Love, Romance and the IUI, 8th edition.

Yesterday was IUI #8...and it only took me, my partner, and an army of nurses to make the magic happen.

You all know how much I love Clomid and can't wait to take more drugs, but what I didn't know was that by taking clomid and stimulating my ovaries, they were swelling up and pushing against my uterus making it harder for the nurses to insert the catheter up in there. Another reason to love clomid. Thirty minutes later with three nurses, speculum in, speculum out, fishing around up in there later, changing positions and pushing here, no try there, I am hopefully baking us a baby.

Nurse #1 was the same lady who did IUI #7. She adamantly tried her favorite catheter first, then her second favorite, and then her third favorite, the mac daddy catheter known as 'the rocket' (shouldn't anything known as 'the rocket' be the first choice???). 

Nurse #2 was a newbe and mostly just stood back and observed and made weird comments like 'they should use the back seat of a car as the table since that's where couples always had the most success getting pregant in the 50's' and 'you know you can wear socks if your feet are cold' and 'when you come back next time, wear socks.' My parter was like 'next time? There won't be a next time, right!?' 'Oh,' nurse #2 says, 'you're not planning on having another [child]?" Weird...she didn't pay attention in that class apparantly. 

'How ya doin', babe?' 

'Fine.' 

Nurse #3 had never helped us before, but I've spoken with her on the phone, so we were sort of familiar. She came in all confident, claiming that 'the rocket' is her go-to catheter. Rocket in hand, she fished and fished and finally, when she was just about to give up and go get a doctor, it worked. Now lay still for 10 minutes, think happy thoughts, and stare up at the florescent light with flowers and blue sky painted over it. Turn head, look at partner, and say 'get your butt over here and kiss me at least, will ya?' I love her so much. 

My buddy Clomid and me

Oh my GOD. What is the deal with hormones? Why do we have them again (yes, I know why, but really)? I cannot wait for this to be over.

Today is day 4 of clomid. The first three days were worse than previous clomid cycles. I've been getting hot flashes, headaches, dizzy spells, vertigo, slightly blurred vision, a little nausea. Sounds pleasant, right?! How badly do I want that baby again?! Oh and to top it all off, I'm out of town buying for work.

It's a holiday, which means my nurse hasn't called me back. Her voicemail has a pager number to send a page to, but I don't know what that means...(hehe) so I think I'll google it. Pagers, that's so 20 years ago.

If you're out there, nurse, what I want to say to you is 'do I really have to take this for another day? I have to fly tomorrow.' Considering the vertigo that I had today, flying sounds horrendous and highly unpleasant as well for the poor sucker sitting next to me. After doing some of my own research, I discovered that all of these symptoms are common, but yet not. Only up to 10% of women have any or all of these symptoms.

Hold up, phone just rang and it was my fav nurse. She said I shouldn't take any more clomid and that vertigo/vision changes are not a good side effect....thank god. Also noteworthy, she said I should only do 3 clomid cycles before stopping, as I ovulate normally without clomid (apparantly there are risks after the 3-cycle point). No more clomid ever :-)

Another office visit is in our future I think.

Relax, bug eye, you're making me nuts.

Last night as I told my partner that I'd started my period earlier in the day, we got into our now once-monthly argument over what we can do to improve our chances of pregnancy. As mentioned earlier, patience is not a virtue that she holds dearly. She was insisting that I call the nurse (as I would anyway at this point to let her know that I'm in fact not pregnant) and list off a bunch of questions about what we're doing/not doing and to make sure that there's nothing else we should be doing. She also has this thing about meningitis. When I was nine I had a form of meningitis, and she's convinced it has raised my body temperature permanently, decreasing our chances of pregnancy (not the case, solid 98.6). We have asked the question before; she won't let it go.

I tell her that I can't go on like this. I refuse to ask these questions every, single month. I think that we both need to just stop with the crazy proactivity and let nature take it's course. The only valid question that we might have is to ask about the difference between clomid and letrozole once more and see if it could be a good option for me....clomid=crazy bitch, letrozole I'm sure=different list of similar side effects. But perhaps I will bring this up to the nurse today when I call.

'I feel so vulnerable. I am the third party,' she says. She is sort of out of the loop, I suppose. I make all the phone calls, send all the emails, talk to the nurses, order the sperm. 'If you want to be a part of the process, you actually need to do something. Why don't you make the phone call tomorrow, then you can ask your questions?' Same conversation we had last month. We decide that I will make the phone call since I can explain how I feel with the clomid better than she can. I promise to repeat verbatim my conversation with the nurse instead of abbreviating like I normally do. Same resolution as last month.

'This is really hard, really hard,' I say to her. 'But I don't want you to feel left out, your shouldn't. You are just as important in this process as I am.' It's taken probably 15 minutes to get to this point. We both calm down.

Finally, we pause. Sarcasm takes over. I tell her that I'm also going to ask the nurse for a prescription horse tranquilizer that she can take on days 27-30 of my cycle.

cleanse over and out

Well, I took the big tinkle test.....and it's a big fat negative. Bring on the soda, coffee, ibuprofen and booze.

It's amazing that I was disappointed at all; I've had cramps now for DAYS. What a nice, friendly reminder, right? Even though I expected the negative results, it was still hard to read 'not pregant' on the digital read-out. And I've decided that clomid makes me a raging, crazy bitch who is cranky and ready to kill those who cross me just about 24-7. I think it is also making my premenstrual symptoms worse. I don't normally have cramps for DAYS before my period starts for example. I've also been having headaches which is unusual for me. And now there will be a third month of clomid. Yay.

Today is only day 27 in my cycle and I took the tinkle test yesterday.....perhaps I shouldn't be so negative. I've still got maybe two or three days before an impending period.

There is another drug that I could try. Letrozole is another ovulation stimulator that has it's own set of side affects. Perhaps I'll chat with the new doc about this and see what the real difference could be.

In theory, I am ovulating just fine on my own and shouldn't need any drugs to get pregnant. In theory, theories stink.

yet another 2 week cleanse......

This two week wait thing is for the birds. It's been one week today since our last IUI and I am in that mid-wait mentality of total neutrality. Could be pregnant, might not be pregnant, remain neutral so I am not to get hurt either way.

I've been of course trying to act as though I am pregnant and have been eating and drinking like a champ. Fruits, nuts, vegetables, water, herbal tea; it feels more like a once-monthly two-week cleanse (since that's what it's been up until this point). Yesterday was our one day this week together and we went out to lunch following our super-lesbo trip to Lowe's (it is totally our guilty pleasure to go walk the aisles and get ideas about home improvement...). Our weekly lunch out is always full of delicious saturated fat and calories, but I somehow managed a tasty salad into the mix. And then we hit the RedBox and got a cheap, scratched, rental dvd....the final Harry Potter. I have a hard enough time understanding what they're saying let alone if the dvd is scratched.....never have really been a big Potter fan, but it was good to see the end of the saga.

One more week to go! Distractions, please apply within.