Thankful

Today and everyday I am thankful for:
My loves unconditional love and devotion.
My family and friends.
My dogs and cat.
My health.
Our jobs.
Our free country and to live in a state that has marriage equality.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

peace,quiet and serenity

I love having my family here but I love it when everyone is in bed and I have peace, quiet and serenity. It was a long day of cooking and preparing for tomorrow. Lots of family time tonight with a game of dominoes, junk food and overall good conversation. Enjoy it all while you can it wont last forever. Oh on another note...Af came today. I will be starting a clomid challenge test in order to prepare for the paperwork and insurance requirements for IVF.

BFN

Well I could not resist the urge to test today. I really have not had any reason (symptom wise) to feel like this one would be any different than before, although I really hoped in the back of my mind it would. So I am sure in the next day or so AF will come. It looks like our new year will be started off with IVF. Last time we had a consult with our doctor he said we would try a couple more medicated cycles then we should really consider IVF after that. The insurance I have now will not cover IVF but seeing how it is open enrollment time at work and they do offer a plan that does cover IVF then I will be signing up for it. The cost of the new plan is double but it will be worth it for reimbursement cost of IVF. We are really bummed out about the BFN but remain hopeful for IVF.
We had a funny thing happen here last week. My parents are visiting and my father is a insulin dependent diabetic. Well he happens to have an injectable prefilled pen for his insulin medication that looks the same as my follistim injectable prefilled pen...see where I am going with this. Well in the morning while I was cooking breakfast he took out what he thought was his insulin pen except it was my follistim. My mom was standing by him and saw that the lettering was different on it so she said wait thats not yours and of course it hit me at that time what he had. I immediatly said without thinking that is my medication and took it back from him abruptly. Now this is all a problem because no one knows about our ttc mainly due to the fact that we dont want or need the extra pressure and now my parents whose hopes and dreams have always been to have a grandchild know. What a way to find out. Of course my dad automatically started asking "are you diabetic" and my mom just kept quite but waited for the moment that she could get me out of the house so she could get on the computer to find out what the medication was (she has a very nosey side to her). Now they are both estatic about the whole thing. I keep trying to tell them not to get their hopes up yet.

lucky number 7

Yesterday was Iui #7 for us. It all started out well. We both had the day off so that we could both be there together. The doctor said it was a good batch of swimmers and that they were really awake and ready to go. It all went well with the exception that she had to use the dreaded pincher aka teneculum. I hate that thing. It always causes me major cramping. So afterwards we got to go to one of our favorite breakfast spots for a good hearty breakfast. Then home to lie down and take it easy...except that did not happen due to the fact that I had major cramps by then. I took a hot bath and some ibuprofen it was so bad. It finally subsided in about 45 minutes. And the rest of the day I just took it easy while J did some more yard work. She was very supportive during my ordeal with the bad cramping and really felt bad that there was nothing she could do to take my pain away. She stayed with me until the cramping had stopped. This is why I love her so much she is so good to me. So now we are just waiting and hoping that this is the one. The tww's they always go by so slowly. Hopefully this one will will pass a little quicker since my family will be arriving next week and staying trough the thanksgiving holiday. This will keep me busy enough.

fall leaves

This past weekend we spent Saturday cleaning all the leaves that have fallen this season. And being that our yard is surrounded by trees it was a lot. I kept thinking about what a chore it is each year to clean up all the leaves and how much I dread doing it. Then I started to remember how as a kid fall cleanup was something we always looked forward to. My brother, sister, and I would each arm ourselves with a rake and big black trash bags. We would then start raking from the outside in until we had a huge pile of leaves made. Then the fun would begin. We would start from far back and run and jump into the leaf pile. We would do this over and over again until our parents would come out and tell us to get back to work. Although it was work it never really felt like work. We always had such a great time. I cant wait till we have a little one to make huge leaf piles for so they too can enjoy fall clean up.



We had a busy Sunday also. We went to church, food shopping and then off to see Cats at the palace theater. It was a great show.



Today I went for my u/s and lab work. I had 2 mature follicles one on the right 21cm and one on the left 18cm. I had 2 immature follicles one 16 and one 12. I am bummed that I did not have more. I thought for sure that I would have more this time since I had lots of pressure. I will do a hcg trigger tomorrow night then number 7 IUI on Thursday morning. Hopefully this is the one. It would be such as nice birthday present to find out that I am pregnant.

baby making contraband

I work at a place that has lots of security and everything you bring in has to be screened. Since I work evenings and that is when I have to give myself my follistim injection I have to pack it up everyday and take it to work with me. I am always afraid that the person screening me in is going to ask " what is that and could you take it out of your bag and show it to me" First of all no one knows about my ttc and second of all I dont want to announce it in a line full of co-workers waiting to be screened in. So far nothing has come up about it but I always worry. A few months ago a co-worker who had just returned to work after maternity leave was going through the screening process and she had her breast pump in a bag that looked liked a backpack and she put it through the scanner and the screener ( a male at that ) asked her what is that device you got there. She said in a quiet voice so that the whole line waiting to be screened could not hear her "trust me you dont want to know" but of course he said yes I do I have to know and she said well its a breast pump. He turned three shades of red and said you were right I do not want to know. Funny. Well lets just hope after this cycle I will not have to bring in the injection anymore and I can then just say to him trust me you dont want to know what is in that backpack. Of course to my relief I would be more than happy to say to him its a breast pump.

donor decisions

We are currently on our 7th Iui cycle. We have had 6 failed cycles 3 medicated cycles with follistim, hcg trigger and progesterone. It has been very trying at times but we are hanging in there. Each try brings some new outlook and hope that it will be the "one". We really feel blessed because my insurance has covered all of the medications and treatments with the exception of donor vials. After reading many blogs I realized we are very fortunate in this aspect as many of you have to pay out of pocket for the injectables which are very expensive.

Last night we had to make a another decision on a donor to use this time. Our favorite donor that we used with all of our previous Iui's has retired and we are really bummed about this. The last Iui we used a donor that did not have a high count so we did not want to chance that again so the search was on. After looking at dozens we finally found one we both liked and has had success in the past. I find the website of the bank we use to be very helpful in our search. They have each month 7-8 donors of the month where they show their baby pictures and profiles for free. They also have a donor look a like that shows you 3 pictures of actors that the donor most resembles as an adult. These of course are chosen by the staff and are free too. The one we chose last night most resembles Elijah Wood, Daniel Radcliffe, and Mark Ruffalo. Of course we are not just choosing a donor based on the physical characteritics we look more at the profile and overall health history. But I do think it is neat that they do this.

On another note my heart goes out to all of you Mainer's. I thought for sure I would wake up this morning and see that we had another victory for equality under our belt. I still am in shock.

who we are

I cant believe I finally got around to starting a blog. After so long of reading everyone's blog and thinking I must start one soon the day has finally arrived.

So here is a little about me and my partner J. We met and fell in love on Cape cod in 2004. We bought our home in New Hampshire in 2006. We finally settled down after moving several times with my job. J finished her degree in cardiac sonography last year and we finally started our adventure of trying to become mommies this year. So far the journey has been a challenge.

I read all of your blogs and see that some of you are having the same challenges we are and I read others that have beautiful healthy babies. Both give me hope and inspiration to keep trying. I see all the support you give one another and I want to become a part of that. So here we are.