.......And the Fertility Award Winner is...??

Not me. Not this time. I'll drown my sorrows in some Chinese tonight, but gotta pick myself up. I scheduled an hour training with my personal training tomorrow morning to work it all out. Life moves on.


This morning was a bit of a whirlwind. Since I now have 4 animals, its up to me to take the dogs out one last time. I had to make sure my DH took the food and water away last night, and I had to to then make sure the dogs had water before I left. I forgot that part, so after dropping off the kittens, I raced back home to give doggys water, then raced over the mountains and through the wood (literally) to make my 8:30 appointment at the clinic.
My kittens are being neutered/spayed (I have a boy and girl kittens) today. I had noticed some crusty blood or snot (?) around the boys nose. I wonder if its just from horseplay. But I asked the vet to look into it. If they don't call me this morning, then everything is fine.
But I am also awaiting two phone calls today. One to make sure my kitty's are ok and made it out of their little surgery, and will come home tomorrow. And then the other is to confirm/deny pregnancy. The only reason why I thought 'yes'-even after the BFN hpt, is the cramping and the discharge. But I had no other symptoms. My mind was racing with thoughts last night, that maybe I was and am going through an early mc. But then its all probably the medicine. I can not wait to stop this progesterone, and feel normal for a day or two before aunt flow arrives.
While I was waiting for my name to be called, I noticed a particularly worried young lady. I just wanted to give her a hug and hold her hand. She looked so worried. She had just gotten her kit done for the genetic testing which tells me she's just starting out on her journey. I wish I could say everything will be ok. But I also know that's not something you say. We don't know if everything will be ok. I always knew I'd have problems conceiving, but I never thought a loss wouldn't happen to me and it did and I survived. When I looked around more there were some happy faces (pregnant happy faces, I know my face was happy), and some sad faces. There was a couple who walked in and the guy knew one of the other husbands sitting there. Its to much of a small world, yet it also feels like we're so alone. I hope this changes.

Since there's no way I'm getting any work done today I'll be filing my last fiscal year's stuff away in boxes and filing this years stuff away.  My inbox and stacks on the floor are just about to fall over... so yea...

No real plans for the weekend. I say I'll catch up on housework all the time, maybe I'll actually do something. My dogs need their last hair cut before the fall/winter and a bath. My car needs vacuuming.
I'm with my personal trainer tomorrow from 11-12, then I work job #2 Saturday night and Sunday morning/day.
But I am getting excited to go to the Steelers game next week. The hubby and I are getting a hotel to stay the night since its a night game, and Pittsburgh is about 4 driving hours away from us. It will be nice to get away even its just one night. I'm also hoping my cycle will start this weekend so that I can get my day three appointment before we leave or I'll miss it and have to wait a cycle.

I'll include some pictures of my furbaby's just for fun. You can see how furry they really are, and how bad I need to shave them. ha!

Until next time - -

Sassie & George cuddling. She's trying her new pumpkin T-shirt on. 

Moe is so FLUFFY

Jinx is sort of a brat and rules the house. Her claws come out fast. 

George. My gorgeous George. 

TWW Journaling Part IV

So its Wednesday. And I just want to get this week over with. Since I'm 90% sure this cycle is a bust, I'm just anxiously awaiting my next cycle to start. So far the progesterone has been holding the uterus at bay, and I think that's why I've been cramping. My period is supposed to start today and all my uterus wants to do, is its job, and lose the lining. I guess I can ask Friday when my nurse calls when and how much medication I'll need and probably have to go pick it up.

I'll say it again - I'm glad I stacked my week full, and I will do the same thing next cycle. Its definitely helped keep my mind at bay. The fact that I only took ONE hpt and not 3 is a miracle. Plus I kind of have an idea of when the trigger shot (hcg) will wear off if I wanted to do the same thing next cycle.

Not much else is happening. I had my personal training last night, and we did upper body. I love it when I can get a good workout in. Its hard to do when I work so much, so on the nights that I have off I try to do something active. I also try walking at lunch time. Now that is finally getting cooler, its so nice to get out of the office and get some fresh air, seeing the occasional homeless guy, then passing by the park with all the kids and the hot housewives, then returning back to my windowless office. Its great. Sometimes I walk with another girl that works in my building. She's getting into a new relationship and its nice to talk about something other than fertility. Sometimes I feel like its all I talk about.
I'm testing the waters to becoming sort of an advocate about 'taking charge' of you body and fertility. I work with some young women at job#2 so I'm telling them that at their next ob apt to maybe start asking what they can do to figure out their fertility situation. I just think its important to know. Why wouldn't you want to know? I wish I knew sooner. But I guess you just don't think it will happen to you.
I was talking with another girl at job#2, she had just gotten married so I asked when she wanted to start thinking about a family. I knew she was near my age, so she said by 35 she would start trying. Most people are aware of what I'm going through, I'm really open about it all. So I asked her if she ever thought about looking into her fertility situation. And shes kind of a shy person and she quietly said back to me that "she would accept a special needs child if she had one." She was equating fertility treatments to having a special needs child. (???????) huh? That caught me really off guard. Even with all the recent media coverage, there are still some people out there that don't have a clue what this is all about. It kind of upset me. So for now I'm going to leave it alone.
I've had that kind of response before, if you've read back to some of my beginning posts'. My dads girlfriend equated fertility treatments to (her words) having "a retard kid" and she told me I was going to have one too (because she had a friend who was over 40 and did like 4 IVFs and had a special needs child). Some people!!!       And yes, I would accept a special needs child. I would love him/her with all my heart.

Today/night I work both jobs. I'm already tired thinking about how long of a day I have.

So there are a few more questions to the journaling series I'll continue. And I'll save some for next time. I'm also going to start maybe doing a series on a recent devotional I just received, that a fellow blogger (and a group of others) developed and wrote. I'll include links at the end of this.

If you never had children how would that make you feel?

• Well, because it has already been so long, I've already started to think about living a child free life. For me, I feel like you have to have a strong marriage to even consider this. Just because its really just going to be you+him the rest of your life. When you get older, you'd have to think about your health, whose going to take care of you, where will you end up? 

Why do you think that causes you pain?

• It only causes me pain now, because its still unknown if I can have a child or not. Yes, its been 11 almost 12 years - but we're just starting treatments. I'm one for exhausting all my options before I throw in the towel, so I have some more time. 

What is the root feeling behind the pain?

• I guess its seeing everyone get pregnant. It's also people not understanding what I'm/we're going through. Having people close to me say really ignorant things just because they don't understand. Even though I am 1 in 8, not everyone is vocal as I am about what we're going through. So a lot of times it can still be very isolating. 

So here are some good links:

I got these questions off this blog during a weekly challenge she had. This blog I feel like is more of a heavily sponsored blog with lots of advertisements, but useful:

http://naturalfertilityandwellness.com/natural-fertility-resources/

Then for the devotional information click here, she's also a really great blogger that I just ran into (I'll be updating my blog list soon...)

http://trialsbringjoy.com/

Thanks for reading. I'll probably write an update on Friday. I drop off my kittens for their spay & neutering, then swing by to clinic to get my blood drawn..  then anxiously await the nurses phone call. 

Until next time - -

 

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