Happy Super Bowl Sunday!  Although I don’t follow football…queue Booing now…I understand it is a HUGE deal for many and I hope you all have a terrific day of munching, drinking and hanging with friends!

That being said, today is day 23 of my cycle and I’m now 5 days past the iui.  The longest 5 days known to mankind.  I feel crampy every day, it comes and goes.  It is so early in the game however, that I am sure it is just all in this crazy ass head of mine.  My lower back is also bothering me, but I believe it is from sitting on the bleachers for 2 hours watching my cousins wrestling match Friday night, combined with the ridiculous cleaning I did yesterday.  My boobs are also super sensitive since the day of the iui.  I’m 99.9% sure this is from the hcg trigger shot I had Monday.  Pregnancy hormones = pregnancy symptoms.  Right?  Although I am checking more often than I care to admit, to see if my nipples are any darker, LOL!

So Tuesday can’t come fast enough.  I’m so on edge about this appointment because even though I know it’s too early for a beta; my biggest fear right now is being told “It doesn’t look like it worked this first time.”  I will be crushed.  I will be crushed because I have gotten my hopes up.  I have gotten my hopes up so high, despite the fact I told myself I wouldn’t.  I feel in my heart that this was it, one try and bam, in 9 months I’ll have a perfect little miracle to ooh and ahh over.  I mean, it happens to many people on their fist shot, right.  Besides, our only fertility issue is my lack of ovulation.  And in the past 3 months on the lowest dose of Clomid, I have been ovulating.  So taking the distance away from the little swimmers should be all it takes, right?  Only time will tell.  We will know in a few weeks.  Tuesday’s appointment they’ll test my Progesterone to make sure it is optimal to sustain a pregnancy should this cycle result in one. 

As I try and pass time efficiently, I have many “to do’s” on my list for today.  I will be going through my husbands clothes to make him aware of the fact he only wears the first 2 layers of clothing in each 15 inch deep drawer (which leaves about 5 more layers of clothes untouched!) and purging things he hasn’t worn in years and/ or is over 10 years old.  He doesn’t have the time to do it, so I will.  Then I have my normal food shopping, laundry and then doing some “me” things.  I don’t yet know what they will be, but I’ll find them!  I also want to spend some time preparing food for the week.  It doesn’t take long at all to prepare a few meals and freeze them or separate serving sizes of salad out so all you have to do is grab them and mix them up.  We used to do this religiously every Sunday; We would spend about 1 ½ hours preparing everything (sans dinners- those are made fresh) and then we are totally set for the week, it’s awesome!  We are getting back into the swing again.

On a super happy note, early Friday morning, our friends gave birth to their tiny little twins, at 36 weeks, Craig and Emma.  We went yesterday to see them and they may just be the cutest, tiniest little angles I’ve ever seen.  They were born at 4lbs 10oz and 4lbs 8oz respectively.  Tiny little fingers, tiny little noses, tiny little everything.  It was amazing to see them.  She got pregnant on the first shot with the same doctor I’m seeing.  Not that that has anything to do with anything, it’s just promising to personally know a success story with my doctor.  They were conceived through IVF.  There were actually 3 sets of twins there in the hospital, it was so great! 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Yesterday I received my very first blog award from my very awesome friend Kim, over at JoggingInCircles.  Many of you know her but for those of you who don’t, go check her and her fantastic blog out!  She’s a great writer and I guarantee she will become one of your daily visits!  I’m pretty sure she granted me this lovely blog award just because I’m supa fly; I’m an all around groovy chick and I know how to roll, but either way…it’s my very first Award and I’m flippin’ honored!  Thanks Kim!!

 But wait!  There are rules with this award. By accepting this Excellent Blog Award, you have to award it to 10 more people whose blog you find Excellent Award worthy.  You can give it to as many people as you want…even those that have received it already, but please award at least 10 people. 

I would like to pass this blog award onto:

40 Weeks– She is about 5 days past her due date now and I’m sure she could use some help with her eviction techniques.  Even her ‘countdown to baby’s arrival” ticker is now counting back up!

BlissInBloom

JoggingInCirlces

Joeprah

Manners&Moxie

MimziesMuzings

NolaNotes

PeaPodSquadStuff

SuchSimplePleasures

TheDuchess

YogaMoma

I frequent all of these blogs and each and everyone are all awesome!  I know some have already received it, but that’s ok according to the rules!

Feel free to keep the awards coming…don’t worry, I can handle the fame, really!

This morning went perfectly.  We got up nice and early, got ourselves together, produced a specimen, and scurried out of the house to make our 9am appointment.  We weren’t sure what the morning traffic would be like so of course I was anxious that we would get caught up in a nightmare traffic jam and show up outside the “within 1 hour window”.  But we actually flew there, with no hold ups, in about 20 minutes, so we were 20 minutes early for our appointment. We had to fill out some more paperwork, hand over his ID, and wait for the lab to come take the little cup.  25 minutes later they came out to get us, handed us the tube of high test swimmers and we were set to go.  The procedure was as nothing as nothing could get.  1, 2, 3 and it was over.  They let me lay there for a few minutes and then I was on my way.  Simple. 

Before they did the insemination, they actually did another sono to see if the follicle was still there.  If it was, they would schedule a second IUI for tomorrow morning; to make sure we hit it right.  The follicle was already collapsed, which means the egg released, so the one IUI would be sufficient. 

I also went for my acupuncture this afternoon.  Such a euphoric feeling, it’s wild.  I love it!  He had needles in the top of my head, both ears, legs from the knee down, and he performed a technique called moxa which is basically mugwort burned on the skin.  Smells nice; incense like.

So that was that.  I didn’t do much else today, kind of just layed around and did some work on the laptop. 

A week from today I’ll go in for blood to check my levels. They are looking to see that my progesterone is at a decent level to sustain a healthy pregnancy, in the event that I get pregnant this cycle.  If it isn’t, they will give me injections.  Then there’s another week long wait before I get any results to see if the insemination was a success.  Countdown begins…starting…now.

Ok, so the results are in and tomorrow, 9am is GO TIME!  I am so excited and so anxious it’s ridiculous.  I am so very hopeful that this will be it and on the other hand so scared to get my hopes up in case it does not succeed. My E2 was 280 which was significantly higher than the 154 it was on Saturday.  Also, my LH soared to 43.6 today, from just 9.4 on Saturday.  They told me to administer the trigger shot and show up with a good sample in the a.m.

OK…administer the trigger shot?  Myself?  Hhmmmm.  Yeah, not so much.  I figured I’d be able to wait for my husband to get home to do it for me, but the nurse told me it would be best to do it now, since I’m surging.  I called my girlfriend, whom even though she had never given herself or anyone else a shot, said she would do it for me.  That’s the kind of friend she is…will do anything for you…even if it means sticking a ½ inch needle into your subcutaneous belly.  I decided to give another friend a try before making her do this, one whom went to nursing school but has since decided to become a teacher.  Nevertheless, I thought maybe she learned to give shots in school.  No luck.  But, her mother is a nurse up at the local hospital and was on her way over…S-C-O-R-E!  What luck?  So I dashed around the block to her house and she was there waiting to stick me.  It was nothing and I could have done it myself, but I was a nervous wreck; between learning that tomorrow was the day and then thinking of sticking my belly.  I mean, yeah…no.  I’m the kind of person that if I don’t wear earrings in my second hole and then try to put one through, I get freaked out about breaking that tiny layer of skin.  That little pop sound, ewwww!

Anyway, so that is taken care of and now tomorrow is the big day.  I called my acupuncturist immediately and let him know that I have my appointment tomorrow morning (as he wanted to see me immediately following the IUI) and he told me he would come into the office early to treat me.  I thought that was super awesome of him.  So I will come home, lay low for a bit, and then head up there for a 2pm appointment.  Then back home to lay low some more.

Exciting day coming up folks, really exciting day!

Ok so I had another monitoring session this morning at 7am.  My lil’ 16.5mm follie has grown to 19mm since Saturday!  Woot Wooot!  I am so attached to this freakin fluid filled sack…God help me when I find out there’s actually a baby in my uterus.  It’ll all be over then…talk about LOVE. He didn’t want to trigger this morning.  He told me that I would get a call this afternoon (protocol for monitoring sessions- they always call by 3pm that same day with your levels and follow up schedule) letting me know if I will be having my IUI tomorrow morning, or another monitoring session and the trigger.  It all depends on my levels.  Basically they want to see my estrogen at around 200.  A few days ago it was 154, with the 16.5mm follicle.  If they see that my LH is elevated, surging on my own, then I will definitely have the IUI in the morning.  He handed me a sterile cup so we are prepared.  I’m really hoping that tomorrow is the day.  I’m so anxious at this point.  I just want everything to work out…but I do know deep down that whatever is meant to be will be.  Especially in this case. 

So now we sit and wait.  I’m sure I don’t have to tell you just how far away 3pm is, right?  Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Walking into the office this morning was a relief…there was only about 8 women in there.  On Saturday it was a nightmare, to say the least.  Our wait wasn’t actually that bad, only about an hour and 20 minutes so I really can’t complain.  But it was pretty amazing.  You see we planned on leaving the house at 6:30am, to make it to Plainview (about 20 minutes away with no traffic) by 7, and wait on line if we had too, as the monitoring is first come first serve starting at 7am.  We actually didn’t leave until 6:45 and still had to stop for our morning fix, so we actually got there around 7:15…not bad.  Although the parking lot was already packed, with the exception of about 5 spots.  Holy crap!  I was freaking out.  Remember I had my acupuncture session at 9:30, so everything had to go pretty according to planned (in my head).

There were about 4 cars following us in to the lot, and 1 in front of us, so you could only imagine the angst trying to beat the other 5 ladies to the door.  I mean come on, 5 ladies in front of you equals about 40 minutes extra wait time…easily!  So we get into the office and it’s packed but we get a seat.  They called me in immediately for my blood. 

They actually had 2 nurses doing the blood, to make it go faster.  I couldn’t have been behind the doors for about 5 minutes, not even, for blood when I walk out to find our seats taken and about 6 more women in there!  Damn!  So we are standing off to the side and the number of women pouring into the office was just incredible!  Some serious operation they run over there…very well orchestrated I have to say.  By the time we went in for the sono, there were women standing everywhere.  By the time we came out, 10 minutes later, there were women sitting up the stairs and in the upstairs waiting room.  It was crazy! 

So yeah, this morning was nice, only 8 women.  In and out…literally.  I’ll update later!

It has definitely been one of those non- stop weekends for sure.  It was a long time coming since we’ve been pretty lax about our weekend schedules and have had no real structure, which kind of kills me. There are many thing to be done around our house; things like purging our bedroom, spare rooms, and hallway closets; painting here and there, both upstairs and down; and finishing some moulding work throughout the living room/ dining room areas of the house.  We have been saying that we are going to start working on all that is unfinished in the house, to get organized and have things finally be complete.  That is very important to me.  So we decided to sit down with a calendar and pick projects to be completed for each month.  We will spend some time each weekend to complete our projects and still have time to enjoy ourselves.

That being said, if I had one word to describe how I feel right now, it would be “accomplished”.

Today I purged and completely cleaned our downstairs coat closet.  Now you may not think that this is a big deal, but it is.  It’s not your normal hallway coat closet, it’s almost the size of a bathroom, it’s pretty big.  We had a ton of shit in there to be thrown out and / or donated.  Now it is spotless!  Also, yesterday when we finally returned home from our myriad of doctors appointments, I began going through all of our Christmas decorations that until now, were always stored in our downstairs spare bedroom closet.  I also still had about 6 boxes of crap in that room from when I lived at home with my parents to go through.  I ended up having 7 huge bags of garbage, a billion empty boxes to recycle and 4 boxes of donations- Christmas decorations, stuffed animals, clothes, you name it.  There are also a few items that I’m going to put up on eBay. 

So, yeah…accomplished…both my closet and spare bedroom are looking good.

**And now for the good stuff**

We had a monitoring session yesterday morning and I got to meet Dr. Kreiner himself!  For those of you who live on Long Island you have probably heard his name on the radio amongst other sources.  It was kind like meeting a celebrity…a celebrity who was going to look at my hoo-hah 2 minutes after meeting me…what a whore I am!  He prefaced the exam by telling us that he couldn’t find the last 2 patients’ ovaries.  LOL.  Anyway, so he does the sono and says that I have 1 dominant 16.5 mm follicle on the right side.  I asked him where the other follicle went (remember on Thursday I had 1-11mm and 1-13mm follicle) and he told me it went to small follicle heaven.  LOL, again.  He definitely lightened the mood for us, the fact that he was dressed in jeans and a button down flannel helped a bit too.  So they called with my hormone levels later on and told me they wanted me back for monitoring Monday am.  Basically I’m hoping the follicle will be around 19-20mm by then, so they can administer the trigger shot that I’ve been carrying to every single visit since day 10 (we are now on day 16). 

After the monitoring I had my fist acupuncture visit.  After just one session I can tell you that I absolutely L-O-V-E it!  I felt like it almost put me into this trance like state.  It was pretty cool.  I had about 20 needles in me- I think there were 6 below the knee in each leg, 4 in my belly under my navel, 1 in each hand and 1 in my ear.  He started the visit by taking my husband and me into his office and doing a brief medical history (my husband sees him too for shoulder/neck issues and has given him background on our fertility journey).  He explained that expects to be able to improve the quality of the dominant follicle and possibly help some others to grow larger, giving me more of a chance.  During the treatment, I laid there with heat lamps on me for probably about an hour and it went by so fast.  Probably because for once in my life, I felt relaxed; so relaxed!  After he was finished taking the needles out, he placed a tiny seed in my left ear.  He said to leave it in until after the IUI.  It is supposed to combat uterine contractions.  He also wanted me to call him with my hormone levels later that afternoon.  I did and he told me to let him know what my levels are from Monday’s monitoring session as well.  He also wants to see me immediately following the IUI.  He is a young guy; super nice and so easy to talk to and get along with.  I’m happy.

So pending my 1 dominant follicle is between 18 and 22mm when I go tomorrow morning, we will be set to trigger and then hopefully rock the IUI Tuesday morning!  Which reminds me, I have to leave myself a note to get a sterile cup and maybe prepare a performance of some sort ;-)  We’re looking for a big count here!

I’ll be back in the morning with an update!

On Friday’s my husband works from home because he has his recurring appointments to deal with his neck / shoulder issues in the morning hours.  He has been having neck / shoulder issues for about 2 years now and it is finally starting to improve.  After seeing an orthopedic surgeon, a physical therapist, a spinal surgeon, a neurologist, back to the physical therapist, a chiropractor, an acupuncturist and now physical therapy yet again, he is experiencing significant leaps and bounds due to the later three ‘techniques’.This morning he comes home and hands me a folder of information from his acupuncturist.  He tells me about the wonderfully informative conversation he had this morning with the guy in regards to acupuncture for fertility issues.  He tells me to read through the info and if I want, call and make an appointment for a consult. 

Being the super excited little school girl I am, I take the folder, run to the kitchen, make myself some soup for lunch and dive into the folder choc full of info!  I read everything, picked up the phone, and scheduled a consult for TOMORROW morning, immediately following my monitoring session. 

I have to say, I have it my mind that I will have some acupuncture and than literally float out of the office I’ll be so relaxed.  See, there go my crazy ass expectations getting the best of moi again.

Hopefully a little acupuncture can help balance out all my imbalances and pump some extra blood into my baby making organs!  Let’s go qi!

Have any of you loyal readers had acupuncture for fertility issues?  Or for anything for that matter?

I have once again so not been around my own blog for the past few days.  I want to take this moment to apologize to all that I have let down over the past week; I know how much reading my blog means to you all! 

No, but in all seriousness, I want to genuinely thank each and everyone of you who visit my little blog on the giant WWW and care enough to comment and share your advice and opinions.  Since I started this site back in November, I have met so many wonderful people and never knew how accepting the blogosphere inhabitants could/ would be.  I am elated by everyone’s kindness and general sense of compassion.  So go visit each other if you haven’t already (take a peek at my blogroll but keep in mind there are so many blogs that have not yet been added- I will get to that as soon as I can).  A HUGE THANK YOU GOES OUT TO YOU ALL!

Now an update on my follicles:

I went yesterday for another monitoring session, blood work and the ‘dildo-cam’, as I’ve heard so many women refer to it as such.  Although I’m not sure I should use the term ‘dildo-cam’ because a ‘dildo’ would usually imply a sense of pleasure, and I can tell you from my gazillion experiences having transvaginal sonogram, that there is absolutely ZERO pleasure to be gotten here.  It is a doctor’s visit, one, and two, IT’S A DOCTORS’S VISIT.  Not to mention the wand is super skinny and oh I don’t know…maybe some people like that sort of thing?  Twisted is what I have to say about that.  And every time he’s about to “perform”, he says to me, “Ok, you’re going to feel a little pressure.”  Do you think he says that to his wife before they, ya know, do it?  LOL!   I had my husband rolling with that.  Anyhow, see how easily I go off in the opposite direction.  I think I will use the term v-cam (easy enough). 

So the v-cam showed that my left side looks to be out of the game for this cycle, unless they miraculously catch up by go- time.  And my right shows two follicles, 11mm and 13mm.  I have to say I was immediately disappointed because I expected to have like 3 (which is the max he will work with in the case of IUI, for fear of high risk multiples) 20 mm follicles ready to trigger.  High hopes I suppose.  So he said “You know it’s still very early in the game so we are in a good spot right now.  The last two cycles you didn’t ovulate until day 23- 25 and today is only day 13, so hang in there and we’ll call you back later today with your blood results to let you know when to come back for monitoring again.”

So I left feeling a tad defeated.  But they called yesterday afternoon to tell me they want me back for monitoring tomorrow (Saturday) morning, so we will see where my lil follies are at then!  I have much love for my follicles…I never knew one could feel this way about tiny, fluid- filled, egg containing sacks.

That’s all for now kiddies! 

Woot Woot!

Is the weekend really over already!  WTF?  That was, like, the quickest one ever!

I can’t say we did all that much, but we had fun.  Saturday night I went out to celebrate my friends 24th birthday.  We went to a restaurant just 3 minutes from my house, Babylon Carriage House.  They have delicious food and a great atmosphere.  I had the most perfectly grilled filet, cooked medium- butterflied, of course (Don’t flog me for not eating filet rare to medium rare, please…I like things dead before they enter my mouth)  And the truffled mac and cheese served along side was unbelievable, although so garlicky that my husband is still keeping his distance!  Pair that up with a nice glass of Rosemount Shiraz and you’re in business!

After dinner we ventured down the road 1/8 of a mile to The Post Office.  Here we chatted like school girls and downed coconut martinis.  Oh how I will miss coconut martinis.  It was a really fun night!

Sunday morning we went to my in-laws for breakfast, French Toast breakfast to be exact!  She makes the most u-n-b-e-l-i-e-v-a-b-l-e french toast ever!  **Although I have to give mad props to my husband who serves up the most impeccable croissant french toast.  Yes he makes French toast with croissants, instead of bread….UNREAL I tell you!  Then he slices up apples and cooks them with cinnamon and maple syrup to drizzle over the French toast…MING!**  Anyway, we were there from 9:30 until about 1pm (we had lots to catch up on!)  and then we headed 2 miles over to my parent’s house to catch up with them.  We spent another 2.5 hours there and didn’t get home until around 4.  It was a wonderful day of visiting and now both sets of parents are fully caught up on My Fertility Stories…or should I say “Our Fertility Stories”.

After we got home we still had our normal weekend stuff to do, like food shopping, and little things like that.  We took care of that and as we were walking into the house with our groceries, a truck pulled up.  A huge truck full of men in black masks holding baseball bats!  Just kidding.  It was friends of ours that are actually going in to have their first baby, a little boy, on Wednesday! They stopped by and were here for an hour or so.  It was unexpected and nice to see them outside of a ‘function’.  I like visits like that, impromptu. 

Anyway…Now the news many of you are waiting to hear…

We went in for day 10 monitoring, super early this morning.  I have 4 maturing follicles on my right side and only a couple on my left.  On the right they are measuring 11, 10, 9 and 7.5mm and on my left only 7 and 9mm.  I go back in 2 days, unless they tell me otherwise when they call with the blood results later today. 

So this is awesome, we’re right on track for cycle day 10.  The earliest we will be able to rock the IUI will probably be this weekend, but we will see where we are come Wednesday!  I have to keep reminding myself that the past 2 months on Clomid I still didn’t ovulate until well after day 14, more like days 21- 25 actually.  I’m just hedging my bets that since I took the Clomid days 3-9 as opposed to days 5-9, I will ovulate earlier.  Again, only time will tell.

I hope you all had a fabulous weekend and are starting your week off well!

Today is already cycle day 7, and therefore my last day of this round of those tiny little rage inducing pills, other known as Clomid.  I have to say that this cycle on Clomid has brought out the worst symptoms.  The night sweats have reared their ugly head morning, noon, evening and night.  I guess it’s kind of like when they say morning sickness, and so I’ve heard and read, it’s more like morning noon and night sickness.  The mood swings…oh the mood swings.  Seriously, one minute I couldn’t be in a better mood and the next, I’m wondering what could possibly be so bad that I’m so sad.  It really sucks.  **Queue the masses of women telling me that I’m not alone in my Clomid symptomology.**

I still say I’ll do it over and over and over again to reach our goal of becoming Mommy and Daddy.  Whatever it takes.

So as I’m so excited to be about to take my last pill this morning, right after I finish breakfast (remember my full stomach B.S. from yesterday?), I open the tiny little blister thingy and….ooooppps!  Right into the garbage pail.  Little sucker slipped right outta there faster than I could have ever reacted to snatch it up!  (LMAO…I said ‘snatch’.  Sorry if I’ve offended anyone by using that word, but there’s kind of a little joke that I won’t repeat right now and I just think the word is extremely funny.  Kind of like when someone refers to a ‘box’…Kim, Fran, I know you are rolling!)  Once again, I digress, but what would a post be without one by this point, right?  So the pill lands in the garbage pail, smack in the middle of a puddle of egg yolks that I dumped in there just 20 minutes sooner while making my egg white omelet.  I contemplated washing it off, but that would have been absolutely disgusting, so I said to myself…”Shit, now what??”  Then I light bulb popped out of the top of my head and I remembered that I still had leftovers from the last cycle since my GYN always called in a 2 Rx’s for me at a time!  And last month I cut the package open and managed to cut into the pill itself and turn it into dust.  So there were a few extras!  Done…that was easy!

So while it’s probably too early to be feeling any kind of aches or pains down there around my ovarian area…last night I felt some cramping.  May very well just be all in my head, but I hope it’s because it’s “working”.  I read that taking Clomid on days 3-7, results in more follicles, while taking it on days 5-9 results in more mature follicles.  So maybe I have tons of little ones forming and they will now begin to mature…YIPPEEEEE.  Monday can’t come soon enough.  I know they won’t be ready to trigger come Monday, but at east we will get to see where they are at this point.

See you soon!

Why is it…

…that every time I go to the hospital to get blood drawn, there’s no parking and I have to leave.

…that every time I walk out of my bedroom, I hit the light switch?  No matter if it’s day or night, light on or off people!  Rrgghhh!  Then I go back upstairs later to find the light on, in the middle of the day.  Its just habit I guess and it drives me fucking nuts!  I have caught myself 3 times today, yes…3!  And the days not even half over yet.

…that when you stir pasta, it makes the worst sound EVER??!!  That squishy, gross sound; goes right through me…ewww. 

…that fish smells so bad?

…that people really enjoy eating something that smells so bad?

…that when one of your cable boxes doesn’t work, or your oil burner decides to take a crap, you call customer service and they give you a “WINDOW”.  You know, the “Ok, someone will be out between 8am and 8pm today, if that’s cool with you?”  N.O.…N to the O, that “window” is not cool with me!  Why can’t they just tell you a time, and then completely exceeded your expectations by showing up on time.  Yeah, yeah that would be real cool.

…that the more you DON”T want something to happen, it happens, and usually in a hardcore way at that!  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…it’s “the law of attraction”.  Read all about it in The Secret.  Lesson to be learned here…concentrate on those things you do want, and they will happen.

…that I take my Clomid with food, for fear of feeling nauseous?

…that despite being so careful not to take Clomid on an empty stomach, I continue to take my pre-natals on an empty stomach.  You think I would have learned my lesson, like back in March of last year, when I began taking them.  You all know that feeling…My lunch is working its way up just talking about it.   

…that I freak out if there is even just 1(one) piece of dog hair on the floor.  As you could imagine…living with me is not all that easy, for my husband, or for my dogs.  I am fanatical about clean floors.  Thank GOD I don’t have ANY carpets in my house, all wood floors. 

…that I still get nervous taking new classes at the gym.  Oh, Oh…raises hand frantically…I know I know…It’s because everytime I take a new class I get killed!

Ok folks…I can literally go on forever with this list…and maybe I will pick it up again next week.  Or tomorrow.  I don’t want to bore you with too much at once.

Oh yeah…cycle day 6 here…1 more day of Clomid then it’s onto day 10 monitoring on Monday.

As I mentioned yesterday, I was tagged to do a Seven Random Facts About Me MEME, by my girl Kim over at JoggingInCircles.  In this MEME, I will attempt to write Seven Random/ Fun facts about myself.  I don’t know if I can come up with Seven…but I’ll give it a whirl.

#1- I was once in a serious relationship with John Mayer. 
Yes, the delicious 6’ 5” moppy haired, you either think he was hit with ‘the stick’ or blessed from above, zexxxxy ass guitarist, John Mayer.  Ok, Ok.  So it wasn’t serious, but we dated for quite some time.  Alright, Alright.  We didn’t even date.  I hung out with him one night after he played a two night gig at Irving Plaza in Manhattan, only after stalking his brothers to find out where the after party was going to be.  Note:  I’m not nearly as obsessed anymore….Just for the record.

#2- I bring a glass of water to bed with me every night.
I don’t have to be thirsty to drink water.  I drink so much of it that I don’t understand how it’s safe.  Well maybe it’s not safe.  Either way, whether I drink it or not, it has to be on my night table while I’m sleeping, just in case.  Often I wake up in the morning and there is half a glass left, but it is comforting knowing it is there for me should I need it.

#3- I am SUPER ticklish and can even tickle myself.
Growing up my uncle would tickle me until I would cry!  How terrible is that.  It turned very not fun and got quite old, real quick.  Then one day I realized I could tickle myself (I always thought that was impossible, although it’s very possible I could be wrong and then that would make this “random fact” really really dumb).  There’s a spot just about 2 inches or so in from my pelvic bone that I need to be careful with. 

-NEXT-

#4- I am afraid of my own shadow.
I hate being home alone when it’s dark outside.  Hell, even when it’s light out and my phone rings, I jump 3 feet.  On the nights I forget to bring my glass of water up to bed with me, I will try and coax one of the dogs to get out of their bed to accompany me down stairs to the kitchen.  Often times I end up going it alone and once I hit the bottom landing of the stairs I R-U-N like hell to the kitchen.  Then I R-U-N like hell back to the stairs and back up to bed!  Idiot.

#5- I am even more afraid of thunder and lightening.
 I drill my fingers into my ears and shut my eyes so tight it hurts.  I then proceeded to cover my head with a cover and pray that it ends.  My house was struck by lightening when I was little and I blame this for my paranoia.

#6- I would love to have twins.
Knowing that there is a possibility of a multiple birth pregnancy with the treatment we are undergoing doesn’t scare me….as long as it’s no more multiple than twins that is!  I can totally see my husband and me with two little ones at once and think I would definitely go for a “third” afterwards.  Of course at this point we are praying we can even have one!

#7- I DESPISE fish.
Everything about it.  The look.  The horrid smell when you cook it.  UGH!  I used to dine on fish sticks when I was a kid, but ‘not no mores’!  Some people just don’t understand why you don’t like it and will always attempt to get you to try it, but N.O.!  The furthest I will go is Calamari.  Fried Calamari.  So fried that the calamari is no longer “chewy” and “tough”, but instead tender and melting in your mouth. 
Pretty boring, huh!  Sorry.  So now I have to tag seven others.  I am going to start with Nola over at NolaNotes and The Duchess, over at TheDuchess. 
Here are the rules:
1. Link to the person’s blog who tagged you.
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. List seven random and/or weird facts about yourself.
4. Tag seven random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.

OK.  So today consisted of 2 trips to the doctor’s office; one at 7am (day 3 blood work and sonogram), the next at 10:30am (information session about the rollercoaster ride about to take place during this cycle); and a massive headache, a headache like I’ve never had before…Bright Light…Bright Light.  Oh, how it hurt to look at bright light.  It subsided for about 4 hours as a result of taking three Motrin, but has just come back to haunt me.  I think maybe it’s a sign that I should go start dinner?

So basically, here is what’s about to happen over the next couple weeks:

• I will start Clomid 50mg tonight (days 3-7)  Look at me getting all wild and shizzz…taking Clomid days 3-7 instead of the 5-9 I’ve gotten used too.  Talk about living on the edge, huh.
• Go back to the Specialist for day 10 blood and sono (Monday 1/21) to monitor progress thus far from the Clomid
• I’m awaiting the arrival of my Ovidrel trigger shot in the mail and I will keep this bad boy in the fridge and then take it with me to my day 10 visit, and every visit thereafter.
• The frequency of every visit after the day 10 visit really depends on the size of my little follies and how they are maturing.  Basically we want them to be between 18 and 22mm to schedule the IUI.  So if they are at 14 mm come Monday 1/21, I may have to go in the following day to monitor again to see if they have grown any further.  If they are only at 10mm, I will go back in 2 days for further monitoring.  Get it?
• When the timing is right and we have not yet detected my LH surge via blood but there are perfect size follies, either the office or myself (ehhhh…my husband) will administer the trigger shot to pump those babies out of there and into the tubes.
• IUI will then take place within 24 hours or so.
• I will go back to the office a week after the IUI for bloodwork and sono.
• Two weeks after the procedure I will go in for a pregnancy test and sono.

So there you have it…What do you think?  Going in a good direction right?  I’m more than thrilled with everything that has taken place in the past 7 days.  It feels like things are finally falling into place and I’m feeling very confidant. 

I also want to mention that Kim over at JoggingInCircles tagged me for a MEME.  I’m not blowing it off and I promise to do it tomorrow Kim!
 

Update:  Since my husband will most likely read this before I get to speak with him, I will notify him here.

E-

The hospital needs you back this evening for more of your stuff.  No no, not that stuff…they’ve already established you’re fine in that department, they just need your blood again.

They called a few moments ago to inform me that apparently they forgot to take a vial of blood for your blood type test. 

Sorry!

I got my period…All by myself may I add!  So I did ovulate on that cycle and we are now off to a fresh start.  The games actually begin tomorrow, day 3.

Tomorrow morning at 7, I have to go down to the office to have “cycle start” blood work and an ultrasound.  Then I go back to the office at 10:30 for a Clomid cycle IUI information session and to get my results from the u/s and blood.  I guess it is then that they will explain everything that will be taking place over the next cycle; from the monitoring schedule to the scheduling itself, and so on and so forth.

So, yeah!  I’m pretty damn excited. 

I was spotting, which is something that has never happened to me- it is either all or none, Friday night.  This of course led me to believe the obvious (to me anyway), its implantation bleeding and I’m actually getting pregnant, like right now!  I had a hard time falling asleep due to all fantasies that consumed my mind.  Yeah, not so much.  By Saturday mid morning it was O.N.  Sadness instantly filled me, but that was followed by excitement, knowing all the greatness that lie ahead.

Today my husband and I went for our blood work up, for all the “life threatening” stuff they test for when you go see a specialist.  I jokingly turned to my husband as we were patiently waiting in the waiting room, and said, “Their probably going to take like 8 vials of blood.”  He didn’t flinch because he pays stuff like that no mind.  He’s not a baby at all when it comes to any of that blood, procedure, etc. rigamero.  So they call me in after a little bit and the nurse starts picking out all the vials she needs to pump full of my red stuff.  I’m waiting and waiting and waiting, and she keeps pulling and pulling and pulling.  So finally I say, “Just how many vials of blood do you need??”  She looks at her sheet of stickers and says, “Hmmmm, 15.”  15??!!!  WTF??  Are they using my blood to come up with the next crazy vaccination?  I was just joking when I said 8 to my husband.

When I had day 3 blood back in September, there were 7 vials.  Now today, 15.  Now tomorrow I go for day 3 blood again.  Will there be another 7 vials?  Is that even safe?  Do I have that much blood for them to take out of me?  Don’t I need that blood to function, stay conscious, SURVIVE?

Anyway…she makes sure I’m ok with her taking so much blood and what am I supposed to say, “No?”  So she starts, and then asks me if I can hold the first vial, because it is glass and she does not want it to fall and break.  Sure, I’ll hold a vial of my hot blood…that will feel so wonderful, make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  Thank God I didn’t pass out.  I did great, my husband took one look at all my vials lined up when he was done with his 4, yes he only had to give 4 vials, and said “Holy Shit.”  Yeah, no shit.  Why is it that the women get the shaft with all this fertility crap? 

I hope everyone had a terrific weekend!  If you’re in the tri-state area, I hope you’re ready for a messy night/ morning!

More tomorrow.