TWW Journaling Part III

Hello Monday! What a wonderful day - said no one ever -

I have some mixed feelings today. I'm processing yet another BFN. I took a hpt on Saturday, but still having to wait till this Friday (the 25th) for the actual blood/beta test. I hate taking progesterone. I feel the mirror side effects of early pregnancy and it messes with my brain. And I'm still not convinced that the progesterone will extend my cycle. I feel like its going to start any day now and I have zero medicines for the next cycle. So now I'm just preparing for a call to the nurse telling her to turn my Friday apt into a day three apt.

But I am happy that I did stack my week with events that leave me so busy I can't even think. I'm hoping it will take my mind off whats looming ahead. My intended due date from my pregnancy in January. Its Oct 9th and I took the day off both jobs, and I am leaning towards a spa day. Or if its going to be a really nice day, maybe go for an all day hike. Get out the emotions on the mountain and be reminded of Gods glory (and take my own advice of doing something I love to do).

Even so - Hope never ceases to impress me. I thought I was jaded, and negative - but I had that hope that this would be it. It wasn't a very strong hope, but I knew I was moving in the right direction. I'm trying to take some sort of solace knowing that I'm doing everything that I can and the rest is up to God.

So lets continue on with the journaling.

Going back to your relationship with your husband, what are your idea's about family?

• I've always had trouble interpreting such an open ended question. I feel like both DH and I have the same sort of idea's for family. Raise them on hard work, goal setting, in the church. 

How are your idea's and desires for family the same? Different? 

• I always knew I wanted to raise my children in the church. Southern Baptist if I could help it. DH was not raised in the church, but held some of the same values. Because I am not so devout as I would like to be, I am not able to answer some of DH's concerns when it comes to the church. So its something I am trying to work on. 

What causes you the most frustration in your relationship right now?

• Honestly? Nothing much. Maybe a little bit of money issues, but nothing an open conversation doesn't solve. Maybe the chores around the house, but that's mostly his frustration with me. 

How has infertility change the way you communicate?

• This is an excellent question. We are having to talk about things I thought we would never have to, or even knew existed. We're talking about what sort of test's we could do on embryo's, whats are financial cap on those test's should insurance not cover it. How many rounds of treatments to go through. Insurance covers 3 IVFs, do we want to start saving now for a 4th one if needed? When is enough enough?          

I'm trying to do some research, and read all the books when I have time. I'm reading 'It Starts with the Egg' now and its awesome. I'm only able to read here and there, but what I'm learning is so useful, and the steps I could take to help my egg quality - especially having both a thyroid problem and PCOS.  

My weekend - other than trying not to be upset - was just working all day. Sunday nights are the worse b/c my feet hurt so bad and I'm so exhausted. 

I do have a story for you! 

I've had this lady come through my line before, and she did again yesterday.  Look - I'm an adult. I bag groceries all day. I am aware of what will squish what. But this lady was very upset that I put a box of tea (mind you the tea was lighter than the bag of chex mix) with her chips. She threw out the chips and tea from the bag and made a big spectacle about how "they always squish her stuff), grabbed bags off my bag well and started to be loud with me, threw her coupons at me and was very rude. I literally had to stop and take a deep breath and did not look up from my screen. 

That just infuriated me!!  Luckily my lunch brake came and I was able to get of my feet and out of the store for 30 min. 

Anyways!! I must get moving on these journal entries. 

Until next time - 

TWW Journaling Part II

I feel like I can't start my day without some reflection, so I'll go on with the second set of questions, and maybe get some things out of my head this morning.

After you met your husband, how did your dreams change?

• Hmm.. See this is hard! I'm having to really use my head and think about these things. I'm going to go with reviewing my life path. I had moved to South Carolina when I was finished with the 2 year community school. I didn't have any other connection to Maryland at all, my new life was in South Carolina, or beyond. I thought, welp - I'll meet a nice young southern man and get married and have lots of children. Or move more south or even west. I never really had a strong connection with my family (more on that later I suppose, my mom did/didn't raise me (gave up?) so I became super duper uber independent) , so I was always able to just pick up and move anywhere, and that's what I did. I LOOOOOVED SC. I loved the weather, the atmosphere, being closer to the coast. Everything. When I had gone home for a spring break trip, I went on a date with him - the timing was perfect and we decided to start dating and became boyf/girlf. The drawback - was that he still lived in MD and didn't have any plans to move (yet) and I lived in SC. We dated for almost 2 years long distance. And it was very hard, and we almost broke up a couple of times. Towards the end of the 2 years, he decided to move down to SC to be with me full time. That only lasted a few months because he was offered a great opportunity back home and off he went. So where did that leave me? I picked up and moved back home. It was a very hard decision b/c I felt like moving back home was giving up on everything I had worked hard for. Almost like giving up, a failure. I struggled with that for awhile. But being with him made everything better. 

Did you begin to want something different in life?

• Off and on, yes. But I think that's where the ups and down of a relationship come from. There were times where I wish I was just alone, living by myself and not having to 'answer' to anyone. That's where my struggle with my independence comes from. I'm not used to relying on someone or having someone rely on me. I'm super duper independent, so why aren't you too? 

Is he the man you had always seen yourself with?

• Hands down - yes. From the day I met him I knew we had a connection. Whether is was a friendship or a relationship I just had a feeling I would have this man in my life in one way or the other. 

Describe your relationship while dating. How did it change after marriage?

• There was definitely more sexy time. For the first 2 years, we only saw each other every few weeks. And this was during the "AOL" genre, and no face time or anything like that. After marriage - nothing really changed. 

Since we're talking a lot about marriage I thought I'd share a few photos when we did get married. Because of the lack of connection with families, we jetted off to an island and it was just the two of us. It was AWESOME and I would do it over again 100 times. 

We were the Sandals couple that you see on TV except that I didn't jump in the water. 

I was hungry! and maybe a little drunk from all the champagne. 

So baby stuff. I'm 4dpo. And I'm still in a strange place of peace. I had a great workout last night. Today I have to work both jobs. Tomorrow and Thursday, Job#1 and workout/housework. Friday & Saturday both jobs. Good busy week. Then I'll only have to get through one more week before blood test. Though I am kind of worried that I'll be getting my period sooner than what my nurse thinks... I guess we'll just have to wait and see...  

On that note. I'm ready to start my day and tackle these journal entries. Hoping everyone had a solid good day as well. 

Until next time! 

My 1st Official TWW

Our trying time was over Friday morning. And I started progesterone (ew) on Saturday. So, now we wait. I'll have my blood drawn on the 25th. And today I feel strangely at peace. Almost like, I did everything I was supposed to do so why stress? If it happens... great! if not, then we try again. Every time I go into the doctors and express any sort of concern I always get "your young, your fine, you've got plenty of time." Which is nice to hear. All I ever see is the dreaded '35' age and it all goes down hill. And all I keep thinking about is that for child #2, I'll have to do this all over again.. so I've got 3 years to do so.
Today I'm 3dpo. I'm stacking up my week so that I'm so busy I can't even think about dinner let alone if there is a baby growing inside me. I think this summer was such a huge disappointment that I'm just tired of being disappointed so I'll hold out on taking a test. Plus I'm not sure how long it will take the trigger (hcg) shot to wear off, and I don't want to get a false positive. I've got lots of work outs scheduled, working job#2 and trying to keep up on house work. Plus I've got the monthly deadline again at job#1 to meet by next Monday.

Anyways. I bumped into another blogger a while ago, more like a sponsored blogger and she had weekly challenges. One of the weeks' challenge was to journal. Well I do that already, but there were a set # of questions to answer, so I thought I'd go ahead and journal out those answers and I encourage you do to so too.

When you were young, what was your dream family? Focus on what your dreams were before you met your husband.

• My dreams.....  I really don't remember thinking to much about a future family. I always just figured it would happen.. Grow up, get married and have 2 kids. Easy peasy. Dreams before I had a husband, were more career focused. I wanted to 'be' someone one day. A manager, a controller (I'm in the accounting field), a decision maker. The start of my career was with Marriott hotels, where I was a front desk girl. I would help out with over night auditing every once in awhile, and the controller at the time saw some promise in me, and I quickly moved up into the accounting office. Starting with the Accounts Receivable and helped with Payables sometime. He had plans for a management path for me, but he ended up leaving and the new controller wasn't a fan of women in power. So I ended up being a hell of a AR associate. Did the best I could, knowing one day I could be the AR manager (at least).

What type of guy did you want to marry?

• A friend. It sounds sooo cliche, but I saw this guy from across the room and was immediately intrigued. like, who was this guy? I met DH at work 2 years before we even became a thing. We were fast friends. He was sort of my 1st guy friend and we got a long sooo well. I'm one big ball of sarcasm, and he was too. So we 'got' each other. He was a home grown kind of man. Had manors. Was smart. Tall dark and handsome. I had dated a lot when I was younger and he seemed like he could be it. Thats what I wanted in a man. Except that he already had a long term girlfriend.

When did you want to get married?

• Again, didn't really have a timeline of sorts. But I did want to get married and have at least one child before 30. My 30th birthday was a really hard one to get through because I didn't have the family part yet. 

What type of house did you think you'd live in?

• A finished one. I'll explain.  DH and I bought a house 9 years ago, knowing it was going to a fixer upper. Welp... we're still fixing it up. Its such a long story, but we're SO close to having it finished. Since we bought the house, we have completely re-done everything from floor to ceiling (and roof) and by ourselves. We even literally raise the roof (because the ceiling height was only 7 foot something, not the 8 foot standard it is today). So I'm excited to see what it will end up looking like once we have finished construction and painted/decorated, etc.   I will NEVER do this again.

When did you want to have children? How many did you want?

• Wanted to have at least one kid by 30, and I'd always wanted 2 or three. And for as long as I can remember, I have always wanted twins. Always.  Twins run in my family, every other generation and they do the same in DH side as well. Some of my cousins have had babies, and no twins yet. So I'm hoping and praying its me. 

There are a series of 7 questions. And I plan on spreading them out while on this TWW. A sort of changing the subject a little bit. 

Lastly, today is Monday. My weekend wasn't so grand. Just worked. And slept. I did the dishes! 

This afternoon I have a training session with my personal trainer. My DH is giving me his sessions so now I'm able to do an hour a week for at least 9/10 weeks. I'm seriously considering going low carb. I'm going to eat the rest of my food in my pantry, and maybe slowly go down in carbs week to week. I don't know that I'll go full blown Adkins. But it'll be close. I'm pretty desperate and determined to lose 20 lbs before starting IVF (if need be) next year. 

I hope that you had a wonderful weekend, and are ready for this week! whatever you may be facing, I pray that you have the same peace that I do, at least for today. 

Until next time <3

Treatment Cycle #1 September 2015

Timed Trying

*I will have written each day out and saving, rather than having a bunch of posts' to click through.

Previous to my CD1, I did end up having a conversation with my manager at job#2. Because as soon as I walked in for my Saturday shift, she was asking everyone to sign and agreement that we knowledge the "rules." I asked if I could talk to her before signing it, about the (stupid) cell phone rule. At first she wasn't understanding how important it was to me, and how the timing of everything was going to happen, she asked me to give my nurse the store number. I stated back at her with a blank face. Um, its not my nurses job to hunt me down calling all these phone numbers. I said, no, I wont be doing that. And if its going to be that big of a problem then I'll have to give you my two weeks now. That kind of startled her, and she asked then to get the doctors note. So I'll be writing an email soon to my nurse. She's going to think I'm crazy, 1 - for working two jobs while going through this, and 2 - this is the second time where I have asked her for a doctors note for something so odd.
Other than that, my beach day with the DH was really great. It took a tad bit longer to get there, (the full 3 1/2 hours) b/c we ended up leaving a little bit later. The weather was just perfect, and it was just a chill day. The rest of the weekend I just worked.

So today is Monday 8/31, and my period started right on scheduled, so here we go!

Medications:
2,000 mg Metformin
100 mcg Synthroid
Prenatals
50mg Clomid
Bravelle 75iu
Ovidrel 250 mcg
40mg Protonics for GERD/Acid reflux as needed

CD1-CD2: Heavy right off the bat, as it usually does and I'm in a fog of IB Profin and lack of sleep. I was THIS close to bringing in my heating pad to work. My cramps are just awful the 1st and sometimes 2nd day. I made my appointment for my day 3 sono & blood work.

CD3: Last night I had a bad "episode" as I call them. I have really bad acid reflux (GERD) and swung up out of bed at 11pm with that felt like someone throwing acid on my chest. It's so painful. I think I had just stressed my body out so much that it upset my reflux. But I think the pint of ice cream didn't help either. This morning was my first monitoring appointment. I was kind of worried about this one. Given that I had tried my darnedest over the summer I feared there was something going on, another polyp, etc. But everything looked nice and clear. After receiving the afternoon results call from the nurse, I have 11 follicles. How exciting. I start my clomid tonight. And I'm kinda freaked out by the horror stories.

CD4-CD8:  During my 5 days of clomid, I was mostly fine. Maybe a little cramping and bloating, but mostly (as I'm off it now) I was in a fog. Tired. Lethargic. Just wanting to get through the day. No energy. And maybe a little moody.  CD7 was my last day of clomid and my 1st injection of Bravelle. I was oh so nervous for this. I had a little trouble understanding how to switch the needles and worried about how much air got in there, but I just said 1,2,3 and stuck it in my tummy. It did sting a little tiny bit. But no other side effects. CD8 no drugs, and I felt pretty great. Like the fog lifted and I got the rest that I needed, and I got the flashy smile face - so high fertility. Though we're waiting to 'try' until after my appointment on CD10.

CD9: 2nd injection of Bravelle tonight. Though I pumped to much air in the bottle and when I took the needle out it kind of sprayed. Stuck it in the tummy just fine. 2nd day of high fertility (flashy smile face). I also had my personal training tonight, and while doing some of the weights I felt a little uncomfortable, more on the right side.

CD10: Oh I feel something. My right ovary 'feels'. I had my appointment this morning. The nurse doing my sono said I had a 23mm follicle on the right and two 11/12mm on the left. So that explains it. I was hoping for just a tad bit better results, maybe 2 solid follicles ready. But she said from the looks of it, everything looked good and I responded well to the dosages. My nurse called me this afternoon and confirmed that I am take my trigger shot, and start trying. Then Saturday start progesterone. I've already stocked up on my liners.

I guess that's it! Sounds pretty uneventful. It will either work, or it wont. But I've done a pretty good job of staying in the moment. I hope to continue the slow momentum.

Until next time!

The ABC's of Me: A Cute Lil'post

I saw this on another blogger , and thought I'd try it out as well. Its fun and you should do it too.  I found some journal questions I'll be doing a post on too. 

So here goes:

A- Age: 32

B- Biggest fear: Zombie Apocalypse. Walking dead, and Fear the Walking Dead have completely freaked me out. I just don't know how I would leave my dogs.  

C- Current Time: 2:15: procrastination hour. 

D- Drink you last had: Water

E- Easiest Person to Talk To: Hm... I'm going to say its a tie b/t DH & BF. 

F- Favorite song: None Really.. 

G- Grossest Memory: gosh, I dont think I really have any? 

H- Hometown: Frederick, MD

J- Jealous Of: Millionaires. 

K- Killed Someone: With my eyes? several times. In real life, that would be a no. 

L- Longest Relationship: 11 years with DH. 

M- Middle Name: Starts with an "L"

N- Number of Siblings: 1 (2 in laws)

O- One Wish: For good health. 

P- Person who you last called: My fert. clinic to scheduled my day 3 apt. 

Q- Question you’re always asked: Endo Zone, I'm borrowing your answer: “Is your hair naturally curly?” Well of COURSE it is! Why would I do this to myself on purpose?! (I have majorly, stupidly, wildly curly hair).

R- Reason to live: Another borrowed answer: Jesus.

S- Song you last sang: Don't remember, but lately its been classical. It clears my mind. 

T- Time you woke up: 5:50. Had to be at apt at 7:30. 

U- Underwear Color: White with red flowers. Very girly girl. 

V- Vacation Destination: The Bahama's. We've always wanted to go back - its where we got married <3

W- Worst Habit: Eating pins of ice cream....  in 10 min. 

X- Xrays you’ve had: Chest & face. Both car accident related. 

Y- Your favorite food: I'm going to go with ice cream, or mac n' cheese

Z- Zodiac Sign: Cancer.