Yo - What's the Haps?

It's a tale as old as blogs. I've been MIA. I've even started posts offline, only to never finish them. (Ok, technically it was only one - BUT I've thought of a bunch of others.) I've lurked. Not on purpose mind you, but the feeder app on my iPhone doesn't do a great job of posting comments and so neither do I of late.

Ya, ya, ya - so what's the haps? Current status: GREAT. All scary tests have come back normal. YAY!!!!!

We are at 21 weeks and 4 days and everything is lookin' good so far.

Surro is having major stress with other family stuff, but she is holding up like a champ. She's a GD saint and all I can say is that I wish a plague on the horrible person causing her pain - except that plague would hurt other people I love, so I guess I really don't. But maybe I do because that person always hurts other people and she's sure to hurt the people I love again. Shew. Life sure is complicated.

We manged to live through our announcements. First we told family and any close friends that weren't already in the know. Ok - that's a lot, but the response was generally good. Oddly enough I didn't really get much response from my Dad's side of the family that lives here in the US (Dad died when I was 3), but got great response from the ones in Sweden. All of hubbinez's family was super-duper-uber excited. So was my mom's side of the family - but most of them already knew.

Next we made the dreaded FB post. That actually went WAAAAYYYYYYYY better than expected.

At first I posted this video:

Mostly because I love Min Pins and this cracked me up as a baby announcement. Apparently no one viewed it or "got it" but that was ok because seconds later...

.... hubbinez was so excited about making the announcement (he had been telling people all week) that he made me do a joint word post, where we hit the POST button at exactly the same time. Because we are corny like that. It went something like this:

"On Mother's day it is fitting that we make our announcement that we are expecting twins. This would not have been possible if it wasn't for another wonderful mother, my SIL <insert name here> . Unable to carry our biological children myself, and after unsuccessful tries elsewhere, she selflessly offered to be our gestational carrier. Words can not express our gratitude over this incredible gift."

Hubbinez was as giddy as a school boy.

I haven't told my work yet, but that's because there has been a snafu with converting me from contractor status to employee status. Technically I am now an employee, but everything isn't final in all the systems, so it makes me nervous. I'm going to feel like an arse when I have to tell them about taking time off - which incidentally the due date is 1 day off from my boss' new wife. I'm sure he's going to freak, but because of my last disaster with getting fired when I told them about starting a family, I want to at least be protected by law this time.

In other haps - I am doing a sleep study next week. I've always had problems with not feeling like I get enough sleep (even when I do!), so no time like the present (ie., pre-twin birth) to try and figure this stuff out. We are off to a good start. Initial blood work from PCP showed that I have a big vitamin D deficiency.

That's a big one with sleep and immune problems, which makes sense since I've been sick so many times in the last year I lost count. With Vitamin D the doctor is looking for any number above a 29. Mine was 18. :-/  Apparently all that sun block wasn't so great for me. Except the whole wrinkle thing. I'm ok with the past trade off, but had to find another option for the future. Yay for supplements! 2000 IUIs a day! At least the past year has prepped me for that.

Srsly, I have to be the only girl whose doctor tells her to go get some sun WITHOUT sun block. Ok, maybe not, but it's not something I have ever heard before. And so I went out in the sun the other day without sunblock on anything except my face for the recommended 15 minutes. Then I slathered on the sunblock. The glare from my legs are still intact!

That's it for tonight. I need to post right away, sans editing, lest it fall by the wayside. Holy crap - it's 11:30pm. Gotta go take a bath and go to bed. Night all!

Special Lady Cocktails

When I first was swept up by the internet infertility tornado, I remember reading forum posts from other hopeful women. Falling on a theme (as I often do), I obsessed over the ridiculousness of women taking all kinds of crazy pills - usually without having a doctor recommend them. OMG! DO YOU JUST TAKE ANYTHING YOU FIND ON THE INTERNET??? Some posts swore by the helpfulness while others confessed that they worried it may have hurt. Once discovered, some doctors gave full-on lectures how it was not appropriate for the poster's situation, only to find out that someone else (usually another doctor) in their clinic had told them to take it. Truthfully, I was personally affronted that such naivety and desperateness could drive women to arbitrarily take anything in an attempt to conceive.

The picture above is from MY house. That's right, Ms. Holier-than-thou is ...well, the same as everyone else.

At first it started small. My first pill was THE PILL, and I was told I would have to take it by my Indian doctor to make sure I was synced properly for my IVF treatment. Fair enough. I called my OB/GYN and promptly got a prescription. Let me mention here that I do not like taking birth control pills (bcp) as not only does it make me gain weight and experience occasional nauseousness, but sometimes I experience additional glum side effects (depending on the brand). Fine - whatever - I set my alarm on my phone to give me a daily reminder; particularly because my history of remembering to take medicine on a daily basis is pretty dismal. Especially BCP. Our local IVF doctor also advised to add a pre-natal vitamin (another item bound to make me nauseous) and I immediately relented as I ran to our local Publix.

Baby aspirin and acupuncture were added to the regime - the latter being something I normally would have scoffed at a year earlier. Doctor semi-recommend it and so I shelled out the cash. My husband gave me the big-eye, but I'm guessing he recognized my fervent look and said nothing. 100 bucks a pop for 6 weeks = not cheap. What can I say except I wanted no regrets.

IVF treatment #1 was dismal. 2 eggs retrieved, only 1 fertilized. Even that 1 took a damn long time to fertilize.

Now I am prepping for treatment #2. In typical fashion, I have been obsessively researching similar cases. Not just blog posts, but academic papers and any type of current research I can lay my grubby little eyes on. A clinic in India recommended 25mg of DHEA for 3 months. I rush to pull up the scientific documentation and realized all of the research is really based on a tiny Tel Aviv study. The study showed a significant difference in live birth rates with women who were poor responders and took 75mg of DHEA for 40 days vs women who did not. A follow-up study had additional encouraging results. Screw the 25mgs -I only had about 40 days till cycle, I was going to go full boat - 75mgs it is! [I would like to make a note here that I was not able to take the full 75mg initially because of side effects. I had to build up and even now I have minor side effects.]

Next I read how melatonin could also help woman with poor ovarian reserve and immediately I was hunting down more articles and recommended amounts. 3mgs seemed to be the magical number, but that amount knocked me on my butt. Still 1-2mg was doable and thus it was added. Combining it with the DHEA means I sleep really well, but I'm groggy as all get-out when I wake up. Heaven help me if I don't get a full 8-9 hours. Oddly enough, my friend says she takes 10mg all the time and it barely helps her sleep. What can I say? I'm a lightweight.

Did I stop there? Heck no! I was on a search that day and after reading some articles (which I can not find at the moment) regarding myo-inositol, my amazon shopping cart increased. Among other things, myo-inositol was suppose to help women with cyst issues and a giant cyst almost caused a no-go last cycle. My OB/GYN found a cyst last year and I began to wonder if some of the pain issues I had felt over the last year were cyst related. GIVE ME MYO-INOSITOL NOW!!!

There were a few other things on the list, but these 3 new items had good scientific data to back them up and they applied to women with similar (if not exact) conditions. The other pills I noticed my fellow women-at-arms were taking were either less scientifically regarded or didn't apply to me. Besides, as I mentioned before, I'm a light weight and I wanted to see how I was going to handle this new concoction.

Which brings me to last week. I'm not quite sure HOW I ended up at the Rainbow (read: hippie) Grocery store - but all of a sudden I found myself at the cashier's stand with CoQ10, some fancy fish oil supplements, and yes even some Royal Jelly that was well hidden in a jar of honey. And some awesome low-sugar dried mango. And a yummy nut mix. And Activated Charcoal that I told myself would be good to have on hand if my dogs ever get into something they shouldn't. Somehow I think my subconscious was trying for an easy excuse to get some for me. You know. Just in case.

"Just a spoon full of sugar..." (or honey) 

Book learnin'

Started reading IVF: A Patient's Guide, by Rebecca Matthews PhD. In Chapter 1 I have already found at least 1 error (possibly two)* and that is a little frustrating. Also the constant mentioning of how crappy my chances are since I am older is a bit depressing, but all in all, still like the book. I like that's it's written from a factual standpoint, which even with the depressing crap, I can appreciate. Give it to me straight doc. I'll give my full review once I am complete.


If you are similar and like data / academic reading, then run to your nearest college and see if the library will let you have access to the periodical: Fertility and Sterility. Fascinating stuff in there! If your local college library (or local library???) doesn't have it available, then I suggest buddying up with some professor types. They can usually access the articles free of charge online. Otherwise, the individual articles are pretty expensive. I think the first one I looked at was $35. FOR ONE ARTICLE!!! Fortunately I have the hook-up. :-)

 Do you have any favorite books or articles that you found helpful? How about websites. Feel free to share them in the comment section.

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*Error(s): Page 6 lists the SART data from 2008 with regards to pregnancy success rates. The rows labeled "Percentage of pregnancies with twins" and "Percentage of pregnancies with triplets or more" are inverted. I knew this instantly because I have combed over SART statistics and went back to verify after reading this. If someone did not know this, then the erroneous percentages for triplets could be QUITE shocking.
The second possible error rate is on page 9 in the sentence "...the triplet rate should be low (less than 10% and closer to 5%)...". While technically this is correct, in my observation of triplet rates, I noticed numbers that hovered more between 1-3.5%. Unless my memory is wrong OR I am completely misreading something. (Not unheard of.)