Just got off the phone with the OBGYN's office. Turns out the doctor I was referred to is off injured, and even though he's back in a month, he's booked up until the end of June.

So, the receptionist said that I could see one of the other doctors, and I jumped at that. So now I've got an appointment for the 14th of May.

Yay! More progress!

On a more positive note...

New motto, courtesy of "Meet the Robinsons":

Keep Moving Forward

Kind of like 'just keep swimming', only smarter sounding. ;)

Random stuff...

People who started trying after us are already holding their newborn babies...

Apparently, secondary infertility isn't "really" infertility. Huh. Good to know...

According to some, I should be "glad" that we haven't conceived yet, because the longer it takes the more time I have to finish my degree and get more established in my field before "dealing" with a new baby...

Ugh... I had more when I was driving home from work today - maybe I'll remember in the morning.

Oh - and I should really make sure I'm signed in to the right blog before posting stuff like this! Thank God I noticed right away, or I would be getting some surprised comments in the morning on my other blog!

Is it bad that I'm laughing at my chart?

Put in today's temp, and got dotted crosshairs. I sooooo did not ovulate, so when I saw that, I burst out laughing.

Yesterday's temp was taken 2 hours late, and the temp before was after less than 3 hours sleep, so both are artificially high. I thought about discarding yesterdays just to get rid of the crosshairs, but I'll wait and see what tomorrow brings.

I know I didn't O. No fertile CM at all yet this cycle. And by 5 DPO when I really do ovulate the progesterone makes me want to rip my flaming breasts right off of my body, and at the moment there isn't so much as a twinge coming from the girls.

Not to mention that ovulation on CD11 is completely laughable in and of itself, given my last 3 cycles.

My ticker is a link to my chart, if you feel like taking a look for yourselves.

I'm off to write my first final exam for this semester! Yay!

First off, R's SA came back normal in all aspects. He's been calling all of his guy friends that knew he was having it done to brag about his 54 million count. I think he's very relieved. Partly I'm sure it's the male ego thing, and partly he shared my concern about us both having problems. Nothing to worry about on that front!

As for me, still no conclusive answer. CD3 FSH came back normal. 7DPO progesterone came back normal. The first LH and FSH draws were useless, because we didn't miss the surge like we were hoping. So, she suggested doing the ratio again next cycle, but then changed her mind and said she's sending me straight to the OBGYN. She said he's probably going to want to start with Clomid based on the length of my recent cycles, so she told me to think that over and weigh the pros and cons before I go for my first appointment there. I mentioned that I was nervous about side effects but she reminded me that reaction to Clomid is very individual, and said that she barely had so much as a hot flash when she was taking it. We had talked Metformin before, but she mentioned that because of that recent paper that questioned the effectiveness of it and based on conversations she has had with our local OBGYNs about other patients, they all seem to be moving forward with Clomid first.

Anyway, so the referral is in and I should get a call within the next couple of weeks to set up my first appointment. Still no answers, but definite progress!

Oh, and in other news, we got a fish tank today! We're going to cycle it for a week and then see how the levels are before we add fish, but it's looking like we'll have our first pets really soon!

My favoritest (yeah, that's right - I said favoritest!) quote at the moment is from a Harry Potter book.

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." - Albus Dumbledore

I came across it while reading to M one night, and I've been meaning to blog about it ever since. It really fits my current situation and state of mind, and I'm trying to remember it when I find myself focusing too much on our conception difficulties. I'm finding it very difficult to not let negative and/or sad thoughts creep in all the time, but I'm working on it.

Less than 24 hours to blood work results!

Now, I would imagine that most of my readers also read regularly over at the oneliner, but just in case some of you haven't found that blog yet, you should go and read this post. It's a great post. One I'm going to bookmark and go back and read over and over again when things are tough.

Okay, so I should totally be studying for exams and not blogging right now, but I wanted to update on my call to the doctor's office today.

Yes, they have our results in. The nurse couldn't tell me why we hadn't been called, other than maybe my doctor thought that we were just going to book an appointment after the tests were done, assuming that they would be in by the time we could get an appointment. Of course, I remember clearly that she told me that they *would* call me, because the blood work before that took so long to come back (so long in fact, that I still don't know those results, because the results weren't in for my last appointment).

Anyway, it doesn't matter anymore. We're booked in for Monday to go over the results. Crossing my fingers that the results bring answers and not more questions!

Still waiting. Grrrr.

I think I'm going to call tomorrow on my lunch break, and see what's up. I wasn't going to, but DH and I were talking about it and he's just as anxious as I am, so now I feel justified in calling.

Hopefully I'll get some answers soon!

I don't actually have anything new to say - still waiting on all of my test results, and R's. I'm going half mad waiting, but I have to remind myself that the latest tests were only done last Wednesday, and my doctor's office would have been shut down Friday and Monday (I worked both - yay for taxes! Or not...) so it's really only been 3 full business days (including the day of the tests, since we went in early).

Blech.

I'm sorry I've been so quiet for the last couple of days. I have had a lot of things on my mind that I want to post about, but I'm in this ridiculous funk at the moment, and every time I think about blogging it just seems like too daunting of a task to undertake. *sigh*

Still no results from any of my tests, but maybe this coming week. Hopefully we'll get results on R's SA as well.

The good news is that I seem to be past the tears of the last few days. It was getting to the point where every.little.thing was making me weepy. That seems to have turned to anger, but I think that is because of the migraine I've had for 4 days now. I desperately need to undertake a massive spring cleaning, but I'm nervous to do too much and escalate the pain.

Wow, this may qualify for the most boring update ever.

Oh, and in completely unrelated news!

I'm attending a conference in Montreal in May, and I am so freakin' excited. My hotel was booked for me yesterday, and my flights are getting booked today.

I have *never* been that far away from home, so I'm both excited and completely terrified. The longest flight I've even taken was about an hour long, and to Montreal (almost all the way across the country from me!) is just under 5.

Now I just have to decide if I'm going to take my BBT with me on the trip, or take 4 days off from temping...

R had the NERVE last night to complain when I took the last scoop of ice cream.

I promptly reminded him not to f*ck with the crazy hormonal woman.

And to put ice cream on the shopping list next time he leaves only one scoop.

Men. ;)

So, I went for my CD3 blood work, but left very confused and emotional. Dr. only ordered FSH, not LH & FSH, and I'm not sure why or what that means. From my understanding, it's the balance between them that matters the most, so I'm not sure why she would order one and not the other.

I think R thinks I've officially gone crazy, because I spent the car ride home from the lab fighting back tears. Part of me wants to call my Dr. and find out what's up, but I'm so irritated with that one receptionist that I don't want to risk having to talk to her again because in this state that would just send me over the edge. R thinks I should just trust that my Dr. ordered the right thing, since she's probably already seen the results from 2 weeks ago and definitely has more information at this point than I do. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

R did his sample for his SA this morning, and we rushed it to the hospital. So that's done, and he's feeling relieved to have gotten it over with.

*sigh*

Hopefully tomorrow is a better day. It's sure been a string of lousy ones.

I'm think I'm in Stage IV, but I skipped over OPKs and went straight to my doctor after two 65+ day cycles in a row. Haven't had to submit to an HSG yet, since my problem seems to be more of the uncooperative ovary variety than the blocked tubes variety, but I guess we'll have to see what the specialist says. Hubby did his SA this morning, so we'll probably get his results about the same time as the rest of my results come in. Then it's off to the specialist. Yippee.

I'm curious to know where my readers fall in the stages, so please de-lurk and share. :)

So, I woke up this morning feeling new. The dark mood that has hung over me for the last few days had subsided, and I was ready to take on the world.

Then I called my doctor's office.

I had called yesterday to let them know I had started a new cycle so that my doctor could do a requisition for my day 3 work-up. I ended up getting her nurse's answering machine, so I told her what was up and asked her to call me back on my cell. Well, she didn't call my cell, but she did leave a message at the house asking me to call and confirm which lab I wanted my requisition sent to.

I figured I'd tackle that before I went to work, because I know I have a busy day ahead of me at the office, and I don't need any distractions.

I get the receptionist. I ask her to transfer me to my doctor's nurse. She says she's sorry, but she can't do that before nine. Fine. Can I leave a message? Then she says, with full snark on, that she just explained that she can't put me through until 9. Now normally, I would have just put my tail between my legs and called back later, but I've got full on raging Day 2 hormones going on. So I said that I understood that, but perhaps she could grab a pen and write down a message?

It doesn't come out well on screen, but my words were literally dripping with the snark I was throwing right back at her.

She reluctantly agreed to take the message, and I hung up.

And then I cried.

Damn I hate hormones.

I swear the cramps are getting worse every cycle. Or maybe I just suffer from the same kind of amnesia in regards to menstrual cramps that some people swear allows women to forget all about child-birth and consider having more than one child.

All I know for sure is that it currently feels like my uterus is trying to claw its way out of my body. Maybe it's decided that it doesn't like my ovaries any more than the rest of me does, and it's decided to make a run for it.

I darn near smothered R tonight for chewing too loudly. Gotta love hormones!

Midol PMS. Good stuff man. Good stuff.

I've never taken the PMS variety before - I've just stuck with the menstrual formula, but since I didn't specify to R what kind I wanted when I sent him to the store yesterday, he grabbed the PMS formula.

The PMS variety contains a mild sedative. Which is absolutely freakin' perfect when you're irritable to the point of wanting to rip someone's face off for breathing too loud.

The world is a much better (albeit slightly fuzzy) place today.

Sara over at The Island has a nifty little nerd test in her sidebar, so I clicked on over for a giggle. Turns out, I am an even bigger nerd than I imagined!



How about you?

Just for kicks, I also took their "Are You Stupid" test.

Wanna know what I just did?

Well, I can tell you that I most certainly did *not* eat an entire family sized Caesar salad, complete with an entire bag of croutons. And extra dressing. And extra parm.

And I most certainly did *not* eat it directly out of the serving bowl.

No, I most certainly did not.

At least, that's what I keep trying to tell myself.

AF is definitely on her way, because I am in full on bitch mode today. Luckily, M is with the grandparents until after dinner and R is working on the cars, so I can sit here and feel sorry for myself and eat a mountain of chocolate in peace. The cramps have started, and I'm out of Midol, so I'll be sending R to the store later for more. I'd go myself, but I personally think it should be illegal for me to get behind the wheel of a car when I'm this irritable, so it will be better for everyone if he goes for me.

If anyone reading this has any magic remedies for PMS symptoms, please share in the comments. :)