I considered posting a couple of times yesterday and decided against it.  Thankfully it wasn't a bad day, but I just needed to step away from it for a second.  My thoughts and emotions have seriously done a 360 this week.  Here a little glimpse into them.  

On Tuesday when I had my meltdown, I considered going dark on regular social media (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest) to avoid every cute baby thing out there.  Instead I just removed them from my homepage of my phone so I wasn't constantly checking them.  Within 30 minutes of Babe coming home I had put them back up.  By Wednesday I was seriously considering joining the 3T board on the bump.  I have after all been blogging for almost 5 months.  Of course with my ranty blog posts I figured I'd spare the 3T girls.  

Yesterday wasn't so bad.  I did have a chance to speak with the doctor's office about my referral and charges.  They provided me with a phone number of the referral company as it looks like the switch in diagnosis was made there.  I left a message and put it to rest.  For now.

Then last night I read the remaining 7/8's of my book "The Road".  I have to say I was highly disappointed in it.  The story was incomplete from beginning to end.  I don't even need a nicely wrapped package and everyone to live happily ever after.  But there at least needs to be a point to the book, a story.  This had none.  And to top it off the writing style was obnoxious.  It was filled with incomplete and incoherent sentences.  Plus the author refused to use quotation marks causing much of the dialogue to be muddled within paragraphs.  All in all it was a terrible book which I would not recommend to anyone.  

Today is my father-in-laws birthday so at his request we're all heading to his house for dinner.  Then tomorrow we're celebrating my oldest nephews fifth birthday by barbecuing and swimming at his grandmas.  Hopefully we get a chance to do some house work and relax.  I'd really love to lounge in the hammock by the pool.  I'll have to work on that.

Yesterday was tough.  Today...well today is different.  Many couples are surprised with a pregnancy after having an HSG done.  It does after all offer a 30% better chance of conception in the cycle it's performed.  I however was surprised this afternoon with an almost $1200 bill for mine.  Instead of billing insurance my HSG for my abnormal bleeding as promised and my ultrasound for abdominal pain, which it was, the lab billed it under infertility.  This after numerous calls to insurance, the doctor and the lab guaranteeing that everything was in order.

As I sat on hold waiting for the insurance company to pick up I cried.  I cried harder than I had in such a long time.  I remember my sister being pleasantly surprised at the hospital after my nephew was born.  Her hospital bill was only $1200 as opposed to $2500 like she was expecting.  For the same price, I had a stranger stick a scope in my cervix and take pictures.  I didn't get to take a newborn home with me.

The woman at Cigna was not to blame so I kept my emotions at bay while I found out what had transpired.  She was kind and provided me with all the information I needed to contact my medical group.  When Babe returned home I cautiously told him what was going on.  He was incredibly understanding and even offered to take me shopping at Target to make me feel better.  Gotta love him.  

We didn't end up in Target and although the problem was bigger than retail therapy, I did take him up on his offer and went to the bookstore.  This months books are...

My plan, other than delving head first into my newest novels, is to get in contact with the person who can change the billing for my claim.  I know we have enough to cover it if we really need to, but it was definitely not expected and we never would have done it if we knew.  

I'm hoping the rest of the week gets easier.  I hope.

DD

There are days I look back on the many months we've been trying to have a baby and think how surprising it is that I haven't had more breakdowns.  That I'm still getting out of bed every morning and facing another day of infertility with no end in sight.  Mostly those days remind me how much I internalize what's happening and whether it's good or bad. I'd like to think I'm really that strong.  That hoping and praying for a miracle for almost 2 years hasn't affected me very much at all.  But that would be a terrible lie.  I smile, laugh and inquire about the newest pregnancy symptoms or motherhood woes of my friends and family.  But in my heart I'm torn up.  I long for the child(ren) we haven't had and wonder if we'll ever be so lucky.  Father's day is right around the corner and it's hitting me harder than even Mother's day did.  I feel like such a massive failure for not being able to provide Babe with what comes so easily for most.  

Today is tough but today will pass.  And hopefully IF with it.  

Yay, Fertility Friend confirms I've ovulated!  Even better, we got it in just in time!  Unfortunately my progesterone test is scheduled for 10 DPO (days past ovulation) because the lab is closed for the next 3 days.  Hopefully that won't be too late though.

In other news my good friend from up North, the one who just found out she was pregnant, is coming to stay with us for the weekend.  I haven't seen here in over a year and I'm super excited to celebrate with her and her hubby.  

This also happens to be a three day weekend and my moms birthday.  So along with having house guests, we plan on celebrating with my mom and her husband by having lunch one day while also bbqing with my godson's parents. It's definitely going to be an extremely busy weekend but I'm so excited about it all.  

One more day and one more disappointment.  My temperatures are slightly higher than yesterdays but still at the baseline.  Thankfully I realized rather quickly that the appointment for blood work is in a few short days.  Pair that with a busy weekend and holiday and I may not even be thinking about it much.  

I realized the other day how much I'm in love with my nephews and nieces.  It made me wonder if being their auntie would be the closest I'd be to having kids of my own.  Would that be enough for me.  Recently I was told by both my sister and sister-in-law that the instant love you feel for your own children is indescribable.  Though if I never know it, I won't know what I'm missing out on.  

Although I'm hopeful a lot of the time, there are days that my heart feels heavy for the years that may still lay ahead.  

I could just cry today.  Last months cycle was like clockwork and made me really excited that things were working as they should.  I received a positive ovulation test on cycle day 18 and ovulated on cycle day 20.  Besides having a chemical pregnancy and lots of spotting and heavy bleeding, this cycle started off good.  My temps varied only slightly and I received a positive OPK on days 18 and 19.  Now I'm on cycle day 23 and there are no visible signs of ovulation occurring.  

I woke up this morning with a slight drop in temps which makes this whole process more and more discouraging. With no progress in sight, I've decided to schedule my progesterone testing for cycle day 29.  If no ovulation symptoms show up by then I would hope the testing might help figure out why.  

At the beginning of the year I decided I was going to join the Goodreads book challenge to read 12 books this year. Usually one book a month isn't a difficult accomplishment for me.  Unfortunately at the beginning of the year I was still reading A Dance With Dragons, book 5 of the Song of Ice and Fire (better known as Game of Thrones) series. That damn book, which is amazing I might add, took me 4 months to finish.  

After taking a small hiatus to quilt, I decided to work on my goal.  So almost half way through the year I've now completed a total of 4 books.  Of course I'm way behind on my goal.  So to catch up I'm on to the next one.  This one is actually from my mother-in-laws collection that I inherited.  We just recently got around to unpacking them and it seemed as good a time as any to pick it up.  I've read this authors debut novel and though well written didn't care much for it.  Still I thought I'd give it another try.  So my book this month...

It did after all win a Pulitzer prize but more importantly a spot on Oprah's Book Club list.  Should be good.

Rather than doing a play-by-play of the past weekend I will just say this, it was crazy busy again but not bad.  Friday morning I got my first positive OPK test of this cycle.  Before we started this whole thing, I imagined conceiving a baby would be somewhat romantic, carefree and hot.  Then somewhere along the line it turned into testing, timing, planning, meds and scheduling sex.  I picture being at an airport security check point and answering "business" to the business or pleasure question.  But Friday, oh Friday.  Friday with all it's planning turned out to be toe curling, mind numbing even.  Don't get me wrong, the sex is always good.  This however, was indescribable.  For a while I even forgot about the Wondfo's I'd peed on twice that day already.

This cycle, since I purchased my stock options in Wondfo, I decided I was going to take a test every day from the 15th day of my cycle until I receive a positive then twice a day until it's negative.  Just like clockwork I got my first positive on cycle day 18 which remained positive until the afternoon of the 19th day.  Now I'm on day 21 and I still don't have a temperature spike.  I plan on taking my progesterone testing either Friday or Tuesday (because of the holiday) but I can't even confirm ovulation at this point.  Hopefully tomorrow will be clearer.

This week has been a little strange.  Yesterday I went home early with the gnarliest stomach cramps after getting sick a couple of times.  Like every other time I go home though, I got some much needed house cleaning out of the way. Then when Babe got home, we piled in the car with his Old Man and headed to the Epicenter to see the local single-A baseball team, the Quakes.  Our biggest encouragement were the three buck beers for thirsty Thursday.  It turned out to be a nice night even though there wasn't enough booze to get us through all 10 innings without checking our watches.

This morning I woke up with another two beautiful pink lines on my OPK.  It's my first positive ovulation test since starting to use the Wondfo's I purchased from Amazon.  I may not have danced around the bathroom this time when the positive showed up but it does make me excited that things are continuing to work.  I'm hoping all my ass kissing this week will get me in at least a couple of much needed "baby dances" with my husband.  With all that's going on this weekend, I'm not so sure we'll have too many opportunities. 

 

Sometimes I get so frustrated with my husband that I start to think, will things get worse and is this really the time to be thinking about having a baby.  Then there are other times I'm frustrated to the point of realization.  No wonder we're always on each others nerves, it's only us two 24/7, so we have to have a baby.  Last night was both.  

It was the first time I finally said it out loud.  Babe is not vested in something unless he's involved in the planning process.  If we need to go out and I'm stuck making the plans but something falls through, it's no big deal to him. Vacations that are researched by only me, again no big deal to scrap all the plans and start from scratch.  

This time it was about refinancing the house.  We've been toying with the idea for the last year now that rates have gone down.  I'll admit, I wasn't too keen on the idea a year ago because estimates on our house would have meant we needed a special type of loan.  When I noticed that the same estimates spiked considerably, we decided to pursue it again.  By Babe's request I researched rates from 10+ different banks and compiled a detailed list.  Then suggested a few dates to make appointments.  Those dates all came and went with excuses of being too busy or not wanting to spend a perfectly good Saturday afternoon inside a stuffy bank.  Then last week I noticed that the estimates were even higher than before.  This time I told Babe he would need to make the appointment if we were going to go through with it this time.  I wasn't going to look like an idiot making appointments that we later canceled. So last night when he suggested that I compile rates and make an appointment for Saturday I flipped.  Actually it wasn't that dramatic.  But seriously though, it made me furious.  I tried to remind him of my stipulation and of course he didn't remember.  Then he threw it back at me as if I was in a bad mood.  Like telling a woman she's crazy enough times that she actually starts to act it, you know what I mean.  

Thankfully we were able to talk it out and he understood where I was coming from.  Well at least I hope so because this morning I calculated the newest rates and made an appointment to meet a mortgage specialist this Saturday. Man I hope I don't regret it.  

The shit I post on Pinterest...

What I really want to say...

What I should be saying...

This weekend was a blur of activities in the DD household.  Saturday afternoon, Babe's little brother graduated from law school.  So our family celebrated the best way we know how, by eating, drinking and then eating some more. Everyone, including my nephew, was up until 1:30 partying in honor of his great accomplishment and stocking up since he'll be studying for the bar for the next 10 weeks straight.

Then there was Sunday.  We started off by meeting my mom and her husband for lunch at a Japanese teppan steak house.  I don't see her as often as I should and it was really great to this weekend.  I need to make more of an effort there for sure.  Afterwards we drove just up the street to visit my in-laws again and celebrate with them.  My husbands mom passed away three years ago so we try to at least spend some time with each other in her honor.  We ended up staying late eating, playing cards and watching Game of Thrones.  Side note, that was a great episode and I can't wait for next weeks.  

Sometime during the day I mentioned to Babe that it was harder for me this year than it was last year.  As I was saying it I felt so silly.  It didn't help that I was wished a happy mother's day multiple times by strangers even though I wasn't with any children.  How can someone hurt during mother's day when they were never a mother to begin with?  For a while I even sat on the bathroom floor unable to hold back the tears.  In 2012 I would have sworn that by mother's day 2013 I would already have a little one on the way.  Last month I even day dreamed about announcing a pregnancy to our families for mother's day 2014.  Instead I'm left wondering if that'll even happen before the next one rolls around.  How bitter will I be by then?  I never thought I'd say this but mother's day kind of sucks.  At least for anyone with that feeling of loss.  

Last night we took a little trip to the bookstore so I could finally spend one of my birthday gifts.  After a good hour of browsing the bookshelves for new and pre-selected books, I narrowed it down to 3 possibilities.  Since I was with Babe, I decided to ask him to read each of the back covers and choose my next read for me.  After reading all three he urged me to just buy them all! So $40 and a pre-order of "And the Mountains Echoed" later, I walked out of the Barnes and Noble like it was Christmas morning.  The wonderful books I've chosen are...

I wasn't able to find "Gone Girl" on paperback which I've come to realize is the only way I like to read books.  Instead, its fill in is "Dark Places' also by Gillian Flynn.  I've decided that this will be my first read and so far I'm not disappointed.  My goal one day is every nerd girls fantasy, to have a library like Beast does on Beauty and the Beast. A girl can dream can't she.  

Yesterday afternoon I finished my book, "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children".  What I thought started out as an interesting story turned out to be just okay.  The last couple of chapters confused me a little bit and made me lose interest.  What I disliked more than that though, which I'm sure most people loved about the novel, was the fact that all the pictures used in it were real.  The author Ransom Riggs actually procured a ton of photographs from different people and used them throughout the story.  After reading about them, it made the book feel less genuine.

So instead of rushing off to buy the sequel I think I'm going to move on to something else.  Right now I have a list of books ready to be bought and read.  They include "And the Mountains Echoed", "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet", "The Distant Hours", "The Thirteenth Tale", "The Westing Game", "Before I Fall", "The Glass Castle", "Sinister Shorts", "The Kitchen House", "The Road" and "Gerald's Game".  Now if only I can get going to make my challenge of 12 books this year.  I mean I still have 10 more to go!

When I originally went to this new gynecologist, Dr. R, he prescribed 100mg Clomid and 21 day progesterone testing. Progesterone testing consists of a blood test usually taken 7-9 days after you've ovulated to check that you have enough of the hormone to sustain a pregnancy.  In my case, I feel that the second phase of my cycle, my luteal phase, is at the very minimum which could be attributed to a deficiency.  Since I declined the Clomid for now, I requested that my doctor order new progesterone testing so that I don't end up with another chemical pregnancy. This time they didn't provide me any information on a recommended date.  Instead my research pointed me in the direction of the 7-9 day window which for me is probably cycle day 28.  If I had gone in on cycle day 21 as my doctor originally ordered, I would have been a week too early.  What good would that have done?

I'm trying really hard to like this doctor and not blame him for things that are not his specialty even though I'm basically doing the leg work by asking about medications and testing of my own.  The reality is I'm not just a number and obviously don't have the typical cookie cutter reproductive system.  So instead, I'm becoming my own advocate as always and biding my time until new insurance allows us to see an actual fertility specialist or Reproductive Endocrinologist.  I just don't know which is worse, having gone through 20 months of this already or hoping that the next 7 pass quickly.  

Lately I've noticed that while talking to Babe I now say "if we have kids" rather than "when we have kids".  It was a subtle transition that I didn't intentionally start saying.  This weekend however was the first time anyone has said it to me in return.  It wasn't done to hurt me or with any ill will.  In fact, I'm not really sure it did hurt.  It was honest and I'm sure I'm the only one who even caught it.  

Since the day my nephews were born, my sister and sister-in-law have made it a point to warn us of what to expect as parents.  So this weekend my sister naturally joked about the surprises of motherhood and what I should prepare for "if I have kids".  I'm trying this new thing where I make light of whatever parenting comments are made to me since most of the time they're a slip of the tongue I know they regret.  Why should I make anyone feel worse for something they already feel bad about?  

In the past I have been very firm in my position of being a mother.  My husband knows that I don't have any intention of living child free and that I don't even want to entertain the idea.  However as I read blogs and posts all over the internet, the realization that being a parent could essentially bankrupt us has become clear.  This weekend was the first time I seriously considered living child free for the rest of my life.  It doesn't necessarily mean we're pulling the plug on trying to have a baby of our own.  It just means that I'm trying to see these trials as reasonably as possible. Only time will tell though.  

I have a bad habit of immersing myself in something so much that it becomes overwhelming.  In the last couple of months those things have been reading and quilting.  I absolutely love reading and for a while will read every waking moment, no exaggeration.  This is especially true if I'm reading a large book and just want to get through it like "A Dance Dragons" (book 5 from A Song of Ice and Fire).  It took me 4 months of reading from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed.  I'm a bit of a slow reader.  Well I ended the book back in February and have yet to pick up a new one.

Until now!  I've been holding onto this gem since I got it for my birthday and finally cracked it open last night.  I seriously can't wait to start reading again.  

After it I have a couple of others I inherited from my mother-in-law that I'll work on.  Then I plan to cash in on another birthday gift, a Barnes and Noble gift card to finally pick up the soft cover release of "And The Mountains Echoed" which comes out in June.  

Now if I can only get back into the swing of sewing to finally finish my burp cloths.