Today I went to buy a mattress and pillow cover. From being present as the allergy screening was being done I know that the one allergen that was flaring up before the others (at a lower dosage) was dust mites. I am mildly allergic to cat dander and some other random things, as well, but the dust and dust mites seemed to me to be the strongest ones. And it’s really no wonder… with all the fur and dust flying in our house, I feel like I can never get out from under it.

I came home and stripped the bed, I’m washing all the linens on “sanitize” (super hot). Then I tackled The Hole. The Hole is that spot between the mattress and the wall where everything “disappears”. It has existed since I was born, I think. Give me a bed and a wall – distance is no obstacle, could be 2 inches or 2 feet – and things will disappear down there. (At this point I think I’ve lost several forks, books, many socks and underwear, and perhaps a car or two. Sadly I have never recovered them.) This is why, since I was 13 years old and a new mattress was purchased for me (to replace the “cute” white metal twin-size daybed I once had) my mattress has lived directly on the floor: less room for things to go missing. So I grabbed a big ass garbage bag and set to chucking the little bits of paper and fur that found its way into The Hole and rescued some objects I don’t even remember owning, much less losing.

Oh the dust. It wasn’t really like a dust storm or anything – had you walked in you just would have seen me struggling to get free from the vacuum cleaner hose (WHY is that so difficult for me?) and chucking things in a bag. But OH did it sting. My eyes! They turned red and watered so badly I couldn’t see. I stumbled out to my husband and he stared at me and blinked. “Wow,” he said, “You’re really allergic to dust.”

So my next step is to buy a hypo-allergenic comforter and a nice linen duvet cover that can be washed frequently. A second set of bedsheets wouldn’t be bad, either. I also really want to get an air purifier for the bedroom. Plus, considering the cat allergy and the fact that the cats are Assholes Who Scratch The Mattress, I think I will henceforth be banning cats from the bedroom. I may even ban my dog from the bed, but that will be a tough one for me. She’s so content nestled up with me while I’m writing. We also will have to take a hard look at the dog crates being in the bedroom. Really there’s nowhere else for them to go. But the fur the builds up around them is horrific, truly horrific. At the very least we’re going to have to clean much much more thoroughly, much more frequently.

I have visions of one day living in a dust-free bedroom (at least give me the bedroom). Wouldn’t that be devine.

::

I spoke with the IVF nurse again today. She’s ordered the birth control pills so I can pick them up anytime now, all set to start them on CD1. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that, in response to my tentatively proposed cycle schedule, she said that in order to get on their schedule for December before they close for the holidays I have to start stims by the weekend of November 29th. That’s over a week before I was expecting to start. So it WILL be a short BCP cycle. And not only do we have my body to depend on, but the more pressing concern for me is that I don’t get insurance coverage for IVF until November 16. We should have the sono done prior to that, but I need to get pre-approval for the IVF from the insurance company and get the meds ordered in time to start lupron, which I would have to start a week before stims. See what I’m saying. We have about a 3 day window between me getting insurance and me starting lupron. Fuck.

BUT! But but but. I look up lupron kits and we can buy one for under $200. So that’s what we’re going to do. If something delays insurance covering the meds, then we’ll order the lupron and move forward from there. We should definitely be able to start stims by the 29th.

She also mentioned overlapping BCP and stims, though to be honest the idea of changing protocol at all freaks me out. We’re making the one little change that will hopefully improve things slightly, but I don’t want to go mucking about with something that mostly worked and had a good outcome.

So the cycle is still on. I’m biting my nails. (Figuratively – I never bite my nails, yuck.)

And, going by a Nov 29th start to stims (which is unlikely, since we would want to aim to start BEFORE then just so nothing goes awry!), and assuming I stim for the same amount of days as I did my other IVF cycles, I’d have a Sept 1 due date. My birthday is Sept 3. Awesome.