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.

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.

how do I tell them?

A few months back my in-laws hit my last nerve with their constant comments that we needed to be pregnant... or that I was an irresponsible mom-to-be because I was drinking while pregnant.... as I had recently miscarried I had no ability to deal with their poorly timed barbs.  I cried.  They started to apologize..

On Friday night my aunt-in-law told me about someone she knew who had lots of miscarriages and then had a baby at 42 after taking baby aspirin and progesterone...  how do I get the message through to them that I am not comfortable talking to them about this and they are not allowed to bring it up with me...

Anyone else struggling with nosy family?  

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.

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. 

DAMN YOU NETFLIX!

For some reason my netflix viewing has become corrupted by my constant thoughts about making babies, infertility and ivf.  So far this week I have watched Jennifer Lopez and her transvaginal wand appointment in "The Backup Plan", Heather Graham deliver a board presentation through her labour in "Baby on Board" (ok, technically this was an accidental pregnancy and that like... never happens, at least not for me) and Tina Fey and her hilarious T-shaped uterus in "Baby Mama".

I am not sure if these movies are making me feel better about the appointment or worse. But every single movie has a happy ending.  Jennifer Lopez gets impregnated on her very first IUI, and Amy Pohler ends up carrying her own baby and Tina Fey's T-shaped uterus somehow manages to support life. 

I also am not sure that it is the best source for my ivf advice - at least not where the statistics are concerned.

What's even worse is since I get these suggestions like "based on your viewing of violent TV (Dexter and Walking Dead) shows we recommend..." or based on your viewing of quirky TV (Bones and Early Edition) shows we recommend...."  Now I am getting messages that say "Based on your complete obsession with shows portraying IVF and pregnancy we recommend that you watch"... or words to that effect.

There are the documentaries "Babies", "Pregnant in America" and "The Business of being Born" which I might have to watch next.  Then again, that might be looking too far ahead.  I have a tendency to day dream about crossing the finish line and I don't even have my shoes on yet.

There's a made for TV movie on the Dionne Quintuplets... for any non-Canadians this is a family that had 5 babies in the 1930's.  A heartbreaking story of what being the world's first reality show family was really like.  

It does have suggestions for me that includes "The Babymakers", which i had never heard of but with a plot like "Distressed by his failure to impregnate his wife, a devoted married man hires an oddball group of thieves to steal his long-ago sperm bank donations" how could i lose?

Ovulation Station

Ok, so that magical mystical day is here again.  I got a smiley face on my pee stick. My husband told me that until we started trying for a baby he had no idea there was a test that would determine if he was going to get lucky on a given day.  My temperature will go up on Tuesday, signaling the release of progesterone that accompanies the mystical egg.  It also signals our very last chance for a "natural" pregnancy.

I can't help it, I am sure that by the end of the two-week wait I will be doing the surreptitious boob check to see if they are sore, i will be glancing at my nipples to see they are any darker.  I will be doing the toilet paper check, to see if by any chance there is any mystical and mythical implantation bleeding.  I will be getting my hopes up... and i don't want to because I've done this dance.  It always ends in tears.

The good news is we shouldn't have long to wait after our fertility clinic appointment until our first day one.  Then we can finally start the next long journey

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.

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? 

The Career-First Myth

I have a small addiction.  I don't really know where it came from, but one day, out of the blue, i developed an addiction for the British Tabloids.  There is something so inherently snarky and British about them I am drawn in.  The tales of the American reality stars seem somehow more lurid and engrossing and yet, because they are read in the fake British accent in my head, somehow more proper and palatable too.  I've always been an anglophile.  From the Enid Blyton Books to the British comedies ("the picture of the fallen madona with the big boobies!") these were my people.

But the one thing that I keep seeing over and over again as I sift through my news feeds are contributing to the Career-First myth.  This seems to be coming up a lot because the National Health System (lovingly called the NHS) has recently changed the conditions for fertility treatments.  A woman, who used to be cut off at 40 is now allowed to receive a single free round of fertility treatments until the age of 42.  Many people are appalled, why should tax payers foot the bill for people who were selfish and put their careers first!  Women who preferred nights on the town with the bad boy instead of settling down.

Even worse there are the articles written by women who have undergone fertility treatments successfully at an older age and how now admonish the rest of us not to make their mistakes.  There was the woman who told me that she was too selfish to have a child at the age of 43.  (Read the story here) The idea is that once we hit a certain age we are no longer able to make the sacrifices necessary for motherhood.  But my reading of this story is that THIS woman was so selfish at the age of 20, and 30 and remains so at 43.  Does that mean that we all are?

I never felt like I put my career first.  In fact, much to my husbands chagrin I would be more than happy to hang up my hat and spend the days cooing to our infant in her crib.  I hate the idea of spending 40 hours a week trapped in an office and paying someone to look after my child with less love and care than I could.

Women are in this incredibly tough place.  If we get pregnant as teenagers we are condemned to a life where we may not finish high school, or university.  If we get pregnant in our 20's then we often find it hard to make use of our degrees as they come fresh off the press, plus in this economy it is no longer feasible for many graduates to stop at an undergraduate degree.  So we move on to graduate school.

Older mothers are better in a lot of ways.  We have fewer accidents with our children, they end up in the ER less often.  They have better language skills.  They have a better start.  All kinds of good stuff.  That's not to take anything away from younger moms... It is just that in the defense of my breed against the British Tabloids i need to point out that we aren't all bad.

I am what they call "well-educated" because i have completed several degrees.  I have received bullshit and more shit and then piled it higher and deeper.  I will use my skills to help my child develop.    But believe me:  I NEVER put my career first.

I just met the right man late in life.  This shouldn't be a condemnation. He is the right one for me.  I am the right one for him.  We both want children.

People shouldn't mistake the fact that we are oddly shaped puzzle pieces that didn't fit with anyone else as a sign that our lives were ruled by the need to become CEO's and own third home.

 

Brand new fancy underpants!

I think I did a bad thing.  My poor darling husband received a gift yesterday.  On my way home from work I made a bit of a detour and purchased him some fancy new underpants.  See, my husband... well... I am about to out him as a tighty-whitey man.  At least, he was until yesterday.

This morning he is wearing his brand new fancy underpants - boxers.  For anyone familiar with the whole process of assisted fertility they know that one reason for problems in achieving conception can be sperm motility.  There.  I said it.  And sperm motility can be reduced by the dreaded tighty-whitey.  This is because the underpants keep the scrotum closer to the body and increases the temperature.  A higher temperature means lower motility. 

As I mentioned my poor darling husband hasn't had his testing done yet.  But, I'm aware that if he does have a problem with mobility then it will take about 3 months of wearing the much looser fitting garments to get his swimmers back up to par with the cooler nether-region.  Now, let me do the math.  We are told it will be about 2 months until we get our fertility clinic referral.  Imagine if there is a problem with his swimmers.... then we have to wait 3 months after that to increase the motility.   that means 5 months from now at least which puts me past 40 which makes me feel even twitchier.

This is where my being crafty makes my husband suffer.  I reasoned with him that if we switch now, by the time we find out he has a problem he will be pretty much ready to make another donation and see if the problem has resolved itself.  Then I kissed him... a lot.

I'm hoping the kisses will make it better for him as he tries to keep his new vestments pulled down.  I have promised that if the tests show that if there isn't a motility problem then he can switch back.  We'll even bring a pair of his beloved underwear to the doctor's appointment so he can change in the bathroom before we go home.

"Not to worry" he said as he kissed me gently.  "I might find I like it better."

The requisition form is here... and it is funny.

See, it's things like last night that make me feel like I am only about 25.  It certainly isn't the look at the mirror, it is the far more frequent fits of giggles that occur inside my head at ridiculous juvenile things.  I am pretty sure other 39 year old's aren't supposed to act like this.  The requisition form came for my husbands tests, and instead of being mature and being able to act like an adult the 13 year old inside of me poked at the form and laughed.

First of all,  my husband will not be allowed to take an afternoon off work.  Nope.  The clinic is open from 7:15 until 8:30 am.  So not only will he have to go to work after, in what every woman knows is a ridiculous drowsy time for a man, but he will have to get up extra early to make it to the clinic.  Something he is not going to be happy about. 

And he certainly can't do the deed at home and bring the sample in.  We live too far away.  You have to get the sample in to the lab within 30 minutes.  With the traffic in this city that isn't going to happen.  But the clinic does offer standard advice to men who are close enough.  I am sure there are many who feel awkward about sitting in a waiting room, knowing what is going on behind those cubicle doors.  And it can't help a guy to know that when they are called to go into the cubicle that every man in the waiting room will know what they are going to do.

See, motility of sperm is lost at 4C.  And in fertility testing the motility is one of the three things they look at: motility, viability and morphology.  So, in the winter time if you feel uncomfortable uh... not being the master of your domain in public you can't just go around carrying your sperm at arm's length when you bring it in.  Nope.  You gotta stick it in your arm pit.  This is what made me fall to the floor laughing.  Imagine getting stopped by cops and frisked and them discovering a vial strapped to your arm pit.  I think it is a good thing we live too far away from the clinic to make this viable... I would never be able to face my coworkers knowing my husband was fighting his way through downtown traffic with sperm in his pit. 

(Ok, it isn't just your arm pit that is suggested... you can also put it in a pocket... but the armpit thing... hilarious right??)

The clinic also does not answer the phone.  The instructions are very clear.  Leave one message.  We will call you back.  And they aren't open Fridays.  At least not for specimen collection.  Only Mondays through Thursdays.  I asked my husband to remember to call.  I tried to do it nicely so as not to nag.  And then suggested he might actually just do it from home so he doesn't have to leave a message while at his workplace saying he is requiring sperm motility testing. 

I confess this last part was not so much for his benefit as for my own assurance that he would actually do it.  So he has called.... now we wait for the call back, which might not happen until next week. 

Not to worry... totally not obsessed with moving this thing forward.. nope...

The first phone call.

Yay!  Something happened!  We got the "First Phone Call".  I feel like finally it is a step forward...

It isn't the call from our fertility clinic.  That phone call I am led to believe will be at least 2 months away.  (No problem... i am known for being patient... by those who have never met me anyway.)  Nope, this is the phone call for my husband.  He has to go in for some "testing".  Anyone else on that journey knows what that means.

I know that this can't be an easy step for a guy.  He must be filled with the same anxiety that I am... that he is the reason that we aren't "up the duff" yet.  Can his boys (and girls) swim?  Time will tell.  He will have to take time off work to do the sort of thing that is generally frowned on in a public building.  Of course i think he might be looking forward to that a little too much.

He tells me that he thinks it is too clinical, that he doesn't feel anxious about it and he doesn't think i should go to the office for the test. I mean may be that's a weird thing to suggest?  Does a guy want his wife outside the door while he's leafing through magazines?  It might make him think about living with his mom as a teenager.  And that might stop anyone from... errr... producing a sample.

Even this teeny-tiny step isn't straight forward.  My doctor's office needs him to get a hospital card from the hospital they are affiliated with before they can send out the requisition so that he can make a call to book an appointment to have his sperm tested.  Easy.

I have decided that the hurdles they make you jump through in the process of getting pregnant are designed to test your patients and see if you are indeed capable of parenting a teenager.

Fortunately,  we are 1/2 way there.  He has the card, or at least he once did, so he is in the system.  The paperwork is in the mail.  Yay.

Hurdle 1 down.... 1,857,983 more to go.