bring your own . . .

I am allergic to ultrasound gel.  Kind of a stupid allergy I know.  But after years of exposure gooping it onto people's bellies - my hands swill and get all itchy after I do an ultrasound.

At this point at work I wear gloves to do an abdominal ultrasound which seems to save me, but then came the infertility and me being the regular recipient of vaginal ultrasounds.  Trust me, it is insanely inappropriate to be walking around and itching where I have been exposed.

At my ovulation induction clinic I did okay.  I would literally prep the ultrasound probe myself and find the surgilube in the cabinet and use it instead.  (I do have the training after all.)  I also had my RE trained not to add any extra and we had a good little pattern going on.

So the new IVF clinic must think I am a mad woman.  They stand there with the probe in their hand and look at me dumbfounded, like I have asked them to do something sooooo special.  Turns out they don't have surgilube.  I am seriously spending fifteen thousand dollars and they cant even provide a $1 tube of lube.

So I stopped at the store today and tomorrow is B.Y.O.L.  - maybe they will give me a discount.  I can hopefully negotiate my price down to 14,999.00.  

Yep, that sounds more reasonable.

oh flo? where'd ya go?

I can't say that I have ever actually been as excited to see my period as I am now.  My period has been such a sign of failure for so long.  And when I know I failed because of the pee sticks its the insult after the injury.

Today however I actually want it to happen.  This is the only thing holding me up at this point - I have taken the requisite time off and am ready to go with this IVF thing - so really can I please get a period already?

Its been days since stopping the pills - seriously hoping it comes soon so I don't have to delay starting this cycle.  So come on uterus - get your cramps on and get yourself thinned out, cuz you got a job to do.

workaholic

I think I have met some DSM criteria for work-a-holic.  I've had 2 days off in the past month, today I started early and just finished.  I got to the point tonight where I needed to make phone calls and it was socially just too late to keep calling patients with results.

My candle is burnt.  Both ends fried.  But tomorrow starts a weird little time for me.  I have no scheduled extra call or shifts for the next month and my surgery schedule is halved.  The calendar is somewhat cleared for some possible upcoming sick days - paved for the IVF.  I've been picking up so many extra shifts for so long to try to save for it all that I have forgotten what life was like-- Before I felt like I needed to earn all I could.

I may not know what to do with myself.  I'm not sure if I will know how to relax.  I never thought I would have this problem - but then again I've found myself in a lot of "never thought that I ..." situations with this whole baby-making process.

Father's day

When I was a kid, my dad was not really super involved.  He is loving & supportive and came to all major things in my life - but he worked full time and appreciated his own TV and separate room after dinner and on weekends.  We weren't a family that went on vacations and he worked most holidays.  I can't say that we were ever that close, especially when I became a headstrong teenager.  Then after my mom died, he was left to raise my 14 year old sister without any prior knowledge of how to be a great parent.

But great parent he became.  His entire theory of raising a teenager became "do what you want".  Not a do what you want in a bad sort of way but the do what you want because you are smart and independent enough to make an intelligent decision (and because in general we were going to do it anyway).  Every major decision in my life has been passed by my father and the response has been "Do what you want" but he has always followed up the statement with "do you need anything?".  Even when my husband asked him if he could propose -- well the response was the same.

To this day he has never pressured me for a grandchild, asked me when it is going to happen or even if it going to happen ever in the future.  He only asks me if I am happy and if there is anything I need.  So, today I am thankful for my wonderful dad and for the fact that he understands me better than I ever thought he would.

So thanks dad, I am happy.  And yes dad - I will do what I want.   And do I need anything?  Well yes.  I need to give you a grandchild so you can be the perfect grandfather now that you have figured out how to be the perfect dad.

aaahhhhh allergies!

And yet again my body proves itself to be a little odd.

I have all sorts of weird allergies.  Anti-inflammatories give me hives . . . which stinks because it means if I have a migraine I get tylenol.  Gee thanks.

Any type of adhesive gives me a rash.  I once wore ekg leads for a med school demonstration.  Ended up with 3 perfect circles of scab on my chest.  That was fun.

And by far my favorite - anything with nickel.  Seriously, I can't wear gold or stainless steel for more than a few hours.  (my husband still resents that he had to sink so much money into a platinum ring)

SO today I discovered a new one --- Lupron.  Seriously body - do you let me take nothing for granted?  I developed a massive welt at the injection site.  Full on histamine release red swollen itchy welt.   I am seriously hoping it was a reaction to the alcohol pad or from pinching too hard and at least if it keeps happening it doesn't get worse.   I refuse to let myself be allergic to anything in this process - just not an option at this point.  I don't care if I have to take benadryl every time I use it or if I have to keep my epi pen ever so close.  Just as failure is not an option - neither is an allergy to lupron - I am after all a little to aware on my lack of options.

Will be interesting to see if it happens again tomorrow.

future unknown

Women are planners by nature
Doctors and Type A by training

so lets just say I am very anal retentive when it comes to putting together my calendar.  In a 2 doctor marriage one must plan about 6 months in advance for any vacations, holidays and calls.  For me - I have no idea what state I will be in in 6 months.  Will I be exhausted and pregnant? On my 4th frozen embryo transfer and out of funds? Have given up?  On a break?

I have no idea.  My plans are all on hold.  Don't know when or where my next vacation is or where I will be celebrating the holidays but I am holding out hope that I will be healthy with some type of bun in the oven.  This is not bad . . . just different than the control I am used to having.

But with a baby I will have to surrender all control anyway - so maybe it is a good lesson for me.

SIS = "sister - I got a good hyster"

I want to pull a Julie Andrews and run to the top of a mountain and scream the words "I HAVE A NORMAL CAVITY".  Its seriously the first thing I've had in a while with some positive results.  Hoorah for that.  As much as I may have hesitations recently, perhaps the last thing I wanted to be doing was waiting months and months to get in to the OR to have some fibroid or polyp removed so I could have problems with my lining and healing and such.  BIG sigh of relief - I finally exhaled after a week of holding my breath.

(on a side note . . . I will say though that if I had continued with my training I could be the one making $720 in 10 minutes instead of the one forking it over to tell me this info.)

What isn't normal however - my stomach.  I am on a combo of completely nauseating medications - birth control pills, metformin and doxycycline with a pink prenatal vitamin cherry on top.  Its kind of like having morning sickness for all the wrong reasons.  Carbs are about the only things going down, and not much of them.  Seriously, for dinner I am eating a banana and stale rice krispies - its disgusting, but about all that sounds decent.

I have a party to go to this weekend and I may in fact look fabulous because of how much weight I have dropped in the past couple weeks.  I may also look a little green in the face - but at least that can be covered with blush.  I'm almost to my wedding weight - if I keep going maybe I can be 18 again.

Funny enough, all the thoughts of looking young though don't really matter to me when facing infertility.    I am only the age of my ovaries and I would trade a couple extra years in wrinkles for a few less on the biological clock.  Oh well.  My ovaries may be aging, but . . . at least today my uterus looks good.