New Year, new cycle

Happy New Year, everybody.  I meant to say it well before now, but it's been crazy at work lately (I know, what happened to the holiday lull??) and when I get home I've just been doing a workout, eating dinner and crashing onto the couch in my cozy pants.

This time last year I was reflecting on how crappy 2012 had been, and how badly I'd handled it by just letting myself sink into all the shit that was going on.  I made a resolution to start living my life again, despite infertility.  And I think I did a pretty good job, which is funny because when you tally it up, we had a lot of the same shit hit us in different ways this year.  To recap:

- failed IVF cycles?  Check.

- pet death? Check.

- health issues?  (Not mine personally this time, but check.)

- it came close to the wire and thought we might actually get through this year without a house disaster, but Mother Nature came through at the buzzer with an ice storm so....check.

The only thing that I can safely say that I did differently this year was try as hard as I could to change my attitude.  Am I still depressed as hell about infertility, and terrified that I'll never be able to feel what it's like to become a mother?  Hell to the yeah.  But I tried my damndest not to let that stop me from living my life, and as a result I think maybe the lows felt a little less low this year.  Or at least I came out of them a bit quicker, or something.  I dunno how it works.  But to borrow an idea from Jane, here's a list of some of the wonderful things that went right this year.

- fulfilled a lifelong dream by learning to surf during an awesome vacation in Mexico in January
- we welcomed our dog Buddy into our family in April

- ran my first Spartan race in June

- got to see my family and spend time with my niece during a trip home in July

- had a great beach vacation in Maine with M and his family in August

- stuck solidly to a healthy eating and fitness regimen that saw me drop 13 pounds this year (so slowly I didn't even realize it was happening until my pants started getting loose!)

If I called 2012 "the lost year", I guess I can look back on 2013 as the year I started to find myself again.  I can only hope that 2014 will continue this upward trend.  It's off to a promising start, as I finally got my period on January 2nd.  That's 10 weeks after my last Lupron Depot shot, for anyone who's counting.  I had Day 3 baseline bloodwork and ultrasound done yesterday, and all looks good (although my FSH keeps creeping ever higher at 14 and my AFC ever lower at 9).

Here's the wrinkle.  My RE apparently didn't write a protocol for me before the holidays, even though I called just before Christmas to ask what I should do if AF came over the break while the clinic was closed.  I was told to go in for monitoring as usual.  But for my last FET cycle, I started Estrace on Day 3.  This time, because there was no protocol on file at the clinic (and my RE's office is closed until Monday), the nurses couldn't give me instructions to start Estrace.  I think the alternative option is that I'll start BCPs on Day 5 (tomorrow, once my RE is back in and can review my chart and write a protocol) to be followed by estrogen later.  This would work out well, since M is gone for part of January and it should push the transfer back long enough that he'll be home for it when it happens.  Of course it's also always possible that my RE will say "Oops!  I wanted you to start Estrace on Day 3.  I don't want you on BCPs at all.  We'll just have to wait for next month!", in which case I'll be pretty pissed.  But no point worrying about that until I get the call from the clinic tomorrow.  As impatient as I am to get this going, I don't want to go forward unless my RE has me on the protocol that will lead to the best chance of success.  Of course I'm also terrified, as this is quite literally my last shot at having my own biological child.  But that's a post for another day.  As of right now, we're finally moving forward.  To what end, only time will tell.