Nobody get too excited...

...but I got a BFP this morning! I know it is only 9 days past my IUI and 11 past the trigger, which is extremely early and I could conceiveably still be getting trigger, but I did it anyway. My husband is going out of town over the date of our first beta and we agreed I would tell him the results in person. I don't know what possessed me to take one this morning, we had a left over FRER digital from the miscarriage adventure and I took it. I had to pee so badly this morning so I got up super early and could not wait for it to tell me no so I could go back to my warm bed instead of the cold bathroom. Instead it said yes!

I'm trying not to get too excited as I do not want a repeat of last time, but it looks like for good or for ill I'm on the HPT rollercoaster ride.

Group B Strep

From what Dr. Google tells me, women are usually tested for Group B Strep in the 35-37 week of their pregnancy. I will be tested on Tuesday because my husband's semen analysis from the IUI came back positive for Group B Strep. I have gone from fervently praying to be pregnant to wondering if that is what I should be hoping for (though I know the chances of this hurting my hypothetical baby are pretty rare.)

They found "round cells" in his semen which can indicate immature sperm or white blood cells. It turns out these were white blood cells and the count was higher than they would like, so they ran a culture. It was positive for Group B Strep. So now I have to have a culture (and a pap since I'm overdue) next Tuesday in addition to my long-awaited pregnancy test (it's only 12 days after the IUI, does that seem early to anyone else?)

Ring

We have been looking for an opal ring for me to commemerate Poppyseed, since opal is an October birthstone. We decided to go for an October birthstone as opposed to June (the EDD) because that's when we knew Poppyseed and loved him/her and the sum total of his/her existence. We also wanted sidestones that were blue sapphires and not diamonds because diamonds tend to wash out an opal's fire (and I just love blue sapphires). Anyway, this unique combination has been awhile in the making. We were going to get a custom made ring here in town but they wanted to charge us twice what we wanted to spend because it was a "custom" piece, so we decided not to do it (this was back in February). But when we were on vacation last week we found a great little ring and they agreed to change the diamonds for sapphires and charge us the same price. Awesome. And since they had to ship it to us out of state, we wouldn't have to pay sales tax. More awesome. (And yes, I will totally post a picture once we have said ring.)

It was going to take some time to do the custom work so we couldn't have it until Wednesday this week. Fine, no problem, we weren't in any big rush. Well I got a call today that the sapphires just weren't quite right and they would have it fixed by Friday, but because they have a policy to not ship jewelry over weekends (theft hazard) we would get the ring next Tuesday ... just in time for my first beta on this cycle.

I just can't tell whether this is a good sign or a bad sign.

IUI #3

Hi everyone! I know you've been wondering where I am, because it took nineteen days of follistim plus menopur plus three out of town monitoring appointments (oh the nightmares) in order to be FINALLY ready to trigger and then today I had an IUI. My little main follicle was super slow, but finally got there! Now we wait, doing a progesterone test next Tuesday and a pregnancy test the Tuesday after that. I am hoping against hope for a little Easter BFP.

This time my husband has good feelings, and so do my doctor and my mother. I had excellent cervical mucus this time, which isn't something I've had before, so good on that. The only thing was at the IUI, my follicle hadn't dropped quite yet, but the technician said that it looked "fuzzy" and that this was a good thing and meant it was getting ready to drop. I will have sex the next couple of nights because I'm just too wary not to do so.

Back on Plan

So no cysts when I went in, which is a good thing. My period took the full two weeks to start even though I had the shot instead of the pills - stupid body, never doing what it is supposed to be doing.

Now I am on the Follistim train again - hoping that being gone next weekend for work isn't going to put a crimp in my style. I am not looking for a monitoring place while I am gone either - they will have to let me go or suffer the consequences.

Also hoping we will do the IUI before spring break and I can just chill a bit. It's a little scary to me that if this cycle doesn't work out that we are looking at some type of surgery for me.

One of my best friends is due at the beginning of July whereas I was due at the end of June. It's sad but we don't talk much about it - it's hard to talk because she's doing missionary work in Africa but I still miss her and want to talk. I finally got a box and put the few things I had set aside for Poppyseed in there. 

This post is really stream of conscious-y and I apologize.

Hamsters can get KTFU, but not me

My husband can knock up hamsters! In other words although his morphology is still a little wonky, he did really well on this test. 100% of the eggs were penetrated and they look for like 14 sperm/egg but he had over 32 sperm/egg. This is great! We can do another round of injectibles.

On the other hand, surgery time for me. We've pretty much decided if I have no cysts when I go in for baseline testing we will do another round of injectibles/IUI and if that doesn't work then we'll do the surgery. If I still have major cysts, then we will go ahead and do the surgery this time around.

I know it's two posts in one day, but when stuff happens, it happens.

Surgery? IVF? I don't know.

I'm just at a loss right now. I got a progesterone in oil shot on Monday to start my period, but several other things are going on.

If my cysts persist (funny wording, that) and if we want to do another IUI as opposed to IVF then the doctor wants to do a laproscopy/hysteroscopy to take a look at my insides. This is outpatient surgery but involves going all the way under and being out of commission for a few days. She says they usually do it on a Friday and then you can go back to work by next Wednesday. Well that involves me missing some classes and I have to get subs and then teach sitting down when I do come back and BLARGH to all of that. Plus we don't know if that will do us any good.

My husband also went in on Monday to do a sperm penetration assay test, or the hamster test. If that goes well, then we can do some more IUI before IVF but if it's abnormal then the doctor suggests we just skip to IVF and potentially IVF with ICSI (which I'll explain more later if I have to do so). If we are pressed into this route I won't have to have surgery but we will have to do the IVF part.

And you guys? I'm just not ready in my heart for IVF. To me that seems like the "big guns" more so than anything else and I will go there if I must but I'm not ready for it yet. Even if that means I may have to have surgery. I just wish I knew the right answer to all of this.