ICLW :)

Hey IComLeavWe'ers! This is actually my first time participating. And I picked the most hectic time ever since we're going out of town tomorrow. Well, hopefully. There's currently a foot of snow being deposited outside and Polar Vortex temperatures, round 2. Wish us (and our house sitter!) luck.

I thought I would introduce myself a little for anyone visiting for the first time. I'm T, married to E and trying to conceive since 2009, with a 13 month break from doctors thrown in there. We live in Brooklyn and I spend my time working with women with special needs and turning our 800 sq ft apartment into a Pinterest Palace. So I post some of those creative endeavors.

I have PCOS. Always have. My cycles are non existant. I've literally had two periods since last March. Last April (during our break from RE appts), I started the low amylose "diet", and have pretty much stuck to it ever since (I wrote allllll about it here). Not to sound like an infomercial, but after we got married I gained a bunch of weight and I tried eve.ry.thing to lose it, but I actually kept gaining. I was counting calories and literally sticking to 1200 calories a day (and starrrrving) and would actually GAIN weight. Even while taking Metformin. It was insane. When I heard about low amylose, I was at my wits end and jumped at the opportunity to stop counting calories. Basically, the idea is that people with PCOS have a very hard time with amylose (a sugar) so... we should avoid it. Amylose is found in root vegetables, grains, bananas, sugar, etc. You can google it. It's a real thing. The point is, I started avoiding those foods, but eating as much of the allowed foods as I wanted, and not only was I no longer starving but I actually lost 30lbs! Hurray. :) I post a lot of LA recipes that I've tried out and enjoyed.

I also obviously write about our journey to conceive. It's been a tough road. We're currently in the 2ww of IUI #2. Our RE wants us to jump to IVF since we've done about a million clomid + timed intercourse cycles but we've decided to hold off until after, Gd forbid, 3 failed IUIs. E is in the middle of a doctorate program, so money's tight, yo.

Ok I need to run and pack for our trip tomorrow (wishful thinking?) but if you have any questions, shoot them my way! Thanks for stopping by :)

IUI #2 2ww Ramblings

Well it's 3dpIUI (that's all!?!) and my chest is still KILLING me. Not like scary, inside hurting. My... girls? I don't know what to call them on here. But you get the point. It's horrendous. Like I wake up if I roll over in my sleep because it hurts so bad. Super weird.

I was exceptionally well-behaved on Clomid this month. I don't know why, but my mood swings were WAY less strong, I was borderline actually sane. Even E mentioned it... he thanked me for pulling it together so much this month. lol. Poor, poor E. (note: as I'm typing this, E texted me to ask what prompted my text to him about how angry I am about last night's episode of Parenthood. I'm not going to spoil anything for you guys, but when I answered him it included "I'm like literally fuming". Over a TV show. Which is probably not the most sane emotion I've ever experienced. Whatever.)

I also didn't really get hot flashes this month. That was a first. I usually get them from a couple of times an hour to every couple of hours, max. This time around I got one or two, total. Which made me nervous, buuuuut we also read on a doctor's website (the RE in Indiana that a bunch of bloggers heard about the Low Amylose diet from) that patients who experience hot flashes on Clomid are statistically less likely to get pregnant. Or something like that. Don't freak out and don't quote me. I'll try to find the actual wording. But if that is the case, then not getting hot flashes could be a good sign! Right? Right?

Oh. Here's a super dumb question- does anyone know if the Ovidrel shot give false positives on OPKs too? Or just HPTs? Shoot me a line if you know the answer, please!

Apple of My IUI

Welp, IUI #2 was Tuesday, which was also E's Jewish birthday (his birthday on the Jewish calendar). Jewish mysticism says that every year on the day a person was born, that person's mazel or good fortune, is super strong. Good timing, huh? We made the last-second decision for him to throw a birthday farbrengen Monday night. A farbrengen is usually translated as a "Chasidic gathering", or a gathering of Chasidic Jews. A birthday farbrengen is basically a birthday party, where men or women (they're usually single-sex) come for a few minutes or a few hours, eat snacks, and discuss something holy and how to be better people/observant Jews. E's discussion theme of the night was something like "Why G-d gives (some of) us such a hard time". I don't they came to any mind-blowing conclusions or anything, but someone brought up the concept that, even though G-d is holding things back, and He knows the reason, and the reason is definitely good for us, it hurts Him even more than it hurts us. Okay. That somehow worked for E. It makes him feel better to believe that G-d is compassionate and feels bad about doing things that hurt us even if they're for our own good. I'm not so sold. My take on it is that if things were like this in any other relationship, you'd call that an unhealthy relationship... but I dunno. What can I say? :) Don't get me wrong. We have a million other blessings in our life (hence the DIY glitter sign a few posts back). But this is a big freaking deal. So big that G-d even made it a commandment to "be fruitful and multiply". So.... hello.... we're pulling our weight down here....!

Ummm anyway. I'm not sure what the actual sperm count from Tuesday was yet, but the RE did the iui this time (last time it was the PA) and said it "looked promising". Whatever that means.... Let's hope that E's extra good luck pulled through for us!!

I don't have to go in next week for progesterone monitoring, just on the 28th for the pregnancy test. Eeek! Thankfully we have a trip to visit my parents planned for next week, and mini-class reunion next Saturday night while we're in town. My best friends from high school and I all decided to ditch the real class reunion, which was Thanksgiving weekend, and just host our own with the people we really wanted to see. We're actually all married, so it'll be nice to see everyone and E will have the guys to hang out with also. :) E's parents are also visiting us this weekend, so there seems to be a ton of 2ww distractions ahead of us. Thankfully!

Not much other news, otherwise. We've both been battling nasty colds all week. E made a killer tomato lentil soup for me today before he went back to work tonight. He'd called out of work Sunday night because he was feeling miserable, and happened to have Monday and Tuesday nights off, so this was his first shift since last Thursday night. We might've gotten a little bit spoiled from so many nights off in a row.

Oh! I don't really know the details, but I read somewhere that after an iui it's good to eat an entire pineapple over the course of the 5 following days. So... we're trying that! Anyone else heard of that?

And the test was....

Negative. FML.

Ramblings Part IV

Jusssst crawled back into bed after coming home from the RE's office. Had my "2 week" blood work done. Aka my pregnancy test. I'm FREAKING OUT. I really feel like it's going to be a BFN. Like, I would be floored if it wasn't. But that might be my brain just trying to protect me from getting my hopes up.

Been super emotional still. I was pretty fine over Shabbos, we went and stayed with some friends in (on??) Long Island. I couldn't sleep at all Friday night, though. I think it was a combination of a strange bed/place and E's over-the-top snoring. At least he slept well.

Been really nauseous but I think it's my nerves. Also, I'm exhausted because last night I had training at work until 10:45pm. Then I was too nervous about this morning to go to bed so we played Trivial Pursuit. We have the "family edition" (is that ironic? I still don't know) so I usually use the kid cards and E uses the adult ones because he's brilliant. But last night he made me answer only adult card questions because I've won the past like 10 games... AND I STILL WON. By three pie slices. Trivial Pursuit champion over here.

E ran out to a bodega to grab me some ginger ale... So I'm going to snuggle into bed and try to relax. The RE should be calling sometime in the early afternoon... Wish me luck.

...have I mentioned that I am freaking out??