First IVF appointment, check!

I’ve managed to check one thing off my IVF list. All in all it was relatively painless and quick. I had to have a blood draw to make sure that my estedrol and FSH levels qualified me for their money back gaurantee program, but I got to keep my pants on! So that’s a first.

It looks like we are going forward with IVF very very soon. Sooner then I am comfortable with really, but I’m not sure when I will ever be comfortable with the idea of IVF. So, I’m sucking it up and taking things one step at a time.

Next up… baseline ultrasound on August 14, along with my injectable meds instruction. I’ll start Lupron on August 19. Egg retrevial and transfer will be in early September, just after my 29th birthday.

I think I know what I want this year, a gift that won’t be delivered until June.

Hurry up and wait!

Kate, over at Bee in the Bonnet, said something the other day that both resonated with me, and made me laugh. Because, people, this is exactly the big problem I have with fertility treatments:

“I hear it’s a lot of not-knowing, and hurry-up-and-waiting, and that those are frequently combined with a big fat dose of crazy-making drugs.”

Yes, that it is. And is sucks. (sorry Kate, wish I could have told you otherwise)

First of many steps

So somehow I wound up on the front page of kirtsy, and had a huge spike in readers and commenters last week. My blog slackness was highlighted, as many of you new readers left me lovely comments and I needed to approve them. Hi new readers!  I can be a bit slacky with the blog sometimes, but welcome, and I look forward to reading your stories.

I need to update my blog roll to include a lot of the newer blogs that I have recently started reading, and maybe make a new catagory for those of you that are now pregnant or parenting. (it seems as though most of my blogroll is now pregnant or parenting…) (Which is good, I am happy for you, really, and I enjoy reading your stories about your little ones, but I also sometimes need to read the stories of those still in the thick of it… oh I don’t need to explain, I know you understand!)

Anyway, today I took the first step towards starting IVF. . . I called my RE and set up a consult. (THIS FRIDAY!) We will have a sit down and talk about protocol, scheduling, etc, and I will get all of my instructions for getting started. I am scared, but I am trying to take this one step at a time. Right now I just need to get through the appointment and learn what the next step is.

Super-Husband was ready to take a different tactic. Over lunch this afternoon he said to just focus on the end result, and not worry about all the stuff that leads up to it.

“The end result is small,” he said. “Smaller then the dog,”  he gestured to our German Shepard mix snoozing at our feet on the dining room rug.

“I certainly hope so!” I said, “Otherwise this will be worse then I am anticipating!”

I love how he can make me laugh when I am feeling down. But I think that focusing on the end result is too much pressure. There is too much at stake… So one step at a time it is…

I Confess

Welcome to the post in which she admits that she is scared shitless to do IVF.

We’ve touched on this little item before… but back then my fear was more about tempting fate by using intervention to get pregnant. Now it is directly related to the entire IVF process.

I’m not so afraid of giving myself injections as I am of the physical responses my body will undergo. I’m scared of OHSS. I’m scared of the pain, the bloating, the grumpiness. I’m absolutely terrified of the egg retreival, the anesthesia, the aftermath. I’m scared of having to miss too much school and falling behind. I’m scared of ectopic pregnancies and PIO.

Of these fears, the biggest is that of the egg retreival. Anesthesia and I are not good friends. I had a panic attack while it was being administered when I got my wisdom teeth out. Also, super-husband has a major fear of medical “stuff” and I know that there is no way he could come with me for retreival. Which means I would be on my own. Which scares me.

The question is… What am I more afraid of?  IVF? Or of not doing IVF and never having children?

the more things change, the more they stay the same

Still here treading water. Haven’t written anything lately, because there just isn’t much to share. I fear sitting down and typing something out, because I am sure that I will just resort to whining and no one really wants to read that.

Right now I am mostly occupying myself with trying to avoid man-whore’s baby mama.  Which is proving it’s self to be more challanging then anticipated. It seems like every time I venture out and try to enjoy myself with my friends she manages to show up. The last time this happened there was a lifting of the shirt and everyone moved en masse to kiss the belly. Yah. Freakin’ rediculous. I drank a lot that night, so I am growing my own belly too!  No one wants to kiss mine.

Man-whore apparantly admitted to super-husband last week that he knows that he will not be staying with baby mama long term. That he does not want to marry her. That he doesn’t love her enough to make any kind of commitment like that. This upset super-husband quite a bit, the most I have ever seen him upset over anything IF related. He started talking about wanting to offer to adopt their baby. I reminded him that they were not giving the baby up for adoption, and eventually he admitted that he was just upset that two people who are not in love, and have no intention of commitment could bring a child into this world but we can’t.

The concert was great. The hometown show was a real treat, and is being called the best of the tour by folks who went to them all. We also went to the next night’s show a few hours away and that was wonderful as well, but a totally different vibe. The only low point of the hometown show was when a super-prego mama to be jammed herself in my personal space and started rubbin’ all over her belly in front of me. It upset me for a moment, and then I decided I wasn’t going to let IF get me down at such a rockin’ show and I was able to tune her out.

 She didn’t stay long, and didn’t put much of a damper on my mood. Here is a photo of super-husband and I during setbreak. That’s right, we were right up front!!! Too bad you can’t see my awesome silver sequined top in this photo. It was awesome.

 

We are still on track for attempting IVF sometime in the fall or early winter. I am balking a bit on the idea of winter break IVF… we have the opportunity to go on a lovely and cheap tropical vacation around the New Year, which is right in the middle of my break. Yuk timing. I have given up so much to IF these last three years (That’s right, this month marks the official three year mark!) I hate to give up anything else. I’ll feel rotten enough if IVF does not work, why add the regret that we didn’t take this trip to the mix as well?  So I’ll be contacting my clinic soon to find out the scheduling details for IVF and see if we can do it in October or November even though it is during school.

So, that’s all that is new in my world… now I’m off to see what has been happening in yours.