Dreams and False Alarms

First sono of the cycle **minor update

Whew. There is always a small part of me that is sure they are going to say "sorry, not eggs, but you sure are constipated."

Alas, today I have eggs, and no comment on the state of my intestines:

Righty: 7 follicles between 12 and 6

Lefty: 5 follicles between 12 and 6. The tech said that there were a few smaller ones that will likely show up larger on the next scan.

Lining: 6

**Estrodial: 447

Next step: Blood test Sunday no sono.  Belly more comfy in the am than the pm.

Here's hopin we get more than one 5 day blastocyst out of this...

You better put your seatbelt on, it's gonna be a bumpy ride

AF is in full force.

Baseline Sono preformed.

Lupron and syringes at the ready.

All that is needed is one little phone call from the clinic. 

Still feeling a little raw and ragged, but we are persevering.

I'll keep you posted.

Stop the world and let me off/ I'm tired of going round and round **Updated

I did something really odd this morning. I took a pregnancy test. I really have no reason to have done so. I just, uh, I'm not really sure.  I was thinking about people who start to POAS at 10dpEr and do it every time they go to the bathroom up until their beta. And then a friend who has just jumped on the TTC carousel was talking about ordering cheap pregnancy tests from the Internet. But not me. I only POASed after my third Beta. Isn't that weird?  You'd think with my insatiable thirst for data about what is going on under the hood, I'd be a big POASer. But alas, no.  Oh, and the the test was negative. No big surprise. I've felt a little nauseas, a little sore of boob, but nothing significant. I guess I just wanted to try it out; the stakes are low inasmuch as I know that even without an HCG shot, I'd feel a little something by now.  I guess they are also low because I really want my period to start, and to see a positive would be a huge surprise, and in someways more nerve wracking than just going ahead with the cycle. The big difference between IVF and unassisted is that you don't get an ultrasound every week--after last time I don't want to have to bite my nails until  8 weeks gestation.

Our closest couple friends are starting to TTC. I gave them my fertility monitor, told them about pre seed and even gave them an old bottle of clomid 'if it comes to that'.  And on one hand I'm excited, and it is so exciting to see them so excited.  And on the other hand I'm scared. What if this is another situation where they get pregnant, and we don't?  It's not that it will be an unbearable tension, or that it will ruin our friendship, but it will be painful. And at the same time I want them to succeed! I want them to have a really easy time of it, and for their enthusiasm to result in a much wanted pregnancy.  It is so uncomfortable. I feel jealous of their enthusiasm, because we are so beaten down by this process, and we were so out of sync in terms of enthusiasm at the start (husband=excited, me= freaked out.)  Also because I'm being 'the little engine that could', and dammit, my coal is running low.  To carry the train metaphor forward, I have been at the station for a long time, and the people who started here with me have gotten to their destination. I'll I've done was get on the train, and get back off. The other people who I know who started to TTC at the same time I did now have children over a year old, but they live far away, and I don't see them often. But these are the friends we celebrate thanksgiving with. I've been having a catered affair with her husband for over 8 years. They brought us dinner and a bag of movies after my embryo transfer. They have both been unrelentingly positive and supportive through this whole horrible experience.  Needless to say, we are close.  So ack. What to do?  Obviously, give them all the support they've given us, and check my underwear, call when the day arrives, pick up my lupron, lay out my supplies and work those needles. Magic 8 ball? Please?

**Being the brave gal that I am, as well as wanting to avoid an awkward situation as well as attempting to maintain mental and emotional fitness, I emailed the second portion of this post directly to my friends. We had a meeting of the minds; they were feeling awkward and unsure of how to hold onto their excitement and to be sensitive to our pain.  So now we are cool, and everyone gets to have all their feelings. Whew.

Grumpy, sad, stuck

I am a few hours away from leaving for vacation, lots of things left to do, and no motivation to do them, and I'm just a grumpy sad mess.  So here is why:

On my way home from overdoing it at the gym and upsetting my cranky left sacroiliac joint, I got a call from the infertility pharmacy. Everything is fine with my order except that when I started with this pharmacy, and Gon.al F there was a program that gave you your 3rd cycle's GF for free. So here I am, all ready for my free GF, and the program ended June 30th.  Yeah. I had no idea it ended at all. I thought it was just some sort of program, that once you were enrolled you got your goods.  So I came home called all the other big pharmacy's and their prices for Follis.tim and GF are way higher than Free.dom's.  I wasn't actually angry with Freedom--they are always so unfailingly nice, and the person who had to tell me about this was also pretty upset that no one had told me about the end date, so I had no where to go with my anger. I guess I could fight with Sor.ono, but I'm not going to be David to their Goliath.  The problem is solved, the die is cast, this is my lot, I need to suck it up blah blah blah. BUT, I can't.  I just can't. 

When I was in college I worked in the campus post office for this lovely woman from West Virginia who told the most amazing stories about growing up in the Appalachians.  She really took me under her wing the summer between my junior and senior years of college.  When I ran out of money, she brought me lunch and leftovers so that I wouldn't starve--because she actually knew what that was like. I felt so humbled, and I was a lot less hyperbolic about situation after that.  Anyhow, all of this is to say that one of her pithy observations about me was "'You are like a the hem of a skirt, it's fine until something makes the thread start to unraveled, and then it just keeps going."  That is how I'm feeling. I feel unraveled.  I was really counting on this free medication to cushion the blow of this next IVF.  I know it's an odd cushion--a pin cushion to be exact.

It is, and isn't, the money.  We have the money to pay for the meds, and we have the money to pay for more meds, but it is the fact that once the money is gone, there won't be a nice big chunk like this again, and that I am so torn up about the miscarriage, the unknown of the next cycle and just the whole unknown of all of this stuff.

Infertility strips away your cushion. It takes away that sense that there is a margin between you and loss; you and heartbreak;  you and chaos.  I seem to be able to get into a good bubble sometimes, and the rawness isn't so apparent, but something like this pops the bubble,and I am back to feeling raw and exposed. 

Our two eldest kitties (of 3) have hypertropic cardiomyopathy. They are still pretty healthy, but their loss is also imminent (like a year or two).  Last night, when I was grumping on the couch, my cuddly male kitty came and laid on my chest with his cheek pressed to mine. We stayed like that for at least 20 minutes--I really needed that. And it also touched off a fresh round of grief for these wonderful kitties that have been with us for nearly all of our relationship--our sweet babies.

So I am going to try to get myself together.  I need to do a bit of laundry, strip and remake the bed, vacuum the carpet, oh yeah, and pack a bag!

The OPK line is getting darker, so at least we can give it one more try for free while we're on vacation.