The Saga of Becoming Fruitful

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Happy New Year!

It has been a busy, busy December. I am looking forward to a new year…
Meanwhile, apologies to you gals for not keeping you updated. Here are what has happened (aka alibis):

- Decorated our house, by myself for the first time
- Put together our annual letter and sent it out (probably to about 100 of them, mostly to the US but also to 7 other countries)
Canada, Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, India, Germany, Malaysia,
- Prepared for Christmas party at home (I have now successfully cooked turkey successfully twice!)
- Bought and prepared gifts for the immediate family.
- Partied/Dined from the 21st to the 24th
- Visited my sister and the rest of the family in Canada
- Surprise, surprise… Had our 1-day work-up in CCRM

Yes, after a 1-day work-up in CCRM, we are now in the Denver International Airport waiting for our return flight. I will write more about it in the next posts

And Yes…

I’m back, finally. Took me longer than I expected but just in time for ICLW.

Glad to be back, though!

Talk to all of you soon…

Missing in Action

Too many things to do, too little time…

Didn’t do too well in this month’s ICLW since I suddenly had to squeeze in 2 funerals - 1 locally and 1 in California 2 weekends ago.  Then I had various errands and doctors appointments last week. Then off we flew to NYC for a vacation with my FIL, MIL and SIL2.

Will be back home on Sunday so I will do my best to make up

The good news is that my in-laws are enjoying this East Coast vacation - seeing relatives they have not seen for a long time and touring the key spots of New York, Baltimore and Washington DC - despite the cold weather.

I planned to meet up with Mel (aka Lollipop Goldstein, Stirrup Queen) here in DC too but I was not able to coordinate that well.

But oh well, you gotta make the best of every minute.

Carpe Diem!

Where is Wisdom Found?

DH and I are currently leading the Experiencing God study with a small group composed of MIL, FIL, BIL, SIL1, SIL2 and a couple friend, F1 and F2. In one of our previous lessons, we learned that God could speak through the church, so we “coveted” their prayers so they may be able to guide us based on what the Lord may impress in their hearts.

So 2 weeks ago, DH and I decided to ask them to specifically pray with us as we make decision regarding IVF although we know that they were already praying for us to have a baby.

DH was the one who spoke about it. He gave an overview of the what we are faced with. Their reactions were not what I expected.

MIL asked rhetorically why we had to go through IVF . SIL1 echoed a statement from our study “What I believe about God will determine what I do.” . Reading those statements now looks like they are harmless. However, what I perceived in their voice tones and body language were lacking grace. What I perceived was - we are not trusting God.

BIL and F1 had more open stances. BIL said that maybe in the future, IVF will be treated like the treatment of vaccines - initially, there were many, many questions. Now, it is a common practice void of any no moral and ethical questions. F1 only suggested that we might want to consult with a bioethicist so we can have any of our questions clarified.

I felt that with the little overview we gave them, we were immediately judged. So I had to interject and say that the reason why we are sharing this is to request for their prayers since as a church, the Lord deals with each one of us. I added that we are not asking for their approval and permission.

I have to say I was disappointed with what I saw in their reactions - specially the ladies.

Someone watching the discourse might think that I am overreacting to their reactions. DH did say he could understand their reactions since they did not know a lot about IVF and perhaps were operating under many misconceptions.

Which is exactly why I was disappointed in their reaction. Had they been in my position, I would be more graceful in inquiring.

The Lord pulled me aside though and later gave me this verse: “Pride only breeds quarrel, but wisdom is found in those who take advice.”

I realized I was being prideful because I had researched this IVF topic extensively and here they are just getting less than 20 sentences in description and they are able to make a conclusion about it and about us in less than a few minutes. I thought that was being arrogant and judgmental. And of course, my pride was hurt!

Nevertheless, we did ask for their prayers in the hopes that the Lord speak through them as well on this IVF thing that we have been praying for some time. So I, we ought to be humble and ready as well to receive what they get from the Lord.

SIGH….

Long Weekend

Long weekends are good because there is more time to relax. And more time do to more too!

In between doing the much-needed and much-ignored exercise, more time in front of the computer and getting together with friends and family, we had lots of time to just get lazy just like these 2:

Anyway, we canceled our appointment with DrH last Thursday. I’ve got lots of questions but we are not ready to talk to her yet. So our new schedule is on 9/23. There goes “every month counts”.

I’ve been thinking a lot though on different things:
- IVF
- Acupuncture
- Snowflakes Embryo Adoption

I will be looking for more information on these topics and am sure I will need to put them into writing in order to process my thoughts. I will share what I will theoretically learn so that anyone who has real life experience could chime in.

I’m an Iron Commenter!

When ICLW August started on the 21st Thursday, I was not sure of targetting to be an Iron Commenter because there was so much happening at the same time- out of town in the weekend, meet-up and church meeting, catching up on trainings, group commitments, etc.

When the 25th Monday came, I find myself catching up on all the commenting. Inspiration striked and I realized I wanted to know:
- if I had what it takes to be an Iron Commenter, and
- what it will take to be an Iron Commenter

So, I settled in my mind to make it a goal to be an Iron Commenter this month. Later when I mentioned it some of my friends, they actually discouraged me as I will be spreading myself thin instead of going deeper with fewer blogs. I totally understand what they were saying, but I had already made a decision.

Here are what I discovered::

- Some blogs made me cry, some made me laugh, some made me pray, some educated me, some confused me and some were easy. What a great bunch of people!

- Themes and colors do matter. Aside from attracting us, the reader-commenters, it is important so as not to cause us headahes. Frankly, there were a couple that were difficult to read and that may have caused my headache…aside from being in front of the PC for more than 8 hrs and the pressure of aiming for Iron Commenter!

- I spent less than 5 minutes with blogs (and their authors) which I have commented on before because I have read their background and previous posts before. That helped.

It takes me about 15-20 minutes to know the person behind the blog so I can comment in a meaningful way. All in all, I probably spent 24 hrs commenting! About 3 hours of commenting per day. About half-week worth of a fulltime worker! Wow, it is tough, very time-consuming. But very well worth it, plenty of good reads!!! (Now, if I can just find them again…because I was in a hurry to finish all the commenting before the deadline, I didn’t bookmark them.)

Anyhow, I think I could still be more efficient and faster than that. If I could go down to 10 minutes/blog, that would be 6 blogs per hour to comment or 20 hrs to be an Iron Commenter for a typical month of 120 bloggers participating. Still a lot of time!

(Alicia - 2 time Iron Commenter, how do you do it???)

Oh BTW, did I tell you that I was doing commenting on The Secret is in the Sauce and Blog Around the World, too? Aaaarrggh! I was thinking “what did I get myself into?” On Thursday, I was only at the 50 mark, so I spent the whole of Thurday on the rest (~75) of the blogs and finished JIT!!!

So for this month, I am proclaiming: (even if Mel has not put up names for the August ICLW round)

Now that I have attained that goal and know what it takes, I think that will be the last time of aiming for Iron Commenter. I can say “been there, done that“! Next time, I’ll go back to my “deeper with fewer” approach to commenting!

One last thing… TIP!

If you are like me and want to track the posts that you made a comment on to see if there are responses to your post, try cocomment.com. Technically, you can use your Google reader to subscribe to comments on a particular post but that is at least 2 clicks. With cocomment.com, the tracking is automatically embedded in your commenting - no additional clicks.

Also, having a separate list of all your comments outside Google Reader helps keep the Google Reader less busy and less intimidating! Having them in a sidebar is helpful too to quickly see which blogs you have commented on already.

Go try it for yourself and see if it helps you manage your comments. Let me know!

Meanwhile, have a great, long weekend ahead. And see you around! In fact, do come back and visit me again even outside of ICLW!

Infertility Statistics - 1 in 6 couples

The ladies in our newly planted church had the first Ladies’ Night Out. We carpooled and I was on a car with 4 other ladies. It was interesting that we represented the latter 20+ years of the age and fertility spectrum:
50+ - 3 adult/college-age children
46yo - 2 high school children
40+yo - 17, 12, 10yo children
38 yo - 3yo twins
40yo - 0 (Yes, this is me.)

Recently, I’ve been catching myself seeing crowds, groups and friends from the statistical viewpoint of the of 1 in 6 couples being infertile. The above is the most recent.

I have thought through other “sample populations” I am/was a part of:
- my friends way back from high school…1/7
- my friends back in Boise…1/30 (with 4/30 having miscarriage and short-term IF and all have moved on to motherhood)
- my church friends in Boise…1/6
- my church friends in Austin…?
Why am I consistently the “1″ in these different groups, I complain. But why do I expect differently since I have filled the “quota”? Am just glad though that most of them have been sensitive of our infertility.

Have you looked at the world from this standpoint also? Or is it just me?

My Feelings About IVF

In-Vitro Fertilization - I never thought we’d get this far.

I knew IVF was a possibility for us even we started TTC’in in 2004. Of course, I placed it in the backburner because there were still many protocols “below” (less invasive, less costly) that we could try before we needed it. By that time that we need it, I thought it would be straightforward to move forward with it since we would have been prepared by the previous protocols.

I’m finding now that DrH has recommended IVF as our next step, that it is not as easy for me to move forward with it. When K from the clinic told me that, I was downtrodden. We were sort of hoping, it would be another IUI round. I think I was in shock that I could not drill more questions any harder - as if my mind went blank. Blind-sided.

Perhaps because at first we thought we are going to have a child naturally (don’t we all?). Nope!
Then ok, maybe with clomid. Nope again!
Then, ok, maybe this time with injectables and IUI…

And we were really hopeful on the first IUI last month because:

• Now, my ovarian cysts are gone, gone, gone
• IUI will be more “precise” than doing it naturally.
• We have conceived naturally in the past

But Nope! Negative! Denied one more time.

Although, we have not decided on what the next steps are for us. I was more ready to give IUI another round because of:

• 2 reasons above (cysts are gone and we have conceived in the past)
• SA was low on the first day IUI (when I think the egg had the most chances of being fertilized)
• My research showed that IVF at my age was about 11-25% vs the 20-25% that DrH mentioned for IUI (of course, she mentioned the usual disclaimer “it depends upon the egg quality”).
• Much less cost than IVF

So there I was not knowing what to think, not knowing what to do next. I just knew that in about an hour, I had an appointment with the ladies from the church for a dinner at a nice restaurant.

What I Don’t Like About IVF
I was rebelling against the thought of IVF. I was marinating, stewing, boiling even… So much money for something that is not going to guarantee success! So much money for something that does not have a more significant chance for success! Hmpph! So I thought…

I was thinking already that we only have a budget for 1 IVF. What if it fails?

Then we will be eating up our Emergency Fund. What if the 2nd IVF fails?

Then we will be tapping into our retirement and investment money. What if a 3rd IVF fails?

Assuming we even have the emotional fortitude to go through 3 IVF cycles, I am thinking that at that point, we should stop.

Researching the Stats AGAIN
It’s amazing how after sulking, pouring out and surrendering to the Lord all my concerns, issues, questions, pleas - He gives peace and clarity.

I was prompted to research the IUI stats again and guess what? I saw what I was blind to see earlier. The limited self-published IUI data from a couple of clinics were 6-12% (for a 35 yo woman).

It was NOT 20-25%. Somehow that number which DrH mentioned during the IUI cycle stuck in my mind. So even if I was reading the same reports last Wednesday, the other numbers of 6-12% were not registering. This is a real case of “I was blind, but now I see”.

Conclusion: IVF is about 2x more successful than IUI.

So this all boils down to my conjectured reasons and money.

All that Anxiety for Naught….
I did all the research, all the math, all the fist shaking. And all I needed was a clear and peaceful mind that comes only from the Lord. He showed me once again that “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his of life?” is so very true. It’s a lesson that He’s constantly teaching me specially on this saga of becoming fruitful, this infertility journey.

So, what is the worst case scenario? If we don’t have a child of our own blood by the 3rd IVF, then we would have $45K less (which could have been used for “better” use), be another year older and be potentially a lot more pounds heavier.

I look at this now and it does not look too bad, actually.

Ask me again tomorrow.

Ready for Follistim Cycle #2?

My cyst monitoring ultrasound turned out to be my baseline ultrasound for the next Follistim cycle. The last 2 follicles on my right ovary that were >20mm are gone. (Yes!) So I should be ready for Clomid, said Dr Hansard…

Wait a minute… We’ve tried Clomid and that did not work. We’re not going back to Clomid, are we?

Dr Hansard checks my charts and realizes her faux pas. She says she must be hungry already. Perhaps since it was noon. So, yes, we were ready for Follistim and my instructions are 75, 75, 75 IU in the next 3 days.

Well, not exactly the next 3 days because if I start Thursday, I need to go in on Sunday for ultrasound and estradiol monitoring. That means additional surcharge for coming on a weekend, which (of course), I said no to. Instead, I start Friday and go in on Monday. I guess it is okay to start Follistim on CD5 then…(I thought I needed to start it on CD3). (I should mention that I have a great assumption in here and in the last blog - that CD1 was 7/7/2008.)

Dr Hansard also said that she would be happy to see 3-5 follicles mature in this Follistim cycle #2. Oh, I guess this next one is good news… Dr Hansard said that during the previous Follistim cycle #1, she did not expect a lot of my follicles to be stimulated considering my age. I jested that my eggs must all this pent-up potential (masked by my previous dermoid cysts and chaotic hormone levels) that they are all so excited to grow. Good girls!

I wonder though if this suggests that I still have significant ovarian reserves and that my egg quality is still good??? I should ask that question on my next visit.

Meanwhile, stay tuned for the next few days on the saga of Follistim cycle #2! Have a great weekend!

COST: $180 (Follicular Ultrasound)

Happy 4th of July!

God bless America!

Enjoy the fireworks!

Be safe…