Back to real life (7 days since trigger)

Jason and I just got back from our super-speedy trip up North. We went to celebrate his grandmother's birthday. I was absolutely dreading the trip but when it came time to leave I suddenly wished our flight back would get canceled due to bad weather.... for a lot of reasons.

First of all, his family was so incredibly gracious and uplifting to be around. Second, I got really attached to one of Jason's cousin's 5 year old twins (boy/girl). The little girl absolutely loved me, and that says a lot. (Children don't usually care for me and they certainly don't make a habit of following me around.) But the third and most important reason I didn't want to leave is that I hardly thought about whether or not I was pregnant! Well, when I say "hardly" that means only 30 times per day instead of 30 times per hour!

Another of Jason's cousins has a 10 month old set of twin girls (apparently they're pretty common in his family) and Jason and I got to play with them. It was the first time I had ever seen Jason excited about holding a baby and it was incredible. It didn't even make me sad or jealous that they had something we didn't. I try my best now not to assume that people just had the easiest time in the world getting pregnant. For all I know, they went through what we are going through now.

The only time I got a smidge upset was when they were taking pictures of Jason's grandmother's sons and their offspring-- "generational shots" I guess you could call them. Anyway, Jason's uncles (grandma had all boys) each had 10 (at a minimum) people in their shot. But when it came to us, it was a lonely five. Grandma, Jason's parents, Jason, and me. Jason is an only child, and at 27, everyone began asking us when we were going to get on the ball. I leaned over and whispered to Jason and his mother that "this crew just isn't as prolific as the rest of you all!" Jason's mother got a kick out of that because it took her ten years to have Jason, so she knows the heartache of infertility. Well, that and the fact that we just shared with her early last week that we were actually actively trying to get pregnant and undergoing fertility treatments.

Tomorrow is back to work, back to counting down the latter half of the 2ww. Yay, how very thrilling. Jason is even going to be out of town when I start my pregnancy testing insanity. Probably better for him. Now we've just got to figure out who's going to scoop the litter box while he's gone for four days!

Coping.... or lack there of

Thursday and Friday were very exciting days. After a small fiasco between Jason and I (we couldn't decide who should give the injection and changed our minds a couple of times because we were both so chicken), we went to our appointment for our first IUI on Friday afternoon. I was so nervous that I literally thought I was going to puke in the biohazard bin. I think I've been reading too much about how it hurt and oh the terrible cramping and such, but it wasn't bad at all. The worst part was the waiting. We've never had to wait a minute past our appointment time, and even when we arrive early, they will more often than not see us. But not on the most nerve racking day since we've been going there. So basically, I had plenty of time to get my nerves worked up. Dr. M-L did the procedure, which I was very thankful for since I didn't know the other doctors and it was my first IUI.

On Saturday, we weren't seen until almost an hour after our appointment time. The clinic had lost the consent to thaw forms so I had a to sign a new one 15 minutes before the IUI was supposed to be done, which meant they hadn't even starting thawing it, much less the wash and prep. But for a moment when the nurse came out, I thought there was a problem with the specimen and we would be losing out on today somehow. And to add to that, I knew that the doctor on call for the weekend was a man, so I was extremely nervous about that. I've never had a male gyno, so I wasn't too keen on having one snoop around down there now. Thankfully, he was so nice, that I really forgot about it. I had purposely worn the most ridiculous socks that I could find in an effort to spark conversation and make the doctor laugh to make me less nervous. It worked. He started on my socks, the pronunciation of my last name, introduced himself by "Andy Toledo" instead of Dr. Toledo -- essentially had far better bedside manner than Dr. Mitchell-Leef. After it was over and I confessed how nervous I had been about it and told him that he had hurt far less than the IUI yesterday, he said "that's because you have to have a man do it." Something about being much less rough. Anyhow, he really was so nice and propped my head up so that I would be comfortable for the 20 minute wait and my hips up for good measure with the IUI. Part of me wishes he would do the procedure every time, but I'm not super thrilled about the prospect of switching doctors; and I'm hopeful that I won't have to do an IUI again for a few years.

Trying to cope is the hardest thing in the world. I have been so hopeful and excited since CD 1 this month. I guess I was always looking forward to the next task, monitoring, appointment, or medication. But now, there's really just waiting.... for two weeks. And somewhere in the last two days, I've lost some of that hopefulness. I guess it's hard to imagine that the IUI could result in something so incredible that could be going on my body right now. I find myself counting the hours since my last insemination, wondering if the sperm are still swimming around, trying to find my egg, if my egg is where it should be, etc. Friday night and last night I even tried to lay mostly on my left side during sleep so that gravity might help the sperm towards the more active of my ovaries. Kind of silly, I know. I'm nauseated as hell thinking about everything, wishing I could be as excited as I was before. This is going to be a very long two weeks. I think there's been more stress in the last few days than there was even when we found out the news. Maybe I'm just blowing it all out of proportion, but I find myself wanting to break down every 2 hours. So right now, I am just trying to cope.