Our new dog!

We got a dog today! I don’t know what kind he is – maybe Lab or Golden Retriever – but he is very friendly and seems pretty well behaved. He does seem to be housebroken, he goes pee everytime we take him outside and hasn’t gone inside at all. He is fine with our cats but wanted to eat our birds. I’m not sure how to get him used to the birds and make him realize that they aren’t his food but our pets so for now they are separated. He is a pretty big boy – he seemed fine at the shelter but when we got him home and watched him in the house he seems much larger. I’m going to call the vet in the morning to see when I can get him in. Hopefully when we are there the vet can tell me what kind of dog he is and about how old he is. I’m worn out but we had a pretty fun day getting our dog.

He has no name yet, we are just in the thinking stages of that. I’m still walking most mornings and I’m excited to take him with me tomorrow morning when I go.

Follicle check today and dog update

I went in for my follicle check today.  I only had two but they were good sized.  One was 28 and one was 21.  They wanted me to do my shot right then but I had forgotten it at home since I was rushing out the door to get there on time (and then had to wait an hour once I got there).  So as soon as I got home J gave me my hcg shot.  It went much better this month since we already knew what to do.  He hates giving me the shot but I’d rather it was him then the nurses. 

So we dtd today and tomorrow as much as we can and I start my progesterone and estrogen (Femara) on Wednesday and then come back for a test two weeks from today.  I asked the nurse how long after the shot that I would ovulate and she said 24 to 36 hours which is pretty much what I’d figured out from reading stuff online.

Good news! J agreed to get a dog.  I’m so happy and excited!!  I’ve been looking all over since he said ok but haven’t found just the right dog yet.  Actually I found one I really want to get – he is house broken, crate trained, loves kids and cats, and walks nicely on a leash.  The thing is that I put my application in with the lady last Friday and she is being really slow about processing it.  I’m getting frustrated and as much as I want that dog I’m about ready to go get a different one.  Her pet rescue is a one-person thing I think and she does have another job so I’m trying to be understanding and patient but I’m off work this week and would love to be able to get my dog soon so I can spend some time with him and help him adjust to his new home.  I think I’ll give her a call around noon tomorrow and if she still hasn’t done anything I’m going to look at a couple of other places to see if they have a dog that would be a good match for our family.

So my life has been consumed with a search for a dog to adopt and I’ve been sewing and embroidering quite a big.  Plus I got a ton of cleaning done today which feels really good.  I needed to catch up very badly. 

Doing a little better

I’ve finally started feeling a little better mentally.  I’ve just decided to dive into my sewing and really keep myself busy with that.  I’ve got a homecoming dress I’m shortening and altering for a friend’s daughter which I’m working on this week.  I’ve done some other embroidery and am still working on P’s costume.  I’ve got about a million project ideas but just not the time to do it.  I’m actually excited about waking up because I’ve got projects I’m working on. 

 I’ve been getting up early and going walking everyday for the past week or so.  It feels good to walk.  I used to run but running is so hard.  I wanted to exercise and like it.  I listen to my podcasts while I’m walking and it’s pretty nice.  After I walk, if P isn’t up yet I’ve taken a little time for myself and I go down to my sewing room.  It really helps to have a 20 minute walk and a half hour of sewing time before I start my day. 

So my protocol for this month is the same as last month.  Clomid, 100 mg days 3-7; an ultrasound on day 12 to check my follicles; a shot of  Novarel (10,000) when they tell me the time is right and then my usual progesterone and estrogen during the two week wait.  Today I’m on day 5 so I’ve got 2 more days of Clomid and then next Monday I go in for my ultrasound.  I am hoping to see several good looking follicles.

The other thing I’ve been working on is getting J to agree to get a dog.  We have cats and birds but I grew up with a dog and I think it would be great for P to have a loyal friend like a dog.  J didn’t have a dog growing up so I guess he doesn’t understand.  I don’t want a puppy, I’m not interested in potty training , I want a nice laid back dog that is not small.  He doesn’t have to be huge (although that would be a bonus) but I don’t want a tiny dog.  I’ve submitted an application to our local shelter and was approved.  Now I just need to talk J into it.  I am sure it has something to do with the fact that I am anxious to have something new to nurture.  That’s the type of person I am.  I’m a mothering, care-giving type person and the more the better (probably why I want twins or more!) but I don’t think he gets that at all.  The thing is, I’m really not going to ask him to walk the dog or clean up poop or anything.  I just want him to tolerate the dog.  Right now he says he is in the ‘thinking stage’ of it.  I guess at least he is thinking about it and not just saying he doesn’t want to at all.  I’m frustrated though because I just want to know if he is going to agree or not and just keeps saying he is thinking about it.  I’m probably going to ask for a straight answer by the end of the week.  I don’t like not knowing and I don’t like waiting   The thing is that I am trying so hard not to keep asking him because I don’t want to be a nag.  So at least my mind has something else to concentrate on this week.

I got the call

It was negative.  I knew it would be so why am I sitting here using all I have not to burst out in tears at work?  I thought I had prepared myself.  I guess not.  I want to go home and curl up in my bed and just cry until I can’t cry anymore.

Blood draw today

I am so glad I had a long weekend.  I went to the fabric store twice, got lots of sewing done and started on P’s Halloween costume.  He is going to be a little devil this year.  I’m making him a cape and hood thing but I’m making a red cape lined with  black so it is reversible and he can be something else next year or just use it for dress-up.  I’ve read it or heard it before somewhere so I’m copying, but sewing is my Prozac.  It’s my way of relaxing.  I’m so glad to have a hobby I enjoy and even though my stuff doesn’t always come out the way I had planned it’s still fun to do. That reminds me, I was going to post a picture of the shirt I made for P so I’m going to try to put it on this post.  Although, at the rate we are going, he may never have an opportunity to wear it.

 

I can’t even follow my own rules.  I ended up testing yesterday.  I had one last test in my bathroom and it was a digital that I was saving for who knows what.  So I gave in and used it yesterday morning.  It was negative of course.  The damn thing took forever to register. It blinks while it’s waiting and it’s almost like I can hear my heart beating while it blinks.  Finally it displayed what I knew it would – not pregnant. 

On the way to his parents for dinner yesterday J asked me when I was going for my test.  I told him on Tuesday but don’t worry about it, I’m not pregnant because I already tested.  He asked me what we will do next month and we talked a bit about it.  We will go ahead and try the same way we did last month.  

So I went for my blood test today.  The waiting room was completely full probably because of the long weekend.  I was surprised at the type of people that were there.  I guess I always thought that people who went to the in/fertility clinic were usually in their late 30’s like me.  The people in there were younger (20’s maybe?) and several of them had on uniforms for jobs where I’m sure they didn’t make a ton of money.  How in the world do they afford the treatment?  I thought maybe they were there for different reasons but then some of them were talking about their ivf cycles.  One girl I felt very sorry for, she was nicely dressed and fairly young looking and she said she had cancer and they had to hurry up and get their ivf done because they couldn’t wait too much longer before they had to do a hysterectomy.  How sad.  It’s bad enough to have a problem with infertility but then to have cancer too, my God. 

Anyway, back to my test.  I said the same thing I did last time I was there.  I’m sure it will be negative I already took a test at home.  And it was a different nurse but she said the same thing as the nurse did last month.  I’ve seen it happen plenty of times where the urine test just isn’t accurate so early and the blood test will come out positive.  I told her I didn’t want to get my hopes up.  She said she understood but she’s seen it many times.  So I’ll get a phone call today between 3 and 4.  I know in my heart what they are going to say but I still hold out just the tiniest bit of hope.

 

 

 

 

Just as I thought

I tested this morning, it was negative.  I’m 11 dpo if I o’d the day after my hcg shot.  Maybe it’s just too soon.  But I’m pretty sure I’m not pregnant   I go for my blood test Tuesday morning and should have the results by the afternoon.  I’m not going to poas any more this weekend.  I hate that I wait and wait and get so excited for the day I plan to test and when I do it’s such a big letdown.  I am tired of waiting away all my life.  I should be enjoying my son while he is still young and I feel like I all do is wait.  What a waste of my time.  I’m going to try really hard to enjoy the rest of my 3-day weekend and not think about testing (I said I’d ‘try’ not that I’d succeed).

Think Positive

We had company last weekend and I thought about having a wine cooler and J says “I’m surprised you are going to drink”.  I looked at him strange but ddidn’t say anything since we had company, decided not to drink and then forgot about the comment.  I’m not a big drinker anyway, it’s pretty rare when I drink so it didn’t bother me at all.  So the next day I made a comment about the cat litter and J said “I hope you didn’t change it!”  I was like, why I’m not pregnant.  So he says something about how we did everything right this month and I need to have faith.  I guess I’ve lost it after trying all these months.  He asked me a question.  If you don’t think it’s ever going to happen why are we even trying?  Yeah, he’s right.  I need to think positive and have faith.  It’s so hard though. 

I did one thing that was positive thinking.  I embroidered a shirt for my son that says “I’m gonna be a big brother”.  No one in my family knows I made it but if and when I do get pregnant I’m planning to put it on him and take a picture and send it to relatives.  It’s sort of scary to send something like that when I know very well after losing our last baby that even if you do get pregnant it doesn’t mean you will come home with a baby.  But I’m trying to be positive.  I’ll post a picture later tonight if I can figure out how to do it.

My progesterone pill that I take a 2 pm is making me really tired.  The last two days I was just sitting there about 30 minutes after I took the pill and each time I ended up falling asleep with no warning whatsoever.  I’m fine at work today so I guess it only happens when I’m sitting still.  I warned my co-worker that I might fall asleep at my desk, lol.  They know we are going through fertility treatments so that makes it easier when I have stuff like this going on.  And hopefully if (I mean, when) I get pregnant they will cheer even louder.

I’m supposed to go in for my blood test on Tuesday, a week from tomorrow.  There is no way I want to wait for that.  I’ll take a test at home this weekend and see what it shows.  I’ll be 10 dpo on Saturday and 11 dpo on Sunday so it should be pretty accurate by then.  If I get a negatives I’ll try again Monday and Tuesday. I’ll grab some Dollar Store tests so it won’t be very costly.  I just can’t imagine sitting there waiting for a call from the doctor while I’m trying to work all day wondering about something that will affect me for the rest of my life.  I prefer to find out the results in the privacy of my home.  Plus last month they called around 3pm so if I’m going to get all upset about a negative I prefer not to do that at work. 

I’ll update this weekend with the results of my tests.

Follicle update

I had my ultrasound appointment yesterday.  I had one 19 mm follicle and a 15, 14, 13, and 12 plus a bunch of smaller ones.  I was pleased that I had so many.  They had me do a LH test there and I wasn’t surging so they said to wait with the hcg test until today which meant I would be doing it at home.  The nurse said it’s real easy and showed me how.  I was just fine until I realized when I woke up this morning that I had a dream about it and I was a little nervous.  The good part is that with J giving me the shot it feels more like we are in control of things.  I hate the fact that the doctor’s office dictates our life but that’s the way it goes right now.  
 

About my follicles.  I was reading online that follicles only grow 1-2 mm per day and I read that the follicles had to be 18 mm or larger to be considered mature.  I was a little worried that I would only have one good follicle ready if I did the hcg shot the next day but then I think that the hcg doesn’t make you ovulate right away but within a day or two so hopefully I’ll have at least two if not three mature follicles.  I had considered waiting until tonight to do the shot to give my follicles some extra time to grow even though the doctor said before noon but I decided to go ahead and do what the doctor said.  I just hope he is right.  I want the best chance to have it work this month. 

 So J gave me the hcg shot this morning.  It was pretty funny but we finally got it done. It was tricky to get all the fluid in the syringe and then I managed to bleed all over which we weren’t prepared for.  It actually didn’t hurt very much considering the size of the needle but I’m glad that’s over with.  So today and tomorrow we are supposed to have lots of intercourse and then Thursday I start my progesterone and estrogen again.  I’m not looking forward to those suppositories because they are really messy but at the same time I’m glad to have my meds to take three times a day because I feel like I have something that I’m doing to help get us towards our goal of a baby.   

So another two week wait begins.

Another Clomid cycle

Well I wrote a post earlier this week but I have no idea what happened to it.  I hit save but I don’t know where it went.  Probably for the best, it was written about halfway through my Clomid dose and was a big pity post. 

So af finally started last Thursday (a week and a day ago) so I called and talked to the nurse to find out what the plan for the month was.  I was surprised that the first thing she asked was if we wanted to do IUI or timed intercourse.  We’ve only tried this one month, I’m not ready to go on yet plus I would guess IUI is pretty expensive so we definately want to try a few more cycles of times intercourse. 

 Before we hung up I let her know that I would welcome multiples and that the doc could prescribe as much Clomid as he wanted.  I would absolutely love twins or more.  She called back after talking to the doctor and he said he couldn’t give me more than 100 mg of Clomid because he didn’t know what my body would do.  So I’m happy that they doubled my dose but disappointed because I was just hoping we’d be more aggressive with it.  I also talked to her about my Progesterone.  She said he wants me to try some new Progesterone which is still a suppositories but called ‘fizzies’.  It’s like an Alka-Seltzer sort of and she says it’s not messy at all like the regular suppositories and the medicine stays in you so your levels stay high.  Since the fizzies are new, only one pharmacy in my area carries them so I drove about 30 minutes there only to find out that my insuance will only cover $30 of the total cost which was over $500!  Yeah, a little expensive.  Especially since I still have a full two weeks’ of the suppositories left to use.  I talked to the nurse again and she said to just stick the the regular suppositories.  We may do injections next month but we’ll try this again.

I received my hcg injection prescription in the mail and I’ll bring that with when I go to my u/s appointment on Monday to check my follicles.  I’m really hoping for at least 3 or 4 follicles and maybe 2 or 3 or those will have good eggs.  The doctor’s comment was that he wanted to up my Clomid to give J’s swimmers more targets to get to.  Sounds good to me.

 I’ve been a lot less hungry over the past week or so.  I can really tell when it’s the 2ww wait.  It’s like I just can’t get satisfied eating during the 2ww.  I’m not sure which of the meds I’m on makes me so hungry but I think it’s the progesterone rather than the estrogen. 

We are having company tomorrow night and I’ll be cooking for everyone.  Nothing fancy – just sandwiches and salads and chips but still lots of work.  I’ll probably eat too much but at least I’ll have been pretty active all day. 

Off to go give myself a pedicure.  I need some relaxation time, it’s been a long week.

Still waiting

Geez, I didn’t realize how much time had passed since I posted my last blog.  

Weight loss was going pretty well until I had a few days off work and then went on vacation.  And I’m still not back on track.  My clothes are still fitting ok so I haven’t gained too much back but I’m sure I gained a few pounds back.  It’s so hard to lose weight when you are ttc.  I keep thinking that it doesn’t matter too much since I’ll be pregnant soon.  Plus the medications I’m on are making me hungry.  I saw a lady today at work who I haven’t seen for a while and she is so darn skinny.  She must have lost quite a bit of weight and she looks so good and she can just wear whatever she wants and it looks good.  God, I want to be there so bad.  But then I get hungry and sad and then I don’t care.  I want to care all the time so I will be thin and quit doing this to myself.  I want to wear clothes that actually look good on me, not just clothes that disguise my fat body.  I want to feel good and proud of myself when I walk down the hall, not feel like a blob waddling down the hall and trying to hide from everyone. 

We went to our first appointment with our R/E and it just happened to be on cycle day 3 so I got lots of bloodwork done.  The one I was most concerned about was my fsh and that was 6.1.  Not too bad for a person my age I think.  If I remember right my fsh was 5.? two years ago.  Anyway, I got the bloodwork done and got scheduled right away for an HSG.  That was clear.  So on days 3-7 I did the 50 mg of Clomid my ob/gyn had prescribed and my new R/E wanted to do an ultrasound to be sure that the Clomid wasn’t thinning my lining and making it hard for me to get an embryo to implant.  I went in on day 12 to get my u/s and there was one or two follicles that were ready to go (22 mm I think).  I say one or two because the u/s tech said one on each side and the dr. kept saying one but whatever.  So they gave me a shot of hcg that day and told me to have intercourse that night and the next night and come back in two weeks for a pregnancy test.  That is so strange to have someone dictate when you are supposed to do that.  I guess people that have been undergoing fertility treatments for a while get used to it but I thought it was weird. They put me on Estrogen twice a day (Femara) and Progesterone 3 times a day.  Progesterone suppositories are such a nice treat.  I was not prepared for the mess of that.  I had to go and buy some pads. Yuck.  

Since I was on vacation two weeks from when I got my hcg shot I took a pee test while I was gone.  As usual it was negative.  I was sad and upset but being on vacation took the sting out of it a little bit.  So the next Monday when I got back from vacation I went in for my end of cycle bloodwork which includes a pregnancy test, estrogen and progesterone levels.  As expected the beta was negative.  My estrogen was a bit low but the nurse said my progesterone was very low.  It was 16.  I did a little Googling and 16 doesn’t really look that low but maybe because I was on all those suppliments it should have been much higher.  She said my body was just eating the progestersone (?) so the dr. may have me do shots next month and that may be why I can’t get pregnant.  So now here I sit waiting for af to show.  I had my last dose of progesterone Monday morning and it’s Wednesday afternoon now and nothing yet.  I hate waiting.  I’m supposed to call them when I’m on cycle day 1. 

So looking ahead to next cycle they are going to bump up my dose of Clomid, change from Progesterone suppositories to shots, and keep me on the Estrogen.  I hope he bumps up the Clomid quite a bit.  I am all for having multiples.  I want to have a big family but at the rate I’m going and with my age that just isn’t going to happen unless I have more than one at a time.  If I could have twins or even more that would be just so amazing.  But what am I thinking – I can’t even get pregnant with one. 

I don’t usually hope for af to show up but this month I am.  I’m just waiting for the estrogen and progesterone to get out of my system enough that my next cycle will begin.  I hope it isn’t much longer.