December 12: The Day We Found Out What Color To Paint Your Room

Baby A!

Baby B

There are my baby BOYS!!!!!

At our 16 week ultrasound, the tech asked us if we wanted to find out what we were having, and of course we said YES! After the surprise of being pregnant, then the news that we were expecting twins, we felt certain that we didn't need to wait until you were born to get another surprise! I was convinced you were a boy and a girl - but when the ultrsound tech told us that you were each a boy, it was completely overwhelming. I have to admit...I didn't know what in the world I was going to do with two little guys at first! I think it's because of growing up in a family where it was just me and my sister...boys were just such foreign concepts to me. But after a couple of hours, all I could think about was how awesome it will be to see you grow up on this land - playing in the dirt, and exploring, and doing gross boy things!!! I love that you both will always have a buddy, and that you are two of the same, and that you will have so many things to do and learn as you grow up. Also, your father will have help to tend to the garden, bees, and landscaping. I figure I'll have to teach you about things like football, basketball, and drinking beer as your French papa isn't really as in tune with those things ;-)!

You're also quite the travellers thus far. My job has had me travelling quite a bit over the last couple of years, and this year, I've spent much time commuting to Atlanta - so you've been on an airplane to Atlanta several times, as well as to the UK at the end of November, then your dad and I went on a vacation to Hawaii the first week of December. You were also with me as I went to Columbus, OH, where my side of the family lives for a couple weeks this month. Unfortunately, your great-grandfather, my grandfather, got very sick and passed away on December 21. It has been a very sad time, but we have been surrounded in love, and he was so excited about you boys.

It looks like my job will be coming to an end in the next week, and I will get to spend the next four months before your arrival really focusing on you and getting ready for you to come! We have our next ultrasound in 17 days, where they will do a big scan of all your anatomy to make sure you both are growing and developing as perfectly as I know you are!

OH! And we have picked your names...we think. We definitely have picked one...and are pretty sure about the other, but your momma is kind of indecisive, and the bad thing about that is that we still have many more weeks to go. The good thing is we can always change our minds because we're not telling anyone until you arrive...

18 weeks and 3 days down...half way there!

One Year Ago Today...and 11w6d

You've graduated from looking like beans to little people! We saw your noses and the outlines of your bodies today for the first time. We also saw a lot of other body parts, well at least they told us they were. Little arms and legs...your heart beats, and the sound of your heart beats for the first time. You guys! You were so squirmy and bouncing all over the place! Baby B, you would hardly stay still long enough for them to take your picture. Your heart beats are 163 and 158...although I can't remember whose was whose. My guess is that one of you, I think Baby B, is a little girl...and Baby A, a little boy. We won't know for at least another 4-8 weeks. I go back again at 16 weeks, and then not again till about 20 weeks - which will be around the first of the year. I sure hope you cooperate next time and we can get a good picture of you so that we can start picking out names and CLOTHES!

Coincidentally, today is your aunt J's birthday...and one year ago today, I asked your dad to marry me while sitting at our kitchen table and drinking champagne. Who would have thought that a year later we'd be looking at our childrens faces for the first time!!!

October 20, 2011: Eight Weeks!

Here you are at 8 weeks, a couple of kidney beans!

Today was kind of bittersweet. At eight weeks pregnant, we officially graduated from the fertility doctor today. I have to admit that going to that office had become a new normal, and now, the thought of not going on the rest of our journey the next 30-some weeks without my fabulous nurse, without the same doctor, without the same familiar faces makes me a little sad. They did a lot to get you here, and you're doing so well!!!!

Today Baby A is measuring 20.5mm, and your heartbeat is 167 bpm. Baby B, you're really catching up! You're at 10.5mm, and your heartbeat is 174 bpm. The doctor was really impressed with how well you're growing!

I'm feeling really pretty well. I keep waiting for morning sickness to be as bad as everyone says, and so far, I've only felt lousy here and there - usually at night, and it's really just kind of more like, nothing sounds really good to eat. At times I just feel like I'm hungover from too much wine, and want to eat cheeseburgers. But most of the time, you have me craving sweet things, like cake. I can't get enough cake right now.

I've only gained 1.2 pounds, but my belly is definitely getting bigger. I put on flannel pajama pants last night that I'm pretty sure won't fit in another week.

I feel my uterus growing on most days. Sitting in my office chair at my desk is a bit more uncomfortable than usual, especially if I lean forward. And I have been sleeping with a big pillow on my side. I have been pretty tired, but even that has subsided a bit this week. I say that, but it's 10:52 a.m. and I just had a huge yawn.

Monday I go to my OB for my first pre-natal visit. Counting down the weeks (4) until we're officially out of the first trimester, and then I can tell the whole world the good news. Right now, only the people who knew what we were going through (our family and closest friends) know. They are super excited. You've already gotten some baby presents too. A couple little bunny hats and shoes and stuffed bunny rabbits from the neighbors, an Eeyore and a Piglet stuffed animal from your great aunt PZ, lots of toys, bottles, and stuff for mom from aunt R, and some beautiful flowers from your super-excited-to-meet-you great aunt K--they were yellow roses and white hydrangeas.

Keep growing my little wonder twins!!!!

October 7, 2011: The Day We First Saw You

Here you are, your first picture, together.

Wow. That shock, that surprise I so desperately wanted to feel for so long has now hit me twice. This morning we had our six-week ultrasound appointment with Dr. K. The appointment was at 9:15, and it was quite busy in the office this morning. We waited patiently for about 30 minutes until they called us back. Everyone seemed to be excited to see us - so I got up on the table, the old routine. Dr. K came in and the ultrasound began. I think I knew almost right away that there wasn't just one of you, but that there were two. He said "well there is one.........and....there is a second." I said "twins!?" and he measured Baby A - you'd be the big one up there on the left. Your dad was there holding my hand. I laughed and couldn't believe it. It really hit me when we saw the heartbeat of Baby A, and I began to cry. Your dad was SO excited. Next we got to take a closer look at Baby B, and you are measuring just a little smaller than your sister/brother. But you look good, and we saw your heartbeat fluttering away.

I didn't expect this, figured because I had one big follicle on that last pre-IUI ultrasound that I was just blessed to be having one. Now, two! It's a blessing so big as your great-Grandma Flossie said "It's almost to big to comprehend." And it is. I feel like I just won the lottery. Your family and our closest friends now know that you are on your way, and they are so excited. We, are so excited. Time to buy a bigger car(s)!

My two little lines! 

My two little buddies...you are truly blessings from God and you doing so well! I pray for you everyday to be physically, emotionally, and spiritually strong. 34 weeks to go.

Remember This Day - September 19, 2011

This was the day you were convinced wouldn't happen. You were expecting this day to be the day that officially started your "break" from fertility. You had forgotten to take you prenatal vitamins, you barely kept up with your prometrium, and you drank. Like a fish. For the last two weeks. You walked into the doctors office this morning, confident that it was the last time in at least four months that you would be there. You were in and out, in a record ten minutes. You came home, made a 3-egg white omlette with mushrooms, spinach, and onions. Drank a cup of coffee, and started to weed through a flood of emails. At noon you went downstairs and you got on the treadmill, you did the week 2 of the couch to 5k app, plus an extra 25 minutes of walking and running. You burned 376 calories, pounded out 3 miles, and you felt proud of yourself as you pushed through the last five minutes of running straight. You took a shower, you came upstairs, and you heated up lunch. Grilled chicken, 1/2 a cup of black beans, and 1/2 a cup of brown rice. You had just finished that lunch, when at 1:23 the phone rang.

It was a nurse, Shirley, calling from the doctors office (your regular nurse is Italy). She told you you that she had good news, and that test confirmed the one thing you never expected...that you are pregnant.

You are pregnant............

And you broke down and cried, and over and over you said 'oh my God are you serious.' And she said she was. And you exclaimed "but I did everything wrong this time!" And that utter disbelief and flood of emotion washed over you, into the pit of your stomach, and you cried. The news-bearing nurse then told you that you need to come in to have your blood taken again on Wednesday, and then again on Friday, and to continue to take the prometrium for four weeks? Seven weeks? (who knows) how long.  And you hung up. And you cried a few tears, your hands trembled, and you said a silent prayer of thanks to God for hearing all those that came before.

And you called your husband, and told him that he was going to be a father. And you let it wash over you...and you went upstairs to take a pregnancy test just to see for yourself.

For the first time in your life you saw what you always hoped you'd see.

Two lines.

Le quatrième fois

It's funny really, how isolating infertility can be. In all my life, I don't think there were many more occasions to need people, need encouragement, or need to get out of my head than I've needed since January. But for some reason, no one wants to talk about it. Friends. Family. Me. Who would want to talk about it?

I've found mostly, that people don't really know what to say, so they just don't say anything. When questions or the subject is posed in the course of conversation, it's quickly dismissed as "I don't get all that stuff," or "it'll be fine." Jokes are made to the effect of "is your uterus ready?", or even being told that all of precise calculation, the hormone injections, the measurement and counting of your egg follicles that you endure over and over is just "weird." That's usually right before the subject is changed. Or, you're simply wished good luck, as if the mere mention of your reality is so uncomfortable that it's best just to stop talking. Most of the time now, I wish they would stop talking. It makes me uncomfortable, too.

People don't talk to you about how you're feeling or what it was like to lose your normalcy. They don't think to not take "I'm fine" for face value, or ask another question. In fact, it seems the silence just continues to grow evermore. At some point you become the pink elephant--that unrelateable freak in the corner who everyone pretends isn't there. Slowly, you begin to realize that your new reality has forged a wedge between a world that once existed, and a whole new time and place and person  that no one wants to acknowledge. Its just as if you are disappearing. On most days, it feels more like you already have.

So the silence grows, because one can't understand that it's alright to ask and the other no longer cares to tell. It grows and grows to the place where the expectation is inflated, on both parts, and the hurt festers into monumental proportions. At times the grief and the despair, and the sadness, and the isolation are so overwhelming, that you're not sure if you're sad because you're facing your fourth time going through this, or because the people you always needed most in your life are no longer really in your life at all.

And you think, and you think...are you wrong for keeping to yourself, for fostering the silence? For building expectations and for wondering what kind of person you must really be if no one stops to ask, or listens to what you're not saying when they ask how you are? If you broke your own silence, who would want to be the recipient of someone who suddenly stops protecting their own heart? What would it mean if you unleashed the tears that come so easily behind your blue eyes, to let them flow, to cry out in a gutteral voice this pain and disappointment you are harboring down inside. Would they want to hear that?

Would they want to hear how desperately you love your husband, and how the only thing in the world you ever knew you wanted was his child, and how after you were told that his child was not possible, how the only thing you could think about for months was if he dies, not being able to see his eyes, or nose, his gentle hands in the resemblance of another human being? Would they want to know that kind of sadness?

If the silence was broken, could you tell them how painful it is to inject hormones into your skin. What the burning feels like as it melts into your abdomen, or what the bruises look like? Would you tell them how on the days after your Ovidrel shot, you feel like you can't get out of bed and really, don't want to. That it takes at least four days to feel human after you've been laden with FSH. Would they want to listen about that first time you went to inject sperm of some man you've never laid eyes on into your body, what not being able to turn back really felt like, what the parking lot of the medical office looked like as you cried and cried like the scared little girl that you really were. Would they want to know how scared you really are?

Maybe they'd want to know about that first, second, or third negative test result and knowing that you were going to go through it again. You know, the getting up at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday to get your blood drawn and your egg follicles counted, in a town 45-minutes away, only to do it the next day, and the day after that. Would they laugh when you tell them how you now know not to ever do an IUI after emptying your bladder because the pain you felt was excruciating...or how it sounds to have your donor's ID number stated, restated, and restated again just to remind you a final time of why you're here before lying back on a table wondering if this would be the time it worked? Maybe you'd tell them that what you have to look forward to if the fourth time doesn't work, is going to be twice as hard. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't understand when you tell them without the slightest shudder, how normal all this has started to feel.

Perhaps you'd tell them about the email you got, about the donor you first chose, and how an offspring had been born with a cleft pallette, and how you could continue to use that sperm, or you could find a new donor. Not over wine and laughter, but a Friday afternoon at your kitchen table and a Monday at your desk. Could they understand how it feels to pick your future out by nothing more than sifting through height requirements, the color of someones eyes, the sound of a voice, a childhood photo, a silouette, and a great answer to who do you want to be when you grow up?

Would it make sense then, if to that person you also told, that on some days you harbored a glimmer of hope and resilience. That there were a handful of days that you allow yourself to think that perhaps one day you would see two lines on a pregnancy test strip. That the level of disappointment you feel because there will never be the accidental surprise you'd always hoped for, would actually be a surprise of epic proportions. Would they want to know about the way you bury that down inside, so as not to let yourself think about it too long?

So you sit and you sit, and you think and you think, and you wonder and wonder about all the silence that surrounds you. And the result is that you make a choice and your choice is to continue to sit silently...all the while, waiting.

Waiting for the question of how are you to be asked again. Waiting for the arms of someone other than your husband to wrap around you and be willing to stand beside you on this journey. Waiting to not be the pink elephant. Waiting for two lines to appear on the very next test. Waiting for a life to grow inside you.

Waiting...

For normalcy.

It's been three times now, but who's counting...

A long time ago now, I started a journey toward motherhood. Ok, it's really only been since January that we found out that JF had no sperm, but now we're approaching nine months in, and three failed IUI's. Fourth one is just around the corner...

Clomid regime has been increased to 100mg x 5 days, followed by a three shots of Follistim, and then the trigger HCG. Third time around, even though I was heavily hormoned up, my follicles never got above 20mm, which means, we're not sure if I ever had a fully mature egg. My body started to ovulate on it's own, so we had to go with the IUI - and for the third time, it didn't work.

We have decided to do the fourth and final IUI for the donor we originally went with. Tomorrow is the third day of my cycle. It's the first IUI that I'll have had that is a back to back procedure - hard to believe we've been on this road for 9 months, and we're only on the 4th cycle of IUI, thanks to my hellacious travel schedule this year. We will have one vial of donor sperm left from the original donor. It will be time to find another for any further procedures.

We have decided that if the 4th cycle doesn't work that we will stop until January. In January, we will likely begin IVF. Health insurance doesn't cover IVF, so it will be an out of pocket expense, a costly one, so we need to wait until we can max out our FSA's, health spending accounts, and whatever else we can think of to buy us one or two rounds of IVF. We anticipate they are $16-20K a pop.

We will only do 2 rounds of IVF, and then we will pursue adoption.

That's what the plan is right now, anyway.

For now, I continue to delicately balance hope, faith, and a black pit of despair somewhere in a far place deep in my soul. My soul, which has become a very lonely place to be.

IUI 2: Results Are In...

And despite feeling quite different this time around (super tired, boobs hurt)...I am in fact, NOT pregnant.

So, again thanks to my agressive travel schedule and factors I can't wriggle out of, we will wait until August to try the third time. I wish I could have gone another round back to back, but there is a good chance I'll be in Atlanta for the timing of the IUI. So rather than go through the Clomid and poking and prodding for the first 11 days, I'm going to just wait until my next cycle.

This continues to be a struggle, although it's really only 2 tries, and it's just got a 20% chance of working, it's still really hard to reconcile against my feelings.

More to come soon.

IUI 2: Day 15 - IUI#1 - Epiphany

In all my life, or as least for as long as I can remember, I never felt like I would get pregnant by accident, or that I would know what it was like to carry a child. I don't know why, really. Maybe it's because I'm 34, and it seems weird that I haven't ever concieved despite a lot of odds that I would have already. Maybe I've always known that we'd have this problem, and God helped soften the blow by instilling that feeling in me.

Because of that, I have come to understand one thing: For at least the last 10 years, I believe I've been creating my own self fulfilling prophecy by reiterating to myself and others that thought. I believe I have been doing so in order not be disappointed when it didn't happen on it's own. I've spent 10 years, in some way shape or form desperately hoping that it would just happen, so that I would be surprised, so that I would be wrong. I believe that I always hoped for that surprise reaction of "oh my God, I'm pregnant" so that that the next course of life would just systematically figure itself out on its own, and I would be swept away, without having to think about actually making the conscious effort of doing it myself. Maybe that's because I didn't want the disappointment, or I didn't want it to be this hard. I don't really deal well with having to arrive at another of these life changing crossroads on my own accord.

But, like any true self-fulfilling prophecy, I arrived at the beginning of this journey exactly where I didn't want to: having to go through the hard part, having to work through something I didn't want to have to work through, in order to get to the good.

What you don't realize when you make a decision to pursue this whole process is what is really involved. You can't realize at the time how it feels to be thrown into the middle of a tornado that is whipping around you while you try nothing more than to attach yourself to anything that is remotely standing still. Nevermind the endless testing, prodding, stirrups, time off of work, hormones, and scheduling that has to go into it. How could you have actually stopped for a minute to realize that you were supposed to go through a grieving process, or that it was ok to be sad for a little bit. You just start mindlessly going through the motions, doing what you're supposed to do. You forget that for a few years the only thing you really knew about ovulation was based on what you read about mucus and basal temperature, not nearly what you know now, like that your uterine lining looks perfect, and that you have two mature eggs measuring 17 and 19 mm, respectively. It's a wave of sadness that flashes over you when suddenly you realize that there is never going to be that accidental surprise you always hoped to find. The understanding that your period will never just not come that month, or the acceptance that you will never again have to buy a pregnancy test or wonder if you'll get a positive result without the help of a team of doctors and a man you'll never meet manipulating your chances of actually becoming pregnant.

Whatever joy couples who concieve naturally have as part of the process of becoming a parent feels like it's been stripped away, down to a place where all you can wonder is how the hell did I get here? That's what yesterday was like for me.

It was both an incredibly hard moment of realization and a step forward in this journey I'm on.

As for the IUI. Today, I dropped off my swimmers at 1:00 p.m., at MY doctors office, in MY city. Sigh...I felt relief. I went and had lunch at Moby Dick's (chicken and kubideh kabob, shirazi salad, water) and played Solitare on my iPhone while I ate. I then went back to the office to wait for about 20-minutes before my IUI. This time we had 8.3 million sperm after the thaw, with 59% mobility. The doctor (MY doctor), told me it was a great specemin. Comparatively, last time the post thaw was roughly 5M and 6M sperm. The swimmers that launched their greatest competition today, came from a vial that was collected on 3.24.10...my nephews birthday.

Tomorrow is round two, and the dreaded two-week wait. This is the time when you wished that all those medical advances, all that equipment that has been hooked up to your hoo-ha all this time could actually tell you right away if that 20% chance will turn into the rest of your life.

IUI 2: Day 14 - Trigger, Day 15 - IUI #1 of 2

June 6, 2011

It's a little funny to me that this time I've had a stronger dose of Clomid, and stuck to the normal day 3-7 dosing schedule, but apparently my body doesn't want to co-operate just yet. I got checked on Friday, Sunday, and again this morning, and I think I'm finally ready to go tonight. Good news is I have two follicles that look like they are mature, bad news is, I have to drive to Rockville for both IUI's this time...it's about 1 hour + each way, so it's not real conveinent either. I was feeling pretty good about going through the process again, I think until standing at the receptionist desk at the clinic this morning trying to schedule those two IUIs. It was just like nothing was possible as far as scheduling, and I half expected them to tell me "sorry, you'll just have to wait another month." The waiting room was packed again this morning, and I think that also freaks me out. So many people have a problem getting pregnant on their own. It just continues to amaze me. It also gives me such sadness. I stood there at the receptionist desk with tears in my eyes, trying to hold them back to mask my disappointment that I wouldn't be able to have MY doctor, MY nurse there with ME...again. I think a combination of hormones and tiredness of course isn't the best mix for me, but, I just really kind of lost it and spent a good hour of the morning in tears.

My friend, The Belgian, and his girlfriend/wife and kids were visiting for the past almost week and it was nice to have someone to listen to me talk it out and reassure me that I'm not crazy (although, I think I really am) and that what I've been dealing with is kind of normal. I want really want to believe that, but sometimes I wonder because I feel so stuck inside my head sometimes...

June 7, 2011

As I was typing this (now yesterday), my very awesome nurse called to tell me that she told the scheduling person that I HAD to come to the regular office for the IUI's -- so they got me in, for both rounds. I can't tell you how grateful I am for her, and for that. For whatever reason, knowing that I was going to have to go to another doctor, in a far away place was such a small thing that suddenly completely overwhelmed me. For me, I guess in part its sitting around in an office filled with so many sad people, knowing you're another number in this great big machine, and every personal element (your nurse, your doctor, the familiarity of at least that office) gets stripped away, it just reminds you of why you're there in the first place, and it reminds you that you are only one thing to them: 760122.

My nurse, is the silver lining...and by just making an extra effort for me to get into my office today and tomorrow, really, really, helped give me back some perspective. It just really hit me again:

I continue to feel overwhelmed and struggle to make sense of all of this.

I've also come to a realization....

Let's Try It Again

IUI Round Two is officially underway. The doctor increased my Clomid to 100 mg, and this time I did not act like a total psycho beotch, and in fact felt pretty darn good. I go back on the 3rd to see how many little follicles I have produced, and looks like we'll be sperminating me on June 4 & 5.

IUI 1: Day 29 - The Results Are In...

Well, the 6 pregnancy tests I took were right...I am infact NOT pregnant. Or, as everyone in all the fertility circles would say - I got a BFN (a Big Fat Negative).

Seeing as I have not consumed any units of alcohol in 17 days, there is a bottle of champagne in the refridgerator and it has my name on it.

We'll try again in June!!!!

IUI 1: Day 28 - It feels like it's been 100 days

SO, I've taken 6 pregnancy tests and all are NEGATIVE. I go for my official bloodwork tomorrow - but I am already certain of the outcome. I don't feel pregnant. I don't believe that I am. And I won't be diasppointed tomorrow when they call to tell me what I already know. It didn't work this time.

Everyone keeps telling me that it's too soon, and that a pregnancy test wouldn't show anything yet...but I've read plenty of posts on fertility forums where by if they were positive, the tests would have already shown it. I'm ok and really realistic about it.

Wish I could try again in May, but I'm going on a cruise that will land smack at the time I' should be getting the IUI, so we'll have to wait until June.

Will report the final results for this go-round, tomorrow.

IUI 1: Day 22 - Post IUI Day 9

Man, did I just disappear when the I got to the good stuff? So LexVegas was great and I fully took part in the drunk fest that it was. And then some. And then some more. And then, well, yeah...let's just leave it at that.

SO, I arrived back home on my day 12 in time for my day 13 appoinment to check out my follicles and hormone levels. The news was good: I had a couple mature follicles - which are developed egg sacs with mature eggs. Apparently anything that measures over 20 mm? is considered mature - and I had two of them. Yay, left ovary! I took the shot of Ovidrel on Sunday, April 10. Here is the evidence:

It didn't hurt and I didn't mind giving myself the shot - but I'm kinda weird like that.

I went on Monday to collect my lil' buddies - which was a total fiasco thanks to a booking error by the clinic. Basically, while on my 45-minute drive to collect the little swimmers, my wonderful nurse called because she happened to check the schedule because she saw that I had "triggered" aka - took Ovidrel. So yeah, I actually was scheduled for 2 weeks later! NOT GOOD! After some rearranging she got me in basically down the street from the cryobank, but 4 hours later - which required me to:

1) Drive to get swimmers (8:30 a.m.) - 45-minutes

2) Drive home from swimmer bank - 45-minutes
3) Drive swimmers to clinic to thaw - 45-minutes

4) Wait for swimmers to thaw before being inseminated - 1.5 hours
5) Check cycle stats in cool Doctor program while undressing from the waist down - 2 minutes

6)Get inseminated-10 minutes

7) Drive back home (again) - 45-minutes

To say the least it was a LONG day. So, the procedure itself is super easy and barely feels like anything. It was pretty scary though, driving to the clinic and waiting around. I kept thinking to myself - wow, this could be the last time I'm not a mom. I mean, what if I did get pregnant that day? That would be the last day in my life where I did anything without a child in mind. I was a bundle of nerves, and made a call to my dad for some reassuring prayer and some pre-insemination confidence. It made me feel a lot better. Anyway, the insemination went like this:

- Lay on table
- Doctor reviews donor number 6 times to make sure it's the right one
- Doctor tells me I have 6 million live ones after the thaw
- Strange gynecologic device placed in the nether regions to open my cervix
- Disturbingly long tube inserted into nether regions and contents emptied directly into my primed and awaiting uterus
- Lay on table for 7 minutes while timer slowly counts down
- Drive home. Experience mild cramping.

That's pretty much it. I got to do it again (closer to home and only the thaw/wait an hour and a half) routine on the 12th. It took about 20 seconds from lie on table to emptying of the tube the second time. Scheduled blood test for the 26th.

Anyway, right about now I don't feel any different than normal. I think it's too early to feel pregnant - so right now I just feel really fat. Maybe because I want to shove everything into my mouth, probably as a substitute to the alcohol units I haven't had in about 11 days. Perhaps new world record for me.

I'm taking progesterone 2x daily - and that's a whole different experience that I really won't discuss here. I take that to support a pregnancy if I did, in fact, get knocked up. I'm going to start taking pregnancy tests tomorrow because it should be about the time when the Ovidrel is out of my system (it will give false positive until it's completely out of my system). Anyway, won't know for sure until a week from today.

Update: 4/20 at 11:10 - day after I wrote the above (thanks to a Red Eye from SLC via LAX) - took my first pregnancy test today. Very clearly NEGATIVE--no hints or faint additional lines. So, that definitively means the HCG/Ovidrel is out of my system...doesn't mean I'm not pregnant (blood test will be the final rule of thumb), but it's not looking like this cycle will be a one-and-done kind of thing...

IUI 1: Day 10 - The Last Hoorah?

Heading to LexVegas today for the girls weekend. Wouldn't it be totally ironic if this weekend was the last hoorah? Getting to be with my best friends, in my favorite city that I used to call home, carefree and wild - for the last time (at least for a good long time).

Sunday is the day we'll know if it's 'trigger' time...I'm so nervous.

Back soon...

IUI 1: Day 8 - Clomid Makes Me Crazy

I feel like I've been hit by a Mack truck at 40 mph. I haven't wanted to do anything much more than sleep since late Sunday. I'm experiencing mood swings!!!!!, headache, nausea, some depression, oh and the hot flashes they are awesome! I would curl up on the couch or my bed right now if given the opportunity (or if I didn't have to hold down a J-O-B. Pretty much I feel absolutely lousy and I'm glad tonight is the last pill.

I leave in 2 days for LexVegas, and I'm feeling  a little mixed up about it. I really can't wait to see my friends -- some of whom I haven't seen in several years. But I am kind of dreading the inevitable - it will be a total drunk fest on Friday from sun up to sun down. I am worried I'll enjoy myself so much that I'll forget that I'm trying to get preggo 2 days later! Who knows, maybe this good-time gal will learn how to control herself and stick to water instead of 400 Miller Lites and a pack of smokes.

The last few days of craziness have had me stuck inside my head again and I've come to the realization that I'm compartmentalizing my feelings and still scared of what next week will bring. I know that I do want to have children, but I'm scared of becoming a mother--I'm scared of not being a good mother. I'm scared that I will always be selfish and that I won't grow up. I don't want to be scared or selfish. I want to be a good mother who makes good choices. I decided to start seeing a therapist to have someone to talk to about this process and about some of my other vices that I won't go into here. I can't get into see her until the 20th of this month, but at least I have it to look towards.

This time next week I may have had my two IUI's and I'll be in waiting mode. I'm scared and anxious. But I have hope that it will work and a new chapter will begin - and I will begin again, too, in the right direction.

IUI 1: Days 3 & 4 - Bring on the meds

Had the bloodwork and ultrasound done yesterday (day 3). Also, provided our credit card for that $1,600 charge that gets us ONE cycle of treatment. Of course, it's a lot less than IVF - which is about $16-20K - and our insurance sadly does not cover any fertility treatments. Let's hope that IUI will be successful and we don't have to go that IVF route!!! I'm starting the Clomid today - and a little nervous about the deluge of hormones that are about to flood my body. At the end of the 5 days I'll probably be updating from the couch where I have been eating french fries and ice cream, crying uncontrollably, and yelling at JF to stop doing something. Oy. (Sorry, honey in advance for the crazy beotch I'm bound to become).

Ain't no stopping us now!

IUI 1: Day 1

As soon as I hit "publish post" I got my period. Literally.

So, today is officially "day 1" and the ride is beginning. I wasn't expecting to start for another couple days, so it's a bit of a shock and a bit of bad timing. See, April was my big month of travel...and I thought, until today, that with the timing of things I'd have one free and clear week that coincides perfectly without me travelling...and well, now that day 1 is here - my day 12 lands smack in the middle of a trip that has long been planned and anticipated...a trip 'home' to LexVegas for a reunion of many friends. After some freaking out - and a call to SEDW and Vee, I was able to find out from my nurse and doctor that a slight change in my schedule (on both mine and the treatment parts) should allow a nice compromise. I'll go to LexVegas as planned, but come home a day early...just starting my Clomid one day later - so that I can trigger on day 13. That means as of right now, and assuming I'm all systems go on day 13 - we'll do the IUI on April 11 and 12th!

It's so crazy how fast this train is moving. Almost like there hasn't been a second to question or to even slow down...we've just been going full steam ahead ever since our first appointment (it was a month ago today). It's also amazing to me to think of the full gamut of emotions I have felt in that time. Confused, sad, anxious, irritable, overwhelmed, excited, ready...

...and, today I know one thing: I am ready.

It's Almost Time and How We're Making a Baby...

Yesterday, we had our follow up appointment with the doctor who explained that all my tests came back great for someone my age (34). He explained that the normal egg (or follicle?) count for someone under 35 is 10-20, I have 11. My HSG (test to make sure the ovaries are not blocked) showed everything looking good, no blockages, bloodwork all fine, and wouldn't you know it? My uterus looks good, too. Woot.

Now that we know more about my insides than I ever thought I would, we are going to go through our first cycle of IUI starting with my next menstral cycle, which should start any day. The doctor, who I like more and more every single time I see him, explained the process:

• The first day of my period, I will call to make an appointment to come in on day 3
• Day 3: Ultrasound and bloodwork
• Days 3-7: Take 50mg of Clomid to help stimulate egg production
• Day 12: Ultrasound
• On day 12 they will determine if I am beginning to come into ovulation or if I need another day or two - if I need more time, I will come back for another ultrasound, then on day 12 or a couple days later--when my body says I'm "ready" I will give myself a shot of Ovudril (HCG) that will trigger the release of the egg
• I call the sperm bank to go pick up our little swimmers!
• The two days after the "trigger shot" I will go for IUI
• I take prometrium (progesterone) to help support a pregnancy for 14 days while we wait to see if the procedure was successsful--only confirmed by a blood test

If the procedure wasn't successful, they will take me off the prometrium - which will trigger my period and we'll start the cycle all over again.

I was a little skeptical thinking that we'd have to wait until May to start, because I'm travelling every other week right now for work...and travelling a LOT in April. But, I believe I'm likely to begin my cycle this week - a little earlier than thought - so it looks like I'll be able to make some changes to my schedule and go through the first round this month!

I'm a little nervous, a lot excited, and really ready to begin. I'm not expecting the IUI to work the first time, it's only about a 20% chance--about the same as trying naturally. We will go through this treatment regime for 3 cycles. If we are not pregnant after 3 cycles then we'd go to a little more agressive IUI. We have not considered IVF at this time - mostly because it looks like I will be ok (in theory) and that in this controlled environment it's considered ideal.

We also selected our donor and bought 9 vials of sperm last week. I used to look for boys to date online, but there is something much more bizarre about going online to find a sperm donor!!! More on that to come...but for now, we wait for the one last thing that mother nature will be able to do on her own here...tell us it's time to begin.

Becoming 760122

It's been about a month since we found out that we would need to pursue fertility treatments in order to get pregnant. I think it was the day after JF's results came back, after we talked about what choice we wanted to make, that JF called the fertility doctor. We made an appointment for the next week, and went to meet the doctor. I remember that they explained that I would need to have a lot of tests done in order to understand my cycle's and make sure that there wasn't anything wrong with me. The nurse explained that I would need to have three procedures to look at my ovaries, my uterus, and to make sure that my ovaries weren't blocked. We also had to get bloodwork done and we had to do all of the tests in a certain order, on certain days. I left that appointment and was completely overwhelmed.

I can't explain what it felt like to be thrust into an immediate whirlwind. I knew that this wasn't going to be an easy process, and I was thankful that at least our problem had a foreseeable solution...but what I felt like that cold, February morning is that I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. I'm not sure if overhwelmed is the right word, because I felt like my head was spinning, that I needed to compartmentalize the reality of it all. I was scared. I was sad. I was tumbling, stumbling, and drowning after only the first appointment.

That was the day I became 760122, my patient ID at the fertility clinic. I didn't know the number that day, but I sure felt like that's what I was becoming: just another cog in a great big wheel that was turning my world upside down. The day I became 760122, I think that what made it feel so huge is that I walked in a curious bystander, but walked out on a much different path: the path to become a mother. 

Dear Child(ren),

As I sit down to chronicle the path that your father and I are taking, I thought I should start with what I would say to you, dear child(ren). As you read these words, you may find yourself asking a lot of questions about how you came to be. Our journey together won't start out the same way as most of the kids at school, or down the street, or in these ridiculous things people call "play dates." Some kids you meet will have a story like ours, because as momma realized just last week, there are a lot of people out there like us, too. What I want you to know before we go any further is that you were loved before we even knew how you would come to us, and that we wanted you more than we even knew.

You see, parents who start their lives together are full of imagination and dreams and laughter for all they want to make a reality. Your father and I built you a big (ridiculously big) house because we always imagined having children that would fill it up, make it even louder than it already is, and to watch you grow up here--knowing what dirt and playing outside felt like. We started living our dreams with you in them before the first ounce of dirt was moved on this land, before the day we walked through the doors to spend our first night in your home, and in all the smiles of little children we have met since. Your father and I are completely and totally in love with each other, and have been since we became friends in 2007. He is my best friend, and I hope that one day you will know and find love as wonderful as I have found with him. Your father and I are dreamers, believers, do-ers and we live in a world filled with the dreams and laughter that we create. We are so blessed.

A couple of years ago we made a decision to try to have children, and though we weren't obsessed with becoming parents, or trying to the point of precision, after two years it started to seem like something might be wrong. Our neighbor referred me to a doctor, who started a bunch of tests, and gave your dad a referral to go get some tests done as well. Neither of us thought much about it, and figured we probably should just try harder. It was at the end of January that the doctor told your dad that he had a hormone level that was extremely high, and that because of that, it was very unlikely that he would be able to have children. A couple weeks later, that test was confirmed and we found out for certain that was no way for us to have children that were 100% genetically ours, probably because of a medical issue your dad had when he was very young. The doctor told him that there were three options for having children: do nothing, adopt, or find a sperm donor.

We talked and very quickly (the very same night), made our first decision: we absolutely wanted to have children. Then we made the second: we wanted to experience having children that were ours from the very beginning. That meant that we made the choice to have momma get pregnant another way. Our final decision was the only choice and the biggest decision that we have ever made together: we would look to create our family with the generous gift of a sperm donor so that you could be our child(ren).

Now, I know this might be confusing, and believe me, it was (and is) confusing to us, too. But what I will tell you is this...that night, we made a choice to do whatever we could to bring you in this world. I wanted a chronicle of our journey bringing you into our lives so that one day when you have questions and are looking for answers, that you will have them. I want to be open with you and maybe sometimes I will write things here that make you sad, or that you will read and then understand that it was sometimes hard for us. Making the right best choice is never easy, because there is never a right or wrong way to go about it. You just put your faith in your decision, you say a little prayer when you make it, and you learn along the way. Never forget: it's the journey of seeing your choice come to pass that makes everything so worthwhile.

Remember this, I never want you to doubt for one second--it was all worth it. Because, you my sweet child(ren), our sweet child(ren), are in every way the manifestation of the love your father and I have, and have always, had for each other. You are the reality of all of our hopes, all of our laughter, all our dreams, every silent prayer, and every wish we had and will have for you in your life to come.

I am 760122, I'm trying to become your mother, and this is your story of how you came to be...