A Whole New World

According to the online animation I found the other day, my fertilized egg should be wandering out into the vastness of the uterus some time in the next 24 hours. Of course, Mombi has declared that it is probably an overachiever and that it has already implanted. Actually, I think she used the pronoun "they" as in "more than one fertilized egg." She REALLY wants twins.

By the way, if the voice on the animation sounds familiar, she may be. She does readings for books on CD, and read all of the Clan of the Cavebear books. Mombi and I spent many many commuting hours listening to her read those books, so her voice also makes me think of long-winded explanations of trapping and making fire. Sure, the characters in those books had a much larger area to explore. My little egg will just be bumping around in the dark, looking for a nice soft spot to settle down. Hopefully in a couple weeks we'll be able to see that Big Challenge #2 has been accomplished!

My current state:
I'm still feeling the last bits of abdominal grumpiness from all the fertility drugs, but that's fine by me if it works! I've also realized that since I have all these hormones in my system already (HCG, progesterone, estrogen) that I truly can't count any symptoms of pregnancy that I discover, because they could just as well be from my medications. It's nice, in a way. It's not that I'm not keeping tabs, of course. I just won't believe any that I notice.

Mushy Materialist Moment, Please Stand By

I'm certainly not what you'd call a style guru. As far as brand name clothing goes, I generally don't have a clue, unless there's a big duck head or spotted dog featured prominently. However, there is one brand name that I can now spot from 100 paces, and I'm frightened to report that I've seen it for sale within 20 miles of my home.

I saw an outfit in the window of a small children's clothing boutique on Friday while I was out on an errand for work, and instantly recognized the fabulous fabrics of Zutano. No, I didn't go inside. Hey, I was on the clock! But it was still a close call.

So for all you other hip parents-to-be out there, make sure you check out their website. Their clothing is so darned cute! Maybe someone from Zutano will read this post and decide to give my child-to-be a full wardrobe of their clothing as a thank-you gift for all the publicity. Hey, a girl can hope!

Super glue, tree sap, and strawberry jam

By this time, the swim team has either done what it was sent to do, or not. Too bad we have to wait for two more weeks before we find out!

In the meantime, I'm going to visualize lots of sticky things. Let's hope it gets stuck for 9 months!

It's official

I've been inseminated!

Mombi picked me up from work and we went to the clinic together. After the IUI, we sat together in the exam room, talking and laughing, while she introduced herself to the swimmers and instructed them on their mission. It was so very sweet. She's going to be an amazing mom!

The radio station that was playing over the intercom system kept putting on songs that were really funny in context. I wish I'd thought to write them down, because I don't remember any of them at the moment. I'm sure I'll remember the next time I hear one of them, though.

After, we stopped at the local gay pride store and did some browsing. I found a very cute children's book called And Tango Makes Three. If you're looking for a good diversity book for kids, I totally recommend it. It's the true story of a pair of male penguins at the Central Park zoo that were a bonded couple. The zookeeper gave them an egg that needed to be cared for, and they worked together to hatch it. The drawings in the book are very cute, and the story is wonderful, especially when you find out that it's a true story. Nothing against Heather Has Two Mommies, but diversity books for children have come so far!

Edit by Mombi, the song list was:

Journey: Don't Stop Believing
Keith Irving: Making Memory
Pointer Sisters: Fire
Aerosmith: Don't Want to Miss a Thing Lionel
Richie: My Love

So many firsts...and here is my first post.

Funny how thought patterns work isn't it?

I often find myself musing over my own thoughts at times, and here is my attempt to share this paticular ramble.

Firsts.

I sat down this morning to write this post and thought "huh...this is my first post...what do I talk about in my first post?" and then it struck me; just how many firsts our child will have.

First poo...
First smile...
First laugh...
First word...

Then it moved on through to first date...first partner....

My head began to spin and I took a step back, took hold of our dog's fishy toy...gave it a few squeeks and played with her while I continued to ponder. Another realization stuck....

Not only are we going to witness our child's first's but we will be experiencing a whole new round of firsts.

First dipar change...
First tear at our child's smile...
First giggle fit with our child...
First word squeeled to each other that our "ohsoultrasmartwizard" of a child genius spoke...

Wow....that's so cool!!

So, I've found the way that I will share my half of the experience with you, through firsts.

I have some catching up to do so I will write more soon.

For now...my first best wishes.

~Mombi

Gimme a T, Gimme a V, Gimme an S!

I had an appointment with my RE this morning to check my follicle development. Apparently I'm "responding well" to the meds, but they're not quite ripe yet. While they were measuring, my eyes were glued to the u/s screen. If it's this exciting to watch them measure follicles, I can't wait until they're measuring a little kiddo!

I have to say, Clomid and Gonal-F have been treating me very well. This is my first cycle on either, and I was very nervous about how my body would react. I've heard so many horror stories of massive headaches and nasty tempers. It's been a total breeze for me, though. If anything, I've felt better than usual! I hope that pregnancy treats me so well.

Maybe it's just the drugs, but I've got a really good feeling about this cycle. Last cycle I made myself believe that it wouldn't work so I wouldn't be disappointed. But this cycle I think I'll have a much more difficult time writing off any "symptoms" I notice. The nurse will be calling me later this afternoon with my lab results and they'll let me know then if I should come back for my trigger shot on Wednesday or Thursday. Then IUI the next day, and it's on into the two week wait!

Windows shopping

I love research. There's nothing more satisfying for me than to spend hours on the internet preparing for a purchase. I spent a month just deciding which camera to buy when I first went digital.

So here we are on our second round of inseminations, no pregnancy yet, and I've already got my registries stocked. Occasionally, I'll decide to do some more research on some item or another. Today, it was diapers. Mombi and I have decided to do cloth diapers, and I can't tell you the hours I've spent reading reviews and explanations of all the different kinds of diapers out there.

It's not like disposables, where you have your choice of Pampers, Huggies, or store brand and that's about it. There are at least five different major categories of cloth diaper types, and literally hundreds of variations. Not to mention all the possibilities if I should decide to sew my own. Good grief! So I've been plugging away, deciding what type I want for what stage of the child's life, how many I should get, and which product reviews I believe. So far, I think I've decided and then changed my mind at least 6 times. My current favorites are Bum Genius one size fits all pocket diapers, except that they look too big for newborns, so I want to get something that is umbilical cord friendly for the first few weeks. Perhaps some fitteds or pre-folds. Of course, I haven't even started to think about diaper covers for them.

I have 9+ more months to decide. Ah, research heaven!

Welcome to Our Baby, Please!

A warm welcome to all of our readers-to-be. We created this blog to serve as an outlet for all of our pent-up baby-making energy, and as a way to document our process of trying to concieve our first child.

We have been together for just over five years, and we've finally decided that the time will never be more right than it is now, so we're going for it! I socked a bunch of cash into my flex spending account to buy us some sperm, and we've been charting since February 2006. We've had one BFN (Big insert-your-favorite-F-word-here Negative) and I'm currently taking several medications to boost my chances for the next round, which will be some time next week.