The $70.00 Smoothie

Well, it wasn't $70.00 for one smoothie, but that is how much I spent today on smoothie ingredients as recommended to me by my acupuncturist. She gave me a recipe, said I could find everything at Whole Foods, and so I went. So, what does $70.00 get you at Whole Paycheck?

(Did you know that you can buy fresh bee pollen? Freaky.)

I actually had a pretty tough, emotional day today. I don't enjoy crying in front of people, but today my body rebelled against me & let the tears flow while I was lying on the acupuncturist's table. And this was before I had 5 needles in my ear!

So, why was I crying? Well, stupid, effin AF came... which means round 1 of clomid + acupuncture did not work. I'm beginning to panic because I'm only giving myself 3 months with clomid, & I've just used up one of them.

Also, a friend on the Nest posted a picture from a gtg about 2 1/2 years ago. Pictured were 12 women. Of the 12, 8 have had babies since that gtg. 8! Of the 4 remaining, 2 are not at all interested in having kids (as far a I can tell), and the other two, well... one of them is typing a blog entry right now about her stupid infertility, the other one is having her own struggles.

I have never, ever, been the jealous type. I am not upset when I see new babies, hear about new BFPs (yay Ariel!!!!!) , or get invited to baby showers. Hell, I'll throw you a baby shower if you'll let me. (You really should - they are always a lot of fun...) My baby nephew, who lives in the building across from me, brings me more joy than anything I could imagine. Still, seeing those statistics played out so visually in front of me... 8 out of 10 with their babies... well, it reached down inside of me & made me ache. Plus, my dh was a jerk all day & only just made it up by taking me to see Forgetting Sarah Marshall (which was fantastic, btw). So, I'm doing ok, but I'm really, really hoping for better results this month. So, this month I will be clomid taking, herbal ingesting, & smoothie enjoying.

Oh, I also found a Clear Blue Easy Fertility Monitor on Craigslist today, so I will also need to add pee monitoring to my list of daily chores.

I'm also hoping my fish doesn't die. He's not looking too good.

I can't sleep.

My mind is just racing. I think its the cocoa I had not too long ago. Or the fact that according to FertilityFriend.com, I ovulated 8 days ago. Or did I? That is the million dollar question... and the one that has me freaking out. Here's the problem: every morning I note my waking (basal) temperature & then enter it into FF. Now, I've been fairly consistent this cycle, but I've missed a couple days, and sometimes I wake up at strange times & you're supposed to take your temp at the same time every day. I can tell already that I'm rambling.... Ok, so I haven't seen anything that looks really like ovulation on my chart, but I'm not an expert. At all. If you have the paid FF subscription, FF will take all your signs & temps & tell you if it thinks you've ovulated, or will ovulate. Up until today I've gotten nothing. Nada. So I did something that I don't know was wise. FF has different interpretation modules that you can choose. I've been on the The Advanced Detector, which is the default, but then I changed over to the Research Detector, which according to FF notes, can be "unstable." See the descriptions of the two here:

• Advanced Detector is our recommended detector and the default for all charts. We recommend that you keep your chart on this setting. This detector takes all your fertility signs into account. It uses the computing power of our servers to actually scan for patterns of ovulation on your charts based on the many patterns that we have encountered through our years of experience. Once it has determined your most likely ovulation day based on all your fertility signs, it then determines a coverline (the horizontal line across your chart) with a reasonable value to show you your biphasic (ovulation) pattern. Our advanced detector simultaneously takes into account all signs and data you enter to determine the best interpretation.
  
• The Research Detector is our cutting edge research detector. This detector includes all new patterns and improvements as we find them. With time and testing, we roll new findings into the advanced detector when appropriate. Since this detector is continuously under construction, it can be unstable. You should use it only if you wish to check for enhancements that are not yet rolled into the advanced detector.

When I switched to Research, it changed my chart from saying "possible ovulation date 4/10... no ovulation detected yet" to
showing an ovulation date. I just don't know!

So, for all intents & purposes I'm in the 2 week wait. I'm going to do my very best not to test until after cycle day 33. Knowing me I'll sneak one in sooner than that, but I won't be crushed if it's negative. Up until tonight I didn't think I had any chance at all. Maybe it's better that way. At least that way I can sleep. Right now all I can think about is if I'm pg this cycle, the baby's due date will be 1/1/09. I can't have a New Year's Baby, can I? That would be crazy! What will I do at work if I have morning sickness and am not ready to tell anyone? The poor bookkeeper shares a wall with the bathroom... she'd surely know what's going on... and so on & so on. At least when I didn't have any hope I let my mind rest. Now I'm all sorts of crazy.

Fingers crossed for me, ok????

Herbs now, too?

So this weekend I'm not feeling very optimistic. I had a good acupuncture session yesterday, but it wasn't very reassuring. I brought in my temperature chart from this cycle so far, and she was silent for a long time, and after talking to her it was obvious that she didn't see anything that looked like ovulation. She really wants me to start herbs, but I've been very resistant. I have a pretty cynical attitude; and a pretty good bullshit detector, if I do say so myself ;)... so when people start trying to upsell me on anything I tend to smile politely & say "no thank you." So, that's what I thought this was, an upsell. She asked me the reason that I didn't want to try the herbs & I listed 3 true points:
1. My stomach is sensitive and I have a hard enough time with pre-natals (I've resorted to taking Flintsones vitamins & folic acid supplements).

2. I'm taking other medications & I don't know what the reaction would be.

and

3. We're on a budget (so I can actually raise this baby as a SAHM if I ever get there), it's already a stretch to my pocketbook to spend as much as we are on weekly treatments; and I overheard her giving the grand total of one acupuncture treatment, plus herbs to a new client, and the total was nearly $300.00 - I'm already having a hard time convincing my dh that this is worthwhile, adding another $100.00+ into the mix a month would not go over that well....

So, I told her my concerns, and she had answers for everything. I can try pills or teas for the herbs, many of her patients are on the exact same medications as I am & have not had problems with the herbs, and she thinks its so important that she's willing to give them to me as part of my treatment fee, so in essence - free. Well, "free" is all I really need to hear, so next cycle I'll try the herbs.

Today is day 21 of a my cycle & my doctor wanted me to get my progesterone tested today to see if I ovulated. I already know (think?) the answer is no, so my mind is already on the next cycle. It's got to happen one of these days, right? Right?

That leads me to an odd conversation I had with Dh. I was telling him about being disappointed that nothing is happening fast, and I want us to be parents so bad.
~
Dh: Well, how long have we been trying?
Me: (holds up two fingers)
Dh: Right - two weeks.
Me: No! (holds up two fingers)
Dh: Ok, Two months. Two years?? No, that's not right. I mean really trying. We weren't timing anything, we weren't even having sex regularly. Now we're actually trying, and it's just been a few weeks.
~

Uh, Ok... but it is sort of nice to think that maybe we are just starting! I was lackadaisical about the whole thing because I just assumed it would be easy & happen when it happened. So I'm a little more empowered and it feels good.

That still didn't stop me from being in a major weird funk last night that was only broken by begrudgingly going swimming. That felt good & I'm looking forward to more of it now the weather has turned.

One last thing, I read all of your comments, and thank all of you! One of these days I'll respond to any questions that come up in them, but my time on the computer is sort of limited until I get my laptop & don't have to share with dh.

I'm not very original.

Apparently. Today I decided to do a minor ego-check & see what happens if I did a search on my blog on Google. I wasn't expecting to see anything, since I think I have it set to not be searchable (have to check that) and I've just started it , but I really wasn't expecting to see reference to a dead blog at my new address. But that is what I found. First it was just a link listed on another blog from a few years ago. That led me to go search the Way Back Machine for fertilitynow.blogspot.com, and that's when I found years' worth of old postings from a woman struggling with infertility. I've just started reading, and I'm just loving her voice. She & I had the exact same reasoning for calling our blogs "Fertility Now" - it's a Seinfeld reference - George's dad attempts to calm himself down by screaming "Serenity Now!" Eventually it backfires & creates an explosion of emotion. George's nemesis later tells him that he tried "Serenity Now", but it only led to him being put in a mental hospital. "Serenity now...insanity later." I was watching that episode & that's when I decided to start the blog. I've been keeping everything bottled up, only allowing people in a little bit, but it's burdening me. At least now I can write & explore, and feel safe.

So, back to the person who used to live at this virtual address. She's moved on, stopped using blogger, switched over to typepad, and eventually achieved "Fertility Now." (Well, she had her son, but it looks like she's still struggling with fertility.)

I sort of feel like an impostor now, using this name... Well, new people move in, right? I may not be the original owner of this spot in the blogosphere, but it's mine now & I'll be here for a while!

Blog roll being updated

Just a really quick post to say that I am working on updating my blog roll over there on the left side. I have about 60 to add to the list, & it's taking forever. Plus, I swear I already entered about 11 , but I must not have pressed save, since they're all gone except Angela's. Oh, well, I do love Angela's blog.

On the fertility front: Yesterday was my last day of taking Clomid for this cycle. Now lets "nature" take its course & see what happens! I must say, I don't think I had any major side-effects. I seemed a little bit snippy & high strung on Sunday, but I asked my husband if I was a monster & he replied, "Not at all - you're spunky - I like it!" I felt a tad queasy last night, but it passed quickly. So, yay! All in all very easy!