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Archive for the ‘fertility shmertility’ Category

One more Google Hit Before Bed (Updated at the Bottom)

Posted in fertility shmertility, google-rama, migraines on June 20, 2007| 12 Comments »

I'm exhausted, having been kept out way past my bedtime tonight, but I noticed a keyword search in my statcounter I didn't want to ignore…

heart surgery for treatment of migaines: For those of you who are relatively new to my blog, you probaby have no idea why this would have popped up my blog in a google search. But whoever did this keyword search should know that yes, there ARE currently three concurrent studies going on that involve heart surgery for the treatment of migraines. It seems that a large percentage of migraine sufferers have a "patent foramen ovale" which is a condition in which a small valve which normally closes at or near birth didn't close, so you've essentially got a small hole in your heart. This is generally not considered a huge deal and most people who have one never know it, but it is beginning to be associated with early stroke and with migraines. A recent couple of studies involving closing the PFO for stroke patients showed a surprising number of patients who had the lucky side effect of total or significant resolution of migraine symptoms after having the PFO closed. Thus, some new studies have been started and are currently in progress and recruiting patients.

I almost participated in one such study but was disqualified because I get too many migraines. Truth be told, I didn't try all that hard to qualify. There was a qualifying month in which I had to keep an electronic headache diary that I transmitted to the clinic every night. If during that month I had been extremely cautious about every single migraine trigger I have, and if I'd worked harder to sleep more and work less, I probably could have stayed under 14 migraines in that qualifying period, though it would have been challenging since I was just weeks post-miscarriage and in a very busy period at work. But I also knew that qualifying for and participating in the study would have meant taking a year off of the whole fertility treatment thing and I just wasn't sure I was willing to make that sacrifice, even if the payoff was the possibility of a life without migraines. Even the debilitating, life-altering migraines I get on a regular basis. It wasn't an easy decision to make, so obviously, my sub-conscious made the decision for me.

If you want to read more specifics about my experience with trying to decide what to do about the study, look at my posts from November 4-15, 2006. If you want to talk in greater detail about the studies themselves or what I know about them, please feel free to email me directly.

Edited to Add: I was just re-reading my posts about the migraine study and my decision-making process. I waffled a lot about whether to participate. It was a really hard process for me, because the bottom line was that if I'd qualified and decided to participate, that would have meant going on birth control for a year, which was a huge thing for me, shockingly enough. This post in particular, highlighted the conflict of emotion I was feeling through the process, but one line stood out above all:

And yet… I would gladly suffer migraines forever in exchange for a baby.

It's still true, you know. As much as I complain about the migraines… as insufferable as they are… I worked so hard, cried so many tears, suffered so much (and yet, not nearly as much as many of my fellow stirrup queens)… these babies are what I wanted. They are what I want. I wouldn't trade them for anything. Not even a life free of migraines. I'll take the heartburn and the sciatica and the nausea and the round ligament pain and the oxygen deprivation and the sleep deprivation and the anxiety and the contractions and the baby punching my cervix and yes, even the migraines. I'll take it all with a smile on my face when I can, because I want these babies so badly I can taste it. I love them already and I'm already terrified that I'm failing them as a parent by even thinking about the negative parts about this whole pregnancy thing.

The one thing that my children… all our children… will always know is that they were, above everything else… wanted. And THAT is what makes all this infertility bullshit worth it.

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One more Google Hit Before Bed (Updated at the Bottom)

Posted in fertility shmertility, google-rama, migraines on June 20, 2007| 5 Comments »

I'm exhausted, having been kept out way past my bedtime tonight, but I noticed a keyword search in my statcounter I didn't want to ignore…

heart surgery for treatment of migaines: For those of you who are relatively new to my blog, you probaby have no idea why this would have popped up my blog in a google search. But whoever did this keyword search should know that yes, there ARE currently three concurrent studies going on that involve heart surgery for the treatment of migraines. It seems that a large percentage of migraine sufferers have a "patent foramen ovale" which is a condition in which a small valve which normally closes at or near birth didn't close, so you've essentially got a small hole in your heart. This is generally not considered a huge deal and most people who have one never know it, but it is beginning to be associated with early stroke and with migraines. A recent couple of studies involving closing the PFO for stroke patients showed a surprising number of patients who had the lucky side effect of total or significant resolution of migraine symptoms after having the PFO closed. Thus, some new studies have been started and are currently in progress and recruiting patients.

I almost participated in one such study but was disqualified because I get too many migraines. Truth be told, I didn't try all that hard to qualify. There was a qualifying month in which I had to keep an electronic headache diary that I transmitted to the clinic every night. If during that month I had been extremely cautious about every single migraine trigger I have, and if I'd worked harder to sleep more and work less, I probably could have stayed under 14 migraines in that qualifying period, though it would have been challenging since I was just weeks post-miscarriage and in a very busy period at work. But I also knew that qualifying for and participating in the study would have meant taking a year off of the whole fertility treatment thing and I just wasn't sure I was willing to make that sacrifice, even if the payoff was the possibility of a life without migraines. Even the debilitating, life-altering migraines I get on a regular basis. It wasn't an easy decision to make, so obviously, my sub-conscious made the decision for me.

If you want to read more specifics about my experience with trying to decide what to do about the study, look at my posts from November 4-15, 2006. If you want to talk in greater detail about the studies themselves or what I know about them, please feel free to email me directly.

Edited to Add: I was just re-reading my posts about the migraine study and my decision-making process. I waffled a lot about whether to participate. It was a really hard process for me, because the bottom line was that if I'd qualified and decided to participate, that would have meant going on birth control for a year, which was a huge thing for me, shockingly enough. This post in particular, highlighted the conflict of emotion I was feeling through the process, but one line stood out above all:

And yet… I would gladly suffer migraines forever in exchange for a baby.

It's still true, you know. As much as I complain about the migraines… as insufferable as they are… I worked so hard, cried so many tears, suffered so much (and yet, not nearly as much as many of my fellow stirrup queens)… these babies are what I wanted. They are what I want. I wouldn't trade them for anything. Not even a life free of migraines. I'll take the heartburn and the sciatica and the nausea and the round ligament pain and the oxygen deprivation and the sleep deprivation and the anxiety and the contractions and the baby punching my cervix and yes, even the migraines. I'll take it all with a smile on my face when I can, because I want these babies so badly I can taste it. I love them already and I'm already terrified that I'm failing them as a parent by even thinking about the negative parts about this whole pregnancy thing.

The one thing that my children… all our children… will always know is that they were, above everything else… wanted. And THAT is what makes all this infertility bullshit worth it.

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Just a Point of Clarification

Posted in fertility shmertility on February 7, 2007| 1 Comment »

No, I most certainly did NOT want quadruplets. I have a completely irrational fear, in fact, of having triplets or quadruplets. To be honest, for a first pregnancy, I’m even adamantly against having twins, even though I’ve always wanted twins.

To repeat: I’m positively terrified of high order multiples and even twins make me wary right now. So um, yeah. I was definitely joking about losing my chance at quadruplets (because even if I’d had four mature follicles… the odds of ending up with quadruplets were infinitessimal).

I’ve actually made it clear to my RE’s office that twins are acceptable, but anything more than two is their responsibility. (JUST KIDDING ABOUT THAT ONE TOO!)

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Just a Point of Clarification

Posted in fertility shmertility on February 7, 2007| Leave a Comment »

No, I most certainly did NOT want quadruplets. I have a completely irrational fear, in fact, of having triplets or quadruplets. To be honest, for a first pregnancy, I'm even adamantly against having twins, even though I've always wanted twins.

To repeat: I'm positively terrified of high order multiples and even twins make me wary right now. So um, yeah. I was definitely joking about losing my chance at quadruplets (because even if I'd had four mature follicles… the odds of ending up with quadruplets were infinitessimal).

I've actually made it clear to my RE's office that twins are acceptable, but anything more than two is their responsibility. (JUST KIDDING ABOUT THAT ONE TOO!)

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Just a Point of Clarification

Posted in fertility shmertility on February 7, 2007| Leave a Comment »

No, I most certainly did NOT want quadruplets. I have a completely irrational fear, in fact, of having triplets or quadruplets. To be honest, for a first pregnancy, I'm even adamantly against having twins, even though I've always wanted twins.

To repeat: I'm positively terrified of high order multiples and even twins make me wary right now. So um, yeah. I was definitely joking about losing my chance at quadruplets (because even if I'd had four mature follicles… the odds of ending up with quadruplets were infinitessimal).

I've actually made it clear to my RE's office that twins are acceptable, but anything more than two is their responsibility. (JUST KIDDING ABOUT THAT ONE TOO!)

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Limited Fertility?

Posted in fertility shmertility on January 14, 2007| 5 Comments »

A friend of mine has 3 kids: a 5 year old boy (conceived naturally), and one year old twin girls (conceived via IVF). She came over yesterday under the guise of bringing me some soup (she makes amazing soups, so I never turn her down when she offers soup) to tell me that she’s expecting her (dear heavens!) fourth child in July. Conceived naturally. Complete and total “whoops, how did that happen?” baby. She, in fact, isn’t even certain of the due date, because she wasn’t paying attention to when she ovulated and besides, she’s still nursing twins, so who woulda thunk it?

She was somewhat nervous about telling me, given that she went to the same fertility clinic that I go to and she knows how hard it all can be. I told her I really, for the most part, don’t work that way. I don’t believe there is a limited amount of fertility in this world. Just because another woman gets pregnant doesn’t mean there’s one less chance for me, right?

Wow, she said. “What a great attitude, because I know when I was going through Shady Hell, every time someone told me they were expecting, I just thought to myself: ‘die, bitch, die!'” I almost fell over laughing. She’s a very religious woman. Extremely intelligent. A doctor. Very logical. Rarely emotional. It was completely out of character, but oh-so-funny!

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Limited Fertility?

Posted in fertility shmertility on January 14, 2007| 6 Comments »

A friend of mine has 3 kids: a 5 year old boy (conceived naturally), and one year old twin girls (conceived via IVF). She came over yesterday under the guise of bringing me some soup (she makes amazing soups, so I never turn her down when she offers soup) to tell me that she's expecting her (dear heavens!) fourth child in July. Conceived naturally. Complete and total "whoops, how did that happen?" baby. She, in fact, isn't even certain of the due date, because she wasn't paying attention to when she ovulated and besides, she's still nursing twins, so who woulda thunk it?

She was somewhat nervous about telling me, given that she went to the same fertility clinic that I go to and she knows how hard it all can be. I told her I really, for the most part, don't work that way. I don't believe there is a limited amount of fertility in this world. Just because another woman gets pregnant doesn't mean there's one less chance for me, right?

Wow, she said. "What a great attitude, because I know when I was going through Shady Hell, every time someone told me they were expecting, I just thought to myself: 'die, bitch, die!'" I almost fell over laughing. She's a very religious woman. Extremely intelligent. A doctor. Very logical. Rarely emotional. It was completely out of character, but oh-so-funny!

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IUI Tomorrow

Posted in fertility shmertility, IUI #5, mikveh on January 11, 2007| 2 Comments »

I rarely receive anonymous comments on my blog (for that matter, I don’t get that many comments at all, but I love the ones I do get), but I did get one today. It reads:

I’m thinking good thoughts for you. May your level-headed expectations be rewarded with the best outcome. The conflict with work has got me wondering: What actually is the statistical difference in a situation such as yours between an IUI and well-timed intercourse?

I don’t actually know the answer to this. As far as I can figure, for most problems, IUI doesn’t raise the odds very far above well-timed intercourse. I suppose in cases where there are issues with not having EWCM, the IUI makes a significant difference, since it bypasses the cervix. I know that in normal, healthy, fertile couples, with well-timed intercourse, there is about a 20% chance per cycle of successfully conceiving a child. I also know that the odds of IUI working in any given cyle are about 20% per cycle. Further, this is even true in women with no fertility issues… 20% odds per cycle, period.

So what does IUI actually get me? Well, for one thing, it guarantees the timing. There have been a number of medicated cycles that we’ve had where we wouldn’t have been able to make the timing had we been relying on “the old fashioned way”. Most notably, we almost missed out on the timing this cycle because I didn’t think I’d get to mikveh in time.** In a non-medicated cycle, I simply don’t ovulate, so that doesn’t help either. So there’s that. The guarantee of timing.

Other than that? Not a whole heck of a lot, actually. It just gives a bit of peace of mind, I suppose. I suppose this is one of the reasons I’m not terribly interested in continuing to do IUI for much longer. On the other hand, over three years of trying the old fashioned way, even with Clomid assistance, yielded no results, but 8 months of IUIs yielded a pregnancy, albeit a short-lived one. So I suppose in the long run, IUI has been good to us, comparatively speaking.

That being said, tomorrow is IUI day, and for whatever reason, I wouldn’t want to rely on getting our own timing right, and I’m just as happy that S was able to get his work schedule to accommodate. I’m actually beginning to wonder if we ought to have a, um, you know, sample cryopreserved… just in case we have another conflict, but one he can’t wriggle out of. I dunno. I mean, I suppose there’s always the chance that it will be a moot point, right? After all, it’s theoretically possible that I could get pregnant this time. Right? Stop laughing! Okay, I can’t stop laughing either, but after I peel myself off the floor, I’ll consider shooting my doctor an email to see if it would be a complete waste of time and money to have a back up plan, so to speak.

—————
**Mikveh is… well, it’s hard to explain. Jewish law mandates that a Jewish couple separate for a minimum of 12 days starting the first day of a woman’s menstrual cycle (well, the first day she sees blood, which may, or may not, correspond with the medical definition of CD1). At the conclusion of their separation, the couple does not resume relations until after the woman has immersed in a ritual bath, called a mikveh. That’s the short story. If you want the longer story, I can point you to some links.

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IUI Tomorrow

Posted in fertility shmertility, IUI #5, mikveh on January 11, 2007| 2 Comments »

I rarely receive anonymous comments on my blog (for that matter, I don't get that many comments at all, but I love the ones I do get), but I did get one today. It reads:

I'm thinking good thoughts for you. May your level-headed expectations be rewarded with the best outcome. The conflict with work has got me wondering: What actually is the statistical difference in a situation such as yours between an IUI and well-timed intercourse?

I don't actually know the answer to this. As far as I can figure, for most problems, IUI doesn't raise the odds very far above well-timed intercourse. I suppose in cases where there are issues with not having EWCM, the IUI makes a significant difference, since it bypasses the cervix. I know that in normal, healthy, fertile couples, with well-timed intercourse, there is about a 20% chance per cycle of successfully conceiving a child. I also know that the odds of IUI working in any given cyle are about 20% per cycle. Further, this is even true in women with no fertility issues… 20% odds per cycle, period.

So what does IUI actually get me? Well, for one thing, it guarantees the timing. There have been a number of medicated cycles that we've had where we wouldn't have been able to make the timing had we been relying on "the old fashioned way". Most notably, we almost missed out on the timing this cycle because I didn't think I'd get to mikveh in time.** In a non-medicated cycle, I simply don't ovulate, so that doesn't help either. So there's that. The guarantee of timing.

Other than that? Not a whole heck of a lot, actually. It just gives a bit of peace of mind, I suppose. I suppose this is one of the reasons I'm not terribly interested in continuing to do IUI for much longer. On the other hand, over three years of trying the old fashioned way, even with Clomid assistance, yielded no results, but 8 months of IUIs yielded a pregnancy, albeit a short-lived one. So I suppose in the long run, IUI has been good to us, comparatively speaking.

That being said, tomorrow is IUI day, and for whatever reason, I wouldn't want to rely on getting our own timing right, and I'm just as happy that S was able to get his work schedule to accommodate. I'm actually beginning to wonder if we ought to have a, um, you know, sample cryopreserved… just in case we have another conflict, but one he can't wriggle out of. I dunno. I mean, I suppose there's always the chance that it will be a moot point, right? After all, it's theoretically possible that I could get pregnant this time. Right? Stop laughing! Okay, I can't stop laughing either, but after I peel myself off the floor, I'll consider shooting my doctor an email to see if it would be a complete waste of time and money to have a back up plan, so to speak.

—————
**Mikveh is… well, it's hard to explain. Jewish law mandates that a Jewish couple separate for a minimum of 12 days starting the first day of a woman's menstrual cycle (well, the first day she sees blood, which may, or may not, correspond with the medical definition of CD1). At the conclusion of their separation, the couple does not resume relations until after the woman has immersed in a ritual bath, called a mikveh. That's the short story. If you want the longer story, I can point you to some links.

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get over yourself

Posted in fertility shmertility, my stupid body on December 28, 2006| Leave a Comment »

First: I decided to go ahead and keep my appointment tomorrow and continue under the delusion that yesterday was Day 1. I did eventually have enough, ahem, well, you know, going on that I think I can make a reasonable claim that yesterday had full flow, even though today it’s all gone again. Whatever. Anyway, I think the point is for some reason I feel like I need to be at CD1. It’s important to me to feel like I’ve moved on. For whatever reason, getting my period December 1 didn’t make me feel like I’d moved on from the miscarriage… it felt like one step backward, because it was too soon to deal with a new IUI cycle (my hCG had only just bottomed out and I hadn’t finished getting my infectious disease testing and all that re-done). Something just isn’t sitting right with me.

Second: I’m not quite sure what my deal is or why I can’t just get over myself like I should, but I’m really having bad days lately. And nothing is going on to make them especially bad. I just feel like I’m having a rotten day. It’s obvious I’m a bit blue… but what to do about it? I don’t feel depressed, per se, and I don’t think this is anything but a transient feeling, so I don’t see the need to go on antidepressants, but gawd I really need to get over myself.

Third: I still can’t get out of my head thoughts that we’ll just never achieve baby-status. Then I can’t stop thinking about our foster son… we’ve had him for two years and it looks like we’ll likely have him for the rest of his childhood and adolescence. He’s three now. But… his birth monster could theoretically come back at any time and petition to have him returned to her. And I know that’s her theoretical plan (though it’s been her theoretical plan for a LONG time and she’s never done anything about it). She hasn’t seen him in over 8 months, nor has she called, written, sent a card, acknowledged his birthday, worried about him when he’s sick (she wouldn’t know he’s sick if she doesn’t call, right?), emailed, asked for a picture, or sent smoke signals in all that time. And I keep thinking about her taking him back and whenever I go down that road, I burst into tears, because MY GOD how could a woman NOT want to know everything about this sweet, precious, beautiful boy? How could a woman NOT want to know how tall he is, what his favorite food is, what his favorite color is, whether he likes dogs, if he’s sick, what size he’s wearing, how much his personal lexicon has expanded (exponentially, that’s for sure)? How could she not spend every waking moment wondering about him? I used to feel sorry for her. I used to imagine how hard it must be to be in her position. Now I think she’s selfish and cruel. She says she loves him. She says she wants him back. But she doesn’t even know that he needs lactaid milk or soy milk instead of regular milk. And she doesn’t know that if you don’t read his stories in the right order at bedtime he won’t go to bed. And she just… doesn’t even appear to care.

Fourth: Tomorrow, being my Day 3 baseline ultrasound and bloodwork, also known as the day I get to resume sticking myself with a needle every night ought to feel like a step toward progress. But it doesn’t feel that way. I feel like I’m now just going through the motions because I don’t know what else to do with myself. Yeah, that’s pretty much it.

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