Category Archives: Rant

The “new” me…..is really boring

Posted in A whole lot of nothing, FET, Getting ready for FET with the normal embryos, infertility, IVF, Rant by

I’ve begun the clean up of my body. I am losing 1 pound per day and paying quite a price for it. Try drinking 12 ounces of broccoli, kale, spinach, apples, goji berries, acai, beet and maca in the morning (every morning) with the emphasis and bold on the word BROCCOLI. My husband started this kick off to help me with a particular problem (cough*tmi*cough) constipation that can last two weeks. Yes, I know…but it has always been that way. Well today it wasn’t. I am not going to make this a post about my bowels but deal lord, help me. Whatever he gave me went right through and took the two weeks with it (and almost made me faint). Yes, that was a visual you didn’t need.

I’m not drinking, take the occasional anxiety med (lie, more when I am stressed) but am even stopping those. I used to never need them – just having them in my purse was enough to keep away panic attacks but right now I don’t know whether to sit or stand, walk or run. Owning my own business has been a great thing but I literally do the job of four people (sometimes the job of 7 when the cleaning crew don’t show up).

So I’ve started a plan to offload my responsibilities and stop doing everything to let others stand up (or not) – I learned very quickly that if you do everything, people will also learn very quickly that they don’t need to do things because it will magically get done. I guess I had to knock my head against the wall a few times to realize it (but hey, I’ve never been someone’s boss before – well, not officially).

Back to baby things – I put myself on the pill to see if a period would come. Here I go again playing doctor. It is just frustrating not knowing when a period is going to come. Who knew I would hit peri menopause at 44!! I think the gazillion IVFs had something to do with that because my mother had maxi pads hanging around until she was almost 60. Unbelievable. And….Who wants to wear a mattress between your legs? Why do people use them in this day and age (though I will never get over the OB – who wants to use their dirty finger to – oh just gross).

I’ve covered a number of topics today that are likely to gross you out and never read this blog again. If you want to check back in late March or early April (when the topic is FET preparation not my bowels – that is IF they let me do it (another story, I just have to keep my mouth shut).

Lastly, I hope some of you are watching the documentaries and informing yourself about our food – Fork over Knives and Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead (etc). I wanted to do something about what our family ate a year ago but it really took my husband to get on board for it to happen. I recommend that you adopt some of the ideas and the fertility juice blends when you are cycling or preparing for a FET. It can’t hurt and you will feel better, I promise.

Over and out….

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Just when you thought nothing could surprise you…

Posted in CCRM, friends, Getting ready for FET with the normal embryos, Husband trouble, infertility, Rant, Surrogacy by

I’ve been debating posting what I have on my mind. I’ve really thought long and hard about it (yes, I’ll get to it but there is a back story so indulge, please and thank you). I’ve had a pretty horrible few years months. I’ve not told anyone about all of the things bothering me. In fact, I’ve kept almost everything to myself for so long that I’ve become used to it. This blog is about as close as I get to spilling my guts about what is really bothering me and most of you have no idea who I am (er, I suppose).

Let me backtrack…

I went to visit my husband’s family for three weeks in June. It was the first real holiday I’ve had in three years and I REALLY needed it.   This has been a challenging year for many reasons not just waiting for the doctor to approve my chosen surrogate.   I was hoping to relax, recharge and hopefully come back to the great news that Dr. Schoolcraft had approved my surrogate after the “difficult cases” meeting and that our journey could begin. I was rather sure AND as my husband said after reading the pleading letter to the good doctor “there is no way he won’t be moved by that” or something of that nature.  I had pretty much secured the loan from our credit union for most of the costs, I was set. The IS (intended surrogate) was getting a little tired of waiting and I didn’t blame her. But knew that it would crush me and ruin my one chance to rest after a hard few years.  I didn’t think three weeks would make much of a difference and knew that a calmer me would make me able to deal with whatever the decision was with a clearer head.    So I went to the UK blissfully unaware that meetings had been had in Colorado and fates had been sealed. Who knows, they hadn’t called me back despite a few phone calls and emails so I assume that is what was going on. I certainly was not going to have  another hundred or so dollars to talk to him again (plus the 8 dollar phone call charge – love that touch).   I try not to think of the money we’ve spent so far and the phone calls….which have been about 2 minutes long.  What is the hourly rate for that?  A million dollars an hour?

I digress.

So I went to the UK and had a fantastically craptastic time thanks to some work drama.  The highlight was going to Paris for the night, eating a chocolate ice cream cone and working off the calories (and almost dying of heart failure) trying to keep up with my 5 year old ball of energy who literally ran up the Eiffel tower to the first level.  Let me say that the Eiffel Tower is a big deal at my school.  We talk about it a lot.  We draw pictures of the steeple at our school (we reside in a church) and the kids love imagining it with all the lights on it at night.  I have little replicas that they love to hold.  My son was a ROCKSTAR at school for going up the Eiffel Tower so it was worth it….even if I cried all the way down and back on the Eurostar….imagining horrible things that never happened, arguing with my husband over almost everything and nothing and missing my friend who died last year.  You know, the one person you have in your life that you can call and talk to for a few hours and you both walk away from the call having unloaded and feeling like you connected with another person who gets it?  He was that person for me.  I know I’m all  over the place but I just needed him at that moment and well, now….and I don’t have him or anything like him anymore.    Enough with the pity party.  I’ll be fine, I just get sad sometimes and talk to the air imagining he is here and listening (minus his incredibly catty stories about people we know from high school and who is now gay and who is divorcing and….you know, a little harmless gossip with an old friend).   He was gay, for the record and when he died we hadn’t talked because I was so busy, I didn’t return his few calls.  Not because I didn’t care, I was too busy working to save my family.  Another blog post… another regret.

God help me I will get to the point.

So I get back to the US and solve a few of my pending problems, get the news from CCRM, digest it. tell the surrogate via FB (because I could not speak I was so upset)…  A few weeks go by and I’m thinking about how perhaps I could try one transfer with me and then move the other embryo to a clinic (my husband’s wishes) and transfer to her.

Then Aurora happens and I immediately look to see if she is OK (on FB – she lives in that vicinity) and she is gone.  Poof.  She blocked me.  She erased me from her life.  My husband was very relieved that we didn’t proceed further with someone who clearly didn’t see us as anything more than dollar signs…I took it a bit harder..  I felt like I’d been punched in the gut.  The idea of someone carrying a child for me wasn’t easy.  I had pangs and yearnings and questions but I made peace with it because of her.  I also felt a connection to her and knew she would care for my children (if they do turn into children but with a normal CGH embryo made a few years ago, you have a good chance in the right womb).

The person that I almost let carry my children blocked me on facebook.  Just.Like.THAT.

If that isn’t a kick in the pants, I don’t know what is.  All I can say is I hope she isn’t following me.  Fool me once and I get the picture.  I’ve now learned that life is not only about choices but also how you react to the choices of others.

I just keep on thinking…what if she had my children living inside of her and blocked me.  What if, what if, what if.

Maybe I have a guardian angel.  I don’t know.

Let me leave you with the good news – my period is back again.  Heavy too.  I think I am going to build a lining, folks.  I think I’m going to do this myself.  Soon.  44 and pregnant.  Think I’d get a reality TV show?  Good LORD, my friends from high school are having grandchildren now.

Enough counting chickens.

The End of Post 125

♥

Someone once said….if you keep looking for trouble you are going to find trouble.

Posted in FET, Getting ready for FET with the normal embryos, infertility, miscarriage, preterm labor, Rant by

Whoever said that is an asshole but true.

So yesterday must have been my 1000th hysteroscopy. I told him that there is no way I will stay awake (like a certain doctor once did to me – hell, I was awake for a d&c with just a little valium and that was not right).

This time the uterus was fine BUT the doctor asked, “so did anyone mention that your uterus has a sort of cliff or a bulge to it”. What? A bulge. So it was explained as more of a septum. After all these tests and laps and hysteroscopies (which isn’t even a word so says my spell check). After all of that. I’m talking 300K.

300K and now I get this.

The good doctor explained that it probably wouldn’t impede any implantation but that it probably was the reason for my preterm labor. He told me I could probably hold twins but not triplets.

Funny. I just want to hold anything.

So I’m in a funny spot, doing the buildup of my lining to see how it will grow. Using the vivelle dots (or strips as I would rather call them) and seeing where all of this goes. I want to put the embryos back in by early October. It is time.

I’m so scared it won’t work and so scared that it will and I’ll lose them. Why can’t I just get pregnant and, well, be like everyone else? It is still a mystery but I’m piecing it together. The completely crazy chromosomal disasters that are most of my embryos take two to tango. I can’t blame that on just me and I am still making normal eggs at age 41 so that is good. The fact that I have two normals on ice is even better but typically they only work with women with a normal uterus. Do I have a normal uterus? I’m not sure anymore.

I do have normal, open fallopian tubes. How nice.

Vivelle Dots.

Posted in FET, Getting ready for FET with the normal embryos, Husband trouble, infertility, Rant by

What the f? Sorry. I’m just stumped. These are not dots. They are sheets of plastic with adhesive and estrogen. What is with the dots thing?

I have one on me. Assuming it is making its way into my bloodstream to get my pathetic lining to grow.

Yep, I nagged good old Dr. S to let me do a mock lining check locally. New doc (who I LOVE) will do a hysteroscopy and I don’t care if I spelled that wrong. It is late and I am so cranky. I digress, so we are going to check out the uterus, make sure there are no more traces of ashermans and that my ovaries look OK and that the lining is developing and then I am putting these embryos back in. I’m in the middle of a secret adventure and I want to share but I can’t – suffice it to say that it is really stressful. Combine that with the fact that my husband’s job fired him. FIRED! He is a Managing Director and they made things up. They actually fired him for poor performance when this guy brought in 12 million dollars last year. But they don’t really know what we have here. The kind of trouble they are about to get in for lying is just amazing. I wish I could elaborate but I can’t. Normally I would like to just walk away from this but not when they essentially prevent my husband from working in the industry he has worked in for 20 years. So, there will be justice. And it is going to be painful for them. The law was broken and we have some proof. Oh do I wish I could just write it all out! But suffice it to say that when I am involved, I make sure that we cross every T and dot every i because I saw this coming.

So my little adventure has to keep us alive.

I’m scared but I know, I truly know that we will succeed.

One day at a time.

Get me through the transfer, let there be another baby and who cares about the rest. The world will open up and we will be happy again. It has been so long. Wow, I’m excited thinking about happy and us in the same sentence.

I do love my family so very much….now I just want to give my son his sibling. It is time.

Changes

Posted in A whole lot of nothing, Rant by

I couldn’t take the green. The fact that it is Christmas/holiday time and I obsess more about the color of my blog than I do making the sugar cookies (which is my job in life, right?) shows you that I am dreading what is to come. Not Christmas. That is magic – the getting on the flight, 9 hours with a toddler, the foreign land we shall be visiting, the cold, the dreary and the fact that I cannot be in a bad mood for one entire week. That is a hard thing for me to do – especially when I am around people 24/7. I sound like a whining little brat but I crave and adore solitude. Complete silence. Nothing to do but read, or bathe, or organize my socks, or learn a new web gadget, or create something. I miss having hours and hours of time to let my mind wander or create a project. It is a luxury now whereas it used to be how I lived. Back when I was living in NYC and single, of course. Back when I was writing songs and felt like every day was a new beginning.

I wanted this – my child, my husband, these pups and cat and house but I also miss the person I was. I miss writing and creating and I feel like I have to find a way to bring that back into my life again. Finding the time is the hard part. It is also very hard to know when that great, magical idea is going to come. Like a lyric to a song or a chorus or a melody. They just used to come and they don’t anymore….except when I have those wide open spaces of time which, if all goes to plan, I won’t have for a very long time. Trying to add to your family only creates more chaos so how do I figure that one out? Somehow. I have to.

My husband has golf. He loves going out there for hours at a time. I wish he could understand that silence and breathing space makes me feel the same way as he does hitting a ball. But, we are very different beings – male and female. And being creative is a bit of curse – nobody pays you millions to make a flower out of clay for your niece…or knit a scarf for your dear friend’s new baby or….oh GOD help me I have to create another post to devote to my latest project. I’m in way over my head. So help….someone! Mommy!!!!!!

Peeing on a stick….

Posted in Advice, Rant by

Was just having a discussion with a fellow IVFer on home pregnancy tests. Listen. I’m a damned expert and I am going to tell you a secret. They all suck with exception of the FRER – First Response Early Result. That thing measured the tiniest beta in the world (beta for you non scientific babymakers is the measurement of the HCG given off by am implanting/implanted embryo in your bloodstream). 11 is very low and FRER got it.

All batches are different but I need to post this.

Tell the others to F off. Seriously…..the dollar tree brand told me I was not pregnant until I was 5 months along. I peed on every one of them just to spite them and then posted them on the wall and gave them the finger. I’m not making this up. I hate that brand – sue me, dollar tree.

I guess I need to tag this as a rant…..and advice. I am also not joking when I tell you that I approach people looking at the clearblue easy in the CVS pharmacy aisle and have convinced them to buy the FRER.

Hey, at least I’m passionate about something.

The New York Times

Posted in Rant by

Sick of them. Honestly? Used to be one of my favorite rags but the coverage they are giving infertility these days is just sensational garbage. I won’t spend time linking to his malarky – go and search if you really want to know……but honestly? I feel like the IF community is under attack. The whole “designer baby”…creating children with only blue eyes who have genetics that indicate a strength in math is just baloney. That is such a kind word and I am in a cursing mood. The restraint I show, oh it is so amazing….

I know hundreds, maybe thousands of women who have undergone IVF/ART etc. to have their children and not one – not even one who did it for sex selection even. Shocking!

In fact, I don’t even think you CAN choose the color of eyes – the technology exists somewhere but holycrap. A vial of follistim is about 800 bucks can you imagine how much it would cost to test the eyeball of an embryo?

Deep breath.

We do this because we want to be parents. In my case, I have a child. I love him beyond the description of words and thus, I try for a sibling.

“Just adopt?” If you say that then you don’t get it. Why don’t YOU adopt? In our case that is not something that my husband will agree to (and it takes two in a marriage these days)

“Well you have one, just be thankful!” What makes you think I am not thankful? I thank God and the moon and the stars every.single.day for my son. Every single day he gives me a reason to give him a sibling. I’m old. His dad is old (relatively as parents) and one day when he stands over my grave and shovels the last bit of dirt over it – I’d like him to stand there with his sister or brother and not feel alone. Orphaned. I want him to have what I had – a sibling. Even if we are not close in proximity, I know where he is. I get him. I support him in the dark times. I love him. I just want my son to have what I had and if that is selfish, so be it.

Meanwhile, I’m going to get back to sorting my needles for the next IVF and, of course, drop down to my knees and thank the universe for my little guy who most recently told me “mommy, you are beautiful”. All those injections were worth it and I’d do it again and again.

So NYT – you suck. I hope you go bankrupt – oh wait, you already are. My bad.