A little update

Thanks to everyone for the thoughts and well wishes!  The IUI's went relatively well.  The nurse practitioner said my eggs looked great (whatever that means) and that hubby's numbers were fantastic, so we've done all we can.  Now we just wait.  And for now anyway, I'm okay with the wait this time.  I was at the doctors office 6 out of the last 9 days.  It was feeling overwhelming and trying to juggle Bean and live our normal lives on top of it, it was a lot.  I was pretty exhausted on Wednesday and Thursday.  It didn't help that I went cold turkey on the caffeine Wednesday morning.  Not my smartest move ever.  I also just felt more worn out by it all then I did the first time we did this.  My insides were more achy, I was more tired, I didn't feel great.  It wasn't what I remembered.  The nurse said it was because I had more follicles this time around, which I figured (and which still makes me a little nervous).  I'm feeling a bit better now though and it's the weekend so I have hubby here to help.  And tomorrow is my birthday!  I'm actually really looking forward to it because I know that I'll get to do whatever I want for the whole day and I haven't gotten to do that very much lately.  So I'm looking forward to sleeping in (past 6 in our household is considered sleeping in), not washing any dishes or fixing any meals, and just generally enjoying life for the day.  And I'm hoping that in a little less then two weeks (May 24th), I'll get the best belated birthday present you could ask for.  Bean was the best early birthday present I ever got, so maybe this time of year is a lucky one for me.

Not feeling so great: Updated

I had my appointment at the RE this morning and it was....interesting.  Apparently my biggest follicle which was 16 (mm?) didn't get any bigger, but some of the smaller ones did.  A bunch of them.  So my doctor was debating about waiting yet another day but she said this made her nervous because I might have too many follicles.  So I agreed that yes, it made me nervous too and she decided to go ahead with IUI's tomorrow and Thursday.  Then I said something like "I'm not ready to have sextuplets" and she said something about how a few of those other follicles will probably ovulate too, so while it's not as high a likelihood if we go ahead tomorrow, it's still possible.  At which point I started freaking out inside my head and of course, she was on her way out the door.  I'm not good at thinking on my feet.  I always come up with the right thing to say or question to ask after the fact.

I've been nervous ever since.  Should we be canceling this cycle?  I feel so different then I ever did when I was trying to have Bean.  My belly aches and hurts if it gets pushed on in certain places.  I thought this was just because my left ovary has been hiding so they've been doing a lot of pushing and prodding from the inside to get a good scan of it.  I thought it was making me achy, but now I wonder if it's my ovaries.  I just feel crappy and I never really did before.  I felt emotionally crappy but I don't remember feeling physically crappy.  I know I'm probably overreacting and worrying too much.  Like I said before, my doctor doesn't want me to have sextuplets any more then I do.  I just feel kind of overwhelmed.

So I'm going to talk to my nurse when she calls today.  I'm pretty sure she's calling even though the IUI's are setup.  If she doesn't, I'm going to call her.  I just want to be sure that every thing's okay.  That my doctor isn't going beyond where I would want to go.  So we'll see what happens.

Update:  Bean had a long nap and I've had a chance to relax and think more.  I also talked to my nurse.  All that to say, I'm feeling much better.  I'm not as worried any more and I'm actually excited and ready to see what happens.  I'm ready to try to make a baby tomorrow!!!!

Am I weird?

Injections on the left side of my belly always hurt more then ones on the right.  Am I weird?  Has anyone else had something like this happen?  Also, the doctors office called and they want to give me one more day with the hopes that I'll have two mature follicles instead of one.  IUI's on Wednesday and Thursday.  Fingers crossed!

Looks like somebody's showing off

I went into the RE yesterday for blood work and an ultrasound to see how things are going with the injections so far.  My doctor put me on the same protocol that worked when I had Bean but it appears that my right ovary has decided to be a bit of an overachiever so we're on the fast track to our insemination's.  I was worried they might just cancel the whole thing, but it looks like there is one, or maybe two follicles that are far enough ahead of the rest that if we catch it just right, will work out.  It looks like the IUI's are either going to be tomorrow and Wednesday or Wednesday and Thursday.

This whole thing has happened so fast and we've been so busy with Bean's birthday (Happy Second Birthday Bean!!!!  I can't believe my baby is officially 2 now), that it all seems a little surreal.  I have these moments to stop and think about it before life keeps rolling along, and then I just have to put it out of my mind.  Those moments are pretty crazy though.  Like when I was having my ultrasound yesterday and the tech was telling the nurse practitioner each follicle and how big it was.  She just kept going and going.  I started to panic inside my head and imagine myself as the next octo.mom.  Then I reminded myself that my doctor didn't want to be the doctor who created the next octo.mom any more then I wanted to be her.  That's what these moments always look like, me starting to freak out and having just enough time to talk myself down before life keeps going.

The phrase that keeps going through my head is those moments is related to Bean.  I keep thinking that I don't want to ruin her life.  And I know how that sounds.  I don't actually think another baby is going to ruin her life (if that's even in the cards for us).  It's the uncertainty that comes with it.  What if we did end up having multiples?  What if we had another baby and it had serious health problems?  What if something happened to me in the process of trying to have another baby?  What if, what if.  I know that no matter what happens the new baby(babies) would be fine.  I have so much love to give, I know they would be fine.  And I like to hope that Bean will be fine too.  The amount of love that I have for her will remain unchanged, but her life, her life would be very different.  And I just want to make sure that she'll be okay through any transition that comes.  I just don't want to mess up.

I have no idea what lies ahead.  Except two IUI's in the not so distant future followed by the ever loved two week wait.  I have no idea if it's going to work or what's to come.  And I have to admit, that it freaks me out.

Sunday Inspiration: The R House

So back before I started blogging, before we had Bean, I found several blogs that were just what I needed at the time. Most of them were what I would call strictly infertility blogs.  Then our doctor started talking to us about IVF and we started talking about the financial aspect of all of that.  We wanted to look into all of our options and start thinking about adoption and not just IVF.  So I started searching online and found a few adoption blogs.  The one that I found most helpful was Lindsey's blog at The R House.

Up until that point when we talked about adoption we talked a lot about international adoption.  Hubby is Asian and that made us think a lot about adoption from the country where his parents grew up.  I honestly had some worries about open adoption, which seemed the norm with a domestic adoption.  Mostly my worries stemmed from the fact that I didn't know that much about it.  So when I found Lindsey's blog, I have to say I was so thrilled to find someone who wrote so honestly about her experiences with adoption and shared what an open adoption can be like.  What I appreciated especially was that she didn't sugar coat anything.  She talked about the things that were hard just as much as the things that were amazing.  I was especially moved when she shared the entire process of going through a contested adoption.

Besides Lindsey's honesty, the other thing that has inspired me about her, is her desire to be an advocate for adoption.  I have the same desire when it comes to infertility.  I want to have more of a voice and I want to have my voice make a difference.  I want to see change in the way infertility is viewed by the public and in the financial burden that it puts on all of us.  I just don't have a great idea about how to go about doing that.  Lindsey doesn't seem to have that problem though.  She does an amazing job getting information about adoption out there, and she inspires me to figure out a way to do the same.

It's like riding a craptastic bicycle

I was trying to figure out how to describe to a friend of mine how I felt when I started doing the injections and things again.  This is what I came up with.  I was really worried that I wouldn't remember what I was doing but it all came back to me pretty quickly.  I still have that nervous feeling, like I'm not really qualified to be mixing medications that I then inject into myself, but I guess if my doctor trusts me, I need to trust myself.  The first night I went through everything step by step but it didn't take long for it to become second nature again.  Like riding a bike.  Which is actually very fitting if you know me and my history with bikes.

When I learned how to ride a bike, I learned on the kind that didn't have hand brakes.  You just peddled backwards and that braked for you.  I loved that bike.  We lived on a hill so braking was pretty necessary and I'd go up and down, up and down.  Then I got too big for that bike and was handed down my brothers old bike that had hand brakes.  I don't remember who, but somebody warned me, very seriously, that if I squeezed the front brake side before the back brake side, I'd go flying over the handlebars.  So when I rode the bike after that, there was always this ball of nerves and fear in my stomach.  I worried that in the blink of an eye I could be face first in asphalt.  So I stopped riding.

That's pretty much in a nutshell how I feel about the whole infertility ride.  You try really hard to follow directions and do what you're told, but there is still that feeling that any moment you could smash face first into emotional asphalt.  Except this time there's more good at stake, for me anyway.  Riding a bike never brought me that much pleasure.  It was easier to just stop then to potentially have something bad happen.  But babies, that's another story.  I can't put into words how much my life has changed since Bean came into it.  I have a hard time even imagining what it would be like to be so blessed twice.

The ride has officially started

Well, much to my surprise everything magically looked perfect at my ultrasound this morning.  So I start injections tonight and go in again on Sunday to see how things are going.  I am no where near mentally prepared for this, so I'm just going with it and not thinking about it too much.  We'll see how that works :) Right now I have too much to do for Bean's birthday.  Thanks to everyone for the early birthday wishes!!!  I'm going to keep living life, add a few needle sticks, and see what happens.  Oh yeah, and while Bean is napping today I'll be watching that video the nurse sent me months ago to remind myself how to mix my meds again.  Like I said, so not prepared.  We started talking about all of this last year when Bean turned one.  We went to see our doctor in August and didn't actually get to a starting point until January.  We've been in a holding pattern since then.  So it's kind of surreal that finally things seem to be going right.  Fingers crossed!