No one knows

We haven’t told our families that we’re TTC. They know that we plan to have children but do not know that we were trying in the past few years and don’t know that we are gearing up to start try in the next few months. My brother knows that we were trying in the past but doesn’t know what we are starting soon. My sister is the only one that knows about the previous tries and the upcoming tries.

There is one real reason we haven’t told anyone. My family has been pressuring us to have children for years. First we told them we needed to graduate first. After graduation we told them I needed to get a job first. When I got a job we told them that we needed to get married first. The pressure has heated up now that we have gotten married. Luckily R was still in school so we had an excuse to wait. R finished her masters last month and the pressure has reached a new level. We were at my dad’s house last night. We were cornered in the kitchen and asked when we were going to give them grandchildren. My stepmom leaned over to our stomachs and talked to our ovaries. They demanded to know who was going to get pregnant first. When we told her that we wanted to wait until R got a job she got out her check book and offered to pay for the DNA. She wanted to know where we were in our cycles to see if we could try this month. My grandmother thinks we should get pregnant at the same time. She also told me that my dad called her crying because he wants to have grandchildren while he’s still young enough to play with them (he’s 52). He told her that all of his kids have graduated from college and he doesn’t think we’re ever going to have kids. My grandmother and stepmom also told us what to look for in a donor: tall, dark hair, green eyes. They all think we should use the same donor for each of us so “the kids would really be siblings”. That bothered me. We aren’t planning on using the same donor and our donors won’t even be the same race. My dad is sad that he only has “granddogs” to drive around on his golf cart. My mom is no better. Everytime she finds out that one of her friends is going to have a grandchild she calls me crying and asks when we’re going to start a family. 

They have no idea how difficult this is going to be for us. That’s the main reason we aren’t telling them until we have succeeded. Last night was proof that they would add additional stress to the process. The offer of financial help would be nice but this is something we need to do on our own.

Hello again

I’m back. I’ve been gone so long that I contemplated not returning. I figured no one was still checking on me; that everyone had assumed I’d never return. I decided that, with all the changes that have happened and will continue to happen,  I needed a place to write even if no one was still reading. I can now access word.press from work. That was the real problem. R is working on her Master’s (only 12 more weeks until she finishes) and I couldn’t ever get my hands on the laptop after work. We’ve had some pretty major changes since I fell off of the face of the earth.

 

1. On July 10th we celebrated our 10 year anniversary by flying to San Francisco and getting married! We were going to elope but then our families found out about it. I was so surprised that they all flew out to CA to be with us. My brother lives in Daly City and R’s dad lives in Pioneer so they were already out there. All of our parents and siblings were in CA to celebrate with us. We were married by the Bay in Tiburon on Thursday and spent the rest of the weekend together. Most of our family members had met, but it was the first time we were all together at once. Our Dad’s got along perfectly! They had so much fun together. We did learn that they should not be left alone though. They’re both pranksters and would get into way too much trouble if left unsupervised. There is already talk of R’s Dad coming to stay at my Dad’s farm for a week. Who knows if they’ll invite us. I’m so glad that everything went well. Our families weren’t awkward with each other. We even took my Dad to a few ga.y bars in the Cas.tro. That’s huge! He drives a muddy pickup truck, flies the Confe.derate flag, has a gun safe that’s larger than most people’s bathrooms, and once told me that the US went downhill when they gave women the right to vote. I never thought I’d see my Dad in a Ga.y bar. He was so happy at the wedding too. He cried. Actually, the only people that didn’t cry were my siblings and the officiant.

2. R still doesn’t have a full time job. She’s focusing on finishing her degree and preparing to take the L S A T. She’s narrowing down the list of law schools she will be applying to. We will most likely be moving again next summer.

 

3. I’m still at the job I hate. It’s still slow and I rarely have any actual work to do. I have half-heartedly been looking for another job but I’m torn. I know we will probably be moving in 8-10 months and don’t want to have to start another job and leave so soon. There is 1 law school that R is applying to in the area so there is the chance that we’ll be here for at least 3 years. I’ll look more seriously if we’re staying in the area.

 

4. I will be getting some time off of work in October. The ankle that I hurt when I broke my foot in December is still f’ed up. I’m having surgery October 2nd. I’m not looking forward to the 6 weeks in a cast or the 6 weeks of crutches. I talked to a trainer at the gym. I’m going to try to improve my upper body strength. That’s what killed me last time I was on crutches. I resorted to rolling around the house in my desk chair. I don’t want to have to do that again.

 

5. TTC – Before we flew to CA for our wedding I checked with my employer about adding R to my insurance. HR assured me that I could add R to my insurance as long as we were legally married (even though we weren’t going to be legally married in our state of residence). They were wrong. We were counting on that to start TTC again. We have decided to switch uteri. I will have my first insem in November. We’ve selected a donor from a bank. I registered and placed our first order (thanks to wedding $). On a side note: How exactly do you put that in a thank you note? Dear Auntie, Thanks for the cash. We bought spe.rm! Love, R & B

I’ve started acupuncture. I didn’t start it just because I wanted to TTC with my body. I felt like every time I went to my doctor with a complaint she would just throw another pill at me. I originally went to try to regulate my cycles without medication. It just so happens that my acupuncturist has done lots of fertility work. After one month of sessions I had my first unmedicated cycle in 5 years! I am hooked. He also has me on an herbal regimen and I have ovulated for the past 3 months. I also went for a physical in preparation to start TTC with my body. Blood.work showed that I have hypoth.yroidism. I got that under control with medication. Weight loss has been much easier since I’ve started the meds. I haven’t lost all I want to lose, but I think I’m in a good place to start TTC. I also found a doctor that is willing to do insems for me. We originally were having trouble finding a doctor that accepted my insurance and was also willing to perform an IUI on a woman that wasn’t married to a man. When I called his office the nurse that I spoke to seemed astonished that we had been turned away so many times. I am not crazy about having a male doctor and will probably return to my midwife for prenatal care if I ever get pregnant.

 

This post is already way too long so I’ll leave it at that. I promise it won’t be another 6 months before I post again.

 

 

 

 

Stress Overload

So we still don’t have a place to live in NC. I start my new job on the 27th. R is transferring with her job but she has to work until the 27th and then has a few appointments the 28th & 29th. She sees her cardiologist on the 29th. She has to go every 3 years for a full workup since her heart surgery. Hopefully things are still looking good for her being able to get knocked up. She’ll be joining me in NC after that. I’m not sure if we’ll be moving all the stuff in the house the week before I start my new job or if we’ll be waiting until Labor Day weekend. I really don’t want to move over Labor Day weekend. It will be tough to get it all in since I don’t have vacation time at work yet and it’s my birthday weekend so I would prefer not to spend it moving. We don’t have to be out of our current house until the 10th of September. When we actually do the move depends on if I can find a place to live this weekend. I’ll be headed south Thursday or Friday. There is the possibility to move in with my mom for a few months (that’s all we could take). It’s nothing against my mom, but we’re used to living on our own in a lot more space than we’d have there. We want to buy instead of rent and that would give us some time to find something and save some money.

TTC has been the last thing on our minds these past few weeks but we are excited to be so much closer to our donor. We’re hoping that we will be able to TTC every month until we’re successful instead of taking months off in between because we can’t meet up with him.

Long overdue…

So I’m still in NC, but at leat my mom has an internet connection that is faster than the dial up at my dad’s. I found out yesterday that I got the job that I interviewed for last week. The pay is more than most of the other jobs that I’ve seen in my field. The benefits are OK too. I still don’t know if they offer DP benefits. I’ll be working in a state where they have the right to fire me based on who I love so I wasn’t about to ask either. I’ll have to find out when I get the information from the HR manager. R has had me on her insurance for a few years. She hasn’t found a job in NC yet and starts grad school a week after I start my job. I’ll be making enough that she won’t have to stress about finding a job as soon as we move. She can take a few months and get settled in the new house and the new school and then worry about finding a job. I’d really like to be able to add her to my insurance so we can keep TTC.

I start on the 20th so we have a lot to do in a very short amount of time. I’m headed back to PA tomorrow. I have to start packing, have a yard sale, sell one of our cars (we have three), find a place to live, and rent a truck. My dad is sending my brother and two of his employees to PA to help us move. Hopefully I can find a place for us to live soon. There is a beautiful house for sale that we have fallen in love with. There’s no way that we can get it right now though. There’s not enough time to buy something and we don’t have enough money for a down payment. We had some money saved up before I lost my job but when your income is cut in half it’s hard to save money. We’ll have to rent for a while before we can buy something. My mother and grandmother split up their houses into apartments when all their kids moved out. One of my grandmother’s apartments will be available soon and one of my mother’s tenants just told her that he may take a job in Atlanta. While either apartment would be convenient and very cheap with the family discount we do not want to live with either of them. Neither house has a fenced in back yard and that wouldn’t be fair to Hamlet and Kara. They really love their yard.

Brutus is still alive. He’s not doing well at all. He went 2 weeks without a seizure but has had at least one a day since I’ve been down here. The heat seems to make his worse. He isn’t breathing well and sometimes loses his balance. They are pretty sure it’s his brain and not his liver or heart that are responsible for the seizures. My mom was told to pick 3 things that he loves doing and when he feels stops doing those three things, it’s time to put him to sleep. He slept with me every night that I was here, but he can’t jump up in the bed anymore. That may be the arthritis from the time I ran over him though…

Sorry for the disorganized post, but a lot has happened in a few days. Will update more when I get back to PA. I haven’t forgotten that I promised a post on weak ovulation.

Still nothing

13 dpo & no BFP. We’re not looking for one either. I would be seriously surprised if AF wasn’t here by Friday. R is off work 20-26 June and we’re going to visit our donor then. I’m also trying to schedule some job interviews during that time. It looks like we’ll be moving to NC. My dad made us an offer we can’t refuse. He has offered to move us and get us set up in a house. We will rent first. If I decide to go to graduate school down there we’ll buy a house. It just doesn’t make much sense to buy a house if there’s a possibility that we will only be in NC for a year or so. My family is very excited that we may be moving down there, especially my sister. She really misses us.

12 DPO

The funeral was Friday but my grandparents were in from TX until Saturday. I left my mom’s Saturday and went to my dad’s in VA. I was there until I left Sunday. I got in last night around 9pm. Thank you to everyone who expressed their sympathy. They still don’t know what happened to my cousin and don’t expect the autopsy results for another 6 weeks. She died in her sleep. She’d had some health problems, but no one thought they were serious. It was really nice to see my mom’s side of the family. I hadn’t seen a lot of them since December.

R didn’t wait on me to POAS. She started Saturday morning. Each morning there has been only one line staring back at her. R has felt a few things but we aren’t trusting them. We’re expecting AF by Thursday. We were going to be heading to CA for San Francisco Pride in 2 weeks but instead we canceled those plans so we can go visit our donor if we need to.

No AF

R finished her pr0gesterone on Thursday. Expected to see AF by Sunday and still no AF! She’ll be starting Cl0mid on days 5-9 if she ever starts to bleed. We will be visiting our donor the 16th – 21st so hopefully the timing is good.

In school world, I have successfully defended my thesis. It has been submitted. I have the first of two finals tomorrow and one more lab report to do. On Friday I take the MFATs (major field assessment test) and then I’m done! Graduation is Saturday and the whole family (minus my brother who will be graduating the same day) will be here. It’s the first time my whole family will be meeting R’s whole family. Her mom has met my dad, mom, step-mom, and siblings. My mom has also met one of her brothers & grandparents, but this is the first time all of the extended families will meet. We’ll see how it goes…

My Girls

My Girls

Originally uploaded by NotACrayon.

My girl & Kara were relaxing in the sun this afternoon, just thought I’d share!