but i'm still hungry....

This morning, my sweet little G awoke. Generally, he wakes up crabby. I can't imagine where he gets that. Today he woke up happy. He said to me "Wydah deem". He's so articulate, no? After a bit of prompting, I was able to get the following: Wydah dweem. Now, I know that "Wydah" is the way he pronounces his name*. And "dweem" was not so hard to figure out considering that he just woke up, and logically sleep and 'dream' go together.

He didn't look particularly upset, so I figured it wasn't a nightmare, and that made me curious - what on earth does a three-year-old have to dream about? After a few more questions, I was able to determine 'dweem pizza'.

And I thought I was the only one who dreamed about eating.

Good mom that I am, I know that a food-dream means I'll be craving said food until I can have it. Figuring that G is a lot like me, I decided we'd have pizza for lunch. Only, I wasn't sure what kind of pizza is carb-friendly. Generally, we'd go all out on the pizza binge on those days when AF was here and I didn't worry about carbs.

So I checked the carb count on his favorite pizza. 84 grams of carbs in one slice. Holy fucknuts, that's a lot of carbs. Nearly half my daily carb allowance. Almost twice the amount of carbs I get for my biggest meal (which ain't lunch, folks).

So that was out.

But.

I still think he needs pizza... and honestly, at this point, I'm pretty damn sure that I need pizza too. So I go online and survey the local pizza joints - all the major ones have nutritional info online now (thank God for the internet, or I'd never know what to eat).

What did I find? I can have one freaking slice of a medium-sized thin crust pizza (22g carbs) without going over my lunchtime carbo-limit.

What the hell is that? Who eats just ONE piece of pizza? Not me... and I don't even really like thin crust pizza.

But we got it anyway.

.. and no, I sure didn't eat just the one piece. Probably I should feel more guilty, but I did cut myself off at two pieces of pizza. (which was hard as hell, I'm starving All. The. Time.)

So - finally - here's my point: It is insanely difficult to find a fast-food meal (that is not a salad) that has less than 30g of carbs... and actually, many of the salads have more than 30g of carbs, too. We rarely eat out now because of this. If we do, it's for dinner, where I get a more-lenient 45g of carbs.

And you know... every place has a 'healthy' menu or 'lighter' choices; rarely are these low in carbs. Often they're lower-calorie, and lower-fat with a sky-high carb count. Worse yet, many of them are not even healthy carbs.

So now I'm pissed off at convenience foods in general. Because that's much easier than concentrating on my hunger.

And for the bright side of things: I don't think I'll have to worry about gaining the 60+ pounds I stuffed on while baking the G.





*what? you didn't really think that my child's name was "Grape" did you?

Remedial Reproduction

I've added some new links over there, check them out if you're of a mind... many of my links are SIF or parenting/pregnancy after IF, so be aware that pregnancy and children may be mentioned on them. 'Course, if you're reading my blog, chances are you're probably ok with that.



In other news, I called to make my appointment with the actual OB department. It's just a nurse appointment - loads of paperwork and no fun stuff. I hate this appointment. It was the only appointment I had with my last pregnancy. I filled out reams of paperwork when what I really wanted was to jump up and down screaming "something's not right - can I please have an ultrasound instead of this shit??"

Yeah.

I also remember receiving several pounds of brochures/magazines/coupons and samples. I was uncomfortable accepting them before, and after the miscarriage I cried when I threw out that pile of junk. Nothing like a reminder of bad times when I'm starting to feel a bit better, eh?

Only, it gets worse.

Instead of just paperwork, now they have a prenatal class I have to attend. Where they'll, you know, give me a script for prenatal vitamins (yeah, the same ones I've been taking for over a year), and information on nutrition and other fun stuff. Information that won't apply to me since 'normal' nutrition guidelines don't apply to my carb-controlled diet. This reminds me a bit of the fiasco this past summer where my appointment with the nutritionist (to discuss said carb restrictions) turned into a weight-loss class that I had to attend in order to make an appointment with the actual nutritionist.* Well, I have to attend the prenatal class before they'll make an appointment with an OB.

I'm apprehensive. I'm picturing a class full of women who are six weeks along, and already have names and nursery themes picked out. And me. Who still can't use the p-word. Who'd be deep in denial and skipping this class, but for my desire to see an actual doctor to beg for another ultrasound.

Thinking of this class I feel a bit like a calculus student forced to re-learn addition. I'd bet some serious money (ok, $10) that I will not only walk out of there with no new knowledge, but 90% of the information they do give me will not apply to me.

Still.... should make for an interesting blog post - appointment's on Thursday, I'll keep you posted.




*i am 5'3" and generally weigh between 125-130; can you imagine the dirty looks i received? from each and every person in the class... not that I'm faulting them - I'd have been glaring at me also.

I can almost say it.

The p-word, that is.

My ultrasound was this morning. It was very, very hard to make myself go. I was half-tempted to tell B to turn the car around and just go home. I know, I know, I've been waiting for this appointment for weeks... but I was so afraid it would be bad news, and I just didn't want bad news today.

I'll cut to the important stuff: it wasn't bad news.

There's a little grain of rice in there, with a teeny-tiny beating heart. Doc NH measured twice. The first measurement came out at 6w4d. The second was 6w5d. I am currently 6w5d. I'm a bit freaked that the first measurement was a day behind, but it's a difference of .02cm, so I'm trying not to call it significant.

I'm not ashamed to say that I gasped when I saw the tiny little flickering. I saw little RiceCake before I saw the flicker, and I was immediately transported back to the last ultrasound where I saw a blob with no flicker.. and then, improbably, when DocNH probed a bit more, I saw it - flickering away. Against my nature, I did not ask for the heart rate. I know it's over 100, because that's what DocNH was looking for, and he was pleased that he found it. I don't know how much over 100, and I'm trying to convince myself that I don't care. I don't want to overanalyze and make myself crazy (as I am prone to do), so I'm trying to just go with things. Doc NH is happy, so I am happy. He said it's not a guarantee, but my risk of miscarriage has dropped significantly. I'll take that. It's perhaps not as low as I'd like, but the numbers he quoted me are somewhere around 6%, which is a hell of a lot better than what I was looking at last week. It seems strange that I'm starting to believe this might happen.

Even stranger... Doc NH is discharging me from the IF clinic and turning me over to OB. I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that, but I'm happy that things are considered that normal. He wants me to stop my metformin the first of the new year. I know I'm uncomfortable with that, but crafty bitch that I am, I'm waiting to hear the OB's recommendations. Last I heard, they were advocating met til 20 weeks. I'm more comfortable with that. Actually, I'd be all over taking it right up through next summer... but apparently I'm the only one who's comfortable with that.

I've got referrals to the OB and the jackass nutritionist, and I'm trying very hard to be more excited than scared. It's a long, slow, climb, and I've got at least a few more weeks until I can really relax. Still, I am ever-so-grateful to have made it this far, and to have gotten exactly the news I had hoped for this morning. Is it too much to hope this continues?

Does this make sense?

Probably it won't, but I've got a ton of things swirling around in my head.

Firstly, I have much to be thankful for today. I think that goes without saying... but I'm still not confident enough to articulate everything. Suffice to say, I am very thankful.

Secondly, today could have been so much worse. Typically, B spends TurkeyDay with his family, and I spend it with mine*. This year, my parents are out of town visiting the gestating sister, and B is working. G and I got to visit with him earlier, and have turkey on his ship. Although it wasn't a familiar holiday tradition, and we were surrounded by strangers, I was profoundly grateful to see him for even the two hours we had. Next year, he will be far away for the holidays, and I am acutely aware that this year's holiday was a gift.

Thirdly, because I am procrastinating on the cleaning and packing,** I was reading blogs while G napped off his holiday meal. Bloglines wasn't showing anything new for me, so I started following blogroll links and somehow found myself immersed in a few blogs on the opposite side of donor conception - blogs written by children conceived through donors or surrogacy. These were not happy blogs.

I'm going to tread lightly here because I don't want to invalidate someone else's personal feelings about their life and experiences, but it shocked me that I did not see a single blog where the author did not have an overwhelmingly negative view of donation. I understand that for the most part, topic-driven blogs (particularly when the topic is reproductive in nature) are not written because a person is happy and well-adjusted with their circumstances in life... so I suppose that part of the negativity is because these blogs, by their very nature, are a means to work through complex feelings or release pain... and that would somewhat skew the demographics.

Still... You'd think at least someone would pop up and say "hey, it's really not that bad" ... but no.

That aside, each and every blog put a new spin on things I'd never really considered before. Is it a disservice to bring a child into the world through 'artificial means'? Does it really cause lifelong wounds? Is it selfish of all concerned (donors included)?

One blog in particular interested me. It was written by a woman who was the product of egg donation and birthed by a surrogate. Her negative views of donation extended to any and all artificial reproduction, not just donation but ART in general. In fact, one poignant entry about her happiness at knowing her own child was conceived through natural means, created by her marital love and not in an artificial environment both touched me and piqued my ire.

I know what you're thinking - what an interesting duo of emotions to feel simultaneously. Well, I'm a complex kinda gal.

I can see, from her particular point of view, why she would have a negative viewpoint of any conception/family growth that involves a child being raised without personal knowledge of their genetic heritage... and in that sense, I can understand why she has great pride in knowing that her child will have a greater connection and better answers to the age-old question where did I come from?... But I cannot for the life of me understand why any artificial conception would be considered morally wrong, no matter what personal baggage is carried by the one expressing said opinion.

I saw more than one blog today that questioned how it would make a child feel to know that they were not created by an act of love, but rather by a medical procedure. Who implied (or flat-out stated) that people who couldn't easily or 'naturally' have children just plain shouldn't be parents.

Now, I don't know about you, but I never asked my parents for details of my conception. Provided it didn't change the basic truths I knew (that my mother was my mother, and my father was my father), I don't think it would affect me to discover that I'd been conceived in a doctor's office any more than it affected me when, as a child, I realized that my very existence meant that my parents had, indeed, been intimate... a sobering and disgusting realization for a kid.

I remember teasing my brother by saying that he was adopted (he wasn't) ... and I wonder if some day G will taunt little Speck*** with the knowledge that he was conceived au natural, while she was the product of a veritable chemical soup of meds... ? Will he lord over his younger sibling that his conception was the result of spontaneous down-and-dirty while hers was forced intercourse at o'dark thirty in the morning with two barely-willing parents who were going through the motions of need rather than desire?

Well, ok, probably not that last one because, really, that's too much information for any child to have about their parents' sex life.


Maybe it will be like my old friend who found references to himself written into his mother's high school yearbook... and discovered that he was conceived before she married his father, before they even graduated from high school .. ? For him, it was an interesting bit of trivia, a discussion point, and a subject of light teasing towards his parents... but not a life-altering bit of information.

I know that it's more than likely that my child/children will know about my fertility problems. If nothing else, PCOS is genetic, and it's just another piece of medical information for them and their children.

... hopefully, that's all it will be. Medical information. Not a reason to question if they were 'meant to be.'






*seems backwards, eh? B's family tradition is that the men in the family go hunting (sexist perhaps, but remember - there are no girls, so it's basically the whole family that goes).. since we don't live anywhere near his family, I'm fully supportive of his TurkeyWeekend hunt. It is the one time of year where they are within a reasonable driving distance of our town, and I think it's important for him to see them. Just not important enough for me to suffer through it usually.

**because I got suckered into going with B to visit the inlaws this weekend.

***if, knock wood, things work out

Get me to a nunnery!

I think I'd like to make a career out of celibacy.

Hormones + s-e-x = me spotting. OK, not this particular hormonal soup that I'm in the midst of now,* but in general. When I was pregnant with G, I spotted after doing the deed. This past spring before my miscarriage, I spotted every time B so much as looked at me. OK, that may not count 'cause I spotted for the hell of it right up til I actually miscarried... but some of it was nookie-related. Currently, I've only spotted once, the day AF was due, but it, too, was related to s-e-x.

No big surprise that I'm sort of afraid to take my pants off around my husband.

It's a new thing for me. Generally, we're celibate because we have to be, not because we want to be.



In other news, my paranoia still has me braless more often than not. Because, you know, decent support helps with the soreness and the last thing I want is to be less sore. I suppose that could be considered tortuous, first trying to cut off my husband and then running around braless... only.. my girls, unsupported, are not a pretty sight. They were giant even before G, but his nursing addiction took its toll. They are no longer giant, they're just long. Lovely thought, eh? At any rate, it all just adds to my crazy pleasant aura.

I'm still obsessively poking, squeezing and grabbing my breasts, although I'm now doing it around the vicinity of my knees. Combine that with the constant reassuring discussions I'm having (with myself!), the never-ending panty SpotWatch, and the obsessive need to sniff less-than-pleasant aromas to see if maybe they make me queasy...** Yeah, I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be allowed in public.

G & I have been spending most of our time at home. We're going camping with the inlaws this weekend, but that should be ok. If nothing else, it's a great distraction to keep me busy between now and Monday. And hey, we'll be sharing a trailer with B's teenage brother, so I don't even have to worry about that whole s-e-x thing.






*note that I am still unwilling to use the p-word in relation to myself right now... please bear with my euphemisms..

**thus far, it's taken some seriously noxious odors to provoke nausea. still, i'm doing my best to cause it.

Hey, I think I'm losing weight.

In my low-carb hell.

I had a friend tell me this week that she wanted my diet. I had commented that I was starving, but couldn't eat 'cause I didn't actually want any of the food I was allowed to eat.

Which is when she said she'd eaten everything in sight and she wanted my diet.

Yeah. I had to work really hard not to claw at her eyes because I most definitely do NOT want my diet.

I will do whatever it takes to bring a healthy baby into this world, but I reserve the right to cry in frustration when all I want is just one, small coffee cake... or cheese danish... or a piping hot caramel brownie with fudge sauce and maybe some melty vanilla ice cream oozing off the top of it.

Picture a minimum of nine months with no guilt-free dessert. No overindulgence of fresh-baked bread or pretzels. No Oreos. Or decent brownies. A fall without caramel apples. A Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie. Christmas without chocolate pie.

Is it worth it? Oh hell yes.

Is it easy? Not one little bit.

I refrained from telling my friend that she, too, could have my diet.. she could try it on for kicks, stick with it as long as she wanted and then throw it aside when it felt too binding and restrictive. Me, I'm stuck with it. And as much as I'm happy to be where I am right now, the combination of hormones and unfulfilled cravings does make me cry a little.

Oh yeah...

I totally forgot what I was supposed to be blogging about earlier.

Oops.

Anyhow, I told my mom last night. It was on accident, and it just slipped out.

We were looking at tiny baby clothes (not for me - remember that nephew that will be born next month? yeah, for him) and I was examining the little dresses.. which, of course, made my mom comment that there weren't any little girls in the family and for some reason that irritated me What - I need to have a little girl in mind to be looking at tiny dresses? and it just sort of came out.

Yeah, I'm totally good at this keeping my mouth shut thing.

So a little later in the evening, my mom was on the phone with my aunt and I forget how it came up, but I told her it was ok to tell - it's not a huge secret, I just don't want to go through the process of un-telling people if things go south... and my mother says to my aunt "rachel thinks she might be p-word"* So I corrected her and said "no, I know I am" .. and then followed it up with what should be the Official Infertile Disclaimer I'm just not sure for how long.

I was so pissed at myself for that. I want to be a normal p-word chick. I want to be able to look at baby clothes or things without worrying if maybe I'm wasting my time and/or money by looking too soon. I want to be able to tell people about this without following it up with a "but that doesn't mean anything yet". Most of all, I want to be able to actually say the word.

Maybe after the ultrasound.

If things continue, some time between now and next July, I will so totally tell everyone.




*ok, she used the actual word, but I can't say it, or type it or even think it, honest to God.. maybe after the ultrasound.

If you need me, I'll be hiding in the closet.

I am convinced that whatever deity or power is out there really does have a hell of a sense of humor.. and similar to the old horror stories of my childhood, many times wishes can be granted only at a price...

The other day, mid-major-freakout, I wished I wasn't worrying quite so much about what was going on in my uterus.

Well... I got that wish.

Now, I'm paranoid about tornadoes. Paranoid, as in crying and hyperventilating during bad weather. Man, I hate to admit that, but it's true.

We've been under a tornado watch since before I woke up this morning. It's mid-afternoon and there are still three hours to go. Three hours til I can relax and disconnect myself from the streaming radar on both websites I am obsessively checking. (because you can never create enough panic from just one site).

This isn't exactly a rational fear - I can't remember the last time we actually had a tornado in my city... but each and every time there's a storm, I'm convinced it's coming. My nerves have been shot and on edge all day.... and it has just now started raining. Really, I'm the only person I know who can have a near-panic attack about the weather under a blue sky.*

I probably should have asked for less worry overall. Not just less reproductive worry.

Still, I haven't worried about my uterus all day.

So that part is good.



*I swear to you, this has happened in the past.

Two more weeks

Farking blogger just ate another post. Argh.

I'm still marking time waiting for my ultrasound. I've had several people ask about betas or blood tests. DocNH is happy waiting for the ultrasound, and in many ways, I am too.

See, I had some problems in the earliest G-days* and wound up with a series of betas to check on things. I got a call from my nurse on a Friday afternoon that the betas were rising but not doubling. On Friday afternoon. When they wouldn't be open again until Monday.

It turned out to be a very minor thing, and obviously, not scary news... but it made for one hell of an uncertain and scary weekend.

Blood tests are lovely, but they don't reassure me as much as they should. I'm worried that if I did beg for some beta-reassurance, I'd wind up with something that could be good or bad, and then I'd have proof that worrying was maybe a good idea. As it stands, I have nothing besides my own paranoia to suggest I should worry, and that's making it a little easier to breathe.

Breathing is something I've been having some problems with this week. I'll admit, that hpt knocked the breath out of me, and I still haven't gotten it back. When I'm focused on thinking too much about the what ifs, I start to feel like my throat is closing up on me. It's not as all-consuming as it was a few days ago, but it's not gone. I'm still distracting myself with G, and with books**, and just hanging out waiting. Ultrasound's not that far off.

Only two more weeks - and I'm used to living my life in two-week increments.





*still having a hard time typing the 'p' word in relation to myself.

**really, that's what I should be blogging about, I read this perfectly dreadful story about infertility that was chock-full of cliches and bad assvice.. tho surprisingly accurate in some ways about procedures and feelings...

Ok, so I'm still here.

Thanks to the beauty of on-again/off-again sore breasts, things are really getting done around my house.

See, B & I react a bit differently when we worry - I look for something to occupy my mind so that I won't have time to think. He looks for mindless busywork so he won't have to think. (Meanwhile G takes shameless advantage of this parental distraction and spends the entire afternoon jumping in puddles in the back yard.)

So far today I've read three books; B has removed all the leaves from the back yard and cleaned the fish tank... no small feat - it's a 75-gallon tank with three extremely dirty fish in it, and B has removed and scrubbed all the gravel in it, replaced all four filters and changed out a good percentage of the water. The poor fish are going into convulsions as I type, they are so unnerved by the changes in their home.

I agree - the changes in my home are unnerving to me as well.

That pesky breast tenderness has been steadily diminishing since the moment I saw a + on that test. Very unsettling. For a little while today, the girls were perfectly fine, no soreness at all. Naturally, I freaked (and thus started the compulsive fish-cleaning).

I know that dwindling symptoms don't have to mean bad things... and so far, the soreness has always come back, albeit not as strongly as it had been before (but who knows if that's just in my head?) .. but it leads to certain amounts of paranoia, and a general desire to step away from Dr Google*.

But... since the girls are a bit sore now, and I'm not feeling as pessimistic, I thought I'd check in and ask a super-important question:

How does one survive pregnancy after miscarriage??

I recognize that my one miscarriage is hardly reason enough for the sheer amounts of panic I'm going through... but I sure as hell don't know how to change it. And I have two weeks yet til my ultrasound appointment. I'm worried about my sanity in these two weeks... and the two weeks after that.. and the two weeks after that.. and so on, and so on. Well, look at me being all optimistic - I'm assuming the ultrasound will have good enough news that I can continue to panic after it.





*who left me breathless this afternoon when a search accidentally uncovered the theoretical rate of miscarriage for women with pcos. the bastard.

I'd like to be sick now, please.

Yesterday, I remembered reading that if I had sore breasts, I should wear a more supportive bra. I grabbed my most supportive bra (practically chest armor) and within a few hours, I wasn't sore at all.

So I freaked out (naturally) and will be burning my bras henceforth. All those women in history who burned bras - they weren't protesting. They were just freaking out.

In a moment of weakness, I asked for some small amount of morning sickness, or something.

Well, someone got that memo, but it appears that something got lost in translation. Around 2.00 this morning, G woke up with some serious intestinal distress. After I got his pants changed, and got him bathed, I attemped to put him back to sleep. In my bed, of course.

He laid his head down, closed his eyes and promptly threw up. In my hair.

So yeah, someone here was vomiting... but it wasn't me.

. . .

I'm still in disbelief, still paralyzed with fear. I have never in my life wished so hard that I'd feel miserable. I keep reminding myself that it's still early, there's plenty of time for this stuff to develop, but that's small comfort when I want reassurance now. I'm analyzing everything. Why are my breasts less sore today? Is that the normal cycle of symptoms or is it ominous? Was that a cramp? My hpt looked pretty light - is that a problem?

This is a very long road, and I have just enough knowledge to be terrified scared.

I think I'm scared to death...

"I am so uppercase Fucked"

The other night, B & I watched this perfectly dreadful horror movie. So dreadful that it was funny - I love movies like that. At any rate, that's a quote from the movie. Now, in the movie, the character who wailed that line was upset because the zombie-alien-bad-guy-thingie had vomited on him, causing his flesh to begin to rot.

Obviously, that's a different situation from mine... but that line still came to mind this morning.

Yeah. Because of that.


Against all odds, on the month our IUI was cancelled and we were left to have s-e-x on our own, praying that I would ovulate before he left... we succeeded.

Now how the fuck does that happen?



edit: I wrote this post this morning, and held off publishing it til I could talk to B, figuring he should know first and all... well, he knows now. I can't say he's thrilled - he's so worried he's making it difficult for me to even try to be excited. I'm really sad that our first reaction is worry, but I guess that's part of this game, right? Anyway, I have an appointment in a few weeks for an ultrasound. My RE waits til 7 weeks, figuring at that point, we'll see a heartbeat....... if there is one. I'll probably be scarce until then. The last thing I want is to make myself worry more by thinking about it too much.

Out, out, damn spot!

Yesterday, my mother says to me "I hate to ask this ... " (and here, I know what's coming) "... but did it take?"

I don't know, it's still early.

"Hasn't it been two weeks?"

No, not yet. (two weeks is today, not yesterday)

"Oh", she says, "I figured since those tests are so much more sensitive these days..."

Not for me, ma, not for me. I do not test early.*



Still, when I woke up this morning, I debated testing. Talked myself out of it (why waste a test when my temp is down a little, and I'll know one way or another tomorrow?) but apparently just thinking about testing was enough to bring on some activity.

One lonely little spot.

I had to use my Eyes of the Infertile** to see it, but it was there.

And it scared me.. see, I rarely get spotting before AF, and this, this wasn't the pink smear of defeat that heralds the beginning of a visit, it was the one little speck of red that I saw when I was knocked up with the G.

So that totally scared the shit out of me.

And now I'm hoping I'm not pregnant.

Because I'm pretty sure they'll be sending the little men in the white coats with their straitjackets for me if I have to endure another pregnancy that involves bleeding.

I've done it twice - first with G, where a small subchorionic hematoma not only caused The Speck and the subsequent bleeding, it made my betas not double (one of the scariest possible things to happen in a post-IF pregnancy, no?). The second time, I spotted every few days up til I miscarried. So... for me, blood + pregnancy = bad.

I've heard the jillion stories of implantation bleeding, women who had regular "periods" through an otherwise healthy pregnancy, and all the other not-bad situations.

I don't care.

Let the fertiles smile and relax through the months of spotting, I don't want that. I think I've earned the right to relax if I ever manage to get pregnant. That's so totally not happening if there's anything that even resembles blood near my nether regions.

.. and is it weird that I'm stressing over the thought of this ... ? Considering that I haven't tested, and given the circumstances of this cycle, the odds are very much against success anyway?

Eh, why wait to worry when you can pre-stress ahead of time, right?





*ok, so sometimes I cave and test early.. but I've had an hpt in the house for the entire 2ww and I haven't been tempted to use it til today... 14dpo. I think that says something.

**you know the ones - they can spot a faint line on a cheap test in bad light. they can also spot an infinitesimal spot of red on TP. It's a blessing and a curse, I tell ya.

things i forgot earlier....

Two things - I got an email this afternoon from a friend of mine who's a chart-stalker "Did you notice your temp went up today?"

Heh. Why yes, I did. Just thought it was funny that she asked.. of course, she doesn't know about this blog so she probably doesn't know the extent of my chart obsession. Temp rise or no, I'm still not hopeful. Witness the can of Dew next to my keyboard. Obvious proof that I'm convinced this cycle's over.

The second thing - another friend, who had the initial discussion of "I might be having fertility problems" with her doctor (OB, gyn, family doc, I don't know which) .. the doc suggested metformin, if she's interested. Brings me to my question:

Ever heard of metformin for a woman who has no pcos, and is already ovulating?

13dpo... marking time.

I've started dreaming about my BBT again.

Just in case I'd forgotten I'm 13dpo. The BBT dreams generally start right around now.

Because I'm a freak, I think. Who else dreams about thermometers?


I've been having weird feelings about babymaking lately. I think I'm burning out on the whole thing. I'm tired of trying. I've reached the point where I'm expecting negative results, and not holding out hope. 13dpo and the best I've managed in the hope department is "hey, with this kinda timing, we could inseminate before TurkeyDay and totally not screw up the holiday - yeah!"

I guess the thing is... why bother if it's just not going to work?

Rationally, I know, it could work... but I know the statistics. I know that the best chances for success in IUI are in the first few tries, and we've passed that point.

I don't understand how I could get pregnant twice without a doctor in the room, or a single hormone-altering drug... and when we inseminate with drugs... nothing.

I'm not ready to give up, but I think I'm entering that phase where I start shaking my fists at the heavens and crying "what the fuck?".*







*because even God has to deal with my potty-mouth.

10ish dpo ... ?

At least, I'm pretty sure I'm 10dpo.

My temps for yesterday and today look exactly like they did at 9 & 10dpo last cycle. So... I'm taking that as an early sign that there was no implantation goin' on in the ole ute this month.

I feel like I should be sad, or even disappointed, but I'm not. You know how you feel when you go to sleep on Monday night and wake up and it's suddenly Tuesday? That's how I feel about the thought that this cycle failed. It's just the natural progression of things, happens all the time. Total non-event.

Probably a good thing nothing happened this month. See, last week, we traded in B's beloved explorer and got........ a mom-mobile. Yeah. I drive a mini*van now. And I have one kid. Just the one lonely child, with five seats to choose from... well, when he gets bigger, he'll have five seats, for now he's stuck in the one that holds his car seat.

Anyway, B, when signing away his life to buy this mom-mobile, turned to me and said "you better tell your doctor I expect at least triplets now" (because part of the reason we decided to get this rather than a smaller car when the explorer started its death throes was "just in case" we needed more room in the next year or so).

Since this cycle had merely one follicle, and I'm expected to produce several children next go-round, it's for the best that we had to cancel the IUI.*

Of course, if I am still driving one lonely child around in the back of this behemoth in another year, I'll be really pissed I've given up ALL my cool-points for something as tenuous as 'just in case'.




*yes, I know we still had s-e-x... but really, I don't expect that to be a viable option for getting pregnant.


p.s. - if you haven't already, head over and read dd's news. Then tell her "I told you so!" from me.

.. and while you're clicking links, follow the link from dd to Kellie and show her some love, too, as her journey takes a sharp turn in a direction she never wanted to go.