Fertility Now!

In the forest

I am beginning to wonder:  if you are pretty sure you've ovulated, but have no idea when that occurred (and do not have any brightly shining pee-sticks to help narrow it down), does it count?  Right now, I'm guessing it happened around day 8 or 9, but, as my contract law professor used to say when faced with a complicated question, "Hell if I know."  I am strangely sanguine, likening it to a doddering old relative with an endearing tendency to wander off.  It'll come back before too long, right?

I just got back from a long weekend in New York with some girl friends, which was surprisingly lovely (pregnant ladies and all).  There is something quite calming about spending several days with people you used to live with, a certain shorthand and acceptance that is hard to come by otherwise.  And because these particular friends are as obsessed with food as I am, it felt perfectly rational to spend the entire time together either (a) eating; (b) seeking out more food; or (c) recovering from eating.  From the walking chocolate tour of the Upper East Side to the funky Italian salami shop in SoHo to the dim sum brunch extravaganza, we ate exceedingly well.  Despite my general love of food, I used to have a much more limited repertoire of things I ate, and it was so freeing and fantastic to be faced with anything, and say, "sure, I'll try that."  (I think my friends were pleasantly surprised, too, perhaps wishing I'd been as free-wheelingly omnivorous when we schlepped through France and Germany 15 years ago.)

Since I've been home, we've been doing lots of family walks, cramming as much summer fruit as we can shove in our mouths, playing with FDNY rescue vehicle toys, and learning about garbage trucks, cranes and space missions.  Hell, who needs ovulation?   

Boring

Yeah, so even heroic measures?  Not enough.  

The techs at the lab where I go for my HCG tests know me by sight, name and type of test.  They are very kind, though I can't tell if this is because they've intuited my problem or think I'm just a potentially volatile lunatic who needs to be treated with a delicate touch lest I...well, whatever it is that lunatics do these days.

I've been experimenting with different sized needles with my heparin, trying to choose between less bruising/longer injection and more bruising/briefer injection.  Sometimes, just to mix things up, I'll use one size of needle in the morning and a different size one in the evening.  

I couldn't bring myself to buy some digital pregnancy tests for this cycle last night, even though they were on sale, because I was pretty sure that seeing the words "not pregnant" (the "you idiot" part is apparently only implied) would send me over the edge.

I did, however, visibly goggle at this in the same aisle.   Seriously? 

A friend recently emailed me with her troubles getting pregnant with #2.  After several months of trying, they were going to see her doctor.  She was upset, depressed, feeling betrayed by her body--all of those things we know so well.  I spilled our recent woes,  offered support and chatted with her about the testing, and then didn't hear more for several weeks.  I emailed her again a couple of weeks ago.  She'd gone on Clomid, and surprise, surprise, her first   Clomid cycle worked.  I will be seeing her tomorrow, along with another friend who is about 33 weeks pregnant.  Awesome.

It has now been 4 unsuccessful cycles since my D & C.  We are considering IUIs if the next two cycles also fail.  

Stop me, oh oh oh, stop me, stop me if you think that you've heard this one before...

Continuing

I'm about 3 dpo, in what can only be described as a "heroic measures" month.  Seriously, if I do not get pregnant this month, then I don't think I ever will, without assistance.

We just got back from a week-long trip to New England, which went surprisingly well, given the vicissitudes of toddlerhood mixed with new locations every couple of days.  Three things which helped:  a portable DVD player; this bed (recommended by a friend, and fantastically useful); and a steady supply of snacks.  To show what lunatics we are, we actually combined the trip with some intensive potty training, and were not too much worse the wear for it.  I will try to write a post soon, detailing our potty training regime--what worked and what didn't--because I found it tremendously helpful to read other people's experiences with their kids, and liberally stole good ideas from any and all sources.

We have a lot planned for the coming months.  I am going to New York later this month, and San Francisco next month, and am looking forward to both trips tremendously.  My friend also convinced me to sign up to do this walk with her in the fall; she said, hopefully, that perhaps the act of paying the registration fee alone would be enough to ensure a quick pregnancy.  I tend to think this is a bit of hyperbole, but it can't hurt to have multiple options open.  I am starting training now, and I am looking forward to getting out walking again and hopefully getting more in shape. 

We are also looking at trying to renovate/remodel our kitchen later this summer, after a particularly nasty leak left one wall slightly rotted, all of the cabinets adjacent to it damaged, and several feet of tile broken and pushed up off of the sub-floor.  Our kitchen was redone about 25 years ago, and while the aesthetic choices were all pretty inoffensive (oak cabinets; off-white Formica counter tops; white ceramic tile floors), it has never been what we would have chosen.  It is large, and in some ways very functional, but its layout has never worked too well.  We would also like it to be open to our adjacent den, so that I could watch Andrew play while I cooked, and also look out to the back yard.  So as it doesn't make much sense to pull up the cabinets, counter tops and floor just to put it back exactly the same, we are looking at re-doing the whole thing--if, of course, we can actually get a home equity loan now.  It is exciting but a bit daunting--way too many choices!  I am trying to figure out how, exactly, we can replicate the Barefoot Contessa's kitchen with a decidedly un-Hamptons budget.  

Andrew has taken several great developmental leaps lately, and has taken to telling us how he "was a baby" but he "growed up."  (Especially amusing was his statement to our friends' very pretty 5-year-old daughter, "Yeah, I'm a grown up.")  Let's just hope we can add "brother" soon to his list of "big boy" accomplishments...