Crazy week

This has been a crazy week! I have been working insane hours, picking up babysitting, going out to dinner with friends, dinner with family... It has been tiring, but good.

There is no real news on the baby front. I have a follicle check scheduled for Thursday morning. We are doing this cycle without any meds so I am not sure what to expect from the ultrasound. We haven't made a decision on where to have the IUI yet. I am not sure how it is going to work anyway though because I will likely ovulate on Saturday or Sunday. If it is on Saturday, we have to go to IVF for the IUI as our OB is closed. If it is on Sunday then we may have to skip this cycle. Who knows!

Thank you Isa for the nomination for the Liebster award! Go check out her blog . We are very excited about the nomination!

Here are some blogs that we have really enjoyed. Check 'em out!

The Daily Adventures of Two Girls in Love

Crazy Lesbian Mom

thoughts of babies

Two Moms and a Baby Bump

thus far

The Liebster Blog Award works like this:

Say thanks to the blogger who nominated you, and link back to them.

List 5 fab blogs ideally with fewer than 200 followers that you feel deserve the Liebster Award and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.

Copy and paste the award to your blog.

Hope that the 5 people you’ve picked are tickled enough to pass the award onto their 5 Favorites!

I have been avoiding you...

I have avoiding all things baby for the past few weeks. I have pretty much eliminated it from my thought process. I needed time to be me and not let the stresses and disappointments of baby making creep in. I have allowed myself to eat bad food, drink, and even smoke cigarettes. I took time to be the young, wild Ashley. I even had two Bloody Marys at brunch on Sunday... it needed to happen! I feel great and have a relatively low stress level for the first time in almost a year.

I am kind of worried about starting the TTC process again. I just don't want to go back to that anticipation/disappointment cycle. I know that the pay-off will be worth it eventually, but it is pretty difficult in the meantime. Today was really the first day that I thought much about TTC. So, I caught up on reading everyone's blogs and Kristen and I talked a little bit about what is going to happen this month. I just started seeing a counselor and she and I were talking about the TTC process. She then shared with me that she tried to get pregnant for several years before doing IVF and having twins. It was great to hear that because I think that it is very difficult to discuss TTC with someone that hasn't gone through it. I feel very lucky that this lady knows the ups and downs and can hopefully talk me through it. Anyway, I was telling her about how I am not entirely sold on the OB clinic that we are going to. I love my doctor, but I don't usually see her, I get someone else from the practice. Plus, they ordered blood work recently and they never called to follow up with the results. I had a copy sent to my PCP and luckily they called to tell me that my dose of thyroid medication was too high. I just feel like it is kind of irresponsible for a doctor's office not to call with a result, especially if there are changes to treatment plan/medication that need to be made. Who knows, maybe my over-medication has contributed to my not getting pregnant (doubtful, but possible). So, my point is that my counselor said that maybe I should go to Boston IVF for the IUI next time. Although we don't want to spend the extra money ($137 more), maybe I should go to a place that makes me feel more comfortable. Who knows? I wish that Kristen could just do the IUI at home. For those of you that have done IUIs at home, where do you get the catheters? Did a doctor instruct you on keeping a sterile field, etc? I am just curious.

So, our new apartment is nothing short of amazing! It is one of the old, New England style places with the GIANT windows. There is so much sunlight! I also love that it is a large two bedroom place so we have plenty of room to be comfortable. Living in the city is also making me so incredibly happy. Ok, so point is, I love our new home!

I guess that is all for today. I hope everyone is doing well out there in blogland! By the way, this week has been the most incredible March weather ever! Gotta love the sunshine and 80 degree days! I am sure that we will get another snow storm soon to snap us back into the reality of living in Maine!!! :)

Banjo and I are having a quiet kind of day.

I have class in a couple of hours, but for now it's just me and The Jo (one of many nicknames) on the futon listening to my super old collection of music on my iPod.

I finally finished my paper and sent it off to my professor, even though I'm unsure about how clear my focus and intent was. Oh well, I'll find out soon and can rewrite if necessary.

Where are we at right now? Well, I feel like I'm floating in a much calmer sea than I was last week. When Ashley's stressed, I'm stressed and unless I can give her the support she needs, I tend to get a little aggravated, too. Needless to say, last week was tough for a number of reasons. This week, I think we've made some positive strides. Even though seeing the "miracle worker" didn't go as Ashley was hoping, I feel like it's prescription for calming down. If the co-founder of Boston IVF doesn't think we need to worry... I think, probably, we can go ahead and trust him, right? Obviously, his words aren't a cure for anxiety and impatience but it's support that we need.

So, from here we're going to try a few more rounds of IUI. Unmedicated. Why do I feel excited about an unmedicated round? Probably because doing anything without the aid of medicine makes me feel more comfortable. [I'm the type who won't take a pain reliever for a headache unless it's to the point I can no longer focus.] I like the idea of trusting your body. If it turns out that your body needs assistance, then medicine is great, but starting this with Clomid and Femera always felt a little strange to me. When we met with our OB the first time and she said, "If you want the best results, let's start you on Clomid," I felt like it was a little quick, but if it was the difference between a positive outcome, I was down to try it. After going to Boston IVF and having the guy tell us that in some cases when Clomid is not really necessary, it can have an adverse effect, I feel like it only makes sense for us to try without it. Also, with Ashley's reactions to both medicines, I wasn't in favor of continuing their use, anyway. Blinding headaches, stomach aches, it was all very unpleasant for her, and if she's in pain how can that be good for anyone?

Anyhow, Ashley's working on some self-care today. She's finally going for the massage I bought her for her birthday and then she'll have acupuncture later, so it'll be a super physically relaxing day for her. As for me, I'll be spending a little more time with Jo before heading to class and trying to wrap my mind around writing a 10-15 page paper about gender roles and the impact of our relationships with others. Super interesting, but quite a large topic. If only I had a little more time (i.e. not working/not in class) to work on these papers, perhaps I would feel like I had more of a handle on it.

I hope you and your babies/bellies/ttc are all well.
-Kristen

New plan

The new plan doesn't look a whole lot different. We went to Boston IVF today and met with the "miracle worker." Basically, what he said was I am not getting pregnant because it is a numbers game and "bad luck." He said that he expects that there is no reason that I am not getting pregnant so he wants me to do two more months of IUIs. In addition, he wants me to do them unmedicated. He said that there is nothing concerning about my previous blood work, my age, my cycles... so we just need to keep on keeping on. He said that if I am not pregnant after two more unmedicated IUIs then I should come back and see him. We were told that we can either do the IUIs through them or just go to the OB to do them. He wanted to give us the option so that we can spend less money if we want.

Although, I am happy and very grateful that yet another doctor said that there is no reason why I shouldn't get pregnant, it is a little bittersweet. There is a part of me that would like to be able to move on to IVF just to have the greatest chance at getting pregnant. I suppose I just need to practice patience which is SOOOO hard for me. I need to decide if I want to sit this month out or if I should do an IUI later this week. I don't know if I would benefit from a month off or not. There is a part of me that feels like taking this month off and doing the IUI next month will just give me more time to worry about it. I don't know what I will end up doing. Kristen thinks we should wait a month, but I just am not sure.

I went to the concert the other night which was a lot of fun. I only saw Melissa Ferrick play one song because I was talking with old friends and I met tons of new people. The friend that I went with and I both drank a little bit more than intended so Kristen came and picked us up and took us home. Overall it was a really great night. One of the couples that I met is going through the TTC process. It was nice to meet someone locally that is going through the same thing. Hopefully we can get together with them sometime soon.

All in all, things are going ok. I am VERY ready to move though! I love my mother but she is difficult to take in large quantities. Our lease signing was postponed until this Friday or Saturday, so hopefully we can start moving stuff this weekend.

I hope everyone is doing well and that you had a wonderful weekend. :)

Moving forward and going with a plan!

I'm at work, listening to a Madeleine Peyroux radio station on Pandora, attempting to write what should be a simple 2 page paper for my Policy class on Wednesday. I've got to tell you that while I would like to say it's a piece of cake, I've really over thought this paper and it's currently coming out in jumbles. Doesn't really help my case that I can't avoid distracting myself with Facebook or e-mail or music, or anything else! It's alright. I'm clawing my way through.

Ashley wrote about our new apartment that we were supposed to get our keys for today, but that didn't go through. On Thursday we got dumped on by an intense snow storm (about 8 inches or so in Portland) and our landlord-to-be texted me on Friday to cancel, saying he was going skiing for the weekend. I was pretty bummed out. Ashley and I had planned to start moving things in here and there and now we're looking at another week before we'll get the keys. It's not a HUGE deal, but we're ready already! This morning I woke up to a pretty heavy rain storm and couldn't help but think about my landlord-to-be attempting to ski in the downpour... haha.

On the baby front, we've got an appointment with a doctor at Boston IVF on Monday and I'm interested in seeing what this guy has to say. My excitement isn't all that high considering it's just a consultation and considering we won't be working toward making a baby for a while. But, hopefully he'll make us feel better about our situation.

-Kristen

New month, new beginnings

We found a new apartment! It is in the West End of Portland which is a really nice area. It isn't our first choice of neighborhoods, but certainly high on our list of choices. It is a second floor spacious two bedroom. The living room has a fireplace and big, beautiful bay windows. There are two off street parking spots and a washer and dryer in our apartment. Pretty much the ideal place (if only it had a yard). I am excited to start the process of moving in. We technically don't have the place until the 15th, but we can start moving stuff in after we sign the lease on Saturday. It is about $100 more than we wanted to spend each month, but we will make it work. Kristen and I need to move back to the city and make our own home again. It's time! Banjo is going to be so happy too because he goes for lots of walks and gets to go to dog parks often in the city. It will be great!

On the baby making front... I had a little hissy fit last week about not being pregnant. I think that it is getting more difficult as time goes by. I also feel like our doctor's office is really lax about the whole thing. So, I made an appointment on Monday to go to Boston IVF. The doctor I am seeing is one of the founders and he is known as "the miracle worker." Hopefully he will get the job done. I made the appointment on Monday and I have already had someone from the office call to see if I had any questions and let me know that they received my records. Plus, they have you assigned to a specific doctor and nurse throughout your treatment. I feel like that is a really big plus. We have done 3 IUIs and had three different doctors perform them. I have seen/talked to at least 10 different nurses. Each time I talk to them I have to explain our situation in full prior to asking my questions, etc. I will really enjoy having consistent people caring for me.

One of our friends just called and asked me to go to a Melissa Ferrick concert on Saturday night. I am really excited about it. I need a night out to enjoy being a twenty-something rather than a potential baby house. I have to babysit until 8pm so I will get there late, but it is much needed. Oh, and babysitting will give me the money to go out... works out perfectly. I am also trying to set up a time to meet with another friend for coffee. I have been a bit of a recluse lately so it is time for me to get my butt out of the house.

Anyway, I am going to put on some snow pants and go out into the giant blizzard (biggest snow storm of the year) to do some shoveling. I hope everyone is having a great March 1st.
-Ashley