PerchanceToDream

2/3dpiui

So how do you count these double iui’s anyhow? The nurse at the clinic said to use the first one to determine when to stop progesterone, etc. but hey, I’m happy to take the additional day if I can!

I’ve had an odd number of conversations in the past month or two with people are either pregnant or have just had kids or, in the case of a dear old friend who contacted me today, success stories from ART. With one exception, every single one of them talked about having had multiple miscarriages before finally getting their child.

The friendI head from today, one of my best friends in college but an absolutely horrible correspondent, popped up on chat for a totally unrelated issue. But as I told him what we were going through he told me that his wife got pregnant with their first child on the 5th of their alloted 6 IUIs. Their son was then born on the 6th of the 6 IUIs (the most their insurance would cover) in the second round.

It made me feel a little bit better. Okay, so I have the issue of my doctor not wanting to do more than 4 medicated cycles. But look, I want to say to him…look at how it can work!

I’ve no idea about the possible success of this cycle. Being sick has completely diverted my body’s focus. Coughing for the past 5 or so days has caused me to pull all the muscles in my stomach and it gets hard to tell what might be going on. And now I have this ear thing where I feel like I’m underwater. That should make flying on Thursday a whole lot of fun!

Anyhow, I’m trying hard to stay optimistic. Not the warm, fluffy optimism that assumes this cycle will work but the type that says that somehow, someday I will have a child. The type of optimism I had before we started down this path that assumed that one day my period would be late and then boom! I’d have a child.

I know that it probably won’t happen like that at this point. It will take shots of follistim and HCG and blood work and scans and possibly surgery and possibly even the home studies and ordeals that come with adoption. But I’m optimistic that it will happen and that’s freeing.

I’m also realistic enough to know that this optimism might wane but I’m going to try it on for size and see what happens.

IUI #6b complete.

Funny….I’ve always had cramping after IUIs. This double one - nothing. Even though I’ve got more sperm in me than in our last 3 IUIs put together (sorry dad, if you’re reading this!).

I’ve actually read that post-iui cramping is actually from ovulation and that is, of course, the big question mark in this cycle as I had an LH surge detected the morning of the HCG shot. And of course, nothing can just go as expected.

So now we wait and I’ll spend my tww trying not to let this sore throat/cough thing turn into bronchitis, prepping my old Ipod for my dad and visiting my grandmother. Some of that should keep me occupied and at least I doubt the store in my grandmother’s assisted living apartment sells pregnancy tests!

IUI #6a completed. Or #4 if you don’t count the 2 that my doctor isn’t counting. Or #3 if you don’t count the unmedicated one!

Sperm was great, nurse got the catheter in without making me scream. All in all, a good day!

IUI #6b tomorrow.

Now I need to figure out which day I’m meant to use as my “counting” day…..hmmm…

There is a word for days like today but I can’t seem to figure out what it is: Frenetic? Overwhelming? Insane?

First, I didn’t sleep well last night. I have a sore throat and a bit of a cough and….I cannot get sick. No really….

I dragged my tired self up to go to the clinic this morning. I got to see one of the doctors that I don’t often see and I like him because, out of all the doctors at the clinic, he seems to share the most information. He said I had six follicles: “1-4-1″ as he put it. One ready to go, 4 coming closely behind and one that basically didn’t matter. He said he wanted to give the 4 one more day to catch up.

Great! So I figured on a Saturday IUI (I just can’t seem to catch a break about having to get up godawful early on a weekend). And I got on a train to head up north for a job interview for a job I don’t really want but that is in an area I’d like to live in. I get off the train there and see that I have a phone message. It is the clinic telling me that my LH has risen and that I need to come back before 5 TODAY for my HCG shot AND that Dr. Celebrity wants us to do back-to-back IUIS (Friday and Saturday).

I call back and get the nurse’s voicemail. I explain that I’m hours away. Do I turn back? What do I do? I stand in the train station and she calls me back. She tells me that I have to do it today before 5 but that if I can get my hands on Ovidrel, I can do it myself. Hmmm….I have one of those in my fridge left over from my previously horrible clinic but….give it to myself? Is it even in date???

I proceed to the interview. It’s actually a nice place and I like the person I’d work for. I’ve done the job before and it would bore me and they probably can’t pay me enough but….who knows…..maybe I can convince my current boss to let me come in 2 days a week and let me work from up there the rest of the time?

The interview ends and I realize that I can catch an earlier train. They rush me to the station and I catch the tain and then rush to the clinic and get my HCG shot. And then I find out that my lucky nurse (the only one who can get the IUI catheter in on one try as opposed to oh…10 minutes and tons of pain) will be out both days.

And they still don’t know if we’ll have more than one egg to work with but the hope is the extra HCG will spur on the 4….let’s hope! And even though my lining is apparently good (at the last 3 ultrasounds the doctor/fellow has commented on my good lining) we’re going with progesterone this cycle. Can’t say I’m looking forward to it but at least I won’t worry that we’re leaving any stones unturned.

Calliope at CreatingMotherhood posted a wonderful tribute to her grandmother who is struggling with alzheimers and who Calliope cares for. In turn, she’s asked other bloggers to do the same. And I, for one, am very happy to respond.

I have one living grandparent: my paternal grandmother who is 94. In many ways she’s the grandparent I’ve always been closest to. As a child I remember thinking that she was the most glamorous person I’d ever met. My grandparents were in the clothing business and even though they sold men’s clothes, I think it gave my grandmother an excuse to be the best dressed woman on the block. Her purse and shoes always matched her outfit and she always had beautiful but understated jewelry. To this day, she gets compliments on her clothing from the other women in the assisted living apartment she’s in. The other older women can’t see the small stains that now dot her clothes or the fact that she’s already given her good jewelry to various family members and now loves the elastic rhinestone bracelets in all colors, most of all.

My grandparents had one of the most romantic stories I’ve ever heard. As a teenager in NYC, my grandmother first heard about my grandfather from her stepfather. It was years, I think before she noticed that a photo of herself was missing and found out that my grandfather had taken it from her stepbrother and was showing it off to people saying that it was a photo of the girl he was going to marry. They hadn’t even met yet.

Grandma’s stepfather moved the family to Michigan. My grandfather met them at the train station. The rest, as they say is history. They had 2 children. They ran a business. They were one of the most gently affectionate couples I’ve ever known. I don’t remember my grandfather ever really saying ‘no’ to my grandmother. He gave her money and she bought her own gifts for holidays - not something I’d appreciate but it worked for them. He didn’t dance, which she is still sad about because she loved being the center of attention. He loved the country and she didn’t see any point in driving out into nature. She was a city girl through and through and even today she’d much rather be out amongst people than out in a pretty setting.

I am her only grandchild. And after my own mother died, our bond became closer. She frustrated my mother but my mom was the daughter she never had and there was a deep mutual love there. She doted on me as a child and still brags about me. She loves me more unconditionally than anyone I’ve ever known. And I already fear for how the loss of that love will affect me.

Her friends and contemporaries have mostly passed away by now and when my grandfather died at 67, a large part of her died with him. She often talks as though she’s just waiting to die. She is lonely. My father has a very full life and although he is there for her in every way he can be, she is lacking for the bond she had with her closest girlfriends who were sisters to her until they passed away. I’m half-way across the country and she can’t hear very well so our calls are few.

One of the largest frustrations of this journey through infertility and one of the things I had to fight to accept is that it meant that it would be harder for me to see her. I haven’t been home since last summer and now, when I return during my next two week wait, I don’t know what I’ll find.

I hope that she’ll understand what I’m going through. I know that she’ll think that at 42, I’m too old to be pursuing parenthood. In her day, women didn’t have children when they were this old. But I hope that we can still sit up late into the night, pouring over old photos and telling stories. And I hope that by the end of my visit she supports my choice to pursue this even though it means that I see her less.

Me and my dad flanked by my great-grandmother on the left and my grandmother on the right. Circa 1970ish….