Suspense

As I type this post I am texting my DH and we are trying to decide whether to POAS stick. Wait - deciding whether I should POAS. Having DH POAS won't do us any good.

DH thinks tomorrow night which will be a full 8 days. I don't know. I am anxious. I hate being anxious more than anything. It makes it impossible to sleep.

What do ya think?? I can't decide. What would you all do or have you done?

But on a very pleasant note, I stepped on the scale this morning and have found that I have lost a total of 21 pounds! Now it took me a year, but I really didn't try very hard, so I am saying that is a success. I am now down to my college weight and wedding day weight of 148. Woohooo!

It really was quite easy. I just decided to start eating better and smaller portions and threw in a little exercise when ever I could (mostly only once a week). My weight didn't bounce up and down but it did plateau for a while.

Anyway, I think it is a success and maybe in one more year I will have lost 10 more pounds. That is if I am not struggling with baby weight.

Commence 2WW

Thank you all for the extremely nice comments and sorry it has been so long since I posted. A bunch of things have happened since then. After my wonderful MIL made the major drive to get more Brav.elle the stuff actually worked! I had to do one additional shot, but after that my RE thought my one 19 mm follicle was ready to trigger.

I had to talk with nurse A one more time, but all was okay. I took my HCG trigger shot on last Wednesday night and we were scheduled for our IUI on Friday. We were very excited because this is the first time since March that we have had a follicle!!

So it was very rushed but we packed up and went to the IUI. DH had great sperm numbers, more that 3 times better since our last two SA tests. His count was 101 million and post wash 84% survived!! The RN even gave him a compliment! So the IUI was done in a matter of minutes and we headed off on a 4 hour drive to another large city for a weekend with friends.

DH also had to complete some farming/business socials. I really didn't have that much fun, but just tried to maintain my composure and make up reasons that I wasn't drinking. But to tell you the truth I really missed having that glass of wine with dinner, especially in uncomfortable situations.

I have been a bit disconneted from the internet lately, but I will catch up on my reading and comments. And thanks to all those new commentors on my blog. I will add you all to my list and following your journey's.

Trying to Stay Positive

Is it possible to fire one of your RE's nurses??? If so, she would be GONE like DONKEY KONG. With everything going on I have become a bit depressed. Naturally. But I am trying to stay positive because DH says I have to and I WANT TO. Some days it is just hard.

There are a lot of things out of our control. Like being diagnosed with PCOS or an uncle who has a brain tumor, but the really frustrating part is the things that you can control. Let me rephrase - "The things that can be controlled as long as you have someone on your side and offering their expertise." Hence the reason I am seeing nurse A getting crushed by Donkey Kong in my dreams.

I have never been a fan of health care in this country. If you aren't your own advocate, watching out for yourself, and asking all the questions yourself - NO ONE IS DOING IT FOR YOU. And if you don't know what to ask or how to ask a precise question you get screwed.

Which leads me to firing nurse A. I am a type A personality. I generally bug the nurses to death until I get an answer, partly because of the 3 1/2 hour driving time to the RE's office and partly because they aren't doing it for you unless YOU ASK! So, on Friday I call to talk with the nurses, because I am unsure of the next steps on my road to IUI #3. I had a u/s scheduled for Monday at 8 am and needed to know what I should do if my follies aren't ready and I am out of Brav.elle. No one returns my call hence no extra Brav.elle is shipped. On Monday I got to my rescheduled u/s (DH and I got food poisoned over the weekend and I slept in the bathroom for two days - let's just say it was BAD). After the u/s at 1:30 I call the RE's office and tell them to be watching for the results, by 3 pm no call back. I call again. 4 pm I call again. Nurse A answers. I tell her I don't think the follies are ready, the biggest one I had was 14 mm, and I need her to call in some additional Brav.elle for me. She says she still doesn't have the results and will call me back when the doctor looks at them. I tell her we need to know within a half hour because if I need the Brav.elle it will have to be over-nighted.

So, I as am laying on my food poisoned bed, I finally fall asleep for the first time in 39 hours. I wake up to my phone beeping telling me nurse A left a message - AT 5:45 pm - "You need more Brav.elle and another u/s on Wednesday". No pharmacies open now, officially SOL.

Two times before this nurse A has given me incorrect information resulting in a loss of a cycle. And generally she is not a real nice person, which I have overlooked, because I really don't care if you are nice, just if you are DOING YOUR JOB!

So this morning I wake up to try and figure out how I am going to get Brav.elle that is a 3 1/2 hour drive each way from me. My secretary is out again today because her surgery is having complications and I have clients coming in. So I get on the phone to see if there is a courier service to deliver the meds. For $600 there is - not a option.

I call the RE's office and speak with the partner RE's nurse because I have found a similar FSH in a closer town which I could get couriered. She says that they can't really be used interchangeably and I need to stick with the Brav.elle. AND that I can call in my own refills and that is what they generally tell everyone to do.

So what really peeves me off is that at anytime since FRIDAY nurse A could have just said, "All you need to do is call in your refill of Brav.elle and you will have extra just in case." THANKS US medical system you have yet again trained another failure of a professional. Something this stupid and easy could have been avoided.

I may not have asked the question with the precise words you were looking for, but I think I clearly eluded to the problem I was having. WHY is it that nurse A still hasn't given me that advice, but the first time I talked with the other nurse she was compassionate and able to help me within 30 seconds.

So as I write this post, by wonderful MIL is driving a total of 7 hours to go and get my refill from the most local pharmacy that carries it. Thank God for her and not wasting another cycle. I guess that is a lesson learned for me, but someone should kick nurse A in the teeth.

Cup Has Hole In The Bottom

Good news just doesn't seem to last very long around my parts lately. This have officially been the year from hell for my family. We are an extremely blessed large family who has never had to contend with any real problems. There is an occasional tif or argument. But nothing major.

Now I have a sister who has been diagnosed with MS. Two weeks ago my aunt found out she is facing being a quadriplegic if she falls or is in a car accident. Six of her vertebrae starting at her skull have all but disintegrated. She will be having metal plates put in to stabilize her neck.

And then, as I walked into church to finally celebrate a great 100 years with a weekend of parties...everyone was staring at me and my family was no where in sight. I thought to myself this is a little strange. Then my FIL walked up to me and asked how my uncle J was.

And I asked why....

My uncle had several seizures and was life flighted to a nearby neurology hospital at the same time I was walking into the church. I ran to the phone to call my family and we made rush plans to deal with all the infants that needed to be taken care of.

One of my cousins and I babysat three infants while all of uncle J's family rushed to the hospital. It was a long night and around 9 pm we found out that uncle J has a brain tumor about 1 inch in size. We are all kind of still in shock and praying for the best.

It is times like these that can bring a family closer together and make infertility feel like the small things in life. What a hellacious year. I sure hope that things will start looking up soon.

Sometimes I just don't understand how all our lives we could have such a safe, happy and healthy family, just to have everything plummet at once. I am confused and exhausted....

My Cup Runneth Over...

Big major deciding ultrasound today.....

And the result is: NORMAL!!

I did have one smaller not quite yet a cyst that was approximately 1.1 cm on the right side (I think). The good ole RE said proceed as normal! So we are off the the races with Bravelle, Femara and HCG in our hip pockets. I am very glad and relieved. Part of me thinks its because I raced home last night and packed our emergency weekend bag and already had it in the car, just in case we needed to take the drive.

And to top off all of that news, DH finished harvest today!!!! Hooooorayyyyy!

And we can go to all the fun 100th Birthday parties at our church this weekend.

And I forgot to make a big announcement about a new relaxation technique I am trying. Joann at Circle + Bloom was very kind to send me a free version of her program to try with the only stipulation being that I blog about my experience good or bad. So! I am blogging. Last night I started the program right before I went to bed. I have to say that it really worked to calm me down and I felt much better after just taking a few shorts minutes to be quiet. I will continue to let you know how it goes.

***FTC disclaimer: Due to the recent passage of law which requires bloggers to formally state if they have been given a product to try for free or with some other incentive to blog, I am again disclosing that this was a free trial of circle+bloom given to me by Joann the owner. -- There now no one can sue me.

CD 1

This will be short today is CD 1. I have an u/s scheduled locally tomorrow for 9 am and then pending the results we may be making the 3 hour drive. I truly hope that we don't have to, but I am not counting on that.

Still have about 10 hours of pulling beets to do. The cold wet weather is reeking havoc on finishing harvest but we are close. We started July 25th and I am so ready for fishing season and to have DH home at a decent hour.

I will post updates from the u/s and potential trip if I am able.

Almost there!!!

We are getting so close to being completely done with harvest!! DH said last night when he came home that we needed a good 12 hours and we would be done.

It snowed here yesterday about 2 inches and luckily it has stayed really cold. This is good because if the snow melts it will be too muddy to pull the last few beets. So we have been topping (cutting the tops of the beets off ) and pulling (harvesting) them in the snow.

It definitely would make some really cool photos but it got too dark last night for my crappy camera to take any decent photos. I will post some if DH took any good ones today.

So on the IF front still no AF. Hopefully she can stave off one more day then my CD 2 will be on a Saturday and I won't have any complications from not being at work. The sad thing is that our church is having a 100th year birthday party this weekend. There are several events planned on several different days and we may have to miss them.

I haven't been really good and keeping up with my comments lately, but I have been reading all of your blogs. I promise I will try and do better in the coming week.