Let's hope my tact returns by noon tomorrow

... because it sure was missing this evening. It was a long day, mostly caused by torrential downpour. I love 'weather' in general (snow, wind, rain - fabulous) but I couldn't motivate to go out today. And I had the munchies all day long, which is awful tough on this diet, especially on shabbos. Today I ate:
2 large blocks of hard cheese
1 medium-sized bowl of guacamole - no chips, just guacamole by the spoonful
no sugar-added gefilte fish
no sugar peanut butter by the spoonful
a protein bar

And so by 5 pm I'd decided it was time for a treat. A low-carb, low-fat kosher ice-cream-like-substance only available in New York (as far as I know): Tas.ti D-Lite. And to make it more reasonable on my diet I decided to walk to the farther store - ie. about 5-6 miles.

Which was great except that my mother called. Now I've been rather busy and I really, really wanted to finish up every last wedding phone call and planning this weekend given everything else I'm balancing. And my mother was talking about my older sister, who is having a hard time at the moment. (Remember all those best intentions to tell my mother about our treatment after we'd had at least a little progress (like getting to a 2ww!) and to hopefully tell her in person. After all, my mother is absolutely the person most invested in this process besides JD and I and she has gone through the whole thing before). So she's talking about how stressed my sister is, and right out of my mouth comes "Well, at least she doesn't have to do injections in her stomach this week." Right. Kind, considerate, tactful ... whoops.

At least my mother is a professional counselor, and she switched right into work mood. She clearly knew that this wasn't our first cycle and I had failed to tell her about what we were doing before. She gave me a long pep talk about how emotionally challenging IF can be, and how we have to go into this with the full recognition that it is a long process. And then of course she asked who else knew about the treatments, and I had to tell her I'd already told my father and a few friends. But thus far everybody is avoiding telling my older sister (whose IF treatments never succeeded) about anything. I don't know how she'll take it because she clearly harbors a lot of anger about her IF and the cycles she went through and a large part of that has been channeled into an aggressive support of child-free-living which none of us really take at face value at this point. Especially because she still talks about adoption.

So why noon tomorrow? Well, I've been taking a bit of my stress out on JD. Some of it legitimate. I'm pissed that he has failed to do the following things
- take care of the 3 little wedding tasks I gave him
- help me strategize about housing in Europe and subletting my place
- found out whether any of his potential new jobs cover IVF. This one is actually really big in my mind at the moment because I'm trying to plan my fall. I ought to be in Europe, but we have 4-5 weddings that I would like to attend, all grouped within 5 weeks. So a small part of me thinks I'll come back to the U.S. then and just maybe we should squeeze in another cycle of some sort. Or start our IVF prep. But if JD's next job will cover IF then I should just wait; there's no reason to spend thousands if it'll be covered within a few months. But of course, it's also unreasonable of me to expect him to be as enthusiastic about scheduling our se.x for September as I am.

So, I asked him to have his parents swing by my place and pick up a few things to make room for my subletters. And he forgot to call them. And forgot to call. And tonight he remembered and they're coming by at noon tomorrow. But my apartment is trashed because I've been packing. So it's going to be a long morning before they get here. But seriously, more than a clean apartment I need to make sure that I don't slip up and make some belligerent comment about how I'm suffering through my IF treatments to his parents. It would not go over as well with them as my mom is my guess.

One more thing. I don't think that I'm entirely fabricating the slowness and caution of my current clinic. My last cycle was canceled because the follicles stopped growing (or shrunk, according to nurse evil). Well, I'm not so into counting days, but I just looked at my pack of bcp's because tonight is the last night and I have taken 21 of them! 21! There's no way everyone else is doing a full pack between cycles given how quickly everyone else seems to progress. It really seems overkill. And to think how much easier my life would be if we'd only done 14 days of bcp's. There'd be none of this: ovulate (please!), fly to NYC, organize major grad student event, leave for Europe 3-5dpo.

Outed by the mailman

Just got back to my building to change before shabbos, and ... my big, bright package of IVF information was waiting for me on the package table. Since of course it was too large to fit in my mailbox. The table that everyone in the building looks at on their way in. C-rnell center for reproduc.tive medicene. Well, at least that's out there. And yes, the doorman definitely raised his eyebrow. Of course, given that's prone to ask pointed questions about JD and me and why we don't live together he probably thinks that I'm trying to 'win JD back' (from his job, but anyway) the old-fashioned way.

And I realized that I really do need to take a break tonight and tomorrow because this week I've been juggling the following (in no particular order):
- a ton of schoolwork
- finalizing all the wedding details before I leave
- renting my apartment
- packing up my belongings to facilitate the subletters being able to fit in the door
- trying to find someplace to live abroad
- coming to terms with the fact that I will lack a real base for the next 5 months
- trying to get back on the intense part of the diet before this cycle really starts

So it makes sense that I've been tired and grumpy. And next week could be a lot of fun but it might be a total disaster. I agreed to watch a friend's kids every afternoon (noon to 6 pm) because her nanny is out sick. Let's hope I made the right decision.

Here's wishing you a restful weekend.

I must practice -

waxing eloquent on the joys of weddings. Like the good, serious student that I am I waited to tell most everyone at school that I was gettin' hitched until after my major exams were over. And somehow I missed a few people. So someone said something about June to me, and I mentioned that I couldn't commit to anything because I'll be down South getting married ... This boring background is only relevant in so much as I didn't bring up the wedding and I certainly wasn't seeking attention from it. But then a prof I really like said something like 'Oh, I didn't know you were getting married' and right out of my mouth comes 'Well, I'm not that excited about it anymore.'

Whoops.

And that doesn't at all mean what he assumed. It's just that finally getting around to trying to have a baby is so much more important/exciting than our wedding. We've been together forever and I don't think a big, formal ceremony will change the stability of our relationship, although the insurance will be great. And I do enjoy a good party. It's just that a wedding doesn't seem that life-altering to me at this point, but having a baby certainly does. But I could hardly explain that in the company, so who knows what they thought about me/us ... and my one fear is that I will let IF overshadow the wedding. Because we're only getting married once and I do want to focus on that for at least a week or two. And for all that I don't know that any cycle soon will work out soon, I am sure that we will be parents (by some means) within the next couple of years. So if I could just focus on that certainty than I might be willing to give up a May/June cycle in order to let me focus on the wedding. Of course, without all the balancing and multi-tasking I may just be bored.

I could get used to this

Baseline u/s today. In NYC. So the clinic was a good deal grimier, every other woman in the waiting area (aka the hall) was pregnant, and the reception reminded me about 8 times that my bladder needed to be full (and I very politely told her every time that I would talk to the technician. Argh!) ... but, they had cable! And the TV was set to good, high-quality, over-the-top cable. To be precise, the 'Rea.l H'ousewives of NYC.' Now, as someone without a TV I have a very low tolerance for violent and disturbing issues but a very high interest in true trash. And this was an episode about their Hamptons homes. Let's just say I barely noticed the 45 minute wait. That, and the fact that the hospital is less than 2 blocks from school so I was back at work within 10 minutes of being taken back for my u/s. And it was FREE. Beats me why, but apparently true.

Great news before 9 am

The baby is moving! I know, I know, I'm an awful person. And when I mentioned to someone something about it this morning, they said 'Well, have you told the parents that the baby is waking you up?' and I just kind-of looked at them and said (in my best annoyed tone) 'Well, I'm sure they're not enjoying it either.' But really, 12-12:40 am, 2:34, 4:15, 5-something and 7:15 am this morning the baby screamed. And really, he's not moving that far - just an extra 8 feet down the hall to the toddler's room. But I am excited. And apparently so are his parents, who are apparently quite done with co-sleeping. Yay!

Of course, I do have to wonder whether I am now more in-tune with a baby crying. Because I am a heavy sleeper, the type of person who sleeps through 4-fire trucks parked outside her building. And even last May, while traveling with a friend, I managed to sleep through her 6-week old waking up every 2 hours in the same hotel room as me. In fact, I actually checked with her in the morning to make sure she'd fed him, which she assured me she had.

Speaking of my apartment. I went to take out the trash this morning and there were 2 tiny toddler shoes tossed against my door. One of which was at such an angle that it fell into my entryway when I opened the door. Nothing like toddler shoes on the floor to remind me: I don't have a baby. And it looks like I won't for rather a while. Sucks.

Not to read anything into this

but I went to play with my friend's 3-week old baby today and she screamed every time I held her. Not that she screamed all the time - she was very happy to be held by her mother. She was in fact more happy to be poked by her sister than held by me.

And I'm increasingly concerned that I may be homeless in Europe. The housing market is not looking so great for me. Another project to deal with. Oh, and why does that fit into my IF blog? Cecause of course, fingers crossed, I will be doing my first 2ww while moving to Europe and settling into my new and at-this-point-still-imaginary apartment. All of which I will do in a super-relaxed manner thanks to my yet-unwrapped new Yoga DVD.

Update: Just looked more closely at one of the webpages I've been using (and paid the access fee) to look for housing. Should have translated the first form better. All of these apartments are unfurnished: completely. So, in addition to packing up my apartment, lugging my stuff to Europe, and settling down in a foreign country during my 1st ever 2ww (should we get there), I'll be sleeping on the floor ... in my sleeping bag from middle school.

11 hours of sleep and I don't feel so well

I slept yesterday night from 5 pm till 11 pm, called JD to check on the elections and had a piece of cheese, and then slept again from 11:15 pm till 4:07 am when the baby woke up. And I still don't feel so well. In fact, I feel increasingly nauseous.

When I e-mailed JD yesterday to tell him that I had scheduled a 2nd consult in NYC, he seemed happy (it is astounding how many serious conversations we have over e-mail), but it took me a good 5 minutes to realize he thought the consult was about my GI problems, not co.rtisol. I don't think there's much they can do at this point, especially since we're about to really gear up for an injectables cycle, but it is a little concerning. Especially with the nausea. And the vague suggestion from my most favorite-bestest doctor that my GI problems might be related to IF treatments and old scar tissue ...