Still on hold

After the swimmers were ordered and we were ready to go, I started having some tummy troubles. Based on the troubles and the fact that I am heading to see a GI specialist, we decided to cancel the order. I don't know what kind of tests I will need to do and we didn't want to have any unnecessary stress.

When I'm not actively thinking of babies I try to avoid baby blog land. But I pop in every so often to visit. Our new timeline is to start in April. We're going to spend a few months home inseminating. But before then, busy days at work and a cruise to much warmer weathers!

No Excuse

That's right, no excuse for my lack of posting, reading, commenting and all that comes with TTC. Other than the process was becoming frustrating and disappointing, only a few tries and I felt defeated. So we just stopped. But now we're back! We originally were going to take a break until March, since we have a cruise scheduled in February, but after attending my best friend's baby shower in December I decided I wanted to give it a go.

So we sat down, picked a new donor (kind of on a whim!) and we'll be doing an at home insemination this month. Hopefully this laid back approach will work to our advantage! Think about how low our bar bill will be on the cruise if I'm preggers!

Looking forward to 2011. I think it is our year!

10 DPO

And the spotting has begun.

I generally have a short LP, so it isn't crazy to spot today and get AF tomorrow. I was hoping the B6 would have helped some with the LP.

Even though I have pretty much given up on this cycle due to the spotting, I can't help but feel like there is the tiniest, tiniest chance it could be implantation spotting due to the insane soreness of my boobs. But I'm not holding out much hope.

I have been trying to avoid everything ttc and baby related during the tww, so I haven't been keeping up on blogs but it sure did make the wait slightly more bearable. I found I didn't obsess over every little thing my body did and was actually able to make it to 7 or 8 DPO before I started fretting. So go me!

August is a busy month, with both of our birthdays and our wedding anniversary all squished into 9 days. We'll be in NYC the first weekend of August, so if this cycle does end up being a bust I'll be sure to enjoy myself with my wife.

I hope you are all safe and healthy and I'm looking forward to moving past this month, making some choices about our ttc future, and catching up on all of your lives!

Regroup

I've been trying to avoid TTC and baby related things lately. I wanted to give myself (and J) a little break. I do appreciate all the comments and advice on the last post. I'll be back to reading and commenting shortly.

But I wanted to pop in and give you all the address to the wife's brand new food blog! She is an amazingly talented cook and photographer! Please visit her at www.foodandale.com and feel free to comment away!

Another BFN

Woke up to AF at 5:40 am on Saturday. It was even more upsetting since I was with the pregnant best friend and went from "maybe being pregnant" to knowing that I wasn't. This month I had my shortest cycle and LP ever, 26 and 9. This has me slightly concerned about my progesterone levels and I think I'll try B6 this month.

After talking it over with the wife, we decided to try 2 IUIs this month with our same donor. This will exhaust what is left of my FSA. If that try doesn't work we will look at new donors and I'll also contact my insurance company regarding infertility coverage. The coverage begins after a year of being unsuccessful, but I don't know if they are going to require 12 IUIs since I am not partnered with a male. It seems that proof of ordered sperm should be good enough to be considered a failed cycle, but we all know insurance companies are in the business of being helpful. I certainly don't want to skip any IUIs if they will be necessary, but financially it would be nice to try to do a few home insems.

Now we prepare for another month of peeing on sticks, turning on monitors, ordering sperm and making appointments.

Vacation

In a little over an hour my best friend will be here and our vacation will officially begin! We will be getting up wicked early to try and beat the traffic. Then we will spend our weekend relaxing! I can't even wait to put my floppy hat and sunglasses on and sit my butt at the beach.

In TWW news, there are moments where my body feels completely foreign and I think I must be pregnant. Then at other moments I'm completely normal. I'm currently 8 DPO and if I don't get AF this weekend I'll be testing on Monday. I'm going to try to keep a positive attitude!

I hope everybody has a beautiful weekend!

Dear Self...

Stop eating things like fried chicken and ice cream sandwiches. Your wife is making a delicious meal consisting of patty pan squash and all you want to do is gorge yourself in trans fats. Stop sucking.

Well we'll float on, good news is on the way.

Hi, my name is J and it's been 61 days since my last post….

61 days?
Thats just insane.
How did 61 days go by this quickly?

The last time I posted was the evening S and I received our first BFN. Now here we are, 61 days later, and in the middle of our 3rd TWW -- hoping this time the outcome is more favorable. [duh, captain obvious over here]

Speaking of the TWW, this one has been quite interesting. S was extremely irritable over the weekend. The smallest and stupidest things were setting her off, which is the complete opposite of how she normally is. Just the way I put the dishes away was enough to send her into a murderous rampage. Ok well maybe not murderous, but lets just say I'll never make the mistake of putting the smaller juice glasses on the 3rd shelf again. Of course we're not trying to read too much into this type of stuff. Maybe she's always secretly hated the juice glasses on the 3rd shelf, it's just taken her 8 years to get around to telling me. I think I remember reading somewhere that the introduction of male hormones into a female body can increase hostility? Or I could be making that up.

But yeah, I'm trying to not think about it very much. S asked me today how I manage to not think about it 24/7. I suppose it's easier for me since I'm not over analyzing everything my body does. If I've got weird things going on in my tummy, it's probably just gas. Though with her it could be a million different things. Do other non-biological-moms-to-be have an easier time with the TWW than their partners do? Or am I alone on this one?

So with less than a week left in our wait, S will be heading off to the Cape with her newly pregnant BFF and I'll be staying behind for the maternity photo shoot I have scheduled. Since we'll both be surrounded by other pregnant people, it would be great to test next Monday and see a BFP!

We'll see….

Love Weekends...

And I'm always so sad to see them go...

One of the weekend highlights is that FF said I ovulated exactly when I thought I did. Which means spot on timing. I know there is nothing more we could have done this month, so now I just let go, wait, and see. Today is 4 DPO and I am trying not to over analyze. Although yesterday I was ridiculously irritable and felt sick after dinner.

J brought me out this morning to get a breakfast sandwich from Panera (yum!) and we spent the morning making a chocolate mint ice cream, using the chocolate mint we received from our CSA. It's currently chilling in the fridge and should be ready in plenty of time for 'True Blood'.

Other than that we are trying to clean up and get my stuff together for my trip to the Cape this weekend. I am so looking forward to it! The best part is FF said I can test on Monday. Since I won't be with J we are going to wait until Tuesday am if AF doesn't come before that.

I hope everybody's Sunday is as glorious as ours.

Surprised Again!

But this time it wasn't so bad. True story.

I generally make my IUI appointments for CD 18-22, since history has told me those days usually work. So, my first appointment for this month was tomorrow. The procedure is I call and confirm if I'm ready, or call to cancel if I'm not.

Like the good little TTC'er that I am, I was peeing on a monitor stick every day, seeing low after low after low. Generally I get a few highs and then peak. On Monday I got a low. Normal. On Tuesday I get out of the shower, take the stick out of the monitor and see peak!

Panicked, I run up to the bedroom and ask J what we should do. Seeing as we inseminated too early last month, we were really anxious about our timing. I hurry and leave a voicemail for the clinic to see if they can squeeze me in on Tuesday and Wednesday (you know, since I didn't have any appointments!) and take my very last OPK (digital) and stick it my work bag. Around noon I mosey into the bathroom, POAS, and wait. After 3 minutes, a big smiley face greets me and I start to relax about the timing.

J wasn't able to make the appointment yesterday and it wasn't the most comfortable. Some painful cramping afterward and it didn't help that I had to walk to the train to get home. Luckily she was able to meet me today and it was great!

I'm hoping for a temp spike tomorrow to confirm the big O and then the dreaded TWW. Luckily I'll be spending a few days with my newly pregnant best friend on the Cape, so that should make the time go faster.

Our timing was as perfect as it could be this month and I'm hoping to ride the wave of all the recent BFP. So send that baby dust my way!

Yummy!

What a great weekend! Besides being relaxing, it was full of yumminess. Yesterday we hit up the outdoor farmer's market for the first time this season and picked up lots of treats including strawberries, mint, some tasty grass fed meats and to die for lemon basil pesto. It was a gorgeous day so we sat out on the deck, munched on pesto and bread and enjoyed the sunshine. We then had a last minute invite from friends for dinner, so we headed out and spent the rest of the evening with them.

Today we skipped the gym (oops!) and ran to Whole Foods to pick up the things we needed that we couldn't get at the farmer's market. When got home J. wanted to try making some scones so we could use the scallions we received in our CSA. J. is an amazing cook, but baking isn't her bag. And I should just stay far away from kitchens in general. But we gave it a try and made a scallion and cheese scone. After 20 minutes in the oven we had success! They are so good! Now that we know how easy it is to make scones, we are going to make so many kinds! We followed it up by making some strawberry basil lemonade using the recipe I found here. Everybody should run and make it right now!! This is going to be one of our summer staples from now on.

Now we're relaxing, I'm doing some laundry while J. is watching baseball. Looking forward to another episode of True Blood tonight!

What? Do I only update this when I'm sick? Not sure what is going on today, mini crud I suppose. Since I take the train to work I didn't want to chance getting stuck up there feeling like garbage.

I just found out the other day that my best friend is pregnant, after trying for years. I'm so happy for her and I really hope this month is our month so our babies can be almost exactly the same age!

We are on track to do 2 IUI's this month, hopefully starting at the end of next week. Since I have such a wacky cycle last month I am going to be extra anal this month:)

I need to catch up on blogs (and start commenting!!!) but I love reading all the good news!

Crud

I had a hope that I would get to spend my entire weekend relaxing. Maybe laying on the couch enjoying movies. I should be more careful what I wish for. I spent the entire weekend laying on the couch fighting off a stomach bug that woke me from a sound sleep at 2:00 am on Saturday morning. I proceeded to spend the next 12 hours so sick I could barely tear myself away from the bathroom.

After sleeping through the night last night my stomach has been feeling better but I am still tired and achy. My hope is that J. doesn't pick it up since we have plans on Wednesday to head to Baltimore for a few days. She has a pretty good immune system, so I'm betting she'll be fine.

Onto the world of ttc, I started spotting today which means AF will be in full force tomorrow. I need to order some sperm and set up our appointments tomorrow for try #3. I sure hope it's a charm.

What a ridiculous cycle. It appears that I did ovulate almost a week late, making my cycle abnormally long. Still waiting for AF to appear, probably tomorrow or Saturday? Waiting for that to happen so we can start planning for #3. We plan on doing 2 IUI's this try, hopefully trapping that egg!!!

But we did have a wonderful holiday weekend and are looking forward to a relaxing weekend starting tomorrow!

What the bloody hell?!?

CBEFM decides to give me a peak today. CD 25. Which would put the big O on CD 26. I usually O on CD 18 or 19. I also received the darkest line on an OPK this evening then I have ever received! Although I have been having some crazy creamy and egg white CM, my cervix is not soft and squishy like it should be. Nor is it as open as it was.

My body is betraying me this month and I'm not very happy about it.

Lost

Tonight is the series finale of Lost! How crazy! I'm going to be so exhausted tomorrow...

In ttc news, it was an insane month. No highs on the monitor, no positive opk, temperatures all over the place. But lots of fertile cm. I have no idea if I actually ovulated. So this tww has been a little more bearable. We decided that if AF doesn't come by Friday we will test.

My parents are coming up on Friday and what wonderful news a BFP would be to share with them. I have already decided that although we don't plan on announcing our eventual pregnancy until around 12 weeks, I can't keep it from my mother! And if AF does show up, we have plans for a great Memorial Day weekend, so it's a win win for me!

I'm sorta rambly and all over the place, so this post should end. I've been reading about a lot of BFP out there and I'm so happy for everybody! I can't wait to follow in your footsteps!

And a photo!

Resting after the IUI for try # 2!

Wacky Month

So as of today I have yet to get a peak on my monitor or a positive (or close to a positive) on my OPK. Which is really unusual. And frustrating. The past few days have given me excellent CM and a wide open cervix, so I ignored the technology and we chose to do two ICI and one IUI.

The IUI today was not as great as last month. Last month all I felt was the annoyance of the speculum and then some mild pressure in my abdomen. We had a different PA today who went a lot faster than our last. When he inserted the catheter it was painful and caused me to gasp. Thank god J made it (she got out of work and almost didn't!) because I did not care for it AT ALL!

Here's hoping to my last IUI, because I don't wanna do no more!

And so it begins

After a relaxing week in Maine, try #2 starts tonight. Since we weren't able to coordinate the the pickup of our unwashed vial last month, we had two hanging out at the clinic. We decided to pick them both up today.

My plan for this month is ICI #1 in a few minutes. Followed by ICI #2 tomorrow afternoon. Followed by IUI on Monday evening. I'm pretty sure I will ovulate sometime on Monday. Right now my cm is not as abundant as I would like, but I think it's as good as I'm going to get.

This is our first time at home, so wish us luck:)

CD1

Well, J's post summed it up. A night of spotting, followed by some more spotting, followed by AF. Bummer.

I'm pretty sure our timing was spot on, but we only did one insemination this month. Also I may have some slight concerns regarding my luteal phase, but I'm not sure.

We allowed ourselves some time to wallow and feel sorry for ourselves. After all, I got ridiculous skin breakouts yesterday! I never break out! What a cruel joke to give me 7 zits but no baby. Jerks.

Today is all about moving forward. April was such an incredibly stressful month, not all of it ttc related. I'm looking forward to unwinding, going on our vacation, and starting new. I'll be drinking my fertilitea, exercising, starting yoga and possibly trying some acupuncture.

On the plus side, forcing myself to eat right and not drinking alcohol has done amazing things for my energy levels and all around well being.

And now off to not think about work or babies for a blissful two days!