TWW Friday 1/8

fitzfizz · January 2021

**This is a thread that welcomes all regardless of where they are at in their TTC journeys. Please be mindful of topics that are discussed that could be hurtful to those going through tough times. Mention of children or pregnancies of others should have a TW (trigger warning) and be in a spoiler if possible, and only be mentioned if it is extremely pertinent to the conversation. Thanks for keeping this a safe place for us all to engage!**

Month/Cycle:

CD/DPO:

Timing:

Typical LP length:

Testing:

R/R:

CS/Q:

bows22 · January 2021

Month/Cycle: 25/28

CD/DPO: 23/8

Timing: -2,O,+1

Typical LP length: 12

Testing: Sunday

R/R: happy new year ladies! I took off of work the last 2 weeks of the year and took a break from TB as well. I keep meaning to post this week but am also catching up at work so I haven’t made it here other than to lurk mostly. I have an appt scheduled with a new RE for a second opinion on Monday. I need to call today to make sure they received my records from the old office. I have some specific questions about some of our results that I never felt like the old office really answered, so hopefully he can shed some light. We will decide how we are moving forward once we hear what he has to say. I think it will be informative at least? Have a great weekend everyone, this has been the longest week ever!

CS/Q:

LJMoon6 · January 2021

@bows22 That’s frustrating that your current RE didn’t explain some results to you. I’m glad you’re seeking out a new RE. It’s so important to be comfortable and confident in your doctors (this really does feel like the longest week ever!!!)

Month/Cycle: 1/1

CD/DPO: 24/9

Timing: -5, -3, -2, -1

Typical LP length: Unsure, but based on how long my cycles have been the past 6 months I’m going to guess 12

Testing: BFN last night and this morning. I know it’s still early, but I couldn’t help myself.

R/R: MH has to work this weekend so no special plans. I hate feeling cooped up in the house, so I’ll probably try to find something to do. Maybe go shopping or out to my parent’s house. Idk. I’ve got nothing lol.

Oh, here’s something. I think I’ve mentioned before that the university that I work at offered early retirement to eligible employees. Well we had 2 people take it. Since we’re a small group to begin with that puts us a little thin. So, we put in a request to hire 2 more people (since we’re in a hiring freeze it has to be approved by the collage first). Well we put in that request back in November and we still haven’t heard anything. A couple of my coworkers think the request is going to get denied. I’m sitting on pins and needles over here! We’re currently not too busy because of J-term, but when the semester starts back up, I’ll be running my butt off. It would be nice to have another person on our team! But if we don’t hire someone maybe that would give me more leverage to get a significant raise??... Even though we’re in a wage freeze too… Ugh, idk. Pins and needles over here!

CS/Q: nope

inthewoods23 · January 2021

@bows22 really hoping you get some good clarity with your second opinion! I can't believe it's already the end of the week and your appointment is right around the corner. 2021 already flying by haha

@LJMoon6 I know the feeling of being light on people. We're going through that too. There used to be 3 of us to handle things, but it's been just 2 of us for almost a year. Finally got approval to acquire a new person back in November but no good resumes have come in.

Month/Cycle: 43/2 AL

CD/DPO: 18/2

Timing: -4, -3, -1, 0

Typical LP length: 13 days

Testing: next Saturday

R/R: TGIF! Been a long week working through this damn performance review document. I am still not done. Got day 1 of yoga done. Both my friend and I are sore haha. I'm sure it will get easier as we go along.

CS/Q:

acleverusername · January 2021

@bows22 good luck with the appointment of Monday! Do you have all your questions written down? Do you have the option to send them to the clinic ahead of time? I would highly recommend that you do that if you can! I just had a follow-up call with our RE on Wed and I had sent them all of my questions (I had so many!) and our conversation went so well as a result! Anyways, just my thoughts.

@LJMoon6 Your work situation sounds rough, and I hope you get the approval to hire new team members soon. A raise sounds nice, but that won’t make the work load any less so... hopefully you get both!

@inthewoods23 we finally meet again in the dailies!!! I missed you. I’m in the same boat as you re: performance evals and hiring. I had/have 5 interviews this week (and these are “on-site”, so screened and interviewed by various ppl by the time they get to this round) and so far, it looks like we’ll only be making 1 offer. One more interview today. And yeah, I’m probably going to get 7-10 peer performance requests since at my level, I need to solicit 5+ myself.

Month/Cycle: 12/12

CD/DPO: 20/9

Timing: terrible because of 4.11mm lining

Typical LP length: Not sure; I’m not on progesterone this month so I expect my period will start this weekend.

Testing: lol, no.

R/R: yesterday was my 1 year “marriage” anniversary (our wedding anniversary is in Feb; we had to do the legal stuff in US to avoid any issues/time delays of doing it right before our wedding in Canada), so we had a low-key celebration; we’ll do something bigger for our wedding anniversary. It coincided with my weekly trivia game, so we ordered in and hubby joined me for my trivia game. It was fun! He never joins in. Then we had to “undress” our Christmas tree because garbage pickup is today. We had such a beautiful tree!!! DH says it’s the nicest tree he’s ever had.

This morning I woke up with the genius idea to send a message to our Chief People Officer (CPO) about how it’s a huge miss that our company doesn’t have fertility benefits when all of our competitors and many other tech co’s do. Previously I’d only spoken to the benefits coordinator, who told me in September that they’re “starting to look into that with the new benefits broker”. I’ve been checking in with her every 1.5-2 months to see if there’s been progress but how not received any satisfactory answers. Posting what I’d sent to our CPO in the spoiler in case anyone else wants to take up this battle internally.

Hi <CPO name>, I wanted to share something prersonal/private with you. I think it’s a huge miss that <Company> doesn’t offer fertility coverage when so many of our competitors and other tech companies in the area do. I’ve been chatting about this to <benefits coordinator name> since mid-last year and there was some glimmer of hope in September when she mentioned that you’d started to negotiate fertility coverage with the new benefits broker. However, I’ve been following up with her every 2 months, and there’s been no update other then “maybe sometime in 2021”.

Unfortunately in addition to dealing with the pandemic, unsuccessful attempts to start a family, a slew of infertility testing, and eventual diagnosis of infertility filled much of my 2020. It was a very expensive year since <Company’s> current insurance covers nothing (only up to diagnosis of infertility which, at age 37, is basically 6 months of unsuccessful attempts to conceive plus some rudimentary tests.)

The struggle of this year is: how are we going to fund IVF, which in the Bay Area, runs to about $25-30K per cycle. Once again, at my age, I’m looking at having to do 1-4 cycles, so the cost is likely to be astronomical. At one point late last year, I even considered looking for a job elsewhere/anywhere, that offers fertility coverage considering the price tag. Ultimately, I decided not to since I really enjoy what I do with <Company> and see a great future for myself here. However, this is something that weighs heavily on me constantly. I also reasoned that - if I’m thinking about this - others are likely thinking about it as well hence why I chose to bring it to your attention.

I hope this is something that can be addressed soon. I would appreciate some sort of update other than “I have no updates for you at this time” (that’s the latest one I got from <benefits coordinator name> on 1/4). Thanks for hearing me out.

CS/Q: nope

bows22 · January 2021

@LJMoon6 hopefully since you asked for 2 they will at least let you hire 1! That was probably better than just asking for 1 haha.

@inthewoods23 good luck getting that document done today!!

@acleverusername all good advice, but I’ve got this covered! This is not my first rodeo. Yes I have my questions written down and yes they actually sent me a form ahead of time to submit my questions. Happy anniversary! How many employees are at your company? Just curious, I think it’s more than reasonable for them to consider this if you work for a big company!

acleverusername · January 2021

@bows22 Glad that you've go everything covered. You're lucky... no RE clinic I've consulted with has offered that I send questions ahead of time, so I've had to take things into my own hands. As for my company, we're over 1000 ppl. Smaller competitors offer this benefit; as does our parent company which is huge. However, we unfortunately have a separate benefits plan. 🤷‍♀️

Update: I've since continued my "take no prisoner attitude" and just told someone to re-schedule a meeting they booked with me lunch. We have a new policy in that strongly discourages meetings during lunch (since early December). The only exception I'm making is for interviews, and I've had 2 of those during my lunch today.

misspricklepants · January 2021

Hi Ladies! Just introduced myself in the newbies thread. After some lurking, exciting to finally be participating.

Month/Cycle: 2/2

CD/DPO: 15/1

Timing: -2, -1, 0

Typical LP length: Unsure (this is my first cycle charting on FF, previously had only ever used Maybe Baby and never knew my exact O date)

Testing: Next Saturday @ 8 DPO cause a girl can hope, right?

R/R: It's FRIDAY! Main level 1/2 bath renovations start this weekend. So happy to be finally knocking out these (mostly) DIY projects we've been talking about forever.

CS/Q: None, very new to FF and just trying to get 1 cycle of data in there. Also, don't have a BBT specific thermometer and I don't think the ThermoScan I have been using is very accurate. Any BBT thermometer recommendations?

acleverusername · January 2021

@misspricklepants welcome welcome! You and @inthewoods23 are both in reno-land! How exciting! (But also overwhelming!) Please post before and after photos in the Weekly Randoms. I love that kind of stuff. As for bbt thermometer, it all depends on how much you want to spend and how good you are at taking your temps consistently. You can pick up a cheap option at CVS or Walgreens that does the basic job; or you can go for a wearable (e.g. TempDrop or something similar) that you wear overnight and that way you don't have to worry about temping every morning at the same time. I started out with a PreMom bbt thermometer I'd purchased on Amazon, which automatically connected to the PreMom app so that I didn't have to add my temps to my tracker manually (although I also ported them over to FF). I purchased the TempDrop in June, but didn't love it and am still thinking of returning it. I don't chart anymore, but if I were to do it again, I'd probably go back to my PreMom thermometer and use it vaginally (more accurate/consistent reads).

misspricklepants · January 2021

Thank you @acleverusername! Depending on how this cycle goes, I'll have to make the investment. I love the gratification that comes with checking things off my home to-do list, but prioritizing is the hardest part! DH also isn't the most handy, but with the right tools and a good tutorial he can pretty much figure anything out. He isn't necessarily chomping at the bit to complete these projects so it does require a bit of nagging haha. I will post some pics when complete!

keikilove · January 2021

@bows22 So excited for you and your new RE appointment next week! FX that the new guy can address your questions fully when reviewing those test results.

@LJMoon6 Hope you hear something soon about adding more staff.TW: Mention of BMB

Also, I think we were in BMB March ‘19 together, am I remembering correctly?

@inthewoods23 Great job on the yoga and good job on working away at that performance review! No fun, but TGIF indeed!

@acleverusername Wow, that email! Good for you for bringing attention to such an important topic. FWIW, re: your question to @bows22, I also have an upcoming follow-up with my local RE and her nurse did ask me to send ahead of time all my updated test results that weren’t run through their office, any notes from other doctors, and any questions I have. It’s great when doctors take this proactive approach to upcoming appointments.

@misspricklepants Welcome! When I first joined here I used cheapie thermometers from CVS & Target: don’t do it! Here is the one I got from Amazon for less than $20 that I use to temp in the vag. It also works well in the mouth.😄It is backlit so the numbers are clearly visible even on dark mornings:

keikilove · January 2021

I’m super late to the game today, but at least this will give something to read over the quiet weekend.

Month/Cycle: 32/lost track

CD/DPO: 22/3

Timing: -5, -2 (Long story in FFFC thread today about why our timing turned out so bad this month.)

Typical LP length: Around 13

Testing: Always too early!

R/R: Rave: I’ve been getting tons of sleep the past few days. Rant: I can’t seem to get enough sleep & have been feeling exhausted everyday this week. Probably if I exercised more I’d have more energy.

CS/Q: Finally got CHs this morning, but only after discarding two temp spikes from when I was sick.

inthewoods23 · January 2021

@acleverusername peer performance requests?? That sounds obnoxious.

@misspricklepants gotta love updating the house! I use the same thermometer as @keikilove and love it as well. The backlight was a must for me especially if it's still dark out when I wake up. Not so much an issue now that I have a sunrise alarm clock so the room is lit when I wake up to temp. The probe tip is nice and flexible too.

@keikilove ugh poor sleep sucks!

acleverusername · January 2021

@keikilove I’m sorry about the poor sleep; I too have been suffering it. Are thinking of increasing your exercise? I’ve been pretty lazy lately so I wonder if that’s why I’m suffering so.

Also, what’s up with the Bay Area RE’s?! For real, I have not had ANYONE ask me to send questions ahead of time. I also have a consult with an RE in AZ and he too hasn’t asked for anything. What’s more is that they all want to get records directly from the doctor when I’ve got copies of everything (I’m meticulous about that.) Enough ranting through.

@inthewoods23 lulz at your comment re: peer reviews... yep, it’s so that we know what our areas for improvement are, through the eyes of colleagues. I actually think it’s important. I talk to my manager once every 2 weeks, so he doesn’t really know what I do day-to-day.

acleverusername · January 2021

Oh yeah, I actually received a pretty good/hopeful reply from our CPO:

Hi <my name>:

First let me say that I appreciate you sharing your story. These journeys are always different and sometimes very challenging.

Second, this is a topic that we’re actively discussing and if you’re comfortable, please feel free to continue to dialog with me directly on this topic.

When I say actively discussing I mean I personally discussed it with leadership before the holiday break. I will follow-up with more information when possible. Thank you again for sharing your story with me and hopefully without sounding too odd, I’m sending you positive vibes.

keikilove · January 2021

@acleverusername That reply is amaaaazing. Gotta love the final sentence.💕

inthewoods23 · January 2021

@acleverusername my RE never asked for questions ahead of time so you're not alone

Want a personalized experience?

TWW Friday 1/8

Re: TWW Friday 1/8

Choose Another Board

Search Boards