I’m officially at the start of my IUI cycle! What that means is that I’m a little less than 2 weeks away from potential insemination.

Yesterday was CD2 (cycle day 2) and I went in bright (not so bright) and early for an ultrasound. All checked out OK and I got my prescription for Clomid as well as a trigger shot should I need it in a couple of weeks.

I started Clomid today, which I’m to take through CD7. Then on CD12 I start monitoring ovulation from home. If I get a positive then I go in the next morning for an IUI. If by CD14 I haven’t gotten a positive, then I go in for another ultrasound and the doctor will let me know next steps, which are likely to give myself the trigger shot and then come in the next morning for an IUI.

I’m pretty excited. Of course there’s anxiousness and nerves, but also excitement. I know that there are different ways this can go and I’ve already accepted the fact that it could take a few months. At the same time, I want to only think positive thoughts this month. I want to try and set aside the practical or realist in me and just think optimistically.

I’ve been re-watching Mad Men in preparation for the final season. Yes, I am one of those people that does that and loves it, even if I know what’s going to happen.

I just finished the penultimate episode where Don and Peggy dance to Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.” It’s amazing how different scenes, whether it be on TV, in movies or books, can impact you depending on what is going on in your own life. Right before Don and Peggy dance, they sit there having a heartfelt vulnerable moment. These are two people who are generally very closed off and who up until this point in the season have been anything but friends. Peggy is struggling to come up with a new idea for a commercial mainly because all research shows it should be geared towards mothers, and as the token woman copy writer she’s always been assigned to be the voice of the mother. Her problem is that she doesn’t know what that is like. She breaks down about the fact that she just turned 30 and that all she could think about when she was interviewing mothers across the country was why she didn’t have what they had. Right on cue “My Way” starts playing on the radio and Don alludes to the fact that Peggy has done things her way. He stands up, reaches out for her hand and they dance. It’s a perfect scene.

I loved it the first time I watched, but tonight I felt like it was speaking to me. Not so much because of the obvious mother talk…that part of the scene still felt the same to me as it did back in May. It was more because of the acknowledgment of Peggy choosing to do things her way, which is not a lesser path than others have taken. I know what I’m choosing is not the conventional way, but it’s my way. And I know it’s the right choice for me.

I’m going to take a little break from all the fertility/insemination talk. A couple of nights ago, I was trying to find a notebook or pad of paper to jot down pros and cons on different donors and I found some writing that I did back in my 20’s. It might be the equivalent of a blog post back then, although not published for all to see.

This is a piece that I wrote at 21 when I had just moved to NYC after graduating college. While so much has changed in my life since then, I thought it was still relevant today. It might be slightly different than I imagined, but strikes a cord in terms of where I am in my life right now and the new chapter I am about to start. So here it is:

It’s weird how life just happens. One minute you are in this comfortable, familiar place and the next you are pushed into this alternate universe. As awkward and uneasy as it may be, you know that it is where you belong. You wake up one day and this strange, foreign place is yours. It is what makes you keep going; it is what keeps you being the person that you are.

Some people aren’t meant to stay confined to one place. They are meant to roam around and scare the shit out of themselves in order to find out who they are. It is a journey that might bring them back to where they started, but everything in between was this wonderful, horrible, beautiful experience.

Your life gets twisted in ways that you once thought unimaginable and all you can do is hold on for the ride. All you can do is hope that it’s all for something…that these twists are taking you to the place you are meant to be. I don’t think that anyone truly knows what they want for their lives. I mean, truly truly knows. I meet people who say that they have all these plans. They know where they want to live when they’re 80 and what kind of cake they’ll have at their wedding and how many kids and grandkids they’ll have. That’s all bullshit. How do they know what they want? How can they be so young but know what they want out of life when they haven’t even lived it yet? I’m not saying that I don’t have any of these plans. I want 3 kids (2 girls and a boy), I want a Vera Wang wedding dress, and I want to marry Pacey. But I know that these plans don’t mean anything. I have no clue who I am going to marry. I don’t even know what I want to be when I grow up (and I’m 21).

If you spend so much time planning then you are constantly going to be disappointed. You won’t know what happened when you get twisted upside down. It is good to dream, but it is also good to be prepared to be surprised. How can you know what you want for your life at 50 if you don’t even know who you will be at that point? It would be sad if you were 50 and still the same person you are now. You just have to explore life like you would explore a new city and take it in as you will.

Make yourself uncomfortable. Immerse yourself in your alternate universe. Let life just happen.

Yesterday I had my meeting with the doctor and all is good to proceed. I already knew from my SIS ultrasound last week that my fallopian tubes and uterus looked good. He told me that both the hormone testing and first ultrasound all showed that I have a good ovarian reserve and my fertility looks good. So I’m all set to move forward as soon as I want to!

I also met with the nurse who walked me through what comes next and gave me advice on the whole choosing a donor process. Most of what she told me I had already found out in my research. She gave me a list of their preferred banks, which didn’t really narrow much for me. She did tell me exactly what I needed to purchase and that I could have it sent to the clinic as soon as I find the donor that I like.

There’s a couple of things besides choosing a donor that I have to do in the next couple of weeks. I need to go through a psych evaluation that they require for anyone using donor sperm, even couples. I also need to do one more blood test.

Then on day 1 of my next cycle, I call to schedule a blood test and ultrasound for day 2-3. During that consult, they’ll hand me my prescription for 50 mg of Clomid which I need to take for 5 days. Clomid helps with the stimulation of follicles, so it’s just to up my chances of getting pregnant. There’s only a 20% chance for anyone to get pregnant, so I’ll take the increase in chances.

I then have to monitor for ovulation. If by day 14 I haven’t gotten a positive, I go in for an ultrasound and if all looks good proceed with a trigger shot that night to stimulate ovulation. Then the next morning I’d go in for the IUI followed by a second IUI the next morning.

If I do get the ovulation signal prior to day 14, then I go in the next morning for the IUI. The doctor did tell me that part of what they’ll look at in the ultrasound prior to IUI is whether it looks like I have too many follicles. If there’s more than 2 ready to release, then they will cancel the IUI so as to not risk multiples. Even with 2 there is still a small risk, but it’s an 8% chance. If there’s more than 2 then it could result in even more than twins.

So that is it in a nutshell. While I feel somewhat more at ease now that I know my fertility is good and I’m ready to proceed, I haven’t fully processed everything. I’ll let you guys know more about what I’m actually feeling in the coming days. For now, I just wanted to provide an update and not keep you all hanging.

All my fertility tests are done and Tuesday I have the follow up with the doctor to dissect all the results and talk about next steps. What I know at this point is that my blood test results looked within range, my ovarian reserve is good and my tubes are not blocked. After a small scare that I might have polyps or fibroids during the HSG, I luckily got in for an SIS ultrasound the next day and confirmed that everything is OK. So it’s looking promising for moving forward next month.

While I’m 100% sure that I want to do this, my emotions are all over the map and that’s with my non-medicated regular hormones. One minute I’m really excited and the next I’m terrified. As much as I have my family and friends supporting me, I’m still going to be a parent on my own…I will be a one woman show. Of course, I have hope that some day I will still meet someone, but I can’t think of that as a given and I don’t know when that might be.

There’s the upside of getting to make all the parenting decisions without having to compromise with someone else, but there’s the downside of not having someone to bounce ideas off of when it comes to names or pediatricians or nannies. There’s the thought of feeling the first kick one night and not being able to turn to someone in excitement to say “Feel this” or of going into labor in the middle of the night and not have your partner there scrambling for the bag you packed.

I know what I am doing is not conventional. I realize that it is going to be hard. I guess what keeps me sure that I want to move forward is that I can picture my life with my child and it all feels worth it. I can picture him/her smiling at me, yelling that they hate me, laughing with me and growing up before my eyes. I am aware that it won’t be easy, but it isn’t easy for anybody.

I can imagine all the moments through this process when I’ll be scared, but sometimes the scariest things in life are the ones most worth it. You leap and the net will appear.

First round of fertility tests – done. HSG scheduled for Wednesday. Follow up meeting with the doctor to go over the results on March 17th.

I went into the doctor’s office yesterday somewhat nervous, but not too bad. It was more nerves of never having done an ultrasound before. I got my blood taken for the hormone tests, as well as genetic testing. The nurse was just as nice as all the ones that I’ve dealt with there so far. She then had me wait in a separate waiting room for the ultrasound.

As I waited, a woman came in with her daughter. The little girl had a notebook and markers. This first thing she said as they sat down was, “I want to make something for that girl” as she pointed to me. It melted my heart. She drew me something and then walked over to give it to me and ask my name. We had a super cute conversation about how old she was and why she wasn’t in school until the technician came in to get me. It was a very heartwarming way to spend the time waiting.

The ultrasound went fine. I had been under the impression from the forum I’ve been reading that they tell me something right away in terms of how many follicles I have, etc. but the technician didn’t tell me anything. I asked her, but she said that I had to wait to review the results with the doctor. All she would tell me was that she was able to see everything she needed to.

My initial reaction was to think that something is wrong. If everything was great, she would tell me, right? Then she led me to where I needed to pay. I asked the women if I could go ahead and schedule the results follow up with doctor or if I needed to wait until after the HSG. She said she could schedule me and proceeded to tell me that the 31st was the first time the doctor could meet with me. I was devastated. If I wait that long, it would be very hard and leave very little time to actually start anything in April. I told her as much until she was able to get me something in their Margate location on the 17th. She was kind of cold or maybe I had just gotten so accustomed to the others in the office that had been so friendly.

I left a little depressed with worries about the ultrasound and then concerns about seeing a different doctor for the next meeting. I had to call to make an additional appointment with a nurse to go over the ins and outs of donor selection. At the office she had told me that this appointment could only be made on the phone directly with the nurse. When the nurse finally called me back later in the afternoon, she was very nice and also confirmed that I would be meeting with my doctor just in another location. This news made me feel a lot better.

I also posted about my nerves with the ultrasound on the forum and received lots of reassuring comments from the other women that many technicians are not allowed to tell you anything. Sometimes you get a chatty one that tells you more than you should. Some other women mentioned that it was their actual doctor doing the ultrasound which is why they got their results right away. Needless to say I feel less nervous.

Now onto the continued waiting…

Tomorrow I go in for my first fertility tests: hormone and genetic testing, plus an ultrasound. Right now I’m less nervous than I was before my first appointment. I think it’s partly because I’ve at least already been to the office and felt comfortable there. That part is less of an unknown now. Partly it could also be because I’ve been reading so much about everything that I pretty much know what to expect. I’m just going in for the tests and will only minimally be able to figure out what the results all mean for now.

More than being nervous, I’ve been anxious…constantly anxious. It’s difficult to think of anything else. Many of the women on the forum I joined refer to this process as constantly waiting in 2 week increments or cycles. Because the chances are so low to conceive the first time, they’ve been going through it month after month. When you’re still in my stage which is testing, the waiting begins after your first visit with the specialist (RE) until you start your cycle. Then you have a few tests to take. I have the appointment tomorrow and then another one for the HSG scheduled for next Wednesday. After that there’s waiting to meet with the RE to go over the results and talk next steps.

I’m anticipating that I’d be able to start on my next cycle, which means that the waiting will then be for my cycle to start again with possible monitoring in the 2 weeks until ovulation. Then insemination would take place and I’d have to wait 2 weeks for the official pregnancy test by the doctor. If it doesn’t work, then it starts all over again. I know I’m thinking ahead…honestly this initial waiting to take the tests has been torturous enough. I have high hopes (and so does the doctor) that based on my age and medical history, I shouldn’t have any issues and should be good to go. However, it is all just optimistic thoughts at this point.

I’m excited to get started…I guess my only wish is that time would go by a little more quickly.

I had a great appointment with the specialist. As I mentioned last week, there were tons of nerves going into it. A lot of those had to do with the weight of the decision that I was trying to make, but it was also about whether I’d like the specialist and feel that he was non-judgmental about what I wanted to do and be able to answer all my questions.

I met with a few different nurses and the specialist and everyone was professional and friendly. I know you should expect this, especially somewhere that specializes in fertility treatments, but you really never know nowadays what people’s bedside manner is going to be.

It started off with one nurse asking a bunch of questions on my medical history and why I was there and ended with another nurse going through all the logistics for what comes next along with a welcome packet.

In between was the doctor’s turn that walked me through what the options are and what the process would be for each. He started talking me through the facts about women’s eggs and how at this point in my life, I have about a 50/50 chance that the egg I “drop” during ovulation is good vs bad. The chances for good eggs will just decline with the years to come. Basically the starting point is to figure out how fertile I am. Because I’ve never tried to get pregnant before, it’s the big unknown that will then gauge what the best option will be. He says there is no reason to believe that I’m not fertile but we do have to see where I stand.

As soon as I start my next cycle, I need to go in between days 2-4 for a blood test that will check my hormone levels and an ultrasound to see the egg follicles (I may not be getting all the medical facts correct, but it’s the basics of what will happen). Then about a week after that I go in for an HSG, which is a test to make sure that nothing is blocking my fallopian tubes. After that, he and I review the results to see the best course of action.
What will most likely happen is IUI. There will likely be a prescription leading up to insemination so that I release more than one egg and increase my chances. If all were to go well with the tests, this procedure would foreseeably happen in April. If you can’t tell by now, I am leaning very heavily towards going through with this.

I also talked to him about freezing my eggs. To do this I’d have to go through IVF. There are options to freeze eggs and to freeze embryos with donor sperm. Quite honestly, if I decide to proceed with IUI now and I get pregnant, I don’t think I’d want to freeze my eggs. The eggs would be for the potential of having more children later on with a partner or alone in case at the time I try, my fertility has declined. While I would love to have more than one child and ideally with a partner, if I only had one, I’d be content. I don’t know that I’d want to put myself through IVF alone with so many variables.

Overall, I’m very happy with this first step that I took. Most likely tests will start next week and by this time next month I’ll know if I’ll be moving forward with IUI in April. It’s still extremely nerve wracking, but I feel more at peace. The nurses will even walk me through the sperm donor process and give me advice on how to navigate that choice.

I want to thank all of those that offered to come to the doctor’s visit for moral support. And a special thank you to Naty, who came with me very early in the morning on the coldest day of the year.

My appointment with the specialist is on Friday and I can’t think of anything else. I’ve been going through the motions at work while thinking about how the appointment will go. How fertile am I? Will I be able to go through a few tries unmedicated or should I just go for the meds right away to boost my chances? If I decide to move forward, how quickly can the first try happen? What’s really involved in freezing your eggs? Should I do both in case I meet someone a few years from now and need my “younger” eggs to have another child?

There are so many thoughts going through my head. It’s like one of those news tickers at the bottom of the screen while you’re watching the news. Even when I’m talking about something else or doing something else, my brain is racing with all these questions and things that I might want to get a head start on.

I know a lot of medical questions will get answered on Friday, but I’ve also been reading up on the forum I joined taking in everyone else’s experiences and what they chose to do. It’s a bit overwhelming, but I do feel like it’s made me think of questions that I might otherwise not have thought of. I would have had no idea what IUI (intrauterine insemination) means and that you can go through it with medication like Clomid and something called a trigger shot.

I’ve spent the last couple of nights combing through sperm donor websites. It’s just as bad as online dating. Online profiles with basics like physical features, ethnicity, medical history, and in some cases personal profiles. You can pay more for extended profiles, staff opinions, baby and even adult photos in some cases. Do I want to see what he looks like now? Is that important to me? I’ve read tons of opinions for and against seeing the pictures. I’ve also read a lot of what other women have decided to prioritize. If you have too much criteria (just like finding a boyfriend/husband) you end up with no choices…no one can meet your complete check list.

Here’s my ideal:

• Open donor – meaning that at 18 my child can choose to get his information and meet him a ’la The Kids are Alright.
• Of Jewish ancestry
• Physically have similar characteristics to me and my family – I’d like my child to look like me. This doesn’t take away that he might get a recessive gene of a grandparent that had blond hair or something, but it would be hedging against that.
• Intelligent – the only way to really tell this is by seeing education, major, and reading a personal essay if there is one. It’s pretty subjective.
• Enough vials available for multiple tries and perhaps storage for a future child from the same donor.

I’m trying not to think too much about whether he’s athletic or into carpentry or something. I am intrigued by
those donors that seem to be creative. There’s one that got his MFA in printmaking and that sounds pretty interesting. As I go through them, I have to keep reminding myself that I’m looking for DNA and not for my ideal mate.

It’s about choosing the right donor and choosing the right bank. More on the banks later.

Some of you may be wondering where I am on my single mother decision. I know that I said I would share all of this with you, but I feel a little awkward doing it. It’s rare to hear people talking about trying to conceive even when they are married or in committed relationships. It is something that you hardly hear people talk about until they announce they are pregnant. On the other hand, I have felt strangely comforted by the online forums with so many women who have or are going through the same thing as me, which makes me want to share so that others don’t feel so alone in their decision.

I recently read an article that someone posted on Facebook (yes, I get much of my news from there to my brother’s horror). The article was specifically talking about married women in the Jewish community who are having trouble conceiving. It speaks to the fact that these couples often suffer in silence through miscarriages and fertility treatments because that has been the norm. Nobody from the community offers to bring them a meal or offers support. They come to community events with a smile on their face hiding the hard times that they are going through. They become isolated in those hardships without knowing that many others in the community are suffering from similar issues.

While I don’t equate what I’m doing to those hardships at all (and I don’t expect anyone to bring me meals), the similarity lies in keeping the “trying to conceive” part a secret. Since nobody talks about it, then it makes me feel awkward to share. It’s the reason you’re getting moments of silence from me. I have to keep pushing myself to share. Not for myself, really, but because even if one person reads this who is thinking about doing the same thing and feels less alone then it can help.

With a trip to North Carolina to end 2014 and then going to Israel, I sort of lost some of the momentum that I felt after laying it all out there with my posts in December. I never stopped thinking about it, but it was just thoughts and no action. I kept stalling when it came to making an appointment with the specialist my doctor recommended. Mostly because procrastination is in my nature and partly because I have a weird phone phobia about calling places even if it’s just to schedule appointments, make reservations or order delivery. You don’t understand how Open Table and online appointments have helped this strange and irrational phobia that I have.

However, some appointments you need to do over the phone, especially the first one going to a specialist like this where I actually had questions to ask them. Making the appointment wasn’t going to signify making a decision. “It can’t hurt” was what one of my friends told me. It would just help me speak about my options with someone and get a better sense of what my next steps should be if I choose to move forward with it.

I finally made the call yesterday and got something scheduled. Once I was on the phone, it was painless. They told me to set aside 2 hours for the appointment because there’s a physical checkup, but then also plenty of time to talk with the doctor. While 2 hours sounds overwhelming, it was comforting to know I’d get that much time with them and hopefully come out of there with a little clearer direction.