In other news

I puked for the first time today. I'm trying to remind myself that this is another tiny reduction in the miscarriage risk, since apparently women who puke miscarry slightly less than women who are only nauseated. So let's call it a good thing. It could have been a lot worse, but I hate puking, and it makes me feel really insecure feeling like it could happen again at any moment. I've been more emotional today than usual, and I don't know if it's a hormone surge that's causing both symptoms, or whether my emotions are just frayed from being afraid of vomiting again. Hopefully tomorrow will be better, because it's my husband's office holiday party.

Speaking of my husband, he told four people today. More than ever before. The sweetest story was when he told a coworker who has a one-year-old. They had also struggled for years (3 I think) to conceive. Lots of therapy. And basically they ended up getting pregnant while waiting to start IVF. I don't think they were very open about their struggle, but when my husband mentioned that we were having trouble while they were on a business trip, his coworker told him about how hard it was for him and his wife. It's made me feel closer to them from afar ever since, and it was just so nice for my husband to be able to finally give this friend the good news. Apparently he barely got into the office and said "so can you keep a secret for a couple of weeks?" and the friend immediately knew what he was talking about and jumped up and hugged him and told him how happy he is for us. I can't wait to see him tomorrow.

Finally, I'm struck by how different my work is from my husband's. My current boss has never had a trainee get pregnant before. None of the women in the lab have kids. So I'm continually expecting this news to hurt my career, and spend a lot of time thinking about how to show I'm still serious. I'm always surprised at how well people take it, no matter how many people I tell (10 so far? more?). In contrast, my husband works at a school where it seems like everyone is having kids all the time. They always have people on maternity leave, and his officemate has helped put together nanny-share arrangements for various people who work there. I think his life is a lot more normal than mine. But then again, when we were frustrated TTC, I could escape to work and throw myself into it without having constant reminders, and he had to go to work every day with happy pregnant people. Luckily, he's way better adjusted than I am : ) Still, I think this could be a great new advertising idea for lab science to draw in the frustrated infertiles.... "Biology: an escape from procreation" Catchy, right?

Funny story about sex

When we started our first IUI cycle last week, I asked the nurse a bunch of questions to make sure I understood the procedure. And I was psyched I remembered to ask how many days in advance we needed to abstain. That was how I asked, too: "How many days beforehand do we have to abstain from sex?" To which the answer was... "If you haven't had sex in a couple of weeks, we ask that you have intercourse on the night of the trigger." And so I was forced to ask a whole series of follow-up questions about whether we were still cool to have sex up through the trigger day if we do it much more often than that (no clear answer, but I crafted my own and got it approved).

If I'm asking how long I have to abstain for, isn't that a signal that I have sex often? I guess the whole point is that they shouldn't assume, but it seemed hilarious to me that they assume I don't want to have sex. I know a lot of couples find IF so stressful that their sex life suffers (and seems like work), and I assume from the TV stereotypes that some married couples really don't have sex very often, but I just think it's strange that I seem to be such an outlier in my intense desire to do it with my hot husband as often as possible, babymaking or no. In any case, I'd rather be me than that nurse : )