Peace, Quiet and 200 days left

Let me start the post by admitting I'm horribly irritable lately. Like keep the hell out of my way or I'll lose my mind cranky. Little things turn into big things and big things are stab worthy. 

My cousin/roomate is getting on my LAST nerve. She's got to go and the sooner the better. I've given her a deadline of September but I'm really hoping it's more like early August. I doubt it though because her only option right now is going BACK to her grandma's... If they can get the drunkle out for good, but if they can't... she's got NO back up plan. This is so frustrating to me. How can you not want to have a plan B for yourself and your CHILD to not be homeless, or couch surfing? Wouldn't you WANT to have a place of your own so he could have a room to play in?

The kid is 5, he needs stimulation. He needs his own room, with room for his toys, he needs to be played with. She picks him up from school, takes him to the park for about 1.5 hrs until 5 or so when hubs gets up for work (and only because I told her they were waking him up hours early  and it wasn't acceptable) then she expects him to entertain himself for 4 hours while she sits and plays on her phone on the couch. She'll send him to the room to watch a movie or play on his tablet. It drives me INSANE, because of course he's going to come out and ask 8 thousand questions:

Can we go ride bikes?

Can we go play soccer?

Can I play on the playstation?

Can we paint?

Can we watch (insert movie of the week here)?

Over and over and over. and my patience starts to wear thin. Not with him and his questions but her response or lack there of... 

PLAY WITH YOUR DAMN KID 

Then we've got her dog... I don't like to say I hate dogs, but I'm really not a fan of this one. It started when he attacked my ducks, charging at their pen and he actually managed to bite one of them on the bill through the fence. Now he can't go outside unattended at all but instead of sitting out there with him for awhile, she lets him out long enough for him to do his business and then brings him back in. I get it, it's hot outside but he's a high energy dog, he needs to have an outlet or he's too hyper in the house.. and 3 large dogs "playing" in the house is like a herd of elephants. He also tries to jump the fence to get to the neighbors dog which he apparently doesn't like so he can't go outside while that dog is out or it will be non-stop barking and jumping at the fence. 

He's also a barker.. he barks at flies, he barks at cars, he barks at people walking down the street, he barks when the wind blows too hard. We've never had barking dogs and it makes it impossible for N to sleep during the day when the dog is barking at every little thing. And he's recently started barking at people. My stepdad is helping us finish painting the basement and the dog wouldn't let him in the house even after we gave the command to stop barking. I'm not okay with that in my house. He barked at me while I was coming down the hallway the other night for no reason. 

So she had plans to go to a friends house for the 4th yesterday and I asked  her if she was taking S (her dog) with her. She gave me this questioning look... I told her I wasn't watching her dog. Ours are freaked out enough with the fireworks, we were having people over and I couldn't have the risk of him barking at our guests or the responsibility of watching him each time we needed to put the dogs outside. I think I might have made her mad because she decided to go out of town to her mom's for the weekend. 

Frankly, it's been awesome. I hadn't realized how much her being here has changed they dynamics in my house. N and I got up and had breakfast at the table together he said "do you hear that?" I said, "what?? He said "exactly". Then, we laid on the couch and talked about the last week since we haven't had the chance to catch up, we napped on the couch, we hung out in our underwear. It was awesome. I've missed the time we have together just the two of us.

And we only have 200 days left for it to be just the two of us!! That's right, my handy dandy little app told me I've got 200 days until my EDD. 

I'm amazed by that fact. It's a long time but not so long at all...

I totally ran out of steam for this post after my rant... sorry I'm a shitty blogger.. thanks for reading if you've made it this far.  Enjoy this pic of a cat

First appointment update

Well I'm not super happy with how my appointment went. First of all let me say I love my OB/GYN, I've been going to him for as long as I can remember and usually, his calm/cool/collected demeanor is refreshing but this time, not so much.

He basically ignored the fact I've been charting for the last few cycles. He seemed rather unconcerned with the fact that my average cycle is over 35 days, with most being in the 40+ range. "Not ovulating every month is fairly common" Yeah, but not ovulating MOST of the months isn't... Ovulating on day 28+ ISN'T NORMAL. Basically all he wants to do is a SA for Hubs (that gets sent to an RE that's about 40 mins away... Hubs is NOT happy about that) and a CD21 panel for me to "see if I'm ovulating". Look fucker, I can tell you right now I'm not, and if I am it's late and I surge multiple times before I finally do... so let's skip the baby step bull shit and get down to business. This isn't like a game of Monopoly where you just play and play until someone wins... this game has a sand timer and a fucking buzzer each time your turn is up.

Oh and I asked him about his thoughts on Clomid vs Femara... he looked at me like I had 4 heads. He said "plenty of women have gotten pregnant on Clomid and it's cheaper" I specifically asked about lining issues he said he thought they were "grossly exaggerated". Now I'm pissy and taking that kind of personally for all my new found friend that DID have lining issues on Clomid.

Mom went with me to the appt, I'm really glad she did but at one point said that she thought I was too worried and if maybe connecting with people that have been struggling with this for years might be doing more harm than good. Mom has Hashimoto's disease that was recently FINALLY diagnosed. I asked her, point blank, "If you had access to multiple people that were struggling with this disease for YEARS longer than you, that had already taken every drug, ran every test, seen every doctor, wouldn't you listen to them? Wouldn't you want the same tests ran? Because even if the problem isn't the same, it's something that can be crossed off the list that COULD be the problem. And when you're living on borrowed time, why not start at the top and work your way down instead of starting at the bottom and taking the long route?"

I think a light bulb clicked with her then.

So I'll be scoping out RE's this month. I just joined up with the local Infertility Awareness group and they're actually doing a conference this month so I'll have to find someone to cover soccer for me. I'm going. The 4 RE's here in town will have booths there to help answer questions. Hopefully we figure something out.

New beginnings

It really sounds much more pleasant than it is. A new beginning in my world means violent mood swings, random bouts of tears, zits on my chin, feeling like my uterus is in a vice, and something that rivals a B horror film when I go to the bathroom...

That's right ladies, CD1 is upon us. I'm not really THAT sad about it. I'm actually ok since tomorrow is the "How the fuck are we going to make me a baby" appointment and I figure that starting fresh will mean that any testing that needs done can just get done that much sooner. I did realize that this cycle was my last chance to birth a child in 2014. That's weird to think about.

• 2015, year of the sheep... Guess that kid's getting off easier than me (year of the rat).
• This kid will graduate high school in/around 2033 (are you reading this?!?!?!)
• My grandparents will likely not live to see this child graduate high school (If grandpa makes it to 99 though, I'll be THRILLED)
• These are the things this kid will wear to "retro" parties

It's a strange thing, time. It doesn't wait for us at all but we count on it so much. 

Here's to a whole shit ton of 2015, year of the sheep babies for all of us! 

She's here... I mean I think so

So my temps plummeted dramatically yesterday and I had some spotting in the afternoon, not a whole lot overnight (like barely anything) I'm marking today as CD1 but I'm starting to wonder if my light (2-3 days max) periods could have something to do with my lining not getting thick enough?

This whole journey has been a testament to how much I didn't know about my body, how it worked, what it did. I'm not going to lie, I'm jealous of those who get to run around blissfully unaware of what it takes but at the same time, I'm loving the education I'm getting!!

I'm cranky today. I mean snapped at my husband for giving me a kiss good morning cranky. Almost kicked the dog for being in my way cranky. Don't come to my desk or I will stab you with a pencil cranky.

I need wine and a nap!

11dpo and my symptom stalking isn't going so well

Like the title says, today is 11dpo and my symptom spotting WOULD be in full force...

IF I HAD ANY SYMPTOMS!!!!!!

I'm completely symptomless.. nothing, no cramps, no twinges, no sore boobs, no sensitive nipples, no zits, no stuffy nose, no heightened sense of smell.. NOTHING. 

Nothing that leads me to believe I'm pregnant OR that AF is on her way. Which is weird, because I've been symptom tracking just a little longer than I've been temping and I get some serious pre-period things happening starting about 1 week before my period but this month... NOTHING.

My temp had nosedived yesterday, I mean down to 96.1 but it was back up again today so I'm attributing that to sleeping on the couch instead of in my warm bed with my blankets. 

So we're maybe still in the game but I'm seriously starting to lost what little hope I'd let myself get. 

Not your average infertility blog

I'm Holly, I'm 29, married and struggling with infertility.

I know, I know.. Join the club sister, there are thousands of women struggling with it. What makes you so special? Nothing, absolutely nothing makes my story special or note-worthy but I've noticed something while out there scouring the web.. Women suck when it comes to this subject!!

There are weird little cliques on every single forum out there and if you don't fit, you aren't welcome. So fuck them, I'm starting my own club.

I'm calling it the "Screw your silver-linings, not always positive, what the hell are all these abbreviations, infertility group"

Ok so maybe the name needs work.

But here are the basics, you won't ever see me post a fucking GLOSSARY, there are no diagnosis stipulations, no lengths of time trying that aren't welcome and I won't ever belittle your concerns by telling you to "just keep trying" or "if it's meant to be, it will happen" or "just think positive". If any of those worked, we'd all have Duggar sized families by now, so fuck that.

Also, I cuss.. A lot. I'm a grown up, I'm emotional and I can. If this isn't your thing, that's fine, maybe this isn't the page for you.

This is my safe place to worry, out loud, without judgment. Some of this might be happy, most of it will probably be angry and sad. That's your warning, full disclosure. If you've made it this far, welcome aboard.

-h