Busy Bee!

August is going to be wicked busy for me. Check out the schedule I already have planned:

Aug 3rd- Baseline U/S appt
Aug 4th- Meds arrive
Aug 5th- Start Lupron
Aug 10th- U/S appt
Aug 16th- U/S appt and physical appt for homestudy and first homestudy visit!
Aug 24th- Last U/S appt and trigger day
Aug 29th- Transfer Day for last FET

And somewhere in all that we have to scrub our house clean, finish filling out our homestudy application and questionnaire, finish up our adoption profile, paint the nursery room and get fingerprinted (though much of that may take until September to complete).

And on top of all that I'm putting together another raffle for the Lost Stork Foundation. Things have been moving a bit slowly for the LSF. We had been putting together a big bowling fundraiser in Georgia but had to put those plans on hold. Because our non-profit is registered in Missouri, it would cost over $100 just for us to hold a fundraiser in Georgia, something we can't afford at this time as we're working on applying for our 501(c)3 status which costs $400. Sooo at fundraiser have been put on hold for now and we hope to work something out so that we can have this event sometime next year. The raffle that I'm planning right now is to celebrate National Adoption Awareness Month which is in November. It's only fair since we held one for National Infertility Awareness Week. We will be having two raffles, one adoption-themed raffle for those who are going through domestic or international adoption and one general raffle for those who would like to participate but aren't adopting. If you are interested in making a donation for the raffle or if you simply have a suggestion as to what you'd like to see in the prize selection, please email me at christa@loststorkfoundation.org. I hope to have all donations in by mid-October so I can announce what the prizes will be, so check back for updates!

And don't forget to enter my Harry Potter Birthday Giveaway!

Happy Birthday to Me!!!!

It's my 30th birthday today!!! Brandon and I made it back from Orlando yesterday and much to my surprise, I had quite a bit of fun. The heat wave took a toll on us over the weekend and I think perhaps I'm getting a bit too old to be running around theme parks in July, but we had fun nonetheless. It was great getting to see my whole family again. After spending the day at Sea World with my sister and nephew, the entire family (22 of us) ate at a restaurant and celebrated all the July birthdays we have in our family (though it was mostly for me and my grandmother). My grandmother got a July 4th-themed cake and mine was, you guessed it, Harry Potter!! It turned out to be a great night but unfortunately I was too distracted to take many pictures so I'll have to wait on family members to send me some.

We had a blast going to Islands of Adventure to see the new Harry Potter theme park. We arrived first thing in the morning so the lines through the famed Forbidden Journey ride were quite short, less than 20 minutes. Let me point out that Brandon and I have been married almost 4 years and we've never been to a theme park together. Therefore we've never ridden a roller coaster together. Therefore he didn't know that I'm a screamer. I was expecting the Forbidden Journey ride to be like a 4D simulator ride and it was, but it was also alot like a roller coaster. So I screamed the whole time. And of course they snap your picture during the ride, which didn't occur to me till the flash went off. And what resulted was (in Brandon's opinion) the funniest picture he'd ever seen (click for a better view).

In my defense, this picture was taken during the part of the ride (spoiler alert!) that takes you through the Forbidden Forest and among the spiders. I.hate.spiders. But then again, since I screamed during the entire ride this picture probably would have turned out the same no matter when the photo was shot. Oh well.

I wish I had gone on the ride again immediately after getting off. By the time I decided I wanted to go again the wait time was over an hour, so I decided not to. Everything else was extremely crowded, all the shops were packed full of people and the wait line to get into Ollivander's Wand Shop was over an hour as well. I ate at the Three Broomsticks with my family, sampled the butterbeer which tastes a bit like cream soda, and tried the pumpkin juice which has a cinnamony/spicy taste, almost like liquid pumpkin pie. The Three Broomsticks actually had a traditional English breaksfast meal so Brandon and I were able to reminisce about our lovely breakfasts from Ireland. I went shopping in Honeydukes and Zonko's Joke Shop, buying myself an enormous Chocolate Frog which even came with a trading card (I got Rowena Ravenclaw).

The rest of Islands of Adventure was a tad boring and we didn't stay the whole day. That afternoon a smaller group of us went to the T-Rex restaurant in downtown Disney. While we were there I noticed a couple sitting next to us in a large round booth....with 4 car seats. One of them had a blanket covering it and Brandon thought it was a backpack but I knew it wasn't. I couldn't believe someone with infant quads would go to a place like the T-Rex, especially when they weren't even old enough to sit up on their own. It's not exactly a cheap place and it was sweltering hot outside. But to each his own.

After dinner Brandon and I considered driving by Ripley's to touch the "real" fertility statues but I was too tired/lazy to go there so we just skipped it.

But I'm sure you guys are reading this post for other reasons, mainly my Harry Potter Birthday Giveaway! I really wanted to include a Chocolate Frog as part of my giveaway but unofrtunately it's July and it wouldn't last in the mail. But I should point out that my Chocolate Frog is oh.so.delicious.

So I had to pick some equally cool stuff for my awesome readers. The first is the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 dvd. My second item is a box of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans (and they mean every flavor). And the third item in my giveaway is a bottle of U-No-Poo from Weasley's Wizard Wheezies which, from my observation, seems to be a popular candy that begins with M and ends with M.

HOW TO WIN:

Open to residents worldwide. Each entry must be left in a separate comment, otherwise it will only count as one entry. If your entry is not linked to a Google account please be sure to leave a valid email address along with your entry. If the winner does not respond after 48 hours a new winner will be chosen.

Mandatory Entry

Leave a comment stating who your favorite Harry Potter character is. **You must do this entry first or all other entries will be deleted!**

Additional Entries
1) Become a public follower of my blog on GFC or leave a comment stating that you are a current follower (I do check)
2) Blog about my giveaway and leave your link in the comment field
3) Tweet about my giveaway and leave your link in the comment field

Entries will be accepted through midnight EST on Saturday August 6, 2011. A winner will be selected on Sunday the 7th.. Good luck to all!

Coming to My Senses

Brandon and I are starting to calm down after our slight freak-out. We took a few days to think things over on our own, as well as discussed the issues together. In the end we decided to go forward with parenthood. It will be a huge sacrifice but we both agreed to always stay focused on our marriage. We're not going to be the kind of couple that goes 6 months without going on a date, or the kind of couple that focuses solely on our child and completely ignores all aspects of our marriage so that when our child grows up we feel like we're married to total strangers.

With that said, we've got our phone conference with our adoption specialist on Wednesday. I've been trying to think of questions to ask her but I can't come up with any. Oh well, I've still got three days.

Next Tuesday is my birthday. My 30th birthday. I wanted to do something pretty special this year so we decided to take a 4-day trip to Orlando and go to the Harry Potter theme park. And because my family lives in Florida and Georgia, and my grandmother's 75th birthday is tomorrow, I called up some family members to see if they wanted to come. It pretty much snowballed from there and now it appears the whole family is coming to my aunt's house. Of course, though it was my idea, somehow the whole thing turned into a birthday party for my grandmother (I even got an invitation, no mention of my own birthday) but that's neither here nor there. So Brandon and I decided to get a hotel room and still try to make it a special and memorable vacation. We're spending the day at SeaWorld Orlando because it's free for military members and their dependents, and we'll get to spend the day there with my sister and nephew. Then it's my grandmother's birthday party that night, and Harry Potter the next day! And a few family members are taking me and Brandon out for an early dinner at the T-Rex restaurant for my birthday celebration. I also plan on doing a Harry Potter-themed giveaway upon my return so keep an eye out for it!

Lost

***WARNING*** Very long post, probably about more stuff than you care about. You can skip to the end if you want.

I suppose that with overwhelming excitement about becoming a parent comes even more overwhelming anxiety about becoming a parent. Yesterday that anxiety hit me full force.

I am scared shitless to become a mom.

I remember when I was young I wanted nothing more than to become a mom. Did I care if I got pregnant when I was 16? Not exactly. I loved kids, I wanted to be a kindergarten teacher. I took all kinds of teaching classes, taught lessons at Head Start, worked after school at a daycare center, baby-sat, I did it all. I even took home one of those Baby Think-It-Over's for a four day weekend. Had a blast. It didn't dissuade me at all from wanting a child.

And then I got married at the young age of 20. Was diagnosed with PCOS and knew it was time to really start trying for children. With that came our first miscarriage and cycle after cycle of Clomid. Then we tried foster parenting. That was a wake-up call. It was without a doubt the hardest 4 months of my life, though that could have been for a number of reasons. 1) Our marriage wasn't spectacular, nowhere near the marriage I have now. But what did I know what a real marriage is supposed to be? 2) We had two young, mobile children (ages 3 and 18 months). 3) Foster parenting is hard, even for experienced parents. Social workers, guardian ad litems, speech therapists, birth parent visits, it's all very very hard. That's why we didn't do it for very long. It was completely overwhelming.

And of course I felt like a complete and utter failure. My marriage quickly fell apart after we decided to stop fostering, though that was for a number of reasons and had nothing to do with the foster parenting.

And then something happened, something I expected should have happened about 5 years earlier. I grew up. I got a real job, lived on my own and started being responsbile for myself. I was dating Brandon at the time and it was hard maintaining a long-distance relationship. So the very month my divorce was finalized (15 months after my ex and I separated) I moved cross-country to be with Brandon. We were married 6 months later.

And then it was time to start thinking about children again, even though I wasn't sure if that would ever be possible. But we tried anyway. And tried. And tried.

And now through adoption we're closer than we've ever been to becoming parents. And for the first time in our marriage we both kinda freaked out. Last night we had a real discussion about maybe not being parents after all. And here's where the confusion comes in. Please bear with me, my mind is an overwhelming place to be right now.

Yesterday I started questioning whether I wanted parenthood. Perhaps parenthood isn't as glorious as some make it out to be? Maybe it's all just a bunch of hype and when you actually become a parent it's not so grand? When I always thought of having a baby, I thought of the smiles, the first steps, first words, the new baby smells, the cuddles and the kisses.

But can I guarantee I won't lose my cool when my 3-year old draws on our living room walls with crayon? Can I be sure I won't get completely grossed out if my newborn baby starts puking from one end and pooping from the other at the same time?

The answer is no.

And that makes me feel like I would be a bad parent.

But Brandon pushed that aside, saying if we were to become parents he knows we'll make good parents. The real question is, do we want to become parents? And that is an even more confusing choice.

I told Brandon that I've always wanted to be a parent. But with infertility, there comes a time during your failed cycles when you begin to realize that your dreams of parenthood might not come true. That you might have to live your life without children, whether its because your religious beliefs prevent you from pursuing certain treatments or money prevents it or some other reason. Either way, the realization is there. And you have to learn to accept your life the way it is now, and be happy with that life. Otherwise you're just destined to be miserable.

I came to that realization. I don't recall when, but I know I did. And I learned to be happy with the life I have now. I learned to live, instead of waiting for parenthood to start my life for me. And I did that perhaps a little too successfully. And it's because I'm so happy now that I'm afraid of bringing a child into our life. I'm afraid a child will disrupt the balance we've created.

That was a hard concept for Brandon to understand so I'm hoping someone out there knows what the hell I'm talking about. He understood the child-disrupting-the-balance part, but not the infertility-epiphany part.

PS, if you're going to start judging me at this point based on what you just read, please go away now. I'm just trying to vent some feelings and figure things out.

The struggle that I'm dealing with is that I don't know if a child will make me happier than I already am. Parenthood is the "unknown" and I've always been afraid of the unknown. I know I like my life now, but will I like parenthood more, less, or the same as the life I currently live? It will certainly be different, we all know that. But what if I don't like it as much? It's not like a marriage, which if it fails you can just cut your losses and get a divorce. You can't divorce your children. It's a choice you can't undo and that's what scares me the most.

Also, I don't know if my marriage would suffer. There would be no more afternoon/morning/completely random sex, no more cuddling on the couch after a bad day, and date nights would be cut down exponentially. Is that fair to our marriage? I'm not saying our marriage is too fragile to have a baby, that's not what I'm saying at all. It's just that with a baby, marriage might have to take second place because we're responsible for caring for this child. And that doesn't seem fair. I know people have families all the time and find a balance but I love Brandon so much that I would feel guilty by only giving him a portion of my attention and affection, while the baby takes the rest. Oh, and let's not forget about Oso's portion of required attention. I just don't know how I can balance all those things without neglecting someone.

People that I've talked to say that parenthood is hard, and it's a long long time before you see the rewards of raising a child. And Brandon summed it all up in a very good way last night. He said "When you become a parent you stop doing things that you want to do to make you happy and instead receive happiness from watching your child experience things they want to do." It's almost like living vicariously through your children.

It's hard to imagine my life without a child. I know I would travel a great deal and I'd have a wonderful marriage with Brandon and we would grow old together. But I also know that when I'm done traveling and having those great adventures, when I'm old and gray, I will regret not having a child. I know that without a doubt.

On the other hand, it's hard to imagine my life with a child. It's hard to picture toys in the living room, the first day of school, sports games, sleepovers, school plays, dating, graduation. But perhaps I'm not supposed to try and imagine that all at once. Maybe that's why I'm getting too overwhelmed.

I question whether I am ready for parenthood and whether I'd make a good parent, and because I'm even questioning that, does that automatically disqualify me? Is the desire for parenthood more cut-and-dry, like I should just be able to answer that question without hesitation? I wanted it so long ago but now I'm not so sure. Is that because I've changed over the years and I truly just don't want to be a parent, or is it because I've trained myself to accept the fact that I might not be a parent? And now that I've accepted that, it's hard to re-train myself to want parenthood again. Another concept Brandon couldn't grasp.

If you're confused now, at least you know how my brain feels. Thanks for letting me vent.

Well This is Going to Suck

I've been reading through our homestudy paperwork and apparently we have to provide 4 references for our homestudy application. Only one reference can be a family member, all others have to be friends, church members, etc.

The problem is, Brandon and I don't exactly have many friends, nor do we attend church (I'm Christian but Brandon is atheist. We'll talk about that topic another day). We're military, we make friends where we are and when we move we keep in touch with some but not all of our friends, and even then it's mostly through Face.book. Besides, it's hard to maintain a friendship in the military. By the time you make your way back to one duty station or coast, your friends have moved on to another one, and so on and so forth. And for the purposes of the application, we can only use people we've known for 2 years or more. So this eliminates all the friends (two) I've made here in Connecticut as well as my IVF friends. This only leaves my old Washington friends who I haven't seen in over a year, or my old high school friends who have never met Brandon.

Sometimes I find that adoption isn't exactly military-friendly. Or maybe I'm just a crappy friend that needs to keep in touch more.

On a crappier note, Brandon and I haven't been sticking to our budget so now we need to really put our nose to the grind when it comes to budgeting if we expect to adopt. This upcoming trip to Orlando was really the cause of all the over-spending, but then again, you only turn 30 once! And it will give me a chance to get some more current pictures of my family to use in our adoption profile. But from now on, no more spending money we should be saving for adoption!

On a more positive note, our APQ has been received by the agency and now we've been assigned an adoption specialist! We have to schedule a phone meeting to go over our paperwork and stuff so Brandon and I need to find a time that works for both our schedules. I'm getting very excited!!

Oh, yea, and about the FET. Got the schedule for that. Transfer is August 29th. Yay.

The Next Steps

I suppose the good thing about having a 4th failed cycle is that at this point you start to become a bit realistic about fertility treatments. We knew our chance of success was slim so our BFN didn't come as much of a surprise and thus we were able to bounce back rather quickly.

So now what. Well, we have one last vial of embryos, a 5-cell grade 2 and a 4-cell grade 2. Our last and final FET is scheduled for late August.

Until then, we're moving forward with the adoption process. I knew this would be a lot of work so we've been chipping away at it bit by bit. The first step was picking an agency. Done. Then we paid the $200 fee to receive the application info. Done. Then we had to fill out something called an Adoption Planning Questionnaire (APQ). This was general info about us, our adoption preferences (race, drug use by the birthmother, etc), our budget, etc. Brandon and I took a few months to work on this. We started back in March, then Brandon got all freaked out and we took a step back, and we came back to the APQ in June. Tonight we finally finished the APQ and submitted it to the adoption agency.

The next step with the adoption agency is to get assigned to an adoption specialist. They will go over our APQ with us and guide us through the rest of the process. Then we start the fun part of filling out our profile, picking cute pictures of us to include, yadda yadda. That's the next step with the adoption agency.

Then there's the homestudy part. Brandon and I just got the information on that this week. We will have to go through a separate agency in CT for our homestudy review. This is the part where it gets overwhelming. First there's the simple, one-page pre-application. After that we're assigned a social worker who will set up our first home visit. At that home visit we're required to turn in the actual application. Then there's a questionnaire for each of us, a questionnaire about our home and community, required reading and "coursework", letters from our rental agency, and a host of other things like:

-Birth certificate
-Marriage certificate/ Divorce verification
-Criminal background/ fingerprints (for all adults in the household age 16 and over)
-DCF protective service check (for all adults)
-Local police check (all adults)
-Records of previous foster parenting and adoption experiences
(including police and child abuse records from other states)
-Financial statement and most recent federal tax return
-References
-Identification verification (all adults)
-Employment verification
-Insurance verification (if applicable)
-Confidentiality agreement (all adults)
-Disciplinary agreement (all adults)
-Physical plant (i.e. home) inspection
-Weapon inspection
-Well water testing (**if applicable)
-Alternative heat source inspection by local building inspector or fire marshal (includes
wood stoves, fire places, etc.)
-Physical exams for all adults
-Pediatrician letter, if there are already children in the home (letter must state that child is
up-to-date with immunizations, free from communicable diseases, and basic
health status of the child)
-Pet records

Holy crap that's a lot of stuff. Just looking over the application the other day made me feel very overwhelmed. I think we'll have to work on the homestudy a little bit at a time. We hope to have our first homestudy visit in early August so we have about a month to fill out the application and questionnaries. The rest of the documentation will be produced as we get them done.

Some of you may be asking how we can do fertility treatments and adoption at the same time. We're not....technically. We intend to start the homestudy process now, which will require a $900 deposit to cover our first visit. As for the adoption agency, it won't cost us anything to start working on the family profile. Only when we submit it to the agency for them to put together will we have to pay the fee for that. So, if we get pregnant from our final FET (which only has about a 25% chance of success), we'll be out about $1,100 from non-refundable adoption fees. If we don't get pregnant, we'll be halfway through our homestudy and just a few months away from becoming an active waiting family with our agency. Either way, we're on the road to parenthood.

The Diary of a Two Week Wait

Sunday June 26th- The Day Before Transfer
The fertilization clinic thawed one vial of my three embryos as I was flying down to NC. Only two made the thaw. After getting to NC I had lunch with a couple former IVF buddies and went to the pharmacy to pick up my beloved Valium. It wasn't there. Nurse D forgot to call in the prescription so she told me to come back tomorrow morning to pick it up. My boobs are already sore from the progesterone.

Monday June 27th- Transfer Day
I went to the pharmacy to pick up my Valium at 7:30 but before I went there I went into the OB/GYN clinic to check and make sure Nurse D put in the prescription. This is the waiting room that the infertiles share with the pregnant bitches (I mean women). It's obvious who the infertiles are because they're the only ones called back by Nurse D and Ms G. No pregnant ladies were in there that early, thank God, just me and a couple other people and an older couple. Then this couple comes out waving their ultrasound pictures like a victory flag. They rush over to the older couple, who are obviously their parents, and start pointing out their little baby, gushing all over it and mentioning that the past 7 years were worth the wait. Seriously? A fellow infertile doing this?? Maybe it's just my prior miscarriage experience but I wouldn't dream of bringing family members to a first ultrasound. In fact, at this point I couldn't imagine myself announcing a pregnancy before the second trimester begins. But that's just me.

After waiting an hour and a half at the pharmacy for two tiny pills I rush back to the hotel to take the first one. I have to take the second one an hour before my transfer, which had been pushed back from 3 to 5:30 as Dr P was called into surgery that day. So I took a Valium-induced nap to kill some time.

At 4:30 my friend G comes to pick me up and we head to the clinic. They had thawed three embryos, all 4-cell grade 1's. As I said, one didn't make it and the two survivors each lost a cell. By the time I got there to transfer I had a 5-cell grade 1 and a 4-cell grade 2. We shot those bad boys up there with a catheter. G came back with me and I was distracted during the whole procedure telling Dori about those Ripley's statues. I chuckled a bit during my story as I was looking at the ultrasound screen and saw my uterus jump when I did that. The catheter was already in place and the embryos were ready to be inserted so it worried me a bit that I made my uterus move at that precise moment. After that I just sort of shut up and let Dr P. do his thing. Then it was over, I rested on the table for 15 minutes before emptying my bladder and getting dressed. Then G took me back to the hotel to rest.

Only I couldn't rest because a few hours after transfer I realized Dr P. pulled out my speculum rather quickly. Then I realized they didn't check the catheter under the microscope to make sure my embies got out. Fuck. Now I've got something to worry about and I was trying to be all zen. I wish I had an extra Valium.

Tuesday June 28th- 1dp3dt
Today was supposed to be a day of relaxation but it turned into utter boredom and more worrying about the catheter issue. I was stuck in a hotel room with only 20 channels on the TV and my Blu-Ray portable DVD player had the wrong adapter so the battery died rather quickly. I went to Target and bought a pair of shorts so I could sit by the pool and read my book. I lasted 20 minutes before I started baking. NC is so bloody hot and not suitable for fat people. I've got a tiny bit of cramping on my left side, kinda where my ovary would be. I'm attributing this to gas pains, and later, an upset stomach. I've also got extreme thirst. I went to dinner with G and her family and downed three full glasses of sweet tea with my dinner. Feeling a bit nauseous but that's not a surprise because I've been feeling icky for a couple weeks now. I thought it was the Doxycycline (antibiotics) but now that I'm not taking it I don't know what it could be.

Wednesday June 29th- 2dp3dt
I'm flying home today. My cramping has moved from the left side up toward the middle, like someone is poking me really hard in my belly button. I doubt this is implantation cramping, it's much too soon. My thirst issue is subsiding, though I did have two glasses of root beer at dinner. Still have gas, WTF is up with that? I must admit though, I'm feeling quite hopeful about this cycle right now.

Thursday June 30th- 3dp3dt
Today I went back to work, though I had the night shift so I got to sleep in until 9. I still have the nausea which seems to happen after I eat. Now I just have some dull cramping in my lower back. Not sure what that means. Oh, and a stabbing pain in my left boob that lasted about a minute.

Friday July 1st- 4dp3dt
Last night I had a very real, very vivid dream that I was feeding our newborn son (with a bottle) and burping him whil Brandon watched. Not sure what that means, maybe it's because I recently saw my friend's newborn baby? Anyway, it was super vivid and my dreams aren't usually like that. The dull cramping is still there, though I did have some belly cramping today too. It kinda feels like I'm carrying something heavy in my belly/uterus, like a rock or a water balloon. It could have been gas pains or it could possibly be implantation but I haven't seen any associated spotting. I was really tired today and took a 2 hour nap when I got home from work. I would have slept longer but I got an upset stomach again. What's with the GI issues???? Maybe it's the Metformin. I swear this 2WW is just one long mindfuck.

Saturday July 2nd- 5dp3dt
The past few days have been full of possible implantation symptoms which left me dangerously optimistic and hopeful that this cycle would be "the one". But today I've felt nothing. No cramping, no sore boobs, no implantation spotting, no nothing. And that has managed to suck out all the optimism I've been feeling lately. Tomorrow I plan to pee on a stick, mostly out of curiosity. I don't anticipate seeing a second line, though I'll continue to pray for one.

Sunday July 3rd- 6dp3dt
Today was another symptom-free day. I peed on a stick this morning, it was negative of course. I just wanted to crawl back in bed and stay there all day but Brandon and I had already made plans to hang out of my friend's house for a cookout so that's where we went this afternoon. It turned out to be a lot of fun because we brought Oso to meet her new flat-coated retriever puppy. She was only 8 weeks old and still floppy and adorable. I thought I felt some cramping today but it was so sporadic and so fleeting that I'm not sure if it was real. It seemed that the moment I realized I was feeling crampy the pain went away, so it could have all been my imagination. My only consolation happened late tonight as I was getting undressed for bed. I took off my bra and noticed that my left boob was looking very veiny, which I heard could be a sign of early pregnancy. Now I have big boobs so being able to see my blue veins is pretty abnormal but perhaps that was due to the fact that we were sitting around a campfire tonight and the heat made my veins more pronounced? Who knows. I'll note the symptom and move on without dwelling on it too much.

Monday July 4th- 7dp3dt
Happy Fourth of July. Today will be spent alone because Brandon has duty and again, I have absolutely no symptoms just like yesterday and the day before. Another negative pee stick was tossed in the trash this morning. I thought I saw a faint line but I immediately caught myself and stopped looking. I'm not playing those stupid mindgames. I had enough of them last time, thankyouverymuch. Two days till beta and I'm certainly feeling less optimistic today. I started breaking out in zits on my face and chest tonight but that's probably from the bug spray I used at my friend's house, then let it cook on me while I sat next to the campfire. I still got eaten alive by mosquitoes. Lesson learned.

Tonight I talked to Brandon on the phone before going to sleep and had a good conversation about fertility treatments/adoption and a good cry. I won't go into the details about our future plans right now, just in case this cycle worked.

Tuesday July 5th- 8dp3dt
Another negative pregnancy test this morning. Not even a hint of a second line. I am utterly convinced this did not work. I'm so disappointed right now. I went to work this morning and lasted about an hour. My job isn't exactly stimulating so I tend to put on my headphones and zone out while I'm processing orders (don't judge, it's necessary to tune out everyone else's talking and other noises). This is sometimes bad because my mind wanders and this morning it wandered to my potentially failed cycle. I kinda lost it so I left work crying. We have no privacy there in our little half-cubicles and I didn't want people noticing my crying. I also wasn't sure how many times I would lose it today so I just left and worked from home.

At lunchtime I jumped up from the couch rather quickly to go to the kitchen (to prevent the burning of my delicious grilled cheese sandwich). Then I experienced a sharp pain in my uterus area that lasted for a few minutes. Had that happened a few days ago I'd think it meant something but at this point I don't think it means shit.

Beta is tomorrow.

Wednesday July 6th- 9dp3dt and Beta Day
The morning started off with another negative pee stick and things just sort of went downhill from there. I left the house early to get my bloodwork done and showed up at the lab at 7:15. Half an hour later they called me back to steal my blood. After that was said and done I asked the guy behind the desk (the one who put my labwork in the system) about how long it would take to get the results. I was expecting to hear it would take an hour or two as this is generally how long it takes. Instead he said "Meh, you should get it by the end of the day. If not, then tomorrow." Sorry, asshole, wrong answer. My paperwork specifically says SAME DAY RESULTS. I pointed this out but he gave me some lame ass answer saying that the labwork had to be "sent out". Whatever. I was late for work so I just left.

Work was boring and tedious as usual. Around 1:00 I got an email from Nurse D saying that the fax machine was down. She gave me an alternate number so I called the hospital to make the change. The lady I spoke with changed the fax number and the following conversation ensued:

Me: So does that mean the labwork is done?
Lady: No it hasn't been completed yet.
Me: Well is it going to get done today?
Lady: Well it has to be sent out.
Me: But the paperwork specifically said SAME DAY RESULTS.
Lady: Uh, well, uh it has to be sent out.

To make a long story short, the asswipe who entered my labwork that morning ordered the wrong fucking test. The test he ordered, you guessed it, has to be sent out and can take up to 4 days. Goddamnitmotherfuckershitassmonkeyballs I was so pissed. The lady said she would rectify the situation and call me back if I needed to come give more blood. I sat there seething for two hours. Finally at 3:00 I called again to check on the status of the bloodwork. The Lady said she faxed to Nurse D at 1:30. So for those of you who are curious, it apparently only takes half an hour to complete a quantitative HCG test. So I waited for Nurse D to call.

And waited.

And waited.

And finally at 5:30 I called her up and she told me my beta was less than 1, thus ending the shittiest 2WW of all time.