This is ridiculously real!

We went in this morning to have another blood draw to find out what our "doubling time" is. And I got a 492. The lab told me that they were expecting a score around 2.5 times the previous result. And we were a whopping 3.152!  I think we win at blood tests.

And this little ball of cells has settled in for the time being. In a week and a half, we'll be headed back to the clinic for an ultrasound to see that everything has settled in properly and to verify just how many balls of cells are floating around inside my uterus.

I apologize if my blog is a bit lacking, as of late. For those of you that have never experienced pregnancy, I am utterly and completely exhausted. I'm lucky to make it to 9:00 at night before I need my bed.

In the past 96 hours

These three things happened:

And then we had a blood draw with our doctor. Beta of 156.1

We are officially pregnant!

And I capped it off by barfing in the parking lot of a post office.

The Dreaded Two Week Wait

Here we are. In our very first two week wait for our very first insemination. And though I told myself in the buildup that I wouldn't obsess, that I would just go about my life, I still find myself worrying about *everything*.

Did I just cough to hard? 

What if I squatted down to fast to pick up the dog and dislodged anything that could have been happening? 

How did I not know that I cannot drink hibiscus tea if I'm trying to get knocked up? Obviously, that cup of tea I just drank is destroying every chance I had!

My brain just cannot seem to shut off. Right now, if all is going the way we want it to, this is happening in my body:

And really, that could be exact it. Everything that could go well for us, went great. When we went in on Friday for my Day 12 scan, I had two really great looking, "juicy" follicles getting ready to spit out some eggs. I took my trigger shot at exactly 8 p.m. on Saturday night, and 37 hours later, we were inseminated. Our donor vial had a post-thaw, post-wash count of 23 million!  23 MILLION! (Anything over 10 million is acceptable and 15 is the norm. We got 23 Million!) I had absolutely no "regurgitation" or spilling. My acupuncture appointment afterword was relaxing and rejuvenating. 

So, now...we sit. And we wait. Until February 25. (Or more likely February 26, because I'll be too scared to test and would rather just wait it out).  

Quaking In My Boots

I'm a pretty strong woman. If you've ever met me, know my story, know who I am, you know that I'm awfully hardy.  I'm sweet and soft and kind and compassionate. And I'm tough as nails.

But here I am about to approach what I am finding is the scariest thing I have done in a very, very long time. We're making a baby. The Wife and I have been talking a lot about how much of the process we should share with the world. Not because we're shy, but because we don't want to be that couple that over-shares everything.

I'm a little bit scared, because I've been labeled "infertile" before. When I was married to my ex-husband, he had what was essentially a zero sperm count. Anything below 15 million sperm is considered a low count. My ex had less than 500,000. So, technically, my ex was infertile, but I was the one that had to go through all of the treatments. There's not a lot out there to fix a zero sperm count. So, our option was insemination. When you combine that with my polycystic ovaries, and our chances were very, very minimal. We tried naturally for over two years, and then did 2 inseminations with ovulatory drugs, and failed every single time. Each time I got my period, I was pretty sure my heart was being torn out of my chest. I am fairly certain it was the beginning of the end of our marriage.

I met The Wife. I fell head over heels in love. She and I began talking about babies fairly early on in our relationship. We knew it was something we both wanted, though I really wanted to be married and settled in before we started putting a lot of energy into knocking me up. But now we're married and we're very settled. We have a wonderful relationship. We live in a neighborhood we love. The Wife has a fantastic job. I am in a position where I can continue to work occasionally and be at home to care for a child.  We're ready.  It's definitely time!   

But I'm so scared! And I know I'm going to need support and I'm going to need to vent. I will absolutely continue to link to my blog posts on Facebook, but I'm going to try to keep the baby making crazy contained just to my blog so that my friends who could care less about this process don't have to read it. 

So, how can you support us? Honest, I don't know. I do know the things that hurt when I hear them (and believe me, we've already started hearing them).

Things NOT To Say When Your Gay Friends are Making Babies

You can always adopt or foster. 

It will happen when it is supposed to happen. 

Maybe it isn't meant to be. 

Aren't you afraid of multiples?!?!

Have you tried XYZ method of increasing fertility? My second cousin twice removed did that and got pregnant right away!

You can just keep trying. 

It was hard for me and Mr. Me, but we just kept having sex and it happened.

Every time my husband looks at me, I get pregnant.

Why don't you just go have a one night stand? 

Who will the father be? Do you know what the father looks like? 

What will The Wife be to your baby?

I May Be Dying of Withdrawal

Last week, I started the process of weaning myself off of caffeine. I cut my regular coffee 50/50 with a pound of decaf. And I did alright. The first day or two I had a mild headache, but I did okay. And by the end of the week, I was having no problems at all! I was so excited. This was gonna be easy.

So, when I got up this morning, I wasn't even a little bit nervous about making the switch to 100% decaf. I brewed it up in my Aeropress so that it would still have a really strong flavor. Just because I can't get the buzz, doesn't mean that I can't enjoy a good cuppa, right? And it tasted great.

About an hour later though, I was completely out of it. My head was throbbing. I was having a hard time forming complete sentences. When The Wife asked me if I could measure a space in the kitchen for the new table we're considering, I couldn't remember how to work the yard stick.  Really!  A YARD STICK. A stick with inches printed on it. Was I supposed to measure from one end or the other? It wasn't long enough! OH!

So, I went back to bed. And slept it off. And woke up a few hours later much more clear and ready for the day. Around 6 o'clock, I finally started feeling like a human again.

Day one- Caffeine free. ACHIEVED!

This baby had better be awfully cute!

Terrified

We had an appointment with our reproductive clinic this morning. The doctor that we see is absolutely brilliant. He completed his undergrad at MIT and went to Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. His internship and endocrinology fellowship was done at Harvard.  I mean, this Dr. Brilliant (not his real name) has amazing credentials. His nurse ensures us that no doctor will take better care of us.

During our first few visits with him, I felt like he was going to do everything he could to get me pregnant, and treat my fertility issues aggressively. After our appointment today, I'm not so sure.

My cycles have become more regular in the last six months,which should mean that I'm ovulating. So, Dr. Brilliant has decided that if we want to try after the first of the year, I should track my cycles for a couple months and we will go ahead with an IUI in January; an UNMEDICATED, UNMONITORED IUI. No clomid. No trigger shot. No ultrasound to verify ovulation

(not my uterus. no uteri were damaged in the writing of this post.)

.
I've been under the impression for the last ten years that my lady parts were in some way damaged and faulty. They don't function properly. I would never be able to become pregnant without the assistance of modern medicine.

So, now, my dysfunctional body is expected to achieve pregnancy with no assistance whatsoever. Because of six maybe functional months.

I'm deeply, deeply disappointed. I want to go at this aggressively. This process costs money! Money that we have worked really hard to earn and to save. I want the absolute best chance possible with each and every cycle.  A medicated IUI with ideal conditions only gives us a 10-12% chance of conception. I'm not letting myself do any further research about the success rates for unmedicated cycles. The one statistic I found was so incredibly disheartening that I cannot bear to look any further.

Bring Out The Big Guns...Please?

Next week, we'll be meeting with our reproductive endocrinologist again to start making plans for the beginning of 2014.

A year ago, when we first decided we were ready to start the baby making process, the plan was-

Cycle Days 3-7  Take Clomid
Cycle Day 12     Ultrasound to verify good follicles
Cycle Day 12     If follicles are cooperating, HCG ovulation trigger shot
Day 13 or 14     Insemination

But because of my history of failed attempts, I really want to beg the doctor for stronger medications. I am not opposed to injectables, if he would be willing. At the minimum, I'd really like for him to let me try Femara, which is a step up from Clomid.  I just really want to give us the best chance we can get.

Starting our prep work

 

 

We first started being seen at the Reproductive Medicine Center over a year ago, but wanted to take the time to save up money to purchase our donor sperm for all of our available cycles. We easily could have saved one cycle at a time and then just skipped a couple months in between to save up for each one, but the last thing I want to be stressed out about while trying to conceive is finances.

So, now we have plenty in savings to cover vials of sperm for all four cycles that my insurance will cover. I guess it’s time to get this party started.

We started the preparations over the last few months. I changed my regular multi-vitamin to a prenatal vitamin. We started eating healthier. I started paying more attention to my cycles. I’ve been quitting smoking and I think I’m finally making it stick. And as of today, the test sticks for my trusty Clearblue Fertility monitor were delivered. (I’ve just never trusted myself enough to read the regular ovulation predictor kits). We have our follow-up appoint on November 26 to set up the insemination cycle schedule and find out about medications.

To say that I’m scared is the understatement of the year. Back when I was with my ex, we attempted a couple of inseminations and failed. Now mind you, that was using what was essentially a zero sperm count sample. Our chances of conceiving were less than 2%. With a healthy donor, our chances are up to 86% with multiple inseminations. Those are pretty good chances. And there are two of us. So, depending on circumstances, we might have a secondary uterus and a few more cycles to fall back on.

But the thought of failure -- I do not want to disappoint The Wife. I don’t want to feel the disappointment in my body again. It’s ridiculously hard to sit through that two weeks between insemination and pregnancy test imagining a sweet little baby coming into your life only to have your heart broken month after month.

Our Little Foster Pal

Hi Gorgeousness! (And a special hello to whoever started following me on Bloglovin! You're my first official follower that isn't just me!)

I thought I'd introduce you to our beautiful little foster. She's going to be staying with us for a month or two until she can mature enough to eat on her own. Her official name with the rescue is Avita, but I've just been calling her Squeak or Kitt.

 

She is so tiny that she needs to eat every few hours, which has required to me sleeping on the couch for the last week, except for last night when my Wife took over baby duty so that I could get a solid night of sleep. 

I was laughing a bit tonight about it, because in reality, with our plans to add a new baby to the family sometime in the next year, it's great practice! It's been a long time since we've spent so much energy caring for something this tiny,and helpless.  

Speaking of our plans to add to the family, I've been narrowing down our donor choices and paying more attention to what I'm eating and drinking. I'm going to start working on decreasing my caffeine intake. At this point, I think that our plan is to start trying officially as soon as the holidays are over. I lost the ten pounds of stress weight that I gained during the wedding and I've managed to remain a non-smoker (in spite of a couple of incredibly difficult nights that I was dying to light up).  So, yep. We're ready.  Now just to get through the the holidays in a relatively healthy way!