Chocolate Hair and a Pink Tutu

On Monday Paul paid for Nadia's ballet costume for their recital, which will be on June 2. It cost (gulp) $45. For a woman who only shops at clearance racks, consignment shops, and yard sales, that seemed like a fortune. I can tell you with assurance I have never even spent $20 on an outfit for Nadia the past 3.5 years, and frankly it's been many years since I spent $45 on an outfit for myself. I hope she finds some other times to wear it as $45 for something she might only wear one hour seems like a lot. At least the costume is cute. We had to pay before we saw what we were paying for, which was a bit unnerving for me.

At lunch today somehow we got on the topic of chocolate, and Nadia said, "I like chocolate. Your hair is chocolate." Since Paul and I both had blonde hair when we were young and have brown hair now, Nadia and Ian will most likely have "chocolate" hair some day too. Of course I won't mind if their hair stays blonde!

Today I have found myself staring at the ultrasound picture many times. I guess it seems surreal to me that I'm PUPO (women who have had IVF use that term and it stands for "pregnant until proven otherwise"). Actually I guess it depends on what the definition of pregnant is. If it means an embryo is inside you, yep I'm pregnant. If pregnancy doesn't start until implantation, well then we don't know yet. Anyhow I have to saw it seems surreal this time around. I think I kept my hopes down lower this time than the previous cycles. Maybe it's because I've always viewed the age 40 as the line of demarkation in terms of fertility, but of course women DO conceive (even naturally) after age 40, and I'm still 39 for 3 more months. I was given an ultrasound pic of my first transfer (8/4/07). I found it rather ironic since I didn't have any ++ pregnancy tests that time around whereas in 2005 I had quite a few ++ pregnancy tests but no ultrasounds pics because that pregnancy was ectopic. I remember being disappointed when they didn't give me any ultrasound pics with Nadia's transfer (11-1-07), but then I had lots of ultrasounds during that pregnancy. I can't remember if they gave me a pic from Ian's transfer or not. Hopefully there will be more ultrasounds next month because I'll get a ++ next week. I'm 7 days past ovulation today. Just 5 more days until I start testing. At one point today Nadia prayed to God and asked if "pretty please give Mommy another baby." At dinner when she prayed, she said "I really want another baby." Awww.. I've told her the doctors are trying to help us have another baby, but God might answer yes, no, or wait. She's having trouble grasping the idea that a pregnancy last for quite a few months. She keeps thinking the baby would come home ASAP. What has helped her grasp it a little is that I've been telling her if we have a baby, the baby won't come home until after her birthday (which is in June).

We're still trying to decide which insurance. If we pick PSU's, I might not have as many ultrasounds at the RE as I have with the previous pregnancies. I did call Hershey today, and they said Medicaid will pay for Ian's feeding program, which is good to know as they told me PSU's insurance will not (even though Ian's feeding doctor is a professor at PSU!). I also called the OB clinic I would use if I am pregnant again, but they didn't call me back. The union is also doing some research as they think that HR miscalculated how many months I'd have to pay the part-time rate. We're also trying to factor in the fact that we might do a FET in a couple of months. I believe Blue Shield would pay about $750 more towards the FET than PSU's insurance would. Such a hard decision!

I bought 3 hpts at Walmart today. It was a good deal as I got First Response Early Response (my favorite brand since I got my first positive with that brand in 2005 when my hCG was less than 20). I got 3 tests for a total of $6.98. I have one left over from a time several months ago when I wondered if maybe I was pregnant. So I have four tests on hand for next week. We shall see if I end up buying more or not. After seeing so many negative tests from 2002-2007, it does my heart so much good to see two lines on a test, which is why I probably go through more hpts in the early stage of pregnancy than most women do. Since ivf itself costs thousands of dollars, I don't let myself feel guilty about spending less than $20 on hpts. :-) The crazier thing is I can't seem to part with most of those tests even though I took pictures of them and have two kids running around as proof that I was indeed pregnant.