Ass Tea

I switched from my herb pills to the tea this morning. Boy. Does. That. Stuff. Taste. Like. Ass. You know why your dog tries to lick your face after he licks his butt? To get the taste out of his mouth. Well, I was almost ready to lick my dog’s butt to get the taste of the tea out of my mouth.

Sorry to be so gross, but truly, this is just plain torture. I e-mailed my acupuncturist and she just said I had to grin and bear it. I asked her if I could PLEASE put something in it (like 5 scoops of ice cream, maybe?) to hide the taste and she said that the taste is part of the treatment. I don’t understand that at all. I ended up cheating because when I was almost done, the bottom several gulps were very concentrated. I just couldn’t do it. So I took some orange juice and diluted it so I could get the rest down. I have to take this tea from today through the first day of my period. I have never wanted my period to come early before….but please get here quick!

Last night TW and I had dinner with my parents. We went to one of my fave restaurants and the evening was quite pleasant. But then my mom started talking about babies. She has this habit of spewing out announcements of all her friends who have new grandkids, or grandkids on the way. Then she tells me how old these women are who are having babies, and always focuses on the women over 40. She detailed three or four of these oh-so-touching stories and then I just cut her off. I know she has the best of intentions, and it used to be that these stories of 40+ year old women getting pregnant would give me hope. But now it just hurts me. And I feel so alone and abnormal. So I told her. I told her I cannot talk about these things with her anymore. I know that she wants a grand baby almost as much as I want a baby myself. But I am done talking about it with her, because I always end up crying. You know what her response was? She said, “But I didn’t even mention this person or that person or this person!” Like keeping her stories to four out of a possible seven was really helping me out. And by answering that way, she managed to throw in three more names of people that got pregnant over 40.

She is coming to stay with me for two nights next week, in our teeny, tiny cottage with one bathroom. She is going to sleep on the bottom bunk of PT’s bed. FUN! I hope I don’t end up killing her after two days. I already sent her an e-mail that babies are a forbidden topic. I hope she doesn’t have 3 glasses of her cream sherry and forgets. Because I will lose it on her if she does! I am going to take advantage of her staying with us though. She will cook dinner for us and take PT to and from school. My mom no longer drives but the school is only 3 blocks away. I hope she doesn’t get lost!! TW is out of town all week, so my mom said she wanted to come and stay. I think she wants to take care of us (or at least that is the pretense). The truth is that she and my dad are driving each other nuts, so she needs a little break. I hope we get along!

Protocol for the protocol

My acupuncturist has kicked me into high gear. Here is my protocol:

• Weekly acupuncture
• Breakfast: REQUIRED
• 3 pills of Ba Zhen Tang after breakfast
• 4 pills of Zuo Gui Wan after breakfast
• 1 serving of fiber from Whole Foods in my “fave” beverage (which would be wine, but I guess she meant juice!)
• 2 eggs per day (soft boiled) — which I discovered I love!
• After lunch: 3 pills of Ba Zhen Tang and 4 pills of Zuo Gui Wan
• More fiber
• On CD 15 add 3 spoons of Wen Jing Tang in 8 oz boiling water (tea), twice a day, until AF shows up
• And get this — she wants me to take my temperature again!!! I did that for TWENTY TWO cycles. I used to sit at my computer each morning before work and log it into TCOYF. Ugh. Now I have a crooked paper chart, that is a copy of of copy of a copy, crooked and blurry, sitting on my nightstand. With my thermometer. And a pen. And I didn’t even start charting until CD9! And I don’t care! I love not being obsessed with the BBT. It took over my life for WAY too long. I am basically doing this to humor my acupuncturist.

Supposedly this is going to help my egg quality. Ya think? I am willing to try anything. But that sure is a lot of stuff!

Meanwhile, the concept of adoption is S L O W L Y but surely taking over my brain….must tread lightly so as not to scare TW away.

I still have two more shots at this before I have to think about adoption….please let this work for me!

3 stories and why I need to lose 15 pounds

1. I went out to dinner with TW at an old restaurant that I hadn’t been to in ages. It started out as a nice night, we were having a nice conversation, good wine, yummy food. As always is the case, my mind wandered to the thought of babies and I said, ‘Can you see it? Can you imagine us with a little baby? Do you think it will happen?’ And to my horror TW’s response was, ‘Only God knows’. This, to me, is so similar to the “If it is meant to be” or “If it is in God’s plan” comment….the comment that makes me go into outer orbit. And it came out of my husband’s mouth. I almost completely lost it! I think my mouth dropped open and I could feel my eyes begin to tear up. And I went into my usual diatribe — about people like Britney Spears and Nicole Ritchie - THEY are meant to be mothers because God wants it so. And the guy in Alabama who dumped his 4 children ages 3, 2, 1 and 4 months over the bridge. And the woman in DC who killed all four of her children because they were possessed by the devil. THEY are the ones that God has chosen. And not me? Not me? I seriously could have stabbed him with my steak knife. I think he realized he said exactly the wrong thing but it still baffled me that the guy I am married to, the one that has been through this with me for so long, is so clueless!!! It ended up okay, believe it or not, it ended up in laughter. On the way home I yelled at him some (since I couldn’t yell at the restaurant) and then at the end of my vent, he yelled, “GOD IS GREAT” and I just busted into hysterically laughter. And then later at home we turned on the TV and watched the news. As usual the news was full of awful stories of murder and tragedy, and after each story I said, ‘That is in God’s plan” and then TW would yell “GOD IS GREAT. It was really dumb but at least we couldn’t fight anymore because we were laughing too hard.

2. At acupuncture on Saturday, K really got my hopes up. I am trying not to be mad at her because I love her so much. But at the beginning of each treatment, she takes my pulses on both wrists. Usually this is completely uneventful, I don’t even know what she is looking/listening for (she also always asks to check my tongue, I need to google that too!). In any event, after checking my pulses, K asked me if I had eaten (she always does this as well, but usually b/c my appointments are at 10am and I am not a breakfast girl — she is trying to change that). When I told her that I had lunch (a turkey sandwich and some chips), she said, “Huh. Okaaaaaaay….”. She sounded really curious so I asked her what was going on. She told me that my pulses were GREAT, REALLY GREAT, whatever that means. And then she got so bold as to say that my pulses sound like pregnant pulses! Then she immediately said she hates saying that, and that she never usually says it, but that sometimes she can tell….but that sometimes she is wrong. Then she said something feels really different. What the fuck. I asked her what about my pulses sounded “pregnant” and she said that they were just really strong. She also mentioned that my hands and feet were really hot and a little sweaty, and usually I am frozen. I actually did notice this heat myself, it is pretty cold here (45 degrees or so and mid thirties overnight) and I have felt pretty warm. The heat hasn’t been on at night, and I am taking off layers of clothing while TW is asking me to turn the heater on. So, I am not sure what is going on with me, but I really wish K hadn’t said anything about pregnancy. I have had my hopes up so high so many times! I am trying to just assume that acupuncture and herbs are doing something for me, in a good way. My body is changing for the better for the next IVF cycle. K was really apologetic for blurting it out, and kept saying she doesn’t know what is going on, I should keep an open mind, and we will just wait and see what happens. I am 8DPO (if I ovulated after her last treatment on 1/13). No other “symptoms” except for the elevated temperature (or I should say the feeling of elevated temperature since I am not doing BBT anymore). Aaaaaack!

3. Yesterday TW ran in a 10k race with his dad. I was going to stay home but he convinced me it was my wifely duty to go and cheer them on. So I went. I really didn’t want to go, especially after the “God is Great” conversation the night before. But I got up and bundled up like the little brother in A Christmas Story. And I was COLD, it was 33 degrees in the sun. I waited at the finish line and 1 hour after they started, here comes TW….grunting with every step and running with a really weird gait. He crossed the finish line and then it was clear that he was in severe pain…he sprained his ankle a mile before the finish line! It was a trail run through the woods, lots of obstacles and pits and rocks, etc. But this was totally his fault. He was running up a steep hill and three women passed him … he couldn’t have that! So, he decided to run as fast as he could down the steep hill on the other side. He said he was running so fast he was barely in control. And he sprained his ankle when it hit a seed pod. Serves him right! I mean, if he ran at a normal pace he would have gained at least 3 or 4 minutes on his time. But he had to run out of control and ended up injuring himself. And the three women he was trying to catch up to beat him anyway. And who is paying for his stupidity?? That would be me. He is the WORST patient!!! (But of course his sprained ankle isn’t stopping him from trying to have sex with me three times a day…I seriously wonder what has gotten into him! I wonder if his hormones have normalized in some magical way?) I will be so curious to see what his counts are when he gives a sample for our next IVF.

I was hankering for a snack today and decided a salad sounds good, and healthy too. So I got out the lettuce, spinach, cherry tomatoes and cucumber and put a bunch in a bowl. And then I decided to make home made blue cheese dressing, with mayonnaise, sour cream, blue cheese, garlic, lemon juice, pepper, green onions…I added a little non-fat yogurt for posterity but UGH, I have turned this salad into a snack worse than an ice cream sundae!

I have been corresponding with the IVF clinic about our next cycle and I will go in for CD3 blood work when AF arrives. I asked them if they still had TW’s sample from last time, he gave them a sample to freeze as a back-up. I assumed that they had it, since we used fresh sperm for the 1st IVF. The clinic informed me that per the contract, they destroy any unused sperm. ANNOYING, and I totally forgot. So TW has to go on antibiotics for 5 days again and then “do his thing”. TW’s travel schedule is going to be hectic the next two months so I am banking on going through IVF#2 by myself. But it sure would have been nice if they kept that sperm. So I asked if we could keep it next time if we don’t use it and they said we could but it would be an extra $720 dollars to store it! OMG, forget it. I swear, IVF clinics are money making machines.

Yikes - thanks for bearing with me through this monster post!

Magic

I think acupuncture is magical. I went yesterday and told K that I didn’t think I ovulated yet. She reminded me that I was sick a few weeks back and that it was possible my ovulation was delayed…of course I cannot confirm this because I stopped temping before IVF#1. In any event, she took my pulses and said she didn’t think I ovulated yet (I don’t know what she listens for…). She said she was going to do a treatment to kick start it.

I was pretty bummed out. TW was out of town from CD12-14. I usually ovulate on CD11 or CD12 and we did everything we could (if you know what I mean) from CD6-CD11. I thought I had all my bases covered. But then I didn’t ovulate! I know that the chances are something like .0001% for us to conceive naturally (based upon TW’s sperm counts, my old eggs and the fact that we have been TTC for 5 year with no success), but miracles seem to occur every day, right? So I have such a hard time throwing in the towel, assuming it will never happen. As I type this I can’t help but laugh because it is so NOT gloom and doom. I mean if chances are 1 out of 10,000 — there is ONE person who will have success right? Why not me??

Anyway, I was very disappointed thinking that all the sperm (however little there is) was wasted over the last week because I didn’t even release an egg yet.

Back to acupuncture — she put needles in some new spots and did something called moxa. She heated up this stick and put it on the acupuncture points - not touching - but hovering so I could feel the heat. She asked me to tell her when it got too hot and then she would move to another point. It was SO relaxing. She has given me these herbs which I take daily that supposedly have cooling effects. Every time I see her she asks me if I am colder than usual, but I haven’t really noticed any change…I am always cold in the winter! This treatment is supposed to help warm me up and increase circulation.

I was there for almost an hour an a half. And guess what, last night, I started feeling side pains, and this morning — EWCM! I know this could be coincidental, but….I will take it. And guess what else? PT went to a friend’s house after lunch so I was able to attack TW for a “nooner”. Just in case.

Oh - K also told me that I should not exercise so hard. Hmmmm? When I am motivated, I do like to exercise hard — I like to sweat and get my heart rate up and really tire myself out. That is how I lose weight. But K says when TTC it is more stress on the body than we should endure — we need to conserve our energy to conceive. When we get into a really heart pumping, sweating state of being, our bodies go into self preservation mode like we are trying to save ourselves from a predator. So the last thing our bodies will allow us to do in this situation is to have a baby! I guess this makes sense. She said I should work out for 15-20 minutes and I should not be drenched in sweat. Okay! I really don’t LOVE to exercise that much, so she won’t have to tell me more than once that I should take it down a notch. She said okay to light weight lifting, biking and swimming.

If we didn’t catch an egg this cycle, I will call my IVF clinic on Day 1 for the bloodwork and start IVF#2.

P.S. I tried my hand at bidding on eBay for the first time. I decided I wanted another coat (yes, like the one I have THREE of) and I found it on eBay because I couldn’t find it at any store around me. So I bid on the coat. I was winning the bid all weekend so I kind of forgot about it. I just checked and someone outbid me by $1, one minute before the bidding closed. How frustrating! I guess I need to keep an eye open when I do this. I think my career as an eBay girl has already ended.

I knew it!

My acupuncturist is a doll. She is 38 years old (39 in January) and she got married “late” in life, at 37. Since I started seeing her, I wondered whether she was TTC or not, knowing her age. The other night I had a dream that she had six children! It was a vivid dream and so when I saw her on Saturday morning, I decided to tell her. She said I was the third client that had dreams about her having kids or being pregnant…it is no wonder, it is all we talk about when I am there, so I can only assume other clients are the same. She is one of the few Chinese medicine fertility specialists in my town. Then with a disclaimer that she hoped she was not giving too much personal information about herself, she told me that she and her husband are TTC. She said that this month, she was SURE she was pregnant because her period was 4 days late. Instead of POAS she went to her clinic for a beta and it came back negative. She seemed really sad about it - and oh, do I know how she was feeling!!!  Anyway, she seemed relieved to be able to talk about it, and I gave her a pep talk. She has been trying for (only) 4 months, but I know when you first start, 4 months can feel like a lifetime. I wonder how hard it is for her to work with so many women struggling to conceive, women the same age as she is. Like me, crying in her office when my IVF didn’t work. She has a really positive attitude, but I could see she seemed a little worried. She said that her husband and she have decided if it doesn’t happen in the next 4 cycles, they will see a doctor. They have no idea if anything is wrong yet, so she is just going to assume that everything is fine. Ahhh. I remember those days. She gives her husband acupuncture treatments and is going to someone herself. She has been charting, etc.  

I hope it works for her. I truly, truly do.

My new friend

8dp3dt

My new friend “C” was really nice. Her story was pretty amazing. She married a guy 15 years her senior when she was 25. When she was about 30 they started TTC, but nothing happened. Her husband has three kids from a prior marriage (they were in grade school when they got married) so they were completely surprised when the RE told them that sperm motility was the issue. They went straight to IVF. The first cycle, they got 7 eggs (just like me) and put two in. They froze two and the other three didn’t make it. She got pregnant the first time! Surprisingly her low beta numbers turned out to be twins. She carried the twins to term, but one of them died three days after he was born. So sad. I wasn’t really sure what the complication was. She said something about the baby’s penis having retained some fluid and getting an infection, but I didn’t really understand what happened….I didn’t want to ask questions, she was getting teary talking about it. But her other baby thrived and is now in 2nd grade.

After the trauma of losing a baby, her husband was completely against embryo transfers of more than one embryo. He was just too scared of having multiples. So they did FIVE more IVFs, transferring one embryo only. None of them stuck. For the last attempt, they put two embryos in, and she has her 4 year old son.

When we were having coffee at the Starbucks, this other woman walked in that I recognized, but didn’t know. She was also a mom at PT’s school. C knows her and after the other woman left, C told me that the woman also did IVF! She had triplets and one of them was lost as well, but she has her twins in 2nd grade. It made me wonder…how many other kids at PT’s school came from IF treatments? For the last 5+ years, every time I went to PTs school for whatever reason, I always looked around feeling sorry myself, looking at all the moms and thinking they all had it so easy. But obviously that was not the right attitude. The stat is something like 20% of couples have trouble conceiving. So, out of the 500 or so families at PT’s school, maybe 50-75 dealt with IF? (I dropped it from 20% to 10-15% because I guess some couples who go through IF never end up having kids…so obviously they wouldn’t be at PT’s school). But this was really eye opening. Sometimes I am so self absorbed. Even though I realize that IF hits so many people, it is hard not to just focus on ME, ME, ME.

C was really sweet, but kind of dingy. I told her that I had questionable egg quality based upon my fertilization report. She said, “What is a fertilization report?” And she asked a bunch of questions about IVF that I thought someone who had been through it seven times would already know…I realize she did it starting 7 years back and maybe things have changed somewhat, but still. I thought SHE would be more of expert, but she seemed to just look at the whole process as some sort of miracle. It seems like she went through the motions for IVF, but didn’t do any reading about it and never tried to UNDERSTAND what was going on in her body. I guess everyone is different. I couldn’t go through this process without trying to understand everything.

She also kept repeating herself that she KNOWS I am pregnant, she just knows it. I like positive attitudes, and I certainly need them, but sometimes it is annoying. She kept saying, “You have good egg quality!” but I had just told her that we weren’t sure about that. She wants me to call her on Friday so we can meet that night (the night of my beta). I am so nervous. I guess I will see how I feel. If I have a negative beta, I think I will be crawling under a rock for a while.

One thing I have been thinking about that really threw me at acupuncture on Saturday. Of all people, K has always been SUPER positive during this process. She has always said I don’t need any luck, that IVF was going to work for me, blah, blah. For some reason when K does this it isn’t annoying…maybe because I feel like she has experience dealing with IF people in her practice and she has seen the success stories with her own two eyes. But this last session, when she asked me how I felt and I told her that I didn’t think it worked, she didn’t try to talk me out of that feeling. She just said, ‘Oh, okay’ and became quiet. Then I was the one that tried to explain that maybe it did work, I don’t have symptoms but it may not mean anything, some people don’t have any symptoms this early….and K agreed with me, but she was kind of quiet about it. Then later she even slipped and said, “So next time you try IVF…” So, I have a feeling K doesn’t think it worked either.

Trying to just hold out until Friday, but having another BFN after all this is going to be really hard to bear.

I know I should wait…

7dp3dt

I am wasting posts with my annoying drivel. I should probably wait a few days so that I have something interesting to say! But I am bored and distracted. So I am going to use this blog to waste a few minutes.

I had acupuncture yesterday and she told me to buy some acidophilis for my yeast infection. I ran out and bought some and started taking it, but it hasn’t helped yet. It is weird to think I am ingesting billions of bacteria on purpose! But it is supposed to replace the bacteria that the doxycycline killed last week. I hope it gets the yeast problem under control. Believe me, progesterone suppositories + yeast infection = wanting to jump out the window.

My acupuncturist always takes my pulses and yesterday she said that my pulses were “hungry” and asked if I had eaten anything yet. I hadn’t. I always wonder when she takes my pulses — do pregnant women have pregnant pulses? Would she be able to tell if I am pregnant before I get my beta? I guess it is moot b/c my next appointment is on Saturday morning and my beta is on Friday. GAWD. The 2WW is so slow. I am only half way there. It seems that my ET was SO long ago but it was at 11:30am last Sunday!

So far symptoms can be completely attributed to progesterone supplements: really sore boobs, bloated, gassy, cranky, hungry all the time, constipated, peeing every three seconds. WOW. I am such a joy to live with right now!

My plan to ask for the receipt from my SIL for PT’s jacket backfired on me. She went into this huge tale (LIE) about how she bought it at this one department store, and that she even thought that the sleeves looked a little short, but that the sales girl said the kids are wearing thermal shirts underneath jackets with short sleeves now, it is all the rage. This department store she mentioned always puts a sticker on the tag so that if the receipt is lost, you can still return it. This jacket had NO TAGS anywhere. Don’t you leave tags on gifts when you give them? I just cut the small part with the price off. My SIL lies so much, she begins to believe her own lies. It is quite amazing. Anyway, the next thing she said was that PT would be getting a gift certificate for that store in the mail. Which was fine! I thought “I WON!”. Then the next message was that my SIL wanted to drive down here today and take PT shopping. OMG. Seeing SIL twice in one weekend is enough to make me gag and I don’t even have morning sickness (yet). I think she is feeling tres guilty that we called her on her bullshit finally. Anyway, I e-mailed her back that the Sunday after Thanksgiving is the WORST day to drive during the whole year, and that we had plans anyway (LIE). She was mad, but I don’t care. She thinks the world revolves around her and no one ever has plans to do anything, we just wait around for her to announce that she is coming and expects everyone to bow.

Today I am meeting a girl for the first time. A mutual friend met her in Hawaii last year when their families were in adjacent townhouses for 10 days. This new friend lives only 2 blocks from me, and her kids go to PT’s school! I am sure I am going to recognize her when I see her…this should be interesting. And the topper: She was IF for years and both her kids are from IVF! I can’t wait to meet her. She sounds super sweet. She promised to keep my IF/IVF a secret b/c the last thing TW wants is for the news to spread through the school gossip mill. She actually promised over her kids’ dead bodies, which I think I can completely trust. She left me a long message on my cell phone when we were trying to coordinate a meeting, and mentioned that her oldest son was a fighter…her first beta was so low (13) that everyone at the IVF clinic was already giving her condolences and telling her that it was not a viable pregnancy. But they kept doing betas and the the number got bigger and bigger…and she had a perfectly healthy baby. Miracles happen every day.

I hope one can happen for me too.

Debriefing Halloween & Other Stuff

Ack, PT is watching a horrible movie. I was watching with her but just couldn’t take it anymore. “She’s the Man”. Don’t see it. Luckily the computer is 5 feet away from the TV in this tiny house we are living in, so I can work on this without completely abandoning PT.

Two nights ago I thought I was going to have to go to the hospital at 2am. I woke up with a horrible side pain on my lower left side, like on my ovary. I didn’t think it was the Lu.pron since it is a suppressor, but I wasn’t sure. I tried to Dr. Google it at 3am and although all the side effects listed on various sites said, “Pain” there was very little information on what kind of pain. Doesn’t the word “pain” seem a little vague??? What kind of pain? Anyway, I ended up calling the nurse on call at 5am and she told me to take some advil and try to go back to sleep. She said if the pain was still there at 7:30am when they open, that I should come in for an ultrasound. Well, the pain did go away after the advil and hasn’t been back since. Maybe it was something to do with my period, but it felt really weird, almost like really strong O pain. Who knows. I am worried that there is something wrong going on with my girlie parts. I guess I will find out on Friday (tomorrow).

I picked up 5 bags of candy on the way to work yesterday (Halloween), to get into the spirit. We had a huge bowl of candy on the front desk, and I was really good up until about 10 minutes to 5, when I scarfed down 3 mini reese’s PBCs and 3 mini Hershey’s bars (did you know they make them with cashews now??).

Anyway, C came to work dressed up as a bee. The costume was adorable. She wore black clothes and had an antenna headband and wings and a little stinger pinned to her butt. At the end of the day she offered me the costume b/c she knew I was going Trick or Treating with PT and her friend. I was on the fence about actually going Trick or Treating or staying home and handing out candy. I ended up choosing going out because I hate the going back and forth to the door thing…with the doggie freaking out each time there is a knock on the door, etc.

I got home from work and TW was carving pumpkins with PT and her friend M. I have to say, my heart swells with love and pride when I watch TW interacting with PT and her friends. He really, truly, is the best father. He is funny and caring and attentive….our baby is going to be SO lucky. Anyway, they were just finishing up carving when I walked in the door, and then the girls got ready. I put on the bee costume, PT was dressed as a fairy, and M was Spider Woman. We left right as it got dark and walked the streets for about an hour and a half. Apparently going out with the kids is the dad’s job! Every group of kids was accompanied by the dads, and none of them were dressed up. At one point I was waiting for the girls at the base of a driveway and there was a group of 3 dads waiting for their kids (they were all drinking beers!), and none of them had costumes on. I smiled and looked at them and said, “Guess I didn’t get the memo!” and they just looked at me cross-eyed. Sometimes I hate my neighborhood, everyone is so clique-y and snooty!

Yes, it is hard to be an IFer and go out for Halloween. But at the same time, I like seeing all the cute kids dressed up and having so much fun. PT and M got about 11 pounds of candy each - I kid you not. And I think I ate about 5 pounds myself. I feel like such a lard-ass. I don’t think the lup.ron is helping in that regard either. I feel so bloated all the time!

TW left on a trip this morning and won’t be back until late tomorrow night. He is going to miss my base-line ultrasound tomorrow. I hope things go well…I don’t really know what they are looking for, but my instructions say if the u/s looks good, I will start Folli.stim tomorrow. I will also start baby aspirin, and TW will start his doxy.cycline (I packed two pills for him to bring with him). I have to write the BIG check tomorrow too, for 4 cycles of IVF. We want to lock in the price for a 38 year old with an FSH level below 10….I am 38 and a half now, and if the first cycle doesn’t work and I am 39 when we try the 2nd, the prices get jacked up.

Went to acupuncture today. She is so positive, I just love her. She is very hopeful for us. She keeps saying she KNOWS that IVF will work for us. She doesn’t know if it will work the very first time, but she “knows” it will work. God, I hope she is right.

Oh — two nights ago we got Chinese food and my fortune said, “No obstacles will stand in the way of your success this month”. Seeing as it was just two days before the end of October, I am going to assume that it applies to November. I kissed the fortune (yes, literally kissed it!) and put it in my wallet for good luck. I guess I am back to my superstitious self!

Busy Weekend

I had a pretty busy weekend, for a weekend that we had nothing planned since we were supposed to be up in the Mountains!

PT had a soccer game on Saturday morning. Since we were supposed to be heading out of town, she did not bring her soccer gear to our place. So we called X to ask if she could bring the jersey, shorts, socks, cleats and shin guards, etc. X is a “coach”. I put that in quotes because she is basically more of a cheerleader, she has never played soccer in her life and doesn’t even know the rules. She just jumps up and down and yells a lot. Anyway, we show up to the game - you would think X would be happy since we weren’t going to be there. Well, X only brought the shorts and jersey, not the cleats or shin guards. Then she went off on me totally within ear-shot, like it was all my fault. Poor TW had to drive all the way home (30 minutes) to pick up the stuff. Since X was going to bring everything, we figured she would bring EVERYTHING. It is just like everything else with X - nothing is ever simple. Anyway, once we got that all squared away, PT ended up scoring TWO goals  and her team won 3-1! It was very exciting. But I was really pissed that some how I was blamed for X’s own inability to be normal. Plus I never even spoke to her about the soccer gear. It was between TW and X. WHATEVER. But then at the end of the game, X came running up to me and was chatting with me like we were old friends. I think she has borderline personality disorder or something. She is a freak.

That afternoon I ditched TW and PT and went and had my nails done with two girlfriends. It was nice to get out and see J1 and A after a pretty long while. J1’s sister is the one that just adopted the baby. After our nails, we went to see the baby. He is too cute for words. Just so perfect! When A held him for the first time, she burst into tears. I was surprised I didn’t do the same thing. J1 is definitely sandwiched between the two generations. Her sister has a week old baby and her dad is suffering with severe Parkinsons/dementia and just had a heart attack two weeks ago. He needs constant care. What a tough situation.

That evening we told PT that she could choose anywhere she wanted to go for dinner. We went to California Pizza Kitchen (of course) and then Cold Stone afterwards. OMG I was so full I thought I would burst. It isn’t helping that the BCP is making me feel like a fat pig (with acne, mind you!). But my coldstone was amazing: Sweet Cream ice cream with heath bars and roasted almonds. YUMMY.

Sunday I blew off puppy class. I had already told the teacher I wouldn’t be there because we were going to be out of town. So I blew it off. It was PT’s 12th birthday on the 5th, so I told her I would take her shopping. J1 and A came with us. We went to the mall and had a nice lunch at Nordstrom’s Cafe and PT picked out some cute clothes. Speaking of cute clothes: the first thing I saw was this orange coat….the same exact coat as I bought last year in red. But I have had this hankering for an orange coat for a year — and now they make it in that color. And it was on sale for $60. So I bought it! They didn’t have it in my size, but Nordstrom will ship for free if you pay for it at the store, so a different store is shipping it. And then — I saw the cream colored one. And I bought that one too. Now I have three of the same coat. One red, one cream, one orange (will arrive in a week). Am I a whack job, or what? Here is the coat. This picture doesn’t do it justice because the lining is this really cool pattern that adds a lot to the design!

I don’t know what is wrong with me. PT can be perfectly sweet, and she bugs me. Not all the time, but there are days I just can’t tolerate anything she does. The way she talks, the way she eats, what she orders at a restaurant, how she holds her fork. I keep telling myself it is part of being a step-mom when I want my own child so badly. I feel terribly guilty when I get these bad feelings towards her. Sweet Christmas, she is 12 years old and behaving better than most 12 year olds that I have met! So what the heck is wrong with me? I need to be more conscious of this, it really isn’t fair to PT. When I married TW, I promised to take good care of her, and I really do my best. But some days it is really hard. Some days I feel selfish and wish she wasn’t around. Ugh. I feel SO guilty saying that.

I had acupuncture today, it was a quick appointment. K was running 10 minutes late and then for some reason we started blathering and by the time she put the needles in, I only had 20 minutes. She assures me that it is enough time. I have to watch it with the chatting, I can get super chatty (can you tell)?

I called the pharmacy and my meds are ready, I am going to pick them up tomorrow. I asked for the total amount: $1999.70. YIKES. However, the protocol said between $2000 and $4000 per cycle. Guess I was on the bottom range…that is a nice surprise! I am so ready to get going on this.

 

 

 

Side Note

We ended up staying, we blew off the mountain trip. TW has been helping the contractors and decided it would be a good idea to try out the jack-hammer. Yeah, well… he hurt his back and didn’t want to drive 6+ hours yesterday. It was pouring rain too, and on a Friday night the traffic would be horrific. I was secretly relieved but didn’t say anything (I hate doing short trips with long drives).

I saw the sperm analysis results: 5 million per mL and only 1.1 mL. Only 24% motile. That means he only squirted out 1.32 million motile sperm. No wonder I wasn’t getting pregnant! I kept asking the nurse whether they got enough, and she assured me. They froze it for a back-up. I convinced TW that he should still plan on doing it again the day of retrieval if he is around, and he agreed. At least we have a back-up ready to go.

We made a final decision that we are going to do the 4 cycle package. That gives me 24 months to get pregnant and would include 4 fresh cycles if needed, and all the frozen cycles possible.

Oh - I mentioned to the nurse that I was going to acupuncture and she asked me who I see. I told her about K, and she said, ‘OH! K comes here and does acupuncture on the day of transfer if you would rather not go to her office for it.’ I wonder why K didn’t mention this? She did tell me to plan for two sessions on the day of transfer, but didn’t tell me she would do it at the IVF clinic. I will check in with her about that on Monday morning when I go next time.

I had an acupuncture session on Thursday after work (still love it) and asked K if she was a doula. She smiled and said she was going to get her training done soon because it would work well with her on-call gig at the hospital. However, she doesn’t want to advertise that she is a doula, she will just do it for her established acupuncture patients. Something to think about — I am not sure if I want a doula, but since I already know (and love) K, it sounds more attractive!

Please let this work! I feel like I have placed all my eggs (and hopes) in one basket, but it is the only basket that was left, so I had to take it. I am at the point where I cannot imagine that it won’t work. Which on the one hand is amazingly optimistic of me (Ms. Doom & Gloom), but on the other hand, I am setting myself up for a BIG disappointment.