Confession

I have a confession to make: I keep forgetting that I'm in the two-week wait. I mean, I know I'm waiting for my beta so that I can start birth control pills. But I keep forgetting that what it actually means is that there's the theoretical possibility I could be pregnant. I'm completely serious. So much so that I keep forgetting to use the evil prometrium suppositories.

The cool thing about forgetting to take prometrium is that it means I don't have all the progesterone side effects. Or so I thought!

I have the stabbing, white-hot, poker pain in my breasts, just like I always do during the stupid 2ww because of the prometrium. And I'm queasy, just like I always do with prometrium. And every time I start to feel a little dizzy, I think, "don't worry, that's just the prometrium." Except, um, it isn't.

I'm not trying to sound ungrateful that maybe there's a possibility of anything interesting going on in my nether-regions, but seriously! This is ridiculous! There is no effing way that I'm pregnant and I seriously resent my body's insistence on pretending like there's even the remotest possibility. Worse, I still can't get out of my head that a positive beta would only be an inconvenience at this point... I'm ready to move on. I'm not interested in having another 5 month delay for pregnancy, inevitable miscarriage, D&C, and following betas down. And there isn't even the tiniest part of me that thinks it would be anything but that scenario. So this better just be God messing with me (as per usual), because I'd really like to be pregnant at some point when I can appreciate it and be happy about it, not now when I would only resent it.

I know that is completely screwed up. I know I'm an ingrate. I also know I'm not pregnant, so I don't know what I'm complaining about. I'm a completely messed up person.

2ww?

Baby Blues mentioned in a comment to my last post that I'm now in the dreaded 2ww. Hey! She's right! The thing that makes this funny is that it never occurred to me that I'm in the 2ww. As far as I'm concerned, the current countdown is from now until April 11th. I suppose it just didn't occur to me that there's anything significant about beta day, except that it means that shortly thereafter I'll start BCPs. Since I have to stay on BCPs until after Passover, I can't start FSH injections until April 11th. That's an 8ww.

Heavens, I'm a seriously jaded individual. When did I become this person who just assumes that beta day is going to be a non-event? Did I ever get excited about the end of the 2ww? Because I really can't remember being excited about it. I suppose the upshot is that I don't get too stressed about the 2ww. The only thing that drives me batty is taking the dreaded provera, which I hate and which makes me feel terrible. Bleh.

At any rate, thank you Baby Blues, for reminding me that there just might be something interesting to look forward to in two weeks. Hah! Hah, I say! But you never know, right? I hear the sixth time's a charm. Or something.

yowie yow yow youch!

I'm 12 days post-IUI, which is where I was when I found out I was pregnant last cycle (in july/august). I've had a lot of odd cramping and spotting, identical to the weirdness that I had last time. As of yesterday I was vaguely considering the possibility that maybe this IUI had worked. As of today, I'm pretty sure it didn't. I think today might be CD1, or maybe that will be tomorrow, but holy cow am I all kinds of crampy right now. And while I know that I had a lot of bleeding last time and it turned out I was pregnant... I find it really hard to believe that it would happen that way twice.

Le Sigh.

Beta is Friday. I do not expect good news.

sick, emotional lability, and the two week wait

On Monday I had some horrible stomach flu. Fever, vomitting, general ickiness. I was in bed most of the day. I figured I'd follow the pattern of everyone else in the house and be fine the next day. Except on Tuesday I woke with a sore throat, fever, general ickiness, and it hurt to breathe, though I didn't feel terribly congested.

I went to work anyway, having missed two days last week, but when my officemate/team lead walked in she took one look at me and said I should see a doctor. And then I burst into tears. Because that's what I do when I'm stressed out and feverish. Fevers always make me emotionally labile, but stress compounds it. And, while I'm being completely honest here, prometrium sure as heck doesn't help matters.

I went straight from work to my doctor who decided I had a severe sinus infection. A prescription for antibiotics and I was on my way. I spent most of yesterday in bed. Today I feel somewhat better, but I'm really glad my officemate told me not to even think about coming back into work until Thursday. I believe I'll be okay to go in tomorrow, but today would have really been pushing it. I've spent a good deal of today in bed as well, which is fabulous.

I'm really quite done with being sick, you know. On the other hand , it sure has made the two week wait more bearable. If only I could manage to be sick for another week and a half. Feeling sorry for myself does make the time fly, you know. Only nine more days to go. If we weren't already doomed since S had quite a fever on IUI day, then for sure my feverish self has surely doomed whatever miniscule chance we did have. No big deal, we'll just move on to the next cycle, but I do so tire of this, don't you?

Meanwhile, having been confined to my bed, I watched a couple movies that have been sitting around from Netflix. I watched the Emperor's Club on Monday... or was it Sunday? Whatever. I started out hating it, and would have turned it off, except it was keeping me company while I walked on my treadmill (you wouldn't believe a chick this fat actually does exercise, would you? Well, I do!). Actually, it turned out quite well. I despise Kevin Kline, and think the role could have been better cast, but it turned out the plot had enough meat to it to make it interesting in the end.

Today I started to watch Liam, which I remembered I'd wanted to see when it came out in theatres, but never got around to it. It's been on my Netflix queue forever, and I've only just gotten around to it. Since I was feeling less feverish, I decided sinus infection or not, I had no excuse but to be on the treadmill. So I popped in Liam and got on the treadmill. I got about 15 minutes into it before I decided it wasn't compelling enough. I'm sure it's a fine movie, but just wasn't something I wanted to watch just then. I instead put in Evelyn, a Pierce Brosnan, Aidan Quinn, Julianna Marguiles, etc. movie. I had never heard of it, but Netflix had recommended it. Turned out to be an incredibly compelling story (true, even) of a man in 1950's Ireland whose wife abandoned him and he fought the Irish Supreme Court to establish his right to raise his children himself.

Another fine way to spend the two week wait. But... it will be several more days before I have any more Netflix movies, and I am hoping to be healthy enough to work tomorrow, so how on earth am I going to make the next 9 days pass quickly? I haven't even considered peeing on any sticks yet, though don't tempt me. I get that it would be futile, and ridiculous. I just wonder how long I'll believe that. It was 12 days post IUI last time that I showed up even pregnant (on a beta hCG), barely, and that was the first day that a First Response test showed a positive result also. So I certainly couldn't POAS until at least... um... Tuesday. And that would be silly and a complete waste of money, since we all know I'm not pregnant, nor am I going to be. Plus, since I'm having the beta hCG drawn a week from Friday, I should be able to wait, right? RIGHT? Stop laughing!

2ww?

It's cliche for me to bitch about the two-week-wait, right? I mean, we all know how this is going to turn out, so what's the suspense, really? My beta is scheduled for August 14th. We all know I won't be able to overcome to the compulsion to pee on anything that looks like a stick in my house for the next two weeks. We all know that I'll never see that elusive 2nd line. And we all know that on the 14th, immediately after I get the call in which the nurse tries to pussy-foot around saying that "unfortunately, the beta was negative" my period will start.

Right.

So all that's left to feel anxious about is: what next?

I bullied my RE into agreeing that my next cycle would be an IVF cycle, which would mean when my period arrives, I start three weeks of birth control pills, wait for CD1, and whee! An IVF cycle. And that's still appealing. And I'm still utterly, completely, ridiculously paralyzed by the PIO shots afterward. I have no idea why. I mean, when I started injectibles for the IUI cycle, I wanted to throw up. In fact, I did throw up at the very thought of taking them. But after one or two, I was an old pro, it rarely even stings anymore, and my husband doesn't laugh at my bruised belly anymore. So why on earth do the PIO shots terrify me??

My paralyzing fear of the PIO shots is the only reasonable explanation for the occasional thoughts I have of maybe, just maybe, trying just one more IUI. I mean, what could it hurt? I'm theoretically young. I'm thirty, though granted, I'll be 31 when my due date rolls around if this IUI actually did any good. Everyone tells me that 30 is young by reproductive standards, even though I feel like an arthritic old maid. So it's not like I don't have the time to waste, right? Um, of course right. I think. Maybe. Except TICK TOCK. But what if five really is the magic number? Maybe it really will work on the fifth try! Wouldn't it be a shame to waste that opportunity by jumping into an IVF cycle?

Except then the rational side of me takes over... I will probably have better odds of success with IVF, so who cares if it's overkill? Who cares if it adds another three weeks to time between cycles? Who cares if the fifth IUI could have worked anyway? Who cares if the timeline for IVF could help me avoid messing with Passover plans!? (the end of an IVF cycle at this point would probably be late September, placing my due date in June, which would mean we could proceed with plans to go away for Passover again... I know... who the hell cares if we can't go away for Passover if it's for a good reason like impending labor & delivery, but you know, this is my fantasy here, so work with me here!)

Golly. I just do not know what to do. Not a bit.

Cautious Optimism My Ass!

Ahem. So I have this theory that optimism doesn't help me much. I figure that if I spend too much time being optimistic, I'll just be disappointed all the time. So I call myself a realist. Expect the worst, hope for the best, plan for nothing. This is a cute theory, and would work just fine if, you know, I could actually heed my own advice. And do I? Oh sure, until about 15 minutes ago when I thought to myself, "Hey, if this cycle actually does work, when do you suppose my due date would be?" I've never allowed myself to have such a ridiculous thought, so I wasn't even sure how to find this out, but a quick consult with Dr. Google yielded a 1.3 billion due date calculators. I chose the WebMD version, but I expect they all work on the same general principles, so I didn't feel the need to check multiple sources. Anyway, for those of you keeping track, my due date WOULD be April 19, 2007 if this all worked out, which of course it won't. This will throw a serious wrench in our Passover Planning if it works out, but it will be a welcome, entirely happy wrench, so that wasn't a complaint.

Anyway. So on Thursday I was given the go-ahead to trigger Friday night with a Sunday IUI. I'd never met the doctor who was there covering the office, but he was nice enough, I suppose. Since it was a Sunday, the Trophy Husband was actually there with me. Our normal arrangement is that he goes in for his appointment (which mortifies him completely, by the way) and then heads to work, and then I show up for my appointment, and if we're lucky we see each other at home that night. My mother stayed with the monster (our two year old foster son) while we frittered away the hours at Shady Hell.

Anyway, the doctor came in and introduced himself. He went over the SA (semen analysis) and proclaimed my husband to be more than competent (40 million little swimmers is definitely overachieving). Well, he's gotta be good for something, right? Dishes are nice, but copious little swimmers are definitely a bonus - not that they've been doing me any good, the bastards. Anyway, I'm certain that Dr. M is a perfectly competent RE. And I get that he was an OB/GYN for many years before his RE training. And I get that he must have been a good OB/GYN because he was the head of the OB/GYN department somewhere important. But sheesh that man cannot handle a speculum. Ouch! "Oh hey there, you'll feel a little bit of pressure from the speculum." When I nearly jumped off the table (this has never happened to me before), my dear husband said, "A little pressure, eh?" "Yep," replied the doctor. (though in his defense, he wasn't completely clueless to my discomfort and he did ask if I was okay, but what the hell was I supposed to say? "No, you asshole, get your hands away from there and get me a kinder, gentler doctor?" Right.)

Moving right along... the rest, as they say, was uneventful. Anticlimactic, if you will, though I detest using that word, because my husband is Pun King and I'm tired of puns. So I need a better word. I know no one is reading this post, but if you stumble upon this at a later date and you've got a better word than anticlimactic, then by all means, tell me! Unfortunately, I don't think there is a more appropriate word. I mean, you've got a lot riding on this moment. This 11 second transfer of sperm to uterus in hopes of the little guys finding a nice condo to settle into. And that's it. 11 seconds. Maybe less, probably less, in fact. No great moment of "oh that's it!" No real discomfort unless your bastard RE doesn't know how to operate a speculum. No real knowledge that the catheter is even in and all of a sudden, "Okay, all done!" and you're speculum free and told to lie down on the table for 5 minutes before getting up because you know, you wouldn't want the little guys to fall out, not that they could. Give them a chance to scope out their new home. After the five minutes was up, I got dressed and turned to my husband and said, "So, you wanna make out?" He looked positively scandalized as he said, "Of course, but not here!" Well, I made him kiss me anyway, because I figured we ought to have a little bit of smooching in the room where Jr. is conceived, right?

Come to think of it, those 5 minutes on my back make a little sense, since you know, Normal People (whoever they are) get pregnant while lying down. May as well be the same for me, right? In the absence of anything more interesting to do after that monumental 11 seconds (plus five minutes), we went to Krispy Kreme, where the Hot Donuts sign was lit, and we celebrated with some puffy, fried, sugary deliciousness. Like I really needed donuts, right? Sheesh!

We headed home and I promptly fell asleep on the couch while my husband took the monster and my mother out to lunch. I slept, basically, all day, and woke up in a whole lot of pain. I had such horrifying cramps I could SWEAR I was about to start my period. This has never happened before on IUI day and this is the fourth such IUI day. Plus, everything else hurt and I couldn't stop sneezing, because the cats are rapidly growing past the point of being controlled by my allergy medication. Someday, I'm going to have to give in and either start allergy shots again, or get rid of the cats, neither of which is a particularly appealing option. Fortunately, I feel better today, except for the sneezing, and well, still with the cramping.

Now starts the fun of Prometrium supplementation. Whee. If I call you up randomly crying, you know why. I'm not sure why the prometrium is so evil, but it is. Just like the provera and the follistim, I throw up. A lot. And my breasts have sharp, stabbing, hot-poker pains in them regularly. And I get crabby. (SHUT UP! Fine, I get more crabby) And weepy. Oh, so freaking weepy. The first time that happened, I was at work minding my own business feeling just fine thankyouverymuch, and a perky friend of mine called and said, "Hi how are you??" and I burst into tears. What the fucking fuck? I thought. This is not me. I may be bitchy. I may be emotionally labile. I may be prone to screaming fits for no good reason. But one thing I am not is weepy. Until now, apparently.

So let the fun begin!