Bring on da Crazy!!!!

sung to the tune of 'my bonnie lies over the ocean'

The two week wait is driving me crazy
The two week wait is driving me mad
The two week wait is making me crazy
But beta day could make me sad

Bring back, bring back, oh bring back the happy to me, to me
Bring back, bring back, oh bring back the happy to me.

I've officially lost my mind. I thought I had until Wednesday to start slipping, but no, today is the day. You would think that I would be an old pro at this by now. I did too. You would think that because I'm going for a 'bonus baby' that it wouldn't matter to me either way. I thought that too, and apparently I'm wrong on that score too.

Why is it so HARD. I thought that I would have plenty to distract me. But no, the 2ww is distracting me from everything else. The mundane day to day tasks of laundry, dishes, and toy pick up allow me too much leeway to obsess about symptoms. I can't focus on any of the books I've bought or borrowed. And none of the other tricks I've used in the past will work for me. Before I've bought a cute baby outfit, or started knitting a blanket, something positive and hopeful...but I've always done it with the excuse that I can give the outfit and/or blanket to someone else when it doesn't work out, but now I've got nothing*.

The biggest thing that has always carried me through is the idea that I can try again. I still have the ace in the hole of two more cycles covered by insurance, but I'm not holding out any hope that I have any remaining embryos to use. And I know, I'm about 90% certain that my husband will put his foot down about trying a fresh cycle. To be honest, I don't really want to do one either. The chances of getting pregnant with my own eggs will be slim and the chance of miscarriage high. If only I had a blast in the hole I would feel so much better. (umm...that doesn't sound too good ;)

What I really want is to not want this soooo much. Aaaaarg!

*I think I may dabble in this option anyway. I can always send stuff to my internet buddies who have already gotten their BFP's, you know who you are. :)

7 Dwarfs

Grumpy: I still haven't gotten the letter from the clinic that is supposed to tell me if either of my
remaining embryos made it to the blast stage to be frozen. Grr... I called their answer
line, but I'm not betting they'll give me an answer. It's too hot. The house is a mess.
Bitch, bitch bitch, bitch, grumble, grumble.

I'm also convinced about every other minute that a) I can't possibly be pregnant and
b) if I'm feeling any symptoms they are either in my head or related to the hormones
I'm taking.

Happy: I feel symptoms! Yeah! And Jo saw two lines today. It's another day down, my birthday
is coming, and I could be pregnant! Yeah!

Dopey: Did I swap out the estrogen patch yesterday? I don't remember...I'll swap it today just
in case. Did I give AK her medicine? Where did I put my water glass?

Hungry: All the time. I want greasy garbage fried in lard and smothered in goo. NOW!

Sleepy: I'm so tired. I just want to take a nap.

Crampy: A twinge here, a cramp there, an ache every which way.

and Doc: Drink your water. Stay cool. Are you sure you should be lifting that? You didn't swap
out your patches yesterday, did you? You need to take your estrogen 3X a day. Now
go drink some more water! And don't forget that baby aspirin.

Everything is gonna be alright

I went to get my blood drawn to check my estrogen and progesterone levels this morning. Since Que.st labs isn't open on the weekends, this involved driving over an hour to my clinic just to get it done. Yesterday my husband had the bright idea of making this a family outing, we would get the kids up and dressed and out the door, quick dash in to get my blood drawn while they all waited, and then off to the neat little restaurant the two of us ate at transfer day, then to the little mall on the way home to see if the shirts he'd ordered were in.

It seemed easy enough. Except that I had to get up at the ass-crack of dawn to get in the shower. I woke up feeling a little...oogy. A little nauseous, everything seemed to smell a little strongly, and my coffee tasted bitter and metallic.* And then, the heavens opened up! It was POURING, buckets, cats, dogs, and elephants. On the way to the car, everyone got wet, and the drive was, in a word, tense. My husband was driving and he kept going way too fast. No matter how many times I asked him to slow down the speed kept creeping up there until I was ready to throttle him, and the road was barely visible in the downpour.

We got to the clinic alive. While dashing into the building I noticed that in spite of the fact that my shirt was nearly soaked there was a huge white stain right over my right boob, which I then remembered was toothpaste that I thought I had taken care of. Wrong. I dashed to the ladies to try and clean it, but the stuff was on there. Grrr....

I came out to find that hubby and the kids had been splashing in puddles to keep the troupes entertained. Everyone was wet and muddy, but thankfully smiling. On to the restaurant...

Where, naturally, being that it is Sunday morning, was totally PACKED. There wasn't even anywhere to sit and wait. The kids were thrilled, though, and the wait was promised to be short. Then hubby pointed at my boob and said "You know, you've got a little something there on your shirt." Yeah, I know, thanks.

We finally get to sit down, but the kitchen is swamped. The kids get crankier and we only have packets of jelly and hubby's cell phone to entertain them. But when the food arrived it was very good, which is a good thing because I felt like I could eat a horse. Then I started to hear the music. I'm not sure if they just put it on, or if I had been too distracted to notice, or if someone cranked the volume. It was Dave Matthews singing a cover of a Bob Marley tune, and all of my kids started bobbing to the music.

Everything is gonna be alright
Everything is gonna be alright
Everything is gonna be alright now
Everything is gonna be alright

Then my little Nate beamed his beautifulest smile and said "I'm so HAPPY!"
Everything is going to be alright, indeed, no matter how this cycle goes. It's gonna be all right. :)

*vaguely interesting possible pregnancy symptoms. They have since abated, but since HSG and it's symptoms are strongest in the AM, especially early on, this is typical for me. Doctor said that prog and estrogen are right where they want to see them. Yeah!

Chicken the Pig

A few brief answers about me.

• Chickenpig comes from my maiden name ( Peck ham). It was a nickname given to me in college by some of my closest friends, when the internet wasn't even a twinkling in Al Gore's eye. But, we did have bulletin boards, mostly inhabited by college kids, and open chat rooms, and Chickenpig became my identity. It has been ever since. I was occasionally called 'the Oinkclucker' .
• I am 40 years old. I'll be 41 the day after my beta for my 7th IVF, 4th frozen cycle.
• I am an art historian and worked as a museum professional. Because of the difficulty of finding any job that pays in my chosen profession I have made eyewear, worked in a daycare, and passed my black jack dealer's audition at one of our local Indian casinos.
  
• My husband is a mechanical engineer. It is his job making giant machines of death for the navy that has paid for the conception of our children. Like being in the military, because his company and the military work hand in hand, he is often sent on long term work assignments, the longest for over a year. He is 41 years of age, and has wonky sperm.
  
• No, twins do not run in my family ;)
  
• I have 3 children, twin boys who are 5 and a daughter that just turned three. One of our sons has been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, a mild form of autism.
  
• We all live in CT, our house was built circa 1810 on the town green. The neighborhood is on the national register of historic places. Before I ever dreamed of being married, or having children, I dreamed of this house.
  
• I can weave, hook rugs, sew a gown by hand, cook over an open fire, set type by hand, and operate a printing press all while telling tourists where the bathroom is.
  

Thanks for reading :)

State of the Ute

3dp3dt and all is well. :) I just felt like posting something to help me focus on the here and now instead of the ambiguous future.

What I'm doing:

• Playing a TON of Gardens of Time on FB. The twins, especially N, really like this, and I admit it kills a lot of time...and it's free.
  
• Trying to remember to drink plenty of water.
  
• Avoiding the stairs, lifting anything heavy, or raising my core body temperature.
  
• Spending every spare minute I'm not working reading the blogs of fellow cyclers of the Tour de Crotch.
  
• Eating...a lot. The progesterone makes me HUNGRY.
  
• Feeling very upbeat and optimistic. :)
• Staring obsessively at the picture of my embryos. They really are beautiful.
  
• Taking estrogen, baby aspirin, pre natal vitamins, estrogen patches, and shots of progesterone in the upper quadrant of my ample buttocks.
  

What I'm not doing. (or trying to not be doing, take your pick)

• Obsessing every minute about symptoms or how I'm feeling.
  
• Checking the mail every five minutes to see if the letter from the clinic about the remaining embryos is there.
  
• Worrying about how what I'm doing or not doing, eating or not eating, is affecting the embryos ,chances of implanting.
  
• Acupuncture, pineapple eating, wheat grass drinking, standing on my head, or any other 2ww craziness.
• Giving into feelings of despair or hopelessness that this cycle is a bust. (at least not yet)
• Peeing on a stick. I will not. no no no no no.
  
• Drinking alcohol, more than one cup of coffee a day, drinking anything caffeinated other than my 1 cup of coffee.
  
• Sleeping very much.
  

What my embryos are doing (hopefully...fingers crossed)

• At six days post ovulation the embryos are most likely still expanding and collapsing like supernovas on crack. At some point, maybe today (please, oh please), the embryos will stretch and polarize. They are now blastocysts and they snuggle into my uterine lining, as they continue to grow, and split, and then IMPLANT. (Woot!).
  

PS....

Beta is on the 13th, the day before me birthday. Still no word on the embryos in culture.

Non pregnancy pregnancy symptoms

A couple more days and I'll be half way through the 2ww. Which is another way of saying that it has been a whopping 2 days since my 3 day embryo transfer ;)

Right now I have what feels like the worst case of PMS going on. Thanks to being shot with 1 and 1/2 cc's of progesterone in the butt, plus taking estrogen pills 3X a day on top of the patches, I'm a giant bowl of hormonal soup. My boobs are the size of Texas and are SORE , I feel weird random cramps and twinges, and I seem to be endlessly hungry. On top of this, the prenatal vitamins make me feel queasy and give me heartburn. (I take them at night, because otherwise it bothers me during the day. Now I remember why I stopped taking the *beeping* things during pregnancy last time. Vitamins don't agree with me).

These symptoms bother me because they will only continue the more progesterone I do. In the past, I have been able to separate the real pregnancy symptoms from the drug induced pregnancy symptoms, but I don't think I will be able to this time. I just wish I didn't feel like I'm on the verge of the period from Hell ;)