Today we went to a holiday party at my MIL’s. I avoided anything spiked with alchohol (which included the punch, the egg nog, and a desert – sigh), since at this point I just don’t feel comfortable drinking anything alchoholic in case I’m pregnant. SIL said, “Did I miss something?” when she saw me with my milk and I assured her that no, I’m not pregnant, but I’m just being cautious anyways.

I told MIL and SIL that we’re seeing a doctor and that I was on medication to increase our chances. Both are very supportive and polite about it all – no stupid-ass comments. Although Step-FIL overheard one part of our conversation (the part where I said the tests came back normal – MIL was looking concerned) and said, “Well, what are you waiting for?? Get to it!! Ha ha ha!!” I forced a smile and went back to my conversation. Like really, as if we haven’t been “getting to it” for the past year? Bah.

I also asked MIL about my SIL and BIL – both of whom have twins. I found out that SIL has fraternal twins. Den was listening in on that part of the conversation and he was shocked – he honest to god though they were identical twins. (The boys are 13 now!) I guess they look slightly different now that they’re older, MIL has no problems telling them apart, but OMG they look so, so similar. Den and I can’t tell them apart even now. (BIL’s twins are identical girls.) I asked if either set of twins were born early… she said both had scheduled C-sections. SIL’s was moved up a little earlier because of a small medical problem (the boys had simply run out of room to grow – SIL is a very small woman), but neither women had early labor. The boy-twins do have some developmental problems, however. Slight, but you can tell they’re a little behind their age. I was just curious… having two sets of twins in Den’s family, it’s an ideal place to look for answers to questions!

One of MIL’s friends overheard a little bit as well and asked, “Is someone pregnant?” I explained that no, but we’ve been trying for a long time and are seeing a doctor. (See, I’m very Out.) She nodded and said, “Ahhhhh… we went through all that.” I wanted to ask her more about that, but we were interrupted then, and later I didn’t know how to bring it up without being obnoxious if she didn’t really want to talk about it.

The last time I talked to my mom she said, “You know, you should really talk to [her sister].” – meaning the sister who went through infertility. I agreed with her. I fully intend to sit down and talk to my aunt about her experience, if she’s willing to, whenever we visit next. Mom said this type of problem is more common than people think, but that no one talks about it, and she’s so right. And it’s definitely comforting to find out that other people around you have been through the same thing. Even if you never talk about it, never share your experiences – just knowing is a bit of a lifter. I guess it’s human nature… we don’t want to be alone. It’s comforting to know that other people have been in your shoes and understand what it’s like.

7 days until testing. Waiting is horrible. Horrible, horrible. I just want to know. I hate the unknown – and I don’t mean just about TTC. Everything in life… I hate waiting, I hate being clueless. Denis found that out the hard way early on in our relationship when he started teasing me with a “surprize” and I totally flipped out at him. Really, I feel kind of embarassed about that now – but it does illustrate how badly I take staying in the dark about anything. I just want to know. I want to see those two pink lines.

I don’t know what it is, but I feel so confident that this month I really am pregnant. I guess it’s the fact that we had an IUI, that we had four follicles and our chances were so good. I just feel so positive. My brain keeps thinking of baby things, looking up pregnancy tickers, and thinking that I just need to wait until next week when I can make it official.

Plus things are aligning:
* In september a girl on a forum did a “psychic reading” for me (and I am no believer, but it’s amusing right?) and said she sees good news for me TTC-wise in december.
* If I were to get pregnant this cycle I would be due August 28, which is only 6 days before my own birthday. I really want a September baby.
* And I ovulated on a full moon.
* Not to mention that we had FOUR follicles. One of them has to stick, right?!

One more week. Just gotta get through one more week. I am considering testing for several days this coming week to watch the trigger leave my system… and to make me feel useful and productive.

LMAO This is the biggest load of crap I have ever read: Moon Influences Fertility:

WTF?? Yes, of course – your follicles and eggs have NOTHING to do with releasing, but rather can spontaneously ovulate anytime. Right.

I do tend to look for “signs” – I actually ovulated on a full moon this month (I was born on a full moon), however I was triggered – but the whole “the moon can cause you to ovulate” thing has me pretty stunned and baffled.

I finally called to get my day 3 blood test results. As usual I hang up and think, That was easy, why did I keep putting it off? It feels good to get the numbers in my hand.

Estradiol: 37 (normal range 13 – 166)
FSH: 7.5 (normal range 3.5 – 12.5)
LH: 6.9 (normal range 2.4 – 12.6)
Hepatitis B: Negative

Before Den fell asleep we started talking about what we’d name the babies if we had twins. Obviously if it’s a boy and a girl we’d use the two names we’ve already picked out, Devin and Kailet. But what if we had two of the same?

Den: “Well, I like that girl’s name you keep bringing up. What was it again?”
Me: “Katherine.”
Den: “Right. I like it. It sounds french.”
Me: “The only thing that worries me is that the two girls would have the same initial.”
Den: “No, you made me change Kailet to a K.”
Me: “Yes, exactly.”
Den: “So it would be K and a C, Kailet and Catherine. Unless… you don’t mean Katherine with a K do you?!”
Me: “Well, yeah. Not with a C, bleh! K!”
Den: “OMG, no!”
[argument about K or C ensues]
Me: *sigh* “I guess we’re going to have to come up with a different name.”
Den: “I remember why I hated this process so much.”

A few minutes later…
Me: “What about Cody for a boy? I like Cody.”
Dead silence.

:D

I can’t sleep, my mind is racing. Combination of having slept far too long yesterday and being 3dpiui – my brain won’t stop thinking about babies. So instead of sleep I crunched some numbers.

One of my infertility books (What To Do When You Can’t Get Pregnant) goes over ovulation induction and super-ovulation. It amuses me that the subsection about clomid speaks only about 1 or 2 eggs; the section on injectibles then goes on to consider more than 2 eggs. This amuses me greatly, since I’m a clomid girl, and have 4 eggs.

So in any case, the book states that after 12 months of trying with no pregnancy you effectively have about a 4% chance of achieving pregnancy in any given month. (Which is dropped from roughly a 20% chance each cycle when you first start TTC – as most people have no problems and get pregnant right away. By the time you’ve gone 12 months it’s pretty likely there’s a problem, thus the significantly lower number.) So then the book goes on to say that clomid roughly doubles your chances (by giving you two eggs) and injectibles roughly triple your chances (three eggs, I’m assuming).

I’m using the probabilities listed under injectibles and superovulation, since I have 4 follicles. 4% x 4 = 16%. I’d even be willing to say we could have a higher chance than that, but since I have no logical reason for thinking that I’ll leave it at 16%.

The book also says that couples using clomid for infertility treatment have a 10% chance of multiples; that percentage rises to 20% with superovulation. So if I were to achieve pregnancy, I would have a 20% chance of it being a multiple and 80% chance of it being a singleton.

Given all those probabilities, this cycle I have an 84% chance of not being pregnant, a 12.8% chance of being pregnant with a singleton, and a 3.2% chance of being pregnant with multiples. Den wasn’t too impressed with those numbers. I still do think our chance of being pregnant this month is higher than 16% – but hey, maybe I just want to think that. ;)

Okay, I’ve really had quite enough of this waking up drenched in sweat thing. And I can’t even blame it on the clomid – it’s been happening for months now. *sigh* Maybe it’s because of our heavy winter blanket. But yet, I go from cold and snuggled in to hot and sweating and throwing the covers off, then ten minutes later I’m cold again. I just hate the feeling of waking up all hot and sweaty. Yick.

I’ve found this same little blurb on about 5 different websites – and more still with the same statistics and slightly different wording.

Well we have multiple follicles alright. But still only 26%? Blah. What I really want to see is a study done taking into account different situations: woman’s age, sperm count, number of follicles, diagnosis, etc. I want to know what my predicted success rate is – or at least the success rates for people like me.

I’ve been telling Den the last few days that now his sperm have no excuse for not reaching the egg. I told him that if they don’t it’s all his fault -they’re his little men. I sighed and said, “They’re probably all swimming in circles because there’s no directions posted in my uterus.”

It’s 12:30am so I can say I am 2dpiui today. Yay! One more day crossed off the calendar.

My ovary has stopped aching, so it’s pretty safe to say I’ve ovulated and those little eggs are on their way. Yippee! I found out on a forum that after the hcg trigger your follicles will grow another 3-5mm. I was trying to draw out how big 22mm was, and then adding another 5… ouch. And there were 4 of them! No wonder I ached so bad. It’s making me think about how uncomfortable an IVF cycle would be!

Someone on a forum mentioned mini-stim IVF. Only a couple of doctors are doing it right now (the ones mentioned were in St. Louis and New York), but it may catch on as a viable alternative for those who respond well to meds like clomid. The success rate is probably not as high as with traditional IVF because the simple fact that you’d get less eggs. But it’s a lot cheaper and a lot easier on your body. For me it sounds exciting – I mentioned it to Den, though, and he thinks even if that were an option that we should do traditional IVF because our insurance covers it and it has a higher success rate. That’s a little disappointing to me – I’m still not at the point to accept IVF yet but it would be easier to accept mini-stim IVF. It’s a smaller stepping stone. And less invasive and less medication – as Den put it when I said just that, “You’ve always been like that.” (Not wanting to take more medication than is absolutely necessary, that is. Despite the fact that I finally “gave in” and now am on daily medication for my depression, I still would actively fight against taking even tylenol for headaches. Obviously my views have relaxed somewhat over time.)

Not that I really need to think about IVF right now. But the way I responded to only 100mg of clomid would make me a really good candidate for the MS-IVF.

Ovary still aching. Still tired too. My injection site has stopped being so tender, at least.

Den’s already patting my stomach in the morning and saying, “Hi baby!” Cute, but still… no sure thing yet. This is going to be a very long 12 days. I should keep busy enough, with christmas shopping and everything, but it’s so hard to concentrate on other things. (I can imagine it would only get much worse if I found out I was actually pregnant – I won’t be able to concentrate at all this christmas!) I guess this christmas is either going to be really really good, or really bad.

I am most definitely ovulating today. My left ovary (at least now I know that feeling is definitely my ovary!) feels very stretched and tender. It’s not painful, just very odd, very strange feeling. I’m getting impatient, though – I informed Den that his duty is not completed yet, I want to get one good BD session in today, but he is STILL playing his computer game. I don’t think he has ever quite understood the small window of chance – which is why I’m always in charge of timing. Of course this month it’s not as if that’s really important, with the IUI and all, but damnit. I want to make sure.