December 27, 2010…..

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deserves a big fat post.

My friend and her husband are parents today. She isn’t just any friend – she is a most spectacular individual who has endured 11 IVFs, a 20 week loss of a much wanted little boy…just so much. She is so special to me for so many reasons. She has done things for me that are unimaginable.

Today my friend is a mommy to a little boy and girl and that is just about the most fantastic thing in the whole world. This story gives every infertile couple reason to have hope. She never gave up. In the end, her diagnosis was a mystery until they discovered that she had celiac. As soon as she gave up wheat, six months later she cycled and lo and behold, twins.

Today is such a special day that I will leave it on that note. I have wonderful things to tell you (no, I’m not pregnant) but I have found a doctor who understands why I’ve been miscarrying and we are about to end that….soon. But today is nothing about me.

Today is about the sunshine coming through the clouds for my friend. No posting on her site. Let her tell the world. Her story is shared here:

http:// will post the info once she has posted her news.

July? Wow. I wonder if anyone reads this thing.

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I’m so neglectful of my little corner of the internet universe. It isn’t right especially since some of you come looking for a solution to a very big problem (one I can’t give but I can certainly give a much researched opinion!!).

First things first – my uterus. I’m so sick of vaginal ultrasounds, blood taking/giving and all that goes with the most routine visit to the RE. So, after Doctor H (that is what I will call him – the doctor here in our new city is also my friend’s husband…weird but I’m getting over it) saw the septum I booked a hysteroscopy in Denver with Dr. S. UNDER SEDATION. No way was I going to do that awake like I did the time before. What did he find? Nothing. NOTHING!! I have no septum.

What I do have is a secret that I am about to share with you. I begged the doctor to tell me the sexes and he told me that the policy was not to give the information because it is not correct (I know it is 90 percent correct from what I’ve read). He didn’t tell me but I found out – I won’t say how but the 5AB is a girl and the 4BB is a boy. I knew it! I JUST knew it. Girl embryos are stronger and will likely implant sooner than a boy. With my son – he did not implant until day 10 (the last day in the window). How do I know? I was going to a Chinese doctor for acupuncture and he told me that he felt a good pulse but still no implantation. I’d gone to him for days after the transfer and he kept saying the same thing. The pee sticks (damn I even hate writing the words) were all negative. So Dr. Wu (love this guy and will post his info at the bottom of this post) told me that Wednesday afternoon that because it was day 10 and there was no implantation yet, he would try something else. Not sure what he did but 2 hours later I started to cramp. One and a half days later I tested positive with the FRER (love you FRER) and my beta was 11. They are supposed to detect levels of HCG above 25 but there it was – a DOUBLE LINE. So I know that boy embryos can cause a mama all sorts of stress because they take their damned time.

As for why I am so absent – I started a preschool. About a year ago around right now (precisely!) I was doing my last IVF. I remember sitting in the bedroom crying, feeling miserable and then went out and bought a whole bunch of books. One book was Nurture Shock. I read it and then immediately decided that I would open a preschool. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t something that just came to me. I’ve wanted to open a preschool my entire life (first it was an orphanage but that was when I was very young). So start a preschool I did. At the time, in the Inverness Hotel with tears streaming down my eyes I thought…if I can’t have more children, I’ll have hundreds. I also am a huge proponent of early education – at home, at a good preschool, music classes. Kids are so, so much smarter than we give them credit for and my preschool recognizes this and promotes teaching and learning UP (without pressure – everything we do is fun so they think they are just playing but no sir, they are learning!). I have a 17 year old boy who can look at an A and say AH (what the letter says). I am so excited about the school and what is happening there. To say it was hard work is a huge understatement. I gathered together all the resources, people and my own gumption and just did it. When my husband lost his job (another post..lest my blood pressure go up) this school will likely weather us through the unemployment storm. Right now I’m working 14 hour days and not getting much to see for it (monetarily speaking) but I know that if we keep doing what we are doing that we will develop and grow locally and I hope nationally. I truly detest some of the preschool education that is out there right now – some of it is awesome and wonderful and others are a complete joke. Kids deserve better. So much better. Every day I have at least 15 hugs from kids who see me in the hallway or when I enter their room to speak to their teacher. Every hug reminds me why I have done this and I truly love each child in my school. They are all so very different but amazing and wonderful beings. I will post about what we are doing and why it is so special. It also helps to employ real teachers who have years of experience!

So I’m waiting for the stress of owning my own business to lower and then will do the transfer.

Wow – if I had boy/girl twins at the age of 43 that would be some serious miracle. I will post more. I want to keep this blog moving and hopefully share some of the information I have on all of the things I’ve ever done:

1. Be a recording artist and songwriter
2. Be infertile and obsess about it
3. Open my own business

There is more but for now here is Dr. Wu’s info – I loved him and plan to go back to see him pre transfer (or someone here) and then post transfer after Denver. That is probably just too much flying around. Thanks for being a reader and hanging in there with me as I disappear and then reappear. I’m going to use this little blog as an outlet – the next few months are likely to be hard. I’ll need to vent but only to you. In real life I need to be a “tough chick” (as my friend Sherean says and as Gwen Stefani inspired her to say).

Will keep you posted. Aiming for February!

http://www.nyfertility.org/associated-staff.html (scroll down to read up on Dr. Wu)

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.

Change

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Things are changing around here. I’ll elaborate more but for now, I’ve added my music. The reason being is that I’m starting a drive to raise money for a cause I love – no, a passion. It is late and I’m excited so I wanted to post. It has been so wonderful to not have to think about IVF but tomorrow I’ll have a consult and go over “the file” with a new OB GYN. He is my friend’s husband sounds great. He gave me some interesting facts…that there is a higher miscarriage rate for women with psoriasis. I have psoriasis and never knew that. Today I had a foot doctor appt and he told me not to take anti steroid non inflammatories (motrin, etc) as they can lower the chances of implantation. Nobody ever tells you this stuff. I mean, I had no clue and at this point I feel like I know way too much. Yes “way too much information” about this process.

I’m putting a link to my songs. A few that I wrote and sang in my life before I started to do IVF. Some day I will look back on this time in my life and it will seem like a dream. Right now, I’m about to reenter the nightmare portion of the process. The FET. It is going to happen in the next five months. Or sooner. I need to be ready for it.

Anyway. Short one. I’m coming back tomorrow to tell you all about what I’ve been doing that has given me a spring in my step and, for about 7 months now, helped me to not focus on IVF for the first time in five years.

Night, night.

PS. Please listen to the songs – when you do they pay me ad revenue and it goes to a great cause (which you’ll know all about tomorrow!!!).

Just when you thought I’d never post again…

Posted in Getting ready for FET with the normal embryos, infertility, Progesterone by

I’ve been avoiding this blog. Mainly because I hate that the tone is so negative and depressing (at least to me). I’ve been spending my time doing just about everything except thinking about IVF or trying to have another child. Just being a mom and well, a whole lot of other things but that is a post for another day (all good stuff).

I’ve been gearing up for the FET (frozen embryo transfer for my non IF friends). That means clearing out all the toxins, getting tested for everything and anything that could impede implantation (immune issues, uterine issues, etc) when suddenly my period stopped arriving. Abruptly. It could be stress, it could be an anovulatory cycle (when you don’t ovulate) but it is annoying because I need to have a period in order to be able to get these test done. So I’ve been taking prometrium 400 mg at night (because it can make you drowsy). I sometimes forget and then have had to take one in the morning (nice to feel drowsy in the morning with a toddler….ahem).

The other night I took my last 2 pills. I normally never eat with them. This was right before dinner…. Friends were visiting to I had a glass of wine with them, ordered some sushi (oh lord, will I ever get to the point), ate the sushi, drank another half glass of wine and the next thing I know I am in an ambulance. Apparently I stopped responding. Sat there with my mouth agape, drooling, staring into space and unable to talk other than nod my head (“yes” to my mother’s question which is “are you in trouble”.).

Once I was in the ambulance I felt fine but groggy. They took some blood, explained that it was most likely a reaction between the progesterone and the wine and sent me hope. Of course I couldn’t let it rest.

I spent all of yesterday trying to find anyone who had experience the same thing that I did and lo and behold I found this:

http://www.askapatient.com/viewrating.asp?drug=19781&name=PROMETRIUM&sort=satisfaction&order=1

Five posts with women who were hospitalized with stroke like symptoms and a slew of others who had “lost time”, “lost memory” among other things.

I’ve been on this drug for five years (off on and on when I am cycling) and had a few bouts of words slurring but never something like this.

So that will be the last time I take oral prometrium (progesterone). Shots in the butt for me – never had an issue with progesterone in oil which absorbs differently.

Now I have to explain this to my new neighbors. Apparently I was screaming my head off as I was carted to the ambulance which I do not remember. I can imagine it now “oh HI there new neighbor, can I have a seat because this is a long ass story”.

It is sorta funny but it isn’t…..it scared me shitless.

Better.

Posted in infertility by

Thanks to Sunshine (thank you, thank you, thank you).

I’m waiting for that phone to ring. Any day now and I’ll know where I stand with the embryos. If they are normal that is IF (a big one) then I will probably drop dead from happiness.

So last post was a slit your wrister and I didn’t want anyone to go and call the men with the white jackets. I’ll be fine.

I’m going to have a little fun today – watch this space later today.

Bad, bad, bad

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Today is one of those days that no matter what you do, nothing feels right. In fact, that is putting it mildly. For various reasons this has been the hardest week of my life so far. It is mental, I know that. It comes from several sources least of all not the waiting for the CGH results which could happen any time.

Marriage – you know, this is a public, family, friend blog. We have our ups and downs. Sometimes I wonder if IVF never had to happen to us and if he was, say, a first grade teacher if we would be frolicking through the fields of daisies without a care in the world. He’d just look at me in that daisy field, we’d have sex and out would come a perfect little baby 9 month later. 200K later (yes, you read that right) I am 2 years into my trying for #2. Giving up is not an option.

I will do whatever it takes – I have a list of employers who offer amazing coverage and I will work as a janitor if I have to. There will be a sibling for my boy. I have made this promise to myself and I will never go back.

Having a child…..but being a full time, stay at home mom is not for me. I know that sounds crazy but I need, crave organized time, a job, something creative. I need a bit of my old life back – the songwriting, the girls nights on occasion with margaritas and Newhall at Dos Caminos. I miss being a person in my own right and I feel guilty about that which is absolutely STUPID. As if IVF wasn’t hard enough in so many ways – now I get a kid and I want me back? Sounds self indulgent but man, my husband plays 8 hours of golf on Sat am. And because I did IVF I am meant to think the changing of ever diaper is a blessing. Look, it is….but I need to be a happy mother and being happy means for me that i need time to myself. To paint the wall, to write a song, to insulate the window.

So I’m struggling. With everything. But I’m going to find a way to end this day on a positive note. I’m going to honor my singer songwriter career and the people I worked with (who I really, really miss) and force myself to get back into that biz. I love it, I miss it and I have to leave the guilt at the door. I can write a chorus and inject gonal f at the same time so …..what is stopping me?

Me. Has to stop.

What happened this summer – why I went away

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So I left this block rather abruptly. Right smack dab in the middle of my CCRM story. There was a good reason – actually two good reasons.

I used to be a member of an IVF support group. It was online, fairly active and I had posted there since 2005 when I began the journey of trying to have a child. When I say that this particular site was instrumental in having my son that would be a gross understatement. I learned everything I ever needed to know from the women on this site on how to cycle, how to keep upbeat, how to laugh and most of all – how to relate to people who were going through the same experience that I was. Because, let’s face it, until you have experienced infertility you just don’t get it. Not in the way that we do. The physical and psychological pain, the feelings of inadequacy, the anger at people walking down the street with a baby carriage – they just do not understand and sometimes nor do we. Finding this particular website at a point in my life where I felt helpless empowered me and allowed me to get through those rough times. For that, I shall be forever grateful. I developed some great relationships that remain to this day. But in July I had to leave.

There were a few things going on at that point in time. The board I posted to regularly was turning into a strange place. There were a few posters who had things going on in their life that were dangerous (to put it mildly) and a number of people were considering turning this woman into the authorities. I’d received several messages from different sources encouraging me to turn her in to child protective services. I’d considered it and then thought…..nah, I’m going to tell her what I think. Because, what if this was all a huge rant and this woman was exaggerating and then CPS goes in and yanks her kids. I didn’t think it was a bad idea if the stories were true but, because so many people were calling CPS, I didn’t do it. So, I wrote a post and called her out. She didn’t like that. Neither did her friends. They gave me what my grandfather would call a “licking” for it. Others wrote me private messages saying “thanks, I wish I had the guts to write what you did”. I didn’t think I was particularly harsh but in hindsight, probably should have just stayed out of it like I did with the CPS.

And then about 2 weeks later a post appeared calling me names and accusing me of trying to kill my husband. It was laughable. My friends on the board and I had a good old laugh about it – until people, people I’d known for ages started agreeing and saying “I believe this to be true”. It was like 8th grade….I can laugh about it now but it started to become very serious to me. For a start, I was applying for a job with a very well known and highly thought of company and did not need such disgusting words said about me….and then this person called CCRM and told them things about me. That is when I started compiling information for a civil and criminal suit. I have all the evidence but I have declined pressing charges for the moment. It didn’t stop there though – whoever this person and or persons were, they caused all manner of mischief and then would try to link it back to me….one day I looked and over 20 of my IVF friends had dropped me on facebook. I was stunned.

And then I figured it out.

A few months prior to all of this brouhaha I started a private, facebook group in support of a fellow IVFer to talk about her issue. She had a pretty big problem and didn’t want to discuss it on this open board. I still will not discuss her or her issue – not until she is ready. Let’s just say it was a doozy. One of the members of our “secret facebook” group decided to leave – in a huff, I’ll add because, well, she didn’t like the fact that a few of us didn’t like one of her friends. 8th grade. This person then decided to go and tell everyone in her social circle on this board about our exclusionary, secret group where we all made fun of everyone. Those were her words, not the truth…but she was a believable person and so…people I’d posted with, supported, held virtual hands with, donated money to in times of need and cried tears of anger, frustration and and sadness with decided that I was a very bad person. A very bad person indeed – a “mean girl”. But, due to the private nature of our friend’s issue, I was unable to defend myself, defend my creating a support group outside of our support group. I was labeled the scourge of our wonderful board. I was shunned. I had to leave – there was no staying around. When I tell you that it shook me to the core, I will not lie. I laugh about it now but at the time my husband was making me dinner, bringing me flowers and reminding me that it didn’t matter what some people on the internet thought – that it was our family that mattered. Again, he didn’t get it. Those women meant something to me that he couldn’t understand.

Those women.

So, lately I’ve started to post there again because I realized that I have something to give. I have something to add and if it helps a woman get pregnant or make a decision that might help her get pregnant or choose to adopt or….help her in any way, I’m going to post there. I won’t let the lies and destruction caused by a few idiots stop me. I’m far less interested in doing what I had originally wanted to do – raise money for cycling, meds, etc for those who cannot afford it but maybe that will change in time.

Hell, I raised 105,000 dollars this summer as the Chair of a non-profit whose proceeds go to planting trees and flowers – imagine what I could do to help women start or complete their families. I just wish July never happened or I’d probably be working on just that right now.

So that is the long and the short (actually the short for sure) of it.

Far more interesting than, say, headboard decorating issues, I hope!