A few things...

First, I want to say that my body is cruel and horrible. I was having the worst breast pains today, and if there had been any hope for me being pregnant, I would have been so sure! Now, we all know that I can't be, because I haven't, well, you know, this month. Haven't been feeling it lately. A year of GOF leaves you wondering why you ever did it in the first place.

We told my parents this weekend, and they took it pretty well. No stupid comments, erg, except 1. Are you taking a prenatal? and 2. You aren't drinking, are you, because you never know if you're pregnant? Sigh. But that was it, so not too bad, really.

I've added a few things to my blog. You know, to make it more homey. Like where I'm from, and my fertility chart (ha ha ha, oh). It should be renamed to my infertility chart, or "My Failures, As Seen on the Cartesian Plane". And yes, I do have a degree in math. I also added a Google ad, but that is in hopes that Google will recognize my blog sometime this century. A few links might help, so if you are reading and feel so inclined, I would not be opposed to being listed in your blogroll. Really. Not at all.

I am also starting to think about the Other Unreachable Goals that I promised in the title. What would you like to hear about? My asshole dog? And her untrainable self? I'm open to suggestions.

Hopelessly bad timing

For the first time since we started trying, I have ovulated and there is no chance that I'm pregnant. Of course, this is by design, and by doctor's order. But it's still weird, this no hope thing. I will probably get my period on July 2, although it could hold out until July 3. That means I'll need a blood draw on July 4th, which of course will be impossible. I think sometimes women get the FSH draw on CD2, so I will call next week and ask if I can do this so I don't have to waste another cycle waiting. Stupid national holiday.

My dad was forced to work all of father's day weekend, so my family is gathering on Sunday to celebrate. Dr. C will actually be there, I think, and my brother and his girlfriend. Of course Dr. C knows already, but it will be weird and I'm nervous. My family is the last to know.

I'm a bit sad that our August vacation is rapidly approaching, and we have no plans. Last year we went to the Outer Banks, because we could get there without flying (I'm not a great flyer, and don't want to fly pregnant at all). We also get two weeks in December, and last year we didn't go anywhere. This TTC crap is making vacation planning very difficult. I don't think it's possible for me to be pregnant this August, though I will probably be ovulating, or just past. Anyone know of a nice place to go, driving distance from the northeast? I need ideas.

The sweetest thing...

B had jury duty this week. We work together, and usually commute together, but this week obviously we went our separate ways. He kept getting out of court early, and supposedly had gone clothes shopping (B just lost about 75 pounds!). The last day he said he had gone to Sears, and no offense to anyone who shops there, but I was a bit dumbfounded. It was a beautiful day, I thought he would go home and let the dog out and bring her to the park or something. So I yelled at him, I was like duh, of course you didn't buy anything there! Why did you even go there!

Long story short, turns out he had gone and bought me some new dishes, ones that I had confessed to liking despite their obvious girliness and cuteness. I'm not usually much of a girly girl, I don't wear makeup or dresses etc. if I can help it. And he planned a picnic lunch. How nice is that? You can see the girliness here...and seriously, I don't know why but I do love them. And it was just out of the blue. I'm so not worthy.

In other news, my OPK just turned positive. I know, we can't even try this month, but I'm a woman obsessed and I had to see. It is CD17, and I test in the am (against the box's wishes) so the surge started yesterday afternoon. I should ovulate today or tomorrow then. Pretty par for the course, although some months I ovulate on CD13. I wonder if Clomid or whatever other horrible fertility drug I end up taking will make me ovulate sooner? That would be great. And do you think that ovulating as late as I do is a sign or perimenopause or something? This worries me a bit, and I know the FSH test will have a lot to say about that, but there's not much we can do to fix this.

Also, we had to rush our dog to the vet yesterday, because her tail no longer wags. I'm totally serious. Usually she wags away, but yesterday when I let her out of her crate, her tail was limp and non-moving. The vet doesn't think it is broken, and gave us some pain meds to see if that helps. She also popped her "anal glands" in case they were impacted and causing the pain. Eww. It was a bit better yesterday evening, but still not normal. Did I ever tell you that we have a sick cat as well? Our cat had a terrible episode of inflammatory bowel disease with ulcers in her stomach last year, and almost died. Diagnosing her, and treating her, cost about $6,000. No joke. She is fine now, and only needs a bit of Pepcid every day to keep her normal. But it wouldn't surprise me in the least if this tail thing is some dread, and expensive disease. Sheesh.

Happy Father's Day to all who are celebrating. Gotta go take B's family out to brunch. First family meal after we told everyone, and father's day as well, I'm sure this will be fun. Wish me luck.

You say tomato...

So, I was listening to a radio interview about infertility that Tertia did, and the very first thing to discuss was the definition of infertility. Everyone agreed that it was the inability to get pregnant after one year of trying. So my question to you, blogland, is what does that make me?

I have to admit that I see us as infertile. I know, we can get pregnant. I've seen two lines on the pregnancy test, and more than once, too. But what does that really mean if I can't hold the pregnancy even long enough to see anything on ultrasound? All of my pregnancies have been chemical, which is how my specialist defines a pregnancy that never progresses far enough for even transvaginal ultrasound to detect it (see: dildo cam). And like I said, we have a specialist running tests on us, and putting us on fertility drugs. What is the difference if I can pop an HPT?

I know that no hard feelings were meant. And I'm not criticizing, in fact I think it's great that infertility is getting some needed attention from the media. But it did sting a bit. My husband and I are members of RESOLVE because we are unable to have a baby. And I know there are plenty of infertiles who would love to see those two lines, and I hope all of them do. But there is nothing fun about miscarriage, and I hope they don't have to learn about that, either.

I heart Roomba

My new favorite device is our Roomba. I have to say that having hardwood and tile floors, and two cats and a dog is the perfect combo for this little machine. It really does get the fur off the floor. My kind of gadget; does work for me, makes me look good, easy to use. Two thumbs up.

Not to fear TiVo, you still rock.

Well, there is not much going on in the reproductive front. I have to wait until my next cycle for more tests, and we can't try. So I will have to find other stuff to blog about while we wait. Hence the Roomba rambling.

I'll be away this weekend, so hopefully by the time we get back there will be other stuff to discuss.

She said what???

Well, B's family is in the know. We told them Sunday afternoon. And a fun conversation that was. B's mom is a nurse, and his brother-in-law works for a (large, famous) fertility clinic. So the questions were sort of good, but also a bit off base. I'm still getting questions like "are you taking your folic acid", like that could have escaped my attention (and that of my many doctors, for that matter) for the past year. B's brother-in-law is the sperm count tester, and his sister offered B a freebie, like that could possibly be our problem after 4 pregnancies in less than a year. And eww, handling your brother-in-law's spooge? Gross.

The real kicker is that I get an email yesterday morning from B's sister offering to be our surrogate. Yes, that's right, our surrogate. As if we are even at that point yet. At it's heart I know it is a very sweet, and selfless, and generous offer. But weird, and early, and unnecessary as well. Thank goodness it was over the e-mail, because it gave me time to compose myself and give her a proper response. And I did manage to squeak one out that wouldn't offend, acknowledged the generosity of her offer, and kind of left it open-ended, hopefully to be forgotten, or laughed about, in the future.

Next, another set of friends this weekend, since we are all going to the beach. And then my parents. Does the fun ever stop?

Out of the closet...

B turns 30 this week. So one group of our friends took us out to dinner, and we dropped the "M" bomb on them. The couple driving us to dinner is 7 1/2 months pregnant, so we started with them first, in the car. B finally got to speak to someone other than me, and once that tide is started, it can't be stopped. We thought that since they were pregnant, and I *think* they had a bit of trouble conceiving, that they would understand. I swear, later B said that he thinks he knows more about pregnancy than they do.

They started out with, isn't miscarriage normal? So we educated them, and explained a few of the tests being done and such. After dinner, back at our house, my parents had sent B a birthday card, with no kidding here, 5 "father's day" lottery tickets in it. Now, I'm sure those were just the ones available, but B was like, can you believe it? And our friends were confused, so I just blurted out that I was having my fourth miscarriage. They were all pretty quiet about it, but B bought a bunch of fireworks on our recent trip to Ohio and decided to set some off, and only me, him and the men went outside. The women stayed inside and talked about it. Hopefully our pregnant friend filled them in a bit.

After the pregnant couple left, our other friends went to leave. Now, the pregnant friend has a surprise baby shower next weekend. B and I are going away again, but we are going to be close enough that I could come home. But I'm not. I declined. Our other friends are buying a big gift, that I am going in on and signing the card for, but I'm not driving back. So she was telling me that they hadn't forgotten, and that I would get some details today about how much I owed. I told her that was fine, and that I hoped she understood now why I wouldn't be attending. I simply said that I didn't want to be the girl crying in the corner.

Today we are going to B's parents house to tell them. If last night was awkward and hard, today will be much worse. Wish us luck. I have to believe that having some support will be worth the price of our privacy, and of just a little bit of our pride.

Mute...

So another update. Yesterday I got the results from Wednesday's beta (finally), negative. My OB clearly wasn't going to call me until I called them, twice. UGH. So then I called the maternal fetal specialist, and I got the results of our genetic karotyping.....NORMAL!!! Woohoo! Check one more problem off the list. I was talking to Nurse Nice about how long I should wait for my period before panicking, but then it arrived yesterday evening without any help, yeah!

So in about four weeks, I should get my period again, and I'll then be able to get my FSH draw, and schedule my sonohystogram. Then we won't be able to start trying again till the next cycle. That feels like forever, I know that August isn't really that far away, but we've been trying for a year now and I'm disappointed that we have to wait longer.

We've decided to come out of the proverbial closet, and tell our friends and family what's going on. I don't know why it's so easy to write about it here, but so hard to say it in real life. Last night we had two excellent openings to tell our close friends, who we were hanging out with, and I froze. I just couldn't do it, but oh, how I wanted to. I'm so torn. There is some safety in our secrecy, not having people check in with us to see if there's "news", and such. But. Then there's the loneliness that comes with isolating ourselves, and not being able to talk with our friends and family about our problems. I'm just plain scared.

I don't know why fertility problems spawn this kind of secrecy and shame. It would be much easier if we could unburden ourselves, collectively, and find the support of others going through similar problems. But then why is it so hard to share?

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Sorry for being so quiet!! I was away this weekend, at my husband's family reunion. Yawn! But it kept me from posting, so I'll update you all now.

1. My father-in-law is fine, thanks for the well wishes! They couldn't find anything, and they tested for everything! So he came with us after all this weekend, and seemed fine the whole time. Must have been a false alarm.

2. Still waiting for two things: the results of yesterday's beta, and our genetic karotyping. I am stumped about this miscarriage, as I have not started to bleed yet. HPTs are coming up negative, finally, but no bleeding? I'm at a loss. At this point, I think my body is just being vindictive, and purposefully not expelling its contents. I mean, the longer it takes for that to happen, the longer until my next cycle, and only then can I get the FSH draw and the sonohystogram. So basically, we get to try again, never. Sigh.

So really, I'm still in the waiting game. Nothing to report. But I'm still sorry for leaving you hanging like that. I will try to be better.