The TWW

Oh the two week wait... I've not been missing that! Now I am right back into it.

I had my saline sonogram today (mild ouchies)! My tubes were clear, yay!!! the saline passed right through and it was cool to see the little bubbles cruisin' around in there. Also, while he was doing the exam I asked the RE if he was going to check my follies... he said that they normally didn't, and asked me when I normally ovulate (what cycle day). I told him it was normally around day 12 or 13, and that today was 11, so he said he'd check it out if he could get a clear view... and he did, of one side at least. I had one good 19.4mm follie!!! YAY!!! that's awesome. I'll probably still end up using Clomid, and then doing a HCG trigger to they know exactly when I'll O, which is fine with me. I'm just super excited that all looks well on my side. I was nervous that we'd be in that "lucky" 10% that both have fertility probs (that would be super lame! to say the least). Anyway... sorry if I'm not making sense, I just took a 7-9pm nap... very strange...


OH! I am going to have to make this blog private... I've been going back and forth on it, but my class at school is going to be having a blog. I'm already wondering what I'm going to do since when you sign in you have access to both... I'm not sure how I can make one hidden... we'll see... That won't be happening for a few more weeks though :D

Oh! but anyway (haha, wowzers at my line of thinking), we will be doing a cycle in AUGUST!!! HOLY CRAP!!! I'm so excited... now I'm just in the tww until my period starts and we get this all started! AHHHH!!!!

(yay!!)

Bye Lovlies

As Promised!!!

Let me just start by saying wowzers...powerzers....

So, I promised (mostly myself) that I would update this after our RE appointment, but so much has happened since then, that it has taken me all weekend to get my thoughts together.

So, the appointment itself was fairly normal, except that it started super late, and we were there for almost 3 hours. Oh, and the fact that no one told me that I'd be getting a vag u/s... what a lovely surprise, right? I had that done, and lucky for me I am producing follicles like crazy... CD3 with about 20 of them growing around in there. Figures I'd be all follied up, and Husband is all spermied down...

We had our little "consult" with Dr.Good (that's not his name, although that's how the pharmacy lady said it, and so far we think he is.... so, we'll keep it like that right now) which basically went over our fertility history... it was short.

Then we went in and talked with the caseworker, who we'll call BB. BB looked over our insurance, and highly encouraged us to move quickly, since I had mentioned our current insurance would run out in 9 months (that is a whole other long story that I'll skip right now). Anywayyyy, what it comes down to is that we'll have to pay for the sperm (obviously), and the meds, which won't be too bad... I'll need Clomid, and HCG trigger, and then some progesterone ($10 each under our insurance), and $20 for the actual IUI... $550 for the whole sha-bang!!! SAY WHAT!?!?! So.... drum roll....

WE ARE GOING TO START CYCLING NEXT MONTH!!! WOOOO HOOOO!!!

Yea, crazy, I know... such a drastic change of plans... but we think it's right (and we want to take advantage of our insurance)

Part 2 of the exciting stuff...

We found our donor!! How bout that??? Yea, fast, I know. We've actually been looking, but hadn't done a really serious narrowing down. On Friday night we searched and searched.

Here is a list of our criteria:
hazel, brown, or green eyes
brown hair
5'8" - 6'0"
160 - 190 pounds
CMV neg
previous pregnancies
athletic (this was Hubby's request, haha)
college grad (all of them have at least a four year degree, who knew?)
no serious illness/disease in fam history (we went back 3 generations)

I think that was it... I can't remember any others.

So, by Friday night we had narrowed it down to three... we gave them nicknames which aren't terribly important, but helped us remember them, rather than by their numbers.
Nicknames: Favleck, Dirty Job (DJ), and Mathlete

We slept on it.

We woke up thinking the same thing... Dirty. Job.

I know... a friend commented that she "wouldn't want that inside her"... I know, I know... but really... he's the best option... he fits in almost every way.

So, there ya go... DJ it is... next month it is... HOLY CRAP... I might be pregnant by the end of next month. I'm going to tryyy and not get my hopes up that it'll happen on the first time, I know that it will probably take a couple, but I'm praying it won't take more than three times. We'll see :D

We are super excited, scared, and every other emotion ever!! AHHHHH!!!

As for the rest of the weekend, yesterday we went to church, and hung out with our friends, and today we went to the Garlic Festival. It was two hours away, and not worth the drive... but we've been saying that we want to go to it forever, and we finally went. I'm glad we did. I had a really good day with the Hubby.

Here is a pic of me not eating garlic flavored ice cream...



I felt bad because right after us they ran out... and I didn't eat it because it made me want to barf... butttt what can you do... at least I tried it :D

So, alllll of that being said, this weekend was crazy, and good, and crazy.

Tomorrow I have a saline sonogram, which is hopefully really just the formality they are saying it is. I'm gonna pop a vicodin before I go, because I'm a wuss, lol.

Anddddd, I'll update when I know more!!!

Bye Lovelies!

I Am Promising Myself That I Will Update This Later....

I'm sitting, I'm waiting, I'm worrying...

I'm not even at the RE's office yet, and I'm already feeling anxious.

We won't be doing any cycles until at least November, and I'm already panicked.

I know the Hubs is capable of handling the decision we are making about family building, and yet I'm terrified of what our lives will be in a year.

I can't stop myself from being overwhelmingly emotional about the road that lies ahead.

I am on CD3 today (what great timing!! A RE appt on CD3!! what are the chances?). What does being on CD3 even mean to me anymore? We aren't TTC, right? We won't be doing any DI cycles until the end of the year, but I can't stop counting my cycle days. I can't stop stressing every month about having an "regular" cycle.

Last night I went to dinner with a teacher friend I hadn't seen since early June, when we had still been on the road to adoption. I didn't bring up fertility stuff... I know I do it too much, I'm trying not to force my IF issues on people. Read my post about my self-diagnosed SAD (Social Acceptability Disorder... wow... SAD... what a horrible made-up-disease acronym). Anyway, she brought it up, asked if we had picked an agency and whatnot. I told her about the new "plan", or plan of a plan. The first thing she said, "wow...will your husband be able to handle that?", my response "it was his decision" (Sidenote: it was really OUR decision, but I have told him numerous times that I am fine with whatever family building option we choose, as long as it included a family). Her next concern, "do you think he's just worried you'll resent him if he doesn't let you be pregnant"... HOLY HONEST OPINIONS!! Did I mention I'm on CD3!?!?! I can't take heavy emotional topics like this!! My Hubs and I are totally open about our feelings, and I do not think that at this point he feels that way. I think he wants to be a dad... more than anything. I think he is incredibly selfless and strong for giving me, giving us, the chance to use DI. I will admit that it terrifies me that he'll pull away later on... but he can't, or doesn't want to, think about that being an option... Wow...this is not where this blog started out at... lol, but I do tend to ramble.

Anwhooo, I digress...

Back to our RE appointment.

I have so many questions!! So many! I promised myself that I'd write them down, and I didn't. Now I'm mentally going over them. Thinking about writing them down on the way to the appointment, which is in 40 minutes!!

I want to know everything... I want to know everything will be okay.

I want to know that my Hubby and I will leave the hospital with a healthy child within the next year and a half or two... is that to much to ask? I know it is...

I am hoping I doing cry when I am there... My emotions have been on edge all day (all week really). I cried when my car didn't pass it's smog test, I almost cried when the pool maintenance man got on my case at work today. I'm thinking that I'll make a fool of myself at the docs. My guess is that it'll be when we discuss money... ug, money!

Okay, as the title says, I will update this after the appointment, and the bloodwork... oh, gotta love bloodwork...


Bye Lovelies!

Nothing New...

Well, I am trying to be a good blogger, and am updating even though I don't have anything that great to share.

Things going on for me...

1) Work - Teaching swim lessons is the easiest fall back job to have. I'm so glad I've been fortunate enough to have a steady summer job... we sure need the money!!

2) School - ONLY 3 WEEKS till school is back in, I can't believe it! Summer has gone by pretty fast, and while I'm not looking forward to the lack of paychecks once school is back in, I am looking forward to student teaching. I'm stoked about a new class of fifth graders, and I'm even more stoked that it'll be my last semester!! I'll have my credentials in Dec!! I probably won't have a job... but I'll be qualified...

3) Fertility - Not much going on here. We have an appointment with our RE this Friday to discuss the whole process of Donor Insemination (DI). We know the basic process, but we have questions, so I'm hoping that we can get some answers. I'm really hoping that they'll give us a list of Cyrobanks that they recommend, since we have no idea where to start looking. We did find a SpermCenter.com... Hubby asked if there was a "SpermMart" as well, and if they had better prices (oh jokey Husband).

At this point Husband is still out of a job, although he has been working really hard to remedy that, and has a good strong lead on one job (we are hoping and praying that it works out), we can't start any fertility treatments until he's working.

I've been trying to be super good about getting in shape, although my "weight loss ticker" hasn't moved much, lol.

What Husband and I really need is a weekend away!! We've been so stressed, and Hubby has been so down :( It's taking a lot of my emotional strength to not break down, and to stay strong with him, but it has been TOUGH!! I'm hoping things start getting better, and I'm trying to keep the faith, and put my trust in God, but wowzers, it just get's rougher and rougher! I guess it's always darkest before the dawn, right? That's what I'm hoping for at least...

Hope everyone has a great week!!

Social Acceptability Disorder

Hopefully I'm making this disorder up, if I'm not, and you have it, sorry in advance.

So, As you know, I teach. In the summer when school is out, I teach swim lessons. Well, today as I walked through the gym I teach at back to the pool I teach in, I noticed that one of the regular little girls that attends summer camp was sans brother. I asked her where he was, and she answered "Oh, he's getting breakfast with Dad, then he has a checkup". Fair enough, I thought, and went about my business. Later on, Brother shows up. Brother (6 yrs old btw) walked over to me, and I asked how he was doing. I noticed one of his eyes was a bit puffy. I said "uh oh, allergy time huh? Did the doctor give you medicine." His straight-faced response, "oh that's not why I was at the doctors, I was there cuz of my weiner". My response "well, that's a bummer! I hope it gets better soon", we changed the subject. All I could think was wow, when do we gain the sense of social acceptability?

Suddenly I realized something. I think we (most of us, maybe not men) get a good grasp of social acceptability around 10. Then I realized something else... MY sense of that was GONE!

In the last year and a halfish or so, I have totally lost site of how to be tactful. I realized I have, with a straight face said things like "oh, yea, we had lots of sex at first", or "yup, I just prop my legs right under the pillow, oh yea! For at least 30 minutes". Then it got worse... it turned into "So, after they take a snip right out of his balls, they'll examine that" or "So, on the cycle day 3, I do the bloodwork, then after that it's some vaginal ultrasounds blah blah blah"

HOW FREAKING INAPPROPRIATE! And I don't just say this to my best friend. This is stuff I've explained to my parents, Hubby's parents, people who casually ask. My father doesn't live near me, and I tend to not keep him super informed on my life, but for some reason I felt it totally acceptable to explain the how Hubby and I had been diagnosed, this included details of the year of trying, and the testing.

So, why do IF's do this? Why is it totally acceptable to IM a fellow IFer and as them how their cycle is, or if they BDed last night? or how their "CM" is doing since it's about CD12...

WHY? Well, I'll give you my rationale. It has two parts. Part one is why we talk to other IFs... we want to know others are going through it. We want to know that we aren't the only ones stressing about our current cycle, about how our Hubby's are dealing ect ect. Everyone already knows this part.

Part two, at least for me, is the fact that when something happens, I just want to be informed. There hasn't been a problem in my life (or my family's life) in the last 5 years that I haven't googled within 10 minutes of hearing what the problem is. I assume others feel the same way. This assumption (ohhh to assume... I don't need to share the antidote, I think we all know it), I'm realizing, is wrong. I don't think people actually want to know, in detail, what goes on with mine and my hubby's sex life. I think some people, my besties and fellow IFs sometimes want to know, but the woman I haven't seen in 6 months who asks "how the baby making is coming... she probably doesn't (and doesn't need to).

I'm going to make an effort to keep a better handle on what I say from now on. To keep it more on the "we are actually getting ready to start fertility treatments" level, rather than the "so then they put a catheter into my uterus" level. We'll see how this turns out...but to help myself remember, I'm just going to keep the awkwardness of a six year old explaining his "weiner" problems in mind.

Bye Lovelies!!

Home for the Holidays

Let me just be real clear about my overall message of this post...

Holidays SUCK for all IFs! Ya, I said it... and I mean it... lol

I don't care if it's Christmas, or 4th of July (a Happy one to you, Reader), or freakin' Arbor Day... it sucks. Being around any group of people on these holidays sucks even more. I'm about to go to a BBQ full of people who know we've been trying for a year and a half or so now. I'm very self conscious about this. Now, I know I'm not the center of all these people's thoughts, but people know that extreme want for a baby that Hubby and I have had, and I know some of these people are going to be thinking "well, it's been an awful long time since they first started"... I am sooo hoping we don't get asked how it's going, because it seems that, on this topic especially, well... I just say the most tactless things. My general answer is to laugh and say "ohhhh ya know, turns out we cant actually have our own kids" and hope that they caught the gigantic "STAY OUT OF OUR BUSINESS" undertone.

I know that thinking is flawed, flawed because we put our business out there. We enthusiastically proclaimed to the masses that we wanted a baby, STAT, at the beginning of last year. Our closest peeps even knew that we started trying before our marriage. We didn't care, we wanted a freakin head start!

Something else that I am hoping to avoid at this BBQ. The fact that Hubby and I have also arrived at a whole new and strange point in our IF journey with the people who do know our situation. It's an awkward place... A place where friends don't want to tell us they are pregnant. They don't know how to approach the subject, and that makes me feel so sad. I've found out twice about people being pg randomly through others, who just assumed that out of anyone, Hubby and I would already know. We didn't...we don't... people think we'll freak out, that we'll be mad, or won't be happy for them.

Every IFer knows that pain in their heart when they hear someone else is pg... but it's not because we are mad at them, we are just sad for us. We are the queens (and kings) of the 10 minute pity party, the "I need a good cry" before we call this person to congratulate them. I'm realizing that while I hate being kept out of the loop, I also think it's okay for me to have this reaction, as long as I keep a happiness for them (and hope for myself) in my heart. It's okay to cry, and even "freak out" a bit...although probably not in front of that person. Hurt is okay, anger is okay, as long as it is something that can be moved past.

I think I've been doing a better job at controlling my IF emotions since I've been going back to church (non churchy people don't leave now, I wont get preachy). I think that in MY case, this has helped, which is great... I think that exploring what is out there to help has been a great step for me. I've been trying to pray before I go into a situation that might be hard for me (suspected pg announcements, lots of baby, that kind of situation) and it really seems to be helping me keep my nerves under control.

I guess I'll end with what has become my new daily mantra. It's not one that's easy to hold on to, because it does take so much faith, but it is something I'm chasing after, something I'm hoping will help me cope in the months and years ahead.

Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.

Love All of You! Happy 4th... don't set fireworks off too close to any vital parts...we don't need to complicate things more! We all need all that we can at this point!