Fear of Dairy

We're .57 way through 006. How am I doing? Great! I'm keeping my calm and floating through life. The progesterone may be helping because it's making me so freakin' tired that I don't care about anything except taking naps.

I read in the NYT yesterday that consumption of milk injected with bovine growth hormone may be contributing to the increase in the rate of fraternal twins.

I'm never drinking milk again. I have a strict NO TWINS policy.

Me and 006 are off to work. Hopefully I can stay awake all day. Yahoo.

Crazy Dreams

I've been having the most wacked out dreams lately. And they're totally baby dreams. I'll give you the condensed versions.

Dream 1. M. and I are running around a mansion trying to find a place to sleep. We run all around the first floor but there's nowhere private, just cots in the hallway. Finally we notice there's an upstairs. The upstairs has signs pointing to different rooms but we still can't find one. Any room we do find already has someone in it. But it's this amazing, beautiful place full of old antiques and terraces and fountains. Even though we are still looking for our room, we're enjoying it so much more. Suddenly a panel opens and reveals the person who runs the mansion, a gay man. He does some magic tricks then opens another panel and we finally find our room. But it's not perfect, there's a stairway coming into it and I have to block it off to keep people from bothering us. We take it anyway.

Analysis. The room is our baby. The gay man who runs the mansion is DtD. We need him and his tricks to find our baby. The first floor of the mansion represents the beginning of our journey, and not getting pregnant right away, which was frustrating and horrible. The second floor represents the current part of our journey, which is still frustrating but more bearable since we've adjusted our expectations. When we finally get our room, aka baby, it's not exactly how we wanted it to be (no kidding) but we're so exhausted by the journey that we are happy no matter what.

Dream 2. I'm at some sort of chichi resort trying to find a place to sleep. There are some rooms but they are all too small. I find out that a friend of mine is there and he is living in this one room shack. Then he tells me that he and my parents are going to give me the shack (it's actually not a shack but some sort of ultra modern portable housing) and they're going to give me a giant cargo plan as well so I can take my shack anywhere I want to. I decided I'm going to put it by a beautiful lake as a getaway house.

Analysis. Same kind of stuff. The room is the baby, I need to find one, but this time when I get it, it's beyond anything I'd ever expected. It's perfect. The person who gives it to me is a man (not gay and I actually inserted a friend from work into the dream this time). I think my parents being in the dream shows that they support our efforts to start a family.

The Happenstance of Conception

I've come to realize that getting pregnant has everything to do with chance and not much to do with anything else.

Which is why I'm developing a pet peeve about people who assert that their pregnancy came from a specific event. M. and I did everything we could to MAKE ourselves get pregnant. We charted for a year. We researched. I mean LOTS of research. We finally got our first batch of sperm up there and .... nothing. Six months later...nothing. None of that made us get pregnant.

I could go on about the things people claim made them get pregnant. The acupuncture. The full moon. Clomid. HSG. Chinese herbs. That vacation in Mexico. Extra sleep. Standing on your head. Preseed. Getting drunk around ovulation. The lunar fertility chart. Winning your Tetris game (okay, that's my own personal one). Being straight and having the condom break (that's DtD's theory...I'd be pregnant if we were straight and the condom broke). Not wanting to be pregnant makes you pregnant. Being sixteen. Making an appointment with an RE. Deciding to move to adoption. Giving up. Bad timing. The math (inside joke). Green tea. Prayer. And so, so SO MUCH MORE. Feel free to add your own.

Here's the reality: none of that works. It's all some sort of crazy voodoo that TTC folks do to make us feel like we have some control when we have very little.

The only thing that works is happenstance. The chance meeting of egg and sperm followed by the magical event of implantation. And nothing we do can MAKE that happen.

So, for once, I would like someone to say "We got lucky." It's actually hurtful for someone who is Taking Some Time but has Nothing Apparently Wrong to hear other people's pregnancy attributed to anything more than luck. Because at this time that's all that M. and I have left.

Sticking With Us

M. and I have decided we need to start a support group for people who are Taking Some Time to get pregnant but have NOTHING apparently wrong. Because in a way it sucks to have nothing wrong. It means you have to keep doing what you're doing...nothing really can be tweaked that much.

Part of Taking Some Time to get pregnant is looking to the future. When you start trying to get pregnant you think it will just happen. When it doesn't you start adjusting your expectations. We're starting to accept that Project Baby may take a year...maybe more. Throw a known donor into the mix and things get complicated. We don't have the luxury of time.

Which leads to the inevitable TALK. We had to have THE TALK with DtD tonight. Would he be willing to go past our agreed upon minimum twelve cycles? I admit that I was nervous about his answer. Because using a known donor is important to me and if we don't get preggers within our twelve we'd be moving onto frozen.

He said he'd go past twelve.

Getting DtD's answer was paramount for us to make the decision to move to IUI next cycle. I think we're going to do it. Because it could help some of our sperm issues and hell, we have a spare $300 to give to the fertility clinic, ha. Next step, get our intake appointment and find out exactly how we're going to convince the clinic that DtD is my boooooyfriend and not my stud, and how many questions they'll have about my 'roommate' who comes to all my appointments.

Oh, and try to figure out a subtle way to convince the clinic they need to add some gay porn to their collection.

Beach Pics

Well, we had fun at the beach. We got to meet Trista and Kristen as well as Julia, the cutest baby in the whole wide world. We walked every day, on the beach, in the rain, ate saltwater taffy and browsed cute little shops. I haven't been to the beach in a long time and it was wonderful.

We Met Steve!

We couldn't take him back to the Emerald City because he's heading to Germany and Australia. Steve's going international.

Click to see our pics!

Number Six

I've officially ovulated and we're into TWW #6.

M. and I are tired. Project Baby has sucked the life out of us. So #6 shall henceforth be known as #6. No name. No hopes. Just another chance to hit our heads against the brick wall.

Welcome #6. At least you'll have a cool spy-name. 006!

Off on Vacation

See ya in a few!

Abusing the Holocaust

Yes, this post has nothing to do with TTC...and yes, I'm about to rant....

It seems that everyone (I mean this somewhat loosely) is racing to find a way to twist the holocaust to their advantage these days. The word itself has been used in so many contexts that it's become almost meaningless (Ein Tisch ist Ein Tisch after all? A little nod to anyone who went through a lit crit class...god, I miss English sometimes.)

I was watching NOW on PBS. They were examining the efforts of the religious right (RR) to gain a hold in Ohio through the gov race. As part of the show they interviewed a RR leader, pastor Russell Johnson, who said the following:

You know, in Germany, many of the churches were positioned next to railroad tracks. And as Sunday mornings, the trains were making their way towards Auschwitz, the Jewish families would cry out to the churches for help. It became so disruptive that the German churches, many of them decided they would start singing during the rail times.

And if the people cried louder, they sang their songs louder. It's not enough for people in the pews to sing louder songs while a culture is going on a direction away from God.

AHEM????

If it's not enough to sing louder songs to ignore the Jews, what do you do...clap your hands as well? This man is only using the horror of the Holocaust to further his political agenda, an agenda that would lead to oppression and discrimination, an agenda that relies on the creation of the other. It is the creation of the other, of a sub-class that leads to dehumanization of a group in society. It is dehumanization that leads to genocide.

I can't even wrap my mind around how this man is managing to make the murder of the Jewish people into an event that represents our society not allowing specific sects of Christianity to dominate all other religious points of view. What he is supporting is much closer to Hitler's fascism then it is to the experience of Jewish families crying out for help.

Everyone wants a piece of the Holocaust these days. It's become a social commodity, currency to prove oppression. If you can make your cause as severe as systematic mass murder, you've hit the jackpot of political collateral.

/end rant...discuss if you want to

I HEART Veronica Mars

Veronica Mars gets a third season!!!! Did you hear that, VERONICA MARS GETS A THIRD SEASON??? Veronica. Mars. Gets. A. Third. Season.

Don't watch it? Get the DVD and check out seasons one and two. It's an amazingly clever show. I am beside myself that we get a S3 now.

S3, S3, S3!

Poor M. must endure another year of my Veronica Mars obsession. If it means anything, they've also brought 7th Heaven back from the dead (how appropriate).

OBGYN Part II

We've just returned from the appointment with OBGYN II. It was 100% better than the ass hole doc we saw before.

What did we get out of the appt.? Well, except for my short luteal phase, I'm 100% normal. Hormones are all in line, everything looks good. I'm going to go back on the progesterone for this next cycle.

And...

I think we're going to move to IUI after our next insem.

Why IUI? I have always said we'd reevaluate our tactics after our sixth insemination. And the only outstanding problems, aside from my easily correctible luteal phase, come from DtD's sperm. It's not that we couldn't get pregnant doing home insems...if we had all the time in the world. We don't and we need to make the best of it. IUI will address some of the issues with his semen analysis.

How do I feel? Aside from being sick as a dog with stomach flu, I feel okay. This isn't what I wanted but it's a logical step. Ultimately, we want a baby and have to be willing to do whatever it takes (short of kidnapping!)

Hugs and kisses to all. I'm going to take another nap.

Being a Queer Nurse

Most days I'm a nurse. Some days I get to be a queer nurse as well, and my last few days at work have been those types of days.

In WA state you can create a medical durable power of attorney (DPOA) by simply filling out the paperwork. No witness or notary is needed. The wonderful thing about this is that it gives me, the nurse standing at your bedside making smart ass comments as she hands you your pain meds, the ability to address the issue of who has decision making powers.

My patient this week was a very nice man with a new HIV+ diagnosis. He was also quite sick, sick enough that you can stand in the doorway and know that this kid is not well. His equally nice boyfriend was at his bedside, very concerned about the situation. I knew that it was most likely he would make it through this hospitalization okay, but there are no guarantees. I've seen too many HIV+ men in the ICU with PCP pneumonia, on a vent, being flogged to keep them going.

So I talked DPOA with my patient and his bf. I was a queer nurse.

Would a straight nurse have done the same? Maybe. They have the same resources I do. But do they have the same concerns or the same understanding of the situation? For me, it was just as important to give those boys the option of signing DPOA paperwork as it was to make sure my client was comfortable and safe.

I hope some day issues around queer health care will be understood at a broader level and not left to the occassional queer practitioner.

When Mothers SUCK.

Last night I had to peel my poor M. off the floor and tell her that NO mother should make it their child's job to make THEM feel lovable. I love my MIL but she can be difficult and needy, and when she's in THAT mood she tends to hurt the people around her. M. is nothing but a good daughter and it makes me SO mad that she would ever feel differently.

M. has told me that I am not allowed to kick her mother's ass.

(Not a Mother)'s Day

Wow, I really didn't anticipate it in advance, but this Mother's Day has been really hard for me to get through, which of course makes me question my emotional stablity. Reality check: we've only had five failed cycles. That's nothing, right? Why can't I just focus on my own mom and my MIL instead of the fact that I'm not a mom yet or on my way to motherhood?

I've been home alone most of the day as Sacha's been at work. When I called my mom she gave me a major guilt trip for not coming down and spending the day with her, which made me feel like crap. I feel like a bad daughter now. Also, we talked about my sister, who doesn't support us in our journey to motherhood, and dredging those thoughts up hurt too.

But the truth is (besides the fact that I had a lot I HAD to get done today) that I just couldn't imagine spending the whole day with her and having to hide my sadness. I couldn't imagine going out to brunch with her and the hundreds of other mother's and having the flowers and corsages waved in my face. How pathetic is that? My mom knows we're ttc, but since I told her we were starting, we haven't talked about it. So, she has no idea of the pain we're going through. I don't know why it's hard for me to share that part with her, but it is. I guess I feel like she would just tell me something like "it will happen on God's time", etc., which I just can't hear right now. Of course she would be right, but I'm tired of people telling me to relax and that it will just happen when we least expect it. I mean, when would that be? When we forgot to put any sperm in? I expect it to happen each cycle, like a dummy.

Only, now I'm getting smart and starting to expect it not to happen, which just makes me sad. Although the "sin of hope" as Sacha calls it, is indeed horrible each time it's smashed, it's absense is even worse I think.

We have an appointment with a new OB/GYN on Tuesday and I sure hope that she'll be a good support and offer some good advice. I can't deal with another loser Dr. I'm still reeling from the last one. We're also awaiting CD3 test results and hoping that everything looks good there. So, hopefully this week will improve with time.

Anyone else having a tough time today or is it just me?

DtD meets the (friend) family...

It's a DtD post...I guess my bday party was also a chance for our friends to meet and approve of DtD.

Jessica has given her nod to our boy, telling me that she really likes him and she thinks we have similar personalities...hmmmm...I guess we're both bitchy queens (he, I already knew that).

Then Awesome Ex-neighbor A. tells me that she really likes him too.

They like him...they really like him...today I feel like we got the prize in the cracker jack box.

In the meantime I had to tell DtD that we failed...again. What does he say? It's NOT failure, it's more opportunities for him to hone his masturbation technique.

He's a GOOD BOY!

The Birthday is Done!

I'm officially 35.

We had a great little party at the house with just a few of our closest friends, probably about seven people. It was a dessert potluck (Jessica's idea) and was really FUN! We had party hats!

I'd decided to invite DtD and BF even though the thought of mixing them with my other friends was sending us into the occasional panic. Especially since most of them know who he is, and if they don't, they know we're using a KD and he was our only guy friend there. It all worked out.

My mom gave me Deborah Madison's new Vegetable Soups cookbook.

M. gave me the Martha Stewart baker and SOCKS!!!! I love socks :) And she coordinated our little party like a champ so I could relax and talk and enjoy my bday. Best. Wife. Ever.

We test tomorrow. Yes kids, I've made it to day 11. I have this strange light spotting, kind of creamy brown, but it's not increasing. I'm starting to feel that little devil, Hope, creep into my heart. Maybe Lopez will stick around for my bday.

In the meantime, our house is clean, our bed is freshly made and I'm feeling very content.

ETA: Well, we tested and M. and I are debating whether or not we see something. In the meantime, looks like my period has reared its ugly head. GRRRRR.... That answers the question of whether or not we saw a line. Looks like we're onto cycle six.

It takes pains to be beautiful...

M. was cleaning the bathroom cabinet out and found an old brick of henna from Lush so M. and I decided to henna my massive head of hair tonight. It's worth sharing the picture.

This picture is supposed to be revenge for a pic I took of M. maybe six years ago of her wearing a French green clay mask. The green-face picture still can't be beat.

A few more hours of cling wrap and...tada...my hair will probably not look much different. At least it kills time.

We continue to have the most sane TWW yet. I've decided not to temp and M. has dutifully respected my decision. It makes everything so much better to not have the POTENTIAL PREGNANCY staring me in the face every morning at 0500. It's also letting me get some better sleep.

My acupuncturist says we're making progress...slow progress, but progress. That's good news since I've been working hard to take what she recommends to heart.

AND...my birthday is Monday. Which means it really starts today. I love my birthday...it's a Taurus thing. Yay 35!!

Pic

I have to run back to the store to buy a nutmeg grater (b'cause everyone needs a nutmeg grater) and some dark brown sugar. BUT, in the meantime, here's my latest favorite pic. M. took this. I fucked with it in photoshop.

Getting some Perspective

I have something to say outside TTC, but I want to talk about one thing before I move onto that.

After the last cycle I felt like there was a black ball of anger sitting inside me. I lost all perspective on what we were doing. I no longer felt that the time it was taking us to get pregnant was okay and I was bitter and pissed and fucking angry that we hadn't gotten pregnant that first time.

Then I had my review.

I've never had a good review. I've learned that the world doesn't make room for sensitive people, that there are a lot of people in this world who are intent on tearing you down for no reason except to keep their own self perceptions up. I've learned to incorporate negative feedback, to take it seriously, to thrive on it and make it into positive changes. I've also learned to take a box of tissue into reviews because I know I'll cry. It's that bad.

I forgot my box of tissue for my review. I didn't need it.

They love me. They are so happy I came to work on my floor. My review score is 3.5/4.0, high for a new grad. I was dumbfounded. And proud. For the first time I worked hard and it was recognized and rewarded. Man, I kicked ASS.

I have perspective again. I could never have made it through being a new grad nurse if I'd gotten pregnant right away. Getting through those first six months really took everything I had in me and I know that my job would have been the first thing to be sacrificed if I was using everything for a baby. Everything happens for a reason and I clearly needed time, so my body and my life gave me some much needed time.

How I love my job! I've never loved a job as much as I love this one, even with all its negatives. And that tells me that I'm exactly where I need to be. Getting pregnant will be the same.

Oh, the Drama

Here's our house. The huge plant on the stairs is a Montana Clematis that smells like vanilla. We're going to cut it off the stairs so this is its last bloom. You are not allowed to stalk us!

But back to the drama.

We did our last insem on Thursday. Thursday is the same day that I started cramping and bleeding. I spotted for four days. It looks like I've finally stopped, but CRAP, how nervewracking. I was pretty freaked out Saturday when I finally figured out that the strange discharge I'd been having was actually spotting.

On top of the spotting, the visit to the MD on Friday was NOT a good experience. So bad that I don't even want to go into details. Luckily it was followed by acupuncture which gave me some time to decompress. Poor M. didn't get that and we had a tough couple days working through some of the issues the doctor brought up.

We're back to our original plan. Get through the cycle, no progesterone, test and go to our family practice doc when we get a positive HPT. I'm working through ways to be less anxious about this whole process. I'm starting to feel that the level of anxiety we have around conception is probably impeding it.

Love to all.

PS. and somewhere in this whole mess, babycakes had it's 20,000 visitor. I don't know who you are, but thank you for reading, and thanks to everyone for coming along with us on this crazy ride.