Looks like we need to keep looking

A quick update - we offered higher than asking on the house.  The seller made a multiple counter asking for even more.  We really like the house, so we accepted the counter, which means we're basically in a bidding war, which is exactly what we didn't want.  Now we wait and see what happens, but I wouldn't be surprised if the other buyer(s) offer even  more.  I'm assuming at this point that we're out of the running.  I don't know what to do after this.

Nervous

We found out on Friday that we didn't get the house we wanted.  Despite the fact that we really need to find a house, I wasn't too upset because the house was REALLY not my style.  But it did have a nice-sized yard.  There was another house that I had my eye on that came on the market last week, but the notes said that there was a tenant until the end of the month and it wasn't available to be seen until Monday (today).  At the time, there were no interior pictures, but the outside was very intriguing, it was an older house (built in the early 50s), in an awesome neighborhood, with a pool!  I figured out from google street view that it was only a one-car garage :( so that wasn't so promising, but it was way below everything else we're looking at in price, so we can afford to make some changes if we get it.

Saturday morning, before we were getting ready to go look at a few more houses (that I didn't have high hopes for), and I checked online just to see if anything new had popped up that we could go see while we were out.  Lo and behold, there were pictures of the house!  It looked vacant!  Our agent checked to see if the listing notes had changed, and it no longer said that we had to wait until Monday, so we quickly made an appointment to go see it.  For some reason, my husband and I both LOVED it.  It's definitely unique, and it DEFINITELY needs work.  But we put an offer in yesterday, and the seller's realtor said we should hear back sometime this morning.  I'm so nervous!  This is the first house we've found that we both really like, and we can afford to buy it and fix it up the way we want it.  Keep your fingers crossed!  My husband said not to do any kitchen research today so I don't jinx it.  It's so hard not to think about it, especially since we live in CA and tomorrow is a holiday so most of my coworkers took the day off.  I have no one to distract me from my thoughts.  Ugh.

In other, baby-related news.  We finished all of our tests this weekend except for my Pap smear.  I apparently forgot what day my dentist appointment was, and I accidentally scheduled my Pap smear for the exact same time.  When I realized my mistake and tried to reschedule, the doctor was booked for another week and a half.  Since I already had to wait two weeks for the first available appointment, I decided to try to change my dentist appointment instead.  Hopefully there will be another appointment available.

Checking the little swimmers

So one of the tests we have to do in preparation for IVF is for the husband to get a more in-depth sperm analysis, to make sure the morphology is really ok (I don't understand why they didn't do this the first time).  This involves going to the "local" hospital instead of the clinic, which means either doing his thing in a not-so-private room, or doing it at home and trying to rush over there.  It has to be dropped off on a weekday between 7 and noon, which is tough because of things like rush hour.  And working.

I read the instructions and it said he needs to abstain for two days but not more than five before providing a sample.  He did NOT read the instructions and assumed he could just go the next day, so I explained it to him and told him it would have to be Friday (today) instead of Thursday.  Yesterday morning, his alarm went off, he turned it off, rolled over, and (I thought) went back to sleep.  I usually get up after he's out of the shower, but I had woken up a few minutes before the alarm because of a horrible nightmare, and I was wondering if I should wake him up to get the day started when all of a sudden, without even opening his eyes, he says my name super loud like something just happened.  I said, "WHAT???" and he said, "Where's Morse?".  I was super confused at this point (it was 5am, after all), and replied, "Who's Morse?"

D: The hospital.
Me: You know you're not going until tomorrow, right?
D: Oh, yeah.  Well, how do you get there?
Me: Arden to Alta Arden...  You've been there many times before.
D: Right.  Do you just want to come with me?

So yeah.  I was all set to go with him this morning, until he got up, went to the bathroom, got back in bed and announced his allergies were too bad and he was going to work late.  Okey dokey.

Tomorrow morning, we're going to try to be at the lab by 7:15 for blood and urine tests so we can finish off our pre-IVF workups (other than a PAP smear, which I can't get for another week and a half, when my doctor is back at the office).

Anyway, looking for a house has been super frustrating.  Tomorrow is the inspection for our house, which I'm hoping goes well.  We're supposed to hear back today about a house that we put an offer on.  The owner seems a bit difficult and is basically refusing to negotiate, despite having overpriced the house a bit, and the fact that the house has been sitting on the market for much longer than anything else available.  A new house just came on the market that is quite a bit smaller, but in some ways much nicer, and I'm almost hoping the owner of the first house rejects our offer so we can make an offer on the new house.

Yesterday went well, I think

I have to admit, though, I'm beginning to panic.  For one thing, I'm panicking about the number of needles that I (or my husband) will have to stick in me.  So not excited about that.  If I could make my husband be the baby-gestator, I would.  Alas, that is not an option.  For another thing, we have to pay for the entire cycle ahead of time (this is probably normal, but I've never done it before, so what do I know?).  Forking over $15,000 that we don't actually have is terrifying, especially if it fails.  We can only afford one shot at this, so failure means game over.  I'm trying to make myself feel better about it by telling myself that if it works, then we achieved our goal, and if it doesn't, I'll have more time to get a second job to pay off the debt.  That's good, right?

In other news, I'm starting to get slightly worried about being homeless in another month.  Buying a new house is getting to be more difficult than I expected.

And a bit more about my rant yesterday.  I can't remember if Bridget Jones viewed all married people as smug marrieds, or if it was only the smug ones.  I definitely don't think all moms are smug moms, and people who have been through infertility are far less likely to be smug moms.  Most of my friends are not smug moms (actually, I can't really think of a single close friend who is.  Most of my friends are just too awesome for that).  But something did happen that upset me recently, and I'm not sure how to react.  I belong to a book club.  Everyone else is a mother.  The book discussions are good, but usually talk drifts to talking about children, which doesn't really bother me because of course children take up a lot of their free time, so they're thinking about it a lot, and well, they're CHILDREN.  They're hilarious!  I find the stories as heartwarming and amusing as the next reasonable person would.

BUT.  They tend to unconsciously exclude non-mothers.  It's starting to drive me batty.  We were having an online discussion about our next book, and someone suggested a "mom's night out".  Ummmmm.  I'm sure I would be welcome, but wth???  At least two people in the group, including one of the people who promoted the mom's night out idea, have dealt with infertility.  Most of the group knows I'm dealing with it now.  Why would you make that kind of a suggestion???  Why not ladies night out? 

First IVF consult today! Also some (infertility-related) ranting

D is picking me up at 9:45 for our two-hour appointment.  I'm pretty excited, actually.  We're finally doing something.  I know having my fibroids removed was doing something, but it didn't address my high FSH and low AMH, which I believe is the cause of our fertility problems.

Speaking of fertility problems, I had an... interesting experience when looking at a house this weekend.  We just sold our 2-bedroom house and we're now looking for a 3 or 4-bedroom house.  Even if we're not able to have children, we would like a little more space for guests, hobbies, etc.  One of the houses we saw (which unfortunately needed way too much work - turquoise carpet EVERYWHERE and single-paned, aluminum framed windows, among other things) was not huge in terms of square footage, but it had 4 bedrooms, a study, a living room and a family room.  The agent was nice, not pushy but willing to answer questions, but then she asked if we had children.  We told her we didn't, and she said "this is a lot of house for just two people!" 

OK, I get it, we should leave the big houses to the families.  But seriously!  How is that any of her business???  It's not like we look like we're too old to start a family (well, now that D isn't dying his beard anymore he looks a little older, which is ironic since he's younger than me). 

That leads me to my next rant.  Has anyone here read Bridget Jones' Diary?  Does anyone remember the term "smug married"?  I remember when I was single, and I would be accosted by smug married people all the time.  Well, the rise of social media has definitely led to the rise of the "smug mom".  I am SO TIRED of looking at my social media feed to see posts from my mom friends about how mothers are basically superheroes and the rest of us are selfish non-mothers who are probably the ones looking down our perfectly powdered noses at the amazing moms of the world and judging them.  I am sick of it.  It's not even the complaining about motherhood (often while making it sound like they're martyrs) that really gets to me - I'm sure if I ever manage to get there, I will also complain about things.  It's the nature of life.  However, using those complaints to denigrate non-mothers is JUST NOT OK.  Apparently, I'm not the first person to have thought this: https://lifereallyreallysucks.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/you-never-know-what-love-is/


Rant over.

Oh, and our dog came home last night!  She's not back to 100% but she's soooo much better, and her dog-brother is so happy to have her back.

How can it be Monday already

We spent the weekend 1) Making repeated trips to the emergency veterinary hospital, 2) Frantically trying to find a new house, and 3) Attempting to get some work done because my deadline is looming and due to items 1 and 2, I am now woefully behind.

So, last week, our dog Lola went to doggie daycare on Tuesday so someone could come see the house.  Obviously, that paid off because we sold the house that very day.  The next day, she wasn't feeling well, and it has steadily progressed downhill from there.  We took her to the hospital Thursday night, then again Saturday morning, and again Saturday evening, which is when they admitted her to do tests, give her fluids, and try to get her fever down.  As of yesterday afternoon, the tests were inconclusive and her fever was still up, although not quite as high.  They are keeping her at least one more day, they started her on antibiotics, and she has an ultrasound scheduled for today.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed the antibiotics do the trick.  I'm getting very worried.  And I really don't want to think about the cost, because it's kind of insane.

We're putting an offer on a house today.  I'm mostly excited about it, but the one thing that bothers me is the proximity of neighbors houses.  Technically, the house has a larger lot, but the shape of the lot means that everyone can see into everyone else's backyard from their second floor.  It bothers me a bit.  I'm hoping we can plant some fast growing bushes or trees to block it and make our backyard seem a little more private, assuming we even get the house.

I had originally planned to work both days this weekend, at least 8 hours each day.  I wasn't even close.  I worked less than 3 hours for the entire weekend, and now I'm working on my day off to try to catch up.  My deadline is the end of the week, and it doesn't help that we have our 2-hour IVF consult tomorrow morning, when I should be working my butt off trying to meet my deadline.

And, lastly and I guess sort of importantly, I am once again sitting out the cycle in terms of ovulation testing.  I should have started testing on Thursday, but I forgot to do it right after work and then we ended up taking Lola to the emergency vet, and that was that.  I figured Friday would probably be ok to start, but our buyer wanted to see the house again, and my husband went home and fixed things up before picking me up from work, and he didn't tell me that he was doing that so I didn't have a chance to tell him to pick up the ovulation kit.  I had to pee so bad that I ended up just using a bathroom at a store and not worrying about testing, and that was that for this cycle.  So frustrating!

So that was crazy

You know how yesterday, I mentioned how I wasn't sure how we would afford IVF unless our house magically sold for asking?  Guess what happened a few hours after I posted that?  So now what?  We need to figure out where we're moving, and soon!

D is being a pain in the you-know-what about the doctor's appointment next week.  It's true his job is less flexible than mine, since he works in a shop and not an office, but it's frustrating dealing with all the scheduling.  He's insisting on going to the appointment, which is good because they really want him there, but he's making a big deal about taking time off work.  Which is a pain, yes, but I can't really do anything about it.

Anyway, big changes coming.  If there's anything I don't like, it's big changes and uncertainty.  Not knowing where we're going to be living is stressing me out a wee bit.  And, if it were up to you, what would you do?  Try to buy a less expensive house that needs work?  Or go for the more expensive house that's pretty much ready to go?  I mean, both houses are perfectly livable, but the cheaper one has a really, really, really, really old kitchen and crappy bathroom that could easily be enlarged and made nicer, but time, money, and effort would be required.  But at the end, I could have everything exactly how I want it.  The more expensive house is move-in-ready, but totally not my style and I'd want to change everything but I have no reason to, so I can't really justify spending the money.  And it's much closer to places that we'd want to go, so less time commuting would be good.  It's so hard to know what to do!  But I guess having options is good.

IVF

Well, here we are.  Back when we started trying for a baby, I figured it might take a few months, maybe even up to a year.  I thought maybe we'd have to do some IUIs.  Maybe.  But it's become clear that if we want to have a baby (or really, babies), we need to get serious, and we need to get started.

I just scheduled our IVF consultation for next week (which is SO not ideal, considering D has so little time off at work and I have a huge deadline next week, but the doctor has limited availability so what can you do?).  I can't believe we're at this point already.  I honestly have no idea how we're going to pay for it, unless our house magically sells for asking price, and we manage to get a good deal on a new house, or we drain our savings, which I really don't want to do.  D is adamantly against taking any help from his parents, who really want us to be able to have a family and have been extremely supportive.  He is also adamantly against crowd-funding (is that what the young people are calling it nowadays?).  After seeing some of my younger compatriots raising money on the internet for such things as replacing their stolen bike (this request was from someone who can EASILY afford a new one), I have to agree that asking for money is not what I want to do.  But still, it's a lot of money, and we're not wealthy, nor do we have insurance coverage for IVF.

The surgeon who removed my fibroids suggested we try naturally for another 6 months, and sneak another HSG in there to make sure the surgeries didn't obstruct my tubes.  But by that point, I'll be 37.  I know from reading other blogs that IVF can take some time, and waiting 6 months before we even start the process just doesn't seem like a good idea, especially considering my not-so-good AMH and FSH levels last summer - one year before the doctor's proposed move to IVF.

We're Kaiser members, and I'm pretty excited about their new program where we live.  Because I'm 37 or younger (another good reason NOT to wait), if we can produce up to 3 embryos and are willing to only transfer 1 during the first attempt, they will freeze two extras and transfer them for free (either one at a time, or both together) in future attempts if the first doesn't work out, for no additional cost.  This is not actually meant to be a cost-saving program for patients, although it can end up that way.  The primary goal of the program is to reduce multiples, so my AMH and FSH shouldn't matter, as long as I can produce the eggs and they turn into viable embryos.  I'm assuming if we produce more than 3, which doesn't seem likely, we would have to pay for storage of the extras.  All of our questions should be answered next week, so I will report back and let you know.

IVF seminar (but first, other random thoughts!)

First, I want to say, I love my husband very, very much.  I'm not the kind of girl who wanted to get married and start a family just for the sake of getting married and starting a family, so I would have to love my husband very much in order to take the plunge.  But wow, he can sure be frustrating sometimes.  Trying to get him to help out around the house is a pain.  There are some things he does, such as laundry (but he leaves all my clean clothes in a big pile on my side of the bed, and doesn't tell me until I head into the bedroom to go to bed, and then I have more work to do).  He often clears the table after dinner, and if I'm lucky he'll put some dishes in the dishwasher.  But most of the time, he seems to think that since he worked all day, he should get the evening off.  But I worked all day too!!!  And if I ask if he wants to go out to eat, he often says he's tired, he just wants to stay home, which translates to me cooking and cleaning while he sits and looks at stuff on his tablet.  Anyway, last night he actually did the dishes and it was AWESOME.  And as much as I want to thank him for it, he really should be doing the dishes EVERY night.

Anyway, one more random note before I jump into the main event.  Our house has been on the market for just over a week.  We've had a ton of people come to see it, and we've received one offer so far, that is lower than we'd like.  We countered with a much higher offer, but still offered to pay more than our share of closing costs.  On the one hand, I feel a bit of a kindred spirit with the buyer.  She's a single woman, like I was when I bought the house (well, it's possible she's NOT single, but she is buying the house by herself - any partner in her life will not be on the title).  She is using an FHA loan, borrowing something like 96% of the purchase price.  I didn't have to borrow quite that much, but only because I was "lucky" enough to have lost my job a few months earlier and received a lot of money in severance and unused vacation pay.  But we want to move into a nicer house, in a nicer neighborhood, and have enough space to raise a family.  We also need to have enough money to START a family, since IVF isn't cheap and the more traditional methods aren't working.  So we can't really be too accommodating.

We put an offer on a house my husband really likes in a nearby town.  Of course, as is our luck with these things, someone else made an offer on the same day, after the house had been on the market with no activity for 50 days.  We're waiting to hear back, but since we're not in contract to sell our house yet, it's unlikely we will get it.  I'm hoping we will be in contract soon, and that we can then buy the house I really want, even though it needs some work.

So last night we went to an IVF seminar.  It was really good, because my husband finally got a good explanation of how a lot of this stuff works.  I think he really understands the different options now, and why IVF is a better option than IUI (since, as far as we know, his sperm are perfect and IUI doesn't really do anything that we can't do ourselves for free).  I told them we would probably be interested in starting the process in two months, and that they could contact us to set up our initial consult.  We got to see video of a sperm making it's way into an egg on it's own, and with help from an embryologist (and now I kind of want to be an embryologist.  It looks cool!).  We also got to see lots and lots of pictures of eggs, embryos at different stages of cell division, and blastocysts. 

I was only mildly disappointed when we got to the car afterwards, and he turned to me and asked "so is an egg different from an embryo?" 

I am so lost in time

Our house went on the market two days ago.  Someone already came to see it yesterday, and someone else is coming today.  We do still have a bit of work to do in order to get the back yard fixed up, which we will hopefully do this weekend.  In the meantime, I'm biting my fingernails down to nothing worrying about what happens if it sells and we're unable to buy a new house quickly enough, or if it doesn't sell.  We don't really have great plans for either scenario.

So I've been doing such a bad job of keeping track of my cycle, that when I felt a small cramp yesterday, I thought "maybe it's implantation!"  HAHAHAHAHA.  According to my app, which I checked this morning to see where I am in my cycle, I probably haven't even ovulated yet. 

Anyway, I don't have much more to write.  I'm exhausted, worn out, and just run down.

I don't know what's wrong with me

I have lost my temper with D so much lately, and I'm beginning to dislike myself.  Sure, he could do more around the house (like putting his own dishes in the dishwasher, or even cleaning up after dinner!) but I feel like I'm just always on edge.  I know a big part of it is that I'm not doing any testing for anything right now.  I haven't called about an HSG (partly because I just don't want to have one), I'm not charting my BBT, I'm not testing for ovulation.  I barely even know where I am in my cycle.  On the one hand, it's nice not to think about it.  On the other hand, I hate not knowing what's going on.  Coupled with our current limbo about our living situation, I'm just feeling very nervous.

Speaking of our current living situation.  Our house is supposedly going on the market today.  TODAY.  I'm not really feeling ready, but it needs to happen sooner rather than later.  I'm so very, very nervous about it.  When I bought the house we live in right now, I had recently lost my job and my apartment (due to the bank foreclosing on the building and forcing everyone to move out).  Without a job, I was unable to find a new place to live, and I had to move in with my mother, which was a very, very bad situation.  As I've said before, my mother can be downright mean, and having to live with her was torture.  In addition to living with someone who treated me like a servant, I had a long commute and my kitty died while we were there, which I attribute to my mom's cat attacking her (unsubstantiated, but I stand by my theory).  I'm terrified of being homeless again.  It was horrible.

And as much as I want to live in a smaller town, I'm also not excited about moving away from the city I've called home for most of the last 10 years.  I will be leaving friends, restaurants, my gym, my activities, everything I've gotten used to having around, and moving to a small town where we don't really know anyone.  It's closer to my sister, yes, but not THAT much closer.  I will be completely dependent on either my husband or my motorcycle to get to work (and to doctor's appointments), since I don't have any options for parking a car at or near my office.  The amount of time we'll spend commuting will make it much harder to be social, although my husband doesn't care since he'll still have his video games.

I can feel myself getting resentful, and I don't know what to do.