Waiting 3+ mos to ttc? Wanna start a group thread? - Page 9

[Monarchgrrl]

I'm here too! Mostly reading. Not much to update. We were going to "secretly" do an insem in Oct and Nov, just to see what happens and not tell anyone, but for October, that would be like...next week! We're not ready yet. That's too soon. I think we're just going to still hold off until January, like was the original plan. I'm just charting away, thinking about losing weight, but not really doing anything about it. I've been trying to take my mind off of the waiting part. Distractions.

We found out two weeks ago that DW's iron level was at 1. Normal range is 22-294. She's at 1! So, severely anemic. No wonder she's been sleeping all. the. time. So, now we're working on getting her iron up. But the supplements make her really sick. So, yeah, that's fun. That's been my distraction...nagging her to take her iron.

I'm loving reading everyone's updates! Oh and I think we've decided to start by using Northwest Cryobank for our first few tries. Like I've complained before, we're only going to use Mexican sperm and each bank only has one option that we would use. So, we're going to try one bank for a couple of months, and if it doesn't work, then switch banks to try different sperm. Annoying. Hopefully we won't have to switch though.

[wehrli]

beth, sorry to hear about your wife's anemia, but it's great that it's Dx'd and can be taken care of... it's too bad about it making her sick, though.

megan, that's so great about the accupuncture!! i should call and check with my ins, it's a really good plan otherwise so i wouldn't be surprised if it were.
and, yay, nov is really just around the corner... a little stressful i'm sure, but it's oh, so exciting!!!!!!!

mpk, i will be here to keep you company... until dec, that is... but you will be joining me in the TTC forum in dec so that's great. megan will already be there (or maybe already in the Q&P thread ) and beth will be right behind us!!

afm, gobs of ewcm today... i thought O happened yesterday, cramps and O pain all afternoon. then no temp spike this morn and then this fertile cm... i guess there is something "wrong" with me after all. please let the clomid work, please, please, please... now come on af...

[JustAnotherJenny]

Cross your fingers for me ladies, I got a + OPK yesterday. I went for acupuncture and got the dreaded thumb needles and switched over to Phase 3 herbs this morning. Please, oh please, let me ovulate!! :


I'm a bit behind over here... things are getting exciting!

Congrats to Samantha for your projected December dates!

Megan -- thanks are happening fast for you all of a sudden! Woo hoo!
Osker -- You're always welcome!

wehrli -

i am about to ovulate (i think)... well, who knows really... my CM has been ew then watery then ew. i had an almost pos opk, then nothing, not even the faintest of lines (on watery CM day), then this morning a line half as dark as control (ew this morn)... still no temp spike... is it possible my body is trying to O but it isn't quite happening (or something)... i am so sick of all these signs and none of them are lining up...

LOL! I read this and read it just like you wrote it... and I thought it was funny... then it occurred to me you meant egg white and not "ew" lol.
There are some months where I get a really dark line and other months where I'm not sure it's quite positive. It has a lot to do with how hydrated you are. You really kind of want to hold your pee for a couple of hours and not drink a lot. Some people have even said that you should try to wait for 4 hours... I've heard that some people never quite get a positive at all even though they ovulate. Are you using the ones from www.early-pregnancy-tests.com?

As for my time line, I'll probably become this thread's elder... it seems I'm going to be here pretty indefinitely.

[mkpgoddess]

Beth - I totally get the need for "secret" insems. We managed that the first time but people seem to be waaaaaay more interested in this go around and when exactly it's happening, blah blah. Like I need that pressure!! As for NW, it's a common problem with them to not have many different ethnicities. Here's the hoping that it takes on the first try!

Wehrli - it would be really cool to be preggo buddies As for ovulating, maybe your temp spike will be in the morning??

Jenny - here's to all the hope that you are/will be ovulating! You need to get off this bus!!!

AFM - our toddler is being, well, a toddler and making me feel like the Greatest Mom Ever (Not!), so I'm a little down tonight. Maybe a second one isn't the greatest of ideas if I can't connect with the one I've got? Ugh.

[wehrli]

mpk, i love the idea of being buddies! let's both get it on the first try in december, k?
and i'm sure it's nothing with your little one... they get in moods just like we do... maybe they just want a sibling

Originally Posted by JustAnotherJenny

wehrli -
LOL! I read this and read it just like you wrote it... and I thought it was funny... then it occurred to me you meant egg white and not "ew" lol.

LOL!!! i guess i should have used caps... i get lazy sometimes.

Originally Posted by JustAnotherJenny

There are some months where I get a really dark line and other months where I'm not sure it's quite positive. It has a lot to do with how hydrated you are. You really kind of want to hold your pee for a couple of hours and not drink a lot. Some people have even said that you should try to wait for 4 hours... I've heard that some people never quite get a positive at all even though they ovulate. Are you using the ones from www.early-pregnancy-tests.com?

i buy Answer brand from walgreens (20 sticks for $20) cause i'm cheap. i should buy them online but i never do it early enough... i also just bought a ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor so i don't know how much longer i will continue with the opks after i start that... who am i kidding, i probably will continue just to have something to compare/fall back on... and something to second guess and obsess and stress about. such is ttc for me!

Originally Posted by JustAnotherJenny

As for my time line, I'll probably become this thread's elder... it seems I'm going to be here pretty indefinitely.

FX for O!!!

afm, a got an actual positive on an opk this morning... still EW (not eww, lol) no temp spike this morning so maybe O is just late. i'm really hoping this clomid will work to make my O more predictable like the doc says... maybe it would take the stress out of timing insems... or at least some.

waving to any lovely lurkers ... happy weekend all!!

[mkpgoddess]

*yawn* Wehrli - I have to figure you are in a different time zone, because it's 7:30 in the am where I am, and you managed to post before me Work came too early and too fast this morning! And yes, Genna is much better this morning. Rather cute and sweet, actually, but mornings are generally her best time.

AFU - *twiddle de thumbs* So...how about them thermometers....

[wehrli]

Originally Posted by mkpgoddess

*yawn* Wehrli - I have to figure you are in a different time zone, because it's 7:30 in the am where I am, and you managed to post before me Work came too early and too fast this morning! And yes, Genna is much better this morning. Rather cute and sweet, actually, but mornings are generally her best time.

AFU - *twiddle de thumbs* So...how about them thermometers....

lol. i'm central standard time... but i am also an early girl!

what's up with the thermometers??

[JustAnotherJenny]

The thermometers are enough to make you crazy. I bought 4 different ones before I finally found one that worked "reliably". All of the ones that I tried that read out temps to the .01 were crap. I finally just bought the BD one that is recommended in the TCOYF. It kind of bugged me that it didn't have the extended read out, but much less so than the others that wouldn't always stay turned on or ever take a reading.

[mkpgoddess]

Wehrli - you and my wife would get along famously. She's an early girl too. Me, I prefer not to function much before nine, but that rarely happens...

Jenny - you aren't kidding. My current one sometimes takes SO long to get a reading that we have to keep checking to make sure the little fahrenheit F is still blinking. Ugh. That and some nights getting three hours in a row is a challenge.

[mkpgoddess]

:Sigh ... so my best friend just found out she's pregnant. And I'm happy for her, I AM. They are a little scared because it really was an oops (straight couple), but there you go. I'm going to join the legions of people waiting/trying to ttc and whine for a minute.

Whine!

Okay. Ugh. I think I'm mostly having "distance between children" issues, and that's on me so I won't bore ya'll with that. Oh, and I was messing around on FF and decided to just go with the charting from last month and on, and it now tells me our insem date is Nov 30th. That's next month. Wow. But, we'll have to see where O hits this month AND I'm traveling across the country the week before AF hits this month, so we'll see how out of whack that throws me.

How's everyone else hanging in?

[quasar]

Think I'll join in here, if that's ok? I just got my first PPAF. We're planning on trying for a second one 'soon'. How soon that is, is still to be determined. I am going to start charting again with this cycle, but it's anyone's guess if things will take a while to normalize. If things do go back to pretty much normal, the earliest we'd insem is in January. I am still almost exclusively breastfeeding DS though, and I'm a little leery of TTC while I'm still bfing. I don't want to lose the relationship I have with our son, especially before he's a year old. So we may or may not try in January. For now, I get to join the waiting game and occupy my time peeing on sticks! :

[wehrli]

quasar, welcome to our little thread... there isn't much going on because, well, there's not always alot to talk about while waiting... btw, what is PPAF?

mkp, it's so hard when others get pg especially if it is an oops! i am truely happy for those people, but i hate to admit that i am more jealous than happy.

afm, i scheduled my HSG test for oct 27 but now i'm really thinking that i should wait until the end of my oct-nov cycle rather than after my sept-oct cycle. if all my cycles fall the way FF predicts, then we should be inseming around the first week of dec...
that's not that far away!! and maybe we could even end up with great news for the holidaze!
hope everyone is well!

[mkpgoddess]

quasar - welcome!!! We do tend to be rather quiet, but know that we are ALL peeing on some sort of stick or another and are happy to commiserate! How old is your son?

wehrli - (ppaf is postpartum AF). Good thinking on the HSG timing. I've not had that done, but hopefully either time you choose to do it, it will be painless and effective!! FF keeps messing with my dates, so chances are we might just be in the same TWW!

AFM - making myself crazy trying to catch ovulation this month. Apparently I was rather early last cycle, so hopefully I can be on the ball and not sleep through tomorrow's temping and I can remember to go poas throughout the day today and tomorrow. JENNY - I was thinking of you the other day. I've been bringing my little cup and sticks to work, despite the rather "public" bathroom situation. *shrug* With my current schedule, I have to track it here or I'll never figure it out (of course, watch me be at work when we should be insemming...ARGH!).

[JustAnotherJenny]

quasar

Still no sign of AF for me! I'm giving it until February (one full year) and if nothing by then, I'm going for a course of progesterone to trigger a period. I figure, I'll follow my body's lead and start taking the progesterone after I get a + OPK. Maybe it will help to remind my body of what it is SUPPOSED to be doing.

Does anyone know of/ have any experience with natural progesterones or things that would act like progesterone?

Also, do any of you have a blog? I hate that they don't let you put your blog address in the signatures. I cannot be bothered to click, click, click, click to find them. If you have one, please post it so I can add you to my blog list!

[quasar]

Thanks for the welcome. Yes, PPAF is post-partum AF. Ray just turned 6 months old 2 days before it started. In some ways I wanted it to show up so we could start trying again, but now that it's here, I'm not so sure. I know we will be definitely starting to chart this month. My partner (also on the boards here as smartycat) would like to try in January when Ray's 9 months old, so that if I do get pregnant the due date would be in October (around her birthday). DS was born 4 days after my birthday and she was hoping for a little one around hers. If we don't get pregnant in January we would probably go back to waiting to try again for another few months, maybe around May. There's a lot of things to consider, not the least of which is our insurance/job situation for our decision to try so soon after Ray was born.

We are using Xytex and have swimmers on hold for us to use. Last time it took 5 cycles to get pregnant. Some of those were poorly timed due to delayed ovulation and other things like stress.

I don't blog, but I do have a chart. I used to chart stalk like crazy when we first tried getting pregnant. I don't like that it's not in the signatures anymore. But what're ya gonna do? *Shrug* For those that are interested, my charts are here- http://www.fertilityfriend.com/home/quasarkat Hopefully that works! I was a pee-on-a-stick-aholic last time around. : I'm sure this time will be no different.

Wehrli, that's so exciting about a possible December insem! You had mentioned getting a ClearBlue Easy fertility monitor. Just wanted to say that I have one as well. The thing I found was that there were only two out of four cycles where I had peak fertility on the monitor. One I didn't inseminate on, and the other is the one I got pregnant on. The thing I didn't like about it was that you only got to test once per day and you had to do it within a certain time. I think it can take a cycle or two for the machine to figure out your cycles. I loved just having the internet cheapies so I could test 3-4 times a day and compare how the lines would get darker. I think this helped me time insems a little better along with temping of course. The peak on the monitor didn't really tell me anything different necessarily, but maybe it did. Maybe the times it didn't give me a peak, but the OPK's showed a surge, I should have held off on inseminating. If you look at my chart, one particular cycle (May 2009) I had a delayed ovulation. Maybe the monitor never peaked because things weren't actually ready even though the OPK's said I was.

[megan sacha]

Welcome Quasar!

JAJ, I'm sorry you're still waiting around for AF. What a pain! I went through that for 6 months before starting metformin.

I just had a bunch of blood work done last week (FSH, estrogen, testosterone, thyroid, etc) and things are looking pretty good. My FSH came back at like 4.5 when it was 6.1 3.5 years ago. So, I was really relieved about that. And my estradiol was low, slightly outside the "normal" range but I don't think it's a problem unless it's too high at CD3. I also started acupuncture last week and will be going weekly for at least the first 5 visits, and possibly until the end of the year when I'll have to slow it down to once every 3-4 weeks or so due to insurance.

We still need to talk to our donor about the list of things to do before we can start (std testing, contract signing, etc) and hope we can get it all done to start in November....meaning our first insem could be in about 5-6 weeks!

[JustAnotherJenny]

I haven't had bloodwork done in forever. I should probably have it done again, but I **really** don't feel like being lectured and pressured about going on BCP or Metformin right now. I feel pretty strongly about giving it one year. I just don't want to hear it from the doc. My RE is pretty pushy and doesn't really want to discuss anything having to do with herbs. I'm on RE #2 and she's only slightly better than the previous in that regard.

I was on Metformin for over a year, and it really didn't seem to help me. It only made me sick, sick, sick, sick. I finally decided to quit it and that's when I began the Chinese herbs and acupuncture.

My IBS issues have totally resolved -- at least that's a good thing.

I started a chart today at FF, but my cycle is so long it forced me to split after CD180. http://www.fertilityfriend.com/home/JustAnotherJenny I'm technically CD 245.

I really need to be better about keeping track. I just entered all of the back data that I had for temp and CF. I don't think it really tells me too much. I also, had some pee stick issues -- as I previously mentioned. So, I know for sure I missed getting a + opk in August/September.

Woo hoo Megan! 6 to 8 weeks!

[mkpgoddess]

Quasar - your partner's timing sounds like our original plan. DD was born in December, and is ten days shy of my wife's December birthday, so we originally wanted this next child to land near my October birthday. It may still happen that way, but we'll have a couple tries before then and really hope that it takes sooner!

Jenny - getting forced or berated into something by doctors makes me insane. I grew up with military medicine, so I know all about that. Hence the reason why I hope I don't end up on insulin during this next pregnancy so I can have that midwife/birth center birth thing rather than deliver in another hospital. I'd love a homebirth but the wife is NOT having that...lol!

AFU - Finally getting some darker lines on the OPKs so I might be ovulating today...not that it really matters... My doctor's appt is on Tuesday. It's just a new primary and to get established. The problem is that I really need to get my bloodwork done, which means no eating, and the appt is at 1:30 pm. That could really be rough....

[megan sacha]

Originally Posted by mkpgoddess

My doctor's appt is on Tuesday. It's just a new primary and to get established. The problem is that I really need to get my bloodwork done, which means no eating, and the appt is at 1:30 pm. That could really be rough....

The doc should be able to give you a lab slip to come in later for a morning fasting blood draw. Also, if you're checking your baseline hormones, they usually want to look at CD3 so you may want to wait until then anyways.

[wehrli]

jenny, uggh... day 246, today? so sorry... i went through that around 3 years ago. i only had AF like 4-5 times in 2 years and it wasn't every few months that i cycled. it was very irratic. i never even knew what was going on. the things that were different in my life were: loosing weight (due to lack of eating cause i was poor) and stress of a new lifestyle (we were traveling and had to move every two months for our jobs, oh and living in a tent...really). i was fairly regular after that. then i started charting in feb, every cycle seemed about the same. we started inseming and i started to try and loose weight and cycles became irratic again. wtf?! anyway, i digress. you will bleed again, and if that means trying progesterone to get it going, so be it, right?! sorry i have no advice to give you on what kinds to use.

mkp, fx that you can have your midwife/birthcenter birth this time around. it's very important to us to have that too. we are entertaining the idea of a homebirth. it would be ideal for both of us as far as comfort, but the nearest midwife is over an hour away. so it's not impossible, but i little scarey to think she would be that far away. i also am just assuming (for no good reason) that i will be some sort of "high risk" in my pregnancy. oh, and i agree about getting the lab slip and going back another morning for the fasting b/w, if possible.

megan, woohoo! that's getting close... 5-6 weeks, that is only a couple before i estimate we will start again... wow, i didn't really realize the reality of that time until i just looked at a calendar right now. i only have one cylce between now and then!

quasar, thanks for the input on the CBE monitor. i plan on using opks as well, i'm pretty sure. at least for the first few months. i have heard it takes a few cycles for the monitor to "get to know you" so i will need a back-up, or i will stress out and delay O, i just know it. oh, and i support the january insem idea even if you are not quite ready... i mean, lots of [non-queer] people get preg before they are quite ready...