What to say? The 2ww sucks… and yet, it’s not really as bad as others I’ve had. Maybe because I really think we have a very good chance at this… maybe because I am not checking incessantly for spotting, as AF is not going to arrive at all until I stop my medications… maybe because I don’t have to worry about when to test. I don’t know why. But it’s been pretty peaceful – at least in terms of TTC/IF treatment. (My freelancing, on the other hand, has been very stressful… trying to do too many things in too short of time and getting frustrated by all of it.) Maybe I just have too much else to worry about these days than sitting here thinking about my beta. Seems backwards, doesn’t it?

Though if I sit here and start wondering about what I believe is going to be the outcome I start hyperventillating, almost. I believe deep down inside that I am pregnant…. maybe because in order to have hope I have to believe that… but both Den and I are really quite terrified to take a pregnancy test. We’ve seen so many negative ones it’s hard to imagine ever seeing anything different… and there’s a part of us that, illogically, thinks we’d jinx it.

I do think I’m going to take a pregnancy test early morning Wednesday though (the day of my beta). Den has to work that day and if I’m pregnant I want to find out while he’s here at home with me! The beta will confirm our result one way or the other so we won’t have days to sit there and think, “But what if the test is wrong?!” (Not that I think pregnancy tests are going nto be wrong at 14dpo, but Den does.)

So until my beta I’m just knitting and trying not to think too hard about the possibilities.

Let’s do a quick run-down on what’s going on in my body, just for posterity.

1) Sore boobage. Had that since egg retrieval. Soooore boobs.

2) Very “regular” digestive system. Every morning, a couple of hours after I get up, I have to RUN to the bathroom because my stomach demands it. And usually I have to do it again a few hours later, too. (The nausea/throw-up has diminished, so I think that was just the bloating/overeating at work.)

3) I’m feeling little pangs/twinges in my lower abdomen. Sometimes it kinda feels like my ovaries (which are probably still shrinking), sometimes it’s more in the center. Today my uterus felt “tight” for a little bit. Not a cramp, but just… tightness.

4) No spotting whatsoever. Which doesn’t surprize me, because of the progesterone suppositories.

5) Excessive clutziness. I blame that on my stress/nerves. I find my hands aren’t grabbing things right, things are slipping out of my grip, I’m knocking things over frequently. It’s driving me a little nuts. And let’s not mention the walking-into-and-tripping-over-everything-possible. Though really, did the dog HAVE to leave my purse in the middle of the doorway?

6) I’m not breaking out, except on the days that I wear sunscreen… I’ve been good at washing my face twice a day because the heat is making me sweaty. Sweat + face pores = zits, so I’m keeping myself very clean. I’ve just ordered Proactiv sunscreen for my face in the hopes that’ll solve that problem. I have FAIR FAIR skin so sunscreen is a must… too bad Proactiv only sells 15 and 30. I usually wear 45.

7) Temper is short. I’m just getting so frustrated with things in general, throwing little mini-fits. Right now it’s normally the dogs who are causing it… I don’t know if my reactions are off or if their behavior is unusually bad, but they are being total BRATS lately. (Except right now, two dogs and a cat are asleep around me in the bedroom, thank goodness. I’ve done quite enough yelling lately. Actually, my dog’s head is asleep against my cat’s butt. Snort.) I haven’t quite cried yet, but there are moments during the day when I feel like randomly bursting into tears for no reason. Usually worrying about testing.

So other than the plethora of bruises (both from me hitting things and two kamikaze dogs who are apparently trying to KILL ME – long story, let’s just say we had two leash incidents recently that involved me getting hurt) and those listed above I’m feeling normal I guess.

One morning down, one more to go. These are definitely going to be the two hardest days of the entire process. I have been pretty much fine until now… but knowing that I could possibly test now, but refusing to… and knowing that my beta is only two days away… is going to drive me crazy.

I feel competely distracted. I’m here at work (cat place) today, where being distracted isn’t such a huge deal. But I have to go to my client’s tomorrow, and I just don’t know how I’m going to be able to function. I’m already all jittery because of the testing, but then I’m doing something new for the client that I’m not so certain is good enough, so that’s making me even more stressed out. I just hope hope hope everything goes really well tomorrow, or at least goes same as usual, nothing of note… or else I’m just going to burst into tears.

I feel on the edge today, as it is. I just want to nap to escape everything. I was going through the photos on my phone today, and I got to some of the old ones of my dog when she was a pup and I very very nearly started crying. Why? I don’t freaking know. Obviously I’m closer to the edge than I thought.

Shit. Just one more day to get through, right??

In Lindsay’s blog I left a comment about boobs and the crazy conversations I have with myself and with Den. Every month:
“Are my boobs bigger?”
“Umm? No, not really.”
“What about the middle part, is that darker?”
“I don’t know? Not really?”

And he’s always been regretfully honest. So today, as usual, I called him over to look at my boobs to see if I was crazy or not. I have veins. Several of them. Running across my boobs. Now I may be a crazy person, but I do not recall ever seeing that before. And neither does Den. Plus he said they’re ginormous, but they’ve been ginormous (and, consequently, rather sore) ever since I started the progesterone.

Den’s starting to get anxious, I can tell. I can tell because after he looked at my big boobs (and grabbed them a little) he turned to me and said, “Can you test now?” Of course I said no, I’d just peed – and he looked a little relieved anyways – so the plan is still on for Wednesday.

We are so, so hopeful.

Today was a stressful day. It ended very good (as good as can be), but it was super, super stressful for me.

First I was stressed about work at my client’s. Turned out that went just fine, if a little oddly. So my stress diminished during the day and I was just looking forward to going home.

Right before it was time for me to leave I felt… something. You know that feeling when AF starts? That dripping, wet feeling? That. I started to worry. A lot. It wasn’t until I had actually left, though, that I really started panicking. My undies still felt very wet, and I kept telling myself it was just prometrium. But I wanted to check. I needed to check. It was all I could think about.

I had to buy dog food while I was out, so I tried to do it quickly. That backfired in a big way. First I had to return to my truck to get my purse which I’d forgotten, then I had to go back to the parking lot to get a cart. I bought the dog food, threw it in my truck as it started raining, shoved the cart back into the cart-return, and took off. Over and over in my head were horrible thoughts of bleeding. For some reason I reached for my phone – maybe to call Den? – and realized my purse isn’t here. I swerved into a parking lot alongside the road and dug through my truck… not there. I’d left my freaking purse in the parking lot!!!!

So I went racing back, now freaking out about TWO things. I got there, checked the carts, checked beside where I was parked… my purse is not there. I ran inside…. and then I saw it, sitting in a cart beside a cashier. She said, “This your purse?” I said yes and thank you, thank you, thank you. She said the little old lady standing at the counter brought it inside. I thanked her, too, profusely. And then raced out the door.

When I got home – a good half-hour’s drive home, I might add – I dropped everything and ran into the bathroom. I had worked myself up into a full-blown panic picturing miscarriage and blaming myself for not taking my prometrium pills exactly 8 hours apart. But it was prometrium! Just like I SHOULD have known it was. But SHOULD have doesn’t mean diddly squat when you’re terrified like I was. Not a speck of spotting, thank god.

And my boobs are still veiny.

In other news, Den is now trying to talk me out of taking a pregnancy test in the morning. He thinks, if I’m going to test, I should do it when I get back from getting my blood drawn. (It’s a half-hour drive there and half-hour back.) I think he’s worried about me being alone in a car after a bad result. But I’m not so certain that being alone in a car and not knowing will be any better. Just look at what happened to me today – I was NOT all the way with it at all.

So Den’s *brilliant* idea (sarcasm) is that I can POAS before I leave if I want to but I am not to wake him up. He said if he told me to wake him up if it were positive but not if it was negative, then if he woke up and I was gone he’d know. But what kind of idiotic solution is that? WTF? I mean, if he was really overly concerned about me he could go WITH me to get my blood drawn. (He’s not going in to work tomorrow – he has a doctor’s appointment after I get back, then we have the day together.) So either way I’m waking him up if it’s positive. I’m sorry, but I am posting online right away and I am NOT going to let my husband be the LAST to know!!

He can be such a weirdo sometimes.

I’m actually counting down the hours now. 2 more hours until I can go to bed. Then I just try to sleep until morning – or as late as I possibly can before getting up to empty my bladder onto one of those magical little sticks. (And it had better damnwell be magical this time.)

Random crying at TV show that has nothing to do with babies? Check.

(First season of Gilmore Girls. Some Lorelei/Luke sadness-tension and a Lorelei/Emily fight-and-make-up.)

I didn’t actually outright cry, but I had the whole welling eyes, rapid blinking, runny nose thing going. Oy.

I tested.

It was negative.

I think I’m in shock. I really thought this time would be different. Really really thought it would be different. I don’t feel much of anything right now…

I walked in the house when I got home and Den walked over to me and gave me a giant hug. I just started crying (I hadn’t until then – I had remained suspended in a state of disbelief/shock). For a little bit I thought it was just him comforting me… but then I realized some of it was him needing comfort too.

I asked him how he knew, he specifically told me not to wake him up to tell him what the result was – and I hadn’t. (I fell back asleep after testing, woke up late to get my blood drawn.) He said he got up and the pregnancy test wasn’t sitting out, that if it was positive it would have been sitting out somewhere. So he looked in the trash. Said soon as he saw it there he didn’t even need to turn it over to know that it was negative.

We both sat together on the couch for a few minutes before he left for his appointment. He’s coming back shortly and we’ll be going out… to get new tires on the truck, go out for lunch, maybe go to the kitchen showroom to pick out some new kitchen cupboards. Because, shopping is the cure-all. It was supposed to be shopping for baby things, but… well. I guess kitchen cupboard will do.

At times like this…. I really wonder why we bother. It just feels like one more negative added to the pile – and this month was supposed to be SO different. God, we had our miracle embryos! Not just one that hung on to transfer, but TWO! I was so sure ONE of them would stick. I just can’t help wondering WHY they didn’t. Was it something I did wrong? Did my lifting at work knock them loose? Does my body just not want to make a baby?

I just feel so empty inside.

Well I’m sorry to break the news that the beta only confirmed what we already knew – I’m not pregnant. Beta was “less than 1” (I asked what the exact number was). So yeah… definitely not pregnant.

The nurse said she’s very sorry for us and asked if we were intending to go into another cycle. I said yes. Den and I had already talked this morning and confirmed that we both wanted to do another one right away. So she said I’m to stop my patches and prometrium immediately and wait for AF to arrive. There has to be at least 2 non-prometrium days before I start taking the BCP, she said, so even if my period arrives before then I can’t start the pill until saturday. But soon as AF arrives I call them and they order the meds and I start the pill and we jump headlong in to IVF#2, this time with ICSI to “fix” our fertilization problem.

Same dosages, apparently. After our (poor) fertilization this cycle the doctor had talked about possibly doing it lower/slower next time, but Den and I definitely want as many eggs as possible. This will be our last insurance-covered fresh IVF cycle. This is all we got. Our only hope is to harvest a crapload of eggs so the ICSI can fertilize a lot of them and we can have a brood on ice for FETs. Otherwise we are up a creek without a paddle.

This morning I slept. This afternoon Den and I went out for lunch (and milkshakes), then got our tires replaced on our truck. (Truck failed inspection a couple weeks ago, bald tires. Lovely, no? $600 down the drain for pretty new non-bald tires.) So while we were waiting for that we went to Home Depot. They’re running a great promotion and everything so we’ve decided to go ahead and buy the new washer and dryer I want. Well it’s not the exact one I wanted (that one was out of stock, go figure), but it’s very similar and actually slightly bigger capacity. Can we afford it? No, not right now. But that’s why 6 months no-financing comes in handy – Den will be going on a business trip in August that will bring in enough to pay for it. And you can’t beat getting a $1700 set at 6 months no financing, 10% off, $100 gift certficate, and another $75 rebate from our local gas and electric company (energy star appliance). So we’re taking the plunge. Den wrly said as we walked awy to think about it, “We may never have the kids to require a big washer, but at least we’ll have the washer ready.” Le sigh.

We’re both feeling very melancholic today. There were times where we’d be walking down an aisle at HD, Den looking over the little man-tools, and he’d turn to me and catch a near-tears look on my face and we’d just have to stop and hug for a few seconds to regain our composure. It was mostly fine, but just a few moments.

This morning, when in that detached I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening mode, there was an hour or two when I really thought to myself, Why bother? Why do all this? I don’t WANT to do it all over again. I don’t want to put myself through this hurt again. Maybe not even an hour… but for a little while I was angry. I can certainly see why couples who have been through 3+ cycles of injectibles and IUI are already fed up when getting to IVF. It’s fucking hard to get beat down every month. That’s why, even though I was so hopeful and optimistic these last few days, Den really wasn’t. I don’t think he really believes we’ll ever see a positive.

In fact he told me today that next time he wants me to take a pregnancy test right after our trigger shot. Just to freakin’ see a positive pregnancy test for once. He said it’s totally silly… but he just wants to see it. And he also told me that me testing this morning was a good idea and I should do it again… so I’m not hysterical when I get the phone call. So we know what to expect. So we don’t have to go through an entire day wondering and worrying. It at least gave us a little time today to come to grips with the idea before getting confirmation.

And so it goes. The end of IVF cycle #1. And still not pregnant.

My mom has been very supportive through all of this – I told her we were trying a month or two after we started (I figured I needed to warm her up to the idea, she was never crazy about becoming a grandmother) and she’s been right there asking me how things are going and keeping in touch and extending her sympathies and hopes. Both of our mothers, actually. So it makes sense that we’d call both of them today to just let them know that unfortunately it didn’t work this time.

My mom said, “Oh, I’m so sorry it didn’t work out,” several times throughout the phonecall. But then, minutes before we’re hanging up, for some reason she decided to tell me that her friend so-and-so – do I remember so-and-so’s kids? (Yes, I remember them, sort of.) Oh well, kid1 just had their second baby like yesterday, and kid2 had their first just 5 days ago! Isn’t that funny?

O.O Why on earth she decided that was an appropriate topic for this phone call I will probably NEVER know. But that is very like my mom. She’s always loved me, and she’s always tried to be supportive. She just somestimes… fails… because I think she’s on a totally different wavelength. (And honestly at this point in time I can just roll my eyes about it and pass it off as “just my mother”, because in comparison to other things she’s said and done it’s nothing.)

I forgot to mention, while at Home Depot today talking to the guy about the washer and dryer we were buying another salesperson – a woman – walked by with fliers. He called out to her, they exchanged a few sentences. Then he says to us, “She’s pregnant.” And I swear to god I nearly had to walk away. Instead I took a few breaths and thought about fucking luck I have.

And when we went to check out? Yep. We got pregnant lady. Who was fine. Unfortunately as she’s ringing us out and printing off the multiples of reciepts we need for rebates and such another coworker calls out, “Congratulations! Got a name yet?” And she tells him about the name, and how she’s had a name picked out for years now, blah blah blah. And yet again, I’m thinking that I am having the shittiest day ever.

I mean, seriously? Now I have nothing against pregnant women – in fact just yesterday I would have looked at them wistfully and smiled because I was soon going to be one. But today?? Do I really need to bump into pregnant women TODAY? I sure am glad I am handling this well enough. Bursting into tears on the spot would have been very embarassing for Den to explain to people.