YAYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!

I held myself back from mentioning anything election-related all these months, but I'm too excited to not do so now! I am thrilled and definitely wishing I were home right now!!!!! Yay for America! :)

A White Halloween?

I thought that only in Canada could it snow before Halloween...but Jess and Sarah got snow today too! I fully agree with Sarah...why in the world is it snowing already?? I'm already popping out of my winter coat, but I was hoping I would have had a little longer till I had to go buy a new one. While I do enjoy the magic of the first snow, I hate winter in general. I used to hate winter when I lived in the South too, but that type of weather is actually known as fall here! So you can imagine how not so thrilled I am that winter has gotten a nice head start already.

I'm very slowly catching up on my blog reading and commenting...I apologize if I haven't dropped by your blog in a long time. While I am thankfully feeling significantly better than before, I still have yucky moments and am generally tired most of the time. But I'm getting there, slowly but surely. I've been eating real foods, which is thrilling. I still can't stand any ethnic food (which wouldn't matter if we weren't "ethnic" ourselves :), but I am tolerating blander, less spicy foods pretty well. And I'm finally on the positive side for weight gain! I'm now at +1 lbs - I finally regained the weight I had lost early on. All the books suggest that weight gain prior to 20 weeks for a twin pregnancy is what's most important...so I have 6 weeks in which to try to gain a lot of weight. :)

Could It Be...2nd Trimester??

Today, something amazing happened.

I cooked.

From scratch.

With raw meat!

I am still in shock. And that better be the best chicken pot pie ever, because I will be sorely disappointed if it's not after all the effort I put into it.

I haven't cooked in three months. Not real cooking anyway. No desire to eat, combined with newly found olfactory abilities that could rival a search dogs, combined with persistent back-pain and general not-feeling-well led to...DH cooking. If it can be called that (if you're reading this, I love you and appreciate all your efforts btw!!). Actually, for the most part, we've been getting take out and eating ready-made type foods.

I've been going through a "food of the week" phenomenon...each week there's something that I like and can tolerate, and it's the only thing I can stomach. I eat it for about a week, and then, without warning, suddenly it becomes as disgusting as everything else. Early on while I was still visiting my family, it was baked potatoes. But only baked potatoes from Wendy's. I was happy, because there's a Wendy's not far from our place. Except that by the time I got back to Canada, I couldn't stand them anymore. Then it was pizza, but that only lasted for a few days. I can't remember the weeks after that...who knows what I was eating then. A couple of weeks ago it was pizza buns/frozen pizza pockets. Last week it was Kraft macaroni and cheese. Yes, it's been a very healthy pregnancy so far.

This week, I thought the food of the week might be pierogies...but I got incredibly bloated after the first time I had them, so I guess that's not happening.

And today, miraculously, I wanted real food! Not just carbs that come out of a cardboard box or the freezer.

I somehow managed to defrost, cut, and cook the chicken without ever touching it. Impressive, I know.

I'm wondering...could this be the dawn of the 2nd trimester?? I have been praying for some reprieve from my aversion to food and crazy eating habits. I sincerely hope it's coming, along with my pot pie!

Still Infertile

I'm a bad girl. And a mean person.

I'm so glad DH is not home so I can write this and get it off my mind in peace.

Today DH and a few of his good friends got together for lunch. You know how you have circles of friends, or different sets of friends? This is one of our sets of friends, and while the guys are close, I'm not especially close to their wives.

So he calls me, on his way to pick me up (since I'm out with a different group of friends, ie, not the wives of these guys), and says guess what, I have good news. And I knew what that meant. Since they're all married. Obviously the next good news is baby.

So this girl is due about a week before me. And I'm...I don't even know what. I can't even express how I felt when I heard the news. What is wrong with me?? I forced myself to call her as soon as I got home and left a fakely happy voice mail for her. I'm dreading the conversation in which I have to commiserate with pregnancy symptoms and be over-excited with her.

I'm obviously happy for them, because I have nothing against them, and they're generally nice people. Okay fine. DH and her husband are good friends, but I could never quite hit it off with her. I usually get along with everybody, ie, I have no trouble getting along with anyone. She just comes off as kind of snobby, and that's a little hard for me to deal with. But I don't have any real issues or anything, because, I just don't have issues with people.

So ya, at a logical level I'm happy for them, because, well, that is the normal reaction.

But it's like, I'm annoyed. Almost angry. Why can she just up and get pregnant so easily? She's younger than me and has been married half as long as I have. And now they're sharing u/s videos on cell phones - that's how her husband broke the news. And being excited and announcing their good news to everyone. And taking childbirth classes. And openly complaining about morning sickness.

DH says, now you can share all your pregnancy stuff with her, since our due dates are so close. And I'm thinking, I don't want to share anything with her! How can she possibly understand how I feel about this pregnancy? How can she relate to all those months and months that have shaped and contributed to who I am now and what this pregnancy means to me?

Why is it so easy for everyone else? Not everyone else, because I know you guys understand, and it hasn't been easy for many of you. But it's so easy for those people to get pregnant and plan it and have it happen whenever they want, while we go through month after month of disappointment. Then they can share their news and be excited, while even after we do get pregnant, we sit here deathly afraid of miscarriage, or pre-term labor, or pre-e, or a million other things. I'm too afraid to let anyone know I'm pregnant for fear of all those what ifs.

Once infertile, always infertile, huh? I've heard so many other IF-ers say that it doesn't change after you get pregnant. I still feel completely out of place and like I don't belong with all those other pregnant people.

1st Trip to ER + 1st OB Appt

I'm sorry I've been such a bad blogger. :(
You guys are the best, and I am in tears over your concern and sweet comments.

The summary version of this is, everything is fine. Babies are fine and so am I. Both trips were uneventful and boring, which is a good thing. I still feel sick/tired/back pain and the latest symptom of headaches, so it's been hard to sit at the computer to blog after having been in class all day too.

The long version:

After the super pain of Thursday continued into Friday, I tried to reach the OB's office all day, couldn't get through. Called the fertility clinic out of desperation, they said to go to the ER. So we packed up and went to the ER for our Friday date night. :)

Blood tests, urine tests, physical exam, all looked fine. No cause or reason found for the pains at all. We got to see the babies on an u/s, and we saw their heartbeats looked fine, and that is all I needed to know to be able to breathe easier. DH was also relieved, but he seems to be more impacted by the fact that one of the babies "was like, doing BACKFLIPS!" :)

I did nothing all weekend long, and the cramping went down considerably. Monday I had my first OB appointment. Thankfully, I had read a bunch of reviews of this doctor online, so I was prepared. As my family doctor (whose daughter-in-law had the same OB said) said, "great doctor, but she has no personality." I made sure I had all my questions answered, but it was definitely a very cut and dry appointment, and later I realized, she didn't actually tell me anything of her own accord - any information I got out of the appointment was from my own questions. So I'm not thrilled with her, but everyone says she's a good doctor, and I'm not sure if I have any choice, to be honest. I feel strongly about seeing a female physician, and she's the only high-risk female OB that the fertility clinic recommended. The clinic said I don't need to start with a high-risk OB, but I might need to switch to one, so I might as well just get started with her.

One thing I am slightly concerned about is the huge number of u/s. I know most people are thrilled to see their babies, and trust me, I am too, but I've already had 4 u/s, and the OB said I will have one at every appt, which is every 3 weeks! It's still a form of radiation, isn't it? It just seems like it's overkill.

Other than that, all is well. Cramping is pretty much gone, and that is a big relief. I'm using heat for my back and starting prenatal yoga tomorrow, so hopefully both will help. I've had a bad headache every single evening, and I never get headaches, but I know it's because I had to cram in a lot of studying all at once since I did nothing all weekend. So hopefully this subsides on its own.

I've had so many blog posts in my mind, because while it may seem like I am consumed with nausea, vomiting, running to the bathroom, sleeping, and pain, I do have a lot more going through my mind right now...:) It's just that all of the above are making it hard to sit down at the computer and reflect.

I hope you all are doing well. I will slowly try to catch up with everyone this weekend. Thanks for being so awesome, as always. : )

Scared

Hello blogging friends. I'm still alive. Just exhausted. And sick. And overwhelmed.

So many thoughts have been going through my mind that they've all ended up jumbled up together, in an un-bloggable state. Too mixed up and messy to sort through and make coherent.

Today things are pretty straightforward and clear though. I'm scared.

I've been having lower back pain for the last few weeks, brought on by sleeping inclined to try to reduce the pain of acid reflux and awful nausea upon waking up. I had been applying a hot water bag to my back, mentioned it in passing at a gathering to my only IRL friend who knows I'm pregnant, who looked at me with big eyes and mouthed, "NO." This was on Monday night.

So no heat therapy on Monday or Tuesday, was out for 12+ hours on Tuesday, first time did something like that after knowing I'm pregnant, huge mistake. In crippling pain on Wednesday, google what to do for back pain, resort to heating pad again. Go out for about 3 hours last night, thinking all is well. Return home, joined by the return of the severe pain.

This morning the pain was back in its severe form, this time accompanied by occasional sharp pains on both sides of my lower abdomen. Passed it off to gas/bloating/constipation due to my poor eating habits of late. During my usual morning blog perusal, somehow stumble upon an article that lists three signs of miscarriage: bleeding (which I have had none of), uterine cramps, lower back pain.

Well, as it was, after my friend said her doctor said no heat for pain whatsoever, I had already been panicking about how I must have hurt my babies, but after today, I was sure. I'm trying to be positive. But I'm scared now and don't know what to do. I called the OB's office (I haven't been there yet, first appointment is next Monday), but no one answered. The fertility clinic closes early, so there was no point calling them.

The back pain is literally crippling...as in without heat, I can hardly move. I do have a previous history of back issues, so it's not really a surprise, but it is odd that it hasn't gone away with a change in sleeping position and heat therapy for about 3 weeks.

I'm scared. I know I have to place my trust in God, and I do, but I'm still scared and can't stop thinking about what if my babies aren't ok??

The Pregnancy Diet

First Picture

The ultrasound images weren't very clear at all, but I'm happy to have something to look at...suddenly it all seems so much more real.

Thank You God

Just got back from the clinic. I had made myself physically ill with worry the last few days and felt especially awful this morning.

Thank God...HUGE sigh of relief.

Baby A: 8w6d, heartbeat 176
Baby B: 8w5d, heartbeat 172

Will update later with pictures and details. I'm going to go nap now; I think I can finally sleep peacefully.

Thank you all SO much for your support. I'm so touched by all of you who came and checked in on me in the last three weeks and even remembered today was our big day. I don't even know how to explain how much it means to me. Thank you. :)

8 Days a Week

It's been an 8-day week for us, a whirlwind of 8 days which have brought so much change to our lives, yet have gone by so slowly as well. I feel as though I have experienced every minute of these 8 days...it feels like far more than 8 days have gone past.

I took the advice of the majority of you and decided to not go in for the ultrasound today. My mom told me, if I were in Canada now, I wouldn't be having an u/s, so why bother getting an extra one today. I agreed. I called at 10am to cancel the appointment.

At 12:45pm (I happen to know the exact time because I was looking at the clock, waiting for my online class to start back up), I had a sudden very sharp pain in my lower stomach region. I ran to the bathroom, thinking that perhaps it was one of those crazy weirdo gas problems. As soon as I got there, the pain got even more intense, and I ran back out to lie on my bed. The pain was getting stronger and sharper, spreading from what I assumed was my uterus all the way up through my stomach, up to my chest. I could neither lie down nor sit up, nor could I find any sort of position that alleviated the pain. I writhed and moaned in pain for 15 minutes, praying to God to protect my baby and me, frightened to death about what could be happening. Was this the beginning signs of an ectopic? Was my body going through a miscarriage?

My parents (who are both physicians too, sure comes in handy :) said to see if I could go in for the u/s, and thankfully the original time slot was available. By the time of the u/s, the pain had significantly subsided into a dull ache.

The u/s tech said, "This is a Clomid pregnancy? Likely you had a nasty cyst." Apparently I had developed a large cyst (no way to know how large) that had ruptured - this was the cause of that unbearable pain. And the u/s showed that my cramping from last week was likely due to other smaller cysts that had ruptured. I have one more that is 3.5cm which we hope will just dissolve but could rupture - the tech said this one is much smaller than the one that ruptured today would have been.

At this point, honestly, I was so incredibly thankful that I wasn't having a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy, that I didn't care about much else. But I am pregnant (ahhhh!!!), and I was having an u/s, so obviously we had to look at the uterus too.

And this is what we saw.


It's not a great picture, since it's a picture of a picture, and I forgot to turn the flash off...but I think it's still pretty clear. :)

So, like I said, it's been some 8 days for us. We are thrilled, but of course we are still very cautious...it's incredibly early. One baby measured 4 weeks 5 days, and the other measured 4 weeks 4 days. It's still too early for a heartbeat, and the gestational sacs themselves are so small (about 2 mm) that the u/s tech couldn't see inside them.

Now we wait patiently for Sept. 18th - the 8 week u/s at the fertility clinic back home. I know anything can happen between now and then, and even after then, but I'm so incredibly thankful that so far all is going well, and we've been blessed by two babies, which we pray will stick with us for the next 9 months.

Again, I'm so touched by all your support and comments, especially in light of my inability to return any comments right now. I'm with my family now (who are spoiling me rotten!), and I likely won't be back online until I return home mid-September. In the meantime, I will miss reading your blogs, but I look forward to catching up with everyone when I get back. Thanks so much for your prayers, thoughts, and support. :)

Betas, Take Two

Beta hcg: 1968
at 17 DPO

Progesterone wasn't repeated because it was fine at the previous check.

The office said that they would now schedule me for an ultrasound to make sure the pregnancy isn't ectopic - this is their routine procedure. But my fertility clinic said they don't do an u/s until 7-8 weeks. Everything I'm having done here is out of pocket...what do you guys think? Is this 5 week u/s necessary or a good idea? My parents are willing to pay for everything, but I think I'd rather save that money, as future baby expenses are suddenly closer than I had imagined!

I feel...in shock. As I did last Sunday morning, when that second line showed up. After the positive pee-stick, I was thrilled, but cautious. After Tuesday's betas, I was relieved, but still waiting. Now...it's real! And I can hardly believe it...

I've spent so long learning how to get pregnant, that I pushed the idea of being pregnant far out of my mind. Yesterday I was asking DH to see if he could find the pregnancy workout DVDs I bought...last January - yes, January 2007. You see, in the beginning, I thought about pregnancy and labor and babies and raising kids all the time, because, of course, I was about to become a mom the day we started TTC-ing! When it didn't happen, and failure was repeatedly followed by failure, a year and a half later, I had completely pushed out all thoughts of pregnancy, let alone babies and child-rearing.

All this week, I've just kind of pretended like nothing was happening. I tried to avoid sushi, but then all my friends became suspicious, so I went with them anyway and had a cooked roll (then immediately felt guilty about the teeny, tiny, minute possiblity of cross-contamination). But other than that, unlike the old me, I haven't been reading and googling every single thing about pregnancy...because I just wasn't ready to believe until now.

I'm still cautious, because I know anything can happen, and the risk of miscarriage is still pretty high until 12 weeks, but I can no longer pretend like I'm not sure that I'm pregnant. Because for now, I am...that p word that I can't even imagine I'm saying in reference to me! I'm pregnant, thanks be to God.

Betas, Take One

Beta hcg: 657
Progesterone: 52.4
at 15 DPO

This is good, right? I'm not sure what's considered good...I think what's more important is that the numbers double every two days? I just had my second draws today, so we'll be able to see if the numbers are doubling properly or not tomorrow. I got to speak to the nurse as well, and she said cramping is very normal in early pregnancy, so I am breathing much easier now. I just got really nervous about it, because it kept feeling like I was about to get my period. But thank you all for putting my mind at ease, that this is indeed normal.

After tomorrow, I'll hopefully be able to relax even more. Thank you all for your support. :) Forgive me for not being able to visit each of your blogs; I hadn't planned to blog at all while at home, but then there was a turn of events, which I couldn't wait for a whole month to post. :)

Just Around the Corner

Yesterday my mom was driving me home from my eye appointment, since moms are cool and love to take care of you when you go home [well...mine does at least...but I know not everyone's may be cool like that :( ]. As we were turning into our subdivision, she said, "It's so interesting looking at the faces of people who are waiting to turn onto the main road...their faces are so stressed, they're just waiting for their turn and feeling stressed."

How true it is. We've all been waiting and waiting, waiting for our turn to get onto that road. While we wait, we wait in agony, we wait in the stress of the unknown. We don't know when our turn will come, and we don't know what's around the bend in the road when we do finally make our way onto it.

We are so very thankful to God for our BFP on Sunday morning...I've never had a positive HPT (heck, I even used to get excited about OPKs, since I'd never seen two lines on a peestick in my life!). Just getting a positive HPT is a huge breakthrough for us.

But I'm also nervous - I've been cramping since last week (which is why I was so sure I'd be getting my period on Sunday), and I'm out of Canada and have no insurance here. I don't know what's around the corner for me. I went in for my betas today and am anxiously waiting for the call from the doctor's office tomorrow (but not so anxiously waiting for my bill).

I'm overwhelmed by your comments and so grateful to all of you who have dropped by and congratulated us...I had no idea that many people were even reading me! Thank you so much for your support...please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we wait for the betas to come back tomorrow.

The Blog Post That Finally Happened

25 OPKs + 10 HPTs value pack = $21.95

Pre-Seed Multi-use Tube + Pre Lube Tube = $33.98

5 day prescription of 100mg Clomid = $21.82

[all of the above just ordered, still shrink-wrapped and untouched]

Changing my flight to return at a later date = $350





= PRICELESS

A "Disease" I'd Be Happy to Catch

see more pwn and owned pictures

I'm still Alive, Thanks :)

In the two weeks since I last posted, I've had a million and one blog posts composed in my mind that never quite made it to being published (or even typed up). Things have been a little hectic; there's so much to say, and yet it's all a big jumble now. Under normal circumstances I would have been typing away through this whole time, so everything wouldn't be so confused and mixed up in my mind now.

So this will be an update post, an explanation of sorts for my absence.

Two weekends ago, I developed an eye infection that stubbornly refused to go away till a couple of days ago. I did my best to keep up with your posts, and I tried to comment, but when my eyes were hurting too much, I just stopped and marked all those posts in Google Reader as read....it was a great sense of guilt accompanied by relief. :) So if I didn't make it around to commenting on your blog, please forgive me.

Now my eyes are better, from the infection at least, but I've been practically living at my in-laws the last few days getting ready for my SIL's engagement party tomorrow...leaving little time for blogging. Wish us luck that all goes well and my cooking is edible and appreciated.

Today my eyes hurt again, but that's because I've been drowning in tears, angry tears, sad tears, painful tears, tears that make no sense to me, all yesterday and today. I know it's all just the stupid Clomid, but the way it makes you feel is so painful, and that pain you feel is real. Previously I had been jumping back and forth from Jekyll to Hyde, but I feel like in the last few days I've been propelled downward into Hyde-ness - and it's not a pretty sight. I'm scared to even think of what next month's 100mg will turn me into.

Sunday I'm going home. Yay! An escape from being surrounded by babies and pregnant women and those insidious little comments and hints on when I may be joining their ranks. Unfortunately, though almost every single one of you advised me to go and stay my full three weeks, my guilt conscience couldn't let me skip the next cycle...so I'm going for 10 days. Half as long as usual, but better than nothing.

I probably will not be able to blog or even read your blogs while I'm gone, as I do not want to be "discovered" while at home. :) So it'll be another long absence, in which you all will be missed. I'll do my best to catch up when I return - "see" you when I get back! :)

One Word Meme - Post #50!

Tagged by Echloe. I like these nice, short memes. :)
Rules: Answer each question with one word and tag four others.

1. Where is your cell phone? None

2. Your significant other? DH

3. Your hair? Long

4. Your mother? Awesome

5. Your father? Phenomenal

6. Your favorite thing? Chocolate

7. Your dream last night? Weird

8. Your favorite drink? Water

9. Your dream/goal? Motherhood

10. The room you're in? Dining

11. Your hobby? Sewing

12. Your fear? Childlessness

13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? USA

14. What you're not? Mean

15. Muffins? Bran

16. One of your wish list items? WiiFit

17. Where you grew up? South

18. The last thing you did? Prayed

19. What are you wearing? PJs

20. Favorite Gadget? MagicBullet

21. Your pet? None

22. Your computer? Dying

23. Your mood? Hormonal

24. Missing someone? Family

25. Your car? None

26. Something you are not wearing? Contacts

27. Favorite Store? Kohls

28. Like someone? Yes

29. Your favorite color? Blue

30. When is the last time you laughed? Yesterday

31. Last time you cried? Monday

Tagging Mandy, Bobby, Gibson Twins, and My Infertility Diaries.

New Look, New Hopes

In the spirit of renewing my hopes for this cycle (and the ones to follow...but hopefully there won't be any, since hopefully this is the one! :), I've brightened up my blog. I never intended to stay with the black layout, I just got lazy and forgot all about it. But I realized that it's time to step up and start doing things, no matter how small, to help me continue to stay energized and optimistic. So, what do you guys think? :)

I'm also taking steps on a new look for me. I finally joined SparkPeople, and their tracking system is awesome. It helps a lot to track my food and exercise throughout the day to see how I'm doing. There's just something about being able to see your progress - I know I won't be shedding any pounds right away, so just seeing the calories I'm burning is motivating. I've gone to the gym every day that I could in the last two weeks, and I plan to continue.

In the midst of the renewed hope and optimism that is me, I'm still battling the Clomid monster that has set up shop in my body. I don't think I ever understood before when people would talk about depression or mood swings being out of their control, but now I finally do. When the mood strikes, it strikes hard and fast - out of nowhere, I'll get very angry, or I'll feel very upset and hopeless. It's frustrating because it seems like it is out of my control - I know it's happening, but I can't do anything to stop it.

I'm hoping that doing things to keep myself upbeat and finally taking care of my body will help me to fight off the mood swings. And if it means having a chance to have a baby, I'll gladly continue fighting them off for a few more months.

Feeling Better

Just got back from the clinic...ladies, thank you SO much for your help and advice! I was pleased with how today's appointment went, much better than last time in which I was told that nothing was wrong and I should just keep having sex. Since I'm sure that none of us TTC-ing have thought of that yet, right? :)

What a difference it makes to have all your questions/concerns clearly written out...which I could do, thanks to everyone's suggestions to me.

Basically, the plan is to move up to 100mg Clomid for my third and final month of Clomid. The doctor said that may help stimulate more than one follicle, since it seems like only one was stimulated this time. She said that the hot flashes and mood swings will definitely intensify, but DH and I agreed we'd be willing to risk that (poor him...he bears the brunt of both!).

She answered all my questions, and we have a pretty clear plan to move on to IUI with injectables if we haven't gotten pregnant on our own by that time.

I asked her about a post-coital test, since some of you suggested that, and she said none of the doctors in Canada do that anymore, because basically there is no point - our next step is IUI anyway, so even if my cervical environment is not friendly, it doesn't matter.

That said, I did ask her for alternatives to pre-seed for the next two months while I'm still on Clomid, since that stuff is not very economical at all! And she suggested...raw egg whites. Um, ya...sounds kinda gross. I have read about this before, but I didn't think people actually did it. Have any of you tried this before?? Or do you have any other ideas for pre-seed alternatives?

I'm feeling more optimistic than before...I had been feeling really down in the dumps since AF came this time, doom and gloom, what if it never happens...you know the routine. Having a clear plan definitely helps. And there's always a certain excitement about TTC-ing as O time approaches...;)

Back to the Clinic

First, I'd like to thank you all for your input and suggestions on whether I should take the month off TTC or not...sounds like everyone is encouraging me to take a vacation! :) Since I like avoiding decision-making, I decided to wait to decide until after our appointment with the RE on Tuesday.

So we're back at the clinic on Tuesday morning to figure out what to do next. One round of Clomid gave me nothing but hot flashes and crazy mood swings. I'm on round two now, and if this doesn't work, I am only doing Clomid for one more month. The doctor prescribed 50mg, taken Days 3-7. She said I definitely don't need more than 50mg because 1) I have no problem ovulating on my own and 2) I'm so "tiny" (her words) - what she doesn't realize is that short does not equal tiny, and I'm at the upper limit of "normal" for what my weight should be for my height.

Sooo...I'm wondering...what should I be asking her? Should I request a higher dose of Clomid for the third and final try? Should I be getting more details on IUI? Do I have any other options before IUI? Test results were all clear for both of us, so there is nothing to actually treat. Since she was of the opinion to just wait and keep trying, I want to make sure I have some sort of action plan in my mind to suggest, otherwise I'll be sent home with a prescription to just keep having sex (since we're not doing that already, right??).

Thanks in advance ladies! :)

Baby Dreams

Yesterday I had the most vivid dream I've had in a long time...or at least it was the most vivid dream that I was able to remember. I had just given birth to a baby, a girl, and I felt euphoric. I can't even describe how good I felt in the dream. Somehow, none of my friends knew I was pregnant, so it was a surprise, so everyone was extra excited. I woke up feeling so at peace and so happy.

Then I realized...I don't have a baby. And I'm not pregnant. And I'm an idiot - I merged the real lives of two of my friends into me in my dream.

Last month a good friend who moved to the States after she got married had a baby - we all found out that she had been pregnant after she gave birth to the baby. I have no idea why she didn't tell anyone...something about her husband being really paranoid...(I still don't really get that one).

And last night I got a message from my friend (and downstairs neighbor) that she had her baby girl on Friday night...she sounded so exhausted but so, so happy, like she was in another world.

I'm incredibly happy and excited for her, but I have to admit, I'm a little nervous about how everything is going to hit me, especially since my emotions are off balance due to Clomid. I can't wait to go to the hospital and see the baby, and I can't wait to pull out all the cute little clothes I bought for her and wrap them up...But will that familiar little pain tug at my heart when I hold the baby, wondering when my baby is coming? Will I fall into that pit of despair and hopelessness that Clomid has dragged me down into in the last month?

I'm Sorry, Mom

...for all the times I made fun of your hot flashes.

Because now I know.

Hot flashes SUCK!!!

And I'm way too young to be having them!

Ahhh...the lovely effects of Clomid...

To Go or Not to Go

For the last year and a half, I've been scheduling my life around TTC-ing. And for even longer than that, I've been planning around the possibility of being pregnant.

You know how it is...well, I don't want to start teaching now because I'll probably get pregnant and then I'd have to leave in the middle of the year...ya...WRONG...

Obviously, I haven't gotten pregnant in that time. But I have picked up a new obsession with my google calendar, which I use to plot predicted ovulation dates for "trying times" (those times are trying in more ways than one!) and anticipated AF arrivals.

I'm supposed to be going home in about a month for a few weeks; I usually have to go every few months to take care of some things for my family. Our trying times don't fall right in the middle of the trip, but they fall in a way that my trip would be a lot shorter than usual - less than 2 weeks verses 3 weeks.

Now I'm in a dilemma. We have missed months due to unavoidable circumstances (x-rays, work training for DH), but we haven't voluntarily missed a single month of TTC since we started.

At first I told DH I'd be going for 3 weeks because I'm so tired of planning around TTC-ing and scheduling my whole life around it. I figured the break that month might be good for me mentally too - a whole month in which I won't be fretting over TTC-ing and then the angst of am I pregnant?/am I not? in the 2WW.

But as I was about to book my tickets, I just stopped. I don't have to be gone for 3 weeks...less than 2 is doable. Not ideal, but it can work. And maybe I'll regret missing the opportunity of TTC-ing that month, and more importantly, maybe I'll regret pushing back my treatments even further.

So I'm undecided. I'm sick of planning around TTC, I want to just plan like a normal person would plan. And it will be difficult getting everything taken care of in half the time that I expected to be there. But I'm afraid I'll regret missing the month and the subsequent delay in the next steps of treatment.

I was going to avoid all this by just going earlier, but my SIL's engagement is the weekend of the week I planned to go...so I can't leave any earlier than after that. And I do have to go by the end of August.

Any advice? Would you take the month off and force yourself to relax? Or do you think you'd wish you hadn't "wasted" a month?

The New Baby in Our Family

DH's cousin and her husband and 5 month old baby have just immigrated to Canada from the "motherland" (which must remain unnamed as DH is a stickler for anonymity). They arrived here on Friday, completely exhausted and worn out from the long journey. They are staying with my in-laws until they're able to settle in and find a place of their own.

So...there's a new baby in our family now.

They came to our place today for lunch. Today the full wrath of AF showed; I was in a lot of pain, and just in time for them to come, I developed two very attractive and prominent zits where no one could miss them. Sigh.

But my awesome DH did a lot of the work, so that helped, and everything went fine, more or less.

Just before they left, his cousin took the baby to our bedroom to change him. He was lying on the bed, and one by one, everyone just gathered in our room. My in-laws never come into the bedroom, yet, here we all were, all standing around the bed, laughing, and cooing, and playing with a baby around my bed.

How strange that what I had imagined would be happening one day was indeed happening...but so differently than how I imagined it would be. How strange to think that I was so sure that by now, we would have all gathered around to be playing with my baby...yet there is no sign of any baby of mine...

Maybe being around a baby will help my body get its act together...since being surrounded by tons of pregnant women hasn't seemed to help yet!

Gave In

I gave in to temptation...

and was not rewarded.

I'm 15 DPO...so I don't really have any hope left to hold onto - I'm pretty sure it would have showed up by now.

Stupid BFN. :(

ETA: It's lovely how AF always shows up on the same day that I test.

I Had Two Eggs (No, Three!)

Our morning chat:

DH: hi sweetums
DH: how u feelin?

me: um ok
me: why?
me: something wrong?

DH: your tummy was hurtin last nite, so im checkin up on my [nickname for me]
(referring to the cramping I've been having)

me: oh thanks
me: so far so good
me: i had two eggs
me: 1 real, 1 fake
me: i really want the other real one

DH: how u know?

me: noooooo
me: LOOLLLL
me: i ate two eggs

DH: hehe...

Lol! He's finally thinking in TTC terms! Of course he forgot that the whole point of the ultrasound earlier in the week was to see how many eggs had been released, so we already knew that. So he doesn't quite have all the facts of the process down...but he's trying.

Yes, I did eat three eggs (two real, one egg beaters), but it was breakfast and lunch, and I went to the gym this morning! So I think it was okay. : )

No AF yet. Cramping continues, but less than before. I don't know what to make of that. I resisted testing this morning. I did temp, and my temp is still high...but it doesn't mean much - I could easily get AF on Saturday or Sunday (+/- 1 or 2 days is not unusual for me).

I'm trying not to hope for now...though I got really excited after Mandy and RM said they cramped at the very beginning when they got pregnant. Don't you guys know I'm trying not to get my hopes up?? :) Thank you for trying to be hopeful for me. :)

What a Cute Little Pregnant Woman

That I am not.

But I sure do look like one.

I caught a side-ways glance of myself in the mirror just now, and I do indeed resemble a cute little pregnant woman. I'm wearing one of those maternity-type shirts that are so popular these days which do wonders to emphasize cleavage but also emphasize how much weight I've put on during this TTC journey.

I've probably gained about as much weight as I would have during a pregnancy...which can't be good. Most of it has settled in my lower belly area, and looking pregnant doesn't really help me feel any better about how not pregnant I am.

I didn't realize how much weight I had gained until recently. I decided to weigh myself at the gym, and the number was higher than I've ever seen in my life...a good 30 lbs. over my wedding weight 3 years ago.

It's rather ironic, because I'm guessing this extra weight I'm carrying around isn't helping in the TTC department, but at the same time, the weight has come as a result of all this TTC-ing. I guess I have turned to food to comfort myself for all the disappointments, and now I can't seem to break out of this cycle.

What's scary is that I know many women gain weight due to TTC drugs and their side-effects - but I gained all this weight all on my own, before even the first round of Clomid. So I have already gained all the weight I could afford to and still not be considered overweight.

I'm just having a hard time snapping out of it. Each month with each fresh new disappointment, I just give in and let myself eat however I want. I'm not binging or anything, don't get the wrong idea - I just don't have the active lifestyle I used to after becoming a SAHW (I was on my feet all day long as a teacher), and I also am over-indulging in chocolate and other comfort foods.

The good news is that the local gym is now open at 7am, so hopefully I can get myself into a more regular routine of going to workout. It used to open at 8am, which was tough, because DH would need the car by then to go to work, but this way I can take the car and still be back before he needs to leave on most days.

Have you experienced unwanted weight gain during your TTC journey? Have you been able to battle it? What's working for you? I really need some motivation and good tips.

And as for all that hope I had a couple of days ago...gone. I've been cramping since yesterday, and I rarely cramp before AF comes, so I'm preparing myself for an especially vengeful AF in the next couple of days. :(

Hello, Nice to Meet You, I'm just a SAHW

Today after playing around with Feedjit while continuing to avoid cleaning the disaster zone that is my desk (and my dresser, and the chair which is piled dangerously high with clothes, and...most everything else), I realized that I actually get non-IF related visitors! Of course they don't comment, because they probably quickly realize I'm not what they're looking for at all.

Out of courtesy to all those visitors who want to know what being a stay at home wife is really all about, I thought I'd do a post to share just that.

Once upon a time, I had a dream...of being a teacher. (I have dreams of being a mother too, but I'll avoid talking about those for this post.) I went to school and worked super hard and double majored in early childhood and special ed. I graduated early and was too young to start teaching, so said my parents at least, and they encouraged me to go back to school for my MS. Which I did (thank you parents for the good advice!), and during my final semester, I started teaching.

Thus began one of the loves of my life. I taught first grade at our university's campus school - the school attached to the campus where all the cool educational research takes place. My school looped, so I had my kids again for second grade. I don't even know how to express how much I loved teaching, and how much I miss it and my kids. I put in 12 hour days at the school and would bring work home to work on for the few hours I had before I fell asleep out of exhaustion - and I loved every minute of it (well, most).

Then I got married, moved to Canada, and realized that Canada is a different country and I couldn't just get a job until my immigration went through. And that folks, is as exciting as it gets - I'm a stay at home wife because I couldn't legally work here for the last three years.

I named my blog "Just" a Stay at Home Wife because that's what I hear all the time these days. "So you got a masters and now you're 'just' a stay at home wife?" As though being a stay at home wife is so...lowly and unworthy.

People also don't realize that I've worked from home for the past two years (just quit last month so that I could enjoy true SAHW status - well, actually because I was getting overwhelmed with working and studying), and I'm enrolled in a full-time online religious studies program. So I'm not just a wife who sits at home and twiddles her thumbs and obsesses about having a baby (um, though I do obsess...occasionally...;).

So the meaning behind the blog name is two-fold - I'm not just a stay at home wife, there's so much more to me. I hate it when people make a snap judgment based on outward appearance, though unfortunately many people are very wont to do that. And secondly, even if I were "just" a stay at home wife, so what? What's so wrong about not working and enjoying being at home?

I do enjoy being home, though I miss teaching terribly. But because I'm a restless-type, I probably wouldn't want to be at home if I weren't studying or working - if I had neither of those (nor children) on my plate, I'd probably go crazy being at home. I just never pursued my work permit that actively in the beginning after coming here because I was so certain I'd be a SAHM by now.

For any other SAHWs who are home not by choice, I would suggest taking up a part-time job or course online - the options are endless. Just don't get yourself in too deep, like I did - because I'm almost as busy as when I used to work full-time. Alternately, you can look at this as the time you have to indulge in your hobbies and pastimes, time that will mysteriously disappear when you return to a "real" occupation.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming...of obsessing about the arrival or non-arrival of AF on Friday (thanks for bringing me back to my senses friends, I'm not testing. :)

Tempted

I'm tempted...

...to pee on a stick.

[I just paused to think, anyone who has not TTC-ed would read that sentence and definitely think I have issues!]

I stopped testing about a year or so ago, because the disappointment of stark whiteness was too much for me to bear. What I found most frustrating is that there was never a clear no, because "it ain't over till the old hag shows." One day may be a negative, but there was always the next morning to test (and be disappointed again), and the next, and so on...until AF would show up, mocking me for getting my hopes up for nothing. The yo-yo of up and down each day was just too much. I resolved not to test unless AF was at least a day late - never happened, so I never got a chance to test, and I haven't used a pregnancy test in more than a year.

But this time, I feel a bit of temptation to test...just to see. Though I don't want to see that whiteness, that nothingness that so blindingly stares back at you. I suppose I'm tempted to test because I am feeling a bit more hopeful than usual - for the first time in a few cycles, we did everything right - things couldn't have been better. But at the same time, I don't want to let myself have that hope, because I've had many, many perfectly-timed cycles before too. I don't want to get my hopes up only to be shot down again. That was what made TTC the first several months so acutely painful - so much hope, and that hope would be crushed time after time.

How do you balance having hope yet staying grounded, so you don't crash if your hopes aren't fulfilled? Should I go for it, or should I do what's been working for me for the last year?

I Ovulated

Yay. Woohoo.

Today was my third appointment with the fabulous vag cam. It's getting easier and easier, but it still doesn't quite fall under my list of fun or relaxing activities.

The techs were so excited to show me a big black blob, which is the egg that was released earlier this month.

"You ovulated!!!"

"Um...". I couldn't come up with anything more intelligent, because so what if I ovulated? I have been, most likely every single month since I was ten. I had to get the wand up my you-know-what to tell me what I already knew?

"Well, that's what we were looking for!"

I hated to burst their bubble, but I had to.

"Well, I don't have any problems ovulating, this was just supposed to give me a boost."

"Oh." That was all they could come up with.

Stupid Clomid has turned me into a hormonal lunatic, and I only got one egg out of it! One egg that I produce just fine on my own every month, thank you very much.

Sigh...I was secretly having twin fantasies...

Pretty Words

http://wordle.net

Got this idea from Kym's blog...pretty cool, isn't it?
[Yes, somehow I have recovered from the crazy mood swing that occurred just 20 minutes ago.]

Clomid Crazy

Is Clomid supposed to make you crazy for your whole entire cycle?? These mood swings are driving me nuts! And I don't think DH understands what's going on either. I just had a big crying fit on the phone because he's going to play tennis with one of his friends, but I wanted to play with him today. I've been snapping at him all week. It's like suddenly, I'm on PMS squared 24/7 - there's no telling what's going to set me off, but for the most part, if it can, it will. I've already ovulated...so why am I still acting like a lunatic? Now I can see why people hate Clomid (or rather, it's side-effects) so much. When does this end??

PS

I missed you all. :)

I really did. I didn't spend much time thinking about IF and pregnancy or the lack-thereof, but I did think of you all and miss reading everyone's stories and finding out what was going on in your lives. I'm so, so grateful for this community.

[Done with the sap for now. :)]

Back to Reality

We had a lovely trip, filled with emotional mood-swings, hot flashes, dropping the camera into the Atlantic Ocean, running out of gas and getting stranded in the middle of the Everglades, leaving the iPod and memory cards in the rental (which have since "disappeared"), and getting a flat 20 miles away from the airport which caused us to miss our flight and be forced to shell out $200 to take a flight the next day and $60 for a hotel room.

It really was a great trip though. :)

I relaxed like I haven't in so long, and it felt so good. We had a lot of "lessons" (aka mishaps) on the trip (we also lost the cell phone in the Keys, but after a good bit of careful beach-combing, we did find it safe in the sand, thank God), but we took them as lessons, not disasters, and they made us more grateful for all that we have.

DH and I had been planning a Florida trip since before we were married. It took us about three years to get our act together, but we finally did it! We flew to Orlando, rented a car, and drove down the west coast, through the Keys, then back up the east coast. Our families think we're crazy, but we enjoy road trips, and it was the perfect mix for both of us - I love being at the beach and in the water, DH loves seeing lots of new places. I rarely thought about TTC or not being pregnant, which was really nice.

The only reminder I had of IF at all was the obnoxious hot flashes. Now I finally understand what my mom is going through (albeit at a smaller scale)! Instantaneously, out of nowhere, I would break out into a sweat. Then, a few minutes later, I'd be freezing. Thank God that a/c vents in the car open and close so easily. :)

We were stranded at the Orlando airport on our anniversary (3rd!), which we had planned to spend at home with my family (we got married in my home city). My parents were disappointed, but we pretended like we were having a surprise anniversary getaway and made the most of it, and we ended up having a pretty nice evening.

We went home for the weekend for my cousin's wedding - amazing how far blogging can take you. :) It was a nice, simple, at-home affair, and we all had a lovely time. I had no baby questions the whole trip!!

And now we're back, having escaped the heat wave in the South, and now enjoying the Canadian summer. I'm bracing myself for some baby questions this weekend; we have two big weddings of friends, and I know we'll see a lot of people who last saw me 25 lbs. ago.

Pictures to come tomorrow, or perhaps after the busy weekend. : )

Sluggish Farewell

I guess I have some side-effects after all.

I've been feeling extra tired the last few days, and just generally all day long, I wish I could take a nap. No matter how much I sleep, I feel exhausted, yet at the same time, I am wide awake when I go to bed. Last night I felt a big wave of sadness, as all sorts of thoughts I hadn't thought in years came back to me, and I couldn't stop myself from thinking about all the unsolvable problems in my life. This was all happening at 2am while I stared at the ceiling, wide awake, while DH snored peacefully next to me.

Mentally I feel better now, though I'm still feeling very sluggish. I guess these are the side-effects of the Clomid? Still, after reading what others have gone through, I guess this really isn't too bad.

I just hope I don't have a depressive mood swing while in the midst of our trip. We've been trying to plan a real vacation that is more than a weekend away for just the two of us since before we were married! Now with three years coming up on us (next week!), we're finally getting the chance to do it.

After the vacation, we'll be going home for the wedding of the young bloggy lovers. Should be interesting. :)

And while I'm gone, happy birthday to both of my countries, and ya'll enjoy your BBQs and fireworks!

So Far So Good

And I hope it stays that way!

I started the Clomid (Serophene) yesterday morning. I haven't experienced any side effects yet, and I really hope I won't at all. I was leaning towards waiting a month, after reading everyone's comments (thank you very much!!), but DH said let's go for it. I'll take the last pill before we leave on Thursday, so hopefully if any side-effect is going to happen, it'll just happen before we go...or better yet, nothing will happen at all.

Yesterday we went strawberry picking, which I've been wanting to do for the last three years since I've been in Canada! There are so many berry farms all around our city. I just love strawberries - who doesn't? So far we've had strawberry smoothies, strawberry and spinach salad, and strawberry shortcake. Today was the first time DH had ever had strawberry shortcake! (He liked it, and it turned out quite well, if I do say so myself.) I didn't think it was just a Southern thing, is it?

This picture doesn't do the strawberries justice (most were much redder and riper), but we forgot our camera, so this is what our friends sent us. Nothing says summer like strawberries! :)

Change in Plans - Starting Clomid

I called the clinic, and they said to go ahead and start the Clomid on Day 3 (tomorrow - Sunday). She said it was fine if I just get the bloodwork and u/s on Day 24 and skip the Day 14 monitoring, since we'll be out of town at that time. My question is...is this a good idea? This is my first treatment, so I'm still a little clueless. What is the purpose of monitoring while on Clomid? Isn't it to check on follicle growth? So won't it be pointless to check that after I ovulate (ie, on Day 24)?

Also, does anyone have any tips or suggestions on how to deal with the Clomid? I'm kind of hesitant about it. DH and I are going on a real vacation (more than a weekend getaway) for the first time since our honeymoon, and I don't want to turn into a zombie or an evil witch (like I was yesterday...stupid AF). Is there anything I can do to minimize side effects? Any other good tips? I know a lot of people say to take it in the evening, but if I do that, I'll still be taking it during our trip, and I think I'd rather finish it off here before leaving. If I start Sunday morning, I'll finish taking it before we leave...so I'm hoping that whatever side effects are going to happen, will happen while I'm taking it and not afterwards...should I expect effects to linger even after I'm done taking the pills?

Thanks a lot ladies! I don't know what I'd do without your support!

Before I Could Even Get Too Excited

Good old AF came. She's a day early, but hey, I'd rather a day early than a day late. One less day to get my hopes up for nothing.

Except that I was a little excited. Okay, so actually I was really excited about all the acne that I have developed in the last few days. Because normally I have pretty decent skin, and one of my friends said this was her first sign of pregnancy, and this has never happened to me before. I guess it was all the depression chocolate. Great. Now I'm not pregnant, and I look like I stepped back in time 15 years. [Stepping away from the chocolate...]

I worked hard not to over-analyze signs or symptoms this cycle, but you know how it is - it's subconscious. I didn't actually count out 9 months, I just automatically knew that it would be February if I got pregnant this month. It was hard to not think that the nausea from the meds was stronger than last time, so maybe it meant something more. It's those imaginations that just run wild and take over your subconscious.

I want to think new cycle, new hopes! But we can't even start the Clomid this month because my doctor wants to monitor me while I'm on it, and I'll be out of town during that time. Sigh. I guess we've got one last go the old-fashioned way before we get started down the high-tech path.

May You Fill with Milk

First, thanks to all you ladies for your great advice. I've got a good bit of thinking to do now, and I'll probably be looking into PCOS more. I'm sure I'll be back with questions soon. :) I also wanted to clarify for those of you who were concerned that I'm not seeing an RE - I am seeing an RE, well, I think she's an RE, I don't think that's what they are called in Canada, but I'm going to a fertility clinic. The OB just happened to be doing a rotation through the fertility clinic and was also present at the appointment.

So, I've been MIA because I'm still exhausted from the weekend, which we spent in New York. Actually, we spent about 30 hours in New York and 18 hours driving. We left at 2am on Saturday morning and arrived back here at 3am on Monday morning. Yes, we are crazy. :)

It was a see the family trip, the kind where we both argue and get mad at each other over how much time to spend with each other's respective families. I have almost all my aunts and uncles, my grandmother, and many cousins on my dad's side who I grew up with there. DH has one cousin who he never talks to. So...wouldn't you say we should have spent more time with my family too? :)

All in all, it wasn't too bad. We've haven't been since last summer, so I was bracing myself for the baby questions. Good thing I braced.

DH's cousin's husband greeted us outside as we parked the car. "Well, looks like someone in this family finally gained weight!" As though I don't already feel awful for being the fatty of the in-law family. I acknowledge, yes, I have gained some weight. I reach in the car to get my things out, and he peers in and bellows, "So, where's the baby?" Ummmm, yes, I'm fat because I got pregnant and had a baby and didn't bother telling anyone! He said some other baby comments, but I was too stunned to even process them or remember them.

And that was how the weekend started. So I was prepared for more. But let me tell you how awesome my family is that not a single person said anything about babies to me the entire time! Not even my grandmother, who I was sure would say something after she shared the good news of yet another cousin who is having a baby this year. Not a single baby question or comment! Clearly, my family is awesome.

So on the way out, we stopped to have lunch with DH's family. I had let my guard down, because hey, the weekend was almost over, and I had already seen everyone once, so I figured baby talk was done. Wrong. DH's cousin's husband is a very...flamboyant man (DH's word choice). He says outrageous and offensive comments that he thinks are jokes. He gets away with it because everyone does indeed laugh along...why, I don't know.

We're wrapping up a nice expensive lunch that DH has somehow unknowingly treated everyone to (great for the budget), when the cousin's husband gets up and makes a toast to us - To DH and me, may they have children soon! Okay, this wasn't too bad. Then, when DH was up paying the bill, he turns to us all and starts saying something in a foreign language that I don't recognize, and I thought, well, at least none of us know what the heck he's saying. Of course he then had to translate. He stands up and says in a big booming voice, loudly enough for the entire restaurant to hear, "May your body fill with milk, and may you give birth to a son!" For extra dramatic effect, and just in case every single person present hadn't heard him the first time, he repeated himself a few more times, following up with much loud laughter. Everyone near him including my in-laws laughed along with him.

At that point, while I knew that of course my body was still physically there, with a strange smile pasted on my face, I felt myself sinking under the table, or at least wishing that I could. I had braced myself, yes, but not for something like this! This man beats all. Thank God we were leaving then, because I don't think I could have stayed any longer.

So ladies, that was my weekend in a nutshell. I leave you with the parting prayer...may you fill with milk...

Diagnosis: Unexplained

I'd just like to say...I knew it.

Well, of course I couldn't be 100% sure. But I had a pretty good feeling that that's what we'd be hearing today.

And I could eat my words (yesterday's post) about not wanting to walk out with a prescription for Clomid. Because halfway through the appointment, I was so afraid I was going to be walking out with nothing at all, and I was desperately trying to think of a way to at least get the Clomid.

Basically, everything came back normal. DH's SA was good, but the motility is just a teensy bit low. The doctor said this isn't an issue and can fluctuate from sample to sample. And me, well, apparently I should have had many children by now. Because not only are all my hormones in line, my uterus, ovaries, and tubes are clear and beautiful, and they measured 41 antral follicles.

So, diagnosis? Unexplained. There's no apparent reason we have never conceived. Prescription? Go home and keep trying!

Well, of course I wasn't about to take any of that. After 14 cycles of careful charting and timing, there's no way that I'm just gonna keep doing nothing.

They (there was a rotating OB in there who was kind of annoying me because he insisted I was at the peak of my fertility, when I, and any other person who knows anything about fertility, know that my fertility peaked 10 years ago) said the next step is IUI with injectables for superovulation and a more detailed SA to double check on the motility issue, and if those don't clear things up, IVF. But they said they don't recommend either of those steps for several more months.

At that point, they clearly thought the appointment was over. But I just couldn't leave without any action plan. So I asked the doctor what about Clomid for now? She said yes, that would be fine - she didn't think it was necessary, but it shouldn't hurt.

So the plan is 3 cycles of Clomid, with the first cycle being monitored by u/s to make sure the Clomid is doing it's job. She actually prescribed Serophene, which I understand is just another brand name of the medication in Clomid.

The only result that was not as expected was the high antral follicle count. Which they actually miscounted. Because 28+13 doesn't equal 51. But I'm not the one that realized that...it was my mom. Moms are the best. :)

But even 41 is higher than anything I'm seeing as a reference range for AFC. According to the doctors, this is a great sign. They don't think there is any chance of PCOS because I have such regular periods. But I'm wondering, is it actually good to have such a high count? And just because I have regular periods, does that mean that I definitely don't have PCOS?

I guess I am looking for an answer. I'm grateful nothing is wrong. But on the other hand, if something is wrong, then you can fix it. Since nothing specific is wrong, basically, we're just going to keep doing what we've been doing, plus Clomid...and I'm really hoping we don't have to go too far down the road of treatments...

Results...Soon

We are FINALLY going in for our follow-up with the fertility clinic tomorrow. I'm saying finally, because the initial appointment was three months ago! The stupid hysterosonogram (btw...I managed to get a UTI out of it too!! I'm just lucky like that, you know, in that lucky 1% who get after-effects that aren't even described on the explanation sheet) kept getting delayed, which is what pushed the follow-up back.

Anyway, I should have posted sooner to seek out your advice, all you wise ladies who are further in the journey than we are, but I was too busy running to the bathroom and cramping up to do so.

Any advice on what to expect? What questions I should ask? What you wish you'd done at this point? I don't want to just nod my head and say "yes, ma'am" and walk out with a prescription for Clomid and orders to return next year if we don't get pregnant by then. I'm afraid if I slip up and say "yes, ma'am" that's what will happen, because Canadians don't seem to like being called "ma'am."

Thanks in advance ladies!

Little Things

All day long I was craving veggie lasagna...out of the blue, no reason, but I really wanted it. Of course I had no lasagna noodles, but the beauty of having a friend who lives downstairs dawned on me, so I went and got some noodles from her. After dinner, I returned the leftover noodles and shared some of the lasagna.

DH was on the phone then, so I didn't call before I went down, I just went and knocked on her door. It was kind of late, so she was in her robe, and for the first time, she looked really pregnant. She's due in two months, so it's no surprise. She just looked like a really cute pregnant lady, round all over and waddling, with a nice, big belly.

Sometimes it's the little things that hurt, that sting like a paper cut...so small, but hurts like anything. Last night I was sitting and thinking about how I had pictured my life...I always imagined I'd have four or five kids. My friend downstairs...that was supposed to be me, but by now, I was supposed to be on #3. It dawned on me last night that if I ever do have a baby, that doesn't mean I'll be able to have several more, like I always dreamed I would. I'll never be trying to time births 2.5 years apart. I'll be lucky and blessed to even be able to give birth and have one baby, let alone five.

At this point in the game, I'll be grateful for one. But sometimes little things bring the old dreams back, and it's hard to realize that I have to let go of them.

Meme Time

Thanks to all you lovely ladies for your sympathy and advice! I am feeling better today. I still can't stay upright for too long without the pain returning, but it's not as sharp as it was yesterday...so I guess it is an air/gas bubble...crazy what a little bit of extra air can do!

VA Blondie tagged me a couple of days ago, but I just wasn't feeling well enough to do this till now...my very first meme. :)

The rules of the game get posted at the beginning. Each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5-6 people and posts their names, then go to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1. What was I doing ten years ago?
It was the summer before my senior year of high school, and I was in the midst of researching colleges to get ready to apply in the fall. I was volunteering at an early childhood intervention center (my third year to do so), where I fell in love with the kids and the cause, and decided what I would be studying in college (university for the Canadians): early childhood education and special education, concentration in early childhood.

2. Five things on my to do list for today
Ummm...given my current condition, there aren't too many things on my list for today...there are instead many things I was supposed to do, but can't because I'm not feeling so well:

1. Go to my BIL's graduation. (DH is going without me)
2. Go to a community barbecue. (DH went without me)
3. Train my replacement at work. (will do when I'm feeling better)
   
4. Return a few phone calls. (not feeling up to it...maybe tomorrow)
5. Cook the fish DH bought a few days ago. (done)

3. Snacks I enjoy
What don't I enjoy? Man...I wish I didn't like food so much. Honestly, there's very little I don't like, but I especially like anything chocolate and anything with cheese (but not together of course!).

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire
Move back home and buy a house in the same town as my parents. Donate to as many charities as possible, especially those who serve people in countries that have recently been hit hard with disasters. Donate to all the causes that are near and dear at home - IF, autism research, and more. Set up a trust fund for my brother, so he'll be completely taken care of for the rest of his life. Have an IVF right away (jk!).

5. Places I have lived
I was born in the Big Apple and lived there for my childhood. Then we moved down South to Bible Belt, USA (I'm not Christian, but I LOVE the South). Got married and moved up here to the Great Arctic North known as Canada.

6. People I want to know more about.

1. Alicia
2. Dreams Come True
   
3. Loren
   
4. Mrs. Spit
5. Mya
   
6. Steph

Big Fat Pain in the...Shoulder??

Thanks so much for your well-wishes and for thinking of me. I'm happy to say I have a lovely uterus, clear Fallopian tubes, and two lovely ovaries. I'm also happy to say I made it through the procedure just fine, and honestly, the worst part was the speculum. Minor cramping upon insertion of the saline solution, a little bit of spotting till now. Uncomfortable, but really not painful. Thanks for everyone's great suggestions; I did take pain-reliever beforehand, and the pad was definitely a must - I felt like I was "bleeding" saline solution the whole way home.

I'm pleasantly surprised by a lack of cramps or pain "down there," but I'm thankful I'm not having any...because I don't know if I could tolerate it on top of the massive, paralyzing pain I'm having all through my right shoulder and side.

I've googled all sorts of search queries, asked my doctor parents, called the clinic...but I have no idea what to do for the pain. Immediately after I got into the change room, I felt a sharp pain in my shoulder, which I thought was odd. Out in the waiting room, where I was told to rest for 15 minutes just to make sure everything was okay, the pain spread to both shoulders. DH suggested that I was probably just tensed up during the procedure, since I was so nervous about it. He rubbed my shoulders and back, and I felt better, and we got in the car and drove home. As soon as I stepped out of the car, I realized something was wrong. I had sharp pain all the way down starting at my neck and down through my shoulder which was intensifying as I was walking. Came home, called my mom, lay down, called the clinic. The doctor's office said sometimes the gas/air bubbles used in the procedure to see the tubes escapes into the body and moves upward. Hence the massive pain whenever I am upright, and the even more massive pain when I try to move around. They said it could last from one to three days. Prescription: lie down flat on your back.

Now, I know I said I was looking forward to relaxing and being pampered by DH. But I most definitely was not looking forward to three days on my back. The pain is excruciating; I've never felt anything more painful in my life.

Nothing I read online, no one's blogs, no one's comments, no literature from the clinic mentioned this at all. Have any of you ever heard of a reaction like this? Has this happened to anyone else? Any suggestions on relieving the pain?

HSG/SHG/SSG/Whatever the Heck It is...Today

It's hysterosonogram day! Though I'm not actually looking forward to it and am feeling kind of nervous, I am looking forward to it being over, so we can keep moving forward. Hopefully it'll be over in a couple of hours from now. I told DH I wouldn't be feeling well, so I'm looking forward to relaxing and being taken care of for the rest of the day...a great chance to catch up on blog reading and commenting!

NCLM...for the Brave of Heart and Blogging

It's been about a week, and I'm loving it. I love all the new comments (you guys are all awesome, thank you for your advice and for lifting my spirits!), I love finding new blogs and people who I feel are really speaking to me, and I love the sense of community and belonging that I'm feeling.

But I'm not really loving that this morning I woke up in a panic after having dreamt that I didn't leave enough comments for yesterday! Or that I have become glued to the computer, sitting here hours after I'm done with work and school. DH says I quit my job so I could focus on my new blogging habit! Which of course is totally untrue. But it does seem as though all the free time I gained after quitting has been directly channeled into blogging, reading, and commenting.

Since I'm a relatively new blogger, maybe I just don't have this down quite right...I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to be spending all day reading blogs and commenting, right? :) Problem is, I'm enjoying myself - it feels so nice to finally fit in somewhere, to read about people going through what you're going through, to comment freely and from your heart about what you care about. But I think when I get excited that DH is coming home late so I can blog without feeling guilty, I've taken things a little too far.

So, any advice on how to manage my new-found "habit"? How do you keep up with blog friends without spending all day reading everyone's stories? Any tips for effective blogging from all the experienced bloggers out there?

A Bit of a Slump

Well, I survived.

It wasn't too bad. The beginning was a little tough, since the first two people to arrive were the new moms (and their infants of course), and I started feeling almost claustrophobic, like I was suffocating under the presence of tiny infant cuteness. Thankfully, then T (who's 14 weeks today :) arrived, but she's so awesome and didn't announce her pregnancy, and that just made me feel a lot better.

I was pretty proud of myself for participating in discussions on cloth diapers vs. Pampers and slings vs. baby backpacks. I did well on those.

But after that, news of 3 pregnancies the next day has got me kind of down. It feels like everywhere pregnancies are popping up, and we're being left behind in the dust. I just feel...well, mopey and sad. Too mopey and sad to even blog about being mopey and sad.

I just feel like running away and hiding. And pretending like I don't have to think about not having a baby every single day.

I just feel tired. And we've just barely begun.

Reunion of the Pregnants...and Me

Tomorrow my childbirth class is having a reunion. A reunion at which we'll exclaim how much bigger everyone's pregnant bellies are. A reunion at which we'll ooh and aah over the babies who were born between then and now. A reunion at which good news of new pregnancies will be shared.

Yep, I'm in for some fun times tomorrow.

I tried hard to think of a way not to go. Except the problem is, it's being hosted by a friend who lives in my building. So it's kind of hard to come up with an excuse for not being able to take the elevator downstairs.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm trying too hard not to appear infertile or affected by infertility. We don't talk about it in concrete terms with anyone, except my friend T, so no one but her knows that we are definitely struggling and have been trying actively for more than a year. But it's fairly obvious. We've been married for almost three years, and all our friends who are at the same place that we are have had kids, so of course they know that we are probably trying too. But somehow, it seems as though if I don't talk about it, it won't be real...

Then another part of me just wants to stop hiding. No, I can't make it to the party on Friday because I have my hysterosonogram that day! No, I'm sorry, I can't go into class on Monday because we're having a follow-up with the fertility clinic then! Yeah, I'm sure you're really tired because you're pregnant, and I'm really tired from peeing on sticks every few hours! (Okay, so maybe not that one.)

I want it to be normal to talk about what we're going through. I want to not have to feel like I have to hide it from people. I want to share it with people because that's what friends do, they talk about what's going on in their lives. And IF is what is going on in our lives right now.

Yet at the same time, I just can't. I feel like I'm not supposed to be so open about IF. That people don't really actually want to hear all about what we're going through. But also that if I don't acknowledge it openly, maybe it won't be as real as I'm afraid it's becoming.

IF Illiterate

After all those lovely supportive comments and great advice on how to deal with the HSG, I realized (feeling super embarrassed now) that I'm not have an HSG after all.

Don't laugh too hard at me please. :)

Back in March, when we first went into the fertility clinic for the initial consultation, part of me was in denial that any of this was happening at all anyway. Going to the clinic was admitting that yes, we are suffering from infertility. And I wasn't supposed to be suffering from infertility. I was supposed to have 5 kids by age 35 and have a nice, big happy home-schooling family.

I suppose it's still possible, right? :)

Anyway, the visit was kind of hard for me. I was glad to finally get the ball rolling and keep moving forward, but it was hard to acknowledge that we actually had to walk down this path at all. When I came home, I called my mom right away (in addition to being the best mom ever, she's a physician) and told her about all the tests I was supposed to be having. They all seemed fairly self-explanatory, except for the last one.

"It says hysterosonogram and in parenthesis, saline infusion sonogram or hysterosonographic contrast sonogram," I told my mom.

"Do you mean hysterosalpingogram?" she asked.

"Yeah, that's probably what it means. I guess Canadians have different terminology or something."

Oops.

In my defense, in the last three years, I have come to realize (and not always the easy way), that there are some variations in common words and spellings between the US and Canada . My friends here write their exams and use washrooms, but I always took my exams and went to the bathroom. There are many more examples, but you can see where my mind is right now.

So anyway, in the spirit of pretending like I wasn't really suffering from infertility, I filed away all my papers after talking to my mom and didn't bother looking at them too closely again until yesterday, when I went to retreive the prescription for the antibiotics to be taken before the HSG. Which is when I actually read the pamphlet more closely and discovered it isn't really an HSG after all. It's a hysterosonogram (saline infusion sonogram or hysterosonographic contrast sonogram), whatever that is.

I've had a bit of trouble trying to understand exactly what this procedure is, and how it differs from an HSG. From my google research, it seems like the difference between an HSG and this test is that in this test, saline is inserted, not a dye, and an ultrasound is done, not an x-ray. Hooray. Another chance to have a wand up my you-know-what.

Have any of you had a hysterosonogram before? Is it similar enough to an HSG that I should follow the same general recommendations for painkillers and preparation before and after?

I'm Still Bleeding, and Thank God

I never thought I'd be so glad that my period hasn't ended yet.

The universal recurring theme of IF is the waiting game. Waiting for the BFP that was supposed to happen naturally after you first start trying. Waiting out your six months or one year before you can go to the doctor. Waiting for an appointment at the fertility clinic. Waiting for tests. Waiting for test results. Waiting for CD1 to begin afresh. Waiting for estimated O day to start peeing on sticks (OPKs). Waiting out the 2WW to start peeing on more sticks. Waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

At any point in your cycle, you're waiting for something or the other. And I know that it doesn't end even after the long sought after BFP. Then you're waiting to make it past the "safety gates" when the chance of miscarriage goes down. The wait doesn't end until the baby comes home...

Currently, I'm at a very early stage in the waiting game, and I'm getting impatient. It feels like so much time has gone by, but so very little has happened, because we've had to wait for so long at each step of the way. Our family doctor wouldn't refer us to the fertility clinic until we had been TTC a full year, even though I knew we shouldn't have had to wait so long, because I had been temping and charting and checking CM, and I know we weren't missing our "good days," as we affectionately like to call them - we definitely had good timing. After we finally got our referral, it was waiting for Day 3, then Day 24 (which happened in reverse order for me) for blood tests, and then Day 5 for the baseline ultrasound. And now, we're waiting for everyone's favorite, the HSG.

After googling HSG to learn more about it, I was totally freaked out. Worse than giving birth to twins vaginally??? Now that I've been trying to schedule the HSG for 3 months, I am actually looking forward to it. I'm not looking forward to the pain, but I'm looking forward to just getting it done and over with and moving on! I'm so anxious to have that follow-up appointment with the doctor so we can set a game plan and just get started, but the good ole HSG has to be done before any plan can be made.

So that's why I'm glad that I'm still bleeding today. My HSG was actually scheduled for today, but AF showed a day later than I thought it would, and so I had to reschedule it AGAIN for next Friday. Yesterday, when I stopped bleeding, I was so mad I could have cried - I just rescheduled for nothing! Today, I'm bleeding again, and for the first time, I'm glad I am, because at least I'm not waiting for nothing.

For the Love of Blogging

Two years ago, a relative of mine told me how she had met the person she wanted to marry through her blog - they had become commenting buddies. Back then, I thought I had a progressive marriage - DH and I met online too, but we met through one of those sites like eharmony - a site designed with the purpose of helping people meet. When she told me how they had met, my first thought upon looking at her blog was why in the world would anyone want to post their private thoughts, in essence, their diary, online for the whole world to see? Didn't people used to guard their diaries with their lives to protect them from anyone seeing them, let alone potentially anyone with access to the internet?

Well, two years later, I guess I've changed my mind. : )

IF can be such a painful and long and lonely journey when you're on your own. Early last year, when we had begun actively TTC-ing, I used to frequent message boards like ovusoft, but I never did end up joining any of them...they just didn't seem right for me. I thought blogs were for "young" people like my cousin...I had no idea how big blogging was. Later in the year, I stumbled upon mom blogs by accident, through an email someone sent me, and while I enjoyed reading some of them, they were constant reminders of what I didn't have. Only when I finally had my initial appointment at the fertility clinic did I find IF blogs - I was trying to prepare for the first visit, and google led me to the mother of IF blogs - the Stirrup Queen herself :), through Operation Heads-Up, and I'm so grateful I found my way there.

Blogging has the power to connect people who would never, ever have met in real life and bring them together to support each other. I'm still pretty new to the blogosphere, but I'm really impressed by the number of people that stop by and read my story and share words of support and encouragement with me - thank you to you all. :)

And in honor of those commentors, and commentors all over the world, it's NaComLeavMo. So for the love of blogging, everyone go forth and starting commenting!

Imaginations

Growing up, I was one of those rare children who loved long plane or car rides. Even till today, I find myself sad when the journey is close to ending, when it's almost time to land or get out of the car...it's like the end of a dream world and entrance back to reality.

Imaginations...those lovely daydreams about your perfect future that you indulge in when you should be working or listening to your professor. Hence why I loved those long rides above the clouds or staring at endless trees and mountains...as long as the clouds and trees and mountains kept going, so could my imaginations, without being cut short by a deadline or question from the prof.

Early on, the imaginations were about the perfect husband I would meet someday, how he would romance me off my feet, and my perfect married life. Then, as time passed, and the perfect husband became a reality (note: while I do love my DH dearly and we have an amazing marriage, let's be real here - he is not the incarnation of those imaginations, he's just the IRL version of them :)), the imaginations moved on to what would naturally seem to be the next step...children.

My imaginations aren't long drawn-out fantasies or anything like that - they're more like snippets, peek-holes into the perfected version of the life I should be living. They're almost involuntary...in the middle of class, I'll find myself imaging calling up the clinic to say I have to reschedule my HSG because I didn't get my period yet, and then going in to the clinic and finding out I'm pregnant so I don't need the HSG after all...or announcing to my childbirth class at our reunion party next weekend that I'm finally going to be able to put into practice what everyone else already is because now I'm pregnant too...or calling my mom and telling her that all her prayers have finally been answered...or putting a pregnancy ticker on DH's computer to surprise him with the good news...and on and on...

They're like lovely little short video clips of what's supposed to be happening, which are great fun to indulge in, but the fun only lasts as long as the movie's on. And now, I wish I could just turn the mental movie player off. Because how long can you keep dreaming the same dream, only to have it not be fulfilled, again and again?

I just feel silly for allowing myself to indulge in false hopes again and again, only to keep meeting AF and being disappointed again and again, month after month. But what to do? The imaginations won't go away...AF only keeps them at bay for a week or so, and new imaginations begin afresh each month...

Vacation from TTC and Preganoia!

I'll be on vacation with DH and my family for the next couple of weeks...a much-need break from the world of IF, TTC, charting, EWCM, OPKs, and of course, preganoia! See you all, my new bloggy friends, when we get back!