Reason for the delay

This is what I woke up to yesterday morning:






Still no power and the house is cold as crap! B is out of town on business, so I am staying with friends and the pups are at the vet.

On to my beta:
My beta (on 23 DPO) was 2,658 – it was 437 at 17 DPO. The nurse told me that while my beta didn’t “double, double,” it was about 65% which is their threshold. Obviously I started freaking out. She said that it was okay the beta didn’t “double, double” but that she just wanted to let me know, “you know”. WTF does that mean? Why tell someone who is clearly scared to begin with something like that?

I checked on Beta Base and it looks like my beta is still okay. To add to my freak out, she didn’t want to schedule the ultrasound until 2/28 – freaking 4 weeks away! I tried to get her to move it up but she said that was the earliest they like to perform ultrasounds (which I know is bullshit). I will be 9 weeks by 2/28!

I called back today and talked the receptionist into moving the ultrasound up to 2/19, which still seems late to me. I am okay with it because B will be gone the week before (2/11 – 2/15) and next week might be too early to see the heartbeat.

So only 18 days to go! Oy!

Monday

Two more days until my next beta. I am not the most patient of waiters, but so far I am doing pretty well. From what I understand, this will be my last beta and then maybe an ultrasound next week. The nurse was very vague – she told me that she would call me with my results on Wednesday and give me my next set of instructions then. It sounded so mysterious, like I am some kind of secret agent! :)

My boobs are pretty sore and tingly if that makes sense. Other than that, I feel great. I have been really clumsy lately – and I am not very graceful to begin with so at times it has gotten pretty ridiculous. I am chalking it up to not paying attention to what I am doing because I can’t stop thinking about what might be going on inside my body. Hopefully I will not cause myself or anyone else harm serious harm!

Thanks so much for all the well wishes and support!

A good day

Yay! My beta doubled – actually slightly more than doubled – to 437. According to BetaBase my doubling time was 43.79 hours. I am so excited! I go in for another beta test on Wednesday, 1/30. How am I going to wait that long?!

It was so hard to focus on work today while waiting to hear the results. Now that I have the results, I am too excited to work. I am still cautious, but it is hard for me not to be really optimistic - I’ve never gotten this far before!

B is very excited too. I told him on the phone Tuesday night - and while I was disappointed I didn’t get to see his face, it really was wonderful to hear the excitement in his voice. He has been going back and forth between cautioning me about getting my hopes up too much and talking excitedly about the future. I love seeing him this happy!

Now I am going to try to motivate myself to get something done today.

Test today

Updated:
I just got the call ……. my beta is 211! What a beautiful number! The only beta I ever received in the 21 months we’ve been trying was 14.

I immediately started crying on the phone. The nurse asked me when the insemination was and if it was donor or husband sperm and I couldn’t talk – at all. She seemed a little confused by my crying and then she realized that I was happy, so tears of joy instead of sadness!

B is out of town tonight. I really wish he was here so I could tell him in person, but there is no way that I can keep it from him until he comes home. I wish I could see his face when I tell him.

I go back Thursday morning to make sure my numbers are doubling. I am so excited and nervous and scared and so many other emotions I can’t even describe. So much for getting any work done this week! Thanks for all of your support with the IUI – it really has meant so much to me to have people to turn to with my questions.

And Congratulations to infertility just sucks. She received a wonderful beta yesterday. Yay!


I have a beta test at 11:30 today. That is the latest appointment to get the results back today. I am very nervous about the test, but otherwise I don’t feel anything – imminent period pains or otherwise. My temps are still up – but today is 14 dpiui, which could still be early for my temperature to drop.

I really hope this is it, but at the same time trying not to get my hopes up. Such is life for an infertile I suppose. I will update (with good news hopefully!) as soon as I hear back.

A few questions

We had a wonderful, relaxing weekend which should mean that I am well-rested to start the work week. Unfortunately one of our dogs had an upset stomach during the night. The horrible smell woke me up around 2:30am. It didn’t seem to phase either dog, both of whom thought it was play-time when I got out of bed to clean up the mess (Note: husband was sleeping soundly until the grout scrubbing of poo got too loud for him. Yes, said husband is still alive, but just barely).

B is off work today so at least the pups will get some extra TLC. The only thing I can think of that upset him is we changed their food – but still the same brand, we just switched from weight control (one used to be a fatty) to active dog. We even mixed the new and old food to help with the transition, but I guess we didn’t do it well enough. Our junk-yard dog, Humane Society pup is fine and the purebred that we actually paid money for is sick. Go figure.

Today is 7dpo, 6dpiui. I think I am going to go in for a blood test this time instead of testing at home. Testing just drains me and makes me insane. B is voting for the blood test because he wants proof that everything looks okay before we celebrate and he doesn’t trust hpt’s.

How early can a blood test pick up a positive? Like I said before, my luteal phase is typically 17-20 days – I am not sure if that has anything to do with how early you can get a positive blood test. The only time I actually did get pregnant, I tested negative with a blood test at 9dpo (I was getting routine blood work before starting Clomid the next month) and I finally got a positive HPT on 18dpo. Of course that one ended in a miscarriage a few days later so it is probably not the best to compare. My thought now is to get a blood test a week from tomorrow, which will be 15 dpo, 14 dpiui.

After reading through this post I can see that the insanity has already set in. This is early for me but I imagine it’s because B will be deploying again in April. Plus he told me this weekend that he has so many TDY’s (military business/training trips) in February and March that he wants me to call the fertility clinic and ask about freezing possibilities. Has anyone done this?

Tagged

I am embarrassed to admit how long ago I was tagged by In Search of Morning Sickness. Better late than never:

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Lifeguard at Big Kahunas water-park
2. Hostess at a restaurant with the unfortunate name of Lucky Snapper (yes, I get the dirty joke in this one too!)
3. Credit Analyst
4. Financial Analyst

Four Movies I have watched more than once:
1. Grease
2. Sound of Music
3. Office Space
4. While You Were Sleeping (and any other cheesy romance or comedy on TBS during rainy weekends)

Four TV shows that I watch faithfully:
1. Scrubs
2. The Office
3. My Name is Earl
4. Dirty Jobs or anything on Discovery/TLC

Four Places I have vacationed:
1. Norway
2. Jamaica
3. St. Martin
4. Smoky Mountains

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Pizza
2. Spaghetti
3. Breakfast foods (any and all!)
4. Anything with cream cheese

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Beach
2. A cozy mountain cabin with my husband
3. Beach
4. My parent’s house (which is at the beach)

Four hobbies I have:
1. Running
2. Reading
3. Skiing
4. Spending time with husband and friends (not sure if this is considered a hobby, but it is something I love to do nonetheless)

I think everyone has already done this - but if you haven’t, consider yourself tagged.

IUI

The IUI is complete! I have to admit the procedure itself was a little anticlimactic. After all of the preparation (peeing on what seemed like hundreds of OPK’s), research, and talking about it with B – the procedure itself seemed pretty dull.

The nurse practioner actually performed the IUI. She was very nice and explained everything to us before she began. B collected 114 million sperm and all of his other percentages where wonderful (I can’t remember the numbers, but she seemed impressed)! B later told me that what she was trying to say was that he should probably be selling the stuff! :)

She began the IUI by telling me that my mucus looked excellent – not really what a husband wants to hear when a lady is examining his wife’s girly parts. B handled it like a trooper though. In less than 5 minutes it was over and she told me that I now had millions and millions of sperm floating around my uterus in a mad dash to find the egg. I hope she was right!

Edited to Add: I forgot to mention the email I got from a good friend about 30 minutes before I left work to meet B at the clinic. She asked if the doctor’s would at least allow me to have drinks with the turkey baster first - to set the mood before the violation. That cracked me up (to the point I almost shot the water I was drinking out my nose!) and totally eased the tension/anxiety I was feeling. B and I truly are blessed to have wonderful friends – while we haven’t told most about the IF, the ones that do know have been so supportive.

Positive OPK!

Praise the Lord, I finally got a positive OPK! I was getting nervous that I missed it – which would be close to impossible since I was taking 2-3 tests a day for the past few days.

We are set for the IUI at 1:00 tomorrow. I am trying not to get my hopes up, but I am pretty excited about trying an IUI versus just the meds. I hope my office will do a blood draw beta check rather than making me wait to get a positive which will be about a week later. Waiting is not my expertise!

Thanks to all the ladies who gave me advice about B’s donation to the IUI cause. My RE nurse confirmed what ya’ll said – 48 hours is ideal.

Mini-Marathon

I decided to sign up for our city mini-marathon in late April. My work has a detailed training program, which is the only way I think I can actually stick to running for 4 months. Every Saturday starting in 2 weeks we will meet at 7:30 in the morning for our long runs (I know, clearly I have lost my mind!). We also run on our own 3 days a week.

I wanted to run it last year but kept thinking I would get pregnant so I never started the training. I explained to the lady in charge about the fertility treatments. She was very encouraging and even said she hopes that by actually signing up for the race this year I end up getting pregnant right away.

I started training this week and I am already sore. I ran 3 miles yesterday and at the end I thought in a few months I will have to run an additional 10 miles! Yikes!

On the IF front - still no sign of ovulating. I think I scared it away. Today is CD 15 so hopefully I will get a positive OPK tomorrow.

Hope everyone had a good weekend!

Back to work

... and not necessarily happy to be here! Way too many emails were waiting for me when I returned. We had a pretty hectic holiday, spending 5 days in north Florida with my family and 4 days skiing in Wisconsin. This meant more hours than I can count in the car listening to 7 different NFL channels thanks to Sirius radio. Oy!

We decided to try IUI (aka the turkey baster) this cycle. B refuses to call it anything other than the turkey baster – as in “when do we go in for the turkey baster?” and “how long will the turkey basting take?” He thinks it’s hilarious, but I am pretty sure he is going to have a heart attack when they actually perform said turkey basting. That’s when I will giggle. :)

This is my fourth month on Femara. The last three months I ovulated around day 14-15. B was asking me last night how many days of no sex before the turkey basting. I have a call into my RE to get all of the details. I know many of you ladies have done IUI’s before – can you shed some light? With the semen analysis he was supposed to have 2 days stored up in the boys. But if I won’t know when I am going to ovulate until the day before, how do we make sure the amount of days that are stored up? I read somewhere that if there are too many days stored up, it can have bad results – low motility and morphology.

Oy! I never imagined that these would be questions I had to ask complete strangers (nurse, RE, etc) with a straight face. I definitely checked my dignity at the door of the RE office on my first visit!

Today is CD 12 which means I may be ovulating over the weekend. From what I understand, at my RE clinic you have to arrive at 7:45am bright eyed, bushy tailed, and ready to be inseminated. It is somewhat first come, first serve and there are no set hours – once the last couple is complete they close up shop. B was not happy to hear that he may have to be up early on a weekend morning – even more irked when he realized what he would have to do prior to us leaving for the clinic!

Oh, and before I forget, congrats to Katie and Geohde on their wonderful news!