Not Really Feeling Celebratory

My birthday is tomorrow. Normally I would be excited. Normally we would have a party. But not this year. This year I don't really care. I didn't have the energy to do a party. I didn't really want to do anything.

Thats not completely true. I didn't want to plan anything. I wouldn't mind doing something small if I didn't have to plan it. My hubby is great, but hes not huge on the planning. But this year he stepped it up. He emailed me yesterday and said "Don't make plans for Saturday. We are going to town (1.5 hours away) for your bday." I have no clue what his plans are. And its lovely. I'll post on Monday with the details of our outing.

I still don't want to make a big deal out of it, but its nice that he is doing something for it.

Backyard Nightmare

The Before

The Middle

Coming Soon: The After

This is how I spent my weekend. It was actually a really good thing since I'm still very sad about the pup. Now don't get me wrong, we didn't do all of this this weekend. We started 3 weeks ago. Between the digging, hauling cinder blocks, mixing concrete, laying rocks and shoveling compost, we have been getting quite a workout! We still have one more layer of terracing to do, but we have to find more rocks first. Thank goodness for Craigs List!

Very Sad Day

Today we had to send our pup back to the shelter. I am sitting here bawling as my hubby drops her off. I wish we could go out and buy a house with a big yard so we could keep her. She has been getting really bored when we are at work. So she tears everything she can find up. Our yard is too small for her. I know she will be much happier with a family with kids and a big yard, but I still feel really bad. She hated the shelter cause she if afraid of other dogs. But the shelter here makes you agree that you will bring them back if you can't keep them. We could get fined big time if we give her away to someone else and she ends up in the shelter. I understand their reasoning (dog fighting is a big problem in our state), but it sucks cause we could find her a great home. So we typed up a flyer to go with her. She seems very sad and lethargic in the shelter, so we described her real personality and said how smart she is. She learned to "sit" in a week, potty trained in a week and a half, and is well on her way to learning "fetch."

So now I'm gonna sit here and cry some more. I'm not sure if its the hormones or if I would be this torn up about this normally. But I do know that right now is not the time for this. I don't know how much more I can handle.

Extreme Frustration

I made my peace with IVF. Well mostly, but now that we decided we are gonna do it, I just wanna get this show on the road. And of course my body chooses now to do what it was supposed to do several weeks ago. (TMI warning: if you don't wanna know more about my body than you ever thought you would, skip to the end)

As I was going to the bathroom last night, I noticed a good bit of CM (cervical mucus-see I said TMI). It was far different than anything I had seen before. It was totally EWCM which is the kind that you get when you ovulate. I peed on several OPKs (ovulation predictor kits) but got no positive tests. Based on my previous experience, I think that if I do ovulate, it is without an LH surge so the kits don't work. The RE agreed. So the nurse at the REs office wanted me to come in for an ultrasound. So take the afternoon off work then pay $275ish for it. So instead we decided to put IVF off for a month and wait two weeks and pee on a stick.

In reality this will be waiting til July will be good. We can save money for an extra month and we can lose more weight. We are working very hard right now to lose as much weight as we can. We are doing lots of working and hiking and eating on a low GI diet. Watching our portion size is the biggest change since we always eat pretty low GI. We are doing well so far, but it has only been a few days. Plus we don't have a scale. I think I am going to get a string and have the hubby help me measure myself with it. Then I can check back every few days to see if I'm loosing size. That way I'm not focused on weight.

But even though there are lots of good reasons to wait, I don't really want to. It makes our time table more comfortable. I won't have to go get a Hysteroscopy next week. I can wait til I work my next Saturday (that way I can take off early one day for the long drive and long appointment). I don't have to start BCPs today. And I don't have to worry about having a BFN right before my good friend has her baby. She is due right around the time we will do our transfer. So with any luck, I will be feeling optimistic and happy for their big day.

But man, I really want to get started!!!

Welcome ICLWers!

Welcome to all of you stopping by from ICLW. I'll give a brief history for any of you who haven't stopped by before.

The hubby & I have been TCC for 18 months. We tried for a year on our own (we should have gone to an RE sooner since I didn't have a single period during that year, but my hubby wasn't totally ready yet) then went back to our RE. We originally saw an RE when we thought we would have to do IVF with PGD because I was diagnosed with a terrible genetic disease. As it turns out, that was a misdiagnosis. For more on that go here. 

Needless to say, a misdiagnosis of that magnitude shook me. But back to the RE we went. We tried a round of Clomid with IUI (hubby has low morphology) but I didn't respond at all. Then a round of Letrozole with again, no response. So now we are moving to IVF. The big guns.

We plan to do the IVF in July. So keep your fingers crossed.

IVF

I think I have made my peace with doing IVF. After researching a bit more, with the hubby's motility I think IVF is really our only choice. We could try a bunch of injectable cycles, but since we don't have insurance that covers any fertility stuff that would be several grand a pop with a low chance of success.

So  IVF it is. I want to be able to try for two kids before I'm 35. I turn 29 in two weeks. (In case anyone who plans to give me a bday gift is reading this, a donation to the IVF would be the best possible gift!)

We decided to go with financing for the IVF. It seems wrong to be financing our (possible) baby. At least we got a good APR. I'm not terribly impressed with the companies (ARC and a lender that they work with). They have told us twice that they would call us in 1-2 hours with a decision and then 5-6 hours later we call back and they say "Oh yeah..." Its terrible customer service (I work at a bank that is BIG on customer service). If we did that at work, we would get in big trouble. But I don't have a lot of options so I guess I'll deal.

We are hoping to start the cycle right around Memorial Day. Its a bit fast, but if we don't do it then, we would end up waiting til the end of July. One of my closest friends here in New Mexico is due mid July. I am her secondary go to person if she can't get in touch with her hubby and she goes into labor. So I want to either be done with the transfer before the end of June or wait til her baby is here.

I really want to get started as soon as possible, but I'm also worried about how hard it will be to see her baby for the first time after a possible BFN (big freaking negative on a preggo test) and a really pricey BFN at that.

Either way it will be hard. But I am so happy for her. I feel less jealousy of her than of most preggo ladies. She lost her first baby and struggled with that for a long while. She didn't have any trouble getting pregnant, but she battled to stay pregnant.  She still hasn't bought very much for the baby. She feels that she may be jinxing the baby.

Has anyone out there dealt with a similar situation? Do you find it easier to know how your cycle went or to have the hope for a future cycle? I am leaning toward knowing just because once I see that baby, I may be super jealous, but I will love her immediately. I think being able to help my friend out (even now she calls me with kiddo questions cause I have been around little ones my whole life) might make a possible BFN a bit easier to bear. And if its a BFP (big freakin positive) it would be a great time to celebrate.

@#$#$%#@$

Which translates to Letrozole didn't work. My RE thinks I have so many little follicles that I would have very high chance of high-order multiples (i.e. three or more) with injectables. So he wants us to do IVF. I have mixed feelings about this. We also need ICSI cause of the hubby's SA (semen analysis). His morphology is low. So I think that is another reason the RE is leaning toward the IVF.

So now we decide what we want to do and start saving. If we do IVF we are shooting for June or August.

And thats all I got today. If you are one of the few people who know me in real life, I will not be answering the phone tonight. I think I may sleep for a very long time.

Signs Its Gonna be a Crappy Day

Lots of little things today:

• Pup got into the litter box (YUCK!!!) first thing this morning. Making a cover for it just got bumped up to the top of the to-do list.
• Pup spent 20 minutes trying to get the cats to "play" with her. This consists of hunching really low and quietly woofing at them then rolling over and showing her belly. Her woofs get steadily louder as the cats don't respond. After about 10 minutes of this, it was impossible to keep pretending to sleep.
• Hubby took a bath (I had to get after him cause we could to an IUI this week, so no baths) and used up most of the hot water so I finished my shower with cold water.
• Pants felt too tight to wear so I had to switch to a skirt.
• Had to get allergy shots and the nurse was late which made me late for work.
• Left arm allergy shot hurts more than usual. Normally I can only feel it if I touch the bump, but today I can feel it every time I move my arm.
• Letrozole seems to have upset my tummy on top of the emotional upheaval.

I am hoping that things will get better, but I'm not holding my breath. At least I only cried once so far (in the car on the way to work. Not sure why).

Sorry for all the blogs being grumpy lately. I feel like a different person when on Letrozole. I can hear myself thinking mean things that I normally wouldn't think. My inner monologue is very pissy today. I hear myself bitching about stuff in others that I do. Luckily its all internal so no one hears me being such a hypocrite, but I hate feeling that way. Hypocracy is one of the things that make me the maddest. So to be feeling like a hypocrite sucks.

Today's Ultrasound

So basically we know nothing from today's ultrasound. I am very unhappy with this. It seems like every time I go to the freakin RE we get more questions instead of answers!

The biggest follie on my left ovary is 9mm and 8mm on the right with lots of smaller on each. I'm at CD 12 so I should be ovulating within the next 5 days. With these follies thats doubtful.

So tomorrow the nurse will call me with my lab results (progesterone & estrodiol). As long as they don't show that I ovulated (ha, thats funny) I get to start a higher dose of Letrozole. Woo hoo. More weepiness and moodiness. Yay. (Insert sarcasm here) Then I go back on Friday for another ultrasound.

So now I'm gonna sit here and drink some wine and cry a bit. It could be worse, but it could be better.

A Bit Stressed

At 3pm this afternoon, I go for an ultrasound to see if Letrozole worked at all. Fingers crossed!!!

If this doesn't work, I'm not sure what will happen next. We might do injectables or we might go straight to IVF. My RE said he was hesitant to do injects with someone so young (I'm almost 30, it doesn't feel "SO young" to me!).

IVF is SO expensive. I think I'm gonna push for at least one injectable cycle first. I'm also considering taking a month off to do Nurtisystem and try to loose some weight. But I'm afraid my head might explode if I do that.

I just found out that two more of my cousins are preggo. While I'm very happy for both of them (L. has been seeing an RE for a while and the S. is single and 38 so she figures this is her only chance, her words not mine) it makes me sad. L is the only cousin younger than me on my dad's side. And S. being preggo make me the LAST cousin on my mom's side. All the rest have kids, even the ones who are younger than me. S has a step-sister who is only 20 and doesn't have any kiddos and I have two step-sisters and a step-bro (all between 16 and 18 so the better not have kids before me!), but of all the non-steps, I'm the last. I didn't realize that til this morning.

On top of that I feel a lot of pressure to hurry up so my Grandma on my dad's side gets to meet my baby. She will be 94 this year. No one is putting pressure intentionally. I think its mostly K, dad's fiancee. She thinks shes helping, but she is just making stuff worse.

I know they say that you only notice all the preggo people cause you are trying, but I am totally convinced that there are more preggos around than usual. I have never had 3 preggos cousins at the same time before. Plus two good friends. Plus two cousins just had babies in the past few months. Thats a lot of babies!

So thats my stream of consciousness ramble for today. I'll try to update this evening after our drive back from the RE. But if I don't its probably cause the meds didn't work and we stopped for beer.

Random Updates

I think of this blog in two major ways. #1 it is for venting my frustrations and sadness, anger and all the other emotions that go along with infertility. #2 is as a chronicle for my life in this time. Hopefully this will help me to remember what it was like and what worked and what did not. We eventually hope to have two kiddos so we will be doing this more than once. This way I have all the side effects documented and can hopefully go into the second round of baby making with my eyes wide open.

Okay, on to my random updates:

• I finished Letrozole yesterday. Thank goodness! I haven't been as weepy these past two days. I have however been a bit queasy, especially when I look at food. Plus I have slept around 10 hours per night most of this week.
• Monday marks CD12 so I go to my RE for an ultrasound to see if the Letrozole has worked at all. Keep your fingers crossed.
• In non-IF news, our pup apparently has Kennel Cough from the shelter. She sounds like she has something stuck in her throat that she can't get out. My sweet hubby took her downstair to roam so that I could sleep since I have to work today. She seemed to cough less when she could roam around.
• We are in the middle of a major backyard overhaul. Our backyard looks more like a major jeep trail than a yard. It is tiny, but steep & rocky. So we are currently putting in a retaining wall. When I got home from work yesterday, we mixed 11 bags of concrete to fill the cinderblocks. My hubby is astounding. He set up drainage and everything. Despite the fact that he only got a couple of hours of sleep, he went to the store to buy more concrete (which is a big deal when you live in the middle of nowhere). With a pup and no back fence, life is hard. She has been getting about 6 walks each day. Good for loosing weight, but not for being able to do anything else.

So that about it for today. And thats enough. Anything else and I might have to scream. Too much at once. We probably should have waited to get the pup, but once we saw her in the shelter, there was no going back. Her big hound eyes and floppy ears got me right away.

Hopefully once the yard is finished we can get back to finishing our kitchen makeover (our townhouse was built in 74 so we have awesome harvest gold countertops!). Or maybe we could take a break from the projects and have a nice quiet month or so. Yeah right, if the hubby and I don't have projects, we would go nuts. Luckily we are both that way or we would probably get on each other's nerves.

So thats all. Hope all of you out there in the world are having a nice mellow Saturday. Enjoy it cause when I get home, I get to mix more cement!

PETA's Response

As with nearly all of the letters that I have read, this one completely misses the point. Yes they have now taken down the "in honor of" part, but they still refer to NIAW.

Dear Lissie,

Thank you for contacting PETA about your objections to our contest offering a free vasectomy; please allow me to respond for Ingrid. We are sorry to have offended you, and we have removed the phrase “in honor of National Infertility Awareness Week” from our website. We understand that this was not a wise choice of words.

Our goal was to focus attention on the tragic suffering and death of homeless dogs and cats. Since the best way to prevent animal companions from having unwanted litters is to spay and neuter them, a kind PETA member offered to cover the cost of a vasectomy for one compassionate man who wants to get himself “snipped” just like his furry friend.

To learn more about our efforts to address the animal overpopulation crisis, please visit <http://www.PETA.org/issues/companion-animals/spay-neuter.aspx> http://www.PETA.org/issues/companion-animals/spay-neuter.aspx. Thank you again for contacting us and for the opportunity to share our thoughts.
Sincerely,

Zoe Rappoport
Correspondent
PETA Foundation

Today is a Bit Better

I've only cried once so far! That is big since yesterday's grand total was 7 crying episodes.

After my fun little episode at work (which my coworkers helped me make light of) my hubby texted me with pictures of our trashed bedroom. The pup had broken her kennel and torn up everything she could find. Thankfully the bedroom door was closed or the whole house would be wrecked.

We are hoping that the kennel will be temporary. Once she is house trained we want to only use the kennel for traveling.

Needless to say, a wrecked room wasn't what I needed yesterday. So the hubby got beer & chocolate. Then I vegged out and watched River Monsters all evening. And I even have a beer left for tonight!

My Letter to PETA

As many of you know, PETA screwed up big time. Below is my letter to them. Its much less eloquent than many others I have read, but thats just me.


Dear Ms Newkirk,

As you might have guessed, I am writing to you because I am VERY upset by PETA's Win a Free Vasectomy contest. I have no problem with the contest itself. It is the fact that you have choosen to make it "in honor" of National Infertility Awareness Week. You might as well offer free candy for Diabetes Awareness Week.

 

I could happily support offering a vasectomy to someone who needs it, but I don't think I could ever support PETA again because of this. It is cruel and hurtful to those of us suffering from infertility. You can spout off about how we should adopt all you want. You obviously don't know what that entails. I personally don't have $25,000 to spare to adopt a baby.

 

Most of us don't want you to cancel you contest, we just want you to get rid of the "in honor of National Infertility Awareness Week" portion. Give a vasectomy. Great. Just don't piss off 7.3 million Americans while you do it.

 

And please don't say you are sorry that we are upset. That isn't an apology. It is just telling us that you don't hear what we are saying or that you don't care.

 

If you want to actually honor National Infertility Awareness Week, do it by offering to help with the costs of domestic adoption for one infertile couple. That would not only keep the population from going up, it would help a child in need of a home.

 

Sincerely,

Lissie

Letrozole Sucks!

At my RE's office they told me Letrozole (aka Femara) would likely have less side effects than Clomid. Wow were they wrong!

I work on the teller line at a small community bank. There are only 6 employees in the whole branch. We have a decent amount of time when there are no customers, so we joke around a lot. One of the employees is a high schooler. She cracks us up. She loves watching Teen Mom and 16 & Pregnant. So one of my coworkers jokingly asked if I had recorded Teen Mom on the DVR. Without thinking I popped back with "Oh yeah, thats just what I want to watch. A bunch of bimbos getting knocked up without trying when I can't get pregnant." Then I cried.

Ask me on a normal day and I might say "No thanks, not my style of show." But today, wow! My poor coworker didn't know what to do. Luckily they know whats going on so I just said "Sorry, I'm on new meds." But now he won't joke with me as much. I really hope that a moment of weepiness doesn't ruin the great big brother/little sister type of relationship that we have. I tried to make light of it by telling them about my earlier crying jag over my pup.

Sadly thats not even my first weepy moment of the day. Its not even my 2nd. Its my 3rd! I cried this morning when I had to crate the new pup. She is in the process of potty training so she goes in the crate til the hubby comes home at lunch. I felt so guilty I was bawling. That lasted til I got to work (all puffy-eyed). Then on my lunch break my mother-in-law called and left me the sweetest message. Which made me bawl again.

If I cry 4-5 times a day every day that I'm on this stuff, I'm gonna scream! I will be fine one minute and them crying uncontrolably the next. Its very different than Clomid or even Provera. With those I could control it to keep cool at work, but I'm worried it will happen at work again.

Think happy thoughts. Thats what I need to keep telling myself.

Inara, Our New Pup

Meet Inara, our new dog! She is about a year and a half old. We are adopting her from a nearby animal shelter. She is a hound mix. We get to bring her home today! The hubby and I originally decided that we would get another dog when we had a kiddo who could ask for one. Since that is taking longer than planned, we skipped ahead.

We had a dog until a year and a half ago. Socrates was at least 14 years old and his body just gave out. He was the sweetest, most lovable dog imaginable. So after having the dog of all dogs, we thought it would be hard to find another dog to love as much. We were spoiled by having a dog who was pretty sure he was a person.

So today we bring Inara home. And to those of you who are nerds like me, yes she is named after Inara from Firefly.

It should be an interesting couple of days. We currently have two female cats, Cali & Lola. Inara was super mellow when we played with her at the shelter, but you never can tell. Animals act so differently in a shelter setting than when they are in a home. We are hoping she stays mellow, but becomes less scared when she gets comfortable. We are REALLY hoping she doesn't chase cats! Cali can hold a grudge like a champ. If Inara chases her too much, she will be pissed at us and ignore us for weeks. She is a peculiar cat. She at least has dog experience. We had her when we had our old dog, plus we had her when we had doggie visiters. Lola has never met a dog. We got her as a kitten. She is usually a very mellow cat, but when we came home smelling like dog after going to the shelter, she flipped. Her tail was so puffed out!

So I'll keep you posted! And I'll put up more pictures soon. The one here is of her at the shelter.

A Little Bit Better

Family life is a bit better. My Grandma seems to be doing okay. Her two sisters are still in the hospital, but both are improving. I'm still worried and I think I'm gonna go home for a visit next month. Money is tight with all these stinkin medical bills, but some things are more important.

I start Letrozole today. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I will have less side effects from this than from Clomid. Keep your fingers crossed!