We've begun our initial descent

My optimism was pretty short-lived. Right after I made the mistake of admitting that I was feeling hopeful, my body kindly smacked me right back to reality. I've had cramps and extreme rage since Monday afternoon. I've also had really bad pains on my left side. I thought surgery was supposed to fix that? Maybe two full cycles isn't enough healing time? My temperature started dropping yesterday. We've begun our initial descent into Cycle 18. I expect CD1 will be this weekend.

As if that didn't suck enough, I'm pretty sure that Seth has a MRSA infection. When he was getting ready for bed last night I noticed that he had a GIANT "bug bite" on his leg. Okay, we live a sub-tropical climate and we were outside all day Saturday - mosquito bites are common. But this thing is huge and I know from reading all of my MRSA safety materials that people commonly mistake MRSA infections for spider bites. I looked at it more closely and it has an even bigger pink ring around the main "bite". Fuck fuck fuck. I'm so worried because this is much bigger than the one I had. We're hoping that if we explain the situation, our doctor will be able to squeeze him in early this morning to get it checked out. Fingers crossed.

In other news, good news (or as good as this type of news can be), I think Seth and I are finally on the same page and ready to make a decision about our next step. We watched a video on endometriosis and IF and talked through all of the research and we really feel like IVF is going to be the best option for us. We're still going to be open-minded about what Dr. M has to say when we meet with him in two weeks, but it feels good to know that if he also thinks IVF is the way to go, we're ready to make the jump.

Update: I checked the suspicious "bite" again this morning. The pink rim is still there, but it doesn't feel hot and there's no drainage either, so maybe it really is a bite? Seth wants to keep an eye on it and if it doesn't change or it gets worse, he'll see the doctor on Friday. I know I'm a worrier, but I think he is too relaxed sometimes. It's so annoying :P

9 dpo

My chart is killing me. I should know better by now. I feel totally normal. No unusual symptoms at all. I have no reason to get my hopes up - but my chart looks nice!

Isn't it lovely? More often than not, my temperature starts dropping by 9 dpo but there it is, nice and high.

I have to go back to last October to find a chart where my temp is this high above my pre-ovulation temperatures at 9 dpo. Hopefully this week goes by really quickly. I have a bunch of cheap HPTs so I could test early, but I don't know if I want to do it. It's not so much that I hate seeing the BFNs anymore (I just expect that), I just hate getting a negative and then watching my temperature plummet the next morning. I feel like a such a fool.

Ah well. For now, my temp is still up and all I can do is hope that it stays that way!

Patience

I get a really strong urge to slap anyone who tells me to be patient.

I was very patient the first 6 months we were TTC, despite having excellent timing and constant pelvic pain.

I was very patient for the 3 months between when my OB first suggested that I might have endo and when I finally made an appointment with the RE.

I was patient for the two months that it took to get an appointment with the RE.

I was patient for 3 cycles after I had the HSG, even though I had a weird left tube and no explanation for the pelvic pain.

I was (slightly less) patient through 2 weeks of post-surgery recovery, a MRSA infection, and 3.5 weeks of antibiotics.

And now I'm waiting (no quite so) patiently just hoping and praying that I'll fall into the small percent of people who are able to conceive without assistance after the lap surgery.

Don't tell me to be patient. Impatience is not my problem.

 Except....

Yesterday, I had a bit of meltdown. I made an appointment with Dr. M for 3 weeks from today. It will be at the end of my third post-lap cycle. Dr. M recommended that we try on our own for 3-6 months so we want to talk about our options. My research indicates that my chances are not greatly improved with IUI. On top of that, if we spent the money on 3 or more IUIs and they failed, it would be a long time before we could even consider IVF. We're thinking that we'd rather wait a little bit longer to start treatment, save our money, and go straight to IVF. We're not experts, though, so we wanted to talk to Dr. M and get his opinion.

For some reason, I just felt really sad and unsettled after making the appointment (it didn't help that the receptionist was being a dildo). I've been kind of beating myself up lately - am I being impatient??? Should we just keep waiting? How long do we wait? Why should we keep waiting? Isn't part of being an adult accepting that you don't always get what you want when you want it? Are we being ridiculous for considering IVF after only 18 months and 22 cycles (by the time we got there)? Like people have told me, we don't NEED to have a baby right now, but we WANT one. Is that not a good enough reason?

I am so afraid of waiting, but I'm also afraid that we'll pull the trigger on treatment and it will fail. I am hoping and praying that we won't need to make that decision, but I need to be prepared for it if we do. I'm not leaving that appointment without a plan.

Until then I just need to keep trying to take everything one day at a time. We don't really have any other choice do we?

Zzzzzz.....

Holy fucking shit. I am so exhausted. I knew that teaching was a lot of work - there are tons of teachers in my family. But knowing and respecting the amount of work they do is a lot different than experiencing it. This is crazy! I only teach 7 credit hours, but I must be spending at least 3 or 4 times that amount working outside of class (plus my part-time job at the lab). I get home from work in the afternoon and I just want to do this:

but I can't because I have to start preparing the next lecture and finish all of the grading for my labs. I just want to sleep!! Or, you know, do something for fun. Or even just empty the dishwasher. Or finish the laundry. But there's no time!!! So instead, I end up like this every night:

I feel like no matter how much work I do, I just cannot stay ahead of it. There just aren't enough hours in the day to finish everything and weekends don't exist right now. I look and feel like complete ass. On the bright side, I still don't hate my job! Exhaustion is a huge improvement from the way I felt about my last job which is saying a lot. I don't even really care that I don't get paid that much. I can pay my bills and I'm happy and that's good enough for me right now. More sleep would be really awesome though. One of my friends told me that the most tired she has ever been was when she got her first job out of college. She said it took her about six months to adjust to her new adult working schedule. Hopefully, my adjustment happens soon.

In fun news, the game/concert on Saturday was great, Binky and Bear's costumes arrived and they're much nicer than I expected for $5.99 (but too big so I have to exchange them), and I got CHs this morning so I'm back in the 2WW! Other than that, there's not much going on unless you'd like to hear my lecture on the theory of plate tectonics. I'll probably be missing for awhile until I get everything under control. I get to do my blog/TB/FB stalking in the early morning hours before there's anyone to play with but at least I can keep up with everyone a teeny bit!

Find a happy place!

I don't know what's wrong with me. I just cannot get out of this cloud of negativity. I'm dwelling and obsessing and feeling like a crazy person. It's so frustrating because when I'm staying busy, I feel totally fine and happy but then as soon as I have some free time my mood just plummets.The more time I have to think, the more completely out of control I feel. It's scary.

I need to stop thinking and feeling like I'm just wasting time waiting for the next three to six months to pass by. That's depressing. I want to actually enjoy my life, pregnant or not, so I thought it might help to try to focus on all of the things that I have to look forward to over these next few months. Hopefully this will help get me out of this rough patch and into a happier place. Maybe?

1. Halloween costumes for Binky and Bear

Look at that little guy! I think B&B will
be equally cute.

I was a little stressed out last year for Binky's first Halloween with us, so I never got around to finding costumes for them. This year I planned ahead and ordered (very cheap) costumes for them from Party City! They're both going to be Fire Chiefs. I'm can't wait until they're delivered. I'm sure Binky and Bear with love them.

2. Fito Blanko and Gocho mini concert
I mostly listen to Reggaeton/Latin pop these days and a few of my favorite songs are by Fito Blanko. He's a Panamanian guy who was raised and started his career in Toronto (any of you Canadians know of him?). This Saturday he's having a mini concert and I convinced Seth to go! I'm so excited. The opening act is the second to last game of the season for the Miami Marlins, so I guess we'll be watching a baseball game too :p

3. More classes
I received an email from my supervisor last week asking me if I was interested in teaching two more classes. Apparently one of the other adjuncts decided to move four weeks into the semester, so they need a replacement for two Earth Science labs. I said yes! It's awesome. It will be a little bit more work in terms of class time and grading, but I'm already doing all of the prep work for my other labs anyway. It's only a teeny tiny pay raise, but we can definitely use the extra money! And they asked me to fill out a schedule request form for next semester so I think there's a great chance I'll have a job in the spring too!

4. Wine
There are two chilled bottles of my favorite Cupcake wines in my refrigerator right now. I think wine will go well with the pasta that I'm making for dinner. I highly recommend Cupcake Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Grigio.

5. Thanksgiving
We still have a lot of time before I really start getting excited for Thanksgiving but we just bought our tickets to fly home to see my family! I'm pumped. My parents came to visit for my surgery in August, but I haven't seen my siblings and my nieces since July. I think this will be the longest I've gone without seeing them (5 months). I'm really excited to see my nieces because T was only 9 or 10 weeks old in July - at Thanksgiving, she'll be 7 months! My other niece, A, will be 4 in December. She's definitely a little girl, not a toddler now :(

Realistically, I know that nothing is going to make my fear and sadness go away but at least I can find some ways to cover it up, at least for a few hours at a time.

I'll leave you with a little "Pegadito Suavicito" in case you need help finding a happy place too. This type of music always makes me want to have a dance party!

Planning for Failure

My good mood has fizzled out quite a bit over the past few days. I just can't shake the feeling and the fear that I'm starting the TTC process over again and that it's going to end the same way - lots of waiting and hoping and disappointment and more time "wasted".

It's so hard to balance the practical aspects and the emotional side of infertility. I know that it's possible that my fertility has improved because of the surgery. Studies show that pregnancy without help can happen after surgery. But emotionally, I just can't make myself believe that I'll be one of the lucky ones. I've been feeling really...flat lately. Just sort of resigned to the possibly that this isn't going to happen right now.

Seth and I talked again the other day about how we want to proceed over the next few months. I'm not sure if I can handle another six months of this, but I also don't want to spend the time, money, and emotional energy on treatment cycles if we don't need it. Then there's the odds to consider. Some people with endometriosis do have success with IUI, but in general IVF is a safer bet. A much more invasive and expensive bet. I asked Seth if he would rather try on our own for three cycles (1 down, 2 to go) and then try IUI or try for six and then move right to IVF. He surprised me by choosing six months and IVF. My practical side is ready for IVF, but I don't think I'm emotionally ready for it. I just don't know if it's the right choice for me. We still have a lot of research and talking to do before we make this decision, of course.

I hate that everything has to be so planned with infertility. The whole "just relax" and "try not to think about it" advice is such a ridiculous joke. You always have to be planning ahead. If you don't plan ahead, you don't get an appointment with the RE. You miss your window to have the monitoring required for a treatment cycle. If we decide to go through with treatment after three cycles, I need to call Dr. M to make an appointment this week because they're usually booked a month in advance. It's so hard to be hopeful when you're always planning for failure. We can always cancel later, but since we're 100% OOP now I don't want to go through with the appointment until we're sure about what we want to do. Every penny needs to count now.

A big part of me just wants to say fuck it all. Fuck the charting, fuck the OPKs, and let's just go back to the way our life was before we started TTC and just see what happens. Seth also surprised me by saying he would really like to keep actively trying. I guess he's right. It will be so much harder to move forward with treatment if I don't feel like we gave ourselves the best chance possible after surgery.

Ah well. At least it's Friday, right?

I'm Home!

***Just in case anyone needs a warning, there's some baby in this post.***

And exhausted. And super busy. And it's CD1. Cool.

We got back from Honduras ridiculously early Sunday morning. It was a nice weekend. Sort of. It was great to see my BIL and SIL and so nice to finally meet my niece, but things were a little bit weird. My SIL said the baby doesn't sleep during the day, but then they spent most of the time in her bedroom. Every now and then, they would pop out for a few minutes and then go back in for hours. Finally around dinner time, the baby would come out and we'd get to hold her and hang out with her but it was only for about an hour or so. I think my SIL just has a bad case of "first time parent" (jumping every time the baby coughs, bathing in hand sanitizer, etc). Maybe? I don't know, but if that the case I hope she's able to relax soon. I ended up spending most of my time with the dogs, which is fine by me - I'm a freak and I'm more comfortable around animals than most people anyway.

So other than the Rapunzel situation, it was a nice trip. Honduras (the tiny corner of it that we saw, at least) was pretty cool. It's a lot like Guatemala - kind of tropical and mountainy at the same time.

We fed some really aggressive ducks.

And saw tons of iguanas!

We also drove to the coast to have lunch on the water.

I learned how to make sushi.

 I made some new buddies. These pups were so snugly and I was so sad to say goodbye to them.

And of course, we met our niece.

That last picture breaks my heart a little bit. We look like a family. That's what our life would look like if we never had trouble TTC. But we did. We still are. Today is another CD1. On to cycle #17. It's still business as usual for us right now. We're definitely going to keep trying on our own for two more cycles. After that, who knows? Seth and I have a lot of pretty big decisions to make over the next few weeks, so I think we just need to take things one day at a time.

For now, I'm just trying to stay busy. That's not hard at all though. My new job is a ridiculous amount of work for only 5 credit hours - but I really love it! It is such an awesome feeling to actually like your job. It's such a nice change to not be absolutely miserable just thinking about being at work. In spite of the IF crap, I feel like a very lucky girl.