Social Ninja

I used to date this guy, many years ago, called Nick.  At the time I thought he would be the man that I would end up with.  We shared a dark sense of humor.  We are no longer in touch, and I am a bit sad for this, not because I have any romantic feelings or feelings of having missed my chance with him.  Just because he was a funny, smart, interesting person to count in my life.

Nick used to describe himself as a Social Ninja.  He was a bit...err... socially awkward and loved to make others around him feel as socially awkward as he did.  On more than one occasion, while at a party amid the laughter and the fun he would suddenly blurt out "My father died last year".  In fairness to Nick, his father had, in fact, died last year.  He wasn't lying or anything.  But it wasn't that he was suddenly overwhelmed by a need to be comforted.  He just loved to see the reaction when in middle of a night of fun and drinking people suddenly had to cope with an uncomfortable truth.  That every night isn't about fun and laughter.  That people do die.  And that life does suck sometimes.

I was thinking about Nick because I feel like I have become this same social ninja.  Although i my case it actually isn't because of a desire to make others feel uncomfortable, rather, it is simply because I am trying to protect myself.

I have been married for less than a year.  Nine months and 17 days to be exact.  But, those nine months have been among the last 9 months of my thirties and this information is not lost on anyone.  I have alluded briefly to the ongoing struggles with my in-laws who are hoping everyday that we make a pregnancy announcement.

My husband's cousin and his wife conceived within the first two months... her advice to me was to drink a bottle of wine and forget about it... (uh.. .yeah... thanks... tried that... come back when you have gone through a loss, when you have gone through months of negative tests... sorry, but you aren't an expert).

A very dear friend asked me at New Years why I wasn't drinking... "Are you pregnant?" she asked hopefully... i looked down and away and said no.

We have dinner nearly every Friday with my in-laws and I have been consuming less and less wine everytime...  but, still, there is always a small amount of wine in my glass as part of the prayers.

The day that we learned my hcg levels were dropping was a Friday.  We went to our dinner, tears held in check by sheer tenacity, and I was surrounded by the pregnant bellies of two in-laws.   We ate our meal, smiled artificial smiles.  We said nothing.  We got into our car and I cried the whole way home.  The next day the miscarriage started.  At the time I was determined to be stoic, to not tell anyone of our missed chance at a family.  Those days are gone. 

 
One night my in-laws seemed to think it was funny to chide me about not being pregnant yet by teasing me that I was drinking while I was 'pregnant'.  "I'm not pregnant".  But it stuck and became an in-joke.

Every week.  "She's pregnant!  What a bad mom stop drinking"  "I'm not." 
"She's pregnant!  You are so irresponsible drinking while you are pregnant"  "Please stop"
"She's pregnant!"

Then I lost it...
I became a social ninja and finally understood Nick.  "Stop it, stop.  It isn't funny.  It's hard and we've tried and you need to stop.  We've already lost one and it is worse when you laugh about it."

They have stopped teasing me, but the social ninja inside remains ever alert.  Now when someone tells me that my husband and I "need to get on with it" I tell them about my miscarriage.

My goal is to make them aware of how incredibly painful what they are saying is by making them feel uncomfortable.  Making them aware that if a couple doesn't have children they either don't want them or can't have them for some reason, and that this is not a topic of conversation for the casual acquaintance. 

It is not graceful or elegant... but then neither am I.

To hunt or not to hunt that is the question

Job Hunt that is....

Let me begin by saying how much I LOVE my current job.  I adore it here.  I love my boss.  I love the support staff and coworkers.  I even love what I do.  It has been my dream come true ever since this job fell, quite literally, into my lap about 2 days before I was supposed to start looking for work.

My current boss is a contact from my last job.  A job that was a 4 hour commute (each way) from my home.  It was a commute I did on a weekly basis which meant that from 4am Monday morning until 4pm Friday night I didn't get to see my boyfriend cum fiance.  When we got engaged things started to get tough at my job.  They were pushing for me to move to the far away city and I flat out told them it would not happen.  My fiance had been in the same job for 24 years, a union job, good pay, excellent vacations and benefits, he was not going to start again.  And while I enjoyed many things about my last job the hours were not on the list.  When I left I was gifted with my overtime payout.  It equaled a month for every month I had been employed.  I worked a minimum of 70 hour weeks.  This I do not miss.

Unfortunately my current job is a contract that is going to expire at the end of July.  I know my boss likes me, but I also know that there are funding issues and cutbacks and all the rest.  I have to be realistic about the fact that he may not be able to keep me around.

Then there is the problem, the dream that so many of us face.  I am pretty sure, at some point, some how I have a chance of being pregnant.  There is that concern... how will it look if I find a new job and I get pregnant after only a few weeks?  What about the time I may need to take off for fertility treatments?  Is it fair to accept a job with the clear intention of trying to leave it almost immediately for a maternity leave?  It is entirely possible to blow off good reference and future employment possibilities this way.

It isn't that we can really afford for me not to work.  In fact I bring in a higher income than my husband does so he is not even completely sure I should get the maternity leave (in Canada this can be split by the parents - don't worry, he will be convinced otherwise... unless he is willing to try out breast feeding).  But there is this constant worry that if I do find a job, the next job and then get pregnant right away that there will be a lack of trust from my employer and create a difficult work environment.

We also can't afford to wait... even a month without trying.  I'm just getting too old... :( sad face.

I read a "Dear Abby" style column a few weeks back where an expectant father who was hoping to be offered a permanent contract should inform his current employer of his intention to take the parental leave before a contract was offered.  The advice was he needed to come clean with the employer so as to not put the employer in a difficult position.

In my mind this is poor advice.  If no offer is made then he has put himself at a disadvantage unfairly, perhaps jeopardizing the job offer.  I think he should wait until the offer is made and then inform his employer.  If the employer then rescinds the offer surely that is grounds for discrimination?  But having said that is it much harder for a woman to hide the fact that she is expecting a child and it is much easier for an employer to terminate a woman who is within her 6 month probationary period because of noticeably protruding belly.  He can easily dream up any excuse, in fact he doesn't even need an excuse just that she didn't "fit in".

So the question is... do I start looking for work?  Knowing Hoping that I will be pregnant soon.  Knowing that we need the money to bring our dream to fruition.  Knowing if I am not working it can interfere with my maternity leave.  In Canada we get 17 weeks of maternal leave at 55% pay and then 35 weeks of parental leave which can be taken by either parent.  HOWEVER, it seems that this is contingent upon having worked a certain number of weeks since the last unemployment insurance claim.

My best and most hopeful dream is that they offer me a job here, and it is permanent... and sure... throw in covered infertility costs as part of my benefits package... it is still just a dream after all.

Helicopters everywhere!

I often wonder if when I become a mother, what sort of Mother will I be.  The women who does the cleaning for our building has a teenaged daughter and the more I talk to her the clearer it becomes that she is a helicopter parents.  Today she is asking me for any sort of graphs, or figures that her daughter can use in a homework assignment.  The mother isn't really clear on the requirements for the assignment.  And she has been given multiple examples of graphs, but thinks that some of them are too complicated for her daughter.

I've suggested using The Google to find statistics on Justin Beiber (although most of them yield mocking statistics on Justin Beiber's ego or lyrics) that way she will be interested in actually doing her homework.  Seems to me that the cleaning woman is more concerned about getting her daughters work done that her daughter is.

The receptionist for my department has a son in university.  She spends most of her time worrying about whether he will get enough to eat, she reminds him to study for his exams.  She drives to pick him up on weekends.  She does his laundry.   She has found him a summer job. 

I worry about this.  As someone who may be limited to just one child, as someone who may be spending thousands upon thousands to make that child a reality, as someone who has built a lot of hopes and dreams into our future child will I be a helicopter parent? 

I have spoken with someone who works with students in a university and college situation and says the biggest problem they are facing today is that students don't know how to fail.  They are used to having their parents do their homework and tell them how and when to get their assignments done.  By the time students get to higher education they don't know how to do for themselves.

I was not raised by helicopter parents.  I found my own jobs.  I failed tests.  I ran up credit card debt and had to work and sacrifice to pay it off.  I paid for my own education.  Now, I am an obstinate, stubborn strong person... in both good ways and bad.  But I think a lot of my strength comes from being forced to find my own path and pay the consequences for my decisions.

I hope that my husband and I will be strong enough to resist the urge to be helicopter parents.  I hope that we will be able to resist doing everything for our child, but that we can still be close enough to protect them.  

I think it is a harder fight for me because of the struggles we are going through to conceive than it would be for someone that it happens easily for.  Then again, you look at the world today and it is easy to want to wrap your children in bubble wrap and keep them hidden from the evils of the world. 

My thoughts are with those in Boston.

A little grossness for your day

May I begin this post with:  EWWWWWWW

It's amazing the things you will read sometimes.  Believe me, when I clicked on this article I actually thought it was going to be cocktails I could give my husband to improve his semen for conception.  I expected it to have things like wheat grass and zinc and not... well... what it has.

I am home sick again today.  The weather here is giving me horrible migraines off and on.  I am trying not to take any drugs, but I will be happy when the storm system clears our area.  My husband has also taken today off sick.  For me being sick still means I have to get work done.  I'm currently on a contract and so I don't actually have things like sick days and vacation time.  But I do have a really fabulous boss and a very flexible work environment.  I am doing some research that I can do at home just as easily as in the office and it allows me to control the light better and lay down when my head gets especially bad.

My second set of blood work came yesterday so my darling husband and I may go out and get that done this afternoon.  I would rather get my TSH done right away just in case there is a problem.  I think that with having had an adrenal gland removed already I am more susceptible to things like Hashimoto's disease and hypothyroidism because my hormones are unbalanced and my poor right adrenal gland has to work all the time and never gets to take weekends off the way your adrenal gland does.  For me there is always the threat of adrenal insufficiency and death if i get run down.

We also have to have our communicable disease blood work done.  I am not concerned about this, i know we will both pass with flying colours, but does anyone know what happens to couples who have something like syphillis or hepC?  Are they not allowed to use assisted reproductive technologies (ART) or does the staff just use special precautions when dealing with  samples from that couple?  My understanding is that it has much more to do with the handling of biohazards than anything else.

When I did research my last project that I worked on was on the bacteria that caused syphillis.  So hypothetically contracting syphillis was a workplace hazard... just me and the streetwalkers can say that!  We actually had one of the lab techs stab herself in the finger with a needle filled with syphillis once.  Imagine having to go home to your husband and explain that one.  Fortunately I never suffered and injuries of this sort.  So we should be good to go for IUI when our time comes.

Too Stinking High (TSH)

Have I mentioned that I love my RE?  If not it bears repeating.  I think I might have a little girl crush on her.

I should probably preface this next blog with a little medical background on myself.  See.... I'm what is known as a medical freak.  I'm a zebra... for those of you who don't immediately understand this reference there is a quote they tell young doctors:  When you hear hoof beats think horses, not zebras.  Well the problem with that is that some people actually are zebras and I am one of them.  The quote is meant to remind young doctors that there is a reason that diseases are classified as rare... that's because no body has them.  It is meant to remind young doctors that they are not the future Dr. House finding weird and wonderful, obscure diseases that are given only a paragraph in most medical text books.  Most people are coming to you because they have a cold.  The common cold.

The problem with this is that many doctor's will disregard all of the symptoms of a disease that is staring them in the face because they have had it beaten into their heads that it is just too rare... that they will never in their practice see a patient with such a rare disease.

About 3 years ago I was diagnosed with Cushing's.  This is a disease in which a tumor causes your body to produce a ridiculous amount of extra cortisol - the stress hormone.  It causes many delightful symptoms like weight gain, facial hair, high blood pressure, type II diabetes, infertility, etc, etc etc.  The problem is that a doctor will look at an overweight woman with high blood pressure and type II diabetes and tell her to just lose weight.  Wanna hear the craziest thing about cushings?  You can't.  You actually can't.  They have done studies where they have shown that looking at a picture of a doughnut will actually change your metabolism as though you have eaten it.  Now that's a messed up disease.

Cushing's is found in 1:1,000,000 of the population... but wait... there's more... there's an even rarer form called adrenal cushings which is found in only 1:5,000,000 of the population and this is the form i have.  As a result I have had my left adrenal gland removed, which can cause a lot of stresses on a body.  I wear a medical alert bracelet just in case i suddenly topple over.

Because of this diagnosis I want you to believe me when i tell you i have seen a LOT of doctors.  In fact I have seen a LOT of endocrinologists.  When I had my surgery the chief of surgery dropped by my room to see, in his words, the "famous patient".  No joke.  I'm a freaking medical marvel.

Despite all of this I am in awe with my RE because she did something that blew my mind.  She checked my test results the second they came in.  She called me because my TSH was too stinking high and wants a retest.  I find so many doctors will wait until their next consult before they look at your test results.  My father drove a car for 6 months after tests showed he was legally blind because his optometrist didn't look at the results.  So my RE looked at my results and took action.

You see why I'm a little bit in love?

How can you not know you are pregnant?

This would be the TV show "I didn't know that i was Pregnant" that is on TLC, not unfortunately a miraculous revelation about myself.  Today's show is a 57 year old woman who undergoes IVF with a donor egg.  I'm intrigued to see how this is going to be a surprise pregnancy for this particular woman.  I mean honestly, if you pay someone to put fertilized eggs into your uterus then how on earth  is it supposed to be a surprise? 

I am home sick today.  I left work at noon with a horrible migraine and am still feeling the effects.  I spent most of the afternoon yesterday completely unconscious because the light was too much for me to bear. 

I have always been the victim of migraines, but ibuprofen always used to save me... now i no longer take ibuprofen on the off chance that I get pregnant, or because it might interfere with ovulation or any of the other things that we've heard.  I mean if ibuprofen was really working as a birth control method then I am sure lots of teen girls would be popping that when they couldn't get the real pill.  But, when you are trying to have a baby then apparently you will listen to just about any rumor that can have an impact on your ability to have a child... at least i will.

Back to the 57 year old she started to hemorrhage and was diagnosed with a miscarriage... and apparently no one bothered to check via ultrasound or pregnancy test??  Honestly... and she hemorrhages for months and no one looks to see if she's had any retained tissue?  Who are these doctors?

This show both intrigues and depresses me.  As a woman who is trying to get pregnant the idea that you could be pregnant for months and not notice that it was going on is a strange fantasy... and of course it leads me to play mind games every single month.  Even once my period has started i ask myself... am i actually having my period?  is it breakthrough bleeding?  Is this period lighter than usual?  It is crazy the number of ways i can pretend that even despite all of the evidence to the contrary I will take any possible opportunity to pretend that maybe, just maybe i will one day be a candidate for this show.  That despite the plethora of pregnancy tests within arms reach that i can take at any point in time i might somehow be pregnant without knowing it. 

Teeny Tiny Ovaries

Am I wrong?  I spent all day yesterday looking for the size my ovaries should be and my conclusion is that mine are tiny.  Teeny tiny.  They are not pleasingly plump.  This does not bode well for my future fertility does it.  Ovaries start off around 10 cm each from what i can tell and as you get older they get smaller, and smaller and smaller until they shrivel up like prunes... or something like that.

As I said to my husband through tears yesterday it is not just about this pregnancy, but about the next one too.  We would like two children, are we dreaming?  Are we just too older for that to be possible?  And now we have to wait three months before we see our doctor again and find out for sure what this all means for our chances. 

Then, of course, because life likes to mock me, we are going to be on vacation in Europe for most of August.  This is a combination of trips to visit my husbands family who I have never met and a week with my family in Spain.  My father has terminal cancer and wants to spend time with us all before he gets too sick.  But right now, in my head, it's just another month we will have to wait before we can get some treatment.

And another delay before our baby comes.

What goes well with stirrups?

Yep... .i'm nervous as hell right now.
Our appointment is today, at 1:30pm.
Gulp

Getting dressed this morning was weird. I decided on a tank top to make taking blood easy, under a jacket to keep warm and decided to go with blue jeans.  I don't really work in a blue jeans kind of place.  But I can go days without seeing any of my colleagues just because of what I do, and since i intentionally didn't schedule any meetings today I am sort of hanging out in my office.

I wanted to feel comfortable as I walked into the office today, or at least look like I felt comfortable, and blue jeans will do that for me i hope.  My husband is leaving work today at noon and we are meeting at home to travel there together.  It's a bit of a backtrack for him....  He works North of the city and we live East, but i didn't want to try to deal with two cars there, and i need him to hold my hand through today.

And I want to be able to analyze and discuss everything that is said to us in the appointment on the drive back home, not being trying to fight through both traffic and tears at the same time.  Anyone been through this already?  Help!!

Baby on Credit

If there is one thing that I knew about IVF before we started on this journey it was that this wasn't going to come cheap.  We still don't know exactly what this will cost us of course, we don't know what treatments we will need.  We don't know how many it will take before they are successful.  So, even though we can look up and see that our fertility clinic will cost us about $1,500 for an IUI that basically tells us nothing.

My husband and I decided to go to the bank yesterday to see how much money we could arrange before our appointment at the fertility clinic tomorrow (Gulp!).  I know the clinic offers financing, and no doubt they will pretty give you anything since they are filling a space in your soul and you know you will pay anything to have that baby you want so badly, but we also wanted to know, financially what our other options were.  Who knows if the clinic will give you the lowest rate?  Maybe it's like a credit card at 20% where you will be required to send all of your frozen embryos out to work just to pay it off.

The woman at the bank was ridiculously happy for us.  "Fertility treatments!  How exciting!"  My guess is she is baby crazy, but still confident that her nubile body will produce the children she is going to have one day... she doesn't understand that fertility treatments are filling me with dread and fear not excitement.  

She notices the title "Dr." attached to my file.  I hold a PhD and it has been put on my file as such.  But she mistakes it for an MD.  "I think we can get you a business loan.  It has a much lower interest rate."

There is nothing more ridiculous to me than the idea that our baby making be financed by a business loan.  This is not an investment that is going to be paid off any time soon. This is a long term investment that is going to require repeated infusions of cash as our child struggles to define themselves throughout childhood and adolescence.  Unless our child is the next Justin Bieber (and i really hope not after watching his latest string of petulant tweets) there is little hope that this baby is going to post a profit margin in the first quarter of his or her life.

How solving a mystery can result in pregnancy symptoms

I have no doubt that the phenomenon is well studied by any woman who is currently trying to conceive.  It is almost mystical the rate at which she can develop every symptom known to affect those in early pregnancy simply by reading a list.  Like the "communicated" wind turbine syndrome  early pregnancy symptoms are, no doubt in my mind, completely and totally caused by the nocebo effect.

In one of my many dozens of searches I have done over the years into "early pregnancy symptoms" I once came across this sage advice:

Remember, many pregnant women who were not trying to conceive do not even realize they are pregnant until well into the first trimester, meaning that symptoms are often subtle or nonexistent during the two week wait.

Oh, yeah... that is definitely advice i need to take.  It should help me to stop googling symptoms to see if that twinge in my back, that dryness in my mouth, that queasiness in my belly could herald the arrival of a baby.  Of course it never does.  Every month I announce to my husband "I'm pretty sure I'm pregnant.  Don't you think?  Do you think I could be pregnant?"  He wisely nods yes and we play this game for two weeks until my period arrives and brings with it a flood of tears.

So, this month when i was convinced that I had not ovulated  my boobs felt no bigger than usual for a period.  The nipples did not seem to mysteriously darken in certain light (duh... that's called shadows) and my cramps seemed to be nice normal run of the mill pre-menstral cramps... gearing up for the visit by the painters on Thursday or Friday.

That is until I ran a single Google search yesterday at lunch: "Can ovulation be delayed after a positive OPK?"  Well, as usual The Google Oracle spit out an answer and in summation the truth is that sometimes it can take as much as 3 days for your body to experience a thermal shift after ovulation has occurred.  And now my pattern is definitely biphasic... which means suddenly these damn breasts seem so sore... and I can't seem to stop feeling them (making them more sore no doubt).  And I'm definitely tired this morning.  Really tired.  And... damn... i'm playing that stupid two week wait game again. 

Coming out of the IVF closet

I suspect it all starts with the taboo of sex.  It is something that we aren't supposed to talk about.  We sort of vaguely know that other people do "it" but we don't want to know the details.  Especially when it comes to our parents. 

This is of course different with girlfriends.  They know I have a very raunchy sense of humour and love to joke about sex.  A friend has never started the sentence "I just have to download some..." without me finishing for him "porn" even if that's not what he has in mind.

As a young woman, having her first sexual encounters my parents were the last people I wanted to find out about it.  They never knew anything about my first.  Even with my husband I have trouble admitting that there were men before him. 

I suspect that is why it all seems so strange to have a conversation about IVF with those very people.  See, sex is what is supposed to lead to babies right, and the fact that we haven't yet, even though we are "TRYING"... that's something that is hard to say to my parents.  "Yes mum, even though we have sex throughout my fertile period we haven't had success".  "Yes dad, we tried all of the positions designed to put your son-in-law's penis close to my cervix during ejaculation".  Ug.  Not a conversation I can have.

Still... through a bunch of tears I managed to choke it out over the weekend to my mother.  Not the imagined conversation above... Not with that detail.  But yes, that we were going to go to an IVF clinic.  That it was going to cost us thousands of dollars to give them a grandchild. 

I wonder if we could post it on kick-start.  Anyone wanting to give a full round of IVF would have naming rights.  Anyone contributing a half round of IVF would have the baby's room named after them.  Anyone paying an IUI would be able to have his or her name embroidered on a bib.

Not flesh of my flesh

Not flesh of my flesh
Not Bone of my bone
but still, miraculously, my own.

Never forget,
for even a minute
You didn't grow under my heart, but in it.

I love this poem.  It is the adoption creed.  It is beautiful.  I captures everything i feel about the special little boys and girls in my life: my nieces and nephews, the children of my friends, and cousins.  And yet, i know that I will love my own child even more than i love each one of these special children i have had the honour of watching grow up.

I need to say that we have not ruled out adoption.  In fact, in many ways, adoption appeals to me much more than the idea of pumping my body with hormones and having the conception of my child occur in a sterile dish in a lab.  I say this as a reformed scientist.  It isn't a fear of technology in any way.  But it is an awareness of the very clinical and impersonal start of a miraculous journey.  The idea that my husband and i could be at work while our gametes are being mixed is... depressing.  Baby making is supposed to be so much more fun.

Plus, there's the astronomical cost.  Paying someone to shove something up my hoo-ha which cost $5000 to $12,000 to produce and then having to wait two weeks to find out if it stuck or not is more pressure than i think i can stand.  And the likelihood of success is 1 in 3.  I mean I wish the actual lottery had such good odds, but for baby making i wish it were better. 

Adoption actual has a lot of pluses as far as I am concerned.  First of all, we're a bit older than most parents of an infant.  Imagine if we adopt a 2 or 3 or 7 year old.  I feel like we might actually  comfortably into the PTA for our children's classes.

Second, I think that my husband and I are uniquely equipped to deal with a child who needs extra love and assurance that comes from being adopted.  I don't know much about it,  I am willing to learn. My husband has gone through growing up without a parent as his mom moved away when he was three.  He was left with a lot of scars that we worked to heal.

My husband is not quite as convinced as I am.  He has this manly idea of passing his genes on to the next generation.  I love to quip when he says this that his genes aren't that good.  "They are! My jeans are Tommy Hilfiger"... sigh... 

My husband does have a lot of reservations.  What can we handle? What about special needs?  What age?  What sort of psychological scars will an adopted child bring?  We've had some very serious discussions.  He agrees with me that giving birth to a child is certainly no guarantee that our child won't have special needs of one sort or another.  And going over the list there are many special needs we are well equipped to deal with.  It makes him feel more confident about his ability to love this imaginary adoptive child.  He even flushed one day as we drove by a Toys-R-Us.  "I just imagined buying our child toys after we've adopted him" he confides. I grin with pleasure.  He is becoming more comfortable with all of the ways we can use to expand our family.

So, the question then is why we are rushing head long into IVF instead of starting to adopt?  In part because we don't yet qualify as adoptive parents.  In order to ensure that a child is brought into a stable home it looks like in our jurisdiction we must have been in a stable relationship for 2 years before we can apply.  My interpretation of this would be two years of living together, a date that is still more than a year away.

But there is certainly something else, something more that you get by going through the experience of pregnancy and childbirth.  

Adoption is not the last chance after we have exhausted IVF...  But we don't want to wait for another year before we try something else.  We have to strike while the ovarian reserve is hot!

Hope everyone has a happy Easter with their families.

Dear BBT, WTF?

BBT:36.79 yesterdays BBT: 36.54 Thursdays BBT 36.71
So, I had a low BBT for two days following my expected ovulation, and so i mourned slightly the lost chance for getting pregnant, my bank account mourned a LOT and my bank rejoiced knowing they were going to be able to post record breaking profits as we pay a team of doctors to stare at my cervix.

Now, it seems my BBT likes to play mind games with me.  For the last 3 days my temperature has been up.  Why??  What does my body gain from torturing me.

Now of course things like alcohol can raise my BBT.... and I may have had a glass of wine last night... but just one!  But that doesn't account for the torture of the last three days.

Has anyone else ever experienced this?  Can it be a delay in ovulation?  If so I'm not sure we timed the baby dance right.  So did we waste our last precious month??!!

Why some two week waits are shorter than others

Years ago I was moving back to Canada from the United States and I contracted a storage facility over the phone to rent a 5 x 10 storage locker.  On moving day I pulled my U-haul truck up to the front door with all of my possessions inside and i started unloading.  I took one look at the storage room and I knew there was a problem.  There was no way this space was a 5 x 10.  My stuff wasn't going to fit.  We paced it out and the room ended up being a 4 x 8.  "Listen lady", the manager told me "Some 5 x 10's are bigger than others".  I refrained from asking him if he was using his penis as the measuring device.... but just barely.

This is when I first learned that standard measurements are not always that standard.  My period has also learned this lesson.

When I first went to see my doctor about going to a fertility clinic she asked me if we were "trying" for a baby.  I told her yes, we weren't using birth control.  That is the day that I learned that trying was something completely different.  And we introduced things like the basal body temperature (BBT) and the ovulation prediction kits (OPK) into our marriage and instructions from my doctor that it should be "military style"... which isn't a new position, it was her code for timed, on demand sex.  She suggested this for 3 months.... if nothing stuck she would refer me to the fertility clinic.

I've since told my doctor that I've had worse prescriptions.  And we try to make sure it is fun and flirty and not any of the "just shut up, i don't even want to talk to you right now, but we need to have sex because it's ovulation time" sort of sex that I've heard of from other people I know.

Military style though has made one thing very clear to me.  My two week wait is shorter than others.  It seems to go from 9 - 10 days.  Which is on the very cusp of having a luteal phase defect according the The Google.  See the Luteal Phase is the time in your cycle where you have progesterone coursing through your body and it allows the fertilized egg to implant in your lining.  It is normally 10 - 14 days, though most common is 14 days.  Anything shorter than 10 days is considered to be a defect which can prevent the implantation of the egg.  This was a bit of a revelation for me, and something I never would have found out without all of the joys of sticking a thermometer in my mouth before kissing my husband in the mornings.

The Google of course had suggestions.  Apparently "some people" report a lengthening of the luteal phase with vitamin B6.  I'm always somewhat suspicious of anything that says "some people", but since there doesn't seem to be any toxicity i can find associated with vitamin B6 I am trying it for the first time on this cycle.  We will see if it makes a difference. 

I am of course hoping that this apparent Luteal phase defect is the cause of our infertility.  The cure seems to be straight forward... throw a little progesterone on and you can fix anything.  Of course the testing required to make that diagnosis official is probably awful.  It seems to involve biopsies and needles stuck through places I don't want needles to go. 

I don't know how I feel about herbal medicines.  I am trained as a scientist.  I want to see results and studies done with proper controls... but I also can't help but think... "well, what if it is that
easy, just take a few vitamins..."

Especially since I don't think there is any chance of being pregnant this month. 

I guess the chicken comes first...

Basal Body Temperature:  36.27

In the old riddle "which comes first the chicken or the egg" you know if your BBT doesn't rise there is no egg.  Therefore, the chicken comes first.

I had harboured these secret unrealistic hopes and wishes that somehow we would squeak one in.  That I would go meet our reproductive endocrinologist and she would order blood work that would reveal their services were not necessary because we were already pregnant.  That will not happen.

So, in a bid for silver linings I am happy that we will not have a baby born too close to Christmas, because that always sucks.. plus we were sort of thinking of doing Christmas in Florida this year and waking up to sunshine instead of snow.
 

Yay!! Pee-on-a-stick day is here already

My husband and I had a conversation the other day in which i told him that peeing on a stick seems like something little boys should be doing, not grown women.  He swears he NEVER went through a pee on the stick phase though.

It's about that time of the month, when the juices start flowing and i have to start worrying about timing the baby dance in such a way that a baby might actually dance.  I have to say though that i have actually given up hope that this will happen, but, for the sake of the scientist in me, i feel it is important to collect as much data as possible before we meet our RE in 13 days.

I happen to be very fortunate and I live withing a 15 minute drive of my workplace... but, this tends to lead me to do very stupid things, like last night when i was convinced that I could "hold it" until i got home so i could pee on a stick.  I forgot, as i made this decision, that the road between my office and my home also includes a walk into the parking lot of at least 10 minutes, and then the road itself is very bumpy... and it is freaking cold in Canada this time of year... so this all leads to me doing the pee-pee dance like a toddler.

I learned a lovely word: micturation.  I love it.  It's the point where you are going to pee your pants.  Isn't science great that there is even a word for this??!!  See:

[From Latin micturre, to want to urinate, desiderative of meiere, to urinate; see meigh- in Indo-European roots.]

So, i was there, trying to a test, and trying to find a cup... i didn't think I was going to make it!

Does anyone else have trouble with the actual peeing on the stick part?  I find that i get so concerned about trying to do it right that i pee really hard, and sometimes miss the stick... my body isn't built to aim.  That's why i think boys should be the ones peeing on sticks, not me.

The test was negative.  Guess tonight is pee on a stick night too... i just have to try to time it better so i don't have to do the pee pee dance.

A two week wait I never expected!

OMG!  I have a sneaking suspicion that we are the luckiest couple ever to have to go to a fertility clinic.  I had expected that it was going to take us months to get in.  I had even anticipated that it would be at least June because I try not to set myself up for disappointment. I have already calculated exactly when we would have a monitoring cycle, and when we would have our first treatment and when we could either get our first BFN or the BFP that we want to bad.  It was like August.

 But no we have an appointment in only two weeks!  Crazy. 

I am overwhelmed and shocked.  That's so soon!

You would think that any woman who has tried to get pregnant would find the two week wait to be a breeze.  I find after a year of trying I have a routine for the tww.  I know which days to start feeling my boobs to see if they are swelling, i know which days to expect the cramps... i know exactly which days I can stop feeling hopeful...

This is a two week wait i have no idea how to handle. 

Semen Analysis day has arrived!

I don't think people who need fertility clinics are supposed to live in the suburbs.  See, suburbs are where you go when your family has outgrown your chic city flat and you want a back garden for your wee ones to run around in while mummy sips ceasars on the back deck.

We live in the suburbs.  This was especially irritating today when my husband had to present himself at the fertility clinic for his 7:30... errr... test.  And because it was his first visit he had to be at the hospital front desk by 7:00 to be registered and get a hospital card.  That's an hour from our house.  We are not morning people.

We were talking about his test last night.  I didn't know what to say... do I wish him luck?  Tell him to have fun?  It all seems a bit odd when he's about to make love to a plastic cup.

I can't help but be curious about the set up.  In my mind it should be red brocade like some den of inequity from Victorian England.  I expect stripper poles and video tapes (yup... i don't expect a dvd player for some reason), and probably even some curtain you can pull back for a peep show.   I basically think the man's side of the fertility clinic should share a wall with a strip club.  It might help to keep them interested.

Instead, it is reportedly a basic hospital exam room with some magazines spread on the doctor's desk.  My husband elected to bring his own visual aids... he downloaded a movie into his smart phone last night so that he wouldn't have to flip through the dog eared copies... although i find myself curious as to how old the magazines are.  Do they buy new ones every month?  Or have the same copies been there for decades.  And  why did he have to be there so early?  Is it really just a regular doctor's office from 9-5 and whichever doctor emptied the coffee pot without making fresh coffee yesterday is punished by having his or her office assigned to the early morning fertility men? 

I find myself sort of hoping that they will find our fertility issues are just because of my husband's previously too tight underpants.

Missed periods and opportunities

I never know what to say.

We've only been married for 9 months, but we're old... I am 39, my husband 44 and this fact is not lost on any of our friends.  And so the comments come up, a lot.

And the funniest part is no one ever questions the if... they question the when.

Let me start with Saturday... we were at a party with some old and cherished friends of my husband's.  They all have kids... some one, some three, some through adoption or ivf or some through what comes naturally.  But they all have them.  And they all can apparently hear my biological clock.

I am drawn to kids.  I love the things they say, or how the brother and sister gang up to keep me trapped in our modified version of Mouse Trap.  I love how they will hop into my husbands lap and confess that her parents met each other before they met her, and when would we meet our kids?  And i actually love the one little boy who argues with me and tells me that I am a mom. Because i completely feel like I am.

The kids are too precious to me, each one of them funny and charming, and sometimes spoiled and difficult, but they are perfect.  You can see why their parents love them so much.  And this natural inclination in me, to listen to children as they talk, and play with them sitting on the floor in the midst of a pot luck where i was required to read name tags before addressing the veritable strangers who greet me as a best friend merely as an extension of the man I married, this is what leads them all to say "when we have kids".

"You are so natural, so maternal" says our host as she admonishes us to hurry up and get on with it.  See, the thing is... i'm a bit shy.  I can be dirty and raunchy and funny.  But this journey is so incredibly personal and so incredibly painful that I can't talk about it yet with my family, or friends, so far it is my husband and any hapless wanderers to this blog page.

I am fairly certain that this is why i have the blog.  Because i feel like i am able to confess my secrets, the way you might confess to a stranger on a plane who you will never see again that you cheated on your high school boyfriend.  It is cathartic and it prepares me for the question of "when" from the people in my life.

The problem is that for us it isn't a when.

On my 39th birthday i had my period start about a week early.  And then after 24 hours of a very minor period it stopped.  And I knew that we had finally got the best birthday present ever.  Our baby.  A pregnancy test on cycle day 27 revealed i was pregnant.

Two weeks later I wasn't.

It was devastating.  There's no other words.  The pain was unbearable, not just physically but my heart was wrenched from my body with the loss of that pregnancy.  And i knew then why you wait until you are 13 weeks to share the news.  Because the pain is so great that you carry that secret with you deeply inside what is left of your heart.

Our baby should have been born in May.  Which always leads me to think about where i should be right now in our pregnancy.  We should be fighting over names and picking out furniture for the nursery.  Instead I am peeing on ovulation prediction sticks again.

And the hardest thing is I never know how to answer the questions.  Do people want to know about my phantom baby that still lives in my memories?  Do they want to know the pain of each month realizing that the two week wait was for nothing.  Do I smile and laugh and pretend it doesn't matter and then collapse in tears in my husbands arms as soon as we get to our car?  Do people want to really know that we are "trying" and all the inherent unromantic it-doesn't-matter-if-you-are-tired-tonight-you-have-to precision of it all?

Or do people still think that the stork brings babies... and we just haven't bothered to call and order ours yet?

Man Testing and New Clothing Trends.

My god that was fast.  It feels fast.  Really fast.  My husband called and left a message on Friday as we ate breakfast for his testing appointment.  By lunch time we knew that he was going to be visiting the clinic for his first test on Wednesday.  Yup this wednesday.  It seems super fast given how long i thought everything was going to take. 

I mean this isn't the BIG appointment.  Although we should know sometime this week when the BIG appointment is going to be.  They called last week to get my husbands health information and said they would be calling back this week with the BIG appointment.

But this Wednesday my husband goes for his solo appointment... which means that as of 7:30 this morning we are under a no contact ordinance.  I feel like I'm back in high school or something, or early dating days... which of course sort of makes you want something more, the forbidden fruit.  But, nope... not allowed. 

My husband has also been wearing his fancy new underpants all weekend.. and I have to say that he is not loving the experience.  Right now he is trying to get used to the fact that they ride up so much... And if they ride up aren't they defeating the purpose?

He loves me though that man.. he loves me and the idea of starting a family with me so much that is willing to keep trying out the fancy new underpants.  But I can promise you that he is hoping to hear back really soon from the fertility clinic that his boys are such fast swimmers that they really should be encased in his old style of underpants just to slow them down enough that they don't hurt me in the process of trying to conceive. 

My husband does fit all of the hallmarks of men who are going to have motility issues... he sits all day, he wears the tight-whites, he is not the greatest of exercisers... am i wrong to make him switch preemptively?  Should i be more patient and just wait to find out?