Say goodbye to Burt and Ernie

I can’t believe it’s almost July. The swiftness with which summer passes always takes me by surprise. Every year, I’ll say to S,”Ooh, this summer we should go (insert activity here).” And every year S says, “You know it’s August, right? Summer is almost over.” And then I get really sad.

We’ve had a great May/June though. Lots of dinner parties and great times with friends. We’ve only been in the Bay Area for a year and a half, but we’ve built up a lovely little support network of friends and family. I don’t know if it’s our age or we’re doing this on purpose, but I’m seeing a trend in that a lot of our friends are either pregnant or have small children. S reconnected with one of her college roommates recently and we had her and her family over for dinner. They have an adorable 5 year old son and a 3 month old baby boy. It was so nice to snuggle the newborn and breathe in that New Baby smell.

Things to look forward to in July: My hysteroscopic polypectomy is scheduled for the morning of July 7th! We have the ultrasound image of my 2 polyps on our fridge and have been calling them Burt and Ernie. We haven’t had friends over since doing that, but I imagine it could be seen as misleading if someone came over and saw the two white blobs on what is obviously a uterine ultrasound. But this is our way of not taking things too seriously. We’ve been wanting to start inseminations since April and this is how we cope with the wait.

I’m excited that the procedure is just over a week away, but also nervous about being awake for it all. I hope the hydrocodone / Valium mixture they have me taking that morning really works. I kind of want to watch the procedure. Do they typically let patients see the screen while they work? I love watching surgeries, but I’ve never watched my own. I figure it’ll either add some distance to whats going on, so I’m distracted OR it’ll make me hyper-aware of every move they’re making and make it 10 times more painful. But I won’t know until I try it. I also want see the polyps before they get thrown in the waste bin. Just curious about those little suckers.

S is taking that morning off and then working from home the rest of the day. I assume I’ll just pass out and sleep once we’re home. Any ugly recovery things I should know about? I haven’t asked my doctor yet how long I keep taking the BCP after the procedure. I assume I keep it up until everything heals in there, but how long does that usually take?

Three days after the procedure, we have a family birthday party in Sacramento, followed by me flying to Boston for a friend’s wedding prep. S will meet me on the east coast a couple days later for the actual ceremony. After a week in Boston, I fly back to CA and S flies to TX for a work conference. And then a week later my sister and her family arrives! Busy but fun month up ahead.

Peeing on sticks at work

We only have 2 stalls in the women’s restroom at work, so I have a whole system in place for peeing on OPK sticks during the work week. I’m usually in the office by 8:30am (I like a quiet start to the day), so I tend to check it when I get in – before the office fills up at 9am. Then, if it’s close to when I usually ovulate, I’ll check it again after 5, right before I leave for the day.

I have a tiny plastic container that I pee in. I tried to just pee directly on the stick a few times, but I must have terrible aim or something, because they either didn’t have enough liquid on them to read correctly or my hand would get covered in pee. No thanks. I hide the little cup in the metal receptacle, under the paper bag where you place your feminine hygiene items. Luckily, I work with tidy ladies who place everything neatly inside the bag. So it’s never gross. I pee in the little cup, dip the wondfo stick and wait a minute or so, depending on how busy the bathroom is. I usually place the stick in my pocket for the walk back to my desk and then hide it under my notebook, checking it periodically until it’s fully cooked.

Today was a busy day. I’m still tracking my cycle even though I started BCP Monday morning. Mostly out of curiosity to see if I still ovulate. I started the pills on CD8 and I typically ovulate between CD12 – CD15, so who knows what will happen. Anyway, since today is CD10, I checked twice today.

The nonprofit I work for has a volunteer board of young professionals and I’m the staff liaison to the board. We had our monthly meeting this evening, so I was rushing from work to the meeting a few blocks away. I did my typical peeing routine, then had to place the stick in my blazer pocket while I gathered my stuff for the meeting and left the office. I got to the meeting location and realized I still had the stick in my pocket. So right there on the busy street corner in the Financial District of downtown San Francisco, I took out my Wondfo stick, held it up to check the darkness of the line, and then threw it in the corner trash can.

I have a feeling that will not be the last time I do that.

Polypectomy, here I come

So no baby-making this cycle. But it’s not all bad news.

Dr. H took another look this morning and didn’t see anything at first. So she performed an impromptu sonohysterosalpingogram. Basically, she pushed saline solution into my uterus to get a better look. It was actually really uncomfortable and there was more cramping than the HSG. Maybe because I was caught off guard and couldn’t prepare myself mentally for the procedure?

Anyway, the 2 polyps are still there hanging out at the top of my uterus. Both are just under 1 cm, but because they’re over 1 cm when combined and right next to each other, Dr. H wants them out.

The good news: she’s hustling to schedule the polypectomy this cycle. She immediately put me on birth control pills to keep my lining from thickening. She’ll give me some possible procedure dates in the next day or two.

We’re gonna do it in the clinic, rather than the hospital – where I’d be knocked out. She said I seem to have a high tolerance for pain, so I should be fine (!)  Which is ok with me, actually. I’ve never been knocked out for surgery, so I have no problem doing it in the clinic while awake.

So that’s where we are. I see V tomorrow for acupuncture, so I’ll fill her in on where we are and see what she recommends on her end.
Until then, just more waiting.

Owners of sperm!

We officially own 2 expensive vials of Mr. Buddha. We decided to go about this piecemeal and just buy as we went, rather than purchasing lots of vials at once. Kinda weird to think we have some genetic material stored away in a freezer right now.

Whenever I do something really modern, I always wonder how my great grandparents would react. I never met them, but I just like to imagine what someone from that era would think if they saw this odd act of spending lots of money on a stranger’s frozen sperm so we can create a tiny human. They’d probably think we lost our damn minds.

Ah, summer

A time of barbecues, camping, and iced coffee. We’re heading into the end of our fiscal year at work, so it’s also a time of finance meetings, budget reconciliations, and pulling out my hair. But I’m going to ignore that for now.

Not sure what it is about summer, but we become little social butterflies. We already have most of our summer weekends booked, either with weddings, local outings, brunch, family dinners, you name it. I say we have the weekends booked, but really, we try to contain it to one day per weekend. We cherish our lazy Sundays. A few years ago, I hated lazy Sundays. I’m a do-er. I like to check things off my to-do list and be productive. But at some point in the last year, a switch flipped in me. If we schedule a busy weekend, I tend to freak out now. I look forward to having one day a week where we have nothing big planned. Where we can sleep in. Read a book. Cook a big lunch. Take a nap. Now I really need that day to recharge and get ready for the next week. So in between our dinner parties, happy hours, and day trips, I’m glad we’re still making time for ourselves.

In baby-making news, I’m on CD2 today. My acupuncturist, V, said this period would likely be painful and heavy. And damn if she wasn’t right. I slept with the heating pad on my abdomen last night. If I didn’t think I’d get a lot of weird looks at work, I would have happily brought it into the office with me the last 2 days. My Monday night hip hop class helped relax the cramping a bit, but it was back a couple hours later. The blood is also very dark and heavy and (TMI warning!) full of clots. Gross. But it’s nice to see that the herbs are working and flushing everything out. I go back next Tuesday, where we’ll discuss our next steps. I’m really loving acupuncture. I’ve only been twice, but both times I really enjoyed the zings from the needles and just lying there relaxing. V said my pulse was a little stronger this last visit. I hope that trend continues.

I have an appointment with Dr H. next Monday. Excited to have her take another looky-loo at my uterus and figure out what she wants to do. Are those polyps/fibroids coming out or not? Hopefully, we’ll have some answers and a plan in less than a week!