How Lucky Can a Girl Get?

I am currently reading a book called "Nurturing Yourself Through IVF", which has been great, since it talks about all of the things that one can do spiritually, wholistically, and emotionally to increase the likelihood of a positive IVF result. I am on the chapter which talks about the power of positive thinking - hence the title of this entry. Do you want to know how lucky I am right now?

I am sick. Yes, have had a cold now for a week. (Caution: physically explicit description on the horizon...) Coughing, sneezing, lotsa phlegm. I caught this cold from DH, who only had a mild form of it for THREE days, while I am working on Day EIGHT. And just yesterday, I was lucky enough to have been diagnosed with conjunctivitis ("pink eye") in both of my eyes. Yes, I am a walking time-bomb. My immune system is completely shot and I feel and look like crap.

We were supposed to go camping this weekend with friends, which I was actually looking forward to. However, given my illness and my desire NOT to pass on the pink eye to my husband, I skipped the trip and sent my husband along anyway. So I am alone this weekend, hacking away, and feeling sorry for myself.

But think positively, right?

Boy, I love being sick!! Reminds me that I'm alive!

P.S. I am 10 dpo, with no sign of pregnancy. Darn it. I don't even have sore boobs this month, which I always have! Now I'm just waitin' for good old AF to arrive so that I can get this IVF party started...

P.P.S. All I've done this morning is clean the goop out of my eyes, blow my nose, write this entry and watch music videos. Can't believe that the New Kids on the Block are still "hangin' tough" (haha!) They look old. But wait a minute, if they look old, then how do I look?!?

Dreams Really Do Come True...

Sending out a great, big, congratulatory hug today to my "cyber-friend" CJDR, who has just received multiple BFPs on her hpts after her third IUI!! What a blessing this is for her and her husband - I know that she was beginning to feel defeated and so terribly discouraged. After an almost three year struggle, she is finally experiencing the happiness she deserves and her situation has helped to reinforce for me that dreams really do come true...

I find it so much easier to be happy for girls who find out they're pregnant after struggling with infertility. Is that an unbelievably crass, mean thing to say? I'm sorry if it is. It's just that for many of the girls that I have interacted with in these last two years who have become pregnant (and believe me, there were a TON...fourteen, to be exact...) the vast majority of them didn't need to try for more than 6 months, and a couple of them even got pregnant by accident! These are girls that can't relate to the struggle of a woman who has been trying for years. These are girls that give advice like "Relax and it will happen!" These are girls that don't know the heartache that I have felt time and time again.

But women who have faced the sorrow and despair of infertility know how precious that positive result is. These are women who have lived through the tests, the drugs and the injections. These are women who can truly relate to what I am going through, and whose advice I can accept because for them, it has been just as hard.

So when these women get pregnant, I shed tears - of joy, not of jealously or heartache.

CJ - I'm shedding some tears for you this morning. God bless you, your husband, and this tiny miracle you have finally been given.

It can only get better from here...

So. No call. Well, actually, there was a call, but it was from me to them. After waiting the requisite 7-10 days and not hearing from my clinic, I decided to give them a call to find out what the heck was going on. And the nurse that I talked to said (with what seemed at the time to be contrived sympathy) "Oh, looks like you missed it this month by three people..."

What?!? Get the f**k out of here!! What do you mean I missed it by three people?!?

Contrary to what the nurse told me last month, I wasn't close enough to the top to be offered treatment this cycle. So now I have to wait yet again. Does the waiting ever end when one has infertility? From my perspective, the answer's a big, fat NO.

So now I am in limbo for the rest of the summer. DH and I were going to plan a big trip; the initial disappointment was replaced with excitement when my hubbie reminded me that now we were free to travel somewhere exotic for the rest of the month. But then reality set in - I have to call in my next cycle (which, the nurse du jour tells me, will be IT - the cycle that I am guaranteed treatment...), then wait for a call back, then go pick up drugs, and then start my suppression. How can I do all of that from Tokyo or Bangkok? It's just not possible.

Having to put your life on hold like this really sucks. Now, I recognize that I am a total control freak, which adds to the frustration. But DH and I have had to deal with so many ups and downs for what seems like a lifetime - it just doesn't seem fair that we have to wait yet another month for our miracle to happen.

A great little gal from the boards over at IVF.ca (who just had her ER, successfully!) encouraged me by telling me - the juice is worth the squeeze. This will have to become my mantra.

After all, it can only get better from here, right?

Update...

Woke up to a little surprise this morning...

Back to Day 1...

Called in to the period hotline - keeping fingers crossed that this is it!!

It's a Mystery

So, I am one of the most faithful basal body temperature takers you will ever come across in your life. For the last two years, I have lived and died by the temperature that I take first thing in the morning. Yes, every morning, between 6:15 and 6:30, my alarm clock sounds and I roll over to pop my little pink thermometer into my mouth. In fact, I can do it with my eyes closed. I have memorized days worth of temps to record on my chart, and these charts have helped me to anticipate everything that my body has thrown my way.

Except for this month.

You see, each month my temperature usually rises to a crescendo, then ten days after ovulation, my temperature takes a dip and I start spotting on that day. Now, every once in a while, the temp drops nine days after ovu, or I don't spot until eleven days after ovu. But still, I know that each time my temp dips, good old af is on her way.

Well, here I am at twelve days post-ovulation, and nothin'. Not a damn thing.

Now here's the mystery:

My temp started dropping two days ago, then dropped again yesterday. But today, it went back up again slightly. And no period. Odd, isn't it?

Now, had this been about a year and a half ago, my heart would be racing and I would be eagerly peeing on an hpt. But not now. Nope. I've seen too many negatives on an hpt to even bother with one anymore. In fact, DH asked tonight if we should take the test, and I told him no. "We've seen our share of negative test results, dear! If my period doesn't come, then let's consider ourselves pregnant, shall we?" I said to him.

I guess only time will tell. Tomorrow morning, I will turn over and pop my thermometer into my mouth again and see what it says. And maybe it will provide me with a clue to this mystery. Or perhaps af will arrive to solve it.