cd 6

Had my first monitoring appt today. My lining was 5.18 so I am cautiously optimistic about that. I have a 9mm follie on the right and a 7mm plus a few smaller ones on the left. I was hoping see more than one that looked like it would hang on as dominant but it is still early. I also wonder if it makes a difference which side I've done my injections on. I rotate sites, all are about an inch from my belly button and a little to the left or right...so I've done the left once on cd4 and the right twice on cd3 and 5. I am thinking it might, particularly since I ovulated on the right last month. Maybe I'll give the left a few more turns so it can catch up.

I still haven't decided if this will be and IUI or TI, and that has actually made this cycle less stressful. I figure if I only get one follie we'll just do TI, rather than waste another IUI on only one target. I've also stopped temping every day, and while I thought that would drive me even more crazy not knowing, it has been great.

My next appt. is on Monday and hopefully we will be triggering within a week.

decisions, decisions...

I had my baseline this morning and everything looks fine. I went to a different office so I my actual RE did the u/s instead of a tech so I could ask her about my protocol this cycle. She did say that it made no differences success-wise if we waited a cycle or went right into the next IUI. She also said they could put me on BCPs through our move date (feb 20ish) so we could choose when to start the IUI cycle, but I'd rather not do that. Also, my RE said that POM juice was a myth, but recommended I start taking baby aspirin, as it improves blood flow and theoretically could improve the flow to my uterus and help my lining.

So I have all my meds and would be stimming w/ 75iu of Bravelle in hopes of getting 2-3 follies (which made me happy). My choices are:
-try completely naturally and hang on to all the meds for march.
-do injectables + TI (timed intercourse)
-injectables + single or b2b IUI

I feel like I did back in high school and was on the swim team. It was the longest sport season of all the offered sports and you were totally burned out by the end and swore this was the last year you were doing it. But when it came time again to start back up, you'd forget how much the end sucked and do it all over again.

I'm thinking I will at least start the injectables and then see how I'm responding and decide from there.

IUI #1 = BFN

I am so sad right now. Infertility hurts.

The dreaded beta wait.

I went this morning for my beta b/w and now I am waiting for the phone call. I caved and used a FRER yesterday after another evap line on the cheapie and it was negative. I spent most of yesterday fighting tears and I took a personal day today because I know I wouldn't be able to get the bad news at work and not burst into tears. I pretty much know that the results aren't good, but I am so worked up and anxious about this phone call that I feel sick. Seriously...I could throw up right now. I don't know why I'm so nervous. I know exactly what will happen if it is negative. I'll cry, feel sorry for myself, dread the possibility of seeing KU SIL tomorrow even more, etc. Then I'll discuss next cycles options with the nurse and move on.

No clear answers.

I took two more cheapie tests this morning, because the first one had a bright pink DOT come up in the test area before the control line even appeared, so I knew that one was faulty. The second one was even paler than yesterdays so that is pretty much falling into the not there at all category. I didn't bother wasting a FRER. My temp dropped from 99.01 to 98.49 even though I barely slept at all between 3am and test time at 6am, so I'm guessing it will keep dropping.


Here is my faulty test from this morning. Stupid thing.


I wish I had taken a picture of last night's test, as it is too faded now to really show up in a picture, but I didn't tell R yet because I don't want to get his hopes up if these are all just crappy tests.

So I had a dream...

Monday morning...after I had POAS as the final round of testing out my trigger shot (I wanted to make sure it was entirely out of my system and it was...totally blank). In this dream I put my pee sticks in the trash, but when I grabbed the trash bag to take downstairs I could see through the plastic that one of them was positive. I immediately dug out all the pee sticks and laid them out to make sure this one was the most recent and a real BFP. I woke up right as I was obsessing about taking pictures to post online. I do remember that the brand was Equate...which I have never used but I almost went out and bought some in case it was a sign. Anyway, I woke up and threw out all my testing out tests which I had lined up to compare the faint lines vs. completely negative.

Well...tonight one piece of that dream became reality. I dug them back out of the trash. It was not a good moment in my TTC career, but it needed to be done. I decided late this afternoon that I'd never be able to sleep tonight wondering about tomorrow's test/temps, so I peed on a stick when I got home. Thought I saw a second line for a minute, but realized I wasn't going to get anything solid so I walked away (I did not get that ridiculous gray line from this test though). So when I returned a few hours later there was, once again, a second faint line. So I wondered if all my cheapies produced this result and dug the rest back of the trash. The Monday morning test is clearly blank, and tonight's is not. The wait continues....

I got an evap line.

I tested this morning and thought I saw a faint...and I mean faaaiinnt pink line. So I left the test on the counter and went to get dressed. When I went back at the 10 minute mark, I looked at the test and said "holy fuck" because there was an obvious second line. Unluckily that line was gray, and the logical side of me knows that is an invalid test, but the other part of me is praying it is a super early messed up looking BFP. By the time I got the test downstairs and found my camera the gray line had faded back into a line so faint that I couldn't tell what color it was.

I have no phantom symptoms at all and I was really starting to think this cycle failed, but now my hopes are up again.

Cycle review.

Since I found other IF blogs extremely helpful in anticipating what, exactly, might lie ahead in my TTC journey, I figured I'd recap my protocol in a little more detail. Along with some pictures that may or may not make you want to wet yourself in fear.

This cycle was a full injectables cycle, so all my meds, obviously, came from a syringe. Sometimes you can have a partial injects cycle, as an aid for oral meds, but since Clomid thinned my lining this wasn't a good option for me. I took 37.5 iu of Bravelle every night from cd3-14. Not everyone stims this long, in fact, I don't think I've seen anyone on the message boards with this protocol for an IUI cycle, but hopefully that means they were all successes and have moved on.

Bravelle comes in 75iu vials, which you need to reconstitute yourself. If you are interested in what this means exactly, along with how to inject it, watch this video (click Bravelle in the meds list). This is what my protocol involved (keep in mind this is only part of it):

And here is what R needed:

Real fair, huh?

So starting on cd3 I began the Bravelle. Most of the injections weren't that bad and by the last one I could do it standing up. I did have one that must have been to close to a vein and here is what it looked like a week later. Ouch!

Meanwhile, being on injectables meant more monitoring...so I had 6 appts for b/w and ultrasounds, not including my baseline. Unluckily I got a few not so careful lab techs this cycle, so by appt #4 both arms looked like this.

I didn't think to take a picture of the endometrin, but maybe I'll add that so you can get a true appreciation of the size of the stupid pill.

FML

So I complained last cycle about the suckage that is Endometrin. Well, today just took it to a new level. I just got out of a 2hr meeting and apparently it decided to all leak back out at once when I stood up. By the time I excused myself and made it to the bathroom it had gone over the edges of the pad, through my underwear and all over the inside of my pants. Thank god they are dark brown pants and you can't see the wet spot. I cleaned everything up as best I could, but I feel gross and dirty and I just want to go home. So.not.cool.

Round 2 complete.

I had the second of my IUIs this morning, which did not go so smoothly as yesterday's. The actually IUI wasn't horrible, except I got dead fish nurse and she inserted the speculum all wrong and scraped the hell out of my insides, and then wasn't so good with the catheter so it felt like a bad pap. Rs count was 33mil, which is expected with b2b IUIs and his motility was 85%...another huge jump from the original SA of 53%.

The bad part was the wait. When R dropped his sample off at 7:30 they were already running 10 minutes behind....to unlock the doors. We were asked Friday to come in early today because there were 4 IUIs all scheduled about the same time. So when we went back at 8:30 the waiting room was already full. Some of them were just there for monitoring (did I tell you that I got a different colored folder yesterday? Normally they hand me my appt file in a red folder, but yesterday I got yellow, so now I know what other people are there for just by looking at their folder). Well...after sitting there about an hour we see several nurses rushing around getting water. One nurse said someone passed out. I assumed some girl got lightheaded during bloodwork. Nope, when we finally went back the nurse said someones husband passed out during the monitoring u/s. Ugh...lightweight...he'll do real well in the delivery room.

So after each IUI I had to lie on the table for about 10 minutes. Apparently DH hit his max for patience after yesterday's 10 minutes, so he spent today's opening all the cupboards and poking around in whatever he could find. And of course he found the dildo cam's condom box, took one out, put it on his finger, held his hand in front of his pants and starting dancing. I was laughing so hard I had tears rolling down my cheeks.

First IUI is complete

We had the first of our b2b IUIs this morning and it went much more smoothly than I expected. I barely felt a thing, and I was bracing myself for it to be something like my sono or HSG, so that was a pleasant surprise. R's sperm count was 74million, which is awesome considering his count from his SA in Sept. was 34mil.

I didn't do my super thorough research beforehand, so I expected they would do an ultrasound to check things out one more time, but nope...they were in and out in a matter of minutes.

I also thought I'd be more nervous beforehand, but I was fine. Last night before bed I felt that same sense of calm peace that I had the night before my wedding; that I'd done all I could up to that point and everything would be fine. The difference, of course, being that I loved planning my wedding and I was calm because I knew for a fact I would end up with the desired result. I have not enjoyed sticking myself with needles, so maybe that was just my body's relief that it will get a break for hopefully a very long time.

We are go for IUI

I am triggering tonight. We (R) will drop off the sample between 7:30 and 8 tomorrow morning and then we will go back in around 9am for the first IUI, and repeat the process again Saturday! I am so relieved that we got the ok now because R was going to have some scheduling conflicts on Monday/Tues.

Getting closer

I hope to post with a trigger update later, but we'll see what my bloodwork shows. I had my 5th monitoring check yesterday and another one this morning. I'm starting to wonder about my lining and which nurse does the measuring now...because it was 6.8 yesterday with nice nurse and a 6.4 today with dead fish nurse (and that was after she measured 5.3 at first...um, no). Anyway, I still have one dominant follie that was 15x16mm yesterday and is now 15x19mm, so an average of 17mm. If I trigger tonight, we will be doing back to back IUIs tomorrow and Saturday.

Giant AW.

I just had to share these beautiful pics of our new house, taken a few days ago when it was appraised.

Doesn't it look like it could be a Christmas card?

and the rear view.

slow progress

Had my 4th monitoring appt. this morning and I have one dominant follie on my right ovary that is about 11x15mm. I also have one or two that are around 8mm on my left. I was really hoping I'd have two to work with but no such luck. I started drinking the nasty pom. juice again and my lining is now 5.6...still thin but at least it did something. I had hoped to get a better idea of when this IUI might be since I'll probably need to take part of the morning off from work, but the nurse who did my u/s was about as warm and friendly as a dead fish, so I didn't bother asking any questions.

My lining is thin again.

I don't understand it and neither did the tech because I haven't had any spotting so where did it go? The past two monitoring appts. it was around 7mm. Today it was 4.38. The tech said she didn't want me to worry about it because at cd10 it isn't a concern yet. I like this tech a lot and she said she would tell me straight out if she was concerned at all, but I am still worried about it.