I still don’t know how to transition from IVF to possible “P” posts (stole that from mamajo). I don’t like saying the word just  yet. Is it too early for trigger warning posts? Am I counting my chickens before they hatch? Anyway, I’ll just leave it and give people the choice and hope that I haven’t jinxed myself with all of this reveling in good fortune.

So we’re still in in so-far-so-good land over here. My final beta on Monday rose more than enough for them to schedule the first ultrasound on May 11th (might as well be next year).

I felt good and confident that day so I posted my betas on my Instagram account in an act of faith that this is going to work.

No sooner had I posted and let my guard down did the universe teach me another lesson. First pee of the morning at work on Tuesday came with a healthy helping of dark red blood and a clot. I was a complete mess all day. The clinic obviously couldn’t do anything. They just said to monitor it and if I’m soaking a pad in an hour or experiencing severe pain, especially on either side, I should call back or go to the ER. It sucks that there’s nothing anyone can do in these situations. If it ends, it ends.

My saving grace that day was the I was feeling incredibly sick all day. I’ve been telling my friends that I so badly want to experience everything, even debilitating morning sickness, so while I was breathing slowly trying not to puke at my desk I was quietly very excited.

The bleeding eventually stopped and I’ve just been brown spotting everyday since. No cramps or anything. My breast hurt to the touch and I feel motion sick for most of the day. But I’m not going to lie, I’m scared.

The rest of this week has been torture of course and I have 2 more full weeks of torture to go before the ultrasound. My days have been passing pretty much the same with these same thoughts going through my head all day.

• Waking up: Do my boobs hurt? Let me roll around on them a bit more to make sure.
• Getting out of bed: Oh yeah, definitely still sore. Although, is that because I mashed them into the bed for 5 minutes?
• On the toilet: Please no blood, please no blood, please no blood.
• Brushing teeth: Right let’s see if brushing my tongue will make me sick. Let’s also squeeze the boobs again.
• Driving to work: Was that blood? *wiggles in the seat*
• First pee check at work: Please no blood, please no blood, please no blood.
• Trying to work: Was that blood? *wiggles in the seat*. Let’s poke the boobs and hope no one notices.
• Feeling queasy: Yeeees, yeees bring it on little one. Loving it.
• Lunchtime: I’m starving.
• First bite: I’m full.
• 5th bite: This tastes delicious!
• 7th bite: This tastes disgusting!… Was that blood? *seat wiggle*
• Bathroom check number 27: Please no blood, please no blood, please no blood.
• 2hrs to home time: Can this day please end. I have preggo tests to take!
• Final minutes of work: Let’s add things to private baby pinterest board.
• 1 pin later: Okay that’s enough, don’t get cocky.
• Final bathroom check: I’m sure I’ve bled through everything this time. Come on baby, prove me wrong please.
• Drive home: We did it little one! We survived another day! Tomorrow I won’t be so stressed out. We’re good. Life is good. You’re not going anywhere. *Butt cheeks finally unclench*

Boy, do I suck at this lol… But I have an excuse! It’s end of quarter at the school which is craaaazy so I’ve been working way to hard to think about blogging or life. But it’s quieted down a bit so expect a few posts a day so I can catch up on this before the end of the week. I apologize for bogging down your emails if you’re subscribed :).

So this past week I missed a deadline. A big deadline. My first big eff up at the new job. I was expecting to be fired but my boss just sat with me and we had a teaching moment discussion. I still felt completely rotten for most of the day but my boss’s demeanor didn’t change with me throughout the day and we had a few laughs after about other stuff.

It got me thinking about how good it feels to finally have a good manager. I was reminded of my last job where I also made one eff up and the meeting I was subjected to felt like a congressional hearing.

I’m not making excuses for myself but at this stage the company was going through a merger and we got new software that everyone was trying to wrap their heads around. It wasn’t a good time since we were still having to process work in the old system while trying to process new jobs in the new system. Things are bound to fall through the cracks. Also while all of this was going on procedures were changing with how projects were run. Procedures that we got little to no training on. Just a quick mention in meetings. One of these procedural changes was just a quick checking of a checkbox that we’ve never previously done. Unfortunately, this checkbox, if it wasn’t checked had knock on effects down the road. Effects that wouldn’t be picked up unless it was looked for specifically but effects that messed up data that was presented to clients. Whoops. Guess who wasn’t checking that checkbox for about 10 projects.

I’ll never forget the day. I only reported to one manager but there are 3 in the office. bare in mind that I was also a manager like the other two, though they were a bit more senior than I was. I was called in and had to sit across from the 3 of them and had to answer questions about this egregious error. I felt like a dumb child being spoken down to. “How could you let this happen?” “Walk me through your thought process, step by step”.

I felt terrible. My punishment was that I was to send and “apology” email to all the customer service guys who worked on the projects and I had to fix the error and resend data reports.

But the more I thought about it the more angry I got and I couldn’t understand why such a big deal was being made about it. Mostly because everyone in customer service seemed unconcerned and thankfully none of the reports had been presented yet so crisis averted right?

I think I know why such a big deal was made. This wasn’t an issue of negligence it was an issue of a broken system and lack of training. Things were changing so rapidly that upper management had no time to set up proper training sessions. I won’t go into details of how things were coming apart at the seams. Things have calmed down now and are a lot smoother, I’m sure, but those few months were awful and a lot of people jumped ship so they had to deal with that as well. Anyway, I think my boss knew that I wasn’t fully to blame and she didn’t want any push back from me so she called in her 2 buddies to back her up in case I fought with her. Luckily for them I’m a pushover and I took all the berating. Also for the rest of the day my boss just seemed moody with me. Ugh that’s a tale for another day though. I should start a whole new blog to tell stories about that old job. You would be amazed and horrified.

Anyway, the point of this story was that having a good manager will make or break you. I’ve had my share of really awful and really great managers and I’m very happy to be going through this stage of my life (read: infertility) with a great one.

I’m sure most of us can say that we’ve always wanted to be mothers. For me this was definitely the case. I don’t remember waking up and thinking I want to be a mom, it was just always a given. I just always remember saying “When I have kids….”

I was just thinking about something from that time that made me chuckle. It was round about the time my mother had her tubes tied. I think I was 8 or 9. I remember going to see her in the hospital and I think that’s when I became curious about having kids and I would ask her all sorts of questions about children and child birth etc.

One thing she said to me was that after she gave birth to all of us while she was in the hospital the nurses would come in everyday and prick her finger to test her blood. I assume it was for blood sugar levels or something, I don’t know. She said that it was the one thing she dreaded every morning. She’d given just given birth but the pin prick was the part she dreaded :).

But the way she described the pin prick to me really frightened me. I’m 35 now and I still remember being frightened. Would I have to endure daily, painful pin pricks while I’m at the hospital?

I remember lying awake and contemplating if having children was worth it. I remember squeezing the tip of my index finger and my thumbnail together really tight to feel what it could possibly feel like. I truly was shaken by the prospect. For a long time I was very sad that this is what I would have to do to have children. I didn’t know if I could do it.

I’d obviously recovered from the shock but recently this memory popped into my head and it made me laugh.

Here I am, hundreds of pin pricks later, all in the pursuit of a child. I wish I could go back to that frightened child and hug her and say “Oh honey, you ain’t seen nothing yet…” Then I’ll laugh maniacally and walk away.

Okay, that probably won’t help but she’ll figure it out, she’s a tough cookie. *wink*

I’ve had a lot of crappy OB’s. I’m very happy now to have found one who I really like. I know that he doesn’t deliver babies anymore so I don’t know if he’ll fire me or not but for now I’m very happy with him.

I found Dr K through my mom-in-law. He’s at the same OB office as the guy I saw before him. He’s and older gentleman with the funniest grey mustache that’s curled perfectly on the ends, which some people might find creepy but I think makes him seem friendlier somehow. He’s really kind and always shakes my hand with both of his hands when he walks in and he holds my hand in his hands while he asks me about my life and how IVF is going. Again, some people might be awkward with personal contact like that but I thrive on it and I really like that he’s engaged in the conversation. He knows my first RE. They went to university together I think and he always had good things to say about him. And after every visit he always said that he really hopes next time he sees me will be for a pregnancy appointment. And the best part is that his pap smears don’t hurt at all. It might be because he talks to me through the whole thing so I’m distracted by answering questions.

But before him I thought I was doomed to get terrible gynecological help for the rest of my life.

My first gyno was obviously my mom’s gyno. Dr Y. He wasn’t terrible to me personally but I don’t think he was a good doctor overall. I went to him at the tender age of 15. I have a third nipple that started giving me trouble so he put me on the pill. I eventually just stopped taking it because I could never remember to take it. I had to go back to him at around 17 or 18 when I started getting period cramps from hell. Again, I was put on the pill and sent on my way. I never saw him after that but I stayed on the pill until my my mid 20s. See, he wasn’t overly terrible to me but I say he’s not a good doctor because he delivered my cousin’s daughter and didn’t realize that she had a significant tear. She figured it out herself after some painful trips to the bathroom. And with another friend of mine, he set her up for an elective cesarean for her second kid and I guess got his due date wrong and ended up taking him out too soon. Like weeks too soon. He was in the nicu for a stint. Shocking.

The second one was just a ghost. I made one appointment with her and never saw her. The office cancelled the appointment twice because of emergency deliveries and always scheduled the next appointments months later. I just gave up.

Then came Dr M, a recommendation from my sister-in-law. He also wasn’t the worst but I believe he did an unnecessary surgery. At this point I’d been off the pill for about a year and I went to see him for some abdominal pain. Turns out I had 3 cysts. They were about 3cm each so quite big and he did a full laparotomy on me to drain the cysts. I didn’t know any better but every doctor I spoke to after that said they would never have done major surgery like that for 3 cysts. But it is what it is. I am now cyst free and haven’t had a problem since. With cysts anyhow.

Afterwards there was another female, Dr Y. She was awful. I went to her first to get a new pill that wasn’t Yaz. So she put me on something else. I went to her 3 times after that to change pills because I couldn’t find one that agreed with me and every time she tried to put me back on Yaz. Okay, look I understand the doctors see too many patients to remember everyone but would it kill you to check the chart before you walk in? And every time I said I don’t want to be on Yaz she seemed exasperated like I was being difficult. And the last time I went to her, after suggesting Yaz she suggested the first pill she put me on. I was baffled. Was I being difficult or was she not being thorough? Either way, I didn’t stick around to find out.

Then this last doctor, Dr G. Wow. I found him on a google search for the best gyno’s in my area but my goodness. First thing that should have given me a clue is that he was also a doctor at a plastic surgery clinic so I feel like his heart wasn’t in gynecology or something. He never remembered me either, which is fine. By this stage I’d learned to not expect much bedside manner from gynecologists. But when we decided to start infertility testing I was waiting on the table going over in my head what I would say about our situation and he walked in all cheerful and asked “So have you felt the baby kick yet?”. I had the most confused look on my face and he looked at this chart then laughed and walked back out. He came back shortly after and said he walked into the wrong room. I was probably very sensitive at the time but geez louise guy, check the chart! The second thing he did was the way he handled our infertility. I posted about it before but he said that I wasn’t ovulating after taking blood work on the wrong day of my cycle and he suggested an IUI while knowing N’s semen analysis results. I never got a good vibe from him so I’m glad I peaced out.

And I think that was the last of the crappy doctors. Dr K might not be perfect but he’s pretty damned close compared these other guys. I’m so happy that I may have some good news next time I see him.

We just the last progesterone shot and I took the last estrogen pills. 

It dawned on me that this could be our last meds for cycle. 

I’ve been up and down all day. I didn’t have work so I spent the day doing my hair and going shopping and wiping tears from my eyes. 

Sometimes excited tears when I imagine good news. Then sad tears when I think about bad news. 

I’ve had some symptoms which I’ll talk about tomorrow. I don’t want to jinx anything but they’re all progesterone symptoms anyway. 

And I’ve just started spotting. My period is due tomorrow so this could well be the end. 

I don’t know. 

But I am so happy to be getting off the crazy train tomorrow. 

So I’m a serial dieter. I’ve tried them all and they all suck. Even this one that I’m going to talk about kinda sucks.

After all my dieting I’ve come to realize that diets only work if you’re nuts and don’t enjoy food. Now I may be nuts but I also love food so I’m bound to fail all the time.

I mean there’s so much good food out there. Why are we denying ourselves? Diets make me so angry… But I digress.

If you don’t know what the ketogenic diet is you can do some reading here. But long story short, it’s just eating extremely high fat foods (avocado, dark meat chicken, cheese) and extremely low carbohydrates and moderate protein.

There are variations where you are just low carb and I think I fall somewhere in between when I’m going full on. I would say I’m about 90% keto at home. Meaning I only cook keto but every now and again I’ll buy some non-keto approved food. Like this week I made hot cross buns. I also don’t eat as much fat as most strict keto-ers and I don’t eat as few carbs as them either.

But truth be told, for me, keto works. When I work it, it works. And I’m not overly miserable. I’ve not lost a ton of weight on keto but I feel really good. When I fail then I feel awful. Carbs give me terrible heartburn and I always feel hungover after a binge. And let’s not get started on my tummy troubles.

I know this lifestyle is best for me and to try and keep myself accountable I’ve start a keto account on instagram for some pics. It really helps a lot. I have to post a meal at least 4-5 times a week to feel accountable.

The funny part is that the food pics are such a production. N gets so annoyed because I call him to dinner and then I make him watch as I place everything perfectly and I take a gazillion pics. We’ve eaten more than our fair share of cold meals.

Anyway, again, no real point to this. I just wanted to share some pics from my instagram account. I’ve been getting into it. I’m not professional but I’ve been toying with the idea of taking professional food photography classes. Right now I’m taking pics with my phone and N says I need to work on my backgrounds lol.

But here you go. Some pics from my account.

Valentines day lobster

Cheese platter with flax crackers and halloumi cheese (my heart)

Keto pizza

Keto waffles with bacon and homemade breakfast sausage

Boneless leg of lamb yaaaa’ll

low carb zuppa toscana

Standard keto breakfast

Duck breast with cauliflower puree and cheesy broccoli

Oh my goooodness. Last day of work for the long weekend and I swear it’s been 1pm for a good few hours now. Just 2.5 more hours left of work. I can do this.

In the meantime to kill some time here are a few tweets/memes that make me chuckle every time.

Happy Easter everyone!

I am a daughter
I still have my mom and dad
I know how lucky I am to say that
I admire my mom’s strength and caring heart
I miss making my dad laugh and his giant hugs

I am a sister
I was an “oopsy” baby
I love being the only girl
I have two older brothers who are my life
I have two older brothers who my everything

I am a sister-in-law
I have the luckiest brothers
I have the awesomest sisters
I love that I can go to them for anything
I love that they made me the best thing in the world…

I am an aunt
I have a niece
I have two nephews
I am absolutely smitten with them
I am so sad that I’m missing them growing up

I am a friend
I am surrounded with love
I am surrounded with support
I don’t know what I would do without my tribe
I don’t know what I did to deserve them

I am a wife
I found love after pain. Deep love
I left everything above for love
I wonder if he comprehends how much I love him
I find it hard to comprehend it myself sometimes

I am a mother
I’m a mother in my heart
I am a mother without a child
I struggle with the fact that I may always be just that, but
I am still fighting. I am tired but still fighting.

“Go outside”, they said. “It’ll be great”, they said.

Well it was pretty great, actually. We just hopped in the car and drove and we ended up at a nature walk place on the side of the road. It was an easy walk but because of the rain it was muddy in places so we had to get creative, fashioning makeshift bridges and the like. It was fun to get some fresh air.

Afterwards we went to find some open air markets. It was a bit late in the day but we found two small farmers markets where we bought some soups and micro-brewed sodas.

Then we got home and he went back to video games and I finished my book (Trevor Noah’s Born A Crime – Excellent read! And I’m not being biased because I do have a few criticisms).

After dinner we were getting ready for bed and as I took my sweater off I saw a bug on my side. I gasped and quickly swatted at it. It didn’t budge. So I swatted at it again and and nothing. Then one of it’s creepy little legs moved and I realized what it was.

A tick! A big ugly tick!

I’ve never in my life flipped out like I did. I was screaming and crying hysterically. N came running and when he made out what my screams were about he started laughing until he realized I how much distress I was in.

I’m a city slicker man. I don’t know about these things. I’ve never had a tick attack me before. We didn’t go on hikes as kids. I’ve only known ticks to be on animals. N spent most of his childhood in the woods so to him, ticks are par for the course (I can’t even).

It took him a while but he finally got me to calm down somewhat and he got the vile creature out (head and all) with a tweezer. We then checked each other thoroughly and nothing was found but I was a blubbering mess for the rest of the night.

I did all the googling about ticks and early pregnancy and I guess only the deer ticks carry lyme disease and they have to be on you for 24hrs for the disease to transmit. I’m still very freaked out but I’m keeping an eye on the bite mark. It’s just a little red but nothing too sinister. Just adding a few more things to my list of symptoms to spot.

I’m so angry with myself. I should have just stayed indoors.

Inside good. Outside baaad.

“Grow. Grow my child, groooow”

Words my husband whispered to my belly yesterday. He’s never done anything like that before and now I’m really freaking out. 

I’m not feeling confident today. Yes it’s only day 4. But it feels like day 20. 

I’m trying to not let negativity reign but I keep thinking, why would this work? It hasn’t before. Yes, everything is different this cycle. Everything. But the embryo is still the same. Shitty sperm, shitty egg. What if that’s been the problem all along? What do we do if this fails? Will Dr P fire us like Dr G did? 

Do we give up on our genetics? Do I give up on my uterus? 

These are just thoughts that are running through my head today. I have to go through them. Come to terms with them and be okay with them. 

I also have to remember that fear isn’t real. As much as I hate to quote Will Smith (personal beef), I really love these words. 

Fear is not real. It is a product of thoughts you create. Do not misunderstand me. Danger is very real. But fear is a choice. 

It’s a lovely day today so we’re going to go outside for a walk. I need to clear my head. I have to choose something else over fear. 

Please grow, my child.