The law of large numbers is a statistical theorem that I teach my students that says (among other things) that if you do something often enough, a result that’s very unlikely to happen eventually does.

As unlikely as success seemed this cycle, I seem to be pregnant!  I am completely, completely stunned.

I was expecting my period on Tuesday, and by Tuesday evening there was no period and no real signs that it was imminent.  So, I decided to give a whirl with one of the free HPTs that comes when you order a bunch of OPKs off the internet – but right as I did the test, A. came home and I got distracted.  About an hour later, I remembered the test and went to look at it – and there was a second line.  Very faint, but pink.  I had the crazy joy / disbelief / freak out moment and then realized it was probably an evaporation line.  A. wanted me to pee on another stick RIGHT THAT SECOND but 1. I’m a camel and I didn’t need to go that soon and 2. I pointed out that if it was real, I should wait a while to let the hormone build up in my pee.  I made A. go out and buy a digital test for the next morning, but I did pee on the one non-internet-cheapo test I had that night – and there were *definitely* two lines.  We went to bed and the next morning the digital test gave me the P word!  Amazing.

We are so excited!  More soon about stuff that’s been on our mind since we got the news.

If we believe that the trigger shot worked as it was supposed to, today is 11DPO.  It does seem that I ovulated, even though my temperatures are ridiculous.  I had a 7dpo progesterone test, and my level was 9.7 ng/mL – which, though its “a little lower than they like to see”, is definitely indicative of ovulation and in fact is the exact same level I got last month when my temperatures were clearly biphasal.  

I’m already resigned to not being pregnant this cycle.  There were so few sperm in the washed sample, and my temperatures were so screwed up.  Even if the 2 million swimmers were more determined than I’m giving them credit for, I’m not convinced that the egg was there on time for them to meet.  Because we wanted to conserve sperm for the IUI, we only did an insemination on day 13 and then the IUI on day 16.  I also stopped doing LH testing once I got the trigger, so I don’t really have enough information to figure out if I ovulated on day 16 as the HCG shot promised.  But, if I was going solely on temperature, I would guess that I O’d on day 19 or 20.  For the first time since we started ttc, I’m really just hoping that CD1 comes sooner rather than later.  Otherwise, I fear that there will be a terrible period where I’m not pregnant but can’t help but start thinking that I might be because I’m late.  Ugh.

These past few days have been both exciting and hopeful and full of sadness.  On Monday we started a conversation with another potential known donor; interestingly, he’s the current husband of my college girlfriend.  They have their own kids and will be trying for more in the next year; we’re good friends.  They’ve tentatively agreed, though we still have to work through contracts and doctor visits and make sure we’re all on the same page about everything.  There’s a lot to be excited about – it’s really nice to think about having a fresh start.  It’s also nice to think about how awesomely queer this extended family will be.  Our kids won’t have cousins nearby – my sister doesn’t have kids or interest in getting any, and A’s brothers both live on the east coast.  The same is true for our friends – no cousins at all, and no prospects for getting any nearby.  We’re all excited to have queer cousins in the neighborhood for our kids.

The sadness comes in coming to grips with moving on from our old donor, with whom we’ve invested a lot creating our family.  He’s done so much for us and he is so, so wonderful.  Before we started TTC, the three of us each wrote a letter to our future children, explaining our role in the process and H.’s was so beautiful and moving.  He’s so loving, and he’s so invested in this process with us.  I hate that we’re taking away all of the power he has here; it makes me feel like we were using him and now we’re tossing him aside.  Which, we are.  We have talked with him about his low sperm count and how unlikely it is to conceive with so few sperm, but we haven’t told him yet that we’re moving on.  And every time I think about having this conversation I start to cry.

And, lots of good news on the internets in the last few days: Congratulations to Vee and Jay on the birth of their beautiful baby boy, and congratulations to poppycat on her BFP.  Hopefully all this amazingness is catching!

seriously?  look at my chart.

On day 14 I had an 19mm follicle and took a trigger shot, which supposedly guarantees that I ovulate 36-48 hours later so the IUI can be perfectly timed.

I don’t know about you, but to me it doesn’t look like much happened on day 16 at all.  Hell, it doesn’t look like much has been happening this month, period.

On Friday I emailed my RE to inquire about whether this was a problem, and here was her response:

I would expect to see the rise by today, latest tomorrow… Some people have a very prompt rise, others may not see the rise for up to 3 days post ovulation.  But we will have to keep this in mind if you’re not pregnant, moving forward.  

What the hell does that mean?  Is it possible that I didn’t ovulate?  What does it mean that they will have to keep this in mind?  I stopped peeing on sticks when I took the trigger since the HCG messes with LH… I’ve literally never once had a cycle that didn’t have a clear temperature rise and I don’t know what to think about this whole managed approach right now.

Fuck.

So, today was our first IUI.  After some ridiculous logistical gymnastics to get our donor H. to the clinic and then back to his regularly scheduled programming, I was excited and optimistic that this would be the magic bullet.

Our RE was the one actually doing the IUI – which is great, because she is great.  She let us know that post-wash, we only had 2.3 million swimmers.  In her words, it’s a little lower than they like to see for IUI.

Since I obsessively read journal articles about IUI success rates in my spare time, I knew she was putting an optimistic spin on things.  2.3 million post-wash is not good: it seems like 5 million is a common cutoff for IUI being in any way appropriate, and some studies say that with less than 10 million postwash it’s more cost-efficient to go straight to IVF.

I emailed my RE with a lot of questions, but I’m really loathe to do more IUIs with odds as low as I think ours are with this setup.  All the doctors appointments are pretty incompatible with my teacher’s schedule, and to be honest I’ve hated being scanned and stuck and prodded every 3 seconds.

So A. and I are starting to talk about other options.  And while it’s so, so sad to think about saying goodbye to the vision we’ve crafted for how our future family will come to be, I am looking for hope everywhere I can right now.

It’s been a while.

More posts soon; for now, TTC timeline has been updated.

So, NaBloPoMo was a NoGo (I truly cannot resist the bad puns) because of a few ridiculous things that have happened in recent days, coupled with a tiny splash of angst.  But now, I am back on the wagon.

* A.’s car was stolen from in front of our house on either Monday night or Tuesday morning.  The nice folks who stole the car abandoned it in a grocery store parking lot in one of Seattle’s northern suburbs, after having kindly destrogying the ignition, breaking the steering column, and putting out a number of cigarettes on the dashboard and back seat.   The car in question was our old, crappy Civic on which we did not carry comprehensive insurance.  It looks like the repairs will be about $1200.  Hooray!

* Our internet has been totally nonfunctional at the house.  This morning it decided to get back online.  Thank god!

* We inseminated only once this cycle, on Tuesday night.  I’m not even sure if I’m going to count it as an insemination, since 1. I may not have ovulated at all 2. If I did ovulate, it was probably on Tuesday so the insemination timing wasn’t great and 3. the sperm was, in the words of our donor, “low volume”.  He wasn’t kidding, either: we’re talking less than a quarter of the previous low.

* I am pretty depressed and miserable right now about this whole conspicuous-absence-of-pregnancy thing.  I’m pretty upset that it’s been so difficult to identify ovulation this cycle.  I never got a peak monitor reading, and I never got a positive OPK.  I did get a smidgen of fertile mucus, and an appropriately timed but small thermal shift.  Honestly, I’ve never questioned whether I ovulated before – not even for one cycle.  The two cycles I missed inseminations because of bad timing were because of my mistakes: the first time, the monitor read “peak” and I didn’t believe it, because it was day 10 and I’d never ovulated before day 16 in the nearly 2 years I’d been charting.  The second time, the monitor didn’t read peak but I had all the other signs of ovulation – again, just on day 10 so I didn’t really believe it.  This time, though… everything seemed so questionable - here’s my chart in case you’re interested.  If my temp stays up, then I suppose I probably did ovulate.  Right now, though, I’m not convinced even though the software sees ovulation.  I’m mostly pissed because I went onto the metformin to enhance my ovulation and clearly, that didn’t happen.  Fuckers.

* In other bitter-non-pregnant-news, an acquaintance at school just revealed she’s pregnant – due in May.  She and I were both leaders for the cultural exchange program at school – she was supposed to lead a group of kids to Barranquilla, Colombia when I’ll be taking a group of students to Japan this spring.  In general, I have managed to avoid crankiness about the happy pregnancies of others thus far.  When I agreed to be a leader for this program last spring, I spoke to the woman who runs it and said that we were TTC and that I didn’t want to set her up for trouble if I had to back out later because I was too pregnant to go.  At this point even if I do get pregnant before the trip I won’t be too far along to travel.  It’s depressing to remember how real the possibility of being in my third trimester or even having a newborn by April seemed last March.

Gah.  Another month gone.

First: looks like I’m gonna ovulate after all!  We’re looking at inseminations tonight (hopefully) or tomorrow, and Wednesday.  Woooohoooooooo!

Now, onto the topic of this post: my lazy fat ass.

WHY, why, WHY cannot I bring myself to exercise?

1. It makes me healthy.

2. I feel happier when I exercise.

3. I truly enjoy various forms of exercise, including but not limited to: water aerobics, yoga, and dance dance revolution.

4. I have the time.  Really, I can trade an hour of tv/facebook/reading/whatever for more exercise.

So what the hell is my problem?  I get into these ruts where I don’t work out for days/weeks/months and when that happens I just do.not.want.to.start.again.

30 minutes a day for the next seven days.  Who’s with me???

Tonight, I’ll start with this:

No time for a proper post today, so I’ll leave you with some of the search terms that brought folks here to babyfatty in recent days:

biker gang

math timeline

lost 200 pounds

Man, those people did not find what they were looking for here.