Well, we may be onto something here! I reached the start of this cycle, and I'm happily popping birth control pills in preparation for the IVF. My RE's office gave me a lovely little booklet about the various stabbing instructions for the injections, which I'll start sometime in a week or so, I think. Four each day --

Meanwhile, I'm in the midst of various school-year things starting. We just had a good week of pre-high holiday learning, and this afternoon I'm headed with my friend N and her 2-month-old painfully cute son A to a retreat at a camp in NH with my school. This is my last year in school, and already I'm nostalgic about each 'last' thing... 

happy birthday, Julia Child

Two topics: one, blood work. two, Julia Child. (no, not the spy thing, which I've actually not read about yet) 

blood work: FSH= 4.59, so that's super! and my estrodial was 60, also good. Now, I'm on to the C.lomid Challenge, popping pills for 5 days.

Julia Child: Today would have been her 96th birthday, so of course I'm having a Shabbat birthday dinner of her recipes in her memory. Since it's a summer evening, I'm going simple: chicken sauteed in white wine, and a nice salad with a simple vinaigrette. And certainly, wine to drink! I'm in the middle of listening to her book, My Life in France, so it's perfect timing.

Westfalia: ok, this is the third topic. A 1991 VW Westfalia in great condition is what I'd like for my graduation next year. A lot to hope for, but there it is. 

welp, I'm hoping I'm getting back on the track. after waiting for 2 months, my uterus decided to shed its lining, so today I went to get preliminary bloodwork done, and I'm not at home, biting my nails and hoping for good numbers.

Clomid and the Cape

Well, I've not had much to report, but a friend just noted my lack of blogging, and having interested readership is the best, so here I am! Apparently my body wanted to test my patience, so I'm still waiting to do the Clomid Challenge (no, it doesn't involve laundry, just testing my egg production), which if things go well should be in about 11 days, and then the cycle that I would actually do the IVF! It will be interesting to juggle all the ultrasound wanding of my uterus and associated neighborhood, the needles in my belly, together with the first weeks of school and my internship and preparing to lead services for the high holidays...

In other news, things are going well with H -- we went on our first little vacation together, to the Cape (i.e. Cod), and had a super time. We rented our friends' house in Chatham, but mostly enjoyed my familar haunts of Wellfleet, Cliff Pond in Nickerson State Park, and Provincetown, beach and town. Kayaking, swimming, good food, and fun people-watching. Strange, though, it was family week in P'town -- for LGBT families -- and yet there were tons of straight families. Like you'd expect at a baseball game, regular ordinary straight. Tons of 'em! I didn't love it. We did, however, have a couple of friendly brief encounter conversations with a sweet gay couple and their two sons, and I decided that I would love to be friends with a gay couple and their kids. I know it sounds commodifying of me, but I really like men, and frankly gay men who are parents have just the right combination of manly and sweet. It didn't hurt that they live in California; too bad I don't know their last names.

can I use that timer below for all of my posts? last month's good-girl waiting didn't seem to be the ticket to pregnancy, alas. on to IVF! 

so, in order to get things clear, I just went to the financial office at my RE  -- and they were fabulous -- to find out what was what with some billing confusion and with pursuing this IVF, and it turns out that I need to do yet another test that it's too late to do in order for me to do IVF next month (had to take this month off because I needed to do tests before getting insurance approval), so I now have an added mandate to get in total shape this summer, before going for the IVF in August. 

so that's what I'm going to be up to -- getting my body in shape, getting my leftover schoolwork done, and generally getting more ready to be in my life successfully! I know, it sounds like new year's day resolutions...

well, it's one thing to think that people will read my blog in the first place, but if I don't write anything, well, sheesh. what do I expect? 

so I will now let you in on my last week: lots of waiting. it's really not all that exciting. I did my taxes today (at last!), and I'm glad to report that I'm getting a nice refund, and I did enjoy watering my garden, which is very very satisfying. for 13 years in my old apartment, I had a perennial garden that I loved, including some plants that I miss very much (sappy but true). my new apartment is in a more urban neighborhood, without a lovely grassy yard for a perennial garden, but I have a wonderful little patch about 3' x 6' where I've planted my first adult vegetable garden. and the planties are thriving!!! broccoli, tomatoes, beets, eggplant, onions, nasturtiums, parsley, basil, mint (yes of course it's in a pot!), red bell peppers, lettuce, sage, thyme, rosemary, and sunflowers for fun in the back. hey! I have all of the simon and garfunkel herbs!

I've decided to wait until 15 DPO this month, and today is 13 DPO, so I'm getting there. it's not the waiting that's so hard, it's the not knowing. tomorrow I'm driving to NYC to spend the day with my friend A, which will be great, and a good distraction; then I drive home, go to sleep, and POAS the next morning. so very much hoping for good news...stay tuned. 

So, I'm sitting at my current fave coffee shop (independently owned, amazing and chewy homemade granola bars, free wifi, and well, cupcake happy hour), working on a paper -- yes, due today -- for a course I just finished, titled Rabbinic Anthropology. I loved this class, and it was super to end the year in an intensive seminar that just evoked for me so much happiness and gratitude to be in this school. Because the paper topic is one that addresses Big Questions rather than a more concrete/detailed topic,  it feels like a coda to the whole year, though I'm no Beethoven.

Besides, in theory it keeps me distracted from Wondering.

hope springs eternal

Alas, lovely crampishness does not always a baby make. So, today it was on to IUI #8 -- H came along with me (and oy, we left her unknowing daughter in the waiting room!), and once again I'm in the land of the hopeful. Afterward, the three of us went to my favorite place for pizza, took a walk on the beach, drove up to Boston, and had a sweet little Memorial Day bbq with friends. Had some sangria as well, because we were with friends who conceived on the night of having had too many cosmopolitans. In the alcohol department, I actually had quite little, but it was part of this month's round of superstitious fertility tricks. So for now I'm on to drinking lots of water, trying to eat well, and walk lots to encourage greater svelteness followed by pregnancy. That's the hope.

sunday morning

pregnancy progress update: I have been having lovely crampishness and some calf pain, which a couple of my cyberfriends in fertilityland have said were early signs of pregnancy for them. so I'm being cautiously hopeful...

in other news, I am at H's house (new gf), where I have just committed to an exclusive datingship. it's been over 2 months, so it's definitely time. it's very nice to have a wonderful person to be with. and it's a nice plus that she also made me coffee this morning!

my plans for the day are very exciting: read a book by AJ Heschel (Who Is Man) and a couple of articles for a two-week intensive class that will finish out the semester. Actually, this class ends the day after the end-of- year party... Alas. But then it will be summer, and I am hoping to write a megillah (scroll of Esther) and kayak, and perhaps do some bartending and/or some internship-type of work. 

lots of eggs

so, this is the sixth time with my preferred donor -- did one in between with a spur-of-the-moment donor, and I'm actually glad it didn't work. no drama, just that I preferred My Guy. I did an IUI yesterday, preceded by an ultrasound peek at the follicles and a trigger shot. I LOVE the trigger shot. There's nothing like knowing exactly when I'm ovulating. Did I really just say that? Ovulation timing has become my most exciting activity? um, yes. (especially since I'd taken 100 mg of Clomid -- moved through that fear -- and had several nice big friendly follicles just waiting to be my child.)

I also had an acupuncture appointment early yesterday evening, then promptly went to buy fertility foods that I'd not yet tried: pineapple in two forms, sardines, brazil nuts, whole milk yogurt.  and I ate an egg. with it being Passover, I have plenty of hard-boiled eggs in the fridge! and because I was following a Highly Scientific Theory of Someone's Embryologist, I had an Egg McMuffin (despite it being Passover) yesterday morning, before the IUI. I will also have another couple next week during the possible implantation days.

meanwhile, I'm waiting -- reading about what's happening with my cyber babymaking friends, and hoping every moment for fertility fortune to smile upon me.