Surgeon on call

I had my first call night on surgery last night and I must say that I'm exhausted. I mean, all the sitting around in bed studying, followed by sleeping soundly all night was really more than I could bear. Lol. Actually, we never got any calls, so I had a pretty normal night. I didn't even have to go to procedures today, I just get to stay in my room because I'm "post call" and the rule is I can't stay past noon on a post-call day. So I went to the clinic this morning and saw patients there, had some yummy Olive Garden lunch for free, and then came home and have been dinking about on the computer since then. I think I'll have to study soon, lest I get too horribly lazy.

My fainting issues appear to be a thing of the past, thank goodness! I'm so glad that it was only the one day I was having so much trouble. AF has calmed down as well.

Nothing to report in terms of TTC other than I haven't been this obsessive about this in MONTHS. It's weird. Megan needs to smack some sense back into me.

Naptime for me now :D

Nothing to say

You know, TTC blogs are totally not interesting when you're not obsessing. I've got nothing to report, other than 8 days until we know...eh, it will pass. I'm DREADING my SHELF exam, which will be the same day, so I think the HPT and SHELF are balancing each other out ;)

More some other time...

1 dpi! Yikes!

So, we decided to go private because my father's ex GF's daughter had access to the blog, and we're not telling family until we're PG this time. Soo, thanks to all of you who e-mailed! I really thought Stacey was the only one who read, but turns out there's more of you! So cool!

Anyway, yesterday was our +OPK and we feel that Megan O's really soon after a positive test, like the same day, so we think our timing was good, so now all there is to do is wait. Which is totally fine :D NO bloodwork, NO needles, NO clo-madness. Nothing. It's great :) The insem went off without a hitch last night and we're really pleased so far, so yeah. Probably not to many symptom updates this time around, as we're trying to be laid back ;) Yeah, trying to be laid back. I said it.

Megan's gone at work late tonight...so here I am bored and missing her like crazy. We're so lucky that we met in college and we spent so so much time together, and even in med school with her working from home for a long time, we saw so much of each other. Totally spoiled. But I'm glad that even after nearly 6 years, we still love spending time together so much and miss each other when we're not together :) I love her so much. I know she rarely reads this, but I love you Megan!!

School update for the day...we have a really low census at the moment, only like 6 paitents on the whole service, which is nice. Two of them are mine, which is great, because I carry up to 4 at a time and two is like a cakewalk compared to 4. Anyway, they're both really complicated. One of them has end-stage liver disease, uses cocaine and heroin, is a victim of severe domestic abuse (she's had her face reconstructed twice), and has schizophrenia and depression...she has ascites, and her legs are very swollen from the water retention and high blood pressure building up behind her cirrhotic liver. And she has recurrent pneumonia. The other patient has fevers and mental status changes but we can't find a source of the infection...we think it might be this weird disease called babesiosis. Anyway, I was on the way up the stairs with my intern and I was asking her for feedback since we're 1/2 way through the month, and she said that she couldn't think of a single thing to tell me to improve, that I was at 4th year level or higher, and that I made her life as an intern much easier and she really appreciated my help. Gaaaa!!! You know, I never got honors in my preclinical classes, just passes, so I always hoped I'd do better in the clinical years. And it looks like it might be true. I'm just SO excited that I'm doing well...it's really hard, because nobody really tells you what to do and it feels so great to be making a difference with the patients. Like my cocaine addict lady, she doesn't trust people and is really cranky at most people, but she hasn't snapped at me in a week and she calls me "honey" now (which would normally bug me, but from her, I take it as a compliment)...I'm so happy that she asks me questions and talks to me so we know what she needs! Helping people makes me so happy and I'm glad someone thinks I'm doing a good job :D I'm totally on cloud nine.

So, that's really it for now, I have a shelf exam in 2 weeks that's going to whoop my ass if I don't start studying like a crazy woman. Nighty night.

Golden Weekend

Ahhhhhh. Golden weekend. Two whole days in a row of NO work, NO studying, NO nothing. This is the best thing ever. I came into this weekend so exhausted that I could barely stand up, and I'm proud to say after two good nights of sleep I'm starting to feel like a human being again. This is so the best thing ever :)

Yesterday was a really fun day...we got up and did some window shopping, had lunch together, came home, bathed the dogs outside in the backyard (they were less than amused, but it was great to not have all that mess in the house), and then worked on the house for pretty much the remainder of the day. Not that the place is filthy, just with how busy we've been there are things strewn all over where they don't belong, dishes that needed to be put away, laundry and the like. And, as anyone with dogs knows, the vacuuming REALLY needed to be done. We finished most of it yesterday and were able to get to bed at a pretty decent time. Oh yes, totally boring, but I loved every minute of it!

Today we elected to skip church to finish the house cleaning and spend some time with the dogs. They've been a little neglected lately, so we've been playing with them and working on their grooming. I'll post photos when I get a chance, but they all look HORRIBLE! if any of their breeders could see them they'd be horrified! The dog dryer and show groom supplies are still in boxes, so they just got bathed and towel-dried, so Bella is all ringlets, Zoe looks like she has tailfeathers, and Fudge looks like he's been electrocuted :P Ah well, at least they're happy and smell good :)

So today the plan is to do some window shopping, run a few errands, then have early dinner with my dad down in Glen Mills, which will be really fun. We don't see him as much as we'd like to, so these dinners are just that much more enjoyable. Plus, it helps me not think about going back to work tomorrow :( That's the one bad thing about Golden Weekends...they end.

On the docket for next weeek: finishing the dog grooming, painting the kitchen (well, finishing that), and STUDYING for my shelf exam, which is coming up way faster than I want to think about it. I suppose I should also be thinking about packing for York...like what I'm going to need to have to stay, clothes, if I need casual clothes...that kind of thing. I'm really not looking forward to leaving for that long, but what can ya do, you know?

Finally, in terms of TTC, we've been talking a lot about that and adoption lately and I think we're pretty close to reaching some decisions about when and how we're going to proceed. Megan wants us to keep those thoughts private for now, but as soon as she's comforatble with me sharing, I will :)

Ok, enough of a novel. Time to go eat :D

Would have been a great story

You know, trying for a year, and on the last try when we'd totally lost hope Megan FINALLY fell pregnant? Well, that's not a story we get to tell. Test is negative on 14 DPO, and we're done.

It's really bittersweet. I mean, we never thought this would happen. With age on our side, and her getting pregnant before, we thought that this would be easy street. I mean, how many 24-year olds REALLY have trouble getting pregnant? Most 24 year olds are trying NOT to get pregnant becuse they're so damn fertile. Not us, not us.

So here's what's next:

1. Megan starts a new job, making TWICE her current salary, on June 18! This includes benefits, and we couldn't be more trilled. She'll be working at Millionaire Estates (not really, but I stole that pseudonym from the game LIFE), writing their press releases, starring in their commercials on their private TV station, and playing games with the old rich people who live there. Yay! No more nannying!

2. We're getting a puppy! Perhaps sooner than we thought. Today we have to decide if we want a pup from the litter due to go home on June 9 or July 7. Or maybe we'll get one from the June litter and not have it come out until July so we'll be back from vacation. Either way, Hope is on her way!

3. Studying for the boards is going pretty well, but I have the weekend off :D I like weekends off.

That's it for now, time to go spend time with my girl.

Update!

I'm taking an actual break :) Yay! I ended up getting 20 pages behind yesterday, which had me COMPLETELY freaked out, but luckily I caught up today with time to spare! Yeah!!! I'm so excited that I don't have to miss my break to catch up!

So what's been going on? Megan had a really bad day at work yesterday. Basically, the family had her come in early because she had a pediatcician appointment. Then the doctor called, and told the family that they wouldn't do the Varicella vaccine just yet since she's not yet a year old. So they decided to cancel the appointment, and TELL (not ask) Megan to stay an extra 2 hours. They didn't ask if she had plans (she did), they just told her to stay. Besides, she hadn't brought lunch with her and they won't let her eat any of the food in the house, so she was STARVING. Those of you out there who have nannies, it's not okay to treat them this way. Don't just assume that their only purpose and activity in life is to serve your family. They are an employee, not a servant or slave, and common courtesy applies. Needless to say, Megan was really upset. This after they got pissed at her for not coming to babysit all day on Mother's Day Sunday on 12 hours notice.

The good news? She has an interview tomorrow for a better job tomorrow morning! Please hope, pray, chant, do whatever you do....she really needs out of this family. Come to find out the previous nanny only stayed there for 4 months...had Megan known that to begin with, she might not have taken the job.

We're 8 DPI today and still aren't hopeful. We did a test yesterday to see if the trigger shot was out of her system, and it wasn't (obviously 7dpo is way too early for a BFP anyway, so it was the shot), so I think we'll test on Sunday or something like that. Just to know that it's negative, so she can stop the crinone and we can move on with our collective lives.

Time to go clean! I'm studying at home tomorrow so my office needs to get cleaned out :) Now that the vacuum is no longer broken, I can vacuum! Yeah!!!!!!

I'm in a good mood.....

The upcoming weeks

This is going to be a loooooong blog post. I have a whole lot to say and I have to say it all today, otherwise I'll have no time to blog and I'll never get to see it! I'll arrange it by topic :D To be helpful, really:

School - I made it through my second year!!!!! I passed my OSCE practical (really well, actually, the graders are on crack) and I'm sure I passed my last exam. Hell, half of it was OB/GYN and I know WAY too much about that anyway. Now on to studying for USMLE Step 1. I have until June 18 to study for the exam and I'm going to be giving 1000% until then. Tomorrow I'm making up a scheudle, then Monday I begin! I can hardly believe that this time has arrived already. I mean, how did I get here? This year flew by so fast (granted, I was preoccupied with TTC most of the time). I can hardly imagine how fast future years will go by. Anyway, I will post some updates on school, but not too many.

Apartments - I don't know if I've posted too much information about this, but we have apartment issues. Our roof has leaked since we moved in and they keep saying they've fixed it, but leak it does. So we told the landlord we were sick of it and wanted out of the lease early. Boy, they sure changed their tune. Apparently they don't want to lose us as tenants, so they want to deal. They've been showing us new apartments right and left, and we think we may have found a new place to live. It's in the best part of our nieghborhood, where there is a Starbucks, our favorite pizza place, our favorite bookstore, our church, the grocery store, our bank, a bakery, and a freaking cheese shop are all within two blocks! I LOVE living in the city sometimes :) Anyway, it has a HUGE yard (not really even by city standards, it's probably 20 feet wide and half a block deep, and fenced...all grassy. The dogs would be in HEAVEN! We haven't toured the inside yet (we will Monday), but we peeked in the windows and could see the kitchen, which is really nice, and the hallway, which is, well, adequate :P Anyway, we're very excited about it and barring catastrophe, we will be moving there before too long!! Which is great, because most of the other apartments we've seen that are less expensive are unworkable for so many reasons :(

TTC - Megan is surging today! However, since it's the weekend and our clinic is the Baby Factory of Great Confusion, we'll be going in for HCG shot on Monday and insemming that same day. It sounds totally cracked to me. Anyway, this cycle is more a formality than anything else, so I'm not overwhelmingly concerned. Meh. What can you do. Anyway, We'll enter the TWW on Monday and know if we're prego two weeks from then, safely separated from my boards testing date.

Adoption - We're trying to decide on public vs. private adoption. We really see plusses and minuses to both options, but we're just not certain yet. We really would like to start with a young child, newborn to 2 years old. We would love to adopt an older child, but since we're young now and have not experienced parenthood yet, we would rather start with an infant or toddler. If anyone out there in cyberspace has a story to share, you're welcome to share it :)

Church - We've had two meetings with Pastor Nice in the last couple of weeks and feel really good about joining. We'll officially join at the Pentecost. I'm really excited to be welcomed into a community that is so attuned to social issues and is 100% accepting of our family! And Megan is really thrilled to get back in touch with her faith, so much that she went to bible study this week and is going to join the choir (once her cold is gone). I think she really needs the human interaction beyond the girl she nannies for. SO happy this is moving forward.

Work - Megan has three interviews! One for a job that could double her income, easily, and give her a very marketable skill. PLEASE let's hope she gets it!!! Pray, hope, whatever you do, pleasepleaseplease! One other is a temporary part time thing for extra income. The other other one is a job that pays better than the nanny thing and has benefits, but isn't as great as the first one. Regardless, we have options, and we're really happy about it :)

Random life - Stupid crap keeps happening. Our vacuum is broken, our showerhead snapped off, our landlord is randomly charging us $40 for an unlock service, damn dog peed on the floor (that NEVER happens...)...blah blah blah. Really, sometimes I wonder if there's someone up there going "HA ha," you know, like Nelson on the Simpsons.

Time for me to go participate in real life now ;)

Cycle and Adoption

I really don't have time to blog, as I really need to pass my test this week so I can study for the boards, but life is really busy. And I need to talk. We're moving ahead with this cycle, even though our HSG was cancelled...so there could still be a tubal problem of some kind. We will not be TTC anymore after this cycle until I am making an income large enough to finance injectables. So we'll consider that chapter of our lives closed. Neither of us thinks that this cycle will work, so there is surprisingly little stress involved. I mean, it can't work, so why worry about it? If it does, hell, we'll be shocked.

So now we're trying to get out of our lease. We want a less expensive place, and we want away from our landlord because they will never fix the leaky roof. We've had enough! And we want to move on with life, gosh darn it! So we've seen a few places and there are some great prospects out there! Very exciting!!!

We're also doing some preliminary research on adoption agencies. Well, Megan is anyway. Trying to find a really gay-friendly one or two.

Megan is ALSO looking for a more corporate job that has good benefits and good pay. Her nanny job is fine, but the family is SuperRomanCatholic and the gay thing isn't going to go over well. So time to find something new. I'm hoping something crops up soon.

Finally, I'm getting geared up to study for boards. Wow, lots on the plate for me. Not like it isn't taking its toll. My stress level is higher than it's been since I was a kid and I cry more often than I have in a very, very long time. I hope we catch a break soon. We really need one.

Protocol

Clomid: CD4-10
HSG: This Friday 2:30 p.m.
Monitoring: At home until the day of the surge, then 1 bloodwork and ultrasound to confirm
HCG: Trigger shot with the natural LH surge
Crinone: Whole LP after ovulation

The RE actually came up with this on her own, so we decided to do it. And we really want to know if her tubes/uterus are clear and decided to go full out (well, in terms of our budget this is full-out) for our last try with our last vial of swimmers.

Am I such a dork that I can't wait for Megan to do a HPT after the trigger???

Lol. yeah, I am a dork.

Oh, did I say I PASSED my Physical Dx test? I'm SO relieved. And I almost passed my practice USMLE with NO studying leading up to it, so that made me feel REALLY good. REALLY REALLY.

One more thing, we had our first personal meeting with the pastor of our new church today and it went really well. We found out our church voted unanimously to be Reconciled, which means accepting of gay families. That was just fantastic. And the congregation has a really stron social justice bend, which is appealing to us. Anyway, we meet with him again next week!

Okay, I need to study for my practice Physical Dx test which might be tomorrow. I needed to get a friend to switch times with me (Thank YOU Sarah I LOVE you!!!!) so I could go to the HSG with Megan. I hope it all works out.

The winds are changing...

It was negative, but we were expecting that. Welcome to the eleventh hour, the eleventh month of our trying to have a baby, and a new plan.

We talked a long time about options, and here's what it looks like. We have one vial left, and we plan to use it. We wrote a long e-mail to the RE asking questions...questions about Megan's fertility, questions about drugs, questions about options. Either we'll do a low- to no-intervention cycle with no monitoring this month or take a little while off. Natural cycle sounds like a good idea to us at this point.

If this doesn't work, which we're pretty certain it won't, then we plan to look into adoption, or maybe a known donor situation. We're not going to go there with injectables and IVF right now, especially with no "guarantee" of a baby. We thought about adoption in the beginning anyway, so it's just a little rearrangement :) When I'm working full time, this will be something we can afford, but not now.

So we'll see what happens. Life goes on.

12 dpo - Deflated, of course

Megan peed on two unauthorized sticks today and both were BFN. Of course, one had a fantastic evap line, but that's all it is, an evap. Me no likey evaps.

Now we're talking about options. Break? Stop? Try with me? IVF? Injectables? Adoption? Throw selves off bridge?

More to come.

Eleven. Days. Post. Ovulation.

I had another exam this morning, which I don't think went so well, but I'm reasonably sure I pulled off a Pass. Ah well. On to more obsessive things.

Today Megan is 11 dpo and we're waiting to test until at least tomorrow. I know I haven't posted much about how she's feeling, but here goes a summary:

-Dull pokey feelings in the lower pelvis, worst on CD5 and stopping on CD9.
-Bubbly or fluttery feelings in the lower pelvis, off and on all day, starting around CD6 and still going strong.
-Slightly sore bbs since ovulation, which turned to excrutiating after starting Crinone 7 dpo.
-10 minute dizzy spell 9 dpo after going to the bathroom (she had to pee reallllllly bad on a car trip), another very short one 10 dpo after standing up quickly.

Yeah, so there you have it. If it wasn't for the Crinone, we'd be sure she was pregnant with triplets or something! But no, we need to wait it out. Wait wait wait and wait some more. At least we've made it to 11 dpo without testing! We had a weak moment yesterday, but were way too lazy to go out and buy HPTs.

Oh, right, and Megan's interview! It went really well yesterday and they should let her know today if they're going to hire her! Yeah! Everyone wants my girl :) Helps that she's the BabyWhisperer, she can calm and quiet any baby.

Now it's time to go get my brownies out of the oven (YUM! Thanks Waly for the cool brownie mix!) and study, or something. Three more tests to go and then it's Boards time.

Not much to say

Not much to report here at 10 dpo, other than we made it to 10 dpo! Megan's started progesterone now so her boobs are KILLING her and she's feeling really run down. Sadly, we can't claim those as pregnancy symptoms :( So sad.

So now I spend the day studying and taking care of the dog. She must have gotten sick from the raw chicken wings we gave her the other night (normal fare for a raw-fed dog, don't worry people!!). It had been a while and we think maybe the fat was too much for her. Anyway, she has explosive, bloody diarrhea and needs to be taken out every couple hours lest she make a huge mess. And she's in season too :( Sucks to be her, poor baby.

We have 3rd season LWord on all day today to keep us distracted, and Megan has an interview coming up! Wish her luck people :)

7 DPO Progesterone

Is it sad that I'm already totally deflated? Progesterone today was 7.4, which is better than the first month but not as good as last month, even though the follicles looked better. ::sigh:: So I'm feeling pretty pessimistic right now. I hope it's enough!

We made it 6 days! And good news...

I'm so glad that tomorrow is the 7th day! We're almost a week down now, so there's not much longer to go. A week from tomorrow, we'll know if we're pregnant. Won't it be neat to in just a short while to be able to say "A week from tomorrow, our baby is due?" I know pregnancy can be hard, but being able to finally know that we're going to have a baby will be MAGIC. Oh, and I borrowed this graphic from uterus x2 :) Too cute...

On a sidenote, the apartment yesterday was just too small for our needs, which was frustrating. It's on one of the BEST properties in Chestnut Hill, but it's just too too too small. Megan's interview went well too :) So yesterday was pretty good...

In other news, I passed my test!!!!!!! I was SO worried and I'm totally relieved that I passed! My friend Kiki gets e-mail on her cell phone, so we knew practically the minute they came up, and I texted Megan so she could check for me. Anyway, it was an 81, so not even a just-squeaking-by kind of grade! Celebraaaaaaaaaation!!!!!!!

So happy, really. Thank you Lord.

It's official

I'm obsessing. I just spent the last hour looking up IUI-related papers on Ovid. Time for me to put the computer away....

3/4DPO and USMLE practice. Oh, and snow.

I just finished my first-ever Board exam related test! Yahoo! It really wasn't that bad. I mean, the breadth of the material was immense, but the complexity wasn't too bad. I'm sure I failed it, but at leat I'll have a starting point.

It was SNOWING this morning. A lot. Like 2-3 inches of mushy, slushy, torrential, sideways white gunk. It's April for goodness sake!! What happened to spring??

Megan has an interview for a nanny job at 2 p.m. today, so think of her then!! I hope it goes well, these people are practically our neighbors.

Let's see...what else is going on... Does anyone out there know how to get cats to stop pissing all over creation? The damn cat peed on my pillow a few days ago, and now Megan says she smells something in the living room. I want to KILL THEM!! KILL THEM!!!!! If Megan didn't love them so much, I would be trying to find them new homes. Really really, because they're making me crazy.

Not a lot of TTC news at the moment. Implantation could be happening in the next few days, so we'll need all the positive vibes and prayers we can get! I've been reading that a 22mm follicle is perfect on Clomid, so we'll cling to that thought, and the idea that there are TWO little zygotes floating around in there due to the second ovulation. Cool beans. Literally. Ha ha...I'm SUCH a dork. You all are pretty lucky you don't know me in real life...

Anyway, time to head homeward and make my house not smell like cat piss. DAMN the stupid cats.

Toodles :D

Another day down!

Today we're 2/3DPO and still doing okay. We went to church this morning (3 weeks in a row, yeah!!) and the sermon was about doubt. Anyway, to make a relatively long story short, the reading was from John and talked about Thomas doubting the resurrection, then Jesus coming back and proving to Thomas that he had risen. Anyway, the take-home message the sermon was that there is a little Thomas in all of us, and that to have faith can be HARD sometimes. Perhaps, like when you're dealing with infertilty. Medicine knows so little about fertility, really, and can't control it much, so really, all you can do at this point we're at is leave it up to a higher power and let go. And believe that higher power is out there and that things are going to happen the way they're going to happen. And things don't always go right, but to believe you shouldn't have to see. Sure, we've been praying for months for our family to grow, but that doesn't mean nobody is listening, even though it seems like it.

Okay, on a lighter note, we had a nice day together today despite the RAIN. It's raining and flooding like mad, but we went out for breakfast/lunch at IHOP (mmm waffles...) and did some much-needed grocery shopping. Since then, we've been home and lazy all day :P Chores will need to wait for later in the week, because I guess we needed the rest today. I had a nice chat with my dad too.

Anyway, I'm off to get my junk together for tomorrow. We have a practice Board exam tomorrow. Yikies!!! I can't BELIEVE this is happening already. And I might get the results of my Friday exam, which I'm *really* worried about. Really really. We'll see what happens...

Exam day, 1 DPO, and 0 DPO?

The exam wasn't that great. I need all the prayers and good thoughts I can get, because unless I got some of those guesses right, I didn't pass. Yikes. I know I should have studied more, and I'm just hoping so hard that I squeaked by.

Megan was pretty sure that she ovulated yesterday, but today is getting more O pains, so is she perhaps ovulating again 24 hours later? Is that possible? I know she had one follicle at 22 mm and one a little smaller, so is it possible that it matured and ovulated today? Let me know if you have any input...

So this weekend will be a time for REST and RELAXATION. And probably lots of foot massages for Megan.

0 DPIUI :) Finally!

Bloods this morning showed E2 in the 130's and LH over 30! Follicle was 22 mm! And we had the IUI with no pain whatsoever. Megan is now feeling what may be ovulatory pains :)

On a darker note, Megan just got laid off from her job. The boss said she was "rearranging positions" but we're sure it's because she witnessed the boss hiding a room that wasn't up to regulations from the daycare inspectors. Anyway, she's already hot on the tails of a few other options. People suck, but we'll be ok.