Significant dates...

You know, I hate doing this to myself, and I wouldn't have, but my Fertility Friend site (the one where I record my daily Basal Body Temperatures for Fertility) is having a temporary free upgrade and pointed this out to me...

If we conceived this cycle, it will have been on August 25th (my birthday) and the due date will My Love's birthday in May...

So, here's to a hopeful birthday baby.

What hurricane?

Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes! I had a great birthday and spent time with friends and family. On my birthday we had an awesome dinner and I had a great night last night going out for my birthday also! We had dinner, drinks, and dancing. It was awesome!! Now, we didn't get in until after 2 am and my lovely daughter decided to get up early today...so, she laid in bed with me and I put some cartoons on while I dozed a bit more. I know my friends think I'm crazy, but I really enjoyed cleaning on my birthday. Sometimes it can be such a chore, but it wasn't that way for my birthday.

I gave myself my trigger shot on Wednesday night and we have been enjoying ourselves since then. We decided not to do an IUI this cycle. According to my temps I did indeed O, so that is good. Now, for the 2WW....

So, Hurricane Irene was a friggin joke...well, at least where I am. We had no power loss, some wind, and some rain...really wasn't bad at all. As I sit here there are still some good gusts going on out there, but nothing more than any normal thunderstorm.



On a totally separate note, I think Bailey (our 9 year old Weimaraner) is getting down to months...she has some pretty large lumps under her backlegs and they have been getting larger. One of them, the left one, has not gotten very hard and heavy. As long as she is still moving around without any obvious pain, we will let her be. It is sad and it bothers me that she has them at all, but we chose not to do surgery because it would be very invasive and expensive and painful.

It's my birthday today

Today I am 31 years old...I remember wanting so badly to turn 21 and here I am ten years later, though it's hard to believe it's been ten years! Today, we will be enjoying some birthday freebies around town and just hanging out. So, have a great day on my birthday!!

This is going to hurt...

The doctor gave me 18 gauge needles when I usually do the trigger shot with a 21 (see the difference???)...oh, this is about to suck!!!

Calculated Risks...What to do...

So, I am not sure what to do...do I do another IUI or do we just have good, old fashioned baby making? 

The success rates for IUI's are not much higher than doing so naturally, as long as there is a good sperm count. 

"The overall success rate (for an IUI) seems to be between 15-20 percent per cycle, judging from the articles which will be abstracted below." http://www.fertilityplus.org/faq/iui.html

Whereas the success rate of naturally trying for a woman in her 30's are: 20%. http://www.health.com/health/article/0,,20411697,00.html

So, knowing that I have at least one, maybe two maturing follicles in my ovaries and have a trigger shot...I know I will ovulate...is it worth going through the IUI, or should we do this on our own this time? 

We do not have sperm issues, there are plenty and they are healthy...it's a matter of ovulation for us.

I just don't know what to do because we have done 5 IUI's and all have failed...and it feels like this whole process has gotten so technical and scientific...

My Love and I have a decision to make, but would love your input and suggestions.

2 Follies, IUI Friday

So, did my ultrasound this morning and had 2 follicles. Estradiol levels were 133, so I do the trigger shot tomorrow night and have an IUI on Friday, which is the day after my birthday. KMFX

To say, or not to say...

You know, growing up I was always told that if I could not say something nice, then I shouldn't say anything at all...well, I think the same thing goes when you're typing something to someone...like commenting etiquette.

For instance, one of my fellow bloggers was called a "twat" by an 'anonymous' blogger because she was (very rightfully) complaining that she was suffering from morning sickness. This girl fought hard to get pregnant, going through multiple IVF's and more and I understand that 'anon' didn't want to read someone else's pregnancy complaints when assumably this 'anon' is probably suffering from infertility also. I know it hurts, but did it help 'anon' to put down someone else? To say something (very) mean?

Then, I get a comment that basically states that maybe God doesn't want me to have another child and that me wanting it is selfish. This, on a blog post about how awesome my daughter is and how if I do not get another it will be more than ok because I have been blessed with her. Now, don't get me wrong, the whole comment was not bad, it stated that maybe there is another child out there for us, even if I don't birth that child...and I have said this before.

I agree, maybe it is God's will that V be an only child, but what step do I take next? Do I get off the fertility meds and pray that it happens on it's own? Do I just quit trying? If My Love and I decide to call it quits, it will REALLY be quits...either we go back on birth control or he gets fixed. I have decided this is not because I don't want an 'oops' child, but because I don't want to hope and pray every month and to be disappointed time and again for years to come. Do I start looking into adoption? What next?

So, another thought crossed into my head...saying I should not pursue getting pregnant again because it might mess with God's plan for me, is like me telling someone they should not receive medical treatments (like chemo) that would save their lives because maybe they are supposed to be dead and they are messing with God's plan too...
Ok, maybe not that drastic, but you get it.

ICLW!

Well hello there fellow bloggers! 
This is my 3rd ICLW and I look forward to reading other's stories, finding some new blogs, and hopefully gaining a few more followers on mine.


Brief history (stolen partly from the last ICLW)

I am 30 years old (31 in 4 days!!) and My Love is 33 years old. We were married 10 years ago.

My Love is in the military and is always in and out of training...only adding to the stress of TTC, but it is a good life and I am proud of him.


My daughter: At about 25-26 years old we decided to TTC #1...no cycles were happening for me though, a year later, went to the Dr....tests and tests and tests later, low and behold I have PCOS. Got on Metformin and Provera...2 cycles later, BFP! 9 months later...a beautiful baby girl! Her birth story.

Anyhow...3 years ago, in August, we started TTC#2...I was already on Metformin and taking Provera to get things going...
Not happening.
Seek RE.
Clomid resistant...start injectibles...
1.5 years of fertility injections,
5 IUI's,
all BFN's...
3 years TTC#2 this month.

typical PCOS ovary w/1 large follicle

CURRENTLY: I am 10 days into this cycle with Femara and  injections...2 vials of Menopur daily...went in Friday for an U/S and had 3 at 10mm and 2 at 12mm, but my E levels were REALLY low (33)...so they are likely cysts.

 I love my miracle daughter and stay-at-home with her right now. I go to school online full-time and I help organize a large playgroup in our area. I love taking photos and I like to talk (a lot) which is part of the reason I started a blog...so I could stop talking my fertile friends ears off...they don't want to hear this stuff and I know & understand that.

 
I am going to ask and answer a few very random questions for my bloggies:
 

1. How tall are you?

I am 6'3" tall. No, really, I am. 

2. What is the sexiest thing about your partner while you are TTC?

I love that he is so supportive and helpful around the house, especially when he sees I am bummed out from failed cycles or bad news.

3. Do you play an instrument?

I did in high school. I played the French Horn, but do not play anything anymore. 

4. Do you play sports? 

I bowled, golfed, swam in swim team, and played some volleyball in high school, but could never run. I SUCKED (still do) at running.

5. What is your favorite body part?

I would have to say my legs. I have very long legs and I think they look nicely shaped. 

She really is the best!

I know a few mom's who have chosen to only have one child, some of them stating that their first child was so awful as a baby that they would not want to risk doing that again, some of them stating that one is enough, and some of them had medical issues beyond normal and chose to stick with one healthy child.


The point being...they chose their path.We did not.

My Love and I have always wanted a few children, and if we only have one, that will be alright. V is the BEST kid! 

She was a wonderful baby. She had her moments of fussiness, but for the most part was happy and
sweet. She had some evening of fussiness at home sometimes, but it only lasted a little while and was only in the evenings. She slept through the night from the very beginning. I never even knew when she was getting teeth in until I felt them (except for 1 day when her top two front teeth came in). She never was sick, no ear infections, nothing. She nursed well, she ate well, she weaned well. We did have to fight her a little bit to get her to drink milk, but she really doesn't seem to like it, no matter what we try.

She is smart! We taught her sign language so she was able to tell us what she wanted or needed without crying and whining. When she wanted to nurse, drink, eat, play, read, and more, she just "told" us (I wonder if I have any videos of her signing...I should look through my hard drive...). She started walking at 10 months, she was speaking in sentences by the time she was 2. She potty trained herself at 2.5 and I really mean, she did it herself. Within 1 week she had no accidents, day or night.

She knows all of her letters, both upper and lowercase. She is trying to read. She knows how to write her name. She knows all sorts of songs and she usually speaks with the correct grammar. I wish she would use her pleases and thank yous more often, but for the most part, she is polite. She entertains herself with her Barbies, puzzles, coloring, and books. She also plays fairly well with others, especially children who are older than herself. She loves playing outside.

She takes naps still and doesn't fight it every step of the way. She still sleeps through the night and when she wakes up, she wakes up happy. She doesn't go to bed late, she doesn't get up early. She doesn't get woken up easily. She is a little accident prone and hurts herself a bit too much, but probably not much more than most active kids. She loves clothes and loves wearing dresses.

She is funny! She comes up with some of the funniest things and I really need to start writing more of them down. Just the other day we were at a friends' house and their young daughter had gotten into something, V ran around the corner and said "She is eating the elephant food!!!" (it was a bag of rice with a picture of an elephant on it!!)...ok, maybe you had to be there for that one. Anyhow, she's a goof.


I cherish this little girl and I have so much fun with her. If she's the only child I ever have, that will be ok...it will be more than ok. I have been blessed beyond belief and I thank God every day for her.

3 and 2

This morning I had my first ultrasound monitoring for this cycle. I believe the results were 3 follicles at 10mm and 2 at 12mm. The blood results will show the Estradiol levels and we shall see how it goes.

We are having a Luau today for our mom's and kids' group. I am pretty excited and pray that the weather holds up. It should be a pretty awesome time! I made a coconut cake and will be making Hawaiian rice pilaf to share.

My birthday is less than a week away and I feel pretty much indifferent to it. I just hope that it ends up as a good, fun day, no matter what happens.

Changes - Gotta Keep Your Head UP!

It's time to make some changes. I have a few ideas of things I need to & want to work on...
First, and foremost, is I need to take better care of myself. This includes working out and eating better. I am hoping with both of these I will start feeling better about myself, emotionally and physically.


I started Femara pills on Sunday morning and started 2 vials of Menopur yesterday. I go in Friday morning for an ultrasound. I don't know exactly what we'll see, but I am trying to just keep an open and non-stressed mind.

I want to take a break from fertility treatments, but I don't know when...My Love is military and is here sometimes and gone at others, sometimes for LONG periods of time and sometimes without much warning. That being said, we do have some swimmers frozen, so is it better to take a break while he is here and do the treatments while he is gone, or vice versa? In the meantime, I am continuing treatments...

I have decided I have a new theme song at the moment. Please enjoy!!

You Gotta Keep Your Head Up!!

 

I've been waiting on the sunset
Bills on my mindset
I can get deny they're getting high
Higher than my income
My income's breadcrumbs
I've been trying to survive

The glow that the sun gives
Right around sunset
Helps me realize
This is just a journey
Drop your worries
You are gonna turn out fine
Oh, you'll turn out fine
Fine, oh, you'll turn out fine

But you gotta keep your head up, oh,
And you can let your hair down, eh
You gotta keep your head up, oh,
And you can let your hair down, eh

I know it's hard, know its hard,
To remember sometimes,
But you gotta keep your head up, oh,
And you can let your hair down, eh.

I've got my hands in my pockets,
Kickin these rocks
Its kinda hard to watch this life go by.
I'm buyin in the skeptics,
Skeptics mess with, the confidence in my eyes

I'm seeing all the angles, starts to get tangled
I start to compromise
My life and the purpose
Is it all worth it,
Am I gonna turn out fine?
Oh, you'll turn out fine

Fine, oh, you'll turn out fine

 

CHORUS

 

Only rainbows after rain
The sun will always come again and
It's a circle, circling around again
It comes around again
I said only rainbows after rain
The sun will always come again
It's a circle, circling around again
It comes around

So, right now I am keeping my head up and watching for my rainbow.

There is something wrong with me

There is something wrong with me...

There is no longer anything I can think about that I am passionate about for me. Don’t get me wrong, I am passionate about my husband and my daughter, but there’s nothing anymore that I feel like I care about. I need to start focusing on me, besides my fertility. It seems to me that I have been focusing on the fertility part of my life for so long that it has completely consumed my life. I don’t know how NOT to think about it…I guess I HAVE to find other things to focus on. I used to be passionate about my job, but I don’t work anymore. I used to be passionate about investing, but no longer have excess income. Well, maybe I should get a job and gain the excess income so that I can gain some passion back. Why does that scare the living hell out of me though? I am scared to get a job. Scared I will hate it and be stuck doing something I don’t want to be. Scared I will try to do some kind of a commission’s only sales job that I will end up paying to work. I only worked for a few months after I had my daughter and it was at a job like that, where I went out and did sales in people’s homes and it was horrible. After I got my check, and deducted my gas money, food money, and daycare money, I was paying to “work” and I don’t want to do that again.

I also need to start finding some better hobbies than surfing the stupid Internet and Facebook (the life sucker). I so rarely look at anything that makes me feel better about myself. I spend WAYYYY too much time reading about other people’s depressing lives or their wonderful new pregnancy news (and then I feel depressed about myself again). I need to start reading more and exercising more. I need to motivate myself to get back into working out and STOP giving myself every excuse in the book as to WHY I’m not getting off of my lazy, fat, ass and doing something about it. I did just finish a book and it was pretty awesome. I’m open to some reading suggestions. I don’t care what kind of book it is, as long as it entertaining enough to make me not want to put it down.

I need to go to church again. I really do enjoy it and don’t know why I don’t go…I have no good excuses. I need that relationship with God to become stronger than it is. I need to put my worries and stress on Him because I know he will take care of it and of me. I need to get back into church.

I am depressed. I am not depressed in a sense that I am sitting around crying…not at all. In fact, that’s partially what scares me, it's just more of a growing, looming feeling of no longer being me. My cycle started today and I didn’t even care. I knew it, it was no surprise. This marks 3 years of trying for #2…36 months…that’s a LONG damned time…and I don’t even care. Is that weird? I just am not sure about anything right now.  

Not sure which step I take next. Not sure what direction to go in….

Do I finally call it quits for fertility stuff?

Should I get a job? Doing what?

Should I put V in daycare or full-time preschool?

Should I….I dunno….I just, I need to go to bed. Goodnight.

2 more weeks - UPDATE

In just 2 weeks I will be turning 31. I'm not sure if it's good or bad, but it has to be good because I'm still alive for it, right? It's just bad because that is one more year of a ticking clock gone unanswered. I am coming more and more to terms with the fact that my child may always be an only child. This is not what I wanted for her, at all, but it's not up to me. In the end, it is His decision to make and I will have no choice but to accept it.

So, here comes some TMI moments for some of my readers, I'm sure...
I am cycle day 29. Aunt Flow has not reared her ugly head yet, but my temperatures are dropping, so I fully expect she will be here soon. I am in a waiting game. Of course I have tested and of course it has been negative, or I would not be posting something this pathetic sounding. I LIED. SHE IS HERE NOW.

This being said, I don't even know for sure if the Femara did anything for me. I assume I ovulated because my temps did go up quite a bit. Next cycle Nurse D. wants me to do Femara and 2 vials of Menopur which sounds like a LOT, but who knows...at least I will be monitored again, which makes me feel better...at least then I will know what the heck my body is doing!

Oh, and the scale...is EVIL right now. It's my fault, because I haven't been working out, or watching what I have been eating ANNNND it's that time of the month.

Ok, nuff said...will write something later.
Have a fantastic weekend!!!!

Photo collages

Here are some photo collages of our vacation:

Cool cousins!!!

Fishies!!

 

Beautiful and Handsome Cousins!!

Jumps!!!

I hate TTC!

Temperature dropped. Not sure what is next. Tired of feeling this way. Grumpy and can't be because I have to be the "happy" one and I have a ton of kids here who need me. And my daughter is being mean to me this morning...not really on purpose, but she won't give me a hug this morning and is being whiny and it's making me so angry...so, I am going to go get another cup of coffee before I get mad. Stupid TTC!

Vacation & Beezus

V and I went on a mini vacation down to visit family down in Florida and we had a fantastic time! We swam and went on the boat and out to dinner and climbed a lighthouse and saw lots of her cousins and Aunts and Uncles and even Grandma and Grandpa! It was a great time! I have about 1400 photos to go through to pick some fantastical ones out to share and will do that later. It was so wonderful seeing how much my nieces and nephews have been growing up to become young ladies and little gentlemen! I even ventured to bring back 3 of my nieces to join us for a little over a week. They are 12, 11, and 9 years old and they are such good girls. Fruitaholics would be a great description of them also! Man, I am going to have to do some serious fruit shopping for these girls.

We got back yesterday, so there are now 4 little girls running around my house. Today I even babysat 2 extra little girls and we all went and saw Ramona & Beezus at the theater. That was an adorable movie and is it sad to say that I cried through parts of it?? I cried, not because of sad moments, but because I am so afraid that V will not have the sibling relationships that those two girls have, or that my nieces have, or the girls I’m watching, or even that I had with my siblings…I wish I didn’t have these worries or thoughts, but I do and I hate it.

On a lighter note, right now I have 6 little girls here, 4 of whom are dressing up like princesses and ballerinas (the other two are on the computer)! They are all playing so well together and making up story lines and just having a grand-ol’ time!

Ok, I should get back to my guests. I will post photos soon! Well, as soon as I get a few minutes to go through them!!