Curse of threes, and "LFP"

Bad things come in threes, right? I don't think I could take more than three.

#1: Megan's sister, the one she's closest too who is a mother of two lovely teenage children, was diagnosed with rapidly-progressive MS. She already is in a wheelchair and has periods in which she can't speak.

#2: One of the children Megan and I mentored in the 4-H program was just diagnosed with ovarian cancer, stage three, at the age of 16. She's already had surgery and several complications, and she starts chemo soon. It was just this past winter that her mother sent me photos of her first formal dance, and I was so amazed that she was growing up so fast! And now she has metastatic cancer and might die. WTF?????????

#3: Megan has been working very hard at her job, and striving to please a passive-aggressive boss who could do nothing but find fault (despite everyone else LOVING her). She came home early today. She was fired. They didn't need a reason, PA is an at-will employment state.

So, let's add to this that there was a (very) faint positive on the HPT this week...what we like to call a LFP instead of BFP. We're not testing again until she misses AF (damn chemicals have scarred us, and we don't want to watch the line disappear...) So NOW she might be pregnant, and has no job, and can't take advantage of FMLA..... WTF again?????????????????? WHY on EARTH is this happening to us?

This is the worst day I've had in a long time.

Not much to say

We're 9 DPO today (or 10? not sure...) and have not tested. We don't plan to until Thursday at the earliest, and even then we might not. It's Megan's 25th birthday and we want to enjoy it, and what would make it better than a BFP? Sadly, a BFN would definitely make it worse, so what can you do? Anyway, she's not saying much about how she's feeling and isn't really obsessing, which is healthy, so we'll just have to see what happens.

As for me, I'm post-call after my first Trauma call and I must say it was just as exciting as my LAST call. Yep, no calls. We had one trauma during regular hours (elderly woman fell), but that was it, so really, I just got a good night's sleep (well, until 4:30 am when I had to get up anyway). So yeah, nothing too cool to talk about. Having call on Monday sure does make the week fly by though! One week from tomorrow, I move back home NEVER to come to York again! I'm going to push to switch my family medicine to someplace more local if at all possible b/c I can't exactly take the care with me here...Megan needs it for work!

So I'm off to throw down some lunch, then practice sewing together dead stuff so I can get better at suturing lacerations. Woot!

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

I suuuuck

It's the first day of my period today, I'm practically hemorrhaging, and I can't stay scrubbed into a surgery. I nearly passed out in both procedures and had to scrub out and sit down. So yeah, I totally, completely suck.

And I'm on call tomorrow...which means I get no sleep (overnight call on surgery). Fantastic.

And it's only 2 dpo, so I can't bug Megan about symptoms...

Okay, really this time

We actually got a positive OPK!!! We're insemming!!! Yay!

I feel really good about this try. Will report back when appropriate....here's to a +HPT on Megan's birthday!!

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.

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.....

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.

Another day down, and slightly less complaining

One more day down, yeah! Megan had an interview today that went well, so we'll see what comes of that. She has another one tonight at 7, and I'll be going to look at an apartment around that time too. It's a top-of-the-hill Chestnut Hill location and it's only a one bedroom, but the price is REALLY reasonable and I think we could really enjoy living there. We'll see. Anyway, it's available right in the correct window for us to move, so I'm really excited about it.

My gripe of the day, I still don't have my grades yet. The stupid class office decided to change how they hand out the course evaluation sheets, 80% of which have to be handed in before they will release the grades. So the people who were supposed to get the evals didn't get them, and now they won't let us have the grades because of THEIR mistake!!! It's an OUTRAGE!! Anyway, I'm very very irritated about this, after a long day of 8 ours in a tablet desk, all I wanted was some reliable information for goodness sake! Grrrrr....

That's all for now. I might post about the apartment and the job interview later if there's important news, if not, until tomorrow!

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.

BFN, again.

So it's negative, and the nurse didn't even call us, she just left a message on LabCalls. Ick. We're of course pretty upset, so next month it is. I guess that lucky number 7 and the Luck of the Irish together aren't even enough. ::sigh::