AF is finally here!

How strange, I actually WAITED for AF to arrive this month. Well there’s a first time for everything. So as today is CD1 I counted that we could possibly have the 4th (useless) IUI on 10th of December as that will be CD14. And it’s also my birthday. Isn’t IUI what every girl hopes for a birthday present ?

And I don’t know if it’s still the after effects of the progesterone but I’m hardly cramping at all! How cool is that? I hardly even noticed AF coming. I figured out that since when I was on the pill and had zero endo pain and the pill also contains progesterone and now on progesterone supplies I had much less cramping than usual that these things have to be linked.

With DH things are better and we will try our best to fight the problems we have. Sometimes all these adversities put together make me feel like I’m crawling on my hands and knees in an endless pitch black labyrinth where there’s no light to be found, only a dead end after another. Yes, it’s obviously November as I’m starting to fall into the winter depression. All the snow we had is melting away as it’s raining and it looks so miserable outside.

We are thinking about getting two kittens. My sister’s MIL found a month ago a cat with 3 babies in their garage and no one has claimed for them even though she’s phoned all possible instances and they’ve taken care of them ever since. They would be about 12 weeks old on christmas so just the right age to get into a new home. I know four cats in a 2 room apartment seems quite a lot but I’m sure we would fit here! Obviously I’m turning into the cat lady from the Simpsons…

Tomorrow the cleaning company will come for their first visit while DH is at home and our place looks at the moment like it has been hit by a bomb. But I don’t really care if people find us messy. We just rather do other stuff than clean up

What a shitty day

To torture myself I began the day with poasing again, only to see the expected result. No AF yet but hopefully tomorrow so this cycle will fit iui-wise into December’s calendar.

At work it’s boring as hell, really nothing to do. I spend the day refreshing our webshop statcounter.

And as the sugar on top, me and DH are having a really, really rough time at the moment. I hope from the bottom of my heart we will work this out together. I love him so much despite all the troubles we’ve had.

Cypress

The last one of my series of 3 ladies

I’m not really happy about how this print turned out, I messed some parts totally and I’m not sure whether I should start it over or not… I’m just so impatient person that I seldom have the energy to do the same piece completely again from scratch.

Winter

When I left Helsinki at Friday to visit my sister we had no snow yet. Now we have some 20-30cm, traffic is a mess, trains aren’t moving, electricity doesn’t work in parts of the country. I can’t understand how winter seems always come as a surprise? You would think that people and companies here are accustomed to the snow and cold and would be prepared to the circumstances they bring but no, each year there are the same problems, like loads of car crashes on the first snowy day.

I’m not a big fan of winter but for a change it’s nice to have a lot of snow. I get to wear my new winter jacket in which I look like a little eskimo with my fake-fur hood on! And there’s nothing like staying inside under a blanket with DH watching telly and drinking glogg and eating buns when a blizzard is raging outside. Yesterday we couldn’t even see outside from our windows as they were totally covered in snow. The snow also brings so much light with it; now I don’t need a flashlight in the morning while going to the bus stop through the forest.

I took my last progesterone supplement yesterday, I guess AF will come in a few days. I’m not really hopeful about IUI#4, because I think our main problem is the fertilization and obviously it’s not happening this way. I hope IVF will be more succesful. I can’t think about the option that we would fail in that as well. I just can’t.

Me and sis made some guerilla marketing on the weekend for our jewelry shop on some discussion boards. We bought some google advertisement space too. The first weekend of the shop was a success, now it seems to be slowing down. Any ideas how to advertise for a web shop?

Awarded!

Thanks Dagny !

I will nominate these fabulous ladies in turn:

Kirsten

Irish NYC

Sarah

Baby Zotrick

Baby Bean

My 5 Fabulous Addictions:

1. Chocolate and other candy. I’m a total sugar-junkie.

2. Traveling. I love trains, I love the sense of moving from a place to another, I love seeing new places.

3. Good food. Whether it’s in a restaurant or self cooked, I love a good food feast!

4. Music. Especially stoner rock, listening to it always makes me feel so much better.

5. Forests. I have to get into the woods on a regular basis.
Here are the rules to receiving this award:
1. You have to pass it on to 5 other fabulous blogs in a post.
2. You have to list 5 of your fabulous addictions in the post.
3. You must copy and paste the rules and the instructions below in the post.
Instructions: On your post of receiving this award, make sure you include the person that gave you the award and link it back to them. When you post your five winners, make sure you link them as well. To add the award to your post, simply right-click, save image, then “add image” it in your post as a picture so your winners can save it as well. To add it to your sidebar, add the “picture” gidget.Also, don’t forget to let your winners know they won an award from you by emailing them or leaving a comment on their blog.

I <3 Progesterone

Yes, you read right. Despite the little discomforts like occasional dizzy feeling I’m loving it. Why? Because it has diminished my endo pain to minimum. Cramping and back pain are GONE for 3 days in a row. And that’s a lot for me. Why wasn’t I prescribed this stuff earlier? Mr. Google tells me that natural progesterone is a key factor when treating endo.

Anyone with endo having the same experience?

I attended a music quiz at a pub yesterday, a lot of fun though quite difficult! The only song I recognized correctly was Marianne Faithful’s “Ballad of Lucy Jordan”. Luckily my cousin (brother of my best friend) who was in the same team with me knew more. Next time I’ll bring DH with me as the questions were mostly metal/hard rock-oriented so he can lead us to victory!

Pain

Kickboxing was just what I needed yesterday. After one hour’s hard training I was totally beaten up, my knuckles were bleeding, I could hardly breath from panting and my right foot cramped quite painfully. When I scratched my knuckles open it was good pain. The kind of rush of pain that makes you feel alive and breathing, far away from the emotional all-embracing IF-pain I was feeling earlier that day. It was the kind of pain I could control; I had chosen to push my body to its limits well knowing that I might get a little hurt.

I think there are two kinds of pain; the good and the bad. The good pain is the sensation of a tattoo needle on your skin, the pulling of a splinter from your finger, the ache in your muscles after a good work out, the weight of a heavy packback on your shoulders on a hike, the pinch of acupuncture needles, the sensation in your toes in winter when the blood starts to circulate in them after you’ve frozen yourself outside. The kind of pain you know is good for you in some sense. Even though it hurts you will feel better afterwords and the pain is a means to an end.

And there is the other kind of pain. Like the IF-pain that crushes your heart and soul. The kind of pain that originates from sources you have no control over. I’ve read in many blogs (usually the ones where writers have gotten preggo after their struggle) how the pain of infertility has changed them drastically and how the pain and struggle was for a greater purpose. That there truly was a meaning for all that pain before success. And of course there has been in those cases. But what about the ones who don’t become pregnant despite all the struggles and pain they’ve been through? What purpose does their pain serve? I know that this process has already changed me but has it been for better? I certainly don’t feel nobler in any sense. I feel more cynical, more sad, more angry each cycle that goes by.

As a Finn and protestant I was raised to believe that hard work and struggle always pays off. I was brought up not to give up while facing adversity but to suck it up and crawl further. There is even an old saying here: “Suffer, suffer and you’ll get the brightest crown”. Like pain and suffering would make you a better person. I’m not sure I can believe in this. I think all the IF pain and tears scar you for life and take away a significant amount of certain innocent trust you had in you before the process.

I wish that the pain I’m feeling now will have a purpose some day. I wish no one would have to go through infertility and the pain it causes. I wish there only was good kind of pain.

BFN, what else is new?

I poased this morning (on 11DPIUI) and OF COURSE it was BFN. I wish I could have even a little spark of excitement in me when I’m doing those tests. Every time I expect to see nothing more than the one line.

So I’ll go kickboxing this afternoon.

6 days of progesterone supplies, then moving on to IUI#4 which will no doubt be a failure as well.

I try to concentrate on our business at the moment, it’s really making me happy. I’ll go to sis for the weekend to discuss our new orders

Hilarious..And so true!

If you want to learn something about Finnish social codes, watch the yotube sketch below. It’s hilarious! And so true !

Weekend has been mostly about eating On Friday evening we had a nice dinner with DH (snails & pepper steak for me), and yesterday evening we served our friends zucchini pancakes, salad with pear, roasted pumpkin seeds, limburger cheese and cucumber, stuffed peppers with minced meat and mushrooms, zucchinis with feta and for dessert a delicious youghurt panna cotta with cinnamon apples and caramel sauce. Yammy!

Our webshop has started really well as a friend of mine advertised us in her popular fashion blog. We’ve got over 10 orders during the weekend! We are so excited with my sis ! And if you guys want to order to Canada/North America, I think it can be arranged since I have a paypal account. The postal fees would be around 3-5 euros.

Really massive cramps on Friday, none yesterday, then again cramps and back pain today. A lot of dizzyness and some nausea too but I get it every cycle so it’s mostly endo-related. At times I feel devastated, at times I just can’t wait for us to begin the IVF cycle in January since IUIs seem worthless.

Now to watch Finnish Idols!

Yay for Friday!

Only one more hour at work and I’ll get out of this mole hole for the weekend! Yay! Tonight we are going to see Quantum of Solace and afterwords have dinner in a nice restaurant. Our Friday evenings always consist of dinner & movie, either at home or then at the city. Tomorrow we’ll first have breakfast while watching BH90210 (other tradition these days), then go to the city to finally see an exhibition we’d planned to see for like 4 months and then in the evening a friend couple will come to our place for dinner.

I guess the dream was just a dream. My 7DPIUI symptoms:

• cramps
• back pain
• mood swings
• dizzyness from the progesterone

The computer says no.