it's clomid day!

Hurray hurray for clomid day! It's day four of my brand spankin new cycle and time to start my clomid and dexamethasone! The lovely drug cocktail that caused my ovary to create one lovely follicle last cycle. No, I didn't get pregnant, but, with only a 25% chance each cycle, it's not that surprising.

But, it's a new cycle and I'm really hopeful that it will be a close to normal length.

Wow. I don't have a lot of interesting things to report today.

Mostly, just excited to start a brand new cycle with brand new hopes. :)

~M

P.S. I got a sweet love note from my mister this morning. It made me all sorts of happy and reminded me yet again how lucky I am to have found such a wonderful guy.

let's start at the very beginning

So, my uber cycle is finally over. It lasted a whopping 85 days, but it's DONE. It started on April 3rd! Holy cow.

Now we are on day 2 of a brand new cycle, and I'm pleased to be done with the cycle that would never end. I called my Dr. this morning and we now have an action plan for this new cycle.

So, it's quite similar to the end of my last cycle- I'll be starting clomid and dexamethasone on day 4 through day 10. Then, on day 13, I'll go in for a sonogram to see if my little follicle is all ready to go, and also to do another post coital test to see if the baking soda is working to not kill sperms. So, you guys, I could potentially have a normal cycle this time! I'm not going to get ahead of myself, but I think it's entirely possible. A cycle over in a month? Crazy talk. We'll see. :)

~M

New day

Well, I can't say that yesterday's news rocked me to the core. Because, well, I just kind of KNEW I wasn't pregnant. I tried really hard to think positively, but- I just knew on some level. Oh, I hoped I was wrong. When I asked my friend Kristin what her pregnancy symptoms were she said she really hadn't had any except some weird vivid dreams. So, I thought, "Ok! I'm just not going to have any symptoms! I could totally be pregnant."

Well, nope. Not how it worked out.

Yesterday I waited ALL DAY to get my results. I went in at 8:30am to get blood drawn and confirmed with the test lady that my test results would get to my Dr. that day. She said yes, no problem. Well, I called about halfway through the day and they said "No results yet, but we'll call you when we get them." So, I waited.

And waited, until 4:55. I called the office and it went straight to voicemail. I was SO upset. All day, sitting here with my stomach in knots and no call. Then, suddenly, when I hung up my phone, it made the voicemail noise. It said that a message had been left at 2:30! My phone was attached to me all day, and for some stupid reason, it never rang. The voicemail symbol never showed up. Until right then, after I'd waited stressfully all day. In the message, the nice nurse apologized for leaving this information over the phone, but unfortunately, your test is negative. Please discontinue the progesterone and call when you get your period and we'll discuss the next steps.

I was sad. Very slightly relieved in a way, to know, but mostly- just sad. Frustrated. Kind of mad. And you know what really SUCKS about living in a city where you don't drive? No rushing to your car to cry on your way home. Too many people around for me to cry while walking down the street. So, I think I shed about 2 tears at my desk, and then realized if I let it go any further, I wouldn't be able to stop and I didn't want to have to explain anything to my co-workers. Once 5pm hit, I just hightailed it out of the building and headed to the subway. I put my ipod on, knowing music would help. But what kind? Well, happy music would just make me mad. Sad music would make things worse. So, I chose angry music. Angry, grunge-girl-band-from-the-90's, very yelly music. And it REALLY helped. It was like they were getting all my anger/frustration out for me. I just leaned back and closed my eyes and let it sort of wash over me. Sadness, frustration, it all slowly left. By the time I was only about 20 minutes from being home, I felt a lot better.

Then, at 145th street, a little boy (probably 3 or 4) got on the train with his mom. He plopped down right next to me and opened up the book he was reading; "Oh the Places You'll Go", by Dr. Seuss. He was pretty small, and he smelled like grape bubblegum. He had dark hair and really big brown eyes. He kept turning the pages and pointing and looking up at me and saying "See?". I would just smile and say "Cool!" He seemed to really like it when I showed interest, so he kept pointing at more and more pictures; "See? See? See?" It was very cute. And it made me a little sad, because I sure want one of those little guys, but I read one of the paragraphs in his book and it put things into perspective a bit:

"And when you're alone, there's a very good chance
you'll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won't want to go on. "

It's true. This negative test DID scare me a bit. Because, sure, maybe next time it will work! Or, the time after! But, maybe it never will. And that would really suck. And I've thought about this and thought, "Maybe we should just stop now. It's too hard."

But, then today, I decided to look up the text of the rest of the book, and found this paragraph at the end:

"You'll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You'll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life's
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)"

So...it seems as though Dr. Seuss thinks we will succeed. And that's good enough for me. :) Thanks, cute little boy on the subway, for sharing your wise book with me for 40 blocks.

I feel a lot better today, and just am excited to start a new cycle and just keep on keepin' on. With the world's best husband at my side, I think we've got a pretty good chance at making this work.

~M

FYI

Not pregnant.

Don't really feel like writing any more than that right now.

More later.

~M

what can I say?

So, I'm not sure if I can blog anymore until next week. I just have no idea what to say, and I'm afraid if I spill out ALL that I'm thinking; well, it'll just be a bunch of crazy-on-a-page.
It's funny when you're waiting for the results of anything, really: You can say "oh, I'm not going to get my hopes up", but really, that's just what you're saying. At least for me. I SAY I don't want to get my hopes up, but really, my hopes are probably up. And that makes me really nervous, because I remember quite well the feeling of having your hopes dashed- and it totally blows.

So, I just don't know what to say until Wednesday. Any woman out there will attest to the fact that PMS can (and pretty much always does for me) make you a big ball o' crazy. Weepy, annoyed, bloated, and just not thinking very clearly. So, add to this that you're waiting 4 more days to have a stranger call you and tell you if you're pregnant; well, it's not a fun feeling.

Everyone says "think positive", but I don't think this is something that will help me. I'm trying to protect myself, and "thinking positive" doesn't make babies. Sorry, but it just doesn't. I'm usually a fairly positive person, and so if that's all it took, I'd have been pregnant long ago. (See? If I keep doing entries for the next 4 days, you're going to get all these pissy, downer entries.)

Anyway, if you don't hear from me for a few days, that's why. If I think of something interesting to write about besides "I'm pissy and grumpy and anxious!" (pissy and anxious are the two dwarves that Snow White just kept hidden.) then I'll make sure to blog, otherwise, I may take a couple days off.

Regardless, I DO hope you all have a LOVELY weekend! I'm going to rest (I have a stupid cold- and my last weekend was QUITE stressful) and just enjoy the time off with my hubby.

~M

bluh.

Today, that's how I feel. Feeling quite PMS-ish. Feeling a lot like this guy right here:



No, not sweet and fluffy; large and bloated. Wheee.

Now if it turns out I'm pregnant, I won't care one darn hoot about being all bloated and sluggish. If not? GRRR. Stupid PMS.

~M

the waiting game

Sorry it's been a couple of days since my last post, but, well, I'm just sitting here waiting to see if we managed to knock me up. It's a long, tedious wait. Ok, I only have 7 more days, but still. It FEELS long. And.. the universe's cruelest joke? Pregnancy symptoms are the same as PMS symptoms. Yep. So, you can be like, "OMG! I'm totally nauseated!" or "YAY, a headache and cramps!" because you just finished googling "early pregnancy symptoms" and whaddya know! There they are! Oh... but, then you google "PMS symptoms"... and...whaddya know.... there they are again.

So really? There's just no way to tell. Some women are all, "Oh, I just knew." Yeah. I have a feeling that won't be me.

Ian went to the urologist yesterday to discuss his sperm morphology, etc. After an exam he said it doesn't seem as though there's anything physically wrong, which is good. He did, however, tell us about eleventy billion tests that would be good for him to do to help determine things like: Does his body create anti-sperm antibodies that kill the sperm? Do his sperms have good, healthy DNA structures? Etc., etc. And, I guess it's probably good for us to do these tests to rule things out. But, they are SPENDY. I'm hoping that they're somewhat covered by our insurance. We aren't going to do them until after I take my test on Wednesday though.

Man, conceiving can be COMPLICATED! There are so many things that can be wrong- it's crazy!

Oh, also, I don't know if I should take this as an omen or not, but today I got an email with this title:

"June Sale at Early-Pregnancy-Tests.com‏"

HA.

That's ok, early-pregnancy-tests.com. But thanks for the offer.

In the body of the email they also asked me if I wanted to look at the gallery of positive pregnancy test photos.

Um, no.

That's like asking an alcoholic, "Hey, wanna look at this gallery of ice cold refreshing beer photos?"

Ok, it's not EXACTLY the same, but c'mon! Jeez.

Anyway- just continuing to wait, and wait. 7 days? Suddenly the rest of this so far 75 day cycle doesn't seem so long....

~M