CD16: All clear!

1) Ultrasound this morning. I have a uterus! I saw it! And ovaries, two of 'em! And follicles, lots of very small ones, and one that is about 14mm. That's still undersized, so I likely have a few more days til ovulation -- perhaps Monday or Tuesday.

2) Since I had a ways to go, I had the HSG. It was not at all awful. There was maybe a minute of cramping bad enough to make me grimace, but certainly no worse than menstrual cramps. Then it was over, and I got to admire the lovely smooth walls of my uterus, hear how evenly it filled, and be praised for how gaily my fallopian tubes spilled dye into my abdominal cavity. In short: looks perfect. I can let out a little breath that I've been holding for 15 years, ever since I was treated for PID. Full steam ahead! Anyway, I had taken the rest of the day off, just in case. So now I am blessedly home with the dogses. I am actually a little crampy off and on, but nothing too bad.

3) I have a job interview in two weeks. I mention it on this journal because I keep thinking what if what if what if what if... Could I walk into a new job, knowing that I'm pregnant? Knowing that I may be pregnant soon? Could I walk away from my lovely generous insurance with its infertility coverage? Could I walk away from my laid-back cushy job, five minutes from home, where they're used to me coming in at sometime o'clock? But this would represent a big step up for me career-wise, and financially. It's way too early to worry about what might happen if I am offered a job that I haven't even interviewed for yet, but of course I can't stop thinking about it.

CD14: Possibly Fertile Day 1

1) Radiology just called and canceled my HSG tomorrow. They're going to try to reschedule me to Thursday, but are checking with Dr F to see if that's too close to ovulation.

2) Fertile Day 1 is today. That puts ovulation some time Saturday - Tuesday. Technically it's calling OV1 and OV2 for Saturday and Sunday, but on two occasions I've gone two days past their prediction, so I'm assuming another two days are at least possible. Ovacue is predicting a similar span. I don't really trust either of them. All eyes are on the Clearblue. I just don't know.

See this? This is me throwing my hands up in the air. And typing AT THE SAME TIME, GO ME.

CD12 update

1) All my technology is very quiet. No sign from the Ov-Watch, nothing from the Clearblue, only the usual incoherent ramblings from the OvaCue. This is good, because

2) I'm scheduled to have Dr. F do an HSG at 12:30 on Wednesday, and he can't do it if I've already ovulated.

Basically, they fill your uterus up with contrast dye, and then take pictures of where it goes (ideally, the fallopian tubes). Besides being generally good fun, the dye often flushes out bits of mucus, debris, etc, and increases your fertility for a few cycles. As B has said, my tubes have never been used, so they might still have the packing material on. And considering my history (pelvic inflammatory disease picked up during my dissolute youth) it makes sense to do this before we go any further.

Accounts of the procedure range from "absolutely painless" to "HOLY FUCK", with the HOLY FUCK side being those with obstructed tubes. Let's hope that's not me, for so many reasons, eh? Am also considering whether or not to pop some of my little horde of Valium left over from a dental procedure. On one hand, seems like it couldn't hurt, but on the other hand, then I couldn't drive. And maybe I'll feel dandy and like walking home afterwards, but maybe I won't.

In other news, have figured out that I'm even luckier than I thought -- my insurance doesn't just cover IUI, it covers IVF. So if the tubes don't work we'll just bypass 'em.

CD8: A Visit to the Good Doctor

Things went swimmingly at the fertility doctor's.

1. Dr. Fertility seems like a nice, goofy guy. When I made stupid I-am-a-compulsive-joker-in-uncomfortable-situations sperm jokes, he joined in with a good will.
   
2. He did not seem confused by the whole lesbians-trying-to-conceive thing (unlike the office staff who had a brief fluff over whether B should fill out a "male partner" form or a "female patient" form or none at all, which was the eventual decision).
3. Dr. Fertility is Jewish, which always makes me feel a bit more at home. His parents must be so proud.
4. Dr. Fertility did not seem fussed by working with a known donor. Basically, if we hand him a vial of sperm, he isn't going to ask many questions about where we got it from. This is exactly the attitude I want in a fertility doc.
5. Dr. Fertility seems amenable to whatever level of intervention we want. The possibilities seem to be
• diagnostic. This means an HSG to make sure the tubes are clear. I'm a bit scared because it has the potential to be quite uncomfortable, but I want one anyway. When I was in college I had an episode of Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, which can mess up your tubes; if things are not well there, I want to know (and if they are, I want to know that too).
• cycle monitoring. Via bloodwork, via ultrasound, making sure we're getting the timing correct.
• drugs to control timing. That would be Clomid. I got nothing against drugs in theory or practice, but I am slightly nervous of the fact that Clomid was how my sister ended up with twins. JUST ONE KTHNX.
• intrauterine insemination. We'd present him with a vial of washed sperm, he'd monitor the cycle and then stick it up there at the proper time.

Right now I am thinking yes to diagnosing, probably to cycle monitoring, maybe to drugs, maybe to IUI.

And oh, I am not usually very happy about people rummaging around in my lady bits, but even that part was fine -- he kept up a stream of cheery chatter while going about his business, which I have to admit distracted me in a good way.

In other news, KD is going to try to send another package tomorrow, for freezing. Yay! Dr. Fertility seemed somewhat startled that we had our own freezing/washing technology, but was not put off by it.

Roll on, cycle #5! I'm glad we went to that appointment today. Even if we don't make any substantial changes, it has given me the sensation of forward movement.

CD4: The reward of not being pregnant

...that would be the two glasses of sangria and two glasses of sauvignon blanc I've got on board. Wheeeee! I mean, I fully intend to have the occasional glass of wine, if only to piss off all the bad-science-wielders and moralists who ignore, hide, or lie about the fact that moderate alcohol consumption has not been shown to have an effect on fetal development.

Okay, logical thinkers, here's an exercise. What's wrong with this paragraph?

(reference)

It used to be believed that drinking moderate amounts (a drink a day) was relatively safe. But it's only recently been discovered that children of women who drank during pregnancy — even those who had as little as one drink a day — were experiencing developmental problems throughout their childhood and even into adolescence. A 2002 study by the University of Pittsburgh found that children of mothers who drank at least one drink a day during their first trimester weighed, on average, 16 pounds less at the age of 14 than those with no exposure to alcohol in the womb.

*headdesk* Stupidity, or willful misunderstanding? I'm cynically betting on the second. There is such a need to control/threaten/fondle pregnant women that people's brains seem to fly straight out the window.

But anyway. I will have an occasional drink when I'm pregnant, but not the occasional four, so HI. HI.

CD2: more good news

I found a site with a slightly less retch-making set of tickers!




In other news, appointment with fertility doc next Wednesday. Exciting!

CD1: the bad and the good

The bad
Well, it's CD1. I had kind of hoped not to see any more of those for a while.

The good
I think we have a way to insulate ourselves from forgetful FedEx drivers and stroppy pancreases! After the FedEx debacle of last month, The Package showed up way too late for insemination. But it did arrive, and my momma always said "waste not, want not". So here we were with a vial of sperm and no place to put it ("NOT FUNNY" said B, when I waved it in her direction).

Of course, we were curious as to how well the sperm had survived 53 hours of travel. The answer: extremely well. And since we had it right there, B decided to try a little experiment in DIY cryopreservation.

The buffer it's shipped in is basically the cryopreservation buffer minus glycerol. So she added the right amount of glycerol and froze it down.

One week later she defrosted them and they looked damn wiggly. In fact, while she had them up on the slide, she did a count and came up with an extremely impressive 100 million/ml, with approx 66% motility. Those are damn fine numbers for fresh, and even better considering that's post-thaw.

So: a possible solution to scheduling/medical/shipping/ovulation-guessing mishaps! We're still going to try with the fresh, but it will be immensely comforting to know that, in case of emergency, we have a stash no farther than B's lab.

CD28, 10DPO: how I've been occupying myself during the Two Week Wait.

STUPID FUCKING FEDEX

So dear KD dropped off the package for today's insemination at FedEx at 9:53am yesterday for Priority Overnight shipping.

and where is it now?

STILL IN THE STUPID FUCKING FEDEX OFFICE IN SAN FRAN FUCKING CISCO.

Why? Dunno. The manager will call me. Like, when he moseys on in.

WTF WTF WTF WTF RAGE RAGE FURY SMASH KILL KILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

CD17: A Love-Song to our KD's Pancreas

Yes indeed, today I am surgin' like a surgin' thing. 8am, OPK decidedly neg. 10am, getting warmer. 3pm WOOGAWOOGAWOOGA dark line!

We insemmed this morning at about 10am. Aside from accidentally getting the 40x objective of our microscope all spunky (EWW) all went smoothly. We're going again tomorrow. This timing is fantastic. If I'd listened to the Ov-Watch/OvaCue and if KD's pancreas hadn't been on the blink, we would have insemmed on Friday/Sat, wayyyyy too early for a Wednesday ovulation.

And: it's the first of May. What better a time to set little things to growing?