holding back

So, as you know, I'm in the dreaded "waiting" period. Waiting to see if I have a bun in the oven. There are also several other annoying waiting periods in this whole infertility game:

1. The period you're actually waiting to get your period. If you find out you're not pregnant (which has happened to me a bazillion trillion times) then you just have to wait to get your period so that you can start the cycle all over again. This is an annoying time, because there's no hope involved; only annoyance that you're eagerly waiting for something that is so decidedly NOT fun.

2. Waiting to ovulate. This is a more exciting thing to wait for, but also slightly nerve wracking. If you're one of those lucky people that those cool ovulation predictor kits works for, maybe it's not as nerve wracking. But for me, they don't work. I've tried WAYYY too many of them, spent WAY too much money on them, and never have they worked. So, I'm always a little nervous that I'll miss my window. Luckily, more recently, I get ultrasounds to check for me, so it's not as stressful.

3. And now, the most stressful waiting period; waiting to see if I'm pregnant. I think that this got more stressful for sure once I had my miscarriage. When I first miscarried, I couldn't imagine trying to get pregnant anytime soon. But then I realized that I want a baby more than anything, so, even if it was emotionally hard; it was worth it.

And now I'm walking this fine line of getting excited for Tuesday and trying to think positively, and then at the same time, trying manage my hope. I don't want to get my hopes up, because every time you try to conceive- even if you're perfectly healthy- the odds/statistics are against you. So, it doesn't make sense to get excited. But… it's pretty hard not to at least think about it. The problem is, when I start to think about it, and get excited, I do things like look at baby websites/blogs (they are seriously like crack, people!) and then I do things like look at little outfits. Like these.

OH MAH GOD. I will for sure be dressing my children in fun, crazy colorful things like this. But no, I'm not getting ahead of myself or anything….

Anyway, so now I wait. Nothing to be done about that. Wait until Tuesday afternoon, and just see what happens. I'll have to keep myself busy this weekend. Luckily, I have Saturday covered, as I'm babysitting for the cutest 18 month old ever. :)

Have a great Thursday everyone!

~M

(Oh, by the way, I last updated on Thursday, and I hadn't ovulated, but I woke up on Friday and my temp went up, so, that means I ovulated sometime on Thursday, or early Friday morning. So, that's good. Good timing, since I got the IUI on Thursday.)

*photos found here and here

oh good. the crazies are back.

Well, first off; I had my IUI yesterday. It went- well? I don't know. I mean, it was easy- not much more to it than you usually have to put up with for a regular pelvic exam. So, it was simple. The only sad part was after it was over, then I was left there in the room by myself. I think if we do an IUI again, I'll have Ian come with me, to hang out in the room with me afterwards. Maybe that will help....

Anyway, he tested my pH again; and I'm still all acidic, even though I used the baking soda solution the night before I went in. So, I'm not sure what the deal is. I'm doing everything the same as last time, and it worked last time. I have to figure this out though; because if I can't, and we don't get pregnant this time; we'll have to make sure I'm not all acidic or I'll kill the sperm every time. And, well, that's no good if you're trying to get pregnant! (a little biology for you guys. The sperms have to be ALIVE to make a baby.) So; we'll have to figure that out for sure.

But, on to the crazies. What do I mean by "the crazies" you ask? Well, I'll tell you. I suppose they could also be called "the googles". Let me explain. So, on Wednesday, I got a shot of hCG to trigger ovulation. He said it would make me ovulate in the next 24-48 hours. So, I figured on Thursday or Friday morning, I'd wake up and take my temp, and it would be up- indicating that I ovulated. But; it didn't. Now, technically 48 hours from my trigger shot would be this morning around 10am; so, it's possible I didn't ovulate yet and did or will today- and then when I wake up tomorrow, my temp will be up. But, I started worrying- "Does the shot ever just NOT work? I'd better google it to see if it ever just straight up doesn't work for someone."

Yep. I googled. Yes, I know; bad news- but how ELSE do you expect me to get my answers? I mean, really. Anyway, so I googled "hCG trigger shot always work?" and it turns out, that NO, it doesn't always work. Can you believe it?!? (ha. kidding.) Now, I have no percentages or anything, because it was mostly forums I read it on, but still. Sigh. I guess that since we've resumed "trying" again, with that comes the crazies. I do my best not to go google crazy, but sometimes you just want answers. There's nothing I can do really; except wait. I'm just going to be super bummed if I don't actually ovulate until like Sunday or something, since my IUI was on Thursday. I HOPE I ovulate today. Keep your fingers crossed.

Anyway, that's all for now. The crazies are back. Can't say I missed 'em; but I am excited that we're trying again. For now- just trying to stay positive.

Have a lovely weekend, all!

xoxo

~M

giant potatoes, acid, and Haley Joel Osment

So, this title may have thrown you off a bit, but I assure you, all 3 of these things are relevant to today's post. You just have to be patient.

So, I had my second ultrasound of the week, and my follicles are MATURE. Like, so mature, they must have read this article. They grew from 15mm on Monday to a whopping 20mm today. Two of them! Double the chances! (Ok, I don't actually know if that's true, but in my mind, it makes sense. Two eggs are better than one... or something. Right?) ANYway...

Ok, plug your ears, mom... TMI coming up. So, the good doctor told me in my appointment on Monday that Tuesday night he wanted me to get "romantic" with my husband (snicker, snicker- their word) so that he could do a post coital test to see how the sperms were surviving. Remember last time when it turns out I'm all acidic and I kill the sperms, but then later on we fixed the issue with a little baking soda? Well, yesterday I totally used the baking soda solution before the romanticism ensued, and apparently it didn't work. Because he did another post coital test this morning, and I'm all acidic again! AND, he looked at the sperms again under a microscope and they're all dead. I am killing them again apparently. :( I mean, it doesn't TOTALLY matter, because an IUI bypasses all the acidic areas, but still. Annoying! Because if the IUI isn't successful this time, we certainly can't afford to keep doing it that way. So, I will have to figure out how to be less acidic.

One way is to eat alkaline foods. All meat is acidic, so that would be out. Which isn't a huge deal, because I don't eat a ton of meat anyway. I decided to try to be alkaline at lunch today, so I ordered a baked potato (alkaline) and an all fruit smoothie. Fruit is alkaline as well. I was too cold to order a salad. Sounds like a lovely, light lunch, right? Um, guys, check out the potato they sent me:

It's GINORMOUS! I left the fork there for scale. It's huge! I ate a third of it and then sadly had to toss the rest.

Oh, and here's my smoothie:

Nothing special about it, just was in a dorky picture taking mood today. :) Smoothie! Smoothie! That's kind of fun to say. No, I'm not drunk.

So, ANYway...back to the inner workings of my lady parts.

As I mentioned, my follicles are super mature, and so they gave me a trigger shot (in the muscle of my bum- ow!) of hCG to force the eggs to pop out. I am supposed to ovulate in the next 24-48 hours. Which means, tomorrow is IUI day! Huzzah! Paper confetti, balloons! I'm trying to psych myself up about it, because I'm nervous and worried it won't work. So, I'm psyching myself up- wahooo!

Ok, lastly. Are you wondering about Haley Joel Osment? I bet you were. I bet you read this whole post and were like "that bitch isn't going to tell us the significance of Haley Joel Osment in the title of this post! Did she see him today? Are they secret lovers? what is going ON??" Ok, well, first of all- Calm down! Jeez. Alright. So, the nurse this morning was writing down my appointment in their appointment planner. I watched her write it, and she wrote "AI- Mariah Fraser". I was confused. AI? What is that? Isn't that a movie? Starring Mr. Haley Joel Osment? So, I asked her what "AI" stood for- and she told me: "Artificial Insemination". OHHHH. Duh. Then I was like "All I could think of was that movie, AI, with that kid from the Sixth Sense." And then I laughed, because I thought it was funny. Not funny ha ha, so much, but you know. She did not. She just stared at me. So, I grabbed my bag and split.

Ok, this was a weird post, but I think you got all the general information of the goings on right now. Tomorrow morning at 10am Eastern, they will attempt to artificially knock me up. Cross your fingers that it works.

~M

the results are in: keep waiting.

Well, thanks to the clomid, my follicles (little round houses produced in your ovaries every month to hold your eggs) are coming along- but they're not quite there yet. At my doctor appointment this morning I discovered I have two follicles that are almost exactly the same size at 15mm. Dr. David considers a follicle mature at 17-18mm. So, I'm going back in on Wednesday to get another ultrasound. Hoorah for more waiting! Waiting is my favorite! I can't think of anything else I'd rather do than wait! (I'm trying to psych myself up to be patient. I think it's totally working.)

Yes, I realize it's only one and a half more days until I get to go in again, but BOY is the patience so much harder this time around. Seriously. I think it's harder for a lot of reasons. I will list them for you.

1. I've already been pregnant, and sadly miscarried. It's like someone gave me the most awesomest present in the world, that I'd been wishing to get for a year. Then they let me have it for a while, and show it off to friends and love it more than anything, and then yanked it away. nope! Never mind- you don't get this awesome present.

2. Now I know we can get pregnant. It has happened. Before, the waiting was always tinged with "well, maybe it's just not even possible for me to GET pregnant." Now I know that it is, so it makes me more impatient to have to wait for it.

3. I'm now scared of miscarriages. I mean, I was scared of them before, but now I'm scared that it could happen every time. It's more of a reality now. So, what if I wait ANOTHER year... and it just happens again? I read/hear these stories about women who miscarry 5, 6, 7 times before finally having a baby. This frightens me, because I really honestly don't feel like I have the strength for that. I mean, I hope and pray that I don't HAVE to face that scenario, but I worry that if I did... I wouldn't be able to be as brave as those women who are able to summon the strength to keep trying.

4. I got a lotta love to give! I can't wait to love a little baby. I will make it feel like the luckiest baby in the whole wide world- and I know Ian will too.

So, there you have it- my reasons that patience is not as easy this time. But what choice do I have? Can't rush these things; just gotta keep on chuggin', be patient, and WAIT.

~M

p.s. the cute clock in the photo is actually my new vintage alarm clock. It ticks REALLY loud, so while we originally had it in the living room- I had to move it, because the ticking was stressing me out. :) It's now in the bathroom and it looks super cute.

here I am!

Oh. So, I haven't written for a week. I think this might be my longest hiatus from blogging ever. Sorry, bout that guys! I really just haven't had a lot to report… combined with the fact that some of the stuff I COULD report…I didn't really want to. So, there ya have it. My excuse. :) Onward!

This week was a weird one. Not super crazy wacky weird, but I felt weird about a lot of things. I blame the clomid. Messing with your hormones does crazy things. So, on Sunday I started my clomid for this cycle and took it for 5 days- finished up yesterday. So, hopefully, my ovaries are doing their thang, and getting all ready to pop out some awesome eggs. Dr. D upped the dosage of clomid this month, so, we'll see what that does. I really really hope that all systems are a go, and that things are happening the way they should. I go in on Monday to get an ultrasound to check out my follicles, to see when we can do the IUI. (And for my non-fertility following friends out there, IUI stand for Intra Uterine Insemination- you can read about it here, if you so choose). See? See how I keep you so informed and knowlegeable? You're welcome. I've given you the PERFECT cocktail party convo topic. Really- just bring it up to a random stranger. They'll be all impressed with your phat fertility knowledge.

Speaking of the IUI, Ian and I had some talks about that this week. He said he sometimes feels (and I completely agree and understand) that doing an IUI is "cheating". I mean, we were able to get pregnant before "the old fashioned way" , so why shouldn't we try that again? Well, the reason we are fairly sure we're going to do an IUI this time, is because of the trauma Ian's poor sperms have been through lately. See, he has had pain issues in his nether-regions for about a year now (that's right- a YEAR. We truly are the household of broken junk. Poor guy!). Well, when we got pregnant, Ian started being more aggressive (as per his Physical Therapist's instructions) with trying to fix things, since we no longer had to worry about his sperm quality for a while. One of the things he did was take hot baths every night for a couple of weeks. Well, if any of you are familiar with the "things-dudes-have-to-stop-doing-whilst-trying-to-knock-up-their-women"; taking hot baths or being in hot tubs is a no-no. Also, he had gone back to having the occasional drink, because well, I was already pregnant. Oh, but then I miscarried. SOOO…. the baths, the alcohol… well, they very well could have affected his soldiers. We don't know for SURE, but it could have. ANYhoo- this is why we are strongly considering the IUI this time. Because before they do the IUI, they take his sperms and they separate the good ones out by spinning them in a centrifuge thing, so only the top notch ones are deployed during the IUI. No slow-moes getting in the way. So, if there did happen to be any damage done with the baths and the martinis, we can hopefully still have millions of guys that were NOT affected. Especially since as soon as I miscarried, he stopped with the baths. However, even with all of this, our odds will be only SLIGHTLY increased; but not a ton. Just very slightly.

So, there's the other risk for me; getting my hopes up that since we're doing this all "fancy schmancy scientific like"; that we'll for SURE get pregnant! Because nope; the chance still hovers around 15-25%.

Anyway, are we cheating doing it this way? Maybe. It's not ideally how I'd like for it to happen. But, I also don't want it to take another year and a half. I want a baby. No, I'm still not willing to do IVF- and we don't need to- but I think I can handle this. Sometimes though, it feels a little like I imagine women who had to give birth via c-section might feel. Like, yes, you had your baby, but you didn't birth them in the traditional sense. I know that from what I've read on other blogs, that this can sometimes be really hard for women, because they feel like they didn't get the experience of actually delivering the baby naturally. They didn't "pay their dues". Of course, we all realize that no matter HOW you bring a baby into this world; natural birth, epidural, c-section, adoption; you are a rock star mom. So, I need to keep telling myself that if I do an IUI, it doesn't make me any less of a woman or Ian any less of a man. If it brings us a beautiful baby to love; then that's all that matters.

I'll keep you in the loop with Monday's results as to how my follicles are doing. Cross your fingers. :)

Have a lovely weekend, all.

~M

friday!

Happy Friday, everyone! Woo hoo!! I love Fridays.

So, it is most definitely Fall here in NY- and it's just lovely. Fall makes me crave yummy fall foods; pumpkin things, spice things, apple things. Fall is my favorite.

So, for breakfast today, what I REALLY wanted was this:

and this:

but instead.... I had this:

...which was tasty, but it was no pumpkin scone and pumpkin spice latte. And, I had just regular drip coffee. AH, well. Responsible choices aren't usually as fun. :)

I'm very much looking forward to this weekend. I have a skype date with my friend and her brand new baby on Saturday, and I'm walking in the AFSP Out of the darkness walk on Sunday in memory of my old friend, Mike. It brings awareness to suicide prevention, and I feel so privileged to be participating and helping to raise money and awareness for the second year in a row.

I also want to do some closet cleaning-out. We'll see if that happens. :)

I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

~M

*photos found here and here

on your marks, get set, go! (again!)

Sorry for the long gap in posts, my friends. Really, I just didn't have a lot to report. I've just been in the "waiting" period, waiting for a new cycle to start so that we could officially start trying again. In the meantime, I've been doing weight watchers for 5 weeks and have lost a total of 6 pounds. If you'll recall, last week I was up 2.2 pounds. Well, this week I lost 1.2 pounds, so, I've ALMOST gotten rid of what I inexplicably gained the prior week. I'm very happy I lost, but a little bummed that I didn't completely get rid of that stupid 2.2 pounds. Oh well. Next week.

Anyway, I guess it wasn't SO inexplicable, given that I was on progesterone, and apparently progesterone makes you gain weight. Whee. I had been on it trying to induce my period so that we could reset things. Anyway, it worked! As of yesterday- I've started a brand new cycle. This is the most excited I've ever been to be crampy, bloated, irritable and breaking out. This Sunday I'll start the clomid and dexamethasone (my wonder ovulation drugs) and take those for 5 days and hopefully get some ovulation goin'! Then I am going to the doctor on the 18th to get a sonogram and then hopefully we'll do an IUI that week. I may just be projecting, but I'm pretty sure I can feel that my ovaries are psyched to do a really good job this month. I can tell they are ready to ROCK this.

Honestly, I hope I'm able to get pregnant faster this time. I have hope (?) that I could, (only because we know so much more about the drug combo that works for me, and various other things about my cycle/body) but I don't want to get my hopes up TOO much. I just feel like I don't have as much patience this time around. It's not an angry impatience… it's more of a "I've already had a taste of what could be, and I can't wait another YEAR for it! Hurry up, body!" kind of impatience. Anyway, I know that I just have to be patient, because there's no way to rush it. I just have to do everything I can, trust my doctor, and hope that it works. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

On another, totally unrelated note, I think I'm going to widen my horizons a tiny bit when it comes to this blog. You see, originally I had intended for it to be a place to chart/vent/journal my trip down infertility lane, but I also wanted to throw in a little splash of other things going on in my life. I tried a couple of times, (like here and here) but the baby stuff always blurred into it. So, I'm going to start trying to occasionally just blog about my non baby-makin' part of life, and non-baby things on my mind. We'll see how it goes.

SO! I'm excited. New start, new cycle, new hope- and all during a new season- Fall! Fall is my favorite and it's definitely arrived here (FINALLY!) in New York, so maybe all this newness happening at the beginning of Fall is an omen. An omen that good things are on the horizon- and I'm ready!

~M

*photo found here