Welcome May IComLeavWe

Howdy. I'm so excited to be participating in my first IComLeavWe, but I have no idea what to tell everyone. So, I'll probably just ramble on, like usual.

I'm Julie. I live with my husband, two dogs, and a cat, all of whom conspire to make my house the messiest in the neighborhood. My dogs are both named after Harry Potter characters. I am a big dork.

Reading is my favorite thing to do. I read constantly and would much rather read than watch tv, which irritates my DH to no end. I will read pretty much anything that's set in front of me. If there are no books, I read the labels on cereal boxes, drink cups, etc. If there is nothing to read, I write. I never finish what I write, but I try anyway.

I am a teacher. I teach science, TX history, math, writing, and reading to fourth graders. I also teach manners, good hygiene, and relationship skills to them, even though those aren't in the curriculum. And this year, unfortunately and without meaning to, I have taught them how do deal with a teacher who always has half her mind on something else. I have taught them to watch out for mood swings and work quietly while I slip outside to talk to my doctor. I'm not proud of teaching them those things.

My DH and I have been TTC since September of 2008. In October of 2009, we finally worked up the guts to go see the doctor. Because of his age, we decided to go ahead and run tests on both of us. All of mine came back fine. DH's did not. The doctor said he had no sp.erm, and referred us to a male fertility specialist. He put DH on hormone therapy (worst month EVER!! It basically sent him into menopause. Men should never go into menopause!), which didn't work at all. We discovered that DH has AZFC, a genetic defect that only affects fertility in men. Lucky us. In January, we finally decided to try IUI with donor sp.erm. Our first cycle was cancelled because I didn't ovulate. Dr. Wiz said I was too stressed. Second cycle he put me on 50mg Clo.mid. BFN. Third cycle he upped the Clo.mid to 100mg, but it was cancelled also because none of the follicles were big enough. Decided to take a month off (May) and do an HSG test, since we haven't yet. That finally brought us the only good news we've received: tubes nice and clear. Next cycle, Dr. Wiz wants to do injectables. (Waaaay expensive. Not covered by insurance. Not happy.) We're now scraping to come up with the money for that, since we've already emptied our savings 6 times over by buying a house, 3 cycles, and countless tests in the last 10 months. (If there's anything that irritates me about infertility, it's that it's so damned expensive, and state insurance covers none of it.)

We're kind of just hanging out in Limbo right now. Thinking about getting a second opinion. Trying to figure out how we went from having "no problems getting pregnant with an IUI within 3 months" (Dr. Wiz) in January to 1 failed cycle, 2 cancelled cycle, super-expensive cycles in our future, and a BFP-less May.

If you want to know anything, feel free to ask. It's pretty difficult to offend me, and even if you managed to, I'd probably just ignore you. : ) Thanks for coming!