PUPO!

The night before my successful IUI in August 2010, I had a lovely and relaxing massage.  I came home, relaxed on the couch, read, and went to bed early.  The next morning I did a fertility yoga DVD, had a leisurely breakfast and felt relaxed and rested walking in to my IUI.

Last night, I spent the evening wiping down the house with Clorox wipes because Nanny M has a stomach bug.  I then got things together for Finn today - luckily one of our neighbors knows Finn and takes care of a little boy his age every day, and was willing to keep Finn for me.  I've never had to pack a bag for him for the whole day, so figuring out food and everything else took a while.  It was close to 11:30 before I finally made it to bed.

My neighbor goes to get the little boy she watches at 7:20, and usually isn't home until 8:30.  I had to leave the house by 8 to make sure I wasn't late to my RE (again), so I had Finn ready at 7:20 and we loaded him into my neighbor's car and off they went.  Of course he cried, which made me cry. Once I'd gotten myself back together, I had time to do about 15 minutes of the yoga DVD, then had to get dressed and head out the door.

I did make it to the office 20 minutes early, so while I was definitely not relaxed and rested, I was not frazzled.

A new nurse (just finishing up her training) called me back, confirmed my identity, and confirmed that the specimen we were using today is one of the ones I saw flying in on their FexEx plane when they were delivered a few years ago.  I got undressed and on the table, and then she came back in with Jay, one of my favorite nurses, who gave me a big hug, and then told me the good news that the specimen had 20 million swimmers!  That's more than double what I had with my last cycle! The new nurse then got to work, preparing the specimen, then putting in the speculum.  I was informed that I had lots of great EWCM (I could have told her that) and then the catheter slipped right in and just like that I was PUPO.

Future baby in this tube?

Some of my optimism was restored by the great sperm count, and then again by the ease in which she got the catheter in.  My first two IUIs were fairly painful and they had a hard time getting the catheter in.  The second two were just like today, quick and painless.  I hope that means the timing was just perfect.

My lucky socks - post IUI

I had my IUI soundtrack already prepared, and they dimmed the lights and left me to relax with my legs and hips up for about 15 minutes as I visualized sperm swimming and then fertilizing an egg.  I'd just about drifted off to sleep when it was time to get up and head to work.

Three years ago today my friend Drea passed away.  It would be pretty damn amazing if I got pregnant this cycle - it would be so nice to have a happy memory associated with September 20.

Trigger Done!

my scan

I wasn't thrilled with today's ultrasound, but it wasn't a pure disappointment, either. Like 3 of my prior 4 cycles, all the action was in my right ovary - two nice follicles, one at 18 and the other at 21. My estradiol was only 220, though, which makes me think just one of those is doing anything. I'm always a little worried about the right ovary. I've had a cyst on there for about 3 years, and while it doesn't do anything, I wonder if it keeps the follicles from developing normally on that side. My left ovary has only ever done anything one time - the time I got pregnant with Finn. So I'm not feeling terribly optimistic about this cycle.

 I just took my trigger shot, and my IUI is scheduled for Thursday at 9am - CD 12. Also not leaving me feeling very optimistic that it's a day earlier than my last IUI. But I'm going to try to stay positive and hope for a BFP in about 2 weeks!

 When I was trying to get pregnant with Finn, it seemed like everyone around me was pregnant. And then when I had my miscarriage, it seemed like everyone around me was getting pregnant accidentally. I had to count on both hands the number of accidental pregnancies that I found out about during those few months between my miscarriage and my BFP. I remember mentioning that to LB (the friend who accidentally got pregnant a few weeks after my miscarriage), and she said, "That's just because you're hyperaware, and noticing it more. It happens around you all the time, only you don't usually notice."

 Since I'd been thinking about getting pregnant for years, I wasn't too sure that was true. Nope, it seemed like the universe was conspiring to make me crazy. So I decided to make sure I paid attention to the number of accidental pregnancies I heard about after Finn was born, just so I could prove her wrong. I counted one - a patient that I saw for the first time for her gestational diabetes.

 In the past two weeks I have had 4 friends tell me they were unexpectedly, accidentally pregnant. Four.  

It is true. The universe has nothing better to do than drive me crazy. Of course I'm happy for them, and it was definitely easier at dinner tonight be able to smile and gush over the two pregnant bellies I did not expect to see that it would have been two years ago.  But still.  Four.  Really?

Growing Eggs

I've found it ridiculously hard to believe that I'm in the midst of TTC this past week.  I think about it a lot, but the last time I did this, I was consumed with it.  Now I'm distracted by washing dishes, changing diapers, storytime and blowing bubbles.  It's always in the back of my mind, but not overwhelming.  Is this the beginning of the second child always feeling neglected?

But today I've been feeling a lot of twinges in my ovaries, and some generalized achiness in my pelvic region, so it's been hard not to wonder what's going on - and suddenly I'm awfully nervous about tomorrow's monitoring ultrasound!  What if my twinges are nothing and I have no developing follicles? What if my lining is really too thick?  It's all very real feeling now (the shots weren't real feeling enough, I guess).

ETA: Oh!  I completely forgot the main reason I was writing this post was to discuss my protocol, as a few asked questions after my last post.  I'm doing the exact same protocol I did with Finn.  Femara 5mg CD (cycle day) 3-7, and then Gonal-F 150 starting on CD 5.  So that gives plenty of time for the Gonal-F to work its magic on the follicles that Femara got started.  I'm now on CD 9, and just took my last scheduled dose of Gonal-F.  With Finn I ended up taking one more dose of Gonal-F before triggering for my CD13 IUI.  We'll see what tomorrow shows!


I rearranged my dining room furniture on Saturday night, putting my dining room table longways in the middle of the room, instead of parallel to the flow of the house.  I've never thought much about feng shui (and I have no idea if this change was feng shui or not) but it suddenly makes sense to me how much of an effect the placing of furniture can have on a room.  I'd not put the table longways in the room because I thought it would make the rooms feel too broken up (the downstairs is an open plan - shotgun style - you can look straight through the house from front door to back), but now that I've done it, I'm surprised to see it makes everything feel better.  The dining room now feels like a useable room, instead of an empty space.  The table is easy access from all sides, and there's now room to put some of Finn's larger toys out of the way on the floor, and you can see the window from the table.

Best of all, it's allowed me to move Finn's high chair into the dining room, so instead of pictures with backgrounds that look like this:

in the kitchen - after blackberry snack

or like this:

breakfast in the dining room

 We now have pictures with a background that looks like this:

dinner with the newly rearranged dining room

Just like that, I like my house a million times more.  I might even get around to taking pictures of it.

Moving Right Along

First dose of Femara

I took my second Gonal-F shot tonight (150), and my second to last dose of Femara (5mg).  Why is it that the stim part of the cycle always seems to go so quickly, while the two week wait drags on for years?  One of life's many mysteries.

It seems surreal that I'm even at the point of trying to have a second child.  I still have moments - at least 3 or 4 times a week - that I stop and marvel at the fact that I have a son. Being a mom has been the one constant desire in my life as long as I can remember, and for so long I failed at finding a man to share my life with...it still surprises me that I managed to build a family anyway.

There have been a few moments where I wonder if I should just be content with one child.  There are so many potential heartbreaks when trying to conceive, and it scares me just a little.  A part of me feels tempted to avoid those potential traumas by stopping now, and being happy with the one amazing kid that I have.  But I know my family doesn't feel complete, and won't feel complete until Finn has a little brother or sister.

And so I'm off to do some femoral massage, listen to my meditations and dream of BFPs.

CD 3

My RE's office is open between 630-8am every morning for labs and ultrasounds.  I left my house this morning at 7:10...and got to the RE's office at 8:05.  Stupid traffic.

Luckily I wasn't the only late one and they were happy to take care of me.  My ultrasound was first - my antral follicle count is still low, my right sided cyst of at least 3 years is still there and strangely, my lining measured 9.7.  Much higher than I've seen it before at CD 3.  My period has been heavier this month than normal.  It hasn't been truly heavy for years, and I wouldn't call this one particularly crazy, but more like what I remember a normal period being like when I was younger.  The nurse reviewed the scan with me before I left to get my blood work and said she wasn't sure it was anything to worry about, but she'd like me know what my RE said.

Of course it was almost 4pm before they called.  My estradiol was <20 and my FSH was 12 (down from 16 last time!) so I was given the green light to go ahead.  I asked the nurse (a different one that I'd seen earlier) about my lining, and she said that my RE had seen it, but didn't comment on the results, and then went on to say, "As long as your estradiol is low, we aren't worried about lining thickness at this point."

One of my friends on a fertility board commented that her RE didn't like to procede when CD3 lining was thick, stating it was like trying to grow new grass over old.  That makes complete sense to me, but after some thought, I decided just to trust my RE and go with it.

I had acupuncture this afternoon and she did a few extra points to stimulate more flow, and I'm trying to work on the whole "mind/body connection" thing by imagining it working.  If I have another day or two of reasonable flow, I think it's possible the thickness could drop back down to normal.  I hope.

I've been trying to be so optimistic that all will go well and I'll end up with a BFP fairly quickly, but this deflated me just a bit.  Sigh.

Begin Again

I had a brief moment of "holy shit, am I really going to do this?" when my period started late last night.  It's the only time in all the years that I've been thinking about becoming an single mom by choice that I questioned the thought of wanting more than one child.

It only lasted for a second - I know that my family isn't yet complete - but it was definitely there.  Not so much because of the thought of what having two children will be like.  I know the first few years are going to be exhausting. I know there will be many sleepless nights, and nights where I call my sister or one of my friends in tears because I don't know how I'm going to do it.  I'm prepared for that - I know I can handle that sort of challenge.

No, what triggered that thought was the thought of starting the process of trying conceive again and all the craziness that goes with it.  And so before I went to sleep I listened to a new guided meditation for fertility by Belleruth Naparstek.  I listened to her pregnancy guided meditations when I was pregnant with Finn, and had to get this one as I start TTC #2.  I absolutely loved it.  It was exactly what I needed to hear.

And so I woke up to a beautiful early fall morning and have had a happy and optimistic feeling in my heart all day long.  I hope I still feel this way after my CD3 labs on Tuesday morning!

*****

Thanks to everyone (all 50 of you!) who voted on my lucky socks poll.  The final results were:
27 (54%) for the socks I wore with Finn
22 (44%) for new socks
1 (2%) thought I should forget the socks - who gets pregnant from lucky socks?

In the end, it was the comments that made my decision for me. Kallie talked about the dress she wore with her IUI with her son, and how it now makes her sad to look at that dress when the next IUI didn't work.  Heidi pointed out that if I had different socks for the two children, each child would get their special socks one day.  Tiara, BB and Jessica all worried about tainting Finn's socks if I don't have as good an outcome as I did the first time I wore them.  And Meg reminded me that I'll need Finn's lucky socks again when he learns to drive!  So while I like the idea of using the good luck associated with Finn's socks, I think the 44% who voted for new socks have swayed me.

Now to find the time to hunt down my new lucky socks!

Disaster Waiting to Happen

Oops.

Finn woke up this morning with a fake burp, followed by a giggle.

I woke up to a phone call from the anesthesiologist's billing office reminding me that I haven't paid their bill from Finn's MRI in May.  Oops.

I am such a disorganized mess these days. I'm sure that's not the only bill I've missed paying - if it's not automatically withdrawn from my account, I tend to miss the bill.  I filled an extension on my taxes this year and haven't done a thing towards getting them done yet.  I changed from one TV service to another 3 or more weeks ago because the new company is cheaper, but I haven't cancelled the old service yet. The washing machine in my condo is broken, and I haven't arranged to get it fixed yet (luckily my tennet is out of town). I have boxes that still aren't unpacked stacked high in the guest bedroom.  My closet and dresser drawers have yet to be fully sorted out (I'm wearing the same clothes over and over again).  Finn's nursery, his toys, his clothes are not at all in order - I still have furniture left to buy for his room and for the living room/playroom.  I have work training long overdue, and the thoughts of my endocrine boards looming on the horizon.  My parents never got mother's day/father's day cards or gifts from me.  Several friends still haven't gotten their Christmas presents.  I have birthday cards and other cards scattered around the house, none of them sent - and I love sending cards.

And yet I'm sitting here, blogging instead of getting things done.

I think I'm so overwhelmed with all that needs to get done, that all I manage to do is the basics every day, and the rest just goes by the wayside.  It's working now, but it clearly won't continue to work.  I've got to get my act together before I end up ruining my credit and failing my boards.

As soon as I sign off tonight I'm going to make a list, a list organized in order of urgency (obviously the boxes in the guest bedroom are at the bottom of the list).  And then I'm going to start marking things off the list until it's all done and I can concentrate on the business of getting knocked up.

Does anyone have any suggestions for bill organizers?  Card organizers?  Any other ideas?

One issue has to be resolved quickly and just can't wait.  My period is due sometime this week (hopefully later in the week, as there's currently a very large, very well televised convention going on in my city, and it stands between me and my RE's office).  For every IUI, I wore a different pair of socks.  The socks I wore at my IUI with Finn were definitely my lucky socks.  I carried them in my purse after my IUI until the day Finn was born, and then I wore them on my hands when I got cold while in labor, and on my feet when he was delivered.  And now I'm wondering what I should do with my next IUI.  Should I buy a new pair of lucky socks?  Or should I wear the ones I wore with Finn?

Superstition.  It's a tricky business.

Please take a second and weigh in on my poll to the right! Poll is now closed - thanks to those who voted!

Two Week Recap

This past week and a half has been so full - amazingly so - that I've barely had time to breathe, much less do more than a few quick comments on blogs.  It already feels like Finn's MRI was a month ago, not just 7 days ago.  This is just a bunch of random things all squashed together in one post.  Don't look for any cohesive theme or transitional sentences.  They aren't here!

Last weekend we used a conference as the perfect excuse to escape to the beach for a few days.  Finn, Nanny M and I drove down on Friday night after work.  This was the first long car ride Finn has done...and Nanny M ended up riding in the back seat for most of it.  Even then, Finn wanted to hold my hand while I was driving.  He has become very attached the past few weeks.  It's wonderful to feel so loved but also exhausting!

Saturday morning I sat through a bunch of lectures, then met Nanny M and Finn out on the beach after lunch.  I sat in a beach chair wearing my conference clothes (my pants were pajama bottoms, but I'm pretty sure no one noticed and I was SO comfy!) for almost an hour before taking Finn up for his nap and leaving Nanny M to enjoy herself on the beach.  Up in the hotel room I let a naked Finn run around after his bath, which then led to him peeing on a wall for the first time.  They grow up so fast.

Both nights he slept horribly.  Waking up, tossing and turning and just fussing a little, not actually crying.  Saturday night when I got up to try to rock him back to sleep, Nanny M sat up and said she'd take him.

It was so amazing.

My child was fussy and awake, and someone else took him so I could sleep.  This must be what married women experience when their children are fussy.

Sunday we stayed after the conference was over to spend time at the pool, then loaded up the car a little past Finn's naptime, so he slept more than half the way home.  Which means that Nanny M got to sit in the front seat for more than half the trip!

My parents have been here since Wednesday.  Because Finn is so attached to me these days, they haven't really been able to help me with him as much as I'd like, but it is nice to have a second set of hands when getting things out of the car, or fixing him a meal.  It was great being able to leave on Saturday morning for a massage and not have to pay someone to watch him.  It was even nicer being able to stay gone longer so I could visit SingleMomBB and meet little Ella! I got to hold her for a little bit - and ended up staying much longer than I'd planned because she is such a sweet and cuddly little girl! I could have sat there and stared at her precious little face all day.

After leaving so Ella could get her bath, I headed home to find Finn waiting at the door for me.  We packed up and headed out to a local center that rehabs hawks, eagles and other raptors.  Unfortunately we missed the show where they let some of the birds out to fly, but I did get the chance to have this ridiculous picture taken:

Finn seems to learn something new every day.  He can now understand simple requests, as well as two step requests - sometimes really surprising me with how much he understands.  His favorite word is "no" (of course), and he uses it even when he doesn't mean it, just because he likes the sound of it.  He knocks on door when they're closed, he insists on feeding the cats their dry food, can high five, knuckle bump and is currently obsessed with his belly button.

Of all the things he's learned lately, the worst was tonight.  I made a huge mistake.  I taught him how to fake burp.  He burped while in the tub and when I asked him if he'd burped, he giggled.  So then I fake burped and said, "Excuse me!" in an attempt to teach him manners.  He thought it was funny, so I did it again.  And again. And again.  And then he tried to fake burp and made the funniest sounds ever. We were both crying from laughing, but I know it's going to come back to haunt me one day!