lh wins, but hpt follows closely!

Ok, so yesterday I finally got a negative LH test. Barely. Today's was more negative still. When I did the accuclear pregnancy test yesterday, the results were so far off center that I couldn't see the line because of the shadow from the way the result window is inset. So I did a clearblue easy digital and it said "Pregnant." You gotta love the total clarity of those things! Then when I looked at the accuclear again holding the opposite way (so the shadow was on the opposite side) I could see the line easily. Oh well...One wasted backup test is not that big of a deal. Anyway, today the line on the accuclear was SO FAINT, that I thought I might be imagining it, so I did another CB digital and it said "Not Pregnant." With backup from susan, I'm now sure that the accuclear *did* show a very faint line, so that particular test must have been slightly more sensitive than the CB digital that I used. But now at least we have a baseline faintness on the accuclear. I'll keep testing every day and watch for it to get darker. I'll be curious to see if the line ever totally goes away (if I'm pregnant) or if it just stays faint until my body starts making its own HCG. It's really exciting to be in the phase where we can now trust a positive if it happens! :)

For those of us keeping score

It's neck and neck. Hopefully we'll end in a 3-3 tie. We now have inseminated on cycles 2,5,7 and skipped 3,4,6. I'm leaving 1 out because we weren't really trying to try that cycle.

Also, still testing positive for both pregnancy and lh surge, so the grand experiment shall continue tomorrow morning.

Fun With Science

So, since I got the hcg shot, a pregnancy test will come out positive until the injected hcg is out of my system. For fun, I'm testing every day until I see a negative. This could be anywhere from a few days to never. I'm really pulling for a negative around 7dpo, returning to positive at 10 or 12 dpo. For good measure, I'm also doing OPK's every day. So far, I've had a positive OPK every day since tuesday, dec 20. I've had a positive pregnancy test every day since thursday. Anyone want to bet which test will go negative first? Any suggestions of other types of home tests I can run on my pee? This is loads of fun, and it's helping my baby craziness to do something every day. In other news, my temps finally crawled above the coverline today. This was one of the strangest looking cycles I've had so far. Ultra consistent and high temps in the ovulatory phase, then lower consisitent temps for several days after ovulation, then today finally creeping above the coverline. With the progesterone, the rest of the cycle *should* stay above the coverline no matter what, but knowing my body, I'm at all sure what to expect.

It's all good

So, tuesday evening we had a REALLY positive OPK. Yay! Then wednesday morning was positive again, as has been the trend. Everything was looking perfect. We went for our IUI at 10:30 wednesday morning (that's yesterday, folks) and our sperm wasn't there. Doh! Well, no problem really. It was guaranteed to arrive by noon, so it wasn't *that* long to wait. We had figured it would get there earlier because in the past it has arrived by 8:30am. What we obviously forgot to account for was the holiday package frenzy that fedex would be dealing with. So, we went to breakfast and then did a little shopping and went back at 1. We got to use a new room on the surgical side of the office since they had to work us back into the schedule and all the regular rooms were taken. So, we had the insem, which was less comfortable than usual. I suspect I'm just becoming more of a whiny baby about it and it wasn't *really* any more uncomfortable than usual. Then, we get a surprise. With no prompting from us (which she wasn't going to get this time around) our wonderful inseminatrix asks if we want to do a Trigger shot. Yay. I am, of course, terrified. I can't really say no, because then if I were to not get pregnant this month, I would always blame myself. And I *want* to have the shot, but everyone says they hurt really bad, and I'm not a big fan of pain. So, for the record...it hurt NOT AT ALL. I was a little irritated at all the people who have written in some place or other that it was extremely painful. I mean, I'm laying there, holding susan's hand and I feel a tiny little prick and she asks, "How was it?" And I say, "It's over?" Now, it did sting a bit after a minute or two, but that is not the type of pain that bothers me. It built up slowly and then disappeared within ten minutes. I should mention, that the nurse at our wonderful doctor's office gives the trigger in two shots (one in each cheek) so that it won't hurt as much. I guess it works. I doubt anyone would argue if you asked for it in two shots instead of one, so I'd do that if I were ever offered the trigger shot from someone who didn't already split it up. Anyway, the point. EVERYTHING should be right this month. No room for error in the timing with the trigger, lots of ripe and ready follicles, lots of time to relax and woo the razz. I should have two or three eggs up there waiting to be fertilized, so hopefully two weeks from now, I'll be reporting a positive pregnancy test!

How do I love thee, let me count the follicles

1...2...3...4....5! Yay! Okay, two great, beautiful, perfect follicles on the right, plus one close behind. Two respectably sized (14X14ish) follicles on the left (!) . Still no positive OPK as of 7 this morning, but that is what we expected. We are ordering "the stuff" today to arrive tomorrow to inseminate on the solstice!!! This is so exciting and feels really right. I feel strongly that this will be the month. There's a decent chance we will get twins out of this, but we will be totally happy whether we get one perfect little razz or the razz brings a twin along. For some reason, I'm really interested in the idea that we could get twins conceived on two different days, since we will be inseminating on wednesday and again on thursday. I can't wait and I think this will be the worst 2ww in terms of the baby craziness, but in some ways that's the best as well. I love to let myself get really into the excitement and possibilities. It makes for a pretty hard crash at the end of the wait if we're not pregnant, but I feel like a prefer that too trying to hold my excitement at bay just in case. This makes the wait a little bit hard for us as a couple, because Susan is the opposite way. She likes to protect herself from the crash by trying not to get completely invested in the idea that it's going to take in a given month. I think her approach is smarter and better in a lot of ways, but either way, a negative test is crushing to both of us. But that's the end of my negativity for the month :) I feel like this *has* to be the month. Five beautiful follicles of love, solstice insemination, progesterone support after the insem, and really good strong happy love vibes. Come on razz, you can do it!!

We're down with OPK -

I did the OPK this afternoon at 3:30 and it was negative. This is a good thing, because it was already too late to order "the stuff." I meant to test at 1:30, which would have put us in under the wire for ordering, but I managed to forget. I don't expect a positive until monday or tuesday, but with the higher dose of clomid, who knows what will happen this cycle, and I want to be sure not to miss it. A positive before sunday afternoon will mean another missed cycle, so keep you fingers crossed for me for the kits to stay negative this weekend!

It's Official...

Our next follicle scan will be December 19 at 2:30. I scheduled it in the afternoon because it's much nicer if we can have the rest of the day off together afterward, especially if it's not good news like last month. I expect good news this time though. It should be the right ovary, which seems happier than the left in general, and with the clomid upped to 100 it seems like this should be a good month.

A New Hope

Well, today is cycle day 1 again. It has me feeling all hopeful again now that we're officially past the skipped cycle. So, I'll be starting on 100Clomid Saturday and we'll go in for a follicle scan two weeks from yesterday. That day will be my father's birthday, which is pretty cool. Also cool is that that is the day I had planned to file my name change petition. All that stands in the way of that happening at this point is finding a typewriter. I can't believe that they *require* it to be typed, but don't have a digital version available so you can just fill it in and print it. Also the timing for the actual inseminations will probably put one of them on the solstice. That would be super cool. And since I was already planning on taking solstice and the rest of the week after it off from work, I won't need to take any additional time and I won't have to work a half day on the insemination days. Yay!

Not much to report

There's really nothing going on since we're skipping this month. I keep temping and uploading my charts (see Links to your right) and it looks sort of like I may have ovulated afterall. It doesn't really matter, since there was no way we could have arranged an insemination with the way the timing worked out. Since the doctor was closed thursday and friday, we had our follicle scan wednesday. The normal thing would have been to have another scan on friday. If I really did ovulate, we would have seen a nice big ready follicle on friday. Now, we *could* have had a scan on friday, but we would have had to do it at the hospital, and then we would have to call the poor on call inseminatrix at the last possible minute to get her to do the insem on friday or saturday. Sound like a pain? It did to us. That's why we decided to skip, so it was still the right thing for us even if I ovulated. It's feels more frustrating if I did though. Oh well. Here's hoping for a Solstice miracle! It really *will* be a miracle if the Christmas holiday doesn't jack things up the same way that thanksgiving did!