Update

Just a brief status report: We had a follicle scan on wednesday and saw two good size (23X20) follicles on the left (yes, LEFT...woohoo, it works) ovary, and one pretty good one (18X16) on the right ovary. We did an insem and trigger shot wednesday, and a second insem today. Our wonderful pa told us the next step would be the test where they put a bunch of dye in your uterus, then watch it on ultrasound to see if it makes it through the tubes. If it doesn't, it means the tube is blocked. This gave me the idea that perhaps our lack of success has been due to a blocked tube on the right side. Since we have hardly had any follicles on the left before, that would make sense. Hopefully having two goodies on the left this time around will do the trick. They also had a recent twin conception through IUI at our clinic, so we're hoping to score some babydust off of that couple! If we manage not to obsess this time around, you shouldn't hear from me until I get either my period, or a positive test. Since the odds are strongly in favor of obsessing, however, I fully expect at least a couple more posts before that. Cross your fingers for us and send us fertile thoughts (hmm, does that sound a little dirty to anyone else? Oh well.)

ignore it....

This month we are trying the ignore it approach. I'm not charting; after the insem I'm not going to test at all until 16 days later if I haven't gotten my period; and this is hopefully going to be my last entry for this month. I hate to do this, because if I do get pregnant this cycle, I will be disappointed about not having the charts (don't ask me why), but it's still better than having another month during which both of us obsess constantly and make ourselves and each other miserable. Ok, miserable may be overstating a bit (but just a bit), but it really is difficult when we're both obsessing. I might get to a place where I'm feeling good and confident and not worried about it at all, but at that time Susan is bound to be feeling pessimistic and downtrodden, and then of course, we switch roles, only rarely both feeling good about the cycle at the same time. So this month, I'm taking my meds, then we're going for the follicle scan and trigger shot on cd14, inseminating on days 15 and 16 and then waiting until day 32 to test. That is all. See ya in 25-30 days.

wah.

So, by the looks of my chart it would seem that this month is a bust. I've seen a lot of charts that looked like "no way in hell" that ended up being pregnancies, but this chart is just too much like all of my other charts to mean anything other than "try again next month." I should know for sure tomorrow, except in the exceedingly unlikely case that I actually am pregnant, in which case, who knows when we'll know for sure? I didn't test today and I probably won't test tomorrow, but If I don't get my period by tomorrow, I will definitely be tempted to test the next day.

Women Vs. Technology

Ok, there was a picture of the home pregnancy test we destroyed, but I can't get the link to work right now, and my battery is about to die, so, instead you will have to click here to see it.


So, as you can see, we have finally succombed to tearing the tests apart. Seriously though, in this case there was a pretty decent reason. Everyone knows by the time they have been trying to conceive for 7 cycles that you should never read a pregnancy test after the 10 minute window because of the possibility of an evap line. This is a line that appears on pretty much any pregnancy test some time after the testing period, whether you are pregnant or not. What we didn't know is, how soon do evap lines really show up? This information would become vital tonight. I tested using an accuclear brand early result hpt, and saw nothing at all inside the 10 minute window. Since it is still early, we were a little disappointed and impatient, but not much more than that. Since we had thrown the test on the floor, it needed to be picked up. This was done about 25-30 minutes after the beginning of the test. And at this point there was clearly a pink line. I'm thinking (and saying) that thirty minutes should be way too soon to see an evap line. So we get the bright idea to go ahead and take the test apart and see if it is still wet, figuring that it shouldn't show an evap line until it's dry. So, we do, and it is still wet, so we are cautiously optimistic and take this as a good sign, but not much more that that. Then, the brilliant susan has an even better idea. She tests *her* pee and then we look at the stick 30 minutes later. She has a pink line too. Dammit! Oh well. We're really no worse off than we were this morning, but all that false hope really sets you up for a fall when the bubble bursts. wah!

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!

follicle what?

Sad Saddy mcSadness. No mature follicles this month. About 3 or 4 little ones on the left, none on the right. This means no insemination...again. We're upping the clomid to 100 for next time. Who knows, maybe it didn't work at all last month and I just got lucky with a nice big follicle. That's what it seems like to me, so I'm just hoping upping the dose will be all it takes. If we get to try next month, it will probably be around solstice, which is cool.

Insurance...

Well, I'm happy to report that the insurance company has decided to pay for one follicle scan and one insemination per month. Well, at least they decided to pay for one of each last month. After talking to them on the phone, I thought it would be necessary to ask our doctor to submit another request for pre-authorization, and I also thought that it would be denied. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that the doctor's office submitted a new request without any prompting from us, and apparently it was approved. Yay! Happy. We'll go in for our *free* follicle scan on wednesday. It should be too early to inseminate that day. Since we did get a positive OPK last month, we're going to wait for a positive this month and plan our insems around that, since it looks like we were early last month. If the pattern holds from last month, friday and saturday are likely to be the days. And the pattern is pretty likely to hold, seeing as it's drug induced anyway!

Preemptive Jealousy?

Well, again today I awoke at 5am to a doggie needing to go outside. Since my normal time for temping is 7:15, this is about the worst time for this to happen. It is too early to meaningfully adjust up, and too late to get 4 consecutive hours of sleep before waking for the day. Could it be that our wizard, genius dog is trying to sabotage our attempts at conception? I doubt it, but I wouldn't put it past him!

more clomid

So, today I start the clomid again. I'm a little nervous this time around because the side effects should start getting noticeable around Thursday, when I will have to attend a meeting in the Chicagoland area. This means I have to ride in a mini-van with 6 men for two hours in the morning (when I will be tired) and another 2 hours in the evening (when I will be tired again). Also, I have to actually attend the meeting, most of which I will be completely glazed over for, since I simply am not a hydrologist. Near the very end of this meeting, I will probably have to demo my program. Now, I'm still just now getting the program to the point where it won't have any glaringly obvoius bugs. Normally I could skip over this step and only demo things that I know work (this is the norm for in-progress demos, btw) but this time around I am meant to leave an installation disk so that they can experiment with the program. This means it basically has to be at least pre-release quality. Are you getting the picture at this point. I'm super stressed this week, the stress is only going to increase, and is going to culminate at the time of peak emotional side-effect from the clomid. I have never *ever* so looked forward to Friday. I took it off so that I can recover. At least that means three weeks in a row of partial work weeks since last week we had veteran's day off and next week is Thanksgiving. So, at least there's that :)

The Waiting is Over (for now) and Insurance Woes

Well, at least no more waiting...I'm definately not pregnant. :( I'm quite sad, but at least I'm not still in the clinging to every last hope stage, which is really hard for me. So, since we will be trying agin next month, I decided to call the insurance company about a letter they sent after our first visit to the doctor. Here is an excerpt:

Based upon the information provided on August 4, 2005, the documentation provided dies not indicate Ms. K has been unable to obtain or sustain a successful pregnancy through reasonable, less costly, medically appropriate infertility treatment for which coverage is available under their plan. Thus, based upon this medical review, it does not appear Ms. K is eligible for the infertility benefits acailable through the ---- plan provisions.

Ok, we were expecting it not to be covered, especially right at first. What I wasn't expecting was the subtle implication that fertility treatment would be covered, just not the treatment we chose. So, today I called the insurance company and talked to R who was very nice, although completely unhelpful. He said that my doctor also got a copy of the letter, and therefore I would have to ask him (although she's a she) about what other treatments would be medically appropriate. When I reiterated that the letter doesn't say what would be covered, he said that she would have to determine what other treatments were appropriate and send another request for predetermination of benefits. To clarify, I said "So basically, we just have to guess what might be covered and wait for someone to decide whether it will be covered or not?" And he said (and this is the good part) "Yes, basically" Ok, so, there are LOTS of things you *could* try to get pregnant. I can't think of many other options that would work for us. I guess I will ask about it at our next appointment, but I don't have high hopes. My best bet is that since I seem to not be ovulating on my own, they may be able to re-request benefits on that basis and perhaps then at least the follicle scans and clomid might be covered. It's worth a try, but I *hate* that they make you keep doing more paperwork over and over again instead of just telling you what's covered. I mean, I realize that they can't cover every possibility in a set of strictly followed rules, but how about some general guidelines?! Ugh!

the waiting game...

So, I should have gotten my period yesterday. I didn't. My temps are still in the ambiguous range, especially given that we don't really know what differences can be attributed to the clomid. Today, I see a little spotting and think my period has started. I almost never spot before starting. It's insanely heavy from day 1 usually. Again, could this be a weird unexpected effect of the clomid? Sure. Could it also be that I'm pregnant? Sure. Could it be the universe screwing with my head? Definately. So, more waiting then. Hopefully just until tomorrow.

uhh, Joe?

In case you haven't figured it out, the previous post was meant for another blog. In baby news, I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I'm really trying to prepare myself for the inevitable arrival of the unmistakable negative.