The moment of truth

Monday morning

6:00 a.m.: Wake up groggy, then realize what day it is, still hit the snooze button.
6:05 a.m.: Realize that there isn’t a grass blade’s chance in the Sahara of going back to
sleep.
6:10 a.m.: Get into a hot bath, freak out because I could be pregnant and be inadvertently
boiling my little swimmer.
6:11 a.m.: Immediately drain the hot water and take a cold shower.
6:30 a.m.: Wake up my husband and ask him if he knows what day it is.
“Uhhh....Monday, what time is it?” is his dreary reply.
7:00 a.m.: Pace in front of the door with my purse, only 20 more minutes before I get to
go to work!
7:20 a.m.: Race my husband out of the driveway while fastening my seat belt and turning
off the radio so I won’t have anything to distract my thoughts.
7:30 a.m.: Realize that in my haste and anticipation I forgot my lunch. Crap.
7:55 a.m.: Race to my desk just in case they call right at 8:00.
10:00 a.m.: Finally get desperate and run to the bathroom and back as fast as I can.
10:03 a.m.: Finish drying my hands on my pants and stare at the phone. Then realize
that I might have missed the call and email all my coworkers to see if I have
any messages.
10:05 a.m.: Mope because I have no messages.
10:05-11:00 a.m.: Jump every single time that stupid dang old phone rings and answer
more calls in one hour than I have ever answered in this god forsaken
stupid place and if I have to work one more single minute without MY
PHONE CALL I MIGHT JUST SCREAM!!!!!!
11:01 a.m.: Riiiiiiing! Practically run for the door because I’m so sick of hearing that
stupid phone ring. Then run back in the door to see if it’s for me.
11:02 a.m: OMG! It’s for me.
Kay (nurse): “Heather”
Me: a breathless “yes”
Kay: “How are you today?”
Me: Oh god, is that a congratulations how are you today or a sorry you suck
how are you today? A timid “fine?”.
Kay: “I just wanted to let you know that your test came back positive”
Me: A confused “what came back positive?”
Kay: “your pregnancy test, your pregnant”
Me: Nothing
Kay: “congratulations”
Me: “Really? Are you lying to me? Are you sure?”
Kay: “yes, you are pregnant; we just need to set up your new mommy visit”
Me: “I have to get off here, I just have to, can I......I’m going to cry.”
Kay: “Your estimated due date is December 24th, congratulations”
Me: sobbing “thank you so much, oh god thank you so much”

Ding! Ding! Ding! Get ready for round two!

Now being an old pro at this it should be NO problem! This is not the way things ever go, it's always a problem, might as well get used to it now. They told me not to expect to get pregnant right away, but the disappointment was still overwhelming. I was physically and emotionally tired and truthfully had no idea if I had a second round in me. Right. That is so not true. I knew that I would do whatever it took to get myself "in the way". I wanted a baby and that's that. If only I could find a way to do it without, you know, "doing it" that would be great.

I'm pretty sure that somewhere in here even my husband was getting extremely sick of "it". In fact "it" became somewhat of a bad word in our house. Another thing you might as well get used to if you're trying to get pregnant. This round was so much worse for "it" than the first round because I decided I didn't like the Doctor's advice. I decided that if I wanted to, for example, bake a bun I would follow a recipe to the T. If I didn't like it, I wouldn't just keep using the same recipe over and over again. So you guessed it, I added more ingredients. Not different, just more. And lots of it.

So, here's how it went. I had the dreaded visit from Aunt Flo, the Aunt everyone loves to hate. I got my calendar and mared down the date. I counted out about three weeks, then counted back a few days "just to be sure". Then I wrote down the shcedule in an easy to access wallet sized format for my husband so he wouldn't miss and "appointment". If I remember correctly ev ery day for tow weeks we had so much fun we could barely stand it. Really, I mean that. If you've been there done that you know what I mean. If you haven't I hope you never have to.

So my "womb is ready for an occupant" time frame comes and goes and of course we are still trying to get the "better half" of that occupant to the room. Finally we collapsed exahausted onto the bed and decided we just couldn't take any more or we wouldn't stay married long enough to raise an "occupant". Twenty six days after Aunt Flo came to town I went for THE blood test that could hopefully change life as we knew it. Of course after the failed first round I closed down the little spot in my heart called hope. I really didn't want to hear yet another no, but I sure couldj't wait for that phone call.

Please come back and see if we were finally able to "sell"my womb to the hightest (strongest and fastest) bidder.

Let the poking commence!

And poke me they did, once to see if I spit out an egg (not an easter egg), and then again a couple weeks later to see if I had a bun baking. If you're wondering why I couldn't just take a pregnancy test it's because they needed to know before Aunt Flo came to visit so they would know whether or not to give me more clomid, or they just wanted my money. Anyway, this was not something that bothered me as I have a fairly high pain tolerance; at least I thought I did. Little did I know that some phlebotomists don't actually know how to "phlebtomise". Shocking I know!

So, Bleeding profusely from wounds in both arms it was now time to just sit and chew my finger nails. Would this be my life changing moment? Would this be the day that I could loudly proclaim "I will never be the same"? I waited a day and then another day before my impatience finally got the best of me and I called the Doctor's office, five times. Okay, so as soon as I heard that "no" a massive leak sprung up in both of my eyes. How mortifying to be leaking, and at work no less. Naturally I didn't believe the nurse and had to run right over to the store for a test of my very own. Well, of course that was 5 bucks down the toilet along with the remains of my strung out heart and soggy tissue.

I quickly gathered up my emotions and stuffed them in my desk drawer along with all the work I never bother to take out. I squared my shoulders and proudly marched to the pharmacy for my next bottle of potentially life changing drugs. I could do it again; you can't expect it to happen on the very first try anyway, at least not with my shy eggs. This time I would do it right and I would do it my way, not the Doctor's way.

Obviously I'm excellent at giving myself pep talks, right? Never mind the fact that as soon as I walked away from my desk my emotions suddenly materialized right in front of me like they were attached with an invisible string. My coworkers may have been concerned when they seen me stumble, red faced and blubbering from the room. I wouldn't know because I was back to berating myself for being a horrid failure of a woman.

Ahh...that tiny little pill

Last time we chatted I was informed I would no longer be able to take the fertility drug clomid because of a very itchy rash. So onward we shall go into the saga of the homeless sperm.



We'll back up just a tiny bit and talk about the 2 times I was allowed to take clomid and how exactly it works. The instructions will vary from Doctor to Doctor and patient to patient, but for me it went something like this... Three days after Aunt Flo came for a visit I was to start popping my pills. One per day for something like five days. Then you break out the handy dandy calender to see just when you are "allowed" to attempt procreation. I say allowed because you sure don't want to waste any of that precious salmon as my husband fondly refers to it. And of course because the Doctor gave us a "prescripted schedule". This meant I had to count out the days until my ovulation should occur, count backwards like 4 or 5 days and starting from there make the salmon home as inviting as possible, but only every other day. Then the sticking truly begins in earnest. Hey hey hey, get your minds out of the gutter. I'm talking about blood tests of course. Twice per cycle, once to see if you ovulated and once to see if you were successful. And let me tell you how much you hope Aunt Flo is going to be gone for a long time.



So this gives us an idea of how things started out. In my next post I'll talk about how my first round of clomid went. Hopefully this will help anyone out there who is going through the same frustrations as us. Please tune in later this week and we'll finish up the clomid business.

What do you mean I don't ovulate!?

Do you ovulate? Me either. I know, terrific conversation starter. Here's the skinny of it, I wanted a baby, my husband wanted a baby. We tried for a year, no success. When we went to the Doctor they began running tests. Let me tell ya, that was a fun day when I had to hand a cup to my husband. He looked at me blank faced and said "are you comin"? "Heavens no dear, that's what you're supposed to do". And so it begins, the hunt to find the problem. Two days later we get a call saying my husbands salmon definitely swim upstream. Two weeks later I received a call telling me I was a miserable failure as a woman (that's how I felt anyway). My prombt and I feel witty response to being told I didn't ovulate was "I always wondered why I hadn't gotten knocked up before".

What followed was another two months of the most boring, planned, legs up in the air sex life I could have ever imagined. That's right, I started taking clomid. For those of you who don't know, but can probably guess, clomid is a fertility drug that makes you ovulate. Well of course I am apparently allergic to clomid and so in my second round of "therapy" I was informed I would not be able to take it again because the spotty rash on my hands legs would only get worse with each succesive treatment. Beautiful. Lots of tears here if you can imagine.

Please tune in soon for an update on what happened next.