Dear Diary
Now that TTCing has taken over my entire life, my diary has taken on a whole new meaning. I can entertain myself for hours with nothing but my A5 week to a page Collin’s diary (as proved during a very quiet day at work today). I use the year-planner page at the front to track my cycle lengths, periods and inseminations. Then on each day I write in the cycle day number and where applicable the days post ovulation number. Then the fun starts. I count until my BFP is due. Using my 2009 diary, I count until the due date. I count until the 12, 16 and 20 week milestones. I then canvas fallback plans and count to when the next insem will be if we don’t get a BFP this time. I review previous dates, analyse patterns in my cycles, calculate the days of the week and the conflicting events that may happen with our next insem or BFP news. It’s like a portable fertility friend but far less technical and more optimistic. Thankfully I already have a policy of only writing in pencil in my diary, because with all this optimistic markings in my diary, there’s usually some erasing to be done.
TTC timing
We had dinner tonight with two lesbian friends who have been thinking about TCC quite seriously for some time. They’d always had this drawn-out timeframe which involved starting to ttc in mid 2010. Now things have changed a bit and they’re thinking of starting in January 2009. I am very happy for them, but it does mark the time that we’ve been on the TTC train for. It wasn’t long after they told us that I realised that it was now quite possible that they’d be pregnant before us. I am ok with this. But it is painful. These markers of time can stretch out. It was twelve months ago that we were signing on at the clinic. Then getting our donors on board and patiently waiting out the six month quarantine period before we could get started. It takes so damn long to get to the starting line. On the upside I am really looking forward to having some of my good lesbian friends with children around the same age as ours and to (hopefully) be going through the same things at the same time. Oh well, let’s see eh?
Baths and boosters
I love baths. They’re my one indulgence. And despite the drought here, I naughtily have one almost every day. Sometimes even twice on a particularly luxuriant weekend day. Over the past four months of TTCing, I abstained from baths in the first month, but bathed during the 2WW in the next cycles, avoiding the bath only for a few days after the insemination. The same goes for swimming. But I’ve noticed conflicting advice on the net, and so this month I’m trying my hardest not to submerge. And I am missing it and finding I have a whole lot more time on my hands. I thought at first the restriction was just about the temperature, the bath not being too hot, but in some places I’ve read its about the water at all – hence the no-swimming. Dear Readers, do you have baths or go swimming during the 2WW? Does anyone have advice on bathing during the 2WW? What happens when I get a BFP? I can’t imagine not being able to bathe for an entire nine months. But, I guess I’m now at a point where I’ll do whatever it takes.
I have my first HGC booster shot tomorrow. It’s a lower dose than the trigger (1500iui opposed to 5000iui – although due to my bad reaction in August, this time I had only 3/4 of the 5000 this time as my trigger). After Tuesday’s rather embarrassing and very uncomposed telephone conversation with my parents, I have asked Lola not to allow me to answer the telephone tomorrow. I do not want a repeat of the melodramatic, uncontrollable and totally over-reactive crying episode followed by a heavy dose of anxiety. I can now certifiably say that the HGC shots really do mess with me.
NaBloPoMo block: the stolen dialect meme returns
I’ve just returned from a fraught trip to the lesbian queer festival film (yes, just the one lesbian film) which didn’t end up screening due to problems with the DVD (more on lesbian cinema anthropology later). So we’re back home, settling in for a non-lesbian DVD, but first, I needed to blog! That’s when Vee’s stolen dialect meme comes to the rescue! Thanks Vee.
1. A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks.
A creek
2. What’s the thing you push around the grocery store called.
A shopping trolley.
3. A container to carry a meal in.
A tupperware container.
4. The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in.
A frying pan.
5. The piece of furniture that seats three people.
A couch.
6. The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof.
Gutters.
7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening.
A patio or a verandah or a deck or a porch- depending on what it’s made of and where it’s situated.
8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages.
Soft drink or cool drink
9. A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup.
Pancake.
10. A long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself.
We don’t call it subway here, unless it comes from the store called subway. It might be called baguette if it’s in a long roll or a sandwich.
11. The piece of clothing worn by men at the beach.
Bathers or speedos.
12. Shoes worn for sports.
Sneakers.
13. Putting a room in order.
Tidying up.
14. A flying insect that glows in the dark.
Firefly
15. Little insects that curls up into a ball.
Slaters
16. The children’s playground equipment where one kid sits on one side and goes up while the other sits on the other side and goes down.
See-saw.
17. How do you eat your pizza?
With fingers.
18. What’s it called when private citizens put up signs and sell their used stuff?
Swap meet or garage sale.
19. What’s the evening meal?
Dinner.
20. The thing under a house where the furnace and perhaps a rec room are?
We don’t have furnaces. We might call this a basement.
21. What do you call the thing that you can get water out of to drink in public places?
Bubbler.
And on the baby stuff, much the same as Vee, but a few differences:
- diaper – nappy
- crib – cot
- bassinet -bassinet
- pacifier – dummy
- onesie – wondersuit
- stroller – pram
- mom/mommy – mum/mummy
- teeter-totter – see-saw
- formula – formula
Evil Soy
Here is the long-awaited post on why soy is evil. I have been drinking soy for about ten years. When I moved out of home when I was 18 I did the obligatory lesbian vegetarian-vegan thing and stopped drinking milk. As a child I was always blowing my nose and seemed to constantly be surrounded by tissues. I noticed once I stopped drinking milk I never even needed to buy tissues, let alone use them. I decided I probably had some kind of lactose intolerance and proceeded to drink soy milk forever after. I loved it. Loved the flavour, the smell, the creamy, healthy, non-milkyness of it. When Lola and I met, I introduced her to the world of soy milk. Since then, on an average day, I would probably drink around 1 – 2 cups of soy milk. I’ve always drunk a non-GM, organic, Australian-made soy milk.
When I started preparing for TTCing, I gave up all the usual things, coffee, alcohol, refined sugars and carbs, tea, chocolate, but I hadn’t seen too much about soy milk. A hot steamed cup of soy milk was my only vice and was so comforting and nutritous. So I happily had soy milk throughout my August and September cycle this year.
Then I caught up with my friend* who, while I had been studying temperatures and cervical mucus and perfect insemination timing, had been focused on fertility diets. She had no idea about BBTs or CM patterns, but had read all the fertility diet books and had an exhaustive list of what to eat and what not to eat. She told me that she had given up soy milk and her cycle had dropped from 35 days to 28 days.
Inspired, I stopped drinking soy milk mid way through my October cycle. (And it’s not just soymilk, I cut out anything that included soy in the ingredients.) That cycle lasted 33 days. At the end of that cycle, I stopped drinking the cow milk I had replaced soy milk with (there seems to be conflicting advice on whether dairy helps or hinders fertility). So, this cycle, I have been limited to peppermint tea. And after having monitored my cycles stretching out to an average 30 -35 days over the past year, this month I ovulated on CD13, and when I went in for my first ultrasound on CD11, I already had an 18mm follicle, when in the past it would have been barely visible at that stage. I couldn’t believe it. (And I was so grateful we were going through the clinic because I suspect that I would not have even started carefully monitoring fertility signs so early in my cycle and would have missed the whole thing.)
In addition, Lola, who has been struggling with her skin for… (oh, since about the time we met and I introduced her to soy milk)… now has the smoothest, most beautiful unblemished skin since she joined me on the no-soy regime.
And the early puberty of my little niece? She’s allergic to dairy and has been drinking soy milk since she was tiny.
The theory goes that soy’s oestrogen content can wreak havoc with your menstrual cycles, fertility and thyroid functions. There’s also links between infertility in men and premature puberty in girls and late onset in boys. The one thing that it is beneficial for, as my late-40s sister will attest, is minimising the symptoms of menopause (thanks to all the hormones). While soy products have been eaten in Asia for hundreds of years, these have always been fermented (think traditionally brewed tamari, natto etc) and eaten in very small quantities. The only big eaters of soy have been Buddhist monks who’ve wanted to suppress their libido. The soy beans in soy milk are not fermented, and are instead manufactured in a way that doesn’t break down the chemistry of the bean very well, making this even worse.
If this all is unconvincing, try typing “evil soy” into google. It’s scary and will come up with credible reports such as this (alongside the less credible soy makes your kids gay and vegetarians are evil.)
I don’t know what it’s like where you are, but here in Australia soy milk is very popular. Particularly among young women. So, now, I am proselytising to any young women friends on the wonders of my 35 to 27 day cycle. I loved my soy milk, but I love my shorter, more functional cycle more. Let’s hope it stays (or preferably, that I don’t get to find out thanks to a BFP this month).
* my password protected post refers – you can see why I heed her advice.
Friggin’ girls
The nicest person at the fertility clinic is the front of house administrative officer. She organises all the finances side of things and has no idea about the medical side. She smokes, talks about how drunk she was on the weekend, searches facebook and bitches audibly with the receptionist and generally is not a model of pro-fertility. But she’s got a great heart and plenty of fun and it’s really nice to have an independent cheersquad in the clinic. Today, while we were organising our payment for this procedure, she leaned over the counter to us and said that two other gay couples had just fallen pregnant so she hoped that we would be next. “You gay girls are the nicest clients here,” she said ” you really are, it’s because you’re both friggin’ girls.”
After my initial hesitations about whether the clinic understood lesbians, this was nicely affirming. One of the main reasons we’ve found this cycle so easy-going is that we’ve finally learnt to trust the clinic and are just abiding by their instructions. The HCG shot was hard. I was a sobbing wreck on the phone to my parents about some family stuff last night and woke up in the morning still crying. Lola and I have had the day off work so I napped, and we’ve been watching some dvds, doing a gentle stroll and generally enjoying some mid-week time out.
The insem itself went fine. Dr Y&F was pretty relaxed and commented on my much lawded ‘beautiful follicle.’ I think the timing was excellent and in fact I felt what I am pretty sure was my ovulation sensation about an hour later.
Lola has just answered the phone and it’s DDY calling – he’s discussing doing more DIY options face to face next year, with them travelling to us or us to them. It’s really great they’re so keen but I am really hoping it won’t be needed.
An unprecedented surge
I am surging and we’re inseminating tomorrow! At an unprecedented CD13. I took the HCG trigger shot earlier this evening. I have since collapsed into tears in a telephone conversation with my parents about Christmas family logistics. I am not sure if its the welcome-to-pregnancy-hormones from the shot or just the fact that families are plain hard work and so fucking heart-hurting sometimes.
Follicles a-go-go
It’s CD11 and I have an 18 mm follicle. I started the Puregon, on a lower dose than the time before, on CD5. The sonographer said “it’s beautiful, that’s perfect, that’s very lovely,” when she saw it this morning. I swelled with pride at my growing egg. And just the one. Last time I was on the stimulations, I didn’t surge until CD18 and inseminated on CD19. And when I had the unstimmed cycle, it was CD 20 and 21. Normally, at my first ultrasound, there’s not much to see and a message of ‘early days yet.’ In fact in September, my follicle was 10mm on CD15 and 14mm on CD18. And in August there were two, but I can only remember them getting to around 17mm. So why the sudden growth spurt? I put it down to my no-soy regime. I am going to blog soon solely about evil soy, but my friend told me that when she cut out soy her cycle went from a 35 day cycle to a 28 day cycle and I wonder if that’s what’s happening to me. My period was much shorter this month and I seem to be tracking well ahead of schedule. Good news all round. At this pace I should be inseminating some time this week.
Big smoke baby shopping
So while in the big smoke today, Lola and I indulged in a brief peek into an upmarket baby shop. We browsed around the store, fawning over cute tiny dresses and booties. We then stopped to examine and marvel at this, and the sales assistant approached us and asked us if we needed any help or had any questions about it. We said no politely and then moved on around the store. Next, Lola made me look at the hyper-priced Stoke Explory pram. It was the first time we’d seen one up close so we were both talking about the things we liked and didn’t like about it and how it would work (and how at that price we’d be carrying the baby until our arms couldn’t take anymore). Again, the sales assistant approached us and offered to take the pram down from its display in the front window so we could get a proper look and push. We politely declined but thanked her and then kept browsing and finally departed.
And then I realised what made that expedition so different. Here in the city they treat us like credible parents-to-be. The sales assistant was respectful and didn’t assume we did not have a right to be in the store or that we were there because we were planning a baby shower. Not only did she treat us like we had a right to be there, she treated us like we could be in the market for an $1800 pram. What a refreshing change to our normal experience.. When we finally do get around to doing all our baby shopping, we know where we’ll be starting.
Out of Blog Reply
Does an ‘out of blog’ reply count as a NaBloPoMo post? We’re heading away over the weekend so I shaln’t be able to post. It’s 7am and we’ve been up since before 6 cleaning the house maniacly – we’ve got friends we’re house-swapping with over the weekend and there’s nothing like knowing someone else will be looking at the finer detail of your house to get you cleaning *sneeze* we obviously should have got onto this dusting sometime ago. On the line-up for this weekend: lunch with my ex, dinner with Lola’s family, a clandestine meeting Lola’s little sister’s new *girlfriend* (much drama here) and I am meeting up with a good friend I haven’t seen in over five years – we’ve reconnected lately for a few reasons, including that she’s found herself in a lesbian relationship . . .
