Holiday Roundup

Christmas is over, and our five Christmas celebrations are done in record time (three days). I have nothing good to report on the TTC front - chart went back to up down up down and all around - so here are some holiday highlights.

-My almost four year old nephew got bongo drums from Santa. He also got a microphone and a guitar. We have video of him playing with the latter two. This will be shown in future years to his prom date and during his wedding rehearsal dinner. I can't wait.

-We made it through the holidays with only one crying session each. I give us an A+. I am however now having a panic attack for reasons unbeknownst to me. Thank God for ativan.

-Santa was good to me. I got a Wii and a Pandora charm bracelet complete with four charms - one from my hubby, one from my best friend and one from each of the twins.

-Santa was good to the hubster - a Kindle and a Flip video camera, which took the aforementioned video of my nephew.

-The holidays definitely centered around my nephew, which is a-ok with me. He's finally at the point now that he has overcome his shyness with us (we don't see him all that often) and now runs to us with open arms for hugs and kisses.

-I'm glad it's over. I have the usual post-holiday blues that seem to be intensified this year, but now I'm looking forward to restarting treatment next month, doing early spring cleaning and enjoying time with my hubby.

Happy New Year's everyone! I hope it brings you everything you want and more!

Searching For Light in the Darkness of Insanity...

Once again, I find myself at war, war with my ovaries. Oh how I had hoped for a cease-fire so that I could concentrate my warring efforts on keeping my cervix closed and baby/ies inside. Alas, I must fight two wars with my physical self. I must also constantly fight the war inside my brain. The war known as Anxiety.

The Great Anxiety War started many years ago as an undercurrent to my existence. Many times I fought the battles without ever knowing who this enemy was. Many times I won those battles. Many times, I lost. It wasn't until I first saw my psychiatrist - about 6 weeks before the twins were born - that my enemy had a name. I know this enemy now, and as G.I. Joe says "Knowing is half the battle." If I could just conquer Anxiety, I could better concentrate on the physical wars.

I must ready myself for battle. How better to do this, than with music. And with music, come lyrics:

"Searching for light in the darkness of insanity"
Elvis Costello, "(What's so Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding?"

"In the darkest hour of the night, you find daylight"
Better Than Ezra, "Daylight"

"And here I stand with this sword in my hand...Have a seat while I take to the sky"
Tori Amos, "Take to the Sky"


Take to the sky by ~zulu-eos on deviantART<

Interesting...

I have now completed one and a half weeks of temping and five days of official TTC. The Vitex arrived yesterday, and I have sucessfully completed 3 self-acupressure sessions. I love the acupressure so far. It's extremely relaxing and I can strangely feel slight effects from it, which I didn't expect.

I've also tried not to get too excited or hopeful this cycle since it's technically just a tracking cycle to see what's going on....but then I look at my chart.

Take for example the chart below. It is one of my first charts, and it is very typical of PCOS.



And here is my current chart.



Could it be? Could pregnancy and slight weight loss have improved my PCOS? Dare I hope that I could have a *gasp* normal cycle?

TTC Plans, etc...

So I had my visit with the RE on Monday and we are officially TTC again. This first cycle is completely unmedicated - sort of. I should say it is completely unmedicated per Western medicine standards. I am temping/charting to see if I will O on my own. I never in a million years thought I'd be doing that again! We know that injectibles work, but we are trying to minimize the risk of multiples due to my cervix issues. So, the official plan of attack is:

1. Temping/charting, 2 hour GTT and possibly metformin if needed, taking vitex (chasteberry herb), learning/practicing self acupressure.

2. Temping/charting, metformin if needed, Femara, monitoring with ultrasound, trigger shot, acupressure.

3. Low dose injectibles, metformin if needed, monitoring with bloodwork and ultrasound, trigger shot, IUI, acupressure.

4. If all else fails choose between higher dose injectibles with no IUI or IVF with single embryo transfers.

I'm hoping for options 1 or 2 to work!!!

* * *

It's been awhile since I've updated on my goals, so here we go. I'll try to make it brief!!

Series 7: No progress. Bad Kate!

Weight Loss: Stalled. Great, considering the massive amount of pumpkin cookies I've ingested in this last week.

TTC/Savings: Officially 1/6th of the way there. Apparently we don't care too much about completing this before TTC!

Reading: Goal to read 10 books in my 30th year. Completed 4, working on #5. If I turn the tv off, I'll finish it tonight. Note: Check out the bottom of the blog to see what I've read so far and what I'm currently reading.

Movies: Watch 1 movie/week. On track, minus vacation week.

Sewing: Finished my friend's tree skirt. Putting the finishing touches on my friend's baby gift.

Letters: Write at least one letter/week. Totally fell down on this the past week. I promise to write this week though!