Feeling whiney

I shouldn't whine, I know I shouldn't.  DW and I are *so* lucky to live in an incredible condo in a gorgeous city, close to our incredibly supportive parents.  We just bought a brand new car, we have money in the bank (although right at this moment there's not a lot of it!), food in the fridge, I have a job (DW is currently searching for a job).  I have so much to be thankful for.

But I still feel lost, because we aren't parents yet.  I just ovulated today, so I'm extra moody and whiney about this currently.  It's been a year.  That ticker I installed on the sidebar has reset the bunnies back to the front.  UGH.

There's a rather large and ever growing list of people around me who are happily pregnant, and for the most part blissfully unaware of how lucky they are that it didn't take a ton of trying (some of these people I'm assuming, since they were either recently married or told me not that long ago that they weren't planning to start trying for kids yet).  Our last round was in March/April since we found out KD had abnormal sperm morphology, so we've been on a break for a good long while.  DW has pretty much stopped temping, and she's even stopped her prenatal vitamins.  I'm sure there's a deeper reason for this, but we haven't really unpacked it yet since we're busy unpacking our house.  We're eating decently, but not getting enough physical activity, which has consequently made me feel rather disgusting.

It's weird that I've amassed this sort of... I don't know what you would call it... ability? to decide what I want, and then simply work towards it single mindedly until I get it.  And usually it appears quickly.  I hoped that TTC would go this fast, but it just didn't.... and hasn't.

Case in point: we decided to buy a place in January.  We found a real-estate agent, but then went on vacation.  Came back mid-February.  Saw 6 places, loved the 3rd one we saw, put an offer in that night, was accepted, deposit paid and paperwork signed on DW's birthday (Feb 22nd), closed April 3rd, moved April 27th.  Done done done.

Next case: we desperately needed a new car (our 1996 Subaru wagon was going to cost us nearly $4K in repairs, plus it needed new tires and sucked gas like you wouldn't believe).  Find car.  Test drive it once.  Don't even bother to shop around.  Buy it the next day.  Done.

So, spending a year trying for something we want SO BADLY has been difficult.  Surprisingly not difficult on our marriage, but difficult on our ability to get anything else done.  I feel as though I'm on the precipice of the next round though, even if we don't know when that next round will be.

Since we're purposefully TTC, I worry that bringing a child into a slightly tenuous financial situation isn't necessarily fair, that we should be extra responsible and pre-plan everything BECAUSE WE CAN.  TTC with KD wasn't really an issue, because we didn't yet have a mortgage and a car payment, but now we do, and now we have to pay for sperm...  It makes me feel like I'm not really a grown up, like I'm just playing at life.  I feel like being responsible means having a child when all your consumer debt is paid off ("you can go outside to play when your room is clean").  It's a fine line between the ticking clock and paying off my credit card...  However, as my lovely DW keeps pointing out, it's just money and there will never be enough of it, but there is always more.

Babies, however, don't last forever.  Eggs have a shelf life.  Time to go.

Starting Over

We had our consult with one of the local fertility clinics, which was great!  I'm a little terrified of the expense, since we have a greatly reduced financial cushion... but at the end of the day, it's only money, and having kids running around is WAY more important.

Our new place is great!!  My only slight annoyance is that it's kind of far from everyone, but I somehow seem to be more willing to drive than I used to be.  Weird.  I love our neighbourhood and our own space, and everything.  We're still finishing off projects and planning new ones (3 weeks after we moved in, the front of the cutlery drawer came off, and that's when I realized that it's only held on with ONE screw into compressed wood chip board.  There is no other options for a second screw, short of drilling through metal...  Oh well.  Thus is homeownership!  But I love it!

Now we're onto looking through the "ikea catalogue" for donors.  And buying a new car, since ours has awful gas mileage!  Exciting!

Well, at least we had a plan B....

After not getting pregnant month after month, we asked our KD to go get his swim team checked again, just to see what was up.

Count: AMAZING.
Motility: PHENOMENAL.
Morphology: absolute crap.  Totally abnormal.

Needless to say we are heartbroken, heartbroken for not having kids who could grow up with a relationship with their biological father and heartbroken that we've wasted SO MUCH TIME trying and trying and trying and nothing after month of nothing.  The abnormal sperm morphology freaks me out, because I see the really crazy super rare genetic abnormalities at work and they're never good things (they look relatively  normal, but their insides never work properly, and a lot of them die before they're two).

Needless to say, this was the first month I was relieved that we weren't pregnant.

We now have an appointment next week with a local fertility clinic, I'm not sure what they'll have us do, but J has a ton of bloodwork to get done before then, I believe there's a mandatory counselling session we have to do, and of course the Ikea Catalogue picking of donors.

It's totally crazy to think of all the things we could have done/should have done, that we would have had a baby by now.  Or maybe not.  Clearly our baby is not ready to show up yet, so I can only cling to that.

I'm waffling on starting to take a prenatal, since switching uterii is Plan C.

Also, since we bought a condo, we move in two days, so everything is packed and a complete disaster right now.

It'll all sort itself out in good time!!

Just keep swimming...

I'm not finding the blog as cathartic as I thought it would... I guess that I spend so much time just trying to move forward and not keep dwelling on things, and explaining where we're at to people CONSTANTLY, that it seems redundant.

The questions of "so hows the baby making thing going" are starting to blindside me. It's just such a sad, heartbreaking, sad thing we're in the middle of at the moment, that it's hard to not be upset.

J got another BFN this month, even when her luteal phase went on an extra THREE DAYS.

Needless to say we were sad, angry and frustrated. Deeply deeply frustrated. So, we're switching it up. J got her requisition for one of the fertility clinics and so we're headed in that direction. Bye bye to known donor and hello to drugs and the wonderful world of frozen spunk and IUIs.

Our house is mostly packed, J has done a phenomenal job. I am working a ton, we are trying to pay a mortgage and rent (augh!)... fun times.

Haitus, and other things

Well life has certainly picked up a pace. We're still not pregnant, but it's been a good lesson in patience. February definitely didn't work, J knew right away that it hadn't worked. I feel good for March though, but we'll see.

So we are moving! We bought a condo 45 mins from where we are now! I'll have to start commuting to work, but I can live with that. We'll have space for our kids and we're close to parks and trails and all kinds of outdoor stuff. We're so excited, since neither of us have owned before! It's also a welcome distraction from our lack-of-pregnancy, which is getting harder and harder to cope with each month. J is taking longer and longer to swing back from a BFN, and I'm getting more and more frustrated and discouraged.

The most UNHELPFUL thing people keep saying is "you have to stop stressing, it'll happen". It sounds like "we're tired of talking about this, you should just shut up about it and get over it". My allopathic doctor actually said the most helpful thing: "you just have to keep at it, keep trying". That was much more supportive and much less dismissive than "it'll happen". I want to throttle all the nice, well meaning people who keep saying that.

In the meantime, everyone around me is pregnant. And it's annoying, because most of them were not pre-planned. But I'm learning to get over it, to be at peace and work through what WE have to work through, that our baby is holding out for the right moment.

I find it harder when I perceive someone as flaunting their pregnancy/easily acquired child. I had someone complain that their doctor told them they had to wait to start trying for another child, and I was SO upset by that. Deeply deeply hurt, especially since this person knows how badly we want a baby. They've apologized and tried to mend the fence, but the cow's already escaped. I can't be supportive, it makes me too angry. I just have to walk away. Maybe when we have a little one I'll be able to be friends again, but for now the divide is just this gaping hole and I have absolutely no desire to cross it. It also really hurts when I feel completely blindsided by someone's pregnancy announcement, especially when I thought that they would tell me sooner. Maybe I expect too much? I've had to defriend people on FB because all they do is talk about how wonderful their pregnancy is and blah blah blah and I feel like it's just making me miserable, so I take myself out of the situation. My actual friends who are pregnant I'm happy for, but I'm sad for us, sad that it's not our time yet. So it's extremely bittersweet. As someone in the forum I frequent says "it's not the baby lottery. Each person has their own odds. Someone getting pregnant before you is not stealing YOUR baby". Although I've never felt like that, so it's still ruminating.

J's BFF had her beautiful baby boy last week, I had 35 weeks to get used to that, as did she, so it wasn't a completely horrible experience. It helped tremendously that when we went over to hold/clean/cook/do laundry/force Dad to have a nap/etc that I felt useful. I'm super confident when it comes to babies, because that's my job. The baby smiled while J was holding him (in his sleep, gas related) so I think that helped TREMENDOUSLY.

Another hard piece of news I've had to swallow is that I'm being tested for PCOS. I have multiple symptoms of it, so I get to have a whole boatload of bloodwork done on Monday. I'm also being tested to see exactly HOW sensitive I am to gluten, so I've been gluten loading for almost 2 weeks now. It's been kinda fun, I kinda backed off on it for a couple of days because I was working and I get really gassy. I've realized that my gluten intake mostly centres around dessert, but I think I knew that already!!

So. Packing. Hoping. Praying. Inseminating! We don't refer to the 2nd bedroom as the baby's room, I feel too much like it's jinxing it! We're planning on just storing stuff in it. It's not like the baby needs much when it's first born either, especially since we plan to breastfeed, baby wear, co-sleep and give elimination communication a shot (if not, we have a stash of cloth diapers, since the smell of disposable diapers grosses me out!). I might sit on my hands and not immediately buy a stroller, either!

And now since I'm post-nights, I'm off to bed.

Skipping a month

We skipped January, mostly to give J's body a chance to heal, and because we were in Mexico for 2 weeks, and we would have spent almost the ENTIRE trip waiting for a positive or negative. We were in Puerto Vallarta, which is perfectly safe in terms of water and food, but I always worry about picking up a bug. I didn't want to have to worry about potential fetus friend while we were on vacation, so we just skipped it. A great decision. We lost a month (which also came with the pregnancy announcement for a friend, which resulted in J being in tears because she's getting frustrated), but we're back on and ready to start up again next week.

Andddd the fun begins again!

Happy New Year!

My ringing in the new year consisted of wearing scrubs, cuddling an adorable (and very happy) NICU baby, while wearing a party had and drinking bubbly apple juice. I called J at midnight. Wasn't particularly exciting, but I was happy to do it.

2011 has been a lovely year for us! We got married, made big plans, are started TTC. We don't have a baby quite yet, but I feel that it is near, very much on the horizon. I am learning to be patient, that it will come.

In the meantime I'm making myself a post-night shift sleep dinner (consisting of rice, lentils and squash! I might even make a salad, I'm so decadent!).

We've been working on ripping all of our CD's onto an external HD so that we aren't hauling them around with us when we move. This means when I hit "play" and "shuffle" on iTunes, the resulting mix is *extremely* eclectic. It's rather entertaining.

2012 promises to be even bigger, since we will hopefully have our first little one, and we're definitely moving in a couple of months. We're adults now and got ourself pre-approved for a mortgage (it's a little one, comparatively, since I have no desire to waste my baby's newborn period working OT to pay for the mortgage).