hcg shot questions July 31, 2007

I know you have all posted this info on your blogs in the past, but I would greatly appreciate some info about the shot.

1. Mixing instructions

2. Did you do it sub-q or intramuscular? Belly or butt?

3. Any important tips we should know about?

My BIG question follows: Our doctor prescribed Nova.rel (which is 10,000 units), but I know many people use Ovi.drel. Anyone know the difference? My doctor might have some further info for us at our ultrasound next week, but I’m needing not to wait a week. Information is soothing. Also, my docor is really an OBGYN, not an RE so she is NOT up all all the current research about fertility drugs.

Thanks! I don’t know what I would do without you people.

where to begin July 30, 2007

I hate this more than I have ever hated it before. After holding everything in all weekend (S bled the morning of the wedding) and a long car ride home (my mom was with us) I cried myself to sleep last night. For the first time in this process I am seriously considering quitting TTC all together, but even that is not satisfying to consider, because S and I want another child so badly that it isn’t a real option at all.
Last night I wanted to throw our fucking monitor out the fucking 2nd story window. I can hardly look at the god damned OPK sticks sitting neatly in the basket where they have been replenished time after time after time. 12 times to be exact. I am left to stare at chart #26 and I could just shoot myself. And all of this is taking a toll on our donors, who bless them, did not sign up for this. Last insem was especially taxing, seeing as RM has a newborn, and is working his ass off and had to deliver goods 4 night in a row when he was exhausted to the bone. The novely has worn off…and so has any excitement there once was.

I can barely even write about the full body discomfort I experience daily when forced to think about involving other people in this train wreck. If it did not feel like our last option, I would tell them never mind, we are so sorry to have put you through almost a year of this, please forgive us.

This has been our worst negative to date. I won’t bore you with the dye on the pregnancy test mishaps, or the amount of time we spend staring at tests, or how many we took, or how convinced we were that it worked - because it does not matter.

NOT PREGNANT.

We will be lucky at this point with a 4 year age difference between our kids. Lucky. And we only have so many more Clomid cycles to use up before we are referred to other options which we cannot afford under any circumstances.

Last night I recalled, cruelly, that we would be almost half way through the pregnancy. Alas, we have no baby and really might (IT COULD REALLY HAPPEN) pass our previous due date with nothing. Fucking nothing. I am begining to feel like the pregnancy was a fluke, and the dreams I have for our family seem further away than ever.

Forgive me if I sound like a whiny ass. I am at the end of a very worn down, pathetic rope.

July 28, 2007

finally got to a computer. negative tests all weekend, and now…blood. we’re out.

still nothing, mostly July 25, 2007

There was a point today when it looked like the test might have been you-need-a-microscope positive, but now it is totally gone, so I think the test was just drying. I had high hopes for some interesting blog entries, but packing for our trip has left little time. We have some great folks house sitting, so our cats will be happy.

I guess we will test again tomorrow, and we’ll do a cheapie test and a real one. I don’t know how I will inform you all of the result as we will not have internet access while we are away. You can check here on Friday, and if there is nothing I think you can assume it was a negative. This had been one of our slowest, roughest TWWs to date. Apparently it has been for WTF too. She called today, and left a message asking whether we had tested and asking for us to call her back because she needed some ‘moral support’. Gotta love her. Seriously.

10 DPO with Nothing July 25, 2007

Oddly, there is nothing going on. The hopeful part of me, which has grown considerably over the last 2 days despite my efforts to chain it and lock it up under the stairs, thinks this might be a good sign. Usually there is something going on today like sore boobs or crampiness. The CTW (cycle that worked) she did have sore boobs and some mild cramping today, but she was on progesterone hoo-has that made her boobs very sore. She also had diah_____. I hate that word, so I’ll leave it at that. Almost all of her past cycles she had some combo of a sweaty night, or sore boobs, or cramps, or poop issues. Today: nothing. Also nothing on the pregnancy test. OK, I have to go anyway and that is the end.

8 DPO with cramps July 23, 2007

S has had a few pully crampy feelings today, which is good, I think. Right? I am wedged in a place where I desperately don’t want to get my hopes up, but it is happening anyway, and I can’t help it. Gah. Should I just go for it? Be happy? Assume she’s pregant? Assume she’ll stay pregnant? I don’t know if I can maintain it. I’m so scared. This part of the wait is the WORST for me. Days 8 and 9. Yuck.

vacation July 22, 2007

Why is getting prepared to relax so stressful? Jesus. Anyhoo, we are preparing to attend the wedding of a friend and life has been crazy. We are at 7DPO, and S has had some interesting crampy feelings, but I am trying not to get my hopes up. We will find out whether she is pregnant RIGHT before this wedding…one where we are both speaking. Well, I’m doing a reading and S is singing. Have I mentioned she can sing? She can. She rocks. So either she’ll be knocked up (and weepy) or have PMS (and be weepy). Period is due the day after the wedding. Good lord. I will try to post this week about something other than days to ovulation or days past ovulation. Did I mention that this wedding is for my ex boyfriend, who I lived with as a teenager, with my parents, who took 6 years to get over me breaking up with him, and continued living with my parents after we broke up, and he calls my mom “mom”? I’ll let that sink in.

waiting July 16, 2007

waiting. waiting. oh, more waiting?

yes.

another two week wait is here. we did do a final insem on saturday night (thank you RM for giving us some goods despite your exhaustion). we think the sperms, in addition to all of us, were like ‘again? seriously?’

we believe that S ovulated on sunday, leaving a very good insem schedule behind: every night for 4 days leading up to the night before ovulation. it doesn’t get better than that. well, it would be better if we *knew* she ovulated. so we wait, and wait, and wait. we will find out when we are on our way to an out of town wedding. we will test from CD11 onward, which is in 10 days. i’m trying not to panic. when i imagine it no working i feel flattened, and when i imagine it working i feel terrified. good lord.

never the same way twice July 14, 2007

Here we are again with the OPKs, on a weekend, confused. S still feels very bloated and full (even painful), and we just got our ‘PEAK’ TODAY, on CD16. Yesterday looked like a PEAK, initially, but the monitor did not read it as such. There was an LH line, but the estrogen line was still there (meaning estrogen had not gone up significantly yet - which happens before the LH surge.) The other OPKs looked almost kinda positive, so we left WTFs house last night confident that she did in fact surge (sometimes in the past her surges look like this…kinda less spectacular than one would expect), and would ovulate today, probably in the morning. This would have been perfect because our last insem was lat night at like 8:30pm. But today she got a big “PEAK” on the monitor and all the OPKs were undeniably dark and positive. Plus, S feels very bloated and pained still in the ovary area, so we think she has not ovulated yet.

Now, S must bother WTF and RM again, make a 4 hour drive and miss our date night to go get more sperm. I have only seen her for an hour or two every night because I was up staying with WTF and she was coming and going every night because she had to go to work every day.

So I called WTF to see if S can come by again tonight, but she was not home. And we should have triggered. But last time (when it WORKED) she ovulated on CD 15, all neat and tidy - no shot. This time it will likely be CD17. Is that weird? Are the eggs going to be all overdeveloped and tough? Is that kind of delay normal?? Balls. She normally ovulated anywhere from Cd14 to CD16 (usually on CD15), so I guess it is only a 2 day delay, but it feels big, and so much is riding on this try and I just feel so out of control, and tired. This shit is work.

We’re off July 11, 2007

Tonight begins three nights of insems. Thank you for making me feel better about the one follicle. It really helped. Today S is feeling a lot of pressure on both sides, so maybe by the time she ovulates more than one will pop out anyway. The pressure at least makes us think that the Clomid is actually doing something.

We are not triggering because we are using fresh sperms and because last time she ovulated fine and it worked with no trigger. I think we’ll go with this, unless it doesn’t work in which case we wil consider the shot. Oh how S hates shots.

I get to spend some time with WTF and Rocket Man, so that is good.

I am considering putting up a cake website and just putting the word out there to my friends locally that I am willing to make some cakes for birthdays and showers, casually, but for money. But I don’t know how to make a website. What is a good, cheap modern design aesthetic place I can go to make a point an click website?

Wish us some ironic babydust as we try, yet again, to make a friggin baby.