Bye Bye birth control

Hello huge pile o' drugs! Today my Lupron and Endometrin came in the mail. Today is also my last day of birth control pills. For the next two days I won't need to take any meds. Then on Friday I take Lupron twice a day and on Saturday I take a cocktail of Lupron, Menopur and Gonal-F. I'm not really looking forward to it, I'm afraid I'll screw it up somehow. I'll have to read over my medication administration instructions again.

A word to the wise....I received my sharps container today. The lid was not attached and there was something in the container but I stuck the lid on anyway for the purpose of my picture. I later found out that the container lid isn't really meant to come off. After trying to pry it off with my hands, teeth and a butter knife, I finally gave up and just pried the stuff out of the container. It was gauze and alcohol pads. Oh well, lesson learned.

Venting my Thoughts

Facebook can sometimes be evil. I read all these status updates saying "My child did the CUTEST thing today" or "Today is the day little Johnny has to go to daycare for the first time". Each time I see them I throw up a little in my mouth. Well now Facebook has this new virus going around...for all the mommies out there, post how much your little darling child weighed when he/she was born! Are you kidding me? Three days before I start hormone medication and I have to read THAT crap? I'll be taking an extended break from Facebook for a while.

On top of that, my cat Jasmine is causing me problems again. When Brandon returned home from his deployment her bad behavior came back in full force. She would seek out his clothes (usually his work uniforms) and use them for her personal toilet. Brandon was furious. So we cut off her access to all bedrooms and our bathroom. We went out and bought a kitty collar that has some scent in it that helps calm cats. We also began looking for a new home for her. We put up ads on Craigslist and even had an ad put up on a Ragdoll rescue. Nobody was interested in a geriatric cat. Then this morning as I was getting dressed, I reached for my bra, which I had placed on one of the couches the night before. She had peed all over my bra and of course, onto the couch. Our lovely microsuede less-than-a-year-old couch. I lost it. I told Brandon to lock her up in the bathroom or her kennel for the day and I would call the humane societies today and drop her off. I can't take it anymore. I've been dealing with this issue for about 3 years which is far too long. Unfortunately if none of the humane societies will take her due to her age then we will have to put her down. I feel that it's a behavior issue and all she needs is a new family, other people I've talked to believe she's just getting old. It's hard to tell. We had taken her to the vet to find out what was wrong with her, they wanted $320 to run some testing. We said no.

Needless to say, today has not been very good so far.

Goodbye, Dear Savings

Today I parted with $6,185 of my savings. This went to pay for my IVF cycle plus ICSI. I won't pay for the cryopreservation until it's time to freeze the embabies. I also purchased our plane tickets for our trip and reserved my rental car. Now I just have a few more things to take care of.

1) Pack for my two-week trip
2) Place a reservation at the kennel for the dog
3) Place a reservation at the airport parking
4) Wait for my box of Lupron to arrive tomorrow
5) Try to RELAX!

The relaxing part won't happen today, not while the thought of parting with $6,000 of my money is still fresh in my mind. So for now I will just say goodbye to my savings. I hope we meet again some day, preferably in the form of a living breathing child.

I love the Navy

As if our first IVF isn't going to be stressful enough, Brandon and I have no idea where we'll be living in 5 months. He is due to leave his command and go on shore duty at the end of May. This means NO deployments for three glorious years. As soon as Brandon returned from his deployment in November he began applying for a new billet. He only applied for one....Kings Bay, GA. Most of my family lives in Georgia, at the very least my whole family lives on the East Coast. Brandon's family is from Utah but he isn't really close to them and we've only visited them twice in the past three years we've been here. Besides, he has like 14 brothers and sisters scattered around the Midwest and I've only met 3 or 4 of them.

Anyway, back to my point. We waited and waited to see if he was selected for this billet in Kings Bay. After a month we discovered he was supposed to interview for the position! WTF. So now we're back at square one. Every month new billets become available. This month we have the choice between Bangor, WA (where we live now), Kings Bay, GA, Groton, CT (aka Rotten Groton), and Great Lakes, IL. He (meaning we) decided to apply for Bangor and Kings Bay. He still has to screen for both positions and I suppose it will be February before we find out where we'll be living. There are pros and cons to both duty stations so I really can't decide which one I would like more. Besides the totally crappy weather that we have to deal with in Washington and the fact that my family is 3000 miles way, it's really not that bad living here.

If he is NOT selected for any of the billets he applied for this month, he will be shoved into "Needs of the Navy" and could be sent anywhere the Navy needs him. That means another sea duty, maybe even a sea duty somewhere really crappy....like Guam. Let's just say I'm praying really hard that he gets accepted for one of the billets.

I'm not bitching about the military or saying that it sucks, I'm just saying that this is all a little issue of bad timing. I thought that we would have found out about his new duty station and now we won't know anything till around my embryo transfer. Can't a girl get a break?

My new look

Is anyone else digging my new blog makeover as much as I am? Thank you Alison! A new look for a new year!

Not just my roller coaster ride

Infertility is a horrible thing to have to go through by yourself. Your emotions fly from one end of the spectrum to the other, just to be repeated over and over again with every failed cycle. Those who aren't experiencing infertility (and even those with infertility who haven't experienced the same treatments as you) simply don't understand what you're going through. While sympathy is still appreciated, it's the empathy that really gets you through the tough times. That's why I'm so glad I created this blog, so I could reach out to a community of women who do understand, because my own RL friends and family do not.

I follow quite a few blogs. Each one has their own unique story and I enjoy reading all of them. It's the highlight of my day (besides my husband of course, who is probably reading this blog with a pouting expression on his face). I enjoy sharing in their happiness and in their grief. After all, the journey to parenthood through the Lands of Infertility is one that should not be taken alone.

Sharing in all the emotions of complete strangers, however, can be a little overwhelming. This week has been the worst by far. I was overjoyed to learn that Eileen got a positive result from her obssessive POAS habit. I'm waiting on pins and needles for Hillary to test and I'm also devastated to learn that Mo and Jackie lost their little beans. My heart goes out to them both.

While I feel that it's such a positive thing to have a circle of online friends who are there to support you, this week has reminded me that it can also be emotionally taxing. Not only am I worried about my own upcoming cycle but I'm also worried about the lives of those I don't even know! I don't know how other people handle it, but it's hard for me to be happy or sad for someone without having some sort of emotional involvement. My words can't be empty and meaningless, if I'm happy for you it's because I'm truly happy. If I'm sad for you, then I feel that sadness. Is that a bad thing? Shouldn't a blog community have that kind of support? Or does it only add to your own stress as you try to conceive? I'd like to think that it doesn't, even though I run the gamut of emotions all in the same week, but I've be reminded more than once to relax and focus on myself as I draw closer to my IVF cycle. In the blogging world, that's alot easier said than done.

A decision has been made

After coming up with more ideas and getting a few from my friends, I was left with a long list of new blog titles to choose from.  Some of the highlights were "What's the Matter with my Baby Batter?", "Not Putting All My Eggs in One Basket", "Hormonally Challenged", and "Babies Aren't Standard Navy Issue".  My husband and I read over the entire list and decided on......Fearlessly Infertile.  Surprisingly, I thought of that one myself.  I thought of a few more such as "My Stork Needs a GPS" but that title was already taken.  Doh!  Coming up with a creative AND original blog title wasn't as hard as I thought it would be but I'm still glad it's over with. 

Stuck in a creative rut

I want a new overhaul for my blog. New header, new layout, the full enchilada. But I also want a new title and I'm far from creative (hence the current lame title). Does anyone have any ideas? I was thinking about something military related, or something humorous and witty. Not something poetic or melancholy, that's just not me. The only title I can think of is "What ever happened to Insert Tab A into Slot B?". While funny and witty it seems a little too long for a title. And I didn't even think of that myself, my co-worker asked me that one day when I was bitching about my infertility struggles. Anyway, what do you think? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

T minus 11 days....

and counting! Today was my baseline ultrasound. Everything went fine, the ute and ovaries looked normal. However the doctors at Madigan were a little confused as to why I was getting a baseline u/s when I'm still on birth control pills. I don't stop taking them until next Tuesday. The doctor said their protocol is to perform the baseline u/s after getting off bcp's and before starting the stims. They just assumed the RE at Womack does things differently and did the procedure anyway.

So now things are looking A-okay for my January IVF. In 11 days I will start my Lupron shots, and in 12 days I get the whole cocktail of stimming meds. I've booked my one-way plane ticket to NC and Brandon's round-trip ticket. Unfortunately he will only be able to stay for about 8 days out of the 14 that I will be there. At least he can be there for the most important day, the egg retrival. After all, he is an active participant in this as well and the lab needs his deposit. We don't know if he will be there for the transfer though. We'll just have to see how things go. If he can't make it then perhaps one of the other girls I'm cycling with can take me to the lab since I won't be allowed to drive. Other than that, all is quiet on the fertility front. Now I suppose I'm in the Two Week Wait (TWW) to start this ball rolling.

Am I missing something here?

I've been blogging for almost 9 months now and as I've added to my list of blogs that I follow, I've noticed a common trend that almost all of them have. When referring to name brand objects/teams/etc, the writer either misspells the name or puts a period in the middle of the word. Such as G.a.p. or Weeee! or P.andora. I feel like an idiot asking but I really have no idea why they do that. Am I missing something here? Is there a reason why you can't just say you got a Coach bag for Christmas? Am I breaking some sort of copyright law by mentioning a brand name on my blog? I just want to be in the know, ya know? Please explain to the blog newbie what this all means!