Heinie in gear

So, after stewing and worrying and ignoring, I've finally taken hold of several areas in my life, dealing with them in one fell swoop. In the last week and a half, I have:

- Set up a new, 2009 Excel sheet with all of our bills, dated and grouped corresponding to our paychecks (I'm monthly and, thank God, K is biweekly);

- shared that spreadsheet with K, shocking him and spurring him to finally (FINALLY) consolidate his student loans;

- made appts with our family practice dr for K and M;

- cleaned off my desk at work, getting rid of two large piles of stuff and paring down my millions of post it notes to the seven that I actually need;

- and, most importantly for this blog, stopped feeling hopeless about the baby situation and made the call to see a new RE at UNC.

I had lunch with my college roommate who, eventhough we don't live that far apart, I haven't seen in at least 2 years. She has had a much rockier infertility journey than I have but, happily, she will be having a son in June via gestational surrogacy. She had some words of wisdom and a good (new) perspective on the the local REs and different procedures. She also has endo and has had crappy experiences on the Dreaded Clo, and has also used injectibles with a much reduced side-effect profile. She's been through IUI as well as IVF, so she was able to give me the low down. We had lunch for 2.5 hrs and could have sat there longer if we hadn't had to get back to work. Talking with her helped me get my heinie in gear and make the call to see a different RE.

Dr. Twitchy (the RE that monitored me through my pregnancy with M) is the head of the department at the university and quite smart, but I feel like he has already given me his opinion - Clomid - and he won't discuss things like progesterone supplementation and injectables with IUI. The new RE I'm going to see is someone I actually know from my MPH program - though we didn't know each other so well that it will be strange (I hope). Let's call her Dr. S (I can't think of an adjective right now). I'm not looking for Dr. S to agree to give me progesterone or do injectibles with IUI, I just want to have a discussion about why or why not they would or wouldn't be effective or risky or whatever. I have a feeling she'll be more open to actual dialogue than Dr. Twitchy.

Usually when I've been trying this many months in a row, I get pregnant, I just don't stay pregnant... Since I haven't even gotten pregnant, K has agreed that he should be tested again since it has been 5 years since he has had a semen analysis... If it isn't ok, it is better to know that before we start going down any high-tech or high-cost paths. I'm sure he'd be super excited to know that I'm talking about this on my blog... I'll keep you posted ;)

I've got an appointment with Dr. S for Monday, March 9th, which will be cycle day 26 for those of you following at home. This was her first available, but it actually works out to be pretty good timing because we get a chance to have one last month trying with the acupuncture/herbs/timed sex, I should be enough days post ovulation to know whether or not this cycle worked, and, if it didn't, I can set up blood draws, etc for the next cycle. I've also got some time to re-research injectibles, IUI, progesterone supplementation, etc, so at least I know what I want to ask about and the latest research.

K is shaving his head to raise money to benefit childhood cancer research and education through the St. Baldrick's Foundation, so I will definately update before the appointment, but I will be sure to update after the appointment, as well. Click HERE if you would like to sponsor K.