Okay, so this is my third cycle with clomid, 50mg days 3-7. In a non-clomid cycle, I always ovulate around cd 14. This month, tho, I got a positive opk cd 13, 14, 15 and 16 (today). I can usually tell when I'm about to O because of the nice egg white cm, but not so much with clomid. So I guess my question is, do you ovulate later than usual while on clomid? I sorta feel like I O'd yesterday because my boobs are sore today, and any of the egg white cm I had over the weekend is gone, gone, gone.
Next month I'm temping again (even though I hate temping! hate, hate, hate it!). Unless, of course, I end up knocked up this month.
Yeah, right. I'll be trying to get pregnant until menopause, I'm sure.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
just because it's freaking hilarious
if you watch Glee you probably laughed your ass off at this (it's a little long but worth it for the laugh):
Thursday, September 24, 2009
hope springs eternal
Yesterday was an utterly fantabulous day. Truly, truly.
One of the things I love about my RE is that he somehow lifts my spirits, and I always leave his office feeling peaceful. Hopeful. Believe me, peace and hope are in short supply around here.
Basically, I appear to be doing everything right. We discussed nutrition (I'm definitely doing well there - lots of veggies, lean protein, extremely limited processed carbs), exercise (training for 1/2 marathon: ok. training for full marathon: not ok), alcohol (I can drink guilt free on the weekends! But I probably won't. That guilt sure clings!), my mental/emotional state, and pretty much everything in between.
The plan: while hubby and I are saving the dollar dollar bills for IVF, we are going to try everything else that we can. The doc actually thinks that I'll get pregnant - for real this time! - before then. He said - and I quote - "I am very confident that you'll get there. It's just a matter of how much you want to go through to get there." Well, doc, the answer to that is whatever it takes. I'll deal with it. I've been dealing with a shitstorm for four frakking years, so I think I can handle whatever else might get thrown at me (I say this now fully aware that it may come back to bite me in the ass!). We're going to be repeating some tests to see if there are any changes and also to recheck my thyroid levels, because the guidelines on normal for thyroid function have just been way narrowed (like in the last month, so it might be worthwhile to have yours rechecked!). I'm also going to have another HSG done, to make sure my journey into ectopic land didn't do any permanent damage.
I asked him about endometrial biopsy, and he basically said he doesn't do them because they are junk tests - the information you get back can be misleading and could lead to unnecessary treatments, which could cause more problems. Oh, and there's risk of infection, etc. Apparently, there was a whole edition of some big name infertility journal all about endometrial biopsy and why it's unreliable. So, no biopsy for me (and I'm definitely ok with that!). That's another reason I like this doctor so much - he definitely takes the time to research and read all of the latest studies, etc, and form his own opinions about things.
I'm still on a high from that appointment. If he believes in me - and I have no doubt that if he didn't think I had a chance, he'd tell me - then I believe in me. I should be ovulating in a couple of days so let the cheerleading begin. Come on, ovaries! And uterus!
Oh, and I got to order grown up furniture for my living room yesterday. I am beyond excited. One of the legs on our hand me down couch broke recently, which was the last straw. We live pretty frugally - we've NEVER bought new furniture except for some cheap ikea stuff. Everything else is hand me down, so, since we're going to need more time to save anyway, we bought a lovely set on clearance: sofa, loveseat and chair, all with recliners. To be delivered Wednesday. The only drawback is that we need to get the tile in our living room done pronto. But yay! Grown up furniture!
One of the things I love about my RE is that he somehow lifts my spirits, and I always leave his office feeling peaceful. Hopeful. Believe me, peace and hope are in short supply around here.
Basically, I appear to be doing everything right. We discussed nutrition (I'm definitely doing well there - lots of veggies, lean protein, extremely limited processed carbs), exercise (training for 1/2 marathon: ok. training for full marathon: not ok), alcohol (I can drink guilt free on the weekends! But I probably won't. That guilt sure clings!), my mental/emotional state, and pretty much everything in between.
The plan: while hubby and I are saving the dollar dollar bills for IVF, we are going to try everything else that we can. The doc actually thinks that I'll get pregnant - for real this time! - before then. He said - and I quote - "I am very confident that you'll get there. It's just a matter of how much you want to go through to get there." Well, doc, the answer to that is whatever it takes. I'll deal with it. I've been dealing with a shitstorm for four frakking years, so I think I can handle whatever else might get thrown at me (I say this now fully aware that it may come back to bite me in the ass!). We're going to be repeating some tests to see if there are any changes and also to recheck my thyroid levels, because the guidelines on normal for thyroid function have just been way narrowed (like in the last month, so it might be worthwhile to have yours rechecked!). I'm also going to have another HSG done, to make sure my journey into ectopic land didn't do any permanent damage.
I asked him about endometrial biopsy, and he basically said he doesn't do them because they are junk tests - the information you get back can be misleading and could lead to unnecessary treatments, which could cause more problems. Oh, and there's risk of infection, etc. Apparently, there was a whole edition of some big name infertility journal all about endometrial biopsy and why it's unreliable. So, no biopsy for me (and I'm definitely ok with that!). That's another reason I like this doctor so much - he definitely takes the time to research and read all of the latest studies, etc, and form his own opinions about things.
I'm still on a high from that appointment. If he believes in me - and I have no doubt that if he didn't think I had a chance, he'd tell me - then I believe in me. I should be ovulating in a couple of days so let the cheerleading begin. Come on, ovaries! And uterus!
Oh, and I got to order grown up furniture for my living room yesterday. I am beyond excited. One of the legs on our hand me down couch broke recently, which was the last straw. We live pretty frugally - we've NEVER bought new furniture except for some cheap ikea stuff. Everything else is hand me down, so, since we're going to need more time to save anyway, we bought a lovely set on clearance: sofa, loveseat and chair, all with recliners. To be delivered Wednesday. The only drawback is that we need to get the tile in our living room done pronto. But yay! Grown up furniture!
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
looking for suggestions......
or, rather, questions.
I have my appointment with my RE tomorrow, the one where we look at my records and try to figure out what the heck we can do next.
Anyone who has been through RPL testing or IVF: what should I be asking? what tests did your doctor run? I want to be as prepared as possible, so any/all suggestions welcome. The last time I spoke with him, he didn't think any additional diagnostics were necessary but I want answers (if at all humanly possible!)
Thank you in advance to anyone who comments!
ETA: We have already had the whole bloodwork panel done, as well as karyotyping and the thingy where they shoot the dye into your tubes and then xray. Everything has been normal aside from the antiphospholipid antibody.
I have my appointment with my RE tomorrow, the one where we look at my records and try to figure out what the heck we can do next.
Anyone who has been through RPL testing or IVF: what should I be asking? what tests did your doctor run? I want to be as prepared as possible, so any/all suggestions welcome. The last time I spoke with him, he didn't think any additional diagnostics were necessary but I want answers (if at all humanly possible!)
Thank you in advance to anyone who comments!
ETA: We have already had the whole bloodwork panel done, as well as karyotyping and the thingy where they shoot the dye into your tubes and then xray. Everything has been normal aside from the antiphospholipid antibody.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Welcome, ICLWers!
A brief intro: wifey, 31 year old, married to hubby, also 31, for 6 years. Started trying to get knocked up about four years ago. Can get pregnant pretty easily but cannot for the love of god stay pregnant. Diagnosed with antiphospholipid antibodies, prescribed folic acid/aspirin daily, plus lovenox when pregnant. Had surgey for an ectopic pregnancy in December 2008. Lost my sixth pregnancy June 2009. Started clomid this summer in the hopes of maybe getting a sticky one. Were going to start the adoption process this summer but realized we needed more time to save. Realizing also that the biological clock is ticking and maybe we should do IVF when we get our money together. Indecisive.
In limbo.
In limbo.
Monday, September 14, 2009
tornado
A veritable vortex of forces is sucking me in: my would-be first child’s 3rd birthday. The pregnancy I just lost in June (numero seis). My friend’s pregnancy announcement, which is just driving home to me what I lost in June and where I’d be now. The arrival of Aunt Flow. My failure to conceive after two cycles on clomid, which is mind boggling considering the ease with which I can get (temporarily) knocked up without it. The financial challenges of IVF vs. adoption, which are strangling slowly any hope I might have for the future.
Here’s the long and short of it: I’m swirling around in a tornado of grief and despair. Around and around and around I go. I feel trapped, as if – no matter my efforts – the tornado will set me down, broken and battered, when and where it pleases. I spent the weekend crying and reading and crying and cooking and crying and lying on the couch, trying to shut out the world. Oh, and did I say crying? Yeah, I did a lot of that.
(Side note: I picked a chick lit novel to escape into this weekend. Not even halfway through, I encountered a miscarriage, an ectopic pregnancy, an abortion, and IF. Seriously, universe? MUST you fuck with me like that?)
I really am making an effort, though, to claw my way out from the tornado, however futile it might be. I made my annual appointment with my RE to get my Pap and talk about moving on to IVF (there have been some very promising new studies concerning IVF and RPL, and my doc thinks this is the way for us to go) when we can afford it. I’d like to start getting my body ready for it now, and am interested in hearing my doctor’s thoughts on what I should/shouldn’t be doing in the wait time.
I’ve also been reading some miscarriage/grief books, which have made me feel slightly less crazy (oh, you had ONE miscarriage and felt suicidal? For 15 years? I guess after six I should be glad I’m not driving my car off of a bridge).
Lastly, I’m buying flowers for myself, today, to remember that sweet almost babe (even if everyone around me has forgotten). Numero Uno. Three years ago this week, I should have been giving birth. Finding out about that pregnancy – shortly after two shockingly sudden family deaths – was the last time I remember being truly, deeply happy. Happy with my present, happy with my future. Oh, the joy that flooded into me when the word “pregnant” flashed on the pee stick screen! Dear sweet baby, how loved you were, right from the beginning! How wanted! Your daddy and I, we just held each other as the dawn broke and we waited for the alarm to go off. We were too excited to go back to sleep, dreaming of you and how you would change our lives. The highest high of my life, followed too swiftly by the lowest low. You’d be three years old! Trouble, I’m sure, given your genetics ;). Walking. Talking. Getting ready for pre-k.
I hope you are happy wherever you are, with your siblings, running as a pack. I picture you all, sticking together in the Great Somewhere, sticking up for one another when the other dead baby bullies come around. I hope it’s a long, long time before any others join you all. I love you. I always will.
Here’s the long and short of it: I’m swirling around in a tornado of grief and despair. Around and around and around I go. I feel trapped, as if – no matter my efforts – the tornado will set me down, broken and battered, when and where it pleases. I spent the weekend crying and reading and crying and cooking and crying and lying on the couch, trying to shut out the world. Oh, and did I say crying? Yeah, I did a lot of that.
(Side note: I picked a chick lit novel to escape into this weekend. Not even halfway through, I encountered a miscarriage, an ectopic pregnancy, an abortion, and IF. Seriously, universe? MUST you fuck with me like that?)
I really am making an effort, though, to claw my way out from the tornado, however futile it might be. I made my annual appointment with my RE to get my Pap and talk about moving on to IVF (there have been some very promising new studies concerning IVF and RPL, and my doc thinks this is the way for us to go) when we can afford it. I’d like to start getting my body ready for it now, and am interested in hearing my doctor’s thoughts on what I should/shouldn’t be doing in the wait time.
I’ve also been reading some miscarriage/grief books, which have made me feel slightly less crazy (oh, you had ONE miscarriage and felt suicidal? For 15 years? I guess after six I should be glad I’m not driving my car off of a bridge).
Lastly, I’m buying flowers for myself, today, to remember that sweet almost babe (even if everyone around me has forgotten). Numero Uno. Three years ago this week, I should have been giving birth. Finding out about that pregnancy – shortly after two shockingly sudden family deaths – was the last time I remember being truly, deeply happy. Happy with my present, happy with my future. Oh, the joy that flooded into me when the word “pregnant” flashed on the pee stick screen! Dear sweet baby, how loved you were, right from the beginning! How wanted! Your daddy and I, we just held each other as the dawn broke and we waited for the alarm to go off. We were too excited to go back to sleep, dreaming of you and how you would change our lives. The highest high of my life, followed too swiftly by the lowest low. You’d be three years old! Trouble, I’m sure, given your genetics ;). Walking. Talking. Getting ready for pre-k.
I hope you are happy wherever you are, with your siblings, running as a pack. I picture you all, sticking together in the Great Somewhere, sticking up for one another when the other dead baby bullies come around. I hope it’s a long, long time before any others join you all. I love you. I always will.
Friday, September 11, 2009
We Remember: Francis Noel McGuinn
Eight years have passed. It’s hard to believe it: eight years have passed since that awful, awful day, since everything changed. My memories of that day, and the chaotic, wrenching days afterward are so vivid. I cannot, even now, see pictures of the towers and keep my breath, or hold back the tears.
There is a family in Rye, NY remembering a father, a husband, a brother lost that day. A man named Francis Noel McGuinn, who went to work at Cantor Fitzgerald that sunny Tuesday morning, just as he would have any other day. Although I never met Frank, I am sure he was the kind of dad to his three daughters that any little girl would cherish. He was a man of many layers – he loved showtunes and singing, and family time, and yet Frank had a tougher side as well – he was a military history buff , and regretted that he did not have the opportunity to serve in Vietnam.
Take a moment today to remember Frank, a man so filled with life that, according to his wife, "If we were out to dinner and there was a combo, he didn't need much prodding to go up there and sing." Take a moment to think of his family, and the thousands of other families whose hearts were broken that awful day, eight years ago.
This was written as part of Project 2996, an effort to celebrate the lives lost on 9/11/01.
Click the links below to learn more and to read more tributes.
http://project2996.wordpress.com/what-is-2996/
http://project2996.wordpress.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/met_MISSING_1108_mcguinn.html
http://www.cdharrison.net/mcguinn.htm
There is a family in Rye, NY remembering a father, a husband, a brother lost that day. A man named Francis Noel McGuinn, who went to work at Cantor Fitzgerald that sunny Tuesday morning, just as he would have any other day. Although I never met Frank, I am sure he was the kind of dad to his three daughters that any little girl would cherish. He was a man of many layers – he loved showtunes and singing, and family time, and yet Frank had a tougher side as well – he was a military history buff , and regretted that he did not have the opportunity to serve in Vietnam.
Take a moment today to remember Frank, a man so filled with life that, according to his wife, "If we were out to dinner and there was a combo, he didn't need much prodding to go up there and sing." Take a moment to think of his family, and the thousands of other families whose hearts were broken that awful day, eight years ago.
This was written as part of Project 2996, an effort to celebrate the lives lost on 9/11/01.
Click the links below to learn more and to read more tributes.
http://project2996.wordpress.com/what-is-2996/
http://project2996.wordpress.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/met_MISSING_1108_mcguinn.html
http://www.cdharrison.net/mcguinn.htm
Thursday, September 10, 2009
questions
Do we move on to IVF once we get the money settled or go for adoption first?
Could I handle another loss after all of the hassle of IVF?
Why would we even consider trying to get pregnant again after so many losses?
Why am I afraid Aunt Flo will show up this weekend?
Why am I afraid she won't?
Why do I care so much?
Why do I turn into a jealous, sobbing mess every time someone else announces a pregnancy?
Why do I see preggos EVERYWHERE?
Why do I feel like the last kid picked on the schoolyard?
When does it get to be our turn?
Why can't I appreciate what I DO have?
Why is this my life?
Could I handle another loss after all of the hassle of IVF?
Why would we even consider trying to get pregnant again after so many losses?
Why am I afraid Aunt Flo will show up this weekend?
Why am I afraid she won't?
Why do I care so much?
Why do I turn into a jealous, sobbing mess every time someone else announces a pregnancy?
Why do I see preggos EVERYWHERE?
Why do I feel like the last kid picked on the schoolyard?
When does it get to be our turn?
Why can't I appreciate what I DO have?
Why is this my life?
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
pity party redux
Just found out that yet another friend is knocked up. That brings the number of children that will have been born to friends/family since we began trying to 15. This does not include acquaintances, friends of friends, etc. This does include smokers, drinkers, the unemployed (and not looking!), drug users, a single mother, and several doomed marriages.
Fuck my life.
Fuck my life.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Happiness is fleeting
Happiness is fleeting. And positive thinking is likewise making a hasty retreat.
I have been trying – although it’s been a struggle – to think positively about our family building future. And for the most part, it’s been working. I’ve been happier, more cheerful than I have been in a long time.
(Even though the aniiversary of my due date for my first pregnancy is fast approaching. Even though I’m constantly smacked with the realization that I should have a three year old. Even though no one realizes this/cares but me.)
But today, I reverted from Positive Polly to Negative Nelly completely. And what was the catalyst? Some momentous occasion? The arrival of Aunt Flo, perhaps? Oh no, internets, simply a meeting with a local sales rep. A sales rep who happens to have both a healthy three year old, and a healthy newborn. The thought hit me like a ton of bricks: she has conceived, gestated (is that a word?), and given birth to two children, all in the time that it has taken me to fail miserably at having just one.
Sigh. I just can’t believe how quick it can happen, that trip into Grief-ville. One minute – fine. The next minute – hiding in the bathroom so I can cry like a baby in private.
I’m trying to claw my way back to Positive Polly, I just don’t know if I can get there. (See, there I go, being negative again!)
I'll leave you with a quote that I just love (I guess I am truly massive!):
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
-Khalil Gibran
I have been trying – although it’s been a struggle – to think positively about our family building future. And for the most part, it’s been working. I’ve been happier, more cheerful than I have been in a long time.
(Even though the aniiversary of my due date for my first pregnancy is fast approaching. Even though I’m constantly smacked with the realization that I should have a three year old. Even though no one realizes this/cares but me.)
But today, I reverted from Positive Polly to Negative Nelly completely. And what was the catalyst? Some momentous occasion? The arrival of Aunt Flo, perhaps? Oh no, internets, simply a meeting with a local sales rep. A sales rep who happens to have both a healthy three year old, and a healthy newborn. The thought hit me like a ton of bricks: she has conceived, gestated (is that a word?), and given birth to two children, all in the time that it has taken me to fail miserably at having just one.
Sigh. I just can’t believe how quick it can happen, that trip into Grief-ville. One minute – fine. The next minute – hiding in the bathroom so I can cry like a baby in private.
I’m trying to claw my way back to Positive Polly, I just don’t know if I can get there. (See, there I go, being negative again!)
I'll leave you with a quote that I just love (I guess I am truly massive!):
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
-Khalil Gibran
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