was 15 months ago (before infertility), 29 does not seem at all old to start ttc. I certainly didn’t feel ready before then.

Now here I am, 30 years old, more than halfway to 31. If it takes us a while longer to get pregnant, I will quite possibly be at least 32 by the time I give birth. (I won’t even consider the possibility that things might not work out at all – I am still too hopeful for that). If we decide to have any more children, it’s quite possible we won’t get around to that until I am at least (gasp) around 35. Which, as you well know, is a REALLY scary age for fertility. AND I AM ONLY 4.5 YEARS AWAY.

I have been theoretically capable of carrying a child for FIFTEEN YEARS, and now I’m only 4.5 YEARS AWAY from reaching The Age At Which It All Apparently Goes To Hell.

Which raises the question – WHAT THE HELL HAVE I BEEN DOING FOR THE LAST 15 YEARS?!?!

And then the next question – WHY DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME ABOUT ALL THIS?!?!

Out of my 20 years of relatively reasonable “fertility”, I have squandered three quarters of it. And considering that even before the “magical” age of 35, fertility is already decreasing, I now understand that I have squandered the BEST three quarters of it, and the dwindling quarter that’s left is starting to look rather shabby.

I know I need to step back and get a bit of perspective here. But does anyone else agree that perhaps in high school sex ed, in addition to warning the kids that:

“JUST ONE TIME WITHOUT A CONDOM will CAUSE A PREGNANCY and therefore RUIN YOUR LIFE”

we can include a little small-print caveat (pick one! Or make up your own!):

- Or maybe not!
- *results not guaranteed
- *this absolute rule gradually loses effectiveness with age (even though of course you will never get old).
- but don’t wait too long, because you never really know what could happen!

Not, of course, that I would have ever expected to be infertile. Ah well.

Bitterness

When I was in high school, I had the unpleasant experience of having to take the morning-after pill. I was a very naive 17 years old. It was during a rather unfortunate relationship, I was very obviously not on The Pill, and I was really uncomfortable with the entire situation. Not to mention totally freaked out. The people at Planned Parenthood were very wonderful and non-judgmental (and in fact after that visit and various other more routine visits when I was a low-income recent grad, I vowed to go back one day and make a big donation). Nonetheless, taking the morning-after pill seriously sucked.

For starters, I puked violently after the first dose, forcing my friend's parent to pull over the minivan in which we were driving on our way to a day of skiing at Tahoe so I could be miserable by the side of the road. I took that as a sign that the medication was probably no longer in my stomach, which indicated I needed to take it again. I no longer recall how long I was sick due to those pills, although I do seem to remember enjoying at least part of a sunny afternoon in the mountains. It was rather uncomfortable to have everyone worrying about me, wondering whether it was the flu, or motion sickness, or something I ate, when I knew exactly what it was the whole time, but was not at liberty to say. I grew up quickly that day.

That little lesson made a huge impression on me. It made me even more wary of my relationship with my now-ex (a relationship I finally ended at least 6 months later, not having had the spine to say "no" to way too many things until I left for college). It made me wary of the choices I was making in my life, or rather the choices I was letting other people make for me. It definitely made me think about having children, at least to the extent that my naivete allowed (being from a small family, I had no experience with pregnant women or babies outside of occasional babysitting). It also reinforced, as it would with any young girl that age in our society, the lesson I had learned from school and church and parents and everyone else that JUST ONE MISTAKE could RUIN MY LIFE. That a baby is an unwanted thing, and that ceasing to be vigilant for 10 minutes would automatically produce one.

Getting older and growing wiser and a lot more aware managed to only partially change my thinking. I began to understand that a baby is NOT an unwanted thing, but a blessing and one of the greatest joys in life. Somehow, I didn't make the connection that due to the sacred status of creating a new life, it might not be so easy as ceasing to be vigilant for 10 minutes.

Of course, after my first incredibly disappointing month of ttc, I've progressed through all the stages most infertiles go through (based on my own opinion), and I'm currently at the one that I think we tend to fall back on frequently - bitterness.

UNLIKE many other infertiles, I so far don't blame myself. I don't think my wishing and hoping and praying not to be pregnant when I was 17 years old caused God to curse me now. I certainly don't think that I'm being punished for being less than perfect, for making the wrong choices in life, for not being religious and going to church, or for anything else. (Despite this, I DO find myself sometimes bargaining with God or the Great Being or whoever, promising to be a better person if I can just get pregnant).

No, I think this is all random luck, just as the person who gets cancer or suffers a miscarriage did not in any way do anything to bring bad luck upon herself. Whether it's random luck that we cannot seem to get pregnant for unknown reasons, or random luck that there actually IS something wrong with one or both of us that modern medicine cannot detect - either way, I think it's random.

Unfortunately, I also think it's damn unfair.