Finally, Some News

First of all, my sincere apologies to all of you for my absence from the blogging world over the past...um, five days or so. I've got no good reason for it. I was busy, yes, but not too busy. I wasn't really depressed or angry or anything either. Just didn't feel like spending much time in front of the computer. But I am catching up on my reader, so know that even if I didn't comment on your post, I'm thinking about you fondly and sending hugs your way.

Second, after several days of freaking out about how my body had just completely quit doing anything, I finally saw blood this morning. Probably the second happiest I've ever been to get my period. (The happiest was last fall--the first time she showed up naturally in six years.) Only 70 days after my last CD1. And exactly 7 days after the last Provera. So, onward I go, into the next cycle, armed with an arsenal of herbs, acupuncture appointments, and clomid. The lovely thing about this period is that it hasn't been nearly as painful as any of the others I've had since being off the pill. I don't know if that's because I didn't ovulate, or if the acupuncture is helping things be less "stuck" and crampy. But I'm not complaining. It feels so good to be done with the last cycle.

That's all for now. I plan to post again soon with a few pictures of our fun outing yesterday. But, seeing as this is the busiest week of work all year for me (it just happens to fall on a short week every year), I'm not making any promises about when that post will make an appearance.

Rejecting Predictability

I've determined that my body has been influenced by my husband. I'm a creature of habit in most areas of life. I like to find a routine that works and keep doing it. I know it works, so why rethink it? So I eat generally the same thing for lunch every day (, I have a pattern for what I eat for breakfast (cereal , and I have a routine for what kind of exercise I do and when. My husband, on the other hand, hates any form of routine. From my perspective, he goes out of his way to make sure he doesn't fall into routine. From his perspective, "falling" into routine takes effort and he'd rather not think about it. I guess we're just wired differently.

I think my body has decided to take its cue from him. Routine? Predictability? How boring. Why would I want to ovulate on the same day each cycle? Or have temperatures that give me a clue about what's coming next? Or have periods that are of the same length and heaviness? That would just be silly.

I wrote about my last ovulation, and how dodgy it was, a few weeks ago. And then it turned out to be even dodgier than expected, of course. My latest surprise has been my period this time around. I was quite pleased with how heavy it was the first couple of days. Not super heavy--I could have left the same tampon in all day and been fine--but still heavier than last time. It started Wednesday afternoon and was flowing pretty nicely through Friday, tapering off a little Friday but still going.

I had my acupuncture appointment on Friday, and KB (my acupuncturist) said she stimulated points and gave me an herbal decoction that would help my period to be really effective, cleansing out the old blood and all, to give this cycle a good start. I noticed that my cramps subsided quite a bit after the session. And I wasn't too surprised to wake up in the middle of the night that night to find quite a bit of blood flowing, although it's very unusual for me to have much going on at night. I thought maybe the acupuncture really had gotten things going.

However, I was surprised when essentially nothing happened Saturday or Sunday. No blood. No brown, red, or pink on the pads or tampons. (I know this is a bit graphic, but if you're reading infertility blogs, you should know what you're in for.) So I thought I had just had my first three-day period ever. I've always had basically five-day periods, ever since I was 12 years old and got my first one. On the pill and off, always five days. But hey, I'm not going to complain about three days. I was a little concerned that a short and not-too-heavy period might indicate a thin lining, but that's why I'm doing acupuncture--to fix things like that.

I was all ready to skip on the pad and go for a pantiliner this morning. But guess what? She's back! After two days, I guess my uterus decided it had a little more lining to shed. Today being CD 6, when I'm usually done bleeding. And might as well add some cramps to that just for good measure. More cramps than are warranted with the amount of blood, which is hardly more than spotting. I guess I'm glad that what's coming out is coming out. But couldn't we have done this Saturday morning? Did we need to stretch it out?

Of course I can't help but wonder if the acupuncture and crazy herb decoction I'm drinking twice a day have encouraged my body to get a little more out than usual. In which case I should be happy that it's working.

Speaking of the traditional chinese medicine, I came across one practitioner's website (after googling "traditional chinese medicine fertility statistics") that claimed his clinic had about a 60% pregnancy rate for infertile women who came for treatment. But, for women who were willing to drink cooked herb decoctions, that rate was 75% within three months! Impressive. I'm just hoping not to defy any statistics in this case. Just to let you know, dear body of mine, statistical predictability is different than routine predictability. So go ahead and defy routine. But we don't need to defy statistics, okay?

My March Resolutions

First of all, I'll give the TTC-related update. I'm officially 15 dpo today and finally saw the faintest hint of brown last night. I took that as good enough reason to skip on the progesterone suppositories this morning and hope that AF comes in full force soon so I can move on to the next cycle. I was expecting more of her today but have only had the faintest hints of blood--accompanied by lots of cramping and back pain (and hip and butt pain, and thigh pain, and....) As always for me--at least since going off the pill.

Also, Pete and I went for his SA yesterday, since he was leaving (and left) for a conference this morning. We wanted to have them processing the results while he was gone. He wanted me to come in case he had trouble... finishing the job and needed me to sneak in and show some cleavage or something. But he did great and was finished rather quickly. I guess a few days of abstinence will do that. He brought out his brown bag and went to turn it in to the guy at the check-in counter, and the guy started shaking his head as soon as Pete started walking up. Guess what? Apparently they only accept "specimens" before noon. Which completely makes sense. But, um, shouldn't he have told us that before Pete went and jacked off? He clearly should have seen him heading back towards the "specimen collection rooms." The exit was in the opposite direction. So Pete had to throw all his little guys away, and now he can't go until Monday since he's gone until Sunday. Boo.

I am quite excited to start in with acupuncture/herbs/TCM on Friday. I was hoping AF would start tomorrow, as I've read that it's best (according to chinese medicine) not to have any treatments on days 1-3 of your cycle. But at this point, I'm not sure when day 1 will actually be, so I'm just going to go on Friday no matter what. I'm ready to get this show on the road and maybe start fixing some of the screwy things going on with my cycles.

No Go

I'm sitting in the Hong Kong airport on my way back home, and I thought I'd drop in for an update. Though I really had very little reason for hope this past cycle, of course I was still hoping a bit. But AF showed up at 14dpo. I'm happy she showed on time rather than postponing for so long like last time. But of course, I was still a little disappointed. And this has been a particularly annoying period. Not much bleeding, which is a little discouraging because it seems like my lining was a bit thin. And terrible cramps/backache/fatigue all throughout, even on the third and fourth day. Okay not terrible, but annoying and pretty bad at times, like yesterday when I was trying to enjoy an outing in Kowloon with a bunch of people. Bad enough the ibuprofen only took the edge off.

I'm planning to start on 50mg of clomid tomorrow, taking it days 5-9 of the cycle. My hopes are high because logically, it should help with my long cycles/insufficient ovulation. Who knows, maybe I'll even ovulate before day 30 this time! Imagine that! But I'm also feeling discouraged about the fact that I am not seeing an RE (can't afford it right now with zero insurance coverage for anything infertility related). I really wish I could know things like how well I'm ovulating and how thick my lining is and figure out why my progesterone was so low. But maybe God is protecting us from more knowledge than we need right now.

I also just popped on facebook and was reminded of how many friends I have who are having babies or have babies That made me sad. I'm really, really ready for a child at this point, especially after a week of watching 8 really cute, really well-behaved kids. When will it be my turn?