Salt and Pickles

I’ve been a very bad blogger. I think I go into a holding pattern sometimes.  A friend mentioned that she hadn’t seen much of me, and I realized that I do this often in the 2ww but during the first tri I did it times ten. I was just hunkered down until I felt i could relax and believe I was pregnant.

Of course, once I reached 13 weeks the first thing I did was order knit black converse booties from Mahar Dry Goods! hah. 

So, our NT scan was friday and things looked great. I’m finally allowing myself to feel excited and happy and stop giving the caveat “but it’s really early” to anybody who asked how the IVF had worked out. (we were never very secretive about what we were going through. it’s just not our style. everybody knows our business, i guess) 

We were going to rent out our loft and move when we thought it was twins, but now that we know it’s one.. I think we’ll stick around for awhile. This has allowed us to relax a lot. We are definitely going to do some serious paring down though.

 I’m quitting my job in mid-june, which i’m very excited about. The baby isn’t due til mid to late October, and this will give me some months at home on my own before my life completely changes. I’ve never had that, and I think it will be wonderful.hell, i might even watch a soap opera… which I haven’t done since the late 80’s when I was a teenager in love with Steve (patch) and Kayla on Days of Our Lives. 

We’ve been a bit too busy on weekends. bbq’s and seders and birthdays and so many baby birthdays too. It’s good though. I’m going to try to write with more regularity now that I’m no longer hunkered down waiting for proof that things were sticking.

 I have been on Zofran for weeks and thus not really throwing up. but all i want to eat is watermelon , so i’ve actually lost some weight rather than gained. my midwife is not worried about this, since i have some weight to spare. today though, i made a midwestern style butter burger. basically it’s a burger with caramelized onions and a patty of butter that melts on top of the hot burger. it’s sinful but really good. since i haven’t really liked protein much at all lately, i just see it as a positive sign that I ate an entire burger!

i had all these plans to sew things before the baby came, but I haven’t sewed a thing since xmas.
maybe after i quit my job. yea, right.  

It looks like one of the twins is in process of vanishing. They didn’t see a hb or fetal pole. Just a yolk inside the sac which is much smaller than the other.

The other twin is measuring 8w4d with a heartbeat of 174. (i was worried that was too fast, but the doc swore it was good)  

we’re torn about how we feel. We were a little nervous about twins, but were getting quite attached to the idea at the same time. I guess I am a mixture of happy and sad. I’m sad that we wont’ know both babies, but happy that one is healthy and wiggling around (we saw it wiggling!) and looking healthy.

We were very pragmatic and knew that this might happen. We even had this feeling it would, but I’d stopped feeling that way when I was so sick on sunday that I couldn’t keep a single thing down. I’m on Zofran now and am able to eat again, but that day sucked. I thought “I must be this sick because there are two”

We graduate from the RE and my OB appt is april 9th and our NT scan is the 11th. very weird to not get to go back to my RE. especially since I am still on progesterone til the 11th of april.

My kitty is super needy and lovey lately. I’m not sure what’s up with him, but it’s nice having a kitty neck warmer when i’m on the couch.

Beta #1 comes in at 1371 at 18dpo.
beta base is down, but according to this (scroll down)

yowsa…

I feel mostly paralyzed/shocked than anything else, even though i knew I was pregnant. I also was shaking a little bit for awhile there.

my IVF nurse said “This is a very healthy number” .. but we’re being cautiously optimistic as she and i are both a little superstitious. so we’ll wait to see how well it doubles on thursday. (please double!)

There’s not really much to say as one counts down the days past transfer. I mean, here I am staring at the screen trying to come up with something. Not so much.

I’ve been super grouchy, I have to say. I zoom from calm to super duper irritated in about 5 seconds flat. And I’m not so good at hiding it, either. Hans is just leaving me alone. Probably the best course of action all around.
I HAVE , however, been sleeping most awesomely the past few nights. I don’t even wake up when H comes to bed an hour after me. (normally I’m hyper attuned to anything going on around me)

I’ve always been the sort of person who, if she lost $20… would pretend she had never had the $20. This made getting over such things very easy. I’d just let it go. I’ve done ok with a variation of this with getting (or not getting) pregnant. I get ferociously sad for 2 days, and then I’m powering forward with my forehead down like a bull ready to head butt my way into parenthood.
It’s getting harder to do, though.

This weekend in tahoe, I plan to make a sock elephant, a quilted bird & maybe a clutch purse or two.

I feel flat. That’s the best description for how I feel post-transfer. I’m not quite sad, but I’m so flat. just a big blah. There’s a slight burning, like coal, low in my belly. And I sigh every few minutes. I dont’ know how to battle the flat.

So I took today off from work and got to sleep in a little. Hans would have happily taken the day off with me, but it seems so silly for him to take the day off just to ferry me around and hold my hand. I’ve done so many IUI appts on my own, that transer doesnt’ feel so different.
I require him on retrieval day, but not so much on transfer. especially since I go to acupuncture first and he’d just have to sit and wait for an hour through that.

I didn’t sleep in acu, which is a first. I felt relaxed, but i guess not as relaxed as i usually am.
transfer went well.. they thawed the 5 embies I had and only 2 made it. but one of those was a 9/10 cell ‘excellent’ embryo and the other was a 5 cell ‘good’ embryo

hans picked me up from BART (that was the one thing i didn’t want to do. wait for a bus) and brought me home. I ate organic chicken soup that i made yesterday & a cheese sandwich. then i slept for about 3 hours. loooovely.

I think i’ve been pretty good at taking it easy today.. so here’s to hoping one or both of those little guys burrows in and decides to make a home for 9 months.

I didn’t read my updated calendar well enough. I was supposed to start the medrol yesterday, and I didn’t. So today I took two ,and hte most I can do is hope that that is ok. From what I’ve read online, medrol isn’t as necessary with FET’s as it is with IVF.. I hope this is true.

Last night we played board games with good friends. Cuba is kind of convoluted, but if you like strategerie games .. this is a good one. We ate cheese & thai food take out. And their daughter was hysterical and LOVING the attention by so many people. When her mom came up the stairs from the play room with her tutu, she was visibly vibrating and screaming “HERE SHE COMES WITH MY TUTU!!!”. She just turned 2 a few weeks ago. Her brother is almost 5 months old and mainly just cooed and giggled and bounced up and down . awesome kids. For some reason, being around babies and toddlers doesnt’ hurt me. Pregnant women don’t really bother me either, except a low level longing that I feel clogging my throat a little. but only a little.
I’m not a huge fan of being lapped, but even that i’ve been able to get over relatively quickly.

I don’t know.. maybe in a year or so from now, or if IVF doesn’t work? this will all change.

Today my friend since 1985 is coming over. I haven’t hung out with him alone in what feels like YEARS. (and may actually have been years). It’s important to me to hang out with my friends without spouses, without tribe.. to keep that core friendship alive. I’m excited. I think we’ll go eat $1 oysters, if he’s up to it.

I don’t feel optimistic but I also am not really feeling like debbie downer with this cycle. I think that’s good. I’m just in a holding pattern. I’ll do my acupuncture, i’ll do my transfer, i’ll rest with my feet up, i’ll watch movies and go to bed early. and as of THIS SECOND, what will be will be. ask me again tomorrow, when it will be doom and gloom.

I meant to go to IKEA to buy fabric today (they have some adorable fabrics!) because I’ve noticed that when i’m creating something, I feel much more hopeful and contained. I think I might do a small easy baby quilt, if it doesn’t frustrate the hell out of me.

Ok, after all my lining worry.. it turned out ok. It’s a nice fluffy 10. I had been worried that my 3 hour baths & swimming at the gym might have not allowed the patches to do their work, but I guess it was fine. With each new worry that falls away, another one appears though.

Now i worry and hope that the embryos thaw correctly (and the first two would be great, so we have still 4 left after)

Then, of course, the coup de grace of worries: Will they stick?

I realize, looking over this journal.. or just listening to my own dialogue. It hasn’t occurred to me that I wont’ have a baby at the end of this. I mean, sure it’s come into my brain as a possibility but it’s not something i believe. I believe we will have a baby at the end of this.

I don’t know if this will make it all the more heartbreaking if we don’t .

We have discussed what we’d do if there were no baby at the end. I think we’ve decided not to adopt. Another long wait full of hope just sounds like more than we could take.

We decided I’d still quit my job.. take some time off, and find a new path. And we’d try to travel once or twice a year. Hans originally suggested that we take a big chunk that maybe would have been a college fund and travel for a year or so, but when i looked skeptical and mentioned how much he loved his job. well..that was amended. (Although I’m guessing he could take a few months off as sabbatical) So.. travel a few times a year, more skiing.. None of these would truly make up for not having a kid, but it would make our lives full. I would also work on creating things. Jewelry, take sewing classes, maybe glass blowing/bead making classes.

but again, the not adopting isn’t in stone. If IVF doesn’t work out, we may be right at the beginning and planning from scratch. I don’t know.

Speaking of IVF. dude. I’ve got two estrogen patches on my belly … and in two days, i’ll have 4. Having this much estrogen roiling around in my body is making me a sourpuss. I’m groucherrific and when Hans touches me or hangs out near me in a way I don’t like, i seriously throw a toddler-like tantrum.

today is acupuncture. or as i like to call it - my weekly nap. I usually take a long time to fall asleep if i’m taking a daytime nap, but in acupuncture I’m asleep within 5 minutes. It’s awesome.

that’s what this FET cycle is. interminable! If i weren’t an injection pumpkin.. having to be home by 10pm every night for lupron. I don’t think I’d even remember that I’m cycling again.

My acupuncturist gives me these powdered herbs that I mix in hot water, and why must they be so nasty? Perhaps so we feel more like we’re taking medicine, but really..it’s just a big mug of dirt water. hot dirt water.

I feel better than I did a few days ago. I still hate the waiting, but I’m not so depressed. I went to bed early a few nights (and last night I slept extremely hard. Usually movement or sounds wake me if even for a second, but last night I wasn’t even aware of Hans coming to bed after me. I was out cold)… my period started, and I have plans to do things this weekend.

My best friend since childhood is moving to california. She’s lived in Vermont most of our lives, although she went to UCSC for a few years and also lived in Hawaii for about 2 years. I’ve always envied her idyllic vermont lifestyle (she had an organic farm on her land, two beautiful kids, lots of creative outlets) but now she’s moving to LA. The anti-vermont! It will be great to have her here on my coast though.

Hans and I often daydream of a future rural life. I hope this wont’ be just a daydream, but it’s hard to know. We have it good here. We have a gorgeous loft (although i’d guess we’d have to leave it by the time our kid is 4. It’s wonderful but not great for a child once they’re reached running-around age), his mom is 15 minutes away.. mine is 2 hours away. and we have a hugesupport system right here in the bay area. but i daydream of goats, a horse, fresh eggs from our own chickens.. and space to explore/garden/hike/etc.

I’m having major gadget lust for the kindle. I’d never fully give up on paper books, but this would be super handy for me. I spend most of my money on food & books. Digital food will never do me much good, but having 200 books in a slender little 10.3 ounce package would be awesome.

I had the kind of weekend where I was beating myself up a bit. I slept too much, I wasn’t productive.
I want to be somebody who uses all the many things i’ve collected for crafting.. and actually CREATE things. But I run into so many walls and I’m not even sure how to describe them. I guess I become overwhelmed by possibilities and so i just get paralyzed. craft-paralysis.
When there is some goal (like christmas is in two days), i am able to crank things out for an evening. I love the feeling, but it’s the impending doom “this has to get done now or i have no presents for anyone!” that makes me finally get off my ass and do something.
I have LOTS of blogs that I read (mostly crafty mama blogs) because I aspire to be like them in some way. I read them with this faint jealousy sneaking through my stomach. I wonder how they go from vague ideas to actual ideas.. if they just collect supplies all the time for eventual projects or if they have to go buy new stuff everytime a new idea comes up.
Maybe if/when I’m at home and have a lot more time on my hands.. this will force my hand. I’m afraid it won’t though. That that’s just a pipe dream.

I also have thought about blogging but , for the first time (I used to have another blog elsewhere)… I find myself paralyzed in the face of writing too. There’s a lot of shrugging and then reading of the internets going on in my house.

Maybe I should make a resolution, but i’ve never been good at resolutions.

We’re in our second IVF cycle. This time a frozen cycle. I’m back to nightly injections.. and adding an estrogen patch starting on friday. Sometime in the first week of february, two embryos from our last cycle will be transferred and we’ll see what happens.

I’m much less emotionally involved this time, and maybe that’s a good thing. I’m reading the craftymama blogs again, I’m daydreaming a bit and hoping a bit again.. but I’m also just not as obsessed as I was last time.
I took 2 months off (thus the no entries in this blog) from baby thinking. I drank what I wanted, I ate what I wanted, I didn’t go to acupuncture. I just took 2 months off for the first time in 19 months. It was the best feeling in the world. I’d told myself before that I’d relax and not think about it for a month or two, but I was never actually capable of doing so.

I’m trying to re-invest. I’m getting there.

I’m a little depressed lately, but it has a lot less to do with making babies and a lot more to do with feeling like I’m not being who I want to be and not doing what I want to do.

Luckily