My earliest one ever - CD13. Hmmm. More data for the theory that progesterone delays period but doesn't fully suppress start of next cycle/egg production? Or just a fluke? Anyway, it was tough to see that smiley this morning, knowing that I've got no sperm for it this month. But I do have more data/information. And maybe an earlier ovulation and no progesterone this month will mean an earlier period? And then earlier ovulation than expected in May, meaning maybe I could sneak in an insemination before the family trip next month, after all? We'll see. Now the task is not to obsess about that possibility for the next month!!

Stolen from Starrhillgirl because I think my blog needs a little more than the woulda, coulda, shoulda & the "woe is me" that it has been full of lately ....

TECHNOLOGY
Q. What is your wallpaper on your computer?
Plain blue. How boring.
Q. How many televisions you have in your house?
One, from 1994 with rabbit ears and like 2 channels.

BIOLOGY
Q. Are you right-handed or left-handed?
Right.
Q. Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
A tick. (In my butt, after a walk in the woods, by my grandfather. In 4th grade. Traumatizing.)
Q. What is the last heavy item you lifted?
Our queen size bed. Sometimes I forget that I'm too femme to move furniture.
Q. Have you ever been knocked out?
No.

BULLSHITOLOGY
Q. If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
Absolutely not.
Q. If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
I could/can, I guess. But I don't want to.
Q. What color do you think looks best on you?
Cornflower blue.
Q. Have you ever swallowed a non-food item?
Bugs. Swimming pool water. At camp, as a kid, by accident. That sort of thing.

DAREOLOGY
Q. Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100?
Jeez, are they paying people to do this nowadays? Sign me up. I deserve back pay.
Q. Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000?
No.
Q. Would you never blog again for $50,000?
Yes.
Q. Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000?
I'd consider it. But I doubt I'd go through with it.
Q. Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000?
No.
Q. Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000?
No.

DUMBOLOGY
Q: What is in your left pocket?
Nothing.
Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie?
Yeah.
Q: Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house?
Hardwood.
Q: Do you sit or stand in the shower?
Stand. (If you sit, doesn't it become a bath?)
Q: How many pairs of flip flops do you own?
Two.

LASTOLOGY
Q: Last person who texted you?
My sweetie.
Q: Last person who called you?
Earth Mother.
Q: Person you hugged?
My sweetie.

FAVORITOLOGY
Q: Number?
Any even number. Or an odd number if it ends in five (15, 25). Or 11.
Q: Season?
Summer or Fall.
Q: Color?
Deep ocean blue. Or dry corn fields after the harvest in a golden evening light.
Q: Missing someone?
Yes. Many someones.
Q: Mood?
Weary.
Q: Listening to?
My sweetie shuffling and grading papers. My old laptop groaning like an overworked lawnmower engine.
Q: Watching?
Waiting for SVU to come on that old TV.
Q: Worrying about?
TTC choices/timelines/costs.
Q: Wearing?
Jeans, black Vneck sweater.

RANDOMOLOGY
Q: First place you went this morning?
To the bathroom.
Q: What can you not wait to do?
Be a mom.
Q: Do you smile often?
Not as much as I used to/not enough. Must work on this.
Q: Are you a friendly person?
Yup.

Please consider yourself tagged if you want to play. Now, can someone tell me what "meme" means??

Just to be clear, I don't do sports. Don't play them. Don't watch them. Don't like (most of) them.* But somehow, this morning, sports metaphors are all that are running through my head. Benched. Out. Sidelined.

We're out this month. And I'm sad. It's complicated. The HSG was last Friday. One side open. I will ovulate this weekend. But the appointment with the new RE isn't until Monday. We had decided to do a what-the-hell last insemination (is that called a Hail Mary insem?) with the feminist clinic before switching to the RE. We decided to do this, not because we had extra money to burn/waste/shove up my hoo-hah/donate to the non-os finding folks, but because of the conventional wisdom that a woman is more fertile immediately after her HSG. Because one's tubes are (or in my case, one's tube singular is) all cleared out. Since we're not on the RE's team yet, we were going to go another round with the feminist clinic, just to get some sperm up there. A gamble, but it was our decision. So we quickly called to place an order. And our donor is sold out. Denied. Wow, did I feel like an amateur. Definitely not good enough for the varsity team. Didn't make the cut. Second string. Whatever. We knew we liked our donor, we knew he already had a reported pregnancy, we knew he had popular characteristics, we knew that things like this could happen, and yet we still hadn't ordered in advance. Damn. We tried to make a rush decision last night on a new, B Team donor. But rushing something like that didn't feel good at all. We did eventually find one we liked, but he has limited vials and is no longer in the program. So that could potentially mean no option for a sibling with the same donor. We didn't even know yet if that was important to us, but suddenly it seemed like a big deal.

Then I got a call about some work travel next week. Overseas. In a developing country. And suddenly this didn't seem to be making any sense. Trying to insem with a hastily chosen donor, packing progesterone and getting on a looooong flight and heading off to a place without good medical care with a maybe baby inside? So we've pulled ourselves out of the running this month. But I'm taking it really hard, since it looks like next month I will probably/likely also be out of luck too, visiting family at ovulation time. And suddenly I'm looking like the rookie that couldn't get it together to insem the two months directly following her HSG. Sigh. Why is this so complicated? Why can't I get a handle on it? And when am I going to get a new job and not have to keep accepting these consultancies that make me travel so much?


*Important exceptions being the Olympics (I get all gooey for the internationalism) and anything my sweetie is playing.

My right fallopian tube is open! Normal spillage on the right side! Yay! This was the good/best outcome we were hoping for with today's HSG. The left is blocked, dilated, not allowing the dye to move through it. This is as we expected, based on the HSN and ultrasound in January (with the scary fertility clinic in the suburbs and that bad experience), and also based on my intuition, the fact that I have pain on my left side at different points throughout the month, that it's always more tender over there. And also based on my acupuncturist and M.aya massage lady who both tell me that my left side is pretty f*cked up in general. Soooo .... we were NOT surprised to have confirmation that the left is blocked. We were SO HOPING that the right was open. And it is. Deep relief setting in.

This means that I will graduate myself from the lovely feminist clinic with its lack of ultrasounds and go find an RE who will wand frequently and with impunity and only shoot the sperm up there when I'm growing eggs on the right/correct side. I was deeply afraid that they'd both be blocked and we'd be graduated to IVF or adoption before we'd even really gotten out of the gate. But that's not the case. So we're off to celebrate tonight!!

P.S. I fall into the "HSG not so bad" camp. It only felt like very severe period cramps, but not for very long. Of course, I was on V.alium. So what do I know?

My mother is planning an important family reunion kind of trip for the end of May and beginning of June that she really, really wants me to join her for. And I really want to. A trip to see my 95 year old sort-of-like-a-third-set-of-non-related-extra-grandparents. Time with my mother, a chance to see older relatives who will not be with us forever and who have been so important in my life and the life of my family. The only week that works for my mom looks like a potential insemination week. Damn. I'm going to go ahead and go, even though that puts us out/behind a month. But I am fretting about it. I fear that the summer is going to hold a lot of missed inseminations. Both my family and my sweetie's family have important events this summer (vacations, weddings, etc.) that we are expected to be at, and that we want to be at. There are lots of teachers and professors among us and summer in both our families is really a time for taking vacations, being with family. So hard to explain to people who don't yet know that we're TTC that I want to stay home so I can make my family. So hard to make choices. I feel like my 36 year old eggs are tsk, tsking me: "Don't go blithely skipping months, expecting us to wait here forever. You already put this off long enough."

As in moving forward, taking steps, getting in gear, taking charge, acting decisively, not wallowing, not remaining paralyzed by fear. Things I have done this morning:

1. Scheduled an HSG for Friday. (Which we will be paying for out of pocket. God bless the USA and our "best m.edical system in the world." NOT.)
2. Scheduled an RE appointment for Monday, May 5. (Which we will be paying for out of pocket. See number 1 above.)
3. Called my mortgage company and my bank to figure out how much money is at our disposal should we need it. Because we need a new home in our new city and we may need IVF in my old uterus.

These are scary things for me. It is much easier for me to stay in bed and cry than to act and schedule appointments that may yield scary results or to make phone calls that involve words like "interest rate" or "re-finance" or "equity" or "h.ysterosalpingogram."

I am deeply, deeply fearful that my tubes are blocked. And I have not posted at all about that, and about why I think that, and what evidence I'm going on, because I have felt stupid that we chose to go ahead with IUIs anyway. Didn't want to be judged by what seems, perhaps, to have been an impractical choice.

So, we're moving forward. And I'm proud of myself and I'm going to go buy ice cream at 10:30 in the morning and call it lunch.

Here's the story I'm telling myself today:

"Anyone can slay a dragon, [s]he told me, but try waking up every morning & loving the world all over again. That's what takes a real hero[ine]."

Working hard to slay the dragon over here at Two Chicks in Pursuit. But working harder to remember to wake up and love the world, regardless.

[Story stolen without permission from Brian A.ndreas and S.torypeople, so I'm linking to them for some free advertising.]

CD4. I feel weary today. Weary of this process already? How could I be? We've only done two cycles. It feels like sooooo much longer already. Not just because of the anovulatory month that surprised me and scared me and set us back. But because I've been charting since last August. And wanting, wanting, wanting for so much longer than that. And waiting for my relationship and my sweetie and my life to be in the right place to start. I felt like I was behind before I started. And now we've only had two failed cycles, but today it feels like more than that. I know that the average is 6 months. On healthy women with no problems. So what kind of wimp am I? Feeling tired and weary after two failed cycles? Jeez. What kind of instant gratification did I think there was going to be? Whiner. I need to get on the phone and get ahold of some doctors and some alternatives, and make a plan. We had decided to do only three cycles before an HSG. We think my left tube is blocked, and need to know if the right is, too. But we wanted to give it three cycles, just to hope, before paying out of pocket for an HSG. (Damn insurance.) I think we're only going to do one vial/one IUI this month. Not because I think I've figured out the timing (hah! far from it!) but because I'm weary of the cost. With so little information, unmonitored cycles, etc. it feels like a lark to shoot two vials up there. So maybe a single IUI and then on to the doc ....

Today is not fun, but my mood will improve. And please, those of you who have been at this for soooooooooo much longer than we have, don't be too harsh with me. This is a temporary low and I know I'll pick my head back up and be ready to go the distance. And I do know that I am still a novice in these parts. But today I'm weary. I just am. Whether it is deserved or not.

And here we go again. This month will include calling around to find a possible RE alternative to the feminist health clinic, a check-in with the Earth Mother for advice on the whole hidden os situation, an honest assessment our out-of-pocket costs and what is possible, and the last try before an HSG.

Check out this horoscope one of my best friends just sent me. Perfect. Bat shit metaphors and messy fertility agents. :)

I prefer the expensive (of course I do) digital pregnancy tests. The ones that spell out "pregnant" or "not pregnant." (Actually I'm just taking it on faith that they sometimes say "pregnant," as I've never personally seen evidence of that.) But those digital ones with their "not pregnant" announcements leave no room for craziness. The "NOT" screams at you. Might as well be a billboard with flashing marquee lights. No, you hopeful, foolish little thing you, no you are NOT pregnant. I think they are better than the one line vs. two line tests. Those can send you running to your partner in a moment of "not-hope-exactly-but-I'd-love-for-you-to-tell-me-I'm-actually-blind-and-you-can-see-something-I-can't" craziness. Even when there is clearly only one line and the space for the second line is white. Bright white. White like a soap opera actor's teeth. Like white on rice. Blindingly white. White hot. Painfully, brilliantly white. Like a white non-pregnant elephant in the room. Like the white of a wasted egg. Black and white obvious.

I know it's not over 'til there's blood, but there have already been three confirmations. Yesterday morning's BFN. Yesterday afternoon's "I-feel-so-sick-to-my-stomach-that-I-have-to-skip-class-and-I-must-be-pregnant-afterall" BFN. And this morning, 14dpi, another BFN. Wish the blood would just come already so I could go buy myself an expensive bottle of not pregnant, one line, bright white wine!!

BFN this morning at 13dpi. I'm more OK than I thought I'd be, given the symptoms I'd thought I had and the daydreaming I'd allowed myself to do this cycle. But it's not fun, now is it?

I feel crampy and keep going to the bathroom to look for signs of blood. I don't usually get cramps before my period, only with it. But this feels like period cramps. My boobs are not sore, like they usually are a couple days before my period. The headaches are completely gone and the nausea almost entirely gone since I returned home and switched from the C.rinone gel back to my familiar frozen hoo-hah bullets. My temp was down .15 degrees this morning. Not really a dive, but not the right direction. My sweetie doesn't want to test. I agreed with her last night. That we wouldn't test today. But now she's off to work, FF is telling me it is my test day, and I'm craving some relief from this nightmare of not knowing. Aaaarrghh.

Today is 11dpo according to FF. Part of me thinks it's only 10dpo, but I'm not sure. FF says to test tomorrow. And I think I will. I think that a BFN will be much, much harder on me this time than it was in February. In February I had no pseudo-symptoms at all, couldn't even pretend. Was pretty convinced it hadn't worked. This time I've had headaches and nausea (but they correlate suspiciously to the C.rinone gel timing). I've also had some cramping throughout the 2ww. Mild, and not consistent. Dull. But not the stretch-y or pull-y or ping-y kind I've heard other people describe. All I'm saying is that this time I have some hope.

This morning my temp was 98.47. I accidentally entered 97.47. That made the line descended dramatically below the coverline and in the half-second before I realized my mistake, I felt this all-over-body fear .... A little hope is a dangerous thing.

... are side effects of the kind of progesterone I'm taking. Because I'm traveling this weekend, I couldn't use the refrigerated progesterone bullets (how to keep them cold in transit?), so they prescribed C.rinone gel instead. Anyone have experience with this shit? It is messing with me BIG TIME. Lots of pseudo-symptoms. But listed right inside the package insert, under side effects reported more than 5% of the time? Headache. Nausea. Can't wait to get home and get back on my regular cold progesterone bullets. They don't make me feel sick to my stomach and hopefully, foolishly, aspirationally, delusionally pregnant.

I'm off to the Big City for a few days of meetings, and then a weekend of hanging out with friends. I'll probably be back online on Sunday or Monday. By then I'll be 10 or 11dpo and we all know what that means .... Crazy Land! Plenty of distractions between now and then, though, which is a relief.

I love acupuncture. Really love acupuncture. I came home feeling all relaxed. Yesterday crabby, today zen.

Yesterday (5dpo if you believe FF, 4dpo if you believe me) I had some cramping. But that's too early to mean anything. I don't want to go too far down that road. In my screwed up world of psychology and superstition, it hurts less when it doesn't work if you didn't really believe it could happen in the first place. Not true, really. But it's how I protect myself ....

I'm at the beginning stages of making a plan. A switch away from the feminist health clinic that I feel so good about philosophically, but isn't providing enough services. They didn't tell me to have a full bladder before an IUI. They obviously don't have the stiffer cannula that I've since heard about for a woman with a difficult-to-locate-inner-os. They don't have a doctor come in and fix it if the health worker can't find the freakin' os. They look at the sperm through a microscope but they don't measure counts or motility, or give me any numbers. They don't monitor to see what side I'm ovulating on (we suspect I've got issues on the left side). In short, they are a woman-centered, friendly, low-tech, non-invasive place. They have a looooong history of getting sperm into lesbians, long before places would even sell sperm to single women. (And it must be working for them, because they have a long waiting list and people do get pregnant there!) Basically, they are everything I love about alternative health care. It's empowering, they let you insert your own speculum, for godssake. BUT they assume fertility and aren't aggressive and they just may not be what I need.

I feel like I'm gearing up for a break up. I could list one hundred things that are right about you and why I want to remain loyal and keep giving this a try. But it's just not doin' it for me anymore. So I'm outta here. It's scary to leap off this bridge into the big, bad world of self-pay (our insurance doesn't cover fertility stuff OF ANY KIND and the nice feminist clinic is on a sliding scale).

Where'd my zen go? Can you back to your acupuncturist later the same day and ask for a refill?

Ooops. Completely forgot about that side effect of the progesterone. Grumpy, crabby, bad mood here. And tired, to boot. The big tired. I have a lot, lot, lot of work this week and some travel at the end of the week. Hopefully they can serve as distractions from the TWW.

Item #457 on the list of things I never thought I'd need to know in life: the difference between and outer and inner os.

Thanks to Robbie, though, for the link to this diagram. Now I know!

Inner os encore performance on Friday morning. Different health worker, same problem. Sad, sad, sad. And angry, too. I miss my perfect February health worker. I am irritated (whether I have a right to be or not) with the two different women who couldn't find the entrance to my uterus this month. Unclear what they hell the problem was. Unsatisfied with their attitudes about it (totally nonchalant, like this is just something that happens sometimes, instead of a very expensive mistake that they should apologize for, an ICI masquerading as an IUI, a dream-crushing moment). Sigh.

In good news, however, based on my temping, FF says that I actually ovulated on Thursday (CD14, the same day as the +OPK). Not sure if I 100% believe that, but I am pleased we did 2 insems, the one on Thursday night and on Friday morning. If we'd held back a vial for next month, we would have chosen only to insem on Friday morning this cycle, maybe too late. So, even though my sperm only got dropped off at the entrance to my uterus, maybe I at least covered the timing?

Had the first IUI at 6pm tonight. Wasn't perfect. The health worker couldn't get the cannula past the inner os. She got it past the outer os, but not the inner. (What? Who knew there was an outer and an inner? Brill doesn't say anything about them. TCOYF doesn't even have "os" in its index, let alone inner and outer. Not even my old friend, Our B.odies, Our.Selves, mentions inner and outer.) So she just left the sample there, past the outer os and at the door to the inner os and the uterus beyond it. Dropped it off and hoped it would make it into the uterus itself. Now home and a couple hours later, I am feeling some mild, mild, mild cramping. So mild as to maybe not even be cramping, but certainly an awareness of my uterus and mild discomfort. So maybe some of those little guys found the doorway open? Fingers crossed.

Ah, well. Other signs: abundant, clear mucus all around my cervix said the timing was good. And the OPK was back to negative this evening at 8:30pm. So maybe this first one wasn't too early after all. (??)

Anyway, I'm trying not to be upset about paying a lot of money to have my expensive frozen sample dropped off just shy of the uterus. And we get another IUI tomorrow morning. Scheduled for 8am, so I'll have plenty of time to relax on my back before heading to the airport and into the TWW.

No surge at 8pm last night. Definitely strong surge and smiley at 9:45 am this morning (held pee for almost 4 hours from 6am wake up pee, which I didn't test and now wish I had). First off, I am thrilled that there is a smiley after last month's no-go. Second off, I am thrilled that this smiley came today, because I have to travel for work tomorrow (Friday) mid-morning and will be gone until late Saturday night. The bad timing I feared would have been a surge tomorrow morning, just before I got on the plane. So, thank you, thank you to my body for cooperating. (Is that "thank me" in that case?)

My clinic does 2 IUIs per cycle. We are considering dropping this to 1 per cycle in following months (if following months are necessary, hopefully they're not, but I'm not naive) based on cost and on advice from IVPers online, etc. The clinic would accommodate us if that was our choice. But for this month I already have two vials sitting on ice. They've been waiting for me since last month's anovulatory debacle. So we should do two, right?

In February we did our IUIs at like 6 and 26 hours past surge. We were thinking the first one was probably too early and maybe wasted. So we were thinking that we'd switch to 24 and 36 hours post surge (i.e. do two tomorrow, one in the morning and one in the evening). Because I travel tomorrow, however, we're going to have to do one tonight and one tomorrow morning before I get on the plane. So I need to call the clinic ASAP, but I'm thinking it'll be this evening and tomorrow morning. I guess one other option would be to just do one vial tomorrow morning. And hold the second vial for next month. But they're both already here in town & I'll have to pay to refill the dry ice or liquid nitrogen or whatever is in those tanks .... Thoughts???

(How funny is it that my reaction to the smiley was 1. call my sweetie, 2. post this to you, and only after that, 3. call my clinic?)

But who am I kidding? I'm going to use both vials. They've already been paid for, and they've been shipped, and they're here, WAITING for me to make a baby. I'll use them. I know I will. (I'm the kind of person who can't buy Girl S.cout cookies, because once I buy them and they are in the house, I eat them all in a sitting. Not good at holding back.)

Me, at W.algreens, with $40 OPKs in hand.

Cashier: Do you have kids?

Me: No, but I want to. (Why volunteer personal information? Note to self: keep your mouth shut.)

Cashier: (Sounding doubtful.) Really? Well, you missed the sale on those pregnancy tests last week.

Me: I'm sorry I missed the sale, but these aren't actually pregnancy tests. They're ovulation predictor kits. (Why did I engage? Why not keep my mouth shut? Why?)

Cashier: Huh. What do they do?

Me: (Quickly making calculated decision to skip the whole lesbo, donor sperm, IUI part of the story) Well, they tell you what day of the month you're most likely to get pregnant.

Cashier: Really? I can get pregnant any day of the month. Skip birth control one day, and man, I'm pregnant. I've got three kids. They're 3, 2, and 1 years old. And I'm only 21!

Me: (Dumbfounded silence.)

Cashier: But they all have the same dad!

Me: Oh. Great.

Cashier: Well, here's your change. And, um, good luck?

Me: Yeah, good luck to you, too ....

I don't know how to paste in the logo/image. But here's the link. For Cali:

Take Back the U.T.E.R.U.S.

I love it. I love the guerrilla nature of it. I love that Cali is the first recipient. I love that using E.bay may help it fundraise from a wider audience. I'm humming that Annie L.ennox song, "Sisters Doin' It For Themselves." (Isn't that her song?)

I just took a shower. Hadn't done that since Saturday. Gross, I know. I work from home and don't subject anyone (other than my sweetie) to my stinky self, but still. Come on. Get it together, girl. I think this is the "I moved recently, don't have a lot of friends in my new town, and work from home so I feel sort of isolated" blues. Not the "TTC or in the TWW" blues. But it's the blues nonetheless.

Even sadder than not showering since Saturday is the reason that I finally showered today. I only got my act together because I've got a M.aya M.assage appointment this afternoon. Reminds me of the one time I went to the scary F.ertility Clinic in the scary suburbs. Waxed my legs for that. Hah.

My poor sweetie. What must she think when I only take care of personal grooming when I have to see health care providers? We actually had a conversation that went like this, before she left the house this morning:

Sweetie (in a gentle, non-judgemental voice): Why don't you take a shower this morning, before you even get on email or check your blogs? That way the day won't get away from you?

Me (grunting and firing up the computer): Uh-huh.

Sweetie: Remember how, when I came home last night, you were all disgusted with yourself for still being in your pajamas? Maybe you'll feel better about yourself today if you start off with a shower?

Me (slurping decaf coffee and staring at B.loglines): Uh-huh.

Sigh. Totally embarrassing. Must get it together. But at least I am now showered and off to my delicious M.aya appointment ....