Stuff that makes me feel better

I know I come across as a bit up an upbeat chica with a devil-may-care attitude, but I do feel things deeply. I’m a bit manic in my behaviour. One minute up. The next I am on the floor crying into my hand knotted, pailette covered rug lugged back all the way from Fes, Morrocco.

But I have a list of things that make me feel better. And please don’t judge. I’m not perfect and I’m sure many of you may have your little addictions. It could be a kilojoule and trans-fat laden treat from McDonalds, or a block of chocolate with cocoa farmed by poorly paid indigenous Brazilians or Venezuelans. Or it could be a shopping spree on clothing from indentured slaves masquerading as Vietnamese sewers. Or well paid artisans from ateliers on Rue St Honore. Whatever, I’m not going to judge.

My feel good things surprisingly don’t include vino. It makes me feel worse, but for some reason Champagne (and I’m talking Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée, none of this “sparkling wine bullshit) does the trick.

I like massages – cheap and Chinese or expensive and luxe – I don’t care just as long as they ease my tension.

Travel. Talking about it, planning it, thinking about it. I felt so shiteous this afternoon that I suggested a short jaunt to Vietnam in early January.  To my delight, my partner agreed, so if this cycle turns out to be a failure, and depending on price and availability of flights,  we will potentially have that to look forward to. If it doesn’t work out, at least it will have been fun doing the research.

Codeine. Probably the worst feel-good, and one I have struggled to stop for a few years, but its fuzzy numb goodness just makes me feel better. See, I knew you were going to judge.

Cooking. The most complex thing I can find. Tonight’s dinner consists of no less than 30 different ingredients, involved a mortar and pestle, wok, salted duck eggs and a new variety of fish sauce recommended by the guru of Thai cooking, David Thompson.

Drawing. I love to draw. sadly, I have such a short attention span I have failed to finish anything since my uni days.

Sewing. See above.

Reading. It’s about the only thing that stop my mind from going crazy in its constant “what if” circles.

That’s all for now. Sorry for the self indulgent, melancholy mood, dear readers. I don’t know if it’s hormones, but I just don’t feel my usual wonderful self.

Of course.

Just off the phone with the clinic and they have decided to cancel this FET cycle.

It’s CD32 and absolutley nothing is going on. My progesterone is 5.4, estradiol 136 and lining was 6.8mm.

I’m not surprised, and while my non-stimulated cycles this year have been long, this one would be a record. It’s not really unexpected, given the amount of manufactured hormones I have been subjecting my body to.

Dr’s orders were to book in for a diagnostic ultrasound (I may have an ovarian cyst which would be just lovely) then back to see him to discuss. The waiting list for the Women’s (public and free) hospital was over a month, so now I have to cough up $270 for a poke in the private system, but it means I can go on Wednesday.

The course going forward, I suspect, will be a medicated rather than natural FET. Which is kind of annoying. I know I ovulate on my own, it’s just this post stim cycle that is long and drawn out.

Anyway, whatever. I have decided to follow my partner to New Zealand on a business trip in a couple of weeks, so planning that will keep my mind off embryos and hormone levels at least.

Boring. I have never been a particularly patient person. This isn’t fun at all.

Shitbuggerfuck : An Update

Well today’s results (and they won’t mean anything to anyone other than Dr J and ACers) were

LH – 8.5 (down from 10.8 on Thursday??!!!)
P4 – 4.2 (4.3)
E2 – 313 (243)

So the consensus is that no one knows whatthefuck is going on, and I am to continue with LH urine testing until another BT on Friday. And the explanation for the discrepancy in my lining was blamed on the nurse. Human error.

So I’m off for dinner and a veeeeeeeno. There is a divine new Indian place just opened across the road and after spending all day transcribing interviews and chasing recalcitrant idiots who wouldn’t know a positive media opportunity if it came up and flashed it’s girly bits at them (as I have been known to do for a comment), I refuse to cook.

The madness continues

I forgot how to drive this morning!

I was stopped in horrendous traffic on the way into work, on a hill, and because my car rolls back a lot, the handbrake was on.

So traffic starts moving, ever so slowly, and I sat there, pushing the accelerator, waiting for something to happen.

Nevermind pushing down on the clutch, putting the car into gear, before slowly easing off the clutch and down on the accelerator as I take off the handbrake. You know, like I have been doing for the past 10 years.

A complete blank. There was nothing there. Cars behind started beeping, my partner looked at me like I was an idiot.

Complete brain fart.

Servicing the mare.

Can I just start out by saying how shiteous I feel.

This morning I felt like I had a couple of kiwifruit swinging around in my abdomen. Now it feels like a couple of grapefruit. I can’t do up my jeans, going from sitting to standing is not nice, and I don’t walk, I waddle. I look 16 weeks pregnant, and I’m acting like it too.

These drugs are doing some serious stuff to my mind. I completely forgot where I parked my car this morning. When I did locate it, I drove around the block for no reason at all.

Then I buggered up a fact on a news story, and didn’t realise until a smug little prick that I used to work with called up to set the facts straight (nevermind that two other colleagues, with a lot more knowledge of the subject, proofed the article before it went live and failed to pick it up), followed by a nonsensical conversation with my partner during which I couldn’t actually form a coherent sentence.

So I’m sitting here, trying to get comfortable, while my abdomen continues to distend. If this is 100iu of FSH, I can’t imagine how painful stimming for IVF must be (and lets hope I don’t have to find out).

So the insemination went well, I guess. Once they had separated the good from the bad, and washed the sperm, we had 3.5million to use. It sounds like a lot, but it’s not. The minimum for IUI is about 2 million, so hopefully the “high fertility potential” sperm that we know are in there, will do their job.

It wasn’t a particularly nice procedure and I didn’t expect it to hurt as much as it did. It was by no means near the pain of a HSG, but it was pretty uncomfortable. I think I must be a wuss. Oh, and I have a long vagina! The first speculum was too short, so my midwife had to pull out the big equipment (she said it was because I was tall).

It went a little something like this.

I lay down on the bed, which was elevated so that my pelvis was tilted about 35 degrees toward the ceiling. She put the speculum in, and then a long, fine catheter with a diametre of about 2mm. Then she fiddled around trying to get it as close to the entrance to the fallopian tube as possible (this was the part that hurt the most) before squirting the good stuff up.

Then I had to stay with my arse in the air for half an hour reading outdated trash-mags (Ricki-Lee “I have found love at last” from 2007) while waiting for sperm to hopefully meet egg.

Went straight to work after. Felt like I was going to chuck a couple of times, and did some low stress editing for the rest of the day.

R. my favourite midwife (there are four at the clinic at the hospital) said that I had responded really well to the drugs and that it looked good. My Oestrogen level was good, follices almost too good, great lining blah blah. But I’m more concerned about the sperm. Of the 3.5mil, there has to be a winner.

I really want to be one of those bitches that is lucky first go on IUI.

Oh and please accept my apologies for the quality of this post. It’s not me, it’s the drugs.