hello all! just had my VERY first IUI ever this morning and feeling good vibes :). we did it at the chicago women's health center and i was completely blown away by their gentleness, the way she explained everything, the way she reassured us at every turn, the seeing of the swimmers under the microscope (**), and the options she gave us (do i want to see my cervix in a mirror? does DW want to push the plunger? etc). i cannot recommend them more!
which brings me to my one question. i was supposed to get an IUI, but apparently, because of my cervix being not quite cooperative, the cannula (is that how you spell that?) could only get about 75% of the way through it into the entrance to the uterus. i'm probably not using the right words for the parts, but you know what i mean? sarah (our health worker) tried with a few different speculums, with lubricant and without, a million different angles, and even without a speculum at the end, but she said she just couldn't get it all the way in there. she said quite clearly "this is NOT a failed insemination" and i wasn't really thinking that anyway, as there are still a whole lot of little guys up in there (like, millions!) but clearly it didn't get exactly where it was supposed to. sarah said this part you just can't really control--that you can visualize the cervix, you can get it in the entrance, but then threading it through, like, the 'bottleneck' all the way into the actual uterus, you can't control. you just have to keep trying and get it as far as you can.
has anyone else had an experience like this? i'm starting to think now maybe it was because i was still at the very first part of my fertile period and my cervix wasn't quite all the way open, and we're doing another one tomorrow so we'll see then if it's any easier, but i wouldn't mind being reassured now also, in case anyone has any good related stories :)
can i officially say i'm in the 2ww now? :)
**seeing the little spermies was kind of crazy for many reasons. first, this really is a WEIRD thing, that there are millions of those little guys INSIDE me right now?? not exactly a common experience for me :). but the coolest thing was just that they looked exactly the way you expect them to from seeing them on t.v. from seeing them in the beginning montages of "look who's talking" and "for keeps". that's so weird! in general i don't trust anything i see on t.v. or movies :), and in this case it's even cooler because it's so very, very personal to me. hi you guys!!
Saturday, July 30, 2011
this is from yesterday*
*which i specify to distinguish it from the other ramblings i'm about to post, about today :)
hey y'all, again :) i'm the one that posted last week freaking out about a (possibly) early ovulation when my swimmers hadn't yet made it to my hometown. well that actually happened to me AGAIN a few days later (another positive OPK at what seemed like too early a CDday). i think now that both of those were flukes (or caused by my body stressing out) but not actual ovulation because they weren't accompanied by fertile CM or followed by a rise in temperature.
the upshot being is that my swimmers arrived on wednesday and now we are waiting to use them, which was projected to happen this weekend. and even though all my stress and confusion and worry, my body appears to be coming through brilliantly--today i FINALLY got egg white CM and am so happy :). and when i say "FINALLY" i mean it seems like i was waiting forever, but in actual fact this is about exactly the same day i get egg white every month, so even though my brain is flipping out, my ovaries are not :). i'm so proud of it!, and actually did a happy 'egg-white' dance here in the office bathroom, and walked out with a grin beaming off my face. i should have just trusted my body to begin with!
anyways just wanted to share my contentment. now let's see if this works....
hey y'all, again :) i'm the one that posted last week freaking out about a (possibly) early ovulation when my swimmers hadn't yet made it to my hometown. well that actually happened to me AGAIN a few days later (another positive OPK at what seemed like too early a CDday). i think now that both of those were flukes (or caused by my body stressing out) but not actual ovulation because they weren't accompanied by fertile CM or followed by a rise in temperature.
the upshot being is that my swimmers arrived on wednesday and now we are waiting to use them, which was projected to happen this weekend. and even though all my stress and confusion and worry, my body appears to be coming through brilliantly--today i FINALLY got egg white CM and am so happy :). and when i say "FINALLY" i mean it seems like i was waiting forever, but in actual fact this is about exactly the same day i get egg white every month, so even though my brain is flipping out, my ovaries are not :). i'm so proud of it!, and actually did a happy 'egg-white' dance here in the office bathroom, and walked out with a grin beaming off my face. i should have just trusted my body to begin with!
anyways just wanted to share my contentment. now let's see if this works....
Thursday, July 28, 2011
waiting before waiting.
yeah...pretty much in limbo here. the little guys have arrived at the clinic, which is an exciting thing :), but i'm a bit up in the air about my O day this month. as i mentioned in my last post...i usually O around CD15 or 16. this month i've already had TWO positive OPKs, on CD9 and CD12. neither one was accompanied by egg-white CM or followed by a spike in temperature the next day. so i wonder...is this batch of OPKs defective? i hope not and think probably not....rather, is my body going absolutely crazy because a)it's the first month we're really trying and b)unrelated stresses affecting me? i have a hunch it's both.
we have had a ridiculous amount of unexpected stress this week. well, i guess first of all the crazy and oppressive heat and humidity of the past few weeks doesn't count as stress, but some other TTC-ing ladies have told me it could have an effect. then, starting out what should have been Fun-Anticipating-IUI-week, on monday we had a stressful day because our downstairs neighbor came upstairs at like 8:30 in the morning, pounded on the door, and then yelled at esther and demanded she go remove something from the shared compost container (we had thrown in chicken bones and apparently she doesn't like that). we've moved past that issue now, but only really because the rest of the week got even MORE stressful in comparison. esther started a new job (at the same place where i work on the weekends) and the first day was so dangerous (doing surveys with ex-prisoners in exceedingly sketchy neighborhoods) that we spent a whole day concerned for her safety, and then decided that we would both resign from the project. so stress upon stress upon stress.
i think we're moving through these situations to feel better, but i've still got a few remaining stresses to dwell on: like if this will affect my employment with them at all, and the fact that we were going to use esther's income to TTC. so if she doesn't find another job we won't be able to try again (at least not in the forseeable future). talk about getting all worked up and then not really being able to give it the old college try! this month is our only shot, for now....and so of course it becomes the month in which i have the craziest, most un-predictable cycle.
everyone on the TTC boards said this would happen in try #1...they were SO right :).
we have had a ridiculous amount of unexpected stress this week. well, i guess first of all the crazy and oppressive heat and humidity of the past few weeks doesn't count as stress, but some other TTC-ing ladies have told me it could have an effect. then, starting out what should have been Fun-Anticipating-IUI-week, on monday we had a stressful day because our downstairs neighbor came upstairs at like 8:30 in the morning, pounded on the door, and then yelled at esther and demanded she go remove something from the shared compost container (we had thrown in chicken bones and apparently she doesn't like that). we've moved past that issue now, but only really because the rest of the week got even MORE stressful in comparison. esther started a new job (at the same place where i work on the weekends) and the first day was so dangerous (doing surveys with ex-prisoners in exceedingly sketchy neighborhoods) that we spent a whole day concerned for her safety, and then decided that we would both resign from the project. so stress upon stress upon stress.
i think we're moving through these situations to feel better, but i've still got a few remaining stresses to dwell on: like if this will affect my employment with them at all, and the fact that we were going to use esther's income to TTC. so if she doesn't find another job we won't be able to try again (at least not in the forseeable future). talk about getting all worked up and then not really being able to give it the old college try! this month is our only shot, for now....and so of course it becomes the month in which i have the craziest, most un-predictable cycle.
everyone on the TTC boards said this would happen in try #1...they were SO right :).
Saturday, July 23, 2011
um. what???
this month i was so excited because i placed my very first order ever for swimmers...to arrive around CD13, as my clinic recommended, because i always O around CD16 (and never earlier than CD15). what this means in practical terms is that the little guys haven't even LEFT spokane yet on their journey to me in chicago, and aren't supposed to even arrive until weds. which means of course, today, saturday, i get a positive OPK. (they're smileys, so it's not even possible that i'm interpreting it wrong).
ok. so how is this possible? we're on CD NINE here! like i said, i have never O'd before CD15 and it usually happens CD16 or 17. so what's the deal?
this happened once before, many moons ago, i think the first month i was starting to learn how to chart. at the time i had no idea about my cycle, so when i got a positive at CD11, i figured that was it and stopped testing. but then, like a week later (maybe CD16 or 17?) i suddenly had VERY fertile CM, so when i got home from work that day i tested again and boom, another positive.
somebody tell me this is normal, and that it's possible to have 2 LH surges in a month (or malfunctioning OPKs??)...and while you're at it, tell me that i still have a chance to IUI this month???
ok. so how is this possible? we're on CD NINE here! like i said, i have never O'd before CD15 and it usually happens CD16 or 17. so what's the deal?
this happened once before, many moons ago, i think the first month i was starting to learn how to chart. at the time i had no idea about my cycle, so when i got a positive at CD11, i figured that was it and stopped testing. but then, like a week later (maybe CD16 or 17?) i suddenly had VERY fertile CM, so when i got home from work that day i tested again and boom, another positive.
somebody tell me this is normal, and that it's possible to have 2 LH surges in a month (or malfunctioning OPKs??)...and while you're at it, tell me that i still have a chance to IUI this month???
Friday, July 15, 2011
here we go!!!
crazyness!
today i am running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to order sperm. yes, that’s right people, we're taking that final step over and actually starting TTC!!! last time i wrote the big news was that we had our appt for our consult at the CWHC. we went wednesday night, totally loved the groove of the place (hippy feminists....yum...), and got the OK to go ahead at my next ovulation. there were some things i wasn’t excited about–number one, they charge a $100 fee if you "take a month off" so my plan for doing it every other month suddenly was going to cost us. and secondly, they had this rule in place when they started out that since both the inseminating community (is that a phrase??) in chicago and the donor pool from midwest sperm bank (the one most of their clients use) is so small, they did not allow more than one pregnancy from any particular donor. they don’t have this rule anymore since both groups of people have grown exponentially and geographically, but it’s still in place for the people who conceived during that time–and one of them used my argentine :( (apparently he DID come back!).
so these were slightly annoying issues, but i think we’ve gotten past both of them. i ran the numbers last night and discovered we can afford to do three months in a row if we take a couple months off after that to recover, save for taxes, etc., so we won’t need to skip every other month. this is a good thing so as to not throw away $100 on the "not-this-time" fee, but also coincides with their general practice to change things up (i.e. rethink things, pick another donor, whatever) if no pregnancy after 3 tries. so we’re going to go july, august, september, and then stop for the rest of the year (and october, november and december ought to be enough of a break to save up for taxes AND to pay for the new mac computer we got a couple of weeks ago :), plus there is no fee if you take off 3 months or more. actually we were going to go august, skip september (because I was going to be o’ing RIGHT during our labor day trip to pittsburgh), then try again october and november, but...just this morning i got my period! about 3 days early!! so that means everything moves up a bit and it’s completely likely that i’ll O in late august before we leave for labor day weekend. whoo!
and regarding donors. we love Mr. 290 over at northwest, but we really didn’t love anyone else quite as much (and of course, he’s limited supply...why am I not surprised!!!). But, emily (the health worker we consulted with at CWHC) said we really should have at least 3 choices, and of course she’s right. i was really resistent to this mostly based on racial and ethnic characteristics–i don’t have any desire to bring another lilly white baby into the world, and that seems like all there is in the Donor Universe. no offense, i love many white babies (jack and charlotte, holla!) and i’m sure that i’m going to be passionately in love with whatever baby comes out of me, but that’s just my gut feeling right now. i want to have a baby who maybe sort of could look related to esther too, and while she isn’t particularly dark-skinned, she is certainly more so than i am.
so to this end, we were looking for south american donors, or in the absense of that, native american (the country where esther is from in south america is completely and totally mixed as to european background with the indigenous peoples from the area, so she feels a great connection to native american ethnicities as well). in all the banks we looked at (and i looked at ALL of them out of morbid curiosity, even though i knew the only ones we could afford were midwest or northwest) we found only ONE south american--the argentine i can’t use :(-- and one fully native american person (Mr. 290!!). northwest has other donors who are PARTIALLY native american, but they’re also partially irish, dutch, german, polish and croatian, and have blond hair and blue eyes. no gracias! (man, i am going to regret this post if i have a blond kid and they read this someday. honey, i totally love you the way you are! mommies just have weird thought patterns sometimes :)).
so anyway, that’s why we’re fixated on 290. but since we have to have at least 3 in our list, we were going to go through nw’s list again and try to squeeze someone out of it. i think we were planning on doing that this weekend...so of course my period comes today! and as we were instructed to call and place our order on CD1, we need to have our donors picked out NOW. so this morning while i ate breakfast and got dressed, esther scoured the webpage again. we FINALLY found someone listed as "hispanic", which is less than ideal because that is awfully vague, but he at least is darker-skinned and had black hair, so he went on the list. but then we were at an impasse. it seemed like literally every other single donor on there was either german or norwegian! as i rushed around so as to not miss my bus, we fretted and stewed... i remembered one other one i had seen, who had some native american (along with like, german, polish, estonian, irish, who knows what else) but also had medium complexion and dark hair, so maybe him....until esther looked at his details and saw that he has allergies to pollen, grass, etc. i mean, obviously that is not the end of the world and totally possibly would not even get passed down to the bubbala, but it has the potential to be awfully annoying for the entire life-span of this new little person. so maybe not. and finally as i was about to leave, esther called out "here’s one that’s german, polish and korean" and i honestly thought she was joking. we’d already decided to try and avoid german, and i think i just assumed asian backgrounds were not being considered because of the starkly obvious way the baby would not look like either one of us, but she was serious! i came over to the bed to see her face as she confirmed this. Mr. 599 had medium complexion and dark hair, which would be more like her (and green eyes, which is like neither of us but still awesome :), studied music history in school (again, not like us, but cool :), and if you consider the korean to be only a third of his background (whatever that means) and mix it with me, in the end he’ll just maybe look ‘slightly exotic’ (my words :) which is absolutely totally fine. and then on the way to work i read his answers to the essays questions and actually liked them A LOT. those things are more often than not disappointing–either the person can’t spell worth crap, or they say things that just kind of make you cringe inwardly ("your baby will be beautiful because my genes are awesome") (come to think of it, i think the argentine actually said that!). but this one, while, yes, pointing out the good things about himself, was also well-written, thoughtful, and reminded me a bit of my writing style. so now i actually really like him a lot :)
this morning i’ve been super nervous about these phone calls i had to sneak to make while my boss drifts around the office (to CWHC to let them know AF is here and see if we’re good to go, to NW to give them credit card info, etc). i talked to CWHC and all is ok (yay!!!); cheryl told me that with NW i actually have to place the order myself but can have it sent to their office, and that i should have it sent to them by CD13 (which is july 27). but then when i called NW they said everything looked fine, but they needed to send me a final confirmation email that will explain how to order and he would send it right over...and of course it’s 2 hours later now and nothing! i’m so nervous....i told him what date i needed it by and he said that was absolutely no problem, so if for some reason i can’t order until tomorrow (or monday?) there likely would be no problem. but i want to do it now! i want to be able to text esther (as she sits at home working on the final draft of a 20-page paper due today :) and say "i just bought spermies!!!!" or something along those lines. checking my email again....nothing! i think i'm going to give them another call.
*****
score! i called them and they shot the email over right away. so now i'm good to go, i started to place the order...and my first question is, how many vials are there exactly of 290? turns out there are FOUR. FOUR!!! not even enough to try for 3 months, much less to save some for a future sibling. i knew he was limited supply, but i was hoping he'd be like 8 or 10. four is almost non-existent. and speaking of limited supply, i either forgot or didn't notice this on their princing info*, but when they are limited supply, they are more expensive! i can't remember if there is a reason behind that, but the bottom line is that he costs $350 per vial rather than $275 (well, $249, but all their prices go up to $275 on august 1). so is he worth it? i think so, it's only $150 per month to get our absolute first choice...but here's hoping his little guys can do it in the next two months. and where are all the native american donors, people?? step up!
anyway i sent an email to esther with these details to see what she thinks before i call them back to finalize the order....just got her reply, she agrees with me! so here we go, at least the first try will be with Mr. 290, keeping my fingers crossed that no one else will buy him before the end of august just in case i need him again....
JUST ORDERED MY FIRST IUI EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! now nothing at all is going to happen until i O in about 2 weeks.....que locura!!!!!
*by the way, i can't check the NW website while i'm here at work because-get read for this-it's BLOCKED by some program they have installed on the computers because it's "Forbidden Topic-Sex Education." that is maybe the weirdest thing i ever heard. never mind that i can look at the websites of lots of other sperm banks. never mind that i also can't see xkcd because it's "Forbidden Topic-Adult/Mature Themes" (what???). weird bosses, weird job, weird internet :)
today i am running around like a chicken with its head cut off trying to order sperm. yes, that’s right people, we're taking that final step over and actually starting TTC!!! last time i wrote the big news was that we had our appt for our consult at the CWHC. we went wednesday night, totally loved the groove of the place (hippy feminists....yum...), and got the OK to go ahead at my next ovulation. there were some things i wasn’t excited about–number one, they charge a $100 fee if you "take a month off" so my plan for doing it every other month suddenly was going to cost us. and secondly, they had this rule in place when they started out that since both the inseminating community (is that a phrase??) in chicago and the donor pool from midwest sperm bank (the one most of their clients use) is so small, they did not allow more than one pregnancy from any particular donor. they don’t have this rule anymore since both groups of people have grown exponentially and geographically, but it’s still in place for the people who conceived during that time–and one of them used my argentine :( (apparently he DID come back!).
so these were slightly annoying issues, but i think we’ve gotten past both of them. i ran the numbers last night and discovered we can afford to do three months in a row if we take a couple months off after that to recover, save for taxes, etc., so we won’t need to skip every other month. this is a good thing so as to not throw away $100 on the "not-this-time" fee, but also coincides with their general practice to change things up (i.e. rethink things, pick another donor, whatever) if no pregnancy after 3 tries. so we’re going to go july, august, september, and then stop for the rest of the year (and october, november and december ought to be enough of a break to save up for taxes AND to pay for the new mac computer we got a couple of weeks ago :), plus there is no fee if you take off 3 months or more. actually we were going to go august, skip september (because I was going to be o’ing RIGHT during our labor day trip to pittsburgh), then try again october and november, but...just this morning i got my period! about 3 days early!! so that means everything moves up a bit and it’s completely likely that i’ll O in late august before we leave for labor day weekend. whoo!
and regarding donors. we love Mr. 290 over at northwest, but we really didn’t love anyone else quite as much (and of course, he’s limited supply...why am I not surprised!!!). But, emily (the health worker we consulted with at CWHC) said we really should have at least 3 choices, and of course she’s right. i was really resistent to this mostly based on racial and ethnic characteristics–i don’t have any desire to bring another lilly white baby into the world, and that seems like all there is in the Donor Universe. no offense, i love many white babies (jack and charlotte, holla!) and i’m sure that i’m going to be passionately in love with whatever baby comes out of me, but that’s just my gut feeling right now. i want to have a baby who maybe sort of could look related to esther too, and while she isn’t particularly dark-skinned, she is certainly more so than i am.
so to this end, we were looking for south american donors, or in the absense of that, native american (the country where esther is from in south america is completely and totally mixed as to european background with the indigenous peoples from the area, so she feels a great connection to native american ethnicities as well). in all the banks we looked at (and i looked at ALL of them out of morbid curiosity, even though i knew the only ones we could afford were midwest or northwest) we found only ONE south american--the argentine i can’t use :(-- and one fully native american person (Mr. 290!!). northwest has other donors who are PARTIALLY native american, but they’re also partially irish, dutch, german, polish and croatian, and have blond hair and blue eyes. no gracias! (man, i am going to regret this post if i have a blond kid and they read this someday. honey, i totally love you the way you are! mommies just have weird thought patterns sometimes :)).
so anyway, that’s why we’re fixated on 290. but since we have to have at least 3 in our list, we were going to go through nw’s list again and try to squeeze someone out of it. i think we were planning on doing that this weekend...so of course my period comes today! and as we were instructed to call and place our order on CD1, we need to have our donors picked out NOW. so this morning while i ate breakfast and got dressed, esther scoured the webpage again. we FINALLY found someone listed as "hispanic", which is less than ideal because that is awfully vague, but he at least is darker-skinned and had black hair, so he went on the list. but then we were at an impasse. it seemed like literally every other single donor on there was either german or norwegian! as i rushed around so as to not miss my bus, we fretted and stewed... i remembered one other one i had seen, who had some native american (along with like, german, polish, estonian, irish, who knows what else) but also had medium complexion and dark hair, so maybe him....until esther looked at his details and saw that he has allergies to pollen, grass, etc. i mean, obviously that is not the end of the world and totally possibly would not even get passed down to the bubbala, but it has the potential to be awfully annoying for the entire life-span of this new little person. so maybe not. and finally as i was about to leave, esther called out "here’s one that’s german, polish and korean" and i honestly thought she was joking. we’d already decided to try and avoid german, and i think i just assumed asian backgrounds were not being considered because of the starkly obvious way the baby would not look like either one of us, but she was serious! i came over to the bed to see her face as she confirmed this. Mr. 599 had medium complexion and dark hair, which would be more like her (and green eyes, which is like neither of us but still awesome :), studied music history in school (again, not like us, but cool :), and if you consider the korean to be only a third of his background (whatever that means) and mix it with me, in the end he’ll just maybe look ‘slightly exotic’ (my words :) which is absolutely totally fine. and then on the way to work i read his answers to the essays questions and actually liked them A LOT. those things are more often than not disappointing–either the person can’t spell worth crap, or they say things that just kind of make you cringe inwardly ("your baby will be beautiful because my genes are awesome") (come to think of it, i think the argentine actually said that!). but this one, while, yes, pointing out the good things about himself, was also well-written, thoughtful, and reminded me a bit of my writing style. so now i actually really like him a lot :)
this morning i’ve been super nervous about these phone calls i had to sneak to make while my boss drifts around the office (to CWHC to let them know AF is here and see if we’re good to go, to NW to give them credit card info, etc). i talked to CWHC and all is ok (yay!!!); cheryl told me that with NW i actually have to place the order myself but can have it sent to their office, and that i should have it sent to them by CD13 (which is july 27). but then when i called NW they said everything looked fine, but they needed to send me a final confirmation email that will explain how to order and he would send it right over...and of course it’s 2 hours later now and nothing! i’m so nervous....i told him what date i needed it by and he said that was absolutely no problem, so if for some reason i can’t order until tomorrow (or monday?) there likely would be no problem. but i want to do it now! i want to be able to text esther (as she sits at home working on the final draft of a 20-page paper due today :) and say "i just bought spermies!!!!" or something along those lines. checking my email again....nothing! i think i'm going to give them another call.
*****
score! i called them and they shot the email over right away. so now i'm good to go, i started to place the order...and my first question is, how many vials are there exactly of 290? turns out there are FOUR. FOUR!!! not even enough to try for 3 months, much less to save some for a future sibling. i knew he was limited supply, but i was hoping he'd be like 8 or 10. four is almost non-existent. and speaking of limited supply, i either forgot or didn't notice this on their princing info*, but when they are limited supply, they are more expensive! i can't remember if there is a reason behind that, but the bottom line is that he costs $350 per vial rather than $275 (well, $249, but all their prices go up to $275 on august 1). so is he worth it? i think so, it's only $150 per month to get our absolute first choice...but here's hoping his little guys can do it in the next two months. and where are all the native american donors, people?? step up!
anyway i sent an email to esther with these details to see what she thinks before i call them back to finalize the order....just got her reply, she agrees with me! so here we go, at least the first try will be with Mr. 290, keeping my fingers crossed that no one else will buy him before the end of august just in case i need him again....
JUST ORDERED MY FIRST IUI EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! now nothing at all is going to happen until i O in about 2 weeks.....que locura!!!!!
*by the way, i can't check the NW website while i'm here at work because-get read for this-it's BLOCKED by some program they have installed on the computers because it's "Forbidden Topic-Sex Education." that is maybe the weirdest thing i ever heard. never mind that i can look at the websites of lots of other sperm banks. never mind that i also can't see xkcd because it's "Forbidden Topic-Adult/Mature Themes" (what???). weird bosses, weird job, weird internet :)
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
happy summer!
we were at target, maybe two months ago now, and i could not resist buying this little bib that says "i am the star of my mommy's blog." so there you have it--our first baby-related purchase. which i would never tell anyone IRL about because it's putting the cart AWFULLY forward of the horse. it feels important, though. like it's for real-like.
so the plan was to chart for a month or two after coming back from paraguay before starting to TTC, and i think we're basically still sticking to that plan. the last month since we've been back has been pretty chaotic anyway, with us winning a contest to be one of the first 6 couples to get civil-unioned in illinois, and probably ovulating during that week but i broke my opk while we were at the hotel (we got a honeymoon suite free for the night!) and also was WAY too completely exhausted that whole week to take my BBT well, and then having friends in town that whole week, and then starting the diet again, etc ad infinitem.
also i was privately obsessing about babying so much and not talking about it at loud at all, and i realized a few weeks ago that this method of planning was putting a bit of stress on me. for some reason, i subconsciously thought esther didn't want to be bothered all the time with my thoughts, feelings, plans etc about it, so i didn't tell her, but then i realized i was getting resentful 'doing it myself.' which praise be to God, we eventually talked about and in fact she DOESN'T want me keeping it all to myself/mind me blabbing about it all the time. now i feel totally reassured that she's just as excited about it as i am, and i say more random baby things out loud (like, driving past the lycee francais de chicago-"ooh, how cool would it be if our kids went there??").
we made an appointment for our first consultation at the chicago women's health center, july 13, and theoretically after that we could start inseminating! the next time i will O after that will be the first week of august, so this could be happening really, really soon....it all depends on if they think things look good after looking at my charts, and also on the financial flow. and it's exceedingly likely that even if we do start in august, it will take many months to get preggers, so i don't want to get my hopes all up. but we are planning a trip to pittsburgh for labor day and how COMPLETELY insane would it be if i was pregnant already by that time?? i would, of course, not breathe a word about it to my family at that point, and think i would wait until second trimester at least. just saying.
we're planning on trying every other month so we can save up a little on the in-between months (mostly so i can save up to pay my taxes next year--annoying!), so this could happen august, october, december, etc. we're leaning towards using northwest cryo bank, cause even though midwest opened up again, their prices are now on the same level as NW's and they don't have the argentine donor anymore (buuu!!...). so i hope we find an awesome donor at NW and can afford the inseminations and spermies and chart well in the coming months and fingers crossed for everything!!! praying, too :)
Thursday, April 28, 2011
oops....have i forgotten to blog for 4 years??
hello there world! not that anyone is reading this, but i've just spent the day reading blogs of other ttc or pregnant ladies (my boss didn't come today, nothing to do, just a normal day at the office...) so i'm feeling inspired to write again. i figure at some point someone will want to read about the details of our whole journey, even if it's just me during bed rest (god forbid!) or when our child graduates high school, or whatever.
so i think the last time i wrote we were in buenos aires and scouting out fertility options there. to make an exceedingly long story ridiculously short, we ended up staying in buenos aires until march 2010, when esther got her permanent residency visa to the u.s. through the diversity lottery system (major miracle!!) and we moved to chicago. we've been here a year now and love it!
we didn't make major headway towards Baby during our time in buenos aires, except right at the end i decided to get some testing done before i left my job there (the translation agency from hell) and lost my health insurance. so, we visited two fertility clinics for consultations (fecunditas in CF was awesome, kind, welcoming and helpful; the one in la plata not so much) and i got some blood work, an ultrasound, and a histerosalpingogram done. (that last one is apparently usually only done when there are fertility issues, which i didn't realize at the time, but it was covered and not TOO horrible, so no harm done). i forgot to go back and get the results of the blood work, but the other two tests seemed to give good results. it was shrotly after this that we made the move Up North.
so we got here and started trying to settle in to living in the states. i found work, esther started studying and teaching spanish lessons on the side, we began a search for a church (still ongoing), etc. as the year started to pull to a close for some reason we both started thinking about babies again, independently of each other. when we realized this one night, we decided to take some time to think about it again individually, and then have a good, thick conversation about it after the new year. i realize this was all me, wanting to make plans and set dates and all that jazz, but esther goodnaturedly went along with it.
i did bundles of research and got books from the library and scoured websites and quizzed a friend at work who had a baby a few months back. i had a good list of questions which i ran by acquaintances such as "why do human beings want to reproduce?" and came to some satisfying conclusions myself (thanks in large part to the ladies of lj's ttc_lesbians group). after esther and i talked in january, mostly about the practicals like 1.) who would carry, 2.) how exactly we would inseminate, 3.) health insurance coverage, and 4.) how in the blazes we would be able to afford a baby on essentially my income [the answers to these questions are: 1.) me; 2.) probably just ICI or IUI with anonymous donor sperm even though we would have preferred to combine her eggs with my uterus or vice versa but it's far too prohibitively expensive; 3.) my bluecross blueshield through my current employer is actually a pretty awesome plan covering all pre-natal and delivery costs except for one $20 co-pay at the first OB visit, and $100 per day in the hospital, though literally nothing after the baby is born so i'm counting on IL All Kids for that; and 4.) i have no idea! every so often i'll suddenly think to myself, we can't afford kids! i mean, we can, but i'll have to work 3 jobs and i'll never see the baby! but then i respond reassuringly: 'so the heck what?? i'm having this thing!' and i think we're sticking with that for now].
so then we 'got started'! starting in january, i started taking a pre-natal with dinner every night, charting my BBT (basal body temp, or waking temp), using OPKs every month (ovluation predictor kits) and (TMI alert) charting my cevical fluid. [for those of you wondering why the heck so much prep, the answer is that when you're going about this with frozen, then thawed, donor sperm, you have a much smaller window of fertility each month and in order to make the best use of that time, you have to get to know your body well enough to confidently know which day (if not hour) you are ovluating. it's also been a really fun process to learn everything my uterus and hormones do each month--i had no idea! i'm very proud of them and absolutely glow with joy each month (around cycle day 16ish) when i get my fertile cervical fluid!]
i also did a crap load of research regarding what hospital/medical providers we might want to use, and through a serendipitous viewing of "the business of being born" (thanks for the suggestion, netflix!) heavily started leaning towards water birth or at the very least NOT any birth that would have me tied down to the bed by IV lines, and thus found a particular hospital in our area that met these criteria and through them, a specific midwife group. we've been there once to have the preliminary conversation (and also have a pap smear and a test for...um....some childhood disease that i couldn't remember if i'd had or not? clearly it didn't leave a lasting impression on me, but in any case, i am immune to it, yay.). they were just as nice and wonderful as i expected them to be (all their reviews on yelp said things like "i live 40 minutes away driving and it was totally worth it to make that commute every week, or more often, in my last weeks of pregnancy") and totally answered all our questions. the particular midwife i spoke to didn't have tons of experience with the insemination process (she usually just seems folks after they get pregnant :) but promised to look into the questions i had about that and see if she could find answers, including whether or not they could do insemination right there. turns out they can, which she informed me of a couple days later during the phone call to tell me my pap was fine, but she also suggested another place i had also recently heard about, which was specifically founded to provide fertility services to LGBTQ folk.
bringing us to the actual act of Getting Pregnant. don't get excited, we're not there yet! but we're on our way. the books all recommended i chart for 3 months, which i did, and now we're going on vacation to paraguay in may, so i'm not going to inseminate right this second. we're going to wait until we come back (i'll likely be ovulating right around our return date) and then chart for one more full cycle to make sure things are still going on about the same timeline. which means trying to insemination around the end of july. that will be our Cycle #1!
in the meantime, once we get back from paraguay, i'd like to make an appointment to go visit that LGBTQ fertility clinic and set that in motion. also, we have to decide where we're going to get our little swimmers from. there was a very affordable option right here in chicago, but it actually shut down amidst much confusion and drama about a month or two ago. so this has changed the budget quite a bit--the next least expensive option is only about $50 more per vial, but it's in seattle, adding on about $150 in shipping each time we inseminate. so we may not be able to afford to do this every month, but we're just going with the philosophy of trying whenever we can, then waiting while we save up again. it's quite usual for it to take many tries (although it's suggested to seek professional advice if you've tried 6 cycles with no result) so i definitely have the mindset that we're in for the long haul. still really, really exciting :)
meanwhile a billion of my friends are pregnant (or does it just feel like that many?) so i want to avoid getting pregnant out of jealousy, but thankfully we went through this whole 'thinking it out' process before this sudden wave. i wish them all well :), and am trying to learn from them....
p.s. we have the absolute most perfect names picked out already! they will most definitely be a secret, however, as i can't have anyone stealing them like rachel does to monica in friends.
so i think the last time i wrote we were in buenos aires and scouting out fertility options there. to make an exceedingly long story ridiculously short, we ended up staying in buenos aires until march 2010, when esther got her permanent residency visa to the u.s. through the diversity lottery system (major miracle!!) and we moved to chicago. we've been here a year now and love it!
we didn't make major headway towards Baby during our time in buenos aires, except right at the end i decided to get some testing done before i left my job there (the translation agency from hell) and lost my health insurance. so, we visited two fertility clinics for consultations (fecunditas in CF was awesome, kind, welcoming and helpful; the one in la plata not so much) and i got some blood work, an ultrasound, and a histerosalpingogram done. (that last one is apparently usually only done when there are fertility issues, which i didn't realize at the time, but it was covered and not TOO horrible, so no harm done). i forgot to go back and get the results of the blood work, but the other two tests seemed to give good results. it was shrotly after this that we made the move Up North.
so we got here and started trying to settle in to living in the states. i found work, esther started studying and teaching spanish lessons on the side, we began a search for a church (still ongoing), etc. as the year started to pull to a close for some reason we both started thinking about babies again, independently of each other. when we realized this one night, we decided to take some time to think about it again individually, and then have a good, thick conversation about it after the new year. i realize this was all me, wanting to make plans and set dates and all that jazz, but esther goodnaturedly went along with it.
i did bundles of research and got books from the library and scoured websites and quizzed a friend at work who had a baby a few months back. i had a good list of questions which i ran by acquaintances such as "why do human beings want to reproduce?" and came to some satisfying conclusions myself (thanks in large part to the ladies of lj's ttc_lesbians group). after esther and i talked in january, mostly about the practicals like 1.) who would carry, 2.) how exactly we would inseminate, 3.) health insurance coverage, and 4.) how in the blazes we would be able to afford a baby on essentially my income [the answers to these questions are: 1.) me; 2.) probably just ICI or IUI with anonymous donor sperm even though we would have preferred to combine her eggs with my uterus or vice versa but it's far too prohibitively expensive; 3.) my bluecross blueshield through my current employer is actually a pretty awesome plan covering all pre-natal and delivery costs except for one $20 co-pay at the first OB visit, and $100 per day in the hospital, though literally nothing after the baby is born so i'm counting on IL All Kids for that; and 4.) i have no idea! every so often i'll suddenly think to myself, we can't afford kids! i mean, we can, but i'll have to work 3 jobs and i'll never see the baby! but then i respond reassuringly: 'so the heck what?? i'm having this thing!' and i think we're sticking with that for now].
so then we 'got started'! starting in january, i started taking a pre-natal with dinner every night, charting my BBT (basal body temp, or waking temp), using OPKs every month (ovluation predictor kits) and (TMI alert) charting my cevical fluid. [for those of you wondering why the heck so much prep, the answer is that when you're going about this with frozen, then thawed, donor sperm, you have a much smaller window of fertility each month and in order to make the best use of that time, you have to get to know your body well enough to confidently know which day (if not hour) you are ovluating. it's also been a really fun process to learn everything my uterus and hormones do each month--i had no idea! i'm very proud of them and absolutely glow with joy each month (around cycle day 16ish) when i get my fertile cervical fluid!]
i also did a crap load of research regarding what hospital/medical providers we might want to use, and through a serendipitous viewing of "the business of being born" (thanks for the suggestion, netflix!) heavily started leaning towards water birth or at the very least NOT any birth that would have me tied down to the bed by IV lines, and thus found a particular hospital in our area that met these criteria and through them, a specific midwife group. we've been there once to have the preliminary conversation (and also have a pap smear and a test for...um....some childhood disease that i couldn't remember if i'd had or not? clearly it didn't leave a lasting impression on me, but in any case, i am immune to it, yay.). they were just as nice and wonderful as i expected them to be (all their reviews on yelp said things like "i live 40 minutes away driving and it was totally worth it to make that commute every week, or more often, in my last weeks of pregnancy") and totally answered all our questions. the particular midwife i spoke to didn't have tons of experience with the insemination process (she usually just seems folks after they get pregnant :) but promised to look into the questions i had about that and see if she could find answers, including whether or not they could do insemination right there. turns out they can, which she informed me of a couple days later during the phone call to tell me my pap was fine, but she also suggested another place i had also recently heard about, which was specifically founded to provide fertility services to LGBTQ folk.
bringing us to the actual act of Getting Pregnant. don't get excited, we're not there yet! but we're on our way. the books all recommended i chart for 3 months, which i did, and now we're going on vacation to paraguay in may, so i'm not going to inseminate right this second. we're going to wait until we come back (i'll likely be ovulating right around our return date) and then chart for one more full cycle to make sure things are still going on about the same timeline. which means trying to insemination around the end of july. that will be our Cycle #1!
in the meantime, once we get back from paraguay, i'd like to make an appointment to go visit that LGBTQ fertility clinic and set that in motion. also, we have to decide where we're going to get our little swimmers from. there was a very affordable option right here in chicago, but it actually shut down amidst much confusion and drama about a month or two ago. so this has changed the budget quite a bit--the next least expensive option is only about $50 more per vial, but it's in seattle, adding on about $150 in shipping each time we inseminate. so we may not be able to afford to do this every month, but we're just going with the philosophy of trying whenever we can, then waiting while we save up again. it's quite usual for it to take many tries (although it's suggested to seek professional advice if you've tried 6 cycles with no result) so i definitely have the mindset that we're in for the long haul. still really, really exciting :)
meanwhile a billion of my friends are pregnant (or does it just feel like that many?) so i want to avoid getting pregnant out of jealousy, but thankfully we went through this whole 'thinking it out' process before this sudden wave. i wish them all well :), and am trying to learn from them....
p.s. we have the absolute most perfect names picked out already! they will most definitely be a secret, however, as i can't have anyone stealing them like rachel does to monica in friends.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
i haven't posted anything in forever! now that i have this site linked on facebook, i feel like i should!
nothing is really going on in the baby realm, other than continually thinking and praying. we are honestly held back at the moment by practical concerns (money, deciding country of citizenship, etc) and suddenly i can appreciate that even transcendental momentous supernatural things like the creation of life also interact with the daily practical. though on the other hand, i can always remember my former boss (when i was in ministry) saying in response to why he had so many darn kids (5 at the time i last spoke to them..i think the parents were 34-ish?): "you always think there's no more money, and then you stretch it a little more and see that--there is. i want to see how many kids i can feed on the amount of money i make!"
not that he was actively trying to overpopulate the planet or anything, or that i would follow his example. just another way of looking at it that seems to imply that you can choose to NOT let the daily practical things have as much power as you think they must.
we have talked about it on and off over the weeks. i think i may have gotten esther to sway just a tiny bit on the issue of names :), and i've re-considered just using one of our sets of reproductive equipment, instead of trying to combine both. both are still options, just trying to make the right decision.
it's still happening though, people. unless the Lord takes us home first :)
i have four friends who are pregnant right now! can you believe that? i pray for them daily. ah, and several more that recently gave birth. Lord help me not want kids just to be like the joneses. wouldn't that be just the most horrible thing ever? it seemed to work well for ana (ref: 1 samuel), but i'm so not wanting to be her...at least in that sense.
nothing is really going on in the baby realm, other than continually thinking and praying. we are honestly held back at the moment by practical concerns (money, deciding country of citizenship, etc) and suddenly i can appreciate that even transcendental momentous supernatural things like the creation of life also interact with the daily practical. though on the other hand, i can always remember my former boss (when i was in ministry) saying in response to why he had so many darn kids (5 at the time i last spoke to them..i think the parents were 34-ish?): "you always think there's no more money, and then you stretch it a little more and see that--there is. i want to see how many kids i can feed on the amount of money i make!"
not that he was actively trying to overpopulate the planet or anything, or that i would follow his example. just another way of looking at it that seems to imply that you can choose to NOT let the daily practical things have as much power as you think they must.
we have talked about it on and off over the weeks. i think i may have gotten esther to sway just a tiny bit on the issue of names :), and i've re-considered just using one of our sets of reproductive equipment, instead of trying to combine both. both are still options, just trying to make the right decision.
it's still happening though, people. unless the Lord takes us home first :)
i have four friends who are pregnant right now! can you believe that? i pray for them daily. ah, and several more that recently gave birth. Lord help me not want kids just to be like the joneses. wouldn't that be just the most horrible thing ever? it seemed to work well for ana (ref: 1 samuel), but i'm so not wanting to be her...at least in that sense.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
so i was reading about picking sperm donors on some other lovely blogs about ttc, and i was thinking to myself, what would the absolute ideal situation be? i know there are pros and cons to known donor versus anonymous, but i think my ideal would be a close friend, who could be a part (even a "friend" part) of the child's life. i picture us being the two moms, but the friend living in at least the same city, us going on picnics together once in a while, maybe even going to church together. the friend would not have to be a dad at all, but he would have the privilege of being a friend. isn't that lovely?
we've actually had a few friends mention their desire to be sperm donors, and i doubt that any of these friends would later try to gain custody or anything like those other horror stories. the thing is, though...i'm not super IMPRESSED by any of these people. is that horrible? i don't find them particularly handsome or intelligent or inspiring. how sad! i don't mean to say that our friends are not wonderful people! i just am not ATTRACTED to any of their qualities such that i would like to live with them as a family. which is how the heterosexual community picks its procreative mates, so why should i be any different?
i was trying to think of who i would choose out of all the people i know, who most impresses me, to be a co-parent of my child. and would you believe i could only think of women?? i swear i am not an anti-man kind of a gal...i just apparently know an awful lot of wonderful women. i'd pay for some of becky's sperm, for example, if she had any. getting some of ashlee's would mean my kid would be beautiful AND incredibly smart. michael's (yes, she is a girl) would help create an artistic, adventuresome, wondrous spirit. and on and on.
again, i know this sounds like some kind of "brave new world" pick the qualities you want in your kid kind of thing...but let's face it, that's essentially what we're doing when we decide who to flirt with! and thus, the main point of this post is--that thank goodness whosever sperm i eventually buy, half of that wonderful child will be e's.
i've found at least one person who summarily impresses me :)
we've actually had a few friends mention their desire to be sperm donors, and i doubt that any of these friends would later try to gain custody or anything like those other horror stories. the thing is, though...i'm not super IMPRESSED by any of these people. is that horrible? i don't find them particularly handsome or intelligent or inspiring. how sad! i don't mean to say that our friends are not wonderful people! i just am not ATTRACTED to any of their qualities such that i would like to live with them as a family. which is how the heterosexual community picks its procreative mates, so why should i be any different?
i was trying to think of who i would choose out of all the people i know, who most impresses me, to be a co-parent of my child. and would you believe i could only think of women?? i swear i am not an anti-man kind of a gal...i just apparently know an awful lot of wonderful women. i'd pay for some of becky's sperm, for example, if she had any. getting some of ashlee's would mean my kid would be beautiful AND incredibly smart. michael's (yes, she is a girl) would help create an artistic, adventuresome, wondrous spirit. and on and on.
again, i know this sounds like some kind of "brave new world" pick the qualities you want in your kid kind of thing...but let's face it, that's essentially what we're doing when we decide who to flirt with! and thus, the main point of this post is--that thank goodness whosever sperm i eventually buy, half of that wonderful child will be e's.
i've found at least one person who summarily impresses me :)
by the way, yes, baby making plans are still on the list. we have made it our first priority to get our own apartment, and as soon as that's crossed off, to start saving up everything extra for babying. i am pretty positive about this. the translation-sellin' business is a dog-eat-dog world, but time heals all wounds. or something. anyhow i have started to make commission, and though last month brought in a total of only $44, it's a beginning.
i think i've essentially decided in my mind which fertility clinic i like the best. i wonder if e is in agreement?
gotta run go get laundry.
i think i've essentially decided in my mind which fertility clinic i like the best. i wonder if e is in agreement?
gotta run go get laundry.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)