Daughter of Bast

How yesterday sucked beyond the telling...

I was sort of excited to go to the ultrasound, but I figured it was a waste of time. I responded, of course I responded to the hcg shot. Right, until the wand monkey shows me the huge grapefruit that my left ovary has become. Which now presents several problems. A) When/if it blows it's going to hurt like a mother effer (in fact, they already gave me an RX for some serious pain med), B) If it doesn't blow, it may or may not go away when/if I get my period, which sets me up for another ultrasound to check that out, C)If it continues to grow I am a candidate for surgery to remove the cyst and D) If it doesn't go away but hasn't grown in size I am going right back on the birth control to tamp down my ovaries for a month and take a break only to start over again after that.

SO, thinking I could be blase about it all, I took the Rx in and told them I wasn't going to pick it up until today (fool that I am) and somewhere about 9pm I was all of a sudden in so much pain it wasn't even funny, like bent over bawling my eyes out pain. My husband (sweet man that he is) called the pharmacy and went to go get the pain med and by the time he got back it was down to a dull ache. It would come in waves that I thought might kill me. What I think it was? Gas, moving around and pressing on the ovary causing big bad pain. In any case, the pain med was my friend and I knew nothing until 3:00 a.m. when I woke up and discovered that I wasn't hurting. Thankfully.

My favorite part? I feel hung over this morning. Really hung over, but without the headache. So that is going to make my day really fun. Okay, no more bitching at the internets. Sorry guys.

Quilting craziness

So I am working on a line of bags. (Okay I totally announced that like I start new lines of bags all the time, lol!) Anyways, I want to make quilted pagan-themed bags for the discerning pagan crowd. Using all sorts of images (and hopefully with some help from a friend, S. you are the best!). SO the one posted in the photo album is the start of it. I would love any help, pointers, you see. If you like the design, if you think it sucks, whatever, I just want to know what people think of it. It is an evolving piece for the moment, and I'm not sure where to head next with it. If these work out well (and they are fairly quick to make as far as the quilted front piece goes, we'll have to see about the rest of the bag as I'm winging it. Totally from the hip, but I have a bag that I am using to model my bag on, so that helps), I want to make a bunch, and perhaps have some to take to Heartland next year. To sell! For money! Or to Trade! For stuff!

2 dpo (or 3 dpo or 4 dpo) depending on how you count...

Symptoms today...(the first I've had yet) Soreness in my (or is it on my) pubic bone, but only when I am in certain positions. Like the movement from sitting to standing, or standing to sitting. Momentary pain, but enough to make me grimace. Weird and unusual, yes. Ever felt anything like it before? Well maybe if you count the pain you can occasionally feel whilst baby dancing when your cervix feels like it's being poked.  (apologies for any visual graphic-ness caused). That, and this afternoon at around 2:30 I was a leetle light-headed and am now nauseous (about a half an hour later).

Could be lots of stuff. Could be. But here it is, regardless.

To be or not to be...

If you'll forgive my use of Shakepeare a minute. lol! I thought I would update everyone. So here we are, on basically day 2 of the long wait to December 12th. Or as the ttc people would say, (and this is what sucks, due to a window that could be as short as 12 hours or as long as 40 hours after the hcg shot) I am now (and I am just going to call the 40 hours as the last possible moment when I could have ovulated as the day I ovulated) Umm Hmm. Okay, I am now 1 dpo (day past ovulation).

And while I am a natural obsessive about my body (Virgos tend to be, don'tchaknow, that and my tendency to overorganize are my only two BIG virgo traits, the rest of me is straight Libra, being a cusp baby, I get the priviledge) this time I am strangely much less worried. That of course doesn't mean I won't be watching every symptom I have like a hawk between now and the 12th. But I am comfortable with the outcome either way. While I would hate to have to pay for another round of clomid, et al, it wouldn't kill me. This time it wasn't quite such a struggle for the scheduled bd-ing. I, in fact, quite enjoyed myself this time. Rawr!

So I guess I could say that I am more relaxed, and according to the so called Pregnancy "experts" (meaning everyone you speak with about this unless they struggled with infertility at all) say that you just need to relax.  While I do think that "just relaxing" is a load of bunk, I am not quite so cranked up with anticipation this time. As I told my best friend, I'm open to whichever way this goes, I would just prefer to have my babies one at a time, thanks. And my husband would kill me for even suggesting that I might be open to more than one, period. But hey, just because twins are harder for us doesn't mean I wouldn't take them if that's what the universe was dishing out. Ya know?

Wish I could think of a title...

But here we are, post Thanksgiving holiday, back at work. Ugh! I wasn't ready to come back, but any more days off and I would forget that there was a real world outside of my house. I was really getting into being off work. We got the Christmas (or as they are referred to at our house, the Yule lights) up, we got some plastic on a few of our bad windows, however we ran into a ladder problem on the other ones.

I did some actual shopping. Purchased some Christmas presents (only a few) and my husband participated in his first black friday event.

I finally finished my first quilting project. It's not perfect, but hey, that's sort of the point of a first project. To get something done and learn stuff. I have two other projects waiting, and I am sort of extra excited. I want to start making pagan themed stuff in quilted items. Basically I would love to make lap blankets and baby blankets, but those are rather large projects, and so I want to start smaller. I am going to make a messenger bag and I can't wait to get started. I can't even start tonight since I have to wash my material. Dammit. lol!

So I had a mostly great weekend. And on a baby front I found out a good friend who was also starting fertility treatment is 6 weeks pregnant with twins. So good for them! Now for us, lol! So we are in the last day of the baby dancing and then we wait. D-day this time around is December 12th, so we should find out just in time for the DH's birthday. Whee!

Bit of this, bit of that...

Well, so as far as baby making goes, we're still on track with the cycle despite the lurching pain earlier in the week when my ovaries decided to tell me in no uncertain terms that they were awake. Ouch! We have play dates this weekend, and a big old hcg shot for me on Saturday. Yay. Like I love the huge ass needle that they sent with it. Even I (who used an injectible Rx drug for weight loss that I injected 3x daily) balk at such a nasty looking thing.Then we wait. Again. Could be worse I suppose, but maybe this time I can stomach the waiting. The interesting thing is that if this works, we could be pregnant right in time for my DH's birthday. Yay birthday present! Although I'm sure his idea of a birthday present involves the making, and not the accomplishment of said baby.

We're still on for Thanksgiving. Let the fun begin! I'm more worried about cats trying to lay on the tablecloth before we get everything set, and the dog getting up on the table/counter, he gets yelled at all the time about that, but he doesn't listen like he should. I'm not worried about the food, however. Strange as it may seem. I think we'll be fine.

Quiet Week

Well it's been quiet on my part. Mostly because aside from the medication induced feeling of combined menopause and 1st trimester pregnancy that can (and does) strike at random, not much is going on. Although next Tuesday I have my first date with the wand this cycle. I will be interested to see what is going on in there. The only bit of news I have isn't all that interesting:

I am cooking this year's turkey. (See, not that interesting, I told you) It's my first turkey for family. My husband and I have been practicing on turkey breasts (mostly just because we like turkey) and I always make gravy when we do well, because I like gravy, but also for the practicing. So it will hopefully be all right. We have a big enough table, and enough chairs. Most of the important stuff, really. And my mom is in charge of the sides so that will take the pressure off that way. I am also in charge of mashed potatoes, and I am going to make sweet potato pie (thanks to my bestest friend, I am thought to be a good pie cooker, it's her recipe and SHE is a fantastic cook). I am also thinking about cooking dinner rolls. Hrm. Like Wednesday night won't be full of enough things to do the way it is. lol! Ah well. Guess I should probably try to clean up the house a little this weekend, so that I am not thought of as a messy slob. lol!

Hourly Catharsis...

I was trying to figure out what word most accurately described the crazy that I am today, when I double checked Catharsis and was a little surprised at how the word was originally used...heh.

Using the term 'catharsis' to refer to a form of emotional cleansing was first done by the Greek philosopher Aristotle in his work Poetics. It refers to the sensation, or literary effect, that would ideally overcome an audience upon finishing watching a tragedy (a release of pent-up emotion or energy). In his previous works, he used the term in its medical sense (usually referring to the evacuation of the 'katamenia', the menstrual fluid or other reproductive material). Because of this, F. L. Lucas maintains that catharsis cannot be properly translated as purification or cleansing, but only as purgation. Since before Poetics catharsis was purely a medical term, Aristotle is employing it as a medical metaphor. "It is the human soul that is purged of its excessive passions."...

Since I am riding the Clomid wave today, and instead of making me manic (which I kind of miss by the way), it has caused a bit of the weepies. Right. So Julie's post about her grandfather choked me up. See, aren't you glad you aren't hanging out in my hormone pool today?

Back in the stirrups again...

So...I thought I would have a bit of a nice wind down from this cycle, a little date with a progesterone shot and 1-2 weeks later we would be ready to start again. Well, my body says to me, Oh, I can do this and starts without the progesterone shot. So here we go again, with a much different drug cocktail then before. A little more clomid, some progesterone, a little femtrace and more dates with a wand. Wow, so just in case Cycle 1 didn't make me crazy, this really might.

Perseverance is key, right? End goal, think end goal. In the mean time, maybe I'll get the house painted or the floors refinished. Who knows? But my husband might need a sedative to get through it all. That way I can yell and he won't hear it.

Women I admire

I don't think I really realized until we missed this time, how much women stricken with infertility suffer. Honestly, these women voluntarily take incredibly strong medications to try and get their bodies to cooperate. They voluntarily go through all sorts of procedures that are both painful and embarassing. And most importantly, these women voluntarily have their hopes dashed nearly monthly. It's no wonder that women struggling with infertility are an angry, sad, and emotionally stressed group. How many times do you go through it before it ruins your soul?