Yooo hooo, follies...

Today is CD12 so I had an ultrasound this morning to check on follie growth.  Unfortunately, there isn't much to report.  I had a lot of follies but they were all really small. The RE's office doesn't even measure them until 10mm+ and won't trigger until the lead is 22mm so I've got a long way to go yet.  I've had crampy ovary pain since about 4pm today though so maybe they're finally growing in there! I'll see on Fri AM at my next u/s.

I also got my trigger in the mail yesterday and I gotta say - it's a bit intimidating since I've never given myself a shot before.  Assuming I get to the point where I'll actually NEED the trigger (FX!), it will be an intramuscular shot in me bum. Therefore, Hubs will need to give me the shot. After watching the how-to video together I think he's more anxious about it than I am!

I'm feeling torn about the whole thing - I want my follies to grow big enough so that I'd need the trigger since that would mean we'd finally have a shot at getting KU but that would also mean that I'm voluntarily rooting for getting stuck in the arse! I hate needles.

Jekyll & Hyde

I know I joked the other day about the Clomid craziness starting but Holy. Crap. The ANGER, my god, the anger! I am not enjoying 150mg. I'm seriously like Jekyll and Hyde: I'll be completely fine one minute and then the next minute I want to scream at the top of my lungs, throw things and cry hysterically all at the same time for NO reason. I'm going nuts.

Hubs refers to it as me "hulking up".  It feels like I'm becoming freakishly strong and scary and losing control over my emotions and actions.  I want to rip my skin off of my body and run around flailing. It's crazy. I haven't quite figured out yet what to do to manage this when it happens...

Last night for example, it took longer than usual to fall asleep and I could feel myself hulking up. My blood started boiling, I starting huffing and tossing and turning and could not calm myself down. I was too hot so I ripped my PJ pants off and flung them on the floor; I got all pissed off because the sheets were too...ON me so I kicked and pulled at them; I was irrationally angry that my pillow felt too hard so I kept punching it and eventually got so frustrated I just chucked it as hard as possible across the room... You get the picture. Poor hubby just laid there like a little mouse and didn't make a sound. I don't think he even breathed out of fear that I might notice him there and turn my predator wrath from the inanimate bed to him.  Once I had finally calmed down he asked if I was okay and rubbed my back and I eventually fell asleep. I'm like a child throwing a temper tantrum.

This is not fun at all.

I have a lot of plans with people this weekend and need to figure out how to control this so that I can avoid killing one of them.

Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.

Health Check in: Week 6

Weight loss this week: nada (well technically I lost another pound but then I gained it back)

Total weight loss so far: 8 lbs

Best health moment of the week: I'm down a notch on my belt!

Goals for upcoming week:

• Try a new exercise class at the gym
• Keep trying for at least 6000 steps per day minimum
• Make at least 1 better food choice per day than I feel like making (aka: don't give in to temptation)

Thoughts: I've lost motivation. I didn't log my food into MFP for the majority of this week. I also forgot to wear my FitBit a lot of the time and didn't even bother logging in later to make the appropriate adjustments.  
I need someone to kick my ass to get back on the bandwagon.  Oh, hai Dr. Phil...

Okay, okay, some REAL motivation:

CD5 = Day 1 of Clomid...

...let the craziness commence!

Note to self while on 150mg Clomid:

Being Positive vs. Realistic about IF

Hubby is so positive about all of this that it really annoys me sometimes.   (Okay, most of the time.)

I get why he's doing it, and we talked about it:  He feels like it's his job to be the cheerleader. I'm the one taking all the meds, dealing with s/e, going to appts, getting u/s, getting b/w... so his job is to make a "deposit" when he needs to and to be the positive one when I can't be.

It's sweet of him to feel this way since he's doing this to support me.  He's a good husband. Maybe I'm just being a bitch. I think his positivity annoys me because I feel like it's unrealistic and if there's one thing I'm sick of, it's false hope.

Common convo in our house:

Me: No response again this cycle honey. I'm not gonna ovulate so I need to take more Provera to start a new cycle  :-(
Him: Sorry chicken. But that's okay - next cycle will be it!
Me: We'll see.
Him: It WILL be.
...Pause while I try not to overreact due to crazy-making meds...
Me: You don't know that.
Him: Sure I do!
Me: NO, you don't.
Him: Babe, it's gonna happen for us. Eventually something is gonna work.
Me: You don't KNOW that!  We can hope but we can't know for sure.

And round and round we go.

Maybe I'm too negative, I don't know.  I get why he's trying to be positive but I don't always need the positivity! Sometimes I just need to feel like he truly understands what we're going through and what our chances of conceiving actually are so that I feel like I have a partner in this and not just someone placating me. Maybe that's exactly what I should say to him the next time this comes up.

At the same time, I don't want to bring him down. I recognize that IF is a problem for him too - my body not working properly is keeping HIM from having a baby too. He has his own feelings to deal with in addition to trying to figure out how to handle me during this emotional rollercoaster. If the positivity is helping him get through it all maybe a better plan is for me to just keep my mouth shut and let him be positive. Maybe I'm being selfish here.

Anyone else go through something similar?  Any words of wisdom or perspective you could share?

Health Check In: Week 5

*When I first posted about joining MFP and eating better, my weight was exactly 198 lbs. However, I'd already lost 2 lbs at that point so I should have just started at 200 because this is getting too confusing with the MFP numbers vs. the real ones. With this post I'm just combining them and will go with the real numbers (starting from 200) moving forward. Plus it's easier to do the math that way :-)

And speaking of math:
Weight loss this week: 1 lb

Total weight loss so far: would have been 6 lbs, actually 8 lbs total

Best health moment of the week: My clothes are so much more comfortable now. I don't feel the immediate need to change and lose the bra the second I get home from work.

Goals for upcoming week:

• Join a gym 
• Keep trying for at least 6000 steps per day minimum

Thoughts: I'm used this now. For the first few weeks, eating well and making good choices was constantly on my mind. Now it feels like this the default and 'treats' are few and far between which is the way it should be!

Bad Provera Cycle

I normally don't have too many side effects from Provera - hot flashes, crazy vivid dreams, slight headaches, a little grouchiness here and there... This cycle was a different story. I still have the ever-present hot flashes but this cycle has added insomnia, huge mood swings, irritability, and REALLY bad stomach issues (aka: crazy GI pain and cramping with diarrhea) into the mix. It's been a blast.

Thankfully, I took my last pill yesterday so I really hope my body straightens it's shit out asap. I normally get my period 4 days after the last pill which would put CD1 on Saturday and my CD3 U/S on Monday which is gonna be tough with my work schedule. I'm reeeeaaaaaally hoping that AF shows on Sunday so I can go in on Tues for monitoring but honestly, after this Provera experience I should probably just be happy to GET a period, regardless of when it comes.

Hoping there's some Tampax in my future!

Health Check In: Week 4

Weight loss this week: +0.5 lb (boooo) 

Total weight loss so far: 5 lbs 

Best health moment of the week: I hit 18,500 steps one day this week! (that's almost 8 miles!) Also, my hubby said he's really starting to see a difference in my body so maybe that half pound increase is not such a big deal. 

Goals for upcoming week: 

• Focus more on eating healthfully; Eat more veggies, less white flour/sugar and keep total cals under 1500
• Take 6,000 steps MINIMUM per day, strive for 8,000

Thoughts:  Hubs and I threw a huge Fourth of July party last weekend. It was a blast but it meant that this week our house was full of leftover junk food. I knew I should have thrown in out but instead I chose to be a piglet and eat most of it (hence the weight gain). I know that I can't keep those kinds of foods in the house without eating them but because the first half of this week was so difficult for me IF-wise, I made bad food choices and overate.
BTW, did you know there is a perfect (and amusing) German word for that?:

Grief-bacon. Heh.

All the crap is gone now but I have not shifted my focus back to eating healthfully as quickly as I should have so I really need to do that. I've lost a little motivation and I need to get it back! I think I'm going to look into fitness classes at the nearby gym. I haven't been there yet but I always love classes - it's just a matter of getting the motivation to try it once and then I'm usually hooked.

I had a mini-epiphany this morning

If you read this blog regularly, you know that the last couple days have been tough for me. I seriously bawled on Monday when I found out my coworker was pregnant – that night was really bad, as was all of Tuesday.  Luckily, yesterday I was feeling better but just before bed last night I logged onto The Bump and found out that one of the girls I talk with a lot on the TTGP forum got a surprise BFP on Monday! After the last couple days, one might think that that news would have thrown me back into a dark place emotionally but in fact, it was the total opposite!  When I read her post last night I was so so happy for her (Novel – I don’t know if you ever read this blog but I am thrilled for you!) and I’ve been in a great mood all morning because of it.  [Don’t worry, I do realize that it’s a tad bit weird that it’s having SUCH a positive effect on me and we don’t even know one another’s real names but whatever, I’m goin’ with it.] 

Anyway, my epiphany is that even though I struggle sometimes with IF, it is not actually turning me into a cold-hearted monster! I do still have the ability to be genuinely happy for someone without being sad for myself at the same time. I was starting to worry that I wasn’t capable of that anymore. Perhaps the reason I feel good about Novel’s BFP is that she and I were going through similar things - I knew her struggles and can understand how sweet this BFP is for her. With my coworker, I think the news caught me on a bad day so I immediately zeroed in on why it’s not fair that she didn’t even have to try and we’ve been going through all this and blah blah blah. (It probably doesn’t help that I don’t like her a whole lot either.)

Anywho, I feel good. I’m gonna miss having a connection with Novel in our Waiting to do Something thread (I’ll be taking over starting that thread on Wednesdays now), but I’m genuinely happy for her. Now I just want to get KU so I can go join her on 1^st Tri!

Well, my tantrum is over.

Sorry about that folks. 

Overall I think I do a pretty good job dealing with IF and have been relatively even-keeled but every now and then it gets to me (as evidenced by the last mess of a post). Sometimes I feel like I have to let the emotions take over or I will just explode. That was Monday.

Hubby was wonderful and talked me down off the ledge the other night but I still had a tough IF day yesterday. I kept crying at the drop of a hat and scaring the dog (even had to choke back tears as I talked with the nurse at my RE's office about next steps - that was embarrassing), but I'm doing better today.

So the plan is the same for this cycle: Currently waiting for bloodwork results then more Provera to force a period. Clomid CD 5-9 (we're upping to 150mg this month) + Trigger (if I ever get that far) and TI. My RE said that 150mg would be the limit - he doesn't want to go up to 200mg even though I know other Drs will.  That's okay with me. I'm a little afraid of the side effects with 150mg as it is.  With my crazy hot flashes I'm probably going to constantly look like I just went running.

I'm feeling so bad for myself right now it's disgusting.

WHY am I not ovulating? Why, why, WHY???!!!!!

I am so SICK of this! I'm so sick of my hormones being unmanageable and my body not working properly. I'm so sick of analyzing every single little thing and having it NEVER make a bit of difference! I'm so sick of hoping and being let down every single time!

I can't believe I have been TTC for 13 months and have never even ovulated!  All this work and time and effort has all been for NOTHING. It's been an absolute waste of time. We could have been doing absolutely NOTHING for more than a year and we'd have the same exact chance of conceiving as we did this whole time: ZERO. Zero percent chance of conceiving.

My coworker announced today that she's pregnant. I cried.  Not in front of her, not even while I was at work, but once I got to my car at the end of the day I lost it.  I sat in the parking lot and bawled my eyes out. She wasn't even engaged yet when my husband and I started TTC. In the time we've been trying, she's gotten engaged, married and pregnant. All I've been doing is wishing and trying; every minute of every day for 13 months.  That's more than half a million minutes (yes I did the math) spent wishing, hoping, praying, peeing on sticks, analyzing CM, taking my temperature, having sex when neither of us felt like it, taking meds, dealing with side effects, getting blood drawn, going to doctors appointments, getting tested, trying to lose weight... All my coworker had to do was have sex with her husband on her wedding night. That's it. 

Life is not fair.

::sigh:: She was so happy today. She deserves to be happy.  And honestly, I'm happy for her. I just wish I wasn't so sad for myself at the same time.

Okay, that is the end of my pity party. I actually do feel better.  
If you somehow made it all the way through this horrid post, here is your reward: 

Can't. Stop. Watching.

Health Check In: Week 3

Weight loss this week: 1.5 lbs

Total weight loss so far: 5.5 lbs

Best health moment of the week: Realizing I am feeling much better in general and sleeping better too most nights.

Goals for upcoming week: 

• Don't overeat during Fourth of July Party tomorrow
• Take 6,000 steps MINIMUM per day, strive for 8,000
• Plan 2 dinners in advance this week

Thoughts: Starting this week I'm setting more realistic and specific goals because I have not been meeting my old goals.
Also, I love MFP. If you are thinking about trying to eat better/lose weight, I highly recommend it!

A tiny piece of me has died inside.

I realize I'm being a tad overly dramatic but in a way that's kind of how I feel...

Hubs and I finished the spare room last night.  We've lived in this house for 2.5 years and that room was always going to be the baby's room.  We knew when we moved in that it wasn't going to be long before we started TTC so we never really did much in that room, just stored a bunch of extra stuff in there and waited for the happy day we could turn it into a nursery.  Unfortunately, that day is taking way longer than it should and I've gotten fed up with the room looking like crap so we redid it into a bona fide guest room. It now looks beautiful and that makes me sad. 

Does moving on with my life mean that I'm slowly starting to give up hope? We've put a lot on hold because we thought I'd be pregnant last summer...and then in the fall...then winter...then spring...then THIS summer... When do you just say fuck it and continue to live your life without the thought of (hopefully) impending pregnancy factoring in? I'm beginning to think I've made a mistake by not doing that these past couple years.  

------

On a different note, my hot flashes from the Clomid have been out of control lately. It's to the point where, if it was socially-appropriate to strip in public, I would do it without a second thought.  I'll be in at Target looking at shampoo or sitting in a meeting at work and all of a sudden I'll just turn bright red and start sweating profusely ALL over my body (seriously - sweat starts beading on my calves and forearms and shit).  Surely that's not normal.  I'm seriously considering bringing a change of clothes with me everywhere I go lately.

"I am serious... and don't call me Shirley."

(See what I did there?  Yeah, that's right - nailed it. Leslie Nielsen would be proud.)