Little Beans 4 Me

Alive and kickin

2008-06-30T14:58:00.003-07:00

No I'm not dead. Neither am I sick, paralyzed or in any other way unable to post blogs! I'm just busy and when I do have time LAZY. Oh and also addicted to an online game. D O F U S has taken up all of my free time. I sit during my work day and think about how when I get home I'm going to log onto D O F U S and buy some special item that you can only get at a certain place in the world, or how I might join this guild or even that if I work really hard I might level up my alchemist profession. OK...so hows that for addiction?

The one thing I am not thinking about I realized just the other day is having babies. I still want them, don't get me wrong. I just am on a true break from trying to get one. I am telling everyone we know that we are starting to think about adoption so that if they hear of a young girl who finds herself "in trouble" who wants to adopt out her baby to think of me. But besides that I haven't been thinking about it at all. Nice, right? It really has been.

We still have one more try before we are out of embryos, but I might actually have another chance. See, there's this woman in Georgia who is friends with my sweet Bryan's step mom. She had a baby through In Vitro just a few months ago. She used donor eggs. She's about my age. After that pregnancy, she says she's DONE. And she's got some left over embies. So my MIL is going to talk to her about what she plans to do with them and maybe I can get them for a lot less than I would have gotten them for the old fashioned way. I might have to go to Georgia to have the IVF done, but that's ok because I have relatives I can stay with there for my bed rest. Anyway, its not a done deal, but its a maybe and if it works out that's cool!

I did have one moment where I thought I'd found a baby to adopt. A girl on a message board I belong to said that her son had gotten his girlfriend pregnant and they didn't know what they wanted to do. I was just crossing my fingers and holding my breath hoping they would decide to adopt it out. They aborted. It broke my heart. Another girl on the same message board has a friend who is pregnant and acting as though if she finds out she's having a boy she's gonna give it up for adoption so my friend is watching and waiting to see what happens. I'm trying NOT to hold my breath.

Besides that I have been working full time at the newspaper again. The extra money is coming in handy because in the last month I've been to Las Vegas not once but TWICE! And LV is the BIGGEST money sucker there is! I've been going to the tanning bed and lying by the pool to attempt to get something of a tan, but as I am normally almost albino, my attempts have gotten me the color of a manilla folder and not the deep chocolate brown that I crave!

Many of you have left comments asking if I'm alive and if I'm OK and asked me to come back and post again because I was missed. Thank you! I appreciate that you guys care enough to ask if I'm still around! Well I am and I pray it won't be nearly as long between posts the next time I write! Many of you have had babies since I last checked on your blogs. Congratulations to Farah and to Leah and to Stephanie and to endless others that got pregnant around the time that I did last Summer. Hard to believe that in only 2 weeks it'll be a year since I got pregnant!

One more quick post...

2008-05-15T22:41:00.003-07:00

Wow...2 in one day, better mark this day in your calenders because it probably won't happen again any time soon!!! Anyhow,blogger wouldn't allow me to put more than 5 photos in the last post (or perhaps I was being computer illiterate who knows) and I wanted to post some hair pics where you can see it...here ya go! Oh and I added one at the end of my goofy sweety pie husband!

The first picture should be the before picture, and the one following is the after...

sick sick sick!

2008-05-15T21:40:00.003-07:00

All I've been this year is sick and sick and tired of things not going well for me. Well today I solved one of those problems. I was sick again (4th time in 4 months!) so I went to the urgent care after my sweet Bryan demanded that I go. I went in and they listened to my lungs, gave me 2 quick breathing treatments and sent me off for chest xrays.

Turns out the reason I keep getting sick is because I've got PNEUMONIA. At least we know now so I can finally get better and stop coughing all the freaking time!!!! I was miserable last night, I couldn't breath, felt like someone was sitting on my chest and my coughs were not productive when I did get enough air to hack one out. Then when I'd lie down Id hear creaks and squeeks and rumbles coming from my chest which would immediately stop when I sat up. I took it to be all the gunk down there was resettling itself to the new positition but whatever it was I was hating it. I slept sitting up all night last night and I don't care to repeat that tonight if I can help it.

So now I've got an asthma inhaler, prednisone and zpak to make me well again and I can't wait for four days from now when I'm done with the meds cuz I should feel one HELL of a lot better!!!

So guess what I did? I've just been so ready to make some changes and shake off all that bad juju, and I went and chopped off all my hair! Now it's a really cute bob that is longer on one side than the other and I love it! Check out the pictures below!

So onto other more fun subjects. Last weekend I made a trip to Las Vegas! Woo Hoo!!! One of my girlfriends turned the big 4-0 so we met in Vegas and celebrated! We went to a strip show the likes of none I've ever been to before! These guys were on us the SECOND we entered the room...I couldn't even get my money out before I had a lap dance going on! The worst part was that he grabbed my boobs! Literally GRABBED BOTH BOOBS! I was horrified though because I had this dress on that required a strapless bra. The strapless bra was from days when I was a bigger gal. The boobs didn't fill up the bra, but the bra held its form so it looked like I had AWESOME boobs. However, that's not the horrific part (you'd think it would be considering when he grabbed he grabbed a bunch of nothing!) oh no! Because I had all this extra room in each cup, I decided that since I had no pockets in my cute little dress, that it was the perfect place to store my phone in one and my camera in the other! So he grabbed hollow boobs with hard rectangular things in them! He also made me grab his butt (which was rough? eeeew) It was quite the experience. This place is called the OG or Olympus Gardens. Downstairs is women stripping and then you take the secret squirrel elevator to the second floor and that's where the men were. I swear I've never had strippers molest me before...usually we're like hey come here! I want you to come here! These guys were just ALL over you. I was scared.

Do I look scared???? I was, really I was!

Ahh yes, now THIS is how WE ROLL in Vegas Baby!

We even saw Elvis...he's put on a few pounds btw. Truth be told, a blackjack dealer told us that big elvis's mother supposedly had an affair with Elvis back in the day and that's where big elvis came from....riiiiiiiiigggghhhttt!

The birthday girl and me (yes this is the dress with the bra from above) at the Bellagio with Paris hotel and casino in the background!

I've turned into one of THOSE women.

2008-04-21T01:17:00.005-07:00

Not sure why, but this last cycle must have affected me deeply because I am not one of these women generally. I'm actually probably now having feelings that many of you are, and I am sure you will understand when I explain.

Until now I've always been very positive and optimistic about getting pregnant. Cycle after cycle after cycle and I still always felt as though it would work, if not this time, next time. Hope has always been present, even when I didn't think she was there. Well she's moved out and even though I have one try left I just don't have my heart in it. This is why we have decided to wait til this summer before using the last group of embryos. I need a break.

And now I have turned into one of those women. You know the ones. I get sad when I see pregnant women. I cry secretly when I hear the news that someone else that got pregnant when I did last summer has delivered their baby. I'm still very happy for them, I'm just sad for me and the baby I lost. Even when someone has their kids with them, I just feel this longing for my own kid and a sadness that I can't seem to get one. And it seems that everywhere I go, no matter where it is or what I'm doing, fertility treatments come into it. One example is this movie that's about to come out, whats it called? Baby Mama? I want to see the movie because it looks funny, but the other side of me screams inside my head that I'm nuts if I want to watch it because its going to hurt and piss me off. Oh and then tonight? I watched Brothers and Sisters. Why for God's sake does Kitty Walker have to be going through IVF? WHY? I was furious when I saw that. The doctor told her "you'll take twelve injections and we'll harvest your eggs!" Oh its so dang easy isn't it?! Pah-lease! And the needle she's injecting with is about 1/2 inch long and its going into her hip. I swear, I swear to God, I will be so angry if she does this IVF and she gets pregnant with precious little twins on the first try! I'll FREAK OUT! Hell I am already freaking out!

All I can think about is how I just can't have babies. It really makes me sad. Since its such a lengthy process I've started investigating adoption. Do you know that here in the United States many of the agencies have age limits? Do you know that that limit is generally 40???? Umm...I turned 40 last September and my sweet Bryan turns 40 next Sunday. I felt as though I'd been kicked yet again when I read that. There's a website for the state of arizona that has pictures of children who need to be adopted. Do you know that each and every one of those children has emotional or physical disabilities? I know they need a home, but is it so terrible that I, as a potential first time parent, want a healthy child? Many of the countries that you can adopt from also have age restrictions. Some of them have restrictions about what religion you are and some of them even have rules about how much you can weigh!!!! Can becoming a parent become ANY harder for me???????? Daily I sit and think thoughts like this: "I just wish I could meet a teenager who is pregnant and wants to give her baby up for whatever reason, and its an easy private adoption". OK so I do realize this is a dream world I'm living in, but it could happen right? Oh sure and pigs will fly too.

And if ONE MORE PERSON, when we discuss my fertility treatments, tells me, "No luck huh? Well you can have one of mine!" with a disgusted voice as though its such a hassel and that kids are such a pain! (Yes I know, they don't really mean it) but it just sort of feels like one more kick in the beating that is infertility. Do people not realize this is insensitive to someone like me? No, I know they don't realize, how could they, they've never been where I am right now for the most part. That doesn't make it hurt any less.

I'm just in a bad place though I am putting on a great show for everyone I come across. When I get the news that YET SOMEONE ELSE is pregnant and "they weren't even trying!" I just smile and congratulate them and inside I'm just screaming WHY? WHY NOT ME? AM I SO TERRIBLE??? HOW COME I JUST CAN'T GET ONE LITTLE BREAK? DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO BE SO FRICKEN HARD???!!! WHY MUST I CONSTANTLY BE PRESENTED WITH PEOPLE GETTING PREGNANT, PEOPLE HAVING BABIES AND THE EASE WITH WHICH THEY DO IT?

Now I feel I must make a statement to some of my readers. I know most of you are in the same boat that I am. And when one of you get pregnant and has a baby I truly truly am GENUINELY happy for you. Envious and a little jealous maybe, but happy. You have struggled just like I am and its always been encouraging for me to hear the success stories. So please do not think I am referring to you.

...sigh...I'm just a bitter, angry IVFer. Maybe I need to change the name of my blog to that...Bitter Angry IVFer. It truly does seem to encompass my mood of late (the mood that's hiding behind my happy face that everyone sees).

OK well that's pretty much all I've been thinking about for nearly the entire month of April (that I have not been blogging). Probably a good thing I have not been blogging eh? Really good times here at the house of no little beans for me.

UGH

Late calls are always bad news.

2008-03-31T18:48:00.003-07:00

The results from this mornings bloodtest should have been in at 3:30, and you know its always the good news calls that they make first. When the clock chimed that it was 6pm I knew it was gonna be bad news. Shortly thereafter Dr G called and broke it to me that it was negative.

I just want to know when something is going to go my way. When will my body cooperate? I mean we had the BEST of transfers, an amazing progesterone check and tons and tons of prayers around the country from friends and family and STILL I have no luck. If I didn't have bad luck I'd have no luck at all.

I'm going to lie down. The flu is still kicking my ass.

Tomorrow is Beta Day

2008-03-30T23:31:00.002-07:00

Wow, what a fast 2ww! I guess there's an up side to having the flu for a week eh? Now if I could only get rid of this annoying cough! Its drying up so its less productive and driving me crazy because I feel a rumble in my chest as I breath and then go to cough and NOTHING. I don't know why, but if I cough with my mouth shut it IS productive and satisfying but the second I close my mouth nada. Have I mentioned how hard it is to cough with your mouth shut?

So tomorrow between 10 and 11 is my Beta. Who knows how it will turn out. Ever since Friday's POAS that was negative I have not tested again. I've got it in my head it'll be negative. If it ends up positive all the better but if not, well, then I'm somewhat prepared for it.

That said though I have noticed a few things that may be good signs.

1. I am still having cramping down low that started on the day of transfer.
2. Still needing my afternoon naps. However having had the flu who's to say.
3. My nipples seem to be a tad bit darker. I asked Bry and he just gave me this dumb guy look and said um hm maybe?
4. Still having the night sweats and the flu is definately not causing it.

I guess these things give me some hope, hope that I'm trying not to have so its not such a crushingly devastating blow if it turns out negatively.

I'm having trouble sleeping at night right now because of this cough. Sitting up I'm mostly OK but the minute I lie down I start to wheeze and everything in my chest I'm guessing is resettling for the new horizontal position which makes me cough and cough and not sleep. Sleeping sitting up is really not cool either.

So anyway, this time tomorrow I'll have my answer. I really hate getting that call. I really do. I'd totally let it go to my voicemail and check it later if I thought that Dr G would leave a message with the information that I NEED. However he is opposed to giving that information to anything but a person, namely me. Ugh.

POAS

2008-03-28T20:10:00.003-07:00

Last night I searched the internet for information regarding night sweats and progesterone and pregnancy. I found nothing regarding PIO injections having a side effect of night sweats. I did however find a couple of spots where very early in pregnancy night sweats were involved and even one place that the girl had done IVF and had had night sweats since transfer day like me, and ended up being pregnant with triplets. So, with this information, I got very inflated and psyched and excited and thus this morning I felt very confident and peed on a stick.

It was negative.

I did it with first morning pee so it was as strong as it gets. Today is Friday and my Beta is on Monday. It makes me feel a lot less confident. I know its not over yet, but I'm feeling very unsure about things now. My sweet Bryan says that it may just be too early to detect it, it could be a late implanter. And it could be, but well, you know. I've been here before. If it is positive, is it going to be a low number again? Like last summer? When it was positive but it was really low...only 38 only to go on and miscarry? I just can't do that again. Please don't make me go through that again Lord.

Flu recovery is continuing. Today the cough seems to be drying up but now its so much less productive that its making it hard to cough until I'm satisfied and I feel all dry up in my nose. I'm using a humidifyer as well but it sure doesn't seem to help much. My fever seems to be completely gone (thank you JESUS). I feel weak still so I stayed in bed all day again. Tomorrow I'll get up and shower FINALLY. I can't wait. I brushed my hair today for the first time in days. I'm here to tell you that dreadlocks couldn't be easier to brush out than my hair was. I am a vision of pure loveliness for my wonderful husband and after my POAS episode this afternoon a joy to be around as well.

A quick 2 week wait

2008-03-28T02:20:00.005-07:00

Things seem to be going pretty quickly in the 2ww. Probably because after I got off bedrest, I within days got this flu that's going around. I've been in bed for days with a fever - first hot then freezing. My throat feels as though someone's taken sandpaper and just rubbed it up and down the back of my throat. I have very little voice. I try to talk on the phone and it just doesn't work. Essentially I just feel awful. Last night my fever was nearly 103 degrees! Tonight we seem to be back to just over 100 and I feel so much better.

I was suffering through this because I'm PUPO and have been acting accordingly. Today though I called Dr G's office and asked what I can take. Thank heavens I did because now Cepacol throat lozengers are my new best friends! They NUMB the throat!!! Oh its so heavenly to NOT feel pain in my throat for a few minutes! I'm also now taking robitussin DM, apparently that is a safe thing to take also. And of course I've been taking boatloads of tylenol for days. Anyhow, I feel like I'm on the mend finally, maybe my voice will come back tomorrow!

As for symptom watch March 2008 - because I have the flu I've lost track of what is to do with being sick and what is potentially a prego symptom. I've bought a test. I'm so afraid to POAS though. I have been cramping though, and I KNOW that's nothing to do with the flu!

I think this time I'm going to test ahead of time so I'm prepared for the test on Monday.

Thank you my friends for checking in on me. Don't worry I didn't fall off the face of the earth again...I'm just dying a slow death from the flu.

Question: I know when I was pregnant last summer I had night sweats a LOT. I don't remember ever getting them during the 2ww though. Can progesterone cause night sweats? I've been getting a LOT of night sweats (even before the flu)...just wondering. Anyone know?

Triplets

2008-03-18T14:27:00.003-07:00

The triplets are here! Well not here exactly, but here in my uterus! 2 eight celled and 1 six celled embryos that my doctor called "beautiful". Of course if you read back to all of my other embryo transfers, he's ALWAYS very complimentary of my embryos!

Had a little hang up. The IVIG didn't make it. They tried and tried to get it, was promised it by two different pharmacies only to be called back and told it just wasn't available. MFRN even tried to get me into a local hospital to have it done, but with the flu epidemic, there simply are no beds. I was a little disappointed, but here's my thinking. If you are trying to do something like IVIG, and no matter what you try its difficult to do it, maybe its not something that's supposed to happen. Maybe God stepped in and was trying to give me a hint that I didn't need to spend that money! My clinic was so scared that I was going to be mad. But it wasn't their fault! So then while I was there for the transfer, MFRN came in and told me that the IVIG people had sent a rep to their office while I was there and said that they've changed things and if I wanted to do it still I could do it from home and they'd send someone the next day. Too late of course. Whatever...

It was lucky St Pattys day and I was wearing a green tshirt that said "Feelin' Lucky!" I also had a whole slew of people wearing green st pattys beads for me. My step MIL added me to her prayer list at her church and so did my BIL. A message board I belong to all started wearing beads for me a few days ago! I feel so loved.

So now I'm on bedrest, typing this while flat on my back with my laptop. My back is aching and I've had some crampiness, but otherwise I'm just fine! So now the two week wait begins. But this time I think it's all going to turn out alright!

Worst Blogger EVER!

2008-03-13T12:59:00.002-07:00

Oh my Lord I've been away from here for SO dang long! Do I even have any readers left? Are you therrrrrre? Hellooo Hello Hello Hello...huh sounds pretty empty and lonely in here.

Well my cycle is now in full swing. I took my last Lupron injection yesterday afternoon and last night I did my first PIO shot. I'll be having my transfer next Monday on St Patrick's day which I think is lucky because my sweet Bryan is of Irish descent! I'm planning on going to Wal-mart and looking for a St Pattys day shirt that says "I'm feeling lucky" or something to that effect and then I'm going to wear it to my embryo transfer!

I'm still doing IVIG, I hope it works! I have also now received my hypno therapy cassette tape and have been listening to it twice a day! You know what sucks though? When I try to listen to it as I go to sleep, the entire room is quiet with the exception of Sweet Bryan's snores! They get so loud that it distracts me and last night I actually poked him and kicked him and then finally YELLED at him to stop snoring! Poor guy...he's just trying to get some sleep! Anyhoo...back to the hypno-therapy. I actually do feel much more positive about this cycle! ITS GOING TO WORK!

I also received a beautiful fertility bracelet from a friend of mine in Utah, M. M made it herself and it has all sorts of stones and minerals and some quarts that are all supposed to aide with fertility! I'm wearing it faithfully except when I am in the shower! I love it!

I feel as though this is the LOOOOONGEST cycle I've EVER done. I don't know if it really is a lot longer or if it is just that I'm anxious and ready to get it overwith. I did add an extra week so that my work wouldn't get in the way of the transfer or bedrest. Maybe that's why I feel that way. I dunno.

Anyhow...is there anyone out there still reading this? Or am I writing to myself here? Either way it feels good to document this cycle - even if it is only a post here and there. Now that there are things happening I should post more often. No promises of course, I mean look at the title of this post, I'm just sayin'!

Getting lazy

2008-02-19T23:29:00.002-07:00

Yeah, that's right, I'm getting lazy about posting here. I'm not quite sure why except that at this point it's all been there done that. Well mostly. I do actually have SOMEthing new to post about with regards to fertlity issues. Note that I said FERTILITY issues and not INfertility issues.

I have this friend, M, who has an aunt who is a hypnotherapist. She told her aunt about me and my trying to get pregnant and her aunt said she wanted to help me with hypnotherapy. I talked to her on the phone and gave her the run down on my history, and she said the first thing I need to STOP doing is saying the word INFERTILITY. By saying I'm an infertile, or that we're going to the infertility doctor, its already planting a negative seed in my mind that I'm not going to get pregnant. So from here on out I'm going to try to start using the word fertility instead. Second of all she's worked with others in my situation, including her own daughter in law, and had a lot of success by making these cassette tapes and you listen to them in the days leading up to the embryo transfer and after I believe as well. It's a form of self hypnosis I think. She also works with people who have pain management issues, trying to lose weight or quit smoking or many other things as well. I'm really excited to get this tape and get to listening to it!!

I got the surprise of my life a few days ago when my sister in law D called me and told me that our Step FIL had checked my MIL's will and sure enough she did have it written in there that all of her jewelry was to go to me. Not sure if I'd already blogged about this or not. It made me feel bad because my SIL D was very upset because she wasn't mentioned in the will at all!

Can I tell you how excited I am that American Idol has started again? AND OH lets not forget that I'm REALLY excited now that we got past all the auditions...FOUR weeks of auditions? Enough already!!! OHHH and Big Brother 9!!!! Only one week into it and it's already so addictive that I can't stop watching! This must be my favorite time of the TV year because Paradise Hotel 2 has also been gracing the airwaves! Yes I watch QUALITY TV can you tell??? The worst part? I'm such an addict that I'm watching paradise hotel twice a week! I watch it on prime time and then again on the fox reality channel which shows some stuff that is censored out of primetime - dirty stuff! People hooking up and doing stuff you'd never see ordinarily! This is probably why you haven't seen a blog from me since before valentines day...I'm way too busy watching TV!

Oh Lord where to start...

2008-02-11T00:31:00.000-07:00

What a crazy trip. So much angst and drama and negativity! Yes, we went back for a funeral but there was so much sidelining stuff going on that was just plain unnecessary. Ugh!

Before I get into the drama, I wanna say that my sweet Bryan spoke at the funeral. He was the only one of the sons to get up and eulogize his mother and he did a wonderful job. He said just the right mix of things, stories about his childhood, he talked about how proud she was of her sons, he read poems...it was lovely! One of the poems was all about how we don't know how short life is and how we should tell each other now that we love them and how we should forgive those silly little squabbles instead of carrying a grudge until its too late. He specifically added this poem because of all the drama in the family, but as you'll see later in this posting, it did not a bit of good! He had everyone at the funeral laughing and crying and nodding at all the appropriate points and he just did wonderful and I couldn't have been more proud! I worried he'd break down and cry during his speech, but he didn't. The minute he sat back down in the pew though he lost it. It was so sad.

The funeral itself was a little unusual too. The music was all bluegrass gospel which I love! Then the pastor stepped up there. He was a good old southern baptist pastor and it was all fire and brimstone and "If you want to ever see your mother/friend/wife/grandmother again you MUST repent!!" The entire time he spoke it was one big sales presentation trying to guilt you into joining the church and getting saved! I didn't like that but Bryan told me that is just how it is with the southern baptists! I was raised presbyterian, which is sort of the Catholics of the protestant world! Much more reserved, no fire and brimstone either!

So we're getting ready to leave for the gravesite after the service. There's a car for the family to ride together in. It has just enough room for my step FIL, My two brother in laws and their wives and my sweet Bryan and I. My sister in law D and I were gathering everyone and trying to get us all in the car and we called for the other brother in law and his wife K. BIL S starts to come but SIL K pulls him back and tells us (while all the other people at the funeral are passing by) "I guess we've been thrown out of the family!" Me and my SIL D were totally confused by this so we turned around and asked our FIL who was supposed to ride in the family car. He tells us just as I said at the beginning of this paragraph and by this time BIL S and SIL K have gotten into their car already. So since they aren't riding in the family car, we allowed other out of towners to ride in the family car and we rode in our own vehicle as well. My SIL D was FURIOUS with SIL K because of the comment. I told her that SIL K wasn't normally like that and that there had to be something behind it and for us to not get upset until we spoke to her and figured out what she was talking about! So what does SIL D do? As soon as we get to the gravesite she walks up to SIL K and says, "Well I guess we've been thrown out of the family as well!!!" (because we didn't ride in the family car either) and turns around and walks away! She told me what she'd done and I said to her, "D! I thought we were going to get to the bottom of that before saying anything?" She said to me, "I couldn't help it!" A few days later I had dinner with S and K and had a chance to ask K about it. She told me that when they got to the funeral home that morning, they'd parked their car in the lot expecting to ride in the family car. As they entered the funeral home there was someone there greeting everyone and they asked what their relationship was to the deceased. So they told them son and that they were to ride in the family car after the service. They walked into the viewing room and a little while later a funeral director came up to them and said, "I'm so very very sorry but there's been a terrible mistake. There's not enough room for you to ride in the family car! We'll be happy to help you move your vehicle to the front of the procession line if you'd like" I was shocked because to my knowledge this was not supposed to happen! Now this is the BIL who is at odds with the other BIL and SIL and also the step FIL so did one of them arrange this and then act surprised that it happened? I don't and won't ever know. Anyhow, I felt so relieved that it was the funeral homes error that I went back and told my SIL D what had happened and told her how relieved I was. She said she was too. So when we went up to our Step FILs house, we told him what had happened at the funeral home with S and K. I thought he should know because he was paying the funeral home and that was a pretty big mistake if you ask me! We hadn't told him before that because he's got enough "evidence" stacked against S and K already and we didn't want to upset him more than he already was. So I start to tell the story, when I get to the part about what K said as we left the funeral, my SIL D jumps in and starts telling it. Except she's now telling it as though she's really angry about it! Not like she's all relaxed and feeling better about things. She starts saying things like, "And then she made her smart ass comments!" I just looked at her shocked! I spoke up and said, "Well I'll tell you this much, if it was Bryan and I in that situation at his mothers funeral, I'd be pretty upset as well!!" Then my SIL D said she would too. Then my SFIL spoke up and said, "Well if she thought she was out of the family then just wait til she sees whats coming up!" And then SIL D and Step FIL were off on a tangent beating up on S and K. I couldn't believe it!

Lets see, what other shenanigans happened...Umm...well OH I know...one of the first nights that we're there, my SIL D and I stayed up very late talking. She starts to tell me how our SFIL wants us to go through the jewelry box and divide up the jewelry. Ordinarily this would be the right thing to do. However, last March when my MIL and SFIL came to visit us, she and I spent the day together and during that day she told me what she was leaving to who. She told me that she was leaving ME her jewelry. So what do you do? Obviously no one knew about it but me! I didn't want to sound like a greedy person but it was her wishes! So I asked Dawn if she had a will with her wishes of what went to whom in it. She said no there wasn't. I told her I was surprised and told her what she'd told me last year. My SIL said NOTHING. So after a long pause I said well I don't want to be greedy, and she told me there wasn't a lot of valuable stuff in there either, so I don't mind sharing. And then I told her about a specific ring that she specifically wanted me to have which I did get BTW. So anyhow, I resigned myself to the fact that I would be sharing the jewelry. No big deal. It really only bothered me because I knew that's what my MIL told me she wanted to happen. Of course, for all I know she changed her mind between when she told me and now. WhatEV! The last day we were there though, I overheard my SFIL say that he needed to go and get her will out of the safe deposit box to see if there were any SPECIFIC BEQUESTS! Isn't it a little bit late for that?????? Her jewelry has already been disbursed! We've already gotten rid of her clothes! Well of course I'm sure that nothing will ever be said about it now that its too late, I mean really what are they gonna do? Go and ask people for their rings, necklaces and pins back so that they can give them to me? Right. And I am not greedy, I got quite a bit and am happy to have received what I did, but it still just annoys me somehow! I think its my OCD combined with the fact that I am a rule follower and I know what I was told and it isn't what happened.

Then there's the drama because Bryan's Dad called Bryan to see how he was the day his mother passed, but he didn't call the oldest brother! Well they aren't speaking to each other last I knew. Maybe he should have called, I dunno, but now this has cemented it and my BIL G and SIL D are supposedly not talking to my FIL and SMIL ever again! It seemed like everywhere we went (with the exception of BIL S and SIL K) the family just talked and talked about the rest of the family very negatively! It was AWFUL!

I've never been so happy to come home!!!

Headed for Georgia

2008-01-29T00:15:00.000-07:00

My MIL passed away today so we had to cancel this week's IVIg and FET. Because I cancelled my RE told me to stop doing the PIO shots and all the other meds too. I'll get a period now even though its way too early for it because I am stopping all the meds. While I'm gone I'll start the birth control pill on day 2 of the new cycle so that when I get back we can start over.

We leave tomorrow afternoon (tuesday) for Atlanta, and we expect we'll be gone about a week. I'm really worried there will be a lot of drama, partly because that's just how my sweet Bryan's family rolls (how did HE end up so normal???) and partly because there's been some bad blood and trouble brewing for awhile and everyone has been waiting for bryan's mom to pass to "take care of business". I just hope none of it is around us, there's enough emotions and sadness without that kind of bs to deal with also!

While we are sad about losing her, we're also happy for her because we know she's no longer in the agony of lung cancer. When she died, it was very peacefully in her sleep and they say the expression on her face was one of happiness. It makes me feel good to know that's how it ended for her. Bryan is taking it very well. It was very expected and he seems to be handling it so far pretty good. I'm sure the tears will come once we're surrounded with the rest of the family, but for now we're just going with being happy for her no longer being in pain, it seems to help him to think of it that way.

I can't help but think that I've done it again. Managed to NOT have a baby before its grandparent has passed away. I felt a lot of guilt about this with my mother's passing because she had no other grandchildren. I still feel bad, but at least now its not because we're not trying. If we ever have any, its only going to have 2 grandfathers. It will have step grandma's and I know that's good too, but I can't help but sit here and feel as though my baby will miss out. Well that's neither here nor there, and it can't be helped so I am going to try to put it out of my mind.

Better log out, I have to pack.

Life got crazy...

2008-01-27T20:34:00.000-07:00

That's my excuse for not blogging!

First things first, I am supposed to do the IVIg on Wednesday and a FET on Thursday! I can't believe I'm already this far along! Last night was my first progesterone in oil shot too! I'm OFF LUPRON! Yahoooo!!!!

Last weekend I got a call from the wonderful and beautiful new mommy - Faith from Keeping the faith!! She has experience with IVIg so I had lots of questions and we had a great chat! Because of her I discussed with my doc why we were doing IVIg on the day of the transfer (as he prefers to do them). I explained that it takes a few days for it to take full effect to reduce the antibodies. His thinking apparently is that the embryos don't implant immediately and there's no reason to worry about it until they do. Anyhow, I wanted to do the IVIg 2 days before and he wanted to do it the day of the transfer so we compromised and I'm doing IVIg now a day before the transfer. I feel happy about that!

Someone asked me to educate about what IVIg is. Its controversial and not all REs believe it does anything to help, but its something that is showing lots of promise and so I am willing to do anything it takes to get a baby! Here's my understanding of what IVIg is. I may get my facts messed up so if I'm wrong please let me know.

Essentially some people have these cells called Natural Killer cells. They are antibodies that fight foreign matter, and if you have too many of them, they can fight against the embryos, treating the embryos as though they are a foreign substance that must be destroyed. The IVIg is a procedure that is essentially a transfusion of I'm not sure what, plasma and other stuff from other people's blood. When they transfuse it into you (the amount is determined by your height and weight) it is done via IV and it takes about 3 hours. The stuff they infuse into you brings down your antibodies and natural killer cells or other immunological issues that may cause problems with implantation and the theory is that if your immune system is surpressed this way it'll allow the embryos to implant, it essentially could be the reason its not worked for me in the past! It's great if it works, but its very expensive - $2700 a pop. And this doesn't include the cost of the FET either. IF it works and I get pregnant this cycle, we'll have to do it twice more, again at $2700 each time. I am fretting about the money but if it works it'll be well worth it!

My mother in law isn't well at all. She's taken a turn for the worse. She's at home now with end stage lung cancer, hospice has come in, and today they checked her vitals and told the family that she's now got hours and days (instead of days and weeks as it was before). I really really hope I don't have to cancel my cycle. IF I have already done the IVIg, I have already informed my husband and his family that I will be staying for the transfer and will come out later. Doesn't make much sense to spend that much on IVIg, to not do the transfer ya know?

On Thursday of this week I took my sweet little 5 year old niece Hallie to the Disney Princesses on Ice show up in Phoenix! It was SOOO cute! She dressed up like a princess, and she was not nearly the only one! There were little girl princesses EVERYWHERE!!! Just watching her face as she saw mickey mouse and tinkerbell and cinderella and Ariel...it was priceless! After the show she told her mom, my sister, that it was the best night of her life! So cute! They certainly do not stay little like this long...I must remember moments like this when she's 13 and moody and wants nothing to do with any of the adults!

Lovely Lupron

2008-01-16T22:12:00.000-07:00

What a nice surprise, I haven't had any hot flashes from the lupron! Maybe its because its colder outside and I haven't noticed them? Who knows. What I have had this cycle so far is HEADACHES. I don't get them very often normally, but I woke up with one this morning and it did not go away all day long. Not much fun. I've noticed having them the last week or so here and there. I started to take prednisone and estrace last night. The estrace, as is normal for me, is upsetting my stomach and I have had the runs, which, as you can imagine, is kinda inconvenient, but I am dealing. I'll do anything if it means I get a baby at the end these days.

I do have a dilemma though. Remember I mentioned that we are going to try something called IVIg? Well that is something that has to be ordered a week before we use it. Remember that my MIL is sick with terminal lung cancer? Well she went into the hospital this last Sunday and we are uncertain as to how long she's going to last. I asked MFRN if the IVIg was something that would keep if we needed to cancel this cycle and she said she did not believe it was, and its not returnable either. And once they order it ($2300) I have to pay for it regardless of whether we use it or not. So I don't know what to do. Cancel this cycle? Continue and hope she makes it for awhile longer? I told Bryan if I had to he'd go ahead of me and I'd come later, depending on how close we are to doing the transfer. We won't miss the funeral, but I also can't afford to just lose out on $2300 either. Lastly need I state again that I am FORTY? I can't afford to put off getting pregnant any longer...its become one of those I MUST DO IT NOW things because I'm getting OLD. My last thought is that if I cancel, and then she pulls through, how long before I get to do a cycle? She might hang on for MONTHS and MONTHS for all we know. I hope I do not sound callous about her death. We're all very sad about it, but in this instance I am thinking about the future of our family and the future of our finances too.

As I think about it, I am approximately 16 days from transfer! These cycles go pretty fast.

Anyhow, I'm curious about your thoughts???

Mr Toad's Wildride

2008-01-09T00:35:00.003-07:00

What a day I've had!

8:30am my phone rang and it was the vet calling me to see how Rowdyboy's arm is doing (he had an infection in a bump on his left front arm). When I ran to get the phone I realized there was a chocolate bar wrapper on the floor. I looked around and didn't find any evidence other than the paper wrapper and wondered which of the two yorkies had gotten it and if they had gotten actual chocolate or if it was just a wrapper that didn't get thrown away.

12:00 noon: I walk out of my bedroom and realize there's two places that SOMEone has thrown up. Dark brown liquid. Yep, someone had gotten chocolate. Still didn't know which one.

12:05pm: I'm desperately trying to get the chocolate vomit stains out of the carpet, most of it comes up but not all.

1:00pm: Rowdy is RACING around the house like a crazy dog and occasionally urping up dark brown chocolate liquid. I decided to consult Dr Google. Dr Google says these are both symptoms of chocolate poisoning in dogs. Ugh.

1:15pm: I call my vet. Miracle! Tragedy never seems to strike while the vet is actually open! No emergency vet visit for me today! My vet asks if it was milk chocolate or dark chocolate. I pull the wrapper out of the trash - 4 ounces of DARK CHOCOLATE - very bad news. Still don't know how much he ate...could have been a partially eaten bar. Vet says she needs to consult with another vet and will call me back.

1:18pm: I call my sweet Bryan. Did you eat this bar of chocolate? No he says, I got that for your Christmas stocking, I know I didn't eat it. Rowdy ate the entire bar.

1:20pm: Vet says can you come now? We want to check his vitals and make sure he's OK.

1:30pm: I head to the vet. Rowdy who is normally INSANE in the car is about 30 times crazier due to his drug induced hyperness.

2:15pm: Rowdy barfs in the lobby of the vet...the vet claims "Yep! It's Chocolate!"

3:45pm: Rowdy is brought out to me after receiving fluids, and some charcoal and an injection to stop the vomiting. The vet says his heart rate has slowed down and she thinks he'll be fine. I'm given some high fiber food to help the tin foil wrapper to pass more easily and told not to give him other food until tomorrow and only a little of the high fiber food this evening.

4:15pm: I arrive home with Rowdy. He acts like he's gotta take a poop. We go outside (me monitoring each and every movement he makes) and he's racing around and little squirts of diahrea occasionally come out. Then he starts butt scooting. The vet had drained his anal glands (good times for Rowdy!) and shaved the hair around his butt which had gotten matted.

5:00pm: Bryan and I need to go out for a bit but we don't know what to do about Rowdy. We don't want him to have the runs all over the already stained rug so we put him in the bathroom and shut the door. Tile is afterall muuuch easier to clean up.

5:45pm: We return home. We open the door for Rowdy to come out of the bathroom and there is POO EVERYWHERE. Apparently he'd had the runs and then stepped in it and spread it throughout the bathroom AND on the inside of the bathroom door where he'd been scratching to get out of the bathroom while we were gone. OMGOD OMGOD OMGOD it smelled so bad it was in EVERY CREVASSE, it was crazy. I've never seen anything like it! I clean the floor and door and Bryan gives Rowdyboy a bath!

7:00pm: Am worried about Rowdy, his poor hiney is all swollen and red. He keeps trying to poo and nothing happens. I feel so sorry for him!

8:45pm: Rowdy keeps staring at the food bowl that we've had to pick up so that his currently delicate stomach doesn't get anything it shouldn't. He's so hungry!

9:00pm: Rowdy gets 1/4th of a can of the high fiber food. It's not much but he gobbles it like a crazy dog.

Right now: Rowdy is hungry again, he wants food and he wants it now. He's going into the kitchen barking to tell me there's no food and he wants some! No more poo incidents so far and it looks like the worst is over. I think I'm getting some good practice in for when I have a little one to take care of...oh Jesus what am I getting myself into?

And so it begins...AGAIN.

2008-01-08T01:24:00.000-07:00

New cycle is starting. Well sort of. I've been on the bcp for 10 days and at today's appt with MFRN, I was told to start the lupron injections today and to continue with the pill for 5 more days. So technically the new cycle begins when Aunt Flow arrives, but if I'm doing shots I think that means the new cycle has begun.

I've decided to go ahead and do the IVIg. It costs over $2000 for each one we have to do (and if I get pregnant with this cycle I'll have to do it probably twice more), but if I didn't do it I'd always wonder if it would have worked had I done it, know what I mean? She explained to me that it takes 2 to 3 hours with an IV drip in and somewhere in the middle of it they'll do the transfer and then I'll finish off the IVIg. Anyone out in blog land done this? I know Faith at Keeping the faith did, and I'm going to talk to her about it, but I'm just curious about other people's experiences with it.

My cold is FINALLY starting to leave. Actually I feel a bit better, but when I take the over the counter allergy pill the pharmacist suggested I really feel better! So maybe its just allergys gone crazy! Seems an odd time of the year for it but that's me...always doing everything in odd ways!

I made a cheesecake when I got home from the doctor today. It is a new recipe and it turned out OK. I burned the crust though, it'd be better had I not done that. Then I gave a piece of it to my sweet Bryan and he ate about 4 bites, claimed it was GREAT, then hands me the unfinished plate. Then he followed me around like a puppy with his tail between his legs thinking I was mad at him for not eating it. Um HELLO I worked hard to make this, at least eat a little more than 4 bites, and don't think I'm stupid enough to believe you when you tell me how much you loved it but didn't eat more than 4 bites! MEN.

Happy 2008!

2007-12-31T23:42:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been awhile since I've had 2 posts in one day!

Anyhow, I just wanted to say at 11:42pm, in the last 18 minutes of 2007, what a crappy year it was. However, that said it was a good year too. I had a miscarriage as did many of the rest of us. Discouraging to say the least. However, its positive too because it means that those of us who had one CAN get pregnant!

In the last year my husband has been promoted to Master Sergeant, gone off to the war, come home, and we've gone on a few road trips. We've had our share of family dramas but in comparison its kinda mild to others out there. We found out my MIL has terminal cancer, and also that my step brother had leukemia. We've had our ups and down to be certain. Quite an eventful year here in the land of the Saguaro.

Anyhow, we started this year encouraged because we were going to do a donor cycle and hoping to have a baby resulting from this donor. We end the year still hoping for that baby. We have seven embryos left and I hope at least one of them will be the answer to our New Years wish.

Just imagine, this is the start of another year. What will be different by the end of the year? It will have all changed again! Some of us will have the babies we wished for, some will have one via surrogate, some will adopt, some will just decide to end the battle and move on.

I wish all of you a happy and healthy 2008 with lots of pregnancies and many many little chubby pink babys born! Tonight I'll say a special prayer asking God to help us and all of you too who are fighting this battle with us day in and day out!

Anticipation can be bad.

2007-12-31T13:09:00.000-07:00

So this is a post that I've been thinking about writing for some time.

I have a little problem with anticipation.

Every birthday/Christmas, I tell my family members not to give me any hints because I'm really good at figuring out what I'm getting. I like the anticipation of the gift and once I know, that's not there anymore. I kind of get off on it.

Years ago...I'd sit and think about what my wedding would be like. I imagined it to be a fairy tale wedding, complete with an enormous wedding cake and a huge white dress. I would be gorgeous and everything would be perfect. Well when I got engaged I started to plan that wedding and had the church reserved, picked out my colors and bridesmaids and even had a good idea of what I wanted out of my dress. Then Desert Storm came along and we cancelled everything because Bryan was volunteering to go. We didn't know if he'd be in the country when the wedding day came. So we ran as fast as we could to the justice of the peace and got married. Went to Vegas then for 2 days. All the while saying we'd have a big wedding later and for people not to give us gifts, to save them for our real wedding later. Well guess what? The real wedding never happened. The reason? We got orders to move to England. So we never got wedding gifts. We did have a going away/wedding reception party 9 months after we got married before we moved, but it wasn't quite the same thing ya know?

Then with regards to having babies. I always kind of looked at that as something to look forward to. I always thought it would be a time I'd really really enjoy and I kept putting it off as something to look forward to. There were a few times when my cycle would be messed up and I'd wonder if I was pregnant, but I never was, and I just kept thinking romantically about the good time that was to come. I never actively TRIED to get pregnant. Now I wish I had. If I hadn't been so hung up on the anticipation of the event I might have tried to get pregnant many years earlier and might have kids right now running around for me to say NO and STOP THAT to! I kept saying to myself that it would happen when God meant it to happen. It would happen when it happened. Ugh. If I could just go back in time and change my way of thinking, I'd have had younger eggs and quite possibly had no trouble at all getting pregnant!

I do love the anticipation of an event, I'm somewhat addicted to anticipation but I think its time to start using the good china and to use all those "special" things that you're saving for a rainy day. You may well not ever get the chance if you don't take it now! If I'd lived each day as though it was my last I may well not be having the trouble that I am right now.

Before Christmas I had a blood draw to check for ovulation. NOPE. Then I went back last week and had it checked again. Again it was a no go. So now I'm on the pill for 10 days before we start a new cycle.

After reading Cindy Margolis's book I've started to think about a surrogate. I have a wonderful 24 year old niece who's made mention before of wanting to help us. I may have to think about having her surrogate our last batch of embryos if she's willing. Its such a huge thing though, does she really want her first pregnancy to be for someone else's baby? Anyhow...there's going to be some discussions and all I can say right now is "we'll see".

So here we are...

2007-12-27T00:07:00.000-07:00

Almost the beginning of a new year. Oh yes, I am well aware that the New Year technically begins next week, but something happened today that gave me renewed hope for the future, a new hope.

It all started last week when I received an email from someone. I thought it was an ad at first for a book that is being published about infertility, but I continued to read and realized that it was far from that! It was from a woman who I'm guessing is a publicist or works for a publisher and she was telling me about a book that is about to be published regarding infertility and asked if I would be willing to read an advance copy and review it on my blog!

So this morning as I left for my appointment with the RE, I saw a package sitting outside my door. I thought it was something my sweet Bryan had ordered and I threw it into the house and forgot about it.

This afternoon I came home and realized it was addressed to me. So I opened it and it was the book! It was written by Cindy Margolis. If you don't know who she is, her claim to fame is that she is the most downloaded woman on the internet. She also did some modeling and a few TV shows. A few years back, before I was on this horrible endless infertility journey, I watched a documentary about her going through one of her IVF cycles with her RE. She got a negative at the end, and I remember my eyes tearing up for her. I also remember thinking that there was NO WAY IN HELL I could EVER do injections like she was doing. We've come a long way baby, we've come a long long way.

So anyhow, I sat down and started to read this book today. I really wanted to compare her story to my own, to see if she's been through what I have.

She really has.

This book was so well written. If you're an IVF veteran, or have gone the surrogate route, you'll like the book for the same reason you read other people's blogs, because you can relate. If you're new to the infertility world, you'll like this book because it gives you a run down on her story, and other peoples stories too. It will give you a lot of information about what you should look for in an RE, how to find a good clinic, and resources for finding good information about a lot of different aspects of infertility, may it be adoption, surrogacy, endometriosis, infertility in general, PCOS and many other things that you may come across in your journey. It also gives you a simplistic explanation about what many of the terms you come across mean, and what different procedures that you may have to endure really are. It talks about how she felt when certain things happened (BFNs), and then it gave her husbands point of view, which we as bloggers mostly do not hear. Mostly it gave me hope. After so many negatives she finally got her positive. Then she went on and had twins via a surrogate. But she doesn't tell the story just from her aspect, she tells many different stories, a lot of them encouraging, some of them sad. I finished the book in just a few hours, and as an IVF vet I can tell you that this book is going to help SO MANY PEOPLE who are new to this!

There was an inconsistency from what my own RE has told me and from what I've read via other people's blogs though.

She says, "To maximize the chances that you will get and STAY pregnant, doctors have to play the odds. They are not going to waste their time and your money implanting only one embryo, as good quality as that embryo may be. Unless you absolutely beg them (and even then I'm not sure you would find a doctor to agree), you will typically want to try up to six embryos each time."

SIX? Yikes that is a LOT. In fact, what I've heard is that it would be very irresponsible of an RE to transfer that many embryos due to the possibility of multiples. Two would be tough, three while doable is even rougher, but imagine if you implant six and they all take? I'm aware she says UP TO six embryos, but I think FOUR was MY max, and my RE only allowed that because of my age. Ordinarily he likes to only do three at the most.

However, that said, I loved this book. There's really not too many books like it on the market and its something that is really NEEDED in the infertile world. She discusses how people will say terrible things to you (You need to RELAX, etc) and how hard it is to go to baby showers, and she brings to light the fact that there are a LOT more people going through this than anyone realizes, and how no one speaks about it. She also talks about how the infertility drugs make you a crazy woman. All in all it doesn't get into the nitty gritty details, but it gives you an overall introduction to many different aspects of our plight. It is supposed to be on the market in February I believe, and it's called Having a Baby...When the Old-Fashioned Way isn't Working by Cindy Margolis.

The best part about this book? I've been down in the dumps lately. Ever since my miscarriage last summer I've sort of let hope go and started feeling like it's NEVER going to happen for me. After reading her book, she gives me a lot MORE hope, and I feel so much better. She showed me how after so many cycles it finally worked for her, and then she gave a lot of other stories of how it worked for other people in all different situations. It just made me feel like maybe it CAN work for me. I could so totally relate to this book, and I hope when it comes out on the market some of you'll get a copy and read it.

A terrible day...

2007-12-21T19:24:00.000-07:00

Lord...it started out good. I mean I had all these things I wanted to do, I was organized, I left with intentions of getting stuff done, and getting home and wrapping presents. Well that's not what happened. Ugh.

I went to the RE's office today. Blood draw (I didn't ovulate) and dildocam (that cyst on my left ovary? Almost non existant!). I took them a plate of home made cookies (It's always beneficial to ply your RE and his staff with delicious home made cookies). All was going according to plan at this point. I even got a few other errands done before it all went horribly wrong.

It was the kind of day where it didn't matter who I was trying to call, NO ONE answered their phone! People with multiple numbers didn't answer any ANY of their numbers! And it wasn't just one person, it was EVERYONE I needed to call. That means my sister, my sister in law (who has THREE phone numbers and didn't answer any ANY of them!), my friend V and my friend K. Ugh...kinda like they all got together and said OK, when Lara calls, lets NONE OF US answer...ha ha ha it'll be hilarious!

I went on a hunt for backscratchers for my sweet Bryan's stocking. He's got one of these insanely itchy backs and I thought this would be a GREAT stocking stuffer. I searched all over town. I went to Walmart, the Dollar store, Walgreens, Linens and Things, Bath and Body Works, Target, Claire's, and finally...ultimately...my new favorite store after the thrash I had trying to find them, World Market (used to be called Cost Plus World Market) and there they were...at the register...and they have japanese geisha's on them! I bought SIX! So this was so freaking frustrating that I couldnt find them...backscratchers are such a random item...this is what started me having a bad day. Well when I stopped at Walgreens in my search, I noticed that outside there was a charity event that they do every year this time called "stuff the bus" that is put on by a local television station. They fill a city bus with unwrapped new toys. So while I was in Walgreens I bought FIVE toys...deciding to do a good deed and help out some poor children who wouldn't have anything otherwise. Good person right? Yeah...well after I bought them, I told the clerk not to bag them because I was taking them out and directly to the bus in their parking lot. So I piled everything up, and as I turn away from the counter, I swing around to begin heading for the exit. As I swing around, the corner of one of the toys CLOCKS this OLD OLD OLD OLD woman in the head! I hit an old woman in the head! I felt so HORRIBLE. I was horrified! She stopped, put both of her hands to her head and stood there for a really long minute. I apologized profusely, and then I asked her if she was alright. She looks up FINALLY and says to me, "well I'll HAVE to be won't I?" She said it VERY angrily. I just felt so terrible. I apologized again, and I then said well is there anything I can do for you? She said, "No, I'll just have to have a pain in my eye for a few hours!!!" If you could have seen her...she's ancient and I clocked her and I felt terrible and she was mean to me! I finally ran out of the store, gave the presents to the people at the bus...something I should have felt good about and all I could think was about how I'd clocked this old woman. I ran to my car and I burst into tears! Bryan reminded me when I called him that I hadn't knocked her to the ground, I didn't cut her or even scratch her, I apologized profusely and did everything I could possibly do to make amends...and that I needed to let it go because I didn't really damage her. I think its just that she was so old and fragile and here I am clocking her in the head!

After that happened, it all went down hill. I did find the backscratchers, but whatever I touched I either dropped or it didnt work the way it was supposed to, or I couldn't find what I needed when I'd just seen whatever it was that I was looking for! To top it off, I was trying to put a key on a keyring and as I spread apart the ring to put the key on, it in a freak move, ripped my finger nail way up into the quick of the nail. OMGOD talk about PAIN!

Bryan now has me sitting and doing NOTHING so that nothing else can go wrong! He made me soup and corn bread for dinner (yum!) and is wrapping the last of the gifts that we're taking to my sisters tomorrow morning! Isn't he a good man?

As for the RE appt. MFRN made the suggestion that I might want to try IVIG. It costs $2700 extra, and its very controversial, but it just worked for her friend who'd done 4 negative IVFs. At this point we'll probably do it because if we ever get to a point where we move on, I want to know we did everything we could. She said IVIG is something that supresses your body from making the antibodies that attack foreign bodies (I guess the body sometimes gets confused and attacks the embryos). I'll be doing some internet research so I'll let you know what I find out. Faith at Keeping the Faith who just had twins I think did this procedure during her positive IVF cycle! Maybe its time to send old Faith an email with some questions!

Lost Faith

2007-12-11T23:57:00.000-07:00

Ever since I got the BFN for this last cycle, I've felt really negative. I feel like I'll never have my own baby in my arms. I'll never be able to do the cute baby pictures, except via my sister's children, which you have to admit is not the same thing! I have TWO straws left people. SEVEN embryos. One is a straw of 3 and the other is a straw of four. That's two chances. TWO. After that we either quit or we start over and give another 12.5 thousand dollars to the doctor. That I know is cheap in terms of IVF, but its still 12 and a half thousand dollars! Anyhow, I just keep thinking how sad it is that I procrastinated myself into this position. If I'd only started to think about infertility when I was 30, I'd probably already have children swarming around. I just feel depressed. I had a checkup today. It was the "your IVF didn't work so we're gonna check you out" ultrasound. Dr G asked me how old I was now. I said I'd turned 40 in September. He said, "I was afraid of that". WTF does that mean? Anyhow, I go back to see them on the 21st. They'll draw blood and see if I ovulated on my own (hahahahahahaha) and if I did I'll start lupron then and we'll go into another cycle. If I didn't, they'll put me on the pill. Yay team. Do I sound thrilled? Oh and just think...if it does work one of these next two cycles, I'll be FORTY ONE by the time I have a baby. But who're we kidding...like that's gonna happen. OK I'll be back when I'm feeling more upbeat and positive. Sorry for the glum post.

Sorry I left you hanging!

2007-12-07T23:51:00.000-07:00

After so many of you suggested I POAS, I did just that. It was defective. I sat there on the toilet waiting and waiting and the control line never showed up. BASTARD. So then I decided I needed to shit or get off the pot...LITERALLY and so I wiped and guess what? My question was answered. Aunt Flow arrived in full force. Good times. We are currently in New Mexico on our way home from Georgia and Tennessee. We drove for 15 hours today. We are in a hotel. One of my dogs, Poppy, has decided that she needs to EAT the hotel comforter. I'm going to kill her.

Is this weird?

2007-12-01T22:59:00.000-07:00

You know, I am very upset that this cycle didn't work. I guess the last one took and I thought this one would too. Plus there's all the symptoms ya know? Why the hell have I had upset stomachs and nausea and the fatigue for the last 2 weeks???? Did I really imagine it?

Here's something weird. When my doctor called me with the results, it was after the clinic had to chase the results down at the lab here in Georgia. So he says, "so you're in Georgia"? Yep I am, we're visiting family. And was it a Blood test they did? Uhh yesssssss, of course????

Does anyone else find this an odd question?

When I was at the lab getting the blood drawn, there were 2 beta tests on the form. One was beta hcg quanitative and the other was beta hcg qualitative. They were debating which one it was, I told them my doctor wanted the amount of hcg in my system.

Soooo here's what I'm wondering...my doc wouldn't have asked if it was a blood test if he'd gotten a number, am I right? I keep thinking that the lab lost my results and just sent him a negative result. I know its crazy. I do! I keep thinking that it worked and I'm starving my embryos by not doing the PIO injections because they lied to my RE. OK, remember when I said I knew it was crazy? I really do realize that this is highly unlikely. However, that said, my stomach is still messed up today, and my boobs hurt.

If I'm not the P word, I really need Aunt Flow to arrive so I can put an end to this madness! I feel very sad and miserable, and for some reason, after all the BFNs I've had, you'd think I'd be used to it but this one really got to me. Guess its because this is my first cycle since turning 40 and I just feel like I'm getting old for all this. When will my turn come? When? I'm so freaking tired of waiting!!!!

Beta Results

2007-11-30T16:57:00.000-07:00

NEGATIVE.

I waited on Wednesday for 1.5 hours for the fax to come through with the order for my bloodwork. I sat at the lab for that long. Ugh. So it was at the end of the day and I knew that I wouldn't get my results until Thursday. So all day long Thursday I waited and waited for a call. I never got a call. This morning I called my doctors office to see if they'd heard anything. They hadn't! They had to call the lab and track down my results today. Ugh.

Last night, I fell asleep in a chair in front of the TV. I woke up at 2am. OMG I thought, its so late and I need to take my shots! So I go to fix my progesterone shot and my heparin shot, and I realized that I DIDN'T HAVE ANY PROGESTERONE. I freaked out and pulled out the bag of trash full of my injection stuff. I found 2 empty bottles of progesterone. They each have minute amounts left in it and so I had to suck out as much as I could which ended up being .75 of a CC when I was supposed to be getting 2CCs. Double Ugh.

So this morning I got up, hunted through the yellow and white pages for apothecary shops that had progesterone in oil. After about 20 phone calls, I finally found one that had it and it was miraculously only 45 minutes away from where I am. I would have searched the internet for a pharmacy, but I realized my internet was not working. So I went to a sp*rint store and I battled with them because I only got my broadband 3 months ago, but I lost the battle and ultimately had to buy a new broadband card for the laptop for only $279. Triple Ugh.

It's been a lousy day.

Beta Day

2007-11-28T13:28:00.000-07:00

Well, as those of you who follow my blog know, yesterday was Beta day. However, I did not do the test yesterday. My MIL was getting some pretty scary tests back and I just felt like if I tested yesterday and her results were bad, mine would be too. I know that sounds silly and superstitious, but that's what I felt! BTW, she got her results and they were good! So today is the day. I am right now sitting in front of the lab in the parking lot. We are still in Georgia, so I had to find a lab to do the bloodwork here. Then I have to get my REs office back home to send the order for the bloodwork via fax. That's the point I'm at right now, waiting for my REs office to call me back so that I can give them the fax number. So Sweet Bryan and I are just sitting in the car awaiting their call so we can go in and get the blood drawn.

I'm not really nervous, but remember all the symptoms? Well today I feel perfectly NORMAL. Who knows. It's so frustrating, and it would be comforting right now to have a tummy that was upset or to feel bitchy.

Anyhow, when I know something I'll update this...so until then...keep everything crossed for us!

I just freaked out!

2007-11-24T19:05:00.000-07:00

OMGOD. I am so HORMONAL. I just freaked out on Bryan.

We are in Georgia visiting Bryan's family. Today we went to S. Carolina with his father and step mom. It was an all day affair. We had to be there by 8am and we didn't walk back into my BIL's until about an hour ago (8pm). All day long I just didn't feel good. Stomach was kind of upset and my back was aching, plus the family reunion we went to was full of people I do not know so it was v. v. boring. I took along a little hand held game (nin*tendo D*S) so that I could occupy myself in the car for hours on end and also potentially at the reunion. Well our nephew Z came along too and after one turn, which because I'm not very good, my turns are v. short, he would snatch it and play with it for HOURS so that was down the drain. I really wished I'd brought along a book. Anyhow, Z is a good kid, but he's 12, and between me not feeling good, him hogging the game and me being bored, OH plus my MIL was smoking, she had the window open but I could smell it...GROSS, AND someone was FARTING in an enclosed car! How rude is that? I wanted to HURL! OH and did I mention that not only was all that other stuff going on, but I also had to sit and listen to a FUCKING FOOTBALL GAME being BLASTED on the car radio speakers? I hate that game with all my heart! This was my idea of a personal Hell, and all of this put me into a bad mood.

To be fair, I've been v. moody for a few days. You know what I want to blame it on, but I'm not going there yet. Anyhow, when we got back to FIL's house, we went in and I just wanted to leave and come back to where we're sleeping so I could lie down. So I hugged my Step MIL and told her I was sorry I was a party pooper today that I was just so worn out from this trip and it's just catching up with me. She told me that was alright. Then she told us that we NEEDED to call Bryan's brother S, because he's leaving on Monday to go out of town for work. That's when the freak out started!

I whipped around and said, "Well S knows we're here and he's just as capable of picking up a phone! We came an awful long way, the least he can do is call us! Especially when he KNOWS he's leaving town on Monday!" S is the BIL who I am angry with for the way he's treating his mother. So anyway, after saying this, I immediately realized that I'd snapped at her. So I apologized. Just to clarify, Step MIL is NOT the ill one, that's my MIL. Anyhow, I told her that I was just being a grump and I didn't mean to sound like I did. She then said, "Well I don't know why you all are blaming S for everything". I said, "Blaming? For what?" In my head you know we were still discussing him calling us or vice/versa. So she said, "You know, all the bull crap with G & D (my other bil and his wife)". Then I snapped again and said, "OH NO, WE'RE NOT EVEN A PART OF ALL THAT. WE'RE TAKING NO SIDES AND WE DON'T BLAME ANYONE!" See, G & D are at war with S over money matters. I haven't heard S's side of things, but of course I've heard all about G and D's side of things. Because they are both Bry's brothers I just kind of nodded my head and said OH I see when I heard about it...but believe me we're not in it! I refuse to make any opinions known until I have heard both sides. The ONLY thing I'm upset with S about is how he's been treating his mother since she's been ill. So about that time Bryan said we'd better get going. We left and I felt all this stuff that'd been building up in me all day long, plus the last straw of the discussion that we had inside about S and when I got into the car I WIGGED OUT. I was crying and throwing a tantrum, it was AWFUL and all the while I KNEW that I was being overly emotional. I'm NOT normally like this. I used to be before I took Prozac, but all that changed with my Lover Prozac coming into my life. I KNOW I'm hormonal. Even while I say crazy shit, I am saying inside my head things like, "Lara, chill...you're being RETARDED!". But alas, I can not stop the wrath. So poor Sweet Bryan got the brunt of it. I was yelling at him because he didn't back me up while we were in there and also because while I was expressing my frustrations in the car (while crying and waving my arms in the air) he didn't seem to be taking any side, as though he didn't want to be INVOLVED?????? It was awful. And while I now, an hour later, realize how silly I was being about a lot of it, I still feel myself getting all up in arms about the stuff I was feeling about Bryan at the end!

So that's whats going on here. I miss my home, I miss my bed, I miss the security of being thousands of miles away from this family! My pups are OK. Not too thrilled with all their brothers and sisters and parents that live here, but oh well. Poppy has a boyfriend. His name is Elvis. Elvis is technically her nephew but he LOVES Miss Poppy. She does not give him the time of day though. In fact she only growls at him and bares her teeth to warn him to get the F away from her! Poor Elvis just can't get enough of her oozing personality though and refuses to leave her presence!

My 2ww will be over on Tuesday. I have to find a lab here in Georgia to get my bloodwork done though, and then I have to try to keep it on the downlow since we're not telling the family that we're doing this.

Symptom check:

Boobs: Sort of aching, but not really sore.
Stomach: having upset stomachs pretty much daily, but I don't know if that's from all the rich food or from what I hope its from.
Tired. V. Tired. ALL. THE. TIME. Could also be that the trip is just catching up with me as we've been burning the candle at both ends for days.
Uterus: achyness and cramps here and there.

I just don't feel good and I'm very emotional.

Today is 11dp3dt.

Wish me luck that I don't freak out on anyone tomorrow...I'd like to keep at least some of the family still liking me!

7dp3dt

2007-11-20T15:23:00.000-07:00

So we are on the road. Today is the second full day on the road. It's me and Bryan and the yorkies. It's been something of an adventure. Right now I'm typing this from my laptop with a yorkie in my lap and looking at all the beautiful fall colors between Little Rock, Arkansas and Memphis, Tennessee. Tomorrow we'll get to Georgia!

I have been so busy with this trip that I haven't had a lot of time to think much about my cycle, but every once in awhile it comes to me and I go Huh...I wonder?

So here's the current run down of symptoms.

Tired. That could also be caused by the fact that we traveled in the car yesterday from 5am until 11:30pm last night when we got to Oklahoma City and am doing it again today (though for not as long today).

Lower Back is aching. Could also be caused from the same thing...sitting in the car for a gabillion hours yesterday! However its only on one side of my lower back - so I dunno???

Occasional twinges in the uterus region.

Occasionally I feel a little upset stomach. Oh and I've had the runs. That I did have CONSTANTLY when I was prego last summer. So? I dunno?

Here's what I have to look forward to dealing with when we get to GA.

We are going to see Bry's Mom who is very ill. It will probably be her last Thanksgiving. I'm a little nervous to see her because she's so sick and I haven't seen her since before her illness was diagnosed. Sweet Bryan's brother S is being an ASS. That is what I think from what I've been hearing that he's been doing. However, I've not heard his side of the story either...guess I might when we see him. Anyhow, he lives right there and is NOT going to be spending time with his Mom on Thanksgiving. It may be the last opportunity for his mother to see all three of her sons all together before she's gone but he's going to spend Thanksgiving with his wife's family because they just lost his wife's cousin a few weeks back. I get that, but he could do both EASILY and make his dying mother happy. I think he's in denial about her dying. He actually told her that she was just being negative about it all and that she was gonna be around for 15 more Thanksgivings. She told him she was not being negative, she was being realistic. She has lung cancer, the prognosis is NOT good. Then he told her that he hasn't spent Thanksgiving with her in 15 years, why was it any big deal about this one???? Ummm HELLO? See? ASS.

I'll keep you all up to date on how things go...knowing this family there will be a LOT of drama! Should be interesting!

5dp3dt

2007-11-18T22:10:00.000-07:00

Well I survived bedrest. On Friday I had a doctor appt with Dr G. It was just a blood test to check that my progesterone level was where it should be. Every other cycle I have EVER done, my progesterone has been low and I've had to either increase the amount of PIO I take or take vaginal suppositories. Well I just about fell on the floor when they called me Friday afternoon and told me that my progesterone was really good! They like to see it at 40 and mine was 48 or 49! It's usually somewhere in the 30s so this is a first for me. Remember when I said that everything was working the way it should be? The transfer was so smooth? It's all just going along swimmingly as though I am the model patient and my body cooperates accordingly. It makes me suspicious...its going TOO smoothly ya know?

OK, well I haven't posted any of my symptoms. And you know I am watching myself very very carefully for symptoms. So here we go.

Boobs - have had moments of weird tingles and I have also noticed a little heavyness and achiness similar to what I felt when I was pregnant this summer. That doesn't mean anything though because if my body for once is doing what its supposed to, the progesterone would definately cause that to happen.

Suddenly today I was sooooo tired that I had to take a nap. Does progesterone do that? I don't know. I can't remember. All I know is that I didn't do anything to warrant feeling that exhausted.

We ate later this afternoon. I ate a burger. When the exhaustion hit my stomach wasn't right either. Could have been the greasy burger didn't set with me well. Who the hell knows.

I've been slightly headachy - and I kind of remember this feeling from the summer cycle too. It's almost an achy feeling in the neck that stems the headache. Of course it could also be a cold or that I slept weird.

Last night I was unusually cranky. I suddenly realized that I was and asked sweet Bry bry if I was being cranky and he honestly said YES. I wasn't in a bad mood, I wasn't having a bad day, and there was no reason for me to be that way with him....so I dunno. It felt a lot like the way I was before I took prozac.

I know you all are going to get all excited about this because those are all good signs, but I'm not kidding myself. I've been here wayyyy too many times! Now if I start feeling nauseous each afternoon and have to take a nap every day then I'll feel more optimistic about it.

Have I mentioned that we are going on a road trip? We leave tomorrow and will be driving to Georgia from Arizona. So if you see a silver infiniti drive by you with 2 yorkies in the back seat and an I heart my airman sticker on the back window, it's me! While we are there we will have to have my beta done. That means I'll have to figure out where to go to do it and then have my doctor fax over the order for me to have the work done. Since we have chosen to not tell any of our family we are doing a cycle, we will have to be crafty about getting over there without anyone noticing or tagging along. God I hope I don't have to be crushed and faking a happy face on this trip!

Do any of you realize how tired I am of dealing with 2ww's? I've done my fair share of 2ww's and really am ready to get to the next stage of the game already! I know I'm not the only one out there in this situation, and certainly am not the only one who has done as many cycles as I have...but I am just tired of all this! This is my 12th cycle. TWELVE!!!

Transfer Complete

2007-11-15T16:13:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! I'm still on bedrest but took a few minutes to sit up to type this blog to let you all know how it all went on Tuesday.

They thawed out a straw of four embies. Three of them made it through the thaw. Dr G said they looked FANTABULOUS! All were 3 day 8 celled embies. Only one had a little fragmentation, otherwise they were the top score (5) embryos!

The transfer went amazingly smooth. Usually I feel some crampiness when they put the catheter in and put the embryos in, but this time I felt nothing. It almost makes me feel as though they didn't put anything up there! I'm used to feeling that crampiness throughout the two week wait. Odd. Not sure what to think about it. Anyhoo...so he started to pull out the speculum and I said, "you did it already?" Its never been that fast or easy before! He had done it. Well as soon as he pulled out the speculum, I coughed. A hard cough left over from my cold from last week. I felt a gush of fluid. Gross I know. But could it be that I coughed out my embryos???? I told MFRN that I was scared I messed it up because of the cough. She just laughed and said it wasn't possible. I am still scared I coughed them back out. :(

So the two week wait has started. I'm on bedrest. My back aches because I'm laying flat on my back, no changing positions, no laying on my side, back and back only. It's OK, tomorrow I get to get up and go to Dr Gs and have my progesterone checked, so I'll get to get up and out then. I'm actually excited to go have my blood drawn...how sad is that???

So obviously its way too early to feel ANYthing, but I have to say that my boobs ALREADY are aching. That progesterone must be the extra strong stuff!

OHHHH and before I go...let me tell you what happened with my heparin!

Last August as you probably know, I was taking heparin injections because of the last transfer which worked for a time. So when I went to fill my script for this new cycle, I just got a refill on it. Well the pharmacist tells me that there was some confusion with the dosage last time. He then tells me I'm to take 1/4th of a syringe of heparin instead of a half that I did last time. Keep in mind people that this is the SAME prescription, its just a refill and now I'm getting totally different directions???? So I don't know how much to take. A quarter or a half like I was taking last time? I called MFRN who said that either dosage wouldn't affect the outcome of the pregnancy...so what am I doing? At least until tomorrow's prednisone bloodwork? I'm doing one shot at a quarter and one shot at a half (I do 2 a day). I better get this straightened out tomorrow cuz why take stuff you don't have to! And on the other hand, what if I'm taking too little and it doesn't work because I should have been taking the 1/2 syringe dose? OH and I've compared the bottles and they are exactly the same. I could see if he was giving me a bottle that had a different amount of saline in it, but I'm not...its the exact same thing.

OK, your thoughts, talk amongst yourselves...I've gotta get back to bed rest!

Braces Bunch stats

2007-11-12T11:04:00.000-07:00

I've been checking out the braces bunch from my blog roll which isn't current I know, but oh well...one day I'll fix it!

We're pretty much half and half pregos vs non pregos. That's pretty good odds if you ask me! I think its really helpful to have this kind of support...has it made a difference? Emotionally definately. I don't know if its increased our statistics as opposed to those who aren't in our little group, but I'm going to pretend that it has!

I hope to join the pregos side again VERY soon.

Tomorrow is the big day...

2007-11-12T10:12:00.000-07:00

2pm Arizona time (which is currently the same as New Mexico time) I'll be having my transfer tomorrow! So far so good. My cold, while still lingering seems to be on its way out. I still have a cough and have to blow my nose a lot but besides that I'm feeling better.

I started PIO shots on Friday night and now I have bruises on each leg - hey who cares. I've had much worse!

I've already bought the heparin so I can start those injections tomorrow night. Basically I'm just READY.

I'll be on bedrest until Friday and I'll be laying here flat on my back for THREE days. I'll be sick of it by Friday but it'll be worth it when my bean or beans stick!

We are leaving for our trip out to see my MIL who is terminally ill with lung cancer as soon as bedrest is overwith. Supposed to be getting there by Thanksgiving, but with me on bedrest until Friday there won't be much time for me to prepare for our road trip. We'll make it though...its just a matter of figuring out what needs to be done and getting my sweet BRYAN to do it! :)

I dont have much else to report. Haven't done much besides lie here and be sick. UGH. Hopefully future posts will be more exciting!

I wonder how many embies will make it through the thaw tomorrow morning!!!???

We have a date with Dr G!

2007-11-08T23:36:00.000-07:00

This morning, through a haze of sickness, runny nose, no voice and cough, I went to Dr G's office.

MFRN did the dildocam on me and it looks like my lining is doing VERY well thank you very much! At this stage of the game in July they were giving me a big shot of something to help my uterus to thicken the lining as it was lagging behind where it should have been. I think it was measuring like 5mm where as today it was measuring about 10mm! I'm telling you, ever since the DnC things have been on a good smooth track. Everything is going like its supposed to, like it hasn't done in YEARS! It gives me HOPE!

I start the PIO injections tomorrow. 1CC tomorrow night and then 2CCs each night after that. My transfer is set for Tuesday afternoon (I wish that K and G could come back and be there this time - they were lucky last time, oh and we had a BLAST too!)

The sucky thing? My transfer is set for Bryan's first day back at work, so he probably can't be there for it. :( In fact, its probably gonna just be me, myself and I there because BFR has so recently taken time off for her brother's funeral so I can't ask her to take some more time off to help me. THEN I'll be on 3 days of bedrest and again I'll be here alone because Bryan will be at work and so will BFR! Maybe I'll get lucky and my sweet Bry will be able to take the afternoon off of work to be there for the transfer at least.

The lucky thing? My transfer is set for the 13th. That's Bryan's lucky number!

Ok, I'm heading back to bed...Nyquil is calling my name!

Home from Sedona

2007-11-07T22:39:00.000-07:00

We had a blast! I have tons of pics but am too tired to post them today. I came home with a cold from Sedona also. :( While there we went on a pink jeep tour and little did I know that it was 4 wheeling out in the red rocks of sedona! There were times we were vertical on the side of a mountain and Miss Lara was SCREAMING! We also did some hiking, hung out on a vortex, watched a sunrise and also a sunset, went to a ghost town turned artists colony called Jerome, and had a picnic next to a stream in Oak Creek Canyon which was GORGEOUS! On our way home today we went to Montezuma's castle which is an old indian ruin from 1200AD (I think) that is in the side of a mountain. It was really cool!

Tomorrow is my next appt with the RE. Guess we'll see how everything is going tomorrow and get a better idea of when the next transfer will be.

OK, my nose is running and my head hurts....promise to post pics of the trip very soon!

Afternoon Delight!

2007-11-02T18:19:00.000-07:00

Ah yes...afternoon delight! When Sweet Bryan got home from Afghanistan, Aunt Flow also arrived so there was no nookie to be had. However, aunt Flow is GONE GONE GONE and so is my celibacy! Yayyyy!!!!

We are leaving on Sunday for a few days in Sedona, AZ which should be beautiful and for any of you who are into metaphysical stuff...Sedona is also known for its vortexes so maybe I'll have a moment of clarity while on a hike up there!

The other thing I'm looking forward to (besides more afternoon delight) is that the weather will be nice and cool and I'll be able to wear some of my sweatshirts and nice cozy winter clothes that I never have an opportunity to wear here in Southern Arizona!

Tomorrow I'm taking BFR to the spa for a massage. When my mom died, for the one month anniversary, she and 2 of our other friends took me to Las Vegas for a weekend that to this day is one of the best times I've EVER had! It definately took my mind off of my sadness, at least for a short while, and that's what I hope I can give to her. Her brother was killed in a plane crash on the 5th of October. We'll be in Sedona for that anniversary, but I thought that the least I could do was a spa day on me! I'm looking VERY forward to the massage, but the best part is that they put you in this steam room thing before your massage and its AWESOME. It's not a standard steam room, its like you sit in this individual pod that steams up. Then they take you to this room that reminds me of SOYLENT GREEN. You're sitting on a chaise lounge in your robe listening to beautiful music and the sounds of water flowing and birds chirping watching a waterfall with a video over the water of nature scenes. I just want to start screaming, "SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!!!!!" Have you not seen this old charlton heston movie? RENT IT! It's CRAZY!

I'm now on 5 units of Lupron a day and the hot flashes seem to be a lot less frequent...thank heaven! Also the night sweats aren't happening as often either. I'm also still taking 2.5mgs of prednisone x2 a day and estradial x2 a day too to build up the lining of the uterus. My next appt will be next Thursday on the 8th of November. We're starting to get close to transfer day...if the lining builds up like its supposed to the transfer could be as soon as the 11th or 12th of this month. Last time it didn't build up as quickly as it should have and I had to have an injection to help it along, but that was before the miscarriage and things seem "different" now. Can't quite explain it but things just feel different...reminds me of when I had periods when I was younger. The flow is heavier and oh I don't know...can't really explain it. It just feels like something has been corrected. I hope this cycle is the one that works and then just keeps on working!

I'm just...

2007-10-28T00:45:00.000-07:00

...one big hotflash.

I helped BFR move today and it was probably 85 or 90 degrees which isn't too hot by Tucson standards, but I just sat there and sweated. Sitting in her 72 degrees cool living room...sweat dripping down my face and back. Inside, outside, cool or hot temps...I was sweating.

I LOVE LUPRON.

DE FET#2

2007-10-25T14:22:00.000-07:00

So today I had another doctor appt. Aunt Flow arrived late last night and today I feel pretty CRAMPY....ugh! The cyst is STILL there - where would it go? It's so happy and comfy! MFRN told me that we can always do a little laparoscopy or laparotomy or something like that to get rid of it if we decide we need to. She said we could even do that if I was pregnant! That kind of surprises me, but hey! Whatever!!!

I've been doing Lupron at 20 units once a day. Now I'm to drop down tomorrow's dose to 10 units for a few days and then finally will drop down to 5 units until they tell me to stop.

Tomorrow night I will start the estrace to help the lining of the uterus to build up again. I'm well on my way and its exciting!

I heard exciting news from one of my braces bunchers last night, she was alone and her hubby was at work and she got 2 lines! I got lucky and was the one online while she was pondering the probability that it really was 2 lines! I can't say who it is in case she's keeping it on the DL...I just wanna say CONGRATS and good luck my friend!

My man is HOME. :)

2007-10-25T14:05:00.000-07:00

He's here! He's here! I can't believe it, he's really here! I got no sleep MondayBnight because I got about 5 million phone calls from Bryan and other people telling me that the arrival time has changed again and again and again! It originally was set for 5am. Then it was 6, then it was 640am. Then Bryan called me late Monday night night and said it would be more like 8am and that they were in NYC at JFK airport and he was stuck there. I breathed a sigh of relief because that meant he was back on American soil. Then they repaired the plane and at that point the crew had to have a required rest, so off they went and Bryan sat at the airport with 200 other guys for another 8 or 10 hours. Then they told me it would be 2pm. Then it was going to be 3pm. By this point I was so tired and still inmy pjs (it was 1230pm).

They called me back at 1:05 and said, "guess what? They are arriving at 1:45!" Me: WHATTTTT?????? ARE YOU KIDDING ME??????

I'm sitting there in my pajamas, not bathed, looking like pure SHIT and I live 45 minutes drive from the base and when they called me it was 40 mins from their arrival time. I was SO bummed and all I could think was that Bryan Kelley would be getting off that plane and everyone would have wives and children running up to them except for him! I drove like a maniac after throwing on clothes and throwing my hair up into a ponytail (so much for the fabulous haircut I got yesterday) and got to the hangar at the base where it was all going down. I could see the crowd outside welcoming the troops off the plane. I parked in a no parking spot, RAN RAN RAN as fast as I could, got out there, took some pictures and then realized he was in one of my pictures as he walked off the plane. I pushed and shoved through HUNDREDS of people to get to him and finally saw him and immediately burst into tears because I was so stressed that I almost didn't get there in time! This of course was the time when the reporter snapped pictures of me clutching him like my life depended on it and crying hysterically...Oh lord imagine me on the front page of the paper looking like that? (remember...no shower!) And then crying too?

Here's some pictures of the day...

As I raced through the hangar out to where everyone was greeting the troops, I snapped this picture...

And this is much the same but from a different angle...

This next one was a picture that I didn't realize had my man in it until after I'd taken it! He's the guy walking with the blue bag behind the girl.

Here we are...me looking my grodiest and him after 46 hours traveling...

There were tons of signs made, these were on the floor but they belonged to a kid whose dad came home.

And another one...this little girls mom is right behind her and she is a friend of ours.

There were signs everywhere...including this one stating the obvious...

There were about 3 million bags on this truck!

I'm so happy my man is home!

So are the puppys!

It was hilarious...they kept leaping on him and kissing him!!!

Less than one day...

2007-10-22T18:03:00.000-07:00

...until my sweet Bryan comes home! He will be in Tucson tomorrow morning at 6:40am! Yahooo!!! Can you tell I'm excited?

Today, in preparation for his return, the dogs were groomed and then I had my turn getting groomed too! I got a hair cut and color and it looks GOOOOOD! What else have I been doing? Well I steam cleaned the carpets and they look a THOUSAND times better than they did, I'm making zucchini bread (I have the BEST recipe! Anyone want it? Lemme know!) I have a candle burning, I'm washing the linens so everything smells good when he gets his first nights sleep in our comfy bed he's been missing for six months (he's been in a bunk bed!) and I'm just cleaning cleaning cleaning and cleaning everything...

Tomorrow night he wants to go to dinner, I'm letting him pick the restaurant since he's been food deprived for months on end of anything but chow hall food. I've invited 2 of our couple friends, V&S and M&M and also BFR too to join us in his welcome home dinner. It should be a blast!

He's not had beer for six months and I KNOW that's been killing him! So even though it's gonna be 6am I'm still taking a small cooler with cold beer in it to the base tomorrow morning for him and a couple for his friends too for when they get off the plane! OH and I got 2 giant bags of Tostitos - Hint of Lime flavor which are his all time favorite chips and he couldn't get them over there.

Can you tell I'm excited??????

He and I were supposed to be going to San Diego next weekend. I see in the news that San Diego County has had to evacuate thousands and thousands of people because of some terrible fires. I'm not sure where this leaves our trip. I guess we have to wait and see what happens. Could be a bummer!

On the cycle front, I just took my last BCP, I've been doing Lupron for five days, and so far only a few minor hot flashes and some night sweats. Not so bad really...my next RE appt is on Thursday for a wanding and bloodwork.

Lovely Lupron

2007-10-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm back to Lupron and I welcome the hot flashes and night sweats, oh and the exhaustion I get from the Lupron. Yes, I say I welcome it because it means I'm on my way to a new cycle. So Welcome Lupron, enjoy your stay, it will probably be kind of a lengthy one but I hope you enjoy my body, I'll try to make you as comfy as possible.

Will this be THE cycle? I hope so!

Life has been busy here at the land of Lara. I had landscapers here the other day removing trees and bushes, cutting back the remaining trees and cleaning up the yard. It looks GOOD! My sweet Bryan comes home from Afghanistan on Tuesday; and if all goes according to the schedule he'll be arriving at FIVE AM! Can you believe that? It means I will have to leave my house at 4am to get to the base in plenty of time. THAT means that I'll have to get up at 3am to shower and get ready! And cuz its been SIX MONTHS since my man has seen me and I can't be going all bed headed and in pajamas!

So here's what's gotta happen the next few days. Tomorrow I'm supposed to steam clean the carpet. UGH. Actually DOUBLE UGH. Hey I gotta do something so the house looks as good inside as it does outside. And there's a LOT of puppy stains on the carpet that need to come out and hopefully make my house smell a lot better. Then I'm going to take BFR's car to be detailed as a small thing I can do to welcome her home after dealing with the traumatic time since her brother was killed. Then I have to do laundry (no big deal, just time consuming) and I want to see if there's anything else I can do for BFR before her return on Sunday, maybe clean her bathroom. I dunno...we'll see. Sunday I pick up BFR at the airport in the morning. If she gets the keys to her condo that she's buying, then I'll be helping her all day to move stuff over from her storage shed to her condo. If she won't get the keys then she'll probably help me to move some big stuff out in the back yard. Monday, I need to get the dogs grooming appt changed from Tuesday to Monday now that Bryan will be home so early on Tuesday. I have people coming to measure my front door so I can get a security door installed from 10-12 and then I will be getting a haircut at 1:30. Somewhere in this next few days I have to figure out when I can go and get my legs waxed and maybe my eyebrows too! I'm gonna look like a rockstar when it's all said and done! Yeah right! Anyhow, as you can see, it's just gonna be a busy next four days!

As for my cycle, this is how things are panning out. When I went in on Thursday, Dr G said that the lining was nice and thick and then decided to keep me on the BCPs for four additional days. That means my last pill will now be on Monday. Which means I COULD be starting my period on TUESDAY. The day that sweet Bryan gets home! How's that for some fucked up timing!!! Lame I tell ya! So anyhow, my last pill will be on Monday. I go back to Dr G on Thursday for an ultrasound and bloodwork. I'm taking 20 units of Lupron each morning and am also taking 2.5mgs of prednisone twice a day. OH and guess what? Big old cyst is still there on the left ovary looking just as big as always. It always makes me laugh when they see it and go Hmm...look at that! I'm like ITS ALWAYS THERE! I keep asking them if its anything to worry about and they say not unless its leaking stuff that gets into the uterus which apparently its not? My thought is that they think when I am asking if its anything to worry about that I'm referring to my cycle. Actually I'm asking if its anything I need to worry about for my health. Like why in God's name is the cyst STILL there? Is this anything like CANCER that I need to worry about??? Or is it just a cyst that has probably been caused by all the infertility drugs I've been taking recently?

Sorry this post has been so here and there and everywhere...I guess I'm just thinking very disjointedly tonight.

Did I tell you I've started walking again? 2 1/2 miles a day. It feels good and I don't feel so BLAH. The nights are nice and cool again so its pleasant to go out and exercise...plus the yorkshire terrors LOVE going for their walks too!

I am not sure if I've mentioned my step brother before. He was diagnosed last summer with Leukemia. He's about my age (I think 38 or 39) and has a resistant form of Leukemia. Well back in September he and my step mom went to St Louis to a hospital for a Bone Marrow transplant. It's now been six weeks and as of this week's blood test there is NO SIGN OF LEUKEMIA in his blood!!!!! Yay! That's great news!!! I'm not very happy with him though. He is taking his mother for every penny she's got. He conned her into buying him a laptop computer that he NEEDED for while he was in the hospital (umm...aren't there places you can rent laptops?) and she of course bought it for him. Then he decided that Dell couldn't get it to him fast enough before he left for St Louis, so he cancelled the order and bought one at Circuit city that cost 200 bucks MORE! But it was a great DEAL because he got a FREE printer with it. Yes, my step mom paid for it. Also, he's been on long term disability while he's been so sick. That means he's getting only half of his pay. His aunt (step mom's sister) and her husband have been paying him the other half of his pay so that they are NOT in the poor house and are able to pay their bills. We recently figured out that he's actually getting MORE than he was making when he was working because he's not having to pay taxes on the money that his Aunt is giving him! THEN we found out that he's conned my step mom into paying HIS UTILITY BILLS all summer! So he's getting more money than he made when he was working, AND his mom's paying his $400 utility bills. This guy's getting a GREAT deal. We all see what he's doing to my step mom, she even sees it but in her mind its one of those, "well if something happens and he dies I'll feel bad if I didn't do EVERYthing I could while he was here" things. Dad says he hopes my step bro realizes he's getting his inheritance before the fact. I told dad that I hoped once my step mom runs out of money (which she will very soon at the rate he's sucking money out of her) that he didn't turn to my dad and start thinking of him as the the new bank! I can see it now that step mom will ask dad if he'll lend money to my step bro and dad will feel bad if he doesn't because he loves step mom. The sad thing is that step mom never gets to see her grand babies that live only minutes away from her because step bro's wife is EVIL. Step mom is the first person they think of to borrow money when needed but when step mom makes plans to take the girls to a broadway play or something else they'd like, it'll be a good plan until the day of and then the evil one will suddenly say "OH DEAR! THE GIRLS COULDN'T POSSIBLY GO THEY HAVE TO STUDY FOR A TEST!" When it's been planned for WEEKS! Step mom says she's closer to my sisters kids who live a thousand miles away than she does to her own grandchildren who live 5 minutes away! These same people had no car. My step mom had a car that she was ready to sell because she got a new one. Instead of selling it, she gave it to her son and family. It wasn't a gift. They were supposed to give her money for it, but they were going to make payments when they could. So a few weeks later step mom sees that they are driving around a new vehicle (not new, but new to them) and asks about it. THEY SOLD HER CAR AND BOUGHT A NEW ONE. They have NEVER given her one dime and that's been a few YEARS! OHHHHHH and remember how I told you they were getting all this money from his aunt and her husband to compensate for him not working? And then step mom has been paying their utility bills all summer? Well when I was in Tennessee we went to one of the girls' birthday parties. Guess who was toting around a NEW EXPENSIVE CAMERA? Like a $600 camera!!!!! The evil wife! They can't pay their utility bills but CAN buy a camera??? Geez I guess this has really turned into a rant....

See? Disjointed...I've got issues tonight apparently!

Aaarrghhhh!

2007-10-15T13:42:00.000-07:00

Today I called my MIL. I had not spoken to her in some time. In fact, its been since before the miscarriage that I had spoken to her. For awhile I felt bad that she never bothered to pick up a phone and say, "hey are you ok?" knowing I was trying so hard to get pregnant and had finally succeeded and then failed. Also because she knows that my own mother has passed away and she's my main maternal figure in my life. Oh and lets not forget that it might have been nice because I was here alone, with my husband in Afghanistan, while I had to deal with a miscarriage, yeah, it might have been nice that she call and check on me.

It would have been nice, but I am trying to let that go. I've come to the realization that its much like when someone dies, people don't always know what to say to make you feel better. It can be an awkward conversation and people don't want to upset you any further than you already are. So they don't call you until its "safer" to call you. Anyhow, I finally called her today. We talked about this and that and then she told me.

MIL: Well? I guess you probably don't know. No one's told you.

ME: Told me what?

MIL: Well? D is pregnant again. She didn't want to be, but she is.

ME: When's she due?

MIL: In April.

For God's sake why is EVERYone due in April when I would have been???? Not only that, but this is a girl who will smoke throughout her pregnancy, do drugs the entire time as well, and she and her husband are both ex-cons. She doesn't even want to be pregnant. Why God? Why??? I'm a perfectly capable person. I don't smoke, I don't drink very often, I live a clean life. I can even afford a baby. Why does she get pregnant and I'm not?!! It just seems very very WRONG!!!!

In terms of the new cycle, I'm now on day 6 of the bcp's and at day 10 I will stop using them and have another period. Please Lord don't let it be as bad as the last one! That was BAD! I go to the RE on Thursday and she'll get me started on the Lupron and we'll be onto another cycle. I hope this one is THE one. Please?

Aunt Flow is a FREAK!

2007-10-09T14:25:00.000-07:00

Yes, so AF is here and she's lost her damn mind! Usually by day 3 things are starting to slow down. Umm...no she seems to have forgotten that and is heavy heavy heavy! It's INSANE! I had my appt this morning with my favorite RN (MFRN) and after three days of bleeding, the lining of my uterus is still measuring 8! Looks like I'm not gonna be done any time soon!

OH and also, when I got undressed from the waist down, to my humiliation, I gushed and blood ran down my legs, all over my feet, onto the floor and the gynie table.

Good times.

I didnt even realize until I'd already sat down. So I sat there with a dilemma. Get up and clean things up, chance MFRN coming in while I'm undressed and not up on the table under my sheet, or leave it there and be horrified when she came in.

Good God people, THEN I looked under the sheet when I realized there was blood all over the sheet and it was EVERYwhere. I risked it and wiped up what I could, and then cleaned up my legs too. Good thing it was a paper sheet. I ripped off pieces to do what I could.

When MFRN came in she saw what was left of the mess and asked if I wanted a new sheet. I'm totally cringing just thinking about it.

OK, my humiliation aside, because the lining is still so thick, she didn't think it would all slough off in this period and she wants it all gone, so guess what? She's putting me on the pill for 10 days and then I get to have ANOTHER period! Aren't I lucky? I think I'm making up for the ones I missed in July and August and September! However, the fact that we're doing this means that I get to go to La Jolla with no problems, so I don't have to change dates! Yahoo!

So get this! I always get my Lupron from my REs office. $300!! I can't tell you how many of these I've paid for! So I decided today to TRY and get it at a pharmacy and see if Tricare would approve it.

It did.

Guess how much I paid for it?

$3. Not three hundred, THREE! Makes me sick to think that I've spent at least $1200 on lupron when I could have had the same stuff for $12! Ughhhh!!!! But at least I don't have to spend it this time right?

I am starting the prednisone therapy and in 10 days I'll start lupron and sometime in November I'll do the transfer.

I'm headed up to Phoenix for a few days and will be back on Thursday. It's gonna be fun seeing my neice and nephew. I just hope I don't bleed all over their bed/couch/car or anything else I might sit on at their house. I'm so horrified!

MIA

2007-10-08T09:51:00.001-07:00

Yes, I know, I've been missing in action for some time. I just don't know what happened.

There's been nothing to write about. I've been trying to get back into the swing of things here at home and getting caught up on chores here at home. That would make some interesting blogging eh? NOT!

I finished taking my provera. AF is here and man, is she here! Holy moly!!! I go back to see MFRN tomorrow and another cycle will begin! I feel optimistic because I know it CAN work, but will I be lucky enough for it to work twice in a row???? We'll see I suppose!

My sweet Bryan will be home in just 2 weeks! I can't believe it! I'm so excited I can hardly stand it! He'll even be here to help me while on bedrest and to go with me to the transfer too!

But get this. I planned to take him away for a few days to La Jolla near San Diego, CA. I even booked the hotel for the 28th through the 31st. Well only THEN did I do the math for my transfer. MFRN tells me that from the time you start your period count 19 days and that's when your transfer will be. Guess when it is? Yes...right in the middle of the La Jolla trip. BASTARD! I'm not changing the dates yet though. Last time it took a lot longer (like nearly 2 weeks longer) to get the lining of the uterus thick enough so I may get lucky! Only time will tell. Ugh.

So my BFR has had it tough lately. She's been living with us again because her FUCK of a landlord came home from Yemen and they had some words and then he gave her ONE day to get out of his house. I told her that she should not leave, make him pay to get her evicted, but she just wanted to be done with him. So she's living with me until she buys her condo! She's found a place that she loves and is excited to be a homeowner instead of a renter. Things are going better right? NOT. On Friday morning she got a phone call that her brother had died in a plane crash. OMG! It's so freaking sad! He has a wife and 2 little children (5 and 7). She's where they live now, and the kids are OK. The older one, the boy, has been taking his toy planes and making them fly and then he says stuff like, "this is how my daddy died!" and then makes the plane crash. OMGOD how brutal is that???? He owned his own plane, and was flying it back from California and no one knows what happened, but they found it after the fog lifted Friday morning beside a highway. He was the only one in it. Thank heaven, that if it had to happen, it didn't happen on a trip when he took his son (which he did all the time!). My friend is just devistated! She's one of these people that isn't very emotional. She shows her anger and is quick to cuss and scream about stuff, but she's not a cryer, but after her brother died was another side of BFR. It's just so dreadful and just goes to show you how fragile life is and how we just don't know when our time will be up.

I'm home!

2007-09-25T17:35:00.000-07:00

I'm SO happy to be home. It was a long trip, but a mostly good trip. Still, even the best of trips leave you excited to get home and sleep in your own bed again!

I got home on Friday last week and then this weekend my sister was here visiting me and helping to celebrate my big 4-0 birthday. Ugh. Not sure what to think. On the one hand I feel good and each and every year is something to celebrate. It's definately better than the alternative! On the other hand, its just yet another reminder that I still don't have a baby and now I'm in my 40's.

So I got the BEST gift. Yes I'm considering it a gift for my birthday, even though I'm quite sure the entire braces bunch received it as well! Anyhow, JJ at Reproductive Jeans sent this mix cd with songs full of meaning for infertiles and its beautiful! She even sings 2 of the tracks and can I just tell you? JJ has a gorgeous voice! Oh and she even put a song on there called Relax Max because everyone tells us infertiles to "relax" and it'll happen. Ha ha ha she's hilarious!

I had a doctors appt today. Dr G dildo cammed me and guess what? A Ginormous Cyst on the left ovary! SURPRISE! Are you surprised? I'm not. He thinks its a coincidence but I'm not so sure. Anyhow, they drew blood, and called me this afternoon and I have not yet ovulated. So I'm starting provera tomorrow and go back to the doc in 2 weeks. Then as soon as I have AF we will start a new cycle. I feel some tingles of excitement about that. Its like I know it CAN work now...its just a matter of doing it again! And this time keeping it!

OH as for the miscarriage. The results of the testing came back and they were unable to do any testing because there was not enough tissue to test apparently. Ugh. Weren't even able to tell me if it was a boy or girl. Maybe its best I don't know that. Might make it worse knowing that, more real somehow.

So that's where I'm at right now. Have been busy trying to catch up after being gone for so long. I'll try to blog more regularly now that I'm back though.

Road Trip part 2

2007-09-15T20:02:00.000-07:00

So I am still in Tennessee. However, I feel I need a vacay from my road trip! It's so exhausting being here because my dogs can not go out alone in dad's back yard. The reason is because his side gates are rod iron and the bars are wide enough apart that the yorkies can get through. Also the fence is one of these that is wood planks, but instead of them being side by side all along, there's gaps between the planks, and the person on the other side has the same thing and where your gaps are, their planks are and vice versa. Well...Miss Poppy (Or the pot bellied pig as my dad calls her) is little enough to be able to get between the fence...oh my god she's FASCINATED with whats on the other side and I am SO tired from chasing them and getting her out from between the fence! Plus they BARK NON STOP. And so does my dad's dog Elvis. The three of them together have me ready to check into the insane asylum so I can get some peace and quiet!

I leave the day after tomorrow and I am already missing the green of Tennessee. It's so beautiful here and the weather has been so pleasant...at 7pm tonight it was only 60 something degrees and it felt AWESOME! In a few days I'll be back in the land of BROWN and dealing with 100 degree temps again. Ugh.

I'll also be dealing potentially with a new cycle with Dr G! I have an appointment a week from Tuesday (September 25th) so we'll see whats what then!

Oh...and I'll be turning FORTY next Sunday the 23d. Forty! I always thought I'd have children by now. I always thought at least this year that I hoped to be pregnant before I was 40. I guess I was, but we all know how that ended.

Anyhow, I just wanted to check in and let you all know I was not missing in action, I've just been on vacation. Now I just need a vacay from my vacay!

A little sadness here and there...oh and zits!

2007-09-09T21:07:00.000-07:00

So I'll be sitting here at my Dad's house in Memphis, and I'll suddenly realize, "OMG, I was pregnant. I had a miscarriage." Its like it hits me all over again. It's not serious, it's just a reminder. I remember having these flashes like I had forgotten when my Mom died back in 2001 too. That was fucking rough. This is much easier to deal with. Maybe its the prozac I am on that is helping me. When I think back to dealing with Mom's death, and the year that followed it, I realize how BADLY I needed meds back then. People, I cried every single day for a year. A whole freaking year! It was well deserved crying, but even I who did it think its a bit on the extreme side! Anyhow, then I put the two situations together and realize that my mother has now met one of her grandchildren and I'm sure she's rocking it right now to sleep. That comforts me.

I was doing some tattoo research tonight (uhhh...because I might get a second one on my way back to Tucson!) Anyhow...I was doing research and what I read said that cherry blossoms which is what I have in my tattoo can mean life and then it said something about the fact that cherry blossoms flower for a very short time, so that makes it all the more meaningful when you think about the reason behind my tattoo! By the way, the tattoo I'm considering getting now is a white daisy on top of my toe (which will probably hurt like a BITCH!) and if not that maybe a few stars or something somewhere on either the top of my foot or on the inside of my wrist. I dunno...I've even been looking at sun tats! Who knows if I'll get anything else...we'll see!

So life in Memphis is just ordinary every day life. My dogs refuse to go out in the wet grass to do their business and I've had to resort to leashing them and taking them down the block to get some business out of them! They are wet grass snobs and just don't like to get their delicate paws wet! You should see them lifting their feet up way high as they go through wet grass...its hilarious! Its like they're running on tip toes through the grass! What else...Oh I've been doing a jigsaw puzzle that my sister started when she was here and didn't finish. Umm...Oh and dad and I had Pei Wei for supper tonight...exciting stuff eh?

I MUST remember to call the RE tomorrow and cancel my appt that is set for Tuesday and reschedule it! If I don't I'm a LOSER!!!

I hope everyone else is doing ok, I'm trying to keep up with blogs while I'm here but I'm not managing it too well. Soooo...hope all is good with you guys! Peace out!

My tattoo

2007-09-04T20:12:00.000-07:00

A few of you asked about the tattoo and how much it hurt. The truth of the matter is that it depends on your pain tolerance and also where you get your tattoo.

I got mine on the outside of my right leg, above my ankle. That's not such a painful spot but it did hurt. It hurt to the point that I was going OOOOOOOHHHHH, SON OF A BITCH, and FUCK a few times...but my eyes did not even well up with tears from the pain. I could EASILY do it again!

I hear that if you get it on top of your foot (which is what I originally wanted) that it hurts like a MOTHER! and there are other areas that are more sensitive too....I think the rule of thumb is that the more padding you've got between where you get the tatt and where the bone is the less it will hurt.

Now, how did it feel exactly? That's hard to describe. It's like when you put your hands into really really hot water and it almost feels cold, but you know its really just so hot it feels cold? Well that's kinda how it felt. I just don't know how to describe it. Or another way of putting it is if you took a piece of metal and got it so hot that you could brand someone with it, but its pen shaped and they stick it on you? Except its not as painful as I would expect it would feel to get branded. Oh and it was my first tattoo, and I had been under the impression that you would bleed when you got a tattoo, but I didn't! There is a video of me getting my tattoo...not the entire thing, but just for a few seconds when I did not know I was being filmed, if I can figure out how to upload that to here I will, you'll get the idea of how I felt while it happened at least! I think I compared it to being in labor! Every few seconds he'd work on me and then he'd stop so I kept saying it was like another contraction when he'd start again! Silly! I'm sure labor is WAY worse!

Thank you guys so much for all the comments on my tattoo. It was fun getting it and I love that there's significance behind it too! On my myspace page, I have added my tattoo artist as my friend and I sent him a comment that I love my tattoo and he wrote back and said, Cool! See you in a month! Implying that I'm now hooked and will soon be tatted all over the place! hee hee Silly boy!

Road Trip!

2007-09-02T20:01:00.000-07:00

Well here I am writing to you from beautiful Memphis, Tennessee! I left on my road trip on Wednesday the 29th. I drove to Phoenix, Arizona that day and had dinner with a friend and her husband that night. I pressed on the next day and went to Albuquerque, New Mexico which by the way is my home town! I stayed with my friend K that night and her brood. By the way, I have the Yorkies with me, and until now I would have said they were NOT good at travelling in the car! However, they've made the turn and are now quite good car riders! I guess they'd have to be after the three full days of car riding they've had this week! OK, so where was I? OH Yeah...Albuquerque. My friend took me out to dinner, and got me liquered up on a really freaking fantastic Margarita! Then she took me to her favorite tattoo joint and I GOT INK!!!!! I've wanted to do this for some time, but just never had the inspiration for what I wanted. It's a huge decision because its permanent but I finally figured out what I wanted!

So here's what I got. I got a ladybug (ladybird for those of you in England and maybe Australia) with 10 dots on it and in the middle is a heart. The dots represent all the cycles I did that have not worked. The heart stands for the cycle that did work. The ladybug represents my little bug that I just lost. Then, just so its not boring, the tattoo artist added some vine and flowers. I LOVE IT! My friend said that she thought the ladybug should represent me and the heart the baby and the rest of the dots the cycles that didn't work...either way it makes sense!
OH and here's a photo!

So anyhow, that was a very late night and I had originally planned to leave ABQ that next morning very early. NOT. It was so late after we got the tattoo, and then my dogs couldn't settle that night that I got very little sleep. I ended up sticking around ABQ until 4:30 the next afternoon!!! OMGOD! I drove that night until 1:30am. That's Oklahoma time! Yes, I managed to get my booty to Oklahoma City, it was a very long drive for a very tired person, but I did it. I slept til 9:30 the next morning and then I got up and drove another 8 hours to Memphis and here I am! Yay!

Post D&C appt

2007-08-28T14:08:00.000-07:00

OK, so Dr G was very happy with my ute this morning. Said it looks "nice and clean". He said that the lining is very thin, and doesn't know if its on its way out due to the D&C or if its a new lining. Then he checked my ovaries. Remember the cyst? Well there's a small cyst on the left. He said he couldn't tell if it was the old cyst or a new one developing for a new cycle. They drew blood again to check the Hcg level and that was pretty much it. He released me so I can go on my road trip to my dad's. Oh and I don't have to wait very long to try again. I just have to have ovulated and we can start over! That's exciting news to me! As he walked out the door he told me I could do anything now...even sex. I looked at him and said, "well Bryan's in Afghanistan, I better not!" He doesn't get my sense of humor because he goes, "well.....OK.....then DON'T". Hee hee hee!

So I got through day 2 of no crying in a row! Yeah!!! I didn't even cry when Costco told me it was going to cost me $440 for a set of four tires! Anyhow...things seem to be looking up for me and I'm sooo glad!

My SIL Dawn called me (as she's been doing daily since all this went down) last night and she's kinda pissed at the rest of the family because NO ONE else has bothered to check on me! I've got enough on my mind without that worry but now that she mentions it, it does hurt my feelings a little. Especially because they know I'm alone out here.

BFR has disappeared again. She called me the night of the D&C and told me all about her argument outside of her house with her landlord. She was at a bar. I told her to come over instead of sit at the bar. She then asked what happened with the baby...I told her I'd lost it and had surgery that morning. She said "that sucks" and then we moved onto another subject. She came by, I was still kinda out of it because of the surgery but we talked about her fight with her landlord, she didn't ever ask me again about the surgery or how I was feeling. She did at one point (on the phone I believe) ask who took me to the surgery. I told her my friend V did. She said nothing else about it. So she left that night, and I have not heard from her since. I just had a miscarriage. I just had surgery. You'd think she'd at least CALL and say Hey are you doing ok? Do you need ANYthing? SOMEthing. I think she's pissed off now because I didn't ask her to take me to the surgery. Maybe pissed isn't the right word. Maybe she's gotten her feelings hurt over it. I dunno. All I know is that I hadn't seen her since mid july BEFORE I got pregnant. I wasn't about to ask her to HELP me the first time I saw her again with something like that. It just didn't feel right. Maybe I'm imagining things...guess we'll see as time goes on. What I do know is that this whole "lets ignore Lara" thing to punish me is getting OLD. I don't know if that's what she's doing, but that's how it feels. She's supposed to be one of my best friends. I wish she'd act like one again.

Day by day...

2007-08-27T00:23:00.000-07:00

...that's how I'm getting through this. Day by day, sometimes hour by hour or minute by minute.

But I AM getting through this.

I actually made it through today without crying. I can't say the same for yesterday. Seems as though yesterday was a really bad hormonal crash day for me. I cried and cried and cried, OH and I cried some more. Jeez it was NON STOP. I couldn't control it in any way shape or form! But today? The world doesn't seem so bleak and blah.

I actually got out of the house today. It took me until 6pm but I did in fact take a shower (hadn't had one since last Wednesday!!!!) and get dressed, put on make up and leave the house for the evening. I had no one to go out with, but I went out none the less. I went to the local indian casino for an evening of BINGO and slots. I lost $60 between bingo and slots but whatEVER....it was enjoyable! I enjoyed myself! That has to be a good sign that I'm on my way out of this black hole right?

I am sure I'll still have some downs but at least I had an UP!

It still seems so surreal to me that this time last week I was looking forward to the ultrasound where I might see my baby's heartbeat, I was still pregnant, I was still excited, I was still nauseous. How much can change in one little week ya know?

How am I feeling physically? Well I have some cramping, but nothing I can't manage. I have only had to take tylenol one time for the pain. I also have a back ache, oh and a headache, but I think that's because I've gotten into the habit in the last week of clenching my teeth together. I'm still bleeding, but it's very light. I thought it was getting heavier and it did for a moment but now its back to very light bleeding. I seem to bleed a bit heavier when I'm active (walking around as opposed to lying down on the bed or couch). I'm mostly OK.

I dreamed this afternoon or maybe it was last night that I had a little baby and I was nursing it. I also remember thinking, wow...I'm nursing. No one has shown me how to do this, but me and this baby are just PROs! I felt proud. Then, as dreams do, the baby morphed into my little poopie (the yorkshire terrier). And no I wasn't nursing Poopie, but I was carrying her around in some performance I was doing...weird!

The other day I dreamed I was out with 2 children (my neice Hallie and my nephew Jackson) and my friend and her child (Rachel). We stopped at a gas station and there were TONS of people there, like an unusually odd amount of people, like the amount you'd see at a fair! Anyhow, the kids went into the store while I pumped gas into our vehicle. I turned around and wondered where my children were and what was taking them so long in the store, then I turned around again and the vehicle that was there was not my vehicle, although people were trying to tell me it was. And then I freaked out because I lost my children (suddenly they were mine and not neice and nephew)! (Gee, wonder where that dream stemmed from??? Me losing children - that's a no brainer) And me and my friend (it was K in Albuquerque) were riding around after that with some cops who were supposed to help us and then all of a sudden one of them had to go home, which was all the way across town, but if we didn't take the cop he'd get in trouble (with his parents?) and I kept telling K, we gotta go, we gotta go find the kids! She kept saying, it's OK, we'll find them. Lets just have some fun first! Then the dream faded away and I don't remember more...but it was disturbing none the less.

Ok, so I have one question. What I want to know is WHEN WILL MY BOOBS STOP HURTING???

Alone and miserable

2007-08-25T11:26:00.000-07:00

That's how I feel. With the exception of the internet community and a few friends and family members who do not live here, I am suffering through this completely alone. I'm at my lowest of the low and it's very dark and disturbing being here. I'm normally very upbeat and optimistic even through all the normal every day bullshit, I can find humor normally.

So anyhow, I'm lying in my bed this morning, waking up with a killer headache and swollen eyes because I cried myself to sleep last night, when I hear a knock at the door. Normally I'd freak out because I look like shit but I could care less right now, things are that bad.

So I go to the door and its a flower delivery person! I think it must be from my sweet Bryan or his parents (neither of which had I heard from since the D&C). I accept the delivery and open the card. It's from LEAH!!!!! How freaking sweet can one person be???? She doesn't even know me except through my blog and the Braces Bunch, thank you Leah! Thank you, thank you, thank you....you made me feel just a little less alone in this and I really appreciate it! They are beautiful and yes you made me cry but it was good tears, not miserable tears! It was such a nice surprise, it helped so much to know I am really NOT alone, I've got you guys and even though none of you live here in Tucson, at least I'm not doing this without ANY form of a support network right?

OK, I'm going to cry a little more, because that seems to be my only form of entertainment these days, that and also the fact that I can't seem to stop the tears anyway...but the flowers? Lovely diversion - thank you Leah!!!

I was wondering...

2007-08-24T11:13:00.000-07:00

...why noone had posted any comments after my D&C yesterday. I clearly remember posting about it, but still no comments. So I checked my blog today and well? No post about the D&C. Maybe I dreamed that I'd posted? I was pretty out of it yesterday so who the hell knows!

So I went in, they put in the IV, knocked me out, and then it was done. I feel no pain today and only have light bleeding. I did however wake up in the middle of the procedure and felt a LOT of pain. I remember the nurse grabbing my hand and I squeezed it so hard because it hurt so much. Then it was over and I slept. When she came to help me get dressed, I asked when they were going to do the procedure and she said they already had, then I remembered the pain. So afterwards, my friend V who took me to the appt, took me to the grocery store so I could fill my antibiotic prescription. While waiting for them to fill it, I walked drunkenly through the store getting food so that later in the day when I woke up I'd have some food without having to go out.

I then went home and slept all day long. I think I woke up about 6pm and fixed some french bread pizzas (that's what I selected in my drunken haze to have for supper while at the grocery store). I also got bread, peanut butter and chocolate milk. OH and cookies.

Today I feel blah. I feel OK physically, but down and just blah. Mostly I'm OK, but every once in awhile tears will well up for no apparent reason. I thought about going up to Phoenix to see my sister this weekend and to meet a friend for lunch, but my nephew is sick and it would be too much to have the dogs up there with Jackson sick. So I guess I'm just gonna stay here and veg.

If readers were wishes...

2007-08-22T21:44:00.000-07:00

...I'd be rich with rides to the doc tomorrow! You guys are the best. I couldn't ask for more or better support while going through all this bullshit!

Just thought I'd update and let you all know that I did manage to find a ride. I sucked it up and called a friend who didn't even know I had been the P word and had to explain it to her...and lost it on the phone while explaining it of course. I just wrote an email to someone and told them how the emotional rollercoaster of a stim cycle is NOTHING compared to the hormonal fluctuations of a miscarriage. One second I can handle this like it's nothing and then the next I am a blithering idiot and the change can happen in 2.5 seconds. It's like being bi-polar, very very bi-polar.

Bry called me for the second time tonight because he wanted to make sure I was NOT taking a taxi home from the doctors! He said, "I know how you are after that anesthesia, you're completely out of it, and you don't know the taxi driver, it could be some weird-o who takes you and does stuff to you and you'd never even know about it! OR you could just disappear off the face of the planet! YOU ARE NOT TAKING A TAXI HOME!" If I hadn't found someone he was going to start making phone calls to people here in Tucson at the base to arrange for a ride home for me. Isn't that just the sweetest thing? That's why I call him my Sweet Bryan.

D&C Maybe...

2007-08-22T14:03:00.000-07:00

Went to the doc this morning and they drew more blood...I'm guessing to make sure the Hcg is still going down like its supposed to.

We are tenatively scheduled for a D&C tomorrow morning at 8:30. That is unless my insurance won't cover the D&C in which case I'll be just waiting for it to happen on its own. If its covered then they are going to do an analysis on some of the matter they remove to see if there was anything that would make a difference in the future for me.

My problem now is that I need a ride home from the doctor's office after the procedure. Ordinarily I would ask BFR but she and I have not seen each other in over a month now, we're talking again, but I don't want the first time she sees me again to be me needing help from her, it just doesn't feel right. Then there's my friend who went with me to the sono on Monday, she's a good option because she knows everything already and I'm not gonna have to explain anything again (which will get the water works flowing). However she lives about 45 minutes from me, so she'd drive all the way here, then back past where she lives to the doctor, then all the way back to me, then all the way home...its a lot and she's got some disabilities, so I'd hate to overdo it with her ya know? Then there's my sister. She lives in Phoenix an hour and a half from me. I offered to pay her gas to come down here but her son is sick. So then I said well to cut down on travel time, maybe I could fly you down one way and you could take my truck back? But again her son is sick and she doesn't want him flying.

So what? Do I need to take a fucking taxi home from my D&C? I don't want to call any of my other friends because they don't even know I was the P word and I just don't want to go through the whole thing including the whining that would be sure to come because I hadn't told them I was pregnant!

Why...

2007-08-21T23:11:00.000-07:00

...do I feel so alone?
...do I feel so MAD?
...can I not stop crying?
...am I feeling a pressure to put on a brave face at the doctor's tomorrow?
...does this have to happen when my Bryan is not here to help me deal?
...does this have to happen at a time when BFR and I are working our way back into being friends but not good enough yet to call her and cry on her shoulder?
...do I have to disappoint EVERYone in the family?
...can't I be normal and just get pregnant like most people?
...can't my Mom be here to help me through this?
...does this have to SUCK so much?

It's OVER.

2007-08-21T20:39:00.000-07:00

My bloodwork came back and Dr G called me tonight and my new Hcg number is 50. So it's definately not viable and I'm definately going to lose it.

I asked him about the fact that we saw the heartbeat (although I couldn't see it...my friend saw it and so did MFRN), and he said well that sometimes we just REALLY want to see the heartbeat. That there is some movement (from my breathing or perhaps even my own heartbeat) and that's what we see and it gets mistaken for a heartbeat. So that explains that.

Plus, the fact that we saw the embryo and sac, all I can say is that my number had been higher so that's why we could see it, but its dropping quickly.

So I take no more injections and will let nature take its course. It just sucks that I got so far this time and now we have to start completely over. This is so unfair. I feel like I got off infertility island and had my own little secret that I was walking around with, and then someone caught on, one of the fertiles, and now I'm being kicked back to infertility island.

You know what REALLY sucks? Besides this loss of course. The fact that we told Sweet Bryan's terminally ill mother, hoping to give her a little something to live a little longer for, and now it's all gone to shit. I don't want to tell her. I just don't.

My life sucks. How do those of you who have suffered similar losses do it? This is so much worse than a BFN after the 2WW.

Thank you guys for all the comments of support yesterday. It means a lot to me.

For FUCK's sake.

2007-08-20T20:27:00.000-07:00

OK, so todays ultrasound went well. We saw a heartbeat and one little sac. MFRN told me that the embie is measuring 4 days behind but that's nothing to worry about. She also said the sac is a little small. I didn't have any concerns. Then she drew my blood and I asked about last Friday's results from the bloodwork.

She said, I don't know, let me see if they're here yet. She comes back in and says that my progesterone is right where it needs to be. Then I say, "and the hcg?" She said well it came back at 237.

Two HUNDRED thirty seven?

YES.

2 weeks ago last Friday my HCG level was 105, its supposed to double every 2 to 3 days. It should be in the THOUSANDS by now.

She said it may end up in a miscarriage. I think that's her way of saying it WILL be a miscarriage but letting me down easy.

Then on my way home, tears running down my face I realize that my boobs don't hurt anymore. That's gotta be a bad sign.

My only hope is that perhaps there was a lab error? I don't even know if that's possible in this day and age of computer generated reports.

FUCK.

Ultrasound confusion...

2007-08-18T09:01:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was my ultrasound. I thought I'd be seeing a fetal pole, heartbeat perhaps, however, I was WRONG! The doc spent most of the appt looking at my ovaries. On the left I have a cyst....takes me back to the good old days of before the transfer when we were looking to see if my lining was good and I STILL had a big old cyst on the left ovary.

Doctor G was like, "did you take Lupron?"
Me: Yes
Dr G: "Hmmm...there shouldn't be anything on the ovaries if you took Lupron, and you have a cyst on the left"
Me: Hmmm...

Then he checked the right side, everything was fine.

Then he moved onto the Ute. The poor neglected ute got about 2.5 seconds of sono time. Long enough for him to find one pregnancy sac and then he got out of dodge.

Are there more in there? I don't know. Is there a heartbeat? I don't know. How far along am I? I thought I'd figured it to be 7 weeks, but the doc said, "around 6 weeks".

All I do know is that I go back for another sono on Monday afternoon...I hope I leave that appointment with more clarity and less confusion than this one!

Cast Iron Constitution

2007-08-16T10:49:00.000-07:00

Or so I thought. I've never been one to have stomach problems, or get light headed, or anything like that. Yesterday I was walking in Walmart, pushing a cart that had my 5 year old niece in it. I felt so ill and just KNEW I was about to pass out. My face was just sweating non stop and I KNOW it was NOT hot in there. My stomach was also bothering me...I think I went too long without some food in the old tum tum.

Tomorrow is the scan. I am TERRIFIED. But at the same time I am EXCITED! Actually every few seconds I go from one feeling to the other in a constant state of excited/terrified!

I wonder if I'll find out I've graduated at tomorrow's appointment to a regular OB? I hope not. I feel very secure there, I LOVE MFRN and I am not ready! I need to know its coming, I need to ease into the transition ya know? It makes me feel a little panicky that I won't have my "team" behind me anymore. I guess I'll get a new one, but I like the old one!

How have I been feeling? Well here's how. CRAPPY. No its not all morning sickness either. I've had some of that, including yesterdays' near passing out at Walmart, but I have a cold. It's not a major cold, but its enough to leave me with a slight sore throat, slight headache (enough to want to lie down all the time) and just general not feeling good.

OH and before I go, I should update you on BFR! I let it all blow over. It wasn't worth it to keep it going. She's too important to me. I also told her about my BFP. She wrote back and said, "I'd congratulate you, but since you may have four I'll wait until the ultrasound as you may need my sympathies!" I thought it was hilarious!

OK, I'm off to sleep a little and hopefully feel better when I get up!

Never thought I'd need a pad this soon...

2007-08-13T23:24:00.000-07:00

::sigh:: Yes, I'm having to use a pad. I'm gushing blood but I do have to say I'm relieved! RELIEVED you say? RELIEVED? How is that POSSIBLE??? OK, so its NOT a miscarriage, those of you who I just freaked out can start your hearts again, all is good with the quads, as far as I know! So let me back up and explain. This will definately be a TMI post - if you can't deal with gross things DO NOT READ FURTHER.

10 years ago, yes this story goes WAY back. Anyhoo...10 years ago I got an abscess on my ASS. About an inch from where you poo. I didn't know what it was, having never had them before, I thought it might be hemorhoids (? spelling ?). I tried suppositories, I tried all sorts of things but I was in such major pain and finally got a terrible fever of 103. Even though I was embarassed and begging Bryan to NOT MAKE ME GO, he dragged me to the emergency room. Good thing too. Found out it was an abscess and they did surgery, it was the size of a small grapefruit by the way, spent days in the hospital, took me weeks to recover as it was an open wound and had to heal from the inside out. Left a divot in my butt too. Yes, I managed to tell that story without anything really gross...yay! I'm pretty proud. Don't think that I'll be able to continue with that for long though.

It recurred a few times, always in the same spot, but by then I'd done my research and now know that I need to do sitz baths in really really hot water to draw it to the surface. It eventually busts open and oh Jesus...the sweet relief! The smell? DISGUSTING...combination of blood, pus and bad breath!!!! See? Told you I couldn't manage to keep the gross stuff out for any longer!

Anyhow, it hadn't recurred for YEARS! I always think its a combination of my eating better and exercising more that has kept it at bay. Anyway, ever since I got my BFP, I've been having pretty regular diahrea. I think that scratched or irritated SOMEthing on the inside as it worked its way out and all that bacteria got in the scratch or cut, and well ladies, here I have been since Friday bed ridden, by myself, writhing in pain, and taking sitz baths of hotter water than I'd EVER want to be in every 3 to 4 hours! (for those of you freaking out about being prego and the hot baths...I only sat in 2 inches to 3 inches of water to keep everyone safe) and OH lets not forget that this time I could only take 2 tylenol every 4 hours...normally I would have been ODing on something a LOT stronger to help with pain management. The pain? MISERABLE. Worst pain I've ever felt. Before anyone says wait nine months - I dunno. I'll let you know then!

So anyhow, today at about 1pm I suddenly realized that I was in considerably less pain and that I could move around a LOT easier without agony. I checked and you guessed it...it burst! Yay!!! This was not as big as the original first one I had, but it was probably the size of an orange I'd say! So that's why I'm "on the rag". It SUCKED really really bad and I hope none of you has to ever go through anything like this....especially when you can't take anything stronger than 2 tylenol! It was a lousy weekend, I'm so glad it's OVER!

It was so bad at one point that my sister and her kids came down to help me. I couldn't prepare food for myself (not that I was hungry), I couldn't take care of my dogs, I couldn't sit could hardly walk...it was just BAD. I'm soooo glad its done!

Thank you to every one of you who responded to my Dear Anonymous post. You guys are just great people and I'm glad to see that it wasn't just prego hormones bringing out psycho preggie girl! Thanks for your support!!!! I'm also just glad to put up a new post and get that old negative vibe off the top of the blog!

Dear Anonymous

2007-08-10T22:36:00.000-07:00

I can't say I appreciated what your comment said today. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, here's what he/she said:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "BF R":

K...with those numbers theres no way there are quads in there...and with your husband gone all the time you shouldn't pray for anything more than a healthy singleton...unless he plans to stay home and help raise his family...

WHAT THE FUCK CRAWLED UP YOUR ASS? AND I'D REALLY LIKE TO KNOW WHO THE HELL YOU THINK YOU ARE????

Firstly, you don't know what you're talking about. The fact that I had low betas does NOT indicate a singleton though that may be exactly what I end up with and I'd be fine with that. I know of a woman in Albuquerque, NM who started off with low betas similar to mine and guess what? A year ago she had TRIPLETS. OH and even if I was PRAYING for multiples - that's my business. I will do what I want to do! This blog is a priviledge to you and all who read me. I do not have to share ANY of the things going on in my life, however with infertility I choose to write about my experiences because there may be someone going through the same thing. So like it or lump it and keep your opinions to yourself unless you have something truly constructive to offer, or even a little support!

Secondly, I don't really think that there are four in there. I've been referring to them as the quads because we transferred four and until I know otherwise I've been calling them the quads. Maybe you should read a little more of my blog before you presume to think you know ANYthing.

Oh and lastly - my husband. And this is where you really went wrong.

"and with your husband gone all the time you shouldn't pray for anything more than a healthy singleton...unless he plans to stay home and help raise his family"

My husband will be a wonderful father. He may be gone from time to time but that is not the same thing as being gone "all the time"! My husband is in the military and is deployed to the middle east for six months. He made a deliberate decision to go, he VOLUNTEERED. Not only to serve his country but to help us regain some of our IVF expenditures. He's NOT gone all the time, and that said, it doesn't mean he WILL BE gone all the time when we have children!

I'm very proud of my husband and what he does for his country, OH and if you're American, anonymous commenter, he's doing it for you too. That said, just because his job sends him away from time to time for a few months does not mean that he wouldn't be here 95% of the time helping to "raise his family", so get off your FUCKING high horse! You don't know my husband, and luckily for me (and maybe you're not so lucky?) he is the most family oriented person I've ever met and probably wants children even more than I do. DO NOT imply that my husband is a deadbeat dad! Your comment is unwarranted and callous!

If you don't like what I say then DON'T READ ME!

Due to this IDIOT commenter who didn't even have the guts to leave contact info, I've changed my settings so that I do NOT allow anonymous comments any longer. If you can't tell me who you are then don't bother commenting! I apologize to all the wonderful, kind, SUPPORTIVE people who have commented anonymously because this may inconvenience you - you can thank the ANONYMOUS IDIOT for that!

BF R

2007-08-09T22:26:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I sent BF R an email. I sucked up and apologized even though I don't really think I did anything wrong. I empathized with her because she claimed to have had a bad couple of weeks, I said not one word about my transfer.

She did not respond to this email.

Until today.

Thursday.

Nearly a week later!

What did she say? Well nothing about the stuff she was mad about. She sent me an email just as though nothing had happened! Told me about the stuff going on with her. And then there was one line asking how work was going, how the girl I'm training is doing, oh and how did my transfer go????

I suddenly found myself getting even more angry. Yes I'm very happy she FINALLY wrote to me. But then a part of me is really REALLY mad because NOW she's asking me about it?

NOW?

Now that its been nearly a MONTH since I did the transfer??????

Where was she in the 2 week wait?

Where was she when I needed some support through the beta week when I was concerned that the numbers would not rise like they were supposed to?

Where has she been all this time I've been waiting for the ultrasound next week while I'm sitting here terrified that the ultrasound will not go well.

OH and lets not forget that I'm doing this alone and she knows it! With Bryan gone it just compounds the issue I think!!!

Ugh. My sister, who is very level headed, suggested that I'm getting what I really wanted by her writing to me. I should be happy and just let it all blow over if I really want to be friends.

I think what really got me going was that I sent her an email that was very apologetic, and she sent me one that gave nothing back! No reciprocal apology of any sort! She is very stubborn and I know that just sending the email to me, with discussion of the issue or not, was hard for her and I can appreciate that so I imagine that it will probably blow over - unless psycho preggie shows up, you know, the girl being driven by her hormones because of the little blobby quads in her belly.

html question

2007-08-06T23:01:00.000-07:00

Does anyone out there know how I can make my page look not so crowded together? I noticed that when I cleaned up stuff in my sidebar that it got moved to the bottom. When I did that, I had LOADS of room on top for my posts and my font was bigger too. Then I realized it was the Waaaahhooooooo that I posted in my 200th post that was way too long and caused the sidebar to push down. Once I fixed that, now everything runs into each other (the right side of my blog runs into the side bar) and its really bugging me! Not only that, but the left margin has now moved in considerably, why does it have to all be squished together!!! Does anyone have any sort of a fix for me? HELP!!

A prego symptom I had forgotten...

2007-08-06T22:23:00.000-07:00

When Stephanie and I had our lunch the other day we both discovered we had a similar symptom that we did not realize was a prego symptom!

Both of us described it the same way. You get up from either sitting or laying down and it feels like you pulled a muscle on the side of your abdomen. It's an odd feeling, but it doesn't happen too often, and it certainly doesn't last too long. I wouldn't have thought of it as a symptom at all except that we both had it...odd no?

I did find in my what to expect when you're expecting something about a pulling sensation and that its perfectly normal...I guess that I just didn't recognize it for being that until I looked it up.

Still feeling tired, not so queasy though, and still having occasional cramping. Does the cramping eventually go away? It seems to be coming less and less often and I keep wondering if that is what its supposed to do or if that's a bad sign.

We told Bryan's folks tonight. Bryan called on a morale call (15 minutes) and I did 3 way calls to everyone. Bryan kept getting cut off and we'd have to recall which was annoying but at least this way we got to tell them the news together! His mother wasn't home, and there was no way to take it back to a 2 way call without hanging up on him so we just chatted away on her answering machine and then left the message for her that we're knocked up! She was thrilled, and she's very ill so I hope this gives her something good to keep her going. When she called me back she said, "I didn't even know you were trying!" Well she did. I think she's just too sick to remember, poor thing. We told her 6 or 8 months ago when we did a cycle and when we got a BFN she acted like we had had a miscarriage and cried for days! I mean she was even aware that we were going to the infertility doc! OH well...she's on some good pain meds now apparently! She's got other things to think about than my doctor appointments!

Then we told his dad and step mom. His step mom answered the phone and I told her that Bry and I were arguing and maybe she could settle a bet for us. She goes OK, and I said OK Bryan tell her. So Bryan goes, well we heard a rumor that you're gonna be a grandma again. She goes "No, not to my knowledge. Not anyone here in Georgia." Then Bry goes well I must have forgotten to mention that it was out west! She started SCREAMING!

Then I told my sister in law, Dawn. Dawn was so excited she nearly wrecked her car (she was driving at the time). She whooped and hollered and screamed and was SOOOO excited!

Haven't told my father and step mom yet. I plan to go out to visit them at the end of August for Dad's birthday, and I'll surprise him with it then!

My sister was sooooooo excited to hear she was going to be a Titi! Her voice got that excited sound that mine makes when your throat tightens up and you kind of squeak! She's out visiting my dad right now and so she's keeping my secret for me, although I'm sure it's killing her to tell them!

So nearly everyone knows now.

Everyone except for BF R.

She's not speaking to me.

She hasn't even ever asked me how my transfer went, how many they transferred or how my test went.

She's mad because the day before my transfer we had plans to go to the spa. My friend from ABQ, NM called me that thursday before and asked what I was doing that weekend and I told her how excited I was to go to the spa on Sunday and she was like HEY WANT COMPANY? Of course! The more the merrier! Suddenly R didn't want to go. She's only met my friend K one time for a few minutes. I don't know what her deal was, but she missed out on the spa. She made all sorts of excuses...you never get to see your friend, just go and have a good time. You and I go to the spa all the time, its no big deal, we'll go another time. You were more excited to go than I was, its not a big deal. blah blah blah...and then she suddenly cuts me off? Because SHE chose not to go??? Even if I didn't want K to go with me (which I did) to the spa, what was I supposed to say???? I mean give me a break! Anyhow, its preying on my mind because BF R has been there through thick and thin with me. She's been with me for one or two of my transfers, she drove me to my HSG and Endo. Biopsy. She was there when my dog died, she was there for me when my mother died.

She's just a really good friend.

And she doesn't know my cycle worked.

But part of me is furious and says, "FINE. I'm not gonna tell you because you couldn't give enough of a shit to even ask how it went and this is a HUGE thing for me and you know it!"

The other part says, "we've been friends forEVER and she deserves to know, even if she is being stupid about the spa thing."

Even if she had any validity for being mad at me (which she doesn't) would it really warrant not speaking, emailing, calling, visiting, texting me for over 2 weeks???? I almost feel like she's ruining the good news of my BFP. That her not speaking to me is bringing me down! OH and then there's a very real possibility that she'll make it up with me eventually and then find out that I'm the P word and then she's gonna be angry that I didn't tell her!!!

I feel like I can't win.

And it sucks.

Summer Cleaning

2007-08-05T13:26:00.000-07:00

Yes, I finally did what I've been needing to do for some time. I cleaned up the sidebar! People were in entirely the wrong categories and I added a new category - The Braces Bunch. We've gotten to where we have so many members that I can't remember who was in it and who wasn't so now you're all where you're supposed to be! Oh and ALPHABETIZED!!! Let me know if you use a link that doesn't work or if something looks messed up!

Lunch with Stephanie yesterday was GREAT! We had such a good time talking blogs, early prego symptoms and such...it was great! I also got to meet her family, including a sister in law who apparently is one of my readers! Yay! I felt famous for a few seconds! :)

I slept for 10 hours last night! TEN! And this morning I woke up with so much energy and I actually got some stuff done around here that seriously needed doing! For example...the trash that's been overflowing and needing to be changed for AT LEAST A WEEK and was stinking up the joint? I managed to change it. Also did some dishes and laundry...OH and lets not forget the revamping of my sidebar! I feel very....accomplished! Oh there's tons more to do...the house is FILTHY, its grossing me out, but I can't get too crazy...I'm supposed to be taking it a little easy ya know? I spent so much money to get to this point that I'm not doing anything that might jeopardize anything! Doesn't help that Sweet Bry is gone so I have noone to help me with stuff either.

I'm also having a little trouble with the "P" word. It doesn't feel right yet to say I'm "P". I hear myself saying things like knocked up or with child, and even those don't seem right. Just feels too early...maybe after we do the ultrasound and I see everything is in there like its supposed to be.

Lord what if I really do have quads?

Yeah I know...this is a rambling post....

Sorry!

2007-08-04T10:37:00.000-07:00

I had some technical difficulties yesterday with my internet connection and couldn't get here to post!

Dr G called me yesterday afternoon and told me that my numbers were rising nicely. I asked him what the number was and he said, "Well over 100". WHAT? I wanted a more precise number! It should have been about 140 if it truly doubled, however he says it's WELL OVER 100. What does that mean???? Anyhow...he was happy with the numbers and so we scheduled the pregnancy ultrasound for 2 weeks from yesterday which is August 17th. How in God's name will I survive that long without either a Beta or an ultrasound or SOMEthing?

I've noticed that my nausea has tapered off some. I'd been getting it in the afternoons, and the last few days it just hasn't been there. It worried me, but then I realized that I still have the sore boobs, the cramping (although there's a little less cramping than there was before) and the tiredness. I'm not going to stress it as long as all the symptoms don't go away.

Remember my heparin bruise on my belly? Well I showed MFRN on Monday the bruise and she was somewhat horrified and told me to give my belly a break and so now I am injecting it on the inner thigh. It's not quite as pleasant a shot as the belly, I think that area has more nerve endings, but it could definately be worse! And the best part is that it doesn't seem to be bruising up like the belly did. There's a few little bruises but nothing like the belly!

Today I am having lunch with Stephanie at A Few Good Eggs. She's in town at a local resort called Canyon Ranch. It's gorgeous out there, and I haven't seen her since December, and she also just got a BFP, she's about a week ahead of me, so we're going to compare prego symptoms!

OK, gotta go...sorry it took me so long to post this!!! I know some of you (LEAH) were here stalking my blog waiting anxiously for the news! I'm sure there were a few others but she was definately the most vocal about it!!! :) Love ya Leah!

Wow...post #200!!!! updated

2007-08-01T20:49:00.000-07:00

What a day. I'm exhausted. I bet you are too...yeah you...the ones who've been stalking my blog ALL DAY LONG looking for beta results!

Well let me tell you about my day. First of all, I went into the docs office to have my second beta drawn. When I got there, there was no hoopla, no congratulations, nothing out of the ordinary, but I'm guessing that's because it's all a little premature. It's very early days, and a lot can happen, especially with my low first beta. So they drew my blood. I left the office with nerves of jelly, a knot in my stomach, and a little less blood.

I went into work and spent the day training the new girl. I've been doing that all week and its part of the reason it took me so long to post about the peeing on sticks that happened this morning...yeah yeah I'm getting to it! See with the new girl there, I can't keep my email up, I can't check myspace and I can't blog either! I'm actually having to work for my paycheck. How ANNOYING! So anyhow, I have to resort to lunch time or after work to do that! So please forgive me for the delay!

I expected to get the results back after 3:30 pacific time, and was planning to leave work at around 3 again just to be away from work when I got the news, but Dr G beat me to it. He called me at 2:45! I stepped outside and braced for the worst.

DR G: Lara? Looks like you doubled nicely! We wanna see you back on Friday for one more beta, and then if all still looks good we'll get you scheduled for the pregnancy ultrasound!

Lara: WaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! THANK YOU DR G!! I COULD KISS YOU!!

OK so I did and said neither of these but I could have! And I did do it in my head! Happy dancing commenced after I hung up and then I went back to work and finished up my day.

So after work, I went home and went directly to the bathroom and looked at the pee sticks. Both of them had the FAINTEST FAINTEST positive lines! THEN, because I'm retarded that way, I dug through the trash and pulled out the one from yesterday...it too has a faint positive line now! I SWEAR IT WASN'T THERE YESTERDAY!

Then I went to Barnes and Noble down the street and bought a pregnancy journal and organizer. I'm waiting to start writing in it until after beta #3, just in case. This is the one I got! It's small, but has spots for everything I wanted...and will remind me of what needs to be done before the beans arrive (should I say the quads? or is that just pushing my luck?) Anyhow...here's the book I got...

After rereading this last paragraph, I suddenly feel like the girl who's new to infertility again. The one that says, when I get pregnant from my first IVF. Not IF, but WHEN. I feel like buying this book is being presumptuous...yikes! I think I've been infertile for way too long!

Then I went home and got the yorks who've been DYING to go to the dog park all week but I haven't taken them because I was too tired when I got home all week and napped through dog park time! I decided that I should take them today and they had a BLAST!

Then I came home and sweet Bryan called to see how today's beta went. He said he was nervous to call...scared it would be bad news....but it WASN'T!

And lastly today is my 200th post! And what a great way to celebrate #200 than with good beta news! And it's ABOUT TIME TOO!

**update** I should probably mention that I found out my actual first beta # and also what the second beta was. Mondays beta was 37 and todays was 70. It's not true doubling, It should have been 74 if it was true doubling, but its close enough. We also didn't do it at the same time of the day either...there's a few hours difference. Regardless, Dr G was very happy and so am I!

This morning...

2007-08-01T11:27:00.000-07:00

...I POAS twice. I did it at 6:21, when my eyes automatically fly open each morning even if I don't have to get up that early. I did the deed, and left them. I refuse to look until I get the results back from the blood draw. I figured if they were both negative it would ruin my day and I'd most certainly get bad news from the doc. Soooo...they are sitting there waiting for me to get my news.

The blood's been drawn and I am currently waiting on results. They won't call me til this afternoon after 3:30 my time (I'm on pacific time currently). If it didn't do what it was supposed to do they will consider it a chemical pregnancy.

But lets just hope it did do what it was supposed to do!

I got a different one...

2007-07-31T22:54:00.000-07:00

I went out tonight and bought a different kind of stick to pee on! Tomorrow morning I will be armed with a little cup to catch pee, and two pee sticks...one I bought today and one I already have (the kind that hasn't given me a positive yet!). We'll see what tomorrow brings. Tomorrow morning is also my second beta, keep your hangers crossed (that's what my neice Hallie calls fingers) for me and I'll let you know what tomorrow's beta is when I get it!

Please God let it have doubled! More than doubled if possible!!!

What the FUCK!?

2007-07-31T16:56:00.000-07:00

DAMMIT! I POAS this morning, very excitedly I might add, and it came up NEGATIVE???? I thought it would at least be positive because it was at 40 yesterday morning and this was 24 hours later. I hope this isn't a bad sign that the beta's going down. Guess we'll find out tomorrow. I have nothing else to report. Thanks for all the well wishes and congrats, but I feel like it's all a bit premature for the moment...I hope there's good news with tomorrow's beta, then we can all celebrate again and do the happy dance!

So I've told him...

2007-07-30T20:04:00.000-07:00

...and now I need to tell you.

This morning I went in, did my beta, and then the waiting began.

The day crawled by. I left work at 3pm. I did not want to get that news at work, especially in front of the new girl.

I went home and at 4:30 the phone rang. It was Dr G.

Guess what?

POSITIVE!

Can you believe it??? I can't. My first EVER postive beta!

However, I have to be only cautiously optimistic because my beta was low. He said it was only 40. Actually what he said was it's ABOUT 40. What does that mean? It was actually 35? Ugh. So I have to go back on Wednesday for a follow-up beta, which I'm sure I would have done anyway, even if the number was good. I think as long as its doubling like it should its still OK. Maybe it was a late implanter?

So here's how I told sweet Bryan. I'd read on SOMEONE's blog recently...who? Was it you? Please let me know if I stole your idea...

Anyhow...I read on someone's blog recently that they told their parents by making a card that had her picture and it went along the lines of those credit card commercials that say roll of film, $5, Dress for the occasion, $65, The look on your faces when you realize its not just me in this photo, PRICELESS!

So I sent him an email that had my picture and poppys too and underneath I wrote something like, "I sure wish I could see your face when you realize that its not just me and poppy in this picture". Poor sweet dear husband did not realize what this meant. He called and was all, "I could only see you and Poppy". Who else was in the picture? I said, think Bryan, think really hard. It's not someone you'd see yet. He finally got it. In fact he was screaming whoops of joy in the USO lounge and said everyone was staring at him!

And hey, if all goes well I can now get a t-shirt that says, "my doctor got me pregnant" or "Work of A.R.T. in progress" or something!!!

Keep your fingers crossed for us that the beta doubles accordingly!!!

Yahoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

ps-Tomorrow morning first thing I am POAS! I need to see the proof with my own eyes!!!

Tomorrow's the big day...

2007-07-29T21:01:00.000-07:00

Ugh and I'm feeling anxious about getting it overwith as well as wishing it would never get here because it's so final an answer. Does that even make sense? I'm sure some of you'll understand that feeling.

So symptom check: Still having the cramping. Boobs still sore. Still off and on feeling nauseous. Tired too. Nothing new basically.

Tomorrow I have to work after my bloodtest. I'm planning on telling them I have to leave at 3pm though. My results are due to come back any time after 3:30 and I don't want to be sitting there at work when I get the results. Not to mention in front of the new girl I'm to be training. Ugh...I'd much rather be by myself somewhere that I can lose it if I need to.

Oh and here's the deal regarding my results. You won't like it either. I'm not posting my results tomorrow. I would, except that my sweet Bryan may be checking my blog to see if I have said anything, and I don't want him getting the results from my blog. I want to tell him. So sinse there's no way that I can tell all of you and guarantee that he won't find out, you all won't be finding out until he knows. I know that sucks...you've all been with me each and every long freaking step of the way. But you will know...just not as immediately as I'd like to make it! I know I'll have some friends calling me to see what the deal is...and I may not even answer my phone unless its Bryan. It's only fair that as little as he's had to do with this cycle that he finds out first.

I'm so freaking nervous I don't know what to do with myself. I keep going back and forth between fear and well actually its all just fear. Fear and more fear. I just absolutely HATE the call from the RE. Dr G is nice, but I so prefer my favorite RN, and I know her better. And he mumbles and sometimes I don't understand him. And he always always starts the call with how r u feeling? Which always makes me think it worked. Then he says well, I'm sorry but it was negative. Ugh. Then instead of letting me go so I can freak out he keeps talking and talking about stuff...usually I don't even hear him because all I can think is, "I need to get off the damn phone" or "don't cry don't cry don't cry yet".

Good luck to Reproductive Jeans, her beta is also tomorrow, and I really hope she gets a BFP! Also, wanted to add congratulations to Baby Blues as she got her BFP and so did Steph at A Few Good Eggs who got an AMAZING beta!

OH and I forgot...

2007-07-27T23:44:00.000-07:00

Some of you after seeing my horrifying heparin bruised belly told me that I should not be rubbing it or putting an alcohol swab on it after the shot. I've totally been doing that because it burns going in! So that probably explains why my bruises are SO bad! I wish someone had told me before I looked as though I'd been in some serious accident or something!

11dp3.5dt

2007-07-27T23:30:00.000-07:00

Well I just don't know what to think. Remember when I said the sore boobs weren't as sore as they had been? They're baaaaaack. Sore as SHIT! Wait, can shit even be sore? Feh. You know what I mean! Also, I've noticed a little trend. Each afternoon for the last few days I've gotten nauseous and also gotten the runs (sorry for the TMI). Just keep in mind that it probably means NOTHING. Progesterone can probably be blamed for most of my symptoms (with exception of the runs...usually PIO causes the opposite effect).

I have not POAS again. I think I'm on strike! But don't think I'm not tempted.

Todays symptoms: SORE ASS BOOBS, cramping off and on, when on its some serious cramping, nauseous in the afternoon, and tired.

So I had a little scare tonight. Took the pups to the dog park, and everyone was having a good time when Poppy started acting funny. She wouldnt stand up, didn't seem able to, and she kept lifting her left paw up into the air, it seemed like she had no balance. She'd been drinking a lot of water, more than normal, but it was damn hot out there so I didn't think much of it. Well when all this started, I thought perhaps she'd overheated, so I picked her up and took her to the water fountain and I got her wet all over to try to cool her off. She still was acting weird, so I decided to go to the emergency vet (because of COURSE it was after hours for my vet, these things NEVER happen during normal hours!). We get out the gate of the dog park and suddenly she vomits tons of water all down my side. After that she seemed a little better, but I noticed that she was making these little groaning noises and wasn't up to snuff still really so I took her to the vet anyway. They think she got ahold of a toad! They said they see this at least once a day in this season of the year. I don't know how she would have gotten ahold of a toad without me seeing it, but that's what they think. It has 2 poisonous glands on top of its head and all she'd have to do is mouth it and the toad would zap her with the poison. The vet said its kind of like getting maced. It messes up your equilibrium, makes you out of it, makes you throw up, so while I did not see her get ahold of a toad, I am assuming she did. She threw up again in the car, but was feeling much better after 3 hours at the vet. She's not 100% yet, but I think a good nights sleep will do her wonders. Her stomach isn't upset anymore because she's showing interest in food, and she's giving kisses again...both good signs.

What a day...

And now for your viewing (dis)pleasure...

2007-07-26T20:57:00.000-07:00

And its getting bigger and blacker each day! What you can't tell in the picture is how big it is. It measures about 8 inches across by about 6 inches up and down. That's a BIG bruise! I have to say that its much more impressive in person though...I kind of feel disappointed that the photo doesn't really do the bruise justice! Oh well...........

Wrong side of the bed. (10dp3.5dt)

2007-07-26T13:33:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's where I woke up this morning. I feel out of sorts, angry with the world, and like my current cycle did not work. I also POAS with another negative. I think I'll wait to do it again on Monday morning, or maybe not. Ugh. It just all feels so hopeless and I just am starting to wonder why its not happening for me? When will it be my turn? Why does my infertility have to be unexplained? If we knew why we might know what to do to make it work. I'm soooo tired of doing all these cycles, getting my hopes up, then getting them dashed in misery on Beta day.

Todays symptoms so far include cramping way down low, sharp hard cramping as though AF is starting. Also the boobs hurt. I woke up and they didn't hurt at all, but now they do. Go figure. Hope's jerking me around. Fucking Asshole Hope. Also, clearly I'm feeling moody today (I'm normally a fairly happy go lucky kind of girl...bad moods are rare for me).

I'm planning to take a picture of my heparin bruised belly tonight because it's horrifying and amusing at the same time. I noticed that the lesser bruised part of the bruise is now neon bright highlighter marker yellow! The other side which is much more bruised is dark black, red and oh a few other colors. It's pretty! Just promise me when you see the photo you won't be shocked by the belly fat, only shocked by the bruising! I'm going wayyyy out on a limb here taking a photo just for YOU, dear reader, just for you. So no jokes about the belly (but you CAN joke about the bruise, just no fat jokes)!

9dp3.5dt

2007-07-25T21:53:00.000-07:00

Well this morning I POAS, with one out of the new pack of them I bought yesterday. It was definately negative. No faint line, no doubt about it this time. I'll try again tomorrow.

I definately feel off my game. I've been feeling nauseous all afternoon, had rumbly tummy, and extreme tiredness. I took a nap as soon as I got home for an hour and a half. The boobs still hurt, but honestly they don't hurt like they did, so I don't know what that means?

The bruising from the heparin has gotten so bad that it's now climbing up closer to my bellybutton and I can see it coming out the top of my panties - its BIZARRE! Maybe I'll brave a camera and take a photo to share with you all. Not that ANYone wants to see a photo of my belly, but this is so crazy that it might be worth it to share.

I've been having cramping all day today too. It's been stronger cramping than I've been having since the transfer. It got so bad a few times today that I had to stop and say OH! and grab my stomach briefly. I just don't know what to make of it all. A lot of it can be explained away by the PIO, I'm just not sure what to think. This has been a VERY different cycle than the others...any thoughts or assvice?

Petty

2007-07-25T12:19:00.000-07:00

I think I've mentioned that I am filling a spot at a newspaper until they hire someone? Well there's a girl who works here who has it out for me. It's really REALLY stupid and its trying my patience! Here's the story...

When I was out last week for my transfer/bedrest days, this girl, lets call her Jane, was to cover for me at this desk. I gave her a list of exactly what needed to be done. She did very little of it, but I think its because she got a bunch of work dumped on her by her boss. I was annoyed when I came back and was WAY behind, but that's all it was, annoyed.

So, last Friday, as I'm wading through all the work that was behind, Jane approaches the desk and says OH well I see that you found out I didn't get everything done.

I said Yep, I saw.

She got into a snit after I said that. I probably said it with some annoyance in my voice, but I wasn't mean. It certainly wasn't enough for her to not speak to me and turn on me the way she has! She actually spoke to my supervisor and told her that I wasn't very nice to her!

So ever since this happened she hasn't spoken a word to me. Doesn't really bother me, she's not my friend, and she's not anyone outside of work that I will see. However its starting to affect other things. For example, I had to run a bunch of reports for the department I work for, and our printer is not working; so of course I'm having to use the printer in her office. It was a rather large report and at some point it ran out of paper. I filled it with what was left and got a new ream of paper and opened it and put a little more in. My report finished and I took my things and went back to my cubicle.

So I come in this morning to find out from my supervisor that Jane sent her an email telling her that if I am using her printer I am to REFILL it because I left it EMPTY! Is this RETARDED? So after my report finished printing, I was supposed to open the printer drawer, make sure there was paper still in it, and add some more?

This kind of CRAP is why I do not work full time any longer!

8dp3.5dt

2007-07-24T20:15:00.000-07:00

So guess what? I did it. I POAS this morning.

Result?

Negative.

I THINK.

Why do I think and not know? Well there are a couple of reasons.

First of all, when I picked it up and put it in the light and turned it JUST SO, I could see a very very faint shadow of a positive line. However, when you look at it straight on there's nothing, negative.

Second of all, the test could be faulty because it had an expiration date of March 2007.

Third of all it might just be too early for a real positive.

Todays symptom poll -

Sore boobs - check
Feeling slightly nauseous and have indigestion - check (however I might be imagining the nausea?)
Exhausted and ready for bed at 7pm? - Check!
Cramping - check

I went to costco and bought a four pack of pee sticks today so I'll post the results as I get them.

Yeah, yeah, I know...I just got through saying a post or two ago about how fast the 2ww is going. I guess that's because the first part of the 2ww is spent having a transfer and doing bedrest, and then all the appts stop and you just have to WAIT. And WAIT. And WAIT some more.

Very quiet weekend...

2007-07-22T21:56:00.001-07:00

I did nothing! Yesterday was a pajama day from beginning to end! Today was much the same except that I actually got dressed and went to the dog park.

You all should see my stomach, not that I would give you that displeasure, but the heparin is bruising my stomach like crazy! It's out of control! Its like I got hit with a couple of baseballs, all yellow and green and blue - pretty! And heparin BURNS! No one told me that before I started to take it. Sometimes it doesn't burn at all, but most times it does sting a little. All in all though it is bearable.

So someone asked me when Beta is. It's set for July 30th. That's another week.

Also, someone told me not to POAS til 9 days after the hcg injection. Well I don't have that worry, because with FET, there is no egg retrieval and therefore no hcg injection!

Lastly, I think I may have misled a few of you with those photos of my FET. That was not my undies with the words "it's all about my hoo haw", it was just a napkin at the restaurant we had lunch at before the appointment!

So my boobs are hurting BIG TIME. And my lower back is hurting. And I've been having a pressure in the ute.

Today is 6dp3.5dt. All in all its going pretty fast so far. Only one week to go before we test. One week down already!!! Wonder what the quads are doing in there? Are they grabbing on? Are they still there? Are they dividing and multiplying their cells? Are they fighting with each other? Or the best of friends already. I'm just hoping they haven't all jumped ship deciding that its an inhospitable environment in there. Out of four wouldn't you think that at least one would hang around???? Sure hope so...

Back in the real world...

2007-07-20T22:55:00.000-07:00

Anyone else think its a positive sign that I have a bruise from the PIO injections that is shaped like a heart?

Well I'm back in the real world again. It felt so good to get up and get moving again after laying on my back for three days, but I'm glad I stuck with it. It'll be worth it if it works, right? I went back to work today. It was a really busy day but that's good because it kept me from daydreaming too much about if this cycle will work. It also kept me from thinking that there's no way this could work either.

I try visualizing it having a positive outcome each night when I go to sleep as I clutch my good luck green stone that was blessed by the reiki master.

Not much else new...my house is awfully quiet now that there's no company and I feel a bit lonely. It was such a good week between good friends visiting (K and I have known each other 26 years!) and my sister and her special little ones who just gave me tons and tons of love. I imagine I'll take a day to adjust, and I'll be just fine!

As for how I am feeling. Today is 4 days past a 3 1/2 day transfer. My boobs are VERY sore (odd considering that I normally do not have sore boobs and never have in all the cycles I've done). Also I have been feeling some weird crampy pressure in my abdomen. Seems as though each of my cycles have all been very different in how I feel in the 2 week wait, so I can't say that these are anything that mean anything, ya know? What I do know is that I am PUPO! (for those of you not familiar with the acronym it means pregnant until proven otherwise!)

Next question. Will I POAS? I don't know yet. I'm very tempted to start doing it now knowing its too early and if its a BFN I won't be crushed--yet. ORRR I might wait and POAS on beta day after I do the blood test but before I get the results. I just don't know yet. We'll see how bad I crave doing it in the 2ww!!

My view...

2007-07-18T10:58:00.000-07:00

This is my view from the couch where I am spending my days. I am only getting up to go to the bathroom. I am laying flat on my back (95% of the time). My back is ACHING from not being able to change positions, but I'm dealing with it. Only one more day and I'm back off bedrest.

K and G have now left and in their place is my sister K and her babies Hallie and Jackson. Hallie is 5 and Jackson is 2, and they are very entertaining. I have a St Jude statue that has been broken (head was chopped off) and a vertical blind that was ripped out (not repairable) but they are my joy and its magical to spend this much time with them. From my couch I yelled something back to my sister who was in the bathroom at one point last night. Jackson looks at me and says, "what did you say?" as though I had something VERY VERY BAD. I said Oh nothing sweetie, I was talking to your mom. He said "what did you say?" I said something like what I had yelled to his mom. He said, "what did you SAY?" as though I had not yet told him. This went on for awhile before I got smart enough to ask him if he was going to watch how to eat fried worms with his sister and he got distracted!

So right now K and company are at the swimming pool and I'm here alone in the quiet solitude that is my house. I guess I am going to go and watch some more TV. Or read my book. Or knit for awhile. Or stare at the ceiling in boredome. Yeah. This bedrest is BORING.

FET #1

2007-07-17T16:24:00.000-07:00

Well I did it! I had a bit of rumbly tummy when we got there, I had to go BAD! But of course, there was no way I could go because the bladder needed to be full! So I suffered through, all the while worrying that when the time came I would blow explosive diarrhea all over Dr G while he was trying to insert the catheter full of embryos! And yes, I said embryoS! They thawed out one straw of embies and all FOUR made it! They all looked good and only one was slightly fragmented, the rest were perfect!

My friend K and her mom G came out for the weekend and to help me yesterday. We had such a good time! I haven't laughed like I did this weekend in years!!! They helped me document this transfer by taking bunches of pictures. We are total nerds, which you'll see in the pictures!

First of all, here we are, me, K and G at the spa in our robes on Sunday!

Here's a picture of K and I as we were getting ready to go to supper one night!

Well, its true isn't it? When you do an IVF or an FET, it IS all about your hoohaw!

Here we are waiting for Dr G to come in and do the transfer!

And lastly, here I am being goofy while I lay there for 30 minutes after the transfer!

Virtual World Tour!

2007-07-16T10:16:00.000-07:00

Are you ready? It's gonna be quite a trip (or not?) Hope you are as entertained as I am!!! Did you pack enough clothes? I hope for God's sake you brought your flip flops and shorts because it's H.O.T in the A.Z.!

First of all, here's a picture of a map of our destination! The first picture is a map of the united states. Arizona is east of California, west of New Mexico and below Utah.

Next is a map of Arizona itself. Tucson is down south. We are located about an hour and a half north of Mexico, and an hour and a half south of Phoenix, our capital.

Now onto the good stuff!!!
This is one of our fabulous sunsets...although I've personally seen better! This is the view from the dog park!
Next we have one of Tuson's famous landmarks. This is San Xavier. It's a catholic church that was built back in the 1700s by the Spanish in their attempt to convert the native american's to Catholicism. It's still a working church too! And it's still on an indian reservation.
This is in my backyard. It's called a century tree. So they say, it will live 100 years, bloom flowers and then die. It looks like an Aloe Vera plant that's gotten WAYYY out of control! For perspective, I had my friend K and her mom stand there so you'd see how big it really is!
These are my favorite birds in the whole world! They are called Gambel's quail. They will make nests in my backyard, or in my planters and they have teeny tiny little babys! They crow, and can fly, but are mostly walking around on the ground.
These are the guys who have killed my hanging geraniums! However, I've got lots of baby birds around the back porch! They are mourning doves and there's a MILLION of them around here! They're something of a nuisance!
This is the entrance to my subdivision. It's called Countryside Heights.
And this is my house!
Here's my mailbox where all the braces bunchers mail comes!
And this people. This is what Arizona likes to think of as a FOREST! It's a forest of cacti and it's called the Saguaro National Forest!
Here's the dog park. Isn't it nice that they give the dogs their own waterfountain? If you look close, you'll see Rowdy is trying to get a drink!
This is where I work. This is a newspaper press!
And this is my desk when I work there!
Here's Starbucks! I can't survive too long without my starbucks!
And this is the highway. They city got really smart and decided to close 10 exits in a row, all at once, for THREE YEARS!
And lastly, here's where all the magic happens today! My RE's office!
I hope you've all enjoyed this little tour of Tucson! I had fun, did you?

OK, now I gotta run and get ready...today is Transfer Day!!!

Heaven

2007-07-16T00:46:00.000-07:00

That's what today was. My friend K and her mom G came to town yesterday and we all hit the spa today! Swedish massages and facials for us girls and it was BLISSFUL!
I wanted to do something that would relax me as much as possible before tomorrow (transfer day) so the spa was perfect!

Then we went to the tattoo parlor. I don't have any ink (yet!) but I've always wanted to. I couldn't decide on a design and I wanted to be 100% sure before making such a permanent decision so I walked away. HOWEVER, I had told my sweety that I was going to do it, so when we got home, I sent sweet Bryan a note on myspace and told him that I'd gotten 2 tattoos. One of Rowdy and one of Poppy and they were on each of my boobs and when I flexed my boobs, it looked like they were barking! When K and I were discussing this earlier it seemed hilarious, and it still does to me (I'm VERY slap happy!). Not sure if this is one of those you had to be there things though. K and I can be total DORKS! I can only imagine the look on Bry's face when he gets that myspace message! Plus there's nothing in it to let him know I'm joking! That only makes it funnier to me!

So my little embies should be thawing right now...I hope they all make it! I've been holding my green stone (can't think what its called, but I sent a bunch of them to the braces bunch, either that or a pink quartz heart). Anyhow, I've been meditating each night thinking about what it would be like to be pregnant or to hold a baby in my arms. I'm gonna take it with me to the transfer tomorrow too. It might seem silly to some, but it certainly can't hurt! Besides, it was blessed by a reiki master! AND since sending out these things to the braces bunch, 2 of the girls have gotten pregnant and one has adopted quite suddenly!!

OK, so the transfer will be at 1:30pm pacific time tomorrow (Monday the 16th). Think of me, cross some fingers, send a prayer up to God, and think good positive thoughts for me and my embies!

It's gonna work. It's gonna work. It's gonna work. It's gonna work. It's gonna work. It's gonna work. It's gonna work. It's gonna work. It's gonna work.

Have I mentioned?

2007-07-13T11:36:00.000-07:00

PIO shots in the thigh hurt! Oh no, not when you inject them (although there's occasionally a shot that goes wrong and does hurt a bit), I'm talking about the next day. You wake up and its as if you worked that muscle out hard yesterday and you've got to limp everywhere! My leg is SO damn sore today. I'd almost forgotten what this was like!

On the upside? I got to stop the Lupron on Wednesday (only to start the PIO Wednesday night).

My friend K and her mother are coming out to visit me this weekend. They know I'm here alone and about to go through this transfer. So they're driving out from Albuquerque tomorrow, we're getting a spa treatment on Sunday (facial and massage!!!) and Monday is my transfer. They leave on Tuesday and my sister and her kiddos will come down on Tuesday to help care for me while I'm on bedrest the other three days, so I'm pretty much gonna be taken care of!

I've been working for the newspaper again, filling in for someone. The dogs are having issues with me being gone. I come home to find the remnants of their little tantrums each day. Some days its just some random bit of bathroom trash (a tissue?) and some days they've gotten ahold of my shoe and started to eat it! Yesterday I came home and found that the yorkshire terrORS had managed to get ahold of the bag (that I thought was securely tucked away where they could not get it) that was full of my PIO needles. Yes, they had a needle party and I'm just glad no one got hurt! Needless to say, when I got home there were 1 1/2 inch needles EVERYWHERE and they were all chewed up! Bad dogs!

I'm going on VA-CAY!

2007-07-09T23:59:00.000-07:00

Wanna come? You're welcome! Kinda like the love boat around here ya know? Anyhow...where are we going? Well it's a world tour! Ladies (and gents? There must be at least ONE of you out there) we're taking a tour around the world on virtual blogger airlines! All you have to do is sign up with Patience at the Impatient Patient, take some pictures of where you live and post them on your blog on the 16th of July. Think it would be boring? Not to someone who lives clear on the other side of the world, and believe me, there's people from EVERYwhere doing this. We're taking pics of our REs office (not the signs with the docs names - just the building) and pictures of what its like to live where we live - street signs, our homes, whatever! And then on the 16th we go to Patience's blog and go to the tab called virtual world tour (I think that's what it's called). There should be links to each of us participating on that page! Even if you have no blog, you are still welcome to participate. Patience has volunteered to post the pics on her virtual world tour page if you upload them and get them to her! Sound fun??? I think it's going to be a blast! So come on and go with me! I'm already packing!!!

Finally!

2007-07-09T23:13:00.000-07:00

We have a date! My transfer is set for next Monday the 16th of July!

At the RE today they did a lining check (read ultrasound) and the lining, thanks to the super dose injection of the Estradial, is now an 8 up from 5.97 on Friday. I start the PIO injections on Wednesday night and wednesday morning will be my last injection of lupron! Yeahhhh!!!!! No more doctor appointments until transfer day either!

OH and the cyst that wouldn't go away has finally made the turn and is on its way out of my ovary! It really hurt me on Friday and friday night, it was just aching and aching! I got worried about it. Then I felt nothing on saturday or sunday so I thought maybe it had finally burst. At todays ultrasound it was WAY smaller...yay! I was starting to worry that it would burst after the transfer and would shoot a bunch of toxic cyst juice through the fallopian tube into the ute and poison my embies!

I'm still working for the newspaper. It's OK. It's hard though getting used to working full time (although with all my doc appts its not really been full time...not to mention a holiday in the middle of last week). I imagine by this Friday I will be exhausted though after a full week! Wonder how long it'll take to hire someone to fill the job I'm covering for. OH and I wonder who will be training the new person? Yeah...I'm guessing me. ME who works only OCCASIONALLY. They're NEVER gonna find someone as good as they had. It's too bad it didn't work out with her. She worked for them for a really long time and she was such a hard worker. They offered to hire me, but I declined. With all the infertility stuff and bryan's mom so sick it's not fair to them knowing I'll be out so often. Plus after this transfer works, and I have the baby(s) I want to be a stay at home mom. Also, it's soooo far from my house and I don't wanna do that drive full time. A week or two at a time I can deal with but not endlessly! No thanks!

You know what is getting old? There's a girl who works there. She's one of these granola types (read tree hugger). Anyhow, I'm sitting there today and I'm SWELTERING. The air conditioner is on, I can hear it. But it's sooo hot! So I mention it to the department head. She goes, yes I'm hot too (I thought it might just be a lupron hot flash, but apparently not). So she walks over to the a/c unit. It's on but SOMEONE has turned it to FAN and not COOL. Stoner chick's one of these really skinny chicks who is about 85lbs soaking wet! Yet, being someone who is perpetually cold because she has no bodyfat to mention, she still wears sleeveless tops, and very summery cool clothing. She also brings nothing to warm herself when she's shivering from the cool (absolutely normal) temperatures! So what does she do? She turns it to FAN so that no matter what temperature you set it on it's just blowing the air that's in the building. People, it's like 105 degrees outside and she's turned OFF the air conditioning! Hey, at least SHE was comfortable!

Did I misunderstand?

2007-07-06T15:30:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure but I could swear that Dr G told me my lining was at 10 on Wednesday! He's a bit of a mumbler, and all I can think is that I misunderstood and he really said that it NEEDS to be 10. Today I went in and it measured only 5.97. MFRN became concerned that it was so thin so they gave me a shot of estradial. It's the same stuff as the blue pills but I guess it's a megadose. I go back on Monday. At this point my transfer is gonna be Friday instead of Wednesday. That is a little more convenient for me than Wednesday because I'm doing some temp work for a newspaper that I used to be the office manager for and this way I won't miss so many days in a row. Besides that, everything stays the same. And yes, I'm still on the Lupron.

Speaking of which, I had to have THE TALK with them today. Up til now I've kept my infertility under wraps with this company because there was no reason to tell them. But they let someone go and I'm having to help cover that position until they hire someone. It just happened to be in the middle of a cycle when I'm at the doctors all the time. It was awkward, but it was OK. I think that she probably already knew I was going through this because I think the girl they let go filled them in long ago. Anyhow...I just hate discussing this with people who I'm not close to. But they needed to know my availability. I didn't know how to tell them my availability without it bringing up questions about why all the doc appts etc, so I told them. Anyhow, its done and I feel better now that they know.

I guess it was bring your kid to the RE day today because there were FIVE children in there all at once, all with different parents. I am not really bothered by this, but I kept anxiously looking around at the other women waiting to see Dr G wondering how many of them were torn up inside looking at the little babies. There were 2 babies and the rest were toddlers. One was SO cute, I'd say she was about 7 months old! Seems like most of the women who were smiling big at the kids were ones who were also in there with kids. Does that make infertility hurt less when you have your own? As I said I don't really get bothered by seeing kids at the RE, but by reading other blogs I know its a point of contention with many of you. I myself may be having to bring kids with me next week. My sister will be coming down since sweet Bryan will be gone still in Afghanistan. So my sis will be coming to help me and she may have to bring her two well behaved children. I just hope they don't bother anyone. If I had an alternative to bringing them I would do it, but I don't.
I guess you do what you have to do right?

Happy Friday everyone!

Oh I forgot!

2007-07-04T23:38:00.001-07:00

My RE appt yesterday! Everything is fine, but the cyst is STILL there. They drew blood just to make sure it's not some follicle that's about to ovulate (how can it be? It was there when AF was here???) and I'm sadly STILL on the Lupron. I'm down to 5 units, and they've upped my estrace to 1.5 pills, twice a day (from 1 pill twice a day). All in all everything looks good and the lining of the uterus was already at 10mm and he said that was good. Looks like we'll have a transfer next Wednesday (probably)!

I have another appt on Friday and that's when we'll probably start the PIO injections.

Ugh. Already???

OMGOD! How excited am I that BIG BROTHER is starting tomorrow night!!!!!!!! I've been waiting and waiting forEVER and now it snuck up on me!!!! Wooo Hoooooo!!!

Happy 4th of July!

2007-07-04T23:34:00.000-07:00

Rowdy and Poppy say Happy Independence Day!

Is it just me...

2007-07-03T00:53:00.000-07:00

...or does Carson Daly look as anorexic these days as Nicole Richie? Just wondering.

Tomorrow is my next RE appt, and maybe, just maybe we'll know a little more about when my FET will be.

I screwed up my meds. I'm taking so many drugs these days and the Lupron has my brain addled and I just goofed up.

See I have a pill box that is good for a week. I fill it on Saturday night or Sunday morning and it takes me through to the next week. Anyhow, I'm taking estrace (the little blue pills) and prednizone (little white pills). I ran out of prednizone and left the bottle out to call the refill in. So the prednizone was prescribed in 2.5mg tabs. The pharmacy only had 5mg tabs. So I've been cutting them in half when I do my weekly pill box filling. So all day today while I was at work, I keep wondering weather I was out of the prednizone or the estrace. I kept thinking that I just filled the estrace and so it can't be the estrace, but then I remembered that I'd cut the prednizone in half on Saturday, so it HAD to be the estrace I was out of. Total confusion. I come home and take a look in my pillbox to see just exactly was going on in there and there were lots of little blue estrace pills cut in half. UGH! So yesterday I only took 1 estrace pill instead of 2! Do you think it's gonna make a difference? I took an extra one today, so hopefully that'll make up the difference.

I sure hope at tomorrow's appt I hear the magical words, "stop taking the Lupron Lara" because I'm sick of it. I feel soooo wiped out and exhausted and I'd like a little bit of my energy back to do something besides be a lump on a log (or a couch potato, your pick). It also makes me feel very very fat (actually there's no feeling about it - I just AM fat, thanks Lupron!) AND beyond that, it makes me hot. Night sweats? Check. Hot Flashes? Check. And just in time for Independence Day temperatures of 115 degrees!!! Where do I live? Hell???

Will it ever stop? Part 2

2007-06-27T12:33:00.001-07:00

My SIL called this morning. She'd just left the cancer doc with my MIL and wanted to fill me in on what this doctor had to say.

It was a whole different story from yesterday's, "its bad but treatable" diagnosis. They told her yesterday that it had spread from her lungs into her lymph nodes and into her ribs (bones). This doctor said that it had spread from the lungs into the lymph nodes, into her back, spine, shoulders, neck, arms, legs, pelvis, and they will do a scan on her brain to see if its there too. She told her that without treatment she had WEEKS to live. With treatment she could have as much as 6 to 8 months. She started treatment today and we will know by Friday if its making any difference with the tumors. If it doesn't make a difference, Bryan may be headed home much sooner from Afghanistan and may be making this road trip with me.

I feel as though someone has dropped a bomb on my whole world right now...why do I have to be on Lupron NOW? It's not helping me cope with all this AT ALL. Not in the LEAST!

I know I'll have to talk to her on the phone today or tomorrow. I don't know what to say. There's no hope. What should I say? I will take any and all suggestions. We are not especially close. She's pulled some crazy shit over the years and so we keep her at an arms length.

And of course, now the pressure is really on for me to get pregnant and have a baby before we lose her so she can see her grandbaby at least once. For shits sake.

Ugh - this SUCKS.

Will it ever stop?

2007-06-26T23:52:00.000-07:00

Before I get into the day I've had, lets just share a little of my history with you all...remember the boyfriend I mentioned from my past who I just found on myspace and who is gay? Well, as a lot of you said, and I knew this but was being just SLIGHTLY dramatic when I posted about it, he was already gay and I did not turn him Gay. Here's a picture from about a week AFTER we broke up but were still hanging out with each other because we had the same friends. I'm in the green in the middle and he's on the far left. Notice how I am carefully NOT touching him, even though if times were good our arms would have overlapped! This picture was taken in 1986. I think I was 19. Oh and did I mention that I think the night of this picture, I got together with the guy who I'm leaning on? He was a HOTTEEEE! Man did I get around or what?!

OK, so onto the day I have had.

First of all, my mother in laws doctor appt.

It wasn't good, but it is treatable. There are 2 kinds of lung cancer and she's got small cell LC which is the more aggressive cancer - great right? It HAS spread to her lymph nodes and they found it in her ribs too, so that's not good. She goes to the cancer doc tomorrow and I believe will start chemo, we'll see. She's encouraged because she thought they were going to tell her that it wasn't treatable at all. Ugh. It's still not good news, but at least she's optimistic.

Then, as if the news from my MIL wasn't enough for me to deal with today, I had no sooner gotten that news then my friend J in Philadelphia calls me. We're talking and I tell her about my MIL, then I tell her about my step bro with leukemia. Then I ask when she's coming to visit me, and I turn around and say you know? I have cancer all around me right now...it might not be such a good idea for you to come out...might be better for you to steer clear! Then she tells me, "you know how I've been sick so much lately? right?" I said yeah???? "she goes well if I'm coming to see you it's gotta be in the next 18 months". I (still not understanding) say how come? "well because I've got this lung crap (opd? something like that) and if I'd gotten it and been completely healthy I'd have 5 years, but with me being a smoker and an asthmatic smoker that brings me down to 18 months to 3 years to live. This is a really really good friend of mine who's been out to visit me numerous times. We went to London together, we've met in Vegas and we've spent countless hours on the internet chatting and emailing each other. She said it all very casually as though she'd be out of the country in another 18 months or something. And I'm getting this news directly after getting my MIL's news. AND I'M ON LUPRON. I couldn't help it, I became a blithering idiot, crying my eyes out. Which made her cry. It was AWEFUL.

BFF R saved the day and got me out of the house. We went to the dog park and then out to eat (yumm...IHOP). She's always good for being there in a crisis! She's not good with crying people, so the fact that she's always there for me when bad shit happens just goes to show you how good of a friend she is!

Dumbfounded

2007-06-25T22:26:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I recently got a myspace page. I did not intend to turn into a full blown myspacer, but its turned out that way. Anyhow, in the time I've been spending on myspace, I've been searching for old friends, just to see who I could find. A week or so ago, I found an old boyfriend. It was a relationship that did not last long, but I was young and it felt like a serious relationship at the time. I think we were together for 2 months or so before he went home for summer (he went to the university). By the time he came back from summer, it was over. In my head I was pissed because he didn't get in touch with me or write to me at all over the summer, but there was more to it than that.

You see, I remember trying to kiss him and he'd pinch his lips together tightly so that it wouldn't be an opened mouthed kiss. I thought it was odd, but I also kinda thought I might be his first girlfriend, and that maybe he wasn't very experienced in the kissing department.

Then I remember trying to make out with him in his room, and he'd feel me up but only up top, it never went very far. Honestly I did not think much of that because I was VERY innocent and for me to have even taken my shirt off was pretty crazy for me back then!

Where is all this drive down memory lane taking us? Well I found him on myspace. I put in a friend request to him, and today we wrote to each other. I apologized for being a jerk when we broke up, and he wrote back and told me not to be sorry, that it was really his issue because he at the time was trying to deal with the fact that he was GAY and that was why he didn't get very intimate with me!

WHAT?

My jaw fell to the floor when I saw that.

You see, I really think I have pretty good gay-dar and I have to say I had NO CLUE about him. NONE. It freaked me out!

My other thought and I jokingly asked him this was that I was his last girlfriend and I turned him gay. :::gulp::: He hasn't responded yet.

I'm sure its just that he was gay and fighting against it while we were together...right? Yeah. Sure. That's it.

Anyhow, he's a hell of a nice guy, always was honestly. I'm really excited to be back in touch with him, and hey, the fact that he's gay? That means that I can be friends with him without it getting all weird because we used to date, and I don't have to worry about Sweet Bryan either.

The stuff you can do on myspace is crazy, but finding an old friend from the good old days is the best part! I feel as though I had a mini reunion today!

Does this not say it all?

2007-06-25T17:15:00.000-07:00

It doesn't matter what stage of the game you're at with infertility, this quote really can speak to any situation. For those of you considering egg donation, doesn't this help? For those of you not sure if you should go ahead and do IVF or IUI, doesn't this say JUST DO IT? Hell, I guess no matter what your situation, whether its related to infertility or whether you should get a new job or dump a friend, this quote seems to help. It's my new motto!

Lazy Sunday

2007-06-24T22:49:00.000-07:00

Today was quiet. I didn't do much. Watched an old movie (Sling Blade - LOVE IT!) and besides that not a lot else. Talked to my SIL who lives near my MIL. She went to visit her today. So the last time she saw her was last Sunday, and she says that she's going down hill already.

My SIL is really quite the little alarmist, so I don't know if I should take this for gospel or not.

According to her, she had no color in her face at all, and is so doped up on drugs now that she doesn't remember something 5 minutes after it happens. She gets her biopsy and pet scan results on Tuesday at 4:45. I have a knot in my stomach thinking about it.

According to SIL and BIL, they think she'll be lucky to make it to Thanksgiving. Can you imagine how it must feel to be her, waiting for the test results to tell you if you'll live and for how long? They have her on a LOT of valium, I suppose the docs understand how nervewracking it must be.

I'm just praying that my SIL the alarmist is doing just that, and the prognosis won't be as bad as they are telling me. Guess I'll find out on Tuesday.

Geesh is it just horrible of me to be thankful that I do NOT live there right now? Happy that I live across the country? I know that sounds selfish, but I lost my mom, and all this with Sweet Bryan's Mom is bringing a lot of that back up. Also, with this cycle I'm starting, I feel as though I need to keep it as stressfree as possible.

Through the midst of tragedy life goes on.

Pool Party and other stuff...

2007-06-24T00:13:00.000-07:00

Had a pool party today at BFF R's house! But before getting in the pool we made cupcakes and then ate some of them without the frosting (I got lower suger frosting and it was DIS-Gusting!) It was still delish, even without the frosting, which, lets face it folks I really did not need anyway!

So anyhow, where was I? OH that's right, pool. The water was blessedly cool. And you know when you get in and the water gives you that chill factor up your back until you actually are completely in the pool? Well it was SO HOT here today that the pool, which is NOT HEATED, the pool felt like bathwater. No chill up the back! God it was sooooo nice!

Then I came home and changed and leashed up the Terrors and took them to the dog park at dusk for an hour. Rowdy had a BLAST and fell in love with a little black pomeranian named princess! When the owner would hold Princess, Rowdy would jump as high as he could to try to get to his L*O*V*E*R with the black fluffy hair!

All in all it was a good day.

So I talked to Bryan this morning and had to tell him about what I've been really needing to blog about, so now I'm able to blog about it. It's so awful. His mother has been diagnosed with Lung Cancer. I just feel dread when I think about it. The mass they found is the size of a lemon. I can't imagine the prognosis is good. Her biopsy results come back next Tuesday afternoon and I'm just praying they aren't as bad as I'm expecting. I just don't know how to deal with this. I feel as though I'm being surrounded with Cancer suddenly. Everytime I tell someone about my MIL, they will tell me a story about someone they knew with LC and people, there's NO success stories. All the stories I've heard, the person who was afflicted with LC did not live beyond six months after diagnosis. That is fucking scary.

OK, so I broke the news to sweet Bryan today and he took it well. He didn't cry and his voice did not even get wobbly, but he was probably putting on a good front for his troops who were right there in his office with him. He called his mom to talk to her and I had told him that he wasn't supposed to know. She wanted to keep it from him because he had ENOUGH to worry about being over there. She and I agreed that we'd wait til the biopsy results came back. They'll be back on Tuesday but I just couldn't stand that I knew and the rest of his family knew but he didn't know. Just did not feel right ya know? Anyhow...so I told him he wasn't supposed to know and that when he called he was supposed to say that I told him she'd had some medical tests and wasn't feeling so good and so he wanted to call and see how she was. What did he say? Well he told her that I told him that she HAD SOME NEWS TO TELL HIM. What???? Where did that come from! Not only that, but now it looks as though I went against what we had agreed to (which I did, but she didn't need to know that!) Thanks Bry for throwing your wife under the bus! AND not only that, but then she had to go through the emotions of telling him all the details. She didn't need to do that! Aarrghhh! Husbands!

Beyond my MIL, my step brother has recently been diagnosed with Leukemia. I'm not close to him, as my parents, just a few months ago got married, but still...he's my age. That makes it all the scarier to me.

On the infertility front, it looks like I will be having a transfer between the 9th and 13th of July. I started taking Estrace last night, and as is the norm, its upsetting my stomach. The Lupron is giving me slight headaches and at night I wake up hot as HELL and all sweaty, and that is with the ceiling fan on and the oscillating fan blowing full force on me! No more crying jags to report, thank GOD! They tapered my lupron back from 20 to 10 and now I'm at just 5 units for another week until I go in again to the RE.

So that's it, its cooled off here...it was only 105 today! Imagine? I never thought I'd be saying the words that it had COOLED off to 105! ha ha I can't wait til its nice and cool...oh say 90. That'd be positively chilly! I'd be digging sweatshirts out and shit ya know? hee hee AS IF! And definately NOT if I'm still on Lupron!

Lara Needs...

2007-06-22T00:16:00.000-07:00

Apparently this little game is going around blogland...you go to google and type in your first name and needs and see what google thinks you need.

Here's what Lara needs (according to google)

Lara needs a haircut (its true! How did Google know?)
Lara needs a seat. (as in an ass? hmm...I don't think so! I've got more than enough already thanx!)
Lara needs new breasts! (yes please...ones that don't sag and stare at the ground please!
Lara needs to use stealth just as much as she does combat and maneuvers.
Lara needs bodyguards. (People please! back away from the STAH, she needs her privacy! Don't you paparazzi ever take a break?)
Lara needs to make a leap (a leap of faith? I'm ready, where do I jump?)
Brian Lara International Cricket 2007...Lara needs some serious polish before it can claim its much prized wicket. (OK how weird that its Brian Lara - Oh and I'll take a much prized wicket if that's pig latin for pregnant!)

Crying my eyes out...

2007-06-21T22:25:00.001-07:00

OH Lord. I'm sitting here with tears streaming down my face! What oh what could I be so upset about that I'm crying and balling my eyes out? The dogs are all upset and worried about me. Rowdy came to me and was licking the tears off my face and Poppy was giving me these head twisty looks as I was sobbing...clearly it must be something important right? Hmm...I don't know about important, but it is something sad.

However, its not MY sad thing.

I just watched Kathy Griffen My life on the D List. This week's episode is the episode that her father passes away and oh my god just typing that makes my eyes well up again. Now I am assuming that this is a lupron induced emotional breakdown. ORRR it could be an AF induced breakdown (or a combo?). Or it could also just be bringing back how I felt when my own mother died so suddenly 6 years ago. Who knows, I just know that this is probably a little more emotional than I should be, considering that A) I do not know Kathy Griffen (though I would LOVE to meet her) and B) I did not know her father either and beside watching him on her show I only have limited knowledge of him!

Isn't Lupron great? At least in this weather I have not had any hot flashes. It was 108 degrees today - add hot flashes to that and the heat would be just even more unbearable!

OK, so now that I have somewhat recovered from my retarded crying jag over someone I don't know and never met, I can tell you about my doctors appt today.

Today was cycle day 2. The dildo cam was in action and that cyst is STILL frickin there!!!! They tell me not to worry about it, but shit I wish it would go away! As of today I got to reduce the Lupron to 10 units instead of 20 and on Saturday I'll be reducing it again to 5 units where I'll stay until I go back to the doctor on July 3d. Tomorrow night I get to begin taking the Estrace to build up the lining of the uterus and prepare for the transfer. Speaking of the transfer, they tell me that it will be between the 9th and 13th of July. I was personally hoping it would be on 7/7/07, but oh well!!! Maybe I can talk them into it if the ute's ready!

Well I don't know about you, but all this crying has me exhausted! Peace out!

Little Beans 4 Me

Alive and kickin

One more quick post...

sick sick sick!

I've turned into one of THOSE women.

Late calls are always bad news.

Tomorrow is Beta Day

POAS

A quick 2 week wait

Triplets

Worst Blogger EVER!

Getting lazy

Oh Lord where to start...

Headed for Georgia

Life got crazy...

Lovely Lupron

Mr Toad's Wildride

And so it begins...AGAIN.

Happy 2008!

Anticipation can be bad.

So here we are...

A terrible day...

Lost Faith

Sorry I left you hanging!

Is this weird?

Beta Results

Beta Day

I just freaked out!

7dp3dt

5dp3dt

Transfer Complete

Braces Bunch stats

Tomorrow is the big day...

We have a date with Dr G!

Home from Sedona

Afternoon Delight!

I'm just...

DE FET#2

My man is HOME. :)

Less than one day...

Lovely Lupron

Aaarrghhhh!

Aunt Flow is a FREAK!

MIA

I'm home!

Road Trip part 2

A little sadness here and there...oh and zits!

My tattoo

Road Trip!

Post D&C appt

Day by day...

Alone and miserable

I was wondering...

If readers were wishes...

D&C Maybe...

Why...

It's OVER.

For FUCK's sake.

Ultrasound confusion...

Cast Iron Constitution

Never thought I'd need a pad this soon...

Dear Anonymous

BF R

html question

A prego symptom I had forgotten...

Summer Cleaning

Sorry!

Wow...post #200!!!! **updated**

This morning...

I got a different one...

What the FUCK!?

So I've told him...

Tomorrow's the big day...

OH and I forgot...

11dp3.5dt

And now for your viewing (dis)pleasure...

Wrong side of the bed. (10dp3.5dt)

9dp3.5dt

Petty

8dp3.5dt

Wow...post #200!!!! updated