A wrinkle in timing.

Believe me, I’m just as tired of thinking about my Lady Cycles as you are of hearing about them, but alas things keep happening. If you want to stop reading now I will understand, and I promise to post something non-Lady-Cycle-related tomorrow.

***

Late last week, on cycle day 20-something, my temperature shot up. I ignored it at first, but by yesterday it had begun to look like an actual honest-to-goodness oocyte had been released from my usually stingy ovary. I cannot know for certain, as I had only been taking my temperature for a few days prior, but based on experience I am 98.7% sure that I am now five days past ovulation.
I am ashamed to admit that while my initial reaction was thrill, it rather quickly morphed into annoyance. And even a little anger directed at my reproductive organs, after which I am sure my uterus threw up her fallopian tubes like exasperated hands and said “Fine. I guess I just can’t do anything right. I thought this was good news—but then who am I to say? I’m just your Uterus, that’s all.”

The weary annoyance was because we had JUST settled on a plan. I’d JUST started to relax into the idea that we would be beginning IVF, and while it would be lovely if this rogue ovulation resulted in pregnancy, what is more likely is that it won’t. That next Thursday, the day our IVF pre-screening begins, I will be getting my period and the only spawn of this egg will be uncertainty. As in: If I am going to start ovulating spontaneously, maybe we should cancel our IVF appointments and see what happens. Maybe it will become a regular thing, occurring every month or so, you know, in a cyclical pattern. Of course according to the IVF coordinator, if we do cancel the appointments, we will not be able to get a slot in the April-June IVF series, and would have to instead wait at least until August, maybe longer, between the clinic’s schedule and our own.
What to do, what to do.

Luckily I have the Actually, who put a stop to my hand-wringing quick-like.
“We’re not cancelling the appointments,” he told me firmly.
As he sees it, we might as well have the prescreening done, and even if we get as far as the $3,000 deposit and then get pregnant on our own, $3,000 is much cheaper than the $14,000 we would be spending on our warranty program.

But what we will do, besides keep our prescreening appointments, is try Letrozole with no IUI and as little monitoring as possible in the next few months, just in case my body is belatedly responding to the Metformin. And Letrozole should only cost about $50 a month, not counting monitoring, so it is worth a shot, and won’t bite too deeply into our insurance money. And if this was a fluke, well, we’ve got an IVF cycle all teed up for May.

I have a call in to Dr. Doctor to apprise her of new developments, and we’ll see what she says. In the mean time, my good mood is restored, and I am even a little pleased with myself, ovulating like a real live girl. I feel like the Velveteen Rabbit, or Pinnocchio.

There are about a zillion other things I want to write about, not the least of which is a possible career development (I’ll have to password protect that post, I expect), and I have papers due this weekend, which means I’ll be procrastinating, which means I will be blogging my lazy, lazy heart out. I must tell you about the wedding cake we picked out on Sunday, and my resolutions for the New Year, and the fact that the Actually finally revealed what he will be wearing to our wedding. And I did order some pregnancy tests online, as I am too pessimistic about my chances this month to spend $20.00 at a drugstore when I could have them for 41 cents apiece. If the tests arrive before my period does, I’ll start taking them sometime next week, and you can console me when they are inevitably negative.
A good time will be had by all, I’m sure.