1 Down

I didn’t get my living room chair. But no, this isn't good news. After a weekend of browsing at different furniture stores we ended up coming home with the world’s ugliest chair – a humongous papasan from Pier1. I guess I must have felt bad because I picked out every other piece of furniture in our house and the poor hubbles had his heart (and butt) set on a papasan for months now. So, I finally gave in. This lovely piece of décor now sits in our living room and, as expected, is mostly used by the cat. The good news is that we have a term agreement that the chair has a lifespan in our house of up to but no more than 1 year. After that it’s gone and I’m free to get my fabulous (and well deserved) tufted accent chair.

*Chair is larger than it appears.

So, obviously this means that IUI #1 didn’t work. It’s hard to understand why when everything about that cycle went perfectly. We were both so confident and hopeful only to find out that it was just like every other month - a big disappointment. I can’t even begin to explain how frustrated I am. I had a good couple of days to wallow and cry my heart out before prepping for IUI round #2. My energy definitely isn’t the same this time, though. Medicine wise I’ve been taking only the bare minimum. The hot flashes drive me fucking crazy. And I don't mean like the one time that you wake up in the middle of the night because it's a little hot and you're somewhat uncomfortable. I mean standing naked inside the refrigerator door because you can't cool down. And let me tell you, if you can conquer sex whilst hot flashing then you can accomplish just about anything. Anyway I’m also supposed to temperature chart every morning but I’m just so completely sick of it that I haven’t been as consistent as I need to be. We’ll see how this next round goes but I’m trying extra hard not to let my hopes get too high and to just be patient and wait. That, of course, is much easier said than actually done. I'm a really impatient person so this is a foreign concept.

I really wish that I could have a giant bubble above my head that flashes *struggling with infertility, be sensitive!* anytime someone starts up a conversation. You know, kind of like The Sims. We were at lunch meeting with some new people last weekend and after the usual small talk (where do you work, where do you live, how long have you been married) they asked us when we’re going to have kids. Apparently everything thinks that you can choose that. So at that point I just shut up and let Allen do the talking because I didn’t want to deal with baby questions. I think he said something to the extent of “uh I dunno we’ll see." Then they talked about how that’s nice and it’s good to wait and make sure you’re ready and the ever so annoying “enjoy this time while you can” speech. Um hello? We’ve been ready for 2 years. We’ve been thinking about and planning for a baby for 2 years. We’ve been going through fertility treatments for well over 6 months now. Obviously I know that they didn’t do anything wrong and were just trying to be nice by asking questions but it still upset me. Maybe that’s not fair of me to say but I don’t care. HERE is a link to a great article that I think is a must read for everyone. Word for word it's absolutely perfect. I couldn't have said it any better if I tried. Infertility is something that I never gave much thought to in the past and never in a million years did I expect it would be a subject that we would have to deal with but alas, here we are. 

I don't want to elaborate too much on the opportunity I mentioned a few weeks ago because there is still so much up in the air. It seems like we've got a lot of things happening all at once and I don't even know where to focus my thoughts. All I know is that one way or another I'm going to be a mommy. And I can't wait for that day.

Love love. 

And a special recognition to my loving husband, amazing family, and super supportive co-workers.

Heather

The TWW

God's delays are not God's denials. A few weeks ago we focused on this phrase at church and since then it's been something that I tell myself every single day. 

The two-week wait sucks. It is stressful and miserable and frustrating and it can never go by fast enough. I've been trying to focus my energy on home improvement projects, kind of sort of attempting to cook, getting back into Pilates (which I absolutely love!) and tuning into my faith and spiritual journey. And not just during the never ending wait - These are all things that make me happy (except for the cooking) and fulfilled and help with stress relief.

My IUI was March 28th. Originally I was going to go by myself because we've had so many doctors visits and tests and follow ups that we have to do together that I didn't want to have Allen miss work for this too. However, I definitely ended up having a mini breakdown the evening before and I think he felt bad and wanted to join me. Obviously I loved having him there with me to help calm my nerves. Thanks babe! After the wash we had a count of 11 million good healthy swimmers. The nurse said that this was "great!!!" on the 'okay to great sperm scale'. This, of course, is a fact that the hubs seems very proud of and doesn't let me forget. During the past few years he has always insisted that I must be the problem because he has "super sperm". Apparently the fact that I've been cleared and given a good to go and that fact that we obviously haven't conceived yet doesn't seem to affect his ego. I don't get it, but whatever.

The IUI procedure itself was pretty quick and easy. We got to watch everything on the ultrasound monitor so that was pretty neat. We saw a bunch of tiny white dots floating around and it turns out that those were the washed spermies. Hopefully they figured out what they were supposed to do and headed in the right direction. Before leaving I was caught off guard when the doctor said "call us in 16 days once you get a positive pregnancy test". What? Woohoo! I absolutely loved hearing those words. Except then she followed that up with "...or once you confirm that you're not pregnant". Okay, I'm back down to Earth. Anyway so afterwards I went home to rest and relax and basically hold the couch down for the rest of the day. It was a hard job but someone's got to do it.

The morning of the IUI, literally about an hour prior to the procedure, the hubs and I got some interesting news and possibly an incredible opportunity. I can't help but think that the timing of the news must be some kind of sign. It's still early and we are committed to up to a few IUI rounds but the ball is finally rolling in the right direction. And it's rolling fast. I don't know how things are going to pan out but I'm trying to keep focused on the excitement instead of the stress. Although both are pretty overwhelming. 

Gracias.

Heather