Life Update

Ughhh! I'm a terrible blogger. Honestly, there's not much going on in my head these days… it's all a mess while we wait for decisions that are both in our control and out of our control. Lovely.

Here's what I can tell you:

• We are not moving to Colorado. I am both bummed and relieved, but that's a story for another day. None of the opportunities turned out in Colorado to be as fruitful as here locally. The good news: it made making the decision a lot easier. And I'm thankful we are on the same page. 

• We have two AWESOME opportunities here locally, and by locally I mean within commuting distance of Athens. We have until next Wednesday to decide. To say I'm a wee bit anxious is an understatement, but mostly I'm just really thankful to be in a position to CHOOSE.

• Speaking of next Wednesday, that's our anniversary. Three years. Crazy.

• Once Sam has made the decision and notified all parties, we will begin our hunt for a rental home. In my experience, this is hell. It's crazy stressful to find a place you can commit to for a year or whatever. It's always a zillion times more than you intend to spend. And it's infinitely more difficult when you throw a cat (rental owners hate cats) and an eighty pound dog into the equation. We're hoping that Athens will be easier and cheaper than Augusta.

• I suddenly recognized that I will not always have my current insurance. While my insurance SUCKS in comparison to those who have infertility coverage, in reality it's pretty good. As in $250 deductible and 10% after that. I've been quoted a little over $400 for the surgery with my current insurance. Therefore, I have a pre-op appointment to discuss (and plan) a laparoscopy with my RE in April. That gives me a surgery date for the first week of May. I'm hopeful that I don't chicken out between now and then.

I think that's about everything swirling around in my head. I apologize for the bullet-style posting and the conglomeration of mess. The good news is that there are some blog worthy events coming soon. Here's a teaser:

• Third Anniversary
• Anniversary Getaway
• Due Date Anniversary
• Sam's Graduation

All of that occurs within the next forty-two days! Crazy!!! 

A Little Sad

I'm spotting. My temperature, though already low, took the deadly downward plunge this morning. My period is imminent. And I'm a little sad about that. You'd think by this point, I'd be over seeing red. I mean, really, did I expect anything different? No, no I didn't. But I guess, no matter what, whether I'm in the midst of treatment or not, it hurts a little each time evidence arrives that I am once again not pregnant.

Like a lot of women, the impending flood also signals the cocktail of female hormones to plummet leaving me irritable and well, sad. So I guess a little sadness today is no surprise. I could simply write the sadness off as a "that time of the month" issue and go on. But really, I'm sad for lots of reasons. My period is just one of them.

Sam and I went on a little date night this past weekend. It was glorious to get out of my mom's house and spend some one-on-one time together! And as we had a gift card, it was a beautifully cheap date night! But what did we talk about? Sam's job opportunities, my lack of job opportunities, and IVF! Hot topics, huh? You can imagine the romance between us, right? We discussed how our original game plan of IVF by the end of this year is looking less and less likely. It simply doesn't seem like we will have $15,000+ by the end of the year. That makes me sad. Really, really sad. A little mad, but mostly sad.

Infertility as a whole makes me sad. It makes me sad that I worry when a friend says they have good news. It makes me sad that friends feel like they have to preempt good news with, "don't worry, we're not pregnant." It makes me sad that a basic human function that more than 90% of women achieve with ease is my greatest failure in life. It makes me sad that we aren't planning to buy a house or take an awesome vacation now that grad school is coming to a close, but rather how we will pay for a radically expensive medical procedure. It makes me sad that I can't give my mom a grandchild. It makes me sad that I can't make my husband a dad. It makes me sad that infertility is literally affecting all aspects of my life. Even aspects like job selection.

Sam and I were discussing our future in terms of health insurance today. What will we do if his job doesn't cover me? Or if it is too expensive for me to be under his policy? One option of course is simply a cheap major medical plan. I've had one of those before. It's not glamorous, but it covers me incase of a legitimate emergency. But there is, of course, no maternity coverage. Sam is ADAMANT that maternity coverage is critical. I laughed. I told him, I, of all people, can feel pretty darn safe without maternity coverage. If we aren't actively in an IVF cycle, I don't see a real need. Sam on the other hand said this, "As soon as you drop maternity coverage, you'll end up pregnant." Is that a promise? Can we cancel my insurance today? But in all seriousness, it sucks that infertility has to even factor into his career. It makes me sad that basic things like where to live are dictated by proximity to good IVF clinics. It makes me sad that insurance packages play such a big part in the decision process. It makes me sad that money has suddenly become infinitely more important to me. The difference in job A and job B is $2000, big deal right? No, that's a HUGE deal all of a sudden. And I hate that.

Tonight, with the arrival of my period due at any time, knowing that I am most certainly still not pregnant, I'm a little sad. Infertility, you suck.

A Little Bubbly

No, not champagne. As I've mentioned before, I'm not a big drinker, for various reasons. But if I were to choose an alcoholic beverage it would most certainly NEVER be Champagne. In fact, Sam and I have received two FREE bottle of champagne in our life and we've yet to consume any of it. We attempted to toast to our 2nd anniversary with a free bottle and managed a picture before we spit it out. GROSS!!!

Fakers. We received a free bottle of champagne from the Ritz Carlton
for our 2nd anniversary. Here's us after dinner, trying to take advantage
of the situation. The bottle remained nearly full. : (

No, this is about my love affair with Diet Coke. Basically in ranks of love, Diet Coke comes just after Sam. Well I guess Sterling and Everest sneak in there, and my mom, but Diet Coke is like a MAJOR love of mine. It basically tastes like heaven.

When we got super serious about trying to make a baby, and after the realization that it wan't going to be easy, I went a little psycho and researched EVERYTHING that might POSSIBLY cause birth defects and miscarriage and all manor of awful things. I decided to go ahead and live as if I was pregnant. So I eliminated all caffeine from my life unless I was on my period. This meant switching to caffeine free Diet Coke. Gag. How can it taste so different? Does caffeine have a flavor? However I persevered. 

Finally, I decided to just give up Diet Coke, in all forms. I wasn't really enjoying the caffeine free variety, and despite the fact that a can of coke has waaaayyyyy less than the recommended 200mg limit of caffeine, I wasn't willing to drink the full flavor variety in case it might possibly negatively affect a pregnancy on the off chance that I actually got pregnant. I lasted 18 days without a taste of my beloved beverage. Then my husband had one and I took a sip. Rocked my world! How had I lived without it? 

Since then I've been waffling back and forth. I've fallen off the wagon quite a bit I hate to admit. I am definitely an addict. I'll go three or four days without and then drink it every day for a few days before I get the will to go again. It's not something that I can have a little bit of. The more I drink it, the more it is the ONLY thing I want to consume. For me, it's got to be an all or nothing kind of thing. I don't see myself able to restrict myself to one a week or one a month as a transition period.

Here's my conundrum. There are basically two things that I love about Diet Coke that I can determine: the sweetness and the bubbly. The sweetness I can achieve via other beverages, albeit they aren't necessarily that much better for me. Crystal Light is normally my method of consuming water. I hate water. I can drink it if it is SUPER cold (and I'm hot), but I don't like it. And if it is not beyond frigid, it kind of makes me gag. But the carbonation… I'm binging hard for carbonation after about 4-5 days without it.

Here's another problem that I've noticed: when I don't drink lovely, sparkly, bubbly beverages, I don't drink much of anything. On a typical NO DIET COKE day, I'll realize about 2pm that I've had nothing to drink all day. If there's some Crystal Light on hand, I'll pour a glass, if not, I just think about not thinking about Diet Coke. I normally find that I drink about two glasses of some flavored concoction a day, and that's because I made myself. Recently, I discovered these little gems:

Dasani flavor drops

I love the fact that you don't have to wait for powdery stuff to dissolve. You don't have to shake it or stir it. Beautiful! I'm definitely finding that the ease and the ability to change flavors throughout the day make me drink a bit more. But let's be real here. If my purpose is to stop drinking Diet Coke because it's full of artificial this and processed that, than Crystal Light and Dasani Drops aren't too much of a leap forward are they?

So I come before you with my plight. My greatest wish is for something carbonated that isn't artificially sweetened, but that also doesn't contain a zillion calories. I'm normally a zero calorie only girl as far as drinks go, but I could swing for like 50 calories or something like that. Anybody have some recommendations for beverages I should try? 

Floundering

I'm kind of uninspired to write at this present time. I'll admit that the whole job search is kind of cramping my style. When doing a google search on my husband, a top find is this here blog. So I don't feel at liberty to discuss too openly what our thoughts or feelings are on each job opportunity, or moving, or any of it. Just know that no decisions have been made, and well, I'll tell you as soon as possible what the future may hold for us.

In the mean time, I'm waiting, rather impatiently I might add, but since when was I a patient waiter? Which is a good segue into the actual topic today. First of all, if you haven't read Erika's guest post today, go do it. She's AWESOME as always. She knocked it out of the park, and totally represented all infertile ladies beautifully in a somewhat delicate situation (a blog-o-thon on motherhood).

Erika really got me thinking. That part where she describes what her twenties looked like. The waiting for her life to get better, for it to have a purpose. The fact that her twenties looked a lot like most toddlers' terrible two's. All of that, I currently resonate so much with. Just like she said, I keep waiting for Infertility to be a footnote. Believe me, it will always be a huge part of my story, but can't it be part of the background history needed to understand me, and not the main event?

I started thinking about how I'm floundering so much in the midst of all of this mess. I'm in the middle of so many uncertainties. Where will we live? How much will we have to live on? Will I get a job?(soon? ever?) Which doctor should we go with? How will we afford IVF? What if IVF fails? Will we ever have kids? How will we EVER afford to pay for all of this? You see? I feel like NOTHING is certain! For free spirits this might sound lovely, but for my type A personality who plans EVERYTHING, this totally sucks.

And that's when it hit me. I'm floundering because I'm not planning anything. Beyond what to do today, I don't have a single plan. I think I'm too scared to plan. I heard recently a phrase, I'm sure it's been around forever, but it totally resonated with me. "We make plans, and God laughs." I don't' take this as proof that God is sadistic or mean spirited. To me it references the fact that my story is a mere sentence in the one He is writing. It's also come to represent to me that planning is fruitless. Whether that's good or bad, it's my current take on life.

Here, have a look at "The Plan"

1. 22 yrs old- get married (behind, got married at 24.5)
2. 23 yrs old- have first baby (scratch, got engaged)
3. 25 yrs old- have baby #2 (nope, just got married, husband's in PT school)
4. 27 yrs old- have baby #3 (not happening)
5. 28 yrs old- have baby #4 I should a pro by now, plus if we want 5, we've got to squeeze it in by 30, you know?
6. 29 yrs old- decide to have baby #5 or adopt, proceed with decision
7. 33 yrs old- regardless of decision, peruse international adoption

In addition to that plan were the plans like:

1. Work full time as a graphic designer
2. Transition to part time to stay home with kids, maybe work from home
3. Help husband open his own PT clinic
4. Move to Colorado

And well, you get the idea, not one item on "The Plan" worked out, or will work out the way I wanted. Planning is fruitless. Instead, I'm kind of waiting for life to happen and then reacting to the changes. It's moved me from the driver's seat to the backseat. While that's good in a lot of ways, it's not so hot in others. I'm not handling my backseat spot with a lot of grace, in fact, sometimes I feel like I'm in the truck. I'm blind to where we are going, we stop, I get out, and then I have to react to the situation or circumstances around me.

I'm hopeful that this is a just a season of life. While I do think that there are valid lessons to be learned about making plans, I don't want to spend my whole life it the trunk. I want to be an active being in my life, not just watching it pass me by. I'm hopeful that in the next few months at least SOMETHING will be decided. Maybe we will know where we are going to live. Maybe one answer will then answer some of the other questions. Maybe it'll be kind of like dominoes, knock one little block down and… voila, made it out of that! In the mean time, I'll just stay here patiently impatiently waiting and hashing out the merits of acting like a two year old (which if you read Alison's blog, you know means throwing objects, hitting, screaming, biting, and subbing things like "Elmo" and "airplane" for expletives). This has potential!

More Infertile

Can you even be more infertile than infertile? If you can, I think I might be headed to that place. Great.

Lately, my basal body temperature charts have kind of sucked. Honestly, I've never been one of those girls who has beautiful charts. Mine are kind of all over the place. However, the one thing that I could consistently count on was high luteal phase temps. It may be iffy as to when ovulation occurred, but there's a definite "before" period when the temps are low and an "after" period when they are high. Take a look at this:

November 2011 BBT chart
2 months after miscarriage, no defined crosshairs,
but distinct low and high areas, highest temp 98.5

August 2012 BBT chart
First month at ACRM, clomid 50mg, uncertain about ovulation date,
but very distinct high/low pattern, highest temp 98.32

May 2012 BBT chart
First month off birth control to remove cysts, clear shift,
low's before, high's after, highest temp 98.44

See what I mean? Sometimes the point of ovulation is super obvious, sometimes it's not, but regardless there was always a definite "before" and "after". There have always been low low's and high high's. Until now.

Here's the last three months:

December 2012 BBT chart
No ovulation detected by OPK or by thermal shift. Temps are
almost equal CD 1-12 as CD 26-38, highest temp 98.12

January 2013 BBT chart
Possible O, no OPK's used, definite lows and high's, but the highs's are
still low, only 2 days above 98, highest temp 98.12

February 2013 BBT chart
Confirmed Ovulation, but post O temps are
EXTREMELY low, haven't even reached 98.

What do you make of this? I, the over-analyzer, averaged out the high temps. In 2011, during the 7 months that I charted, my average high was 98.52. For 8 months in 2012, my high temperature averaged 98.43. But for the last three cycles, the average has only been 98.03. Now granted this month isn't over. I'm only 5DPO, but I've never had consistent post ovulation temperatures below 98 degrees.

What is going on? Am I ovulating? Does the corpus luteum really suck? Do I need progesterone? Is this evidence that my eggs suck? Is this further evidence of Endometriosis or PCOS? Are low post ovulation temperatures evidence of ANYTHING?

Too Tired to Party

Today is the first day in a while that I am super thankful to  not  have a job. Why, you might ask. Because I'm exhausted. I feel like a tornado blew through my weekend. What happened, you ask. A bachelorette party plus a baby's first birthday party. Here's how my weekend kicked off:

My loooonnnnnggggg time friend is finally (sorry girl) getting married to the love of her life. I thought Sam took his sweet time… But it is all working out beautifully for them. They will graduate in June with super respectable degrees on opposite ends of the country… she'll be a Physician's Assistant and he'll have a PhD in nanometals (something super smarty pants). I met Emily in the third grade when I moved to a new school system. In the fourth grade we were in the same class and we've been friends ever since. She's the kind of friend who I can go months with out talking to, but when we talk it's like nothing's changed.

Back to this weekend. She's in PA school at Wake Forest in Winston Salem, NC, so Friday I set out for what should have been about a 4.5 hour trip north. And this is where the drama begins. I was cruising along quite nicely until I reached North Carolina. Apparently Charlotte equates itself with Atlanta because that is seriously what the traffic was like. It took me an hour to get from one side of Charlotte to the other… bluh. I was starting to panic that I was going to be late. I began running possible scenarios through my head. I decided if I was late, I'd skip going to her house to freshen up and simply meet up at the bar. I'd be slumming, but maybe I could at least fix my makeup in the bathroom. Traffic opened up and Apple Maps informed me that I could expect to be there 5 minutes late. Not too bad. I figured I could make up 5 minutes. Just as I was reaching maximum cruising speed, I crested a hill to see gridlock. I slammed on my breaks to prevent one of those 2 bazillion car accidents you always hear about. At this time it was 4:45. I'd already been in the car for 4 hours. I should have been just outside of Winston Salem, but I was still 50 miles away. Long story short, Interstate 85 was closed. It took me over an hour to go from one exit to the next at which point I finally learned of the closed status and bailed. I backtracked, found another route, and managed to arrive about 8 o'clock.

I never drive. Never. I've been with Sam forever and since practically day one, he insisted on driving. So I was already really nervous about driving all the way to Winston Salem by myself. I fall asleep in the car in about 30 minutes on road trips. I knew it was going to be a long day. In addition, I am terrible at directions. I get lost in my hometown all the time. I learn one way to get somewhere. If I'm on the wrong side of town from my starting point, I've been known to drive all the way to the start of my "starting point" to get to my destination rather than risk getting lost by finding a new way. The detour added another layer of stress entirely. The whole time I kept thinking "what the heck did people do before iPhones and GPS?" How awful.

Regardless, I made it. And right as the girls were ordering dinner too. Score. I was starving and I hadn't stopped to pee since Clemson, 5 hours and a diet coke ago. Dinner was lovely. All of Emily's bridesmaids are super nice and I met a score of her PA friends as well. Slightly overwhelming for this introvert, but I managed. And I of course didn't take a single picture the entire weekend, so I'm stealing a couple from Facebook as evidence that I was in fact there. We ate at a really cute restaurant with pretty tasty food called Jeffrey Adams on Fourth downtown.

Emily and I along with Kristi,
another bridesmaid who traversed and survived I-85

My favorite moment of the evening was when our waiter delivered a brownie sundae to Emily with congratulations and well wishes. His comment was "it's kind of like the opposite of your birthday". Huh? So getting married is kind of like death? Thanks for the encouragement mister waiter man. Good news, the third anniversary is approaching for me, and well, I'm still alive.

Emily and her Deathday Treat

Sadly, my bachelorette weekend had to come to a close early as I had a special little person's birthday to get back for. Saturday morning I enjoyed a scrumptious brunch prepared by Emily's PA friends and then I headed back down I-85 for home. Luckily, this time I made it in 4 hours and 15 minutes, with a stop for gas and refreshments. Uneventful and lovely… my kind of road trip. 

Heads up friends, if you're not in the mood to deal with lots of photos 

of a 1 year old in all of her glory, jump ship now.

The rest of the weekend was devoted to a special little girl who turned one one Saturday, my niece Alexis. We had lots of friends and family over to celebrate her special day. She decided to sleep through most of it. She takes after her aunt, she's not too much of a party girl. But she eventually woke up and enjoyed opening a few presents and smashing some cake.

It's my party, and I'll sleep if I want to

Post nap happy face

Sweet family- she's really good at opening presents

she loved her bear from her great-grandmother

Time to smash some cake

So ladylike

"Why's everybody staring at me?"

Pretty tasty

So sweet… she just wants to share with mommy

The aftermath

Post bath and after everyone went home,
she was up for a few more pictures

A little milk after all that cake

Needless to say, after two parties, in two separate states, I'm a little beat. Add to that the whole daylight savings mess and well, I'm in need of a day to recuperate. But I'm thrilled to have been a part of both parties. Emily, I'm honored to stand beside you on your wedding day and I can't wait to see you walk down the aisle. Alexis, Aunt Amanda loves you sweet girl. Someday you'll love me too and be willing to document these special days with a picture with your auntie. Stop growing sweet girl, you're getting too big.

What the Future Holds

Sorry for the long break. The radio silence was intended for a day, not a week plus. I did actually honor it, by the way, and it was sadly pretty difficult. I've been back checking in on blogs and such since then, but I just don't have much to say. There's not a whole heck of a lot going on in my daily life, and I recently feel at a loss as to what to say to others. Bad blogger. Sorry.

We're dealing with lots and lots of unknowns right now. It's pretty hard to plan or dream or do much of anything. Sam has begun the application process. This has been the long awaited point for us that we have looked to with so much anticipation for so long. Now that it's here, I'm full of anxiety. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited. I'm sooooooo ready for that first pay check, but in the mean time, the unknown aspects are kind of scary.

The most likely scenario will be that Sam will find employment somewhere within driving distance of Athens. In which case, we will find a super duper cheap rental in the Athens area (our desired living area in Georgia). I'm currently applying to just about everything in the Athens area myself on the assumption that this is where we will land.

In this scenario, we will stay at RBA with Dr. Slayden. The only foreseeable reason we would leave RBA is if we simply cannot get the funds together for IVF. Sadly, RBA is like THE most expensive. clinic in the metro Atlanta area. There are two other clinics that are significantly cheaper. The first is the Servy-Massey Fertility Institute, which is promising all inclusive IVF for $6,975. The only thing not included in that price is medication. ICSI and assisted hatching aren't even an additional cost. Pretty sweet. But we didn't have an awesome consult as you may remember. The second cheaper option is Georgia Reproductive Specialists which is now doing IVF for $9,500, which is still significantly less than RBA and ACRM. We're keeping both of those in the back of our minds just in case.

Anyway, back to the unknown. We've also decided to throw some applications out west. Rumor has it that PT's (and doctors in general) make more out west. I'm not sure if that's the case for where we would be interested in living, but we will see. If you've been a long time follower of this blog, you might remember that I have a mild love affair with Colorado. It's pretty much the greatest state in my opinion. For a brief period, Sam and I were pretty fired up about moving out to Colorado. And then life started to happen. It started to look less and less feasible. We began to plan for life in Athens and shelve the Colorado dream. However, infertility, believe it or not, has brought Colorado back into the picture. Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine has the highest success rates of any clinic I've found (props CO). CCRM has come up over and over in the last several months, until the point I just couldn't ignore the feelings I had. Sam and I discussed it, and we've decided to throw some applications that way. We see it like this: 1- it doesn't cost us anything to apply. Just a few bucks for postage out there. 2- Colorado is AWESOME, so moving there wouldn't be a loss. 3- if we're going to pay a zillion dollars for IVF, we might as well go to the best (if we can).

If moving to Colorado doesn't work out, we won't shed any tears. We are fully satisfied with the prospect of living our little life in Athens, the greatest college town in the world. It's a pretty sweet deal to be honest. Southern hospitality, awesome food, beautiful surroundings, excellent social life opportunities, a fantastic church home.... Plus six Saturdays a year the city bleeds red and black as the Dawgs host some team at Sanford Stadium and serve them up as puppy chow. BUT, if Colorado does work out with an awesome job opportunity for Sam, we are prepared to view it as a sign that our path leads west in the hopes of being a one hit wonder in this hole IVF insanity.

With all of that being said, the future is pretty unstable. We could be looking for a rental home in Athens in the next few weeks, OR we could potentially be moving across the country in a few months. That is, of course, assuming that we have a job opportunity at all in the next few months. We are pretty confident that Sam will find employment. However, nothing is certain, as we have learned time and time again over the last few years.