Saturday, July 9, 2011

Round Two & The Two-Week Wait

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!OVERSHARE ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
(If you do not really want to know how babies are made the not-so-old-fashioned way, then this is not for you. Skip ahead to the last paragraph if you're just not feeling that curious or bold today...)

ICI Round 2:1

The plan, as has always been my general framework for a plan: I have super-regular cycles and almost unfailingly ovulate on CD13. So the idea is basically to inseminate once in the evening of CD12, again in the early morning of CD13, and lastly in the evening of CD13. That's the basic plan. It's what I did the first time. Seems like a good plan to follow this time, too. However, in an effort to up my chances at conception, I wanted to use more than one vial per insemination if possible. Strength in numbers. When you're making babies and dealing with "fresh" goods, there's just so much of it! Seriously. It can be a hot mess (literally) if your getting down without the specific aim of making a baby. When you're dealing with Pop-sicles however (frozen goods, if you will), you're getting a substantially smaller volume of goods and also you can't guarantee how well or not your Pop-sicle(s) will survive the thawing process to get the job done. So the logic I'm following is basically The More The Merrier.

The Pop-sicle gets thawed properly, and upon its foray into the Potential Baby Zone, more swimmers means they can play better defense. There are some swimmers that just aren't gonna make it. That is a sad, sorry fact whether you are using "fresh" or "frozen". Some swimmers are gonna get tired early and quite. Some swimmers are gonna get their heads turned around and get caught up in the surrounding lining area, all too anxious to penetrate something and not noticing that it's just a wall and not an egg. Some swimmers will get past all that and then take a wrong turn at the fork in the road (right or left fallopian tube - decisions, decisions).


And when a swimmer does make it to the egg, it's not just the strength and speed of that one swimmer that determines whether or not he'll be allowed in. The entire environment around t
he egg has to be altered chemically/hormonally, and that can only happen when the concentration of swimmers in the area reaches a certain tipping point. Even when that happens, only one swimmer can penetrate the egg, but it takes the consistent tap-tap-tapping of about 200 swimmers to convince the egg to let that one swimmer in.

Based on this science, research, and carefully constructed theory, I decided it would be a good idea to double up, so to speak for each insemination. The hard facts of reality, however, are that my bank account and impending international move made it impossible for me to purchase enough Pop-sicles to double up on all three attempts for this cycle. I already had two
pre-purchased Bachelor #2 Pop-sicles that I'd traded in for Bachelor #1 Pop-sicles as soon as Miss T alerted me to his newly re-available status. I had then also purchased two more Bachelor #1 Pop-sicles, bringing the grand total to four. I'd have like to have bought two more (to have six altogether, and be able to double up for each attempt), but finances simply would not permit it. Ergo, the new plan was to do a PM ICI on CD12 with 1 pop-cicle; an AM ICI on CD13 with 2 pop-sicles; and another PM ICI on CD13 with the last remaining pop-sicle. It seemed like a solid plan, and it was....until the game changed on me.

You know what they say: "Men plan and God laughs." The Lord must have really been feelin' Himself this cycle because my plans got rearranged in a hurry!

As you know, on CD11 FedEx grossly mis-handled my box-o-cryotank. It was supposed to be held for me to pick it up at a FedEx Kinkos hold facility, but it accidentally got sent back out and almost got itself on a plane to Memphis. With the three-hour time difference between my location in NYC and The Bank's location in San Francisco, I was able to get someone very helpful on the line to mediate and light a fire under the FedEx guys to find my box and get it back to me PRONTO. So I did end up going home with my box-o-cryotank that evening, but upon arriving home, a test revealed a very positive OPK.

I usually don't get a bells & whistles positive OPK until CD12. I was already stressed out from the events of the evening, and also from just having done the whole apartment shipping process for my stuff to HK. I didn't want to throw myself off any more by stressing more and worrying about the timing of my (up to now) unwavering CD13 O-day. Plus, I was exhausted and hadn't slept for more than 8 hours combined in the previous 3 or 4 days. I went to bed with my box-o-cryotank where I could see it.


I woke up the next day and ran a few errands. I'd done an OPK at 9:30am, and I was still testing positive, so I decided not to panic and got on with the business of the day. I just kept telling myself, "Don't freak out. Stick to the plan." So I organized some things. Packed up/cleared out a few other things. Took out a whole lot of trash and recycling. Around 6pm, I did another OPK (still positive, but now the T-line was a bit lighter than it was that morning), and I prepped the
area for ICI Round 2:1.

I had checked my four vials to confirm that they were actually Bachelor #1's four vials and not those of some random Donor X. Check! I had two sets: two vials from an October 2010 donation, and two vials from a December 2010 donation. I decided to use one of the October vials for this attempt (I wanted to save the two more recent vials for my "double-up" attempt the next morning). When I opened the box-o-cryotank, I noticed that the tank itself was marked PRS-024. Since 24 is my favorite number (don't ask me why. It just is...), I took this as a good sign. Let the games begin!


Box-O-Cryotank

Same as before, I used my clumsy leather Home Depot garden gloves to gently remove one vial from the tank and plopped it down into a Marshmallow Fluff lid (I'd packed off pretty much all my other kitchen stuff to HK, so you know...any port in a storm!). It did its one-minute wait til I could touch it without getting frostbite from the sub-freezing liquid nitrogen temperature it had been kept at up to this point.


I've obscured my donor's ID number to protect
my family's & donor's privacy...and also to keep
others from ordering my stuff & putting him out
of stock when I need him most...just sayin'.


Then I unscrewed the cap and screwed it back on (but not too tightly), put the pop-cicle into a zip lock baggie, and put said baggie into a cup of luke warm water. I put a the Fluff lid on top of the cup and set the timer on my cell phone for 10 minutes. I used the thaw time to put a little more air into the air mattress (bed's on its way to HK already). I got into my comfy clothes - an insemination ensemble as it were. I fed Precious Roy and gave him two "herbal calming chews for cats" in the vain hope that he might settle down a bit and not impede the process too much. I'd ordered a tube of PreSeed, so I proceeded to PreSeed in preparation for the evening's proceedings accordingly. And not a moment too soon: the timer on my phone went off.

I lifted the baggie out of its tepid bath and extracted the pinky-sized vial (all liquidated and no longer a pop-sicle). It wasn't cold to the touch at all and the contents seemed to move around freely enough inside. I unscrewed the top from the vial and opened the oral syringe provided, pushing the tip all the way to the bottom of the vial. I slowly raised the plunger and filled the via
l with Bachelor #1's swimmers. I then up-ended the syringe and did the tap-tap-tap thing to get all the air bubbles to the top. Gently pushing down on the plunger, I expelled the air bubbles (and a few swimmers), and let the few brave kamikazi swimmers drip onto the lens of my Ovulite Fertility Monitoring Microscope. I checked to see if the swimmers were actually swimming: YUP!

(Insert Flight of the Conchords Season 1 soundtrack here) Conditions are perfect. It's Business Time....I lay down on the air mattress and got under the covers. I lifted my bottom and shoved the fluffier of my two remaining pillows just below my sacrum. I put my knees in the air, making the air mattress look more like a 4-year-old's living room play forte, and I inserted the syringe. Slowly, slowly, slowly pushing in the plunger and releasing Bachelor #1's swimmers in the general vicinity of my cervix. Since I had used the PreSeed, I didn't take the "extra step" because I didn't want my body's own chemistry fighting with the pH of the PreSeed and
confusing/harming the swimmers. I just kind of lay there and let the swimmers do their thang...and I think they did. A few moments later, I experienced some cramping. Not anything forceful or particularly painful even. Just some uncomfortable little twinges. I took it as a sign that some clever and industrious swimmers had found their way onto the right path since women who IUI at the doctor's office often report slight cramping after their swimmers are placed directly inside their uteri. Yippeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

The deed done, I lay on my back with my knees to my chest for a good hour or so while watching Martin Lawrence's First Amendment Stand Up on Netflix (funny stuff). I watched one or two other movies and then fell blissfully asleep dreaming of chubby brown babies...This is the part where my plans intersected with God's quirky sense of humor...

ICI Round 2:2


Overnight, I woke around 2:30am...I had a weird feeling that I couldn't quite place. I went to the bathroom and went back to bed. The next morning, I woke with a start at 6am to the sound of my cell phone's customized alarm signal: "*s, wake up. Beep. *s, wake up. Beep." (repeat). I reached under my pillow for the thermometer and sleepily put it under my tongue, eyes still closed tight against the morning light filtering in through the blinds. 97.6 F, a full .51 degrees higher than CD 12. It may have been my middle of the night stupor trying to tell me that I was ovulating just right then. With no time to waste, I hopped out of/off of bed/air mattress and ran to take another OPK. It was negative, but with a very faint, almost non-existent line. I had in fact ovulated over night. Time to get to work!

This being my last chance to try getting knocked up until possibly Christmas (or maybe even until next year), I took a hold of myself and made a decision. I was only a few hours past the
exact time of my ovulation. It would take the egg at least 4 days to make it out of the fallopian tube, but good swimmers could get to the egg just started on its journey in anywhere from 45mins to a few hours. I decided to use all three remaining vials and make my CD13 morning insemination my last. The more the merrier. Strength in numbers. Right?

My friend K. was right to nick-name me PlanB. I am very adaptable to change! I didn't waste a moment. I put on the kettle to boil water for morning oatmeal and tea. I pulled out and heated up a little bit of Japanese unagi over brown rice from the night before. I brushed my teeth and washed my face. Changed into a slightly different insemination ensemble. Oatmeal & tea covered and steeping beside my pillow (and unagi foil-wrapped and warm inside the toaster oven), I fed and watered Precious Roy and gave him two more "herbal calming chews for cats". I inflated the air mattress a little bit more (always some bit of leakage and sagging overnight, right?).


donor ID is obscured because
blah, blah, blah...(see comment
under ICI 2:1 photo)


As I opened the box-0-cryotank, it was all I could do to get the three remaining pop-sicles out without my über-hyper kittie jumping into the box and turning himself into a cat-sicle! Mission accomplished! Plopped the three into the Marshmallow Fluff lid and gave them a moment to collect their thoughts and pose for a photo. Then, one by one, I unscrewed the caps and rescrewed them again (but not too tightly). I placed all three into the zip lock baggie and then into their warm bath to relax and unwind whilst I set the timer on my phone and tried to get myself to do the same. With a little over a minute left on the clock, I proceeded to PreSeed one last time. "*s, wake up. Beep. *s, wake up. Beep." Go time.

I removed the triplets from their bath and saw that they were all sloshing about quite nicely in their vials. One by one, I filled three 1cc syringes and set them aside on a clean paper towel. One by one I tap-tap-tapped the air bubbles to the top and expelled them from the syringes, the last of which I smeared onto the Ovulite lens. Swimmers are GO!

I carried the three syringes over to the staging area and set them down on the paper towel next to my pillow. I lay down, put the fluffy pillow under my bottom, and tented out the bed covers by putting my knees up to my chest like before. I turned my head to the right and reached out for a syringe. I said a prayer and inserted the contents of the three syringes in close proximity to my cervix one...by...one. And I waited. Like the evening before, I felt some cramping after a few moments. A few moments after that, I felt it again. GO SWIMMERS GO!!! And Godspeed to you! And who knows? Maybe my plan needed some shaking up. I mean, I was so positive about the perfection of my timing last time around, and clearly that didn't turn out as I'd hoped. Maybe this is the right timing for my body to make babies. Maybe this is the right Bachelor for my body to make babies with. I planned. God laughed. Maybe 9 1/2 months from now, God & I will both sit back and laugh at all the unscheduled events that took place that made a certain chubby, brown tiny human of my dreams possible. We plan and God laughs. God plans and we stand back in bewildered awe...

And here I am...at CD19-7DPO. Smack in the middle of the Two-Week Wait. I've dutifully applied progesterone cream to soft-skinned areas of my body (inner-arms, inner thighs, belly, etc.) twice a day since 4DPO to keep my levels up, keep my LP from shorting out and starting AF, and make my insides a hospitable place should anything fertilized want to snuggle in and stay for a while. I leave for France on 16th July, exactly one week away (and just one day after AF is projected to arrive). Technically, I'm supposed to wait until Friday to test, but I need to be sure before I get on a plane and stew about it for 12 hours in flight. So I've decided to HPT on Thursday, and I've already made an appointment with my GP to get a prescription filled before I go, so I'm going to request a pregnancy blood test that day as well (regardless of what the HPT says...at only 13DPO, it may be too soon for an HPT to pick up, but a blood test should be definitive by that point).

Lots to do in the meantime...so just anxiously (but patiently) waiting...
Tic-Toc...Tic-Toc...Tic-Toc...
...Stay tuned.

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