Another gorgeous day

The weekend has been brilliant. As such, we've not been posting much. We have had several distractions take us from our virtual world the last few days.

First of all, we haven't anything exciting, but as I've covered that tirelessly, I'll leave it at that.

Secondly, quite a few of my friends from grad school were in town this weekend to run/walk in the annual race that benefits the university. So, we were in the race, to & from which we rode our bikes - we were dead tired yesterday afternoon! Mostly, though, we have been out for drinks more than a few times (taking a break this month worked well for this weekend's activities, I suppose). E's still sleeping, and I don't expect her to feel so good when she wakes up and we have to go get the car. (PSA: Think when you drink!) She did manage to join a softball team last night, so we will also be going to "practice" today.

That's it in a nutshell. It's beautiful today and I'm taking Gladys for a walk before softball. Tomorrow, it's back to the work week grind where I am finishing up my projects before starting my new job at a company about 8 blocks from Erin's office. We're looking forward to lots of lunches together!

Happy 30th Birthday Sandra!

Drop by and give some love to one of my greatest friends. She turns 30th today!

Sandra, I'm honored to call you a friend and happy to have you in my life! Here's to 30!

Interviewed by Sandra

My long time good friend Sandra sent me a few questions to answer after I commented on her blog. This is a neat and different meme. Enjoy!

1. When did you know Sara was "the one" and did you freak out a little what it hit you?

On our trip to CA in 2003 (we stayed with you that time in San Fran)! We had been dating for two years and took a 10 day trip to CA to camp, hike, drink wine, and drive the coast. We went to Sequoia National Forest and visited the Crystal Cave. We were on a tight budget, as S just finished up her bachelor degree and I was getting my masters. Included in this budget, was limited dining out. We had gone grocery shopping and had food in a cooler. After hiking out of the Crystal Cave area, we were starving. We had a long drive back to the coast and wanted to make good time to the next campground. S reached into the back seat of the rental car, looked at me and said, “You hungry?” I said I was starving. This is where it hit me…she started making PB&J sandwiches on her lap. All the while, without hesitating, she gushed on and on and on about the amazing stalactites and stalagmites (she can be a real nerd which, I find cute) we just saw in the cave. I thought about future trips, the squawking of little kids in the backseat and how she would just make sandwiches and causal conversation about the amazing things we just saw. I knew she would be a wonderful wife and an even better mom! I couldn't wait to marry her!

2. Do you believe that powdered cheese counts toward your daily calcium intake? :-)

Absolutely! Well not really, but with all my powers, I wish mac-n-cheese and Cheetos were in the least bit healthy. I would be soooooooo healthy! I do however, still love mac-n-cheese with all my heart!

3. What was your favorite memory from college? Or maybe, what comes to mind first?

Too many just coming rushing back!
Seeing that your birthday is just a few days away my dear Sandra, I really enjoyed your birthday freshman year. Finals, dorms, RA’s walking in and then just walking out, drinking games on mattresses on the floor, 40s of Mickey’s Ice, Heineken, Oreo cake, and we even have it filmed. This all very shortly after you were viciously attacked by a dorm loft and had the battle wounds to show it!

Oh, or coming home from a Christmas party only to find you and Mike completely hammered, dressed up in a variety of clothes and items (not too strange for our house in those days), sitting on bar stools, draped in Christmas lights that shocked you any time you moved.

4. What surprised you most about the coming out process?

My fear of it. The realization that I had always known but had always worked so hard at not being gay. The fear of people thinking I was disgusting. The pain and disappointment I might cause others. The years and years of repressed self loathing and what the release of it would do to me and to those around me.

Thank god, such wonderful and loving friends and family surrounded me. It turned out painless.

5. What will you do first when you guys find out you're pregnant?

Shit my pants! For a few reasons. One, I will be really really excited. Two, I’m beginning to get so jaded that I will be blown away if it does happen. Three, I’ll have to start saving money for college tuition verses lovely European vacations with my wife. It would be the happiest day of my life!

I think we would resume the name game though!

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Wanna participate? The "rules"...

1. Leave me a comment saying, "Interview me" and if I don't have an e-mail address for you e-mail it to me, itstakingavillage@sbcglobal.net.
2. I will respond by e-mailing you five questions. I get to pick them, and you have to answer them all.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

CD4 here - not that it matters this time around. E and I have now accepted the fact that we will not be trying again until June. It's hard, and Friday was a particularly bad day. We, of course, tried to focus on the positive... and I think we do a good job, but it doesn't change matters: being on hold SUCKS!

After emoting for a day or two- and after a Saturday evening full of mojitos and wine, E and I managed to enjoy the most beautiful weekend (yet) of 2007. We bought E a new bike - my new one was purchased on the first nice day of 2007, about three weeks ago. So, we biked down to one of the lakes and picnicked while watching the scuba diving class learn to use their equipment. We biked out for dinner. We rode to the grocery store. We biked just to bike some more. Of course, we also had to take the dog for a walk or two every day, so we had quite a bit of outdoors time- just what we needed!

We will be taking the opportunity to use this month to re-focus. We are losing perspective amid all of the IF junk.

1. We need to re-focus on ourselves: our health and personal development are neglected. We need to read books, ride bikes, and spend time gardening, doing pottery, and cooking.
2. We need to spend time on our relationship: we love each other, and that never waivers, but we need to spend time together and stay in touch in ways other than fertility & baby focus.
3. We need to spend time getting the house ready: we may or may not be moving soon... either way, we need to tile the kitchen!
4. We need to spend time at work: I've been consulting for months now, and I'll be accepting a full-time position within the next couple of weeks, if all goes as planned. In addition, E's busy time at work is right now. It will be nice to encounter the upcoming month's responsibilities fully, rather than in a distracted state of mind where we are running off to ultrasounds and blood draws.

Of course, I might be really upset by the whole thing tomorrow, again. I guess we'll see.

Update CD1 u/s

Turns out we have a cyst. Perhaps a month off. S is checking with the NP to see if we can check it in a few days...if not...fingers crossed for June...grrrrrrrrr.

CD1: Thank you all

Thank you all for your support, hopes, and comments. Today is CD1 as AF arrived today. S stopped the progesterone 3 nights ago and sure enough AF was released from her confines.

CD1: reflections of a negative cycle

· We now know what evil P has to offer in false signs of pregnancy. We are on to you evil P.
· NO testing on CD 10 – CD 14
· NO reading into signs
· Injectables make good follicles
· HCG at home = sure thoughts of timing
· We are ready for the next go round
We really are ready. I think we are going to change a few things about the cycle but that we are definitely on the right track for once. This was our best chance and we are determined to continue to make it get better.

Thank you all for staying on for the ride.

We go in today for a CD1 ultrasound to see what S's ovaries look like. Checking for cycsts and a baseline for follicles.

14dpo: No Flow No Show

So here is what we have…. nothing.

There is no AF and no positive line. The BBT has been back up the last two days. We will test again tomorrow. If there is still no positive then S will stop the progesterone and hopefully AF will just show up so we can get on with this.

12dpo: hope...what hope?

Well the BBT dropped a bit today. Not enough to show that AF was coming but definitely enough to mar the hopes. We didn't even POAS today.

AF just get here so we can put ourselves through this again.

On a more positive note, we feel like the injectables really did work. We are pretty confident at this point that this month was our best look at getting pregnant. That means 3-6 months we should be there! See I have some hope left!

Oh, and thank you all for your supportive comments. We know it may be early yet but the signs just don't look all that good. We are so grateful to all those that read us and send comments of support. Ya'll rock!

11 dpo: Hope is waning fast

Indeed, another BFN this morning.

We're trying to see it as a positive... so, these are the sorts of things we've said today:

E: It's ok; I could do without a Christmas baby
S: It'll be nice to lose 10 lbs before getting pregnant

Well, that's all we had to say, and really... we're grasping at straws. In spite of the somewhat disheartened spirit beginning to settle over here, we're doing ok. We were out and about quite a bit yesterday as the weather has turned toward spring (finally.) We even managed to get out the bikes and ride down for a picnic. Today, Gladys (and E & I) will be enjoying yet another long walk once E wakes up from her Sunday afternoon snooze. Lucky dog.

p.s. "Lucky dog" refers, of course, to Gladys. E is a lucky gal, who gets to nap.

A different perspective

on early pregnancy signs. Not really what I was googling for but educational none-the-less.

Click here!

10 dpo: I'm not feeling it...

E and I tested again this morning, and we saw a BFN. I know it's early, but today is the first day we could have seen a positive.

My feeling is that all of the "signs" are drug-induced - especially since I have a bit of cramping today indicating AF is on her way. We've basically stocked up on POAS tests, and plan to test every day until AF rears her ugly head, but I think we've got our hopes in check after this morning's (non)finding.


p.s. POAS =pee on a stick
p.p.s. Sorry for the lack of illustrations; maybe E can post tomorrow!

9dpo: over anlayzing

So last night was the third night in a row that S didn’t feel so great about an hour after dinner. She describes it as being heady. I have been working off a cold for about 1.5 weeks now so it could be her fighting off my cold. OR it could be that she is pregnant. She is on progesterone right now and has never been on that. We aren’t sure if that could be making her feel strange or not. Her (this may be too much info for our non-IF readers) breasts have more pronounced veins (potential sign or indication that her progesterone level is higher). So, we are currently overanalyzing everything, as the TWW tends to force us to do. We did a HPT this morning to see if S still had HCG in her system (that is the shot I gave to make her ovulate and also the hormone HPT detects for pregnancy). It was negative so we are pretty sure if we see any lines on Monday it most likely is not a false positive.

Anywho, this whole IF thing needs a little rant from me. So all early pregnancy and pregnancy signs are the same as AF signs OR are caused by the drugs. For example, the veiny boobs could be pregnancy OR progesterone. It is impossible to know what is really happening to your body or if it is all the prescriptions you have pumped into it. GRRRRR…

As promised, today’s photo isn’t as pretty as the other days but is a bit more real! Carolyn, I didn’t even have to use crayons this time…presenting...an implanted blast!

8dpo: and 5 inches of snow

That is right folks, 5 inches of snow yesterday on April 11th! Thank goodness I didn't pack the shovel too far back in the garage a few weeks ago. Is the arguement about no global warming based on days like yesterday with snow in April? I'm pretty sure the world is going wacky and it isn't because beings from Mars are messing with us! I am pretty sure we are messing with us!

8dpo pic of the day! Here are the stages of the endometrium during a cycle. We are somewhere right about the end there. Hopefully with the embryo nice and tucked into the endo. Enjoy! Tomorrow's may not be as pretty!

7dpo: Learning more and more

So, I had many graphic images to choose from this time during my search. I am going to refrain from putting up the pictures of Pres. GWB that come up when you type in blastocyst (due to stem cells). Not because he isn't good looking enough, smart enough, funny enough, or has enough to do with what S's uterus is up to these day but just because I can't stand him!

Instead, here is a picture of the blast (our kid is bound to be a blast!) at the end of week two. Today marks our jump to week three! Enjoy!



p.s. I don't know what the image at the bottom is....

6dpo: Should be right around here by now

Just to continue my diagrams and education for what could be happening in S's wonderful warm and welcoming world of her uterus, here is an approximate of implantation.



In other fun Google Images talk...when typing in 6dpo you get this wonderful picture, familiar to some of us that read UterusX2! Carey, you're famous!

5DPO

I hate waiting.

Not really what I was looking for....

Dr. Google has produced many images of fertilization for me when searching on Google Images. I would just like to share a few results that come up that are not really related to creation of a human. My fault for not being more specific.....

I'm pretty happy we haven't had to use this contraption yet!

Again, I'm glad the NP hasn't rolled this into the exam room just yet!

Now I know how turtles make babies...

Trees do it with bottles to get babies...

Oceans rely on power generators somehow....

Well, I'm pretty sure I didn't get any smarter with this adventure but I do feel better in knowing that we are not too strange in how we are trying to make a baby! I found this and am hoping that we are closer to this reality than the above pictures. If nothing else this has helped in passing some of the TWW. This is 4dpo.

Taming the Obsession

What day do you all think we should we test?

1dpo: I hope this already happened.

TWW

Finally - we are in the TWW!! IUI #2 down, and our NP was reasonably sure that I ovulated since yesterday, so that's good. I kind of thought I was ovulating this morning, but either way... the timing is good.

My biggest concern is that the next two weeks are going to be gruelingly slow, AND I'm going to interpret absolutely everything as a possible sign. Luckily, E's dad will be in town this weekend - that will be a good time, and good to take our mind off of things too.

IUI #1 down!

We did an at-home (ICI) last night, just to make sure we'd catch the window if I was ovulating yesterday afternoon at all (probably wasn't, but....) Today, we had the IUI. It went well enough - our Dr. always talks about how my cervix doesn't like to play nice like other cervices (?) do... so, I always have a bit more pinching than would otherwise be the case. Alas - it's all worth it if we end up with a baby to love. Interestingly, though, she thought that my cervix may have hindered other IUI's from working (something about the catheter's path...)

So, we feel like this one is our lucky cycle.

• Stubborn Ovaries forced into producing follicles (2 of them!!) - CHECK
• E2 levels high enough to indicate good follicles - CHECK
• HcG shot perfectly timed w/ IUI's -CHECK
• Stubborn Cervix forced into facilitating swimming path - CHECK! CHECK!

Luckily, our chances of getting pregnant are now a whopping 25%!!! E and I are feeling good about this one - we know we have a viable shot, which is something that hasn't happened enough to this point.

We truly appreciate the comments and emails! Thank you to everyone supporting us and sending us good thoughts and wishes - we need them, and we cannot thank you enough.

Green Light

WE GOT THE GREEN LIGHT TODAY! S's SOs decided to show their little faces and their follicles! There are two follies, one at 18mm in the left ovary and one on the right at 20mm. Her E2 came back at 460!!! This means that there is at least one follicle that is mature and producing the right amount of estrogen to be viable. Our NP looks for 300 E2 for each follicle over 18mm but we have heard some say that 200 is the number their doctors look for. Needless to say we are excited that they both might be mature and ready to go but are pleased with one!

I got a quick tutorial on how to give an intramuscular shot while at the doctor's office. We have decided to do the hCG at home this time versus at the doctor's office. This will allow us the opportunity to have a better-timed insemination than before. We go in tomorrow morning at 10 am for the first insemination so I will likely be shooting S up tonight around 9 or 10 pm (probably 10 because I have a conference call tonight that will likely go until around 10). We will also pick up one of the ICI sperm vials tomorrow at the doctor’s office around 5 pm and do an at home insemination (we have them anyway). On Wed. we will do another in office insemination at 9 am.

Here is the breakdown:

4/2: 10 pm hCG shot to force ovulation (should happen within 24 hours of the shot).
4/3: 10 am in office IUI insemination
- 12 hours after the hCG
4/3: 5 pm at home ICI insemination
- 18 hours after the hCG
4/4: 9 am in office IUI insemination
- 35 hours after the hCG

How does this regimen look to you all? We think this covers a pretty good amount of our window. Input?

On another note, Gladys woke me up at 3 am (very strange for her) needing to go outside. Since it was strange I walked out with her. She immediately did #2 with no doggy magic poop dance, then #1, then puked. I came back in as she was still wandering the backyard to find two piles of puke (food and sticks) in the dining room. I cleaned it up and G came back in. Acting a bit strange but ok. She got up a few minutes later and puked in the dining room again. This time we decided to let the clean up wait till the morning. Well, the little lady left us 6 piles of bloody puke on our brand new carpet. She is doing better now but has to be closely watched. Looks like she probably ruptured blood vessels in her stomach from puking, sounds like a long night of drinking is the same as a long day of eating sticks!

Well, we are really really excited about the coming days and then looking for the TTW to go fast. My dad will be here for the Easter weekend so that should help some of the time go by quickly.


Come on swimmers, Easter is the time for egg hunts!!!!!!!

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Edited at 3:46 by Erin

S just called me and swears she have movement on the left side. We are going to add an ICI to the schedule for tonight. Why not throw everything we have in our arsenal at this one? The rest of our protocol is staying the same.

Side Effects?

Anyone who has been on follistim, or any other injectibles: what side effects did you experience? I had been a bit tired, but today experienced nausea and endless waterworks... Is it me or the drugs? Anyone? anyone?

Thanks for the info!!