It's *possible* I'm a bit of a science geek

They're heeeeee-rrrrrrrrreeee!

What, you ask?

Why, the Great Southern Brood.

Also known as Brood XIX.

Also known as Brood XIX magicicada tredecim and magicicada neotredicim.


Also known as the 13-year periodic loudest summer you can imagine!

(If you're not a bug person.  You should look away.  Really.  Don't say I didn't warn you!)

It's time for 13-year CICADAS!

It's time for this:

Adult cicadas and left over husks after molting.

 And, this:

Cicadas covering a small pine tree.

'

And, this:

Adult cicada (on top) with empty husk of a nymph.

Throughout the Midwestern US, a 13-year brood of cicadas has been emerging from the ground over the past few weeks.  They just started coming out in my town last week.  For those who are in this area, or have experienced this in other areas, you know what I'm talking about.  Suddenly, no matter where you look, there are bugs EVERYWHERE.  At twilight, the brown nymphs start to emerge from the ground and climb until they find a nice leaf or tree branch or truck tire or brand new wood frame your husband has been building for hours or, if you stand still long enough, your leg.  They settle in for a bit and then slowly, over the course of half an hour or so, start to molt off their skin and emerge new and creamy white with bright red eyes and black spots.  They pump fluid into their wings until they are full and translucent and then hang out while their bodies harden and darken to black or orange-ish.  Give them several days and they start screaming (well, kinda) at each other as they mate.  We're talking millions around here or, reportedly, billions in the entire brood (which is spread across the Midwest and part of the South).  After the females lay eggs in tree branches, the eggs hatch, and the tiny white juveniles make their way back into the ground, dig around a bit and hang out for 13 years sucking on tree sap until they're ready to emerge again.

There are 13-year and 17-year species of these types of periodic cicadas but nothing in between.  Isn't that bizarre?  I just find that amazing.  The last time these guys were here was 1998.  I moved to the area in 2002, so this is the first time I've seen them.  They're truly fascinating.  (Now, they haven't started screaming en masse, yet, so we'll see how fascinating they are at that point.)  ETA: By the time I left my office today, they started "screaming" -- it's crazy loud but still fascinating!!

It's possible that my husband and I spent several hours watching them on Sunday.  And again on Monday.  It's possible that I took over 200 pictures.  It's possible that I sat in a really awkward position for over an hour watching one particular late emerging nymph slowly molt.  And, named him George.  And, took pictures.  (I think George was a "he."  I learned later how to identify male/female cicadas but I didn't get an "underside" view of George.  And, I now suspect he might be a she...)

George molting over about 45 minutes.

George's wings developing over about 15 minutes.

 

George's shell hardening over the course of an hour.

I was kind of sad when I realized George's wings weren't developing properly.  (I told my husband I'd love him anyway.)  There are quite a few hopping around with one or both wings that didn't quite develop.  They're more obvious because they can't fly to higher trees.  I don't know if they'll breed or not.  There's an IF connection in there somewhere, I'm sure.

Most of the cicadas come out of the ground at night and our fences and trees were covered in nymphs molting.  Here's what George's wings should have looked like.  Beautiful, isn't it?  (In a creepy bug kind of way, I realize...)

Newly emerged "teneral" cicada.

Anyway, it's been a fun distraction.

Anyone else out there being bombarded by bugs?

Unfortunately, I was right

As expected, we're canceled for the next cycle. I can't say I'm surprised.

I was doing OK until I got to the doctor's office. When the nurse called me back, she put her hand on my shoulder and whispered "I'm so sorry." Until that moment, I had on my "happy face" and it broke. I love the staff at this office. As she took me back to take my blood pressure, she asked "do you have meds already?" and I stumbled because I was so sure I wouldn't need them that I forgot that they were going under the assumption that I would.

They sent me back to the waiting room because the u/s room wasn't ready, yet. I sat for a few minutes and looked up to see a woman with a slightly bulging stomach with her head down specifically not looking at me gripping three small pieces of ultrasound paper in her hand with a goofy grin heading directly for the door out of the lobby. "She's pregnant, I wonder how far along" I thought, and my heart broke a little more.

A moment later, they came to get me and, as they left me in the room, I said to the ultrasound machine "well, you're going to see something different this time." I sat for a minute and then heard, outside of my door, "well, that was a surprise, a great surprise." Was it surprise twins? A surprise pregnancy? A surprise heartbeat where none was expected? I don't know, but it made my heart sink more. Glad for her, sadder for me.

I guess Dr. Smiles must be off, because there was a substitute retired doctor who came in to do my scan. A nice older guy. Usually a nurse would do it at this clinic, but I guess he was here for the week and was doing things his way. He started off with the standard "we're checking to see if anything is left from last cycle" and I crossed my fingers, but, unfortunately, as soon as he scanned to my right ovary, I knew my suspicions were correct. It looked like I was ready to trigger for IVF. About five 20-30 mm or so cysts and some fluid. On the left, same deal with about five 20-25 mm cysts. Both sides also had several around 10 mm. He said there was some fluid, though not much, indicating mild OHSS. He said "well, I've gotten to see all sorts of different pathologies this morning."

On the plus side, if I'd gotten pregnant I would likely have had full blown OHSS, so I guess that's something to be thankful for.

I made an appointment for us to consult with Dr. Smiles in a couple of weeks to talk about where we should be headed. And, now I just feel really sad and on the verge of tears. I don't know why it's hitting me so hard -- I knew how likely this was. Somehow having it confirmed is just hitting me hard. I know one month isn't that big of a deal and these cancelations are common. But, it still makes me sad and frustrated to think of yet another month of the summer when I HAVE TIME sitting idle.

Oh, well. I guess I'll have to come up with some distractions for the next month.

92 million sperm + 1500 E2 / 3-4 large follicles = 0 pregnancies

Once again, I'm not surprised because my body has been telling me for days that I wasn't pregnant.  My temperature dropped to a steady 97.6 degrees F which, it seems, is what it hits when the only progesterone being provided is coming from suppositories.  My breasts started to only hurt when I jabbed at them and they started to look normal again.  I started to get AF cramps.  A migraine kicked in two days ago and hasn't let up.  And, I started to feel anxious, unsettled, uncertain, stressed, angry, irritable (don't even *think* of touching me when I'm waiting for AF to show up), etc.

All this told me that testing this morning was silly.  As did the small spot on the pad when I woke up.  But, as assigned by the nurse, test I did.  And, before it was even time to look in the window on the stick, AF had shown up in full force.

I don't know.  I've been miserable and depressed for days and so now I'm just kind of "meh."  Which, I think I say a lot when AF shows up.  My worse hormone-induced emotions seem to hit in the PMS time and are eased a little by the time AF actually appears.  Last night I cried to my DH for 20 minutes and he held me.  Yesterday I ranted and raved about every person and thing I could think of.  I'm still depressed and sad and I still feel like crap (initially I typed "cramp") and am clinging to heating pads and ibuprofen, but I think I'm starting to feel ambivalent at the end of these cycles.

I'm not sure what happens next.  My baseline scan in scheduled for Friday morning.  I have a sneaking suspicion that I will have some "leftovers" and be canceled again.  Maybe not, but it just seems like there were a lot of "extra" follies hanging around when it was time to trigger and my body tends to like to keep some of those.  And, my ovaries still feel tender.  (I look back fondly on the time when I couldn't identify where my ovaries were.)  If I'm wrong then we'll start again and probably use a similar protocol.  If I'm right then we're planning on using the month "off" to have a meeting with Dr. Smiles and ask him where he thinks we should go next.  I recognize that even under perfect conditions there's maybe a 20 % chance that any given cycle will work.  But, seriously?  With the numbers that we've put up consistently and especially this cycle?  If IUI isn't working at this point it just doesn't feel like it will.


Thanks all, again, for your support this cycle!

Revenge of the Typhoid Twins

Hi all!

It's time for another bulleted list!

• It appears Blogger finally recovered all the comments it deleted before! :) Exciting!
• Still a few days to go in the wait. I'm not holding my breath. There was a point last week where I felt *sure* it worked but, by the next day, I was sure it hadn't. Symptoms are dying down and I'm just not feeling it right now. We'll see soon, I suppose. Wednesday is test day/
• Speaking of comments, winter blue asked what the E2 level means. As far as I have been able to figure out, it corresponds to the number/maturity of follicles that are producing estrogen. The more large follicles the more estrogen but, I think, also if you have a lot of small ones the numbers can be higher, too. In my case it meant that I was a crazy hormonal mess whose nurses and doctors were all giddy. :)
• We spent a few days last week visiting my SIL and helping out with our nephews when her husband was away. Our nephews are 3 years and 20 months. The two of them could not be more different in personality -- the younger is sweet and easygoing and the older one is, well, not. They've been like this since birth. It's been interesting to watch them develop so differently. Anyway, it served to both scare the living daylights out of me to have kids (my energy level needs a major boost!) and make me cry at how much I want to have them. We stayed in the room with the 3 year old and it broke my heart when he woke up at night and said "I want my Mom" in the sweetest voice. I was so glad we were there. I needed a "kid" fix. I needed to think about kids in a "practical" way again and see the joy and the tears.
• One afternoon we went to pick up the 3 year old from preschool and the kids had just gone outside so I hung around in the little playground waiting a bit so he could play. I was a source of endless fascination for his classmates. One little boy kept running up to me and telling me the story of his entire life (his favorite movie is Star Wars, his favorite toys are Star Wars, look at his Star Wars shirt, he has a little brother, etc., etc.). Multiple little boys came up to ask me what was up with my shoes (I'm wearing a cast shoe, still, because my toe hurts in regular shoes) which was a repeat of my nephew's confusion with the two different shoes. I think they understood that I had to wear a "special shoe" because my foot hurt but they couldn't understand why I wouldn't just wear two of them! (I have a feeling lots of kids were asking their parents why *they* couldn't wear two different shoes the next day.) Little girls kept running up to me and saying "hi" and telling me their names and then telling me they liked my earrings, etc., and then running away. (Not sure why they weren't as fascinated with the mismatched shoes as the boys were.) One little girl told me all sorts of funny stories about eating basketballs (yes, eating basketballs). I was there for all of 5 or 10 minutes, but it really just filled me with this crazy joy. I don't know how to explain it. It was just such a pure reaction. I want that.
• My DH's nickname for our nephews is "The Typhoid Twins." Whenever we spend more than a few hours with them we come down with some disease or another. This one was particularly fast-incubating -- I was starting to get a sore throat before we even left town. By the time we got home, both of us were down for the count and we've been snorting and coughing and moaning and generally feeling like crap in the three days we've been home. Since there's a chance I'm pregnant, I've only taken Tylenol and that really doesn't help much. I want some decongestant!!!

Anyhoo, that's about it. Just hanging in there waiting and attempting to think through a cotton-stuffed brain.

Sorry if this post was hard to understand -- I'm blaming the Typhoid Twins!

So little to say, so little to say, so little to say...

(I'm channeling a Dave Matthew's alternative, I think.)

Seriously, I'm feeling totally boring right now.

Someday-soon put it best (you know, back before all the comments made Wednesday or Thursday were deleted from my blog...dumb blogger): it's so hard to go from daily updates of the conents of your abodmen to radio silence!!! Stupid two week wait. And, the fact that the semester is truly over now that my grades are turned in is making it more and more difficult to keep myself distracted! I have a lot I *should* be doing both at home (there's cat hair everywhere in the room the cat spends most of her time) and at work (gotta get ready for the summer session) but I'm exhausted and just want to do nothing for a few days. Unfortunately, that gives me plenty of time focus on the wait.

Anyway, as I said, not much to say. My breasts started hurting the day *before* the IUI and are huge and *killing* me, now. Makes me wonder when I actually ovulated. My skin is breaking out like mad. Fun with progesterone and estrogen! My ovaries are hurting, still. If this cycle doesn't work, I'm virtually certain we'll get canceled for the next cycle because I can't imagine I'm not going to end up with cysts from this one. If that happens, I think we need to re-think our next steps.

Of course, there are still about 8 or 9 days before my testing date. And, at this point I zoom back and forth between "so unlikely this worked" and "please no triplets!"

Still trying to be more zen about it because there's really not much that I can do right now. Must calm down and relax. Must breathe.

Must go vacuum.

IUI #6 is done!

All right, it's done.  My DH's count was 92 million highly motile sperm post-wash this time.  That's a record even for him.  The nurses were bubbling over about my E2 level and his sperm numbers.  So, hopefully it will all come together and *mean* something, right?

Not much else to say.  I'm trying to stay open and positive.  I can't get out of my head, though, the thought that if it doesn't work this time with these numbers then IUI is just not going to work for us and it's time to move on.

OK, those thoughts aren't helping. 


I'll come back to the positive -- with these numbers, this has to be the best chance we've ever had.  Now it's just time to wait and start the joy that is a 2WW full of gooey suppositories! :)

Holy guacamole!

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a good weekend. Mine was pretty good. I made the decision on Friday to ignore my grading for the weekend (grades are due this Friday) and that was lovely. So nice not to think about it for a while. Saturday I said goodbye to some of my favorite seniors as they graduated and then went to a going away party for two of my friends who are leaving in August for another job in another part of the country. (The party was this early because some faculty leave town for the summer.) I'm very sad to see them go because they are two of my only close friends in town. It was good to go to the party, but it stretched my ability/desire to be "social."

Yesterday was OK. I wished my mother a good mother's day and then I just ignored the rest of it. Honestly, I think I felt more annoyed at the day than sad about it. Bleh.

Anyway, back to the holy guacamole part. Saturday I went back down for my next scan and had two medium sized follies on the right and a large one and medium sized one on the left and a few well below 10 mm with E2 level at 498. Kept with the 150 IU Follistim for the next two nights for a re-scan today.

The results today:

13, 15 mm follies on the right
15, 19 mm follies on the left with three others that looked about 13 mm
Uterine lining at 9.0 mm

That's not the shocking part. The shocking part is the phone call I just got -- my E2 level is 1528.

Yes, 1528. I had done some estimates and compared to last cycle and was thinking we might head toward 900 or so. But over 1500? Yikes. No wonder I'm a bit of an emotional mess and have EWCM literally pouring out of my...well, not my ears but you get the picture.

The nurse said, if I get pregnant, we're at a 20-25% chance of twins and 2-3% of triplets. My research has said the same although the fact that I'm 36 tempers it a bit. I'm clinging tight to the study I found last time that showed no triplet pregnancies in women over 34 even with higher E2 levels. (And, feeling silly for being nervous about this last time given how nervous I *should* be about it this time.)

So, at this point, I'm triggering tonight and am scheduled for IUI Wednesday. That is, as long as I don't talk myself out of it before then.

When I called my DH I said "we have a not insignificant risk of twins" and he said "you're talking to a statistician, that has a specific meaning." When I told him the actual risks he said "well, yes, that is above the 5% qualification for significance!" He's such a geek. Of course, I am, too, because I was thinking that, also. I said "are you willing to take the risk?" He confidently said "yes." So, there you go.

I'm still nervous.

Things are a'brewin'

Thank you to all for your comments on my previous post. It felt like a giant virtual hug and I needed that. It's strange how the grief can come back so suddenly.  Most of the time I'm really fine but reminder dates are definitely tough to deal with. 


I once heard grief described as a spiral and the image has stayed with me for a long time.  When you're close to the event, you cycle through sadness frequently.  As time goes on, there are longer pauses between the "bad" times and the sadness isn't always as intense.  But, we really can't just expect it to go away.

Yesterday's scan was good.  Several decent-sized follies starting on both sides -- and boy can I feel them already.  Yeesh.  My E2 was 140-something.  148?  142?  I missed that last part.  Anyway, after 3 days at 150 IU, I was essentially where I was last cycle after 4 days at 100 IU.  So, that's a good thing.  So, I'm still at 150 IU and I go back Saturday morning.  

It's funny, I have now officially managed to interact with Dr. Smiles more times in the 5 months or so that I've been going to him (keeping in mind that three of those months were "off") than I ever interacted with Dr. Six over the course of a year.  He's just "around" when you're at the office.  And, if he sees you, he asks how things are going, puts his hand on your shoulder and asks how you're feeling.  When the nurse tells him what's going on, he then comes to find you and asks you about it.  It's crazy.  It's just a minute or less, usually, but it makes a huge difference in feeling like someone is paying attention to me.  Whether he remembers who I am or not really isn't the point -- he at least realizes that patients appreciate him making the effort!  And, of course, the nurses are awesome, too.  The whole place seems geared toward feeling like everyone cares.  I'm not saying they didn't care at Dr. Six's office.  But, it just didn't feel as "homey."

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

A year later

Last week, when I got AF on the one year anniversary of my BFP, I thought I was actually handling it all pretty well.  I thought "well, this anniversary isn't feeling so bad.  I'm moving forward, we're getting started on a new cycle and it will be good." 

Unfortunately, I didn't count on the fact that I work in a world that is incredibly cyclical.  Maybe this happens in other jobs, too, to some degree but in education, by design, the exact same thing happens every single year but with only a slightly different student lineup. 

So, this past weekend we had our department's Senior Banquet where we give out academic awards and then good-naturedly roast the graduates.  And, most of the evening, all I could think as I joked with some of my favorite students and hugged them goodbye was "last year this time I had just gotten back from my second beta."

Then, today is the chemistry fraternity picnic where the seniors turn it around and (often not quite so good-naturedly) roast the faculty.  And, all I can think leading up to it is "last year I was 4 1/2 weeks pregnant, had just found out my third beta was good and was secretly smiling to myself as I watched my 6 month pregnant colleague and now I'll have to see her with her 9 month old and her 3 year old." 

And, this weekend is graduation and I remember being pregnant for that last year.  Then, Sunday is Mother's Day and I remember being cautiously optimistic as we waited for our ultrasound that I was now, finally, a mother.  In a month it will be time to move the students in our summer program into the dorms and I remember begging out of lifting heavy things while not saying why.  Then it will be time for summer orientation/enrollment sessions where, after the first one I worked in mid-June, I started spotting but the doctor said it was all OK.  Then it will be Father's Day where I went to a picnic for my summer program feeling confident that this was the last time my DH wouldn't be a father but then I started to bleed the next day and Father's Day was the last day that I thought my baby was OK.  And, finally it will be the day I was supposed to work the second orientation session, where I started bleeding after class that morning and had to find someone to take over so I could rush to the hospital to get an ultrasound.

I don't mean to wallow in this.  I really don't.  I didn't think these would hit me so hard.  And, maybe as the summer goes on they won't.  But, right now, I'm looking toward so many anniversaries and so many "if onlys" and it's making me sad.  I'm trying to remember how happy I felt back then and bring some of it back, but I'm having a hard time.

Now, it's time for a meeting where I'm going to propose a course for next Spring semester that I hope desperately that I won't be able to teach because I'll be on maternity leave.  Please, ovaries, feel that great FSH rushing over you and do your thing.  Please body do what you were "meant" to do.  I need new anniversaries.  I need new dates that remind me of happy things.  

Let's try this again!

I just got back from my baseline scan and we're on for FSH cycle #2! Things have quieted down in there, finally! YAY!

Dr. Smiles wants to push a little more this cycle, so we're starting off with three days of 150 IU Folistim and then will check again on Thursday morning and may stay at 150 or drop back to 100 depending on what things look like.

It was crazy going down there today because, over the weekend, their office moved! I didn't realize until I walked up to the door and it said "Monday May 2 -- we're in a new office." So, today was their first day in the new place -- a giant new complex. Very nice place with lots more room for everything. Things are a bit chaotic, though, but exciting. It felt like a fresh start somehow for all of us.

After my appointment, I had to head over to my old RE's office. I've been trying to get them to write me a letter for my Flexible Spending Account reimbursement for 2010 for a week or so and getting no response until I started threatening to storm the office this morning. (OK, only sorta...)

When I submitted my final receipts for reimbursal last month I got a message back saying that they couldn't reimburse me for about $900 of fertility treatments without a letter from my doctor saying I'd been diagnosed with infertility. (Because, you know, of all of those people who have fertility treatments for the heck of it.) This led to a phone call with the FSA with a young-ish sounding man who was clearly very embarrassed by the conversation ("er, uh, well, the letter has to say that, uh, well, you, or, well, I suppose, your partner, have, you know, been, well, trying to, well, having a hard time getting pregnant, uh, and have been, you know, diagnosed with, uh, infert... well, some sort of infer.., well, infertility, I guess").

The irony of the fact that I have to have a letter *saying* I'm infertile to be reimbursed the money I set aside pre-tax for medical treatments because my insurance refuses to reimburse me *because* it says in my records I'm infertile is not lost on me.

Anyway, wish me luck this cycle!