a little vacation

While I categorize myself as a SAHM, I actually do work part time at an online university. I don't make a lot of money compared to the time I put into discussions and the endless grading. However, I love that it gives me an intellectual outlet along with a little money. As much as I love it, I'm super excited to have a six week break.

Coincidentally, with no actual intentional planning, my hubby has leave for the next two weeks. We didn't plan anything because he was originally suppose to have leave last month with the rest of his battalion before deploying, however with the reduction in forces over there, he's not going. Whoot whoo!

As for me, I thought by this point I would have my calendar and be gearing up to head back down to LA for our second transfer. I should have figured that my period would come when it damn well pleased -- so, I'm still waiting.

What this means is that we're having a little staycation here! I'm working on E's bday present which will look like this...

with some fun bright kid fabric. I'm also going to make a ruler growth chart like this...

Of course, these projects are sandwiched between playdates, activities, and camping. Everything outside is a little hit or miss since the weather started turning last week. Yes, you read that right. E has been rocking sweatshirts, long sleeves, hats, and rainboots most of the time.

The best part of this is just having a complete removal of any pressure on me. That's something to just really love.

xoxo

Tweet tweet

I just created my new twitter account for by bloggy & infertile friends AND to hopefully get myself updating more. Anyone else on there? @KnockedupBAM

xoxo

Thankfully I'm not raging anymore. Yay! A few days of camping helped me to pull my head out of my arse.

I also boosted my depression meds back to their original dosage which helped after a week or so. I'll be able to start pulling those back to a safer pregnancy dosage once I start my period and we ramp up for round two.

Besides that, my mom and I have been tooling around going to a few museums, baking, and playing with E. He's just awesome and well worth pushing myself to get back to normal. :D

Thanks for all of the support.

Love to all of you. xoxo

Raging.

After my fantastic beta of zero, I congratulated myself over how well I was handling the failure. Since I was throwing a baby shower for one of my great Alaskan friends, I immediately threw my energies into cleaning the house, sewing, crafting (oh the horrors!...but so worth it), and cooking. Having my mother around to help and generally tool around with during the week made everything go by so quickly. The shower was a smashing success with happy guests and a delighted mama-to-be.

Fast forward to today....I'm just a flat-out wreck with my hormones raging from my flipping period. What set it off was the email from my  doctor telling me we needed to wait a month since I started on Saturday and would have needed to start my injections on Sunday.

I lost it at lunch getting mad at my hubby when giving directions to a new eatery.
Then I couldn't stop crying after getting upset.
Being touched in sympathy and comfort made me even more upset.
It wasn't pretty.
I'm just raging.

It took all I had to close down and pull it together for lunch.

Guess I need to put my infertility game face on.

xoxo

Beta of

Z E R O !

Awesome.

Doc is now on vacation so I won't be able to talk to him for the new plan until next week.

Whatever. This sucks.

xoxo

Percolating

So the embryos have been percolating for a week now. I would say that I'm happy and excited, but as of Friday I'm not really. I'm sure you know why. Yep, I gave in and started testing when the embryos would be 12 days old. And then again today on day 13. All I've seen is a big white space where there should be a second line. Soooooooo, yeah.

Besides my lovely screw up with my estrogen, everything was picture perfect with my lining, the embryos before transfer, and my relaxing before and after acupuncture treatments. Even with my estrogen doubling, my level was still in the low normal range. So what went wrong?

No idea.

My issue has always been about crappy eggs. The first time that I ever put in five-dayers, I got knocked up. I so arrogantly assumed that this time would be a cake walk. I imagined I would waltz in, transfer the embryos, and return to my life only to delightfully find two lines growing darker and darker.

Sucker!

I know that I could still technically be pregnant, but I'm bracing myself.

"Brace yourself lassie!"

xoxo

The deets...Part 2

Continued from Part 1...

Part 2:

With a trusty internet search, I started figuring out what we needed to do next.  By the next day, I had a few interviews set up with attorneys specializing in infertility and adoption. I had contacted my RE in California and the donating family’s records were being sent within the week. I chose a lawyer and then everything sloooowed down. It was then that I developed a tremendous amount of respect for the donating family because in everything they were direct and supportive. But, it did take time to figure out some of the details with the embryos. I think this was just a natural progression of figuring out how our personal wishes translated into practical and legal terms.

Then, on June 29^th we signed the contracts. More than embryos we gained a new branch to our family. And what a great family it is….

While we would have been content to be chosen by pretty much any family, I am most excited that this family wants the same type of future contact with us. In my mind, I hoped that the family who chose us would eventually become part of our extended family. This comes from the fact that I think you can never have too many people who love your children. Besides this, I have been lucky enough to have people in my life that have become family to me. I want this with the people who are giving us the means to add to our family. It just seems like a natural progression to me.

Besides this, I just want my child to be able to know their origins like in an open or semi-open adoption. I think knowing this family’s twins will do this for them. Like us, the family who chose us used an egg donor for their cycle. In their case, they went to one of the best clinics in the country and used an anonymous donor from their pool. As contrary as it may sound, I don’t really mind that the egg donor is anonymous in this case. Mainly, I feel this way because there are so many other people that our kiddo will have a chance to bond with and get to know within their family.

With little E, I find some things that remind me of Fairyeggs or her children that make me laugh. For example, he has this slightly curly patch of hair on the back of his head that Fairyeggs does. He also has some expressions that I swear come straight from her daughter. I love knowing this. So for this kiddo, I can’t wait to see what kind of quirks he/she shares with her twins.

What’s super exciting is that we also agreed to share our blogs with our readers. So, you can read about IVFlygirl and her perspective on our story HERE. She made me cry with her beautiful post. 

Over the past couple of weeks I have really been struggling to write this blog post. I simply don’t feel like I’m doing justice to our story. However, since tomorrow (Friday) is our big day, I wanted to share this with you. We will be transferring two embryos about 11 am (PST). Please send us lots of good thoughts!!!

Loves to all.

xoxo