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Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The Power to go crazy?

I was given a copy of "The Power" for being the coordinator of my local fertility support group. One of the theories is that if you truly think about what you want and truly believe that it will happen, it will. I have always believed this to be true but...and this is where the book goes a bit further. It describes a woman who wanted a job and she did everything in her power to do so, she sent many resumes to potential jobs, went on countless job interviews and nothing happened. Then one day she decided that she would set her alarm like she had to go to work and get dressed like she was going to work. (I wonder what she did during her "work day"? I picture her sitting at a desk in her house, fake answering her phone...lol.) Back to the theory...after 2 weeks of doing this she got and interview and landed her dream job. So this brings me to my dilemma. Do I jump into this theory and baby up my spare bedroom? Get up in the middle of the night and rock a cabbage patch doll back to sleep. I can only imagine that this would make me look crazy...and if "baby" doesn't happen, what do I do with the room then? But then again if I don't do this and it still doesn't work...what then, will I regret not doing this?

Thursday, December 23, 2010

A Video of an Egg Donor Child

I found this video and I couldn't help but share. I hope my future child is just as understanding and comfortable with their story when they get older.

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Friday, December 17, 2010

Yippeee!!!

A big step today...

Got my protocol and the donor termination of parental rights documents...I'll update with more details later...yea!!!

Ok so here is the update:

What a busy email day...

It started with an email from the clinic with my protocol and medical consent forms to fill out. Yippee! Estrace 4mg twice a day starting on December 30th, ultrasound on the 12th to see where my lining is...depending on the results of the ultrasound will predict the rest of the protocol. But if all goes well I'll take my progesterone shots, 1cc once a day, (ouch) and progesterone suppositories (yuck) 3x a day. Then we should be in T.O. for transfer the last week of January.

My eyes are crossed by all of the pages of medical and legal mumbo jumbo...I forwarded the documents to our lawyer. We should hear back from her next week.

So excited!

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Resilience and Julia Childs

"Resilience" in psychology is the positive capacity of people to cope with stress and adversity. This coping may result in the individual “bouncing back” to a previous state of normal functioning, or using the experience of exposure to adversity to produce a “steeling effect” and function better than expected. (thanks Wikipedia)

Most days I agree with this...J is a strong believer that no matter what we face we will reach that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We have setbacks, minor breakdowns, big bills, fear of everything crumbling under us, moments of despair and arms in the air wtf moments. We will get through this...I honestly do feel we will. Not sure exactly how or if the part we have blueprinted will come exactly as outlined...it mostly likely will not but the end result, a child to call our very own will happen.

I re-watched "Julie and Julia" this afternoon and I was struck by Meryl Streep's (a mother of 4) ability to capture a infertile woman's inner turmoil of watching a stroller go by her pushed by a loving mother or when a letter comes from her sister announcing her pregnancy although she admittedly is happy she weeps for her own emptiness. Would anyone else in our shoes have noticed those subtleties...it wasn't flat out said that she couldn't conceive but it was evident. How did Meryl prepare I wonder? Did she herself have a hard time conceiving? Did her children? Someone she is close to? Who did she speak to or observe to make those sighs and gazes look so similar to my own? I wonder...

Thursday, December 9, 2010

"6.6mm and a follicle...what?"

I went for an internal ultrasound yesterday morning...ugh at 7:15am...too early but I didn't have to wait. When we were at the doctors last month we asked if we should do an ultrasound just to make sure I was all good. So here we are...

I was taken into the ultrasound room by the tech and asked to undress from the waist down and get on the table. So she came back in and put the "magic wand" where it needed to go. She was doing her measurements and told me the lining looked great triple stripe...the Dr came in at this point. I should mention that this is a local doctor in my city, my RE is over 4 hours away in another town. So they were measuring away and the lining was 6.6mm, which normally would be OK but I'm a bit confused...I've been on estrogen for an extra 10 days or so because my RE wants me to stop taking the meds after this cycle so that next month when we start back up again I'm synced up with the donor. But that being said I think my lining should be 8mm+.

The other thing that they found was a follicle. But my FSH is super high and all past tests have pointed towards a low ovarian reserve (in reality I don't have any eggs). But the tech said (with the Dr in the office) "why don't you go home and try this month." WHAT?!?! Who the fuck are you? They were just there to do an ultrasound for my RE, they have never seen my file nor to the know anything about what I've been diagnosed. But it got me thinking...I never have tried being triggered because my old RE never felt comfortable, he thought that it would be a waste of time and our money. But it got me thinking...was he right? Should we have tried in the past anyways?

It really shook me up. I talked with J. We both decided that we have to trust the doctors, we have committed to this next DE step. If it doesn't work (but it will) we'll reassess.

The other surprising thing was that my RE's office emailed me 1hr after I left that they already got the results. Wow that was fast! She said the 6.6mm was good but I expressed my concerns about it and reexplained the meds for this month and she replied back saying..."the Dr thought you were only taking 1/2 of dose that you are"...um...that the hell does that mean...I have the pill bottle with the instructions on it, it says to take two pills twice a day...I emailed her back but I haven't heard back from them yet. Did the pharmacy mess up the label? It estrogen and its not my protocol cycle, for that I'm thankful. But seriously. I'll keep you posted on what transpires.

Updated: I'm an idiot...its 8mg total dose a day so I'm taking 2mg in each pill. Ugh moron....

Monday, November 29, 2010

Tea'd off...milk does your body good?

I've stopped drinking coffee. It was surprisingly easier than I though considering I drank approximately 3 cups of coffee every morning and cut back to 1 then none. No headaches no crankiness...um...actually I don't think I did but I'd have to ask J to confirm.

I did however start drinking more herbal teas. I found out that green tea actually does have caffeine in it. Who knew? There is a non caffeinated version that you can get so I found out.

In my last trip to the grocery store I stocked up on many packages of decaffeinated herbal teas. Now I find out that some of the ingredients may be bad for you....ugh! Licorice root, hibiscus flower to name a few...is there anything not bad for you?

J seems to think cheese is worse for me than a cup of sleepy time tea...is he right or do I stop drinking certain teas with these ingredients? I can't seem to find any reliable source online for getting the right information.

Should I play it safe and only have water and milk? Or are the adds wrong for milk too? After looking up to make sure I had the slogan right for milk...I found out that apparently milk may not be good for you either...this is what I mean. I don't know who or what to believe. I'm not giving up my milk.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Why can't $ grow on trees?


We miscalculated how much this was going to cost by $4000...how the heck does that happen?

Ok so I really hope this does happen on the first try because there goes most of try #2 and a lot of the extras that we needed to buy for new babies.

Do you think baby stores have starter kits like the pets stores do for dog and cats?

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Plan of Attack and A Celeb Sighting...

Our mini vacation and appointment went really well. The doctor was great, it was nice not to hear "I'm really sorry" when leaving the doctors office. It was nice having a doctor with the next steps to a baby all laid out. This is going to happen.

J is not getting "excited" over the next steps...he just want to "go with the motions". Hes trying to stay grounded to that if this all comes tumbling down hes there to catch me. I love him. We talked with the doctor about doing a mock cycle...he see no need. We talked about 1 embie or 2. We told him we want to do whatever we can to make this more possible. He looked at us and said its not his preference an to really think about if we want to go thru a pregnancy with twins. I would love to have twins and "just get 'er done". But I think its in our best interest to get more information...I'll be visiting Chapter later today....

The main reason that we were at the Dr was that J was going to leave a sample to be frozen. We are going to do the transfer in the end of January and the weather in Ontario may be a problem. So jic we needed a plan B.

So the meeting ended and a few prescriptions were written and then the big bag was handed to me... I don't know why but I never expected that I would have to take needles...for 12 weeks. Yikes the nurse laughed when I looked into the bag. And "cough" vag suppositories to top it all off. Sigh...I still have a few weeks to get myself used to this idea.

Oh here is the celeb sighting that I had...very exciting if anyone watched the Hills or MTV. It was Dan Levy!

J and I were in Chapters and I looked up and there he was...in his unmistakable glasses and gray hat. So fun!!! I am kicking myself now for not asking for a picture with him. Ugh!

Monday, November 8, 2010

1WW, coffee and graduation

Well not the kind of wait we're all hoping for but it is 1 week before J and I go to visit our Dr to find out how the donor screening went. I'm really excited. We're going to drive up on Sunday and check into a hotel. I really want to go to a nice dinner but DH is really figting hard not to make it an expensive weekend. I know we spend a lot in this process and that every penny that we spend extra is cutting into future spending but is it so wrong to want a nice steak? After dinner (I'll let you know where we end up going) were toying with the idea of going out to a movie. Our appt is on Monday at 1pm. we'll probably sleep in then make our way to that end of town.

I'm a bit bummed because I just signed up for a fertility yoga class and its on Sunday nights. I'll miss the first one which sucks...but it is what it is.

I sit here drinking a nice cup of coffee which I decided last night while going through the thoughts in my head that I am going to ween myself off of coffee...starting tomorrow. Well actually I'll finish this cup and rather than going to work with a travel mug of coffee I'll opt for a herbal tea.

I met up with a fertility friend on Saturday for coffee. She just got a BFN after ICI. Its her 6th try. I don't know if I could go through DE ivf 6 times mentally let alone afford it. She is really strong...I don't think she thinks she is though. We talked about our support group and what it would be like to have one of us "graduate" on one hand we would be happy but on the other sad it wasn't us. I get a pang of hurt every time I see another baby announcement made on Facebook or at a restaurant or on TV and I really wish that it didn't hurt. But I know it will take all of my strength to not put on FB that I'm preggo when it happens. Its not fair to those out there suffering alone or those ladies I've met in the club.

I think about after I graduate...will I push this aside and forget that this was a big part of my life and enjoy what I've been longing for for so long? I hope I don't forget...

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Trying Not to Over Control

So I plan catered events for a living. I work for a really great catering company that caters events as small as 12 people to as large as 1200.

Everyday I plan, organize, control, delegate, manage expectations, calm the client, deal with 3rd party suppliers, etc.

So needless to say when the control is in everyone else hands this process is very difficult for me. I am doing me best to hold back calling/emailing the clinic about small things. These are people that I really don't want to make upset or annoyed. Buts its hard not having the control that I have everyday in my worklife.

I have thought about it at night when trying to fall asleep.....here is a bit of a tangent...ugh...why is it that J can have his head hit the pillow and fall asleep in 30 seconds flat to the point where his body is twitching and heavily breathing but it takes me a good 30 minutes to fall asleep most nights. To top it all off my dog also can be snoring on the floor at the end of the bed in the same time as J. Ahh!

Anywho back to thinking at night...I think I'm going to save all of my questions that really could wait in an email that I'll keep as a draft and send it once every 2 weeks. Does this make sense...obviously if it is a question that needs to be answered within 24 hours I'll send it sooner but I think this works...I hope I really don't know how else I'm going to get through the next 2 months otherwise.

We do have an appointment at the clinic on the 15th. The clinic is 5 hours away so we are going to meet the Dr in person (only have had a phone meeting) and for J to leave a little swimmer sample. If the weather is like it normally is in January/February we want to make sure there is a backup plan jic. The Dr also mentioned in our consult that some men have a hard time producing under pressure so its a good call either way....this makes me laugh and J is adamant it won't happen to him...lol.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

The Big Screen

We got an email from the clinic today saying they booked the donor in for her screening. They actually had thought we wanted to start right away, but we were hoping to start in January. I told them to keep her screening as scheduled with the thought that if something came back wonky that we would still have time to figure it all out between now and January. They were fine with that.

The reason we want to wait until January is with both or our works are really difficult to get time off in November and December. January is really slow for me but still busy for J. But he works for his dad so getting the time off isn't hard.

We do want to go to the clinic between now and December to leave a J sample, just in case the weather hits us before we need to go down there for fertilization. We live about 5 hours from the clinic and if the snow hits in January we need to make sure we have a plan B.

So this week we need to transfer the retainer fee to the clinic, its a bit scary going through this for the first time and handing over large sums of $....$6000 for agency, $10000 for the medical clinic and there will be more to come in January.

Its hard to keep positive and stress free. I have been going to a holistic practitioner for the past few months but I'm going to stop going to see him. I just don't think he gets it. He asks me the same questions every time I go...and I just can't deal with that, pay attention or do your homework. I think I'm going to go to yoga instead, there are classes at the gym that I got to so I won't need to fork over more $ for it.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Waiting game...is it time yet?

So now all of the paperwork is done. Initial deposit is made. Donor is labeled as "matched for cycle early 2011" (yea that us!!) on the agency website. Now we wait to hear when the clinic about when the donor will start her cycle. ... ... ... ... Is it time yet?!?!?

I want to be part of that 80% success group. My age is in my favor, I'm healthy overall but what can I do extra? And that's where I struggle. Should I do anything differently? Eat differently, lower alcohol consumption, blah, blah, blah.

I do know that I'm already stressed (I think just from the decisions that we've made regarding the donor and agency) , I've been having jaw pain for the past two weeks and I went to the dentist and I'm now being fitted for night guards...so sexy! I am going to the gym again. I'm not overweight or anything but it doesn't hurt.

Is it time yet?

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

One step for man...

Ok so I've stayed away for a while now...just wasn't inspired.

But we picked a donor yesterday!!! We just have to go though the paperwork and we wait until January. We want to wait until after the holiday when the clinic is closed before starting her on her meds and all of that fun stuff.

I feel like I'm going to burst at the seems!!!!

Monday, August 23, 2010

Rested

What a great week! I went to Deerhurst resort for my husbands work conference. It was a great place...pretty relaxing. I read a whole book, went to the spa, boating time, ate a lot of great food and drank some too. Oh, and I even got in a celebrity sighting...hello Shaina Twain!

I got a few emails from some ladies who want to join the support group I have started to organize here in Ottawa. I'm really looking forward to meeting some of you in person.

Tomorrow J and I have a phone conference with a possible new clinic. I'm really looking forward to getting the ball rolling. One more step soon under our belt. Wish us luck!

Monday, August 9, 2010

Michael Buble

I had the most amazing weekend ever! J and I went to see our favorite...Michael Buble and I have to say it was the most amazing concert ever. We sat 8 rows center stage!!! He was so funny, engaging, and the opening act Naturally 7 was pretty good as well, they don't have any instruments but make all of the sounds with their mouths...you.tube them so worth it. I can't believe I was so close. Here are a few pictures...








Friday, August 6, 2010

Support Group in my Area

I was looking at the IAAC website (Infertility Awareness Association of Canada) and noticed a section call support groups. My DH and I had a great talk the other night about how I need to surround myself with people who REALLY know what we are going through...although I love my blog support group I need some flesh and blood.

There wasn't one registered for my area (there is one at the local clinic but I don't want one monitored by a shrink)...but it also said that if you wanted information on starting your own group to contact them...so I did. About 45 minute later I got an email with a phone number and was asked to call. When I did not only did the person answer right away but I was talking to Beverly Hanck the IAAC Executive Director!!! She gave me some great advise about starting a group.

I'm looking forward to the first one in September.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

More than a bit angry...

Ok so long story short...(at least tying to)

After being told that the US or a known donor are our only options and not really being happy with our clinic we decided to take a bit more control into our hands.

We began researching alternatives to the US due to how expensive it is. We found 2 popular options South Africa and Czech Republic, we were not 100% confident going overseas but $ is an issue.

We contacted a popular reproductive lawyer who was gobsmacked that we would go overseas and asked why we weren't doing this here in Canada. We mentioned that we wanted an anonymous donor and since the current (crappy) legislation doesn't allow for egg donors we were forced to look into alternatives. She said we could still do this here and there are donor agencies in Canada...WHAT?!?!

She gave me that names of them and after emailing them to get some info I'm just angry. Not at the agency but at my current clinic...why would they not tell me about this? Aren't they there to help me? Keeping in the back of my mind that I called the clinic previously in our alternative research to see if they could shed some light on the overseas options and all I got was "no comment" thru his receptionist. The lawyer said that they are one of the most conservative clinics in Canada. DH thinks its because they won't make as much money off if this route.

I'm scared and excited. Trying to find a different clinic now. Seems like the cost is about the same as going to Africa...but no lions, I guess I'll just go to the zoo.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Shout out to a fellow blogger and one of her followers

I was reading a blog that I have been following for a while..."One Egg Please" . R has a great way of really telling it like it is and I can relate to her story. She posted a link to an article in SELF magazine that hits home. It explains so nicely what I am feeling and what many women in my boat are feeling. Read on...

One of R's followers commented about a video from a woman named Keiko. I looked it up and couldn't help but cry. See it here. video

When I see there articles and videos I know I'm not alone.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Happy Canada Day!

Looking forward to this long weekend. I'm Canadian and tomorrow is Canada Day! I'm not going to be around for most of the weekend as J, my husband and I will be on his parents 42 foot sailboat in the 1000 Islands. I can't wait! No computer, no cell phone on and just a really great time all weekend.

We have an appointment at the bank tonight to go over some financing options...wish us luck!

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

I'm tired, I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm not alone.

Hi I'm C. I'm tired, I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm not alone. I've been on IVF forums and reading blogs pretty much 40% of my waking hours for the past 2 weeks. I thought I would join the club of blogging.

I never in a million years will forget the day that Dr. told me I would not be able to get pregnant naturally.

Let me start from the beginning...

I was a really active teen, I played in sports and was in competitive gymnastics. So the thought never crossed anyone's mind that I was a skinny flat chested teen...that was normal for gymnasts...jump 2 years...still flat chested, 17 years old and no "hair" or period.

A few doctors appointments later (family, referral to women health center) and then I got the phone call. My mom called me from my bedroom and Dr A was on the phone wanting to talk to me. I'll never forget this...she told me my test results came back with a low hormone level and the genetic testing came back with a diagnosis of "Gonadal Dysgenesis"...I'm not a religious person but I did grow up Catholic, Genesis is the first book in the bible that describes how God created the earth, man and women...how fitting that I got the title "dys"ed.

I asked her what that meant (Gonadal Dysgenesis) and she told me I would never have children that were genetically mine. Then over the phone a baby cried into the receiver...she told me to wait one second as she shifted the child in her arms (or so it sounded like). The woman told me while holding her own child that I would never have one of my own. I will never forget that phone call.