October finally arrives and time to start using the fertility monitoring tests.  I called the sperm bank and placed my order.  Now I just have to wait until I see the second line the same shade of color or darker than the control line.  The morning arrives where the lines are the same so I call the nurse assigned to me at the clinic.  She calls back and informs me of the time I need to arrive the following morning for the insemination.  

The actual insemination process took about as long as a regular pap exam and no more uncomfortable than that.  Now I enter the dreaded 2 week wait.  10 days post insemination I qucickly became addicted to peeing on a stick (POAS) because I just couldn’t take the not knowing any longer.  But to my disappointment the first insem was not successful as good ‘ole auntie flo (AF) showed up at my door.

The next attempt was in late November and the process was the same as the previous attempt.  About 7 days post insem I noticed some spotting and started getting all excited thinking that this could be the implantation bleeding that I had read about.  But it quickly became more than just spotting so I called the nurse all confused because it was a little too early for AF to be here.  The nurse and I talked at great length and came to the conclusion that I probably didn’t ovulate at all and that I had a short luteal phase this month.  She made me an appointment for the following morning to come in and talk with the doctor.

The doctor asked me what I thought about trying the next cycel using clomid to increase my chances of producing fertile eggs.  We talked about the risks of a multiple birth which freaked me out tremedously since I was doing this without a partner.  But I decided to give it a try since I had told myself from the beginning that from a cost stand point I could only afford to try this process 3 times.  So I started my round of clomid.

On December 12th I went in for the internal ultra sound to look at my ovaries and the eggs that were being produced.  The doctor saw 3 viable and mature eggs, one was measured as 21, another measured at 17 and the third measured at 11.  The doctor said to get the trigger injection this evening and he would see me on Wed (December 14th) for another insem attempt.

 I arrive at the clinic the morning of the 14th, the doctor did his thing and I headed back to work and to deal with the 2 week wait again.  Having dealt with the previous months’ disappointments I told myself I was not going to torture myself with any POAS especially since it would be around the holidays.  I remember I was sitting at my computer Christmas Eve day when I got this horrible metallic taste in my mouth.  No matter what I drank, ate, how many times I brushed my teeth I couldn’t get rid of that awful taste.  Having read that it could be a sign of pregnancy I quickly ran upstairs and POAS only to get a negative result.  I was pretty much bummed the whole rest of the day and night and kept to myself alot even though I was around my family all evening.

Christmas morning when I took my shower I noticed that my chest looked like a road map with all these visible big blue veins and the water spray just killed me when it hit my breasts.  But knowing how distrught I was Christmas Eve I was not going to put myself through that on Christmas Day as well, so I put it all out of my mind.

The morning after Christmas I just couldn’t stand it anymore, the breast tenderness hadn’t gone away so I gave into temptation and POAS one more time.  Not even 5 minutes later I almost had to pick myself up off the bathroom floor because there on that little stick I could see 2 pink lines.  In shock and disbelief I quickly dressed, grab the stick and drove over to my parent’s house.  I just needed someone else to look and see if they too saw the second line.  Heaven knows what kind of look I had on my face when I walked into my parent’s house but my mom was like “What?”  So I showed her the test and she said she could see the second line too.  Not knowing if my doctor’s office was open or closed for the holiday I called anyways.  The nurse said techinically it’s still too early to be sure but she wanted me to go to the lab at the end of the week for a blood draw.  On December 29, I drove over to the lab on my lunch hour since I hadn’t told anyone at work that I suspected I was pregnant this time.  Later that afternoon the nurse called me with the results and my hcg level was at 243.  She faxed me over another lab order to have a repeat draw in a couple more days but she was farely confident that indeed I was pregnant.

I broke the exciting news to the rest of my family at our New Year’s Eve party because at that point I just couldn’t contain myself any longer.

On Jan 3rd I had a repeat blood test and my hcg level climbed to 1,484. 

January 17th the clinic scheduled me for an internal ultrasound to make sure that the yolk sac was where it was suppose to be and that everything was progressing as it should.  My mom met me at the clinic, though we knew we wouldn’t see much on this early ultrasound, she wanted to be there for moral support in case the doctor told me that there were multiple babies.  The ultrasound confirmed that there was just 1 yolk sac measuring at 7 weeks 1 day and my estimated due date was set to be September 5, 2006.

More to come……..The Pregnancy

I often get asked about my decision to become a Single Mom By Choice (SMBC) and it is something that I have been very open about since this beginning.  So what better way to document the journey than to blog about it.  This is going to be a long story so I will break it up into different posts. 

There wasn’t one single reason that led up to my decision to becoming a SMBC it was a whole host of reasons.  I’d had several go-no-where relationships, one brief engagement, and at the age of 32 I could hear the biological clock starting to tick a little.  I’ve never been the type of person to sit back and rely on someone else to help me get what I want out of life.  So in July 2005 I decided it was time to take the plunge and find out what I could about the process.

I first made an appointment with my ob/gyn at the time because I didn’t know where else to start.  At first I was expecting him to tell me I was crazy, I was too young to be worried about my biological clock, etc.  But he listened and gave me the name of a doctor/golf buddy of his that specializes in fertilty issues. 

In the meantime I went on the internet and started researching sperm banks and the associated costs with that side of the process.  I located a bank here locally and started browsing their donor list and picked about 10 donors that I liked based on their genetic traits.

I also took this time to bring my parents and brothers into the fold.  At first they were all a little skeptical, as they should have been, I mean this is a huge, life changing decision.  I remember my mom kept joking around and saying “Just remember, you can’t return a baby to the pound just because it pees on the floor”.  I remember some of the other discussions that I had with other family members and friends - just because a boyfriend/husband was in the picture doesn’t automatically mean that they would be the hands on type of father or that they would stick around for life.  A little pessimistic of me, not really, I’ve seen it happen to too many family membersand friends, things don’t work out between the 2 parents and the next thing you know, you only have your child every other weekend and have to split the holidays up every year.  Or worse yet the parent’s stay together but only for the child’s sake.  I would just rather know going in that I am soley responsible for everything and that way there would be no disappointments. 

I met with the specialist the following month and explained where I was coming from and he explained the process and the risks and so forth.  Because I hadn’t been off birth control pills for three cycles yet, the only thing we could do at this point in time was to draw some blood and find out a few things through lab work, like my blood type, if I was still immune to Rubella, HIV screening, etc.  How ironic, it turns out that the sperm bank I had research and decided to use is located right next door to the fertility clinic where I will be having the procedure done.  Talk about saving some money on shipping costs, they just walk the “goods” over the morning of the procedure.

To help pass the time during those 3 months, my mom & I narrowed my list of 10 possible donors down to 2 and I sent away for their extended medical histories. 

 Stayed tune for the next blog entry……Insem Day