36 weeks!

yet again i've let several months go by without updating. and yet again there is big news to report! we have had a long and healthy pregnancy* and the baby is due in less than a month! i didn't mention in my last post (the one where i shared the fact that we got pregnant!!) that it was due to IVF. working with UIC fertility docs, we tried 3 medicated cycles with ol' donor 7836, our first choice, but they didn't work and he ran out. when we were finally approved for IVF months later, we chose a new donor and had success with our first try on both (the donor and IVF). such an amazing time!!! we had some bleeding so stayed with the fertility team for a few months but then moved to swedish covenant midwives by thanksgiving. pregnancy was NOT difficult at all until only recently. i never had morning sickness (SO crazy!) or really any other symptoms, except headaches that mostly went away when i stopped taking the progesterone shots around 13 weeks. in the last month or so my main symptom has been ridiculously swollen feet and hands. this honestly doesn't affect me THAT much other than looking just ridiculous (and once making me cry when i looked down at them!) so yet again, i don't want to complain. the rest of our lives have moved forward swimmingly. i left work in january to start my internship(s) for my final semester of school. i finished classes this past week and only have one paper left to write, which i'm pretty confident i can do before giving birth! then i'll actually be done with grad school before having a baby! this timing worked out so bizarrely and wonderfully. then we have enough savings to stay in this apartment and this city for about 4 or 5 more months, staring at our baby in awe. in the meantime both DW and i are looking for work here or elsewhere, but it's nice to be able to throw our net wide and actually look for work that will make us happy. our second shower was this past weekend and it was a total love fest. the baby is so set, we felt so supported and celebrated, and people came all the way from miami and dc! now we just have to see how to a) get this baby out of me and b) raise a child. no biggie, right? *i do want to memorialize here that we started with implanting 2 embryos. our beta numbers were pretty high and it was suspected that we had implanted two, but we only saw one sac on the ultrasounds at first. at around 6 weeks or so i started bleeding, and at the frequent ultrasounds to follow that issue, we saw the second sac, though it was shaped differently and not as big. it eventually disappeared about a month later. so we had two little ones for over two months in there. we're so thankful that they both graced us with their presence and will never forget that second perfect 8-cell blast. love you.

and completely without warning.....

BFP at first beta on 9/26/14!! beta-272, progesterone-159. next beta test will be next tuesday, crossing my fingers for doubling, tripling, whatever!!! (at some point i will fill in all the details between the last blog post and this one :) just had to get the numbers down for posterity!!

almost two full cycles around the sun later....

whoah--have i seriously forgotten about this blog, or what? well, not entirely forgotten, but avoided it, perhaps. for a long time there hasn't been absolutely anything of substance or good news to report. we "finished" our agreed-upon 12 tries with our KD and wife. i think they would have been happy to re-up for more, but we're not going that route (for reasons explained below). but we did try with them for quite a while longer, especially considering we took breaks in between every so often. the last couple times we tried (i think in late fall?) it was already started to feel weird, like we hadn't done it in a while, and obviously it wasn't going to work, so?....but as always i am thankful beyond words for their participation in this whole gig for so long. we're going out to dinner with them this saturday for a formal, ritualistic end to that period. meanwhile i thought i should at least give it a shot to try and get infertility procedures approved through my insurance. this was after my endo played around with my thyroid levels for well over a year and declared she didn't think that was the problem. so i went back to my GP to ask for a referral to an RE (reproductive endocrinologist). she was kind of hesitant about doing it because she knows the hetero bias in insurance coverage and was worried they might approve things and then 'find out' later on that i haven't been having baby-making sex and force me to pay them back. a valid question, sure, but i needed her to just say then, that NO she won't write the referral or YES she will. what actually happened was her dragging it out for MONTHS. this appointment, where she reluctantly said she would do it, was in august of last year. it finally got approved in.....december! (christmas miracle!) i won't go into all the ridiculously monotonous and boring details, but suffice it to say i had to DRAG it out of her. and the insurance. and the other doctors i had to get to send in reports. the guy at my insurance got super used to my phone calls to check in on status. for a while i was pretty convinced it wasn't going to happen because they requested proof that i'd tried medical assistance before, and from my perspective i really hadn't (guess it turns out the IUIs in the clinic and the endo treatment counted there!), so for a while i was just persisting so i wouldn't regret not having done so--but had no hope. when i was making one of my bi-weekly calls in mid-december and the insurance guy told me it had been approved, i couldn't believe it!!! i texted and told all the in-the-know-people freaking out all afternoon. that of course started off another round of "preparatory" pieces. i had to get my referral, get registered at the doctor they choose, make a first appointment, go through a cycle's worth of testing (CD3 blood, HSG), and on and on. i will say that the place they assigned me to, UIC (University of Illinois at Chicago) fertility center is AMAZING. i love my doctors, i love the staff, i even love the random people at the hospital when i went to radiology for my HSG. everyone is nice, kind, upbeat, hopeful and helpful. they are blowing every other doctor i've worked with out of the water! and finally we are at an actual attempted medical cycle. after all my tests coming out fine last month, the doctor decided we are at go to try this month with clomid and a trigger shot. i've got all the meds sitting at home and just waiting to use them. my period had it's own last laugh by showing up like 4 days late, just because it knew i was waiting for it with bated breath (it NEVER shows up late!), but who cares! here we are now, at CD2, meds start tomorrow, ultrasound next week, then the following week IUI! we're going to order from NW again and yet again i LOVE our donor, so i hope they still have some in stock by the time the dr's office calls me back with the shipping address. i don't expect it to work automatically the first try and i'm not looking forward to the heartbreak when it doesn't. BUT i have hope again. things fell into place with the referral and the awesome doctor/office and the fact that we happened to have student loans with which to purchase swimmies :) the upcoming years don't make a ton of sense since i have to do an internship next spring, so by the time this baby comes i won't have income or health insurance (ha! life, you're hilarious!) but we're forging ahead anyway. my insurance will cover 3 IUIs and 3 IVFs. if it doesn't work after that i'm pretty sure i'll be able to accept it by that point, since i was almost there anyway without even trying medicated cycles. in the meantime we're still trying to diet and we joined the Y, so our lives are already different not of our own volition :P

started pre-natals again today....

i couldn't resist writing today....the one year anniversary of our very first IUI we ever tried. after months and months of planning, temping, taking pre-natals, POASing, etc, of course , so i guess you could theoretically say we started TTC in like january 2011, but still. feels like a landmark day. perhaps obviously, that first try didn't work. neither did the next 5 we did over a span of about 8 months. (first with swimmers from NW and then later with a KD, who appeared miraculously just as we were realizing we couldn't afford to purchase anymore!). we did those first couple of tries as IUIs at our crunchy womens' clinic, then the remaining tries at KD's or our home. it was great fun , but never worked. after the 6th try KD and his wife were still happy to keep trying, but i wanted to nip this thing in the bud and started trying to hit up the doctors. [LONG PARAGRAPH ABOUT MEDICAL STUFF, SKIP IF YOU WANT TO!] my midwives did the minimal tests that they were equipped for, and discovered everything looked good except for my estradiol being very low, but unfortunately they didn't know enough about what that might mean, so they sent me to my GP. my GP sent me to an OB-GYN (after first annoyingly expressing surprise that i would even attempt this without medical help. i felt like saying, and did YOU talk to a doctor before you slept with your husband??). the OB was great, but wanted to send me to a fertility clinic, which i wasn't (and still am not) sure my insurance will cover, since i can't prove i've been having heterosexual sex for one year (or ever, really). so i appreciated his help but wasn't sure where that would lead....luckily, he decided to do some basic bloodwork while i was there, and it turned out my thyroid was very high (or was it low?). this sent me back to my GP so i could get a referral to an endo (gotta love HMOs!), who turned out to be awesome. my first visit with her was in, i believe, april, and she has been playing with thyroid medicine ever since then, trying to get my levels in check. (before each visit with her i have to go to my GP to get bloodwork drawn a few days in advance, and once i even had a thyroid ultrasound...that was kind of interesting. not exactly the type of ultrasound i was hoping for, but you do what you gotta do....). she also basically diagnosed PCOS just by looking at me (apparently my chubby tummy is a dead giveaway . at the last visit she also put me on metformin. so far i haven't had any of the side effects the pharmacist warned me about, and i begin to suspect it might actually be working! (i had what i think are ovulation pains the last two cycles i've been on it, which i never had before!). she treats diabetes in her practice, and was able to prescribe it as a 'pre-diabetes-so-you-don't-get-it' kind of a drug, but she and i both know it's a fertility drug (at least a low level intro one). i think she 'gets it' and understands the troubles i might have getting fertility clinic stuff covered by insurance, so is trying to do whatever she can to help me avoid that. she also has me on prescription strength vitamin D, but don't ask me how that's related. my next appointment with the helpful endo is 9/6, and i'm really hoping that on that day, she will say my thyroid levels are back to normal and i can start trying again!! of course there is always the chance there's something ELSE wrong with me, but for now i'm going to pretend that was it, i'm magically cured, and will be able to get pregnant within a couple of tries. hmm...gotta start working accupuncture back into the budget, too. speaking of budgets, i was seriously considering putting off TTC because i applied for an internship which i would have absolutely LOVED to take, and i have gotten to the final rounds of the selection process....but i think i've realized that we really won't be able to afford life on that salary. it's an OK salary, but not great, and it's more work than i do here so would probably have to quit my part time job or jobs...which just isn't financially feasible quite yet. i'm bummed because i LOVE this job possibility (community organizing inter-faith residency) but the one amazing awesome thing i realized by not taking it--i can concentrate on BABYING immediately!! instead of trying to plan it around the residency calendar and health insurance and what have you. so counting down to 9/6 appt and hope it's good news....

and the passing of time goes on....

we haven't given up TTC! just kind of forgot about this blog :) and we've been on a kind of hiatus...not from the process itself, but from active insemming. after february, that was 6 tries for us and i wanted medical advice. our donor and wife would have been happy to keep trying a few more times, but for me it would have felt like wasting time (and sperm!) (and ben and jerry's!). so i headed off to start a string of doctor visits. to summarize: to my midwives for bloodwork, who found my estradiol was low. sent me to my GP, who didn't know what to do and sent me to an ob-gyn. missed that first appt because of traffic but got there eventually. he was nice, but wanted to send me to a fertility clinic and i still don't know if my HMO would cover that. in the meantime he did basic bloodwork for the heck of it and discovered my thyroid numbers were way off. back to GP, who referred me to an endocrinologist with a diagnosis of, and i quote "hypothyroidism and infertility." yay! that means i have it officially in case i ever want to try a fertility clinic :) the endo is an awesome lady who i've seen twice now. she's been trying different dosage levels of synthroid to regulate my thyroid, and i think we're getting close. to figure that out i have to have my blood taken every time we try a new dose, and a few weeks ago i even had a thyroid ultrasound (interesting). at this last visit she also prescribed metformin, which is for diabetes but also used as fertility drugs. holy cow! she essentially is givin me (low-level, introductory, but still) fertility treatment without sending me to a fertility clinic! so freaking awesome. so now i take three pills a day, some with food, some without, and a prescription-strength vitamin D once a week. she suggested still not trying actual insemination until we get the thyroid worked out, and i totally agree. after the next time we draw blood (late august?), i'll start charting again and if the numbers are right, maybe try again a month or two after that. i'm pretty sure our donor and his wife are still up for it. this could actually work! i really truly believe that. also we now have a dog and lord knows i don't know where we're going to put a baby, but we'll manage :)

yes, no, maybe so.

yesterday (and over the weekend) i was pretty optimistic that hey...it's POSSIBLE that this time worked. today, not so much. i woke up last night from some brief, but annoying cramps--the ones i ALWAYS get one week before i get my period. so though i still don't know why this happens (as i wrote in an earlier post, why would my uterus need to practice every month one week before showtime?), it seems to imply that this is a normal (i.e. not pregnant) cycle and AF will be showing next week. yeesh.

i discovered that there were some comments to an earlier post on here :), and they're right--going to see my doctor will feel like an important step. my appointment is set for next tuesday!

and next month....

well, clearly last month didn't take. that's ok, i was bummed as usual but not completely depressed. my CD21 test said everything was fine so at least (we think) i ovulated. it was a tough month because our sweet wonderful cat Merry passed away, and we miss her terribly still. we briefly considered that maybe she went away because the time was right and to make room for the baby coming, but then...bfn. so that did suck. we actually have two new adopted kitties from the pound but they will absolutely never take her place. we still cry when we talk about her with friends. she was my roommate for eight years in three different countries and i know she will be with us forever. whoops...i'm going to start crying now.

oy. back to ttc stuff!

so we started a new month. maybe it will be good luck because i also was conceived in february? (my parents actually told me the only time they had sex that month was on valentine's day....yech.). but right off the bat we hit a snag--i had CD3 testing done and found out my estradiol is WAY low. like off the charts low. but since i have normal periods the midwife was really confused--it doesn't seem to be affecting me. and i really couldn't find much info about low estradiol online as the bigger (or more common) issue seems to be HIGH estradiol. so yeah.

moving on to the next step, i made an appointment to see my general practitioner. i have never actually met her, but i had to choose one since i have an HMO, and the midwives recommended her. i made the appt for near the time when AF should show just IN CASE we actually got pregnant this cycle. but i essentially have no hope because i feel like getting those test results were the midwife handing me The Reason that it hasn't been working. (p.s. it took FOREVER to get the test results--i didn't get them until freaking CD14!!--because the lab took too long, then they tested for the wrong thing, then the midwife was out at births two days in a row and no one else is allowed to discuss test results....oy!!!!)

this also means we'll probably take a few months off, because if i see my doctor on, say, CD5, she's going to want to run the CD3 tests again surely, so we'll have to wait a month to do that; then depending on the results she may or may not have to refer me out to an RE, who will seemingly want to run his/her own tests, and on and on.

this break could be a very good thing, though. i'm definitely going to do a little south beach diet again in the interim :), and i wouldn't be surprised if a break from ttc lightened our spirits a bit.

now here's the thing. last friday, i saw a tiny little drop of blood when i went to the restroom here at work. literally one drop, and then nothing else before or since. it looks suspiciously like implantation bleeding, or at least what i've heard IB is supposed to be like. i do NOT, CAPITAL NOT, want to get my hopes up, though :(. every month i get a twinge of hope and then AF comes traipsing in, it's like a frigging 18-wheeler rumbling across my chest. i don't want to feel that again. so i keep telling myself it's probably nothing and doesn't mean anything. i'm not tracking any other signs so i don't know what's going on with my temperature and i don't even know what day i ovulated. i of course went back through the forums and found people who had mentioned IB, to which lots of folks said "that's almost always a good sign!" but then they got bfns. so....

but here's the thing. if that was IB, and it is supposed to happen 7-10 days after fertilization...if you take the lower number of 7, conception would have been the previous friday, the day after our second insemination and the first day of good EWCM, so makes sense...my due date (40 weeks after conception) would be my birthday. that would be pretty much amazing.

(and last night in the shower i got *convinced* for about 7 minutes that i really was pregnant and was giddily chattering away to my belly the whole time. i think those moments of positivity are probably sending very good vibes to any life form that may exist in there! but i just can't entertain them for too long, because i just don't want to fall too far when AF shows up next week.)

this is the LONGEST TWW ever!!

apparently i got more positive since the last post...

because that one said i couldn't take the idea of trying again, but here we are on CD19 and post-3 insems! what really happened was that i went home that same night, talked it over with DP, felt very supported and got some great ideas about how to feel like we're doing something different. because it was that feeling of 'why try the exact same thing again if it's clearly not working?' that was getting to me.

hence:
things we have done different this month

-started accupuncture. thanks to the folks on the NW forum, i was able to find a CHEAP accupuncture place and really love it. the dude who does it is very kind and personable, and appears to know a lot about TTC. last week when i went in for my second time, he said "this is CD14 for you right?" which i had to stop and think about because i was tracking it less than he was!

-speaking of....that's another thing we did different. didn't track anything! i took no BBTs, peed on no sticks, and touched not a finger tip to cervix opening this month. the only thing i noticed is the one day i had EWCM because...well because it was impossible to miss :). but the active non-tracking of all other signs has really improved things for me this month. i feel totally non-stressed at all!

-had a wider range of dates for our insems. this was not by design but happened because of all of our schedules, but i'm interested to see the results. usually we insem between days 14 or 15 and 19. this time we are doing 13-20. you never know...

-did at least one insem at home, which meant i could lie down for absolutely HOURS afterward. seriously. KD produced quite a respectable amount, plus i used preseed both directly inside and some in the syringe, and not a DROP dripped out because of how long i lie flat! we lounged on the couch and ate ice cream and watched movies and it was probably the most awesome sunday in recent memory. and we're planning to do another one at our house tomorrow night should all go according to plan.

i haven't a clue when my TWW would start/started and i don't have any pregnancy tests anyway, so this is probably going to be like last month and just waiting for AF to show. UNLESS. thursday i have my CD21 test and i may very well find out that i didn't even ovulate. making all of these previous steps pointless!!!, but at least it will cut the TWW short. i hope if that is the result of the test that i can learn something about what may or may not be wrong and find out what the next steps might be (and i'm thinking the next step may be finding a Dr who will swear i've been having sex for a year with a man, since that's what BCBS requires).

still don't know how long it will take to get results after thursday's test; i should check in after that and thinking about next steps....

2012?

wait, that's the year the earth is going to self-destruct, right? according to either the ancient mayans or hollywood; i can't remember which.

AF showed today on this, cycle #2 with KD, #4 of actively trying, month #12 since starting to plan, chart, and insistently hope. yeah, hope. that's what's bugging me today.

i'm not depressed, i still didn't cry as much as i did with that first BFN back in august (but i did get a trip to amish acres out of that, though :). i have been weepy today and because of that my boss thinks i'm coming down with something, which caused him to tell me i could go home early if i felt bad. might just take him up on that...

but beyond how actually concretely weepy i have or have not been, i'm really not feeling another try right now. i feel like it's pointless. i feel like it COULD work but if it doesn't that i can't take another 'hopes up-hopes down' cycle. i feel like it's awfully likely i have fertility issues what with my weird cycle lengths and CM variations and low temps. i want to get checked out and told what's wrong, but i also have a fairly strong feeling that i'm not going to feel any better after finding that out.

i just don't know if i can start another entire year of this. i know it's still not that much, i know there are women who have been trying MANY years and still keep hope alive and in fact, it's 100% true that it could be just the next cycle, just around the corner. 'i guess it's half timing, the other half luck' and all that. but just the idea of it. remembering how excited and plan-y i was at this time last year, making appts, meeting the midwives, buying my BBT thermometer and starting prenatals (a year of prenatals! good heavens!) and picking a donor. i feel a wrenching in my gut that it was all for naught. i feel like my body doesn't or didn't work and i'm not feeling great about that. i also feel like DP has been an amazing support for me this whole time but worry she hasn't been able to cry/be frustrated/express her negative emotions like i have.

should we start thinking about fostering? adopting older children? i know i'm not exactly retirement age yet, but we've just lost An Entire Year. i don't have the sunshine-y bouncey ball hope to start an entire new one. is that wrong?

i haven't told dp yet although i saw AF this morning, because early-morning-darkness-still-basically-asleep-goodbye-kiss time is not exactly my idea of the best time to break bad news. but i want to go home and snuggle and tell her and cry together. and then i want a new plan. i don't know if i can keep doing this same one much longer.

no big news for the moment but i thought i should update for posterity's sake : ).

no BFP last month, bummer, but i have to say that everytime does get easier. i still cry, but only for about 3 minutes or so : ), whereas the first time it was this horried experience. as time goes on i'm learning more and more about my body and cycles and fertility in general, and frankly 3 times trying is really not THAT much.

we're on our fourth time right now. i'm CD18 right now, and we're doing our 3rd AI of the week tonight with KD. i got +OPK last night and this morning, so i think this is the real thing (as opposed to the other +OPK i got monday evening, not repeated or preceeded by any other +, so i think that was my standard early/false). i had some EWCM earlier in the week but haven't had any today, which is annoying me after two +OPKs in a row. i may have just stated in the previous paragraph that i'm learning more about my body and cycle, but i still get frustrated that the signs don't line up! :P i'm still seriously thinking about getting some testing done next cycle if this doesn't take, just in case. (even though KD, KD's wife, and DP all think we should just keep trying). it's MY body that isn't 'working', though, and i just don't want to waste time if it turns out i'm not ovulating or something. just saying. we'll see how frustrated i get if we see a BFN in a couple of weeks....

still on the lookout for EWCM today and a temp rise tomorrow or sat! whoo :)

good news and bad news?

first the bad news: this morning i felt my slight 'week-before-period' cramps. i get these slight, minor cramps, just for a brief period, every month about a week before my period actually comes. don't ask me why...i can't imagine why my uterus would need to practice a week early--and if it needs to practice that bad, why it only does so one day and then chillaxes again for the next week! but i just know i get it every month before AF. this doesn't NECESSARILY mean AF is coming, but it just sort of reminded me that it totally could be. even though i've been saying to myself this whole time, could be yes, could be no, just like always, apparently i was secretly starting to think it worked, because when i felt the twinges this morning it was like it HIT me that perhaps it didn't work. and OF COURSE it may not have worked! this was only our first try with KD and i literally had no clue what i was doing and we've only been trying 3 months anyway...i wish, though, when i say these logical things to myself, that i could actually believe them. because then when reality sinks in it feels much worse.

i've been able to pinoint a few 'symptoms' lately, i.e. things that are different than they usually are, but i have also been able to explain away each and every one of them, making them not such great clues afterall. for example, i've been really tired lately--could that be because i don't get enough sleep?? also, i was slightly dizzy today. but, that's because i didn't eat dinner last night. and i didn't eat dinner last night because i felt nauseous. WHICH is because when i got home from work yesterday, i proceeded to eat a huge piece of leftover birthday cake. see what i'm saying here?

anywho i am 8dpo and less than a week away from either AF or testing. i've stopped temping which has truly been lovely. i have a chance for it to go either way and i want to be happy with that! and if it didn't work i still have this truly amazing KD and wife who are already ready for next time (maybe they're running low on ice cream?...)

the good news: i've gone to the restroom twice today, and both times the pregnant lady from the office next to ours was in there. so clearly, if i'm peeing on the same schedule as a pregnant lady....just saying :)

i'm almost certain i felt ovulation pains today. it was on the left side.

now i'm off to google image search pictures of sperm-egg fertilization, in an attempt to perform positive visualization. as my book tells me to do.

(fingers crossed for high temp tomorrow to confirm ovulation! if not i'm just going to throw my thermometer away :P)

i probably could have written in here every day since the last post until now, since as you know if you a)are also TTCing or b)know me at all, i obsess about the process all day, every day. and in fact, there has also been a substantial amount of news and details to obsess over. which is better than obsessing in a void. i think.

so anyway. last time i wrote i was pretty much to the point of accepting last month’s BFN, although AF hadn’t shown yet. she did (it did?) eventually, and we moved on. again, praise the Lord, it was NOT as devastating as the first BFN. and i didn’t know it at the time, but things were only about to get better....

we did meet with our KD and his wife for dinner a couple weeks ago (or just one week ago? time’s been flying by!) and we honestly didn’t know what the result would be. you know, it was totally possible that they would want to be co-parents or be called daddy or who knows what–-because everybody is different and there are endless valid variations of parenting and family. we were just hoping that’s not what they wanted because it’s not what we are looking for. and it totally isn’t! they have essentially the same exact expectations as we do–donate sperm (for which we pay them one pint of ben and jerry’s for each insem :), not be any sort of family figure, maybe not even live in the same city or country as the baby, but still be friends, and that’s it. we even realized that since we live way in the north of the city and they live way in the south, but sometimes work in the north, that on insem days we could even give them rides home and thus contribute a little something to them (besides the ice cream). and we decided this over yummy japanese food. it was perfect.

so that was about a week and a half ago, and it just happened to be very close to my ovulation, though of course i never really can tell and my O day jumps around a lot. and this week was an excellent example of me “never really can tell”-ing. my signs were all over the place and confusing and being contradictory amongst themselves. my temps went down then up then down again (i may need a new thermometer??). my cervix seemed to be up and so i thought that because of that, that certain day MUST be fertile-time, but i had no EWCM. now yesterday i had awesome EWCM, but my cervix had long since come back down. i had smileys twice, Wednesday and Sunday. same basic confusion as always...good times!

the upshot is that we ended up doing three inseminations this week. this is actually the ideal plan (3 or 4 days before O, then 1 or 2 days before O, then day of) but we didn’t plan it on purpose. i got that first smiley Wednesday and panicked and asked if we could start that night (because i also had a high cervix, as far as i can tell, though no fertile CM). i had a slight inkling that it could be a ‘false early positive’ because i’ve had those before (apparently my LH goes up and down??) AND i hadn’t tested the day before because i hadn’t slept long enough and thought it was too early to matter. so of course i freaked out because i couldn’t tell if it was a flash in the pan fluke, or the tail end of a regular length surge. and then the next day my temp went up so i thought, yep, that was it, we only got one try in this month but at least it’s something!

but then i kept being not convinced because i just wasn’t seeing any fertile CM and it still seemed kind of early to me (first smiley was CD 14, whereas I usually get it between 15 and 19). so we did it again Friday night just in case. and then i kept testing just for kicks, because i really wanted to figure this cycle out. so Sunday (CD 18, much more normal timing), i got a +OPK with FMU and contemplated asking them again (even though it was the end of a super long week and weekend and i felt bad because on Friday, we had sort of implied that this was it for the month). we went out to lunch with a friend, i came home and got ANOTHER smiley, without even waiting 4 hours between POASing, and i also had very obvious EWCM. so yes, finally i knew, at least i understand this month! i think i need to get used to my cycles having multiple smileys and being long and just never really being OBVIOUS one way or the other...and learn to embrace it :)

and i texted KD and his wife and they told me it was perfectly fine to do another go-round yesterday evening. i tried to profusely apologize but they said it was no big deal, and they get ice cream out of it, so it’s all good. they sound totally laid back, don’t they? which they are, as well as awesome in SO many other ways. i’m serious-–at first we didn’t really consider at all using a KD and their offer came out of the blue for us, but after spending this week with them i literally cannot think of any cooler or more wonderful way of doing this. not only am i becoming better friends with two extremely amazing people, but they’re also giving this whole process a lift from the ‘non-fun-let’s-just-do-it-but-it’s-stressful’ place it was in previously. i mean, it’s still a little stressful, it can’t not be. but they explained to me in great detail last week what a blessing it was for them to be involved in this, and they are really excited and into it. NOT excited in a sketchy way like, are they going to want to steal the baby? :P, excited because they want to be a part of radical and hilarious and queer and fabulous and holy things. that’s a direct quote.

plus i keep finding out more and more things we have in common (other than the first right-off-the-bat-obvious thing that KD has red hair and so do i, though his is much more bright and brilliant! ha:). also, they went to college in ohio. also, some of their family is from pittsburgh. also, they have huge shelves full of books within which are included selections by bill bryson and ursula k leguin and john irving. also there are lots of things we DON’T have in common but that i am learning so much through. i’m pretty sure that even though they’re the heterosexual ‘traditional’ couple on the outside, we're going to learn more than i can express from them about being radical and queer and loving it.

also we’ve decided to use astronomical lingo when talking about our ‘process’, so we talk about the mission and launching satellites and naming each month’s attempt after a different shuttle. and we sit around their room after the insem (when i’m lying with my feet up for half an hour) talking about anything and everything (and sometimes sharing their ice cream). i don’t actually want to keep getting BFNs indefinitely just so we can hang out with them and talk, but they have completely revolutionized the process for me and the prospect of doing so is now a totally different experience :). it's not every KD and his wife that you can say that about!!

and on to KD....?

tested tonight and got a BFN. it was weird cause i had actually started to convince myself that it had worked...like i just KNEW, you know? which clearly means nothing :). still no AF, but she may show in a day or two. i just really thought it was going to work!

i'm NOT as sad as last time, at all, which may be because the first time is harder? i'm definitely sad, not least of all because this would have been a baby that (theoretically) might look like DP! i was really liking that idea.

and now we may (also theoretically? :) move on to using the KD i mentioned a few posts back. i definitely want to keep trying--that is something i realized the other day through prayer. sometimes i really DON'T want to try anymore, i get sort of 'sour apples' as though i say to 'fertility' or to 'conception': fine! if you aren't going to play nice then i'm not going to play anymore! but there are many reasons this is ridiculous, not least of which is the fact that there isn't some great force of the universe against me or us or our family plans. it just statistically is hard to get pregnant so there aren't 800 billion people running around on the planet (as opposed to 7 billion), and that's they way it is, period. nothing personal! although it feels an awful lot like that sometimes.

anyways, my inherent spitefulness, plus the constant stress of waiting for a +OPK, then waiting for a BFP, hoping and symptom spotting and everything, makes it awfully tempting to stop trying. the trying process is NOT fun. but if i stop...i won't get my baby. and i miss my baby. of course she or he is worth it! this just isn't the ball o' joy that i may have thought it would be....but i think i got that now :)

come on AF, let's get this over with! and now to start doing research about KDs....

2dpi....i guess i'm officially accepting that i'm in the 2ww :)

yesterday i posted the lyrics to michael buble's 'haven't met you yet' after i read on another ttc blog that they were really quite apropos to our situation (which i totally agree to! being in your life is gonna change me....). and then on the way to pick esther up after class, i was listening to the radio and started hearing positive ttc messages in EVERY song! seriously! this used to happen to me back when i was in the thick of being an evagelical christian; any song that the author or singer actually meant to be about love for another human being, i could totally apply it to my relationship with God. just take ONE example, garth brooks' 'you move me'--

But you move me
You give me courage I didn't know I had
You move me on
I can't go with you
And stay where I am
So you move me on
Oh 'cause you move me
You get me dancing and you
make me sing
You move me
Now I'm taking delight
In every little thing
How you move me

etc. just sayin....

so anyways, last night i was hearing "keep ttc hope alive" from every melody coming out of 100.3! a few samples:

-"when i see your face, there's not a thing that i would change" (even if 'you' are born after years and tons of procedures and expense and etc...i'm sure i'm going to think 'you're' absolutely perfect and be glad you were born when you were...)
-"i will survive" (this ttc process even when i think i'm down for the count...)
and following that same theme:
-"i get knocked down, but i get up again" (this would be the theme song of every CD1 upon af's arrival....)

happy hummin'! :)

p.s. in terms of actual ttc process updates, my temp did shoot up this morning so i'm thinking that in fact i did O yesterday, but who knows when. i've been trying to google "how many hours after O does temp spike?" but frankly am finding nothing but crap. apparently not many folk have asked this extremely specific question before :) but apparently the ladies at nw forum have convinced me to have hope still for this cycle, so i'm considering it :)

not sure how i feel right now.

yesterday did 2 IUIs, so was expecting to joyfully (though possibly frantically) enter the TWW today. instead, took my BBT this morning as usual and it went DOWN rather than up...leading me to believe i didn't actually ovulate yet and we may possibly have wasted those 2 vials i'd been waiting so long to use. also this is because I decided that we should insem earlier than last time, so i am frustrated that this is sort of my fault. except there was no way for me to know that this month would be different than the majority of other months, but whatever. geez.

it's 4 pm, and i've been through about a jillion emotional states already today. first i was sad (already convinced that it hadn't worked) but wanting to be positive about the experience. then i was just sad and wept a little bit (this was about the time i got to work and the receptionist wanted to know if i was alright....). then i posted on the nw forum, not sure if i really wanted to hear reasons it might work, because i can't decide if i want one small tortured hope for the next two weeks or if i'd rather just let it go. i got a FEW molecules of hope out of the responses to that and was thankful for that, but still really not thinking there is much chance. and now i'm back to remembering that we have the possibility of a KD!!. frankly i still don't know what our collective thoughts are on that nor how or if it would work, but last month i was grateful the opportunity presented itself just so i wouldn't feel like this was our absolute last try, and i want to get back to feeling that.

this morning esther texted me to say i should write in our baby blog about this week so we could have a rememberance of everything, and i didn't have the heart to respond telling her what i already 'know', that it isn't going to happen this month. sorry, sweetheart! here's hoping you don't read this for a few weeks until we both already know whatever there is to know.

in the meantime someone on the forum recommended the blog of a woman working her way through fertility treatments, and in one of her posts she made the remark that michael buble's song "haven't met you yet" has the absolute perfect lyrics for baby-wanting-but-not-yet-having:

"I might have to wait.
I'll never give up.
I guess it's half timing,
And the other half's luck.
Wherever you are.
Whenever it's right.
You'll come out of nowhere and into my life.

And I know that we can be so amazing.
And baby your is gonna change me.
And now I can see every possibility.

But somehow I know that it'll all turn out.
And you'll make me work so we can work to work it out.
And I promise you, kid, that I'll give so much more than I get.
I just haven't met you yet."

i don't want to give up! even when i want to give up! ha. this process is just seriously emotionally draining, you know? but i think i spent the better part of today realizing that, so starting now i really am going to turn my attention to KD and get excited about that :) november, here we come!!

finally IUI'd this morning!

and i mean FINALLY! i would burst into song about it, but maybe i should save that for our BFP :)

anyhow, we went in for an 8 a.m. IUI and have the second one tonight at 7:30. i got my +smiley yesterday at 4:30 so i'm happy with the timing (i know people suggest 24-36 hours past, but statistically, i've found that i more often seem to O the same day as a +test (at least when it's in the morning), so i wanted to do it earlier than last time. in fact the first go round is about the same as last time (16 hours past today, versus 15 hours past 7/30), but the second one we're doing with only a 11 hour gap instead of a 23 hour gap. anyway we'll see....

the health worker (the lovely roxi) was able to get the canula all the way into the U this time, yay, that made me feel awesome. and it was so easy and fast! plus she said she saw lots of fertile CM...which actually is making me doubt everything she says because i haven't seen ANY yet! haha....no, honestly, it would be awfully weird if she completely made that up, but i don't get why i haven't seen any! i've been checking for days at the correct times (TMI if you know what that means :) and it was creamy for a while, and yesterday and today nothing! could it be that it's SO incredibly EW that it's not even coming down to the outside world??

ok, WAY too much detail there. i just really want to see it. let's see if it shows its face (so to speak) today or tonight so i can feel more at ease about that.

and the TWW begins!!

my temps are confusing me.

as you, the faithful (imaginary?) reader know, i’ve been waiting a WHILE for this second attempt at IUI. we skipped last month because of late ovulation issues, and since that made the cycle that much longer, we have now officially gone two months since last IUI. and the idea is that hopefully the second one will be in the next couple of days here....

i’ve been feeling fairly positive about this one for some reason. not in the frenetic, overly-excited, chicken-with-its-head-cut-off way of last time; i think i need to be more calm and rational about this for my own mental health. but for some reason i’ve just been feeling good about it. not like women who just ‘KNOW they’re pregnant’, as that could feasibly be due to some change in their internal chemistry whereas i haven’t even insemmed yet, so there exists nothing that i could be ‘sensing’ yet. but i’m staying positive. maybe the fact that i know there’s another option if this doesn’t work (the aforementioned possible KD), although i have the vague feeling that we’re not going to need another option (careful, getting too optimistic??). also for the last few days (TMI warning!) my CM has been very creamy, more impressively so than usual–it just feels like it’s really gearing up, you know?

so of course there has to be a wrench thrown in the system somwhere. yesterday and today, my BBTs were above normal–they are around the range of my POST ovulation temps in previous months. how is that possible? it’s too early, i don’t have EWCM yet, and i don’t have a positive smiley yet. so what the heck. i thought yesterday was just a fluke, and then it kept going up today. ANNOYING! maybe it’s just because i wore a shirt to bed last night since it’s starting to get colder (and don't usually....)? i don’t know.....

p.s. i went to the alternative insemination group for the second time earlier this week and enjoyed it again. i’m still a little shy and wish i talked more, cause there really is SO much to talk about, but i always have this feeling that i don’t want to talk too much so i hold myself back. there were two pregnant couples (including the woman who leads the group), two couples who haven’t even started trying yet, and me. there were no snacks but it was the day i gave blood so I had some animal crackers :)

so we haven't really considered using a KD much at all, for various reasons. frankly we don't know many men that we feel that close to, or respected enough to ask them to take on that role, etc. also, DP is hesitant because she's quite nervous that someday the dad would try and get custody. so we kind of danced around the idea a bit when having those "what are ALL our options" conversations but nothing beyond that.

meanwhile, recently we've been having TONS of unexpected expenses that have completely decimated our savings and any plans we have of TTC further, and after this month (for which we had already purchased the swim team) we were going to be forced to take an indefinite break of at least a year. this has been bumming me out significantly for the past month or so.

so this morning...i got a surprise email from some new friends of ours--the wife of the couple is a student with DP at seminary, and they came to our civil union earlier this year and are just generally cool, fun and wacky liberal people: they live in a co-op with like twenty other people, combined their last names when they got married--like, squished them together to form a new one, not combined them with a hyphen--and just recently they hosted a fundraiser for the homeless shelter where the husband works (he's a pastor) at a transgender bar. yeah....liberal : )

DP and the wife have been getting to be closer friends, and her first reaction this morning when we got the email is that maybe it's something we COULD think about (instead of just saying no like we had been previously to the idea of KD). i just think, no matter if we end up doing this or not, that it was such a sweet offer and really shows they are thinking of us and supporting us. but more than that, it totally opens up the possibility of continuing to try when i thought october was our absolute last shot!!! i'm not getting any younger : ), and the idea of having to wait a whole nother year just to TRY was quite depressing. and then this email shows up out of nowhere!!

plus, keeping in track with the post yesterday about gingers, the husband is a TOTAL red-head : ). love it!

CD2!

so the looooooong wait is over and finally a new cycle is starting so we can try again! as you recall from reading my last post (which i wrote weeks ago but you may have just finished reading .7 seconds ago), my ovulation was way late last month. approximately one business week. meaning that by the time i got a +OPK (which i did finally get, at least!) it was our first morning in cleveland for the long labor day weekend, and my spermies were still back here at the clinic in chicago, so no insem for us last month. meaning i had to wait for the new cycle to use our lovely vials. and of course, since O was so late, my luteal phase (being a good luteal phase and staying at its same approximate length) didn't end until friday, CD34. a record for me!

we ended up paying the $100 "month-off" fee to the clinic, which they charge you if you skip a month so they can keep their budgeting vaguely on track. at first this was annoying but then i realized that it's basically covering a free month of storage, since they kept my swimmies and i didn't have to send them back to nw, pay a re-stocking fee, and then order them again this month. so totally worth it!

speaking of swimmies, i never talked about our new donor #! i actually forget what number it is, but the point is that it's the number one pick they sent us after doing photo matching to esther. this is exciting! now, we really did love our previous donor and were bummed when he ran out, but this new guy sounds cool in various ways. plus since he's not limited supply his samples are probably not as old. plus esther seems to feeling even more connected since choosing him was based on HER! (and will likely share at least some physical resemblence). i forget what else is cool about him but if he 'works' i would definitely buy the extended profile. fingers crossed!!!

if my O happens on or around my normal schedule, i would O around oct 2. i like the way this sounds just because i love fall--turning leaves, crisp air, cozy sweaters, and then the string of fun holidays in a row--halloween, my birthday, thanksgiving, heading on towards christmas.... and plus i now have an awesome new obsession: having a baby born on the 4th of july :P. this is just because i know so many other citizens of my dear country think we're the totally 'un-american' family, two women trying to make babies in a clear attempt to undermine the traditional american family...so i would just love to have the ALL american baby :). but obviously that's not really controllable so i will be perfectly find with a july 3rd of july 5th or june 27th baby, too!!

ok, about a week and a half until i start POAS again. i'm going to use them more sparingly this time because i really don't feel like buying another box, and i only have 7 left. that really should be enough if i do CD13, CD14, CD15, and then 2 each CD16 and 17. yesterday i was analyzing my patterns on fertility friend and in the majority of cases (4 out of 6 months--what is that, 66% of the time?) i get my temp rise the day immediately after my +OPK. meaning, most likely, that O happens the same day as +OPK (because your temp rises a certain amount of time--who knows how many hours exactly, but some--AFTER O, because it's the now-empty corpus luteum starting to release whatever hormone it is that makes your temp go up). meaning it would be better to do both insems that same day. or at least within 24 hours of it, if i get it in the evening. last time we did like 15 and 38 hours after +OPK, and i'd much rather do like 14 and 26 if i get a + in the evening before. and what if i get it in a morning as opposed to an evening test? i don't think they'll let me do it right away, so maybe 12 and 25? grr, i hate not knowing exactly what hour i O! i guess that's the point of the ultrasounds once you get to the point of using an RE...i wonder if they WOULD let me do it right away, if i explained this to them?

that reminds me i gotta call monday and let them know i started. and maybe ask for a discount this month?? :)