...

BFN on Sunday (we tested early).


Period today.


Heart.


Broken.




We will not be moving forward with me/my body. 
I will not be the birth mother of this baby.


I...


... I am grieving, I think. I'm not *quite* sure what mourning and grief are like because I have been lucky enough not to lose anyone close to me at this point in my life, but I think it *must* feel like this. Like a loss so profound you cannot see your way around it - your way through it - you cannot see anything at all. The empty space, the black hole, of this loss has blotted out my horizon. I know there is a life and love and prob even a baby in my future, but right now, I cannot *see* it.


If/when I have processed this more, I will try to write more. I'm not sure when that will be.


... N

12DPI

Am obsessing big time today, for some reason... I think I am getting antsy because if it wasn't for that gd shot, we could be testing by now. 

I am hesitant to put the rest of this in writing and potentially *jinx* myself, but... here goes. I have been having some small bodily sensations this week. Here's the happenings:


Since Tuesday night (9DPI): distinct, and distinctly weird, "twinges" in my lower abdomen. Cramping off and on - like AF cramping, but not... Much milder, and I have mostly felt it the last two nights when I lay down to go to sleep. I am also experiencing some soreness in my breasts that is only on the outside of my breasts, and only really noticeable when I poke at them. I am also more tired and bloated than usual, but I have been getting up earlier than usual and eating like a pig, so those prob don't meant anything.


Most of these happenings have been really subtle - just slightly off-kilter bodily sensations that are not something I have experienced before, but that are not super-pronounced either, so I don't want to read too much into them. 


However, I can't help but read into them the tiniest bit, mostly because I have not felt ANYTHING in ANY month except for month #2.


Of course, there is always the fact that I could be completely in touch with what I am feeling, but that the sensations are the result of the (injectable) drugs I was on this month and the continuing high-levels of estrogen and progesterone flowing through my body right now... It's possible that I am just gearing up for the worst period of my life:

The period to end all periods.

1 more week until testing...


♥ N

10DPI

This is the LONGEST.2WW.EVER.


Although in a normal cycle we would be close to testing at this point, D and I have to wait 8 more days until we can test. GAH! Talk about dragging this sh*t out. 


We have to wait because we were on injectables, and so I was required to get another HCG injection (trigger shot) on Monday because, well, I don't know why. We were just told that's what we had to do. That is adding on additional time until we can test because the hormone in the shot would give me a false positive on a home preggo test.


The 27th. The 27th is the day we can test. It is also the day before my 1st PhD candidacy exam. Let's hope I'm not trying to write that thing from the depths of despair, eh?


I am definitely not "feeling anything" yet, but I'm trying not to be fatalistic about that. I just keep telling myself that lots of ladies don't feel anything for weeks and weeks and weeks. My mom insists she never had ANY pregnancy symptoms at all. Other than growing a huge belly, I mean.


I did get the results from my day 21 progesterone test and they were a whopping 34.something, so I am reassured that the setting is beautiful for some serious implantation to happen. 


Here's to hoping.


♥ N

7DPI

Horrible dream last night: dreamt I got my period today, on day 7. 


Apparently, my unconscious is not on board the "positive thinking" train. Get on board, unconscious! Stop fudging up the good juju we got goin' on over here!

6DPI

I am writing this while I wait for my computer to reinstall at the Apple store. I have been without my laptop for 6 days now - the same amount of days since our IUI, eerily enough. It's been painful, but I've managed. With only 13 days until my first PhD candidacy exam, I've remained remarkably calm about the whole situation. There are three reasons for this: 1) I started backing up my computer to an external hard drive not 3 months ago, 2) my most recent back-up was only 1 week before the crash, 3) it could've chosen to crash DURING my exam weekend, at which point I would've died. Literally died.

So, I've been pretty calm. Hopefully everything will be back to 100% working order today, and I can move on with my work and my life.

In TTC news, there is nothing to report as of yet. Did my 5 days of pineapple, am taking my supplements, actively de-stressing when needed, and thinking good thoughts. With everything going on in my student/professional life this week, I haven't really had time to worry, which is nice.

Thank you all for your positive energy this month and always...
♥ N

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1DPI

I had some vicious paranoia yesterday morning about this cycle... Typically, I'm not the type to do that - to think that something has failed before it has even begun - but yesterday was bad. Normally I would tell you all about it, but I made the decision not to go into all of my (possibly flawed) reasoning here, because you know what? It's not good for me to obsess and rationalize and obsess some more. It's bad, negative energy and I refuse to feed it this month. There, I put my foot down. I will not feed you, monster. Get out of my head. 

This month is going to work. My love and I cannot fail. 4 eggs + 2 insems + 80.4 million motile sperm + enough estrogen to get a small horse preggers = 1 (+1!) baby of our very own.

I ate my pineapple. I popped my prenatal vitamin and added the DHA supplement I have been keeping in the box until I get a positive test (that stuff is pricey!). I even ripped the tags off the baby things I told D not to rip the tags off in case we need to return them. I am open and hoping with no holding back (mostly... hey, it's a process).

Welcome, welcome, welcome.

♥ N

Pure awesomeness!

Okay, so I have been stuck in jury duty for the last week, but I can't complain. It gave me a chance at a "normal" schedule and we were also let out nice and early (around 3 most days) so I could come home and take care of the house for my babe. Fortunately yesterday we had a super early doctors appointment so I was able to go! At 7:30 am N had a blood draw then an ultrasound to see how things were moving along. I believe everyone knows this, but we're on injectable hormones this month as well as the Femera and this will be our last shot for a few months and N's last attempt all together, and since I REALLY don't want to be pregnant, we're hoping this is the time!

So, the bloodwork came back AWESOME and the ultrasound was amazingly awesome. We have four follicles ready to pop out some beautiful eggs!! FOUR! Two of them are the same size and will definitely release at the same time. The other two are a bit smaller, but we're hoping those will release as well and be mature enough. Scientifically speaking they should all be good so we have quite a few options here and our chances have been improved dramatically.

So, another thing we will be doing this month is a double insemination. Physically there is nothing wrong with N's body, so we can't seem to figure out why nothing has been happening for us. Our thoughts kept drifting to the idea that the timing might be a bit off and since frozen sperm doesn't last long it really does have to be precise.

We wound up going with a new sperm bank this month. This bank is outside of the Chicagoland area and on all the message boards we read this bank has extraordinary numbers. We made our decision in a completely different way than we normally do. All we did was send the bank an e-mail asking them for a list of their "super donors" and picked our favorite out of those approximately six offered. There's no silhouettes, no photos, no baby photos and no sound bytes but we think this is the best way to go. This guy has an insane amount of pregnancies and isn't even available to be purchased in the midwest anymore. We're hoping his insane numbers and crazy fertility rates will give us the best odds possible. There's even an entire facebook page available to mothers and mothers to be of this donor which I think is amazing! So yeah. Obviously we're excited.

So this is a month for new things. New drugs, new sperm aaaannndddd...we're going to be doing an at home insemination this month. The bank gave us a lot of information we needed including the syringe but we realized we didn't have a speculum. We thought to ourselves "oh where oh where can we buy a speculum?" and I said "how about the local sex store?" well guess what. They have quite a few options at the sex store including one that has electrical shocks going through it. I opted for the plain, boring plastic one, but man was that trip educational.

Also, we have the sperm upstairs with us for the night. Here's a lovely photo:

Yeah. I have found a new respect for sperm. Sperm, I love thee. Anyway, inside that container is the greatness that will be half of our child. Weird, huh? I think so too.

So, I get back home from my sex shop adventure which was a little scary actually. I've seen some amazing sex shops such as Babeland (Brooklyn and NYC...for the love of god, go there if you ever get a chance) and Tulip (Chicago) and this place was neither of those. Friendly staff and more than willing to talk about what you can do with an electrically charged speculum, but a bit...well...scary. So now the fun begins. I get to do a trial run of finding N's cervix. So, speculum, lube, flashlight and camera (don't ask) in hand, I go for it and there it was! Just chillin' like "what up dude" and I was like "hell yeah man. I FOUND you. It's ON like donkey kong....tomorrow." so I feel good.

N got her trigger shot tonight, so we will insem at home around hour 20 then again at hour 36 at the doctors office. Anywhere between hour 24 and 40 we're hoping this awesome sperm and those perfect eggs will match up and make this happen. Honestly we're hoping we'll just get twins so we don't have to ever go through this crap again. Two for one! Anyway, N is having some cramping and pain due to all those beautiful eggs up in there getting big and ready to pop so I can't wait for this all to happen. We will keep you updated and thanks for all your comments it's nice to hear from other people and get feedback.

xoxo - D

CD6

Happy New Year, friends-on-the-interwebs! D and I rang in the new year with our nearest and dearest in the city we have called home for the past 2 and a half years. It was lovely. Best of all, when we left the party to drive home, our car started! On new year's eve last year, we left this same house only to find that our car wouldn't start. We ended up having to call AAA and pay a ridiculous amount of money for a new car battery. So, as you can see, 2011 is already kicking 2010's ass -- I think it is a sign that this year is going to be a significant improvement on last year, don't you? :)

I'm not making any new year's resolutions, per se, although I did (re)institute a workout regimen on the 28th. I also began recording my food intake again. I don't know about you all, but I eat so much better when I can see - in cold, hard numbers - the amount of calories/the kinds of foods I am putting in my body. It makes me feel accountable to someone and it works (even I am only accountable to me). I'm 5 days in and doing well. Last night could've totally blown it, but I had only 2 light beers and, amazingly, I did not consume any of the delicious snacks on display. Go me! 

I will also say that I am thinking a lot about "grace" lately - what it is, what it means, what it feels like to be in its state... If this month doesn't result in a pregnancy, I am about 98% sure that I will not be trying again. I have undergone multiple tests, been on multiple drugs, and we have cycled through multiple donors. I have spent weeks eating "as though" I was already pregnant, and other weeks reducing potential stress by enjoying a glass of wine, a cup of coffee, the occasional orgasm, etc. I have avoided baths, even though I could really use one most of the time. I have spent whole days lying in bed so as not to jostle anything "in there," and other days moving, dancing, and stretching to get the blood flowing "in there." I have eaten pineapple for a week straight, on an empty stomach - even the nasty parts of the pineapple. I have meditated and visualized and my sweet mom lit a candle for us in church every week. I have researched and researched and researched again until my eyes could bleed. There's no (explainable) reason why I am not pregnant. 

I'm tired of telling myself that getting pregnant is just hard. Sure it is, but maybe it doesn't have to be this hard/require this much intervention. Maybe it's not supposed to be me. Maybe the reason I'm not pregnant yet is because it's not the way my baby is supposed to come to me. I am trying to listen to what the universe may be saying and, if this month is a bust, I think maybe, just maybe, the universe is saying that I'm not meant to have our baby - D is. Whew. Wow. I haven't really articulated that before. That would be a lesson for my soul right there... If I could make peace with D having our baby, find grace through that experience, I might actually learn something real. And take a step up the Karma-ladder to boot.

[FYI: it's not that I can't imagine loving a baby born of my partner or anything like that. It's just that being pregnant and going through the birthing experience is something I've always wanted to do - always thought I would do. And D, bless her heart, has no desire whatsoever to carry, much less birth, a baby. For her, having our baby would be a matter of her "taking one for the team." The unfairness of it all stings.]

Anyways, finished up my Femara this morning and we move on to the shots tonight. Not.looking.forward :P

Here's to hoping we all get what we wish for in 2011, whatever that may be ♥

CD1, Attempt #6

Got my period today and so cycle #6 begins. I have been such a Debbie Downer that I haven't felt much like blogging, but I am up for it today. (I think.) Thank you for thinking of D and I and sending us your nice thoughts, friends-on-the-interwebs :)

Tomorrow, I start taking Femara. 5mg, days 2-6. Wednesday, I will go in for a "baseline ultrasound." I have never had one of these on CD3 so I am curious as to what it will tell us. We will also pick up the Bravelle from the Doc on Wednesday. 

D and I have decided to go ahead and insist on 2 insems this month. It may mean throwing money away, but if we don't do it and we don't get PG, I know I will kick myself. It absolutely is worth it for my piece of mind. Because of that, we are back to the drawing board in terms of sperm. The bank we have been using for the past 2 months is too expensive for us to use again, much less to use to buy twice as much sperm. Bye-bye Cryogenic Labs! You were no bloody help to us anyway. We are currently debating between switching to Midwest Sperm Bank OR going back to donor #1. Midwest is super-affordable (only $200 a vial!) and their sperm supposedly has fantastic numbers. I hope the message boards are right. We are also tossing around the idea of going back to donor #1. He had fantastic numbers (always between 23-28 million motile sperm) and we did get that one chemical pregnancy with him... We just aren't sure yet. We will have to make a decision this week.

It is a real struggle to think positively/feel hopeful at this point, but I am trying. I am also trying to get my ass back on the treadmill. For realz. I have gained a lot of weight since TTC, and adding the injectables this month only guarantees that I will gain even more. Of course, if it all results in a baby, I will thank each and every new pound personally. Heck, I'll even take them out to a restaurant, maybe get 'em a lil' massage! ;)

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and a happy, healthy, and *lucky* new year!

♥ N

14DPI

10DPI --> warning: not a happy post

Pity party for 1, please.


Last night I lost it a bit. Couldn't stop crying. Not feeling ANYTHING whatsoever and pretty convinced this month was a bust too. Today I went to the pharmacy to pick up our Femara to try again next cycle, because I will prob get my period while we are out of town for the holidays and we will need it on day 2.


I hate, hate, hate to sound like a brat - because I see wonderful women on the message boards everyday who have been trying for a lot longer than we have with no luck either - but WTF?!? What are we doing wrong? It wasn't supposed to be this hard, considering that we have medicalized this process from the beginning. 3 - 4 cycles, max. Now, I realize much of this process is out of everyone's/anyone's hands, but c'mon --> It's supposed to be SCIENCE! 


It must be me. My sh*t doesn't work and I am throwing thousands and thousands of dollars down the toilet. Dollars we don't have. I am as barren as the gd Sahara desert. Nothing can survive in me. My uterus is an inhospitable wasteland, just like my soul.

My gd uterus. And soul.

I hate this. I hate everything about this f*cking process and what it's doing to my f*cking body and how I feel about myself. I want to quit. I wish I felt like a baby was worth my sanity, but you know what? I don't. Maybe that's why I am not PG yet. I don't want this bad enough and the universe knows.


Well, f*ck you universe. Blow it out your f*cking ass.


>:/ N

8DPI

Feeling a whole lotta nothing so far. But it's still early.


In other news, D and I had our 2nd consult with the RE on Tuesday - the first since we have started this process. When we saw him a week ago for the insemination we were pretty devastated because we had just found out that our sh*tty insurance provider is refusing to pay for my HSG procedure. (They have paid for NOTHING thus far.) This means we will have to fork over $2000 to pay for it ourselves. I should make t-shirts:

I paid $2000 and all I got was this lousy camera-phone photo.

I was in tears during the insem because paying for that procedure means we can't afford to move on to more aggressive baby-makin'. I must have looked pretty pathetic because he told us he would not charge us for the consult and not to worry, he wasn't "giving up on us."

On to the consult: Doc was pretty adamant about moving on to more aggressive treatment if this month does not result in a pregnancy. The oral is obviously not enough to get me PG. He wants to keep me on the Femara days 2-6, but I am going to add injectables to the mix on days 7-12. One shot a day, subcutaneous (in the fat, thank gawd), for 5 days. I can handle that. He assured us that adding injectables would triple our chances of getting pregnant that month. Holy f*ck, if that's the case, bring it on! 

However, being on injectables also means a lot more monitoring - multiple ultrasounds and multiple blood work-ups (and multiple babies!). Blergh. But here's the *wonderful* bit: Doc is going to find us the drugs at no cost to us (-$1000) and he is only going to charge us for 1 ultrasound (-$700), so that, after everything's said and done, this month on injectables will cost us no more that what we have been paying each month on the oral meds.

!!!

This was/is *amazing* news. We are both extremely grateful, but... we also feel like this is the right thing for our Doc to do. I mean, he charges us $235 for a 3 minute insemination and $356 for a 7 minute ultrasound. We have given him $3000 over the past 5 months, for what has probably totaled no more than 1 hour of his time. That's a pretty hefty hourly rate, in my opinion ;)


Of course, we are still hoping we will not have to take him up on this offer! 

creepiest Barbie ever.

On a slightly different note, there is something I have been paranoid about for the past 3 months and I don't know what to do about it. I have been triggering ovulation every month with an HCG shot --> Pregnyl. And every month I get these paranoid feelings that we *missed* my ovulation. My Doc says that that is not possible - that every IVF procedure depends upon those eggs staying in their follicles until hour 36 - but I am unconvinced. I'm only 4'11" and 120lbs... Isn't it possible the drugs are too strong and that I ovulate earlier on it? If I ovulated as early as hour 12 then by the time we inseminated at hour 36 the egg would be DEAD. That's my concern.


The internet is no help here. Half the things I read reiterate what my doctor says, and the other half say it's possible to ovulate anytime 12-48 hours after the shot. I feel as though if there's nothing wrong with my body, and nothing wrong with the sperm, then it has to be the timing, doesn't it? *sigh*


I need to keep reminding myself that the bridge you cross before you come to it is over water that isn't even there. 


6 more days till testing. 

5DPI

IF an egg was fertilized it would have made its way to my uterus by now. It could implant anytime between today and day 12.

Implant, little bugger! Implant, for god's sake!!!

I mean, I love you, sweet fertilized egg. Please, if you could be so kind, and if it's not an inconvenience to you, implant.

Thank you.

♥ N

1DPI

If everything went according to plan, then sometime between 9:30am yesterday morning and 9:30am today, fertilization took place. Now there is nothing to do but (eat pineapple and) wait. 


The insem went okay. New Dr. this time (there are 4 different RE's at the practice we go to), who talked kinda disparagingly about our Dr.'s methods. I asked him about the bruise and swelling I had at the trigger shot injection site and his reply was something like: "well, Dr. X insists on using subcutaneous shots because they are easier on the patient and this is the kind of thing that happens, blah, blah, blah." It was weird. I hardly need one doctor diminishing my confidence in my doctor before a procedure like that, must less implying that patients who don't do intramuscular shots are some kind of infertility wimps. On top of it, he couldn't get the catheter through my cervix - it took several attempts and some bearing down - and then when he did, he just went ahead and injected the sperm. Hey, that's D's job, a**hole! D wasn't pissed about it because she was worried about the bang-up job he was doing to my lady-parts, but I didn't appreciate his presumption. I had lots of cramping and some spotting yesterday as a result of everything, but I am hoping none of that will effect anything. I don't see why it would.


D and I came home from the insem and took a nap, which was lovely. When she got up to go to work, I sat down to do my own work and broke up long periods of sitting at my desk with some gentle stretching to get the blood flowing. I also ate 1/5 of a pineapple, including the core, around midnight when D brought it home. And that's pretty much it for yesterday. Pretty boring, huh? I know. Truth is, I indulge in my boredom now because I figure when a baby's here boredom will be a luxury I can no longer afford. 


I hope all of your own projects are fruitful these days, friends!


♥ N

Pineapple, you say?

I write to you filled with 13.1 million spermies. Or at least I was filled with 13.1 million spermies before they started dying off approximately two and a half hours ago. 

And, actually, I was filled with 69 million spermies, but only 13.1 million of those were not dead, beheaded, or swimming aimlessly in circles after the Big Thaw so those are the ones that count. 

I will update more on the insem later, but I wanted to post something I read today and that I am about to embark upon: the consumption of pineapple to help induce implantation.

I found this on a forum in BabyCenter:

Pineapple Core has what is called bromelain that will help with implantation. 

Using Pineapple to Assist Implantation: Pineapple contains bromelain. Bromelain is a proteolytic enzyme that breaks up proteins that inhibit embryo implantation. Consuming a whole pineapple (focusing on the core as it has the highest concentration of Bromelain) during a fertility cycle can be beneficial.
For IVF [in vitro fertilization] cycle: one pineapple, divided into 5 portions - consume one portion each day, over five days, beginning on the day of your embryo transfer.
IUI [intra-uterine insemination] cycle: one pineapple, divided into 5 portions - consume one portion each day, over five days, beginning on the day of your IUI.
Timed intercourse cycle: one pineapple, divided into 5 portions - consume one portion each day, over five days, beginning on the day after ovulation.
Note: Be careful not to start consuming pineapple too early in the cycle. Beginning to consume pineapple BEFORE the recommended days above can actually affect your vaginal and cervical mucus PH, making it more acidic.

And I found this on Answers.com:

[zmandel] I know that pineapple contains the enzime Bromelain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bromelain) , which can act as a blood thinner. Another blood thinner, Aspirin, is used in fertility treatments (http://www.sharedjourney.com/articles/aspirin.html) to improve circulation. This may increase blood suply to the necessary areas the body needs for implantation. 
Regarding bromelain, it is mostly on the stem of the pineapple. Canned pineapple has no bromelain because it has been heated, so the fruit has to be eaten fresh. 
Another note: Must be eaten with empty stomach, otherwise the bromelain is not absorbed by the blood, and instead, being an enzime, will aid to digest the food in your stomach. [/zmandel]

I am intrigued enough to try it. D just walked in the door with a fresh pineapple. Maybe this is the little bit of help we need :D

♥ N

In all seriousness...

Tomorrow we go in for the fifth insem to date. I'm really excited about this one, and so is N. After going off of Clomid, it's as though her body has gone back to normal which is a great sign. There have been a lot of positive results from switching over to Femera after Clomid, so that's a positive as well. We also still have two tries left (including the one tomorrow) to take advantage of the procedure she had last month to clear out her tubes and make sure there was no blockage. All signs point to yes.

We will be having a different doctor tomorrow as well. As much as I love our regular doctor, he seems to cause physical pain to N during the insem procedures, so a new doctor might be a little more gentle. Speaking of loving our regular doctor, he has agreed to give us our next consult for free after telling him we would have to cancel because our insurance doesn't cover us sitting down with him for ten minutes and we don't want to pay that 300 dollars. Although his generosity brought me to very small almost unnoticeable tears, I think he owes us. Not him personally, I guess, but the universe. So thanks, universe. Now give us a baby!

We also found out our insurance won't be covering the procedure she had done, so that's another couple grand we could be using towards baby. Our doctor also says he will fight this for us, so we'll see. We're not getting our hopes up, though. And another crappy thing we were informed of is my being called upon for jury duty! How lame. Maybe if I act crazy they'll dismiss me.

So, keep your fingers crossed for us. The current time for us is 11:11 and you best believe we both just made our wishes. I can't tell you what it is, though ;-) The end of our two week wait will fall while we're out of town for the holidays. We don't think we'll test. If it was a positive it would be the best Christmas ever, but if it were negative, it would ruin everything. But I don't want to think like that. All the signs are SO GOOD! I have complete faith in this month and that things will go great. If you build it, they will come. How about that!? I just got done reading The Alchemist so I'm feeling quite positive and as though we can do anything. Let's keep it that way, yeah?

Final thoughts: Don't watch the movie Vampires Suck. I will never be able to get that time back.

Love to everyone,

D

My letter to Donor # 2xx1.

2xx1, this is my letter to you. I'm rooting for you. No matter how much money you cost me, just know I love you and I support you and I have faith in you. What I'm getting at, is that I hope there's a lot of forward moving swimmers in this damn vial tomorrow and that you'll find the effin' egg. It's not that hard. You're inserted RIGHT NEXT TO IT. Just swim up to it and GO IN. I mean, really. If you're not smart enough to do that, I don't want you as half of my kid's genetic material. There's this beautiful golden amazingly glowing egg and you don't want in? Then get the hell out of here! I don't want you!

But honestly, let's just get it over with. Just swim in. I know it's powerful and strong and beautiful and doesn't need you because she's doing just fine without you thank-you-very-much but I promise if you go in, she won't be upset. She might act like she's resistant to you, but I promise, she will love you. I know, I know, she keeps glaring at you and only sneaks a smile here and there to keep you interested, but HURRY UP AND DO IT. You don't live that long! Sorry to break it to you, but your time is precious. You and the egg will live a very happy life together. The courtship you two will share is like meeting, dating and marrying a women's studies major. I get it! Not that easy, but incredibly rewarding, I promise!

Anyway, I'm looking forward to meeting you tomorrow. I hope you get my gf pregnant.

Love,

D

Ready, set... go!

Haven't had the time or energy for a real post, so here's a quick-n-dirty update:


D and I had our CD11 ultrasound on Monday, and were given the go-ahead to trigger Monday night. The Dr. saw only one follicle that was ready to go - alas! - but one is all we need. He also saw - and this was good news post-Clomid - a thick uterine lining (11 mm). We are heading in to inseminate tomorrow morning bright and early. 


I had a weird response to the trigger shot last night, for some unknown reason. The first 4 were pretty much a non-issue, but this time was really painful and I am still sporting a bruise and red, raised skin. Not sure what to make of it, but will check with the Dr. tomorrow, just in case... Hopefully it's nothing.


I will say that this cycle - my 1st cycle in 4 months NOT on Clomid - felt remarkably different. Ready for TTC TMI? (If you are not someone trying to conceive, I recommend you skip this bit!) I have had a ton of CM this month - making me realize that I haven't had ANY for at least two months. None. Nada. Not having CM is one of the negative side effects of Clomid that make it harder to get pregnant (not that this effects us because with an IUI we bypass the cervix entirely). But, I figure if I was having one negative side effect of Clomid, I was most likely having others as well that did effect our chances (i.e. an insufficient uterine lining). Ya feel me? It appears that off of Clomid, my body has reverted right back to a healthy normal state, which is super-reassuring. Go lady-parts!


We have a lot of reasons to feel good about this month (see here), so we are excited. Well, excited within reason/balanced with caution, I guess. We're certainly not giddily excited like we were the first few times, when every insemination seemed full of possibilities. (Okay, I'm lying. We do still get kinda excited everytime we do it, even still.)


Here's to hoping.


♥ N

This is hilarious to me right now.

Mompetition: Preconception Mompetition: "Sometimes the war starts before the zygote is even warm. Warning: If you have not battled the infertility monster, you may not fully appre..."

Obsess much?

I am really obsessing about getting PG this month - reading lesbian pregnancy blogs, checking out fertility forums, googling different combinations of words to find new and interesting info about this process. I don't think I've been this obsessed since try #1.


Please let this insemination come soon. And please let it work.


♥ N