is november over yet?

so things have been very uneventful lately. just waiting to get my period so that i can call the doctor and get started on the clomid. its been a very long wait this month. we've been busy, and Thanksgiving was wonderful and entertaining and drunken. our guests were wonderful, Sofia was wonderful, and Disa was wonderful. not much more could have gone right, except for us forgetting to cook and put out the corn (my dad and i love to mix it into my mashed potatoes). a very minor detail, that i dont think anyone noticed.

Sofia has been hysterical and getting even smarter lately. She makes our days exciting and this whole process do-able for me i think. shes not even 15 months old yet, and if we give her something to throw in the garbage, she does it on command. i feel like she understands what we say to her. shes a really good baby, but oh my, is she going to be a tantrum-ie kid. shes very determined and stubborn. when she doesn't get her way, its not pretty. hoping we can find a way to mellow them out before they get too bad as she grows. but truly, shes fabulous.

december is filling up with events already. we have a church event, a gathering of lesbian friends who want to become parents (we're kind of putting on a workshop for them with another set of lesbian parents, sharing our stories and info) a friendly xmas party, a birthday, and xmas already on the calendar. i just want to get my period so we can get started again.

i know ive said it before but this cycle is the cycle that my wife got pregnant when she was successful. so we're kind of hoping that luck is on our side in December the way it was last time. this would keep baby's birthday in the summer time, allowing my wife to have uninterrupted time with baby when he/she arrives. this was the last possible conception date in our original (sept '11-dec '11) "window". that "window" went out the window when we learned how many obstacles I was facing.

so here's to hoping that these next few days go fast, I get my period on time and not late (funny ill be singing a different tune next month), and it starts to feel like xmas soon. a lot of people have their decorations up already, but its so warm out. its like 65 degrees today in ny, wtf?! i need some cold, and i need it to be December to be in the xmas spirit. but we're almost there. but almost doesnt count.

no such luck

well, we had opted for another month of a natural cycle for november. we really had no intention of utilizing fertility drugs, but it looks like its our next option. i was curious (and hopeful) to see if the cyst that had been on my ovary had damaged my right ovary badly enough that I would only produce mature follicles/ovulate from my left side. this natural cycle has proved that this is not the case. hence, this month is shot. thanks to my CD 11 & 12 endovaginal sonograms, we were able to see that the follicle on my right side (blocked fallopian tube side) was almost twice the size of the follicle on my left side. so with minimal chance of my left fallopian tube picking up the mature follicle from my right side, and my decision to not "waste" the sperm on a very small chance of success based on the circumstances, we're skipping November. this is absolutely the last thing we wanted to do because this is the last month in our original "window"/timeframe.

we're both crushed, but I'm a little more at ease. I feel like this month long break will give me the time i need to really get into a positive head space, not that hosting Thanksgiving for 16 helps. mind you we have a 2 bedroom apartment and the living space is not the largest. we've hosted for the last 5 years and this will be our 6th time. oh and since we have a 14-month old, we're completely behind schedule this year and .. yea.. completely unprepared at this point. oh well, we'll pull it together, we always do.

so we've decided that I'm going to go on Clomid for the December cycle in the hopes that i will have a greater chance of developing a mature follicle on the left side. the doctor said they like to do Clomid for three months straight, and if there isn't any success in that time period, they like to sit down at the end of that three months and talk about more aggressive options. i sure hope im pregnant in 3 months because I dont know how much longer I can do this. i mean ill do it as long as i have to, but this blows emotionally. i have no idea how women who have been ttc for years do this. im simply not cut out for this.

i had asked my PA about Clomid earlier this month, but I think i was scared away. im petrified of the idea of multiples, especially because my mother is a twin (fraternal), but it seems that Clomid only has a chance of twins in 5-10% of cases, and thats with the woman having two fully functional fallopian tubes. so my fears are pretty much eased there. my other fear was that ill produce too many follicles and then we'll have to skip the month to avoid multiples, which would defeat the purpose of taking the Clomid. but at this point, having to skip this month and waste time, we feel like these are risks we need to take,  but i have so many thoughts/emotions about all of this. am i being too impatient? am i pushing my luck? should i not be looking to fertility meds already? ive only been through one cycle thusfar, but i just want this so badly, like yesterday. my clock has been ticking loud and clear since my wife gave birth to our daugther. i want to do this, now.

so hopefully the next few weeks fly. and then,  just about 2 weeks before christmas, we can try again. funny sidenote, my wife got pregnant from her december insemination in 2009. my insemination date is a week after hers (or so it seems by my Fertility Friend mobile app) and since they usually deliver babies of diabetic women 2 weeks prior to the 40 week due date, if we were successful our babies would have birthdays one week apart. i would love that because that would mean only one joint birthday party to plan a year.

fingers crossed, yet again, that time flies, and we're successful soon. happy holidays!

gearing up for cycle #2

the biggest task on my to-do list today is ordering more sperm to be shipped to our fertility place. We only have 4 vials left to be shipped, and the PA recommended that we ship 3 of those 4. We have one left over from the first attempt because we only inseminated on one day, so with the next three, we should have enough for at least the next two attempts. and hopefully one of those attempts will be successful. it kind of stresses me out because i would really like our children to be half siblings biologically. i dont think our donor is "producing" any longer, so if we run out of sperm prior to deciding that we're done adding children to our family, we'd have to find another donor. clearly this wouldnt be the worst thing in the world, God knows theres plenty of sperm out there for purchase, but again it would be something that we did not plan on having to think about. like everyone says... we plan and God laughs. (you can substitute God with Life, Fate, whatever you want if you dont like the G word)

its really difficult for me to balance my hopes of conceiving and my wife's immediate success, with all of the ttc blogs, stories, etc that ive read about how some women try for years. im not going to lie, im pretty intimidated by how grand the scheme of "ttc" can be in terms of time. for me i just feel like i need this to happen like right now. i dont want to have to have my diabetes in such tight control all of the time. dont get me wrong, my a1c is the best its ever been since ive been diagnosed, but im working really hard for that. i feel like ive gotten so strict with myself and staying on top of my cgm readings, timing my insulin boluses, and waiting to eat, im feeling burdened. but what i need to keep telling myself is that its all preparation for whenever the right baby wants to come along to us. im just like, the worst wait-er in the world. i mean im a lot better at delaying gratification than i was when i was younger, clearly ive grown and matured, but i guess i still have quite a ways to go.

off to make a very important phone call and complete the rest of my housewife duties.

5 strikes, im out.

my 5 strikes were the 5 hpt that i was torturing myself with. today is the start of cycle #2 for me, so we're at cycle day 1 again. im not terribly disappointed, clearly i would have loved for this to be a "one shot deal" literally, but come on, how lucky can one lesbian family be. i'm just glad that i finally have my legitimate period. i had been spotting for the last two days, which from what ive read on other blogs and websites is usually the way AF will start, but for some women, they have spotting just before their AF and then wind up preggers. so i was on a very hopeful up and down emotional roller coaster for the last few days.

im totally ok with this. believe me. im just happy to have an answer. so now we move on. the frustrating thing about moving on is its another month of wait and see. wait and see if i have good looking follicles on the correct/left side. if i dont, we're out of the game for this month completely, and we wont know if i stand a chance until cd 12ish im guessing. so for the next 2 weeks im going to consume alcohol, hot dogs, cold cuts, and i am almost seriously debating a tattoo. that last one prob wont happen, but thats the most extreme desire of my fine-if-im-not-pregnant-ill-just-go-out-and-do-all-of-the-things-i-cant-do-while-i-am-pregnant-tantrum.

we have a weekend full of plans again, and i have my co-worker's son's big jewish wedding the following weekend so my life should be fun filled until we get to hopefully try again. and if we cant try until decemeber, well, that means more partying on thanksgiving for me. im hoping that all of this potential splurging doesnt mess with my sugars too much. ill have to keep a close eye on myself lol.

im debating referring to my body as the obstacle course from now on in my general life. im a lesbian so clearly there is an obstacle to fertility there, im only working with one ovary and one functioning fallopian tube, and im a diabetic - so im immediately considered a high risk pregnancy once i am successful. nothin i like more than a good challenge though.

keeping my head up and looking forward from here. whatever will be, will be.