June Blog Challenge....Any takers?

So blog friends...it's no secret that I am in a bit of a blog slump. Not because I am not interested in blogging, but because there's not much going on TTC-wise. So if you are interested in joining me for a June 30-day blog challenge, please let me know!

1.Family story - how did your parents meet, how many brothers/sisters, tell us what you want. 2. What do you drive? What is you dream car? 3. Biggest indulgence 4. Favorite snack? 5. Pets? 6. Name you picked out for your kids when you were younger. Bonus: share any name ideas you have now 7. You're in labor: drugs or no drugs. Why? 8. If you had a choice - SAHM? 9. How supportive is your SO in your TTC journey? 10. How do you help get yourself (and or SO) get in the mood to DTD during the fertile period? 11. Describe your wedding. 12. Perfect anniversary - describe it. 13. What's the most interesting vacation you have been on? 14. First job 15. First love 16. What did you have for breakfast today? What do you normally have? 17. Do you drink coffee? Cream/sugar/how do you drink your coffee? 18. If your insurance covered infertility treatments at 100%, unlimited attempts - what would you try and for how long? 19. What's your advice for parenting an adopted child? 20. What sounds reasonable in an open adoption - I.e. how much contact is do-able? 21. Tell me about a TTC blog I don't have on my blog roll - why should I go visit? (No preggos please) 22. What's your favorite children's book? 23. If you had 100,000 that had to be donated to charity what would you do with it? 24. What's your biggest fear about becoming a mom? 25. Describe the contents of your purse. 26. If you could give advice to a newbie infertile, what would it be? 27. When you were younger, what job(s) did you want to have? 28. Do you speak any other languages? When do you think a child should learn a new language? 29. Tell me the highlights of your college years. 30. What's one thing in your closet you wear when you have a nice occasion? Interpret that as a date night or important job event.

One year

It's been a year since I shared at school that we were TTC. Silly naive Jennifer - thinking it would happen once we pulled out the big guns - IUI. After all, my colleague got knocked up on her first try. Five attempts later, here I am. *womp womp*

Thankfully people are really good about NOT bringing it up. My work husband used to ask me a lot after my IUIs, but ever since we stopped IUIs the questions stopped - from everyone. Thank goodness, because along with the questions come the "helpful" fertile advice. Things like, "stop trying and it will happen" or the vague "it will happen when it's meant to be." That shit burns me up, because are you trying to tell me that it was "meant to be" that some people get knocked up accidentally and I can't do it on purpose? It was meant to be for my grandmother to have my mother a few weeks before her 16th birthday? Or for my mother to have me the month before her 21st? Give me a break. Of course, I get the whole stop trying part, since, again, it seems like most people I know have babies by accident. You know, that whole, the ONE time we didn't use birth control and whooops! It kind of boggles my mind to know that someone people get pregnant when they are trying to prevent getting pregnant.

another week gone by

My uncle went to the hospital this week, his cancer was super aggressive and rather than the months doctors hoped he would have left, he quickly deteriorated and died yesterday. It was very tragic and I didn't even get to say goodbye. Sucks. Cancer sucks.

On Saturday R and I went to a private adoption workshop. There were people there from up and down the east coast, and I feel so thankful that the organization hosting the event is a local one. It made for a long Saturday but we heard so much about how to put your name out there, costs, the birthmother's perspective, legal issues, etc. To be honest, my head is still spinning from a lot of it. To be completely honest, I feel more and more that adoption (as opposed to pursuing IVF) is the right course for us.

R actually seems pretty excited about the whole thing. He took copious notes through many of the sessions, at one point coming up with a timeline of things we need to do. While this has been a plan we have talked about for months, we really have not put forth much effort towards making it happen. We have no money set aside for a home study, and haven't even started the process of gathering the documents we would need. Thankfully in VA a home study is good for two years, so even when it takes a while to get a match, we won't have to worry about getting an update.

In the meantime, R and I are continuing to have fun and just enjoy life as a twosome. We will need to cut back soon on the wineries and restaurants, but for now it's been a nice distraction from all things TTC. I find myself blissfully unaware of what cycle day it is, or how many DPO I am. Don't get me wrong, at the beginning of the cycle it was all about peeing on sticks and DTD frequently, but I am letting go of the stress and pain that usually accompanies the second half of my cycles. If we get pregnant this way, that's great. But I am no longer the girl who looks up the hopeful EDD or chats on babycenter. I'm distancing myself from all that insanity.

Sadly it also means a bit of distance from this blog - mostly because there is not much to say. I feel like I am just in a completely different place than I was a year ago, or even a few months ago. Life post-IUIs is a different life...but I like it.

Ovulation weekend

My fancy pants monitor finally registered as "peak fertility" yesterday and today. So for good measure R and I did it both days. So exciting.

In other news, with house hunting on the back burner and good weather upon us, R and I are taking a page from Giuliana and Bill - not quite a year of fun, but definitely squeezing in a whole lot of fun into this weekend, and another exciting weekend is planned next week. We went out to two wineries yesterday and then had a fun Greek dinner. Today we went to a different farmers market in a different town, walked in the park, met up with a friend at a brewery, and walked to the grocery store with the dogs. You may notice two themes: walking and drinking. Alas, I have not made any progress in the weight loss, but gosh darn it, we have been having fun! Next week I am getting my thyroid level checked and my bet is that it will be high, or borderline high. Or at least, that's what I am kind of hoping because this weight is bugging me! I'm actually working out better/harder than I was when I was in grad school and somewhat eating better so I feel like I should have been able to drop the fertility med weight.

Where does the time go?

I swear it doesn't feel like it's been over a week since my last post...

R bought us one of those Clearblue Fertility Monitors. A couple of his friends recommended it and I have to say, I am not sure I really see a difference between this and using the smiley face OPK sticks. Yet. First of all, you have to use this thing every day starting CD5. Now that I am off meds and my cycles are longer again this kind of stinks. I am currently in the high fertility period, but not yet at peak. Anyway, that's about all I have going on in the TTC world.

In other news, still trying to drop some of that fertility medicine weight. It's such a stubborn bugger too! My suspicion is that my thyroid levels are out of whack again. I was borderline when I was last checked and so my doctor wanted to wait until this month's test to make any decisions. But my fatigue and memory issues have been out of control, which coupled with the resistance to weight loss makes me believe something is wrong.

Would be nice to have my body do something right...is that too much to ask?

you take the good and the bad

Sometimes there is the good, the bad, and the ugly. I feel fortunate that today only deals with the good and the bad.

The good: I have done two posts for NIAW on facebook. I am contemplating a "Dos and Don'ts" list for talking to infertiles. The Don'ts are much easier to compile - the stupid things fertiles love to say like to relax, or when they joke about how rough those sleepless nights are ("You sure you really want to do this?"), etc. I won't post until later tonight, so if anyone has any suggestions for Dos or Don'ts please feel free to comment. Anyway, I had a ton of likes to my first post, which I shared here on my blog. I had a few friends message me privately to share their own struggles. Lots of stories of PCOS floating around out there. Makes me think that more women are struggling with this than we might think. Heck, those infertile numbers may be higher than we think. Anyway, while it's sad to know that others are dealing with what R and I are dealing with (cause I wouldn't wish this beast on my worst enemy), it is a little comforting to know that there are more people that I know outside the blogging community that "get it." Oddly enough, my first IRL friend/colleague has been very silent on the issue. Perhaps she feels she is "cured" because she had a baby in June? Will that be me some day...silent for the cause because I finally had what I have been dreaming about for years? Gosh, I hope not.

The bad: My period came. Part of me is surprised I even allowed my hopes to get up but I did. I will say this: I usually want to punch fertiles in the vag when they say things like "just relax, and it will happen." I only want to punch them because I feel like they don't get it. You got drunk one night and forgot to use a condom and that's how you ended up with YOUR kid, so who are you to tell me how to get mine? Anyway, I will say I know that stress obviously doesn't help things for either partner and this cycle was pretty nice. It's always a little tough for us when we get to the end of our EOD babydance week, but this was our first cycle where I didn't know how many DPO I was each and every day. I didn't look up on babycenter when my HEDD would be and from there calculate when each trimester would start.

I called my clinic today to see if I could see the new doctor "Dr. Dan" rather than my other doctor, and they said that would be fine. I called on CD 1 and I just couldn't bring myself to get right back into the crazy. I'm a little nervous about the concept of doing another IUI because this time it wouldn't be just another IUI - it would THE LAST ONE. Yes, all capitals, that's how nervous it makes me. I think I will put tremendous amounts of pressure on this last IUI. In part because we still don't know what to do next. Financially it makes more sense to change insurance in the fall and in January pursue IVF. R's insurance covers half and IVF will give us our last shot at a bio baby. However, I have been reading a lot of adoption blogs and I know in my heart adoption is a great choice for us. I don't know that I NEED to be pregnant anymore. I have already done so much damage to my body - do I need more? Do I need the stress of IVF on my body? And then the stress of carrying and birthing a baby?

Anyway, just sharing my thoughts.

NIAW

I came out on Facebook! I was so inspired by all the bloggers that discussed coming out on Facebook and I knew that only good things could come out of this...so here's what I said:

Did you know that this week is National Infertility Awareness Week? Infertility is a heart-wrenching, faith-questioning, relationship-testing, life-altering, finance-draining experience that affects 1 in 8 couples. Give a hug to someone you know who is suffering the heartbreak of infertility.

Not sure how much else I will say this week but to a certain extent it burns me up that there even has to be an awareness week. Do we have to have cancer awareness? Diabetes awareness? Stroke awareness? Of course not, because everyone knows those things exist.