Wednesday morning I go in to the doctor’s office. It’s been 2 weeks since I’ve been there and that feels like a huge break!

That appointment will be my official start to IVF. Besides the standard ultrasound and blood work, I’ll be meeting with the nurse to go over the meds protocol. I have to bring 1 of everything, so that she can walk me through exactly how to prepare and give myself each of the shots. That’s pretty heavy duty. It wasn’t so long ago that I was stressed about the Gonal F shot and now I’ll be doing 3-4 different shots a day!

I’m anxious, but also ready to get this underway. Hopefully 2 weeks from now I’ll have been through the retrieval and will have had lots of good embryos for the transfer. After all these last few months of feeling like I had become an expert, I have tons of new stuff to learn.

I have a confession to make. It’s likely not a surprise to some of you that know me well, but here it goes.

I watch all shows Kardashian. I don’t necessarily watch on it’s first run, but the episodes are re-run so much, that I eventually catch it. Most of the time it’s hate watching, but I admit to liking Khloe and Kendall and to even growing to like Scott.

I take everything on the show with a grain of salt knowing that much of it is manufactured for TV and that Kris and Kim have become experts at their media personas (and making their millions). So when news came out about then Bruce Jenner’s interview with Dianne Sawyer, I was skeptical. I was one of those that thought this was just all part of their script. After watching the interview, I was swayed to believing it was real and have been swayed even further from watching I am Cait.

While the show is not without it’s superficiality, there is much to learn from the transgendered women who are educating Caitlyn and in turn the audience. Quite frankly, the idea of being trans is hard for me to grasp. I fully respect their transition; I just have a hard time understanding what it must feel like to feel trapped in the wrong body. It’s something that I can’t even imagine, so it is hard to understand. I first met a transgendered male during my time at Smith and it was confusing to me then. I’ve come a long way since then as has some of society. I’ve been taking the opportunity with this show to learn more and to expose myself to the stories of more trans women and men. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand what they are going through, but by hearing their stories, I feel like I’m giving respect to their journeys. If you have the opportunity, read any of Jenny Boylan’s memoirs where she tells her story.

What makes these men and women relatable is that they are not without their faults like the rest of us. Having been born trans doesn’t make them any more or less of a saint. I catch glimmers of the Kardashian attitudes when it seems that being a woman to Caitlyn means having a stylist, make up artist and hair dresser with you at all times. Having your hair in an unstyled ponytail and wearing yoga pants is not feminine enough. Those things frustrate me from a feminist perspective, but hopefully she learns as she goes. You can also see that personality wise Caitlyn is who she always was or how she came off through all those years on the Kardashian shows: somewhat selfish and not really interested in how others feel.

Caitlyn finally being ready to live her life how she is, doesn’t mean that her family members can be in the same place she is overnight. She’s had years to come to terms with who she is and being ready to come out, while the people in her life have had months to process this. I think it is unfair of her to not give them the opportunity to grieve their father and embrace the new parental figure in their life.

I know that at the end of the day it is a TV show, so I’m not going to get too critical. For what it’s worth, Caitlyn and this TV show is exposing a certain audience to knowledge that may not have been easy to come by. Whether they tune in to hate watch or to witness a potential trainwreck, they still retain some of what the other women on the show are teaching Caitlyn.

When I went to the first consult back in February, I had two options I wanted to discuss. The first was the path I ended up taking: moving forward with having a child on my own. The second was egg freezing. As the doctor talked to me about the egg freezing process, it became clear to me that it was basically IVF up through the retrieval process. At the time I decided I didn’t want to put my body through IVF and I didn’t want to go through it all alone.

I guess I made a valiant effort at avoiding IVF, but here I am. The upside is that if I end up with extra embryos, they’ll be frozen for future use.

It’s been nice to not be on clomid this month and to be giving myself somewhat of a break. With work being as stressful as it has been and me needing to travel next week, I guess timing was in my favor.

I did receive my meds, which was quite overwhelming. I feel like I have a whole pharmacy in my house.

I also made the decision on payment. After a lot of thought, I’ve decided to go with a multi package option. It was a tough choice because I felt it was being pessimistic, but at the end of the day this journey thus far has taught me that things don’t go they way you expect. Many women on the SMC forum said that even when they got pregnant on the first IVF, they never regretted paying for the multi package.

Everything is all set now for me to simply wait for September 2nd when I start stimulation. The date of the retrieval is not defined because it’s based on my response to the meds, but it’s tentatively September 13th which is the eve of Rosh Hashana. I’m hoping to kick off the new year with some miraculous news!

I feel mentally exhausted. This week has been rough. Not only have I been dealing with all my emotions on where I am in this TTC process, but work has also been high stress with long days.

The upside to being busy at work is not having too much time to think about all the other stuff. It’s still there, though, right under the surface. I also have some decisions to make and I’ve been too tired to focus on them when I come home. I just want to lay in front of the TV and think about nothing, but I need to make some quick decisions.

I am moving forward with IVF and had the nurse and financial consult on Tuesday. There are different payment options and if I want the multiple package option I need to have made a decision 2 weeks before I start stims (stimulation drugs). So the decision would have to be made by this coming Tuesday. I keep waffling back and forth. I also am applying for a program where I can get a percentage off my meds, but until it comes through, I can’t order my meds. I’ll be traveling the last week in August, so for my piece of mind would want to have everything squared away beforehand.

So there’s just all this stress with the prep, while still coming to terms with the fact that I’m even at the point of moving forward with IVF. It’s scary. I know it’s doable, but it’s scary to do this alone. I know I’m not alone in terms of family and friends, but it’s not the same as having a partner at home with you. Multiple shots a day, other pills, your mood being all over the place…

I know I need to just take it one day at a time. There’s no point in worrying about the shots now. I really want this to work. It kills me to think it might not, but I just have to keep going. I have to trust that it will…that I will somehow end up with a child.

I wish I was writing a post about the book I just finished reading or how crazy my work week has been (it has!), but instead I’m writing about how I am not pregnant.

6 months in and 5 attempts later and still not pregnant. The phrase “not pregnant” feels so heavy. It makes the loud sound of a thud in my head and in my gut.

When I started all of this, I knew realistically that I wouldn’t get pregnant on the first try, but I thought it wouldn’t take more than 2-3 tries. I was actually really worried about miscarriage. For some reason I thought it wouldn’t be hard for me to get pregnant, but I had this big fear about miscarrying and how gut wrenching that would be.

Now I just want to be pregnant. The failed attempts have been gut wrenching enough. Getting pregnant will feel like at least the first step in success, but I still can’t even fathom what a miscarriage would feel like. And I hope I never do.

I’m still processing another failed IUI, so I’m not going to go on and on. I’ll be moving on to IVF and will write more once I’ve had more time to come to terms with all of this.

Wednesday I met with the doctor to talk about next steps if I end up needing to proceed with try #6. Of course he prefaced our conversation with the hope that all of this ends up being information I won’t need to use. I hope so too, although I’ve reached the point in the TWW where one second I think I’m pregnant and the next I think I’m definitely not.

Anyway, the next step is IVF. I could continue with IUI, but the truth is that we don’t know why I’m not getting pregnant and IVF takes a lot of the variables out of the way. It seems like a smarter investment of time and money based on how I’ve responded so far.

It will obviously be a much more complex and costly process, but it raises the chances significantly. It also takes a lot of the guess work away in terms of what is it that is not working. With the injectables they will get me to produce around 10-20 eggs. They’ll monitor along the way to make sure there isn’t over-stimulation as that could actually make me really sick. Then they do the retrieval and fertilize the eggs to create embryos, and monitor them. At the point that they put the embryo back into my uterus, we know that it’s a healthy embryo. That whole natural process is something we’re not sure is currently happening on its own. There’s no way to know.

Is the sperm reaching the egg? Is it fertilizing? Is it a healthy egg and therefore starts developing into a healthy embryo? Is it making its way through the tubes to the uterus safely? Is it implanting? It’s not like I have some type of window to see what is actually happening during each of day of my TWW…I wish.

I left the doctor’s office feeling good in the sense that at least I’m ready for Plan B of TTC, but also really hoping that I don’t need it. I still have about 4-5 days left in my TWW, so I’ll have to continue to wait and see.

Just a reminder that even though I have been very open throughout this process, when I do get pregnant, I’m not going to to share it with you guys until I’m safely past the first trimester. I know it might sound weird seeing how much I’ve shared thus far, but it’s just one of those superstitions. Like I said before, you’ll be able to tell because I’ll be writing about other stuff instead of TTC, but I won’t be outwardly telling you.

As I drove to my IUI earlier this week, I started thinking about how much I wanted this. How each failed attempt only reinforced this desire to get pregnant and have a baby. Even though they have each been hard in their own way, I’ve never regretted what I was doing or stopped to think whether I should be. Each time my period arrives, I just immediately start planning the next cycle without hesitation.

This last time my mom asked me if I didn’t want to take a break. My answer was a very clear no. I don’t want to stop. I know what I want and taking a month off means prolonging it. I realize that all of this is likely taking a toll on my body and I completely understand where my mom was coming from, but I just couldn’t imagine stopping.

If this attempt fails, I’ll likely would take a month off to gear up for IVF, but at least it would be with a more aggressive game plan for the next try. Right now, though, I’m trying to stay focused on happy thoughts. I’m visualizing fertilization and implantation as my little embryo makes its way to my uterine wall and fits snugly and tightly on the uterine lining.

The funny thing is that a friend was telling me to visualize it stapled, nailed, glued, etc. to my uterus. Then she asked if I had seen Look Who’s Talking. I had to laugh because when I do my visualization I picture the exact opening sequence from that movie! I actually watched it recently a little after I started on this journey.

I’m going to keep funneling my thoughts in the positive direction and hope for the best once again. What all of this emotional roller coaster has taught me over the last several months is that I really do want this and that I am going to be able to do this as a single mother. If I’ve made it through this whole process, I’m confident that I’ll be able to handle everything that comes with motherhood. I may not always handle it gracefully, but I’ll handle it.

I survived the week getting new windows and doors installed. Honestly I don’t know how certain companies stay in business with the complete lack of customer service and professionalism. Something that should have been a 2-3 day job took 5 days and what I feel is a messy end work product. I like the windows, but the whole install was a bit of a disaster and the company could care less. Instead of apologizing or trying to correct some of the issues, they just had a bunch of BS excuses.

At least they are in. Now I just have to do a bunch of touch ups to get the rest of my house back to where it was.

It’s probably a good thing I’m not in any early stages of pregnancy or in my next TWW because I think the stress would have messed with me even worse. My next IUI will probably be around Thursday of the coming week. I finished the clomid on Thursday and tonight need to give myself the Gonal F shot again. I’m not looking forward to that. Then Tuesday I go in for the ultrasound and blood work to determine when to trigger and when the IUI will be scheduled.

I also have an appointment with the doctor on the 29th to talk about IVF as an option if this next try doesn’t work. I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that and that the 5th try is the one that sticks, but I want to be prepared just in case. The thought of IVF scares me, but if it’s going to get me pregnant more quickly then I’m at the point of considering it. The emotional toll of all this trying is getting to me and I’m also not loving taking all of these medications. Before I started trying, I hardly ever took anything…not even advil, so it does worry me what all these medications are doing to my body.

I keep visualizing being pregnant, holding my baby in my arms, then holding his/her hand walking down the street…

I am still not pregnant.

I’m having a hard time finding the words right now to express how I feel without being redundant. I had really high hopes this time around. My response to the meds was great and I was on progesterone, so it seemed like the odds were in my favor. Yet here I am again starting clomid and filling prescriptions for the shots I’ll need to give myself.

I feel defeated. I feel worried that this might never happen for me. I feel like I can’t stop until I get pregnant.

When I first started TTC, I told myself that if I had 6 IUI’s then I’d consider moving forward with IVF. It felt appropriate considering that a doctor wouldn’t even see me until 6 failed tries if I was doing this the old fashioned way. The thing is that I never really believed that I wouldn’t be pregnant after 6 tries. I knew that the first try was a long shot, but I was sure that it would only take me 2-3 tries.

Now that I’m here with 4 tries and no pregnancy, I’m ready to at least have the IVF consult, so that I know exactly what it entails and can start prepping in the event that I have to go that route. I’m continuing on with this cycle in the hopes that it’s lucky #5, but I also want to prepare for what might happen.

This whole process is just brutal, but I know I won’t regret it once I’m holding my baby in my arms.

I have been single for most of my life. It’s not for a lack of wanting to be in a relationship, but of not having found many men that I actually want to be in a relationship with. I’d rather be alone than with someone that I’m not genuinely interested in.

I know that I was too picky in my 20’s, not giving some guys the chance they deserved and maybe dismissing them for something silly early on. But I also know that over the last few years I made a conscious effort to give these guys a chance, but there haven’t been many that have been worth it. There have been those that I did like, we dated briefly, but then they weren’t interested. All of this to say that while I would love to still find the right man for me, I would prefer to be single than with the wrong one. I am not sad because I am single. I would be sadder in a relationship without love.

Sometimes I feel that people can’t understand this and so they assume that there is something wrong with not being part of a couple; they almost don’t even know how to react to someone like me. The assumption is also made that I have no clue what being in a relationship or being in love is like, which is ridiculous. I have been in love, so definitely do know what that feels like. Besides romantic relationships, I have tons of other relationships in my life, which all require some semblance of compromise, patience, good and bad times. It’s not like I live in some relationship bubble.

I am very much aware that when you meet the right person, and when you are in love, certain quirks, personality traits or history don’t weigh as much on you as they would with the wrong person. Years ago I wrote something about how the phrase shouldn’t be “love is blind”, but instead should be “love blinds us.” I was writing that after a relationship ending and having the perspective of things I had dismissed while in the relationship even though they had been signs of what was to come. I know very well that we can let things go when we want the relationship to work out. The thing is that I also know that you do many times see those flags, even if they are just yellow, and proceed with caution because you are in love. You still see them though, and decide to forge ahead because you believe this person is worth it.

I don’t appreciate people assuming that I just dismiss men because of yellow or red flags. I will perhaps keep my eyes and ears open, which is something I see as wise.

What constitutes the right man for me is not on some check list. I don’t know exactly what he looks like, what his hobbies are, or what movies (if any) he likes to watch. There are things I’d like him to be interested in or ways that I’d like him to act, but that could change with the right connection to someone. I know that I’ll likely love having a partner in crime, but will also need some “me” time mostly because of my introverted nature. Although even that could be different with the right guy. There isn’t a right or wrong for couples in terms of how much time they spend together or if they have different friends or like different foods. There are all different types of couples for different personalities, so it bugs me when people assume that I’m anti-relationship if I make a comment about something being OK for me in relationship that wouldn’t be OK for them.

Sorry, or maybe not, about the long vent. I only want people to stop viewing single women as desperate or anti-relationship. I, at least, am happy in my life and have chosen to live it the way that I want with the hope that one day I’ll have a partner to share it with me.