It’s been a while, I apologise – I haven’t gotten around to blogs in quite a few days, I’ll try to remedy that later today.

Yesterday while I was at work doing boring repetitive tasks my mind was wandering. And I thought to myself, it’s been over 10 days since I got my period hasn’t it? and I realized if we wanted to have a chance this month – our last “natural” month before IVF – that we should, you know, have sex. See what taking the pressure off does? No sex. None. However we agreed to wait until after my doctor’s appointment tomorrow to make sure we can. The doctor did say no tampons and no sex – but she didn’t specify for how long. And until now I really haven’t felt up to any kind of sporking anyways, with my sore stomach and all. It’s just getting back to “normal”.

It’s not like I expect our one break cycle before IVF to be a magic one or anything. But they did remove what endo I had, so maybe miracles could happen. Maybe. (Yeah you can guess how much I believe that!)

In any case, I’m getting SO excited about starting our IVF cycle. I just can’t wait. I’m already nearly 2 weeks into my cycle, which means only another 2 weeks to wait to start BCP! Holy! I can’t believe it’s almost April already. That’s just nuts.

There are some things coming up in April and May – seminars and big get-togethers – and every time I hear about something I check my IVF calendar and wonder if I’ll be able to go. Of course the IVF takes precidence! But it would be disappointing if a doctor’s appointment fell on the same day as one of these things. I don’t get out much, I have very little human social interaction, so getting to go somewhere is a real treat for me. Well also some of the conferences are business-oriented… either for my own home-run business or for my out-of-the-home job. There are a lot of lectures and conferences that go on regarding animal rescue and I would love to attend and hopefully become a more integral part of the sanctuary I work at and the rescue I volunteer for. I don’t really feel I have a “career” – but I have causes and hobbies. ;) And I do not intend to entirely back out once I have a kiddo.

Too cool not to post: Semi-identical twins discovered. Two sperm, one egg, two babies. Cool.

With the Midwife.

I just booked my appointment for my yearly pap and physical with the Midwife for May 11. Is it kind of weird that I’m excited about that? LOL! I haven’t seen the midwife since… hmmm, last july it looks like. I felt really bad not updating her on seeing an RE, but I wasn’t going to pay a co-pay just to tell her that you know? Maybe I should have called? Oh I don’t know proper ettiquette when dealing with doctors. Anyhow, I’m looking forward to checking in with her and letting her know how things are going. She’s such a nice lady, I can’t wait until I can see her because I’m pregnant (instead of seeing her and still not being pregnant)!

Also, I just got a call from the RE’s office saying that the doctor is running behind and for me to come in at 11:45 (as opposed to my booked appointment time of 11:10). I’m quite happy that they called me to tell me she’s running late… maybe I won’t have to sit there for a half hour this time? That would be nice…

So yesterday was that post-op appointment of mine. I got in fairly quickly since I didn’t go until 45 minutes after my initial appointment time, as they told me in the phone call. It wasn’t much… just went in, she told me about my endo and explained a little bit, checked my incisions, took out the stitch that was sticking out, and talked a little bit more about my IVF plans.

Den works in the military and especially during drill he works alongside many doctors. He said to me once about someone, “He’s a doctor – they’re all a little scatterbrained.” I can sort of see where he’s coming from. This is the third time I’ve seen my RE and she’s flipped through my chart and said, “So you’re all set for injectibles!” Third time I’ve had to explain that we’re doing IVF and decided to skip injectibles. I just kind of expect it now. I know she’s very busy, but it would be nice if she could get up to speed with my chart before our appointments. :sigh: She asked if we’ve been to the overview (yes) and said we’ll need the protocol class (already done) and to have an appointment with her to answer any questions (did that last appointment). And it’s silly but I hate correcting people, especially people in position of authority over me like a doctor. So sometimes I just nod and smile and tell her I’ll take care of it. Oh well. The nurses are up to date on me and I get the feeling that’s the important part.

She really wanted me to book another appointment with her to come back to “talk” about IVF and sign consent forms. I don’t think I’m going to, for a few reasons: she wants me to see her in the next two weeks before my IVF cycle starts, and I know from experience it takes about a month to get an appointment with her; I already got her to answer my questions while I was at my last appointment; Den and I have already discussed and decided on how many embryos to transfer, based upon that information and the stuff she gave me then; and the nurse said it was no big deal and I could just bring the consents in whenever at the start of the cycle. I really don’t feel like going in for an appointment with her a month from now when the cycle’s already underway, dragging Den out of work for it, only to hand over the consent forms and nod and tell her we’ve already discussed everything. Just not worth my time. If I had questions that would be one thing… but I don’t.

Oh, the removing the stitch thing was a little interesting. I asked about the funny stitch, since it was sticking out and bothering me (the other side seems to be internal, it’s not an issue). So she said I could let it just dissolve on its own – which could take a couple of weeks – or she could remove it. While the thought of having someone tugging at a stitch was not a pleasant one, the thought of having that damn stitch sticking out at me for two weeks was a little worse. So I asked her to remove it. She put on gloves and grabbed some tweezer things and had me lay back. She tugged at it. Well, sort of… she kept trying to tug at it, but either missing or not getting a grip on the stitch. I just kept thinking that I’m glad this is after my surgery; if it was before I might have been concerned about her performing the surgery on me! ;) But anyways, all she ended up doing was lightly tugging it enough to bring the knot part above the surface, then used little scissors to snip it off close as possible. I was laying there thinking, that’s it? I could have done that myself! Sheesh. Well, now I know. And now I don’t have a stitch bothering me. I hope that all heals up good. The other side looks great now.

I also mentioned to her that the area around my belly button is a little tender and sensitive and she said they use a gripper thing to pull the belly button up. Ah ha! I thought those four little marks were to uniform to be coincidence. At least that explains why it’s a little sore. (I tried wearing a shirt with a zipper down the front the other day. It rubbed across my belly button area. I found a new shirt.)

I think I was in and out in about 15 minutes. Pretty good. Was a beautiful day too… good for the cranky mood I was in that morning.

Last night we finally “did the deed.” I probably wouldn’t have initiated anything (and Den hasn’t been initiating anything since the surgery, he knows I wasn’t in the mood so just let me tell him when I was “better”) if it hadn’t been for all the CM telling me I was ready to ovulate. But, after a pause while we were getting started, we decided to use lube. I must say, it is so nice to have a sex life without really worrying about oh, we shouldn’t use that, it’s bad for sperm, or, I should be on the bottom since it’s the best position. Who cares! Do what feels best. Such a big relief! And so much more FUN when you’re not worrying about things. I only worried for a brief moment, then told myself I’ve been doing everything “right” for 15+ cycles and it’s gotten us absolutely nowhere, so screw it! It’s not like we have NO chance. Long as the sperm are in there… well… roll the dice. Don’t expect to win, but you can roll at least.

It was a good way to end the day.

Consult to go over details of what will happen during the surgery, and to discuss some questions about IVF.

Class with the nurses to go over what IVF is – just the basics.