Cycle Day 21/Memorial Day

Tomorrow is cycle day 21, ie the day I usually get my blood drawn to test for ovulation...but I can't because tomorrow is also Memorial Day and the labs are closed. So I will go on Tuesday instead and hope that the levels are still relevant. The nurses said they should be, but it's the word 'should' that worries me. Just because something 'should' be, doesn't mean that it 'is'. And don't we all know that's the truth? Because by now, we 'should' be parents. We 'should' be pregnant with child #2, or #3 or in some cases, #4 or higher, depending on how long you've been playing the infertile game. 'Should' doesn't really mean anything to me, but I have no choice: cycle day 22 it is.

We got some {word used very loosely} clarification from the nurses about how many more tries we have left at home before moving on to IUI when we went to pick up my blood work lab sheet on Friday. Originally, the plan was 5 tries/5 months at home. We are technically on month 4 but I was curious if month 2 counted since I didn't ovulate. No egg, no baby, no matter how hard you try. I had called and asked for clarification on this 2 weeks ago, but the doctor was on vacation so the nurse said she would leave a note for him in my chart and he would get back to me when he returned. Well, he never did. Shocker. So on Friday, I asked again, and she said they count ovulatory cycles. So I said, "Ok, so we're technically on cycle 3 then", and she said, "Well, if you're not responding to the medication, we usually recommend that you move on to something more aggressive", to which I responded, "Well the first month I ovulated, but then 2nd month I didn't, so my dosage was increased and the 3rd month I ovulated again," to which she then replied, "Oh! So you're responding then", and I said, "yes", and she said "Ok, well, still, if you're not getting pregnant after 5 cycles, then you should think about moving on" ... Does anyone else see the circular cycle of this conversation?? So yes, I say we got "some" clarification. Oy. Sometimes I really miss my old clinic. Needless to say, regardless of that conversational nonsense, if this cycle doesn't work, we still have at least one, maybe two, depending on your interpretation of the above exchange, tries at home left before moving on to IUI. What I can't adequately reproduce for you here, is the nurse's tone, which suggested that she thought I 'should' have {there's our favorite word again} conceived by now, so what's the point? If it hasn't worked yet, it probably won't so you might as well move on to IUI.

Have I mentioned how much I miss my other clinic??

Green thumb, empty womb

I have found a new passion: gardening. I have always loved to cook and bake, and now I

've extended my love of food to growing it! There is something so satisfying about growing your own vegetables. I do find it kind of ironic, however, that I have no issue growing vegetables from seed but can't seem to grow a baby from...well...seed. Such is life. The first photo is from the first day we planted. Seeds were in the ground but the only things showing were our baby onions. The rest of the pictures were taken earlier this week. Pretty nice progress, right? :)

We rent a 10ft x 20ft plot from the University Jason attends for his Master's program. For only $10 per season (!!) which includes tools, water, and the space, we ge

t a space to grow our own veggies. When the first little shoots and sprouts emerged tentatively from the soil, we watered and tended to their every need. We pulled pesky weeds, made sure they never went thirsty, and just this past Monday, the hubs and I evicted a gopher {humanely, I might add} from our garden. With the exception of our onions, the two zucchini plants {I tried to our own but they bit the dust}, our honeydew melon, sugar snap pea and the eggplant, we have grown everything from seed: carrots, beets, swiss chard, broccoli, bibb lettuce, romaine lettuce, corn, watermelon, jalapeno, and butternut squash. It is supremely satisfying work and the home-gro

wn veggies are delicious. Seriously, once you're had organic home grown lettuce, I defy you to go back to bagged.

I enjoy it. I find it quite peaceful in our garden and I get so much joy from tending to our little plants. They are my veggie kids. When they were just seedlings, I had to take them outside every day for an hour, then two hours, they three hours, etc until they eventually "hardened off" and adapted from living indoors to being outdoor plants. A lot of man hours have gone in to our garden but it's well worth it. The rewards are tasty ones indeed.

I get by with a little help from my friends

Infertility sucks. It does. But what doesn't suck is how much love and support we have received from family and friends. Seriously, I don't know what we would do without them. Over the years, I have been shown some incredible acts of kindness. One friend sent me flowers at work when I was struggling with a particularly difficult cycle. The same friend sent me $300 for Christmas to help with our infertility medical bills...I came to learn that she told her husband that what she wanted for Christmas was to give US some financial help with our infertility stuff. Wow, right? {Thank you, again, dear friend, you are amazing.}

Late night calls, emails, letters, cards, shoulders to cry on, little trinkets to give us hope, you name it, I'm thankful for it. It has all meant the world to me. One night just about two weeks ago, I was talking to a friend on gchat. It was right after I had gotten my period so we knew that our April cycle was a bust. I was angry, frustrated, sad and felt truly hopeless and helpless. My grandpa had just passed away three weeks before and I was feeling down-right DOWN. I typed to my friend, 'Maybe there isn't a baby out there for us, maybe it's not meant to be, maybe there really isn't a baby up in Heaven waiting to call us Mom and Dad. Why can't God send me a little note, "You will have a baby, Love, God."' My friend was very supportive, as always, reminding me that I can't think like that, we have to believe there is a baby out there for us, somewhere.

So today, I went to get the mail. There amongst the usual bills and junk was a shimmery gold envelope, addressed to me in lovely script, with no return address. Intrigued, I opened it. This is what I found:

I am blessed with amazing people in my life.

They say it takes a village to raise a child, but in our case, it takes a village to MAKE a child, to get through the process and summon the strength and hope to continue on with our journey. Thank you, to each one of you, from the bottom of my heart, for believing there is a baby out there for us, somewhere.

Pampers: For every little miracle

This commercial has been tugging on my heartstrings, makes me tear up each and every time, so I thought I'd share it with all of you. Thank you, Pampers, for not forgetting that no matter how a child comes in to this world, each one is a special little miracle.

A Blogger Award

Thank you, thank you to fertiltyfrustration for so very sweetly nominating me for The Versatile Blogger award! I apologize for not doing this sooner, but life has a funny way of getting away with us doesn't it? At any rate, it's my turn to repay the gesture in kind.

Winners grab the image above and put it in your blog.
Link back to the person who gave you it.
Tell 10 things about yourself
Award 15 recently discovered bloggers.
Contact the bloggers you have awarded to let them know they have won.

So there's the thing. I can't pick. All of the blogs I follow are wonderful and deserving of an award. So, I nominate each and every blog listed in my blog roll. Check them all out when you get the chance. Each and every one is unique and has a story to tell. We're all in this battle together. Thank you to every voice of courage out there. It takes a lot to openly discuss your struggle, to put your raw emotions in cyberspace for everyone to see and read. I applaud you all.

Now, for the 10 things about me.

1. My husband and I have been together since we were 15. We're 27 now, so that means we've been together for 12 years, married for 5.

2. I have an eye phobia. It gives me the heebie jeebies when someone touches their eyeball or especially when someone flips their eyelid. ICK. It's the reason I can't wear contacts. Seriously.

3. I had open heart surgery in 2009 to correct a congenital heart defect. I subsequently had a pacemaker implanted in 2010 and am clicking away at a steady 80 bpm.

4. I don't eat red meat, and haven't since my senior year of high school. And to clarify, that does include pigs. So, I guess the more accurate statement would be 'I don't eat mammals.'

5. I want to write children's books when I grow up :)

6. My friend, Jess and I are working on writing a book about infertility specifically geared toward addressing the infertility and age myth. Both of us were in our early 20's when we started TTC and were diagnosed with PCOS.

7. I have another blog. www.melissanam2227.blogspot.com. It's taken a turn toward becoming more of a food/cooking blog. Check it out ;)

8. We rent a space in a community garden plot. Turns out I have a green thumb.

9. We already have our children's names picked out. First middle last. And actually, because my husband is Korean and traditionally, Korean children are given generation names, our kids will have two middle names: a non-Korean one and a Korean one. For example: Jacob Brayden Woo Last. {And no, that is not one of our choices. The first two are the names of my cousin's boys who we absolutely adore, but the Woo is in fact the generation name they will receive, and our last name is not Last, but you get the idea.}

10. My dream is to have a sprawling ranch house in the country complete with a garden, a few kiddos and lots and lots of animals. Oh, and a willow tree out front with a bench underneath for some quality reading time. ;)

Hope and other supreme wastes of time

Why do I do it? Why do I even go there? I actually let myself believe that there may be hope this month. And for what? Cycle day one, that's what. Why, hello there familiar feeling of failure. Obviously, I've spent the last two weeks in denial so I must be working my way through the stages of grief. Anger should come next and....YEP we're there. After anger comes bargaining {I'm really familiar with that one: Please God, please let this be the month. I'll do anything, be anyone, act however you want me to act, etc etc etc}. In a few days, the depression will set in. Not a fun place to be. And then, finally. acceptance. I'll accept that I'm just not meant to be a pregnant woman. And don't say it, don't say, "Never's a long time, it'll happen, I can feel it," because I have NEVER been pregnant. Not once.

It has been 41 months since we started down this road. 41 months of wanting something desperately and being denied time and time again. {And yes, we had 14 months "off" due to my open heart surgery so I won't count those months in my actively trying tally, but I never stopped wanting a child. If anything, it made me want one more.} So I guess that means we have had 27 failed cycles. Twenty effing seven.

Hope? Please. More like hopeless.

The only silver lining? My period arrived on time this month. Awesome. Good for me.

And yes, I know, in my "Something Good" post I said that I wouldn't really care if this month wasn't THE month because I was just shocked and elated to have ovulated. But come on, I'm hurting. I care. A lot.

In two days, I'll start my meds. And we'll start the process all over again. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Remember Us

This Sunday is Mother's Day. It will be the 4th such holiday I will spend child-less since we started down the path to parenthood. I have attached a link to a blog whose author made the point that I think most of us infertiles find ourselves struggling with. We love our Mother's and the many other Mother's in our lives, but that doesn't mean we don't hurt on this holiday, doesn't mean we don't yearn to be a part of the "club." Please take a moment to read her post, and please, remember us on Sunday.

hannahweptsarahlaughed.blogspot.com/2011/05/remember-us-on-sunday

Something good

A step in the right direction was confirmed today: I OVULATED!!! I called the nurses station at my new clinic and they looked up the results for me {why they don't call me with the results, I just don't know} and...14.6! Up from 0.6 last cycle so yea, big improvement. HUGE in fact. The nurse I spoke to was happy with the number and said to test in about a week or 10 days, which would be cycle day 32-35. I have longish cycles so this works for me.

Other than being thrilled, I am actually a bit shocked. More than a bit, quite a lot, actually. My grandpa passed away unexpectedly when I was taking my femara meds and ovulation, should it happen, was "scheduled" to occur between his burial and memorial {not exactly the happiest of times}, not to mention the fact that we were feeling anything but amorous given the fact that we'd just suffered a death in the family. But, I took my meds, tried to stick to my fertility diet, tried to exercise when I could {which actually only ended up being twice} and was honest with myself about not pushing the "business" part of conception: if we felt like it, we soldiered ahead; if not, we went to sleep because we both needed the rest {oh yea, Jason was also in the middle of finals when my grandpa passed...good times}. With all of the driving back and forth, the grief and stress, and not really sticking to my diet as I "should", I thought for SURE I wouldn't ovulate. I prepared myself for another disappointment, and had all but written out a script for what I would say to the doctor after I got the bad news to explain to him why this month shouldn't count due to x, y and z. {This is month 3 out of 5 of our at home trying before he recommends we move on to IUI's so it was important to me to get him to see my point of view...} Guess I don't have to worry about having that conversation after all! :)

I know that just because I ovulated doesn't mean I'm pregnant. Duh. I know that, way better than most, unfortunately. But it does mean we have a chance at being pregnant. I released an egg, possibly more than one, and we did do our "business" at least once during the opportune fertile window, so it's possible. And that's all that matters: it's POSSIBLE.

Please, keep your fingers, legs, arms, eyes, crossed. If this month didn't take, we only have two more months of trying at home before we are advised to move on to IUI. This whole process has already turned in to a long, arduous take-home science project and we would really LOVE to be able to miraculously conceive at home, instead of on a table in a doctor's office. We've done 2 IUI's in the past and they're not terrible, but they're a hell of a lot less romantic than being in the arms of the one you love.

As always, we appreciate your support!