First off, the IUI went A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! Our midwife, which I will start calling Daisy (light, natural, and sweet), said that Violets cervix was soft and open! Yay!!…… and her CM looked “perfect”. I could not have asked for a better description. The only thing that could have made this the most perfect IUI was if I could have actually been there with Violet. This was very hard for me because it is so important that I go to every single appointment with Violet. IN the beginning I said that I was never going to miss a appointment with Daisy or our OB/GYN. We have been blessed by the time gods becuase we have been able to coordinate this for about 95% of her million appointments. I was already signed up for  an ELSB training that day, so I really could not  be there. Even though I know that it was important for me to be at the training,  it was still  very hard to miss the insem. I am sure most non-biological mothers would agree that being at all appointments is vital to feeling even more a part of the pregnancy.

Violet and I are both very positive about this cycle and can’t help but stop feeling as if it might actually work. I have found that I have to stop myself from being so excited and hopeful, because if this cycle ends up with a negative test or the damn m word, I will be incredibly let down. It  just feels right this cycle.

I have recently come to the conclusion that my blog has become utterly boring. I am not sure who is still reading or why, because when I reread my posts, I find myself being way to easily distracted by the slightest things. I promise to fix this soon…I am afraid that I will not be changing that right now, as it is almost nine o’clock and my guilty pleasure of watching Desperate Housewives and drinking some red zin is about to commence, but I made a promise to myself that I would write a post before the weekend is over.

So here it goes bullet style

• Tomorrow is CD 14 and Violet is scheduled for an IUI at 8:30 am!
• Violet had a u/s on Wednesday and there were two “juicy”, as the u/s tech said, follicles on her left side. We are very pleased that we have two potential chances this month.
• We got our donor lifetime pictures in this week. We think he is darling, a little goofy/dorky looking during his teenage years, but think is sort of typical with boys.. J It is so very odd to look at these pictures.
• Since there are two follicles, our midwife took a few seconds to make sure we knew of the chance for twins, which we already did. I am very glad that the chance is very small, as the whole twin pregnancy makes me very nervous.
• Violets lining was a little thin at 5.6 on CD 9, but I am hoping that it has improved over the past few day. The midwife said it was fine, so I am going to try not to worry about it.

I feel very good about this cycle, just as optimistic and excited as the very first IUI….the one that she got pregnant with. Let’s hope that this means something!

 

How in the world is it already November 21st?? I can’t believe that Thanksgiving is just a few days from now. As a teacher, this time of the year goes VERY fast due to all the time off that we get. (I really don’t think many teachers would exist if we did not get these perks.)  With this is mind I realize that it will be New Years Eve like anytime and therefore, I am becoming a little anxious over trying this month. It seems like so much is going on and it is hard to focus on all the madness that comes with TTC. At the same time, I am wondering if trying in November and December will be a good thing since we will be consumed by the whirlwind of the holiday season. We might wait, I am just not sure. There is not the strong urgency that existed a few months back since we are out of the ideal summer due date window.

I am thinking that we may go ahead and try this cycle since we have the sper.m paid for and waiting  at the sper.m ba.nk. We might as well use it up. If it does not work this month I think we will definitely take a month or two off and maybe do something productive like pay someone to refinish our hardwood floors. Which reminds me that we found out yesterday that our vinyl flooring in the kitchen, that we were getting ready to tear up, probably contains asbestos. We have to take a sample to a testing lab to see for sure.  Awesome. This of course puts a huge kink in our kitchen remodel. We already have the new cabinets and countertop bought;  it just came down to the floor. Which up until now, the hardest part was with the floor simply because we could not decide on one…..Oh, how I wish that was still the biggest problem.

We are back in the game ladies…..today is CD 1. We are so happy,  excited and very positive about this cycle.  Over the past month we have celebrated a lot of good news in blog world;  with babies being born and positive pregnancy tests,  I am hopeful that in a few weeks we can jump on the bandwagon of good news.

Let me say that AF could not have come at a better time. Over the weekend I was feeling negatively effected by our TTC journey. I am fully aware this is our journey and we have to take what is given to us, as ultimately we have minimal control over it all, but there are still bad days and good days…and lets be honest, even worse days. So I needed this to pick me back up , have hope and look towards our future.

 

……I have to tell this to myself daily as I watch my colleague’s 7 month pregnant belly stare at me from across our shared classroom.  V’s due date and hers was a week apart, it is a torturous reminder of what occurred. WE are still waiting for AF. V has never had a cycle this long. I feel like cursing, screaming and crying out of frustration. In seven months we have only gotten to do two  inseminations. Seriously?!?!?   Exhale….. Breath deep……………it will happen……………

 

I have been a lazy blogger, but have been keeping up with you all. Huge congrats  to the ladies over at The Bao on their new pregnancy!  I couldn’t be happier for them.

 We have been doing well and have been basking in the fall days. Not too much has been happening on the baby front.  V is on CD 32, which would be awesome if we tried last month. However this long cycle is most likely to the damn cyst that knocked us out of last cycle. So we are patiently waiting and feeling  increasingly excited about trying again. Even though we tried a cycle ago, I think we are actually emotionally ready now. I love that the excitement is back! Now it is time to wait until we can  get this cycle rolling!

Here are some pictures of our most recent visit to the arboretum in our town……We are some serious tree lovers!

Today I am off work for fall break and thought this the perfect time to get answer a few of the questions that you all have asked.

Strawberry asked the following questions:

1. I’m curious, since you’ve started off with Clomid, monitoring and a trigger shot, why you began at that point versus just OPKing and trying a couple times before intervention?

When we started researching all the ins and outs of trying to conceive, we thought we were going to go the route of ICI at home with no medication. Our vision of the insemination was one that was intimate, memorable and personal as possible. As we started looking at the success rates of  inseminations by IUI compared to ICI and then factored in the cost of IUI prepared vials to IUI prepared vials we thought it was better to  go ahead with an IUI.  Plus, the bank we had chosen did not ship to homes and would not give out information on how to correctly defrost the vials. (We have of course now learned how to do this since then, but that is besides the point.  Not very intersting, but that is how we ended up going the IUI route off the bat. Now to the medications and ultrasounds…….which really boils down to money

During our “research time”, Clomid seemed to come up in the literature many times. So we started to throw around the idea of trying medicated cycles in hopes that we reduce the number of tries. It is really not much more complicated than that. We took V’s age in consideration and cost of trying each month and decided the Clomid was safe enough to try a few tries to reduce the number of insemination that V went through.

Now to the ultrasounds….that just kinda happened. I actually do not remember if our midwife suggested it or if we asked for it. KNowing me and my worrying ways, I suggested we get an u/s to make sure a follicle was developing. Now it is procedure for V to get one or two u/s before the IUI.

Also, karaoke…love it or hate it?

V and I both agree that karaoke if loads of fun to watch. V would like to get up on the stage and belt one out, while P would just prefer to sit in the audience and adoringly watch V.

Today is cd 12 and V went and had an u/s today to check on follicle size before we bought the vial. Turns out that she is going to ovulate early, as there is already a 30 mm follicle. The technician thought it was a cyst, but the midwife said that was unlikely since she has had so many u/s over the past few moths and there has not been any evidence of a cyst or a prior cyst. The midwife  (not our regular one) said if the vial was at the clinic she would perform the IUI tonight; considering we had not even purchased it yet, this will not be happening. I am not sure that this is really a follicle at 30 mm and think that it could be a follicular cyst. We were going to have V start testing with OPK’s tomorrow, since this would be about the time that her body typically has a positive OPK. When she took one today it was negative. So maybe we completely missed it. Either way, it is not going to happen this cycle.

I am devastated as this cycle was incredibly important to us, since it was the last cycle to try and have a summer baby. As I have moaned and groaned about this before, a summer baby would mean I would have time off to be with V and the baby.  A  baby born during my work months, means no time off for me. Of course, there is a great chance that V would have not  gotten pregnant this cycle, but the failure would have been less awful if we would have even got the chance to try.

It is sad to think back 6 months and how optimistic, eager and light and happy hearted we were about trying to create a baby.  We are not in that place anymore.

As of this morning it became official, this cycle was unsuccessful. Since V had gotten some negative pregnancy tests over the past week we started discussing the next cycle, money and over all the direction that we want our TTC journey to look like. These conversations have been very helpful and healing in some ways because I was able to step away from the emotion and take a more analytical approach to trying to get pregnant.

I think the most important conversations centered around money and finances. We took a long thoughtful look at what we are spending each cycle and discussed what this mean in regards of our financial health. Before we actually started trying to conceive, the number of attempts would be  indefinent. We would try until a baby was created and delivered! But, as we all know all too well, things change once you actually in the middle of trying to expand your family. We have not set a number in stone yet, as these things need careful consideration. We are not taking out loans to finance our monthly baby making adventures, therefore each month we are paying everything out-of-pocket, with a little help with insurance on u/s and IUI procedures. It is costing us over a $1,000.00 a month on TTC. I shudder at the thought that if we do 5 consecutive IUI’s then we would have spent $6,000.00 in just five months! I am realistic and realize that many, and I mean many, of you have spent much more money than this, but, we are trying to find a good balance where we feel good about how much we put into TTC. How do you put a “price” on the chance to have a child though? That is where we are struggling.

We tested today, on CD 25. It was negative. To be more precise, all four tests that V took today came out negative. I would not recommend Ta.rget brand pregnancy tests, as they give off the faintest line/shadow EV-ER! I think it is just how they are designed and most women would not  even see the pitiful line, unless they are crazily examining every tiny portion of the display window. This morning, I had a slight bit if hope  that this VERY, and I mean VEEERRRY faint line was start of a something more promising. However, when V tested this evening with two different tests and one crappy T.arget one, it was obvious that the T.arget ones are just shitty little pieces of plastic.

We were never optimistic about this cycle, so this is not a huge surprise. But even with the low expectations  that we had, I am still feeling angry and sad.I am so afraid that this is just the start of a long road. I think we will try again next month. But, if V does not get pregnant that cycle then we will take off for a month or two to save back a little more money.

I am very excited that I and V have so many fun questions to answer. You ladies had some really non traditional questions and I love that! I am looking forward to writing the answers to those over the next week. What a fantastic way to mend our sad hearts after a unsuccessful cycle.