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!

Splendiferous Sugar-Free Pudding Ideas

Today we're going to be talking about things to make using sugar-free pudding. Ok, look, try not to make fun of my first attempt at a Pic Monkey graphic too much. It's a little sad, I know. Whatevs. This little experiment came up when I was aimlessly checking out the contents of our pantry and realized we had a box of, you guessed it, sugar-free pudding. I actually haaaate the taste of anything sugar-free, so when I decided I wanted to do something with it, I figured I needed to pick something that would camouflage the taste. These aren't the healthiest recipes, but they are actually low amylose (EXCEPT that my sugar-free pudding had Splenda in it, which has maltodextrin, which is a big ol' no-no. So try to find one without that). I used Lieber's brand, so Idk if Jello brand has Splenda in there too, but either way it probably tastes better than my kosher one. And anyway, it's Bill Cosby approved:

K so first up is the imitation Wendy's Frosty. Now, I've kept kosher for about the past decade (!!!) so I admittedly haven't had one of the real guys in a while. A long while. But this was close enough (even with all of my stupid tweaks) that I got where they were going with it. In high school my friend and I would go through the Wendy's drive-thru for a Frosty and then drive next door for Burger King fries, because they were infinitely better there. My parents never let me pull that crap though. It was all or nothing. :) So here you go:

Imitation Wendy's Frosty (original recipe found here)
Ingredients:

• 1 cup milk
• 2 TBS sugar-free chocolate pudding mix (I used vanilla and was wondering why it wasn't so chocolatey until right now)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1tsp unsweetened cocoa*
• 1/2 TBS Splenda (2-3 small packets)*
• 7 ice cubes
• (optional) 2 TBS cool whip (I skipped this- cool whip isn't kosher ;))

* I actually used a little bit of maple syrup and a little bit of sugar-free chocolate syrup but I do not recommend using my substitutions on the Frosty. The lady that posted it said it was amazing and she'd love it even if she wasn't on a diet. Mine was okay, but still had a lot of that Splenda taste. Shocker.
This one is super easy. All you do is throw it all into the blender until it hits your desired consistency.

Next up:
No-Bake Greek Yogurt Cheesecake
Crust Ingredients (recipe from here- I want to try that full recipe w/ almond or cashew butter instead of peanut butter- I'd already made the pudding when I found this crust recipe, so I was kind of locked into cheesecake!)

• 1 cup ground almonds
• 1 cup dried, unsweetened coconut (I used 1/4c shredded coconut, 3/4c coconut flour)
• 1/2 cup chopped (pitted) dates
• 1 tbsp maple syrup
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp salt
• ~1 tbsp water (depends on the moisture from the dates- add this last) 

Throw all of this into a food processor, adding a little water at a time until you can pinch it with your fingers and it sticks together.  Then pat it into the bottom of your pan.

 

(Close inspection shows that I've got real chunks of date in there. Oh well.)

Filling Ingredients (recipe from here)

• 12 oz Plain Greek yogurt 
• 1 package Sugar Free Fat Free Cheese Cake Pudding Mix (I used sugar free vanilla)
• 1 Cup milk (any kind; I used dairy)  

I threw these ingredients into the blender for maybe 1.5 minutes. Just until it seemed incorporated. Then I poured it on top of the crust, made a little design with some of that sugar-free chocolate syrup, and popped it into the refrigerator for a few hours. That's what's up.

 Lemme know if you try this, and what additional tweaks you make that are amazeballs. Any other sugar-free pudding recipes out there? :)

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?

Breakfast and Eggs

Whenever I come home from the RE, I'm usually starving. I've never been a morning person, and even as early as Middle School I would get nauseous just thinking about eating breakfast before school. My mom would force feed me Carnation Instant Breakfasts, though, so I wouldn't make it to first period and be starving. I miss those things.

Anyway, it just hit me that it's kind of ironic (again, I'm still not 100% sure if I'm using that word correctly or a la Alanis Morissette) that after almost every single appointment, I go from them checking out my follicles/eggs to eating eggs. Bc I like warm food. It's a quirk. Whatevs.

Today, they hadn't grown too much. On Sunday there were a bunch around 10 and under. Today there were 2 "big" ones on each side (1) but nothing over 12. Maybe two 12's, an 11 and a 10? Something like that. They're going to call me this afternoon and lemme know when I should head back there.

Nothing like heading to an internal ultrasound at 6:30am in -3 degree weather. Amiright?

Insensitivity Training

 I'm sitting here in my living room at 5:15am, thinking about getting ready for my RE appointment. My sleep schedule is so off it hurts. I need to break out of the nocturnal- a recurring issue for me. I'm thinking I'll take a nap when I get home from the RE, get up for awhile, take another nap (because I've got plans with friends tonight) and then go to bed between 12 and 1am. I think that'll work. We'll see.

Anyway, this has been the week of awkward comments.

Yesterday I went to my first shift at work in a long time. I've gone to a couple of trainings in the last couple of weeks but I haven't been to any actual shifts. The issue was that I had been doing morning shift (6:30am-9:30am) at a group home for women with special needs, which is great because it's time and a half. Buuuuut that's when my RE appointments are. Bloodwork is 6:30-8am. Hoorumph. Also, I was avoiding work like the plague during my 2ww because my job involves a lot of heavy lifting, and... y'know. I was scared. So whatever, I didn't have an appointment yesterday and my boss asked me if I could cover a shift, so I did. And wouldn't you know, we were severely understaffed and I ended up majorly pulling a muscle in my back. I came home and tried to sleep it off and was actually about 90% successful, but now I've been awake since 10pm. Haha. Ughhh.

While I was at work, one of my supervisors asked me if I'm just filling in during emergencies these days. I shrugged and said I guess that's pretty accurate. She looked at me incredulously and said "I don't know how you can just do nothing all day. Don't you get bored? What do you do??" Ahem. While I was picking my jaw up off the floor I had time to stop myself from slapping her. She has no freaking clue what's going on in my life, but my bosses know that I'm taking this time off because of a medical issue. Maybe she missed that memo, but c'mon. No one just sits at home all day doing nothing. And besides that, she and I are both observant Orthodox Jews. In our circles, birth control just isn't the norm. You use it if you need a break in between kids, if you have a health issue, if you don't want more kids. But we've been married for almost 5 years. People just don't put off having kids for that long around here. She absolutely knows there's an issue. And that's why her question caught me so off guard... Idk.

This past weekend I met a woman. We live in a large Jewish community where people feel very much entitled to know everyone else's business. So when I met this woman she started up with the usual 20 questions that women in the community normally ask. What's your name? What's your maiden name? Where are you from? Oh, do you know x, y and z? No? How long have you been married? 4.5 years... you don't have any children? Oh, then what do you do with your second bedroom??

Yep. Here's some advice I should take... someone from another blog (sorry I can't remember who!) posted this yesterday and it felt so fitting:

So Blessed.

Last week I had a 6 hour training day at work. We do this a couple of times a year. Considering that I've been working at the same place since 2007, this was my 7th repeat of this same training (with minor tweaks). Needless to say, my favorite coworker and I were bored out of our minds and at some point ended up playing with our phones. That's when she stumbled upon this:

Unfortunately, I have no idea where she found it. It links to the url she sent me, but if anyone knows where it's originally from, PLEASE lemme know. I was instantly obsessed. I dragged E to Michael's that afternoon (which is like an hour-long subway ride, mind you. We're in the heart of Brooklyn and Michael's is on like 98th and Lexington in Manhattan). But... when we got there, my big plans sort of came crashing down around me when I saw how expensive the faux flowers were. Not to mention the price of wooden letters. Feeling defeated, I moped around the store for about a half an hour before stumbling on some glittery gold paper/card stock in the scrap booking department and fell in love. I had no idea what I was going to do with it, but I bought three sheets.

When I got home, I decided that I was going to cut out letters from it. I debated between a bunch of words... "Home", "Hello", "Breathe", "Howdy", "Sweet", "Lucky", "Adore", etc. I even texte the options to E on multiple occasions while he was at work, but he never responded. Oh well. Eventually I decided on "Blessed"- because, really, we are. I get caught up in the kids things that we don't have, but aside from that, we really do have it good and I could really use a reminder of that.

Here's the finished product, followed by the process:

After selecting a word, I needed to figure out a font. I browsed Pinterest a couple of times before narrowing it down to two: "You Found Me" and one called "LSTK Clarendon" (bold).

 

vs.

Honestly, I normally would've gone with the 2nd option, but I was really craving a hand-written look and ended up going with the 1st. I do want to use the 2nd one for another project though....

Now, there might be a quicker, more efficient way of doing this, but this was my method. First, I blew up the font to size 450 and printed it out lengthwise on paper, like so:

Then I cut out each letter with scissors:

Next, I traced it all, backwards, onto the back of my glitter paper:

And cut it all out with an exacto knife:

Here it is looking a bit like Arabic, haha:

Once it was all cut out and flipped over, it made a lot more sense:

Then I just taped each letter in place, and voila!

 Let's just agree to ignore how badly I need a second coat of paint on those poor walls. I'm really pleased with the results though! As for that first project, should I check eBay for faux flowers? Craigslist? Anyone know of somewhere to buy fake flowers on the cheap? I want to maybe create one for the guest room...

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?