A new IF ME record

CD33.
Yes, that is right - CD33.  A new record.  Longest cycle ever.  Previous record was 32 days.  This is not a record I'm jazzed about, these long cycles can be so... you know, hopeful.

I haven't been up to too much.  My boobies did start to hurt, they still hurt.  I tested periodically - BFNs.  I probably would have tested again today for fun, but I forgot.  Maybe later in the evening?  How much does timing really matter?  I want to go for a massage, but have to wait until the boobies stop hurting!  Poot.

My skin calmed down a bit (thankfully!), it is now in repair mode.

Yesterday I as at a church council 'retreat' at someone's house (have I mentioned I'm on church council?), and their wife made this scrumptious looking veg lasagna - yes, that's right, I ate it.  And washed it down with a glass of wine.  I took a lactaid beforehand - it seems to have been alright, actually.

I am making up for it by having a huge (lightly cooked) kale salad with a hard boiled egg for breakfast.  (with ginger and turmeric and olives).  Yum!

So right before dinner I was in the kitchen helping the councilman's wife out a bit, and she also happens to be one of the midwives in my choir (yes, that's right, my ALTO section has two midwives!  If I could just get pg I'd be set!), and she asked how things were going.  A year ago she asked how I knew Tishi (she was Tishi's backup midwife), and I said Tishi ran an infertility group I go to - of course as I said that and teared up.

So again I teared up, but apologized.  Because I am much more ok than I was last year.  I told her I had been away from the choir for a few weeks because I had surgery, I had endo, we're doing a third IUI next cycle.  I felt SO much better after telling her.  It was nice.  And she was so understanding.  My plan was always to be more open about IF with my church family, but it is hard to do.

And on tastier subjects:

I have been LOVING my morning Kombucha Tea!  The only problem is a lack of supply.  With only a few pitchers, we can drink it faster than we can brew it.  DH agreed (somewhat surprisingly - I think he digs the KT more than he lets on) that we could continuous brew.  AKA, a huge container with a spout.

A huge kerfluffle with my continuous brewing plans for Kombucha this morning!  We bought a 10.3L glass jar with a spout (you know, for parties you want to serve a lot of iced tea or lemonade or punch!).  I made up 10L of hot sweet tea last night.  I come down this morning - about 2L had leaked out all over my counter/floor!  Ai ya!  Good thing it was too hot to add the SCOBY last night!

I sort of rescued the tea into some pitchers and a giant bowl, but I don't have room for it all.  And I then had to use all my SCOBYs that had been hanging out in my SCOBY hotel (except one I left in reserve - but I had to rip it).  So now we have a HUGE bowl and several pitchers of KT brewing all over the kitchen again - just what DH wanted to avoid.  :(

Well.... BFN

CD29

I couldn't wait, I tested today.  By now there should be a line if there was a line on the way, right?  No line.  AF is coming.  Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day.  We shall see.  Sort of a bummer.  Because even though I said I had no hope, of course I had a little bit, and entertained thoughts of how cool it would be to BFP.  How many times have I written that blog post in my head?!?!  Let's hope I get to write it for real someday (soon).

Well, that's ok.  All thoughts to TCIE.

Thank you for your comments/tolerance yesterday!!  I am feeling much better today.  I woke up feeling much much better.  Also a sign there is probably no pg, right?

I think I'm having my energetic-day-before-AF-comes.  Which means work wasn't as hateful.  A good thing.  Thoughts of maybe leaving have started to dance in my head again.

I think yesterday was maybe caused by eating some random popcorn someone left in the coffee room.  Probably it was full of butter/gross fats.  I don't know, I was feeling SO awful yesterday.  I almost made the blog title "I am disgusting", but thought that was too harsh.

Thankfully DH came home and gave me hugs and put me to bed.  He didn't even once say "your face is going to stay that way".  :)

Really, it is only Tuesday still?

CD28

 (Close your eyes if you don't like whining):

Ugh, I just feel so disgusting today.  AF is probably around the corner.
My boobies are sore.  My face is exploding.  I feel slightly nauseous.  I am crampy.  I had an awful day at work - stressful, and I worked late.  It is going to be another rough week at work - poo.   Makes me want to quit....(again).  I'm so tense all day, it can't be good for me!  :(

  Whine whine whine.

I forgot to mention, but I've been having weird sort-of cramps this cycle.  Not like normal cramps - higher?  Whatev.  I'm having normal cramps now.  I think it is a bad sign.

I just want to drink a goblet of wine and have a bath and read a novel.  (sigh)
But I won't do that.  I will watch Murder, She Wrote.  And demand lots of hugs when DH gets home.

I think we shall not test until CD30 - but at this rate she'll be here soon and I won't have to.  Like usual.

This is going to be a long week!

Shimmying into CD28

CD27
We're into alert territory again.  No sign of AF.
I daresay, is it possible my boobies are the slightest bit sore?

I may check FMU tomorrow.  Or maybe not.  BFNs are so lame.

Maybe my cycle is just ultra-long this time, and so thus my boobie soreness comes on late?  Those CD30+ cycles really mess with a gal's head!

I was pretty stressy and intense today at work - I kept trying to take deep breaths, but it really gets to me.  Bah - Mondays.

Home stretch, 1st TTC cycle after surgery

CD26

I am in the home stretch now.  This has been the first cycle post-endo removal we have TTC.

And what a weird cycle it has been!  I have said it before and I'll say it again - CS from IF ME cannot get through a TWW without a discussion on boobies.

So, for the first time since Feb 2011, my boobies are NOT sore.  At all.  Is so weird!  But, it was not the surgery that did this, for they were sore last month.

Was it because I've been off dairy for 2 months?  Or 3(ish?) months of progesterone cream?  Or because I did not ovulate this month!?!  Who knows!  It will almost be fun to go back to a monitored cycle next month so I know what the heck is going on up in my (lady) business!

It stands to reason that having your boobies NOT be sore is not a preggo sign.  Hahah.  The first time they were sore I was fooled, but it was just the chinese herbs that threw me off.  Or maybe the boobies are not sore because I have finally righted the imbalance created by the Chinese herbs over a year ago?  I am trying to keep my head in the game - best to completely accept AF will arrive in the next day or two, rather than get my hopes up this cycle.  I will save my hopes for next cycle.  Just as your body needs rest between cycles, so does your hope.

Yesterday I did 'come out' to another friend about our IF troubles.  I babysat her daughter for a little while yesterday, it was pretty fun.  I'm glad she knows now.  Unbeknownst to her, some of her comments have been the most hurtful.  At one point she started a sentence with "I know how you must feel.." and I quickly jumped in and said "No.  You don't.", and she agreed.  That was good for me, somehow.  (She has two beautiful children which she had easily - first one came along as a surprise I believe, but they were married and owned a house so it was no big deal, maybe just a few months earlier than planned.

But just the fact than an ultra-fertile can understand that she really can't understand what an IF couple is going through - that in itself is all I need.

Adoption Options

DH and I agreed we left the adoption seminar both encouraged and discouraged.

The timelines they were talking about were discouragingly long.  1-5 years.  WHAT?!  :(  There was a couple there who were still waiting for an international adoption to go through 4 years later.  Poor them!  They have to re-do their homestudy once, they may have to re-do again soon.  Ay yi ya!

Adoption breaks down into three categories, and I assume this is the same everywhere.  Public, private, international.

I am more than ever convinced private and international are NOT for us. 

Private adoption - too much risk (emotional and financial) for us.  A birth mother here has 7 days after birth then 21 more days to change her mind.  Yikes!  Can you imagine having to give back an infant you've mothered it for 3 weeks?!    Talk about breaking the heart.  AND, your money is then down the drain, no do-overs.  There was a fellow presenting that had done a successful private adoption, which is great, but I don't think I can handle the risk.  Sure, it would be lovely to have an infant...but again, I don't think the risk is worth it.  They say private adoptions are only about 5% of the total adoptions in the province per year, or about 100 in our province of ~13 million.

International adoption - not for us.  After seeing this documentary about Haitian adoption, I was soured on the whole deal.  If you can't be sure whether or not the child is really an orphan, or if they are poor and someone told the baby's Mom the baby would be raised by rich people and come back when hes 18...?   I do not feel adoption is the right way to address third world poverty.  AND, the nice couple at the adoption seminar was still waiting after 4 years.  And it seems kind of... greedy? (Completely no offence to any future international adopters out there). Like why go to this huge expense when there are 8000 kids in my province waiting to be adopted?  It is true you likely will get a younger kid, but something they pointed out at the seminar - you usually get no history with them - they could be just as un-perfect as a CAS kid, you just don't know about it.

Which brings us to - local adoption.  Here it is called Children's Aid Society or CAS.  (There are also Catholic Children's Aid and Aboriginal Children's Aid and Jewish Children's Aid).  This seems the most complicated but potentially the most rewarding of the three, this is the option I think we'll initially pursue.  It is harder to end up with a younger child through CAS, but it can happen.  There are often 'problems' with CAS kids - mother's drug/alcohol abuse, sometimes physical problems, sometimes mental problems or learning disabilities.  The social worker that was at the event went on a bit of a private rant at the end about it though (because there was a same-sex couple there and that puts them out of the international race, and no one really has good odds in the private world, she wanted to encourage them), about how the kids get labelled with all sorts of scary things (ADHD, ADD, etc) - but some of this is due to the fact that their environment is changing so much (in and out of foster homes), of course they have trouble in school etc.  With a stable environment (and here I am thinking - "and good nutrition!") some of these issues can go away with time and effort.

At the point I still would prefer a child <4 years old without too many serious issues.  These do come up in the system.  During the seminar he showed us there are 4 children right now under 4 waiting for adoption - even a sweet one year old named "Rosie".  We'll take her! :)  We are open to any race and also to sibling pairs, which should help our odds slightly.  Oh, and CAS kids are "free".  No $60 000 spent on a kid from Russia, or $30 000 spent on a failed private adoption.  This allows us more money to spend on me not working and actually raising the kid.  And really - if you spend the day with a 3 year old, doesn't your heart melt and you are ready to steal them away?

There was a fellow at the seminar that had adopted sibling pairs locally - he seemed to set some world time record, they completed the adoption in <2 years.  He seemed so nice. They are in the process of adopting the sibling's new half-brother.

So to get paper-ready (ready to adopt for all three scenarios above), you have to do two things:  Adoption school (called PRIDE here, 27 hours long), and complete a home study.

I actually think PRIDE will be good for us, since we haven't explored this adoption road very much yet.  And your PRIDE training doesn't expire, so it will be good for ever, regardless of what we do in the near term.  Speaking of which - yes, we are still moving forward with a few IUIs.  But DH has clearly said he always wanted to adopt, so there is no reason not to get the ball rolling.  If by magic we do get pg, we'll maybe pause, but then we can pick it up again and continue - it takes ages to complete an adoption anyway, we can star the ball rolling before our bio kid is in daycare.

The home study seems like a bit of a burden.  If you can get in the CAS system it is free, but the chances of that are slim - you have to be willing to adopt 10 year old sibling pairs with serious issues, and we're not there now.  But you can do a private home study, and sort of back into the CAS system, which is what we are hoping to do.  A private homestudy they say costs $3500, and can take 6 wks to 6 months to complete.  Our plan is to do PRIDE first and then once we're more educated plan the homestudy.

And the homestudy does seem like someone will be judging you for weeks/months.  Scary stuff!  BUT, they say they aren't looking for a 'perfect couple', they are looking for real people.  They say even if you had some pretty serious skeletons in your closet you could be approved (as long as you're not a child abuser of course).

Ok, I have a million more thoughts, but how long can one post get!??  Adoption still seems like a wild card to me a bit (and SO UNFAIR when a 15 year old can just whip out a baby and no one says boo), we'll see how it progresses over time for us.  We are already over our 2 year limit when we said we'd start pursuing adoption.....

Game plan for IUI #3

CD22
As I sit here with my Kombucha Tea, I really should dial into my work meeting... but after a visit to the RE's office, I can never get my head back interested in work!  (And I feel soo weirdly relaxed right now, despite having to drive through downtown at 5pm.)  I have a cauliflower head roasting in the over - yum.

We discussed lots of things - I will say something for Dr A - he doesn't mind long chats!  I was there for ~45min-1 hour.  I much prefer this to docs you only see for 5 min then rush you out.

Game plan:  Next cycle, try 100mg (is that the right unit?) Clomid (this will be double what I took last time).  HCG shot.  IUI.  Then a rest cycle.  Then again.  Rinse and repeat.  Since I am "so young".  (Really?  To me 35 seems around the corner, but he was not fazed by my age at all)

Some highlights:

• He was all on about how bad my endo is.  He calls our IF explained now by my endo.
• Fibroid was definitely 3.1cm last year.  Ergo, it grew. (5 cm now before it was hacked out)
• He was somewhat surprised I still had TEBB, but said he didn't think it an indicator of negative pregnancy outcomes.
• I asked about LUFs, right away he said "Oh no!".  He said my progesterone was too high to have had LUFs cycles.  Any thoughts out there in NaproLand?
• DH's sperm are most likely ok, outside of very exotic problems
• Progesterone cream - well... I didn't quite tell him I've tried it (*ahem* on it now), but he was against it, said there is poor absorption through the skin, better to take orally or the other way.  Maybe next cycle I will go natural, and we'll just see how my prog is without any help.
• Evening Primrose Oil - he's against it.  He said I should just try taking estrogen if I wanted estrogen, not estrogen that was very like human estrogen but not quite.  If my CM still isn't good, there is something else wrong with my cervix.  (Quite possible, since mine is all damaged and whatnot)
• He said Dr Love is the best surgeon in our City.  He said he is a bull dog and doesn't let any endo go, he'll remove all possible endo.  Dr A even said if he had endo (har har) he'd want Dr Love to do the surgery.  Which is good.
• I said we didn't want to do IVF, and he said he didn't think we needed to.  So that's good.  I would have hated to have him lean on me.
• I asked about an HCG shot, and he said it would maybe help a little, so we could do it.  But it wouldn't help a lot, just a little.
• He did mention that if I was to overstimulate and produce too many follicles, the province pays part of the cost (50-60%) of converting to an IVF cycle (but only once, you can't make that mistake again).  Interesting.  The Province doesn't want multiples - bad for the kids, bad for the healthcare system.  Me, I think quads would be great fun, but Dr A made it clear they try everything they can to avoid HOM. 
• He also thinks we should avoid injectibles (not sure if just for now or if for ever) - I stimulate fine, he thinks I would risk over stimulation (and again, he's worried about HOM - I think he gets in trouble).

Overall he was very WHEN you get pg not IF you get pg.  I even called him out on that and he stood by his WHEN.  But it is easy for those docs to be so confident, isn't it ladies?  It isn't their hoohahs getting wazooed every month, they don't cry when they get AF.

A million more thoughts on adoption, I want to give it it's own post.