Back from Thailand yesterday. It was so much fun and we both wish we could've stayed! I got a deal on some silk at the weekend market and am pondering what I should make with it. I also got a very ornate cup for my sugar cubes and bought the sugar cubes today. Just need tongs now and that goal will be complete!
When we returned home, we had several messages on the machine, one from the fertility doctor. Our doctor will not be in on January 19th, so we must reschedule our appointment. Disappointing, as we were ready to go! I rescheduled it for February the 15th, President's Day, the next day Stephen will have off of school.
Oh, the waiting!
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Planning, plotting....
All test results are in! Neither of us has any stds! Not that that was a concern......
I've scheduled the meeting with our doctor for January 18th. Hubby has the day off of work, so it's quite convienent. The first doctor I saw, "our" doctor, isn't in that day so I asked if we could switch and they allowed us to - and we got the doctor with the cute accent! Not really sure what it is.....British maybe? If another man besides my husband is going to be messin' around with my vag, he should at least have a cute accent.
If on January 18th we decide to go ahead with IVF, I think I will start the meds about 2 1/2 weeks after that. I've read that the first injection is done around the start of your period and that won't happen for me until the second week of February. Then, injections for 10 days (I think), then they take out my eggs, mix 'em with the sperm, put them back in three or five days later, more injections and *drum roll* we might have a baby around the middle of March!
So, lots of excitement for the next few months! We leave for Thailand on Tuesday. Two weeks later, I turn 30 and Stephen is planning something big, though I don't know what. Then we start all this baby stuff. *squee!*
Oh, exciting things happening!!
I've scheduled the meeting with our doctor for January 18th. Hubby has the day off of work, so it's quite convienent. The first doctor I saw, "our" doctor, isn't in that day so I asked if we could switch and they allowed us to - and we got the doctor with the cute accent! Not really sure what it is.....British maybe? If another man besides my husband is going to be messin' around with my vag, he should at least have a cute accent.
If on January 18th we decide to go ahead with IVF, I think I will start the meds about 2 1/2 weeks after that. I've read that the first injection is done around the start of your period and that won't happen for me until the second week of February. Then, injections for 10 days (I think), then they take out my eggs, mix 'em with the sperm, put them back in three or five days later, more injections and *drum roll* we might have a baby around the middle of March!
So, lots of excitement for the next few months! We leave for Thailand on Tuesday. Two weeks later, I turn 30 and Stephen is planning something big, though I don't know what. Then we start all this baby stuff. *squee!*
Oh, exciting things happening!!
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Sugar cubes and other goals
Twenty-three days 'til I turn 30. Lately, I've been thinking about how I'd like this next decade of my life to go, what I want to do differntly, what goals I want to reach. Today, I decided one of those changes will be that I will only use sugar cubes in my coffee starting January 5th, 2010. I want to be able to say, "I take two sugars in my coffee." I will have ornate silver tongs to pull the cubes out of the sugar cup. Down with loose sugar!
Since I have made the decision that I am now ready to be a mother, it is hard to forget that goal. Everyone tells me not to stress about it. Once I've set a goal for myself, I can't just give it up, stop working towards it, ignore it, not stress about it. I can't forget how we giggled the first time we made love (okay, it was wild monkey sex) without protection and dreamed of what our baby would look like. And every month when I start to feel cramps and every month when I see pink, then red on my bathroom tissue, I can't help but feel like I've failed. One more egg that could've been our baby, falling out of me.
I know that this is not a failure on my part or his part. Yet it is a goal not reached. And it is stressing. And I can't stop from crying a little each time. And I know that I don't know when I will reach this goal or how many more months I will have to endure this feeling.
I am turning 30 years old. It is an odd feeling, one that I can't really describe. I made it through my 20's and I'm ready to take on whatever this decade wants to throw at me. But only if I can have two sugars in my coffee.
Oh.......
Since I have made the decision that I am now ready to be a mother, it is hard to forget that goal. Everyone tells me not to stress about it. Once I've set a goal for myself, I can't just give it up, stop working towards it, ignore it, not stress about it. I can't forget how we giggled the first time we made love (okay, it was wild monkey sex) without protection and dreamed of what our baby would look like. And every month when I start to feel cramps and every month when I see pink, then red on my bathroom tissue, I can't help but feel like I've failed. One more egg that could've been our baby, falling out of me.
I know that this is not a failure on my part or his part. Yet it is a goal not reached. And it is stressing. And I can't stop from crying a little each time. And I know that I don't know when I will reach this goal or how many more months I will have to endure this feeling.
I am turning 30 years old. It is an odd feeling, one that I can't really describe. I made it through my 20's and I'm ready to take on whatever this decade wants to throw at me. But only if I can have two sugars in my coffee.
Oh.......
Friday, December 11, 2009
How to make semen specimen collection sexy
1. Wear a hot pink push-up bra.
2. Tear off the protective plastic seal of the specimen cup with your teeth, while winking. Say "rowr!" as you spit the plastic out.
3. Dirty talk. Some examples......
- "Ooooo, this cup is sooo hard!"
- "Mmmmm, I like the way you aim it at this cup."
- "Are you gonna put it in this cup? Are you? Oooo, that's hot!"
Today my husband had his initial testing done - a semen analysis and blood tests. The blood tests check for stds. Thus, these tests can be run at any time during the month, unlike my blood tests which had to be done on certain days of my cycle because they checked for hormone levels as well as stds. These initial tests are run on every couple. If you test positive for HIV/AIDS the clinic will not allow you to proceed with IVF.
We hope to have the results by next week, though we won't do anything with the results until January.
Next step is to meet with our doctor and finalize our plans. If the semen analysis results are still poor, then I'm sure the doctor will want to do IVF which is what he mentioned before. If the results are better than the results we got in August, we might be able to try intrauterine insemination (IUI) first - which means no injections for me - though statistics show that IUI has lower sucess rates than IVF. Due to those statistics, our doctor has already suggested that we just skip IUI. Part of me thinks that he may also just be interested in having more IVF statistics for his research. He was a bit pushy about it.
Oh, what happens next?!
2. Tear off the protective plastic seal of the specimen cup with your teeth, while winking. Say "rowr!" as you spit the plastic out.
3. Dirty talk. Some examples......
- "Ooooo, this cup is sooo hard!"
- "Mmmmm, I like the way you aim it at this cup."
- "Are you gonna put it in this cup? Are you? Oooo, that's hot!"
Today my husband had his initial testing done - a semen analysis and blood tests. The blood tests check for stds. Thus, these tests can be run at any time during the month, unlike my blood tests which had to be done on certain days of my cycle because they checked for hormone levels as well as stds. These initial tests are run on every couple. If you test positive for HIV/AIDS the clinic will not allow you to proceed with IVF.
We hope to have the results by next week, though we won't do anything with the results until January.
Next step is to meet with our doctor and finalize our plans. If the semen analysis results are still poor, then I'm sure the doctor will want to do IVF which is what he mentioned before. If the results are better than the results we got in August, we might be able to try intrauterine insemination (IUI) first - which means no injections for me - though statistics show that IUI has lower sucess rates than IVF. Due to those statistics, our doctor has already suggested that we just skip IUI. Part of me thinks that he may also just be interested in having more IVF statistics for his research. He was a bit pushy about it.
Oh, what happens next?!
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Alternative Methods Part 1.......or.......What I will try in order to avoid IVF
Earlier today, I was thinking about how it's important to keep a keep a glass-half-full kind of mindset when faced with fertility issues. I started thinking back on all the things we tried in the 2 1/2 years leading up to our decision to do IVF. One night in particular came to mind and I thought it would be good to share.......you know, so everyone could have a good laugh!
So I had read on various online message boards that some women had conceived using Instead Cups. What is an Instead Cup? It's a small, malleable rubber cup that's sold next to the tampons and can be used in place of tampons - you squeeze the cup and put in inside your vagina, up against your cervix, and take it out and dump it when it gets full. It's also been suggested that if you put your partner's ejaculate in it and place it up against your cervix, the alkaline sperm will be able to jump right into your cervix, bypassing the acidic vagina. What the hell.......let's try it!
Wanting to get the sperm in there as quick as possible (though I've read that sperm can continue to remain viable outside the body for up to an hour or so), I have the Instead Cup in my hand as I, *ahem*, stimulated him orally. As he tells me we are nearing "go time" (I'm trying to keep this as non-dirty as possible, people!), somehow the Cup flies out of my hand and disappears under the couch! I dive under the couch and locate it, only to sit back up and realize that I've missed the finale. No worries - we scoop it in the Cup and I put it in place.
Obviously, since I'm writting this blog, this method did not work for us. I have serious doubts that it works for anyone, even those who claim that it did. For couples who have no fertility issues, there is about a 25% chance each month that conception can occur. I think the couples who claim this method works had simply won their game of chance in the lottery of conception, little plastic cup or no little plastic cup.
Oh, alternative methods of conception, I'm not done with your tales yet!
So I had read on various online message boards that some women had conceived using Instead Cups. What is an Instead Cup? It's a small, malleable rubber cup that's sold next to the tampons and can be used in place of tampons - you squeeze the cup and put in inside your vagina, up against your cervix, and take it out and dump it when it gets full. It's also been suggested that if you put your partner's ejaculate in it and place it up against your cervix, the alkaline sperm will be able to jump right into your cervix, bypassing the acidic vagina. What the hell.......let's try it!
Wanting to get the sperm in there as quick as possible (though I've read that sperm can continue to remain viable outside the body for up to an hour or so), I have the Instead Cup in my hand as I, *ahem*, stimulated him orally. As he tells me we are nearing "go time" (I'm trying to keep this as non-dirty as possible, people!), somehow the Cup flies out of my hand and disappears under the couch! I dive under the couch and locate it, only to sit back up and realize that I've missed the finale. No worries - we scoop it in the Cup and I put it in place.
Obviously, since I'm writting this blog, this method did not work for us. I have serious doubts that it works for anyone, even those who claim that it did. For couples who have no fertility issues, there is about a 25% chance each month that conception can occur. I think the couples who claim this method works had simply won their game of chance in the lottery of conception, little plastic cup or no little plastic cup.
Oh, alternative methods of conception, I'm not done with your tales yet!
Saturday, December 5, 2009
File it under 'F'
I've been struggling for a while now with this blog. I picked out the name, the layout.......but what do I write in it? I stare at the computer screen and nothing comes out. Today, I found my inspiration.
A few minutes ago, I was organizing my filing cabinet and I created a new file - "Fertility." Nothin' brings home the fact that we have now become one of the 2 million couples (according to the statistics from the American Pregnancy Association) in this nation receiving fertility treatments than a bright blue hanging file labeled "Fertility."
Isn't it odd that this is what makes it real for me? I've been diddled twice now with a transvaginal ultrasound probe by medically-inclined strangers. Yet I was still able to lie on that table with my feet in the stirrups and pretend that I was there for some other reason.
Oh, bright blue hanging file!
A few minutes ago, I was organizing my filing cabinet and I created a new file - "Fertility." Nothin' brings home the fact that we have now become one of the 2 million couples (according to the statistics from the American Pregnancy Association) in this nation receiving fertility treatments than a bright blue hanging file labeled "Fertility."
Isn't it odd that this is what makes it real for me? I've been diddled twice now with a transvaginal ultrasound probe by medically-inclined strangers. Yet I was still able to lie on that table with my feet in the stirrups and pretend that I was there for some other reason.
Oh, bright blue hanging file!
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