Do not pass Go, do not collect $200

Or is it, pass Go and collect $200? Or better yet, the way we always played was if you land on Go, you collect $500. Well, I didn't collect $500, but I did get a needle in my butt!



Since the sight of the needle practically made my husband pass out, my good friend MamaChristy gave me the trigger shot tonight. It was easier on both of us than we had anticipated. And hey, she now has bragging rights - she's the first woman to ever 'make' me ovulate!

I'm so excited.....

(singing) and I just can't hide it! I'm about to release some eggs, and I think I like it.

So things went amazingly well at the doctor! I was not expecting anything, but it turns out the Letrizole(Femara) worked! My right ovary has a nice big juicy 22.4mm follicle and my left has a 14.8mm follicle. I will be getting my hCG trigger shot tonight (intra-muscular unfortunately!) and having the IUI Saturday morning! So, there's a good chance I could release two eggs! And a decent chance I could be pregnant by Christmas! I'm trying so hard not to get my hopes up, but damn am I excited!

Crossing my fingers.....

and asking for you to cross yours too! I'll find out tomorrow morning if there has been any change, as in "have these stupid follicles grown?!". Ideally I'd like to have 2 follicles at 18-20mm. That would mean I'd be doing my trigger shot tomorrow and probably having my IUI on Friday or Saturday. But, I'll be happy if the follicles are like 16mm. That would probably mean going in again on Friday to make sure they are ready (approx 18-22mm), then triggering Friday night or Saturday.

The main thing I'm looking for is that the follicles are bigger than last time. And that if they are not, then the doc will finally let me use the injections again. So, please cross your fingers for me! I'll post tomorrow and let you know what happened.....

additional info

I forgot to mention that my uterine lining was much thinner at this appointment..... 4.2mm, which is pretty thin. So.... either nothing is happening and that is why my lining is thin and my follicles are small; OR my body is taking it's sweet time, which it has been known to do in the past, and come Thursday my lining will be a little thicker and my follies will be a little bigger. Guess I have no choice but to play the waiting game until Thursday....

In the meantime, I am sick as a dog and I'm not sure why. I have either the flu or a horrible head cold, and I'm also battling a stomach bug. My sinuses hurt and my head is so congested it feels like it is full of marshmallow fluff. Some of which is melting out my nose. And making my eyes sting and water. Not to mention I am exhausted and so thirsty I feel like I've been walking in the Sahara for days! Do you have a good visual yet? I checked the good 'ole internet and the flu isn't going around my area much yet so it is probably just a cold, but I sure wish I knew for sure! So far my daughter seems okay.... hopefully it stays that way! And hopefully this goes away by Thursday, because it is d@mn hard to get up at 5am and drive for 45 minutes when you feel like you've been run over by a bus!

Update, cd13

Went in for my monitoring this morning. I have 2 hopeful follicles. One on my left ovary is ~11mm and one on my right ovary is ~12mm, along with a gazillion under 10mm on each ovary. These 2 are kind of small for cd13, but since they are larger than my average follies, we're going to check back on Thursday to see if they grew. No guarantees though since the Femara is a new medication for me! I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but it's so hard! 'Normally', follicles grow 1-3mm per day until ovulation. So, if I was normal, my 2 follies could be 'ripe' by the weekend. However, I am far from normal, so we'll just have to wait and see! Meanwhile I'll be waiting anxiously, with my fingers crossed....

OPK BFN

Against my better judgement, I used an Ovulation Predictor Kit this morning. Actually got my hopes up when a line appeared in the test window. My husband came in as I was reading the results and he got excited too. Then I read the instructions more thoroughly and discovered that an OPK is not like a pregnancy test. With a pregnancy test, any line in the test window indicates a positive result. With an OPK, the line in the test window has to be as dark as or darker than the line in the reference window (I can't think if what it is actually called). So, even though I had a line in the test window, it was much lighter than the other line, so my results were negative. I should have gone with my instincts and not even done the stupid test. I had planned on just telling the doc that I forgot or something, because I didn't want to get myself down before I actually go in to the doctor tomorrow to find out if the meds are working.
I'll post an update sometime in the next day or two about what happens at the doc tomorrow. I'm anticipating bad news though so don't start biting your nails in anticipation or anything!

A day for giving thanks....

I just wanted to write a brief note regarding what I am most thankful for this Thanksgiving.....
*My wonderful, beautiful daughter, who truly means the world to me and amazes me each day. I cannot imagine life without her.
*My husband, whom I do not show my thanks for enough. If not for him, I wouldn't be able to spend all of these glorious days with my daughter - I would instead be working. And who else would put up with all my horrible mood swings? Oh yeah, and I'm SO thankful he still finds me sexy after all the changes my body has gone through since he married me!
*My insurance..... I know, who gives thanks to their insurance? Okay, maybe I should thank the government, since we have military insurance. But anyways, without them I would not have my beautiful little girl, and I would not have the opportunity to have yet another little miracle in my life in the hopefully-near future. And for that I am very thankful.
*My family, who I am beginning to realize will not always be there. We have unfortunately lost too many important members (my father-in-law, my dad, my husband's grandma, and my grandpa in the past 6 years) and it has really made me realize that life is too short and can end unexpectedly so to appreciate what you have more while it is here. I am truly thankful for the time I get to spend with my family.
*My friends , some of whom who are more like family to me than my own blood (you know who you are!). I am so thankful that I have friends who have been and, I believe, always will be there when I need them.

I hope that all of you have a happy and blessed Thanksgiving. Enjoy the time with those who are special to you.....

From the mouths of babes....

Out shopping with my daughter today (poor lil thing has been sick but I had to run some errands!) and she said the darndest thing that just made my day. She was sitting in the front of the cart and she leaned over to hug me and said "I love you mama, you're the best mama I ever seen." I swear to God, that is exactly what she said! I have no idea where she learned it, but she has said it to me several times today, including once in front of my husband who was as awed as I was! I just cannot believe how frequently this little girl leaves me speechless and amazed!

irritated

I don't think I've ever mentioned it, but I volunteer for a local humane society as a foster parent for cats until we can find them a good home. I've been doing this for several months now and have had 7-8 cats in and out of my house in that time. This is on top of the 3 of my own I already had, and the 1 foster kitten we recently adopted to make it 4 of our own. Right now I've got 5 cats in my house, meaning 5 cats to feed, clean up after, and give attention to.
Anyways, a couple of my cats have come down with some health issues that we (and our vet) feel may be stress related. So I told the humane society that I can no longer foster for them and need someone to take the foster cat I have right now because she is causing some problems in my home. I got an email back basically saying "we'll see what we can do, but in my experience these health issues are not caused by stress". To which I replied that in our opinion and our vets opinion, the stress of strange cats in the house is the only cause we can find and whether or not they agree we would like to try removing the stress and seeing what happens. Also, that I have had some personal issues lately that are preventing me from having the time and energy to keep up with so many cats. And..... I have not heard a word since. I sent these emails out on Friday. Now, I realize this may not seem like a long time to wait for a response, but let me tell you this - whenever I have emailed with offers to help, I have received a response within hours. Whenever they have asked me for help, I have responded within hours. This is an all-volunteer organization, so I understand that they rely on volunteers to foster, but I also know that they have a 'core' membership that is in charge and could easily take in this cat.
I guess I'm just really peeved that I have done a lot to help them out, yet when I ask for help in return (meaning please take back this foster cat that I am under no obligation to keep for you) so I can take care of the health of my own cats, I get nothing from them. I'm debating what I should do if I continue to not hear anything from them. Threaten to take her to the pound? That's what the people who contact them about strays are threatening when they call me to take in a foster to save it's life. Seems to get a quick response, but I shouldn't have to go to that extreme. I'm at a loss for ideas......

The NEW verdict is in!

I'm disappointed. Went in today and my endometrial lining is at 18, which is way too thick. That would be caused by my off-the-charts levels of estrogen, which I knew about though didn't know it was as high as it is. Also didn't really know all the effects of high estrogen. Let's see..... migraines, check; fatigue, check; pms and mood swings, double freaking check; weight gain, check; muscle aches and pains, check; depression, check; abnormal bleeding, check check check check check. Oh yeah, did I mention the increased risk of breast cancer? Oh, the fun our wacky hormones bring.
Anyways, apparently the doc is leary of putting me on injectables. I have so many follicles on my ovaries thanks to the PCOS he seems to want to avoid injectables at all costs. So the plan is now to try something called Letrozole. He wants to at least give this a try before moving on to injectables. I'm disappointed because I know the injectables work - that's how I got my beautiful daughter! But I guess if there's a chance this will work, then I'm willing to try it. What's one more month right?
So, I take 2 of these pills every day for cd4-8, then I go in on cd13 (the Monday after Thanksgiving) for bloodwork and ultrasound to see if I'm responding to it. If so, we'll go ahead with the IUI.
In the meantime, I have horrible cramps and a sick cat (more about this at a later time) so I'm outta here.....

The verdict is in!

The clinic finally called me back around 3:30pm. Yesterday was cd1 and tomorrow we will officially begin our first IUI cycle! The way the 'morning clinic' works for the monitoring is that the hospital doors open at 6:30am. You go to the clinic, take a number, then walk over to the lab and wait to have your blood drawn. After being poked with a needle multiple times (thanks to my horrible veins), I will then go back to the clinic and wait for my number to be called for my ultrasound. Based on what the ultrasound shows my uterine lining and follicles to be doing, and what my lab results show for my hormone levels, I will be told at some point that day how much medicine to inject (usually 1 or 2 vials). I will start the injections tomorrow, and continue them and my bi-weekly monitoring until my follicles are mature, then I'll do a 'trigger shot' of a different hormone to force my body to ovulate. Followed a day or 2 later by the actual IUI. So, that's the plan! Cross your fingers that everything looks good tomorrow so I can start the injections! With any luck, I could be pregnant by mid-December. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but it's so hard!
Anyways, I have to be up at 5am so I can leave by 5:30 for the clinic. So, I'll update this weekend!

Argh! I hate waiting!

I called the clinic message line last night (around 6pm) and left them a message that it was cd1 and I was supposed to start an IUI cycle and to please call me to set up my monitoring schedule, as Friday would be cd3 and I would need to be in at 6:30am. I called again around 11:30am this morning to leave another message that I'm not sure it was cd1 because it's just been spotting and could someone please call me to verify if it is indeed cd1 and if I will be coming in tomorrow morning at 6:30am for monitoring because I needed to set up childcare and that it's hard to find someone to babysit at 6am, so to please call me asap to let me know what the plan is. I figured they don't need to know I already told my husband to come home early from his trip.
Yeah, it's almost 2pm now and still no call back. I'm pretty sure this spotting is my period since I had such a horrible one a few weeks ago. There can't be much left in my body to shed! But still, I'd really like to know what the f*** is going on! I've got my hopes up about starting our first IUI cycle, and I made my husband and his coworker drive home tonight assuming I would be going in tomorrow morning. Now I don't know what is going on! I just wish they would call me back!! Argh! I'm getting so super-cranky!

So much for planning

Remember back, oh, a few weeks ago I guess, when I had the wonderful hemorhaging incident and had to start birth control? And how the plan was that I would stop the birth control when we were ready to do our IUI cycle? Yeah, so based on my extensive history with birth control pills, I calculated when I would need to take my last pill to start my period so my cd3 monitoring would fall after my husband gets home from his trip. In the past, I always started a pack of pills on Sunday and would end on a Saturday. I would take my last pill Saturday morning and would always start my period Tuesday evening. So I figured that I would take my last pill this Monday night that just passed, and I would start my period no sooner than Friday morning. I had it all planned out because my husband is coming home Friday afternoon. So he could watch our daughter Saturday, Sunday, or whenever while I went in for my 6:30am baselines. Yeah, my plan just got screwed! I started my period tonight. So that means I will have to go for my baselines Friday morning. At 6:30am. Leaving my house at 5:30am. And I cannot take my daughter. So I just called my husband and told him he has to drive home tomorrow night. He probably won't get in before midnight, but tough crap. The only problem is that he is not the only one on this trip and he has the only car. So the guy who went with him would have to also pack all his bags tonight (mind you, it's past 10pm), check out in the morning, and drive back with my husband tomorrow night whenever they get done with work. So he his trying to reach the guy right now. I hope to God he does and that they can work it out, because I have no idea what I will do otherwise!!!

I'll update as soon as I know something.....

-----Update, 10:17pm - he did reach the other guy and they will be driving home after work tomorrow. They'll have a crappy drive and hit lots of work traffic, but he will definitely make it home in time to stay with our daughter while I go to the clinic. I'm saved!
By the way, since I will be starting those oh-so-wonderful injections soon, be prepared for plenty of weeping and whining!

I get by with a little help from my friends....

I don't, however, get high with a little help from my friends, unlike the Beatles.
Anyways, my daughter has been feeling a bit under the weather the past couple days and I am exhausted. It's always rough when my husband is out of town, because there are no breaks - I am the only parent, caretaker, etc, all day and all night. Often when my husband is on one of his trips, my dear friend and neighbor, MamaChristy makes my daughter and I dinner. Even though we couldn't go over for dinner since my daughter is sick, she brought us dinner tonight. Isn't that sweet? Anyways, it looked so cool (and tasted great) when it came out of the oven that I thought I'd post a picture of it here. Followed by a couple pics of the cookies I made Monday and Tuesday. Are you getting hungry yet?

Road Trip Update

So...... the road trip wasn't too bad. My daughter got up super early the day we left so was a total crab for the first hour and a half. We stopped for lunch and put a movie (Cars, the 3 year old's choice) in and she was still a crab. After about 20-30 minutes, we decided to switch to one of her movies and she did much better after that. The rest of the drive there went pretty well.

Thursday we had dinner at the hotel buffet (can't beat free!), Friday we went to the park and that night we went to dinner at the Hoffbrau or something like that. A steakhouse across from the hotel. I was not very impressed, but that's irrelevant. The walk there along the river, and under the road, was nice. The kids really enjoyed the river. We took a walk during the day a couple times and they saw turtles, ducks, some kind of white bird (egret or crane or something), and even a snake in the water.

Saturday was the zoo, where my daughter was again a whiny-butt until lunch, but it's tough to make a 2 year old understand that just because the 3 year old is allowed to run up ahead doesn't mean she can. We had that problem a lot during the trip. He'd be running ahead and she wanted to go too and we kept having to yell at her to stay by us. Sorry, my toddler needs to stay where I can grab her if necessary. It's too easy for someone else to grab them when they are not by you. Anyways, after lunch we had fun at the zoo, the kids fed some fish in the water by the giraffes, we rode the train, and saw a bunch of animals. Saturday night we had leftovers from the steakhouse. Still crappy the second time around.

Oh, did I mention we had free breakfast at the hotel every day? That was really nice. We stayed at a Residence Inn and they provided really excellent service.

So back to the trip..... Sunday we went to the Botanical Gardens for a couple hours. I highly recommend it to anyone visiting the Ft Worth area. We only got to see a couple of the gardens, but they were beautiful. Actually, there were several families there doing family photos because the grounds were a perfect back-drop. After that we had lunch at Chili's, one of my favorites, then we drove home.

The drive home wasn't too bad either. The kids slept about 30-40 minutes in the beginning and we only stopped twice (actually, we only stopped twice both ways. We times our last stop perfect because about 15 minutes after we got back on the road we go stuck by an accident ahead of us. We were dead-stopped for 30 minutes. The kids behaved great for it though! They got a little whiny towards the end, but hey, it'd been a busy weekend for them!

So, all-in-all, the trip went well. I'll post some pics below.... there might be a lot because I can't choose!

Daddy and his Little Princess

White 'bird' on the river

Rose Garden 1

Rose Garden 2

Reflection Pond 1

Reflection Pond 2

Road Trip..... from hell??

Leaving Thursday to drive up to Fort Worth with a full van. Not only will I have my two year old daughter with me, but I will also have a 3 year old boy and a less-than-one year old (I can't remember how old he is). Plus their mom, a woman I don't really know all that well, but is nice. See, my husband and her husband work together and they are both in Fort Worth for work right now so apparenlty we had both planned on driving up so our husbands thought we should do it together. Now, I've tried to get out of it numerous ways, but apparently my husband does not understand that I really don't want to take a 5-6 hour road trip with 3 young children. One newly potty trained and probably having to pee every 10 minutes. The other still at least partially breastfed which means additional stops at feeding time. Now my daughter, she has always been a trooper on car trips. She can easily go 2 hours without stopping (usually sleeping half of it or more) and since she is still wearing diapers I don't have to listen to "I have to go potty" 10 minutes after having passed a rest stop.
Oh, one more thing - since my husband drove himself and this other guy up to Fort Worth and I am driving everyone else in my van, anywhere that we go while there will have to be in two separate cars. We planned a trip to the Dallas zoo, so now they are going with us, but the husbands will have to drive separately. We planned to go out to a nice dinner one night. So now we will all have to go together, with our husbands driving separately. Does anyone else wonder what the point is of driving all this way so I can spend all of my freaking time with this other woman and her children? The whole point was supposed to be that we could spend the weekend together since he's gone so flippin' often nowadays. But instead of going Friday-Monday, now we have to go Thursday-Sunday because the 3 year old has a dr appointment Monday morning. So essentially we're driving all this way to really only have one full day together (Saturday) and that is now going to be spent with this other family at the zoo.
I'm a very private, solitary person. I like to be by myself, with my family, and sometimes friends who I know well. I don't like to be around people I barely know. I'm not comfortable. I'm very bitter that what I was thinking of as a vacation has turned into a chore.

What do our dreams mean?

Okay, so I've been meaning to post about this for awhile now. I find myself often dreaming about my exes. Two of them in particular, one more than the other. I'm not entirely sure why it is these two and not any others, but suspect it is because these are the two I had the biggest connection with. They were my first loves and we were together for a decent length of time (1.5 years with one, and probably about the same with the other, but spread out more). I find myself wondering what they are up to, if they are married, have kids, etc. What would have happened if things had worked out differently for us. If anyone is educated on the meaning behind our dreams (I know there are books and stuff out there), I'd be happy to answer any questions to help clarify things. Basically, I'm wondering why this is constantly happening and if other people have the same thing going on? It's really starting to get to me.....