Follicle Status Update

This morning's appointment was kinda meh.  Not a complete bust, just not what I wanted to hear.

The basics: I responded to the new dose of letrozole, and my follicles are "right there" according to the doc I saw today (not my usual RE, and this was the first time I saw other doc. "Hi, nice to meet you. Oh, and here's my hoo-ha."  Not at all awkward).  I had one follicle at 13mm and a couple of smaller ones.  I have the pleasure of having another visit with my BFF the vagcam Friday morning, and other doc was kind enough to draw the bullseye for the trigger shot on my butt (flashing her my bare behind was really fun), even though we won't be needing it for at least a couple of days.  In the meantime, I guess I'll continue listening to my Circle + Bloom tracks and hope that I can magic my follicles into growing.  (To clarify:  I love the Circle + Bloom programs, they help me relax and I feel like they genuinely help me.  I also feel like when I listen to them, I can feel my ovaries growing, hence the magical growth of follicles.)

I can't say that I'm surprised at the situation for 2 reasons.  The first is that I always have the lingering thought that things won't work out, and the second is that it's pretty early in my cycle.  I'm usually ovulate between CD15 and 18, and today is only CD11.  Hopefully those follies are a bit juicer on CD13.

Aside from my mildly disappointing appointment, today was a pretty good day.  I had a post appointment lunch date with my mom, grandma, and my close friend, we did some shopping, and when we got back to the house my sisters arrived.  Those thoughtful little buggers brought me a super comfy hoodie from their college (my alma mater) that has the school name on the chest in green and silver sparkles.  I love it.  I'm wearing it for Thanksgiving tomorrow.  The most interesting part of my day was the few minutes I spent on the phone with my other granny.  I called to let her know I bought the rolls for Thanksgiving dinner so she didn't have to, and she surprised me by asking about my appointment.  I didn't know she knew about it - apparently my dad (her son) has been telling her about what we've been going through.  I told her it was okay, but not great, and braced myself for the typical reaction of an 80+ year old religious woman - and then she surprised me again.  She said "it's a rotten situation.  Keep the faith and know I'm always praying for you."  It was the exact right thing for her to say.  I'm not at all religious, but it feels good to hear that someone is looking out for me like that.

So that's pretty much the full recap.  Hopefully there will be some Thanksgiving magic and Friday's appointment will bring better news.

With tomorrow being Thanksgiving and all, I want to throw in a quick shout out to the lovely IF friends I'm making on Twitter and through blog land.  The support and crossed fingers and positive vibes really mean so much (and I'm sending them out to all of you as well).  I am so thankful that the internet has connected me to all of you! :)

Back On {Fertility} Drugs

I finally have something going on in IF-land, and it's taken me forever to update about it.  I've been feeling extra boring lately, and I managed to misplace my motivation again, but I seem to have found enough for an update.

I think it's pretty obvious from the title that we're starting medicated cycles again - FINALLY!  I'm very excited that we're making progress again.

I went in for my CD3 ultrasound last Tuesday, and everything was all clear, giving us the green light to start our first IUI cycle.  The plan is to attempt this cycle with 5mg of Letrozole on CD3-7 (I took my last dose on Saturday), then go in for a follicle check on CD11 (this Wednesday), in hopes that I'll have some good follies growing.  If I have good follicles, I'll trigger and go in 36 hours later for the IUI.  If I don't have good growth ... I don't know what the plan is - maybe wait a couple of days to see if any follicles are closer to ready, maybe just cancel the cycle (which would really suck).  I probably should have asked about the worst case scenario, but my mind just wasn't there during the appointment.  I have to say I'm on the fence about this plan.  I'm trying to be positive, and I've been listening to my Circle + Bloom guided meditations to help with that, but I can't help but listen to that nagging voice in the back of my head that's reminding me that I didn't respond to 2.5mg of Letrozole.  And then I start to worry a little that I'm not going to respond again, and we'll have to cancel the cycle.  Sometimes the happy thoughts win, but not always.

To prepare for the best case scenario, my RE put in prescriptions for a Pregnyl trigger (my first intramuscular shot, it's a powder and has to be mixed, and if we don't trigger on Wednesday, B will have to administer the shot instead of my mom.  I'm so scared!), as well as 30 progesterone "capsules," aka hoo-ha suppositories.  This leads me to another reason why I love my fertility clinic - I didn't have to call around to different specialty pharmacies to find the best price because the RE's office did the shopping around for me!  All of their specialty prescriptions go through a popular specialty pharmacy in New Jersey (If you've had to order from a specialty pharmacy before, you've heard of this place).  B and I were a little nervous about the cost of the medications, especially  considering our limited income, but we lucked out.  My order with the specialty clinic was just over $100, and after we submit the receipt to our insurance company, some of the cost of the progesterone will be reimbursed.  Thank goodness for good insurance coverage.

So I guess that's the current state of my uterus.  I'm crossing fingers and toes that this dose of Letrozole is magic and we can move forward as planned.  Maybe we'll get a Christmas miracle ...

On My Mind

I've had a few ideas for posts sitting in my drafts folder for more than a week, and I couldn't for the life of me get enough motivation to finish them (probably because most of them don't deserve to be their own post), so instead, I'm just going to smash the short version into one listy post.

• It's been a full month since I became a full time housewife, and overall I think it's going pretty well.  Money is pretty tight, but we've been working on adjusting our budget by shopping grocery sales, cutting cable, and selling some stuff on eBay, and we're getting by with what we have.  I still have phases of "oh f*ck, we're so broke and it's all my fault," but B is the best hubster ever, and he always assures me that we'll be fine and he's okay with me being a housewife as long as I actually get some cleaning done (which I have been.  Every day has a different room or task assigned to it, so it's mostly just maintaining the clean).  He's a keeper.  I'm still in the process of looking for (at least) part time work, but I haven't had any luck so far.
• It turns out I actually like Twitter.  I had an account a looooong time ago because B said it was the next big thing in social media, but then I barely used it and ended up deleting it when I was going through my "gotta decrease my digital footprint" phase.  I recently created a new Twitter account because I found out that a ton of awesome people who are going through the shit-fest of infertility have created an incredibly supportive community, which was something I was very interested in, considering my real life support group is pretty small.  I recently had to update my "Blogs I Enjoy" list because I have come across so many more amazing blogs via the Twitter, and then those blogs led to more, and now I have a lot of reading to do (not a bad problem to have).
• In preparation for our next cycle, I've decided to try something that's a bit unconventional (my mom would say "hippie dippie") - guided meditation.  I have the Circle + Bloom programs for PCOS and IVF/IUI, and I've started listening to tracks that aren't specific to any cycle days when I'm having a hard time falling asleep because B is snoring too loudly.  They've been successful in getting me into a more restful and relaxed state, and I'm interested to see how things go when I follow them daily.
• I'm getting really antsy for our next cycle.  Obviously I'm not looking forward to moving on to more expensive and aggressive treatments, but I'm tired of just waiting.  Hopefully AF will come naturally again.  I gave in and looked up the potential due date if AF comes when expected and our first IUI is successful, which was probably a mistake.  The due date generator guesses that we would probably be having a baby on our 4th anniversary.  Now I really want things to work out, and I'm not looking forward to the disappointment if it isn't successful.
• I've been an a major music kick lately - all I really want to do when I'm home alone (so, all day) is listen to Pandora.  The downside of this music kick is that I've been listening to some kinda emo music, and the lyrics of the songs make me think about B or about infertility and how much it sucks or about life in general and then I end up crying the entire time because I'm a hormonal freak.  I'm a sucker for punishment, so I've started making a playlist of songs that I'd like to use as lullabyes for future babies (and then I realize that we don't know when or if that will happen and I start crying again.  Ugh).
• Our front porch reno is coming along quite nicely.  Today, I helped B's dad stain all the trim, then B helped his dad install the rest of the drywall and the doorbell.  Next weekend the plan is to install the trim (except for in the closet) and put the final touches on the drywall so I can paint.  Then we just have to finish off the trim and it's done (hopefully)!  Just in time to host our expected 12 (?  I think?) guests for Thanksgiving.  
• B bought the Lego Marvel game for the Wii-U yesterday, and I'm addicted.  My favorite character to be is Hulk because all he does is smash the crap out of stuff.  The game is stupid difficult though (or maybe we're the stupid ones).

So that's pretty much all that's going on right now.

Progress on the Money Pit

I am so happy with the most recent improvements to our beloved money pit.

The main focus of our annual one-room reno has been our front entrance - when I last wrote about it, we had a new front door, I had painted the wood panels, and we were looking into vinyl flooring.  We're slowly inching closer to completing this project, and it will definitely be done by Thanksgiving because we're hosting our families for dinner (this is going to be a close one because the Packers play at noon two of the three Sundays we have between now and Thanksgiving, and B's dad doesn't work on projects during the game or on Saturdays.  Cross your fingers we actually get this done on time!).

Two weekends ago, B and I went to Menards in search of flooring, and luck was on our side (for once).  The laminate that we wanted was on sale for about $20/box (Menards was having an 11% off rebate sale on top of the sale - score!).  We bought 5 boxes, and after using our rebate from the front door, we only ended up spending about $50 out of pocket.  That Sunday, B's dad came over to install the floors, and we lucked out again - we only needed 4 of the boxes to cover the 70 square feet of floor, so we were able to return a box, bringing our out of pocket price closer to $30.

Good-bye ugly brown medallions, Hello pretty new laminate!

A look at the room as it is now

Our happy dance over limiting our spending didn't last very long though, because we still needed to buy trim for all of the doors, windows, and around the floor, as well as drywall and mud to finish the walls of the closet (we took off the closet doors so we can have an open closet/nook area).  Rather than spending more, we opted to stick with the same paint color inside (our original plan was to paint it Mesa Taupe, one shade darker than the rest of the room and a bit more brown than gray), so that will help our budget a little bit.  I just hope we're left with enough paint leftover to paint the garage entryway as well.

Last weekend, B's dad installed some drywall in the closet and installed a new, bright white electrical outlet (to replace the ugly dark brown one).  We got less done than we were hoping to, so next weekend is going to be extra busy, and I have some homework to do in the meantime.  I get the pleasure of sanding and staining all of the trim for the room.  I'm nervous, I've never done any staining before - hopefully it turns out okay (and if it doesn't, I'm not going to finish it - I'll leave it for the pro).

Hopefully in a few weeks, I'll be sharing the (mostly) complete after pictures!