Category: ovulation

acupuncture, anxiety, fertility, IUI, ovulation, single mom by choice, SMC, trying to conceive, ttc, Uncategorized

hives

thesolomamaproject

What a crazy few days. The HSG test kicked it off. I could give you the play by play, but I don’t really want to put you through it, and I don’t want to scare the daylights out of anyone who still has to get that test in the future. But OMG!  It hurt so bad!! I don’t know why it was so painful for me, but let’s say that my innards were most displeased with the experience.

The next day, I worked from home and screwed up my Day 10 ovulation test. I had planned to test at 2pm after not-peeing since 10 (the test requires that you not pee for 4 hours beforehand, inhumane as it may be for a well-hydrated and active young woman). But I forgot and peed at noon. Realized it, and recalculated for a 4pm test, made it to 3pm and couldn’t hold it any longer. Did the test. Left on the sink and totally forgot about it until I returned 2 hours later to discover the screen blank. I pulled out the stick, clicked it back in and poof: a smiley face. WTF!

I tested again on the spot, negative. Tested again 4 hours later: negative. Tested first thing this morning: negative. Then I broke out in hives.

At first, I thought a mosquito must have gotten into my bed during the night because I itched all over. Then I got a look at myself in the sunlight: raised, welt-like bumps on my knees, elbows, thighs, my belly-button, neck, and a sprinkle everywhere else as well. Once I identified it as hives, I felt OK. I got some Benadryl, which took care of it quickly. But whenever the Benadryl wears off, they come back. Watching them come and go is kind of mesmerizing, like watching the sun set. You take your eye off of it and next time it’s in a different formation.

I managed to hold it from 9am until 1pm today (including a noon run with a pooched-out bladder) and tested: negative. Got a call back from the UCSF nurse responding to my email: we’re going to consider that a negative. You can’t leave the test for that long and trust the result. OK. Phew. Ovulation is still to come. (probably in about 4 days)

I had another well-timed acupuncture appointment at 5pm. This is the kind of medical mystery where I much prefer my acupuncturist over any other type of doctor. He said there is no question that my body is reacting to the trauma of the HSG test by cranking up its immune response. Those muscles and tissues are very sensitive and it just isn’t normal to have your plumbing tinkered with in that way. My body clearly was on the hating-it end of the continuum and needed and deserved some de-stressing. Time to relax and take it easy.

I facetiously posted on FB today, “I’ve been using ‘That makes me break out in hives” figuratively too often and now I’m actually breaking out in hives.” I’m reminded of a story my sister told me about a woman who said for weeks, “I need a break, I need a break” and ended up breaking her ankle. The words we choose can influence our reality.

So here are some carefully-chosen words:

As I sit here on my big yellow couch under a grandma-knit blanket with my fizzy water listening to an intermittent foghorn out on the bay, I think to myself: “This makes me break out in love, wellness, peace, contentment, gratitude, and a healing little hug for my lady parts.”

dating, IUI, ovulation, single mom by choice, SMC, trying to conceive, ttc

Round 2!

thesolomamaproject

It was reported to me through the grapevine that Mr. Michigan thought I was “cool” but isn’t interested in dating me. Which I hope we can all agree is completely OUTRAGEOUS! I know my readership will get behind me on this one. I am instantly aware of five million reasons we were a terrible match to start with, coupled by the fact that he has dubious taste in women and may even have a criminal record in my home state.

OK…just because I felt a pang of tenderness in my dating-weary, Grinch-y little heart doesn’t mean that I will now collapse in a spiral of self-loathing. I’m hopeful that the big Significance of the encounter I was searching for yesterday is actually that I’m a) finally leaving high school behind me (har har!) and/or b) that my heart is opening up to the beginning of the end of a relatively long guy-atus. We shall see.

So, my first attempt at bringing you legitimate dating drama has been short-lived… but, on the bright side, I scored a positive OPK today, which means that I have a date tomorrow at 4pm with the REAL man in my life: my donor. Yes! It’s time to gear up for Round #2! I am enjoying my last night before the dreaded two week wait but also looking forward to being maybe-pregnant as there sure are a lot of babies and pregnancies around me (congrats to my prego friend in Colombia as well as to my friend M who gave me Mojo and gave birth to a perfectly glorious baby boy 2 days ago!).

Ms. R, who is exactly and precisely always getting her period when I am ovulating and vice versa, unfortunately got the news from AF today about not being pregnant this cycle. I am eating ice cream tonight in solidarity with her. The good thing about our flip-flopped cycles is that one of us is always stable enough to counsel the other one’s freakouts. On the downside, we will never get drunk together ever again.

And: I have a date date on Friday night with a guy from online. I won’t waste my or your time with any details except to say that he’s an amazing musician and fully aware of my baby project (got that off my chest in email #2). (Mr. Mich would have never been so open-minded!)

Here’s to IUI #2 and this egg meeting that sperm: gogogogo!

IUI, ovulation, single mom by choice, SMC, trying to conceive, ttc

O or :)

thesolomamaproject

I’m handwriting today’s post before typing it in because I just boarded my flight home which will be a 5h40m flight and I know my laptop battery only goes a fraction of that time…plus, we haven’t taken off yet, so I’m stuck with an old-fashioned way of entertaining myself since my book is on my iPad and all electronic devices must be turned off.

Also, I am in my final half-hour of four-hours-of-not-peeing, so I can POAS (pee on a stick, mile-high edition) and see if tomorrow is the day for my IUI. I’m using Clear Blue Digital OPKs (Ovulation Predictor Kits) for an indicator of when I’ll ovulate–they pick up your LH surge which happens 24-36 hours before ovulation. The Clear Blue Digital give you a “O” or a “:)”, and I appreciate the fact that it is all or nothing, yes or no, black or white. The other tests show 2 lines and you try to compare the test line with the control line to figure out when they match, but this drove me crazy in the gray area of “is that a positive?” “is that a positive?” with R and I obsessively texting photos of our OPKs back and forth for confirmation. I actually missed the window in my first month of testing because I was so nervous about pulling the trigger. Incidentally, w/ Clear Blue Digital you can still check the 2 lines on the stick inside the digital device, which is good backup and to be able to see the nuance of when the LH is increasing but not yet a smiley-face. Dr. Tran says don’t wait for a positive, go in for the IUI when the line starts getting darker. Which has the potential to make me lose my mind again, but we’ll cross that bridge later.

Not that much later though–I’m already on Day 12! My trip really made the past week fly by, and the work half of it kept me from writing here–several readers became concerned that they’re no longer getting email updates, but the fact is that I just didn’t have time to post for 5 days or so. I joked to Mlle Jeanne that I was taking a break while she gave birth to a healthy and adorable baby boy (which fills my heart with joy!)–I knew she wouldn’t want to miss anything. 😉

The fact is that my days in NYC made it impossible for me to do anything but fulfill my work obligations–this time it wasn’t even possible to catch up with friends outside of work (and even at work I barely could pull my closest friends into a 15-min hallway catch-up although we did have time for them to gaze at me with wonder and awe, as if I was already pregnant, which I love.). So I basically went from family immersion and babyland with my sister’s family to full-on corporate mode. There was suddenly no indication of my baby project beyond taking my temp in the morning and remembering to take my prenatal vitamin (which I remembered only about half the time). Add to that the intensity of the NYC office and 3 day-long meetings, and this side of my life truly disappeared.

I’ll put this wish out to the universe: I aspire to adjust my work to include less travel and stress and more flexibility and creativity, while maintaining a comfortable lifestyle in the city. Let’s see what happens!

And let’s hope they turn off the seat belt sign before I explode!

dating, IUI, ovulation, single mom by choice, SMC, trying to conceive, ttc, two week wait

mojo

thesolomamaproject

A few weekends ago, I was crying to my friend M that it didn’t look like I was going to be able to do the first IUI this month and by the way I also thought I’d lost my mojo. That I felt invisible and must have crossed over into a significantly higher age threshold or badly needed a cut and color because I was getting zero attention from men anywhere. She pointed out that a) you never lose your mojo and b) if you’ve think you’ve lost your mojo then that’s what you’re projecting into the world and that’s what it reflects back to you. And then she told me to get outside so I went for a run at Lands End and felt five million times better.

Just days before, a different friend M, who is weeks away from giving birth, gave me a sock bunny that she made herself. I was really touched by this, not least because I have no talent for crafting and admire it in others. Plus, she is glowing and pregnant and happy and the sock bunny came with good vibes. I decided to name him Mojo and never lose him. Here is Mojo:

:Image

Then, just days after that, my ovulation test was positive and I went in for my IUI. I decided that Mojo should come with me for all my appointments. And now I specifically sleep with him too. He’s a nice guy and what a big heart!

Let’s just say that trying to conceive takes up a lot of mental bandwidth. Especially during the infamous two week wait, which was torture. As yet, I have not figured out how to date or even take step one in the direction of dating with all this going on… My taxi light says something like, “I’m not sure how to do this so, um, maybe take the next one.”

My friend Beans, who has been at this for months and is beginning her first IVF this week, told me that she didn’t date for the first few months of trying either, but it was a gradual process of getting comfortable with it. Maybe that will be true for me, and I hope so, because I think we could all use some lighthearted dating drama especially now that I’ve called off the search for a babydaddy. It would be nice to share the company of someone who is nice to me and (for some reason) not scared off by my plan.

It’s a lot to contemplate, but I believe that the sub-genre of ‘dating while pregnant’ is seriously under-explored!

Meanwhile, M is right: the mojo is not lost. It’s just that a girl’s got to prioritize, and dating isn’t currently the priority. This is all going to take some time to sort out (and likely a team of mental health professionals), so I’ll just stay open to what the universe sends me, and tonight it’s a snugglebunny.