Planning To Start A Family

One of the best things about having this blog has been meeting and coming to know others who want to start a family and talk about that journey. In fact, I just got this from my ask box on tumblr:

Hey there. Through mutual fangirlness of Grey’s I started following your tumblr and twitter and from there found your blog about trying to get pregnant. Basically I am asking you for any advice that you have. Me and my fiancee are planning our wedding and we know that in the next 12-24months we are gonna wanna start trying to have a baby. We just want to know if you or your Mrs have any advice, anything we should think about before starting any preparation. Thank you.
Susie

It can be a very intimidating road and I have been asked by lesbian couples a few times where to begin. I decided to write a post with what we thought was some good advice. This is a very personal process and decision so undoubtedly your roadmap will vary but this should give you some things to think about.

Since I’m mostly asked by other lesbian couples, this is tailored to them.

Start Saving Money – It is never too soon to start a “baby fund”. Really, never.  Sit down with your partner and look at your finances and figure out how you will afford getting pregnant, doctors visits, birth, adoption, legal fees, all of the things the baby will need and even child care eventually. Don’t overwhelm yourselves, but it’s a good way to financially commit to this decision. Even if you don’t earmark the costs specifically, trust me, you will be able to find some way to use that money and the earlier you can start socking it away, the better. Starting a family is especially expensive for same-sex couples and can be even more so if you live in a state where you cannot be legally married.

Live In A Stable Environment – Is there room where you currently live for kids? If you will need to move then that’s another cost that you will have to plan for. Some people feel like they need to own a home before they are ready to have kids, but I don’t necessarily believe that. You should know that you live in a place that will work to raise a family. If you start somewhere less optimal and get stuck there for an extended amount of time, it helps to know and like the school system that you are in. Think about your own education too. If you have educational goals that you are still working on, try to finish them before you start trying to conceive that way you can focus on your family when the time comes. It also goes without saying that you should feel like your relationship is stable and your partner is someone you want to raise a child with. Talk to your partner about marriage if you haven’t already done so. If one or both of you would like to be married or have a wedding before you have kids, that’s obviously another large cost you may need to plan for.

Talk About What You Both Want…A LOT – There are a lot of decisions to be made in this process and it’s intensely personal. Talk about why you each want a baby and if they are good reasons. You have to be ready to give up a lot and put your children’s needs first. Talk about the process: ICI, IUI, or IVF? Known donor or anonymous? Would you like your children to physically resemble you? Who will carry? Would you prefer to just adopt? We spent many evenings talking these things over and revisited some of them many times. You should know what is important to you and to your partner and what you can compromise on. A lot will depend on your budget and some things may not go exactly as planned. For us, we decided that we were going to start this process with the least evasive methods possible and take more aggressive steps forward in six month increments only as needed. Other friends I knew decided that IVF was a better choice for them and they began with that. Of course, you’ll need to work with a doctor before you can determine what your best course of action will be. You should have discussed these things enough to know your general preferences as a couple before discussing it with a Physician though.

Get A Good Lawyer – We found a great family law attorney and worked with her to get our medical power of attorney, wills and living wills in place years ago. If you do not live in a state where you can be legally married, these are very important to secure your rights and wishes. You may want to find an attorney that specializes in gay rights and adoption. We also used our attorney to create legal agreements between us and our known donor. These protect him as well as us and our child legally to the best of our ability and we would not have dreamed of trying to conceive without them. It’s likely that you’ll need a good attorney to complete an adoption or second-parent adoption for you in this process as well. Some lawyers specialize in adoption only. If you know same-sex couples in your area that already have kids, they are often the best to ask for a referral.

Educate Yourself – Read books and surf the internet to try to find resources. One of the best books I read early on was The Ultimate Guide To Pregnancy for Lesbians. The book has a lot of other resources listed in it and it will give you A LOT to think about. If nothing else, it was a really good tool to get us asking ourselves those important questions about what we wanted. As we talked about our choices, my curiosity about all of the options grew deeper. Learn about artificial insemination methods, sperm donors, adoptions and pregnancy as much as you can now. You’ll be glad you took the time to become informed proactively when you have to start calling the shots.

Create A Supportive Environment – The internet became my best friend. I found comfort, support and a lot of good advice in the blogs of other couples who were going through this process. Often, I found links from there to other blogs (I’m a bad blogger and never set that up, but they are out there). Talk to others who are going through it. I also created a good little support system for myself on twitter and that has been amazing! We ended up having a community that was rooting for us and picked me up on some pretty dark days. It was nice for me to have a bit of anonymity sometimes so that I could be honest and vent. But, there’s a dark side to the community too. You will inevitably watch others reach their goals before you do and that can be hard. I liked using the internet because I could turn it off when I had to escape. Some people prefer the comfort of talking to their family and friends about the conception process instead. I would just caution you to choose your audience wisely. Not everyone may approve, understand or have positive words for you and you should trust your gut about who will listen and be supportive in a way that you need when you are fragile. Communicating how I felt at times was very cathartic and some days when I was depressed about it I just couldn’t stand friends asking me how it was going. But everyone reacts differently. I wanted to tell my Mom what I was going through but I didn’t want her to know too much so we could hopefully surprise her with news one day and I was SO glad that worked out. I guarantee you will go through so many more emotions than you can anticipate. Find those who you can come to on good days and bad alike.

Get Healthy – If you’re planning on getting pregnant, or supporting your partner through a pregnancy you should be healthy first! Your body mass index should be in an optimal range for your best chances at fertility and if you have weight to lose or gain, a year in advance is the best time to do it. Try to achieve your optimal weight (and stay there) for at least 6 months before you start trying. If you smoke, quit now. It’s one of the best adjustments you can make for your whole families’ health. If you plan to quit drinking coffee and soda while you are pregnant, wean yourself off the caffeine about six months beforehand too. The morning sickness will be enough on its own without the caffeine withdrawal.  Start taking prenatal vitamins 6 months to a year before you plan to conceive to prevent birth defects and find out if any medications that you are on are safe to take during pregnancy. If they aren’t, try to find ways to get off of them in that year prior. I also found it was helpful to find out your blood type if you aren’t sure. If you are the one trying to get pregnant it’s important to get familiar with your menstrual cycle. Track it and try to learn about your body’s ovulation signs. Maybe even buy a basal body thermometer and start taking your temperature or use ovulation strips. Anything that helps you get the hang of when you will be most fertile. I found that keeping the info in a fertility app on my phone was easiest. Getting in shape goes for your mental health too. If you have baggage or emotional issues, consider getting therapy and working through it. Be the best person that you can be before you start bringing more people into this world.

Find A Good Doctor/Practice – You have to be comfortable talking to your doctor about your relationship and your plans. If you want to get pregnant, you should make a preconception appointment with your OBGYN (or take time during your regular appointment) to talk about it. If you have irregular periods, I’d advise doing that a year out. My doctor put me on birth control as an attempt to help my endometriosis subside and give us better chances before we started trying. That was a six month process and if I hadn’t gone so far in advance, I would have felt a little disappointed by the setback. It’s also a good idea to have regular STD testing done even if you think you have nothing to worry about. Most insurance covers them anyway and they will probably be required before any type of insemination. If there is anything to find out and treat, you’ll be glad you did it early. Talking to a doctor that doesn’t specialize in same-sex families can be a bit awkward at first, but you have to be willing to speak up and you should have a good feeling about your doctor and their bedside manner before you decide if you want them to handle your pregnancy.  This all makes sure that you have your ducks in a row and it will ease that transition from TTC into pregnancy when the time comes.

Make A Baby Bucket List – This process can take a while and sometimes, there is just nothing to do while you wait. We found it helpful to make a list of things that we wanted to do before we had kids and things that we wouldn’t be able to do for a while after. Go to Vegas, jump out of a plane, stay in bed all weekend, etc. (Okay, so I chickened out on the jumping out of a plane thing.)These are just examples of things that helped me feel like we were doing something for us that didn’t directly involve, doctors, lawyers or trying to get pregnant. Enjoy your lives, have fun with your partner and bond while you check things off your list. You’ll be able to look back one day and treasure that time before you were Mommies. I promise, doing those things will give you an escape and help you feel less overwhelmed. They’ll also make you feel even more ready to start your family.

Change Your Lifestyle – There was a time when we used to spend every Friday and Saturday out drinking with friends and dancing at the club. Even though I got very bored of “going out” I felt like if I was sitting at home on a weekend, I was lame. That may not be your speed, or maybe it is right now but you may want to work on changing that before you end up pregnant. Sometimes this just happens as you get older anyway. We started making a conscience effort to stay in watching movies at home on Friday nights if we didn’t already have plans. We spent more time with our own families and friends that already had kids and things naturally calmed down. It shouldn’t be nearly as much of a culture shock for you if you adjust slowly. We felt as though we had a group of friends in our lives that focused heavily on drinking and created more drama than they were worth so we sort of intentionally drifted out of that scene. We made new friends and we know that they will be there and want to spend time with us, even when there are kids in tow. Look at who you keep around you and if it fits into what you want your life to be.

Give Yourself Time – You have to be ready for anything once you start trying, but also patient enough for it to take a long time, especially if you are dealing with reproductive issues as we were. People are having kids later and later now and some of them fear that dreaded age 35 when your fertility begins to decrease. Find the balance that works best for you and don’t rush. The bottom line is that nothing teaches you patience and to expect the unexpected like having kids. Know what you want but try not to set unrealistic expectations. It can be a hard and scary process and I learned that sometimes things that you think won’t happen to you, do. It’s also the single most rewarding thing you might ever do with your life. Try to relax and enjoy every step of the way.

We hope this helps you and send our best wishes for starting a happy, healthy family!

E, the Mrs & Sprout 🙂

Isn’t ‘life’ what happens when you’re busy making other plans?

I can’t believe that summer is halfway gone already! How is it that I feel as if I’m ALWAYS waiting for things yet that time flies at the same time? It’s crazy.

Mrs E. started her new job yesterday. She’s going to be adjusting for quite a while but she likes it and the people there so far. I am glad to see her out of the stressful environment that she was in before so I hope this is a better fit and she’ll be happy. Her last job dismissed her immediately after she resigned. That often happens to people who have security access to as much as she did, so she got to enjoy a 2 week paid vacation. It was good timing since she had family visiting but again, it felt like we were really busy and those two weeks just went so fast for her!

While her family was here and she was off work, my acupuncturist recommended that I go on a 10-day juice fast as part of my treatment. Even though I had a pretty good diet beforehand, it was apparent to her that my digestion was off and I wasn’t absorbing the nutrients from my food as best I could. Having nothing but pure fruits/veggie juice and water was a way to hit the “reset” button and get things back in order. When your intestines are healthy your hormone levels are more balanced and that’s what we’re working towards. I can’t say that it was the easiest thing that I’ve ever done but it definitely was very cleansing. My digestion and eating habits have improved greatly since I finished it and I think being gluten, dairy and soy free before it started was a big help. I didn’t really crave any foods or go through withdrawal as some people do with it and I lost a few pounds in the process. Unfortunately, I was going through this while we had family staying with us so I was still going out to restaurants with them while they ate wings, steak, indian food, and lots of my other favorites in front of me. I was committed though and stayed strong! I’m still doing juice once a day or so now just because I like it.

When all the juicing commenced we had our follow-up appointment with the doctor did that all the screenings for the IVF program with us. We found that I’m not the blood type that we thought I was, so that actually opens up a lot more options for us when choosing a donor.  We were almost decided on a few and when that widened the spectrum it was back to the drawing board. We are still trying to decide but instead of driving ourselves crazy we just take time every few days to sit down and go through some of them. We were told to pick three and put them on file at our doctors office. They will literally setup our account and order it with our credit card on file when the time comes. They told us as long as we have our selections made a few weeks before our egg retrieval that we’ll be fine.

The next steps are to go back to the RE we saw before and have our IVF consultation. Since he’s head of the program, it’s standard procedure. I was trying to be proactive and had scheduled that appointment for 7/13 before our bloodwork followup but they called yesterday and told me it had to be rescheduled. It wasn’t a long enough time slot to do the full consult. *Sad trombone*. I was so sad but the next earliest they had available was 7/24 so I took it. After that we should need one more appointment with a nurse to go over our med schedule and show us how to do all the injectables. I’m hoping that doesn’t take too long to get scheduled and done. If we have to wait past the 30th for that, then we’re probably not going to be able to start until the end of August. It’s frustrating but I’m trying to call and possibly get into a cancellation slot if we can. If we miss it, we miss it. It’s only a month (I feel like I’ve been saying that every month lately though…)

Lastly, we did complete two tries in June even though we knew we were headed into this whole IVF thing. Why not, right? Well, I didn’t expect anything and have been quite pre-occupied since then so I was just waiting for my period to come. Go figure…now I’m 2 days late. I did take a pregnancy test last weekend but it was negative. It shouldn’t have been too early for a negative but hey, stranger things can happen. Don’t they say that life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans? I’m not getting my hopes up at all but I think I need to go home and pee on a stick just to be sure.

Until next time… 🙂

 

Coworker rant, acupunture and a lucky streak

Just wanted to give a tiny little update, a tiny rant and most of all be grateful for a minute about this week.

Firstly, I went back for more acupuncture and I’m really liking it. I find that it’s helping me deal with stress a lot more than I thought. My acupuncturist talks to me and explains things about foods and the way my body works. It all really just makes sense. I’ve made some diet changes recently and I’m feeling really good because of them. I’m so glad I started doing this. The only thing that hasn’t been great is that she didn’t seemed adverse when I told her about us starting IVF. We’re working to get my body and hormones more balanced and in shape and I know that these drugs are going to make it all out of whack but we’re running out of time and patience. I’ll keep working with her but we don’t want to put this process off for longer.

Next, the coworker that I share an office with is REALLY getting on my nerves again. Although it has gotten better, she’s still not doing nearly as much work at work as she used to before she got pregnant and still takes an ‘early day’ per week to basically play hooky and spend some quality time with her daughter. She says that she doesn’t have anyone to watch the baby so she works from home (but is hardly ever online then). The amount of her workload that I’ve had to take on in the past year  because of her pregnancy, breast pumping time at work and early days is maddening and really unfair. The baby is almost a year old now and she’s been back to work for 9 months. It’s time to find a better solution for childcare and needing to pump for 2 hours/day at this point is bullshit. Be a full-time employee or don’t be one. I’ve mentioned it to her and to my boss but nothing has changed. I try to separate my feelings about this from jealousy, but it’s hard. We are friends but watching her accidental pregnancy develop into motherhood through the past year and half or so has been really damaging. She told me that she wants to get pregnant again the other day and I think my blood almost boiled.

She knows we have been struggling to get pregnant and about our doctor appointments and starting IVF soon. She actually had the audacity to ask me how I was going to be able to keep up with the appointment schedule without missing too much work. I swear that steam actually came out of my ears. I mean REALLY? She’s probably scared to death about what will happen if I’m not there to cover for her and people actually realize how little she is doing. I think I have to talk to my boss because it’s likely that he’ll get the deal that something is up. I will have to drive 45 minutes away to get my blood drawn daily for a while. I probably won’t tell him that it’s IVF but I will tell him that I’m going to need more time for medical appointments. I’m trying like hell not to feel too guilty about it because I’ve picked up more than my share of slack in the past year.

So, I’m fearing talking to him right now and dealing with her on a regular basis about all of this. I know I vent here about a lot of things but I’m really trying not to let her stress me out. I’m sort of glad that today is her early day actually, I feel as though I almost get to start my weekend a little bit early by not having to deal with it anymore this week. I want to focus on the good things because there have been so many of them. The IVF appointment, acupuncture and Mrs E’s new job offer have made this all a pretty great week. Finally, it feels like a bit of luck is on our side…

The streak continued with this today:
When we did all of our blood tests earlier this week the doctor wanted to see us back in 2-4 weeks to discuss the results and our donor selection. The only problem was that she didn’t have any availability to make an appointment for about 6 weeks. We made one for the 31st and the receptionist could see that I was a little deflated to accept that. She suggested I call back periodically to try to snag a cancellation. I could kiss that woman for the suggestion because today I called and got it moved up to July 3rd! That’s exactly 2 weeks from our last appointment and has saved us a whole month! There is just so much agonizing WAITING packed into this whole process and I’m so very thankful that this worked out. I’m doing back flips!

I don’t want to jinx anything, but we’ve had a pretty good streak of luck lately and I finally feel like real progress is being made. This makes me much more hopeful that we can probably do our first round of IVF in August.

So We’re Doing In Vitro Fertilization

It feels really scary to write that title. Terrifying actually, but we just got back from our appointment at the doctor’s office and I’m actually very relieved like we might be on the right track.  We went in and they did a full review of my medical history and then the doctor wanted to do an ultrasound to take a look and compare it to one from December. It seems that I have a decent sized  fibroid in my right ovary and she seems to think that combined with my endometriosis could really be the issues preventing me from getting pregnant. There’s really no way to know unless they go in and remove it though. Basically, we were advised that with my medical history and our available funds that IVF would probably be the best situation for us. We discussed doing IUI assisted with clomid or injectables, but there’s a greater chance that my body won’t respond to it well and then we’ll have depleted the funds that we could have used to do IVF in the first place. Plus, if we end up having embryos that we can freeze, there’s a possibility that we could end up just needing to do another egg transfer to get pregnant again down the road. It’s a drastic measure but one that we’re willing to take now.

The scary parts are the money and I have a fear of all of the effects of these fertility drugs on my body. None of this is covered by insurance and the hospital doesn’t allow us to do any sort of financing for IVF so we’re looking at making one big lump sum payment up front. The success rate that we were quoted was 30%. I know I’ve heard different ones and some even as high as 50%. I’m hoping that the doctor is just being conservative with those numbers. I know in any case that we’ll be heartbroken if this doesn’t work but I’m trying to be cautiously optimistic.

We said right away that we were on board and we thought this might have been where we were headed anyway so we started the process right away. Both of us had to get blood drawn and screened for a slew of STDs and things like that and we had to sign some consent forms. We’ll go back for another appointment to review those blood results and talk about selecting a new donor from a cryobank. They absolutely will not allow us to use our current donor since he is not an intended parent. With all we’ve been through at this point, we’re fine with that. After we select a donor, we have to go back to the RE that I’ve been seeing for our first IVF consultation appointment and then I can start the injectables. They think that we should be able to get all of this taken care of and our first round will actually be in August. I can hardly believe it! It seems like everything always takes so long to get in order but August isn’t that far away at all!

The doctor said that we can keep trying the way we have been until we start IVF since it can’t hurt. We talked about it and we think we’ll still go ahead as planned with June but we may take July off. It would conflict with a scheduled vacation, and although we could work around it, it might be best for us to just take a month to chill out and give our heads and my ladyparts a rest. We’ll talk to our donor this upcoming weekend to sort some things out and let him and his boyfriend know about our plans changing. So, hang on this ride is about to get a bit more bumpy but hopefully this means there are amazing things ahead very soon!

It looks worse than it is

So, the witch got me again this past weekend. May was just not our month. Surprisingly, this really does get easier. Not that I like getting negative results or anything, but it’s gotten easier to take and it doesn’t feel nearly as eventful anymore. I guess that’s the silver lining.

Yesterday was my first acupuncture appointment and I really enjoyed it and like my acupuncturist a lot.  The only thing that I was a little weary about was that she didn’t really explain what she was doing and since I was trying to relax, I experienced some unexpected sensations. Nothing was really bad or painful though. In fact, I had really hellacious cramps when I went to my appointment and within about 10 minutes of her beginning to place needles, all of my abdominal pain was gone. It stayed gone for about six hours and I was very happy with that. We’re talking some serious pain relief. I’ve never experienced anything like that.

She talked through my medical history with me and asked lots of questions while she worked. It was astounding how many ailments she could tell that I had in just a few minutes from some light massage. After she treated my cramps she moved on to some stress relief and did a lot of work on my general circulation. Apparently one of my biggest issues is that my body doesn’t circulate blood properly, which makes sense, I’m ALWAYS cold. My hands and feet especially. She did some work on my back using some negative pressure therapy to increase my circulation with a technique called fire cupping. It creates areas of suction on the skin that stimulate circulation as well as relieve tension and even release toxins. In my case, it also left some pretty gnarly looking hickey marks on my back. The good news is that it wasn’t painful when she did it and it’s only a little to the touch in spots today. When I came home and took my shirt off my wife was pretty surprised though. I assured her that it was fine, didn’t hurt and they’ll be gone in a week. Then someone noticed my back at the gym today and ask if I had been using cupping therapy recently, then we got into a whole discussion about it. I guess I’d better plan on wearing t-shirts to the gym for a couple of weeks cause that really cut into my workout time.

Apparently this look is quite the conversation starter

After that, she looked at my basal body temperature charts and said that she does not think that from my “symptoms” and looking at my charts that I am actually ovulating every month. This sort of confirmed my suspicion and she didn’t seem shocked when I told her that I am not able to get clear ovulation test results every month. She recommended that I start taking some chinese herbs for fertility (Tao Hong Si Wu Wan) for a few days and we made a follow-up appointment for next week. Hopefully, she can have my hormones a bit more balanced in about 3 months, but we’ll monitor my cycles for at least that long. I’ll probably be seeing her weekly and I definitely won’t mind that frequency if the initial results are any indication of what is yet to come. I felt so calm and relaxed afterwards and just very clear-headed. My wife even commented about that, that I just seemed “soothed” and she was totally right.

I’m still very much looking forward to our appointment at the RE’s office next week. Figuring out what our next steps will be will bring me a lot of peace of mind but the acupuncture and Chinese medicine gives me hope that we may not need as much drug intervention with the process as I have feared lately. I’d like to keep it as natural as possible and I’m optimistic about that!

Rainbows, more impatience and acupuncture

We still have a few more days until we find out if this cycle worked or not. I’ve been a little crampy, had a constant headache and have been tired lately but as strange as it sounds, I’m not even focusing on that right now. I’ve actually had to consult my fertility app on my phone to be like “how many more days?” a few times this week. I’m looking forward so much to our next doctor’s appointment in two weeks so that we can find out what the heck our next steps are. I need to know. It’s killing me. “Whenwhenwhenwhenwhenfinallywhen?” is so much louder than the rest of my thoughts.

This past weekend we helped our donor and his boyfriend move to their new place and it’s about a 35 minute drive away. That alone has me  really feeling ready to leave our current plan and move on to our next step/method. Emotionally, I’m just not feeling very attached to them right now and while they will remain friends, I’m sure the distance of their move will only add complications that I just don’t want to deal with anymore.

We also attended a family reunion this weekend and I spent some time talking with my cousin’s wife who is an OBGYN about endometriosis and infertility. While she doesn’t know the full scope of exactly what we’ve been up to she did ask if I had tried acupuncture. I had given it thought before but was really surprised at how quick she was to recommend it.  It motivated me a little more to find a local acupuncturist and I called her today to set up an appointment.

Some of you may wonder why I’m doing this now and why I don’t just wait a few more days or weeks until we know what’s going on. All these little things help me though. They give me some sense of hope and control over the situation. These changes and a bit of space have helped me to pull more out of “my funk” I talked about last time. I’m not all the way out of the woods but I think I’m headed there. We saw a double rainbow on Sunday night, so we’ll hope that’s a good sign and enjoyed the pretty.

So, not much going on but that’s going to be the case sometimes as I’m trying to update more regularly. Oh, and there was this over the weekend too so maybe you can look forward to a post from someone else in the near future for a change. *Ahem*

Sometimes You Need The Funk

I have a confession to make: I’m a bad blogger. For some reason I feel like I should only be writing here when we have new things happening, which isn’t always the case. There are so many in between moments to this process and so many feelings that go along with them that even though I think weekly “I should blog about that”, I just stop myself. I’m going to try not to limit myself to that anymore.

This month has been filled with disappointment, (yet again) and also a lot of discontent and what I’ve just generally been calling “funk”. My wife was out of town for almost half of the month. She had a work trip that ran into some vacation with her family. As soon as she got back from that we started house-sitting/dog-sitting for my parents while they are on vacation. We haven’t been in our own house together for about three weeks now and everything feels very out of whack. Unfortunately, I started ovulating while she was still out of town and had to try to make a baby on my own a few times. The logistics aren’t fun. Trust me. Luckily, she did make it home for the last one. If this month works, we’re telling ourselves that THAT’S the one that took.

As far as our process goes, it hasn’t changed much. I’ve been trying some natural “remedies” and things like that to try to increase our chances. Even if it’s not helping, it can’t hurt. Besides, those little things help me feel like I have some teensy bit of control and that I’m changing up our experiment a bit and not just banging my head against a wall doing the same thing every month. First, I switched to plant-based prenatal vitamins. There’s all kinds of controversy over whether this is hogwash or not, but I figured that if I was putting these supplements in my body, I preferred to reap the benefits of higher quality ingredients. I threw the drug store cheapies out the window. Next, I kicked coffee all together. I was drinking decaf or half-caf but I’ve stopped that completely. The best part is that I don’t miss it. I’ve been drinking at least one cup of organic raspberry leaf tea everyday. It’s supposed to help thicken the uterine lining (so a little embryo has a better chance of hanging on) and assist with hormone levels for a more regular menstrual cycle, plus it’s tasty. It’s not caffeinated and I’ve replaced my morning coffee with that. Can’t hurt, right? I also drink one cup of decaf green tea in the afternoon for the antioxidants.

Another major and sort of related thing I changed was the transition to more sustainable feminine products. (Warning: If you guys don’t want to talk about “happy period stuff”, skip this paragraph.) I’d been doing more research about personal care products and things we use that are not good for our bodies and our endocrine system and bleached tampons and pads were definitely high on that list. I went online and I bought reusable cotton pads and a DivaCup about 3 months ago and I can honestly say, they’ve changed my life. It was a bit of an investment, but it’ll save money in the long run and I think my cramps have been severely decreased with the use of the menstrual cup. In fact, I used to opt for pads and now I much prefer using the cup because it’s that good. For those of you still scratching your head about this, basically you just use a cotton pad instead of a disposable one, wash it and use it again. Instead of a tampon, it’s a small silicone cup that’s inserted and every 12 hours you take it out, dump it and put it back in. I haven’t actually found it to be as gross or archaic as my initial reactions led me to feel. The cup lasts MUCH longer than a tampon ever would with no risk of TSS or nasty chemicals leaching into my body. I can’t even feel it once it’s in properly and last month, I actually forgot I had my period at one point. I’m forever a changed woman. If you’re squeamish about your own body functions or can’t stand the site of your own blood, these things may not be for you. One thing this whole TTC process has taught me was to learn and own my body. If you’re into that, this may be something for you. I was actually kind of fascinated by the fact that the inside of the cup has notches like a measuring cup and I’ve been able to learn what kind of volume is “normal” for me during menstruation. Again, not for the squeamish but I think that’s kind of cool.

As an attempt to get back into shape a bit more I’ve been trying to get to the gym 4 to 5 times a week but that hasn’t been as easy. I’m teaching spin classes but forcing myself to workout otherwise has been hard because I’ve been in this thing I call “my funk” now for about  a week. Maybe it’s because everything has been so disjointed lately, or because I’m worried about being disappointed again by our doctor or our next pregnancy test, I’m not sure. It feels like I’ve slipped into a little bout of depression and the hardest part is that I don’t want to be pulled out of it. I’m a pretty “glass-half-full” type of person overall but lately, I feel like if I don’t just sort of allow myself to be here with these feelings for a while, that they aren’t going to go away. Staying in bed in my pajamas for a week or so sounds really nice. I’m just sad and frustrated and I’m not going to let anyone tell me that I have to be anything other than that right now. Sure, overall I’m still optimistic and very grateful for what we DO have. I know that we are not yet to the point of swirling down a dismal pit of despair…but lately, I feel really wounded by this whole process and I know I’m completely valid in that. It’s difficult to convey the sentiment that you’re unhappy and you just need to be left that way. It’s not that I don’t appreciate having people that want to cheer me up in my life or KNOW what the bright side is. I do. I just don’t want to look at it right now. I need sunglasses.

I’ve been trying to do little things for me that won’t hinder our goals but that are completely unrelated to trying to conceive. I don’t want to spend too much money on these effort because it looks like we might really need significant funds in the near future. I tried to think of things that I really used to enjoy and that I might not have so much time for when kids come along. Like tap dancing. I used to be pretty good but then I quit and hadn’t even had tap shoes on my feet for about 9  years until a few weeks ago. I signed up and went back to classes and it’s been pretty awesome. I don’t know anyone else. There’s no expectations of me other than to show up and have fun. At this point, my class is mostly older ladies and I like it that way cause I tell you what…those gals are no BS, that’s for sure. This is their “me” time and they don’t let anything wipe that smile off their face for a full hour each week. It’s kind of nice to have that influence of pure joy and silliness, even from the ladies who don’t have high aspirations to be amazing dancers. They don’t care! I’m actually a little advanced for the class that I’m in but if I move up, I might lose this group and I feel like they’re pretty good for me right now. I’m content to stay grinning in the back row for a while.

My snazzy new tap shoes. They’re fun 🙂

In other news, some of our woes with our donor seem to have calmed down. He and his partner have bought a new place and are moving about a half hour away from us. It may minorly complicate things since they won’t be 10 minutes away anymore, but I think it’ll just take more planning. It’s more likely that we’ll have to be all be in the same place for a while instead of being able to make “pickup runs” on days that we’re trying. I don’t know that we’re actually going to be using him for that much longer anyway so I’m not going to stress about it.

Our next appointment with the Reproductive Endocrinologist practice (but with a new doctor this time) is in a few weeks. This doctor is the one who primarily coordinates shipping and transactions with the Cryobank, which we will have to start using if we are going to switch to IUI. We have some donors “favorited” in our account online, but we’re not purchasing or making any significant moves until after we talk to her. The wife and I have actually been discussing going straight to IVF and I’m looking forward to talking about that with the doctor a little. The possibility of it not working and the costs scare the crap out of me, but I’m worried about doing month after month of unsuccessful IUI only to deplete our funds available for which we could have just gone ahead with IVF. I really don’t know what to do. I like the fact of possibly having frozen embryos available for another egg transfer down the road in a few years if we decide to do this again. Part of me is actually thinking that could end up costing less in the long run…Thoughts? I know a lot of you have been through IUI and IVF already and it’s not a cut and dry decision. Do you have regrets about not trying IVF sooner? Talk to me in the comments.

As far as this month’s efforts we’re about halfway through our two week wait right now. One more week and I’m sure if we find out something positive, you’ll be hearing about it! To be honest, I don’t feel anything “different” and am not too hopeful for this cycle so far. Maybe it’s just my mood lately, who knows…the universe could surprise us. That would be nice!

❤
E & The Mrs.

One Whole Year Later and Starting All Over

Yes, we’ve been at this an entire year already…

When we started this process, I never actually thought that 12 months later we wouldn’t have achieved a pregnancy yet. I knew the statistics and that it could take a while but didn’t really think that would happen to us. Sure, I understand setbacks, miscarriages and tragic things can happen but I honestly never expected to see no progress at all.  I feel betrayed by my body, which no one actually seems to be able to find anything wrong with. I realize that I am lucky. The hand I’ve been dealt could be much worse and I am grateful that it’s not. However, an entire year of failed attempts is disheartening and frustrating and I’m grieving that a lot the past few days. I’m trying to find strength in the fact that when our baby does come along it will be so special because we endured for it. Our efforts were never without extreme thought or care and when we prevail we will be better mothers for that process.

Regardless, it’s hard to remain strong every day. The past few weeks have been really emotional ones and some days my disillusionment and pain shows no matter how hard I try to tuck it away.

First, we got another negative test result. I felt that I had more symptoms than ever last month was really hopeful that we were going to get our positive result. It was pretty shattering when I found out I wasn’t pregnant. That was immediately followed by one of the most painful periods I’ve ever experienced. It just felt so cruel.

Next, we worked through some issues with our donor and found out that although he does want to move out of the area, it may not end up being as immediate or as far away as we were originally told. Basically, he and his boyfriend don’t know what they are doing yet but they had made grandiose announcements of packing it all up and whisking away very fast without talking to us first and that was pretty devastating. We told them they really need to please just communicate with us more so we’re not caught so off-guard. We concluded that they’ll probably end up being around for at least the next 3 months. I hope. No promises there.

Lastly, we went to the Reproductive Endocrinologist to discuss our next steps after my HSG test. I expected to talk about starting Clomid or other fertility drugs to chemically enhance our chances of pregnancy by making me produce more eggs. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the result at all and instead we were told that since there’s actually no dysfunction with my ovulation cycles, that he will not prescribe any medication to add on to our method. The RE said that he would not use drugs to help us boost our results unless we were doing IUI (Intrauterine Insemination) or IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) under his care.  Then he basically recommended that we move on to one of those methods and stop trying at home on our own. If we didn’t change our plan there was nothing more he could do for us.

This was NOT what I wanted to hear and it felt like it kept getting worse. We would not be able to continue using our donor unless we went through several thousand dollars of tests (again) and processing to get his semen screened, cleaned and stored at a cryobank. With IUI, a thawed vial of semen would be placed directly into my uterus at the time of ovulation and FDA regulations keep us from doing that with fresh semen from our donor with our doctor’s assistance. With IVF, we would harvest some of my eggs, fertilize them in a lab and put a few of the “good ones” back in to hope that they stick. That’s not an option using our donor’s fresh semen either.

The entire appointment was a bit surreal for me and I’m not actually sure how I maintained any composure because all I really wanted to do after hearing that news was burst into tears. I knew that wasn’t going to get us anywhere so I tried to keep asking questions to use our time wisely and postpone the emotions until we had more privacy. I did NOT want to be sent home in tears feeling like I didn’t know anything new. Information is comfort to me so we pressed on. We’re not sure what we’re going to do yet but I needed to know enough to feel like we were able to make a rational decision and not just an emotional one or like we were grasping at straws. I even pushed the issue a little more of trying fertility drugs with our current method and the doctor completely denied it again. I guess it was just really hard for me to let go of that because I was 110% sure that was going to be our next step.

So it was recommended that we move on to IUI or IVF but we probably can’t get all the logistics in place to start doing it until August at the earliest. I don’t know why it takes so long but then again, patience was never my strong suit. For IUI without any fertility meds we’d be looking at costs of about $2500 for each cycle with 2 actual inseminations occurring. (Right now we do 4 or 5 each month.) If we decided to use fertility meds for that process we’re looking at more like $3000-6000 per cycle. For women my age the general success rate for IUI is 20-25% per cycle. The success rate for IVF is more like 50% per cycle, which sounds appealing but it’s also a multi-month process which will cost more like $11000 per try. On top of that, you have cryo storage fees for embryos that can be saved for another attempt and for donor sperm units that have been purchased but not used. Making babies this way is expensive, people!

No matter which method we choose, it’s much more cost effective for us to work with a cryobank and order anonymous donor sperm than it would be for us to process our own donor, freeze his and use it. Of course, selecting a new donor brings a whole new world of options to us. It is kind of fun to think about being able to just call up and order half of your child’s genetic traits though. So, is your head spinning yet? Good. You’re caught up to where I was a few days ago.

It’s definitely overwhelming and I’m trying to take it all in as best I can. We’ve had increasing doubts about our donor arrangement lately and I feel as though this might be a little twist of fate pushing us in a different direction. I’m trying not to get too caught up on the dollar signs yet, but obviously that’s a major concern. Of course in the long run, whatever you end up spending is worth it but getting used to the idea of those bills is a big adjustment. Everything is an adjustment! We’ve really just spent the past few days beginning to wrap our heads around it and trying (unsuccessfully) to not let it stress us out.

For now, we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing. Our next appointment to discuss our decisions isn’t until later in June so we have some time. We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing for at least that long and who knows, maybe I’ll get knocked up and all of this will have been for nothing. Neither of us think that discussing this with our current donor is necessary yet and we may not broach the subject until we have more solid plans or know that we’re done trying at home all together. (Some of you actually know him, so mums the word for now, k?) There’s just so much to consider that I can’t begin to possibly cover it all here, but that’s the big jist of the past few weeks. We have a LOT to think about and are feeling thoroughly overwhelmed by it at the moment.

The best part of the last few weeks was that I got very clear and positive ovulation test results this month. Sometimes in the past the tests never showed positive results and we just had to take our best guess. There was no guessing this time so hopefully that resulted in some very well timed inseminations. We are in our two week wait now so we still won’t know anything for a while. Lastly, we are still going to do the Q&A video I talked about in the previous post. I got lots of good questions but feel free to submit more because we still haven’t recorded it yet. Oops, we’ve been busy. There are certainly lots of new things to question!

If you’re still reading you deserve a big hug and I just want to thank you again for your continued support. I don’t know how I’d be getting through some of these days without the encouragement.

❤
E & The Mrs.

We now return you to regular blogging…

Sometimes this process is tough and the past few months have been no exception. I got frustrated and was dealing with some depression over the whole TTC thing and this blog definitely suffered. My apologies for the silence. I’m usually a pretty glass-half-full kinda gal but a lot of perceived rejection can bring you down a bit. I still tweeted about our experiences sporadically, but I hope to be getting back to it here more regularly from now on. It’s much easier to convey what’s going on. I’m really starting/trying to feel more positively about things again. Maybe I just hated winter. I dunno.

We have still continued to try to get pregnant with the exception of one month (more on that later). I felt at times that a break might have been important for us emotionally, so I cut back on some other stressful things to find enough balance to get by. I stopped teaching spinning classes for a while, but I’ll be returning to those later this month. It was a welcome reprieve, but I have really missed the designated exercise time in my schedule. I know I need that again. The largest project of my career launched in December and that is finally beginning to run smoothly and quiet down now as well.

One of my close friends that was pregnant had her baby and somehow, that was a relief. I think that circumstance was particularly hard because we had been friends so long and had so many mutual friends and family intertwined. It was really difficult to see their excitement focused on her pregnancy and then get asked “So how’s this going for you?” in the next breath. I’ve spoken about feelings of jealousy before and although the green-eyed monster is hard to avoid, it’s a little easier for me to stand when I get to hold my friend’s cooing daughter.

This cutie lives right down the block from us now

So we didn’t get any positive pregnancy results in those past few months but we certainly have had some ups and downs. Our biggest trouble has been communication with our donor and his boyfriend. We knew that at some point they were going to be doing some traveling across the country for a few weeks and we had conversations about how they might try to work that around my ovulation schedule. Basically, that didn’t happen. When it came time to leave, all of a sudden we were faced with their decision to now take a 6-8 week long trip possibly taking us out of the game for 2 months. Due to circumstances out of their control, they had to come home and we only missed one month but it still caused a lot of doubt and some “are we still doing the right thing?’ conversations between us.

I tried to look at the whole thing as an opportunity instead of a loss. I went to California during March and had a lovely few days with friends when I would have otherwise been sitting at home probably stewing and over-thinking things. It was a great time and I’m really, really grateful that I got to literally leave all of my cares behind for a short time. My wife was so understanding of my need for that distraction then and I’m incredibly appreciative of that.

When I returned from my trip, I went for a hysterosalpingogram (HSG) test that we had been discussing with our reproductive endocrinologist since December. Basically, it’s a test where they place a catheter through the cervix and inject contrast dye  until it fills up the uterus and fallopian tubes while performing an xray at the same time. This allows us to tell whether I have uterine deformities or fallopian blockages and was the next step the doctor recommended to make sure we are not dealing with an infertility issue on my part. The good news was that the test was completely normal. The bad news, they do it while you’re completely awake and “this may hurt a little” was a bit of an understatement. Ow. Fortunately from what I’ve read and been told, this test also serves the sub-purpose of “clearing out the cobwebs”. Even if there are no major blockages to be found, the rate of pregnancy 1-3 months after having the test is a  bit higher afterward.  So then we planned to try again a  few days later. Cue the next dip in the rollercoaster…

Our donor and his boyfriend had returned from their trip but had been invited up to a mutual friends cabin to go camping for the weekend…the same weekend I was ovulating. Luckily, they know what we’ve been up to and they invited us along so that we could continue to try that weekend. I was grateful that it was much more of a house without cable or internet in the woods than a real rustic cabin and I could be pretty relaxed and comfortable for the weekend. We realize that the guys are doing us a favor by working with us so we really try our best to be accommodating, but this whole “let’s-go-camping-AND-try-to-make-a-baby” road show is really getting old. We asked to please really not have to do it again. Nonetheless, we survived it and got a few tries in that weekend.

Not too shabby for a “cabin”, eh?

So, that was a week and a half ago and we’re closing in near the end of our two week wait to find out if it worked. Our policy is that we don’t test until I’m late, so we still have some time and I’m trying to think positive thoughts since this month is statistically a stronger one after the HSG test.

Unfortunately, we’ve hit another snag though and the guys are talking about moving away. Pretty far away, actually. They have said they are and then they say they aren’t or they aren’t sure and emotionally, that has been pretty tough for me because I am a planner and I like to know what’s going on (three months in advance, preferably). We’ve had a talk already with them about communicating their plans to us so that we can work with them, but it seems they continue to disregard that plea and in some cases, we’ve found out (and been hurt) in rather roundabout ways. The bottom line is that we’re going to need to have another talk about this soon and figure out if this the path we are really going to continue on. Tough decisions. I’ve really loved the idea of having a known donor but the hassle of making it work has grown considerably since we started.

Lastly, I’ve been thinking about doing a little Q&A video in the near future about us and our journey so far. I’d love it if you would send along questions that my may have for us. Pretty, pretty please? I thought it would be a fun way to sort of get back to the blog and a bit more fun than just reading responses on a screen. Anything about us or how we’re doing this or feeling is pretty much okay and we’ll answer as many as we can. You can either ask us in comments, tweet me (@elyima) or if you’d like to ask anonymously, you can do that here (just keep it clean/appropriate please).

Hopefully, we’ll be back with news and a video next week! Thanks for sticking with us. We’re determined to become Moms one way or another!

The RE and this month’s results

We had our appointment with the Reproductive Endocrinologist last week and it went really well. He’s a good listener and seems to have a great sense of empathy for his patients. That seems so hard to find these days, doesn’t it? At the appointment we talked a lot about what our methods are and how the process has evolved for us so far as well as our philosophies on medical intervention and fertility drugs. He agreed that we seem to be doing most everything right and made a strong recommendation to change the pattern of days that we try. Initially we were inseminating every day for 5 days and then I was told to change that to once every other day for a span of 5 days. This RE suggested that we try once a day for three consecutive days beginning maybe a day before ovulation if we can time it that way. Apparently the every other day technique is more of a recommended strategy for heterosexual couples that are TTC with intercourse, not through insemination. (Cue *eyeroll* that the advice had come from this doctor)

Above all, I was really happy that this doctor heard my plea that I felt as though it was time to take action. I was happy that he was willing to make suggestions to modify our method, but I really needed to know that we were on the track to solving this. If we’re dealing with infertility and it’s me, I need to know. He recommended that we do some blood work to check my hormone levels about a week after ovulation and get our donor’s sperm count lab tested and go from there. Luckily, it was exactly one week since I’d ovulated that day and we could do my blood work on the spot. The control freak in me cried “Hooray!” and I walked out with a pretty pink band-aid and a follow up appointment in a month. So we went on with our life and our two week wait. To tell you the truth, I hoped that we’d tempted fate and that a positive pregnancy test result would be followed by the bill for those blood tests in the mail in about a week. It’s like finding the thing you were looking for right after you’ve gotten home from buying a replacement for it.

Thanksgiving came and went. My Mom THOROUGHLY stressed me out over stupid crap and just when things seemed to be calming down, I went to the bathroom Friday afternoon and noticed that I was spotting. I couldn’t believe it. Typically some light spotting 6-12 days is usually thought to be implantation bleeding and weird as it may sound, it’s a pretty good sign. The bleeding occurs because the fertilized egg is implanting itself into the uterine lining and about 4 days after that HCG can become detectable (which is the stuff that makes a pregnancy test turn positive). This type of bleeding isn’t rare, but only about 30% of women experience it. I never had before and therefore was never really looking for it anymore. We tried to keep a level head about things but admittedly, we were both pretty pleased with such a well-timed good sign.

I went crazy. My POOR wife. I thought my other waits had been bad and although this was not as bad as my very first one I wondered every single second if I was pregnant. On top of the spotting (which continued off and on through the weekend), I was tired, a little queasy at times and my temperature stayed up. I had experienced some twinges in the same spot in my lower left abdomen for a week. It wasn’t unusual to have them, but usually not in the same spot so consistently. We decided that we’d take a test on Monday morning since we were both off work. We knew it was early, but I thought  we might get lucky if we used a really sensitive test and could get a very faint line.

I woke up and took the test but no lines appeared. Despite the negative result, the symptoms continued though so we hung onto hope that it was just a little too early. That afternoon the spotting continued and I was still feeling pretty bummed about the test so we went to the gym hoping I’d get a little endorphin pick-me-up from it. I teach spin classes regularly so through this whole process I’ve gotten pretty good at knowing how hard I can push myself so I don’t risk overexertion while we’re TTC. With a full class, the spin room got pretty hot so I took it easy and hydrated a lot but found myself getting abdominal cramps towards the end of it. I eased up even more but it didn’t seem to help. After class I realized I had really started bleeding quite heavily and had gone from spotting to heavier than a normal period. It stopped for a few hours when we got home so I went to bed hoping that the worst was over and planning to try to take another test again when I woke in the morning. I still had 2 days before I expected to get my period anyway so I hoped it was just intensified bleeding from all the activity.

I went to bed last night and woke up again less than an hour later and was really disoriented. I remember feeling like I didn’t know what was going on or where I was but my wife said I was asking a lot of questions and just looking generally confused. I think I was in some sort of between-dream-and-awake place but I was drenched in sweat so she turned a fan on over our bed and encouraged me to go back to sleep. I don’t know if that was related to what was going on but it wasn’t a regular occurrence for me to wake up like that. The heavy bleeding had returned by this morning and I woke up with strong stabbing cramps. It was much worse than my heaviest period but backed off by midday but the cramps still have not. I’ve had a couple bouts of hot flashes today that last 5 minutes or so but then they go away. I’m near launch for a HUGE project at work right now and while I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, it’s a very stressful time. I had to do an hour presentation today to about 30 people in the room and about 50 viewing online. Being in front of people was just the absolute last thing I wanted to do today but on the bright side, the day flew and I had no time to think about much else other than my work.

So it appears that we’re out this month. I’m not sure if what I was experiencing earlier was actually implantation bleeding and then something happened? Did we have it, then I lost it? Could this be from stress? I certainly hope it didn’t have anything to do with the spin class since I do them regularly and I’m pretty cautious about my limits. We try not to get our hopes up but it feels pretty devastating when something like this happens. We felt so close and now back at square one again in just the span of a few days. We are comforted by the fact that we already have another appointment on the books though. Hopefully, in a few more weeks we’ll be able to shed some light on the situation and figure out if we are achieving a chemical pregnancies and how we can make them stick.

I also just wanted to give a big THANK YOU to those reading this and still following our journey. I can’t express to you how awesome it is to know we have a supportive group of people behind us when it feels like the world is against us. There are some days (like today) when knowing that you guys are rooting for us and thinking of us really helps pull me through and keeps me from melting down. We’re determined to have our family and are so grateful for the energy and motivation you provide. WE LOVE YOU GUYS!