Why I use the term "Recovering Infertile."

This past weekend, Walt Disney's Dumbo (1941) was on TV. I haven't seen it since I was probably just about the Monkeyboy's age, but since he's been getting into the Disney flicks recently I thought he would like it, so we tuned in together. I didn't make it past the first five minutes.

The opening scene is quaint. Twee, even. Storks fly through the night sky bearing blanketed bundles of babies.* Soon enough, we realize that they are heading for a circus. As each stork gently drops its bundle, the blanket opens to show a baby bear, tiger, giraffe, or other cute circus babe which is greeted enthusiastically by their waiting mothers.

Except for the elephant, Mrs. Jumbo.

The look of despair on this cartoon elephant's face as she waited and realized she was being passed over undid me. Even though I knew what would happen, I sat there, rigid in my seat, until the ancient, tardy stork finally caught up with the circus train and delivered Dumbo. At this point, I exhaled and left the rest of the movie to the Monkey while I went about my business.**

Though my infertility journey wasn't as long or difficult as that of many others, it's still part of who I am. I hear echoes of it nearly every day. Case in point: I'm brought to tears by the reproductive struggles of a seventy year old cartoon elephant.

*Alliteration free with purchase today only!
**Not the greatest idea, as parts of it kind of freaked him out.

Easy to do

Help Allison have a new "Best Day Ever" (on her Wordpress stats) by visiting her today at Our Own Creation. For the full background on why you should do this, go here and here. All the visits have to be on the same day to change her statistics. Also, please stop by Sweet Zoe (same reason).

It's just a couple of clicks... so easy to do.

Note: This was scheduled to auto-post in advance.

Consolation Prize

When we were trying to conceive the first time (2003-2005), it seemed like everyone I knew got pregnant. Everyone except me. I finally started keeping track of all the pregnant women I knew. Somewhere on my computer is a Word file that lists, in chronological order, the (almost 20) women that I knew who got pregnant before me during that time period. Two women on that list managed to get pregnant twice during that time. Adding further insult is that another two of these "women" were (1) one of my eighth grade students and (2) my mother-in-law's dog. When I reached the point that I couldn't take just one more instance of someone else getting pregnant, I told the Hubster that I needed something to help me look forward to the pregnancy announcements of friends, acquaintances and coworkers.

This was the inspiration for the "Consolation Prize." I told the Hubster that, from that point forward, whenever another woman who we knew announced she was pregnant, he needed to buy me a present. That way, I'd look forward to the pregnancy of others, because it would bring me something, too.

Don't you know, before I was able to collect a single consolation prize, I got a positive pregnancy test. When I woke the Hubster up that Monday morning in April 2005 to show him the test, his exact words were, "Wow... Now you owe me a present."

As of today, I'm 39 weeks 4 days pregnant. Although this isn't anything that would in an average pregnancy cause concern, when I throw my uncooperative cervix and (possibly) giant baby into the mix, the looming of my due date is causing me considerable stress. And there's been nothing going on to indicate that, well, anything is going on.

But, as my due date is just three days away, I'm forming a new consolation prize plan... to commence in four days.

No credit for time served

Julie over at A Little Pregnant came up with this concept, refuting the idea that if you've suffered with infertility, your subsequent pregnancy and birth should be smooth sailing. And although my first pregnancy wasn't as tough as some women's, and eventually had a good outcome, it wasn't exactly a dream cruise, either.

This time around, I've been expecting all along to be hit by not only my old battery of symptoms and side effects, but a whole new barrage of uncomfortable experiences. And at 34 weeks 4 days, I'm still waiting.

Sure, I've had a mild recurrence of restless leg syndrome, but it's been very sporadic and hardly worth mentioning. And some days my hands seem a little puffy and stiff, but I've avoided the carpal tunnel and ulnar neuropathy that made my upper extremities numb, useless stumps last time. The only real condition of concern is my anemia. At this point, my hemoglobin is up to 10.6, so it has been creeping upward, just incredibly slowly. And the most recent bloodwork I had done was not reassuring to the PA, who at this weeks appointment asked me to up my iron to twice a day, although she noted, "sometimes all that does is double the side effects without really increasing the absorption," so I'll be having bloodwork done again this coming week. She rattled off the entire results of my most recent bloodwork, but most of it meant nothing to me. The one alarming thing she mentioned and -- sort of -- explained was that my "stores" were at 6, when they should be over 100. I've subsequently been trying to figure out exactly what that means, but I can't. (Could she be referring to the mean cell volume? I have no idea...) She did say that if things don't look up, she might refer me to a hematologist.

I feel like I'm bragging when I check off my list of fears in the negative. Baby is still vertex LOA and at about a -2 or -3 station ("still ballotable" according to the PA); at this point my weight gain is a respectable 27 pounds (holding steady since 33 weeks); I'm BV-free and yeast-free; the fFN test they did Wednesday at exactly 34 weeks came back negative. For Pete's sake, I'm even still wearing my normal-sized shoes. Other than the extreme fatigue that accompanies the anemia, this has been a picture perfect pregnancy. I feel pretty good most of the time. I don't just feel like I can reasonably hope for a term baby, I'm fully expecting one.

So why does this lack of worrisome symptoms have me worried? I didn't expect, and frankly don't feel I deserve, such an easy time of it. So I keep expecting some bogeyman to jump out and surprise me. I have a nagging feeling that there's something terrible lurking that I just don't know about yet. I'm well aware that with potentially six more weeks of pregnancy ahead of me (okay, possibly even eight weeks, but please don't wish going past due on me -- it would certainly push me over the edge), there's still a lot that can go wrong. With my blood-related concerns being the only real complication so far, I'm starting to really worry about the birth. I was expecting that if I reached this point and felt as good as I do, I'd be relaxed and enjoy it, but instead I'm feeling more anxious. I'm beginning to wish that this was over soon, that May could just get here, damn it, just so I could put my anxiety to rest.

I touch the future. I... yadda yadda yadda*

I teach. I don't write much about work here, mainly because I don't want to get dooced. Yes, I admit that the real reason for avoiding discussions of my work is not because of some high moral imperative about not making fun of students and coworkers. Believe me, if it weren't for that, I'd have some real gems to share.

It just so happen to work out that my due date is two days before the last day of school this year. Virtually every single person, upon asking my due date, responds, "You planned that perfectly!" Although I've had it said to me dozens of times, I still don't have a response prepared. I usually just say nothing, or change the subject.

When I was pregnant with the Monkeyboy, his due date was mid-December, right before holiday break. A coworker remarked the familiar, "you planned that perfectly," to which I replied, "Well, when we started trying two years ago, we were aiming for May." She didn't say anything after that. I didn't mean to be curt; I just wanted to set the record straight.

I know that in terms of infertility and treatment, I've only experienced what can be considered Entry-Level Infertility Treatment (What Akeeyu calls Clomid and Fucking). We were lucky that Clomid worked for us. It's really the gateway drug of infertility meds, after all. Many people move on to bigger, scarier, more expensive and more powerful treatment. But just because on the spectrum of infertility treatment we were at the "easy" end, that doesn't mean it was easy. Not when judged in the overall fertility arena. (You know that arena, the one with events like "We got pregnant the first month trying" and "Our fourth child was an accident.")

I feel compelled to educate people about fertility and infertility (I've certainly developed a reputation as the go-to girl among friends and at work to women who have questions about getting pregnant). But, why is that? Am I really looking to "help" people and inform them, or am I looking for getting credit for my own struggles? It's probably a little of both.

So today, in my bag, I carried to school to loan to a friend and co-worker, Taking Charge of Your Fertility (book and software) and a few copies of my very own favorite BBT charts, because she is in her thirties, getting married this summer, and "wants to start right away." (Don't worry, she asked for my "help;" I'm not big on giving unsolicited advice, especially of the personal nature.) And I've told her I'll teach her "everything I know."

As a planner of things by nature, infertility has made me painfully aware that some things are out of our control. And I hate it. It's not the actual struggle to get pregnant that I hated and still resent, it's the uncertainty. If I would have been told, "it will take XX years and XX dollars and XX sometimes-painful tests and treatments to get pregnant," but there was a guaranteed baby at the end of it all, then I know that every woman suffering from infertility would say, "Where do I sign up?" But, we all know women who have sacrificed physically, financially and emotionally to treat their infertility and still are left with nothing but empty hands and a head full of unanswered questions. With years of hindsight, I'm able to realize that I'm very lucky to have been able to get pregnant at all. And planning a pregnancy is such a foreign concept to me that I just freeze at the mention of the word, dumbstruck.

So, I guess my response to the comment, "You planned that perfectly!" should be, "No, neither of my kids are planned. But they are very much wanted."

*With my apologies to the memory of Christa McAuliffe.

A Woman's Place is in the House... and in the Senate

I just learned Pennsylvania Senate Bill 387 left the Senate for the House of Representatives. If it passes, Pennsylvania parents of stillborn children will be able to get a certificate of birth resulting in stillbirth. I wasn't aware until very recently that in many states (and PA is apparently still one of them), parents of stillborn children do not get any sort of birth certificate at all. Trite as the expression is, there's no better way to sum it up than to say: that's adding insult to injury.

One of my oldest, best-est friends (back to kindergarten... and we were each other's maids of honors twenty years later, too) lost a son at twenty weeks gestation, so although I haven't been there personally and can't empathize, I can sympathize. Although she had C-sections for her other three children, this was the only one that she was able to deliver vaginally. She delivered him. He may not have been born live, but he was born.

As of last May, there were three states that offered birth certificates and provided tax deductions for stillborn children (Arizona, Missouri and Indiana). Seventeen states offer birth certificates for stillborn children. Seven (including Pennsylvania) are considering bills to offer birth certificates. "In the laws, the gestation period at which a fetal death is considered a stillbirth rather than a miscarriage varies among states, with some starting as early as 20 weeks."

New Mexico's governor (Bill Richardson, recent Democratic candidate for president) vetoed a bill last year to allow certificates. Part of the reason for the veto was the concern that anti-abortion advocates would use the legislation to undermine abortion rights. I understand these concerns. I'm adamantly pro-choice. I've marched for women's reproductive rights in Washington, D.C. I've helped more than a few friends sort out unplanned pregnancies, even going so far as to be the support person who drove one to the clinic on the day she terminated. I'd like to think that there's a logical answer to resolving this issues and concerns, but I know well enough that when it comes to reproductive rights, common sense seems to fly out the window. However, I'd think that the language used would be a start. A New York Times article from last year states that stillbirth is "generally defined as a naturally occurring, unintentional intrauterine death after more than 20 weeks of gestation." So, how about we start there? It's not perfect, but it's a start.

I don't have all the answers, but that doesn't mean that we should stop looking for them.

If you're from Pennsylvania, and so inclined, you can send a message of support for this bill to the House by visiting here.

A New Take on Infertility... A Pregnant Man

Okay, it's not really a pregnant man. Atheist in a Minivan reported on an article in the Telegraph regarding a transgender (well, sort of) couple who used their only available, functioning uterus (which just happened to belong to the husband half of the couple) to conceive. Her take on the issue is more coherent than anything I'd be able to write at this point, so go read it.

If you ask a stupid question...

The April 2008 issue of Parenting Magazine posits this "Mom Debate:"

Should a woman be able to use fertility treatments to get pregnant if she already has kids?

I'm still too tired and too busy to respond to that right now, but it's not hard to guess where I stand. You can answer the question via email at momexchange@parenting.com or click the Mom Debate link above. There's also a Community Forum where you can respond. (Last month, "more than 1,000" women answered the question regarding whether or not parents should use You.Tube to host videos of their children. Let's see if we can beat that number of responses on this, more serious, issue!)

Unfortunately, words fail me again.

I just found out, via Kristen at Stickybean, that Natalie from Relaxing Doesn't Make Babies has lost her son Devin at 36 weeks gestation. At her midwife appointment yesterday there was no heartbeat and she was induced.

I find myself again asking that anyone who can stop by and lend words of support and comfort should please do so.

Words fail me

Mary Ellen and Steve over at Not According to Plan just lost their triplet girls, Sylvia, Claire and Lucy at 19 weeks. Anyone who can stop by and lend words of support and comfort should please do so.

Send good thoughts

I'm not much of a praying person, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed (The Atheist's Prayer, I call it) for Alexa. She's on my Spring Due Dates blogroll, 24 weeks pregnant with twins. Her son died in utero last week and this morning his water broke, endangering her daughter who is still hanging on. Send your thoughts/prayers her way.

Procrastination/Irony

Instead of updating my own blog, I've been visiting the blogs I read and feeling irritated that they haven't been updated. Yeah. Umm, okay... that makes sense.

So, in a effort to update my own blog, I thought a short, topic-specific blogroll was in order. Here is my list of Spring Due Dates Blogs -- April, May and June* -- that I check up on (in no particular order):

Murphy is a Bastard

The Vicious Cycle of Cycles

Vacant Womb - No Vacancy!

Tales From My Dusty Ovaries

Uterus x2

Life as a Sandwich

Our Dance With Infertility

That Was the Plan

Waiting on Two Pink Lines

Just When I Thought I Had It All

Conflicted

Flotsam

Baby Twiglet

Infertility Loss... and Life

Just when I thought I had it all

Having Faith

Topcat

Fatty Pants

Mrs. Ca

Southern Comfort

Mrs. Spock

Strings and Sealing Wax and Other Fancy Stuff

slackermama

Just Relax and Try Again

A Single Woman's Journey to Motherhood

Infertility Sucks!

Still Passing Open Windows...

Slaying, Blogging, Whatever...

Mommin' It Up!

fun. crazy. life.

Digital Negatives

Healing Arts

Corrie Haffly

Baby Anderson

Anna's Parapraxis

Life Thru IVF #2

Mama Loves Papa

Mom? Me?

Crossrhodes

Jen's Belly Blog

Baby Island

Chicky Chicky Baby

misszoot

Waiting for Another

A Tale of Two Mamas

Adventures in Parenting

jumping out of trees

Mommies in the making

Nothing Heavy

RaJenCreation

Waiting on Two Pink Lines

Jen's Belly Blog

Beaten but not bowed

Life on a Back Road

The Razzberry

The Sawyer Saga

Are we there yet?

Thwarted Repeatedly

It's Taking a Village

Smart As Allison

The Baby Bug

The crazy life of Jodie

I Don't Want Sextuplets

Angela's Daily Struggle

Teatopia

we are fambly

What to Expect When You're NOT Expecting

At This Point, I'll Take an Evap - (Nevermind, not anymore!)

This list was complied by my own searching and blogrolls of other blogs I read, as well as some help from Babes in Blogland and The Stirrup Queen's famous blogroll.

Note: I'll be back later to add links to those who don't have them. Some of these are saved on my favorites on my home computer and the stupid firewall here at work blocks Babes in Blogland because it thinks it's por(no)graphy.

UPDATE COMPLETE!

*And, no, not that April, May and June!

Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!*

I was every bit as shocked yesterday when I got a positive home pregnancy test at 12 dpo as I was when I got one at 12dpo with the Monkeyboy. I've been so superstitious this cycle, I didn't even have a "good" test in the house, so I tested with a Dollar Store test and an internet cheapie strip. The Dollar Store test looked just like it did with the Monkeyboy! The cheapie did, too!

So I took a sick day and went to get a quantitative blood test (beta), which I will repeat tomorrow to make sure it's doubling. I also bought a "real" test, an Answer Early, and got a nice, dark line. Of course, I'm sure I will test frequently this week until I get my betas back.

Already, though, this feels different than July when I had the early miscarriage. This feels just like it did with the Monkey. Sore breasts, mild crampiness, exhaustion, the powerful-sense-of-smell (my pregnancy superpower), a little very mild nausea (I never had morning sickness last time, just mild nausea when my stomach was empty).

My due date is May 28. Even if this baby comes early (like the Monkeyboy), it's still perfect timing for a teacher. I got my wish! (In more ways than one).

*You know in your mind you heard Gomer Pyle say that!

No News is Good News

There are a lot of cutesy acronyms and expression used on message boards for women trying to conceive. Baby dust, sticky vibes... I don't know that I've ever used any of them. I stick to the acronyms that are merely practical: TTC (trying to conceive), CD (cycle day), DPO (days past ovulation), CBEFM (Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor). These save me time from having to write out the long words. Practical.

In fact, one of the cutesy ones has never made sense to me: PUPO. Pregnant until proven otherwise. It just seemed like the height of denial to think that way. Women would use that expression and I'd put them in the same category as women who analyze possible pregnancy symptoms at 2 DPO. That's a nice fantasy world you live in, Darlin'. (Or, as Fraser Crane once asked of Cliff Claven, "I wonder... what color is the sky in your world, Cliff?"). I just couldn't understand that kind of thinking.

Until this cycle. In every medicated cycle, because I take progesterone, I have to test at some point. Because if I'm not pregnant, I have to stop the progesterone so I can get my period and be on to the next cycle. So for my first three cycles of Clomid, I've tested. Every month my doctor has sent me for a progesterone check and quantitative hCG. I've also tested at home first, though. Based on the fact that somehow there are a lot of crazy women on my message boards that get positives at 8 and 9 DPO, I've started testing at 8 or 9 DPO. And I've tested every day (sometimes twice a day, I'm embarassed to admit) up through day 13, 14, and sometimes 15, through when I stopped progesterone and my period eventually came.

This month I don't want to test. Last month my doctor's secretary forgot to send me the prescription for my bloodwork, so I called and she told me I could pick on up on my way to the lab. This month again, I again have no prescription, but I didn't call to ask for one. And I'm not yet going to take a home pregnancy test. I don't want to face stark white negative after negative. I want to live with the illusion that maybe, it's possible, it could be that this time it worked. If I don't test, I have nothing to contradict that assumption. I'm pregnant until proven otherwise.

So I finally understand what those women are talking about. Just like me, they realize that there are only a few days each cycle when hope is alive. There are only a few peaceful days when I'm not taking a medication, or testing and waiting for ovulation, or scheduling reproductive sex, or taking pregnancy tests. It's nice to treasure those days, preserve it for as long as possible.

Today I am 9 DPO. I am going to try to resist testing until Monday morning, when I'll be 12 DPO. By that time I can be fairly certain of whatever result I get. If it's negative, I'll test again at 13 DPO and then stop my progesterone. And be on to the next cycle.

I also (finally!) called today and made an appointment with the RE for October 9.

6DPO

Six days past ovulation. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but it's hard not to. I'll have an idea by this weekend if this cycle is a success.

Today I gave my work friend C a few supplies: a tube of Pre-Seed, a packet of Pre, six OPKs and what I had left of a bottle of EPO. This may be her last cycle TTC until next summer. She told me after her last cycle failed that this time she wasn't going to get all worked up this cycle, worry about it, test, or anything. And then I have to go, like the drug dealer I am, and bring her all the tools of obsession. (Last cycle I brought her cheapie HPTs to test with, too.)

Over the weekend, my friend H told me about a baby girl she knew about that might be available for adoption. The Hubster and I haven't discussed adoption since we were trying to get pregnant the first time, three years ago. At that point we had decided that if we weren't pregnant by a certain month, we'd start the adoption process. We had decided against IVF, since we had limited money and it was no guarantee (I know too many women who've paid thousands for no success). My sister-in-law had done IVF unsuccessfully and was pursuing adoption when she -- like all those stories we hear -- got pregnant with her miracle baby naturally (to be followed by another miracle baby two and a half years later). But I asked her opinion on all of it and she said if she had it to do over again, she would've gone straight to adoption. In her words, "Pregnancy lasts nine months, Motherhood is forever." She said that she assessed her goals and realized that parenting, not gestating, was what it was all about. And adoption is a lot closer to a guarantee of parenthood than IVF, especially if you are spending the same money.

We pursued information about this little girl for about a day, as we decided that we were very interested in her. What we discovered is that the situation is very complicated. The little girl (about 18 months old) has an infant brother who is in the process of being adopted by a couple who are also interested in adopting the little girl. Their father, who put them both into foster care, never bonded with the little boy, as he was a newborn when he was put into foster care, but did bond with the little girl. Right now the adoptive family is waiting for the boy's adoption to be finalized before they pursue the little girl, because they're worried that -- due some sketchy behavior on the part of the birth father -- both adoptions could end up canceled if they don't set the course appropriately. I hope it works out for them, because I think that the siblings should be together.

But it made me realize that even though we already have a biological child, we're still open to the idea of adoption. I have been thinking about it recently, but wondering what it would be like to have a family that was blended like that. (What I really should be thinking is, Duh, Jen, The Hubster has an adopted sister you've known for over twenty years, since she was a child. What's that like?). Sometimes I just can't see the forest for the trees.

Risk

Here's something I didn't know. The risk of multiple births is higher from IUI than it is from IVF, mainly because IVF allows more control over how many eggs are fertilized and transfered.

Scary.

Ambivalence

Call it a defense mechanism, but I'm starting to feel the same low-level ambivalence that I felt earlier this spring when we started to try for baby #2. At the time I think I was trying to protect myself against the stress that I knew was coming. The sense of urgency, the long waits, the feeling of failure, the inevitable depression.

I told myself that it might be better to quit while I was ahead. I have a healthy son and, since I'm getting older, that might not happen again. I also didn't suffer much "damage" from my pregnancy. I escaped stretch marks (the Monkey was six weeks early and I've heard that most stretch marks come in the last month). My breast are a little less perky, but I'm hoping to be able to lift them once I'm done with kids. If I never got pregnant again, I could fix them that much earlier. We are struggling to try to get the modifications done to the house sooner rather than later in case we have another baby. If we didn't have another, we could take our time with those projects.

Then I pushed all those thoughts away. I've always thought that I would have kids (plural). I have many misgivings about only children (based on a mother and three close friends that are only children). I think that it would be lonely and burdensome to be an only child. (This is only my opinion. Your mileage may vary). So we forged ahead with the fertility treatment.

Since then, more recent events have made me again start thinking that maybe just one kid wouldn't be the worst life development ever:

The first cycle of Clomid didn't work. Or the second (well, not really). Or the third. Now I'm on my fourth and facing making an appointment with an RE and spending money we don't have to conceive a child (you know, that thing that most other people get to do for free).

Toward the end of this summer, a woman who was about my age, who had a child that was about the Monkeyboy's age, who was a member of Fertility Friend (my online charting program and message board), died while giving birth to baby #2. (The baby surivived.) This had the Holy Shit! effect on me. Apparently she had a very rare complication, an amniotic embolism. Yes, it's very rare, but still... it gave me pause.

Just yesterday, one of my friends at work, Y, asked if the Hubster and I wanted to put together a team with him for the 24 Hour Championship Challenge next August. I would've been the token chick on the team so they could compete in the 5-person Co-ed category. I haven't done a mountain bike race since I did the 24 Hours of Snowshoe back in 2001. But since I don't know where I'll be in terms of fertility treatment/pregnancy/post-birth infant-care & breastfeeding, I can't commit. They have to enter as a 4-man Sport team (they can't even enter as a vet/master team, because Y won't be 35 yet (as the Hubster put it, "Damn kid!").

My sister-in-law is obsessed with the house we stayed in at the Outer Banks this summer and wants to try to get together a group of families to rent it again next summer. The $100 per month that we'd have to put away to be able to do that is just not possible with the chance of having to pay out-of-pocket for more advanced fertility treatments. And even if we could afford it, just like with the mountian bike race, I don't know where I'll be in the Baby #2 process. I'd love to be one of those women that says "I'm not going to schedule my life around this" but at my age, it's what I have to do.

Deep down I still want another baby. I think that this ambivalence -- this pretended ambivalence -- really is a defense mechanism. The proverbial sour grapes.

Peak!

There are many places where I've read that you might not get a peak the first month using a fertility monitor, because the monitor needs to learn your cycles. However, this morning I got a peak reading (backed up by a very positive OPK, done at 5:00 a.m. to boot).

Even if I hadn't gotten a peak, though, I think I would have known that this was it. I've had pretty serious ovulation pain these past few months on Clomid. This month is no exception. It has me curious as to whether that's all it is, simple ovulation pain, or whether it could signal something else, like an ovarian cyst. (I'm sure I'll be consulting Dr. Google before too long.)

I still haven't called the RE to make an appointment, but I also need to call the vet and the dentist to make appointments that are completely unrelated to my fertility (one would hope!), so I think it's just general procrastination and not some other subconscious impulse.

Project CM

This cycle, since I'm not taking estradiol, I'm a little more worried about my uterine lining than usual, because for some women Clomid can thin it. Even in unmedicated cycles, I usually don't have much fertile cervical mucus (CM), the bodily fluid that is like a superhighway for sperm (just another side-effect of being old, I guess). On top of my natural deficit, Clomid can negatively effect fertile CM (in previous cycles, the estradiol was also supposed to help with this).

So I decided that instead of just supplementing with Pre-Seed (the sperm friendly lubricant) like I usually do, I'd actually take some steps to try to improve my own supply of fertile CM.

Some women swear by Evening Primrose Oil (EPO), and I've taken it in the past, but since I'm already taking Omega 3-6-9, I thought I better not. What I will do is eat baby carrots and drink some green tea (not too much, though, because green tea can interfere with the body's ability to absorb folic acid).

I'm curious to see if this will make a difference. I've had a decent amount of CM already this cycle, which is unsual for me. But going into this weekend and through the beginning of next week (when I expect to ovulate) is when it's going to be most important.

But, wait... there's more!

On Wednesday I started back to work (school) and spent some time talking to my friend C. She has a daughter almost exactly 5 months younger than the Monkeyboy. (Born a little after 1 a.m. a day too late. I always tell her, "If you would have just pushed a little harder, they could have been exactly five months apart...")

She has also been trying to get pregnant again this summer. We teachers always aim for the spring months -- April, May and June -- because then we can maximize our maternity leave. We don't really get a lot of other paid days we can take throughout the year, since we have this "built in"vacation. With her daughter, they were successful on month 3 of trying and were lucky enough to have a spring due date. This time they're on month 3 of trying (in the Two Week Wait right now) for #2. She and her hubby are younger than the Hubster and I and they're building a house, so financially if they don't conceive by October they have to take a break until next summer. They just can't afford for her to take off too much time during the school year. (Her hubby also tends to get seasonally laid off.) I wish her the best. She emailed me about a month ago to tell me she wasn't pregnant yet (and to ask if I was) and I was so disappointed. She's one of those people I expect to get pregnant easily, so it's like, if she can't...

After talking to her a bit, getting her take on things, I decided to call my OB (I wish I could come up with a cool nom de guerre for him like other blogs do for their doctors, but I haven't been able to come up with anything that fits yet). I thought that although he originally said he'd only let me do three cycles of Clomid before referring me to an RE, the fact that I had that early miscarriage in July might make a difference. I mean, it shows that Clomid works for me and that I can get pregnant.

So I called him on Wednesday, spoke to the nurse and left a message. I never heard back. I called on Thursday and spoke to the nurse again. I explained I had already left a message the day before. She remembered and was surprised he hadn't called me back already. I explained that I was at that moment on Cycle Day 3 and if he would let me do another Clomid cycle I needed to start that day. I explained how I wondered if my miscarriage made a difference when it came to the "three cycles" deal. She put me on hold and when she came back said that, although the doctor was doing surgery, she spoke to the PA (who I love!) and the PA said that "it was not unreasonable to think that they'd let you [me] do another cycle or two of Clomid, because of the miscarriage." And that the doctor would call me back when he got out of surgery.

Which he didn't do.

This morning, my nerves stretched taught like a bowstring (after quietly crying myself to sleep last night), I called again. The nurse was surprised (again!) that he hadn't called me back. She said that he was due in the office at 10:30 and promised that he would call me this morning.

Let me just say, I was so irritated that I almost made an RE appointment before he even had a chance to call me back. That's how sure I was that his not calling me back was a reflection of his unwillingness to let me cycle again. But I told myself: "This is an OB/GYN in a solo practice (Yes, very rare in this day and age, but you know exactly who will have his hand(s) up your hoo-ha at your delivery). Maybe he was at a delivery or some other emergency last night. See what he has to say."

I'm so very glad I waited.

He called (a little after 11:00) and said that yes, it made complete sense to do another cycle of Clomid. I had a clear HSG. I had gotten pregnant on Clomid, but it just hadn't stuck. It was working. So we could do another cycle. He also explained that when he said three cycles, he was saying he didn't want to waste my time if it wasn't working. I was 37, not 27... and that makes a lot of difference.

I agree. During my wait for his call, I checked out the CDC statistics for the fertility clinic I'm considering. Did you know that when they compute success rates, they group patients into categories by age and those age groups are:

• <35
• 35-37
• 38-40
• 41-42

I was surprised that 37 was a "cut off" for an age group. My doctor explain that just as there's a drop in fertility at age 35, there's another serious drop at 37. So, he said diplomatically, time is of the essence.

I may make an appointment with the RE anyway, just in case there's a waiting list. And to get the preliminary tests out of the way. But for now, I'm cycling again. This cycle, because of the delay, I'm doing 50 mgs of Clomid days 4-8 (instead of 3-7) and foregoing the Estradiol because he "doesn't think that it's important." (Okay, whatever, he's the one with the M.D). I'm still going to use Prochieve after O.

And the most wonderful news of all: When I went to pick up my prescription, there were two refills. That made me the happiest of all.