the red fleece

My beloved friend Oat, who often comments on this blog (and is the apple of Roccie's eye), likes to come up with absolutely fantastic labels and titles for things and important events in her friends' lives. For example, when I had cervical dysplasia in 2004, she referred to the whole thing as 'the cervical odyssey.' Or when we dream of living closer to one another (she is in Boston, I am in Canada), she has come up with a vision of this border-straddling housing/working complex named after the Internatio.nal Hou.se of Pan.cakes. Her creativity is like a creek in spring. Oat likes to talk about the uterine lining as the red fleece, where embies go to nestle.

A propos my red fleece, here is the scoop.

Whilst I was whiling (I should say willing) away the hours at work yesterday, Mr. A was in receipt of a very important phone call. It turns out that my lining is apparently just great. What. Thick enough and triple patterned. How 'bout that.

I did have one or two moments of thinking they might have sent the wrong pdf file to Washington. You know, lining from patient Augustina instead of patient Augusta. An honest error. So easy to make.

Trust is just as hard to build as hope. Harder even.

The SG folks have said that we just need to get the doctor's final clearance, and then we can proceed with selecting a donor. Wow. And I kept wondering all day yesterday whether they would tell us that we have to do a second mock cycle. Apparently not. 

thickening slowly

Made the treck to FTT again this morning for 7:30 am monitoring (which is a 6am departure). Even though I only woke up 15 minutes earlier than I normally do, I didn't get my time at the gym, so I am feeling more groggy. The clinic was much less busy than it was on Friday, as expected (I guess it's common for clinics to keep monitoring and precedures at a minimum during the weekend so they pack 'em in on Fridays and Mondays). It was the medical fellow present at last Friday's u/s who did this morning's u/s. He called me dear, as he was waving that wand around trying to find my ovaries for 10 minutes until he pronounced them inactive. DUDE. Do I have to walk around with a sign on my forehead? OVARIES OUT OF ORDER (may not be visualzed on ultrasound). Whatevs. SG wants to know about the ovaries and exactly what they are doing. Exactly nothing, is the answer.

I asked the fellow what the lining measured and he said 9mm, at which point I uttered a little 'yeah' accompanied with a fist pump. It was warranted, you will agree. Upon seeing my reaction, he looked at the notes again and corrected himself. 7.5mm. Ah darn. That's still on the thin side, despite the 2mgs of estrace twice per day taken vaginally since Friday, and the 2 extra doses of Dele.strogen. Not sure what SG will say about this. I guess I'll find out later today.

Thank you for your comments on my last post. As some of you know, I was working with a TCM doctor (known here as Dr. Ninja) in preparation for my last DE cycle and received regular acupuncture. I have been huming and haing about going back to Dr. Ninja and so far have not pursued it, although this mediocre lining growth and your urgings to get thee to the acupuncturist is tipping me toward the other side. The two main reasons for not going back to Dr. Ninja have been the following:

1) he will require that I take his teas (herbs) since it's a main form of treatment in his practice, and SG advises against taking any herbs (well, I'm guessing the thyme on my shiitake omelette might be ok). My IRL friend who struggled with IF went to see him and had this argument with him at some point. Stretched tautly between Eastern and Western ideologies is a hard place to stand for a patient. I didn't want to put myself in that situation if I didn't have to.

2) Dr. Ninja will tell me to stop drinking coffee. (Go ahead and judge me. I'm ok with that.) I've given up coffee before and I will again if I have to, but it makes my days a whole lot less pleasant and wakeful. I reduced my intake to one large cup a day starting in January. And again this week, I went down to half caf, half decaf. Can't say I like it, and I supplement with green tea in the afternoon, but I am aware that this may help my chances so I am cutting down.

That being said, Dr. Ninja and his team take good care of me, and I really enjoye he acupuncture I've received there. To add to that, I've been reading Alice Domar's book, Conquering Infertility and it's making me appreciate to an even greater extent how much I need to take EXTRA good care of myself. I think I'll call Dr. Ninja's office today.

Thanks for your continued and amazing support, women.