Good things

We went to see Truckfighters yesterday. It’s an amzing Swedish stoner-band with probably the most energetic live performances I’ve ever witnessed, if I hadn’t been pregnant I would have taken part in the moshpit myself. Gotta love them, it was the third time I saw them play. This summer has been some what active gig-wise, before Truckfighters  I’ve seen Faith no More and Metallica and one Finnish band that was my ultimate favourite in late 1990s/early 2000. They have quit some years ago and only did a few comeback shows this summer. Seeing them play made me almost feel like 17 again; when they got on stage I felt this huge wave of nostalgia splashing over me. And there is one certainly great gig ahead this month when other Finnish band (PMMP) is performing in Helsinki. Can’t wait! I don’t know if the baby can hear anything yet from the outside world but if she/he can, she’s certainly been exposed to some good music during this summer!

Something totally awesome: I was accepted to the Master’s Programme I applied to! And something even better: I got a new job! It’s a very simple one I’m over educated and qualified for with a ridiculously low wage and not even in my field of expertise but I’m still excited to get out of the house after six months of unemployment/sporadic freelancer assignments.  It only lasts until the middle of November but it’s perfect as I would quit working in the beginning of December anyway. I was very anxious whether they would hire me as I told them in the interview I was preggo but luckily it wasn’t a problem for them. I’ll start working already next week! Things seem very positive at the moment

We are looking for a bigger apartment to rent as this one is only 55 square meters with two rooms and a kitchen and already with us and 3 cats (one is staying at DH’s father) it’s very crowded. There might be one 3 room apartment in the same building and we are really hoping to get it with a decent rent. The problem is that the rents are sky high in Helsinki area and we really couldn’t afford paying 1000 euros a month.

Today we are going finally to tell DH’s father and mother (they are divorced) about the baby. DH has wants to tell them both personally and at the same day (if other one gets to hear earlier it will cause problems, believe me…) and this is the first time we actually have them both in the same town at the same time. Well there’s not so much to tell anymore, you can see it quite clearly on my belly…

I had the monthly visit with the nurse today, my regular one was on holidays but actually I liked this one much better, see seemed actually like a professional and not a goofy old lady my regular one is. Since last night I’ve had some nasty pain on the left side of my stomach but according to the nurse it’s just my uterus growing and/or my endo adhesions stretching. Blood pressure, weight, hemoglobin and the pee tests were all ok and hearing the baby’s heartbeat is always very touching and gives me a more trusting feeling towards this pregnancy. I felt some strong movements on Tuesday evening but after that only a few mild ones, she/he is probably in a different position now.

Have a great weekend everyone !

On the rollercoaster

Last week was horrible. Just plain awful. I was feeling like shit, crying all the time and feeling very crampy & bloated, my 2 most reliable af-symptoms. DH was working away from home and I had no work to do, so I basically just sat in front of the computer feeling miserable over yet another failure. There were honestly moments I thought I’m gonna lose my mind over this. I decided I can’t continue just staying at home, I need to have something to do. So out of the blue I applied for a school that’s starting next autumn It’s a Master’s programme about user-friendly interfaces in webshops etc, so perfect combined with our business. Which, btw, takes a new step on Monday as we are moving on to a more organized webshop platform. Go check it out (on Monday) at http://www.koruharakka.com

We celebrated the first of May festivites very peacefully this year, no parties or boozing since DH had to work and I didn’t want to go on my own and I’ve always hated crowded Helsinki center. I made mead (basically sugar, raisins and lemons brewed together), which is a traditionall 1st of the May drink in Finland, ate frankfurters (the official 1st of the May food) and visited my cousin who just moved near to us with her family. Yesterday morning we went geocaching with no luck, and I was again feeling awful and miserable.

I had bought some HPTs even though I knew the result beforehand, but I thought where’s the fun in all this if I can’t even poas at the end of the cycle! So I did poas this morning (10dp 3dt) just to get it out of my system. I didn’t even bother to look at the test, but just as I was ready to toss it in the trash can something caught my eye.

It looked different.

Like there was an extra line.

But sure as hell that can’t be.

The test must be broken somehow.

There’s no way I could be preggo.

I have no eps symptoms.

I feel JUST like AF-coming. Endo cramps, back pain, all that shit.

This has to be some kind of a joke the universe is including me in.

Who has peed on my stick?!!

I woke DH up, my hands and voice trembiling, and he saw the + sign too. I waited 3 more hours and did another. It looked the same. I made DH go to the pharmacy and buy me 2 more, and I’m gonna test tomorrow morning again.

It’s not sinking in. I can’t fathom this. On Monday I’ll have my beta but until then I’m not believing it to be true.

My cousin and her son came over this morning like we had made plans before. When she entered our appartment I said I have something to show her and held the HPT so she could see it. We were both crying as we hugged each other.

No gongratulations yet, please, it’s way too early. After failed cycles and lost hopes I just can’t start to celebrate yet.

But I can’t believe we actually got this far.

I honestly thought I’d never see a BFP in my life.

7 things… and some more

Dagny tagged me so here it goes:

Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Share 7 things that people may not know about you.
3. Tag 7 people to share 7 things and link to them.
4. Let them know they have been tagged.

1) When traveling abroad, people always guess I’m Russian/Slavic because of how I look. To my knowledge, there’s no Russian blood in my family but who knows if I’d be related to the czars for that matter since my grandma was adopted and my other grandfather’s father remains a mystery!

2) I have four tattoos: an eye on my neck, a scarb next to my left thumb and two tribals on my back I have drawn myself

3) I used to drive sidecar motocross with my father when I was a teen.

4) I’m superstitious and believe in horoscopes and tarot cards.

5) I have orange belt in karate

6) I usually get along better with guys than girls

7) I play lottery almost every week

Since many of my blog-world friends have been tagged already, I’m not going to tag anyone particularly but you’re welcomed to do this too if you are reading

And to now to my (boring) life… Let’s see, nothing much than work happening here. The spring sun is incredibly bright and temptating but I have to sit inside the whole day. boo…

TTC-wise this cycle was a break for us (ok, I confess poasing on an OPK once because DH asked and what do you know, it was positive right that moment) and I’m expecting AF today or tomorrow. Endo-wise this has been a really easy cycle; I had my first cramps since O on Sunday so that meant a WEEK without cramping. WOHOO! Back pain was there of course already from the O.

We are still waiting for the blood test results, I’m going to call on Friday but I guess it’ll be too early. I asked my RE about the fact that there are infertile women in my family and whether you can inherit infertility. She said that there is a possibility that infertility transmits in the chromosome level and we can discuss this issue next time we see her. I know already what the chromosome shit means; more blood tests and probably PGD with our next IVF if they find anything wrong on that side. I have no idea how much PGD even costs here, probably a zillion with our luck.

On Sunday when driving home from my uncle’s birthday party we discussed adoption again with DH. The lines for domestic adoption are 3-5 years. The good side: it doesn’t cost anything and you can adopt a 2 months old baby. International adoption costs around 11 ooo euros and the children who are adopted are usually 2-5 years old. But it would be faster. Russian adoption is a bit challenging since they only adopt internationally children with special needs and many mothers of these children have been drinking throughout the pregnancy. I don’t know would that be too much to handle since we don’t have any experience of raising any children so far.

All in all, I’m more and more convinced that if all other means fail, we want to adopt. We want to have a family with DH and if that can’t happen biologically then we’ll do it differently. I guess it was seeing the advertisement of Finnish Unicef that made me realize it; the campaign is called “be a mother for a moment” and it raises funds to all abandoned children over the world. The text naturally made me cry:” Motherhood isn’t about biology. It’s a state of mind; the willingness to take care and raise a small person”. This is so true.

My uncle’s party was great; I love seeing my aunts and uncles and cousins and partying with them. It was only when we left to the bar on downtown when the evening started to go wrong because my BIL was acting like a complete jerk towards my sister. It made me so mad. But me and sis had great time as you can see

More bad ideas for the infertile:

Organize a meeting with your client right after seeing your RE to discuss your fucked up IVF cycle and disfunctioning body. It sure is fun to try look normal just after crying in the car because world just is not a fair place to live in!

I thought I was ok with the ivf-failure ok but obviously I’m not. Seeing RE brought my emotions to the surface for some reason. Maybe it was because I kept thinking that this appointment could have been for the first u/s. I had to fight my tears through the whole 45 minutes we sat there and of course she saw that I was a mess and suggested counseling. I’m thinking about it. If only it rained 100 euros bills so I could afford it.

There was no explanation why the ivf didn’t succeed. I responded perfectly to the stims, all of the eggies fertilized which was suberb, and over half of the embryos were good quality and worth transfering. Bad luck said RE. How can we possibly have so much bad luck? Every single fucking time. Obviously there was a problem with implantation. So now we are running blood test worth at least 500 euros to check all my antidote levels. I’m just confused why they didn’t run these test earlier? Are we just a cow who milks money to them?

The nurse took 5 tubes of my blood and we’ll get the results in 3-4 weeks. That might mean no FET in April, depending on my cycle.We are going to do a medicated FET with low stimming with Gonal-F.  And I thought the needle-fun was over already. If our embies would be so lucky to survive the thawing both of them (they are frozen in two pairs), we are going to transfer both of them. In a way I’m hoping that the blood tests will reveal some kind of a problem that will give us an explanation. The kind of a problem that could be medicated and treated and we would finally succeed.

And what really got me upset was RE’s remark that if these FET’s fail so that we get to transfer but they won’t implant I probably have to get a lap again. I was so devastetad to hear this. Another surgery. Fuck me and my miserable piece of shit body. Fuck you endometriosis for ruining my life.

I had to take three buses to get home from my meeting, trying to fight my tears all the way because I can’t stand crying in public. Of course at home I bursted the second I shut the door behind me. And of course today I have a shitload of work to do for my customers. GREAT. Ok, it’s great that I have customers and work to do but just not today. I also managed to spill my coffee on my computer table.

DH sent me the sweetest sms in the middle of my despair: “We will always be together. I will be there to support you, and that is why I want to take part in all these appointments. What bugs me the most in this is all the heavy treatments you have to go through, because I only want what is best for you. In my eyes you are really brave and I admire you so much for that! And remember that I’ll always be proud of you and the happiest man alive whether we’ll get kids or not. In the end you are the most important thing in this world for me”. I love him so much.

My sister is coming here for the weekend, we’ll go to flea markets together and make plans for our jewelry company. Lately we’ve gotten a lot of free advertisement in Finnish fashion blogs and a lot of new customers too. Great to get her here and my mind off the if-shit.

And the person who left a comment that I shouldn’t be drinking because it’s “bad karma” and that she is against ivf, please do not comment ever again.

Que sera?

I feel like I’m in a exciting place like now; with our company obviously closing its doors I’m forced to find something else to do. And I kind of enjoy this kick in the ass; I’ve always loved surprise events that change your life (ok, not ALL of them). Needless to say, there’s one surprise in particular I would enjoy the most… I have no idea yet what will wait for me after the christmas holidays, we have been warned that we might get all laid off on 8th January but it’s not official yet. I haven’t applied for any new jobs yet but I managed to polish my cv and get my webpage up at last.

I started the web graphics project I was offered, it will continue in January. Had to drive 130 km though to the place and back on my own (this is a big deal for me) and since our car radio is broken I had nothing else for my entertainment than my own singing, and I can’t even stay in tune so that kind of sucked.

We had the company “christmas party” (funeral) with some of my workmates, it was basically me and 4 guys getting obnoxiously drunk and talking shit. A lot of fun !

Christmas is in few days and we have no snow I really do miss the winters of my childhood, nowadays it’s the same gray, rainy weather from October to March.

It’s 6DPO, nothing to see here. Same symptoms as always (back pain, cramps, ovarian twinges) so no expectations either. Btw I asked RE if progesterone can help with endo and she said no, so maybe my lack of pain last cycle was just good luck…

Gingerbread cookies and chocolate

Weekend was again over too soon. On Friday we went to see Burn after reading, which was hilarious ! I love Coen brothers’ movies.

On Saturday morning after sleeping late my cousin came over with her son and we took christmas card photos of him dressed in a little gingerbread man costume and an elf costume. I’d post them here but I’m not sure would my cousin approve of posting photos of her child over the internet… But he was so cute Now we also have toys for him to play with at our place since my mom gave me a bunch of our old toys for the purpose. He apparently liked the same little rubber duck best that was my favourite too 26 years ago.

My cousin is my best friend (after DH) and I share everything with her. Even the secrets I can’t tell anyone else. I’m so glad she lives in Helsinki now and we see each other almost every week. And she is sweet and thinks about my feelings with all the baby stuff, because she thought first that it would be unfair for her to come over too often with the baby because she was afraid it would seem like parading with her baby around me. But I don’t feel like that. I don’t feel sad around my godson. I just hope he will get cousins too. But I must say being a mother has definetely changed my cousin and it has changed our relationship. Because despite the fact that we talk a lot about my infertility and the treatments we do kinda live in different worlds now. And that is sad.

I had acupuncture today and it felt so relaxing. But I’m taking a break from it because I want to try this cycle without it. I don’t know can the progesterone somehow be still working on me but I haven’t had any of the ovarian twinges yet (CD5). I checked my FF and three previous cycles I had the twinges already around CD3 and on. This cycle the cramping was extremely mild, actually “proper” cramping only during one day and I’ve almost felt like when I was on the pill. I hope I will ovulate still. Even though I’m starting to feel it doesn’t really matter shit whether I ovulate or not, nothing’s happening anyway and I don’t know what the problem is.

When I was traveling home on the subway today a strange lady started to talk to me. As I mentioned before, Finns do NOT talk to each other on public transport if it’s not absolutely fundamentally obligatory. Even when we have to get out of the bus and there’s a stranger sitting next to us and we have to get past them we don’t say “excuse me, this is my stop”. No. We start to put our mittens on with a significant look and then just scramble past the fellow passanger whether they get out of the way or not.

Ok, first I thought that she’s a nutcase/wino because she was talking to me but in the end it was a nice chat. We talked about ginger bread cookies and chocolate. And both agreed that Finnish chocolate is SO much better than the Swedish one. Of course.

We have some new jewelry in the shop now and we even added a little text in English on the FAQ part if anyone out there is interested in ordering

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

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!

Another 2ww

It’s 3DPO, I’ll be starting the progesterone supplies this evening. So far I have the normal post ovulation sore nipples-symptom (which I’m glad is present this cycle because I think it means my hormones are working properly), I have ew cm which I don’t usually have post ovulation and then the usual mild cramps and back pains. And I have some hope!

Weekend was fun, the horror movie wasn’t that scary but more a dark drama. And quite ok, although I hate when a movie depicts old times (here 16th century) and the characters talk like these days… Brazilian restaurant was nice too, although the food wasn’t as good as the first time we visited it. Later we went to have drinks with a friend and his girlfriend who just happened to walk by the restaurant we were eating in. That never happens to us in Helsinki.

On Saturday morning we drove 2 hours to granny’s house, visited granny in the nursing home and did a few hours gardening work. My granny’s place has a huge garden but since no one lives there any more it’s becoming a jungle.  DH, my father and BIL built a fire of all the branches we’d cut down and made us a pit-roasted dinner under the fire. We stayed inside with mom and sis as it was raining and sooo cold. Went to sauna, had some red wine and talked.

Mom asked me directly where we are standing now with the ttc project and I told her we are doing IUI and if it’s not working we’ll proceed to IVF. It wasn’t so bad telling her after all. As I’ve mentioned before, there is a history of infertile women in my family. Two or three of my  granny’s (mother’s side) sisters had endo too and never had any babies. But I think the circumstances in the 1960’s where quite far from today’s and I’m confident modern medicine has improved a lot from those days and if IUI won’t work we’ll have better chances with IVF. And my sister wasn’t pregnant which was a huge relief to me. Yes I’m evil to think like this.

Today I’m having a day off from work, slept until 11AM and had breakfast while blogsurfing. Next I’ll switch my other computer on and start to finish our jewelry shop pages, I’m hoping we’ll launch them within a week or so.

I’m thinking about skipping kickboxing during this 2ww just in case. Because we do a lot of punching/kicking directly on the stomach so it probably isn’t a good thing regarding implantation/eps… Ok it might be overly cautious but still, I want to do everything I can to improve our chances. This morning I even skipped my usual coffee dosage!

Justice

I was going to title this post “there is no justice in  this world” but since Obama won the US election that isn’t completely true…

But here’s the story: DH has a friend whom I also know shallowly. She’s got a 1,5 years old daughter who was conceived when the girl “forgot” to mention to her boyfriend she’d quit the pill. They had been going out for 1-2 months at that time. Well, they aren’t together with baby’s father anymore but she has boyfriend #3 or #4 after their break-up (with whom she’s been like 3 months now). Yesterday she posted a picture of a positive HPT at her facebook page. I don’t know if this time it was the same story with “forgetting” the pill or was it just a pure accident. And needless to say, she isn’t exactly the mother of the year-material, but is constantly away from her firstborn child. Anyway, it’s SO FUCKING UNFAIR.

I guess if I’d get on the pill again and then behind DH’s back would “forget” to take it we’d succeed too. Worth a try ?

No positive OPK so far, I got a lot of ovarian pain on the left side but it’s difficult to distinguish whether it’s endo- or ovulation-related. I just hope this won’t be an extralong cycle because I’ll lose my nerves if I’ll have to pee on those fucking sticks for 2 weeks in a row just waiting for the positive result.