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!!