I will be positive

I have been MIA lately in an attempt to harness all of my positive energy into making a baby this cycle. I have still been reading all of your posts, but have been both too busy to blog myself and also at a loss for what to say. I've been talking lots of good thoughts to myself like a crazy woman, but feel like I don't have much to say otherwise. Probably because my mind is so preoccupied with all those IF thoughts and also struggling to keep the negative ones at bay. It's a lot of work!

Today is CD 10 and I had my routine blood work and ultrasound to check up on all those follies growing! 

And then there was one. 

Yes, for the second month in a row my body has decided that it is best to ovulate one egg, despite my best efforts to make it triple that. Talk about being at a loss for words. Instead I cried. 

I cried because I feel like my body is betraying me and I can't help but be pissed off. 

I cried because I wish that I would have at least had too many follicle so they could cancel the cycle and I could try again next month. Instead we'll go through the motions of one last IUI that has no better chance of working than if we were to just have sex. At least sex is fun!

And mostly I cried because I feel like all the positive thoughts in the world will not change the fact that we can't get pregnant naturally and now we are having trouble getting pregnant unnaturally too.

I'm still saying my "stay positive" mantra, but I think today I'm going to wallow in my self-pity and sadness just a little bit, mostly because I don't think I have a choice. The tears gates are open wide and there's no shutting them now.

ICLW and NIAW

I'm talking about some new TTC abbreviations to be added to the list (the LOOOONG list) of abbreviations that the infertility community embraces. I remember when I first started googling fertility questions...I needed a special dictionary! Now I speak the language, much too fluently :)

These two abbreviations are new to me and ones that I am very excited about!

First off, welcome fellow ICLW participants! This is my first month partaking in the fun and so far I'm liking it! It has been so fun receiving your comments, reading your kind words, and of course checking out all of your blogs. I am constantly inspired by you all and your strength, humor, and support of one another. 

If you're new here, check out My Story and Our TTC Timeline and find out a little about me here. I am currently at the very beginning of my 4th IUI cycle on injectables and feeling very, very hopeful for this one!

Now for NIAW.

This is my first National Infertility Awareness Week as an infertile. I'm having a bit of a struggle with it only because infertility is a part of my life that I have been very private about. Our immediate family knows, but no one else. Why I have chosen this, I'm not sure. I am a private person in general, but not this private. I know my friends would be supportive and caring and they might even make this process easier. So why keep it a secret?

I think it mostly boils down to not wanting to talk about it. Telling people means having to rehash our story over and over. It means having to explain the ins and outs of our inability to make a baby naturally. Talking about it means having to listen to people tell me to take a vacation and relax and make it fun. But worst of all for me, it means telling them that it didn't work...again. 

NIAW has made me rethink this.

I know firsthand the struggles of fertility, but many people do not, so how can I expect them to know what to say and how to act around me. And furthermore, the world needs to know about this, it needs to touch people personally, in order for anything to change. I know I could use a little change! A little more research, a little more support from insurance companies.

I'm not picking up the phone to spread the news just yet, but it's given me a little food for thought.

This week is the start of my fourth IUI cycle but I am going into it with a fresh, optimistic view. I'm throwing caution to the wind and putting my whole self out there. It takes all of my strength to shut out the "realistic" side of me that says it might not happen and risk the ultimate disappointment, but everyday I am going to tell myself that I am going to get pregnant this month. It's happening. My BFP's coming :)

Have a great week everyone!

Funk

I'm in a major funk today.

I'm 10 dpo, but have been spotting/having blood-tinged cervical mucous since 6 dpo. I suppose if it hadn't continued through, I might have thought it was implantation spotting, but that's a big, fat no.

No implantation, no pregnancy, just spotting for days. 

I tried taking vitamin B6 this month to lengthen my luteal phase, but now I'm having second thought...maybe I should have just left well enough alone, because it seems like it made it worse...or at least didn't help. 

I have no idea what is going on with my body and I'm pretty bummed that IUI #3 was not a success. We're giving it one more shot, and then what? How did this become my life? I seriously did not see this coming. 

I naively thought that hubby and I would be the ones that IUI solved the problem. Whatever that problem is, since they've never really found anything. I truly thought it was going to work. Ugh.

PMS really is an infertile's worst enemy. Not only am I facing the fact that I am not pregnant, but I'm also completely hormonal and bloated. Super.

Feeling Introspective

If anyone (besides me) is counting, I am 3 days post IUI. I'm starting to itch with anticipation already.

I feel like the last four months have just zoomed by because I have literally been counting down the days each cycle, waiting for the next thing, whatever it might be...starting meds, next monitoring ultrasound, IUI, two week wait, etc. Kind of a yucky way to live life, always waiting for the next thing, never really living in the moment. Hmm. Must try to remedy this. 

But I still need some distractions. 

My friend posted this a while ago and I decided to give it a try myself. It's nice to think about me sometimes. The me that I am/was before fertility dominated my life.

***

If I was a month, I’d be November.
If I was a day of the week, I’d be Sunday.
If I was a time of day, I’d be dusk.
If I was a planet, I’d be Earth.

If I was a sea animal, I’d be a breaching whale.
If I was a direction, I'd be West.
If I was a piece of furniture, I'd be a tufted velvet arm chair.
If I was a liquid, I’d be fresh-squeezed lime juice.
If I was a gemstone, I’d be a diamond. 'Cause that's how I roll.
If I was a tree, I’d be an olive tree.
If I was a tool, I’d be carpenter's ruler.
If I was a flower, I’d be a ranunculus.

If I was a type of weather, I’d be a crisp Fall day.
If I was a musical instrument, I’d be a classical guitar.
If I was a color, I’d be a creamy white.
If I was an emotion, I’d be contentment.
If I was a fruit, I’d be grapefruit.
If I was a sound, I’d be laughter.

If I was an element, I’d be earth.
If I was a car, I’d be a hybrid.
If I was a food I would be blue cheese with honeycomb.
If I was a place, I’d be a beach in Thailand.

If I was a material, I'd be cheese cloth.
If I was a taste, I'd be sweet and salty.
If I was a scent, I’d be lemongrass.

***

I'd love to see your "If I was" lists!

Baby, Baby, Baby

Today was the big day! IUI numero tres! 

Here's hoping that my one follicle was a super star and produces the best egg Hubby's sperm has ever seen...one that it just can't resist.

I didn't mind spending Easter in the RE office one little bit. Easter is all about babies and new life and eggs...throw a little sperm in the mix and it sounds just about right. Hopefully we have a little new life of my own in the works.

This weekend was a good one for me even though though it included lots of baby exposure and even a baby shower! My first nephew was born last weekend and we were finally able to make the trip to see him. I was not excited about my 21 year-old Sister-In-Law's "oops!" pregnancy announcement, but I am absolutely thrilled to be an Aunt. He was born a little early at 35 weeks and he is the cutest little thing ever. 

I can't say that the visit was all sunshine and lollipops, because I was definitely overcome with jealousy a few times. But overall, I was happy with how well I took it. Probably because I am surrounded by babies at work, the harder part for me is being around pregnant ladies in all their glowing wonder. Once the baby is out, I know how to deal!

The hardest part of the whole weekend was watching my Husband hold the teeny tiny baby on his chest, tears streaming down his face. He is almost always terrified of other people's babies, but holding his Godson seemed to come naturally to him and it broke my heart that it wasn't our baby that he was holding. We have lots of friends with babies, but for some reason holding his Sister's baby really made it sink in for him how much he wanted his own. Ay ay ay, it broke my heart.

Now I officially enter the two week wait and I am already counting down the days. 

Hmmm

I had an ultrasound and lab check today and was as surprised as my RE was to see that my left ovary decided to make a big, fat follicle. All's well except that the right side is moving much slower, so IUI on Sunday may be only one egg. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I had 3 or 4 last month and my uterus remains empty, so I feel like our chances are cut in quarters. It only takes one, right?

Ugh. 

I'm usually pretty excited at this time of the cycle, but I can't help but feel sort of disappointed this time around.

March Photo Challenge: Day 31

Complete:

March Photo Challenge Complete! It provided a very nice distraction and encouraged me to blog a little more often, so I am very grateful. I had a really hard time thinking of what picture to post for my final picture. Nothing in my life feels very complete right now. More of an "in progress" feel! But I did just finish a book!

The upside to spending a lot of time in the RE office is that I have a lot of time to read. I have been flying through books and just completed my tenth for the year. I signed up for Goodreads last year and love how it keeps track of the books I've read and the books I want to read. I also like the Reading Challenge. This year I set my goal at 25 books...hopefully I will be spending time in the OB office instead of the RE office very soon!

March Photo Challenge: Day 30

Orange:

Yummmm.....

Unfortunately this is not a current picture, but it is how I would have wanted to spend my Saturday morning. Instead I sipped decaf tea.
All in the name of my future babies.