This better come hand delivered

After a bunch of stress we've decided on moving forward with Manhattan Cryobank.  Keep in mind shipping charges from our old bank were $75.  How on earth can this place justify a $205 shipping fee??? I'm still waiting on confirmation that that includes the handling fee and the tank rental.  If not, I may just lose it.
One vial with shipping was only $70 more than their shipping fee alone.  This is going to be a huge adjustment if we have to try again...  IF $205 includes those other fees it will cost me $520 for one vial.
DH and I have talked about asking our doctor to get a little more aggressive if this cycle doesn't work.  We've produced two follicles both cycles on Femara and if this one is negative too I'd like to get her increase the meds to hopefully produce 3 or 4 follicles.  I don't want to be Octomom but I do want a BFP.  Everything I find on the internet indicates that the counts at this new bank are much lower than Midwest was so if I can produce more eggs maybe it will offset a lower sperm count and we'll finally get pregnant.

Tomorrow puts us one week into the two week wait.  I'm really hoping I make it to next Monday without testing but I don't trust myself and I doubt I'll make it thru the weekend.  I just really never want to see another negative test, they are SO disappointing.  I have been better and trying not to read into every little twinge and try and convince myself it is some kind of pregnancy symptom which has helped.  Plus I don't have the added stress of  all hell breaking loose at the sperm bank like last month, I've been much more relaxed and that has to help.

I'm going to try and take a 7 day nap... wish me luck!

Cleanest house on the block

The tww has made me a world class cleaner.  Dh barely even has time to finish eating before I try to wash his plate.  I've totally broken him of the habit he used to have of putting his socks on the floor next to the bed instead of the laundry basket a few feet away.  To tell you the truth, I think he may be a little afraid of taking his socks off at all... oops.
Needless to say I'm determined to relax and not obsess about all the little twinges and pulls.  If I can make it to next Sunday I'll be 11 dpiui.  I think I'll get thru the week ok because my schedule is really busy but next Saturday is going to be difficult.  I just really never want to see another bfn, it's so sad and disappointing.
Gotta go to the grocery store so I can bake something, I've got nothing left to clean.

2WW, the sequel

Well we are officially back into the two week wait.  We had our IUI this morning and everything seemed to go great.  The vial had over 100 million sperm, 60% motile so we got something like 63 million motile sperm. The nurse commented again about how good our donors numbers were, that some of their 'straight from the tap' counts aren't that good.
Another thing I noticed this time is I think my cervix was more open this cycle.  Last IUI I felt some discomfort when they put the catheter thru my cervix.  This time I didn't feel a thing.  I'm just guessing that this means my cervix was more open, which is a great sign that the timing was dead on.
As for the drama with the sperm bank - I sent that email yesterday and haven't heard back from them yet.  As much as I would love the vial we still have there sent to our doctor's office I doubt that's gonna happen so I just want my money back.  I'm much calmer about it now though because I have a plan.
I'm heading out of town tomorrow for a work trip (just overnight) but I'm excited that it will give me a couple days of distraction for this two week wait. I have no patience at all so anything I can do to distract myself is a good thing.
Think positive thoughts for us, we're really excited about this cycle!!

Mix the good with the bad

Today had a little bit of good and a little bit of bad, it could definitely have been much worse.  We went in for an ultrasound this morning and had two very promising follicles, one on each side.  There was even a third smaller follicle but not likely big enough to contribute. The ultrasound tech had me worried for a little bit that we were risking triplets.  We are so excited and confident about these two great follicles this month.  If our donor has numbers like he did last month we should be in great shape.
The bad is the ongoing frustration with our sperm bank.  I made several attempts to call Joanne today and find out the the heck is going on over there but only ever got her voice mail.  Tonight I wrote her the most ballsy email of my life and basically asked her to tell the owners that unless they had been banned from legally shipping or there is some kind of question about the safety of my vial I expect them to ship and if they don't we'll be pursuing legal action.  I hope this gets resolved soon.
In the mean time we are pursuing other banks and I hope to have a backup plan in place.  The backup plan is contingent on our current sperm bank actually refunding our money and there is some question about whether they are actually going to do that or not.  If they don't we will have to sit out at least one cycle to save enough money.  Both of the other banks we are looking at are significantly more expensive.
This whole process sucks but we are determined to relax this cycle and keep a good attitude that this is the one. Once we have our baby all this drama will be worth it.
We are schedule for our IUI tomorrow at 9am.  I'll log in tomorrow and post our donors counts. For now, I'm going to relax and try to shake off all this drama and stress.

Seriously?

I am done trying to work with this sperm bank.  I've had enough, I can't take it anymore.  During our last two week wait they stressed me out by saying they are going thru a 'reorganization' and weren't going to be able to take any new orders after the end of January.  The manager, Joanne said that we could prepay for vials and they will still ship during the reorganization but wouldn't be taking any new orders.  So, we scrambled and got together the money to prepay for two vials. Last week we found out that our first IUI didn't work.  We called the sperm bank and made arrangements for another vial to be shipped to our doctors office.  They shipped the vial out and it arrived at my doctor's office on Thursday, no problem.  Friday I see a new post on an online community of women who use the same bank that they are no longer shipping.  They have royally screwed some of the women on this board and they're out a cycle because of this sudden change.

I consider myself extremely lucky that I had my vial shipped when I did but I'm also really pissed.  They had to have known this was going to happen.  Why didn't they recommended we ship both vials?  This bank also offers 'fertility preservation' services where they will store sperm long term for people having vasectomy's, cancer treatment, etc.  When we prepaid for these vials we were told it was no different than the people who stored vials for those purposes, that the vials were our property and they were storing them.  How can they refuse to ship them?  It makes no sense financially since they have to refund us now rather than just ship a vial that would otherwise just sit there indefinitely.

I just tried to call and, of course, got their voicemail.  I didn't leave a message but their outgoing message said they are 'winding down certain operations' but they are still offering 'long term specimen storage' What good does it do to store a vial they refuse to ship?  Are they now saying the people that prepaid for their vials don't 'own' them?  I'm seriously considering legal action.  This is profoundly unprofessional and I strongly believe all the stress of their 'reorganization' contributed to our BFN last cycle.

Here we go again

Well, AF showed up this weekend.  I was pretty upset but I let myself feel bad for the weekend then let it go.  The rule in our house has become no looking back.  I called the RE this morning and started another cycle of Femara today.  We go in next Tuesday for an ultrasound and will probably insem on Wednesday.  The timing works well because I have a work trip Thursday afternoon so I was worried I was either going to have to come up with a really good excuse to cancel or skip the month, either way, not good...
So, if this cycle works we will conceive on the week of Valentine's day and be due around 11/11/11, that's got to be some kind of good luck charm, right?

Fertility Pergatory

14 days since our IUI and still nothing.  All tests negative, no period. I usually would have had a period by now so that gives me a little hope but just a little, a pregnancy should show up on a test by now.  This is my first cycle taking Femara so I'm wondering if it is lengthening my cycle.  So, now I'm just waiting for my period to show up so we can move on to try #2.  I don't mean to completely give up hope and I'd love to be able to log on tomorrow and tell you I was wrong but I'm preparing myself.  I had a nice little cry with a girlfriend last night and I'm trying to get myself excited about conceiving on Valentine's day and delivering on 11/11/11 (both of which are possible with the next IUI)

Trying to find Zen

I've spent the last 36 hours compulsively checking my bank account to make sure they charged me for my two prepaid vials.  About 4 this afternoon the charge finally posted.
 This morning I had myself pretty worked up.  On a whim I took my basal body temp (BBT) looking for a clue if we were pregnant or not.  When we first started this process I temped religiously and charted everything on a website that helps you interpret the temps.  I got pretty good at knowing what a good temp dip at ovulation looked like and what my pre and post ovulation temps looked like.  Well, I haven't really taken my temp much in about a year.  It's tedious, you have to temp before you get out of bed and you have to temp at the same time every day, which means you have to get up early on the weekends (or at least wake up enough to stick a digital thermometer in your mouth and then search through the pillows and your hair to find it when you wake up for real)  I temped long enough to get a good handle on my cycle and stopped.... until this morning... My temp was pretty low this morning, which usually means I'm gonna get my period either today or tomorrow.  By mid-morning I had myself convinced that this cycle didn't work and the sperm bank we are using lost my order for prepaid vials and we're gonna have to sit out next cycle too. By early afternoon I lost all perspective.  I was too busy having my own pity party to realize fact that the temp variance is probably because I haven't temped much lately, it's cold outside and DH works nights now so he's not laying next to me keeping me warm anymore. I am only 11dpo and only using cheap internet tests so I'm not admitting defeat yet.  I gave myself a little pep talk and I'm hoping for the best.

Oh - and if you're keeping count, DH has gone to Kroger two more times... I think he's decided surrender is the best way to deal with a crazed hormonal wife.