I had a long blabbering post all ready to go on mothers day. Then I happened to read a few blogs and see how everyone elses mothers day was going. While infertility has been hard I do have a child. It humbled me when I thought of all the pain that must be associated with that holiday and I immediately stuck my foot in my mouth. I hope and pray that all of you know the joy of a hand drawn mothers day card. I love my son so profoundly and I think its a love we should all have the privledge of knowing.

But I'm still sad. I should have been pregnant on mothers day. Huge and round and picking out a crib. The closer my edd gets the crazier I get. To be honest its still hurts as much as it did then. I SHOULD be worrying about stretch marks and breast pumps. Instead I'm looking down an empty bottle of femara and wondering if my ovaries are going to try and slip an egg past me again. I'm also trying to figure out how to honor my edd. I know I cannot change it, but it still seems weird not to honor something that was alive even if it was only for a small time. Its a hard spot to be in and now I understand. I had friend who had experienced miscarriage and never fully knew what she was feeling. I wondered why she couldn't move on. But now that I'm in this place of hope and sorrow I know. It can be a shitty universe can't it?

So me and mr fatty started saving for ivf once we figured out it might not be as easy as well, having sex. I think I went over this before but I'm still unsure. We have enough for ivf and then some but how much are fets? Assuming we cannot get into a shared risk program we want to have it all up front so there are no suprises and no snags. I need a calculator and some serious help here. I guess I could call and ask. I will add that to my list of things to do tomorrow. Talk about a phone call I thought I would never make. . . .

Heavy minded

I have to ask. Do you believe everything happens for a reason? Absolutely everything? I have something eating away at the back of my brain I just can't let go of. I think I should give a bit of background because I don't speak of K very often. K is the "biological" father of my son. We were in a shitty relationship and I was stupid because I assumed since I wasn't having a period I couldn't get pregnant. Yeah. After I discovered I was pregnant K decided an abortion was in his best interest. I just couldn't do it. Of course I was young and didn't really have a support system but I just couldn't imagine stopping a heart that was beating inside of me. I refused and so he went away. I was alone during my pregnancy and birth. A single parent just barely in my twenties, scared and lonely. I worked hard (most days 10+ hours) at a job I hated but I did what I had to do. Then one day I got a call from K. Out of the blue. He met my son and then decided that parenthood was not his thing and decided to surrender his parental rights. I met my husband, my boss at said hated job and we got married and started trying to have children after about 9 months. We all know how well that has worked out, but back to the point. Out of all the miles of land on this great earth where do you think K ended up? OH YES, a mere walking distance from my house. When we run into each other basicly nothing is said and we just go on about our lives. It had been a year or so since I had run into him until yesterday. He was buying a mothers day card for his wife. Thats a cruel blow. There is a long history between us and I can say most of it is not good. I know for a fact that I am not the only woman he had the abortion talk with. I do know I'm also the only one that didn't go through with it. What struck me yesterday is how sad I am for the women that believed in his lies, and gave him the trust I refused to. After all that talking in circles lemme get to the point. Why do I keep running into this man at the worst possible times. Seriously. I'm in target bleeding away and here is mr ex buying a mothers day card for the mother of his children.

If anything good came out of that I realised how lucky I am to have my husband who loves me pms fueled rages and all. I know he does his best and loves me with all his heart. Its not easy to see every day in the middles of the why can't you pick up your socks conversations but I know we are unbreakable. Maybe K's purpose of popping up in my life is to make me gratefull for all I have. I cannot imagine my life without my son. I would be empty without his joy. A true miracle.

I have a tiny bit of a confession to make. I think that our problem in the conception area might be related to my husbands low volume. He has a great count arould 200 mil/ml, fantastic progression 4+, and an average morph of 50%, but the volume is consistantly around 1.5. This is after no activity for 3 days. Add into that my crappy mucus and we may have the reason. I have to say he is being a trooper and taking his vitamins and trying only to have a beer or so on sundays during golf. Could low volume really be the reason? If so will iui be the answer for us? I have to admit after reading several blogs about iui I'm not really the optomistic. Am I setting us up for failure? Is this just a hump to get over on the way to ivf. I've searched and googled low volume to death and never seem to come up with much. There is nothing wrong, all his plumbing has been checked so I don't know what to do. Is this male factor? I have so many questions for dr. m at the first scan it is crazy. I can't keep my mind still right now. I just don't want to go through all the motions of iui if there isn't much hope.

Okay I think I need to go to the gym and run mindlessly.

Cd1

I don't think that needs more of an explination. Two negative test followed swiftly by my damn period. I guess I should be glad that I didn't spot this cycle and that ovulation didn't leave me doubled in pain but still its a shitty thing to wake up to your period. So game plan this month is femara, possible trigger, and hpoefully we can go ahead with the iui. Hopefully the use of monitoring will prevent any sneaky ovulation like we had last month.

I'm still upset though, and right now I'm finding comfort in bagels. Oh yeah, thats going to help my dress quest.

Deadline

Crap crap crap. The end of June is so close now I can actually feel it breathing down my neck. Yes it may seem far off but it is coming hard like a freight train and there is nothing I can do to stop it. So whats the big deal? The dress. I think we have all had this issue right? I prefer to wear strapless dresses but due to my lack of execise lately I know I would have the dreaded back fat right now. So whats the plan? Walking/running 3x a week and strength training 2x week. Sounds easy but doing it sucks. Today I broke out my dusty weights and after a 20 minute session I am amazed I can still move my fingers. Its stupid I know, but you have to remember that at least half of the guest there will be asian. Half of those will be wearing dressed smaller than a size 6. I know I know, I shouldn't compare myself to those women but who wouldn't when you are surrounded by them. Add to the fact most of them have a gaggle of kids and its enough to make me vomit.

Today for my walking I'm going to walk to pick my son up from school and considering how windy it is outside it will be quite a feat. Tomorrow I will be sore and bitchy but hopefully it will be worth it.

On the tww situation there is nothing going on. No dramatic boob changes or soreness, no food aversions. Nothing. Thats okay, it makes it easier to justify my morning coffee. I was thinking I should kind of give a brief over view for people new to my bloglett.

Number of years trying: 6
Number of years with cycles that were long and possibly had no ovulation: 3.5
Number of clomid cycles: 5
Number that I ovulated on: 1
Pounds lost: Somewhere between 80 and 90 (it was almost 90 but I backslid)
Years with regular cycles and no pregnancy: 1.2
Cycles on femara: Uh, I have to check my chart, will get back to you. I ovulated on all and got pregnant on the second. Now I am in my 6th cycle post miscarriage, two of those being breaks.
Husbands semen analysis: Pretty good overall. Nice numbers but I have to say the volume seems a bit low to me. Dr was really unworried about it. Will look it up later.

I have one son from a previous relationship and me and my husband are batting zero here. He doesn't have any children and turned 40 this month so his clock is ticking away.

Thats a pretty basic summary. Makes me giggle because the first time my husband and I had sex he was TERRIFIED I would get pregnant even with a condom. wooooo thats a good joke.

Other things about me is I love outdoors. Camping, hiking, rafting, I love it all. Spiders I could totally live without. My husband is asian. No he's not short, skinny, or have a small penis. I like to do nerdly things like read. I like to lurk at blogs because I often feel other people say what I would have said...only better. I like hot showers and attempting to knit. I think thats it.

Damn it

I had everything all worked out. Felt fantastic. I was going to use opks this round so that I could prove to my dr that we could do iui by opks instead of monitoring/triggering. The day started as usual. I had some ewcm in the morning and tested almost stark white with my handy dandy opk. During the day I had a bit of cramping and such but nothing unexpected. Later that night, probably about 11, I took another opk (I admit that I am obsessive, but its a good thing I am). Blaring positive even with really diluted pee. Woooooo. Eh. Temped at 7 am the next day and had a FULL degree temp jump.....shit.

Yes I ovulated within 8 hours of a + opk. Thank you ovaries for proving that I cannot count on you. Two days early and with extreme short notice. Nice, I never seen that one coming. Of course we had the obligatory intercourse when I go the positive but this means that our iui will have to be monitored. I know thats not really a bad thing but I was hoping we wouldn't have to.

Besides that all is well in the fatty household. I have lost 7 lbs and so my pants are starting to fit again but I'm still a long way from looking good at my friends wedding. I need to exercise, but I really just don't want to.

Two

Even though I swore I wouldn't I still find myself living my life in segments. There is the dreaded crampy, bleeding, bitchy segment quickly followed by the hopeful segment, followed by the I"m not going to obsess segment. Next comes total obsession. Dreams about positive opks, and mucus in the sink seem to take up a large part of this segment. After that it is just a long ass wait. A wait I'm tired of doing but given that my only other option is giving up I think I will be doing a lot more waiting. So what makes me think of all this? Well its cd 13 and my good friend ewcm is here and this time some spotting decided to join. I know this is supposed to be fantastic and a good sign of fertility but for me its some kind of cruel joke and just the hump before that long ass wait.

Did I fail to mention the femara makes me UBER cranky? Pffffffffffft. How it last all cycle long when it leaves the system so quickly is a mystery to me. My husband (who I still need a nickname for) is taking us to dinner tonight so I won't be so stressed. I'm just sitting right on the fence right now and I think I got a plank of wood straight up the rear.

Time goes by

After all these years I still love you more and more everyday. Happy anniversary honey.

Okay mushy stuff over ....

turtle style

My husband had what he calls a brilliant idea when we were at the beach. Apparently he wants me to dig a hole and lay a bunch of eggs turtle style and see what happens. Now I know he was just joking to make me feel better, but I'm kind of ashamed that I thought it couldn't hurt to try. I wonder if animals who face infertility feel inferior too. Do the other turtles flaunt all their babies? Well I do know one thing is that an infertile turtle has never had to go into target only to be surrounded by huge pregnant women. I do know how that feels. I went for shoes. Just shoes. I am not kidding when I say that within a few minutes I had SIX hugely pregnant women around me. To make matters worse many had other children tagging along behind them. I have to fight the overwhelming urge to grab one of those kids and just walk off. I never would, I'm just saying that sometimes a cute little girl in patent leather shoes does weird things to someone who has wanted a baby for so long.

Since my son is seven and kind of knows how babies are made and where said babies come from he has taken it upon himself to ask at least twice a week when he will have a sibling. Direct stab to the heart. What am I supposed to say.

So on the diet thing I kept track of what I ate yesterday and no wonder I have put on a few lbs. I ate almost twice as much as I used to. Damn diets. I still take pride in going from 240 to 153 but I feel really bad about back sliding a bit. I'm sure its about 10lbs I've piled back on. Goodbye sweet friend icecream, I will miss you....

Fessing up

I'm pretty sure I've put some weight back on. As a matter of fact I have never been as sure of anything in my life. My pants no longer want to fit my body and as much as I would like to say they must have shrunk in the wash I know they didn't. Add into that the fact that pcos and diet has a lot to do with egg quality and it has motivated me once again to get my ass in gear. I'm tracking with fitday and I'm rather embarassed to say I've had 1600 calories so far and its only 1:31 in the afternoon. And today I haven't eaten as much as I have been lately. I suck.



I can blame it on the fact that I have been in a mild depression since the miscarriage because that is true, but still just an excuse. I know that shoveling down mass amounts of sugar is not going to help the cause, if anything it will make it worse. Being as we are all lined up for iui I think I need to really redo my eating habits right away. I feel like an idiot because all I was doing was making it harder for myself. Add into that my nonexistant exercise routine and its easy to see how I backslid. I'm not going to use a scale or anything, I'll just be happy when my pants fit again.

I should at some point come up with a name for my other half so I can just stop refering to him as husband, but for now it will do. Anyway the husband and I had a talk last night about our willingness to move forward and what it really ment for us. Oh yes, it was plan making time. I needed a solid comitment in order for all the little voices in my head to stop screaming and feel confident in what we are about to take under. We looked at the financial part of it and once our hearts started beating again we decided this is in fact a road we do want to do. So here is our plan.



This month will probably be a cycle with just the femara because I will not be in town around O date and that would make iui very difficult, also I really want to get my body back in order

Next 5-6 cycles iui with dr. mik

If we aren't successful we plan on moving on to ivf next summer (this is the part of the finances that gave us heart attacks)



We've looked everything over and think its a good plan. We have insurance that covers most of the iui expenses but for ivf we would be on our own. I've heard of shared risk programs and will look into them when the time is ready. So for now I will just plug away, but knowing that my husband is as commited to this as I am makes me feel a lot better.


My sons fish died yesterday. I felt awful having to tell him but once the tears dried we replaced said fish and all seems to be better. I really hate these damn fish but they were a gift so there they sit in the tank in the living room watching me with those creepy bubble eyes all day. Ugh

wait

I was going to blog last week because I know this must be on the top of everyones to ready list (I'm sure you can also see the giant eyeroll that slipped out as I typed that) but had to wait because my loving husband wisked us away to the beach for a bit. I was finally able to relax. I shopped a bit at the outlets, ate food I usually shy away from, took the longest hottest baths in history, slept alone all spread out like a starfish on a rock, and most importantly I think I achieved my goal of digging the worlds biggest hole. Giggle if you will but we comfortably fit four people underground. Yeah it was that big. After we added some logs as a roof and my sons sweatpants as a flag I was just amazed at our creation. Add to it a campfire and some clam chowder and you can see how I was in heaven. I cannot wait to go back and do it again in August. I feel revived and refreshed. Ahhhhhhhhh, it probably won't last long though.


Speaking of spouses mine turns fourty on the fourth. I've planned an evening full of sushi and gallons of sake so all should go well. I'm having a hard time deciding on a gift. Usually I just end up getting something, but 40 is a milestone and I want my gift to be good. Scratch that, I want my gift to be the best. Ties and such are no good because he is buying a new suit before our friends wedding in June. Watches he breaks every god damn year. He has all the sporting stuff he could ever dream of and so that leave me here banging my head against my monitor because I know time is almost up. I'm sure it will come to me, but I just hope it hurries.


On the garden front I have almost everything either in the ground or in the little green house things getting started. So now I just have to wait for it all to bloom. It seems like I'm always waiting for something....

My sons spring break is over on monday and I have to admit I will miss having him around. We went and seen that ever so popular turtle movie the other day and it was nice for it to just be the two of us. I love my son and thats why we haven't told him we are trying for another. I don't want him to see my desire to be a mom again as him not being good enough. Even with all the stubborness and grossness (he is a nose picker) I could not ask for a more wonderful child.

Coming out

I am convinced that somewhere deep down inside I'm really a gay man. Maybe that explains my lack of pregnancy..... I mean I really think I qualify. Love of tacky shoes .... check, having bravo and all its wonderful shows like project run way and top design being the most viewed things on my tv... check, weird obsession with seasonal hats, check... I could go on forever. The one thing that seperates me from the herd of gay men has to be my love of dirt.

My computer is a douche bag

No seriously it is. I am ready to throw this damn thing out the window but then I would have nothing to do so its really a love hate situation. The rain is back today and it looks like my period is starting so this day could be better. I'm actually listening to doctors advice and taking a rest cycle or two to detox my body so I can try again. This femara gives me the worst acne and even though it has extended my luteal phase I still start spotting when I would have started my period anyway. BUT I can say the progesterone has made me feel better and much to my husbands relief made my pms vanish.

Not much else to do but go have a last candy bar

Is this thing still on?

Ahhhhhhhhhhh the smell of spring. Almost makes me forget I've done nothing but wallow in anger and frustration the last few months. I feel renewed but there is really no telling how long that will last. So for now I am turning my attention to my yard and wondering what changes I should make this year. I'm thinking of adding blueberries because the ones I buy at the store are always sour and it makes me want to slap the produce people. Mhm, I think it will be blueberries. I'm still waiting for my beloved pear tree to actually provide some fruit so heres to hoping this is the year.

I just haven't had much to blog about lately. I have been the victim of the worlds largest and longest brain fart. I had my focus last week but it was thrown out of the window when we decided to go on vacation in june. I know it seems far away but at this point I am desperate to go anywhere so now my head is swimming with ways to get rid of this last 15 lbs before we go.

On the entire shitty uterus stubborn ovaries thing I am on a break for my own mental health right now. I'm tempted to try something on my own and forget to mention it to my dr but we'll see what happens.

Recovery

It has been a long month. I'm still not in a place of great mental health but it is getting better. My first cycle post miscarriage passed with little fanfare except a lot of spotting post ovulation. This cycle I made the decision to start the femara. Ready or not here I come. The day after I started taking my lovely little pills we got a phone call that a long time friend of my husbands had passed. Travelling out of state is never my favorite thing to do, but washington still had major power outages so I really wasn't looking forward to it. Being the dutiful (even if I complain a lot) wife I am I packed a bag and off we went. As we crossed the river from Oregon into Washington I felt this overwhelming urge to turn around and head back to the safety of my bed. I enjoyed the ride and junkfood as much as I could. We stopped at a greasy diner for food and we got a phone call that my nephew and his girlfriend would have to room with us because all the rooms were booked due to the power outage. Did I mention this girl is pregnant and her due date is only days from mine?????? It was hell but I made it through the night, listening to her blabber on about how excited she was. What I wasn't expecting was to be bombarded by ultrasound photos the next morning. I wanted nothing more than to slap her and scream that those pictures, that morning sickness and little precious baby should all be mine. The funeral was terrible too. I felt bad that everyone at the funeral was crying for the loss of this man while I was crying for my loss.

We came home and the weepiness just got worse. The last few days have been hard, but somehow today feels different. I'm still giving myself permission to cry as needed but I'm hoping it won't need to be so frequent soon. I think there is a connection between sugar and weepiness for me because I find the more sweets I eat the worse it gets so I am trying to cut them out.

Besides that I have started a really good book. The memory keepers daughter has sucked me in so I'm off to finish it

Dreams

The last seven days have been hard for me. I keep finding myself switching back and forth from acceptance to sorrow, and now I seem to be finding a nice big area of anger. As I said before I even knew any of this would happen I fully intend on feeling all of this and not botteling any of it up. What I do know I cannot change are the dreams. I dream of dead things. I tried sleeping pills but they still follow me. Last night was the first one I had where nothing died. I dreamed that all the trees around me were bursting full of ripe red apples. No I don't think it is symbolic of anything, I think it just means that I finally got a break from dead thoughts.

I still have a hard time putting thoughts together on this. All I know is that we created a baby and it died. I know it was early, but it was still a baby to me. We are now faced with the decision of wether to go on or not. I'm not sure how I feel. Do I have to try for years only to be faced with another loss? Ttc is truly an emotional investment and to be paid with shit at the end is hard. Ugh