ooooommmmm

Nothing like some weekly forced relaxation to make you question everything.

I’ve now been to the in.fertility cure acupuncturist twice, and have appointments scheduled every Wednesday through the rest of the month. Her style is different from my other person, and she is much more expensive, but I am hoping that w/ something as complicated as high FSH and general wonky-ness that you get what you pay for. I have been trying to feel good about trying something new, moving forward, blah blah blah… but last night I hit a bit of a wall and wound up sobbing into my knitting.

The problem at hand:  How do I know that this is the thing to invest hope in? Why should this work when nothing else has? Am I quickly becoming the desperate infertile woman who is willing to attempt (and pay for) anything that offers even a moniker of hope?

All this is compounded by other things… Super Husband’s father called yesterday to ask if I was pregnant yet. In my sexu.ality class yesterday we had a lecture on birth control, and one at a time the little college students told stories of how they got pregnant on birth control, and then the teacher told us she got pregnant while using birth control. My friend IRL who did IVF at the same time as me is pregnant w/ twins. (Seems everyone who did IVF around the same time ast me is pregnant w/ twins – why did the 100% implantation fairy skip my house?) Our friend the man-hoe’s baby mama is due any day now… frankly, I just don’t understand how fertility can come so damn easily for other people. Oh yah, and the Duggers were just in our town. So they are all over every media outlet around here.

I’ve been going at my fertility with as much estudious vigor (maybe more) then I am putting towards school. I am currently eating a special diet to help w/ my TCM fertilty type and high FSH. Acupuncture, herbs, femoral message… fertility awareness, saliva analysis, BBT, OPKs.   The last four all in an attempt to figure out when I am ovulating. And it really does take all four. As super husband likes to say, I am a very complicated flower.

If you have made it this far, I want to let you in on a little secret. We switched to the digital OPKs because I refuse to try to analyze those silly lines ever again. I thought about splurging on a fertility moniter, but figured I would try the smily face digital sticks first. I figured the pocketbook gougers at Clear.blue would surely make refills for those digital OPKs, right?  Wrong. But after a lot of searching, I found several different people on the internets that claim that you can use the fertility moniter sticks in the digital OPKs. So, I bought a pack of 30 and it turns out that they are exactly the same as the sticks that come with the digital OPKs. Take that Clear.blue!

So, that is what is up in my world. Also, I just saw a great movie, “My Neighbor Totoro.”  It’s by the same guy who did “Spirited Away” which I also love. Add them both to your net.flix queue, they are a fantastic distraction.

Biding my time

Nothing much to post about these days. We are just biding our time, waiting for us both to be healed enough physically and emotionally to move on to the next thing, be it another IVF or something else.  Super Husband is still really having a hard time dealing with our failed cycle. He had really invested a lot of hope in this process. I think he is finally starting to understand why I would not let him talk about things like baby names.

My body is definitely in a state of flux. Last week I had a fever and nausea for 24 hours, then my whole body erupted in a rash. Yesterday the rash was almost totally gone and I managed to celebrate feeling better by going ass over teacups down a hill on my college campus. One minute I was walking along, then I tripped, lost my balance due to my extremely heavy backpack, and wound up sliding on my face in the street.  I’m quite a sight now, scraped up face and hands. Black and blue marks everywhere. <sigh>

To add insult to injury, my period is now 4 days late. My cycles had been pretty regular in the year leading up to IVF thanks to acupuncture, but I think IVF has thrown my system out of wack. I never had any fertile signs this month, never got the smiley face on the OPK. I would like my period to arrive soon, however, as a lack of menses is a symptom that my diminished ovarian reserve is moving in to the next phase of impending doom.  Has anyone experienced IVF screwing up their cycles?

I’ve got two days of self-care ahead:  a trip to the doctor this morning to examine the bump on my head (er… face?)  and then acupuncture with my regular guy this afternoon to help with my nerve damage.  Tomorrow I will visit one of the official “Fer.tility Cure” acupuncturists to see if she is willing to offer up any hope that I can get knocked up on my own.

Looks like I am facing a week of healing – in more ways than one!

still here, still not pregnant

Ahhh… my first ever post to apologize for not posting. I guess I am a bonafied blogger now huh?

Summer has gone in to full swing, and it seems like every moment is occupied by a bbq, a slip and slide party*, a camping trip, things for school, or work work endless work!

After recovering from the HSG allergic reaction from hell, I decided to go and get my updated shots for school. One dTap later, I had a 102 degree fever for three days and had to miss work. An extreme allergic reaction! How novel! This is starting to make me wonder if my body reacts badly to foreign substances, and if it is attacking super-husband’s sperm, thus preventing pregnancy. Hmmm…

Speaking of getting my shots, the whole experience was, well, an experience. I went to the county health department (free!) after work one day. I walked through the door to be greeting with a scene not unlike an airport, a busy train station, or the DMV. There was one of those reels of numbers, so I took one and had a seat on a folding chair. On my right I was being oogled by a young redneck gentleman. In front of me was a huge family, with about three crying babies, speaking to a translator in rapid Spanish. I tried not to make eye contact with anyone. That’s when a teenage girl with a pink glittery tee shirt that said “Princess” and acid washed jeans squeezed in next to me. She started flipping through a booklet she was holding in her lap. I glanced down at it. The title was, “Now That You are Pregnant, What Can You Expect?” She got to the third page or so and whipped out her cell phone, dialed a number, and started sobbing. “Mom! I’m pregnant!”

I nearly kicked myself for not having a business card on me.

I tried to not listen in on her conversation and looked over at the wall about 100 yards away. I could make out a tiny paper flier. There was a picture of a shot on it. I walked over to it and read the teeny tiny letters… “All vaccinations and travel shots – proceed directly to the immunization clinic.” I high tailed it out of there, found the clinic, and after 10 minutes of “Hannah Montana” I was vaccinated and on my way home.

Now that I have my newfound tetanus immunity, I was able to register for classes for the fall. I’ll be taking Health & Wellness and Intro to Statistics. I’m only a little scared. Mostly of statistics.

Other things of note:

• My acupuncturist took a seminar on abdominal massage for fertility. I get to be her “guinea pig” or as I prefer to call it, her “test pancake.” I’ve been getting free massages!
• I’ve been having pregnancy dreams… In them, I take a HPT, and I have two lines. That’s it, just the lines. It’s thrilling and realistic and then I wake up.
• We took a break this month, not on purpose. I ovulated late, while we were camping, and we just couldn’t do the deed on the rocky ground in a tiny tent with the dog, with about 15 of our friends within earshot. I feel a little relieved to have two whole weeks off!

Ok, off to catch up on all of your bloggy goodness!

*In honor of Kate, I am including a footnote to say that grown ups should not throw or attend slip and slide parties. I was sore for several days in some unusual places, and I got off easy. You would think that being a little drunk would help you bounce, but it dosn’t.

the West vs. East showdown

I started seeing an acupuncturist a few months ago. This was going to be my last attempt at getting pregnant before I started pulling out the bigger guns. (Clo.mid and IuI’s)

The deadline my doctor set was the end of November. I decided to give myself until the start of 2008.

Yah, I’ve looked at the calendar.

How long can you keep saying “One more month, then I’ll try something new”?

I don’t know why I am so hesitant to start w/ Western medical intervention. My body responded really badly to BC pills, and I think I am just plain scared to take Clo.mid out of fear that I’ll turn into the raving lunatic again that I was on the pill. While I’m not a big fan of the acupuncture sessions, I like the results. It has all but eliminated the debilitatingly painful cramps that have plagued me since I was 12. It has cleared my skin. It has made it easier to deal with stress. I want to believe in it, to keep giving it time.

But how do you know when to move on?