It's A...

girl!
I think we were both afraid to admit how much we wanted that outcome. Not that we wouldn't have been happy with two boys -- I was convinced, from the time we found out Jo was a boy, that that's what we'd have -- but it's exciting to think we'll have a daughter.

I've come to think of myself as a "boy mom." Even though I originally couldn't imagine having a son, now having a daughter will take some getting used to.

I also think that Bobbie's profile looks like my sister. If the pictures look decent once they're scanned, I'll post them. The pix we got from my two almost-nuchals are fuzzy and nowhere near as good as all the shots we have of Jo, which is possibly due to my excess padding. Oh, well, hopefully she'll photograph well on the outside.

Also likely as a result of my extra padding, I actually have to go back for more scanning because, during the Level II/anatomy scan (that revealed the girl parts) the doctor couldn't see the heart properly. He sent me downstairs to the pediatric cardiologist, who poked around for a while and then invited me back in a week and a half. Fortunately, my midwife warned me that precisely this scenario might happen, so we're not too worried. Everything the two doctors could see looked perfectly fine.

In other news, Jo climbed out of his crib tonight. Crap. (As Co said, why did we enroll him in that gymnastics class??) Any thoughts on crib tents? Worth it or not?

Unexpected

So here's what has surprised me about this version of pregnancy:

I'm very self-conscious. I always thought I would love the attention, love being "special." Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the excuse to have Co climb on the kitchen stepstool and let me sleep late. But I have found it very difficult to tell people that I'm knocked up. I couldn't wait to tell everyone when Co was pregnant; I chose the date (14 weeks) weeks in advance, wrote it in my planner, and leaked the news ahead of time to as many people as I dared. This time around I have only just finally managed to share the news with the world, at 20 weeks along.

On further consideration, it's actually characteristic that I would feel that way. As much as I often think I crave attention, I'm more of a behind-the-scenes-gal. I worked in radio production before I became a teacher, and you don't get much more behind-the-scenes than that.

Also, as I've mentioned, my body really hasn't changed, so it's easy not to mention. We have cute belly pix of Co starting at 10 weeks 5 days; I'm still not up to my first-pregnancy-appointment weight. I'd heard that redistribution is the pattern for us Large & Beautifuls, but still didn't expect it would be the case for me. I feel different -- it's not so easy to bend over, and I already have to pee a lot -- but even at the halfway point, my clothes are still loose.

In other news: we're signing the contract on our bigger, better apartment tomorrow! Then, it's on the to the coop board. Gulp.

Fertilitea: Sharing the Magic

This post is perhaps the most long overdue of all.

Back in June, the fabulous Bree made me the third fertility blogger to make use of the magic Internet Fertil.itea. There's no scientific evidence that my religious use of Fertili.tea leading up to my IUI helped me conceive so quickly (and Co, ever the scientist, is skeptical). But there's no evidence it didn't help, either. So please comment here (with email so I can get in touch) if you'd like to be the next recipient. There's plenty of magic left in the Zip.loc.

Bullets From A Neglectful Blogger

Alas, I don't actually know how to format bullets, so you get asterisks.

*Bobbie is fine. I had the nuchal back in the beginning of September and finally got to see the little bugger. Actually, I had two nuchals, because in my anxiety to get a look inside, I scheduled the first one just a little too early for comfort, and they couldn't get the right measurements. I was actually fine with that, because I was thinking of it as a viability scan anyway, and that it was! I didn't mind going back to check on a creature I knew was in there. Unfortunately, they couldn't get the right measurements the second time, either. No one came right out and said so but I suspected it was a fat thing (which my midwife confirmed). The doctor in charge of the testing assured me that everything looked fine, which I don't think he'd dare do if he didn't truly think so, so we have elected not to go ahead and get the quad screen. I haven't scheduled the Level II but it can be in two weeks, I think. OMG. (I'm a little worried about the fat thing and the Level II but the midwife said it shouldn't be as much of a problem because Bobbie will be bigger.)

*And on that note, everyone says Bobbie is a girl. "Everyone" being my sister and two of our friends. Before I conceived, I was convinced Jo would have a brother. Now I'm not so sure.

*Back to the fat thing: my midwife says I can gain 15 pounds from the weight I gave at my first appointment (um, I hate to tell her how much weight I can gain...). However, I am currently 8.5 pounds below that first-appointment-weight. My eating is still not back to normal (it's become pretty common for me to have mashed potatoes and salad for dinner). I am NOT complaining.

*Knock wood, spit spit, etc etc, we may have a bigger place to live! (And let me tell you, we need it.) We put an offer on a larger apartment last weekend and the lawyers are currently drawing up the contract. It's in the same neighborhood we live in now, a ten minute walk from our current place and still across the street from the park (and next door to the awesome ice cream place).

*In sad news, my mother's uncle died last week, and days later I got an email that my father's aunt has a pre-leukemic disorder. Uncle H. was 88 and Aunt A. is in her 90s. I grew up without grandparents so my great-aunts and uncles were the closest I had, and losing them is complicated.

*Jo continues to be the funniest, sweetest, smartest toddler in the world. He now takes gymnastics as well as his beloved music class, and he somersaults all over the place (he also does "seat drops" on our hardwood floors).

Here he is last weekend at his cousin Sam's birthday party:


And here he is at a Rosh Hashanah celebration in September:

Moving Along

Sorry for the time between posts. We are both still kind of stunned by this news. You hope it's going to work the first time, but it never seems like a real possibility.

It feels like limbo, too, because we don't have the reassurances we had last time: no betas, no early ultrasounds. I have a midwife appointment scheduled for about 9 weeks in. But at this point, I have no symptoms except possibly increased hunger. Who knows what is going on in there??

In other news, we're on our second of two weeks staying in a house in the "country" near my mom and sister. Jo is having a blast seeing his "Gabba" (grandmother), aunt, and almost-3-year-old cousin every day. Some visuals:

Cousins at the farm:

Cousins with bear statue (these bear statues are all over my sister's town this summer):


Playing basketball at Gabba's house:

Positive

So I didn't get my period, and I decided I would buy more tests if I didn't get it by Tuesday night.

Positive this morning.

I am floored. It's early, but oh my God, did I really do this???

BFN #2

Still negative. I am mostly okay with this. I had decided to be Zen about TTC the second time around. We are already moms to this fabulous boy, and our goal for age range is closer to three years. I am three years one month older than my sister, so I have until April until I surpass our age difference.

As many of you know, the actual process of TTC fucks with your head in a big way. It's hard to be okay with failure. But I think I am. I'll just keep trucking.

No more testing unless blood is late (I expect it tomorrow).

BFN #1

11 dpo is early to test. It could still be positive later. But I don't have a lot of hope.

Nothing To See Here....

No symptoms. No nothing. I will probably test Friday, because the midwife said it's the earliest I can and I won't be able to step away from the pee stick.

Co convinced me that it can be negative on Friday and I could still be pregnant, so that's comforting.

I really, really, really hate the TWW.

IUI #1: The Swan

The deed is done. Co, Jo, and I went to the midwife's office this morning. Having been through clinic IUIs with Co, I can't say enough good things about doing it with the midwife. She was gentle with the speculum (though I still have no love for that thing) and told me how great my cervix looked. Plus, it's nice to have someone you trust and like digging around down there with a headlamp and a catheter. As I've said before, we love this midwife; she was one of the first people to meet Jo (the other midwife delivered him, but she showed up at the hospital to take over within minutes of his birth), and she has a son just a few months younger than Jo.

It was nice that Co and Jo could be there, which would be impossible at the clinic, too. Jo actually stayed through the whole procedure. We'll do it again at 7:45 tonight.

Yesterday we took Jo to two attractions in the park -- the Audubon Center and the zoo. While we were at the Audubon Center and Jo was napping, Co took some amazing pictures of a swan and her two cygnets on the lake. She suggested that perhaps the swan -- with her two babies -- was a sign. Last night I was musing about what to name my tries (Co named hers after the tropical fish that swam to her fingers in the RE's fish tank; Jo was the result of Yellow Fish) and Co suggested birds, since our Jo is obsessed with "bobbies" (birdies). So, I bring you the Swan Try. Swans are, after all, a water bird.

To end, some pictures of the boy. Here's Jo hugging a giant "bobbie":

And here he is in a turtle shell at the zoo:

And Now, For The Other Eagle...

Positive OPK tonight. Midwife just called. IUI #1 at 8:30 tomorrow morning.

O.M.G.

The Eagle Has Landed

The title of this post was the title of the email my midwife sent when the sperm arrived at her office on Friday.

But the other eagle -- ovulation -- has not landed. It's cd14 and I will still test tonight, but I'm so nervous. Stupidly, I haven't successfully tracked my ovulation before so I have no real confidence that it happens.

Sigh.

Face.book Statuses that Didn't Make It, and An Update

Lo is itching to get started.
Lo is drinking her Fertili.tea. (I received the magic Internet Fertili.tea from the newly knocked-up Bree and I've been drinking my two daily cups diligently.)
Lo's cervix says LEAVE ME ALONE! (I had a Pap smear today, more documentation for the clinic.)
Lo does not like holding her pee for four hours. (I did my first OPK of the cycle tonight.)

I am going to start this cycle, but with our midwife. I met with her today and she is happy to do as many cycles as I want to with her. I called our fuzzy lesbian sperm bank and they are going to ship two vials to arrive on Friday. Wow.

I'm actually going to do at least two cycles with the midwife, because next cycle we'll be in town around ovulation time, but not for cd2 bloodwork. Whoops.

I'm actually very happy with this turn of events. I love our midwives -- I've never been so comfortable with any health professional -- and my associations with the office are all positive and happy. I initially thought it wouldn't make sense to inseminate with them, as much as I'd prefer it, because skipping interventions would be wasteful. But Dr. Paisan suggested natural cycles, without even a trigger shot, so in fact the protocol will be identical. Except: no monitoring, no cd2 bloodwork, and did I mention the office is around the corner??

So...here we go. Back on the roller coaster.

Cycle 1?

I had my HSG today. The tubes are all-clear. Hoo-boy, is that one unpleasant lesbian babymaking hoop to jump through.

The nurse made me pee in a cup for a pregnancy test before the test. Unfortunately, the Holy Spirit seems to be out of the babymaking business.

I can't do an IUI at the clinic this cycle, because the results of my genetic testing (those pesky inbreeding Ashkenazi Jews) isn't in. I suspect I will have the results by ovulation, but a cycle with the clinic starts with cd2 bloodwork and Dr. Paisan wanted "all our ducks in a row."

But while this may be my first time TTC, it is also not my first time, and I may have a way around those pesky clinic rules. I'll keep you posted.

**Note to IRL friends: We have not made our TTC news public, so please keep the information here under your collective hats until further notice.

CD1 Is Here

I can conclusively say I've never been excited about it before.

The Test Is In...

....and it's normal.

After 3 weeks of anxiety it's almost anti-climactic. But apparently ovarian reserve is not a concern.

I'm grateful.

Limbo

Yes, it has been over two weeks since my RE appointment. I called back the following Thursday, heart in my mouth. Because I'm a teacher it's not easy for me to make phone calls during work. I waited impatiently for recess and pulled out my cell phone. But there was no nurse available to speak to me; they would call back, I was told. The nurse who called me back said, "Oops, not yet. Wait another seven days to find out if you have any chance of fulfilling your lifelong dream of pregnancy!" Well. That's not exactly what she said. A paraphrase, if you will.

So I called back this past Thursday. I was considerably less excited and actually forgot to call until recess was almost over (it's scrambling-to-write-reports season). Once again: "Oh, those tests can take THREE weeks. Surely you don't mind pondering your fertility for another seven days?"

I don't think about it every minute. I can't, with a toddler in the house and those aforementioned report cards breathing down my neck. But somehow, the longer it takes to find out my results, the more I sink into assumed infertility.

*****************************

I've started several posts here about my results only to abandon them. My feelings about this blog are in limbo, too. When we started out, it was a way to participate in a community around (largely) lesbian baby-making. But that community has morphed; we're still in contact, but more often through FB and message boards these days. Honestly, I wish it weren't so. I can't write about my fertility on FB. Can you see the status updates? Ha. And I can't write blog-length personal posts on message boards. Well, I can, and I have; but I don't like to make it a common practice. This is my place to talk about me. But I wonder about the audience, not because I want to be a famous blogger, but because I used to imagine my circle of women reading. And now I don't know quite who I'm writing to anymore.

I want to clarify that the whine here is not about lost readership or popularity, it's about change. God, do I hate change.

The RE Report

Yesterday was supposed to be my whirlwind of three doctor's appointments; in the end all but one was cancelled. It was the big one that went through, though, with the clinic I suspected I would like.

The clinic is bigger than the one we used with Co -- they sent me a folder of paperwork to read in advance of the appointment, and sent me home with two more! -- but the up side of having been through all this before (by proxy) is that I didn't find it intimidating. There were a lot of straight couples there who seemed pretty intense and stressed out (some kind of educational seminar had just ended). I can imagine it must be much worse to end up in a clinic when you thought you'd be babydancing; Co and I always knew our baby's beginning would be in a lab.

Dr. Paisan (Sophia has already named him for us) was positively lovely. He was chatty and funny and sweet, a far cry from Dr. Quick, who got the job done but whose longest speech was "Sperm is going in" (to be fair, he became much more personable once Co was pregnant). He said that from his perspective, I was young and healthy with no known fertility problems and should absolutely be able to get pregnant. When I asked about weight -- I had to ask about it! -- he shrugged and said it shouldn't be a problem in an otherwise healthy woman.

I went in convinced I should start with IVF (I exaggerate, but only slightly) but he said natural cycles (as in, not even a trigger) should be just fine, again, since I am so healthy and young. It was really a twist of the kaleidoscope to hear his optimism and think of myself as someone with so much potential.

As luck would have it, yesterday was cd2, so I went right downstairs for my bloodwork. Dr. Paisan called today with the results -- he said that everything was fine with the exception of the estradiol, which was elevated. He likes to see less than 70 on cd2, and mine was (I believe) 124. He said that it probably means I have a leftover cyst from a previous cycle. In some rare cases it can mean that ovarian reserve is compromised, but he doesn't think that's likely. My MIS results will be in Thursday and that will tell us more.

I had cd3 bloods done once before and had a scare about infertility. Ultimately that doctor ended up saying everything was normal, but she too was concerned about a high estradiol level, and called me to say I had the ovaries of a menopausal woman. (Looking back at those posts, she said that estradiol had to be below 32, which seems very wrong, though she correctly called my FSH of 5.7 normal. I don't know what my FSH was this time around...didn't ask.)

So, I'm anxious. I'm trying not to be too anxious, but the kaleidoscope has turned again. I want to have a pregnancy. I've wanted it my whole remembered life and I've had intense pregnancy dreams since I was 13 years old. But I've come to be a good non-bio mom. I know how to do it. Maybe that's my lot in life. That wouldn't be the worst thing.

Yesterday I was wondering if I could get all my testing done in time to start next cycle. Now I'm thinking I'll never get to be a bio mom. But one thing's for sure: TTC with a toddler in the house is much, much less painful.

RE

I have been working up to this post, and here it is: I have an appointment to see an RE on May 20. We are thinking about #2, and it's my turn.

Actually, I have three appointments on May 20. The midwife (who serves as my gyn), and then two different REs, who have been recommended by Sophia, Oneofhismoms, and several folks off the computer. (We had no problem with Co's RE, but the monitoring hours at that office won't work with my teaching schedule, so off I go.) I'm meeting with two because I am terrified that my weight will be an issue, so I'm hoping at least one of these guys will agree to work with me.

I have always believed I would bear a child, but now that I am so close to exploring this goal, I no longer believe it can happen. So many people have tried for so long -- why would it work for me?

Right now, as you can see, I'm more scared than excited. I am frightened by how much I want this. We already have Jo, can I really ask for more?

Allies

This year Pesach/Passover, the holiday of liberation, comes on the heels of two amazing legislative victories: same-sex marriage is now legal in Iowa (with thanks to these ladies for their pride and bravery!) and Vermont (which means wedding bells for these ladies!).

On the two different days that Iowa's and Vermont's historic decisions were made, virtually all of my queer Face.book friends made reference to the victories in status updates. Then I noticed that a few of my straight friends also mentioned the news. And I found myself feeling a special pulse of warmth for those folks. It's another thought to add to my ever-expanding definition of "ally": to be able to participate and rejoice in a fight for justice that has no personal impact. Or perhaps the wisdom to understand that there is a personal impact: that none of us are free until all of us are.