Sunday, April 22, 2012

Today's Postsecret:


Bring out the cigarettes

To no one's surprise, Heather is not pregnant.  She got to about day 32 of her cycle, then started some very subtle bleeding, and then her period flaunted itself.  As the saying goes, it is what it is.  Or isn't.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

We're not that innocent: fighting hope in the TWW

Today is day fucking 30.  Heather is currently on the phone with her cousin Jody who, this morning, texted her the following:

heather ur getting old.  Get er done.  Ur gonna be the age i was when i became grandma.

RAWR!

Friday, April 6, 2012

I must confess: I still believe

We're approaching the end of our first week's wait, alternating between self-recrimination and tentative joy.

The joy isn't unlike what I felt in the hours before last week's lottery drawing: I didn't truly believe I'd win, but I was genuinely surprised when I didn't.  "Heather, none of these numbers match!"

I don't truly believe we're pregnant.  Thoughts become things, I know; it's just that we discovered late in the game that Clomid delays ovulation hugely, so we inseminated on day 14, and got the egg & dot on 18 and 19.  That's not ideal.  There's always the business about how sperm can live in the body for up to five days, but that seems like a lot to ask.  Of course, I've also heard that cervical mucus, before ovulation, is unfriendly to sperm.  And we only had a 20% chance to start with.

Still.  Still.  There was something so organic about this last round of ICI that it seems simply contrary for it not to work.  All along, we've been scrupulously attentive to timing and procedure, struggling at best with the emotional aspects.  Heather would get impatient with my clumsy speculum work, I'd get anxious, and we'd lie in the bed, tense and despondent.  This time, everything was Zen. 

I guess it had to be, though: just about everything looks Zen next to of IVF.  I don't want to drive to Nashville once, not to speak of hormone shots or lab work or extractions.  As a passionate advocate of napping, I believe that everything done while snuggled up in bed is at best possible advantage.  That we were comfortable enough to snuggle and sing along with "Bare Necessities" after insemination seems like it should ensure success, more than any other circumstance.

It's been a week and we're not anxious.  We're just waiting for the negative.

Monday, April 2, 2012

I still believe that you will be here

Right, so we inseminated last week.  It was day 14 of Heather's cycle, she wasn't ovulating, and we got panicky.  The fertility monitor had given us neither egg nor dot, but the tank was in the front hall, kickin' it with the fertility idol, and we were afraid to wait any longer.

What Heather told me afterwards was that women reported that using Clomid delayed ovulation-- some who normally ovulated on day 12 would ovulate on the 17th instead.  Motherfucker.  I would have waited.  That said, sperm tanks aren't supposed to be kickin' it, with or without fertility idols.  It's a reproductive hot potato: you want to get the tank at exactly the right time and get rid of it immediately.  Perishable genetic material and shipping fees are the main reasons, but it's also scary to have one in the house.  It could mean that you ordered too soon, or that you're ovulating late, or maybe that you aren't ovulating at all.  It's a ginormous obstacle in the hallway, too.