NYE edition

and a happy 2008
TO YOU :)

i would post pictures of my nephews (who are just so redonkulously fabulously adorable) but i forgot the cable that connects the camera to the computer in CA so pictures will have to wait a week.

2008 should be an interesting year. On tap:
**i will graduate (HA!!! hopefully anyway).
**i will be able to live with my spouse full-time for the first time in a long time...neat, huh?
**i will probably find a job (check that: i'd BETTER find a job...which probably also means i should start looking for one. le sigh.)
**i'm going to haiti for a week in february to help with ongoing medical relief efforts there.
**i start round 1 of IVF in janury.

speaking of IVF, my baseline appt: 1/15. i'm currently on BCP which means i've had my period for 'round about 3 wks now and let me tell you, the lustre is quite starting to wear off. the clinic is also badgering me about showing up to appts with a "chaperone", but since the appointments are 630a-830a i really don't see that happening on a routine basis. plus, why is the onus on me to provide one, when they are requiring it for basically their own protection? the only person that i could rightly harass about "chaperoning" me is my husband, who is currently activated military in another state. and as they are a clinic that serves military families, is it crazy to think they should have considered that contingency? i said as much to the IVF nurse coordinator who said their contingency plan is that i meet someone in the waiting room and then needle my newfound aquaintance into acting as my chaperone. yeah, because that won't be uncomfortable for all parties involved AT ALL (..."i know we've only just met, but would you mind coming back with me to watch as the dr pokes at my bits and pieces with steely instruments?") i guess if seeing someone's naked hoo-ha 5 minutes after meeting them isn't the cement that long-lasting friendships are built on, well then, ladies, what is?

oh, i forgot...

i'm a b*tch. i'm only telling this to YOU dear computer because i know you won't judge. right? ....right?

i have a friend inside the computer who got pg after 6 mos ttc. she got her bfp 3-4 days ago. she has ALREADY posted a ticker, made plans for future sonograms and is checking out maternity clothes. she's, like, 15dpo at this point. WTH? what kind of hubris is that? seriously! i wish i didn't find it so annoying, but i do.

le sigh.

and on a different note: this is just like rocco in appearance and deed. bad cat!

holding pattern

sorry for the long delay in posts. i survived the end of the semester (it was touch and go there for a while) and am now here in LA helping my sis with the nephews. they are both so funny. they express displeasure by coughing, farting and vomiting (as well as screaming, of course) and i have to admire the full body approach they take. its one thing to be upset, but they *really* commit to it.

i think i'm getting a sore throat from the sleep deprivation which is kind of pathetic, considering j has been going on consistently less sleep for far longer.

andrew enjoys an US Weekly (and who doesn't?)

ryan is snug as a bug in a rug (his nickname is the siren...not that you could tell from this pic).


in IVF news, baseline appt is scheduled for 1/15.

knocked up (the movie, not me)

came across the following very interesting articles today while i should be studying :)

this article on slate discusses how 'knocked up' is just a little bit sexist. and it exactly describes how i felt after seeing the film...it was hilarious but i felt a little squeamish about how different the fun loving ben was portrayed as opposed to the straight laced alison or the shrewish debbie. i think this article raises a critical point...with every story that is told, you have to look at who is doing the telling. in this case, judd aptow is behind the camera and it's ben's story he's telling, its him that you're rooting for in the end. i think it becomes problematic when you assume that it's THE story being told. it isn't. it's ben's story, and aptow does an OK job at putting a little bit of alison's story in. but his portrayal of alison's story has nowhere near the subtlety and humor of ben's. so my point (yes i have one) is this: when watching something it is critical to keep in mind WHO is doing the telling, because that affects the story told. who is behind the lens, and who is in front of it?

this article addresses how alison never really considered abortion as an option. fascinating, actually, considering she barely knows ben, doubts his commitment to adulthood, and is financially dependent (living with her sister).

and this NYT article is an offshoot of the above, i found it interesting. it is from 2004 and discusses how 40% of women have had an abortion, but no one talks about it. i guess it hides in the same space as miscarriage, which is also very common but no one talks about in the public sphere. i'd even venture to say the silence is worse regarding abortion, because of the value judgements involved: miscarriage is passive, whereas abortion is active.

shall we dance?

so, i canceled my rotation in oregon on friday, scheduled to begin next month. it doesn't sound like much, but the whole oregon thing has been a saga for the last 9 mos. to wit:

in march '07 i made plans to do a family practice rotation in oregon in january '08.

in march i got bfp.
--debated cancelling
chemical shortly thereafter,
---oregon plans left intact.

april:
bfp again following clomid + IUI
--spent april and the beginning of may wondering if i should cancel. figured it was only prudent since how would i get from the right coast to the left coast at 36 or so weeks, assuming everything went as planned? airline travel is certainly discouraged...driving would take 3 days at best one way. and then i'd have to find a hospital out there just in case i went a few wks early. yet didn't want to cancel because what if i m/c'd? decided that i was being morbid, wasn't giving the pregnancy my mental all if i *planned* for a m/c (i.e. not cancelling plans). needed to operate under the assumption of success, at least until proven otherwise. that is the mentally healthy way, right?
---cancelled oregon, claimed conflicting family schedule

m/c late may

july:
contacted oregon health services again, once it was no longer possible for january to be an issue in terms of traveling while in 3rd trimester.
--informed funding no longer available.

september:
oregon rural health contacts me to say that funding is available again, would i like to do rotation in january as previously planned? i alter my plans to visit sister in jan and enthusiastically agree. oregon back on. make plans for preceptorship, travel, accomodations etc.

november:
following yet another chemical following yet another clomid + IUI, clinic moves me into IVF track. next IVF cycle? you got it: january.

december:
spend two weeks trying to figure out whether there is any way to do both jan rotation and jan IVF. unable to pin clinic down in terms of exact dates for baseline, upon which everything else depends. finally give up and cancel rotation. again. 3 wks in advance of scheduled travel. feel like a total a$$.

though it will make me murderously insanely gloweringly mad to hear it, since i've cancelled my trip and all, i'm half expecting the clinic to call and say they can't take me in january after all, for any of a variety of different reasons. it IS par for the course, no?

i think the clinic is south and east of here

so, IVF orientation was yesterday. i was oriented to several important facts.

a. clinic appt times are between 6:45-8:30 in the morning. ALL of them. so, that should be loads of fun for the dark wintery mornings. sigh.

b. if you are under 39, you will get one or two embryos.

c. if somehow you end up with 3+ gestations and you want to reduce, they support that decision but will not offer the reduction because they are a gov't facility blah blah blah happy to refer you elsewhere blah blah blah. oh, and the insurance doesn't cover it either.

d. birth control starts next cd 2, whenever that is, for all 40 of us sitting in the room.

e. no baseline appointment yet.

f. if you want a baseline appt, you will pay us a deposit. today. we take checks, mastercard, discover, visa, blood, sweat and tears.

so that was that. i paid them the money, and a little bit of my sanity with it, just for good measure. they said we'd hear by the end of the week as to when the baseline appts would be. of course, i haven't heard anything yet so i start the phone nagging tomorrow. i guess i should also cancel oregon tomorrow.

yesterday my clinical got canceled because of the snow so i went home and took a nap at 7:30pm and woke up this morning. i slept 13 hrs straight. rip van winklette, that's me.

i amuse myself

fark.com

are your highbeams on?

so, i have a little bit of faith restored in my clinic. the dude that saw me on tues (was it tues? they're all running together) mentioned he was a fellow which made me feel happy, though whether he was specifically an RE fellow or an Ob-Gyn one, i'm not sure because i forgot because it's been a busy week and i've been moving and crap is every-freaking-which-where and the semester is ending and my brain is mushifying. yes, that's right, it's mushifying, so if i speak in circles and walk in jagged edges that's the reason. mind you, it's not that i mind seeing residents (i'm verging on resident status myself soon), and if it was our own newly minted resident i'd be happy as a wee little ocean bound clam. but, somehow i seem to pull confused residents each time, the ones that can't find my left ovary at all and spend 20 minutes looking and aiming the wand at extremely awkward angles before finally going to get help.

so, anyway, where was i? oh yes, dr. fellow with the venipuncture in the study. he had mentioned the prolactin redo with the tsh companion piece which i reluctantly agreed to (i should just move into the venipuncture lab i'm there so much...even with the constantly rotating staff, i'm beginning to become familiar to quite a few of them. it's sad when one is recognizable on sight by no small number of phlebotomy techs. but i'll tell you what's worse. i'm probably recognizable on sight but by my other end to a sizeable contingent of the gyn staff, and they rotate through pretty quickly as well. oy. but i digress...

anyway as i was saying this morning i dutifully showed up for the draw when i saw they had added a testosterone level to the mix. fair enough. i've got no signs of pcos but while they're there, they might as well check, nu? i also saw that the prolactin was a sendout macroprolactinemia panel. which i had never heard of. so, like any good obsessive-compulsive patient i looked it up when i got home. i wouldn't say i completely
understand it but the upshot is it can make your prolactin look like it's elevated when it's not. so i'm glad they're at least checking for that before sending me off into a tube to have my pituitary perused. contrary to popular opinion, i actually do, on occasion, have other places to be during the day besides at my clinic getting my bits and pieces worked over. shocking, but true.

leaving my nipples alone

i go in for my 3rd prolactin in the am, fasting, and with no nipple stimulation. i'm hoping for a reasonable number for all the right reasons, and also because i don't want to be denied medical clearance for a jan IVF because they want me to get a freaking MRI of my brain. it's funny because after my last marginally elevated prolactin they suggested an MRI. i never went because i'm lazy and my numbers were just a smidge up. so now i wonder if that singular laziness regarding the MRI is now going to come and bite me in the ass.

and, of course, now all i can think about are my poor nipples. they itch (because i can't stop thinking about them) and i'm afraid to scratch them. is it OK if i sleep on my stomach? what if i rub them too vigorously on the mattress during sleep? all this makes me just want to engage in my own individual nipple-twisting party just to get it out of the way. i wonder if one can elevate one's prolactin by merely mentally obsessing over their nipples?

all's quiet on the southern front

**guffaw**

every now and then it occurs to me that for me, alzheimers is going to be a gentle easy slide for me, like an old man easing into a bath (costanza!). i'm moving this week, and to describe my current state as disorganized is to truck in vast understatements. its a little better today, but for about 2-3 days there, i didn't know where ANYTHING was. i wore the same underwear for 2 days because the replacements were AWOL. my teeth were scuzzily unbrushed as toothpaste and toothbrush were nowhere to be found. my cell ran out of batteries as the charger was lost in the ether. my laptop was in SC, my furniture in DC and my cats in baltimore. i'm going to have to re-buy at least one schoolbook that i know i already have...somewhere.

its also the end of the semester, the time when all good people come together for a collective 'Oh SH*T' as they realize they now have 2 weeks to do what they should have spent 4 mos doing. my paper is due when??? *headdesk*

reproductively, not much going on. my saline sono was yesterday and the results were grossly normal. i had very mildly elevated prolactin levels on two previous tests so on fri i go for a 3rd, plus another TSH (nl last test). my IVF orientation is next tues...and i wonder if it will be like my college orientation, which i barely remember as it occured while i was in a nice ethanol induced haze. somehow i doubt it. i'm having little pangs that maybe i should do another IUI before i go on to IVF. i've done 5 clomid/4 IUI's. was that a fair trial? i got pregnant on it once and almost pregnant with it at least twice. it seems like it almost works.

pregnancy blips + shopping = AIEEEE

happy thanksgiving y'alls! :)

everytime i have a pregnancy 'blip' (which, unfortunately, has been 3 times in the last 9 mos) i am struck with the consumate need to go clothes shopping until i've depleted either my checking account or my patience with myself, whichever comes first. after the m/c this summer it was rediculous...(though i did end up with some extremely cute summer dresses, truly.) Currently, i find myself ensnared in yet another shopping binge. my current obsession is just the right pair of cute jeans, which i truly don't need, and which aren't practical as i can't wear them to clinicals, but i sorely, wretchedly, desperately want anyway. i feel kinda bad about it, especially as we are approaching the money sinkhole known as IVF... and so now is probably especially not the time to piss away money on frivolities. i think part of the problem is when i'm ttc, i try not to buy clothes because, you know, just in case **roll eyes**. and then when it seems like just-in-case = no-time-soon i want to make up for all the clothes i didn't let myself have before.

(...i also wish i would apply myself to school with such arduous--bordering on fanatical--determination as i do scouting denim deals on ebay...oy).

'at least you can get pregnant'

a few of my imaginary inside the computer friends said this to me today on a message board i frequent.

it is really the LAST thing i want to hear considering i'm a g3p0 if you count the chems and a g1p0 otherwise...and all that with a ton of effort.

do you think i should say something, nicely but politely, to the effect of 'well, yes, but i rather need to be able to STAY pregnant too, nu?'...or do you think i should let it go and not say anything about it. i know the people who wrote it meant no offense and were trying to be helpful. but, ugh.

a teensy tiny chemical preg (update)

i got my beta back from yesterday. it's 9.6mIU. the ranges for our clinic are le 5 = not pregnant, ge 5 = pregs.

a 9.6 at 17dpo, well, it isn't great. i'm going back for a repeat this morning.

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this morning's beta = 3. at least i can expect AF soon, which is good. i was worried that this thing would drag on and on for weeks.

my dad is so sweet/i'm an auntie (update 6p)

we met for lunch so i could give him a few of the newborn things to give to my sister when he goes out to visit later this week. that's right! i'm an auntie. i was worried by the time i went out there in 4 wks none of the newborn stuff would fit anymore. Baby A is Andrew James, 6lbs 6oz, nearly back at birthweight at day 4 of life. Baby B is Ryan Samuel, 5lbs 11oz, who is already down about 10% at day 4 of life. I love how they are both just born, and already heading off in opposite directions as quickly as possible. it sounds like both are doing well, and they are making sure baby B gets enough to eat through a combo of breastmilk/formula via syringe/bottle/breastfeeding. they'll all be discharged later today. at the end of her pregnancy my sister developed pre-e which rapidly devolved into HELLP syndrome, so they all had a 5 day hospital stay. she had a very rough first 2 days, but is feeling much better now. what i feel kind of funny about is during the last month or so of the pregnancy i was very worried she would get HELLP syndrome, and then she did.
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NOTE: this is my own personal blog, and it isn't an open forum for debate. i want to keep this space a positive one, where i can post about myself and my family without recrimination or judgement.

with that in mind: if you disagree with formula supplementation for whatever reason, please keep it to yourself. i don't feel like it should be necessary to post this rule, but this is an open blog and i know people feel very passionately about issues surrounding infant care. and that is great, and you can do it however you want with your own children.

second: the babies are having their bris this thursday which i will also probably write about (even though i can't be there because of school, i wish i could be. everyone else in my family is going). if you feel passionately about infant circumcision, please keep it to yourself. my blog, her children, yada yada yada, refer to above statement etc.

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anyway, i met with my dad for lunch so i could give him the newborn stuff so he could take it with him when he flies out this week. he gave me a little glass heart paperweight as a present, to let me know he is thinking of me. that recognition just meant so much. this is a time of great joy for my family and myself. i'm so glad j is doing well and the babies are too. but there is a slight bittersweet edge to it for me because i'd have been due about now also if i hadn't m/c'd. it was nice to have someone besides myself acknowledge that there is an edge of sadness in it for me, intermingled with my great joy. i'm not even sure he knows how much it meant to me because his general opinion is people shouldn't dwell on the past. also, i think he may have just given it to me because he didn't want me to feel bad about all the attention going to my sister...which is funny, because we aren't 8 anymore, and i don't care about that at all. but still, he thought of me and that is nice. (he's probably right to some degree about dwelling on the past...though his family took it to some extremes. at lunch today i asked him his grandparent's names, his mother's parents. and he did not know their names. his mother never spoke of them as they perished in the holocaust, and he didn't ask).

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i'm waiting on my beta results and pushed back my saline sono to next week. i had a little bit of spotting, but no AF yet. le sigh. i'm sure my pd will come within an hour of finding out the beta is neg.
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6p: no AF and no update. the clinic stated they don't have my results back yet. from 11am today. i hope the lab didn't lose the sample.

what new hell is this?

relevant stats:

--15dpo
--spotting 12 dpo
--no AF yet
-- $ store pg test negative at midnight, pos this am
-- repeat $ store test and FRER this AM with FMU both still neg after 2+ hrs
--what's at stake: besides the obvious, it's also the jan IVF cycle.

i will go in for a beta tomorrow at 16dpo if still no AF. i'm sure i'm having some kind of chemically bullshit going on. can anyone out there in blogland think of a positive outcome if someone doesn't have >25mIU hcg in their urine after 15 dpo? me either.

i had a scheduled saline sono this tues at 5dpo. my original plan was just to show up and have it, esp if the beta comes back <25mIU and just say i'm 5dpo or not say anything at all. except it occured to me this morning that one look at the uterine lining and they're going to know right off it's not 5dpo. think anyone will notice? i think the saline sono is just to visualise the contours of the ute so maybe they won't notice...is it possible?

if i can't get in for the saline sono on this cycle (cd 5-12) it might affect our chances of getting the jan IVF cycle.

anyone know any way i can induce my pd TODAY?
:(

oh well

12dpo bfn.

good news

no, not pregnancy good news.

but look! lori mama and blogger extraordinare, has given me the blogger flame of fortitude :)



as i muddle through yet another 2ww i'm not feeling very fortudinous, but i really appreciate the spirit lifting shout out.

so, in turn i'm passing the torch along to geohde, who just had a birthday and is always full of fortitude and also to dmarie who has made a commitment to health and is drinking lots of very very green shakes.

love and supportive healing vibes for my hubby

well, my hubs is in a very bad mental state. it's not IF related, but the struggle is very similar. i'm looking for advice/support/ways to muddle through.

he is in the ar.my and when his orders were cut, they were cut incorrectly, so as to reduce his income by about a third. only one other person of the many who had orders coming due at the same time were affected in the same way. this means he is working along-side people whose orders were cut at the same time as his, and yet did not suffer the same loss of income. he has basically exhausted his options for redress, and it doesn't look like there will be any. not that people are saying what happened is right, just that it's done and worse could have happened. add to this that the people he works with and under do not cut the orders, that happens at a different level. so there's no one he works directly with or near that either cut the orders or who have the direct ability to fix it. so he feels very very low. doesn't want to do his work because his situation is not fair, doesn't want to not do his work because that's not fair either. spends all his time trying for solutions, realizing there probably won't be any. trying not to make all his co-workers hate him for spending so much time on this, on the other hand, how could he not?

so, how do you go on when you're in an f*cked up situation? one way is you just do because you have to. i think this is true for him...he will go on because even though his situation is bad, the alternatives are worse (iraq, unemployed, etc). this is a mind-f*ck that all of us infertile-types are intimately familiar with. we struggle for that thing which comes so simply and naturally and thoughtlessly to the vast majority of people. we look around at people who confidently circle due dates on their calendar after the first bfp, who never had a loss, or who treat their pregnancies carelessly. we are somehow caught in a different ride than most people, and even the best 'fixes' still hurt. how do you keep your spirit? how do you not feel uniquely targeted, when it feels so individual? what are your strategies for muddling through?

sometimes it just hurts to be female

right down to my XX chromosomes. we share the world, we're more than half of it's occupants..wtf is wrong with people? i am constantly amazed that our capacity for hate seems to outshine our capacity for love.

anyway, stuck in my hamster wheel right now:

this story about iranian med student Zahra Bani Ameri who was picked up by the revolutionary guard for questions regarding her marital status, and who died in prison two days later of 'suicide'. it seems unfair to me the subtitution: she dies and her jailers live? we exchange a light for darkness.

recent stories about the harrassment women face online. this article on slate discusses the harrassment women political bloggers face, and this washington post article discusses one specifically egregious example of online harrassment women law students face. according to board moderators at this law student themed site, taking down intimidating rape and brutality posts against female law students (including posts providing name and address info and those inciting other readers to snap pictures of the girls on their cellphones and then post them online) constitutes an unfair foray into censorship. much more admirable to host an open forum for anonymous users to post their graphically violent mysogynistic fantasies and racist, anti-semitic threats against female law students. the only positive i can come up with all this is the penn state law student anthony ciolli who was one of two founders/site executives/moderators/whatever he is calling his invovlement these days had his job offer at a law firm rescinded after the WaPo article was published. i hope his student loan debt is considerable and his employment prospects remain dismal.

finally, i posted on a parenting board about the challenges involved with raising our daughters, what with the xrated halloween costumes for 8 yr olds (honey, would you rather be a sexy pirate or a sexy nurse or a sexy chambermaid?) and the stuff outlined above etc etc etc. and a mother responded that that's why she's glad she has a son. oooookay. guess i'm glad i'm white and american, so i don't have to trouble my head about injustices that concern other races or occur in other countries. injustices don't have to occur directly TO YOU in order for you to be concerned about them. yeesh.

9 dpo today. no tests.

the interminable 2ww

i worked my heinie off today. it was one of those days in the ER where you start dreaming about cath-ing yourself, because there isn't any time to stop and pee. much less eat. at around 3pm i started feeling shaky, and ducked in the back to eat bbq potato chips and leftover halloween candy (it was on hand). then i went back to work a little less shaky but a little more disgusted with myself. at the end of the shift i found out that if i'd worked tomorrow or monday i'd have gotten time and a half. BLAST!

no fertility news of my own to report. muddling through the 2ww. i'm probably going to get 2 nephews by the end of the week though.

CrossPollination

hear ye hear ye: without further ado, i present the nov 9 crosspollination guest blogger (a little early, more time to guess). please extend a warm hearty welcome to...mystery guest :)

This post is part A of a two part X-pollination, you may find part B here (if indeed you fancy reading part B)

I choose to, rather unimaginatively, entitle this 'Tears Part I'.

The manner in which my latest IVF cycle has slowly, but with much dramatic flair, gone down the proverbial gurgler finally got to me.
Out of ammunition in the form of perfectly innocent clinic staff to rant and rail at, I was left with only self recrimination.

Last night in the shower, and for the first time in a very long time, I cried.

I let the water run over me and oh how I cried. Truly stood there in my pasty white birthday suit and just balled. Great big gulping sobs, streaming mascara, socially inconvenient nose snot, the works. This was no ladylike small tear of regret, but the kind of heaving sobs that leave you with a hoarse voice, puffy eyes and an unnattractively red nose well into the next day.

I cried for what should have been with my first pregnancy, but for a cruel twist of fate.

I cried for what could have been, if only those embryos that looked so divine on the monitor had ever been given a fair chance by my body.

I cried with the combined grief of painful loss and my own repeated biological failures.

I cried for my husband, who may never be a father.

But mostly, I admit, I just cried for myself.

I cried until the water ran cold, and then, shivering like a wet cat, I cried some more.

Thanks for having me.... guess who I am below and then click the link to find the usual post from this blogger.

fertility gods and irony, part 645

i recently came across the blog of a woman who stated she'd been ttc x1 year with no luck and so went to her ob-gyn who prescribed 50mg clomid. as a comparison, my clinic starts people at 100mg, even for the first cycle. anyway, her first cycle on the clomid, she got pregnant with quadruplets, two of the four being identical twins. the identicals probably would have happened anyway, but that is a hell of a response to clomid even so. and then there's the rest of us poor saps, lucky to get half a follicle on twice as much clomid. further proof--as though any were needed--that the primary motivating factor for "blessings" from the fertility god appears to be side-splitting, head bashing irony. nothing like "would be a good parent" or "deserve this after so much crap" etc. it seems much more along the lines of "i bet if i flipped this switch it would REALLY f*ck things up. Cool!"

2ww and ultimate

so yesterday after the IUI bright and frikking early in the morning, i asked the very nice and soft spoken doctor about vigorous exercise during the 2ww, does it impact the chances of pregnancy? (this guy is so mild and soft-spoken that my mind wandered into thinking what he was like as, say, an 8 yr old boy. did he play with other kids or was he that kid in the corner building things out of legos while everyone else was playing kickball? was he always just mild and polite or was he a hellion that became this paragon of stillness after adolescence? but i digress...) anyway, the the thing with ultimate is that it's not just a question of elevated heartrate, but, if you're doing it right, also involves lots of lunging, diving, jumping etc. he said there's no real strong evidence either way, but if he were me he would abstain.

of course, yesterday was the end-of-season tournament. and i couldn't let them know ahead of time that i wouldn't be there, since i didn't know the timing of the IUI myself until the day before. so i made an internal compromise with myself. i went to the tournament and played as little as possible. once we were cleared to advance to the next round, i didn't play at all. i came up with some scarcely believable convoluted lie about why i could play just fine the previous two games and then needed to abruptly stop playing. it'd be great if i could have just told them: "well, i'm just not sure how to walk the line between not living my life and not taking risky chances during the 2ww." but, for better or worse, i didn't.

so here i am, right at the beginning of yet another 2ww. let the wild rumpus start.

mighy righty

todays scan: on the right i have a 20mm and a smattering of littles. on the left i got nothing (this after spending 20 awkward wanding minutes trying to find that sucker). that right ovary is really a producer! i can pretty much count on something happening on the right when i go in for scans, where as the lazy and recalcitrant left is much more of a toss-up. like bartleby, when it comes to making follicles, it seems the left would prefer not to. bastard. i was hoping for more than ONE follicle, but one good one is all you need (in theory) right?

ideally i'd trigger tonight for IUI on sunday but the clinic doesn't do IUI's on sunday. so i triggered this morning for IUI tomorrow morning...poor cl has already started the 8+ hr drive. poor kid.

my request for an E2 was denied. apperently my lining looks good, so adding an E2 would just "confuse things."

really not how i planned it

subtitle: feeling sorry for myself

i had my follow up appointment this morning with yet another provider that i'd never met before. she seemed ok/knowledgeable. so, this is my 5th clomid cycle, 4th clomid + IUI cyle. they might push it to 7 clomid cycles to have 6 clomid + IUI, but they are also willing to move forward with me and start an IVF cycle in january. the way the clinic works, they do 4 ivf cycles/yr; jan, apr, july, oct.

i feel really sad. :( i don't know what i expected. of course IVF is the next step, what else could we do? i suggested IUI + gonadotropins but the value is probably minimal since i am (mostly) ovulating with the clomid.

on the good side: the cycle in january is the next possible cycle. there's barely any waiting or downtime from now (end of oct). the cost is about 1/4 what it would be if i wasn't in the military health care system. once you move on to IVF you work with a smaller cadre of people, i might actually see these guys more than once.

the bad: i *never* thought i'd be getting IVF. :(. i'm supposed to be doing a rotation in ore.gon in january and i'd have to cancel it (of course it's already set up etc etc etc). or i could go in january and push back the IVF to april. but that has it's own set of problems. i am on scholarship at school, but i have to pay them back by working full time after i graduate. i have a little leeway after graduation, but not alot. if i pushed back the cycle to apr and it were successful, basically i'd start somewhere, work there for 6 wks, and then go immediately on maternity leave. there are worse things, but that sucks also...and interviewing while visibly knocked up probably isn't going to work as well for me as otherwise.

there is a strong part of me right now that just wants to go f*ck it and not do anything. if i get pregnant i do, otherwise i live a happy child-free life full of free time, extra money, the ability to go clothes shopping without spending hours making arrangements first, i can sleep for more than 3 hrs at a stretch. there's an equally strong part of me that wants to go forward with IVF because i know what a unique position i'm in regarding having any of it covered by insurance at all. what will i think of myself now if i let it go and find myself paying 25K for ivf 2 yrs forward?

it's just too much to think about. i'm depressed and don't care.

what the...

for some reason google directed this searcher to my blog: dildo ascending colon. i have no idea why. and, dear confused google reader, if you *do* have a dildo in your ascending colon, you need a rather major surgery. so put down teh internets and get thee to a hospital, toot sweet. try not to stop for any snacks on the way.

(sadly, someone also found my site using 'men and grief' which does make sense)

the quiet before the redcoat invasion

relevant stats: 13dpo
bfn with urine test sensitive to 25mIU hCG
temp drop -0.6

i had a bea-u-tiful chart this month complete with i-spotting and everything. there's a lesson in there somewhere...irony? irrelevance of good looking data? need to spend 2ww intoxicated?

i think as long as my mom doesn't mention 'god's will' at brunch on sunday i'll be ok.

frer=2 ute=0 hope=-1 (update with question)

i guess it could turn around from today's bfn (12dpo), but it's looking less likely for the home team.

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update 1040a: here's my question for you guys. assuming the spotting i had late sun night was implantation related (HA!!! i know, funny, but bear with me for a minute...) i got a bfn today 4 days later. it seems to me even if i do get a bfp in a few days, it's kind of a bad sign. if the placenta/attachment were doing well, i'd have my bfp by now...it shouldn't take me 4 days to make hcg if something actually attached. or am i confused (quite likely!). any thoughts?

frer=1; ute=0 10dpo

try again tomorrow, thanks for playing.

bad information/rant/updated with bad news

ok, here is a rant, i know it's a rant. it is also not IF related, so feel free to skip.

there is so much BAD BAD information about vaxes out there. some crackpot writes some conspiracy theory $hit about government and big pharma trying to poison babies for profit, puts it on his web and viola! the idiots applaud his crack stab at entrenched interests. it is absolutely exhausting to try and fight against it. if you aren't restricted up by "facts" you can make on hell of an argument about how unsafe everything is and this one causes autism and that one causes f+ck all. meanwhile, science is not blameless in this...it's hard to argue against propaganda with 'current evidence does not support the hypothesis that x causes y, but research is ongoing.' yea, real convincing there.

i don't know why i care. it's not MY children, and it will never be my children (if i am lucky enough to ever have/raise children). if others want to take such risks with their children, than so be it. it's just infuriating to see such drivel put out as fact, and then to see other people just swallow it as fact. can ANYONE look beyond emotional rhetoric anymore?

and...i am going to FAIL my test on tuesday...i need to put teh internets DOWN and step away...
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and, as of right now, i'm spotting. fuck. guess i'm going to fail my test tomorrow morning too.
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'risk taking' and the 2ww

all the different ways the 2ww tries our souls. yesterday i ran my a$$ off playing ultimate. it was a great game too, my team really needed me, and i ended up catching the game-winning point :). but should people in the 2ww exert themselves so strenuously? it's all a huge mindf*ck, because, potentially, i could be in the 2ww at least half of the time for the next long while. should i give up my life and sit at home for what could be? should i really give up half of my games? on the other hand, do i risk possibly a bad outcome by running so much? my hr was probably in the neighborhood of 4,000bpm which is well over the recommended < 150bpm. additionally, as i was chasing plastic discs all over the rocky bumpy field that is anac*stia, i thought this about the potential life in my womb: 'if you are trying to implant NOW, good luck little sucker!' i rationalized this way: women have been getting pregnant for eons, and most of them did not sit on their heinies waiting on devil sticks to turn their way. they just lived their life, and got/stayed pregnant anyway. the proof is that we're all here, and only recently has leisure been an option for the vast majority of women. on the other hand, maybe women like me would not have gotten pregnant in the good old days. it comes down to this: do i blame myself more for sitting at home not playing and then getting a bfn, or play my a$$ off and risk a bfn that might have otherwise potentially be a bfp? i decided to play anyway, because i know that when the time comes, there's plenty of blame to go around.

phantom symptoms

here i am at 8dpiui/8dpo (pretty please) making pretend that i have pregnancy symptoms. that's right...i just imagined i felt nauseous. yet i haven't allowed myself to pee on anything for fear that even if there were some hcg in my system, it would still be too negligible to register on a devil stick. i call that having my cake and eating it too. on the one hand, the hcg is making me nauseous. on the other hand, not enough hcg in the system to set off a stick. heh. not likely!

at least i know the insanity is all mine :)

tired

i'm TIRED. if i have any 2ww symptoms, it's that. on the other hand, tired is kind of a general condition for me; it'd be nice if i only felt tired 2 wks in 4. would it be wrong of me to go to bed tonight at 9pm? i know it'd be lame, but oh well. i've begun the paper i have to write and i've got a few tests next week. ugh.

one of my clincals right now is in an adult ER. i'm not actually participating in the care of my patients. i go in and get a history and do a physical completely for my own benefit, and because i'm required to do so to pass my class. i guess the school would argue a benefit is having a second set of eyes/ears on board to make sure nothing is missed etc, which is true i guess. i just feel bad sometimes poking at sick people for what is probably nominal gain to them.

this picture is from saturday's tournament. we are all lined up at the endzone to start the point and we lift our hands to show we are ready to recieve the disc. since it's a 'drink in hand point' we all raise our drinking hand to show we are holding a beverage, and the beverage must stay in hand throughout the entire point. all my teammates held up yinglings, but not me because i find that running + beer = vomit. so i had the vitamin water, the only non alcoholic drink to be seen on either side of the field.



speaking of vomit, i title this picture 'rod contemplates the beer smoothie.'

today i have to go do my rotation at the hospital, which i don't want to do, and i have to start my paper this week which i REALLY don't want to do. also, cl left for sc today which makes me sad :(. i would like to go back to bed and wake up when there are fewer unpleasant tasks waiting for my attention.

3 days into the 12day wait. anyone want to hear about phantom symptoms? meh, me either.

cervically challenged

i think i must be one of the only people to have her cervix basically sitting on her descending colon. i always say before the speculuum 'my cervix is very posterior' and then i always get a suprised 'WOW your cervix really IS posterior' after several uncomfortable minutes of poking around. just why my anatomy should be this way, i don't know but it is a literal pain in the butt.

the doc i saw yesterday was really a nice guy, very kind. (does a male gyno seem weird to anyone else? are they very into women's health? i don't know that many female urologists). he was very methodical and thorough throughout the procedure, and as gentle as he could be. it still hurt through, and caused me to have the runs (lovely) and gave me cramps all day. today i felt much better though and played in an ultimate tournament. it warmed the cackles of my heart to see so much beer drinking on the sidelines. one guy on my team decided to make a beer smoothie (battery operated blender, natch) to save him the time and effort of eating the banana and orange and then having to drinking the beer all seperately. it looked like foamy, chunky regurgitated urine. but he drank it, said it was ok, but typically he likes his beer smoothies with less pulp. ICK.

so, the countdown begins again.

Trigger Timing? (updated 5pm)

So, at Ye Olde Dildo Cam bright and early this morning we found an 18mm (???) and a 14mm on the right, along with a smattering of littles, and a 10mm on the left with the same smattering of too-smalls. They want me to trigger tonight, and I am quite afeared. I'm only CD13, and i've never triggered this early, or ever ovulated this early. Plus last time, as you may recall, i didn't ovulate with the shot i think in part because it was too early. but they state if i wait until tomorrow night to trigger i might miss the dominant follicle (wither on the vine like overripe fruit?). Here then, are the questions currently on repeat loop on my inner monologue:
--is it silly to trigger with an 18mm?
--is it better to wait until the follicle is a little bigger?
--what if they misjudged the size of the dominant follicle and it's really only a 17?

ugh. ugh i say.

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lots of thanks to blogland, esp geohde and LJ. my clinic is a teaching hospital, so the person i saw this am for the dildo cam was a resident, who i will probably never see again. i think they only do one month in "family planning" as it's so euphamistically called, before they go on to bigger and better things in OB-GYN land. the attendings, at least, are there for 6mos. and the NP is on staff, but she's impossible to to get ahold of. anyway, i called the clinic and asked to speak to the attending, spelling out my situation as clearly as i could to the "crisis nurse" (perhaps less euphamistically titled?). talking to the resident wouldn't help, because the resident told me when to trigger based on what the attending told her (confused yet?). now i was clearly not important enough to warrant a return call from the attending, but the crisis nurse called me back and said that SHE had spoken to the attending regarding my situation, and the verdict is: i can trigger tomorrow night if i prefer, if i can have intercourse (HA!) tonight in case i ovulate the 18m early. even though we don't face any known male factor issues, this is not an option with CL 650+ miles away. plus, as geohde explained, you actually can have too ripe follicles in addition to not-ripe enough ones. so, i'm going to take a nap on the theory that naps help boost follicle growth (i made it up but it seems plausible) and trigger tonight. plus, i'm avoiding a paper so it works out that way too.

ps--i forgot to mention yet further proof that fertility gods live for irony: the resident this AM in infertility clinic was, i'm guessing, about 7mos pregnant.

not that bright...but very warm

so, all this past week i've suddenly been feeling HOT. not hawt, but HOT. like, so warm that i stop what i'm doing and think 'geez louise, i'm hot. is it hot in here?' i didn't put 2 and 2 together until last night when i was just sitting around and found myself sweating that i realized, omigod, i'm having hot flashes! for some reason that really cracks me up. i guess i realized i have a side effect from clo.mid after all...and i really hope they have some good new drugs by the time i get to menopause.

not much going on here. progres was made on travelgate 2007. the jist of it is: my sister is having the first grandbabies (plural. she's having twins) of the family in dec. she's planning to have family come out and help for the first few months. my mom definitly wants to come out and help...but she refuses to pick travel dates. i guess she has to keep her busy social schedule open, or desires to retain the ability to stay all 3 mos (oops!) without having to pay pesky airline rescheduling fees or whatever. but i need to have firm dates so i can plan, and so we can not overlap (because, god bless mom and all that, but the last thing my poor sis needs so soon after delivering twins is to have an apt full of relatives along with the two crying babies). j and i took the extraordinary step yesterday of employing none other than the secret jedi mind trick to get her to pick travel dates. now, the dark force was strong within her so we were only able to pin her down to one date: she will leave by mid dec, enabling me to travel out there mid dec. but the one date is alot better than we had before, which was none. we worked so hard at our telepathy that i think i levitated my book bag in the process, quite by accident.

in follicle news: none so far. still in the clo*mid fields, nothing to see here. hopefully more exciting news next week.

slightly more human

um...this was me and my sister any time we took a car trip together (which was often) for about the first 10-12yrs of our lives. god help our parents. and to think...neither of them wanted any more children, yet both of them remarried. i guess the experience of raising us was just so...erm...fufilling that they didn't want any other children :).

well, i was feeling somewhat less than human these last few days (or were it years? primus? anyone?) but sweet lil LJ cheered me up over dinner. the very boozy 'dc tap water' drink helped as well. i like how they made the drink green, but i'm hoping the bar version has less arsenic and lead than actual dc tap water, which i try not to ever drink unless i'm feeling low on my elemental metals. i think lj and i will both be going in for good old fashioned wandings next week (is that what the kids are calling it these days?) so wish us luck and cross your fingers, if not your legs for us.

freaking finally!

YAY! cd1 over here. it sucks, but at least i can move on to the next frikking cycle. i think that is the *last* time i will try clo.mid+timed intercourse, given the resulting 36 day cycle. thanks geohde for the warning that something like this might be headed my way.

love to all y'all. sniff!

dpo14--bfn

and that's all the news thats (UN)fit to print

isn't waiting fun? (updated 6p, still waiting)

today i woke up feeling very AF crampy...but with a temp well above coverline. yesterday my temp was *just* above coverline, so i figured it was on its way down. i even picked up next month's clo.mid and adjusted my scan appt given what was surely to be cd 1 (today). but today my temp is much higher.

so, i'll wait, trying not to cling too tightly to hope with the last vestiges of my quickly fleeting sanity. i don't have the optimism to pee on devil sticks all day. plus, my uterus feels to me like AF is imminent. if no AF tomorrow and elevated temp, i'll test then.

my uterus does most things wrong, but i'll say this for myself: i do NOT have a luteal phase defect, that's for damn sure.
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MEH.

i wish that frikking AF would start so we could get the ball rolling on the next cycle. limboland sucks my entire a$$. i've been crampy all day and keep rushing to the bathroom to see if AF started, but the b*tch has not shown up yet. i guess its the hope that she won't show that makes all this exquisitely worse.

i think today i'm not fit for human consumption so its a good thing i'm just here with the cats. as long as i feed them, they don't care if i do it while i'm half crazy or the whole way there. they *are* pretty whiny right now, which is a mite irritating, but then so am i, so i probably shouldn't cast dispersions.
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blogging, a bit like masturbating at times. got to be able to respect yourself in the morning.

pee sticks = 1; me = 0

ah well; 12dpo and a pee stick as vast and white and empty as siberian plains in january. i even held it up to a bright light and squinted at it, but alas, no.

L'Shana Tova Everyone!

and a happy, healthy, and fruitful year to all. the rabbi gave a very interesting speech (i know, how often does that happen, right?) about how today's torah portion was about sarah and the haftorah portion is about hannah. both are women who were childless, and who were given children late in their lives, after they had nearly given up. the rabbi's focus was on birth/rebirth but also the question of 'when is it too late?' sarah had her child in her 90's. what does it mean when you get what you most desperately wanted, but so much later that it doesn't even mean the same thing anymore as it once did?




Dream Deferred


What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

Langston Hughes




what does it mean to find the love of your life...in your 60's? to finally be a parent at 90? to get your PhD in your 70's? those dreams don't have the meaning they once did...once they were sweet and now they are bitter-sweet. but he says that bitter-sweet is basically the defining emotion of being human. and the torah urges us to be less bitter and more sweet when given the option to chose. he also said it's never too late, for anything.

i don't often have any kind of connection, sitting there in temple, reading words someone else has written, praying to a god i'm not always sure is there. but i felt connected today; with the plight of sarah and hannah, with the bitter sweetness of deferred dreams, and with struggling to remain optimistic when pessimistic is the most rational path. (for ex: now in my 2ww...optimisim and pessimism are in a nearly constant battle, with my soul bouncing back and forth between the two like a ping pong ball. it's exhausting really. at least, it seemed to give me permission to be optimistic every now and again if i feel like it :P ).
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and now for something completely different.




yesterday at work at the children's hospital we were SLAMMED. one little girl of about 3 came in with her mom, spanish speaking only. the mom kept saying the child had an animal in her head and pointing at a lump in the back of the scalp. i thought my spanish was off, but the lump did need to be opened and drained. well, guess what came out of the lump? Bot Fly larvae. it looked like the picture but was longer and much more disgusting. child did ok, got the wound packed with gauze and put on an antibiotic. it was definitly something.

slightly scuffed, semi battered, but we made it

well, the 8 hrs drive with the beasts was not nearly as bad as i thought it would be.

pirate got freaking roofied. one cat tranquilizer pill and that was all she wrote. he fell asleep in charleston and woke up in hyattsville. then he spent an amusing hour or so staggering about, batting at invisible bugs and staring at the tracers. today he's back to his sack of cat self which involves lots of begging for food, begging for attention, and/or swatting at bugs.

getting the benadryl in rocco was a signficant challenge. as LJ so aptly stated, i ended up wearing alot of the syrup, and he foamed at the mouth in a pretty good imitation of scary-rabid-cat. next time i think we will use a chewable, or break apart an adult tablet. he did ok on the actual trip. he slept most of it, waking up every 45mins or so for a minute or two to vociferiously indicate displeasure. that was much better than the way down in which the ratios were reversed: 45minutes of crying followed by a minute or two of sleeping.

my semester has started and i'm doing adults. i much prefer pediatrics, but i have to do 2 semesters of adults in order to graduate, so that's what i'm doing.

the 2ww drags on. i actually had a temp of >98.0F this am. this means i'm catching a cold or i should stop taking my temp until i can POAS. HA! as if i had the willpower to do that! to keep myself sane though, i scheduled my u/s for next month for the next clomid cycle. i think that was exactly the right thing for me to do smack in the middle of 2ww, where the hormones are strong, the tensions run high, and all the follicles are above average.

i'm leaving...on a jet plane...

ok that's not true. i'm leaving in a packed teeny tiny volkswagen, it just doesn't have the same ring to it, nu? after a month of staying with CL here in chucktown, i'm heading home to DC tomorrow. le sigh. it was fun pretending like we're married folks. unfortunately, my semester has started and he has to go to savannah tomorrw so that's that. to beat traffic on the 660mi trip, i'm leaving yesterday. um, no wait. i'm not leaving until i develop my time/space machine that will somehow enable me to teleport home with all my crap! yeah, that!

and, to add to the fun, i'm taking the cats. taking them down here was an adventure in misery for all involved. pirate did well with the cat tranquilizers and just slept for 10hrs or so. but frigging rocco lost his everloving mind. apparently, the tranquilizers had, like, a reverse effect on him and he spent 12 or so hours howling, screeching, and throwing his body against the side of the carrier. it was so stressful i was sorely tempted to take the cat tranquilizers myself.if they weren't going to work for him, at least they could take the edge off for me a little. we are not trying cat tranquilizers on him again. the vet said we could try children's benadryl, so that's the plan. if it doesn't work i'm dropping him off in virginia and he can find his own damn way home.

i'm in my 2ww. anyone care to hear about my phantom symptoms? ehhh, me either.

it started with jo**die fo**ster

maybe this is sleep deprivation, or too much time exposure to news media, but i feel all feminist/radical right now. it started with jo**die fo**ster. i was reading an EW article about her, and it talked about a screening she did of 'the accused' with an audience, in which said audience applauded the rape scene. she also mentioned da*kota fan*ning's upcoming movie in which she acts in a rape scene. then i turned the page of the magazine and the next images were a two page advertisement for the upcoming VMA's. it featured kan*ye we*st, fall out boy and a few other male artists front and center. the only female artist shown was rhianna off to the left corner. and, of course, all throughout the ad were female bodies. female arms draped across male chests. female butts hanging out of hot shorts. female legs spread apart, jutting out of high heeled boots. breasts just hanging. the only thing you didn't see much of were female faces...but the faces weren't the important part, obviously. i know, i know, it isn't mtv's fault exactly. they wouldn't sell sex if sex didn't sell. and, they're selling sex from the male point of view because that is how sex is sold (and consumed) in our culture. and because the artists they are featuring are male, and probably the studio execs that put the show together are male, and the money that finances the projects originates most likely from males. males run the TV networks, they produce the images we all consume, and when they want to sell a show using sex it is the half naked, faceless bodies of women that predominate. one could argue that a story that ends in rape starts with the image of a headless, objectified woman's body.

i dunno. people are the worst.

(that picture is of gloria steinem btw)

cappucino maker=1 me=0 kitchen=-23

well, i survived. no need to call the fire department. but just to save anyone else the trouble, here is what happens if you try to make cappucino without first properly securing 'the basket' to 'the machine':
at some moment when you least expect it, the basket part will come flying off the bottom of the machine with absolutely astounding velocity, sending steaming hot missilized particles of coffee grounds and boiling water everywhere. it may then be necessary to spend the better part of the next half our de-caffinating the floor, the walls, the new machine, one's eyeballs.

i'm going to try again with the cappucino tomorrow. wearing a helmet and a tyvek suit.

for those of you keeping count, no O yet.

i'm a poet and i know it

here i sit and think
will i ovulate today?
maybe, maybe not.

one line much blankness
shhh! follies are fast asleep
lazy, lazy egg!!!

its downright little house on the prairie around here

you guys want to hear something funny? i'm trying for the bfp this month ONLY using opk's, clomid, charting, epo, flax seed, sperm friendly lube and timed intercourse. how frikking quaint is that?

greetings and salutations

firstly, a big old thanks to ms dmarie for nominating me as a rocking girl blogger. i am a girl, and on occasion, i do rawk, especially when i'm in the tub, and no one's looking (and i should be doing something else like getting ready for clinic).

i'm waiting to O, same ol, same ol. shuffle shuffle shuffle. hopefully i'll o soon but if not it's hard to call august a total loss since that sycophant loser al.berto gon.zales finally decided to cash in his chips. if only he didn't follow such a scorched earth policy regarding the constitution. still, i hope the door don't hit him where the dog shoulda bit him. seeyabye.

i have to study and i don't want to. le sigh.

oh dear

someone recently found their way here via the following search term:
eyes rolled back not breathing head injury

to them i would like to say: less with the googling and more with the calling for emergent medical help. k thx.

lucky? maybe.

am i 'lucky?' maybe, maybe not. my husband got activated by the reserves. that is unlucky. but he got activated to charles.ton. that is very lucky. we have been living together here in the boggy heat for the past two weeks or so after living apart for nearly a year. things have been a bit rocky, but i'm hoping for a rightening of ship and a smoother course soon.

anyway, back to the question of luck. my lil sister is pregnant with twins. they will be the first grandchildren on our side, and i think the first grandchildren on the father's side too. suffice it to say the relatives have about lost their collective minds. and since both our parents and her hubby's parents are divorced, there's twice as much crazy to go around. my mom wants to come over to j's apartment, stay for 3 mos, sleep in the room with the babies at night, and take care of all the night feeds. my step mom wants to 'drop by' at some random future date after they are born and hang out for a while...no leave date specified. her hubby's step mother has decided it is very important that my sis should cloth diaper, and frequently mentions several diaper services in j's area. she also thinks j should start keeping kosher, just for good measure. and because of all the divorce-step-etc relations involved, everyone wants to come but if this person overlaps with that person j's little apt will start resembling southern lebanon. it's like some Lsat problem writ large: a wants to visit, but will not come if b is there. b will come if and only if he can sit next to c. etc. etc. etc. right now she is working on a schedule to accomodate everyone's visitation requests. "you're lucky" she says to me "because when you get pregnant you'll be in the area and can just send everyone home."

am i lucky? i guess. i don't feel lucky. i certainly don't envy her position with the constant buzzing of relatives circling overhead, throwing down flags, staking claim, protesting she's playing favorites with this relative over that one, bartering, whining, and generally carrying on. on the other hand, i would be giving birth about the same time as her if i had not miscarried; within the same week actually. it's hard to consider my self lucky on that front. i'm not in her position because i miscarried a wanted baby. i guess if i manage to get pregnant and stay pregnant sometime in the near future (knock wood, ptu ptu ptu), i'll give birth while still in school so i'll still be in the same state as the majority of the relatives. no doubt, this will make it easier for me to send them all home. on the other hand, as we all know, there are no guarantees. i definitly don't envy her position, but i don't think i'm lucky that i'm not in it. there are good sides to it, but ultimately it's where i find myself, not where i wanted to be.

today is day 1 of clo.mid.

your a$$vice, please

apparently, there's a big public health problem out there that i was formerly completely unaware of. if you guessed snor.ting ad.vil, you are exactly right! i'll be honest, i was completely oblivious of the ad.vil snorters, before starting a blog. don't get me wrong, i love me some ad.vil. love it. feel blessed and grateful to live in a time and place where it's available. don't know why people would choose to snor.t it, but hey, it's their nostrils and their ad.vil. i just wish google would stop linking us!

my temp dropped to day and i have a feeling AF will show up tonight. so, the 2nd IUI was a bust. i'm pretty sure i didn't ovulate after the shot, either because they had me trigger too early (boo on the clinic), because i forgot the powder in the car for 4hrs on a hot day (boo on me), or just because (boo on ... uh... the irony loving powers that be?).

anyway, i'm here in SC for the next month, and so will not be able to do an IUI. too expensive and logistically complicated to get both of us up to DC for the monitoring etc. i could take clo.mid this cycle w/o doing an IUI. that would be my third clo.mid cycle. at my clinic, you only get 6 cycles of clo.mid before they move you on to bigger and better things (HA!). i don't want to 'waste' a clo.mid cycle if the odds are low bec of no iui. on the other hand, it would be hard to let this cycle go by with nothing but well timed intercourse (HA again! [derisive snort] well timed intercourse...HA i say![chuckles under breath]). what do you guys think? your a$$vice greatly appreciated.

false hope v. prolonging the inevitable

i'm scared to pee on another stick. *if* i ovulated 36hrs after the trigger (like a regular person would) the neg at 11dpo/dpiui is quite damning. BUT if i o'd 2 days later, as seems possible or even likely, than the neg was only at 9dpo. in that case, a neg is somewhat acceptable.

my temps are still up but we stirrup queens know how fate likes to f*ck with us. testing tomorrow would be cd13/cd11 which seems late enough in either case to get a definitive result. if i wake up with low temps i won't even have to test. on the other hand, if i wake up with elevated temps and don't test, i can hang on to hope even if it's not warranted. which is better, false hope or early despair? i can pick one or the other tomorrow. it seems like false hope is better in the short run and getting the despair started with already (if it's going to come anyway) is better in the long run. i know testing doesn't affect the outcome...but it will affect the kind of morning i'm going to have tomorrow.

equivocating over a pee stick. does it get much lower? at least i haven't bothered with the means-nothing-2ww-are-my-boobs-sore crap. well, its tumbleweeded on through but i make it keep on tumbling. is that twinge a bfp or af on her way? how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

LE SIGH.

meh

bfn 11 days post iui (cant say post O since not sure when i ovulated). if ovulated on friday (as i suspect i might) then i'm 9 days post O. well, who knows.

meh.

curiously google directed someone to my blog with the search term 'kids snorting ad.vil.' (without the period, of course) i'm not sure why. i'm not sure i ever stated a position on that (nor even much considered it.) however, since google seems to think i know something about it let me state, categorically, for the record, i think it is a bad idea. ad.vil is for eating, not snorting. i'm not sure what the benefit of immediate release ad.vil is either, but if someone would like to let me know, i'm open to new ideas. my guess on it is kids will snort anything that can be crushed, and ad.vil happened to be available. ah, the joys of youth.

i'm at a conference in tam.pa this weekend, where, curiously, it is not as painfully hot as charleston, even though tam.pa is further south, and also located in the so-called "sunshine state". tam.pa is only 90 degrees whereas chucktown is, like, 4 million degrees even in the shade.

in sad news, inandoutofluck recently recieved news that she will miscarry her much wanted and hoped-for baby. please go on over and send some blog love to her at this awful time.

i has a hard day at work today

today was a toughie at work. the first part of the day went well, if slow. its a nice change not to be slammed the second you walk through the door, but when it's slow the day sort of dragggggs on. you are much more conscious of the passage of time. and then around 4pm i got slammed anyway. i had a patient that was a 7wk old status post a fall out of father's arms on friday (today is sunday) and down a flight of stairs, largely on her head. she was transfered to our facility from an outside hospital on friday after a ct scan showed a mild brain bleed. she was kept over night and discharged home on saturday after a follow up ct scan showed no change. all of our head injury patients get iv lines placed. all of them. it is better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. children die for want of iv access. anyway, this baby was a tough stick on friday and it took multiple attempts for them to place the line. of course, when she was sent home on saturday, they pulled the line.

today she came in for increased lethargy and vomiting. mom reported vomiting 12x in the past 8-12hrs. basically, nothing was staying down. mom also reported that she was getting over a gi bug. so then the consideration is gi bug vs exacerbation of head injury. either way, the baby was getting an iv placed. i think it goes without saying, that putting a line in a 2 mos old is not easy under the best of circumstances. and these were not the best of circumstances: the baby had vomited most of the day and was probably quite dehydrated. it was even harder today considering that all of the best places were used up on friday. i'm pretty good at placing lines, but i tried twice and couldn't get it. another nurse tried once and couldn't, and finally a third nurse with the 4th stick total today placed the line. i wish i could say it is unusual to have to stick so many times for a line, but it isn't in a baby. newborns have veins the size of threads, which you are trying to thread a catheter into, and older babies have slightly bigger veins which are generally completely obscured by their fat pads. anyway, the mom just cried the e-n-t-i-r-e time we were placing the line. she bawled straight through. i know it is hard to see your baby get stuck, but that was really hard to take.

and then as i was leaving we had a 4mos old come in by ems and that baby looked like crap. the color was all off, and she was bruised. mom says the story is she left the baby with dad, and when she came home the baby was lying in the crib not breathing, with her eyes rolled back. she reports that dad reports the baby fell off the sofa to the floor, he picked her up and put her in the crib. uh huh. sure. i'm going to go out on a limb here and say i don't think so.

trigger failure?

has anyone ever heard of an HCG shot failing to induce ovulation? i triggered Mon eve at 10p. on thurs am my bbt was 97.4. this morning it was 97.0. granted, it was 6am this morning after not much sleep. but still, 97.0 is a low temp, even for me. usu after a thermal shift my sleep deprived temps will at least be >97.5.

i know i gave myself the shot mon nite, and i know it's in my system because i took a dollar store urine hcg test both tues AM and this morning, and got the coveted double line both times. so, i know i injected something that contained at least some quantity of hcg.

i called the RE's office at wal.ter.re.ed and the physician told me that basically it is impossible not to ovulate after the hcg trigger. you can ovulate immature eggs that then fail to fertilize, but allegedly everyone ovulates after the hcg shot. well, i shot myself (HA!) mon eve and have not had an elevated temp yet. so, how can that be? she did not know either, but advised that i stop taking my bbt.

so, does anyone know? can a person fail to ovulate after a trigger shot?

i hate to recall this, but i did forget the unmixed ovi.drel in my car for about 4 hrs on a hot day...maybe i weakened it?

i guess if i somehow did fail to ovulate the iui might still work if i ovulate, say, today? argh, who knows!

and the 2ww officially starts...NOW!

when we got there this am (poor cl on 2hrs sleep) i talked with them a little about my less-than-spectacular follicular development. the np doing the insemination told me were she in charge of my protocol that month, she probably would have waited one more day for the follicles to mature and then had me trigger tues eve for a thurs am insemination. as i had already triggered monday eve, it was a moot point. maybe salt in the wound if you consider the 8+hr drive and all the missed clinicals for monitoring. and the 'don't worry, this could still work!!' didn't exactly fill me with enthusiasm either.

the prob with my RE clinic (an army clinic since cl is in the army) is there is no single provider i see each time, or even with any regularity. the residents rotate thru every month and the attendings rotate thru every 6 mos. the NP is the most stable person there, but her appts fill up very quickly and this month she had no availability on my cd11,cd12 or cd13. it is good care in that the financial burden to us is minimal. but it is bad care in that it is very very fragmented...i am a patient of the clinic, not of any specific person, so often it feels like i'm at the helm of a rudderless ship. and second guessing the IUI timing the morning of the IUI kinda sucks. especially because i also worried that maybe i was triggering too early, but it was cd15 already and, as the resident repeatedly stated, most people already have triggered by that point.

i guess if this cycle doesn't work we will just have to do things differently the next time. on the other hand, i don't want to write it off entirely because i did have an 18mm (which is completely reasonable to trigger with) and a 15mm that might have matured with the extra boost from the hcg shot. i also don't want to write it off too early because of all the effort we went thru. and also because of the associated bad karma...i had misgivings my entire last pregnancy (i say entire...it was 7wks long! ha!) and so when i did m/c part of me wondered if somehow my misgivings contributed to it. i wonder if scheduling appts NOW for next month's monitoring is prematurely writing this cycle off? its a tough balance between not getting your hopes up and not writing it off.

ANYWAY, it's done. the 2ww officially starts now. fingers crossed!

8pm, 550 miles to go...

poor cl! his flight out of SC was delayed, the connection missed. the airline offered to put him on a later connection; an 1105p out of atlanta. it was a really tough call..but if that flight was cancelled, he'd be stuck in atlanta at 1105p with no way to dc before tomorrow am and we'd miss the IUI. the way our clinic works, all IUI's happen at 8a, but the male partner has to show up by 7a. so, the question was, fly to atlanta on the delayed flight and hope nothing happens with the 1105 dc connection? or drive 8+hrs and get in at 4a. we are people of little faith, so he decided to drive...he's driving now. poor guy.

(i just checked and his flight out of atlanta is on time for an 11:05 departure. of course, if he were on that flight, it would be cancelled i'm sure.)

you know you're alone in the world when...

...you give your own self a shot in the ass.

my blisters have blisters

just back from an ultimate tournament in wild.wood new.jersey. it's a beach tournament and fun as hell but HOLY CRAP am i sore today. the insides of each toe are swollen and blistered. the irony is i hobbled all around today at my orthopedic clincal. i didn't dare mention that i spent the weekend at the beach playing ultimate, because that would imply that: a) i had free time and b) i did not spend my "free" time studying. since i could not name the divisions of the ulnar nerve below the antecubital fossa, i certainly do NOT have time to be playing ultimate on the beach. anyway, wild.wood is crazy...it looks like a carnival threw up on the boardwalk. nevertheless it was a lovely tournament and i will put pictures up as soon as my lazy ass gets around to it.

speaking of lazy...on thurs i had a 13 and an 11 and a smattering of littles. you figure 1mm/day minimum, 2mm/day average and 3mm/day possible because of the clo.mid. today i had 1 18mm, a 15mm and a 14mm and some littles. so, either the 13mm did the minimum amound of growing acceptable, or it arrested and the 11 powered up to the plate. either way, on the strength of the 18mm i'm triggering tonight for a weds iui. hopefully that one will be mature enough but we can't wait much longer because quadruplets are not my thing. for some people, maybe. for me, definitly not.

i'll take mine scrambled

i'd like to indicate, for the record, that i must have some anatomy in some very interesting places because no one can find anything they're supposed to on the first pass. so, to clarify for any of my health care providers that are reading:

1--where my my cervix?
i'll tell you straight up it's posterior. point the speculuum about 40 degrees south of where you think it should be, and you just might find it. i don't know why it keeps such bad company. usually i have this conversation after what seems like endless minutes in the stirrups, and great gnashing of teeth (mine, theirs). i think i should have it beforehand from now on.

2--where is my right ovary?
i know i have one, lets start with that. today it was located hanging out at dairy queen. who doesn't want a blizzard? best way to image it is to put the dildocam perpindicular to the hooha and set the phaser to 'stun.'

the news from the almighty divining rod was mixed. the best thing to see is one nice big follicle. i've got two mediums (a 13mm on the right and an 11mm on the left) as well as a smattering of littles. i'm going back on monday for another look-see, because the picture was too mixed to give me a definitive trigger date.

so, i have two problems (or slightly more than that). one is that monday is the next day i'm supposed to rotate with the orthopedic dr. of course. we are talking about someone who got thyroid cancer during her residency and took a grand total of 2 wks off. i lied about where i was today, because skipping clinical to get wanded is not acceptable. now i have to be late to the very next clincal with her for the very same reason. the nice thing is that the RE is going to see me at 720am so i can be out of there as soon as possible. the bad part is i'm still going to be about 1/2 hr late or more :(. my sis thinks i should tell her ahead of time that i'm going to be late, but that involves coming up with a plausible reason that i will be late, and there isn't any, really.

problem 2 is that i left the nov.arel powder in the trunk for 4 hrs today (HOT), because i'm not that bright. it isn't mixed or into solution anything but the box clearly says 'store at room temp' as does the package insert. so, odds that i turned a very expensive medicine into weak table salt? anyone?

you say it's your birthday?

Happy Birthday to Ms Jilly Sue!

playing hooky to get dildo-cammed.

le sigh..

meh. today i'm in a meh kinda mood. i'm a student, so all of my time is owned by other people. except when i'm at work, when, actually, it is still owned by other people. thursday afternoon is the great and powerful wanding, but it is also a day i'm supposed to rotate in the afternoon with the orthopedic dr. i thought about trying to shift the appt, but it has to stay on thursday and no time on thurs would be better than any other, unless it was a morning appt, but the RE clinic doesn't have AM appt's on thursdays so blah blah blah. i guess i'm going to call in sick and deal with the repercussions (sp?) monday, which is the next time i rotate in orthopedics. i have a derm clinic rotation in the same building thurs AM, which i'm still planning to go to. the derm people and the ortho people don't hang out much, but watch, i'll get caught by the ortho dr in the hallway or something. SO very 7th grade. i remember when cutting school was fun, like to go shopping or veg or pretend to be bad asses, or to have something more fun than a dildo cam...well...i digress.

i think this sentiment from mel is really beautiful: I still love you / when you don't appear / and remain only a dream


updated**************************
today i had to ask myself the following really thought provoking question: can i possibly drop one more thing? i thought i'd outdone myself by dumping both my water and my ketchup (a vegetable! ask reagan) onto the floor in one fell swoop. but when i knocked the open container of yogurt out of the fridge and onto my pants and all over the floor when trying to replace my poorly squandered ketchup (a vegetable still), i was forced to conclude in the affirmative. i've since declared myself a walking disaster area and i'm sending myself straight to bed, still ketchup deprived, even though its not yet 9pm. le sigh!!!

lazy much?

day two from the clo.mid fields, and i feel fine. the only thing i detect is a laziness that threatens to swallow me up into its soft fuzzy bliss. things i should do today: 1--assignment due monday that i will have to redo if it sucks; 2--pick up mail from UPS that will be returned to sender if i don't; 3--play ultimate with the team i paid good money to join 4--go shopping since i am down to eating stale cereal with rancid butter for breakfast. things i want to do: nap on the sofa in front of the tv. well, its hard to blame the laziness on the clomid, but i thought i'd try. on the good side, i slept 11 hours yesterday :). i dreamt i was with the hyannis port kennedy's, and one of them was born with a shortened arm, and died of complications from it at 2yrs of age. i'm not trying to read much into that one...probably not worth it.

greetings from my aunt

well, the old coot finally showed up and today is CD2. i don't know about YOU but for me, the auntie's visit is quite a production. i have a pharmacopia of products to enhance her visit. on the list generally: ad.vil (lots and lots and lots of ad.vil), Vi.Codin (not as much of this as the ad.vil, but as much as is necessary), Zan.tac (so i don't shred my stomach to bits with the ad.vil). Sometimes i have to fortify with Phen.ergan, when my aunt's visit cause me to lose my cookies. I also have my handy dandy alarm clock for when I have to take meds during the night. Woe is me if I forget, because my aunt will wake me out of a deep sleep and whip me until I cry for hours. The irony is, everyone but everyone from the Ob-Gyn to the RE to the NP to everyone in between says it will bet a lot better once i have children. Snort!

It occured to me the other day what an odd summer i'm having. this is the first summer i've really tried--balls out--to get knocked up, and i almost suceeded...twice. It's also the summer i'm surrounded by preglets. not just family, but friends too. many of them. and also, at clinial. at least two days a week i'm up to my armpits in pregnant 16yo's. it's very very odd. also today i had two women come in for what would be an infertility work up if they were well insured. my diagnosis was PCOS for both. anyway, the sort-of-insured one (25yo) we did the standard labs on. the barely insured one (34yo) i advised to make an appt with the gyn service at either of the two major hospitals in town. in maryland, access to a gyn for primary care is mandated. her chances of meeting with a specialist are still remote, but better if she starts primary care with one of them. i thought this rotation would be very hard this summer given my situation, and it is, but it is also tough in ways i didn't realize it would be.

the divine issuance from my loins?

the ball is very near to getting started, so to speak. if my dear old auntie would ever show up, we could get started. my lp's vary much more than one would think. if it doesn't show up tomorrow i'm going to POAS, even though a + would mean that i'm carrying the fruit of the lord in my womb.

i'm in SC right now and my poor hubs and i have survived a 3 day visit from my dad and his wife. very stressful.

an online friend of mine delivered a healthy baby girl after an early induction (37wks) due to pre-eclampsia. she recieved pitocin and an epidural and had a vaginal delivery. the babe was discharged home with bililights due to jaundice. she is opting to formula feed and breastfeed at this time. i feel bad for her because i'm worried that our online community is not as supportive of her as they have been of other births (even a completely reckless homebirth that narrowly skirted abject disaster)...her birth was maybe everything they don't want for themselves or any birth: induction, pitocin, epidural, formula. so some people are writing supportive comments to her and others are writing 'i know it's hard, but don't give up on the breastfeeding.' i'm not sure that's supportive IMHO. i think we should all support one another's laboring, birthing, and childrearing choices even if they are different from our own or how we would want them to be. i've worked with many many children over my life and in the past few years in pediatrics. breastmilk vs bottle, cosleeping vs crib, pacifier vs thumb, none of it matters as much as people in it think it does. what really truly matters is an invested parent, better two invested parent. after that, the difference between one thing or another is subtle gradients that also depends on the temperament of the child and what works best for her. ANYWAY, i'm dissapointed that people wouldn't be more supportive of her when her outcome was so good, especially in comparison to homebirths that have less positive outcomes.

do we care about people or the path? is 'natural' so important that we cant find love and support for those who take a different path? :(