IUI #2 Is Next Week!

I have this whole long post laid out in my mind this morning but then those fools expected me to do a zillion things at work today.  Hello, Boss, I need to update my blog!  People want to know what's happening with my vagina!  Eleven people, but still!

So now before bedtime I can sneak in a little update.  I had my baseline ultrasound today on CD4.  Everything looked good!  She didn't even have to dig for my Lefty.  I started Clomid tonight after a hilarious day of hijinks with the Fed Ex guy and my medication order.  Seriously, Fed Ex, you won't give my drugs to my husband?  Is this crap because I didn't change my last name.  Disaster averted but if this happens again I'm going to have to get drugs delivered to work instead and hello awkward.

My mother was so funny on the phone today when I told her I was starting a new cycle.  "Did they say why it didn't work last time?"  LOL, Mom, you're adorable.  You and your accidental pregnancy (aka my cool sister) at 40 while on birth control pills.  Hilarious.

So stay tuned for a whole new big idea I had that hopefully I'll have time to post about soon.

Bringing Sexy Back

My husband has ninety pairs of underwear.*  I'm not sure if this is normal or not.  Some are boxers, some are boxer briefs, some are those cute bicycle pant types that I love.  I only have maybe twenty five pairs of underwear.  Of those twenty five - eight of them I really like, three or four I like, a few I tolerate and a couple I wear when I run out of everything else.

I'm nearly down to my last pair at the moment.  And I can't very well wear some of the expensive stomach flattening ones that I can barely pull on or the boy shorts my mom gets me for Christmas for their cute pattern (not knowing that I loathe boy shorts because they give me wedgies) because it is a hellish CD2 right now.  Yes, that's right, I got my period!  It only took 87 days and a crap load of drugs!

Our underwear disparity gets highlighted a few times a month when I run out of my favorite panties and want to do laundry.  And I know what you're thinking, "do some laundry you lazy bastard" but we live in an apartment and we have this ginormous laundry cart thing on wheels that is never emptied of its clean clothes so the dirty clothes accumulate in a pile I have no clear method of transporting to the basement.  Also it means having cash to load into our laundry machine cards and knowing where the laundry detergent is currently stored.  In other words, it's a process.

 So I just bought five new pairs of underwear.  I think I may buy like twenty more.  It feels so liberating.  I hardly ever buy clothes.  I'm weird.  I think I will retire my five least favorite pairs when this new shipment arrives.  I keep thinking of the feeling I get when I put on my favorite underwear and thinking "what if I could have that feeling every day?"  Why did I never think of this before?

I was never a lingerie person.  I know my husband would be excited if I wore some on occasion.  I just never do it.  I guess I'm always waiting to lose weight or for a special occasion and I just feel weird dropping money on something that is designed to be taken off.  I've done the crying in the dressing room thing so I'm never really excited about trying on any new clothes, especially intimates.

Today I took charge and said I want to experiment a little.  So new underwear plus a couple other items will be added to the repertoire and I'm excited.  I hope this sparks some added sexiness in our marriage.

*I didn't actually count them, maybe it's more!

Battle of The Infertiles

I know that petty crap like this shouldn't bother me, but I am annoyed that it's been hard to find answers and support that I'm looking for on message boards.  And in real life I guess but message board is where I've looked the most lately. The problem is there is this sort of weird competition between women seeking a healthy pregnancy that sometimes makes it hard for people to empathize with each other.

The first problem is, I haven't been trying to get pregnant for an entire year yet.  It's only been about ten months.  In the world of infertility forums this means I haven't struggled enough to be worthy of seeking treatments, no matter the fact that I am anovulatory and am dealing with male factor infertility.  Just recently I have been called "impatient" by another poster for asking a question about IVF.  I wanted to say, "hey listen, chick, I am nine years older than you and you've only been trying for five more months than me and, yet, you get to start the IVF process?"

But I didn't.  Because I'm not trying to be petty.  And I don't think women who are struggling with fertility problems should compare themselves to each other in the first place.  Pursuing parenthood shouldn't be a race.

Yet, I'm a big fat hypocrite because when I heard the pregnancy announcements of two women today - one on a message board and one I know in real life - I admit I was comparing myself to them in envy.  The message board poster who announced her pregnancy had been trying to get pregnant for nine months - so only one month less than me - but she also has a nine month old son.  So, yeah, she has been trying for her second since presumably the minute her son was born.  Is that even allowed?  I don't know, but she has proudly proclaimed it for the past nine months we've been posting on the same message board.

The announcement from a friend in the real world came out of nowhere.  It was a couple that I've known for years.  They live in the same building as us and got married a few months after we did.  They're a really nice couple but a few years younger than us.  She's due in "the middle of December" which means she's only about six weeks now.  I was frankly shocked at the news on Facebook this early.  I hope everything works out but I can admit that I pretty much never want to see her again.

Bringing this back to the message board issue: I have infertility coverage through our insurance.  I wish everyone did but other than supporting online petitions and writing my congressmen there's not much I can do to change this.  I've been told that trying to structure my treatment schedule around my remaining coverage is insensitive to those that are pursuing treatment out of pocket.

Luckily I have found a few great bloggers through ICLW.  If only you guys were hanging out on the same message board as me when I want to ask 10 questions a day.  Do you post on message boards, readers, or have you encountered the same attitudes?

I Need SOMETHING To Go Right This Week

To put it in the simplest terms possible, I am a person living with anxiety.  I was first diagnosed with anxiety about seven years ago and it's been a series of highs and lows ever since.  But for about a year I can say that my anxiety levels were at an acceptable level.  I felt like I finally had some control over my life.

Last night I had a panic attack.  I think.  I don't really know.  It may have just been food poisoning but it started out with me going to bed at a reasonable hour and being awoken in the middle of the night with persistent irrational thoughts.  First I just needed to turn on the light and distract myself but after a while I realized I couldn't spend a minute longer alone with these thoughts.  I was sweating so much I threw off the blankets and got out of bed.

I thought about calling my husband, but I knew he had a big presentation this morning.

I thought about calling an insomniac friend, because I knew he would lend a sympathetic ear.

In the end I just went into the bathroom and splashed water on my face.

Then I ended up vomiting up the entire contents of my stomach.

What the hell is going on?  I race to the Dr. Google and see if anyone has ever vomited 21 days after their last Clomid pill.  That doesn't make any sense, right?  I'm definitely not pregnant.

There are two guesses for what's going on:

1.  Straight up food poisoning which led to a panic attack.  I did eat some questionable fried chicken earlier - and I never eat fried chicken (that's a WHOLE other story of how that became my dinner).

2.  Change in hormones because I'm getting my period any minute now.  Or because I stopped the progesterone suppositories.

Who the heck knows.  And no, I didn't call my doctor today.  I thought about it but "zomg I threw up and am anxious because of a preexisting anxiety condition, what should I do?" was not really a conversation I wanted to have.  I do feel mostly better today.

I did call up my old therapist though.  She and I go way back and she really got me through some tough times.  I thought it was probably time I talked to a professional about how I'm handling the fertility treatment process.  She called me back and was excited to catch up.  But, she tells me, she moved her office to her home and now it's about eight miles away.  It used to be around the corner from my apartment.

Did I mention one of the things that gives me the most anxiety is driving?  FML

To be continued....

IUI #1 = BFN

I'm actually not that upset.  I figured there was no way five home pregnancy tests taken 13 and 14 days past the IUI could have been wrong.  It took an agonizing six hours from the time of my blood draw to the time the phone rang with the news I already knew.  But at least I'm done with the uncertainty for a while.  I can go to the bathroom and not have to inspect.  I can relax about drinking wine or eating sushi.  I can stop peeing in cups.  I can stop inserting applicators full of goo into my lady parts every morning!

I have a lot more information than I did a month ago and I am still confident that we will find success in the future.  I have a lot of thoughts about what to do differently next time and just an overall feeling about this cycle but I'm still kinda processing them.  I hope to share more soon.

And I apologize again for being only a sporadic ICLW participant but I will catch up tomorrow as soon as I catch up on the two projects I neglected while I was distracted by the two week window.  Not work projects, I promise!  No one call my boss or anything.

The next question is how long will it take for AF to come?  My progesterone is 7 something. Fingers crossed for it showing up by this weekend.  I haven't seen the witch since January!

"I Think You Know Too Much"

When the spotting happened on Saturday I was a sobbing hysterical mess on the phone with my mother.  I begged her to locate my sister and have her call me because I think I remember her saying that she had implantation bleeding with her first pregnancy.

I told her that bleeding at 11dpo could be related to implantation because I didn't expect to get my period until at least 14dpo.  She got confused and then asked me "if your periods are irregular how do you know when you're going to get it next?"

When I tried to explain to her what it meant she said that maybe I was stressed out because I know too much about this process.

My pregnant sister really has no idea what the heck a Luteal Phase is.  And why should she?  I've talked about this before, but it seems most women only have a rudimentary understanding of how their bodies work.  They just know to have sex somewhere in the middle of the month and whammo, pregnant.

13dpIUI = BFN.

Beta is tomorrow.

Welcome April ICLWers!

Hello to everyone participating in the International Comment Leaving Week!  Last month was the first time I have joined this group and I had a lot of fun meeting other bloggers and learning about your stories.  It felt really cool to know others were cheering each other on.

Unfortunately I've had a roller coast couple of days.  I was out of town yesterday when the commenting should have started and just got back a few minutes ago.  I am in the Two Week Window of my first medicated cycle and yesterday I had some bleeding and today I got a BFN.  This shouldn't be SO surprising since I'm only 12 days past my first IUI but I had been testing positive ever since my trigger and thought maybe it would stick around.

So I'm actually in a pretty crummy mood today but I just wanted to say hi and I will start checking out the other blogs now. Hopefully I can snap out of this funk soon.

Updated.  Due to err technical issues (or me creating a new blog address in a wildly optimistic moment) all of my comments are showing up under the pseudonym Tie Dye Mom but it's still me!