Polyps-be-gone

I am in love with my nurse anesthetist. My whole surgical team was fab but he really made my experience a million times more comforting. He came in to ask me the same questions as everyone else for the millionth time. (Since I know exactly why they do that so I don't get annoyed like some patients do.) When I told him I'd rather do deep sedation than general anesthesia he asked me if there was a particular reason. When I told him about my horrible experience with general when I was 12 years old he seemed horrified. He immediately left the computer terminal he was working on and came to kneel by my bed. He told me that he could tell from my description what drug was used and they administered it way too soon. He told me he doesn't use that drug at all. He carefully described what he does now, how it will feel and that he will be able to tell if I'm in any discomfort. I felt completely reassured. I trusted him and the rest of the team to take very good care of me.

I don't remember the surgery at all, though there was a chance I might remember something. I dreamed about the BBC Sherlock series reboot while I was sedated. I don't remember what exactly I dreamed but I remember being quite entertained. I woke up kind of fuzzy headed and took awhile to really get back to reality. I was sore and a little crampy but not a lot. My cramps got worse later on in the day but I had plenty of pain med options and got it under control. All in all it was a very positive experience.

It turns out there were actually 3 polyps in there. The one we could see on the ultrasound was just the easiest to see. The second polyp was almost as big as the one we knew of but shaped and positioned in a way that would make it difficult to see any other way but with hysteroscopy. The third one was a tiny one just starting to form. He didn't even need to snip that one as it disintegrated when he started to try to remove it. After he was sure they were all removed he did a D&C to clear out the lining. He said that this should really make a difference in the changes in bleeding I've been noticing. He also said he really hopes "things work out" for me. (We couldn't actually say that the main reason for this was fertility since it wouldn't have been covered by my insurance but everyone knew that was my main reason.)

Knowing that there were 3 polyps crowding in my uterus, two of which were big enough to cause breaks in my lining, I feel pretty confident that this could be the cause of my infertility the last few years. That doesn't leave a lot of room for anything to implant comfortably. Dr. M said I could start trying again after I have one normal period.

I'm not sure what comes next. I'm not sure if we will try a medicated cycle first. All I know is that I'm more hopeful now than I've been in a very long time.

Fears and hopes

My surgery to remove the polyp in my uterus is Monday. I've had my pre-op exam and instructions have been given. It didn't seem very real until my pre-op yesterday. Now it seems to hang in front of me full of hope and fear.

Fear because I'm not accustom to medical procedures, even minor ones like this one. I'm a pretty hail and hardy person. The last time I had any kind of surgery it was to remove my tonsillitis when I was 12. Monkey has been doing his best put me at ease. He was a very sickly child and his life has been filled with surgeries and procedures of varying seriousness. (The fact that he is so healthy now is a testament to how hard people worked to get him that way when he was a child.) Compared to the things he has been through this is nothing but I'm still a little nervous. The pre-op helped to calm me. I like to know everything, all the little details, and the surgeon was happy to talk me through it all. Between Dr. M, Monkey, and Author the fear has been dimmed down to a dull anxiety which seems perfectly manageable all things considered.

I think the thing I fear the most, really, is the hope this brings. After five years of trying, and failing, to get pregnant and never knowing why that might be I finally have a possible explanation. With that explanation comes a rather easy possible fix of the problem. This may be what has been getting in the way of a pregnancy. After this I'll be heading back into ttc-land with a fresh start. A truly fresh start with a cleaned out lining, a lower weight than a few years ago and a much better handle on my mental health. I'm afraid to hope too much. This may not be the reason I'm not getting pregnant. I may start ttc after this procedure and spend the next year on the same disappointing roller coaster that I've ridden for the last five years.

But, maybe...just maybe I will finally get that elusive prize. I have to hope, no matter how much I fear that hope. What else can I do? I'm just not quite ready to give up on this dream just yet.

Halfway there but where am I going?

I hate the 2ww but I save a special place in my burning loathing for the second half. The last week of the 2ww is when things get real. You could be really pregnant at that time but it is too early to know for sure. You could also be really not pregnant and any hope is just a delusion. Through it all is the slow march to d-day, the day when your period is due...or the day you will be officially "late". All there is to do is plod along through it, alternately hopeful you are pregnant and convinced it didn't work.

I think it is the uncertainty in the face of potential reality that gets me. Something is happening, or not happening, right at that moment but I can't find out what! I am the worst at obsessively looking for signs of pregnancy even though I know that is silly. The one time I did get pregnant I was convinced I wasn't and, therefore, didn't find out that I had been until the miscarriage started. I don't trust early pregnancy tests to I avoid them for as long as possible. I'm stuck in this road with out knowing my destination. Will I be in bfn town and have to start my journey over again? Or, this time, will I find myself in the magical land of pregnancy and starting on a completely different road? Only time will tell, only waiting will resolve the question.

Fucking Sucks.

The perfect cycle

The perfect cycle means nothing in trying to get pregnant. When donor visits are timed perfectly with fertile windows, you are feeling relaxed and healthy it feels like it should guarantee success. That isn't how this works. But still, when you have the perfect cycle, hope raises just a little. It all seems more possible that it will end with a positive pregnancy test, a worry-free pregnancy and a healthy birth. If only.

I've had more perfect cycles than I can remember. Obviously, it didn't mean anything about success. The one time I managed to get pregnant over the last 4 1/2 years of trying it was a comedy of errors. My cycle started while I was at a conference, at which I caught the worst stomach flu I've ever had in my life and my donor was out of town for my prime fertile days. Yet, this imperfect cycle resulted in, at least, a conception and a brief implantation.

You can't count on perfect cycles. I know that from painful experience. Yet I can't help but feel a bit more hopeful when everything falls into place so smoothly. I usually fight against this extra hope but this time I think I will embrace it. Who knows, maybe that will help too!

Starting agian

It has begun. Today is our first insemination with our new donor, Bee. As luck would have it I'm also having my first day of feritle mucus. I started taking Evening Primrose Oil last month because I was concerned that my age was starting to effect my CM. Now I'm having epic spin. Seems the EPO is doing the trick! 

I'm a little nervous about tonight. Not worried, I know he'll show up and I'll get to insem. It is more the nerves from that first awkward time when you hand a jar to a guest in your home and send him to the bathroom to jack off into it. Queer ttc is often a surreal experience and this is one of those times.

I'm feeling optimistic. I haven't felt that way in a couple years. I am hopeful, not about individual cycles but the process and this donor. It feels odd but good. Maybe, after all this heartache, this is the time it will work.

It will all be ok...

Last week I was stressing. I was worried. We were still feeling the financial effects of a surprise $800 car repair bill. We had some serious issues to deal with concerning our property tax and our year long ordeal to set up an escrow account. I was even still concerned that Bee, the new donor, would somehow change his mind and back out.

As I was dropping off a box of extra kitchen stuff to donate I spied a bit of graffiti through some trees at the edge of the parking lot. "Does it really say that?!" I wondered and then I had to go see. I poked through a hole in the tree line and peeked through a hole in some chain link fence. Yes, it really does say that. It is like a message from the universe just for me. You can't see it unless you park in that one spot and look straight through the break in the trees. I felt like it was reminding me that nothing was really that bad. That, one way or another, everything always works out. That the world isn't conspiring against me. That I can change my world simply by changing my perspective and my assumptions.

This was just what I needed to see on that day. I spent a few minutes taking pictures of it, grateful that I had my new phone with the much better camera. I messed with some filters and tilt-shift to really make it stand out, like it did in my mind when I saw it. I tweeted it, posted it on my instagram and made it my lock screen on my phone so I could see it often. Now I'm sharing it here.

Yesterday, Monkey was notified that an error had occurred with his pay. He was not getting paid the correct rate because payroll never got the message that Monkey had his extra certification before starting. As a result he was owed 3 months of back-pay for the difference and would be getting the correct rate from now on. O.o!! We hadn't noticed! The paychecks were higher than his old job so we really didn't think it was too low. Now we have a windfall of cash that will fill the hole left by the car repairs and pay some of the property tax so that we can keep working on getting that damn escrow account set up.

It will all be ok. Yes, it will. :)

The Bee is cleared for flight.

The test results are back! That was really fast. It took less than 24 hours from blood draw to results. I'm impressed. Bee is clean, as we figured he would be since his risk factors are way low. So, now, it appears I have a donor. He will be coming over for tea and snacks on Sunday to sign the contract, talk details and setup our first inseminations.

My period is due in three days or so. This has lined up so perfectly I'm a little freaked out by it. I'm a little weirded out by feeling optimistic. After all this time, all these attempts, I still find myself feeling hopeful again with a new donor. It is true that I have more to be optimistic about this time. As I mentioned, I'm healthier in so many ways this time. That can't hurt.

So here I am, 4 1/2 years since that first ttc cycle. I have a new donor...again. Time to jump back in.

Strangely optimistic

The potential donor flaked on the meeting and, now, off our list. Our car broke down, will take $700 to fix and the part won't arrive until Tuesday or Wednesday. We need to pay $650 of the several thousand in property taxes we owe in two weeks and it is taking months to set up escrow for this with our mortgage managing company.

And yet I feel strangely hopeful and optimistic.

This is why:

Monkey makes enough money now that, with some tightening of the budget and paying minimums on some bills, we can pay for the car fix and the "get off our back" amount of our property tax. We will then have a month more to get our mortgage company to finish setting up the escrow so the rest of the taxes will get taken care of. We can then pay off the rest of the taxes slowly over time.

We live in Portland, Oregon so going without a car for awhile is not too problematic. We have a great transit system here and I like the relaxed pace of bus transit. Plus, the weather is so nice right now we are walking a lot more anyway.

We have another donor on the list and he is very communicative. We are meeting him on Tuesday. He has been very engaged and proactive. I feel hopeful about him.

It feels strange to feel optimistic. I'm usually quite pessimistic. A week like this would usually have me completely freaked out and convinced that our world was about to fall apart. It is true that some of that was my depression/anxiety that was not being treated properly but some of it was just how I tended to look at the world. I've been trying to change my thinking patterns to be more optimistic. Hmmm...maybe it is working!

The hopeful skeptic

I have a meeting with a potential donor this week. I don't know much about him except that he says he is willing to meet our requirements, will communicate well and can show up during my fertile time. This is all I really care about. But I've had potential donors say all these things before and have them not be true. I no longer entirely believe it will be true but, well, if I wasn't still hopeful I wouldn't bother with the search any more. I am a skeptic but a hopeful one. I think that pretty much sums up my feelings about ttc in general. I am a hopeful skeptic.

New Possibilities

Monkey and Author met with a potential donor last night. I will call him "Fixer," not only because he is an engineer, but because fixing problems seems to be a core of his identity. Fixer's wife was a surrogate for a couple they are friends with. He was very inspired by her gift to them and decided he should become a sperm donor. He also recently took a class on gender and sexuality that opened his mind to all that queer people have to deal with in a straight-based society so he decided that helping a queer family would be where his help was most needed. This is a problem he could help "fix."

It is actually kind of a sweet motivation and one that makes sense to me. The fact that he participated in helping his wife go through the surrogacy means he has seen the kind of legal hoops that are not nearly as involved as ours would be. Our sex and std rules all make perfect sense to him, as does our contract and our legal needs. (He loves our contract. Everything is spelled out. It is pretty detailed.) He is older than our past donors, early 40's, but in good health. I think this is why he isn't just donating to a sperm bank. They can pretty narrow on the age thing. For me age matters less. I always put the line at 50 because that is pretty standard. After that you really see a statistical spike in issues. He has kids, his youngest is about 6, so it hasn't been that long since he produced a kid.

Monkey and Author think this has an 80%-85% chance of working out. He doesn't live locally but is in our city every weekday and will happily commit to a schedule. He is very enthusiastic about this and very positive that this will work for us. I've decided to be hopeful.

So here is to hoping that next cycle I'll have a new donor and, hopefully, a positive pregnancy test not long after.

A break is as good as a rest.

I've found this ttc break to be exactly what I needed.

TTC fatigue is real, ask anyone who's been trying to get pregnant for more than a year (more than 4 years in my case.) You just get to this "fuck it" point where all the extra things you've been doing to supposedly help the process (but isn't obviously) becomes too much. Every prenatal pill that you've been taking for years without being, you know, actually prenatal becomes a reminder of failure. Other supplements, pills and potions are some sort of infertility punishment rather than hope. Every decaf latte you drowsily sip becomes a futile attempt to pretend you could be pregnant...this time, but you don't really believe it.

But, of course, you still do it. You keep swallowing those prenatals. You keep taking Chaste Tree Extract, False Unicorn Root, extra iron, DHA, Ume Plum Pills and anything else that seems to help some one else get pregnant. You keep ordering your coffee "decaf" and avoiding booze at least the second half of the cycle, if not entirely.

Taking a break relieves you of all that responsibility. You can stop taking all those vitamins and extracts. You can have a double mocha. You can have a glass of wine, a rum & coke, a martini without checking which cycle day you're on.

For the last 3 weeks I've been on a ttc break. I've had booze and caffeine. I didn't take my prenatals and skipped my extracts. I was so very much on break that I thought my period was due this weekend. I was shocked to check my tracker and find that I still wasn't due for another week! It felt so good to not be counting down the days from ovulation to period. I plan on taking next cycle off as well.

The funny thing about taking a break is, now that I've had a few weeks, I have found myself starting up with the prenatals, extracts and pills again. I still go for the caffeine-filled coffee and you better believe that a martini will be made this weekend but I don't feel as bogged down by the rest of the routine. It just seems usual.

I'm hoping that, when we start up again, I will have a feeling of newness. It will be fully spring, I'll be healthier than I have been before in body and mind, we will (hopefully) have a new local donor and Monkey will be in a new, less stressful job. Maybe we will get new results. Who knows! Stranger things have happened.