CD9 - I'm A (cat) Mom Again

So I was driving to my in-laws' house on Friday around 8pm, it's a straight shot from our house about 6 miles down the road. I then saw what looked like a little black kitty in the middle of the highway and whipped the car around to see what it was.

Sure enough, this teeny tiny little black kitty with blue eyes looks up at me, a little fluffball in the road. I immediately thought she'd been hit by a car or was injured....cue watery eyes and panic. (if you haven't figured out by now, I'm a huge animal lover and advocate and living with/being married to hunters and farmers, that's a difficult lifestyle).

I scooped her up and drove the 1/2 mile to the vet's office where he and his new assistant vet were performing surgery on a little doggy but his assistant came out to help me make sure the kitty was okay. She said that the kitten was a girl, about 4-5 weeks old and seemed fine but to bring her in if I wanted to on Saturday; she said to get some milk replacement and the kitty should be okay. So I ran over to Theisen's (like a Farm and Fleet for you city-folk; and I am city-folk and I barely speak "farm" so I try to fit in here) which was closed at 8 but after pounding on the door they let me in with the kitty so I could buy some KMR (milk) and soft kitten food.

I took her home and she seemed to perk up a bit. We have a tiny (I MEAN TINY) bathroom downstairs so I set it up for her with water and food and I fed her using one of my thousands of sterile syringes (no needle of course) and she was pretty hungry. So friggin' cute too. I never hand-fed a kitten before. Just my cockatiel about 16 years ago.

By Saturday morning, I'd fed her every 4 hours and spent all my available time with her. It was hard too because DH's brothers and kids were in town and that's rare so I couldn't just not be there. But with all the TTC drama the past 3 years, I was desperate for something that would make me happy and there she was! DH and I discussed taking her to the Humane Society on Saturday, but by the time he saw her he was hooked too. We decided to take it day by day at that point. I continued to feed her and clean that bathroom constantly - she is quite messy. She's so small I had to use a cookie sheet/pan with edges for a litter box (I know, ew. But I'm the queen of sanitary so don't worry about me; I have stock in Clorox). She started using it right away and when she went #2 in it for the first time I clapped like a proud parent (that I wish I was for a human baby/child) and hollered to DH that "...she pooped in the potty!"

I feel like a little girl with a new doll, you know? I'm not playing house or anything, but it's been so wonderful to have something to look forward to other than the impending meetings with Wandy or this cycle's injection schedule that starts today.

We are taking her to the vet this afternoon for a full work-up. Our other 2 kitties (we have a huge house and this will for sure be our last pet, if we actually keep her for sure) were indifferent after a couple of days. Milo (our 3 year old "baby") started licking her last night, so that was unexpected. Jack, our 5 year old "gay queen" cat (who is a boy), was quite dramatic about her right away but as of yesterday was sleeping about 5 feet away from her, which is strange because when we brought Milo home, Jack screamed for 2 weeks and hid on top of our cabinets.

I've been all about TTC and POAS-ing and everything for so long that I needed this. I needed her. I needed something to keep me from going over the emotional edge.

It took till yesterday to even begin to start discussing a possible name. DH is a huge L.A. Dodgers fan and I thought of calling her Dodger but she's a girl. She did "dodge" a bullet by not being hit before I found her. I was holding her yesterday morning and cuddling and all of a sudden the name "Bella" came into my mind. Sure, I'm a Twilight fan. Whatever. But I'll probably never call my hypothetical daughter Bella because it's such a popular name. So, DH and I decided on Bella "Dodger" O.

For now.

But I'm in love.... :)

Pictures to come soon - my camera phone, while it is a Droid, sucks.

CD5 - Baseline u/s

Had an 11.3 follicle today. The u/s chick and nurse were sure this cycle would be cancelled but Dr. B said it's no big deal and we're going forward as planned. Cool.

I start Femara/Letrozole today for 5 days. On CD9 I start the Repronex again. On CD 11 I start OPKs and on CD13 I'll have an u/s to see how many follicle's I've got. If for some crazy reason I get an LH surge then, we'll do the IUI on Saturday. Otherwise I expect it to be the following Monday on CD 16 and I'm sure I'll have another u/s and by Tuesday we'll do the IUI.

DH's urology appt was yesterday. Testosterone at 598 (excellent number). Doc said we'll continue DH's Clomid for another 3 months but that he wants updates each month. Confirmed plan to do IUI this month and that next month is the last one we'll do before moving on to IVF.

We can afford one cycle in St. Louis at the Fertility Partnership b/ DH got a new job at his Alma Mater. A slight increase in pay but it'll mean we can pay for one fresh IVF cycle in St. Louis and hopefully we can get our meds paid for by insurance. We stopped by the clinic on the way down to Arkansas a couple of weeks ago and its beautiful and clean and I loved it. The second we find out this cycle didn't work (hopefully it does though), we'll call down to St. Louis for a phone consult and schedule the one-on-one so that after the next cycle, we can go down for our consult and get the ball rolling.

That's about it then. Any questions or anything, let me know. If you want to know anything else about me other than my lovely journey (torture) of trying to have a child, I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Eclipse post is 2 months late, will come soon.

IUI #8 Result - IUI #9 Plan

Not pregnant.

Not sure if I just experienced another chemical pregnancy - I'm not counting it if it was. DH saw the positive tests...AF arrived Sunday evening, exactly 14 days after ovulation.

New plan for IUI #9 (last or 2nd to last one before IVF must happen):

Baseline U/S on CD5 a.m.
5mg Letrozole/Femara CD5-CD9
1.5 vials Repronex/day CD9-CD12
Monitoring U/S CD12
NO TRIGGER - USE OPKs ONLY (this I pushed for and it was accepted; now I can't feel that the trigger was too early)
Upon receiving a positive OPK, IUI will occur the next day.

Felt really shitty all day (emotionally) until having the new plan put in place.

DH's appt with the urologist is this Wednesday. We'll find out now how long he can stay on the Clomid. His count is amazing but the doc said he'd take DH off the meds after 1 or 1 1/2 years. This week is the year mark.

We've decided to do a phone consult with the St. Louis clinic if this month doesn't work. It is a free 15 minute phone consultation. It would cost $125 to do a 60 minute in-person consult (all tests have been done so none are necessary). If we must do a visit again to the clinic (it was beautiful when we stopped by a couple of weeks ago) in person to be accepted into the program, then we will do it during IUI #10. That way, if IUI #10 doesn't work, we can go right into IVF #1 cycle.

That's the plan. I will resolve myself to wait to test at the end of this cycle. The good thing is, there won't be a trigger to test out. If I do test early though, I won't be posting them daily. I'm quite embarassed that that happened. At least DH saw the positives after 10dpiui though so I don't feel crazy.

12dpt/11dpiui - Still Faint

I'll attach a picture of this morning's test but it's not much different than yesterday's and if you don't see the second line, neither does DH but I can. Trust me. Maybe it's a late trigger remnant, maybe it's chemical, and maybe it's just too dang early to be testing.

I'm impatient. :)

Question: if you've had 4 miscarriages and after golfing at 7+ weeks pregnant and then bleeding the next day and subsequently losing that baby, would you golf at 12dpiui? Our couples golf league position night is tomorrow and I really want to golf but I'm afraid that it will do something bad to the possible pregnancy even though Dr. B said it wouldn't.

Dude - you can totally see the second but completely faint line, right?

If you can't see it then I won't hold it against you. If it gets darker and/or I get a positive digital, you'll definitely see that. But at least I'm not getting fooled by EPTs or Clearblue Easy sticks. Stupid blue lines...And I really shouldn't be testing this soon. I'll admit it.

My name is Christa and I'm addicted to POAS-ing.

11dpt/10dpiui - photo interpretation?

Okay I'm an obsessed infertile. I have nothing else to do people.

I have included 2 pictures of HPTs that I took this morning. I clearly saw a second line on the FRER. I did see a faint pink line on the dollar tree test, but when photographed, it's really difficult to see, so if you don't see it, you are not crazy, but neither am I. I've been looking at HPTs for nearly 3 years now and I know when I see a line, so rest assured, your favorite nutcase has not yet gone over the edge:

Taken with semi-fmu (I peed 4 times last night, this was a 2 hr accumulated batch).

Same batch, not surprisingly difficult to see when not inches from your eyeball under a bright light....

So there you have it. I saw a clearly light but present positive line on the FRER today, 10 days past the IUI, 11 days past the trigger. Last cycle that worked, a mere four months ago, I got positives 12dpt/11dpiui and a positive digital at 13dpt/12dpiui. So...I figure the digital might not register till Friday. But I'm takin' one tomorrow just because I have 3 and once you get a "pregnant" on one, there's no use in taking any more...

I'm still holding my breath on this one. It could still be the trigger, but I doubt it. Fingers crossed folks.

10dpt/9dpiui

Back at work today - it's been awhile so I'm kinda busy but not insanely.

Tested this morning with Dollar Tree...quite faint. So I pulled out an "Answer" because I'm a nutcase. It was positive yet. Either the trigger's not out, or something's cookin' in there.

I now have to go buy some more b/c my stash is down to 2 Dollar Tree tests and 3 digitals. At least it wasn't negative yet. I reviewed my other testing experiences, both BFPs and BFNs and there is a remote possibility that the trigger is in my system till 12dpt. I doubt that though. I believe that happened when I used blue-line tests. It's FRER/Answer's only for me, with Dollar Tree tests sprinkled in for fun. :)

I'll keep ya'll posted. Symptoms for now? Mood swings. Sore bbs. But the progesterone has to be influencing some or all of this.

9dpt 8dpiui - testing out the trigger

So we're home...took today off bc we got back so late. Tested w/ dollar tree last nite...positive. I used another dollar tree test this afternoon, negative or barely positive so I used an "answer" hpt. Clearly positive. So the trigger is not out yet. Tomorrow is ten days since the trigger. Maybe I won't see a bfn at all again...twins would be awesome but we'll take what we can get!!!

6dpiui 7dpt...at the wedding

I'm blogging from my cousins wedding. Ate pineapple so it could help with implantation.

2dpiui/3dpt - Updates

I start progesterone tomorrow. Raise your hand if you love oily suppositories ruining your underwear and comfort level. My hand isn't in the air if you were wondering.

As we are traveling to Jonesboro, AR this Thursday for my cousin's wedding, DH and I (along with my sister and her fiance) rented an SUV for the trip. I got it yesterday and I am in love with the 2010 Chevy Traverse. I want one. Wah. It was cheaper to rent for a week than for 4 days, so I've been enjoying the luxury SUV for the past 20 hours. Mmmmm. Very nice.

I dropped over $170 at Kohls yesterday on clothes for DH (got him a nice pink and black tie to match my dress...mmwwaaaahahahaha...I finally got him in pink!)...and a couple cute things for myself. I can't go in there and not spend at least $100! Grrr.

I find myself being less and less productive at work. I probably won't get caught but I'm so wrapped up in TTC anymore it seems to be all I think about.

The IUI: we were initially told DH's post-wash count was 30 million, roughly. This is what he's had for the past 5 IUIs. Well, about 20 minutes after the IUI, the nurse had me come and look at the microscope again (it was a Sunday and they were able to let me see the swimmers before the IUI, which is a first). Apparently, after all the washing and spinning, some of them get quite tired or scared and the count seems lower. When they get to sit still and warm up, apparently the count is much higher. With the discovery, we got a new post-wash estimate of 60-80 million. Shut up. That's awesome right? That many swimmers + 3 follicles should = BFP right?

I'm a fan of another IF-er's blog and she and her husband, no lie, did an IUI with like 4 follicles and seriously 400 million or something and it didn't work. So I won't get my hopes up too much but this is the best looking cycle we've had yet.

Wish me luck - I'll need it. Hopefully a little luck from Sunday morning spilled over to the afternoon's IUI. I played in the club tournament (golf) that morning and got 2nd place in the Championship Flight. Basically I am now the 2nd best golfer of the women at our club. The woman who won it has been the champ for at least 15 years, so no shocker there. But the surprise? She only had me by 5 strokes. I screwed up on several holes (missed a 6 inch birdie putt, don't even get me started) so turns out I could have beat her. I've typically placed in the top 10 or 20, but not the top 2, ever. So I'm pretty dang proud of myself for that accomplishment. Question: do you think it'd be dumb to bring in my trophy to work? I want to look at it but I don't want to seem like a dork. How would you respond to a co-worker doing that? I have an office with a door...

IUI #8 is in the books

I won't bore you with the details of how much we had to run around this weekend for already set in place plans (cat to the vet/benefit golf tournament/sister's going away party/club tournament), plus the suddenly rushed in and completely unexpected trigger and subsequent IUI. Just know that I was stressed and extremely busy.

I had 3 follicles on Friday's u/s and with that day's Repronex, all should have been between 19mm and 26mm yesterday. 1 on the left, 2 on the right. I triggered at 9:30 am on Saturday and had the IUI around 2:15 pm on Sunday.

So now we wait. I start progesterone on Wednesday night and am on baby aspirin. We leave for Arkansas on Thursday morning for 4 days. So glad I get to deal with oily, embarassing progesterone suppositories while out of state. At least there's a hotel and I won't be getting drunk so that helps I suppose.