Remind me again…

Please remind me to beat Long Suffering upside of the head the next time he INSISTS on putting pristine, expensive white sheets on our bed.

I told him it would be a Bad Idea, really I did.

True, it was mostly out of selfish reasons, because I’m the one who does the laundry and I can never be bothered with all that separate-whites-and-colours crapola, with the predictable result that anything wearable that starts out life in the Geohde household white ends up a yellowey-browney-pink by the third wash. And stays that way for the duration, because I also can’t be shagged bleaching things (mostly because I inevitably spill bleach all over my black trousers and end up with snazzy piebald-looking legs).

It’s the laundry equivalent of survival of the fittest.

Heck, I also chuck things in the dryer with merry disregard for all those dire ‘do! not! tumble! dry!’ tags.

I’ve yet to have one spoil my fun by spontaneously combusting, melting into a synthetic pile of goo or shrinking into hilarious tinyness, no matter how much I challenge them to. I therefore conclude those tags are the clothing version of ‘may contain traces of nuts’, i.e. they’re on everything. Jut on spec, so no responsibility ever has to be taken by the manufacturer. Sneaky buggers.

But anyway, I digress.

Back to my formerly-white sheets.

I say formerly because (not only due to my laundry related failings), to be slightly delicate about how I phrase things, Niagra Falls struck in the night. Yes, again, anovulation is probably the culprit behind what I can only presume is about three feet of unstable endometrium currently taking great pleasure in making a bid for freedom when I least suspect it.

I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m anaemic by now, given I’ve spent about fifty of the last eighty days gleefully giving away perfectly good haemoglobin.

Sigh.

I guess the rest of today is either going to involve buying a very large bucket and some bleach, or the purchase of a new sheet set. I think I’ll spring for the latter.

In black this time.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Oh, yes, the 9th of November IS a Sunday this year, as so many of you cleverly pointed out.

Clearly I need to regard a calendar occasionally before I merrily mix up my dates.

So Sunday it is! For those of you who ( naughty!) use your employer’s time to post AND are also lucky enough to work Mon to Fri, not only do I hate you with green-eyed envy, but it’s fine to post on Monday if you’re not up to setting the post up to automatically post itself on the Sunday.

Promise!

Any more cross pollinators out there?? Clicky-click…

Protected: Now I understand.

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Masochist.

I do hope that you’ve all been having what passes in your world for a good time this weekend, and are not in any way refreshing this page hanging on an update about the state of Schrödinger’s transfer.

Excuse me whilst I get those pesky delusions of reference and grandeur under control.

Where was I? Oh, yes. My P4 level.

Since I’ve remarked several times in the past that a picture can tell a thousand words (although not always the correct thousand), let me give you a clue as to where I stand from a ‘borrowed’ page courtesy of an online dictionary. Please pay particular attention to #3 in the pretty red box and try not to speculate about my sex life if you also read #1 or #2:

 

The conversation that prompted abuse of the screen capture key and five whole un-intensive minutes spent on figuring out how to draw a box in Paint? As follows:

Nurse NBC: ‘Hello there, this is Nurse Nice from Big Clinic, how is that cleaning going?’

She was kind enough to recall that I’d waffled on about thrilling matters such as my plans to spend my Sunday vacuuming REALLY THOROUGHLY whilst she took my blood this morning. I have to say I’m rather favourably impressed that anybody would bother to commit to memory such uninteresting minutiae.

Geohde: ‘I’m halfway through the lounge-room, thank you for remembering. You should see what a really thorough job I can do when I’ve got nothing else to distract me from the wait but defenceless Berber pile.’

Nurse NBC: Polite laugh. ‘Well yada-yada small talk, small talk. I’ve got your P4 levels back. How are you doing?’

Geohde: Bracing self, because usually an inquiry as to whether talking down from a ledge is looking helpful BEFORE even getting the number is usually a Bad Thing. ‘Okay, but I’m kind of anxious to know my P4 level.’

Nurse NBC: ‘Well it’s a five point one, so you’ve ovulated and you can have your transfer on Tuesday.’

Gehode: Invoking the third definition of ‘masochist’ above. ‘Um. That number is sure cutting it fine in the ovulation stakes. Feeling a little uncomfortable here at the thought of crossing myself and cheerfully throwing two embryos to the mercy of my recalcitrant womb on such borderline numbers given I bled like stink with a P4 of twenty three last time. Could you indulge a crazy worrier with another P4 before taking the ‘bryos out of the deep freeze?’

Nurse NBC: ‘Well now that you mention that thought, Other Nurse and I had been discussing whether we should do exactly that before your transfer. Would you like another blood at Sparrow’s Fart tomorrow?’

Geohde: ‘Yes please. Call me overcautious but given my history I would feel much better knowing that the numbers are going up before I get my genitals out in public again for the embryologist to peek at over my RE’s shoulder. Besides, if they’re not, then I’ve saved a pointless TWW and can bring all the misery and tears forward to now, which really suits my schedule better anyway.’

Nurse NBC: ‘See you at Sparrow’s Fart O’clock tomorrow.’ 

And here I stand, masochistically. I should have just taken the transfer and run like hell.

My scan result, in diagram.

 

Neither my RE nor myself trust my wonky physiology one teeny-tiny bit, so I have more bloods Sunday just in case the trigger fails. But, I do have a honest-to-goodness transfer booked for Tuesday which is a distinct improvement on the last four weeks.

I’ve lost count, but suspect I’m probably something in the neighbourhood of six or seven scans and a similar number of venepunctures this cycle, complete with bonus drawn out tension of:

No response  → no response  → no response  → by the way that’s an impressive LH you have in your pocket (or are you just happy to see me?) → no response (cancellation talk begins)  → some response  → lead-flipping-follicle → weird bloods  → you might have ovulated kind of sort of but not well enough  → Um, you REALLY might have ovulated kind of sort of but not well enough → recall for scan and 25 mm monster follicle panting away on left ovary  → Thanks be to the g-d of your choice FINALLY a trigger shot (I have to say I told you so).

Heck, my file card for this attempt is halfway down it’s second page. 

Just as an aside, you know that you’ve had too many scans when your RE asks, pre-probe insertion, which side the lead follicle is and without a beat you say ‘Left’, correctly.

Now all I can do is hope that my P4 is (please, please, please) over 5 on Sunday.

I do have a ‘cancellation’ post prepared, just in case.

Well, THAT was a close call.

I stand before you (or not before you, but in your computer screen) literally sagging at the knees with sheer relief.

Ha-hem….(pulling out a prepared card with names-to-be-grateful to)…

For this morning’s 19×22 mm follicle and well-behaved endometrium, I shall like to thank:

• My left ovary. The right one can get stuffed, since it’s had nothing to do with today’s result. Lazy thing.
• My probably-meant-something-in-retrospect honest-to-goodness POSITIVE ovulation predictor last night.
• My husband for dutifully shagging me twice in the last day, and probably once more today if the truth be told, just for good measure (shame about the male factor, really, but he insists. I think it makes him feel better). 
• Any and all of you who read my whiny complaints and helped badger my recalcitrant reproductive system into gear, since it worked you can all claim the credit.
• My left ovary, again, because I think that both my RE and I were very relieved to see that something was finally up in there. Shucks, she’s seen my business end far too many times in the last two weeks, and for such little result.
• My rather easily venepunctured arms for giving up rather a lot of blood, on cue, for the last fortnight even if I didn’t precisely like the numbers presented to me.
• That damn waitress in the Last Chance Saloon for taking mercy on me, for once.

I’m now awaiting a phone call to confirm, hopefully, that I can actually catch the last bus out of Suckville (and at least get to transfer, if not pregnancy, since by my calculations I have very little chance at option ‘pregnancy’ without preceeding ‘transfer’). If this afternoon my bloods come back shite, I may have to scream in frustration and retract that speech. Either that or get really angry and force matters with a trigger shot into some unresisting flab.

I’m this (holding my fingers about 2mm apart) close to getting to transfer and I simply refuse to have it yanked away from me, again, by a now-you-see-it-whoops-not-any-more game of ovarian hide and seek. Do you hear me, left ovary?

Oh my g-d, make it stop….

The cycle from hell continues, unabated.

Due to my teeny tiny problem with an elevated baseline LH that I may have referred to in passing, probably connected to some permutation of the words fuck-this-for-a-joke, ovulation predictors are a cruel, cruel tease. Who the hell knows if that almost-as-dark-as-control-line really means something except in retrospect when it’s totally useless.

Yet I still use them, because when the DO turn unequivocally positive, I know that I’ve probably succeeded in pulling an actual egg out of my arse ovary. That’s when the obsessional temperature-measuring takes over, of course.

Can I level with you?

The thing is, apart from the reason of prolonged tension waiting to find out if my cycle shall be binned after all, this cycle is totally doing my head in because I keep getting these patches of, well, discharge that suggest I’m suspiciously well oestrongenised. If you get what I mean. If you don’t, Google ‘spinnbarkeit’. Some of the links even come back here, amusingly enough.

Then after all the leaky-whatsit excitement (of course) I have yet another set of crap bloods or a totally shite scan and promptly come crashing down to earth in a thud of who-cares-if-the-wee-sticks-have-nearly-said-for-sweet-christ’s-sake-SHAG three days in a row? My ovaries are totally faking it for a screw, the tarts.

Ironically enough I’ve been so dispirited with the whole process that we haven’t bothered to shag. For about four days and counting, and now sod’s law is fully operational in that my vayjayjay is doin’ the ovulation tease again and my spouse is working nights.

I did offer to go to his work to screw, but since it’s not in a particularly safe area and I’d prefer to be pregnant with my husband’s baby, perhaps not.

Bollocks.

Given the adverse circumstances, I’m bound to ovulate tonight since the universe does really, really have it in for me.

Finally, yes, yes, YES  before you (quite reasonably) point out the obvious matter of this being an IVF Thaw cycle and the whole male-factor bizzo rendering a shag largely pointless anyway, I do actually realise that if I ovulate the main goal is to transfer embryos that I already have on ice (rather like expensive champagne). But please don’t tell me that you wouldn’t screw your optimistic brains out too, just in case, if you were in my shoes. If you could. 

If your husband wasn’t working nights in an unsavoury part of town, of course.

How to publicly make a complete ass of oneself.

Step One: Whinge about Crap Scan. Widely bemoan impending complete ovulatory failure. Worry about premature menopause.

Step Two: Repeat Step One (above) to anybody who will stay still long enough to hear it.

Step Three: Repeat Step One and Two. A lot. Until your friends start avoiding you and even your spouse tells you to get a hobby.

Step Four: Obsessively pee on OPK’s several times a day whilst crying about your (anovulatory) fate.

Step Five: Now that even your nearest and dearest will no longer listen, vent your frustrations on your blog. In enormous detail. Discuss your genitals.

Step Six: Give up on the pee sticks.

Step Seven: Let curiosity grab you one last time and get the following:

 

Enough said. Clearly, I am an absolute fool.

Berate me, I deserve it.

On the plus side, I can feel stupid whilst basking in the glow of a spontaneous LH surge for the first time in six freaking months.

Protected: My body is an, err, wonderland?

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

I *really* need a hobby

Today I reached a new low.

Despite a rather reliable up-the-you-know-what scan on Monday, I’m managing to delude myself that I will ovulate soon. Somehow. Who knows, if relaxing doesn’t do the trick, maybe concentrating real hard will do it.

So, for the last several days despite the mantra ‘NOTHING over 10mm, YOU FOOL’ running through my head, I’ve been expending urine on OPK’s.

So what, you quite reasonably ask? After all, I purchased such an extravagant collection purely so I could get the urge out of my system.

As an aside, the urge to POAS in my case is kind of like restless leg syndrome, but with wee. It just builds up until I can’t deny it anymore. So I POAS. And feel better for all of 5 minutes. Until the urge gradually increases to the point that only repeating a POAS will make me feel better. It is really some kind of miracle that I’m only sullying two perfectly good OPK’s with my (non-lutenised) urine a day.

Anyway, to get to the rather sad point. This morning I even sat and watched the bloody thing dry. I couldn’t walk away from the OPK and let it do it’s thing, even for a minute. You know, just in case I miss that elusive second pink line.

Urgh.

Do you think I’ll have enough?

I present to you the fruits of an infertile woman’s idea of online bargain shopping.

All blissfully complete with the conspicuous absence of the inevitable ‘Why do you need so damn many?‘ from a pimply cashier.

My latest indulgence:

  

Industrial quantities of ovulation predictors, and somewhat whimsically, pregnancy tests. I’m only slightly embarrassed to admit that when I realised that purchasing by the hundred was cheaper per unit than 50 or 20, I figured what the heck? I’m in this game for the long haul, so I may as well be prepared.

These, I think rather exciting, urine dipping sticks were only yesterday delivered to my door in a discreet brown envelope that in no way screamed out ‘I’m trying (really hard) to get pregnant’. Apart from the great big sticker “BabyWishes” on the front. That just might have given the game away.

I prefer this method of test acquisition to the alternative option, despite the postal indiscretion.

I’ve had enough of emptying the paltry supply of OPK’s from my local pharmacy and hungrily looking about for more. They barely stock them because, apparently (and I’ve asked), apart from my frenzied purchases, these kits sit on the shelf un-loved. Far away from their intended home in a cosy warm cup of female human urine. Such a travesty.

Clearly my local attempted pregnant-ers are complete amateurs. Let’s not reflect too hard on the fact that they seem to succeed despite the lack of fancy wee-sticks. Whereas I, a seasoned professional when it comes to everything you can pee on for 5 seconds and then lay flat, do not.

Anyhow, never again will I have to whinge about not having something to do when I go number one. Not that urinary boredom has actually ever actually been a problem.

Charters anonymous.

I’d like to commence this post by thanking you all for your helpful suggestions about my chart. You all, dear readers, are not only wise (it was CD 15 in the end), but tactful.

Not one of you posed the very reasonable question as to why the hell I’m even charting.

Not in writing, anyway.

After all, there’s nothing natural or spontaneous about my cycle to learn from. I take Clomid. My follicle(s) are monitored, courtesy of a rather ancient-looking dildocam. I artificially trigger ovulation with a tasty shot of Pregnyl in the ass, or the deltoid (depending on my mood, a girl needs variety). My luteal phase is artificially propped up with more of the same. If all this wasn’t enough, things are double checked with a midluteal serum progesterone.

Ergo, I know that I make follicle(s), ovulate, and make progesterone.

So why do I continue to chart?

I think, to be honest, that my inner control freak likes to be able to do something on a daily basis. And, being the non-caring-sharing-naturally-cynical and distrustful type, I like to see that things have worked.

I hasten to add that I am aware that charting is not the best form of cycle monitoring, but it is the only one easily available to me. The phlebotomists at work think that I’m joking when I proffer my rather easily venesected arm on their rounds, and I’ve already covered in a previous post the reasons that self-transvaginal scanning is probably not ideal.

Finally, in my departing comment for the day, I acknowledge that referring to another barren cycle as ‘worked’ is a lax use of the term. The real definition of ‘worked’ is a pregnancy. But, failing that, I’ll take technically-perfect-but-didn’t-succeed cycle over a complete balls-up every time.

Expert opinions needed. Apply within.

I’m throwing this one out to the peanut gallery. My Chart. Please examine. There will be questions.

Below, I demonstrate the hilly wonder that is my thermal signature, as of today. The link above should get you the up-to-this-second version, and my last chart.

I’d appreciate (greatly) any of you who stumble upon this Muzak-infested waiting room in the infertility corner of the Internet to offer up an opinion. I’ll even say ‘please’, but don’t make me beg. I cry, and it gets uncomfortable for the both of us to try and pretend that I didn’t afterwards.

I know that a chart is not an oracle, only a mere guide. I *know* that individual temperatures don’t mean squat, and it’s a pattern that I’m looking for. Specifically a rise of , say, .2 to .3 degrees C after ovulation.

Removing my ‘I’m all scientific and not in any way susceptible to fits of angst’ hat, and neatly replacing it with my ‘WTF is this chart, oh-my-god-it-hasn’t-worked-why-the-hell-not-PANIC‘ hat, I have but one question.

WTF?

Ok, so I’ll be more specific.

WTF, with my chart?

My temperatures are up and down like a stripper’s knickers.

Did I even ovulate? And why the hell are my temperatures nothing like any other cycle I’ve ever had (ie all over the shop and so c-c-c-cold pre-?ovulation).

Who said romance was dead?

 

Exhibit A (above). Written after my trigger shot. Left for my husband where he’s most likely to find it. In the pantry.

For the curious, the *second* most likely spot would be the fridge.

A long discussion with myself…

The scene?

Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Axis retraining camp.

The crime?

Repeated failure of LH surging.

The offenders?

Geohde’s long suffering pituitary and hypothalamus.

The discussion? As follows:

‘So, ahem, I believe that you two reprobates are aware of the reason I have recalled you today?’

‘Yes’m’

‘Repeated failure of ovulation, in the face of attempted conception?’

‘Yes‘m’

‘So, before I continue, do you have anything to say in your defence?’

*looking down and scuffing floor with shoes*, ‘No, m’m’

‘Well, I have the pleasure to declare that I hereby screw the both of you, I have the power to ovulate whether you like it or not. Furthermore, nyah, nyah, nyah-nyah!’

With a final triumphant ‘nyah’, Geohde runs triumphantly around the room cheerfully flipping the bird to all and sundry before realising that this sort of behaviour is really quite immature.

‘Ahem. That will be all, I expect better behaviour next time. Dismissed!’

Below is the photographic evidence of my own paltry efforts, saved specially from last cycle (on the right). Note the pale test line, control line is bottom of the picture. Now examine the nice dark line on the wee stick on the left, courtesy of 5000 IU HCG. Much better, no?

If only I can manage to ignore every other possible reason that this cycle won’t work, maybe my husband can successfully knock me up……

Protected: Waiting to shoot up…

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Watch out

Excuse me, coming through. Mind the elbows.

Fertile woman on a mission.

Sorry about your toes, I’m sure they’ll heal just fine.

Now where’s that husband of mine?

Ahem, If you’ll just excuse me for a minute, I have a date with a penis. Hopefully an erect one capable of the sympathetically mediated reflex known as ejaculation.

On the plus side, at least I don’t have to buy it dinner first, so disappointment is free.

Seriously, though, I have permission to trigger any time from tonight, but I can’t quite bring myself to. My chart doesn’t look quite ready, even if the scan *did* show pretty follicles.

I reckon as long as I’m not too far from my own personal shooting gallery (BYO Pregnyl, I don’t share. *That* stuff caused me no end of angst to acquire.) that I’m going to leave it till the last possible second to trigger. That way if I bugger up the shot and only some of it makes it’s way ex-blubber, it won’t be such a big deal.

The easiest way to identify a woman having an old fashioned showdown (guns drawn, high noon)with her own body is to look for excessive trips to the bathroom to pee on an OPK.

It’s either that or an outbreak of dysentry.

Intermission

I’m still here, I promise.

Please listen to the delightful Muzak in the intermission between Clomid and scan.

Feel free to water the plastic pot-plant.

Take an uncomfortably modern chair.

If the yelling and thumping from the back office as I threaten my ovaries on pain of not-follicle is troublesome, be my guest and close the door.

Thank you.

A quiet achiever

It turns out that whimpy little loser of a follicle on my left ovary has been quietly planning to ovulate not so far away after all. I will try not to be so tough on the pipsqueaks in future.

I have a positive OPK and the irony is I only tested to get the early urge out of my system, trigger finger on the wee-sticks that I have.

Cue surprised gape.

It’s CD 16, people.

A new personal best has been set.

Now if only my luteal phase comes to the party, I have a (mostly theoretical) chance..

Protected: Progeste-what?

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

Thank f*ck for that…

Exhibit A: My urine on an OPK this morning:

Yes, I know the test line is not quite equal to, or darker than the test line…. but I’m desperate, it counts.

Now if you’ll excuse me while I have some spontaneous-well-timed sex.

I’ll try anything a thousand times…

I’ve had just about enough of sex for to last the rest of my life right now.

It’s no longer even funny.

It stopped being arousing about four days ago.

I’m going to be walking bow-legged at this rate. Permanently.

Since the situation is getting desperate, I’m going for the (historically repeatedly proven) best method for ensuring ovulation and conception tonight.

Alcohol.

Think lots of eggy thoughts, please

Shhhh…..I’m trying to ovulate.

I wish it was that easy.

That’s another two weeks of daily sex (you know, just in case). Even my (ever horny) man is getting kinda over the whole horizontal folk dance, and I’m fairly sure that it takes a lot to turn men off….

It’ll be two years of failed attempts at conception in October.

I think that’s an anniversary that will absolutely require alcohol to celebrate.

Oh my…..

Um, I have a confession to make….

Houston, we *do* have ovulation.

In fact, its an un-medicated personal best, coming in under 30 days. I just about managed to ovulate before a woman with a better behaved reproductive tract would have menstruated. Shocking, I know.

Now what am I going to gripe to my RE about?

It’s hit me this morning that this means that I am officially in my 8th two week wait, and the first since PLBWCLEW died. Never mind that it’s taken 16 months to have eight, I’m young *cough*, I’ve got time. Or so well the meaning like to tell me.

Am I going to obsess over possibly being pregnant? Nah, I mean, what would the odds of THAT be?

A small celebration is in order, however, I can start treatment in two-ish weeks.

I missed that ultrasound probe…..

Houston, do we have ovulation?

For those of you who are playing at home.

http://www.fertilityfriend.com/home/144066

My temperature chart has a suspicious wiggle in it.

It go down, it go level and it go up.

Somebody call NASA, Houston, do we have ovulation?.

I, ever the pessimist, remain to be convinced. I prefer to think that maybe my chart is telling me to go hiking, it has that kind of look to it. If it *was* ovulation it was the whimpiest, saddest, little ‘pop’ in a bid for the full complement of chromosomes that a half-arsed ovum ever did make.

AND after all my talk about sexual Dedication To The Cause, I don’t think we even did the horizontal folk dance anywhere NEAR the right days.

Figures..

On: woo-hoo!

FINALLY….something is happening, well my left ovary is up to something anyway if the positive OPK I got yesterday is anything to go by. About bloody time. I hope it isn’t faking it.

On: why am I waiting for ovulation when it’s only half the problem?

Why is a cynical pessimist like me, with a spouse with (let’s be frank) less than ideal sperm in the knocking-up department still taking note of her menstrual cycle?

Frustratingly, it’s a medicated CD 15 and ovulation appears to be conspicuously absent. Excellent.

>>>whispers<<< not that I’ve EVER ovulated this early anyway, clearly I was heading into the insane territory of the cock-eyed optimist by thinking that I would.

So.  I’m petulantly (and somewhat childishly) stamping my foot in frustration that it will take me approximately 8 months to fail the bog standard stage on the infertility escalator of 6 Clomid cycles at this rate. Super.

The hot flushes (courtesy of said Clomid) aren’t adding to my agreeableness, but since I can’t TYPE what an overwhelming rush of premature menopause feels like in all it’s red-faced, sweat dripping detail, you’ll just have to try it for yourself sometime. Really, it’s fun.

On a totally separate note, a woman who I do not know from the proverbial bar of soap (but rather admire), who types (rather eloquently) on a website that goes by the name ‘a little pregnant’ (www.alittlepregnant.com), has just had a cancellation of her last ever IVF cycle. My heart goes out for her, especially since she also happens to be wickedly funny in her descriptions of the ‘infertility experience’ so to speak.