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?

New Year, New Hope?

Pardon my language, but 2013 can Suck It. My favorite uncle passed away in February and that's been crazy tough on my family. My Nana had recurring health issues all year long. And 2013 ended with us being told that we should move on to IVF. Yep. That happened.

I can't say I'm particularly floored by the news, but I also wasn't ready for it. Before I get ahead of myself though, lemme add that we're doing iui again this cycle anyway. And if it doesn't work this time, we might even try iui one more time. E and I have to figure out our financial and insurance situations. But also, when we had our meeting with our RE last Friday, I had actually gotten my period on my own- all by myself!- so the options were sort of to get a move on with getting approved by the insurance company for another iui cycle or get on birth control (what! it'd be to keep me from ovulating) in preparation for IVF. We had, like, a day to figure out what we wanted to do. And since our finances were not yet in order, we went for it with another iui. I went in for blood work and an ultrasound today (the RE was training a new sonographer- is that a word?- so that was just lovely) and started Clomid tonight.

The RE wants to move on to IVF for a couple of reasons. He said that we've now done 5 rounds of clomid with him (not to mention the ~5 rounds with my OB-GYN). Here's the thing, though- 4 of them were just with timed intercourse and I weighed 10-20 lbs more than I do now. We had an entire year break in-between Clomid rounds 4 and 5. And #5 involved our first-ever iui. So while he says that I should've gotten pregnant by now after 5 rounds of Clomid, and I get it, I just don't think or feel like it's urgent enough for IVF yet. Maybe I'm just scared of IVF and dragging my feet. The financial aspect of it is definitely freaking me out. But I feel like I need to give iui one or two more tries before actually taking the leap to IVF.

Another thing: my diagnosis has now switched from anovulation (I think? Whatever. "Not ovulating".) to "Unexplained Infertility". WTF!?! This has to be one of the most frustrating things ever. As hard as this whole process has been, there was almost always something to treat. But it being unexplained? That just sucks. And it's apparently hereditary, because that's what my mother, aunt, and grandmother were all told as well. You'd think that they'd have made enough medical advancements since the 50's and 60's to be able to pinpoint something, but, hey, apparently not. On one had, it's a little reassuring because all of those relatives had 2-3 kids. On the other hand, none of them tried for this long. So, great.

The good news is, the RE is "happy" with E's sperm. And since we'd flubbed that whole "length of abstinence" question on the paperwork that morning (we were flustered and wrote 2 or 3 days when it was actually 45 minutes because the first medical condom had broken), he was even happier when we told him the real story, because E's sperm is probably even more mighty. Mightier. Whatever. 

Tonight I was walking home from a little get-together with a friend when, all of a sudden, there were fireworks all over the place. I quickly realized that it was clearly midnight, and HAPPY NEW YEAR. E had been planning on FaceTime-ing me at midnight from his night shift at the hospital like we did last year, but my phone died at the get-together (I texted him from my friend's phone to let him know I'd text him as soon as I got home). Look: What I'm getting at is that I've been in a lousy place since our BFN. Emotionally, spiritually, mentally. But in that moment, walking home, watching the Prospect Park fireworks in the "Feels Like" 14* weather and laughing with my friend, I felt hopeful. It could've just been the fireworks- I love love love fireworks... but I think that I just might be able to grab onto the excitement of 2014/a new beginning, and try to use that for a while... right?

Let's Talk About Sperm, Baby...

Sperm, sex. Same thing, right?

Ugh.

I don't really have anything inspiring to say. I'm doing better today. Yesterday, I was completely broken. Part of me was so sure that this was the month. I was petrified of having a miscarriage, petrified of something happening during labor, petrified of something happening to our baby. But I really, really thought that this was our month.

We'd done everything "right". I'd lost weight, I was (okay, sort of) doing really well on Low Amylose. I was taking my meds on time. I'd produced not one but two follicles and I ovulated!! We even managed to get an iui done for the very first time.

Okay, so honestly, there was a little mishap there, and the more I think about it, the more I'm coming to terms with that being why it didn't work.

Here's the thing. We're religious Jews, so that whole masturbation thing is a big no-no for us. "Spilling one's seed", and all. So to obtain E's sample, we have to use this medical condom with a hole poked in it, and then empty the semen into a sterilized cup, stick it under one of our armpits, and verrrry carefully run downstairs to a cab (without shaking the sample) and book it to the RE's office. Then, even more fun, the sample needs to be watched by someone who knows all of these Jewish laws from the minute we hand the sample over to the RE or NP or whoever, up until they begin the actual iui, specifically to make sure they don't mix E's sample up with someone else's. So we have to pay $100 for a lady "mashgiach" to do this every time we do an iui. It's crazy, it's an added burden, it's frustrating. But that's what we do, and I guess it's nice to know there's an additional thing keeping everything in check. There's a word for that. Whatever.

Like I said, it was huge that we made it to this iui because we've attempted to do an iui twice before and we didn't make it to the RE's office either of those times. Third time's the charm? Y'see, these medical condoms are super uncomfortable. They're tight, they're made out of a totally different material than normal condoms, they're super thick and not at all stretchy. And there's no lubrication because they need to be sterile. So they really kind of hurt... both to wear and to, uh, experience? This is so ridiculous. Anyway, we didn't make it twice before because the condom broke both times, and  so we just ended up doing timed intercourse. This time we were ALMOST successful but the condom broke, yet again, at the last second. TMI? Possibly. Lucky for us, we'd bought two condoms this time ($15 freaking dollars each) and so we pulled it together and successfully collected a sample.

Yay, us. The problem is, you're supposed to abstain from sex for 2-3 days prior to collecting a sample so that the sperm count will be ideal, but because of our condom mishap, our abstinence time ended up being... oh, about 45 minutes. Right. Ah, and then, since we were running so late (we were supposed to be there at 7:15a for an 8am iui and got there around 9:30am) not just because of all the condom drama, but because this all happened in the middle of a freaking blizzard, we were flustered and forgot to dump the sample into the sterile cup. We just threw the whole condom into the cup. Which, of course, made the whole sample unsterile because of the outside of the condom. Right. #winning

So, as you can guess, E's sperm stats weren't super ideal. After the NP had washed and checked out the sperm, E asked her "How'd we do?" and her response was something like "I mean, they were terrible..."

Right. Ouch. Not exactly what you wanna hear.
The exact in-office stats were:
Volume: 1.8mL (Normal = 2mL or more)
Concentration: 24.5 x 10^6mL (Normal = 20 x 10^6mL or more)
% Motility: 47% (Normal = 50% or more)
Debris: 3 (Normal = 1-2)

So, yeah. Not great. Below average on 2, more "debris" than preferable, but in the normal range for "concentration"! That's gotta be worth something, right? And this was after 45 minutes of abstinence AND trekking through a blizzard. C'mon. Those little guys deserve a medal or something.

Idk. The RE is going to talk to us about this, among other things, on Friday. I'll just be a nervous wreck until then.

I'm also going to be praying that I don't get my period before then, because I haven't had it since AUGUST and when I had it then, it lasted for like 2 months. I cannot wait that long to start another cycle. Enough is enough.