It Hurt

In case you wondered, it hurt.  Like a lot.  Just ask Ian how his hand felt from my squeezing it.  It hurt more than I think anything else I've had to do so far.  Suctioning out bits of my uterine lining, it turns out, is not pleasant.  #shocking

On the plus side, I was surprised when Dr. Pittenger, my amazing doctor from my IUIs through the study, ended up popping in to do the biopsy.  I love her a lot, and it was really good to see her. Also, I was feeling sorry for myself that I was getting some random doctor I'd never even met before to do something scary to me when she walked in the door and crossed his name off and wrote hers in.  YAY!  She does not lie to me.  She told me to sing happy birthday to myself and it would be over in that time.  It was.  She told me it would hurt.  It did.

Results in a week or two.

(PS I did a Google Image search of "endometrial biopsy" so I could add a picture to this post, but looking at those drawings sort of made me want to cry.  It's like just seeing it made it hurt again.  Ick.)

OPK OK

I finally, the other day, saw what a positive test stick looks like, although it was an ovulation stick, not a pregnancy one.  I haven't used OPKs (Ovulation Predictor Kit) before, beyond my fancy monitor, so the whole two lines, one showing up darker thing was new to me.  Anyhow, I was expecting to see a positive on Monday, but it didn't come until Friday, so this has pushed some things out a bit more than predicted, but since I never shared what was happening on the blog, I guess it doesn't matter so much to you.  It's just my body causing me additional stress by fucking up my schedule!  Anyhow...  I'll share now.

I go tomorrow for an endometrial biopsy.  This is the final test we are doing before moving forward with our cycle.  I was supposed to take progesterone starting 3 days after ovulation until the day of the biopsy, but that didn't happen, since I ovulated later.  Apparently it doesn't matter, since they do the biopsy anyhow.

Not entirely sure what this biopsy will do, but if I recall correctly it is to just test that my lining is on the day that it should be....they want to make sure that when they are transferring 3-day embryos, they are transferring them into a 3-day lining.  If I find out anything else about it, I'll let you know.  Supposedly it won't hurt, but I'm not holding my breath for that.

We got the results back from our karyotyping and all is normal with us both chromosomally.

So, biopsy Monday, and I start lupron on Friday (everything is 5 days later than the original plan because of my stupid late ovulation).  I should start all the stims about a week and a half later.  I am adding some growth hormone this time, in hopes that it will improve egg quality.  (Not, as Ian guessed, so that I would finally be taller.)

We've spent a lot of time these last weeks talking about and figuring out our finances, since insurance isn't covering anything anymore.   We've also welcomed an adorable new niece into the family and have talked a lot about our low hopes for this to work.  Go us?

Anyhow, nothing too exciting to report, but just wanted to share the sort of where we are stuff.  Sorry this isn't even a tiny bit funny, or a little bit touching.  I just have a lot of stuff to get written today and wanted to at least get this out here.  I'll try to make you laugh and/or cry next time.  Apparently these days I can do both with one sentence, right Nick (not that Nick reads this)?

Here's my calendar (click on it to open it bigger and thus readable):

The Latest Humiliation

This week and next week I have to pee on a very fancy and specific brand of very cumbersome and large ovulation test stick each day between 10am and 2pm.  Guess where I am most days between 10am and 2pm...  If you guessed WORK then you win the grand prize!  (The grand prize = you are not an idiot.  YAY!)

Nothing like finding my way to the bathroom carrying this thing, peeing on it, and carrying the peed on version back down the hall to my office (through the library's public hallway) and into my cubicle while I wait for lines to appear 5 minutes later.  Then I get to pull out my peed upon stick right here at my desk and compare the lines to each other and to the picture in the instructions, all while people walk around behind me wondering what the hell smelly peed on thing I'm crouched over at my desk and why.  Then I get to either throw it away in my tiny visible trashcan where it can sit there looking very much like a pregnancy test, or I can carry it into the kitchenette in my office where it can be thrown into a larger trash can with a lid where I will hope no one notices that I put pee in the kitchen trash can.

Today I brought a notebook (inconspicuous right?) into the bathroom with me and placed the un-peed-on as well as the peed-on stick in between sheets of the notebook paper so it wasn't visible while I walked around.    Now I just hope no one needs to get in my desk drawer when I'm not around.