YAWN. Had to go see the RE at the crack of dawn for a baseline ultrasound. Went like expected- quick & messy. -_-
He literally spent 5 seconds on the right, 5 on the left and 5 on the uterus. “All clear, you are good to go this cycle” … and out the door he went.
The good (for me only teehee) was that I was their ONLY patient scheduled for today so they were there waiting for me and I was out the door in *5* minutes. New record for me and doctors.
I start the Clomid tonight. Ho-hum, same drill. Dreading the anger.

I can’t believe he is 6!!! That’s 1/3 of an adult!
The day was calm and only us. I had half of a chocolate cake mix to use so Bren and I made a 1 layer cake together. He really knows how to explode open those eggs! For frosting I topped the cake with about a cup of mixed white choc and choc chips. I popped it back in the oven for a couple minutes and then Bren swirled it with a knife. It actually turned out to be very tasty for something so simple. Yay! Did I mention I cheated on supper? Haha, we took him out for a pizza buffet the night BEFORE his birthday- because kids 5 and under eat free.
So we had cake after supper and Bren got 4 presents… a deck of “Spiderman Crimestopper” cards, a card for a new pet in Mabinogi, the Will Siper Mario Sluggers (baseball) game and, from a friend, a used digital camera. He had previously received a “Martian Matter” set and a shirt from Mimi and Papa and he knows his big present is going to Great Wolf Lodge next month.
Speaking of GWL… the timing was not too good on my part. I’ll either start my period (and quite possibly heavy drinking, at this point) or find out I am pg while we are gone.

The hag found me.

I realized recently that I don’t share many of the homeschool lessons that I personally create. I am going to start sharing more.
Here is a worksheet I made today using a cheap balance I got from Cuisenaire, a set of bear family weights I also got from Cuisenaire and a set of hexagon gram weights I got from Home Science Tools.

You can cut off the bottom or use any other set of 1 gram weights if you don’t want to buy the hexagons.
Note: I had to “calibrate” my balance by taping and extra hexagon on the bottom of one side and this activity works better if you put the bears and hexagons on the outside edges of the balance (or buy a better balance than I did).
I also used the Bears in distinguishing colors activity with Andy. I put 1 sheet each of red, blue, green and yellow construction paper on the floor and together we sorted the bears by color. I followed this up by giving him an empty muffin tin and a cup of trix cereal and he sorted the cereal by colors.

All before 11 am this morning:
negative hpt (12 dpIUI). Not looking good. AF is due today or within a couple days
FIL sliced open his hand on a glass jar- ER visit & 10 stitches
DH was in a car accident (everyone is fine, thank heavens) but our car is *destroyed*

I had IUI #3 at 8:30 this morning, 33 hours after the Ovidrel injection. I asked for another ultrasound and my follicles grew better than I anticipated. I was really believing we were doing this IUI a day too early. The doctor seemed to realize this because she made sure to explain that her and our main RE analyzed my “success” cycles and everything pointed to earlier rather than later.
Right: 26×23 (up from 21×18), 23 x 19 (up from 16×15), and 17×17 (up from 16×13)
Left: 20×20 (up from 17×15)
Averaging the two numbers together gives me 24.5, 21, 20 and 17. 18 and over is the goal but 17 is considered to usually be big enough to have a mature egg too, so it looks like I had 4 good eggs. Jen is HAPPY! Also of importance is the fact that I had not yet ovulated so I did well taking the shot 9 hours before they told me to. Who knows how long it’ll be before I ovulate… I sure wish they were open in the evenings so I could get a confirmation of ovulation ultrasound. I’d also love to have enough semen to do back-to-back IUIs 24 hours apart. These early mornings about kill us though. LOL.
Anyway, for now I am good. I am going to try and forget for awhile. That seems to work best. When I obsess I just get frantic and time passes slowly. In a couple days the boys and I are going to go to Darrell’s parents’ house again to help pass the time. Be back on the 14th. Then it’ll be time to start testing.
Update, 6:30 pm:
I forgot to mention that the semen sample contained 32 million motile this time. That is FABULOUS! We are only guaranteed 10 million. Also, last cycle I noted that I started having ovulation pains right at 40 hours past trigger. This time they started at 39 hours and now 3 hours later I think I might be done- I’ll update again if I have more. OMG how this hurts. It’s all been from the right side so far.
Update, next morning:
I continued to be very sore for about 6 hours and somewhere in the last 3 of those hours I finally got a “this is it” pain from the left ovary. Even simply getting up out of a chair last night was more effort. I woke up a bit sore still this morning as well. So, based on what I feel alone, I assume I ovulate between 39 and 44 hours post trigger.

CD 15. Things are *much* better with the anger issue. The Clomid really hit me hard this month. In the past 24 hours I’ve had 4 hot flashes too. It is rather ironic that I had a harder time because my body didn’t respond quite as well. I have 1 good egg, 2 that will likely grow big enough in time and a 4th that has a small chance of growing big enough. I’ll do the Ovidrel trigger shot tonight and have the IUI Wednesday morning. One good thing- after enduring a good amount of pain, she really had to smoosh my uterus to get a good view (which oddly felt exactly like a whopper contraction) my left ovary was finally found and it does indeed have an egg! It’s not a dud after all!
Right: 21×18=19.5, 16×15=15.5, 16×13=14.5
Left: 17×15=16
Today I was seen by the lady Dr from my initial visit (Dr. Rodgers). I told her that “if this cycle doesn’t work I’ll be down to my last straw”. Then I laughed because semen is stored in “straws” so it had double meaning. We talked about injectibles next cycle and then I also talked to my main RE as well. There is no question that I make plenty of eggs and he’s not a fan of using injectibles with IUI (the risk of multiples is much greater than with Clomid). He said the quality of the eggs might or might not be a bit higher versus Clomid. He thinks a number of follicles is the thing that matters and I am doing fine with that. I’m not so happy to do the same exact thing if it isn’t working… but he’s the dr.
I also seem to have a slight case of bacterial vaginosis so I have an antibiotic for that. Sheesh, yeast 2 months ago and now this. :/

CD 11. I have been battling some unjustified anger issues the past week. I think the Clomid is really getting to me. I am definitely depressed as well. Not good. I also had some spotting today- not typical at all. 4 more days til the follicle ultrasound.
I am worried about the craziest things… like how I have only made eggs on my right side… what if that tube is now blocked? The fact that we only have 2 chances left (for full siblings not to mention financial reasons) is really pulling me down.
Here is a recent pic of my little cuties. 😀

The RE nurse finally called me back. Clomid rx- check. Ovidrel shot rx- check. Follicle appt scheduled for Mar 2 (CD 15) @ 8:30- check. Dr “recommended” a baseline ultrasound for tomorrow morning. Hmmm…
1. I am on my period. Big time. U/S + full force AF = ICK!! ICK!! ICK!! So far in my infertility career I have successfully avoided this one.
2. It means seeing if DH can get off work last minute, taking the time off, and waking the kids 4 hours earlier than normal to sit in the car in the parking lot (remember I don’t drive).
3. It’s another $100-$200. For what? To see if my uterus is still there? I can assure you it is. To see if I have leftover large follicles in my ovaries? Almost certainly no since I took the last month off without more fertility drugs. What is the point?
She said it was only recommended… and I opted out. But I feel guilty.

We got back for visiting the grandparents yesterday and life has been a comedy of errors since. An arranged playdate at Chuck E. Cheese didn’t show. We met at the place our homeschool arranged for a sports group- and no one else showed. Today I started AF so I called my RE to phone in my Clomid… and they are closed for Pres. Day. I called to refill my Metformin rx and I only have 3 refills instead of 5??? Andy’s computer is messed up and after 11 days of no games he is not in a good mood.
We did manage to get 5.5 out of 6 school days finished while away- including reading Magic Tree House #6 and 7. So that’s good. We also went camping and fishing- and Bren caught 10 fish! We had a very good trip. The kids came back with a grocery sack full of Valentine goodies! My FIL is still more frail than he used to be but at least he is walking now. He recently got diagnosed with skin cancer and thankfully it wasn’t deep and they were able to remove it all. I am so thankful. We had one night of terrific thunderstorms (which I am rather fond of) and thankfully the closest tornado stayed 25 miles away.
So, today is CD#1. Here goes cycle #3!