2ww. That's what they call it on the message boards. It's the time between ovulation and menstruation. Wow that sounds really clinical! But it is what it is. It's the two week wait between the window of opportunity for conception, and the time when you find out if it worked. And that's where we are... right now.

Another round of Clomid this time, some anxiety about it (since we missed the window last cycle), and a lot of juggling as it turned out!

I went to see Dr. Richards on Monday, December 1 for my Day 12 ultrasound. I had a nice little follicle (again, just one) that measured about 11mm. Not big enough, so we needed to give it some time to cook some more.

On Thursday, December 4 I went in again, this time it was Dr. Richards' son... the other Dr. Richards! lol... who did my ultrasound. Talk about a Doogie Howser moment! The-little-follicle-that-could had grown to about 16mm. Good, but not good enough. Back in the oven little follicle.

This meant that I needed to go in on Saturday to measure again (here's where the juggling came in!). On Saturday I'd see the on-call doctor, which turned out to be Dr. Jeffrey Thurston (sidenote: very neat guy, very personable, and very, very funny! I seriously considered switching to him after that appointment!), but we weren't sure when because he was fitting me in between deliveries and rounds. But what really made it complicated was that I had a craft show that day too! So my sister in law manned my booth while I went to get the new measurements (thank you again, Summer!). So I called the after hours number Saturday morning, got my marching orders and showed up at the hospital (they have an OB office there in addition to the regular office I usually go to). I have to say again, Dr. Thurston was a HOOT! Great bedside manner, I loved him! Anyway... (lol)... the follicle was now 19mm, nice and ripe and ready to go! The next step would be the HCG shot to induce ovulation. However, the follicle was cloudy on the ultrasound, so Dr. Thurston felt like I was in the process of or had just ovulated, so we skipped the shot (yay!). He scheduled me for the insemenation (IUI) on Sunday, gave us the paperwork, called the ARTS program, and sent us on our merry way.

Now, the ARTS program was supposed to call and schedule us to come in on Sunday. By 3:00 I hadn't heard anything and kind of started freaking out. I called the ARTS office, left a voicemail. I called my doctor's after hours number, left a voicemail. The on-call nurse called me back and said the ARTS office was probably already closed for the day. Great! What do we do now? Call them first thing Sunday morning. They typically take the sample at 9:00 AM and you go back around 11:00 AM (which explains why they were probably gone by 12:30 when Dr. Thurston called to schedule me! But I digress...). I asked what the chances were of them turning us away if we just showed up at 9:00... not sure, but it's worth a try. So that's what we did.

Sunday morning I called the ARTS office at 8:00 AM. Voicemail. Great. Left a message and then we got in the car and headed to the hospital, hoping and praying they'd agree to see us without an official appointment. We were about 1/2 way there when my phone rang... it was the ARTS nurse... if we had the paperwork they'd see us! Yay! We got there, Jack did his thing, and then I called the on-call nurse from my doctor's office to schedule the on-call doctor to come and do the IUI. Today's on-call doc was Dr. Bertrand, who happens to be the doctor who did my first IUI! We joked that I'm destined to have a John David (his name) instead of a James Kyle (Dr. Richards' name!).

We headed to La Madeline's for some breakfast.

The nurse called back... Dr. Bertrand wanted to push it back to 12:00 noon so he could go to church (we were supposed to pick up the sample at 10:45 AM). She tried calling ARTS to no avail, so the doc skipped church and was going to meet us at 11:00 AM at the hospital.

We picked up the sample, headed to the office, and met up with Dr. Bertrand. We got settled in the room, he came in, asked a few questions, did the insemenation procedure, told me to lay there for about 30 minutes, best of luck and good wishes, and when we left through the side door it would lock behind us.

And that was it. And now we wait. And wait. And wait. The waiting is the hardest part!