The Morning After

I'm so tired... and have been this way all day. I think the emotions of yesterday finally caught up to me, and to top it all off, I feel like I am catching a cold.

After popping the Cold FX, I decided to attack the day with the positive outlook I was determined to carry over the next 2 weeks.

Other than being tired, everything else seemed so anti-climatic from yesterday's events. The only thing that slowed me down was the spotting. The nurse warned me about this possibility, but I really didn't think much about it. All day, I have been experiencing a bit of spotting... but I am not going to worry... that much.


Slipping out of the office early, I snuck home and had a nap before making dinner for Mike. I decided to use up the leftover chicken thawed from the night before, and made a chicken curry with rice. As soon as I started to cook, I realized the smell was NOT going to do it for me. Mike came home happy, eating most of it... but I ended up having a bowl of cheerios for dinner. How exciting!

To end the day, I took another Cold FX and hit the bed... it's only 10pm but I feel like I could sleep for days...

Thank God for weekends.

Here We Go!!!

Well, nothing goes according to plan, I have learned that if nothing else in this whole journey.

It was the second day for me to test using the OPKs.... I for some reason, decided to stay home from work today, feeling not quite myself; and low and behold... at 10:30am after peeing on that little stick, I got 2 lines.... my LH Surge was here.

WHAT???? That was a whole 5 days earlier than I expected it! I called the clinic right away, leaving them the message as instructed by the nurse in my consultation. I almost immediately received a call back from the clinic, and the nurse was NOT happy. She said I was supposed to call at 8:00am... but I didn't know that (or at least I forgot)... apparently I was supposed to pee first thing in the morning, something I didn't remember being told either.

In any case, my hubby is rushing to the clinic now, and needs to make his "deposit" at 12:00pm... then at 2:00pm I am to go in and get the IUI!

Im excited... but scared... and nervous... and well... every emotion! This is it!!!

I'd better make sure to shave my legs!!

When I arrived to the clinic precisely at 2:00pm, my legs felt like Jello and I wasn't sure I would actually be able to do this, without passing out first. I needed to calm down.

After only a few minutes, I was ushered into a small white room. Sterile, cold and all to clinical. The bright and informative posters on the wall did nothing to make the room less hospital like.

Then things really started to happen. The nurse handed me, (which at first looked like a small pink pill... perhaps a pain killer for the cramps...) a vial! WOW am I glad I didn't hastily swallow THAT! Neatly printed on the tiny tube (Looking more like a bullet than a vial) was my hubby's name and our "account number" there at the clinic. It sure was small! Seemingly reading my mind, she quickly told me that the vial contained 26 million spermies... which in the clinic's eyes was a great result. Woohoo!! Way to go Mikey!!!!

Moments later, I found myself lying on my back atop a beautiful paper sheet covered by a white blanket and trying to breathe through the next moments that took FOREVER.

I hadn't noticed the thoughtful use of pink oven mitts on the "stirrups" at the end of the table. Not really why they decided oven mitts would be a nice fit, but hey... at least my feet weren't getting cold!

Now, I have never been told I had a strange cervix... so why now, when I needed it to behave itself, did the nurse mumble that it was hiding? HIDING???? How dare it do that! (Not to mention how DID it do that?) Never the less, I sat back and enjoyed a 10 minute session of the scapula digging, pulling, adjusting, pushing and wrenching as she tried to clamp down in the right place. Was this really happening?????

Finally, she had it... and moments later with a little cramping, it was done. The little spermies were in place, and the work had been done.

"10 minutes" She said.... that was how long I was supposed to lay back and relax until getting re-dressed to let myself out of the office. But I didn't wear my watch!! I had left my cell phone in the car too... in fear that I would get a business call right as I lay back to start. HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KEEP TRACK OF TIME???

No clock anywhere?? They thought of OVEN MITTS but not a CLOCK?

As I counted to 600, my mind began to drift...

Never in my wildest dreams, had I thought I would be conceiving my first child under bright fluorescent lights, on a table smaller than a twin bed, and with no man insight. But hey... sometimes the best things are ones that you never dreamt were possible. And so I wait... for a new dream to begin.

Pineapples...

Today seemed to whiz by me... I was late getting to work, finding it to comfortable to lie in bed that extra 1/2 hour. After finally arriving to the office, there seemed a zillion things to do... but somehow I managed to squeeze it all in and make it home to find Mike in the kitchen working on dinner.

As I sat and sorted the mail watching him cook, I opened the package that had come from the fertility clinic. Finally... the information we would need to start the IVF process in a few months. We were officially on the waiting list (as of January 24th according to the paperwork). It also included our requisition for our additional blood screening. HIV and hepatitis; to ensure we are safe and healthy for the road ahead.

I read a post on one of the fertility boards the other day about pineapples, so once he was done cooking dinner, the hubby took the time to peel and cube a pineapple for me and put it in the fridge. Apparently, eating a 1/2 cup a day helps with implantation... at this point, I will try anything!!!

Tomorrow I start with the OPKs (Ovulation Predictor Kits); I think I will test 2 times a day... morning and afternoon pee should let me know as soon as I get the surge. Kind of exciting!!! Although the success rate is only 13% on IUI, I still feel like this might be it for us... PLEASE let it be "it" for us!!!!

So as I sit back to watch a little tv before bed, I find myself munching fresh pineapple & day dreaming about "what if's".

And it was ALL going so well...

The weekend ended as uneventfully as it started... doing little more than some light house cleaning, and grocery shopping. Sunday night, we headed to the in-laws for dinner, before they boarded their RV and took off to the sunny Southern States for 4 months.

And then...for some reason yesterday, I hit the emotional wall.

After running around town for 3 hours buying up these "absolutely perfect" wall lockers for the new house (needing 5 and each store seeming to only have 1 or 2)... my husband came home exhausted. He had ran around town for my benefit, there was no question... since in his eyes, we didn't NEED these, but he wanted to make me happy. When he got home, we ate dinner, and then went about getting little things done that always seem to accumulate throughout the day.

I am not sure what came over me, or why it happened, but I suddenly found myself yelling (yes yelling) at Mike about the whole mess of infertility. I wanted to know how we were going to afford the IVF treatments & still build our dream home... why he didn't seem to care about the process or the treatments we would be receiving... I was screaming and crying... and all he could do was stare at me.

I think he was stunned. Then he got angry. He accused me of being pessimistic, saying that I have been down, and that I need to think positively every cycle or it wouldn't happen. He explained that he would work 3 jobs if he needed, but that we WOULD make this work. He was mad that I didn't seem to think he cared, and couldn't believe that I thought he wasn't helpful considering all the things he has done over the last months, and all the patience he had tried to show.

OK... maybe I was a BIT harsh... but I was just so frustrated! Couldn't he understand that it was hard for me to be positive ALL the time? That at times I would get upset, or worried or even angry that we couldn't get pregnant? We had purchased a book about infertility about a year ago, and I had been the only one reading it for the last 11 months. Didn't he want to know what was going to happen?

The argument quickly ended when, my husband with tears in his eyes asked for the book, apologized for not being there the way I needed him to be, and went downstairs to the living room to read. He was down there for at least an hour before I came down to join him for a while. It was nice, curled up on the couch under a blanket reading together. It seemed fitting, since only 2 years earlier, Mike had bought me these gorgeous yet outrageously priced leather couches for a wedding present, and now we sat curled up preparing for the next step in our lives. I said sorry, and I know he understood that I didn't mean to react that way... but he just sat and continued to read.

I went to bed around 11pm. I have no idea when he came up to bed, but it must have been quite a while longer. This morning, he simply kissed me on the forehead, told me he loved me; and then went off to work.

I know these next months will be hard, emotionally taxing I am sure; but worth it in the end. I just need to remind myself that my relationship with my husband is a good one, and that he is a good person... and that no man can possibly please a woman on clomid all the time.