Refreshed

Thank you, thank you, thank you, for being such wonderful ladies! I truly don't know what I would do without you! Now, about my weekend:

On Friday I did exactly what I said I was going to do. I parked my big butt on the couch, curled up with my blanket and watched tv. It was nice. Dh took reasonably good care of me although he didn't do everything he promised he was going to do, meaning I still have to clean the kitchen.

On Saturday I slept until 11:30! I haven't done that since I was a teenager. I guess I needed it though. DH made me breakfast at 12 p.m. Then we went grocery shopping. We stopped at the Christian bookstore to get a couple of books for me to read since I go through them so fast. Then DH made dinner (Taco Salad...yuummm) and we watched movies for the rest of the night. We watched The Borne Identity and Bridge to Teribithia.

On Sunday I got to hang out with Erin at church. I was nice to see her and I must say she has a very pretty voice. I hope to see her at church from now on! Then we went to DH's parents for dinner and MIL and I spent the remainder of the evening designing an invitation for DH's 30th birthday party which I think turned out pretty cute! I spent half the night drooling over how cute DH's baby pictures were! I hope our little ones look just like him! I'm printing out envelopes and sending out the invites today.

So far AF is still MIA! I might take the prometrium tonight since I don't even feel like she is going to show up. I don't get it, how can you have a chemical pregnancy and STILL not get AF? So, I'm going to force her to come! I want to get this show on the road. I am feeling much better emotionally and I think I have come to terms with the whole chemical pregnancy thing. I'm ready to move on to the IVF. Once AF shows her ugly face I can start the BCPs.

I guess that is about it for now, I will update when I think of something profound and enlightening to say. Until then...

Ugh!!

Okay, I began typing this post and was half way through when I accidentally hit a key on my keyboard and reset the browser! This is how my day has been going so far! First, it's snowing/freezing rain outside so everything is closed (besides my work that is.) Then when I get to the RE's office the girl who normally takes my blood tells the other girl there that she can take my blood today (because I am known for having difficult veins.) So, after three sticks in three different locations and moving the needle around inside my arm the girl, who is almost in tears, gives up and the other one ends up having to take blood from my wrist (which is pretty painful.) It took them a half hour to get one vial of blood from me. Then they proceed to congratulate me on a positive beta. Huh? I just looked at them and said, "uh thanks, but it wasn't good." Then when I went out to pay the girl behind the counter asked "are you pregnant?" How am I supposed to answer that? She said she heard that I was pregnant. Now, I realize that I have been goign there for almost four years and that everyone there knows me but geez, talk about rumors. I told her that I had a positive beta but it wasn't a good number. Then the windshield wiper on our car breaks because of all of the ice so DH stops at Wal-Mart to get a new one. Then we stopped at McDonalds to get breakfast. I had my jacket on my lap and I set the bag on top of my jacket only to find that when I got to work that my jacket was completely soaked with grease! So I had to wear Dh's huge jacket to work. Of corse I got here 20 minutes late to find out that most of the other paralegals called out of work.

I finally cried a little about this whole situation on my way in to work. I'm not even sure why I was crying except for the fact that I already had a shitty day after being poked so many times. Then I kept on thinking about what could have been. If it had only worked differently how amazing and what a miracle it would have been. How amazing would it have been to have made a baby the old fashioned way? The way we are supposed to do it? I know it doesn't matter how the baby is made but I guess I almost got a glimpse of what it was like to be a "normal" couple. You know, oops we got pregnant! How wonderful would it have been to not have to spend our entire savings on one shot at trying to have a baby? Anyway, it doesn't matter, whats done is done. I am blessed that it happened this way instead of getting a good beta, seeing rising numbers and even a heartbeat to have it all taken away like so many of you have. I should be happy that I didn't have to go through that. I don't really feel like I need time to grieve because you can't grieve for something you never knew you had, I just need to stop trying to think of what could have been. I am so tired because I haven't been sleeping well and I have had so much on my mind. I need a weekend where I don't spend it cleaning, doing laundry and cooking. I need a Sunday where I don't spend all day at church. We have youth group this weekend and I don't feel like doing it.

I feel bad for Dh, he keeps apologizing. He says I am going through a lot but I don't feel like I have any right to claim I am "going through a lot." He says I'm not giving myself permission to be sad and to rest but why should I? I mean, what do you even call this thing? Is it a loss if you never really had it? I have always felt like I have to be the strong one, as I am sure you all know by now. And when I do get sad or upset I get angry at myself for being so weak. I think it has a lot to do with my father being a military man. He was always telling me when I was young to be strong, don't cry. I have carried that attitude into my adulthood and even on my father's deathbed when I sat there and held his hand and knew that it was the last time I would ever see him I didn't cry. It's not good to let your emotions bottle up like that though, I know that deep inside. You have to allow yourself to feel the feelings you feel and that is what I am going to try to do here. I'm going to curl up on the couch tonight and read a book while I let Dh do the dishes and clean like he asked me to let him do. I'm going to let him take care of me like he offered to do.

Well, I guess that is about it. Please pray that my beta is at zero so I can move on from this. Please also pray that af shows quickly. I wonder what a "natural" af feels like? I have never ovulated without medical assistance so I wonder if it will be different? I will obviously update when my nurse calls. Thanks for all the kind words, you all are the best!

**Edited to add: I just got a call from my nurse and my number went back down to zero. I am relieved that it is finally over. She said to wait a couple of days for AF to show up because she thinks it will but if it doesn't to take the provera and give her a call on day 1 of AF to start the BCPs. I called DH and he sounded more bummed than he has throughout this whole thing. I think deep down inside he was still hoping for a miracle. I am going to take this weekend to let myself grieve and relax. I can't express the gratitude I fell for all of you and your wonderful supportive comments. I truly dont know what I would do without all of you. All of you are truly a blessing from God and I am so lucky to have met you!

In Limbo

Well, I wish I had more to say but, just the same as yesterday I am in limbo waiting until tomorrows beta results. I just want it to be over honestly. I want to know what is going on. I am also curious that if this is a chemical or a miscarriage (which I am sure it is due to the low number) when will af arrive? How long does it usually take? Does this mean I am going to have to wait another month to start or can I still start the bcp after af arrives? Can I still bring on AF with the provera? Well, I am hoping that I will get an answer either way tomorrow. All the things I have found by consulting Dr. Google tell me that this number is not normal for 5 weeks 5 days which is what I would be. In fact, I couldn't even find anyone who had a number that low at this time. Leave it to me to be the weirdo! I still feel like I am in a dream. Never in all of the years I have been doing treatment and all of the betas I have had have I ever gotten anything other than "it's negative." I really wish that whatever happened in there (whether it be that the egg just fertilized but didn't implant or whether it just stopped growing) would have turned out differently. How amazing would that be if after all of this we would have gotten such a suprise? But, I know that God's plan is the best plan and for whatever reason this "experience" (I refuse to mention the p-word because I don't qualify this as the p-word) wasn't meant to last. Again, thank you for commenting. I really do look forward to reading your comments. I will update tomorrow when I hear something.

What to think…

Well, I went to my RE’s this morning to get my u/s & b/t for bringing on AF and starting the birth control for my IVF cycle. Went like a normal scan, I don’t remember my lining number but she said it is definitely thick enough to have an AF. Right ovary was quiet other than the usual PCOS stuff and left ovary was hard to find as always. They gave me a script for the provera and told me they would call me later. My nurse just called and told me they had some “interesting results.” She said my beta came back at a 9. Huh? A 9? First of all, this is totally not what I expected to hear at all. Second of all, I hate to admit this but I don’t remember when the last time DH and I had sex but I KNOW it was more than 2 weeks ago. At least three weeks ago (what can I say? The libido isn’t really there after years of IF.) I am cd39 right now. So, from what I gather this is most likely a miscarriage although I never knew I was pregnant. I don’t see how it was a chemical pregnancy because don’t those end soon after fertilization? Since we haven’t done the deed on over three weeks you would think that if it was chemical the numbers would be back to zero by now…right? I don’t know, all I know is that this news definitely threw me for a tailspin. So, of course I cannot start my provera and I have to go back on Friday for a repeat beta. What the heck? I asked her what a number of nine can mean, she said either they caught it really early or I am about to miscarry. Is it possible to have a beta of 9 and not be pregnant at all, maybe like a false positive or something? I cant tell you that when they looked at my lining this morning I did not see anything that wasn’t supposed to be there (not that I really know what to look for but I have been seeing the inside of an “empty” womb for a long time, you think I would notice if something different was there.) The bottom line is that I am virtually certain that there is no way I can be pregnant due to the length of time since our last BD and the low beta number. DH says he thinks it shows that my body can sort of do something right but this opens me up to a whole other realm of fears. What if I have added miscarriages to my list of problems? Then I feel like maybe I did something to cause this. I have been exercising like crazy for the past couple of weeks, what if I caused this because I didn’t know? Anyway, I’m not really feeling too sad about it or anything. Maybe that makes me a bad person but I guess because I didn’t know or anything and I wasn’t expecting anything. Ugh! Leave it to me to have a screwy result! Any comments would be appreciated and please don’t make fun of my non-existent sex life!

Approved!

Well, I got a letter in the mail from my RE’s office saying that my insurance approved the IVF! They approved three cycles of IVF (which is the max they will pay for) although we cannot afford to do three. I think we can only afford to do one but DH says he thinks we can do two. Does anyone know how much medication you usually use? Meaning instead of like 75 ius a night do you use double or triple that? Either way, I am sure there will be other costs other than the deposit and the medications. I guess I need to meet with someone to go over exactly what the deposit that we pay covers and what is extra. Hopefully DH will get a new job soon and he will get insurance that covers IVF. Maryland law mandates that insurance companies cover IVF except for HMOs (which our insurance just happens to be) and except for employers who have 15 employees or less (which my work does.) Honestly, I’m scared. It seems like such a big expense for possibly a one time shot. But, we can’t do anything until I get my 401k refund back anyway which should be sometime soon.

Does anyone else notice that because you are doing IF treatments everyone around you assumes that you are going to have twins? I don’t know how many times I have gotten some comment like “I just know you are going to have twins.” I feel like I need to start carrying around brochures about the myths of infertility to hand them out every time someone makes a stupid comments like, “but you’re so young.” Um, thanks, being young has nothing to do with the fact that I have a medical disorder that keeps me from getting pregnant. Just the same, just because I am doing IF treatments does not mean that I will walk away with a litter. In fact, it is my understanding that IVF has a lower incidence of multiples than other treatments. Anyway, just me rambling.

Please pray that DH gets a job offer soon so that we can get better insurance coverage.

Randomness

Hello there! Sorry I have been MIA for a while. I mean, I haven’t really had a lot to say and my internet connection at work has been screwy. I guess I really don’t have much to write about. It took me two hours to make the usual half hour trip home from work yesterday which was not fun at all! Luckily I had enough sense to use the bathroom before I left.

Anyway, the good news is that I am planning a 30th birthday party for DH. We have decided to do it at the church fellowship hall and we will have a DJ too! The theme will be 1970s. It should be fun and I am already having a lot of fun planning it. If anyone has any suggestions for the party I am all ears.

I wonder if it is normal for a woman who is going through infertility to lose most of her female friends. What I mean is; I don’t really have any close female friends anymore. I love my DH and he is by far my best friend. I love doing things with him and I love spending time with him. But, I am craving female companionship. I don’t have any close friends who can truly relate to my situation. I have stopped talking to all of my friends from high school because we are not in the same place in our lives. Half of them are unmarried and living the single life hard core which includes sleeping around with everything in site. The other half of them is married and have a couple of kids. I realize that people aren’t always in the same situation in their lives as their friends but it makes it very hard to find things to talk about when you have absolutely nothing in common. My 10 year high school reunion is coming up and I am definitely not going. I find myself looking at the myspace pages of all of those people I went to high school with and it makes me sad. Its not that I don’t appreciate what I have it’s just that I can’t help but look at what other people have and think that they have done better than me. I know that is an awful thing to say and no Christian at all but it’s sometimes how I feel. I see that they live in a bigger house than me, they have more money than me, the have kids, etc. I know it is awful to feel this way and I am by no means saying that I don’t appreciate what I have. I know that I have been blessed with such a wonderful husband and that he is the most important thing. It just seems like sometime infertility permeates every part of your life, even parts you didn’t think it would affect. Besides the obvious such as the fact that we completely maxed out our credit cards and spent our savings on countless rounds of Clomid cycles and pre-IF testing, besides the fact that we had to buy a “modular” home because we didn’t want to have too high of a house payment so we could save money for the IVF. Don’t get me wrong, our house is very nice, brand new and definitely enough room but it is not the same. We don’t own the land, only the house. The not so obvious things that have been affected by the IF is the fact that I no longer enjoy scrapbooking. I have a huge collection on scrapbooking items and a half finished scrapbook. The problem is, I have nothing to scrapbook about. I began making a scrapbook of me & DH when we got married so that I could show it to our children. It begins with the picture from our first date all the way until our wedding and then stops because there is nothing else to scrapbook about. I don’t know about you but a scrapbook full of headings like “Here is Shawn and I waiting in the waiting room at the fertility clinic” or “Here is Shawn and I on Christmas where we got the news of yet another “accidental” teenage pregnancy” or “Here is me with all of the extra weight I have gained because of the fertility treatments” just don’t sound too appealing. Anyway, the point I was trying to make at the beginning of all of this before I went off on a tangent is that I don’t have any female friends to talk to. I don’t have anyone who can relate to my situation, someone I can have lunch with without fear of having nothing to talk about. DH and I made friends with another couple and we enjoyed doing stuff together for a while. Then they became pregnant and disappeared off the face of the earth. It was almost like they were afraid to be around us, too afraid to hurt our feelings. Now every time we ask them to do something they make excuses. We haven’t seen them since they found out they were pregnant. So, I guess to make a long story short I am so glad that I have found all of you to share my feelings with.

Lastly, I got a letter in the mail from my RE’s office with the details for the IVF cycle including the amount of the deposit and all, but it didn’t come out and say whether the referral was approved or not. So I called my financial coordinator this morning and left a message. I am hoping that this means that Kaiser approved my IVF referral. Keep your fingers crossed!

Again, sorry that my posts are always so disjointed, I have a lot to say but sometimes it doesn’t always flow together so, I just slap it on the page. I will update when I hear something from my RE’s office.

Tagged-6 Things About Me

Cece tagged me for the 6 things me:
1) Link to the person who tagged you
2) Post the rules.
3) Share six non-important things / habits / quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least three people.5) Make sure the people you tagged KNOW you tagged them by commenting what you did.

1. I am afraid of wolves. I think I became afraid of wolves while watching the scene in Never Ending Story where he got attacked by the wolf. I have no rational reason to be afraid of them, I just don’t like them.

2. I love playing The Sims 2 on the PC. I have never been into any sort of computer game but I love the Sims. I try to play a couple of times week.

3. I eat dinner at the coffee table every night with my DH. We don’t have a TV in the kitchen and like to watch TV while we eat dinner so we eat in the living room.

4. I have an obsession with the Civil War. I have always been interested in it even when I was young. I even took classes on the war in college. I love visiting Gettysburg and try to go there several times a year.

5. I just started getting into genealogy. So far I have my family tracked back as far as the early 1800s. I even found out that my great, great grandfather fought in the Civil War (maybe that explains number 4?)

6. I love watching any kind of paranormal show. My favorite show of all times is Ghost Hunters but I will watch almost anything that involves ghosts and the paranormal. When I go to Gettysburg we roam the battlefield at night looking for ghosts.

So, there is my list to prove to you that I am a total dork. I’m tagging Erin, Adriane, and Rebecca (I tried to pick people who I though hadn’t already been tagged.

Update (Well, Sort Of)

My nurse called from my RE's office. She hasn't heard from the financial coordinator yet regarding whether the IVF referral was approved. She said she hoped to hear something by tomorrow. So, as of now I am still in limbo. She said they already have an approval for another round of injectables. So, no update as of yet. I will keep you posted!

What's the Plan?

Yep. That's what I am asking myself now. I am on CD23 of the rest cycle and I am calling my RE thismorning to find out whether my insurance company has aggreed to let us move on to IVF. I think I am in a good place emotionally to deal with which ever answer they give. If they want me to do one more cycle of injectables I will, if they want me to move on to IVF I will do that too. I think it has been all too obvious that I can't make up my mind whether I want to move on to IVf or do another injectable/IUI round, so I figure I will let my crappy insurance company make the decision for me. So, expect an update hopefully today with what the plan will be.

In other news, we bought the TV! I'm so glad we did! It felt so good to treat ourselves to something nice. We got a 32" HD LCD tv. It just barely fits into our entertainment center so I'm glad we didn't go any bigger. We also got a direct tv DVR to go with it. We have direct tv already but we were using the Tivo DVR. It was cheaper to go with the Direct TV DVR. I was so used to Tivo I think it will take some getting used to but hopefully I will get used to it. We also had to get a new sattelite which was a free upgrade. The Direct TV guy came yesterday to trade out our satellites. He looked absolutely terrified! I'm hoping he was new and that DH and I just aren't terrifying people. I was kind of afraid because he seemed so scared that he was going to mess something up but he did fine. The picture is beautiful! DH got to see the super bowl in HD which made him a happy camper. As for the super bowl, I was rooting for the Giants although in the end I didn't care who won but I HATE the Patriots (sorry Patriots fans!) I always root for the under dog.

DH is finally starting to feel better. His fever broke on Friday and now he just has a slight sore throat and his voice is scratchy. I missed my fun loving DH! It just made me realize how much joy he brings into my life. He truly can turn my day around just by smiling at me or saying something sweet. And, I actually missed his little jokes even though sometimes they annoy me. I'm hoping that I wont get sick. I'm thinking that I would have gotten sick by now.

Well, I guess that is about it for now. I will update when I hear something from my RE's office. Now, I will leave you with a little good clean humor:

Last in Line:

A bus carrying only ugly people crashes into an oncoming truck, and everyone inside dies. As they stand at the Pearly Gates waiting to enter Paradise and meet their maker, God decides to grant each person one wish because of the grief they have experienced.

They're all lined up, and God asks the first one what the wish is. "I want to be gorgeous," and so God snaps His fingers, and it is done.

The second one in line hears this and says "I want to be gorgeous too" Another snap of His fingers and the wish is granted.

This goes on for a while with each one asking to be gorgeous, but when God is halfway down the line, the last guy in the line starts laughing. When there are only ten people left, this guy is rolling on the floor, laughing his head off.

Finally, God reaches this last guy and asks him what his wish will be. The guy eventually calms down and says: "Make 'em all ugly again."

NEXT TIME YOU'RE LAST IN LINE. BE HAPPY

Blessed are the Cracked,
For they are the Ones
Who let in the Light!

Here's to all of my cracked sisters out there, lets all let in the light!