Ocean Dreamer

Just a quick update to let y’all know things are going well. My IVF has been great so far – no problems whatsoever. I did have to up my meds early on but that was the only small hickup. I was so worried about how it would go, how I would feel, etc., but it has been fine so far.

They retrieved 17 eggs, of which 12 were mature and were ICSI’d. Of those 12, 9 fertilized (it’s normal for some to drop off at each stage). When they checked them on saturday, which was day 3, all 9 were still going strong! 5 are doing great and the other 4 are not far behind.

I go in tomorrow for my transfer. I’ve decided to transfer 2 unless they suddenly tell me my chance of getting pregnant with one is 85% or something (this happened to a friend who used donor eggs that made gorgeous embies.)

I have learned a few things about the shots that I thought I’d pass along:

- the follistim was no problem for me. I could hardly even feel the needle go in. The menopur stings like a bitch though and I found a few things that really helped me. I mixed it up first then let it sit on the counter while I did the follistim. That seemed to allow more time for the menopur to more completely disolve. I also pushed the syringe down slowly and practiced deep breathing while injecting it.

- I have been giving myself the progesterone in oil (PIO) shots each morning (except the first one, which my mom did.) I purchased a small mirrror – the kind used to put on makeup – which stands on it’s own and which I can angle so I can see the right spot to do the injection. The needle hurts going in but the actual shot doesn’t hurt. I use a heating pad before and after doing the shot and also massage the area for a full minute immediately after the shot. This all helps with muscle soreness. On the first day, I only massaged it for 10 seconds or so and I could definitely tell the difference when I massaged it for a whole minute.

- I give myself rewards. There is a new gluten free ice cream sandwich that I ate after my evening shots each night. Yum. By the time I finished the sandwich, The sting from the menopur was gone. The PIO is in the morning and I’m not up for ice cream then but a her.sheys kiss works just as well.

Things have been busy for the past few days, sorry for the lack of posts and comments on your blogs.  Briefly, here’s what I’ve been up to:

• A *ton* of teaching jobs were recently posted for next year and I have been applying like crazy.  It is a long process and I have to apply for all of them within a week, so that is where most of my time has gone.
• I have now done four lupron injections.  And, as an update on an earlier post, it is going quite fine.  Fear of needles (at least the teeny, tiny lupron ones) is gone.  Actually, I kind of oddly look forward to the injections each morning – both for the structure they provide (did I mention I love structure?) as well as the sense that I am doing something proactive that will help get me closer to a baby.
• My pup Cassie has a ton of allergies and will need to start allergy shots.  I am a bit sad for her, but mostly relieved that her allergies will require shots – they have been really bad and if the test results said they weren’t bad enough to require shots, I wasn’t sure where we would go next.  My other pup, Zoe, gets allergy shots and after about a year is doing fantastic with them.  She is almost off her allergy meds.
• Only four more BCPs left.  I will not miss them.
• My suppression check is scheduled for next Thursday, the 27th.
• I got offered a job teaching summer school (kindergarten) this year!  Sooo excited.
• Plus, I will be an Area Leader at my favorite queer camp for one of its lovely weeks this summer.  Again, sooo excited.
• Lupron keeps your pituitary from producing hormones and its been nice and relaxing not to have *any* mood swings (though also odd not to have any strong emotions at all.)
• My stepbrother announced his engagement to his (conservative Christian but very sweet) fiance and their wedding *this August.*  This caused a lot of family drama (because of the quick turn-around, need for people to adjust schedules when doing so wasn’t always possible, etc.)  It seems to all be worked out now.
• For my last three BFNs from IUIs (Jan, Feb, and March), I bought myself something as a bit of a consolation prize.  The last one, kin.der eggs (which I fell in love with when living in Germany) finally arrived, imported from Canada, after a much too long wait (due to poor customer service, etc., that eventually caused me to cancel my order and place a new one with a different company.)  But they. are. here.  Only they don’t taste as good as the German ones, so my little sis, who is in Deutschland right this minute, is sending me some good German ones.

Thanks so much for all your kind comments about my post on “deserving” a baby.  They are much appreciated and it is so wonderful to have people out there who understand.  I’m in a bit of a better place right now (helped, no doubt, by the lupron-induced lack of strong emotions.)

In my dreams, that is.  As an adult, I have always been someone who couldn’t remember her dreams.  At least, until I started taking the lovely birth control pills.  Now, I have very vivid dreams.  Apparently, BCPs are known (at least anecdotally) to cause vivid dreams and nightmares (I did find a link specifically about the nightmares, but now can’t find it, sorry.)  And oh it has been just so much fun.

So, yes, the other night I dreamt that I killed my grandma – not intentionally of course – but still it was awful.  I woke up miserable and curled up with my ever-so-loving-and-sweet pups.  I’ve also dreamt, for example, that the house caught on fire – though this was less a nightmare than a stress dream because my big reaction to it was, “oh, God, now I have to get that fixed.”

There have been some pleasant ones, too, of course – and in general I’ve really enjoyed remembering my dreams in a way I hadn’t been able to do since I was a child.

The other day I found out that an ex-friend of mine was pregnant.  And it made me miserable.  This woman and her partner decided not to be friends with me because I wanted them to replace something expensive of mine that they had lost.  (Literally, this was enough for them to end the friendship.  I know there are multiple sides to every story and usually I have little problem seeing the other person’s POV – unless its based in oppression – even when in the midst of an argument.  This one I still can’t understand and likely never will.)

Usually I am genuinely happy for people when they get pregnant, but not this time.  As much as I know intellectually that when and if you get pregnant has nothing to do with how much you *deserve* to be pregnant, I can’t help but feel that this is a betrayal by whatever higher power may exist out there.  I do wish that couple well and I know they have been through some very tough times that would make them “deserving” in their own right.  At the same time, though, there is a part of me that feels that anyone who can decide to end a long and close friendship over $50 is surely less deserving of a baby than me.

I am at this impasse – guilt on the one hand for feeling that I am more deserving than them (since, as I said, they have had some real royal shit happen in their lives) and at the same time this anger and sense of betrayal that they were “chosen” to be parents before me.  I guess that’s what it’s about, really.  I know intellectually that people aren’t chosen to be parents based on their good qualities (at least as long as you’re not adopting – and in some cases not then either), yet there is still an emotional, non-logical part of me that feels that, well, why the hell haven’t I had a kid by now?

I have cared for kids since I was 10 years old, when I started caring for my little sister.  My background is in social work and now I’m a teacher.  I’ve also been a youth worker, a camp counselor, a nanny, a daycare worker, and a manager of a daycare.  So I have *tons* of experience with children of all ages.  I have two very well-cared-for pooches and a perhaps slightly less well-cared-for-but-still-very-much-loved chinchilla, so I am responsible and committed to those who depend on me.  I co-run a friggin’ group for queer folks who want to be parents – and have been running it for over three years (I am now with my third co-coordinator, the last two having gotten pregnant), so I know more about the ins and outs of queers starting families than I ever thought I would.  I don’t blame you if you want to stop reading the pity-party this has turned into, but, well, I’m pissed.

I’m just so tired of the unfairness of it all.  I just want a baby.

they arrived on Friday!

Everything but the follistim (which must be refrigerated) takes up a full shelf in my medicine cabinet.  I start the lupron on Sunday.  Also, my insurance covered some of the meds!  That was a *huge* relief.

And happy 100th post to me!  Since I just wrote a huge reflection on blog birthday, I’ll refrain from doing that here.

She spent the day at the vet after being sick yesterday evening and night.  They had to give her subcutaneous fluids that make her look like a camel (even moreso than you can tell in these pictures.)  Poor baby.

In her favorite spot, surveying the backyard on Sunday.

I have never had a fear of needles.  Getting allergy shots as a kid took care of that pretty quick.  Plus, I give my sweet dog Zoe allergy shots now.  As a (former) EMT, I also had to learn to give epipen injections.  So I’ve not only received shots, but also administered them.

Now that my IVF cycle is looming, however, I have developed a sudden, intense aversion to needles.  Even acupuncture needles (although I’ve had regular acupuncture treatments for years without problems.  For the uninitiated, acupuncture needles are *tiny,* about the size of a cat whisker.)  Every time I have blood drawn or an acupuncture needle punctures my skin, I tense up tremendously.  This, as you may imagine, does wonders for the comfort I feel as the needles actually enter my skin.

It is like my body knows the IVF drugs are coming and already has an aversion to them and, by extension, the needles that bring them.

I am really at a loss for how to get past this because I’ve never dealt with anything like it before.  Thoughts?  Anyone else experience something similar?

Hey all.  I made a few updates to the site that I hope y’all will like:

• I took off the comment moderation and added SI Captcha instead so comments will appear immediately.
• I moved my blogroll to a separate page, because it was clogging up the sidebar.  I think it looks much cleaner now.  I *tried* to do that cool thing a bunch of y’all have where it shows the most recent post at each blog, but its not cooperating with me.  Advice?
• I got rid of the categories display and went with just tags.
• I added a bunch of blogs to the blogroll, which hadn’t been updated in about a year.  If you’d like to be included and aren’t yet, email me at oceandreamerblog AT gmail.com and I’ll be happy to add you.
• I added “popular posts” and “recent comments” links in the sidebar.

Oh, birth control pills, never in my life did I think I would take you … yet I’ve now been on you for a week.  Even before I came out as a lesbian, I was not exactly promiscuous – I had one boyfriend, in eighth grade, and that was it.  So I never dreamed, even then, that I would take birth control pills.  Yet here I am.  Life is funny sometimes.