Well cycle day 5 is nearly over and still no side-effects. I think I feel slightly more alert than usual though. Is that a possible side-effect? LOL I’m also feeling sore muscles, but I’m willing to bet that one’s from all the lifting I did today at work. Oomph. I think I’ll be kind of glad to get pregnant and not be able to do the heavy lifting anymore. It’s hard work.

One week until my ultrasound. Here’s hoping for several really good looking follies!

Day 2 of clomid, no side-effects still. Yay! I slept very well, except waking up at 3am with a bladder that felt fit to burst. Need to stop drinking so much milk… especially right before bed.

I feel so positive this month. I feel like we’re really doing something. Going for the bloodtest, taking the clomid, going in for an ultrasound… all gives me something to do instead of just waiting. Even if it all does diddly-squat in the long run, at least I feel useful and proactive. And it gives me something to count down to. “12 hours until my next clomid pill”, “1 week until my ultrasound.” A lot easier to wait for ovulation. I’m sure the two week wait will be excrutiating, though.

Well no side-effects today. I did have a couple of weird-ish dreams, but mine are usually rather weird. :P I actually have felt quite chipper all day today. The pets are all behaving, my hubby took me out for breakfast, it was a sunshiny day… yep, not a bad day at all.

My period stopped, though. Just spotting today, barely. Last month I had only a 2 day period… this month it was 3 days, with a very light third day. (It’s usually 4 days long.) Very weird. Not sure what to think about that. I might mention it to the RE next time I’m in.

Well I took my first clomid pills today. I’m on 100mg/day. I waited until 9pm to take them because I heard it can cut down on some side-effects if you take the pills at night. I’m willing to try it, the doctor never told me when during the day to take it. I don’t know when side-effects will start, either. It’ll be hard to figure out too, because pretty much every symptom I’ve read so far I have to some degree already. Night sweats? Yup. Headaches? Had one all day today. Nausea? You betcha, all the freakin’ time. So I guess it’ll be a matter of “is this worse than usual?”

I talked to my mom on the phone today, told her of the clomid and the upcoming IUI. I try to be polite and not say things like “sex” or “sperm” but sometimes it just can’t be helped, especially when talking about IUI. In any case, she’s eager to hear updates on how it all goes. She also mentioned that my aunt (the one who had endo) was on fertility treatments of some kind. I find that reassuring. I’m pretty sure that’s why my mom has been so supportive and understanding about all of this. She is very close to her sister and must have been her support as well.

Just got back from going for my bloodtest. They’re testing Estradiol, FSH, LH, and Hep B. Only 2 vials. I was good! I just looked away when she went to stick in the needle.

I am laughing my butt off right now. Den had told me about what the nurse had told him on the phone – he’d written it down so I didn’t bother paying too close attention. So just now I sat down with the little scrap of paper and read his notes. I could make NO sense of it. Here’s what is written, as written:

I brought the piece of paper to him and asked him to please decipher it for me. He pointed to the little notes one by one and said: “Sonja will call on Monday for the Dye test, it’ll be between the 28th and the 1st. The pills you’ll take 2 a day from Saturday to Wednesday. The ultrasound will be the 4th of December between 7:30 and 9:30 and you bring the ‘HCG’ there.”

I just cracked up laughing. I told him the note is written in some secret code and there’s no way I would have figured that out. I’m glad he remembered what he wrote – or at least can decipher what he wrote. Cause sheesh!

So Den is really not happy today… at all. I came home from work with our new cat – which is something else he’s not happy about – and he was just looking angry. He’s mad that my phone was dead today so I had to leave it at home. Obviously I didn’t know I was going to be playing phone-tag with the RE today. I had to work, and it was on my way to work that I discovered that I couldn’t get the clomid. In the previous post I talked about the phone-tag and how I called them, they called my cell. Well Den was the one answering. From what he said they called like 5 times, but I just checked my cell phone and they called twice – once after my first call, and once after I called them to go ahead and order the clomid overnighted. *rolls eyes* He had all sorts of notes written down, I guess the nurse had given me instructions for the clomid and that they’ll call back with my HSG appointment and the CD12 ultrasound will be on X date at Z time. I guess Den’s head was exploding from all this info he didn’t understand and he was trying to write it down. She was asking questions on what we wanted to do for the clomid and he’s all, “I don’t know!!” So I can see how by the time I got home he was very frustrated.

The only part I’m a little irked about is that when she said $37 that was for the clomid, but apparently she is going to have both clomid and the ovidrel sent to us, costing us $70-something. Gah. I’ll try to get reibursed for it through the insurance, but light knows how well that will go.

Today was a pain in the ass. I drove to the pharmacy to pick up my clomid and ovidrel (trigger). They went through the drawers of prescriptions, pulled the one out under my name and… it was just two pieces of paper. Pieces of paper saying, in essence, that insurance denied my claim because there was no pre-authorization filed with them. WTF? I don’t blame the pharmacy at all, but I was pretty tiffed when I walked out. I need to start the meds tomorrow, but I don’t have them.

I called the doctor’s office when I got to work… left a message on the nurses’ machine. But of course, today is the one day I don’t have my cell with me… it had died overnight and so I left it at home to charge, thinking of course that I wouldn’t need it. So I called from my work, but of course I don’t want to leave my work number because it’s not my number, it’s the darn shelter’s main number. So I left my cell phone number and asked them to please leave a message.

The phone rung twice while I was working. I ran over the second time to check the call display, it was Den’s number. So I picked up. (My supervisor, who answers phones, left early today so she’s not here. We don’t have full-time staff here, no receptionist to answer phones… people just leave messages and the manager calls back when she is here.) So I answer, and it’s Den. Apparently he had answered my phone (I had called him before I called the nurses, to let him know of my situation and to vent a little.) What he tells me is that the nurse said that the clomid comes to $37 at Walmart pharmacy, or they can order it from some other place and have it overnighted to us for the same price. Den, being the sweet man he is, said he didn’t want to make a decision without consulting me. I told him it would have been fine to just pick one, I don’t care, but he knows how ticked I can get when he does things without asking. He said the nurse preferred us to do the overnighting, though he didn’t know why (or couldn’t figure out why).

So back I call to the nurses to leave a message for the nurse whom he had talked to, that the overnight shipping that she had recommended was fine, and to just leave a message on my cell.

Oh, the reason the insurance declined us… is that the doctor’s office had filed the pre-auth on wednesday, and I guess the insurance office was/is closed for the holiday and not processing it. Either that or they’re just really slow. So we’re just going to pay the $37 to get the clomid – I’m guessing that the ovidrel I’ll pick up at the pharmacy later, after the pre-auth goes through, since I don’t need it until CD 12. We may be able to get the $37 partially reimbursed through the insurance, since they would have paid for it had they actually processed my paperwork. But of course with insurance that is always a fight and I don’t know if that’s really worth it. *shrug* But now I know that clomid is only $37 a cycle (for whatever dosage I’m going to be on), which is totally affordable.

I’m just relieved that it’s getting sorted out and that I WILL have the clomid tomorrow. I was really starting to panic that this month would be a total bust and I do not want to wait another cycle! I guess I really am sure about the clomid/IUI, considering how upset I was at the thought of cancelling it this cycle (though part of that might just be because it was out of my hands and the decision was taken away from me by circumstance – I hate that). I must admit, part of the reason that I did decide to go ahead with the full clomid/IUI this first cycle of infertility treatment is because if I get pregnant I’ll be due right around my birthday. And for some reason that feels special to me. It feels important. I kinda feel like I get more and more superstitious the older I get, light knows why, I’m definitely not a religious person and I’m not a spiritual person either. But hell, sometimes things just call out to me. I’m really hoping it turns out to mean something and that this month will be our lucky one.

Blood test and clomid tomorrow. Fingers crossed for very little side-effects. If I turn into a raving lunatic it won’t be pretty. (I do enough of the raving lunatic thing without clomid.)

Thanksgiving was okay – half of the family members we expected to see weren’t even there. Den made a point of saying I was feeling sick to explain why we were late to his mom’s meal, so of course she asked what I was sick with. We just said, “what she’s sick with every month.” No more questions. Aside from that and a couple of family members who can be assholes – and me feeling nauseated all day – it was uneventful. I spent most of the day curled up against Den’s side on a couch, watching football that I really didn’t understand.

I called the RE nurses today and left a message saying my cycle started yesterday and that I needed to schedule an HSG and my day 12 ultrasound. Yeah, day 12 – I was wrong about the day. I was also wrong about what day of the week my day 3 falls on, duh, it’s tomorrow. I can’t count. So tomorrow I’ve convinced Den to drive me in, the lab is only open from 7:30am – 9:00am on weekends. So I get my blood drawn, go home and sleep. Oh, and then start my clomid. Ugh. I’m a little scared what to expect.

Oh, and a total offhand – the dogs don’t give me much of a hassle through my cycle. I guess they’re used to it. But today I’m sitting on the toilet doing my thing, getting my pad stuck to my underwear properly, and Zoe very politely comes up, gently picks up my tampon (still wrapped in packaging) and starts walking off. LOL! I shouted, she dropped it, I recovered it. Little brat. No, it’s not a new dog toy!

After reading this entry (and all the comments) at a little pregnant (I’m reading archives) I am now more convinced than ever that my child will be wearing a harness and leash every time we go out in public. Hubby thinks it’s very cruel. I don’t care. The little bugger will be strapped to my side so I can reel him in.

In a completely unrelated topic – I’m trying to think up explanations to the inevitable questions tomorrow of why I feel sick. I have a feeling that because I’m bleeding like a stuck pig is not the appropriate response.