cd 2

So AF arrived late yesterday afternoon.  I called the nurse at 2:30 to say it was here, even though it wasn't, but I knew it was going to come since by that time it had turned to red spotting.  I didn't want to wait another day and be forced to drive to Lexington.  Surprisely though I didn't have to go for cd 3 testing, only do a beta so I went in this morning.  AF did real her ugly face about an hour after I talked to the nurse so in reality it did turn out to be day 1 yesterday.

So this morning I had to make the trek in to have my blood drawn for a pregnancy test because they won't let me start the pill otherwise.  I find this really stupid since 99% of the women who take the pill don't need to do a beta before starting it.  For 99% of the pop'n a period means not pregnant.  Yet since we are IF we have to deal with this crap of not having people believe that you got AF and are not pregnant so instead we have to be poked some more to have a stupid test done to say yep there is 0 pregnancy hormone here.  You know because it is just so likely that IF women are pregnant from a natural cycle and that heavy bleeding and cramping is just so common in pregnancy!!

Anyways low and behold the nurse calls me a few hours later and everything is good to go tomorrow to start the pills so guess we can conclude this is a real AF.  Not like I would question it with the amount of pain I am in.  I mean really if I did conceive it would be long gone by now from the amount of blood and cramps.

Oh and I also stopped in at CVS and asked the pharmist about my leftover bcp's.  She agreed that for my packs the active pills are all the same so that means I don't need to waste $15 buying a new pack for only 10 nights.  I wasn't going to ask the nurse this since last time she told me "no buy a new a pack to start".  I couldn't really seeing throwing out $15 every cycle to only use half a pack of bcp.
So now I just need to reorder the rest of my meds, which should be in the tune of $105 and we will be good to go.

I go back on June 5 for my suspession check so it is looking like ER will be around June 22.  Still no letter yet about my citizenship interview so I am hoping this means that it won't be until July.  The other possiblity is it got lost in the mail so I hope that isn't that case.  Anyways looks like it most likely be during ER time which is good.  I can't say the same thing about ET yet though.

12 dpo

AF still isn't here.  I know that it could come today or tomorrow, just hate how it decides to take so long when I am waiting for it.  It gets my hope up which isn't good.  I also have no sign that AF is near. I did have a very tiny bit of red spotting yesterday so thought things would start, but nothing since then. 

I really hope that it shows up by tomorrow.  Wondering if I should take a hpt just to help bring it on.  That seemed to work last time.

10 dpo

My chart was looking great up to yesterday.  Yesterday's temp dropped and today's dropped even further.  Looks like AF is getting ready to show up.  For once I just wish I could be one of those urban legends of women who get pregnant naturally after ivf.  Guess that is asking for too much :(

Oh well the good news is at least I should be able to start downregulating once AF shows. 

I seriously don't understand how people get pregnant through sex.  I don't mean about all the huddles the sperm have to go through, I mean I just don't understand how sex can = bfp.
I don't understand how women can just wake up one day and take a test without any clue what is going during each step of the process and without shooting themselves with shots and having surgical procedures done to cause it.

Being left behind by even IF friends

So today is cd 24 (7 dpo).  On a normal cycle I would have AF now, instead I have another 4-5 day wait.  I should expect AF mid next week and then it looks like ER will be around June 21-22.
Now with my insurance situation this cycle has a lot more pressure than the last two did.
I don't know what I will do if it fails.

I feel time is passing by and everyone around me is pregnant again, even people who gave birth long after me.  Even the women who did ivf with me back in 2009 when I got pregnant with the twins.  Only one women besides me out of our group of 10 or so isn't pregnant, but that may change in a month.  One women is even 3 months pregnant with her third.  I couldn't believe it.  Even the fertile women on ff aren't that fast.  Also all of them got pregnant naturally after ivf (except for one). 

Now I am happy for these women since they don't have to experience ivf again, but I wonder why can't we be that lucky.  Instead I have done 2 ivf since giving birth and still aren't pregnant. 

Who would have thought that we were so IF.  And here is the weird thing, most of the time I don't think of myself as IF.  In fact when I hear about a couple experiencing IF I feel so badly for them and that I would hate to have that, and then I remember that oh yes, we are probably even more IF than the people I am reading about our.  It is funny how that goes.  I think it is a coping strategy in order to deal with this disease everyday.

Health insurance

So I received some bad news today.   DH's school insurance will not cover me or dd.  I am not sure why since insurance is manadated in MA.  What are other students with children suppose to do?  Go on MassHealth?  Ya, that is really effective.

So I have 2 options when dh quits his job and we lose insurance at the end of the summer.
1. go on cobra - this isn't really an option though unless we can find someone to pay the premiums which it looks like premium assistance for cobra stopped in August 2010.  I was hoping Masshealth would cover it, but for their premium assistance it looks like the person needs to be employed.
2. buy individual private insurance for myself.  This is probably what I will end up doing. I looked online and there are some plans as low as $200 something a month.  I found one I especially like by Neighborhood.  It is under $300 a month, has a $250 deducible for health and drugs separately, and though it has co-insurance after the deducible is met (35% for health and 50% for drugs) they both have an out of pocket max of $2000 for the year.  So one ivf cycle I would reach the max for both.
The other plans for that low of a premium had a $2000 deducible and then high co-insurance.
Hopefully this cycle works and I will only have to pay a low premium, but this will at least give me the option to cycle come the fall if I want to.  Of course this is if I can get the SSI and food stamps to help save on costs.  Also we can probably waive dh's student health insurance since he has masshealth.  Not sure if that $1134 is already included in the fees.  If it is, it will mean money back for us to put toward the private insurance premium. 

Now the issue just remains when should I enroll.  I found out that back in Dec 2010 MA passed a law to limit enrollment for private insurance.  Now people can only enroll from July 1- August 15 (it seems like a state that has a law that everyone must have health insurance sure likes to make it very difficult for people to achieve this).  Now I can probably be except from this due to losing a group plan.  So if dh's insurance ends August 31 then I can probably have 2 months to apply even though it is past the open enrollment period.  Also I read on one of the faq that self employed individuals can enroll any time because they are considered a small group even if they are only one person (boy do I really like the perks of being self employed).  If this is true then I may be able to apply for the insurance anytime I want.  Hopefully this also means I can stop it too at anytime.  I really don't want to keep it until July 1 of the following year.  I really only want private insurance in case we need to do ivf.  Once I have a baby in my hands I won't need it anymore.  Man, it is times like this that I wish we were fertile.  Then I wouldn't have to think about buying private insurance in case we need to keep doing ivf. 

Ignorant people

As you know if you have been reading, I saw my family for a few hours on Sunday when they brought down a car for us.  Anyways, before I left my father told me that he wanted to help me and dh and was going to give us $5000 at the end of June.  I never expected this and didn't ask for this money, but was very grateful that he would offer to help us since we receive no help at all from our inlaws and come the fall we will have no income for 2 years while dh is in school. 

Anyways, my aunt called me last night after they got home and told me that after I left my mother told my father not to give us any money because we were trying for a baby and doing ivf.  Now my mother is a strict Catholic and is 100% against ivf.  We got into many fights while ttc 3 years ago.  I can't stand the ignorant view that the church takes that is biased and not based on reason or scientic fact.  I even asked my mother what she was so against ivf for and she couldn't tell me just that she was against it.  How are you suppose to educate a person like that.  If the church said apples were evil she would believe it and not eat or buy apples ever again.

For this reason I purposely chose to keep ttc #2 from her.  When she was down last fall dh kind of let the cat out of the bag and made mention that I wanted to try again.  She told me that if I did that I needed to pay her back any money she has ever given me and I better not dare cycle.  I decided at that point to not tell her anything and if I get pregnant she wouldn't know until after birth.  Because of my last two cycle failures I thought she had given up the idea of us cycling, but just last night I find out that she knew we recently cycled because my MIL called and told her.  Now my MIL knows her opinion and I didn't want her to know, yet she told her my cycle failed and then acted to me like she never said anything - saying to me "did you tell your mom you are doing ivf".  I am extremely pissed that now everyone knows about us cycling.  The whole reason of me making this blog is so I can write stuff down since I can't tell people irl.  It pisses me off that we can't keep this a secret from my MIL because we need someone to watch dd during ER and ET.  Just because we do ivf, then everyone has to know our personal business, no one asks fertile people if they are ttc or had sex last night or give their opinion on a baby before even a pregnancy happens.

Anyways, my father just called me now and he took back his offer on the $5000 check.  Like I said before, I never asked for this money so he can do whatever he wants.  Ya we are struggling financially (and of course ivf doesn't help that) but I am not giving up on the dream just because they are cutting me off.  I basically have one year left if I want to have a biological child so I have no choice but to cycle now if we want another biological child.  It just upsets me that they are acting this way before I am even pregnant and who knows if I will ever be pregnant or have another baby and I am getting the 9th degree.   I can understand if I was pregnant, but for something that may not happen, I personally think they are blowing things out of proportion.  I mean they know I am a married woman of child bearing age so it can happen at anytime.  Meanwhile my cousin gets pregnant and within 3 months later is no longer with the man and my aunt is thrilled to be a grandma again.  Why can't I have parents like this.  It makes me sad that if this cycle does work that my parents will not be part of my pregnancy and will not be happy about their grandchild and also think differently about it because of how it was conceived.    Meanwhile my brother (her other child) used some form of ART to have their twins, but you can't change my mom's mind to believe that.  No, my mom likes to live in her own little fanatsy world where doing ivf is wrong and believes celbate old man instead of her own daughter who has done 4 cycles so far.

My favorite argument that the church brings up is the killing of embryos.  It just shows how clueless the church is. 
#1 Very few IF couples get many embryos to begin with (unless they have PCOS or are very young).
#2 After spending thousands of dollars, 2 months time, and physical and emotional pain why would anyone kill embryos.  Seriously each embryo is extremely precious to an IF couple that there is no way they would kill an embryo unless they have a genetic problem that only affects one sex.
#3 The people that do kill embryos are usually women that are only doing ivf for gender selection.  These women are not IF and therefore should not be put in the same group as IF woman.  I don't think you will find one IF woman who would agree with a woman who has gender disappointment.  In fact these woman make me sick.  Saying they are like others doing ivf is like saying women who have abortions are like all pregnant women.
#4 It is scientic fact 75% of human embryos die before day 5.  Only difference with ivf is you can see it happen.  This is where embryos are lost.  They aren't killed, they die just like all living things die.  Saying this is like calling a woman who has a m/c the same as a woman who has an abortion.  Anyone with half a brain knows that these two groups are complete opposites. 

However does the church listen to any of these points, no they just keep spreading their ignorant and hurtful message.  Last time I looked ivf was not mentioned in the bible.  In fact IF couples in the bible committed adultry in order to have a child and it was legal if one member (in other words, the woman since mfi was not believed at the time) was IF for the other member to sleep with someone else in order to bear a child.  Wonder how the Catholic church will feel about me sleep around with some fertile men.  It is in the bible.

Anyways, another thing that upsets me is how Catholics can be so against ivf, yet they have no problem using forms of birth control (something that is also against the church's teachings).  My parents are also hipocrites like this.  My father had a vasetomy after I was born.  And here my mother is condoning me about doing ivf and they purposely did something against the church's teachings.  Oh I'm sorry, I forgot, guess it is okay if you are fertile, but IF couples need to suck it up and remain childless or adopt (you know because there are just millions of babies up for adoption).

I came to the realization last night on why we are IF.  It isn't for us, but actually a test for my mother.  I know in my heart God is not against ivf and is glad that the procedure exists.  I know he is making me go through it so my mother can confront her fear about it and open her heart.  Currently though I say she is failing.  I don't know if she will realize this in her lifetime.  I think not since she is going to be 68 this year and she hasn't changed her view even after dd was born.  However I do know she will find this out when she dies and then she will know how wrong and hurtful she is being.

cd 20

Temp only rose 0.01 degree, but at least it didn't dropped.  It really looks like I o on day 17, however because of the very low rise ff won't confirm it yet.  If that is the case though I should expect AF by 10 days from now.  Starting to get excited that in less than a month I will be cycling again and by 8 weeks from now I could be pregnant.  Anyways I am glad I decided to chart this cycle, even though it was extremely frustrating, however if I didn't I would really have started to wonder why AF wasn't coming especially by the time I reached day 28 with no AF.