Yes, I’m still here. It’s been a busy month with school. Sorry for the lack of updates.

I’m heading in to the doctor in a couple of hours for my next insem. I’m crossing my fingers that it’s the right time. I got a very odd reading on my OPK last night – it looked like it was reading peak, but the lines (both of them – the control and the test) only appeared in half of the window. Bizarre. Anyone else had that? This morning my fertility monitor still read high, not peak, but I’m going for it anyway. It feels like now is the right time, the other signs line up, and it’s friggin’ cd 18. So maybe I’ll be too early, but maybe I’ll miss it if I wait too much longer. Oh, and I think they got rid of the scheduler I don’t like at my doc’s office. Or, at least, she wasn’t the one answering the phone. Everyone else in that office is so sweet and wonderful, but she is always pissy and unwilling to be at all flexible. (As in, last time, I asked if I could drop off my spermies in the morning so they could be thawed for my afternoon appointment, as opposed to bringing them in 30 minutes before, and she refused. Then the nurse called me back and said that it was no problem.) I was so dreading having to speak with her to make my appointment, and so relieved not to have to talk to her.

In other news, I’m on break this week, which is giving me a bit of time to take care of some much-needed non-school/non-baby stuff. Ah, nice. Plus, I finally have time to see my friends a bit more. Yesterday I had a lovely lunch with one friend and then a lovely walk around Green Lake with another.

I’m still catching up on everyone’s blogs.

I’ll post later about the insem.

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Also, sorry for not posting sooner!  Things have been crazy busy with school; this quarter is supposed to be our busiest of the year.

And now for the real purpose of this post – I had my first IUI today!  So cross your fingers for me.  After the craziness of my cycles in November and December, when my cycles lasted 24 and 42 days respectively, I decided to take a cycle off.  Then, this cycle I started TTC again.  My acupuncturist has been focusing on improving my fertility and so my last cycle was 29 days and this one looks like it will be regular, too.

When I met with the nurse practitioner at my obgyn in December, she suggested switching from ICI at home to IUI in their office, so that’s what I did.  I was nervous going in today because I’d heard that it was painful.  It was a bit painful for me because she had to use a clamp, but it wasn’t that bad – at least, the pain didn’t last that long.  I’m having a bit of cramping right now, nothing too bad.  I’m also enjoying yummy celebratory gluten free pizza from my local allergen-friendly Italian restaurant.  And now, the waiting begins….

Also, a question for y’all.  So, I was doing OPKs 2-3 times a day, which meant that yesterday I did one while I was at school.  The problem, however, was that I couldn’t wait in the bathroom for ~3 minutes while the OPK calculated its results.  Thankfully it was actually pretty quick – thank god for the definitive positive – so I had my result before I left the bathroom.  However, what if it hadn’t been so quick?  Have y’all had this problem?  I don’t exactly want to carry the pee stick around with me waiting for the 3 minutes to be up, but I’m not sure what else to do if I don’t get a quick result.  Thoughts?

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Now, my luteal phase has always been a little funky because my temp doesn’t rise right after I ovulate.  I asked a midwife about it awhile ago and she said it wasn’t a problem as long as my luteal phase was still 12+ days long.  Which it has been … until now.

So I called my doctor’s office today to make an appointment to have someone look at my charts and give me some advice.  I now have an appointment with the nurse practitioner in December.  The receptionist also wanted me to talk to their triage nurse, in case the problem could be solved without an appointment.  So I spoke to her briefly and, without looking at my charts (since we were talking over the phone), she just said, “it sounds like you could be a candidate for clomid.”  I was shocked.  I was expecting something a bit more, well, gentle.  I’ve heard so many horror stories about clomid – I’d really rather avoid it if at all possible.  And the prospect of having twins as a single mom – well, I’ve always wanted twins, but I’m not sure about doing it as a single parent.  As for the nurse, if this is what she does all day, then surely she has realized that it’s not exactly a statement patients take lightly – let alone take lightly *without having had an exam or anything more than a literally >2 minute conversation!*  I was expecting her to say, “oh, maybe you should be on progesterone” or something – you know, because the problem is mainly with my luteal phase.  But, no, that’s not what she said.

Could this be caused by the chemical pregnancy?  I mean, I’ve never had weird cycles before and then I suddenly start having them right after it.  I know women who have a miscarriage can have weird cycles for awhile afterwards, so maybe this is the same???  Please?  If any of y’all have advice, I would really, really love to hear it.  Thanks in advance.

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The timing was *tricky* this time around.  For the past few months, when I wasn’t trying, my cycle was pretty long.  Last month it was 34 days.  So this month, when I called to order my spermies, I figured having them delivered on cd 15 would be fine.  The challenge is that the vials can only be delivered Tuesday – Saturday.  So that meant having them delivered on cd 12 (Saturday) – and paying exorbitant extra fees for a Saturday delivery and possibly having to get the tank refilled if I didn’t ovulate until cd 18 – or having them delivered on cd 15 (Tuesday.)  I went with cd 15.  Well, here is where things get challenging.

Monday afternoon (cd 14), I decide I should start using my OPKs in the evenings (I use a fertility monitor every morning).  To my *immense* surprise, the OPK read positive that afternoon.  That is when my mildly OCD self begins to mildly *freak* *out.*  The tank was supposed to arrive on Tuesday, but it would probably come while I was at school, I thought.  Which would mean that I’d have to wait to get it until 6pm on Tuesday, which would be a full 24 hours after the positive OPK.  Not. good.

I was hoping the Fedex guy would show up before I left for school yesterday, but that didn’t happen.  So I left a very sweet note for him (I know it’s a him, it’s always the same guy), asking if he could possibly return to deliver it after I was home from school and that I would be forever grateful.  I also offered to meet him wherever he was at that time.  Well, sweet Fedex guy just happened to have a pickup Tuesday afternoon in my neighborhood and returned to deliver my spermies to me!  I was *soo* relieved.

I had an appointment Tuesday afternoon as well, though.  I went ahead and did an insem before the appointment, even though I couldn’t lay in bed for the two hours they recommend.  It was better than nothing!  I then did the second insem yesterday evening, while watching all the exciting (and woefully disappointing, in the case of prop 8, etc.) election coverage.  So I wasn’t out celebrating Obama’s victory with the rest of Seattle, but if I get preggers this time, my kid may well end up with the middle name Barack.

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Then, I decided, sort of on a fluke, to go ahead and use an OPK this evening, just in case. And guess what? It says I’m surging. WTF? What about the BBT rise? I don’t get it.

It’s an odd test result this time, too. The test I use has a control line (the one on the right in the pic) and a test line (on the left). When the test and control lines are equally dark, you’re surging. So, okay, simple enough. Here’s what’s odd, though. My test line is just as dark as it’s been the whole month, but the control line is lighter. So, by default, they’re equally dark. WTF? I don’t get it.

Has this happened to other people? Am I just overthinking this entire process (entirely possible).

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Friday the gynecologist called me and said I should have ovulated by then – which sent me into a bit of a panic mode.  According to the fertility monitor and the OPKs, my LH hadn’t even surged yet.  And, just to make things *more* confusing, going by all previous cycles, it should have surged on Wednesday or Thursday morning.  I was so confused that I brought my pee stick to dinner with some friends on Friday night to get their opinions.  They were a bit disturbed I think, but what’s a single dyke to do when she needs to confer about baby-making?

Ultimately I decided to go ahead and inseminate Friday night – in the hopes that my fertility monitor would say I’d surged sometime in the night.  According to The New Essential Guide to Pregnancy, Conception, and Birth, you should inseminate the first time *before* your LH surges, and then inseminate again within 6 hours of a positive test result (if you’re using a fertility monitor – the situation is different if you’re only using OPKs.)  And, I did have a positive reading Saturday morning – which means I did exactly what the book says!  I did insem #2 Saturday mid-day, about 6 hours after my positive LH reading.

It’s tricky, this baby-making.  There are so many variables, and it’s so easy to think, oh, well, if I had just done X, then I would have gotten pregnant.  Of course that’s not necessarily true, but that fact doesn’t make it easier to avoid those thoughts.  I am, however, determined not to overthink this process, and I’m working hard to stick to that commitment.

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For the uninitiated, the sperm comes in a small vile stored in a large tank of liquid nitrogen. Here’s a photo, so you can see how tiny the vile is:

I did my first (of two) inseminations yesterday morning. I followed the sperm bank’s preparation instructions with no problems. Also per their instructions, after doing the actual insemination, I lay in bed, rolling over every 20 minutes, for 2 hours. It was a very boring 2 hours. I watched TV. I read my book. I drank water (but not too much – because you can’t get up to pee.) And since I’m oh, just a little anal, I set my cell phone alarm to go off exactly every 20 minutes, and each time it did, I rolled to a different position. (Hey, if I don’t get pregnant this cycle, I don’t want to believe it was because I didn’t follow their instructions *to the letter.*)

I had shut the pooches outside the bedroom while I was doing this, so they wouldn’t come bursting in and jump on me. Once I had (I thought) put the syringe and everything else away, I let them in and went on my merry way (which for me consisted of several hours of studying). Then, that afternoon, I noticed Miss Cass seemed to have acquired a new toy. She was thrilled with it – she could chew the hard plastic, it had a very interesting smell, and her Mama seemed extremely interested in it. What exactly was this great new toy Cass had found, you ask?

The sperm vile. Gross, I know. Well, I learned my lesson: I will always make sure I throw the viles out immediately after using them. At least she got to it after I’d already taken the swimmers out. Or it would have become a *very* expensive dog toy.

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