Great Scott! I have a great pulse!

I have a great pulse! Whoop!

As some of you know, I have been going to acupuncture for 2 and a half long years. Long, long years. I am currently on my 4th acupuncturist. Not that I'm an acupuncture whore, I hasten to add. But I really believe that it can help, and have really tried hard to keep going and keep the faith. It was hard to see other women say that their cycles turned around in 2 months, or for them to get immediate improvement across the board while I wallowed. I mean, I was getting improvements in various things. Slowly but surely my digestion improved, I had more energy, I had less pain and PMS. But it was such slow progress, and with each acupuncturist I reached a point where I had stalled - they weren't trying new points, just their old favorites, and we were getting nowhere. So that was the point that I usually switched.

With each one, I have asked what I can do about diet, what I should be eating to help myself heal. While explaining to each one that I have no intention whatsoever of stopping being a vegetarian. And every single one of them told me I should be eating meat, and didn't offer any additional help beyond that. Which was pretty damn frustrating, I have to tell you. Except for current cutie acu, who in addition to recommending that I eat meat, also recommended this book. It's like a lightbulb went off once I read the book, and I just really feel like I understand what I need to do to heal myself. I can't recommend this book enough. Although it is a monster tome, I am already re-reading it because it is just so chock full of useful information.

Part of this healing process has been to ingest a lot of Spirulina and Chlorella [because I am a deficient person according to TCM, they wouldn't necessarily be right for everyone]. This got off to a very bad start because I was trying to chew the stuff which is naasty but I persevered, just swallowing the tablets. And eating healthily.

And in the last week or so, it has really come together. I feel like I have a ton of energy, the constant pain in my neck and shoulders where I hold all my tension has gone down so much it's amazing. I feel like a new woman! OK, so the cholesterol is still bad, but hopefully that will come down with continued healthy eating.

It hasn't all been me, I hasten to add. Cutie acu works differently than the previous people, in that he really pays attention to pulses, and works on a few points using needles (or something else pointy, I can't quite tell) but not inserting them, goes back and retakes my pulse, works on a couple more and retakes my pulse again, and only then puts in the needles and leaves me. And then when he comes back in after 20 minutes or so, he retakes my pulse again. I feel like he's really figuring out what this is actually doing to my body, and adjusting accordingly, rather than just sticking needles in his favorite points.

And he's not a fertility specialist. I read all the time on the bulletin boards how women are supposed to go to fertility specialists when TTC. And I went to two of them, and all I got were stock treatments, I feel. I'm doing so much better with someone that actually just listens to my body. So, all the "you must go to a fertility specialist" stuff is bullshit, in my opinion.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is to say that, not only am I feeling great, last night when he checked my pulse after a treatment, he said "wow, what a great pulse!". I was so proud. Hehe. Nobody has ever been impressed with my pulse before!

It's needling me

Well, I did it, I made an appointment with the new acu. Yes, yes, call me lame. I cannot stop. But I realized that I can do one acu appointment with this guy a week AND a yoga class for the same amount of money as I was spending for one appointment with the old acu. So although I had wanted to save money I guess I'll try to cut back somewhere else - at least I am about to change my car insurance policy to one that'll save me $50 a month so that's something. Ooh, and I forgot, I am going to fire the lawn guy, so that's another $70 a month. And I stopped therapy too so there's some savings. Oh, you hadn't realized I was still going to therapy? Well, I was, but not posting about it because we never seemed to make any big breakthroughs or talk about anything very novel. But I do think it helped. However, insurance was only reimbursing me $77.50 and it was costing $175 a session, so that's another cost reduction.

This new guy practices Japanese acupuncture, which is apparently slightly different from Chinese acupuncture, so we'll see if there is any difference in practice. And he's close by my house, does evening appointments, and is HOT, judging by his photo. And close to my age!! Probably gay or married, knowing my luck, but hey, if there's no wedding ring I am planning a bit of eye twinkling and flirting just because I haven't flirted in forever and probably have forgotten how. My first appointment is tonight, so I'll see if it's relaxing at all. If it is, then I'll probably keep going. I'm going to start up yoga again on Saturday morning. AND my food finally arrives today for my new lazy person's diet. I signed up for one where they send you all your meals for an entire week so you don't have to think any more about what to eat. No, it's not nutr.isy.stem. That tastes like cardboard, I have heard. It's a different one, but I'll wait until I see how it's going before revealing which one.

So, there we are. The plan is coming together. Hopefully my ovaries will get their act in gear, too.

The freakshow that is my life

Two things today: commuting and acupuncture. Yes indeedy, a nice mix. But both of which leave me feeling sort of freak-like at the moment, on top of the dismal IVF failures, so they're almost related.

Commuting

In my bid to become even more of a tree hugger than I currently am, I have been feeling guilty about driving to work. Sure, I have a Prius, it's only 5 miles each way and I'm only travelling at about 35mph so I'm hardly gunning the engine. But still. Last winter I tried to cycle, which went reasonably well, but it's impossible in the stickiness that is Florida in the summer. And I'm fat and unfit at the moment. I may try to cycle again this winter IF I'm not pregnant. But anyhoo, I live 2 blocks from a bus stop so I figured I really should make more of an effort to take the bus, at least a few days a week. It's supposed to be more environmentally friendly, because after all, the bus is already travelling that route.

So, with my 40mpg average I figure it costs me about 75 cents a day on fuel. Parking is free, and then there's wear and tear on the car which I can't figure out. Let's say it costs $1.50 a day to drive the car in, tops. It takes 12 whole minutes. Ish. Sometimes it's 15 minutes on a bad day.

I set off yesterday in time to catch the bus, I hoped, only to have it sail past me as I was about to turn the corner to the bus stop. I missed it by literally 10-15 seconds. So I had to sit and wait for the next one, 20 minutes later. Which was a tad late, of course. In the end it took about 45-50 minutes to get into work and cost me $1.25 one way (about to rise to $1.50). At about 5pm, the heavens opened, but I was stuck working late so I felt sure that it would have stopped raining by the time I had to leave. No such luck. And I got stuck at work until 8.45 and of course just missed another bus. My umbrella blew inside out as I was walking along and broke. My shoes got soaked. I got soaked. I had to share the busstop with some teenagers who were going home from a movie. And then the bus itself included various undesirables, including the drunk who staggered on a few stops after me and sat right behind me. Yes, I spent the rest of the trip home absolutely convinced that he was about to vomit on the back of my neck. I got off the bus at my stop and suddenly realized that my lovely safe neighborhood was not quite so safe on the main street at 9.30 at night and that the road home was awfully dark. Another 50 minute commute one way.

I have to say, people, it was not a fun experiment, it cost me double than driving my own car, was a damn sight less comfortable, took a whole lot longer and left me bemused as to how on earth this country is ever going to persuade people to use public transport outside the major cities. It just seems an impossible goal.

Now, if companies didn't offer free parking and it cost $10 a day to park like it did in England when I was working there (well, 10 pounds, and is probably a lot more expensive nowadays), people would take the bus. But now? Now it just made me feel like an eco-freak. Nobody else that I know takes the bus, unless they don't have a car. Which is basically one person. I haven't even dared tell anyone that it was such a fiasco coming home because I know they'll just laugh at me. Not sure why I even try, sometimes.

Acupuncture

I tried to stop acupuncture, I really did. I have done it for so long and with different supposedly expert practitioners, that I was ready to be done. But what if? What if it really does help? If this really is going to be my last IVF then I need to throw everything at it. Which means that maybe I should start up acpuncture again with someone new. There's a guy near my house that does it, and I'm considering going to him. He's not a fertility specialist, but at least he's cheap and close by. He could at least help with stress, and might discover something else about me that could be fixed, given that the others never fixed all my issues. But again, I just feel like a freak. Is this a crazy thing to consider? Why can't I stop the madness? I wish I could just not spend money on this stuff, but it's so scary to think that maybe this one thing might help and if I don't do it, will I regret it for the rest of my life? Why can't I just be one of those women that say I gave it a good shot, and give up on it as not something that is working for me. Any comments on acupuncture, good or bad? Would you consider trying a fourth practitioner?

Mixed emotions

Well, here I am. Patch day 1. The start of it all.

And my healthy eating has gone completely to pieces. It's like I start too early and run out of steam. Or the stress of getting close to the cycle causes me to not be able to maintain focus. Sigh. I will try again next week. No more pastries or apple pies!! Or cheese. Oh, lovely cheese. At least I have kept off the alcohol and caffeine, so that's something.

I feel very unprepared. A lot of that is because my house is still in chaos. Let's face it, I am a slob. I am not good at picking up after myself so inbetween visits by the house cleaner, it degenerates. And I have to have it clean because I'm going away and will have friends coming by to feed the cat. And one of them is I think somewhat likely to snoop. So not only does it have to be tidy, all the fertility books and paraphenalia has to be hidden. I spent much of yesterday trimming hedges in the yard. Which gave me a sunburn and sore shoulders. Yes, being a good hippy I used manual shears, and the hedges had not been trimmed in, oh, forever, since I cut the yard guy down to once every 2 weeks. He is taking it out on me by basically doing nothing, and I would have fired him completely by now if I hadn't been stressed about being out of town and the grass potentially growing to a foot high or something if I didn't have him coming by at some point. As soon as I get back, his ass is gone, though. Anyhoo, the hedges took a LONG time to trim, and I was trying to tell myself that when I get back I'll be pregnant and won't want to stand in the heat doing yardwork so it better be in good shape now. Today I am tackling the chaos that is my desk, as it has piles of papers strewn about that should be gone, gone, gone.

I had my last acupuncture appointment yesterday. Not that I told them it would be my last, but I am done with acupuncture. I have given it 2 years and 3 months. A whole year with the current acu. And I don't feel that we really fixed everything. I mean, some things have got better. I have more energy than I used to. I get EWCM. I am ovulating later. All good. But I cannot afford to keep throwing money away like I have been doing over this fertility stuff. $75 a visit on acupuncture, and $175 on therapy add up VERY quickly. And it used to be $100 a visit for acupuncture when I was taking herbs, and when I saw my second acu. If this cycle doesn't work, and if I do another cycle, I will find some other way to destress. Well, I might go back to therapy for a bit, as if this cycle doesn't work, I'm sure I'll have issues. But, I am tired of handing over authority for my treatment to other people. To acupuncturists who don't even tell me what they think is stagnated or deficient. To therapists who ask me if I'm open to a relationship all the freakin' time. Hello? I said yes, what is this, the CIA where you ask me the same question repeatedly to see if you can catch me out? But of course, it seems very much to be end-of-an-era ish to be stopping acupuncture, as it has been so intimately connected with trying to conceive. I basically started it after 3 failed IUI's so I've pretty much been doing it all along. Just think of what I could have bought with all that money!! I need to stop hemorraging cash over this baby dream, so it is done. I may try to go back to yoga, as at least that will help with my general fitness level as well as destressing me.

So. Then. Here we are. Patch day 1. Although I feel unprepared and have been putting bad things down my gullet, my eggs had better be prepared. I hope that they respond well to the meds, and I hope that they develop nicely and in unison. I hope that I have a good egg retrieval, a fantastic fertilization report, and a nice, easy transfer of great quality embryos. It is kind of out of my hands now, I feel. It's too late to change anything. Yes, I should have lost weight. Yes, I should have been more rigid with the healthy eating. Yes, I shoulda woulda coulda done many things. But it's not as if any of us really know if those things have an effect on cycle outcomes. So I will try not to stress too much. I will try to relax into the cycle, just breathe, and let the docs and magic lab of Big Clinic do their work. I wil try to believe that I have a good chance this cycle. I will try to hold on to that thought. Even when the knot of panic in my throat rises up and threatens to stop me from functioning at all. One day at a time, one hour at a time. I can and will get through this again.

Taking charge

I am still loving The Fertile Female by Julia Indichova. The link is two or three posts down. I have read it twice now, and I really feel energized by it. My therapist was telling me that I have to see this delay in the IVF as a positive thing, to think about the benefits and blessings. And so I'm trying to jump in with both feet and think that what I really need to do is go at this IVF with everything I've got. Oh sure, I said for previous IVFs I was really giving them everything, but I wasn't. Not everything.

You see, I was still giving the power for my own health and fertility to other people. To the doctors and acupuncturists and manufacturers of herbal preparations. I was looking for healing to come from the outside in, whereas I need to look for healing from the inside out. I need to figure out what it is that's holding me back, that's blocking me, that's preventing me living in the moment and potentially conceiving. While of course availing myself of the best that modern medicine has to offer, but in a partnership, not a giving-over of power.

So I cancelled this week's acupuncture session. And every alternate session thereafter. I'm not ready to give it up entirely, but I'm going down to once every two weeks. I figure I've got all the healing out of acupuncture that I'm going to get, but I can keep going as a prop. Routine maintenance, as it were. I may switch down to once every month if I get brave. And I gotta say, it felt like such a rush. Like I was finally taking charge. Just because Randine Lewis says that acupuncture is the Infertility Cure doesn't mean that it's MY infertility cure. So even though it may seem on the outside to be such a small thing - after all, I'm still going to be going, albeit less often, on the inside it feels much bigger than that. Much much bigger.

I've also been experimenting with foods, and I made a kick-ass miso soup yesterday, even if I do say so myself. I've never made "real" miso soup before, just always used a packet mix. But I made a kombu broth, and then mixed in fresh miso paste. Oh the heavenly smells that wafted up! It was like my body was saying "yes, yes, yes!" Seaweed and miso! Gimme, gimme, gimme. Who knew? When I thought my body craved ice cream and dark chocolate, eating this stuff felt like manna from heaven. And it was so deeply satisfying to eat it. I felt that finally I was nourishing myself. I mean, don't get me wrong, I try to eat healthily anyway, but I feel that Julia has shown me which foods really deeply nourish me and which foods I should avoid.

So, there we are. I'm putting a positive spin on the delay. And, hell yes, I'm going to avoid church tomorrow. But next week I intend to start going again. Of course, by next weekend, I will know the score with the Hep C. I have to say, it's going to be so much easier to keep up the positive thinking if I have no viral load and am cleared to cycle again. If I have to have interferon treatment, I'm sure it'll be very easy to crumble and fall. But I'm determined to cross that bridge only if I get to it. I very easily fall into worrying about things that may never happen and basing such worries on imaginings (like imagining that a positive Hep C means no more IVF ever and no adoption - not true). So, here's hoping. Here's hoping that I can maintain the momentum, and not fall into the pit of despair if the test results don't go according to plan.

Sulking

I went to the acupuncturists yesterday morning and told them about the cancellation. I dissolved into tears. I seem to do that a lot at the acupuncturists. I said I was unhappy that we didn't seem to be getting anywhere, that I read in The Infertility Cure of women who seemed to be "fixed" within 6 weeks and I have now been doing acupuncture for 2 years. 2 looong years. I wailed about my unhappiness about potentially having hepatitis C. I wailed about having a cyst when I haven't taken meds for months and months and I was getting frustrated with the constant reply I get from them that my body is still recovering from the last IVF. Which was at the beginning of December, so I feel like I damn well should be recovered from it.

I am worrying more and more about the hep C result, in case it is a real positive and not a false positive. I did some googling, and hep C is remarkably easy to catch. In 10-15% of cases they have no clue how the person got hep C. No clue at all. You don't have to be doing any risky behavior to catch it. Now, I have been living a fairly monk-like existence ever since I started trying to conceive. Sure, I may have shared a towel with my cousin when washing my hands. I may have hugged someone with the disease who didn't know they had it. And that's it. No needle sharing, no razor sharing, no toothbrush sharing. Definitely no sex or full on kissing. But I keep thinking, what if? What if I really have it? It could be a real positive. And then I'm going to have to tell all my friends and family to get tested because I couldn't bear the thought of them having caught it from me. Or vice versa, if I'm being honest. It's just so depressing. AND it would mean no more alcohol, ever. Ever. Ever. Can you bear the thought of never having another glass of wine again, for no reason? For some random reason that one day you had a little cut on your hand that you didn't notice and shared a towel with someone who didn't know they had a disease? That's it, no more vino. It's a cruel and unusual punishment.

And I don't know if anyone would prevent me from cycling or adopting with hep C. I haven't been told that or read it anywhere. But why test for it then? If medical people are supposed to assume that everyone has HIV and be careful of their blood, and if the real main difference with hep C is to require a C-section or something, why test if you are a fertility clinic? Unless you want to refuse treatment? And of course, now I'm worrying about getting deported too. Before I get my green card I have to prove that I have no communicable diseases. Haha, I bet hep C is on the list. I bet I'll have caught it in the States, and the States will throw me out back to England for having it so that the National Health Service will have to foot the bill.

Anyway, back to the acupuncturist. I ended up in a meeting with both the assistant acu (who I heart) and the main acu (who I don't heart). As usual, the main acu made me feel bad because she implied that I'm looking for a child to fill a void in my life, that my life is devoid of joy and that I have to change that first before a child will choose to come into my life. I said she was judging me unfairly, that the fact that I was miserable as sin was no reflection on me as a person. That I'd been pretty damn upbeat and positive most of last week. But it always cuts like a knife, because in a way she's right. I don't have the most joyous life. I don't have a wide circle of friends. I don't know how to have fun really without drinking or going out late at night, and I've cut all that out, partly because of TTC'ing and partly because of moving to the States where you have to drive everywhere. And I'm not into drinking and driving. I mean, don't get me wrong, I have friends. I go out occasionally. I do stuff. I try to find joy in walking along the beach, or looking at the flowers. I really do. But I feel trapped in my job, so there's a lot of angst too. But, I feel that she judges me because I'm single. I don't think she'd do this to me if I was partnered. Which pisses me off mightily. She said her intention wasn't to judge, but really it all just leaves me more depressed.

Anyway, I could go on. But they recommended a therapist who works a lot with infertility patients and who went through infertility herself. So I'm going to go and see her if I can, because after all, therapy is about the one thing I haven't tried yet. We'll see if it will help.

And finally, to wrap up the litany of woe, I checked the schedule of Big New Clinic, and of course if I wait two months the lab will be closed. So it will definitely be 3 months. Which means I won't be cycling until July/August. Which makes me want to scream in frustration. And hit things. But mostly makes me leak tears. I am doing a lot of that. Leaking. Oozing. With an occasional sob thrown in for good measure. Even Rescue Remedy isn't helping much this weekend.

It's Wednesday!

Not that Wednesday is anything special, but it was the best title I could come up with on the spur of the moment.

I just wanted to post that I seem to be bursting with energy at the moment. I don't know if it is the new herbs, or the extra protein, or some dietary changes I have made, but long may it last. I found a great article at acupuncture.com on vegetarian nutrition, and it has really kind of clicked about how I can eat vegetarian food and still fall within the energy requirements for Chinese medicine. That I can really build myself up from all of these deficiencies without compromising my principles.

As far as the extra protein thing is going, so far so good, but I have already calculated that I need two whey protein drinks today because I had a black bean and rice dish for lunch instead of a soy or other protein type thing. It's going to be difficult to keep up an intake of 60g per day on a long term basis if I fall under 10g of protein for any one meal. Which is easy to do. Now, I confess that I'm not counting protein in vegetables - I know there is some, but it's just too hard to do the math. So I should be getting more than I am counting, but still. 60g is hard to do if you're not monitoring it carefully.

Out of sorts

I went back to acu this morning - I hadn't been in a month. It was very emotional for me explaining to the acu that my local RE doesn't want to treat me any more and that I'll be going out of state now. I don't really know why it was so hard. It's all bound up in my sorrow at not being able to continue to try naturally inbetween IVF cycles, because I don't have a husband, and that I feel they don't really approve of IVF, and because I feel I'm letting them down. And because she didn't have any new ideas, and even said my body responds really well to acupuncture. Well, clearly something isn't responding! So I spent most of my time bawling my eyes out and not being really able to answer questions properly. Especially after she asked "so what about after Big New Clinic? Have you considered adoption?" Well, duh, nobody does IVF without considering adoption. But I'd like a bit more support while I'm still trying with my own eggs, thanks very much, and I don't want to be asked questions in a manner that presumes it's going to fail.

Sigh.

We're going to have a review meeting after my telephone consultation with Big New Clinic, when presumably we'll know the plan for moving forward. But if they don't have any new ideas, I don't know what to do. There aren't any more acupuncturists locally who specialize in infertility. They are already my third acupuncture clinic. I don't feel I can go somewhere else. I keep trying to think of acu as just for relaxation purposes, because after all, it does relax me. But after reading The Infertility Cure so many times, I suppose I'm still looking for that magical moment when everything comes into balance and I can get pregnant. I guess I'll set up a couple of appointments with an acu in the Big City, for when I go to visit Big New Clinic, but that won't exactly have long to have an effect.

Just why is this so fucking hard all the time?

Yo-yo head

Hi! Welcome to the crazy yo-yo world of Sarah's head! Yes, I have been up and down, up and down, up and down. Culminating this morning in a complete inability to get out of bed, and lying there staring at the ceiling doing nothing. Except thinking about IVF #5. And whether it was even worth flogging my ovaries one more time. I do have one more vial of sperm left, so I'm kind of coming down to doing one last cycle to use it up, then an FET even if my solitary embryo has little chance of making it through the thaw. And then calling it quits. Or maybe doing a DE cycle. Or maybe adoption. Ha, so I really haven't got very much further with my thinking. I do have these imaginings of a child-free life involving going back to school and doing something completely different, but due to my immigration woes I have to stay at my job for another 3 years or so (boo!) so even if I pick that course I have time to figure out what my second career will be.

The only thing I am certain of is that I won't arrange the post-IVF consult until well into the New Year, and I will be doing Weight Watchers if I'm not pregnant. Although I've lost the 3lbs stims bloat weight, there's still the little matter of the other 30 that need to go as well. And yes, I am way up from the last weight I posted on this blog, but let's not go there just yet.

Well, here's the good and bad news so far this weekend:

Good
The acu says I have a deep, slippery pulse. Which Randine Lewis says in The Infertility Cure is a clear sign of pregnancy. Except my body seems to like deep, slippery pulses and I've had them on other cycles. The acu told me it was "good, but could go either way".
I am kind of off my food. Nothing is really appealing, except bland soft cheeses like cottage cheese or mozarrella, or custard. Or cookies. Last nights dinner was rice pudding. Yup, still on the rice pudding kick.
I may be imagining it, but I may have the beginning of a metallic taste in my mouth. Or that could be the aftertaste of Friday night's Indian food still.
I have been cramping. Yesterday I think it was worse than in previous cycles. Today it is milder. It seems more constant than in other cycles, though.
My pee smells sharp. It always does after the trigger, but then fades. Doesn't seem to have faded yet.
I have become obssessed with cleaning my teeth and spraying myself with perfume. It's not that I am smelling bad things really keenly, like pregnant women are supposed to do, but more that I'd rather be smelling nice things. And without all the cleaning and spraying I don't think I do smell nice. Again, could still be just lefover Indian food aftertaste working its way through my pores and mouth. Maybe Indian food is a bad idea late in the 2WW!

Bad
My boobs have deflated and aren't sore any more, even when I poke them. No pert progesterone-filled lovelies any more for me!
In similar boob-related news, I don't have veiny boobs or sticky-out nipples, which would be good signs in my book.
I haven't exactly got a good track record.
I expect it to fail.
I'm a pessimist.

OK, so basically I seem to be pretty positive apart from the boob issue. Except I'm not. I've had so many potential "signs" in past cycles that I tend to discount them all as either figments of my imagination or progesterone side effects.

Single embryo transfer, sort of

The transfer went well. It was very smooth, I got the water drinking correct so my bladder was full but not bursting, and the acu came to the clinic to do a session pre- and post-transfer. In fact, I kind of fell asleep when I was lying on the table after the transfer with the needles in me. Of course, that probably had something to do with the valium I took as well, but hey. Snoozing is good.

But the real news is that I got one good one! I'm pretty happy about it - I got an 8-celled grade 1 embryo. Grade 1 is the best at my clinic, and that's the best embryo I've managed to produce so far. My previous best were an 8-celled grade 2 and a 7-celled grade 2, both on the first ER/ET. Last time the best I got was a 5-celled grade 1. The other two embryos did make it to transfer but they were both 4-celled grade 5's. Which are just about as sucky as they can get and still be transferred, I would guess. In fact, they probably would have been discarded had I had any other embryos.

So, I'm going to look on it as a single embryo transfer, with the best embryo I've ever had. That's not bad, really, and at least gives me one little guy to be positive over.

Busy busy

What a day it's going to be. I have four appointments today, a shitload of work to do, and somehow I also have to make it to the supermarket to shop for the dishes I am supposed to be taking to Thanksgiving.

The first appointment is over with, which was my ultrasound and blood draw at the RE's. There was good news and not so good news. The good news is that my right ovary had 9 or 10 follicles, 8 of which were of a good size. I had 2 at 12mm, 1 at 11mm, 2 at 10mm, 1 at 9mm, 1 at 8mm and 1 at 7mm. Then she measured one of the smaller ones at 4mm, but didn't bother measuring the other one. The not so good news was that there were only three follies that she could see on my left, but it was very hard to see the ovary due to all the gas in my bowel! And I never used to think of myself as a farty person, but that darn gas has been getting in the way of far too many ultrasounds lately. So she said there may be more that just aren't visible that we may be able to see next time as the ovary gets larger. Or maybe not. The three that she was able to measure were 1 at 9mm, 1 at 8mm and 1 at 7mm.

Anyway, at least they are all good sizes, and there are no monsters in there, so the long lupron seems to be doing its thing properly. And even if we don't find any more on the left, 11 contenders is still way way better than last cycle, so it's all good. I'll get my E2 level and instructions for when I'm to go back again this afternoon.

Appointment #2 is with the vet. Kitty's oozy cut started getting worse again so the neosporin is not cutting it. I really should have taken her on Monday, but there you go. Live and learn. The thing I'm worried about now is whether they'll want to keep her, or if I'm going to have to do something complicated and involved every 20 minutes. Not that I can't take her with me to Miami, or can't cut short my stay there (though I'd rather not), but she gets stressed out traveling and staying in strange houses. And of course the other thing I had thought is that whenever my second follicle check of the weekend is, I'd just continue home afterwards rather than drive all the way back to Miami, but I'm not sure I can leave the cat in the car outside the RE's while I nip in for a quick wanding. I'll figure it all out somehow.

Appointment #3 is with a roofer. I decided on a roofing company, and am pushing full steam ahead. I want this done and finished already!

Appointment #4 is my acupuncture session, as the acu is closed for the weekend. I'll need a bit of relaxation at the end of the day, but it's not going to be fun to race there through the rush hour traffic.

And THEN I need to go to the supermarket and battle the crowds.

Warning - period talk ahead

I'm actually feeling pretty positive today, and it's all to do with my period. Yup, crazy as it may sound, the quality of my period now has the ability to affect my mood. It's all the fault of acupuncture. I have been doing acupuncture for a long time. Longer than anyone else I've come across on any fertility board, I think, except maybe one person who started studying it in order to make a career change into being an acupuncturist. Or at least, I should qualify that statement, longer than anyone else I've come across without having any remote hint of success. Longer than anyone should, with all honesty, keep flogging a dead horse. Not that I equate my ovaries with dead horses, you understand, it's just a metaphor.

In fact, I've sometimes wondered why I keep going. I find the sessions relaxing, but I have at many times decided that it would be more relaxing NOT to spend the money each week that I give to the acu. I have had some improvements in my digestive system - I am no longer such a diarrhea queen. I have more energy than I used to. I'm generally in pretty good shape healthwise (ignoring the expanding waistline issue for a moment here). And that's a nice place to be in. But in my menstrual cycle - not so many changes. How on earth can I be going to acu, through 20 months, three acupuncturists (two of whom are fertility specialists) and not have a better period?

But, slowly over the last few months, my PMS symptoms have been diminishing, and now today, on cycle day 3, I still have red blood. That's a huge thing for me. It's been so brown and stodgy and silty and clotty. Just not healthy looking. Slowly the amount of red has been improving, and to make it to day 3 with a good flow still is worth celebrating in my view.

So, it's giving me some hope that maybe after the Clear Passage Therapy and the months of acupuncture, things are improving in there in regards to blood flow and general healthiness. That maybe my uterus is finally becoming a welcoming, healthy place for an embryo to snuggle in to. Now, I know that implantation is not really my issue - my RE is pretty definite that it's my sucky egg quality that's causing my problems, but I hope that with the long lupron protocol I'll get slower stimming and hence better quality. And I'm sticking with the IVF smoothie, so have been having my whey protein every day religiously. Maybe it'll all help, you never know.

I've been growing a nice crop of bruises on my belly, I can tell you that. But otherwise, nothing to report on the stims front. My first ultrasound is on Wednesday, so that's the day that I'll really know whether any of this is helping or not. I'm pretty nervous, but que sera sera, eh?

In kitty news, I decided not to hotfoot it to the vet this morning. The stinky infected smell has diminished greatly, so the neosporin seems to be working. The cut is still oozing a bit, but is looking better, and the cat is still pretty sprightly and doesn't appear to be feeling ill.

Thar she blows!

So, no sign of my period this morning. I asked the acupuncturist if she could bring it on with some special points, and she said she knew exactly the ones to do the trick. In fact, she said if they didn't work, she didn't know what would. Well, they worked! Immediately. Like, while I was lying on the table immediately. I was wearing a liner just in case, so that all worked out well. And of course I had a sneak peak as I was getting up just to confirm that the action really had started and I hadn't imagined it. Come on, I can't be the only person in the world who ever takes a sneak peak down her knickers? Ahem, well, maybe I am. Moving right along, then...

I had these plans to go to the bookstore, then Whole Paycheck, er I mean Foods, after the acu appointment, but I decided instead to drive home to do my first stims shot. The nurse yesterday said to start stims immediately, and then do the second stims shot of the day a bit later than normal. Yes, I take a high enough dose to have to spread it out in two doses 12 hours apart. She said it didn't matter if the first day's stims were unevenly spaced, though, so I figured if I did the first one at 12, then the next one at 9.15, I could get on my usual schedule of 6.30 tomorrow morning. But a different nurse called my cellphone as I was driving home to check if my period had started and when I said "well, I'm pretty sure it just started but I guess it could be spotting - I'll be sure in an hour or two" she said to wait until tomorrow to start stims so that the shots weren't unevenly timed. I tried double and triple checking with her, but she seemed insistent, so I will start my stims in the morning, which will be cycle day 2. Now I'm trying to decide whether to drive all the way to Whole Paycheck, which is 30 minutes from home as opposed to 10 minutes from the acu, or whether to just go to a closer bookstore and give up on the gourmet food idea.

In other, more major news, a friend from that fertility site that shall not be named but whose initials may or may not be FF has just had fetal surgery on her baby boy at 18 weeks gestation. I've been so worried about them, and I'm so glad that the surgery went as well as it could have. The poor thing has a blocked urethra, so his bladder was dangerously enlarged. Without treatment, the urine backs up into the kidneys, damaging them, and because amniotic fluid is made up of urine, the baby's lungs can't develop normally. She was told there was greater than a 90% chance of the baby dying in utero, which is just so awful. And the complicating factor is that she's pregnant with twins, and if she did the surgery, she risked losing both of them. But the surgeon managed to install a shunt into the baby's bladder so that it can drain, and so far so good. There is a danger that the shunt may become dislodged, in which case she'll have to have surgery again, and a big danger of membrane rupture. And the baby will need surgery shortly after birth anyway, but if the shunt stays in place that surgery should be minor. This type of fetal surgery had never been done before on anyone carrying twins, so this is pretty groundbreaking stuff. So, if you're the praying type, please pray or offer up some good thoughts for Steph and her babies.

This means that so far not one of my multiple-IVF friends has had a straightforward pregnancy. Not one. There's been hyperemesis and bedrest, triplets (and presumably bedrest) and now fetal surgery. It's all a bit worrying really, and makes me paranoid as to what might happen if I do get lucky enough to get pregnant this time, but I guess I should just cross that bridge if I get to it. When I get to it.

The late, lamented Sarah-mobile

My car died today. Literally. Died. As I was tearing along I-95 at 80mph, late for my acupuncture appointment. Well, OK, maybe not dead dead, as the engine still appeared to be running, but none of that power was actually going to the wheels. It started binging warning noises at me. The cute little display screen lit up with three warning signs I've never seen before. And I was slowing down dramatically quickly, even with my foot now pressed to the floor on the accelerator pedal.

But luckily, it was 10.30 on a Saturday morning, so traffic wasn't too heavy. I made my way over to the shoulder, after deciding that I really couldn't force it to the acupuncturists in that condition, and I stopped. I turned the engine off and back on. Still the same warning lights. I called the acu, and said I'd have to cancel. I looked at the car's owners manual. Every one of the three warning signs said "take to dealer" as its explanation, which did not exactly inspire confidence.

So, I got out of the car, positioned myself at a safe distance away as my dad always taught me (just in case anyone else decides to weave off the road and into the car), and called AAA for a tow. Of course, as soon as they answered, a cargo train rumbled past, because it just so happened that at that point of the road the train tracks run right alongside the interstate, so it was a tad hard to hear what was going on , between the 10 lanes of traffic and the train and all. But we managed it. She promised that a tow truck would be on its way, and asked if I wanted her to send the police out to wait with me, which I thought was very nice. I declined the police, seeing as it was a sunny Saturday morning. You'd have to be a pretty brazen murderer to try to kidnap someone from the side of I-95 in the middle of the day in a built-up area, I think.

The tow truck surprisingly arrived within 15 minutes of me calling, and the guy tried to do a hard sell of a local mechanics shop that he said would be able to fix the car much cheaper than the dealer I'd asked for a tow to. He gave me a leaflet to read while he loaded the car onto the truck. Which said that the service department closed at noon on Saturdays, so I didn't exactly see the point. Besides, I drive a hybrid car, and I'm pretty sure that the car just dying like that would involve the main battery or electric engine, and there's no way I'm entrusting that sort of repair to anyone but a dealership. But after much tutting (and no doubt seeing his commission flying out the window), the tow truck guy dropped me off at the dealership. Who promptly looked at the warning signals, and said "oooh, we need a hybrid-certified technician for this, and we don't have one in today, so it'll have to be Monday". But they offered me a loan car for free, so it seemed like a fair deal.

So there I was, within 50 minutes of breaking down, sitting at a car dealership in a shiny new loaner car, not exactly knowing what to do with the rest of my Saturday morning. The last time I broke down, I think it took an hour and a half for the tow truck to arrive, so I was pretty darn impressed at the efficiency! I called the acu and asked if they had any free spots. They didn't, but said they'd stay late for me and fit me in after the last scheduled patient of the morning. Awww, bless them. I heart the acu! I trundled off to Starbucks, had a chai and a sandwich, then ambled around the local green market actually having a fairly pleasant morning.

I just kept thinking, thank God it was today. Thank God. If it had to go in the next few weeks, thank God I wasn't driving in early morning rush hour traffic to an u/s, or worse, to the pre-op meeting with the RE or any other important IVF appointment. Thank God the car had its little crisis on a Saturday when I was not stressed out about work. Thank God it didn't die at night. Or when I'm in Miami for Thanksgiving and can't get back. That's definitely something to be thankful for, even if I am now going to be faced with an unexpected repair bill. I just hope they can fix it, as I really can't afford a new car right now! But thank God for cellphones, and tow trucks, and nice car dealers. What would I have done without them?

Smoothie time

One more day until Lupron! Will I avoid the headaches and hot flashes? Will I turn into crazy pseudo-menopausal woman? Stay tuned to find out in our next thrilling installments of "As The Sarah Turns...Hormonal."

I had a bit of inspiration as I was lying on the acupuncture table this morning, which is that I'm going to start making myself an IVF smoothie every morning from now on. My breakfast routine has developed into this crazy succession of drinks - the whey protein, the greens+ drink, the chinese herbs, then I swallow the vitamins on top. It's hard to fit any actual food in there, although sometimes I have a boiled egg. And I was thinking that I'd better add yogurt or kefir as soon as I start the doxycycline because otherwise the old good/bad bacteria balance might get "off". I have stopped the chinese herbs as of today, though. My RE had said he didn't mind me taking them while I was on BCP, but we never discussed lupron, and I don't particularly want to call him to ask so I think it's safest just to stop.

So, I figure, what if I mix everything together and do a whey protein/greens+/kefir/juice such as Bolthouse Farms C boost or berry smoothie/fresh berries IVF smoothie? I have vanilla whey protein, and the greens+ is the wild berry burst flavor, so even though it is green in color it doesn't taste too bad. A handful of raspberries and blueberries has got to be good mixed in, right? It wouldn't be too bad dairy-wise, because the kefir is a lot easier to digest than regular milk, so hopefully it won't freak the acu out, and has the good probiotics. I'll get lots of protein from the whey and kefir, and the kefir will give it enough bulk that I won't need food as well. The berries and juice will give me a nice antioxidant burst. And it might even taste good. Or it could just be sludgy green gunk that I can't even force down my gullet. But I'm a desperate infertile, so I'll try anything at this point.

I'm off shopping now to get the ingredients now, so we'll see what I can find.

After Clear Passage

I thought I should post about how things are post-Clear Passages. It's been a month now since I went, so it's about time I took a quick inventory of the changes (or lack thereof) to my body.

First, the pain factor. Every month I used to get bad pain along my sigmoid colon (see, I learnt where the pain was while at Clear Passage - before I'd just say, uh, at the left side of my abdomen). This pain would usually last 5 or 6 days, and would be there premenstrually. In fact, the RE and the acu both blew it off as being relevant to anything because it was not during my period (thus presumably wasn't endometriosis), and was not a classic PMS type thing. But I knew it had to be related to my cycles because every month like clockwork it came back and went away at the same times. At times it was maybe a 6 out of 10 on the pain scale. It would be relieved somewhat by a bowel movement, but basically it was there all the time, and was quite distracting. This last month, I had some minor pain the day before my period came, and the first day of my period. Maybe a 2 out of 10 on the pain scale. And it didn't last all day, either, so I'd say I got at least a 90% improvement.

I used to have neck and shoulder pain constantly. Sometimes worse than other times, but it was pretty much always there. I still have the shoulder pain, and the big knot of muscle in my right shoulder has not gone, but then Clear Passage didn't work on it as far as I can remember. The neck pain is different in quality. It is lighter, and more just like it is tight because of stress. Maybe a 50% improvement in the neck, and maybe 10% improvement in the shoulder. However, I had a massage yesterday, and my massage therapist commented that my neck felt a LOT better to her, and in fact when she was working on my neck it didn't hurt at all. And didn't crunch, which it used to do. Yes, I have never found massage to be relaxing really, as I go for pain relief and it hurts when I am being worked on. So to actually be able to have a pain-free neck massage made me feel good.

As for the belly, well I used to occasionally get pulling pains as I stood up. Haven't noticed any of them since having the therapy. But I never really had that much of a pain issue in the belly so it's hard to make good comparisons. I have noticed that I can put my finger in my belly button and move my belly button around in circles without any pain or tightness. It previously didn't really move at all, and certainly not in a symmetrical fashion. My belly is still pretty squishy all over - no hard bits of scar tissue. And the saline sonogram didn't hurt at all - usually when someone is manipulating my cervix it is pretty uncomfortable, but nothing this time.

Another interesting development is that I pee a lot less often. I no longer have to go every hour, and do not get up in the night to pee. That's always a bonus! I am mostly peeing when I really need to go, not when my overactive bladder thinks it might be nice to go.

So, all in all, I am feeling pretty confident that they really did something for me, and really freed up some stuck areas. It's nice to think that I'm going into this IVF with an extra boost of help. I have to admit, I have not been good at doing the exercises I was supposed to do, but I am going to try again this weekend to do some. And as for Kegels, hmmm, yeah, haven't done them either. Wait, I'll do one now...OK, one down, many more to fit in!

4WW and milksnot

Well, look at that, I'm turning all 21st century, blogging from my Blackberry! Aaaah, now I can spam the blog with random inconsequential thoughts at all hours of the day and night.

But anyway, just called Repromedix, who are doing my immune testing, and they told me that the longest turn around time on the tests I'm having done is 3-4 weeks! So the latest the doctor will have all my results is October 11th. That's an age away! And of course, my doc is bound not to call every time a new test result comes in, but will no doubt wait until they are all back before wanting to discuss it with me. In fact, what am I thinking, he won't call at all, will he? He's a busy, important RE, and I'm not pregnant yet, so why would he call me? Looks like I'll be asking the nurse for my test results when I go in for my CD2 appointment sometime around October 16th-18th (ish). Gah. That's a long time to wait.

In other news, I have been very snotty lately. All sinusy and post-nasal drippy. Not very cool. But I have been drinking more milk recently, because of the wheat cereal thing on The Sonoma Diet. Yes, I know I said I wasn't going to keep eating it, but it is yummy and I'm weak, so there. But the real point to this is that I think that the sinusy stuff may be related to the milk intake (either that, or I'll be posting tomorrow that I'm laid low with a cold). I've never really made the link before, and I wonder if this could actually help. I mean, the acu has always said to give up dairy, and I never did. In fact, before this last IVF cycle which had the very sucky embryo quality, I ate a LOT of ice cream. Maybe it's all connected. So, I'm going to give up dairy, at least until I go to this conference in Sweden (yes, I am still going, though I want to cry every time I think about it). I'm sure as a veggie in Sweden, it'll be hard to get lots of food that isn't dairy, so I'll have to go back on it agan. But looking on the bright side, that'll give me an opportunity to see if I get snotty again, and see if this really is linked, and then I can give it up for the IVF cycle after I get back. So, grand experiment #549 in "maybe this will get me pregnant"-ology will be offiically underway tomorrow!

Clearing the Passages

As ever in my "seize the bull by the horns" moments, I am rushing forwards with plans to make the next IVF cycle a success.

The diet is going relatively well so far, although it isn't showing great results on the scale yet (yes, I was going to try to limit myself to a once a wek weigh-in, but I had to peek). But, I'm reducing my sugar consumption, finishing off the last of the Lean Cuisine lunch stash, and from next week should be entirely on healthy food.

I had an acupuncture appointment last night, and have got back on TCM herbs. So, back to making nasty mud-like tea morning and evening for the next 3 months. Sigh. It ain't pleasant, but it just has to be done. They were very nice about my IVF failure, much better than the last acu guy I ditched who didn't even tell me he was sorry when my first cycle failed.

But, more importantly, I sent off a questionnaire form yesterday to Clear Passage Therapies to see if they think they can help me out. They do an intensive deep tissue massage therapy to break up pelvic adhesions and hopefully increase fertility. It is outrageously expensive, but there's a (slim) chance that insurance will pay as it will be coded for pain, but then again, it's cheaper than another IVF cycle. I had adhesions diagnosed in my laparoscopic surgery last October, and I have a suspicion that they're back again. Or that I have more, this time caused by the surgery. Also, as I have a very retroverted uterus, and malpositioned ovaries, I do often wonder if there's enough blood flow getting to the right places. And there's a little matter of abdominal pain, which I get every month. So, I'm checking this out. I do realize that it might all be bogus, but I got good reports of them from someone who's had the therapy (thanks Nell!) and hope is a VERY precious commodity as you're going in to your third or fourth IVF. So if I have to do this to have hope, then do it I will.

Still haven't really cried properly over the negative beta, so I feel like I'm kind of in limbo waiting for the grieving to happen. I wonder if this is because I haven't got my period yet (yes, it's 18DPO and no sign of the old hag yet). Sometimes we need that visual confirmation of what the doctor tells us. Or maybe it could be because I haven't got shitfaced yet, which usually allows me to overcome that British stiff upper lip and general horror of sobbing uncontrollably. But have no fear, blogosphere, I have plans to get toasty on Saturday night, as I've been invited to a friend's house that is within staggering distance of my house, and she has enormous bucket-sized red wine glasses, a huge wine collection and loves to cook gourmet food. She's also very generous with the pouring! The only downside is that she has a large German Shepherd, and her mother's even larger German Shepherd will also be there. They both scare me, but hopefully they'll be on their best behavior and won't take any chunks out of my leg or anything similar.

Update

I've been remiss about updating, at exactly the wrong time, I know! It's just you know how sometimes you just become so overwhelmed with everything you have to fit into your day, and then there's this little IVF elephant in the room, and you just kind of run out of breathing space so you have to focus down onto just doing the bare minimum to survive.

Most of my craziness has been caused by a bitch attorney in another of our offices and her crazy client. I got an email Wednesday morning from her headed "It's 3.14am" which went on to say how she couldn't sleep because she was so stressed that I hadn't been able to complete this project for her client. That she asked us to do on Tuesday. I mean, OK, actually she asked us to do it several weeks ago, and we've been backwards and forwards a bit with questions for the client. Not stellar service, but we kept things ticking along. So on Tuesday we get the word that the project HAD to be completed on Wednesday. Um, yeah, thanks bitch. Perhaps if I didn't have my own stuff where clients are screaming for things, and projects with REAL deadlines, I might have got yours done. Perhaps the fact that we are hiring 5 new people to help us in the next 2 months, and are still recruiting might give you a hint that we are swamped right now. Perhaps if I didn't mind working until 2am and giving up my life I might get it all done, but those days are long over for me because I'm just not prepared to do that any more. The joys of law firm life.

Anyway.

The transfer yesterday went well. Mostly well. I got to the clinic already needing to pee (it's a full bladder procedure, but they want you there one and a quarter hours beforehand). I knew I'd never last until the procedure, so did a quick stealth pee in the public bathrooms on the ground floor of the buildings before going in. But I had a big water bottle with me, and was steadily sipping away as I sat on my bed and we went through all the preliminaries. They told me straight away that I would be transferring all four embryos. I was shocked, because I thought I'd have to battle the doctor over putting more than three in. But then they gave me the grades, and I had a 4-cell grade 1, a 5-cell grade 2, a 4-cell grade 2 and a 4-cell grade 4. The ideal would have been an 8-cell grade 1. So they were a bit sluggish, and that grade 4 probably isn't going to do anything for me, so that's presumably why they decided to just throw them all in and see what sticks. They also decided to do assisted hatching (cutting a small hole in the outer membrane), but I've yet to find out how much THAT will cost me as I didn't prepay for it.

I'd paid a small fortune for the privilege of having my acupuncturist come to the clinic, so she did a half-hour acu session while I was lying there enjoying the effects of the valium that we are given prior to transfer. And I kept sipping on my water bottle like a good girl. By the time she finished, my bladder was getting painfully full. My appointment time came and went. We asked the nurse how long it was going to be, because I was starting to feel like I'd burst, and she broke the bad news that not only was the doctor running slightly late, they'd changed the schedule and I wasn't going to be the first transfer of the day after all, but the second one. However, I think she could see that I was near to tears, so she let me go to the bathroom with instructions to pee out a cup full of urine. Yeah right. Have you ever tried to limit your pee to just a cup full when you've been completely desperate to go? I think I kept it down to about 3 cups before I could finally cut off the flow. So, given that I'd peed more than I should have done, I went back to the water bottle.

By the time I got into the procedure room, my bladder was painfully full again, and the nurse and doctor both exclaimed about how huge and full my bladder looked. I asked if they wouldn't press down too hard with the transabdominal ultrasound head, and the doctor said "yeah, because then I'll be paying the price, won't I?". I assumed that he had in fact been peed on before. He had to clean out a lot of progesterone gunk before the transfer, and remarked that he could always tell who was on vaginal progesterone. Nice. He said they definitely make it sticky to stay in there for a reason, but it takes a while to take it out again. I got the obligatory multiples and selective reduction talk, and when I said that I thought the grade 4 wouldn't exactly be doing anything, he surprised me by saying he'd had a patient have triplets from 4-cell grade 5's. I didn't even know the grading scale went as low as grade 5! So that gave me hope -not that I want triplets or quads, but I want 1 or 2 of my little sluggish guys to thrive and stick. They put the embryos in, which was all a little painful because speculum + full bladder does not a comfortable Sarah make.

As soon as we were done, the nurse brought me a bedpan. Right in the procedure room. With the doctor still there messing around on the computer. So it was a little hard to let go, but then I remembered how much it hurt so I managed it.

I was trundled back to the recovery area, had another acupuncture session, and waited out my hour of bedrest. One of my lovely internet buddies who goes to the clinic stopped to say hi, and it turned out that she was the reason I was rescheduled, as she was doing a 6-day transfer and two of her blastocysts were already hatching so they needed to get her transfer done ASAP. So I forgave her causing me that discomfort!

My aunt, who'd kindly driven me to the clinic, and I went home and hung around until about 3pm when she left, and I crawled into bed pretty quickly. I got out of bed at 9.20pm purely because I had to have more drugs, and this time with food, even though I wasn't hungry, but I could easily have just stayed in bed for the duration. I guess valium really knocks me for six. That and the double dose of progesterone. However, getting up wasn't all bad, as I got to see who was eliminated from So You Think You Can Dance, and I was glad to see that America got it right this week, so all was not lost for the world.

This morning I am back at work, back to more emails from the crazy bitch attorney and trying to stay as mellow as I can. The good news is that I was brave enough to step on the scale, and I've lost three pounds since Monday, so some of the stims bloat is going down. The weekend will involve as much napping as is physically possible, in an effort to allow those embryos space and time to get comfy and grow big and strong. God, I hope it works this time!

Oh. My. God. What an awful night

I can't even begin to say how I am functioning today. I had a terrible night last night, and am running on empty.

I guess it started last week, when my city decided to flush extra chlorine through the drinking water to kill bugs. As I don't particularly like drinking swimming pool water, I started slacking off on my drinking. And yes, I do have a filter, but even that wasn't cutting it. So I think I started getting dehydrated by the end of last week. Then I went out of town to Alexandria, where it was super hot and I was wandering around like a tourist, sweating and with my feet swelling. Not a pretty picture. I tried drinking liquids at every available opportunity, and believe me, I downed plenty of cold water and iced chais, but I could tell I was getting run down and dehydrated. I figured I'd catch back up when I got home to the land of decent air conditioning, but I also figured that most of my tiredness was due to the fact that I'm not as fit and healthy as I used to be, so maybe the extra walking was too much.

But here's the thing, my brain plays tricks on me. Once I start getting dehydrated, I don't drink enough. For some reason, I was drinking less than normal once I got back home. I was busy, trying to catch up from two days out of the office - I didn't have time to run backwards and forwards to the kitchen. So that brings me to yesterday afternoon. I noticed a headache threatening to invade my brain. I recognized it as a dehydration headache (I am prone to them for some reason) but then the big boss called me into his office just before I was supposed to leave for acupuncture and I didn't have time to chug any water. Then I was late for acupuncture, and had to fly, so again, didn't have time to drink. I was really beginning to feel it as I was driving to my appointment, but didn't have any water in the car. I chugged as much water as I could when I got to the acu, but it didn't really make a dent. Then I had my treatment, which included being on a Migun thermal massage bed. Yup, that's right. Treatment such as acupuncture realeases toxins. You're supposed to stay hydrated so you can flush the toxins out of your bloodstream. Mine were just about to explode into a brackish swamp of nasty poisons.

I got home, chugged some water, and had dinner. Then I was bloated and nauseous from the food, I guess because of the dehydration thing. So I couldn't bring myself to drink much more water because it just made me feel worse. I tried to have some before going to bed, but by then my head was splitting, my stomach was complaining and I just felt like shit. My mouth started feeling really dry. I figured I should take some Tylenol, but when I went to the medicine cabinet, there wasn't any straight Tylenol in the house. I had some Tylenol PM in there, but I figured that was overkill. I should have taken the Tylenol PM.

I woke up a couple of times early in the night with someone drilling into my head with a power tool, padded to the kitchen, got a glass of water, and went back to sleep. But at about 2am I woke up to an excruciating headache. I couldn't bear it any longer, so I hit the only headache medicine I had in the house - Excedrin Migraine. Which has caffeine in it. Oh well, I figured, I wouldn't get back to sleep with that pain anyway, so I just started drinking as much water as I could possibly manage. I got up to 6 14oz glasses before the pain started to ease. But by then, what with the pee trips to the bathroom, and the refill trips to the kitchen, and the caffeine, I was wide awake. I thought about going for a walk, but in the end decided to do some reading. And drink some more water. I think I finally fell asleep again at about 4.30. I drank 140 oz of water overnight.

I woke up this morning, still with a very dry mouth, still with a headache, though just a dull ache, and with bleary eyes. Not fun. I feel like I've been on an enormous bender, and yet haven't touched a drop of alcohol. I've been drinking more water since I got up, but it still hasn't made much of a difference. Why oh why did I let it get to this state? When I should be being careful of my health because I need my eggs to be good? Sometimes my stupidity amazes me - I know I am prone to bad headaches when I'm dehydrated, I know the signs, and I ignore them. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.

But, today is cycle day 1. Finally! That last cycle was 48 days, and I certainly felt every one of them. I will be going for my baseline ultrasound tomorrow morning, and will also start lupron tomorrow. Which gives me headaches. Oh joy! But at least we're off and running...