What a shitty day!

Pardon my French, but really, what a shitty day!

First I took my temperature today and it was lower than the past few days but I was still curious to see if it would make crosshairs on FF. But I did not take the time to put my temp in the morning.

I left for work and I was actually early - EARLY! I'm rarely early, not very often on time, and usually late. So I was quite pleased with myself. The sun was shining very brightly and I kept thinking I wished I had my sunglasses. I guess it was shining off all the snow that was still everywhere from the day before.

I was driving along in the left lane. I'm always in the right lane but for whatever reason I was in the left lane today. I noticed a bunch of cars in front of me slowing and one even went into the middle turning lane. I thought someone braked suddenly because they missed a turn and everyone braked in response but then I saw a school bus going the opposite way and it had its stop sign out. And that quickly I was able to stop but the two cars behind me weren't. WHAM! My car got hit and I flew forward. The air bags did not go off but I knew my car was going to have some bad damage. I got out of the car and the sun was so bright I could barely see but noticed a green SUV behind me and blue car behind that. The woman from the SUV said, "Well, you were able to stop but apparently we couldn't." I told her we needed to get a police report so she called the police and they came fairly quickly but before they did, the two other drivers were exchanging information. I was shaking so badly I could hardly write and I kept getting all teary-eyed. All I got was her name, phone number, plate number, make and model. She gave the other guy her insurance which really made no sense since I'm the one she hit. Then the police officer arrived, had us all move into the middle, and asked us to stay in our vehicles. So I never got to get the information from her. Ugh. Before the police officer even got there I called my friend/coworker and she came and called my husband and told him to wake up and get ready. And then shortly before the police officer got there my boss showed up and pulled over. She was just driving by and happened to see me there. I burst into tears when I saw her.

The cop asked us all if we were hurt and I didn't answer. I was in shock. After we all sat in our cars I realized how sore I felt so when he came back I told him that I was feeling sore and he told me that he asked if I was injured and I said no. I never said no! I never answered. I was a little upset about that. But my friend took me to the ER and I got checked out and just got diagnosed with whiplash. They gave me a muscle relaxer. My hubby asked the nurse if it was safe to take while trying to conceive and she said, "Oh, sure, it'll make you nice and relaxed!"

Before we went to the ER though, we swung by to get my hubby and I called my agent and reported the claim.

So after I left the hospital, I took my car to the collision center, picked up a rental, and filled the script. I guess I like to keep busy. As the day wore on I realized my ankle was hurting and across the back of my shoulders was sore.

I finally got to log in my temp to FF and it gave me crosshairs for day 10! I know that can't be right! I was monitored on days 12 & 13 and I think my RE would have noticed if I had already ovulated. So I really want those crosshairs to disappear.

Tomorrow I have day 17 bloodwork and ultrasound. Twelve hours away!

What a day.

I'm so confused.

Good lord, I am so confused.

I had my bloodwork and ultrasound on Monday and was told my follicle needed a few more days to mature. I did not bother testing with an OPK because I figured it wouldn't be positive yet anyway.

I wound up leaving work early on Monday because I felt so sick. I went to my family doctor and she told me to get lots of rest and lots of fluids. I woke up several times during the night the last one sometime around 3:30. At 6:45 I woke up and took my temperature and it was pretty high. The same thing happened again this morning. I woke up around 3:00 or so and then fell back and took my temp at the normal 6:45. And it was .03 higher than yesterday. So I've worked with Fertility Friend long enough that if I put in another temp like that tomorrow it will surely tell me I already ovulated.

THAT WILL NOT MAKE ME HAPPY!

This is odd because normally I'm begging my thermometer to go up, up, up. But this time it would just be awful for several reasons:
1. There is no way we would have caught the egg. I was sick since Sunday and just lying on the couch most of the time (except for the few hours I went to work on Monday). Needless to say I wasn't doing any babymaking.
2. I never did the Ovidrel shot.
3. The follicle was not mature on Monday when he looked at it with ultrasound.
4. It would mean I spent $900 on a waste of a cycle. All the monitoring, blood work, and ultrasounds would mean nothing.
5. It would mean I'd lose total faith in my body because how could it ovulate before the follicle was ready and the LH was only at 9 (when from everything I read needs to be at 20 before I ovulate) and the estrogen was at 53 (and yeah, I don't know what that means really but thought it should be in the hundreds).
6. And last but not least, it would mean I'd lose faith in my Dr. Wonderful! He said the follicle needed a few more days to mature and I put all my faith and all my money in that.

So please, Mr. Thermometer, go DOWN tomorrow and let me think those two high temps were a friggin' fluke due to my being sick and not sleeping well. PLEASE!! I know I'm confusing you - every other cycle I say up, up, up, but now please go down tomorrow and Friday until we see what Dr. Wonderful says!

I'm really sorry I didn't do OPKs in the meanwhile. But I doubt they'd have been accurate anyway. I was trying to drink lots of fluids for my sickness and stay hydrated and I doubt I would have been able to refrain from using the bathroom for 3 or 4 hours as most of the OPKs instruct. But I really wish I knew. I did one today and it was dark but not dark enough to be positive. That could mean two things: 1) I'm getting ready for my LH surge or 2) my surge is on its downside and still dark. So basically it tells me nothing.

Oh, and my doctor's office called. No strep throat, which I figured.

Well, I'd better get to bed. I'm hoping for a solid 7 hours and no interruptions and a nice low temp. Adios.

What a difference!

What a difference a day makes! First of all I realized I made a mistake yesterday. Estrogen level was 27 not 24. I know that doesn't make a huge difference but I just want to be accurate. I'll have to go back and edit yesterday's post.

So today I went in at 8:15 (my hubby came with me again, love him!) and I got Dr. Wonderful this time, yep, MY Dr. Wonderful! He was much more talkative than the others and explained more. He showed me that I have one 11x12 follicle on my left ovary and he wants to give it a few more days. Then they called with my hormone levels and my estrogen is 53 (almost doubled - yay!), progesterone is 0.2 and LH is 9. So I'm feeling much better in that regard. I'm going back on Friday at 8:00 a.m.

On the other hand, I finally had to go to my family doctor today. My coworkers kind of made me. I went to work with hardly any voice and a horrible cough. She took a throat culture but doesn't think I have strep and I didn't either. So if I do she'll give me antibiotics but if not, I guess it's just a nasty cold and I'll get through it with rest and fluids. I worked 9-2 today (normally work 8:30-5). I was late due to my blood work and ultrasound. And then everyone kept telling me to go home. I was tired so I did not argue.

I love my family doctor. She is so down-to-earth, cool, and funny. I told her, "Go figure, the month we finally start infertility treatment I am sick. I took Femara this month." She said, "Oh, Femara, that will make you so bitchy which in turn makes sex interesting." I laughed and told her we were having an IUI so I didn't have to worry about sex. (It's not that I don't like sex, I do! I love it! It's just that worrying about timing it correctly can make it stressful. The IUI takes some of the pressure off.)

Oy vey! What a morning!

I just wanted to say 'oy vey.' I love it!

My day 12 ultrasound and blood work were scheduled for today at 8:30 a.m. I am so not a morning person. And my RE's office that is a mile away is not open on Sunday so I had to travel a half hour on highways to get to the one that is open on Sundays (and every other day of the year). But I am willing to do all this and am not complaining. We had company last night and they didn't leave until after 11:00. I went to bed shortly after and set my alarm for 6:45. I never heard it ring. And I woke up at 8:00 on the dot!! I yelled to my husband, "We overslept!" and we had a Home Alone moment where we're running around and colliding with each other. In my haste I totally forgot to take my temperature and now I'll have to stare at that "hole" on my chart. Hee hee. It would have been a white circle anyway since I woke so much later than normal. We somehow managed to get out of the house by about 8:10. Thank God we took showers last evening. Normally I'm a morning shower type person but we had to be up early yesterday for something so I got my shower Friday evening rather than yesterday morning and then last evening which saved me this morning!

So we were only about 10 minutes late and no one even seemed to notice. There were at least five other couples there which was amazing to me. It was kind of a "wow" moment for me - seeing all these other couples having all these other couples waking up early and doing the same thing I was doing. My husband and I are not the only ones who had to get up early, drive far, and have an ultrasound and blood work in our quests to have children. (Well, he only had to do the waking and driving parts of the equation.)

So the nurse came and got me and drew my blood and then put me in an ultrasound room. My lining was "still thin" and my right ovary had only small follicles and my left had some larger ones (I forgot to ask if one of them was the cyst from last time) but they were not mature enough. So the doctor (Dr. Crunchy this time) told me that they'd call once they got my blood work results. I call her Dr. Crunchy because my hubby said, "She looks crunchy." A few weeks ago he did not even know what crunchy was. Now he's using it to describe people. It works for me as I don't want to name my doctors with their real names. :)

I am still feeling pretty awful as far as this sickness and exhaustion go. My hubby and I went out to breakfast after that and I was so exhausted I came home and went right to sleep again. I kept my phone with me because I knew they'd be calling sometime around noon.

So the same nurse I spoke to last week for my blood work results called and it was the weirdest call of my life. First the nurse told me my hormones were "nice and low." And then she said the doctor wants me to start letrozole and they want me to come in and sign the paperwork for letrozole. I had just woken up from a nap so I was already confused but then I was REALLY confused because I just took the letrozole! So I said, "He wants me to do Femara again?" And she says, "Yes." And I said, "Because I just took it last week." And then she says, "Oh, I'm having a senior moment!" And then she explained that my estrogen was 27 and they want me to come in again tomorrow for another ultrasound and blood work to see if the follies grew. But now because she made a mistake like that I feel like I don't trust anything else she said.

I'm so frustrated because I just don't understand. Is it bad? Is it good that my estrogen went from 39 to 27 in 10 days? I don't even know. She asked me to come in again tomorrow at 8:15 to see if my follies had matured anymore. I have to do blood work and another ultrasound. I guess I'll start getting used to being naked from the waist down. ;)

I tried to call back to ask some more questions once I was a bit more awake but the call went right to their "closed" greeting.

I'm supposed to be in work at 8:30 so I also have to get in touch with my director to let her know I'll be late. I actually feel so crappy I should probably just call out sick. :(

So that's all for now. I have five loads of laundry to do...and Christmas decorations to put away. I really just want to go to sleep and wake up when it's spring!

Sick.

All week I was exhausted and didn't know if was due to being my first full week at work in a month. But that didn't make sense since I was tired since Monday. And then I thought it was the Femara but the exhaustion lasted days after the Femara. Thursday night I started feeling odd. It's hard to explain but my throat felt irritated, not sore but irritated and tickled and it was causing a slight cough. Then all day Friday I was super exhausted and it felt like there was a lump in my throat. Today I woke up and felt like I could barely breathe and the lump in my throat was still there. Today was the first day my throat felt sore.

I told a few people and they all say it sounds like strep. I had no idea. I knew it didn't feel like a cold (no head or chest congestion) or the flu (no body aches, etc.).

And the crazy thing is the last three days my temperatures have been higher (not fever high) but just higher that they should be before ovulation. Now it's maybe making sense - the three days I was sick were the three days my temperature was a good half degree higher than it should have been. I don't think I have a fever maybe it was just higher because I was fighting this off.

Oh, well, whatever I have, I hope it's gone soon. In 11 hours I'll be getting my ultrasound and blood work. I hope it brings good things!

I'm exhausted.

I have no idea if this is a side effect of the Femara or just my getting used to working a full week again (first one in awhile). I'm so tired. Tonight and the two nights before I was falling asleep on the couch. I listen to my Circle+Bloom before bed and the last two nights I fell asleep while it was playing.

So I'm not sure what it's from - but it's forcing me to get to bed long before midnight so it's not a bad thing.

I took my last Femara yesterday so I assume if this is a side effect it'll be gone soon.

I got to hear another BFP announcement tonight and to hear that my husband's best friend is having a girl (yes, I'm a tiny bit jealous).

I called my RE's office today and had them call in my Ovidrel to Freedom Fertility Pharmacy. I was worried I wouldn't get the prescription until Sunday and have to pay a boatload of money for it. So then the woman from Freedom called me and she told me it would ship tomorrow so I'll have it on Saturday. Once I'm holding that in my hand I think it'll really start to hit home that we're actually doing this! And going for an ultrasound and bloodwork early on Sunday morning might drive it home further. I really don't allow myself to think about it much - what we're actually doing - and what could actually result. I guess that sounds kind of nuts but I think it's a protective measure to keep me from getting my hopes up.

No side effects?

Today is my fourth day of Femara and I can't really say I've had any side effects. I keep looking for them. I don't want to search too hard and "find" something that doesn't exist, or exists but has no correlation with the Femara. I've been VERY tired this week but I strongly suspect that is due to adjusting to working a full week again. I got to sleep a lot on these long weekends and now I'm back to work and getting only 5 or 6 hours a night. Also, my husband told me yesterday I was acting "menopausal" (what the heck does that mean?) but I was stressed, tired, and running late, and nothing was going well, so I think really it was just normal behavior. I'm not sure what that says about me, but there you have it!

So maybe I'm one of those lucky ones that doesn't get side effects. I hope that doesn't mean this won't work in producing a nice eggie but I'm really trying to keep my mind busy and not think about it so much. I'm listening to my Circle+Bloom and that really helps me to relax.

I screwed up dinner tonight so hubby is taking me to PF Chang's. :) Maybe I should screw up more often...