Slowly getting better

No worries--I didn't jump off the deep end or do something stupid over here. I'm still hanging on and I actually feel like I might be doing a little better.

DH and I sat down a couple weeks ago and had a big discussion about how we are feeling and how we are going to get past this. He admitted that he put up a big wall with this last cycle, hoping that by not getting too hopeful or attached to our embryos that he wouldn't be as heartbroken if it didn't work. Obviously, that plan failed as we were both devastated and the wall he built up ended up dividing the two of us as well. He was able to see how hard that made everything for me and we are working on moving forward together. He has been home a bit more, so that is helping us as well. He tells me that starting next week he should be home for almost a month, but I'm sure that will change (it always does).

He actually had to stay home last week while I went back to visit my family (he had work to do and he stayed so we didn't have to kennel the dogs). My cousin from GA and her family were up there for the week and it has been almost 4 years since I last saw them. We had a great week together and, despite 8 children under 12 years old, I barely thought about my IF at all. I visited a college friend who has a 7 week old daughter, and that was a bit tough. She was very understanding though, which I knew she would be. She asked sensitive questions and just listened--no platitudes, no assvice--just listened. She is a great friend and getting together was so much fun. I got to see my in-laws as well and eat lots of yummy can-only-get-it-back-home food.

But now I'm home and back to the daily grind. Well, OK, I don't have much of a grind during the week when I'm off work. I had a doctor's appointment, a job interview, a therapy appointment, and dinner with a friend, so I've kept myself occupied for much of the week. DH comes home late tonight and I think I will make tomorrow date night. I've even got a cute new outfit to wear!

AZ trip

I'm back from Arizona and didn't even get too sunburnt despite the crazy-hot weather. It was in the 90's every day on my trip, with little relief from gentle breezes. I went to two spring training games, which is something I have wanted to do for as long as I can remember. Of course, AF arrived and tried to ruin the trip with her cramping and heavy bleeding, but I was prepared for her arrival and didn't let it get me down too much.

I only had one incident with my littlest nephew. On the last day I was there, he made a comment that I was so fat that I should have a baby in my belly. I managed not to cry or yell at him, and just told him that it wasn't true. My sister didn't hear him say it and I really didn't feel like listening to her try to deal with it (though it might have been entertaining to hear try to explain infertility, coming from a fertile myrtle like her) so I didn't mention it. I did get the "maybe god has other plans for you" line from both my sister and my dad--ugh! It took everything I had not to fight back at those comments, but I didn't want to ruin a short trip with people I love and don't get to see nearly often enough, so I tried to let them go.

Now I'm home and some depression has set in. It's starting to sink in that this "decision break" that we are on may be permanent. Part of me is relieved to not have the stress of treatments at the moment, but part of me is still grieving the loss of that dream.

I'm not sure how I'm going to deal with going to work tonight and tomorrow. I think the people at work are just tired of hearing about all of it. When I posted about it on Facebook, I got very few comments from my work friends. With the failed IVF in the fall, I found that I was more upset by people not asking how I was doing than I was when I started to talk about it and cry. I guess I just want to know that people still care.

Thank you!

Thank you all so much for the support last week. It was one of the darkest days I've had in this journey and your messages of love and support helped me feel a little less alone. Every time I would check the computer, there seemed to be more comments to shed a little light on my day.

DH was able to catch an earlier flight home on Friday (he had offered to cancel the trip altogether and I told him to go). It was so healing to be able to fall into his arms and start to mourn this loss together. I called my boss and explained the situation and told her that I wasn't coming to work for the weekend. DH and I did a little retail therapy, but otherwise just relaxed together for the weekend.

The only decision that we have come to is not to decide anything for a while. We realized that we have been in the throes of this battle for 2.5 years and it's time to step away from it for a bit. When we've taken breaks in the past, it was always with the prospect of future treatments looming. Since there are no more treatments to do, that won't be an issue this time. We decided that we need to focus on our marriage and ourselves (and not just the broken reproductive parts of ourselves) before we can make a decision as to what's next.

When we started this journey, we had said that we wanted to be parents to expand our love and not because we needed to have a child to feel whole. During the infertility process, it became much more of a "need" than a "want" and I, at least, got caught up in it. It almost became competitive for me--I refused to fail this challenge, so I kept trying whatever was suggested to win. Now doesn't that sound like a healthy atmosphere to create a child? I hope that by focusing our attention on other things, we will have the clarity we need to decide if moving forward with adoption or egg donation is the right step for us.

As the first part of taking this break, I'm heading to Phoenix today to visit with my family while they are there for spring break. My dad and stepmom have been there for over a week, scouting out things to do and soaking up the sun. My sister, brother-in-law, and their four boys (ages 6-12, so no babies to pine for) arrived over the weekend. I haven't seen them since Thanksgiving, so it will be good to visit. We are going to take in a couple spring training games (Go Cubbies!) and just relax together. The only concern I have about this trip lies with my youngest nephew. The last few times I've seen him, he has said to me, "Auntie Cortney, you have two babies in your belly." I think he's just saying it cuz I'm fat, and in the past I have just been able to tell him no and laugh it off. Obviously that will be a bit tough to do right now. I've thought about saying something to my sis, but I think that her saying something to him about it will actually make him more likely to say it--he's just that kind of little boy. I was tempted to threaten my sis with the "if he says it, I'll tell him that mommy has to explain sex and infertility to him." Anybody have any other brilliant ideas?

Out!

I did it--I outed myself on Face.book. I've never spoken about our IF there and didn't really have much intention of bringing it up this way. Obviously, I couldn't talk about it there until after our families knew what was going on.

I always knew I would talk about it there, but I figured I would wait until NIAW or something. I guess it's the impending nature of IVF 2.0 that made me bring it up sooner. It was so hard to hide such an important life event the last time we went through this. I posted lots of vague sad things when we got our last BFN, and those who knew about the cycle knew why, but I think it worried others.

I must say that posting about it felt liberating. I was so nervous before I hit that "share" button, but it felt so freeing once it was out there. So many of us suffer in relative silence, sharing with those in the IF blogosphere, but not people in our lives. Blogging affords a large amount of anonymity, which is necessary when venting, crying, etc. is needed. I have no intention of sharing my blog address with the world, as I still feel that I need the safe space to get out the thoughts and feelings that aren't easy to even acknowledge, much less talk about. After all, the rest of the fertile world thinks that hope is an unqualified good thing, when we all know the double-edged sword that it brings. I don't want to have to explain that to people--I still need to be able to put it out there with a wonderful community who just "get it".

Still, the response to my FB "outing" was incredible. I was afraid I would get some negative comments or people telling me to keep it to myself. What I received was quite the opposite--within minutes, I had messages of love and support. I had 4 people respond that they had been through IF treatments, too--woohoo!--one outing leads to another! Not a single negative comment was left on my post.

I plan to continue posting about our IVF cycle on FB. I will try to ask for support when I need it from those who know me IRL, which is actually much harder than asking the IF blogosphere. I want to continue to put my story out there--who knows who might be helped by it?

Me vs. the Fibroid--round 2

Well, I had my second fibroid removal of this long TTC journey yesterday.

This one happened so quickly. I met with the surgeon last Monday. He did an u/s in the office and said that it would probably be easier to remove hysteroscopically due to its location. This means a faster post-op recovery, but a delay in cycling again since the endometrium would take a while to heal. Fine with me--we weren't planning on stims until March anyway, and any transfer would be April-ish since we will do testing on all embies this time.

The hardest part of this surgery was that it wasn't until 1pm. This hospital wasn't as lenient as the last one, so I could have nothing to eat or drink after midnight. I've never been so starving and thirsty! Of course, when they tell you that you can't do something, that's all you can think to do. I had to be at the hospital at 10am, so I couldn't even sleep most of my NPO morning away. We registered and then the pre-op nurse came to get us in the lobby. She took us to their GYN surgery area, which is their old OB unit that they closed a couple years ago. It was nice to be away from the busy main OR and prep area and the staff seemed to like it that way too.

Another nurse came in to try my IV. She seemed to be unsure of where to start it, since the anesthesiologists usually like a hand IV but mine aren't very good. She tried anyway and blew the vein--no big deal, I figured that would happen. She ended up starting it in my antecubital (elbow) area anyway since that's where my better veins are. Then she really got it--I was bleeding everywhere when she finally got it. They drew my blood for a beta and a CBC--my beta was negative (shocking!) and my blood count was OK.

So, then we just waited around for the OR to be ready. I fell asleep for a few minutes from the dramamine they gave me. Poor DH was starving, so I sent him to the cafeteria around 1 when they told me it would be closer to 1:30 start time. He came back after scarfing down some cold pasta just as the OR nurse came in. They wheeled me away, got me into position, and then I was out. Next thing I knew, I was waking up in recovery with minimal pain. My head hurt worse from the lack of caffeine all day than my uterus did. I hung out there for about 90 minutes while I woke up a bit more, then they went to get DH. We were on the road by 5pm--a long day for sure, but I'm glad it's over.

We stopped for dinner on the way home since I was starving and a little queasy from the pain med they insisted on giving to me. I felt fine, so we went to pick up my car at the shop (shhhhh...don't tell the cops I was driving right after surgery) and stopped at the store to get some cookie mixings. I made a batch of cookies when I got home, too. I did take one pain pill and a nausea pill before bed, more as a precaution than anything. I did have a twinge or two of pain when I rolled onto my side, but it still wasn't horrible.

Today, I'm up and back to baking. We are heading to Texas tonight to see my in-laws for the holiday. I have to be back on Saturday for work, so at least it will be a quick trip (less time with newborn and his whining mommy!).

Merry Christmas to all! And to all a good night!

Random thoughts

Lots of little things going on, but nothing big enough to make into its own post.

• We may have figured out a way to get insurance to pay for another cycle of IVF. We get our insurance through my husband's employer, and they offer 2 choices for health insurance. We've always gone with one and never had a problem, but we've maxed out our IF coverage for procedures. Since the other plan offered also covers IF, it is possible that they will pay for another $25k worth of meds and procedures. So, we switched to the other plan. Now, it's possible that this little plan of ours won't work and we'll be stuck coming up with the money out of pocket. But that's what we would have had to do if we stayed with the other plan anyway. The RE office is in-network with both plans, so it's worth a try.


• I've been doing lots of holiday baking since getting home from our Thanksgiving visit. I like to bake, but I don't really want all the yummy treats in the house for me to inhale, so I take them all to work. It makes my co-workers happy and gives us all something to munch on when the nights are so crazy busy. But I can't help remembering doing all of this with my grandma. I miss her every day and make most of her favorites every year. When I started this tradition a few years ago, I pictured myself eventually doing all this baking with my child and how it would create some of the same fond memories for him/her. This year, with one failed IVF under my belt, I'm becoming more and more afraid that my little fantasy will not come to pass. I fear that the next cycle will fail and I will be forced to face the prospect of not becoming a mother. Unfortunately, this fear has taken some of the fun out of my holiday baking.


• Have I mentioned how much I love my husband? He was so great at staving off all of the ass-vice when we told our families. Tonight, when I was getting a bit anxious about our upcoming visit to his niece's house for Christmas (complete with 5-week-old baby), he offered to talk to his mom and sister about being sensitive to how hard it might be for us. I told him that I don't expect them all to understand, but if his niece starts griping about lack of sleep, sore nips, etc., I just might lose it and say something that would upset everyone. So, he called his mom to explain that we might need her help to steer conversation away from the difficulty of having two small children, and that we might need to walk away or leave for a while if it gets too overwhelming.


• I finally talked the RE office into doing my repeat saline sonogram last week. I wanted to do it last cycle, but they wanted to wait until closer to when we might cycle again since my arrogant RE was sure we wouldn't find anything. Well, it's a good thing we did it, because they found another fibroid. Um hello, estrogen can accelerate fibroid growth in susceptible women, and I've done 5 IUI's and 1 IVF since my last surgery. It's not as big as the last one he removed, but still big enough and in a location that might interfere with my lining and, therefore, implantation or fetal growth. So, I have an appointment on Monday with the surgeon that my RE referred me to in order to see about getting it removed. I would love to get it done before the end of the year so that it can go on this year's insurance--since we've met our out-of-pocket max for the year, we wouldn't have to pay a dime for the surgery. I kind of doubt I can get it scheduled so quickly, but I sure as heck will try. Plus, if it's like last time, the RE office will want me to have a full cycle to heal before resuming treatment. Since we were aiming for starting stims in early March, an end-of-December surgery would just leave January to heal before BCP's start in February.

Well, I better get back to baking if I'm going to have enough to get me through 3 shifts at work this weekend!

The big reveal

Thank you all for the feedback on my last post. I decided not to give our families this blog address. I thought it was much more important for me to have a safe space to vent about everything. Neither family is likely to annoy us with lots of phone calls and questions, so they don't need to read everything here to stay up-to-date. To tell the truth, I'm more likely to call them for support than they are to pester us.

Telling DH's parents was so very easy. His mom noticed that I was taking lots of vitamins and supplements, so we used that as an easy tie-in to the TTC/IVF stuff. They are such nice people and DH has trained them (as he puts it) to not bug him all the time. His mom is more likely to text or IM one of us, but even that isn't all that often. His parents were surprised by our news, but very supportive. His mom said that she would want to know what was going on, but promised not to bug us and let us come to her with updates.

I was much more concerned about telling my sisters. They didn't know about us even deciding that we wanted a child, so this was going to come as a shock. I insisted we would never change our minds about that one, so the potential for "I told you so" was quite high. After we finished dinner, my nephews went to play in the basement (thanks Mom for shooing them away) so I knew it was time to spill the beans. Both sisters looked surprised, though my little sister said she had figured it out (or thought that maybe I was pg and had a m/c since my FB status posts had been so depressed). I think the tears welling up in my eyes helped keep away any snarky comments.

DH was great in both of these conversations. He stated straight out that we had done research and were under the care of a great fertility clinic, so there was no need for advice or suggestions. Coming from me, that would have sounded really bitchy, but he managed to keep it assertive without being offensive. I love him so much for that since it kept all of the ass-vice away.

Overall, the holiday trip home went pretty well. We managed to eat most of our at-home cravings. DH scored points by helping with Thanksgiving dinner at my sister's house. Neither one of us ran screaming from the room, despite 7 children under the age of 12 (no babies, though, so that helped keep me from crying in my wine glass).

Decisions, decisions

It seems that DH and I managed to make a couple decisions last night. We went out to dinner after I woke up and, with the help of a margarita, I found the courage to ask him where he stood on the whole "trying again" issue. I was sure he was going to say that he was done, so I was scared to even bring up the subject. I told him that, in my heart, I didn't feel like I was ready to give up just yet. I let him know that I was afraid that, in 5-10 years, I would regret giving up so quickly. I was shocked to learn that he had some of the same thoughts. So, we have decided to try one more time in March of 2011 after our annual tropical getaway for our anniversary.

We did make one stipulation though--we both need to be healthier, physically and mentally, before we start another cycle. I can't help but feel that some of my egg quality issues could be related to my piss-poor diet, my total lack of exercise, and my stress level and crazy emotional roller coaster. I know I've said I wanted to lose weight before, but this time I mean it (yeah, I know I've said that before too). It's a tough time of year to start this type of change, and I am not going to delude myself into thinking that I won't overindulge this week when we are back visiting our families. But, that doesn't have to be a gateway to 6 weeks of gluttony either.

So, I need to call the IVF nurse and let her know what we've decided. I'd like to get my next SSH done soon, so as not to delay our dates next year in case I do need surgery for another fibroid. I also need to make sure it's OK to be on the supplements even longer than we originally planned. In my head, that can only help, but I don't know.

One more decision that we have made recently is to tell our families about our IF struggle. It has been difficult for us to not have family support during all that we have been going through. There have been many times that our phone conversations with our families have not been honest because we haven't let them know what's really happening in our lives. We've both been honest with co-workers and other friends, but not with our families.

I think that the deception initially was borne out of self-preservation. There is a certain type of pressure that only families can exert and neither of us wanted the "are you pregnant yet?" questions every month. When we started TTC, we just knew we would have happy news for them soon, so we would wait until then to tell them. As the months dragged on, we were sure we had made the right choice--disappointing ourselves every month was bad enough, but imagine disappointing the hopeful grandparents and aunties-to-be! When we started with the RE last summer, we had that renewed hope that we would be pregnant soon. We figured we would tell them good news, followed by what it had taken us to get there. Wouldn't we all just chuckle about it then!

When my mom was here during our fifth IUI cycle, she found out about everything out of necessity. There was only so much lying I could do when I had daily appointments with the dildo-cam. She was sworn to secrecy and she stuck to it, thank goodness. We didn't exactly want to tell everyone over the phone, or have them find out from anyone else (facebook has presented a particular challenge), so we are telling DH's parents and my sisters when we are back visiting this week.

I have no idea what kind of reaction to expect. I'm pretty sure my little sis is convinced I'm dying or we're getting divorced or something--she picked up on my depressed FB status posts and caught my mom crying shortly after our failed cycle. Shoot, maybe IF news will be a relief for her! I know they will be supportive and it will be such a relief to be honest about such big events in our lives. I haven't decided yet whether I will point them toward this blog--I don't want to lose my safe space to vent about everything, but it would make it easier to keep them updated this way instead of repeated "how's it going" phone calls. So I guess I do have one more decision to make.

Anyone have any feedback on families reading their blogs? Did you feel like you couldn't be as open on your blog, knowing that you might need to vent about them but couldn't? Or did you find it helpful to keep them informed and less likely to bug you with questions?

I hate Fridays!

Well, at least I hate them on the weeks when I have to work Fridays. Sometimes I actually like Fridays because it means DH comes home after a business trip.

So, I head back to work tonight, which brings up a whole new set of issues. Last weekend at work, I was so raw and emotional from the BFN that I didn't really answer people's questions. I know that they were trying to be supportive, but I ended up getting lots of questions and assvice that I really couldn't deal with, so I walked away. I struggled with the fact that, while I was too raw to really talk about it, I was even more hurt when people didn't say anything or ask about it. This weekend I feel a little stronger and kind of need to talk about it more, but I'm sure people will have forgotten about it by now. So how can I handle it if I get the questions and assvice again? I'm not as easily weepy as I was last weekend, so getting all teary-eyed and walking away might not work.

Some people asked me about adoption. DH and I have discussed this and I don't really think either one of us wants to adopt. I know this sounds silly, but I've had some trouble with bonding with my adopted dogs and I'm afraid the same thing would happen. It would be totally unfair to whatever child we adopted if I felt like I couldn't bond with them because they aren't "mine". I would like to think that I would overcome that and love them just as much as if I gave birth to them, but I'm not willing to take that chance. There is also the money aspect of it--in many cases it can cost much more than trying IVF again. Plus, I often feel like I am not desperate for a child, so a prospective adoptive child would be better served by going to a family that will undoubtedly love them as their own.

Then I got questions about what went wrong. Now, I know that most people don't understand the whole process so they are just trying to ask questions and show support. But what it felt like was an accusation that I did something to cause the last one to fail, since the last time I saw most of them was right after retrieval and fert report and thought we had 8 great embryos. I would briefly explain that the embryos weren't as great as we thought originally and we put back the only 2 that survived. Of course, talking about that would bring me to tears and I would have to excuse myself. But how do I address this now? Sometimes it just doesn't work and there is no good answer. It's not like it's every time a fertile couple has sex that they get pregnant. I wish I had an answer as to why it didn't work so I would know where to go from here.

Oh, and here's the best one. My mom called this week with a great suggestion--why don't I talk to my older sister about using her eggs since she's obviously fertile (4 kids under 12)? "Honey, you've got the same DNA, and then you could use DH's sperm"? Really mom?!? OK, first of all, my biology background really wants to explain to you that we don't have the same exact DNA, despite having the same parents. Second, we don't know that it's my eggs that are the problem! It could be DH's sperm, it could be my uterus, it could be any number of other factors that are causing us to fail at conceiving--that's why they call it unexplained infertility! And finally, there is no way on earth that I am having that conversation with my sister. This is the same sister who used her entire matron of honor speech at our wedding to give us grief over not wanting kids at the time. She is a big part of the reason that we haven't been open about this struggle to the rest of the family.

So, how do I deal with it this weekend? People don't want to hear the raw, honest, crappy truth that I'm sad and scared and struggling with what direction my life will take now. They just want to hear the happy, unicorns-farting-glitter, everything is okay lies because it's easier for them.

What a week!

So, Monday afternoon the RE office calls to let me know that my estrogen is low and I need to up my dose of menopur. We're trying to get the two smaller follies on the right to catch up to the lead follicle. Cue the hiding in the bedroom to mix three vials and inject my tummy!

Tuesday, Mom and I head up north to do a little shopping. Now that Thor is gone, we can buy new furniture (I really loved that big dog, but he was brutal on our couch and chair). The first place we stopped didn't have any couches that we liked. My main requirement is the ability to flop down and sink in to watch TV and/or sleep. Nothing remotely sink-able at the first place. I did find some chairs for the front porch, though. I'll have to have DH go back and try them out. We went out for a quick bite to eat and then back to more shopping. At the second store, mom and I both fell in love with a sectional. I didn't think I wanted a sectional, but it was oh so comfy. The saleslady was too pushy for my taste, though, so we left.

I needed to go in for same-day blood work at the RE office Wednesday morning, but the u/s wasn't available for the SSH, so I needed two appointments. I told mom I had a chart to finish at work, then she already knew about the SSH. DH's meeting got canceled, so he was able to come with me to both appt's. The SSH showed no fibroid, so I don't need any additional surgery and we are clear to proceed with the cycle. The u/s showed that the two smaller follies haven't caught up, so we've got just one follie yet again. The blood work was fine and they wanted me to come back in Thursday for another u/s and possible trigger.

I couldn't keep up the smiling face (or more lying) so we came clean with mom on Wednesday afternoon. She was very supportive, even though she did utter the dreaded "just relax and it will happen" advice. She agreed to not say anything to anyone else, and I think she can stick to it. She gave me a medallion that my great-grandmother carried for good luck and that had gotten passed down to her. I'm not a religious person and I don't know if I believe in all of that, but what the heck? Mom suggested I pin it to my underwear (ouch--what if the pin came open?), but I think I will just keep it in my pocket. After a few tears and hugs, we went back up north with DH to buy the new sectional. I can't wait until it gets here! Mom bought me some beautiful hurricane candle holders as a house-warming gift, too!

Back to the RE on Thursday and sure enough it was time to trigger that lead follie (19mm). WTF! It's only day 9 and we're going to trigger! Wait, I'm not ready yet! We decided to try a back-to-back IUI this time, just to optimize our chances with that one little egg. Hoping that's all it takes! We have an appt set up with the RE in a couple weeks just in case we need to try harder to get more follies.

We dropped mom off at the airport this morning, then came home to relax before the IUI this afternoon. I had acupuncture immediately before it, so I went in totally relaxed. We have to go back in the morning for the second IUI, so I will sum that part up tomorrow.

Oh and I didn't mention that during all this, my FIL spent a couple nights in the hospital. Luckily everything turned out OK, but it was scary for a while.

I'll post more later on the emotional side of all this, but right now I'm just too tired. It's been a week full of highs and lows, but the visit went better than I could have hoped. Mom got along very well with our dog (something I was concerned about as she is not a dog person). They sat together on the couch each night and she threw the ball for him each time she went outside to smoke. Overall, I enjoyed our visit very much and I really hope she comes back soon. Rufus will be waiting!

Radio Silence

Mom is taking a nap, so I can interrupt the week-long silence with a quick post. My "dentist" appt (a.k.a. monitoring u/s and blood work) this morning went well and it looks like I've got one dominant lead follicle again. I have one 12-mm follie on the right, with 2 9-mm follies trying to catch up. I just hope that they can grow a bit more before the lead follie needs to be triggered. Three mature follies would be my best response yet! The office will call this afternoon to let me know about the blood work and if I need to change my dose of meds.

Other than that, not much going on. I'm looking for ways to keep mom busy for the week. I'm planning on a trip to look at flowers/plants since I have practically no landscaping in the front of my house. My mom has just as much (if not more) of a black thumb as I do, so I'm not sure if asking her for help in this area is a good idea. But hey, it kills some time and gets us outside. If the weather stays nice, we might go wander around Fort Collins or Boulder. Mom's not much for hiking, but we can walk around and shop. If it rains and we are stuck inside all week, one of us may not survive til Friday.

I'm back in the game

Yep, AF arrived after a nice, short 28 day cycle--the shortest I have had since the first month or two off BCP. I'm giving that credit to the acupuncture because I didn't do anything else differently this month. It was nice to have some time away from TTC--I think I needed the mental and emotional break. If I had to deal with TTC and losing my dog at the same time, I'm pretty sure I'd be sitting in a nice padded room somewhere.

So, I went in yesterday for my ultrasound and blood work. My ovaries had no cysts (yay!) so the nurse called in the prescriptions for me. I talked them out of doing Femara since I haven't responded well to it. We are going with a strictly injectable cycle this time--Menopur and Ganirelix. I'm hoping a new protocol will give me a better response and more than one follicle. They did see a shadow that they think might be my fibroid re-growing, so I have to go in for another SSH on Wednesday. I'm hoping it's nothing that will stop us from moving forward, and I really hope I don't need another surgery.

One minor little problem--my mother is arriving Monday for 5 days. She knows nothing about our efforts to TTC, nor do I really want her finding out yet. I've already laid the groundwork for where I have to go--I have a dentist appt Monday morning that will just turn out to take a long time (I'll be going for my monitoring u/s before the dentist, so she can just think it's a really long dentist appt). I told her that I'm doing a follow-up with the surgeon who removed my fibroid in August, which is somewhat true. She just doesn't need to know that he's an RE and why the fibroid would be such a problem.

I'm really just not ready for her to know yet. My sister is a fertile myrtle (two planned, two "oops" babies) so our family hasn't had to deal with this before. I'm pretty sure the monthly "so, are you pg yet?" queries will drive me insane. It's disappointing enough for me and DH, but to get it from the whole family might be more than I can handle. I've cleaned my desk of all business cards, needles, sharps containers, etc., so that she won't find out while she's playing her online games and maybe digging for a pen and paper. I've even gone so far as to set up a "guest" profile on my computer so that she can't see my browsing history, blog, posts on message boards, etc. If the info comes out, I won't lie to her and I'll tell her the whole story. But I would really like to avoid that a little bit longer. I'll be happy to tell her the whole deal once we are finally pg.