Friday, August 22, 2008

I did a bad bad thing

But it's not my fault. I blame the evil genius that came up with this combination:

Coffee ice cream, roasted almonds, heath bar, and caramel.

I think I may have to stop blaming infertility for my weight issues and just admit that it's my own fucking lack of control. Or, I can blame the evil genius -- yeah, let's do that!

FETs are Weird

Ok, maybe FETs are not weird, but it's certainly weird for me to be two weeks away from a scheduled transfer (what, you're not going to tell me a date and then change it and then change it again?) and not have to go in for bloodwork and ultrasounds every other day or have to give myself 3 injections a day. Not that I'm complaining, but it's just so different it feels odd. Here's little visual on the difference between a FET and a full-fledged IVF cycle.

IVF Cycle (from May 2008)


FET Cycle (notice that above I only included some of the needles, syringes and other paraphenalia, but that's most of what's below, and only 2 meds!)

Thursday, August 21, 2008

If Only My Arms Were Longer

Funny how after 5 1/2 IVF cycles I'm still learning new things.

Yesterday I had my day 2 bloodwork and ultrasound, got my FET protocol, and then got the call with the OK to start the del.estro.gen injections. I learned last night just how difficult it is to give yourself an injection in the behind. And the difficulty had nothing to do with jabbing myself with a needle.

Last night I stayed up too late, and forgot about the injection until well past the time my husband went to bed. I'll be out of town for a night next week and will need to do my own injection then, so I decided that I might as well figure out how to do it. I proceeded by prepping the syringe and then swabbing the left side of my rump with alcohol. Only guess what? Can't reach far enough around with my right hand to inject at a ninety degree angle. So I swab the right side of my rump. Only guess what? Can't really reach far enough around with my left hand to "hold the skin taut" as instructed. So, it wasn't textbook, but I did manage to do it and I felt proud of myself -- thanks to infertility I've learned to do yet another thing I never would have even thought of doing. But, I did tell my husband he's still going to be responsible for rear injections unless we're in separate cities, but really it's just a pain in the ass -- and again, I'm not talking about the needle.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Reflections

For about 5 years I worked for a woman who has 4 children. She's lovely and I consider her a friend. She had her first child in her early 20s and her last in her early 40s--they're all spread out with more than 3 years between any two. Given the ages of her kids, she was never someone with a gaggle of little kids. In fact, right now her oldest is an elementary school teacher and her youngest is IN elementary school. Nevertheless she is definitely a fertile myrtle. Though her last child was "an accident" the first three pregnancies were planned based on things like school schedules and her leave balances and all were accomplished right when they wanted them. She was one of the first and few people at work that I told about our struggle with infertility and she has been nothing but incredibly supportive and wonderful. However, I once heard her make a comment something along the lines of "having a baby should not be a medical event". I still think of that and it makes me laugh. Hell, it even made me laugh then. I can't recall the exact context of the conversation in which she said this, and I'm sure given the context it was probably not an unreasonable statement, but still I think about how natural it must seem for someone who so easily got pregnant and had babies to think that.

For me everything about babies has been a medical event. Given what we've been trying to do for over 3 years now, I can now say that achieving my one successful pregnancy was actually relatively quick and easy. But at the time it didn't seem that way. When we started trying to get pregnant the first time only one of my close friends had suffered a miscarriage, but she'd gotten pregnant easily and did so again(and by the time I was trying she'd already given birth to a healthy baby). And most of my close friends who had children were able to get pregnant easily. [In fact, when I was finally pregnant with my daughter and calling friends to share the news, two trumped me--one with news that she was due with her third! and another with news that she was due with her second -- all of us due within 2 months of eachother.] So, when I went off the pill and didn't get my period for 4 months, it was annoying and frustrating. But then once I it came I got pregnant right away and I thought -- this is how it's supposed to be. Then I found out I'd miscarried, had to wait several weeks to see if my body would do the right thing (which it didn't) before finally having to have a D&C. I was devastated and really had no one to talk to who knew what it felt like. My doctor assured me that I'd get my period and we could try again soon. But once again, my period didn't come. We got her started up with some progesterone, but then my cycles were out of wack. Anyhoo, on our second round of clomid I got pregnant again. At the time it seemed like an eternity, but now it seems almost speedy. I was pregnant for the second time about 9 months after we'd started trying.

While the pregnancy that resulted in


wasn't quite the medical event like those we've been undergoing in hopes of having another little lovebug, still, there was clomid, thermometers, charts, and let's not forget the progesterone suppositories for 3 months. Coming soon I'll share the birth story to illustrate why both getting pregnant and giving birth are medical events for me.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

I hate my period!

And not for the obvious reasons. Sorry if this is TMI, but I need to vent. I'm practically hemorrhaging and twice today I've gotten to the restroom with only about 5 seconds to spare before ruining my pants and completely embarrassing myself! I could really stand to do without this for oh -- at least nine months! ;)

Cramps and the Dentist

Well, I got my period, which we are in the countdown to FET #1. It also means that I have cramps, bad cramps. They bad ones hit this morning while I was in the dentist's chair for what felt like an eternity. There I was getting 2 cavities filled and impressions for a new night guard, feeling like my insides were in a vise and wishing that I'd remembered to take my Ad.vil before I'd left the house.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Show and Tell #3

Yard work -- a before and after story.

I should preface my photos with a note that I do not like to do yardwork. I love flowers and I'm envious when I see other people's flower gardens, but I'll never have one because I just don't enjoy the work enough. And that's why after living in our house for 6 years the flower beds in the back the house were completely overgrown with random flowers and mostly weeds. My few attempts to spruce things up usually involved mums or petunias, many random flower pots, and a half refinished ice cream table and chair set. The result was that our yard look like it belonged on the set of the Bev.erly Hillbillies. My older sister (who now lives in an apartment in NYC) used to have the most beautiful yards. She never had tons of flowers, but always roses and great shrubs. So I recently asked her for some advice on something nice looking but low maintenance that I could do to spruce up our yard. She ended up giving me more than advice. She brought my nephew down and spent two days with me -- including 3 visits to the garden center and many, many hours of digging (thanks to the practically solid clay that is what passes for soil here and crazy BIG root systems in the flower beds right next to the house). The focus of our work was along the back of our house and our patio, but I got so excited we did a little sprucing up in the front too. She also convinced me to get rid of the old ice cream table and chair set and most of the pots -- my husband is eternally grateful! I actually have a few other projects planned for the fall (with specific instructions given by my sister!) and I'm so happy with the results of our recent efforts that I'm actually excited. The effort paid off in another unexpected way too. We have no real storage for things like bikes, lawn mowers, yard tools, etc, so our screened porch is unusable because it's where we put everything. Seeing the effort we put into the yard my mom decided to give us a rather large sum of money to be used for a shed. It arrives on Wednesday and we're so excited to get the use of our porch back. Anyway back to the recent project... Unfortunately, I don't have true "before" photos, because I forgot to pull out my camera until after I had dug up all the junk growing in the beds AND dug up the ugly railroad ties and many many ugly and crumbling bricks used as borders. and I'm actually , and Nevertheless, here's more of the story in pictures.

Behind the Patio




The Railroad Ties I Pulled Up


Next To The Front Stoop


Unused Flower Boxes


AFTER












My Nephew Helping With The Shovel




Had to add a photo of my favorite hydrangea -- one of the few things we planted after moving in.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

I'm Pathetic

Do you think it would be cheating if I got myself a Fre.sca?


Also, how long do you think they'll leave the "Blogger Babies" post up on the Blogger site. I'm really enjoying seeing all those photos of new babies when I want to log onto my infertility website! ;)

Monday, August 4, 2008

Goodbye Old Friend



I'd been planning to write this post two weeks ago! I'd planned to cut out my soda habit when I got my period; I figured that would give me a good 6 weeks caffeine and chemical free before my FET. Unforunately, I'm addicted. Yes you heard me, I am horribly addicted to the elixir pictured above. And the thing is, when I'm feeling stressed, as I have been lately, it's my comfort. Also helps when I'm tired and trying to get through the work day. Yesterday I realized that I'm probably only 4 weeks from the FET, as I slurped down my soda with all the nastiness that I KNOW is in there -- ooooh the guilt. So I decided that yesterday would be the last day I would indulge myself, and today would be my first DDP free day -- cold turkey! How has it gone? Well, despite almost falling asleep during some online training, it's been ok. I'm less than an hour away from leaving work and I've only had water and seltzer water to drink today! Though there are several hours left in the day, I really just need to get through the work hours because we don't keep any soda at our house, so once I'm on my way home I know that I'll have successfully made it through my first day soda free. Small steps, small steps.

Adoption Update

So our agency sent our dossier to China on July 10th and on the 28th we received an email with the following subject line.

"Congratulations! We received your Log-In Date!"

Our Log-In Date (LID) is July 18, 2008. Now we wait. And wait. And wait. And according to our agency and some random google research that wait could be anywhere from 2 1/2 to 6 years. I really don't know what to feel about that, but one thing is for sure. There won't be anymore adoption updates for a long long while.

Show and Tell #2

This week's show and tell is about a doll. Yes a doll. Many, many, many years ago I saw a picture in a toy catalog and I wrote this


(if you click on the photo you can actually read the letter I wrote for a 3rd grade english assignment)


For my birthday that year I got this.



After I got her, I found out that she is actually meant to be Cinderella. I recently dug the original box out from under a bed at my mom's house and gave the doll to my daughter. Though she seemed excited at first, she hasn't given the doll a second thought since. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that she's not all that interested in my 31-year-old dusty doll. I had hoped that she might get a bit of enjoyment out of a doll that brought me so much joy. Not only did I love her pink dress and the wreath of flowers on her head, but she was early proof that dreams can come true.

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Show and Tell